Written for the jello-forever(dot)proboards(dot)com September 2009 challenge with the prompt "Smile".
It's not exactly fluffy, but not angsty either. I'm not really sure how I feel about this story, but I also don't want to change anything. So, to end my dilemma, I'll just post it.
Disclaimer: I bought new shoes today. Now I can't afford to buy the rights for the show. Bummer.
"Okay, Mr. Jane, inhale. Now exhale. Good. Go on. In. Out. In. Out. In...."
I block out the nurse's monotonous voice, slightly offended that she apparently thinks I'm unable to breathe without her giving me directions. My thoughts stray from the clinical whiteness of the examination room and revisit the moldy, dark attic where my tears were replaced by my blood and the scent of death tainted a sunny Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, I'm used to the memory. Recalling it doesn't hurt more than the healed physical wounds I suffered that day. Eight weeks is a long time to adjust to the fact that you're unexpectedly still alive. And I know that at the end of my retrospection I will see a teary-eyed, relieved smile, the warmth of which made the world a better place when I woke up from my artificial coma.
I always believed that the day of coming face to face with Red John would be the day I break Lisbon's heart. But if anything, she smiles a whole lot more since we brought Red John to justice. Day by day her face displays new facets of jauntiness and happiness, and day by day I'm falling more for her.
"Okay, that's it." The loquacious nurse interrupts my reverie, just when I reach the delicate point where my thoughts usually begin to spin.
Less than thirty minutes later, I get the results of my pulmonary function test and they are good. Much better, at least, than they were right after Red John's knife perforated my vital organs. I smile, and for the first time in weeks I allow myself to fully indulge in the happiness a man in my situation - a survivor on so many levels - should feel.
Driving home, I get carried away by my emotions, by the sunshine. By the thought of Lisbon. I find my old bike in a shed and I climb on it. My legs begin to pedal, slowly at first but soon faster and faster. They don't stop until I get a stitch and I - unconsciously, unsurprisingly - arrive at the little lake in the park.
This is the place where I so often in the last weeks 'accidentally' ran into Lisbon. Here she made me finally confide in her and tell her about the family I lost and here I thanked her for being there for me. On this little wooden bridge over there, I wondered for the first time intentionally how it might feel to kiss her and yet I didn't dare to find out.
But today, at the sight of a reading Lisbon sprawled out on a blanket, I'm determined to change this. I lean my bike against a tree and walk over to join her, full of fancy plans that are all forgotten as soon as she flashes me her brand-new the-world-is-a-wonderful-place smile.
Instead of showering her with declarations of love, I tell her about my latest doctor's appointment and sometime during a discussion about whether I'm fit enough for biking or not, we both spread out next to each other on Lisbon's blanket and look up to watch cotton-wool clouds roll by.
The sky swallows everything. The world is tinted in blue. We both smile, contentedly remain silent until the blue turns into gray and a sudden downpour causes us to flee under some trees.
Lisbon grins a mischievous, endearing grin. "I love summer rain."
I only stare at her until the meaning of her words sinks when she runs out into the rain and I need to hurry to catch up with her.
There's no music. And we are not moving in slow motion. But it's still like in the movies. Lisbon and I are dancing in the rain, soaking it up, until we're completely drenched. And even though my underwear uncomfortably clings to my buttocks, I can't remember the last time I felt this amazing.
Lisbon's face is framed by wet curls which accentuate her positively glowing skin and her radiant eyes. I long to kiss the lone raindrop away that graces the tip of her nose, but as so often lately, being in love makes me timid. So I resort to walking her home, my hands clinging to the handlebar of my bike to keep them from doing something reckless like touching her.
I'm pretty much confused by the situation I'm currently in and most of all by my feelings for her. For such a long time, my thoughts, my emotions were consumed by my desire for revenge. I didn't allow myself the luxury to think of a time after Red John because I simply didn't expect to live that long.
Now that I'm a freed man, I'm not quite used to the idea that it's okay to hope or to make my dreams come true. And quite frankly, now that I can really focus on her, Lisbon turns my world upside down and calls everything into question that I was sure of.
For example, I only have to be in the same room with her and I become a lovesick teenager or a neurotic or an illusionist. She only needs to smile her the-world-is-a-wonderful-place smile and I want to believe her.
But loving her also makes me self-conscious, because I still have days when nothing seems wonderful at all. On those days, I doubt everything, and most of all myself. I'm afraid that I'll fail her. That she doesn't like me as much as I like her, that she just sees me as a friend. Or worst, that she just pities me. She once told me that I'm important to her, but on those days I don't trust words. She isn't obligated to keep the promise her confession seemed to imply.
And still, in the early morning of every workday, I excitedly lie on my couch and wait for her. Even on my bad days I wish for nothing more than to hear the sound of her footsteps in the hallway. But when she finally steps into the bullpen, on those bad days I become abashed by her presence and I lose the ability to form coherent sentences. My smile feels crooked and I don't know where to look and then I wish she would just walk out of the door to spare me further misery.
On some days though, being in love with Lisbon also makes me brave - even if only partially. Because the poem I sneaked between the files on her desk wasn't signed. Two days later she discovered the piece of paper with the words I typed -
"I'll pursue solitary pathways
through the pale twilit meadows,
with only this one dream:
You come too."
- and I watched how she read them again and again. The words are not mine, I only borrowed them, but that doesn't make them less true. After lunch and another thorough reading, she showed the message to me and asked me what I thought it might mean.
"It's a declaration of love." I told her, honestly, and felt vaguely disappointed when her face showed merely confusion.
We eventually arrive at Lisbon's door and I notice that we didn't speak a single word on the way.
"You're really quiet today. Are you okay?" Lisbon asks on cue.
Apparently loving her also makes me megalomaniac. How else is it to explain, that I - out of the blue - ask her if she wants to come to my newly rented apartment tonight for dinner and a movie? And after my invitation is blurted out and I realize that it just screams 'date' and I already steel myself for a rejection, she just shrugs and says, "Sure."
I hardly remember my ride home, but once I step over my threshold, I begin to panic. I cook and I clean and I spend half an hour in front of the wall mirror to find the clothes that make me look like the kind of man she deserves. When the door bell rings, I haven't even nearly completed that last task.
Lisbon is clad in blue and white - the infinite sky and the innocence of cotton-wool clouds.
"I'm in love with you." I tell her, because suddenly it seems very wrong to keep something that important from her.
"I know." She simply says with the most beatific smile she ever directed at me.
I lay my hand on her shoulder and it feels like it was made to be there. And then her face is close to mine and she runs her fingers through my hair. I manage to mumble that, come tomorrow, we might not be able to look each other in the eyes anymore, but then some unknown force already sweeps us away and all our pent-up emotions discharge at once.
Our lips, our hands, our bodies meld.
Are inseparable.
We spin through the apartment like a ship in distress. Roaming the rooms, we take some of my new furniture along, but at the same time lose some of our clothes.
We are on top of each other.
Intertwined with each other.
And next to each other.
A bookshelf crashes to the floor.
Maybe Lisbon somehow still steers our little boat, maybe she keeps track of our surroundings.
Because I really don't.
Much later, stretched out on the bedroom floor, I come to my senses. Out of the corner of my eyes, I notice a strange chaos and I'm feeling a little seasick. I don't dare to move, am afraid that if I get up I'll realize that it was all just a dream. While I still contemplate, if what happened tonight can possibly be true, I hear her voice from the bathroom.
Lisbon hums a happy tune and a moment later she appears in the doorway in nothing but a tiny towel that belongs to a set I got as a house warming present from Rigsby. She smiles her the world-is-a-wonderful-place smile and I beam back at her with all my heart.
Because really, the world is a wonderful place.
The poem that Jane used is "Pathways" by Rainer Maria Rilke.