Title: Who Killed Patrick Jane?
Rating: T
Disclaimer: Apparently, I don't own The Mentalist.
Summary: "How haven't you guys killed him yet?" Team!fic, set after 1x01.
I wrote this for the Paint It Red February Challenge, using the prompt of in another life; because I sensed a crack!fic writing opportunity!
"How haven't you guys killed him yet?" Grace Van Pelt asked her new co-workers, as they all shared a corner booth within the hotel bar after having closed her first case with the Serious Crimes Unit. Even though she had helped them all solve the case, she had been somewhat surprised when Wayne Rigsby had asked her if she wanted to join them all for a round of closed-case drinks.
Rigsby grinned and shook his head from next to her. "Do you know how often we're asked that very question?" Grace stared at him, as he took a long sip from whatever beverage he held in his hand. "Fifth time this month, boss?"
Grace watched Teresa Lisbon smirk, as the dark-haired boss sat across from them both. "If you count Minelli's comment from yesterday, we're at a grand total of six times and it's not even the third week of September." Rigsby chuckled and Kimball Cho's lips upturned slightly. "You'll notice that he's not here, Van Pelt." She nodded. Patrick Jane's lack of presence hadn't gone unnoticed. "I invite him to have a round or two of closed-case drinks with us and he turns me down every single time."
"Not surprising." Cho commented. "He probably knows what we do when we all get together."
"You think he does?" Rigsby asked and Cho stared at him. "What? It's a good question to ask…"
"It's Jane." Cho pointed out. "When hasn't Jane known anything about us just from glancing at us?" And although she hadn't been working with the elusive Patrick Jane long, she had to agree with Cho's assessment of the situation. Somehow, Jane had known her father was a football coach; and unless the man had read her file (which Lisbon kept in her office, under lock-and-key) or he truly was a psychic, he should have never known that little tidbit about her life back home in Iowa.
Lisbon nodded in agreement. "He should just be thankful that we like him well enough not to actually kill him." Cho and Rigsby murmured in agreement, while Grace quickly glanced at all three of them in confusion. To her, Jane didn't seem like the type of person who scared easily and if he and Lisbon had worked together for years, she also doubted that Lisbon could do anything to scare him anymore. She furrowed her brows. What did they do when they were all together that Jane wanted to avoid? Sitting at the table with them, she had only watched them drink and chitchat about light subjects that had nothing to do with Patrick Jane or work.
"Should we show Agent Van Pelt how or why we haven't killed Patrick Jane yet?" Rigsby asked after a few moments of silence and Lisbon glanced at him. Grace wanted to ask him what he wanted to show her, but the three at the table seemed engaged in their own silent conversations.
Finally, Lisbon broke the silence. "I'm not drunk nearly enough for this yet." Grace heard Rigsby chuckle, before Lisbon knocked back her shot in one go. "I should be good to go now." The glass hit the table again with a clink, before Grace's eyes met a faded yellow notebook in Cho's hands. She glanced over at Rigsby, who encouraged her to take it with a smile. "Welcome to the unit, Agent Grace Van Pelt."
With those few words from her boss, Grace took the offered notebook with a small thank you to Cho.
"We've known him for almost six years now," Rigsby explained, while Grace opened the notebook. "And out of those five years, each of us has almost died ten different times from Jane's antics. Plus…"
"If he's not out endangering our lives with murderers, he's out endangering our jobs." Lisbon interrupted Rigsby, who nodded in agreement. "So, we consider this to be a fair trade."
"But," Grace started after a few moments of silence, with her brows still furrowed. Lisbon genuinely liked Jane, didn't she? "You all are actively planning his death." She motioned toward the notebook. "How is that legal?" The police academy had taught her many things, but they hadn't taught her how to deal with an insane unit of agents, who conspired to kill their consultant.
Are there even any forms to fill out for this? Grace wondered, silently. She doubted it, but she would check with Employee Support Services the very moment they were all back in Sacramento.
"You'd be surprised what's legal and illegal, especially when it comes to Patrick Jane." Lisbon informed her, wryly. "And if the bureau actually wanted Jane dead, they'd stop us all from devising his death." Rigsby and Cho nodded, while Grace continued to stare. "Trust me, Van Pelt; you'll understand our need to plan his death soon."
Grace glanced back down at the notebook, wearily. "One of you suggested that he should die by ceiling tile."
Cho shrugged. "Put the right amount of pressure on any ceiling tile, it'll come right off."
"And if Jane's standing under it, even better!" Lisbon suggested with a small grin. Grace blinked. Had she just imagined the friendship between Jane and Lisbon? Both of them had seemed close, but if she was planning his murder… "Van Pelt, we really do like Jane. He's helped us solve many cases and if he hadn't walked into our lives, we'd have one of the worst closure rates in the state."
"Once you get past his tendency to be right all of the time, he's not that bad." Rigsby said with the shrug of his shoulders. Cho nodded in agreement.
"And the Red John thing." Cho continued, which had both Lisbon and Rigsby nodding. Grace frowned. "You'll eventually understand."
"Just wait until your first Red John case; you'll want to throttle him too." Rigsby idly commented, taking another sip of his drink. Lisbon merely eyed him, as if she were warning him not to do anything stupid. "Don't worry, boss. I have no intentions of showing up to the airport tomorrow morning with a hangover..."
"You did the last time." Cho pointed out.
Grace watched Lisbon shake her head. "I'm not discussing this with you. I'm your boss, remember." Rigsby nodded, before he set his half-full glass down again. "Anyway, Van Pelt, this saves our department hours in pointless therapy for interpersonal group relations."
"Or hours of anger management courses." Rigsby muttered and Lisbon nodded. Grace glanced back down at the notebook. She didn't quite understand why anyone needed anger management when it came to Jane, as he wasn't that infuriating.
"Death by choking on a light bulb?" Grace continued to read from the list. She watched the corners of Lisbon's lips turn up and Grace wondered if she needed to be concerned. One of her supervisors in the police academy had praised the SCU (especially Teresa Lisbon) for their mettle, but nobody had informed her of how "mentally unstable" they all were.
"You know that couch in the office?" Rigsby replied and she nodded. She'd have to be blind not to notice the odd couch in the bullpen. "Jane likes to take naps there. His also likes to sleep with his mouth open; and his mouth is large enough to fit a light bulb in." Grace watched Rigsby shrug. "It's least painful than the ceiling tile option, in my opinion."
She watched Cho eye Rigsby. "It's not."
"Choking is excruciating." Lisbon said. "And it also isn't a fool-proof way, unless you bound and tethered your victim…" Van Pelt eyed her boss in horror, which caused Rigsby to chuckle. "…but, as you'll notice, none of our methods involve rope, tape, handcuffs, gags, or chains."
Grace glanced back down at the list and discovered Lisbon was correct. Their crudely formed list didn't involve the words rope, tape, handcuffs, gags or chains anywhere, which confused her. If the entire unit were trying to kill off their consultant, why in the world would they let him escape? The lack of restraints meant that he could escape half of the grizzly ideas that they had planned and written down.
"Jane doesn't like restraints." Cho explained, while Grace kept her attention on the notebook.
"I could object to that." Grace heard Lisbon mutter. Grace didn't look at her boss, but she wondered (not for the first time, either) if something more was going on between boss and consultant. Lisbon's comment peaked Grace's curiosity and she wondered if Rigsby would tell her about the two's relationship later on. "I've worked in law enforcement for years and I've never once been kidnapped, yet Jane seems to be targeted by every killer in the tri-state area. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he enjoys being chained to chairs and prodded with knives."
"You also forget that he seems to be targeted by every drug dealer in the tri-state area too."
"Don't remind me, Rigsby."
"Yeah, don't." Cho agreed and Grace looked to Rigsby for an explanation. Rigsby shook his head and smiled apologetically toward her, before she crossed her arms against her chest in frustration. She wanted to learn more about her unit members and their previous cases, but Lisbon's strict policy of no personal lives in the office continued to interfere with her primary goal of catching killers.
Even if Lisbon gave her a second lecture, she had to know. "Why? What happened?"
Lisbon fixed Rigsby with a stare. "This is exactly why we don't discuss past cases; living them once was enough." Grace continued to stare at her boss, who eventually relented. "And because you brought it up, Rigsby, you're telling her the story." Rigsby frowned and nodded.
Grace's undivided attention went to Rigsby. "Months after Jane joined our unit, he found himself in the midst of a drug deal." She furrowed her brows. Drug dealing usually went to narcotics, not to the SCU. "We're not sure how it happened; and if you ask Jane, he'll just tell you that he was walking by." Lisbon scoffed at the same time Cho shook his head. "Anyway, he eventually came back to the office." Grace opened her mouth to ask how his coming back was a bad thing, when Rigsby continued. "He was absolutely loaded down with bags and bags of heroin, and he was high." She blinked in surprise.
"He managed to get back to the CBI, high?" Grace couldn't believe her co-worker's story, even though she doubted Rigsby would lie to her. It just seemed a little too far-fetched that nobody had stopped Jane on the streets, especially if he was on foot and carrying pounds of drugs.
"Jane's always been gifted of turning up where he shouldn't be." Lisbon explained, rolling her eyes. "He's also gifted of sneaking things past security, or going over my head." The scowl on her face briefly reminded Grace that Jane had been suspended prior to her starting, and he had somehow managed to come back early. "So yes, Van Pelt, he showed up to the CBI; high."
"And this is also why you plan his death?" Grace asked in confusion. "Because he showed up to work high, years ago?" Nobody said anything. "Wouldn't it just be better to ask him to behave or stop going into drug deals?" Rigsby burst out into a fit laughter.
Lisbon glanced at her, semi-amused. "Jane? Behave? I think you've confused him with someone else, Van Pelt." Grace felt her cheeks growing warm at the comment and the laughter; she had only wanted to offer a helpful suggestion that didn't involve homicide.
"Ask?" Rigsby said, through his laughter. "Jane doesn't know how to behave."
"In another life, perhaps." Cho commented with his lips upturned slightly. "But here, no. Jane doesn't know how to do that." Nods of agreement went around the table.
Grace said nothing, until after Rigsby had calmed his laughing. She bit her lip, before she addressed them all again. "His methods really aren't that bad." At least he hadn't killed anyone or thought about killing anyone.
"He destroyed a family."
"He almost got himself killed again." Lisbon replied.
"And he's only going to get worse from here." Rigsby answered. "You haven't seen him being punched in the face yet."
"Or going through personal items without permission."
"He hasn't broken into your laptop, yet." Grace eyed her boss. "And you haven't seen him dragging us all into an inappropriately crafted scheme to catch a murderer, which blows up in our faces."
Rigsby continued to grin, before he gestured toward the notebook. "So, this notebook allows for us to do what we do best."
"Plot to kill co-workers?" Grace asked, after a moment of silence. Rigsby chuckled, while Lisbon smirked in response. "Create odd deaths?" Cho shook his head. "Make serial killers envious?" She knew she was grasping at straws, but she wondered if she even wanted to know what they all thought they did best.
"No, Van Pelt." Lisbon answered for Rigsby, still with a smirk. "It allows for us to stay calm."
"And that ability to stay calm," Cho finished, "keeps us all from actually killing him."