Not mine. Never were. Money made from this: zero dollars.
So it's been about a billion years since I wrote a fanfic for ANYTHING. Therefore, I thought I'd jump back in with both feet and try a multichapter for characters I've never written before! I'm a super brain genius for sure, but Blue Bird (an an 8 month hiatus) was just that much motivation.
The mystery for this story is based on the real-life story about Jeffrey MacDonald and his family (if you like true crime, I can highly recommend Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss). I think he's a good contrast for Jane's story. The two men remind me of that quote from Pride and Prejudice: "One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it."
The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million-a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one of which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will. These apertures, of dissimilar
shape and size, hang so, all together, over the human scene that we might have expected of them a greater sameness of report than we find. They are but windows at the best, mere holes in a dead wall, disconnected, perched aloft; they are not hinged doors opening straight upon life. But they have this mark of their own that at each of them stands a figure with a pair of eyes, or at least with a field-glass, which forms, again and again, for observation, a unique instrument, insuring to the person making
use of it an impression distinct from every other. He and his neighbours are watching the same show, but one seeing more where the other sees less, one seeing black where the other sees white, one seeing big where the other sees small, one seeing coarse where the other sees fine. And so on, and so on; there is fortunately no saying on what, for the particular pair of eyes, the window may NOT open…
- Henry James, preface to The Portrait of a Lady
The one thing Adam Donaldson knew for certain, bone deep, was that this was the worst day of his life.
He watched the MPs move in front of him, around him, as if from a great distance. He felt very small and they seemed very far away. There was a vague pain in his right side. His hands hurt and his head ached, but it was all so far away.
"Captain Donaldson? Captain? Can you hear me?"
A light in his eyes. Some small part of him realized that they were testing his pupil response. SOP for suspected concussion. The light clicked off and he blinked rapidly to try to clear away the red ghosts of afterimage that floated in front of him. In time, the MP's face swam into view.
"Madison?" he croaked. "My wife. Where is she?" Some part of him, some interior, ultra-rational part, knew the answer to the question; knew that if he just reached out his right arm the slightest bit (though it felt as if it weighed a million pounds), he would know. Her body would be there, cooling slowly in the mild Texan spring air.
The MP bit his lip. Even to Donaldson's muddled vision he looked about sixteen years old.
"My girls: Jenny? Bernadette?"
Any harder and the kid would draw blood.
Jesus.
Adam Donaldson shut his eyes and felt the room whirling in the dark beyond his closed lids.
"I'm sorry, Captain Donaldson. I'm so sorry. The ambulance is on its way."
He felt the kid touch the back of his hand, tentatively, as if Donaldson were a wild animal that the kid was afraid of startling.
There were things about sleeping with Jane that Lisbon had never considered. If she were being honest with herself (which, in the velvet, pre-dawn darkness, she was inclined to be), she hadn't ever envisioned getting to this place with him. His nose was pressed against the crook of her neck and left shoulder, his left leg flung over her lower thighs, the entirety of the Blue Bird Lodge's plentiful stock of bed linens wrapped securely around his right leg, waist, and torso.
Patrick Jane was a certified blanket thief.
She supposed it shouldn't be surprising. There was a knack and a courtesy to sharing a bed with another person that he hadn't contended with in over 12 years. It wasn't as if she were an Olympic caliber bed-sharing champion herself.
On the other hand, he wasn't the only one who was tired. She rolled her eyes a bit and cleared her throat. "Jane," she whispered.
Nothing.
"Jane!"
"Whazzat?" he grumbled. The barest hint of a five o'clock shadow brushed across her skin and she shivered, at first holding it back out of force of habit but then remembering where she was and what had happened. She could feel him move his lips against her neck. A smile maybe? Seeing him smile more often, in a real, genuine way, was on her heart's secret "to do" list. He rolled back a bit so he could kiss her shoulder before scraping his teeth across it gently.
"You're hogging the blankets. Is this how it's going to be with you?" She tried to keep her voice stern, but the last part of the question came out with a laugh.
He moved off her completely and took his sweet time untangling himself. She peeked lazily over her shoulder and watched him with interest. He was naked from the waist up, wearing only a pair of charcoal colored boxer briefs. The marks of years and time and tragedy were on him, on both of them, but, if pressed, she would honestly admit that he was beautiful. So beautiful that it scared her. Well, all of this did because it was too frighteningly new and raw.
When she refocused after her brief reverie she found him regarding her with a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"I'd say 'Stop thinking so hard, Teresa,' but that would be a losing battle." She'd always secretly loved the way he said her name. Coming from anyone else in the world it would have sounded pompous and affected, but from him...he had always been a special case. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him so, but she held herself back. The force of 12 years of habit wasn't about to be overcome in an instant. Jane cupped his hand against her cheek and she leaned into his fingers, closing her eyes for a moment. "I'm a bit out of practice," he admitted.
She reopened her eyes and smiled. "I'd noticed. Usually when I take a man to bed I expect a little more than sleeping." He moved his hand from her face to his chest, splaying his fingers in mock indignation and she laughed aloud. "You can cut the dramatics," she added gently. "It's been a long couple of days for both of us."
He visibly swallowed, looking momentarily stricken. Self-doubt wasn't an expression she was accustomed to seeing on his face and she found it touching and unnerving in almost equal measures. "I want to do this right."
It was on the tip of her tongue to respond with an appropriate variant on, "You just put your lips together and blow," but something held her back. In many ways, her relationship with the old Jane had been free and easy compared to this. They had fun together, they bantered and flirted, but it never really meant anything, at least not anything permanent. The spectre of his family, of Red John, of her duty to the law, of their differing philosophies on revenge and justice and fairness, had always stood at least partly between them. She was unaccustomed to this new Jane, who was so much like the old (so heartbreakingly like), but who had an earnestness and raw edges that she wanted to be careful not to jostle.
All of this passed between them in an instant. He'd freed the sheets and blankets and held his arm up high and wide, welcoming her into the warmth of his body. They would have time now to figure these things out together. It would take some getting used to to be sure, but it would come.
Lisbon rolled on her side, tucking her right arm over Jane's waist. He smelled like heat and his aftershave - bay rum if she wasn't mistaken (perfect for him: old fashioned but not stuffy). When she pressed into him, she felt his erection brush against the top of her thighs, but she supposed they were ignoring that for the time being. They were both too tired and emotionally wrung-out to deal with that particular hurdle, especially since, not 24 hours earlier, they had firmly believed that they'd never see each other again. But still his soft intake of breath at the contact and the tightening in her own belly meant that it wasn't an issue that would stay unresolved for long.
They both slid into sleep easily, so gently that neither would honestly remember the moment between consciousness and unconsciousness, which, in its way, made jarring awake to the sound of the room's telephone just a touch more unpleasant.
"Jane. Phone."
"What makes you think it's for me?"
She shot him as sharp a look as she could muster. "It's your room."
"Fair point." He reached over and picked up the receiver with two fingers. "Hello?"
There was a silence and for a wild instant Lisbon thought it might be Pike, coming for her, calling Jane out. She tried to shoo the thought away. Pike's nature wasn't confrontational, although she would have to call him. As much as she'd waved off Jane's concerns, she knew it wouldn't be a pleasant conversation.
"Yes, fine. We'll be there." Jane hung up the phone and Lisbon looked up at him quizzically. "That was Abbott." He paused a moment, considering her slightly panicked face as she processed the 'we' aspect of his conversation with her boss. "Relax, Teresa. Whose car do you think I drove to the airport?"
"I hadn't thought about it, to be honest."
"Well, there's nothing gained in worrying about Abbott," Jane assured her. He was partially propped up against the headboard of the bed, her head on his chest. Impulsively, she stretched up and licked his left nipple. Jane regarded her with a mixture of arousal, amusement, and dismay that she found particularly satisfying. "He wants us back in Austin for a case."
"Oh really? Don't feel like flouting the rules anymore today?"
He smiled. One of those you've-just-come-to-see-me-in-the-holding-cell smiles. "Even I have my limits."
She hummed in the back of her throat, which he seemed to find fascinating. "Hard to believe," she said innocently, tracing a fingertip around his kneecap and onto his lower thigh. Jane bit his lip. "When's our flight?"
"Key West International at 7am."
"Is that so?" She raised her eyebrows and placed her hand just so against Jane's hipbone so that she could leaver herself up for a look at the clock radio. "Well then we'd better get a move on."
He groaned in frustration. "Woman, are you planning on being the death of me?"
Her eyes were positively sparking when she said, "We'll see."
Thoughts?