A/N: This was suppose to be a happy fic, but it developed a life of its own and I'm not sure where it's heading... Feedback welcome!
Broken heart
"No, Jane! This is it. I have had enough of your stunts and your mind games. I'm not going to be there when you overstep one time too many and end up dead. I'm done with you!"
Lisbon's voice kept getting louder and louder so that the team outside her office clearly heard the last words. Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt exchanged worried looks. Lisbon never lost her cool so badly as to publicly shout at one of her team. Jane really had it coming this time though. He had pushed and prodded their suspect until he had snapped and attacked Jane, nearly snapping his neck. They had gotten their confession, but the bruising around Jane's neck reminded everybody what might have happened if Lisbon had not pulled out her gun and threatened to shoot the guy.
After a few moments silence, Jane came out of Lisbon's office looking serious and slightly ill. He walked straight past the three staring agents and simply walked out of the door. The agents didn't know what to do and looked at each other helplessly. As it was in the middle of the day, many people had stopped and seen and heard what had happened. Cho could hear several of them muttering, "Good riddance".
Cho left Rigsby and Van Pelt at their desks and carefully approached Lisbon's office. He stopped at the door to take in the scene. Lisbon sat behind her desk, her elbows on the desk and her head in her hands.
"What happened boss?" Cho asked quietly closing the door behind him.
Lisbon still kept her head in her hands and shook her head, "Please, don't Cho. Just don't."
"This is not like you to have a public spat with one of your team members in the middle of the day. Do you know that the people outside are already congratulating you for finally getting rid of Jane? And you didn't see his face when he walked out", Cho pressed on as this was something that needed to get sorted out now.
Warily Lisbon sat up and looked at Cho, who was the closest to her in the team, except for Jane of course. And that thought made her cringe inside. No, she couldn't think Jane at the moment, she was still too angry.
"I can't take Jane's stunts anymore. He's not a team player and even though he closes the cases, we are better off without him", Lisbon said to Cho trying to sound convincing.
"Do you really think that? Or are you just upset that you came so close to losing him?" Cho asked calmly and turned around and left a shocked Lisbon behind him.
XXX
Jane heard the words "I'm done with you" and the world shattered. He couldn't hear anything after those words, he only saw Lisbon's angry face in front of him, her eyes blazing with anger, justification and hurt. The only thing he could think of was that he had hurt her. Who cared about the bruises on his neck, but for some reason, somehow Lisbon was hurt and she was blaming him. He couldn't take that so he just walked out of the office leaving a stunned and angry Lisbon in his wake.
He walked past the team, but didn't see them. His only thought was the hurt in Lisbon's eyes and how that made him feel. He knew that the petite, strong brunette had wormed her way under his skin even with all his resistance and she didn't seem to be even aware of it.
Jane hadn't felt this sharp pain in his chest since that fateful night five years ago, when it had turned into a constant dull, burning ache, but now the sharpness was back. It was squeezing his chest hard, it was making breathing difficult. His fist was pressed against his chest in pain. How was it possibly to feel this much pain when going numb at the same time? He started feeling light headed, but the only thing he could hold on to was to get out of CBI, to honour Lisbon's wish and to leave.
He stumbled out of the CBI still holding his chest. He was vaguely aware of people staring at him, but he couldn't care less. The accusing eyes of Lisbon were still haunting him. While shuffling down the stairs Jane started seeing stars in front of his eyes, then everything went black.
XXX
The people outside of CBI saw Jane come out, sweating heavily and clasping his chest and looking terrible. Some of them had already heard what had taken place inside and thought that it only served him right. But when Jane all of the sudden collapsed and was left lying on the ground deathly still, the people forgot about the gossip and ran to help him. Calls went out for someone to call an ambulance.
XXX
Cho was sitting back at his desk when Rigsby came running in from his trip to buy something to eat. He looked up at the flustered agent.
"They ran out of food?" Cho commented with his deadly serious face. To his surprise Rigsby didn't pay any attention to his comment.
"You have to go and tell the boss. Jane just collapsed outside and was taken to the hospital. Cho, they lost him twice before they could load him on the ambulance", the shaken agent said.
Cho stood up immediately and went to Lisbon's office door, knocked once and went in.
"Please, leave me alone", came Lisbon's quiet voice near the window where she was standing and staring outside.
"Boss, Jane just collapsed. They had to defibrillate him twice just to stabilise him enough to get him into the ambulance", Cho said to Lisbon's back.
Lisbon whirled around and stared at Cho with wide eyes and an open mouth.
"What happened?", she asked in shock, then shook her head and said, "Scrap that. Where are they taking him?" while already half way out of the door.
XXX
The team drove to the hospital where they couldn't get a straight answer from the ER nurses. Finally a doctor came to see them after Lisbon had driven a nurse mad with her questions and with waving her badge around.
"You are Mr. Jane's colleagues?", the doctor asked to which all the agents nodded, but it was Lisbon that took the lead and stepped closer.
"I'm his boss. How is he? What happened?", Lisbon asked.
"Well, as Mr. Jane doesn't have any next of kin in his documentations, I assume it will fine to talk to his superiors" the doctor said hesitantly and Lisbon felt a twist in her chest. Jane didn't have any family and obviously he didn't feel close enough to anyone in her team to be put down as an emergency contact. On the other hand, hadn't she just proven to him how correct he had been in his assumption. Lisbon felt sick.
The doctor was talking, unaware that Lisbon hadn't been paying attention for a while, until a word heart attack caught her attention. Lisbon lifted her hand to stop the doctor.
"Excuse me, are you saying he had a heart attack? But he is healthy and he' not that old. He just had his yearly physical examination and there was no mention of any problem." Lisbon couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"I'm afraid that how it looks like. You are right, he doesn't have the typical risk factors and he's reasonably young. We have to investigate further what is going on, and what caused it, but for now, after giving us quite a scare, he is in stable, although serious condition and we will be transferring him to the cardiac intensive care unit. He is sedated and intubated so I'm afraid that you won't be able to see him now. Maybe tomorrow?" the doctor suggested to the shocked agents.
Lisbon wouldn't take a no for an answer though and finally after butting heads with the doctor, he gave up and gave her a permission to see Jane briefly after he was transferred to the CICU. In reality the doctor was happy that the man in his care had colleagues as close as these people. He had met Patrick Jane few times and he knew his history and it wasn't a happy one.
XXX
It took few hours, but finally Jane was transferred to the CICU and after all the machines and drips and leads were hooked up and everything looked to be working ok, the staff let Lisbon closer and what she saw made tears well up in her eyes.
Jane was intubated and his chest was going up and down shuddering in sync with the machine. His eyelids were taped over to protect his eyes and his ever moving graceful hands were still. He was so pale against the white sheets.
Lisbon covered her mouth with her hand to stop a gasp and to stop herself from sobbing. A nurse was standing at the work station next to Jane's bed keeping an eye on his vitals. When she saw Lisbon standing at the end of the bed looking visible shaken, she came forward, put a hand on Lisbon's arm and said, "It looks terrible, but he is actually doing pretty ok considering how bad he was. It's very upsetting to see a loved one in this state, but please come and visit him. It will make the healing faster." Lisbon looked at the nurse through the sheen of tears in her eyes not bothering to correct her about the nature of their relationship, nodding and taking a step closer to the bed when the nurse encouraged her. She didn't know where to even touch him as there was IV lines, ECG monitor lines and who knows what, covering him. Finally she settled on gently brushing his cheek and whispering, "I'm so sorry Jane".
XXX
TBC