Dress Whites and mind games
A/N :
This story has 2 authors : Krolinette and Country2776 + A huge thanks to our beta pjtl4e :)
It includes characters from JAG but it's clearly The Mentalist centered so we're publishing it here and not it the Crossover section.
It's a multi-parter but we don't know yet how long it will be. We're working on chapter 2 right now.
And last but not least, we're desperate Jello shippers so you can count on us for the happy ending :)
Disclaimer : Last time I checked, neither of us was Bruno Heller... He's the owner you know...
Chapter 1 :
It was already dark by the time Teresa Lisbon left the office; she headed toward her car thinking about her day at work.
As the head of the Serious Crimes Unit at the Californian Bureau of Investigation, she had a tough job; but that was what she considered to be her thing, solving crimes.
What she didn't consider to be part of her job, on the other hand, was consoling colleagues on their relationship problems. She had just been stuck in the elevator with a bawling Van Pelt and was grateful the rookie had not wished to talk too much about it. Grace had just said she was fine, and even if you didn't need to be Patrick Jane to notice it was a big fat lie, Lisbon was happy to make the short journey to the car park without any awkward 'girl' talk.
Lisbon didn't feel comfortable talking about the Van Pelt/Rigsby situation because she felt like it was unfair to make her agents make a choice between their love life and their careers.
"It's difficult enough to find somebody you want to have a relationship with, so it's just so lame that CBI rules get in the way like that!" She muttered.
"Wow !" Lisbon grinned to herself while opening her car door, "It's so not me to think that way about rules! Oh god, I've been corrupted...."
The ringing of her cell phone interrupted her train of thoughts.
She had a shock when she looked at the caller ID, there in bold print was her half sister's name, Sarah Mackenzie.
She hadn't talked to her since her "almost wedding" to the Australian Mic Brumby. Sarah had called her wedding off because of her twisted relationship with her partner at JAG, Commander Harmon Rabb Jr; although she would never admit that to anyone, including herself. But Lisbon knew better. She hadn't known Sarah for very long, in fact she had no idea she even had a sister for the majority of her life.
But she knew her well enough to understand that.
Lisbon had become aware of having a sister a few years ago, when Sarah Mackenzie, Major in the Marine Corps, had called her asking if she was related to a Joseph Mackenzie Lisbon. Lisbon had been quite surprised to be asked about her father but she had explained that Joseph Lisbon had died more than 10 years before. At the other end of the line, Sarah had been shocked for a few minutes and then she had begun to explain that she was calling because she wanted to get in touch with her father, who she hadn't seen since she was small. That's how Lisbon had learnt that her father had had a first daughter before he married her mother.
She would remember this first phone call all her life. After the initial apprehensiveness, Sarah and Teresa had grown closer and closer because they were both thrilled to having found each other. They lived quite far from each other, Teresa worked in San Francisco and Sarah was in Washington DC but they talked on the phone often and they visited each other at least twice a year.
But unfortunately, when Sarah had broken Mic Brumby's heart, they had had a big argument.
When Sarah's partner, Harm, went MIA the day before the wedding, Teresa noticed immediately that something was odd with her sister.
She knew Sarah had feelings for the missing man but she hadn't realized just how strong they were. She believed her sister was truly in love with her future husband and she was shocked when she understood that Sarah wasn't sure she was doing the right thing.
She stayed with her until Harm was found but when Sarah decided to call off the wedding, Teresa felt like she needed to say something.
She couldn't help but recall all the times her sister had called late at night talking about the latest of Harm girlfriends, pretending she didn't care so much. But calling off her wedding with Mic said otherwise. Teresa couldn't understand how her sister could pin all her hopes on a man like Harm, who seemed to not be able to commit to anything, while she had Mic, who was truly in love with her and was willing to make her happy.
"Are you going to spend the rest of your life not taking chances on life? Because Harm sure isn't! As a matter of fact, I bet he's having sex with Renee as we speak."
She wanted to make her sister realize she needed to stop being in denial. She told her she had to make a choice : either she could decide Harm was not worth waiting and then go on with her life, which was clearly not what she was doing right now, canceling her wedding, or she could act on her feelings and confront Harm about his twisted behavior toward her.
Teresa had added that she was truly disappointed with what her sister was putting Mic through. She had said terrible things such as "you don't deserve a guy like him if you can't even be honest with yourself".
As she was recalling this argument they had had, Lisbon thought that maybe she had been a little harsh on her sister. As a matter of fact, Sarah had closed her out completely after this. They hadn't talked to each other since that day.
Lisbon was so caught up in thinking about the past, she almost missed the call, answering her phone on the last ring.
"Hello Sarah, how are you?"
Her voice was shaky but she composed herself. Her sister was a tough marine and, for goodness sake, she was a special agent for the CBI herself.
Ever since Sarah had first called her, Lisbon was tempted to consider herself the little sister and let go a little of her control issue. She had always been the big girl who needed to take care of her little brothers so her relationship with Sarah had been a big change, at least for the time it had lasted. It had been nice to know someone was willing to take care of her.
"The question is how are you! I've just moved to San Diego and all over the news is about the new CBI boss and how the SCU is coping since the incident with this Red John character, he sounds really dangerous, please be careful!"
"Did Tommy told you I moved from San Francisco to Sacramento to work with the CBI? I didn't know you two were still in touch..."
Lisbon was quite surprised her sister had stayed up to date with her career and all...
"Well, he called me after our argument, he wanted to make things better between his sisters... But I was too stubborn to listen to him I guess... Yeah, he writes to me sometimes and gives me news from you and the guys. But tell me, how is work? What's with the serial killer? How are you dealing with it, it seems pretty bad."
Sarah felt weird doing all this talking, it seemed her sister wasn't so happy with her call.
"I'm fine you know, I'm a big girl... Anyway, is that why you called?"
Lisbon knew she sounded a little pissed with this sudden reappearance of her sister. She was glad to hear from her but she wondered why she would call today, of all times, just when she was in a quite bad mood. Her sister was an example for her : she had been to Afghanistan and had had so many other fearless experiences that she had always wanted to keep up with her sister's level of professionalism. And these days, she was not feeling particularly proud of herself.
Even if she wouldn't admit it to anyone, her new boss, Madeleine Hightower, was starting to make her feel uneasy. The woman had threatened her with losing her job if she couldn't handle her consultant well enough. That was not something that would have happened with her former boss, Virgil Minelli. Back when he was in charge, he would simply have threatened Jane, but now, it was her butt which was on the line and she could tell it was not an idle threat...
Patrick Jane was becoming more than a pain in her ass, she couldn't imagine losing her job, which was actually close to being the most important thing in her life, because of his bad behavior. She hated this feeling of losing grip but she didn't know who there was to blame.
She knew she had some flaws but she had never had the feeling she was getting too soft with her team. Maybe she should have done something about the Van Pelt and Rigsby situation but it wasn't the main matter. Patrick Jane was.
As her new boss had said, he was a valuable asset for the team and, as difficult as it was, it was her job to keep him in line. She hated that Hightower assumed she wasn't good enough for this. She was a good team leader, she knew that because the SCU had always had the best closed cases rate since she was in charge, even before Jane. She knew she was actually doing a good job at handling him, no matter what Hightower thought. Lisbon was comforted by the thought her boss had no idea what mess Jane could cause without her supervising ; so at least she knew she had some kind of control over him, even if it wasn't that obvious. Jane could be unpredictable but she had learnt a lot about him since she had first worked with him.
All these years of fighting against his unusual methods and damage controlling his reckless behavior had made her the most qualified person when it came to dealing with Patrick Jane. She knew it and she just had to convince her boss of her abilities.
"Teresa? Hello? Are you still there?"
Sarah was almost shouting at the other end of the line, trying to reestablish contact with her sister, who had been quite lost in her thoughts, again.
"I'm sorry, I'm a bit preoccupied by something... You were saying?"
"Listen, I called to try and make things better between us, I hate how we left things, I want my sister back. We're only 500 miles away from each other now, it doesn't make sense we aren't close... I'd like to pay you a visit in Sacramento if you're OK with it!"
Lisbon heard someone in the background but couldn't make out the voice.
"Well, if you're in California... We should see each other I guess."
She was shocked, she had never thought her sister would leave DC, especially with the Harm situation.
"What about Harm?" She asked, trying to sound innocent.
"I have a lot to tell you about everything and I guess same goes for you. What are you up to at the weekend? I've got a few days leave, I could drive down tomorrow and we could spend some time together."
"I'd like that..."
"Good ! How about I pick you up at work tomorrow evening and we'll plan our weekend together then."
"Sounds good to me, see you tomorrow !"
After she hung up, Teresa wondered if her sister had really managed to leave Harm behind her and move on with her life, just like she had advised her to several years ago.
She knew Sarah's job at JAG was the most important thing in her life, just as her's at CBI was to herself, so she had a hard time believing that she would just move straight to the other side of the country without regretting her job and missing her coworkers.
These days, when Teresa had caught herself thinking about her sister's situation, she had realized she was coming to a better understanding of Sarah's relationship with her partner.
She knew Harm was very important to her and she couldn't help but think that if she had someone she cared that much for in her life, she probably wouldn't have the guts to leave, no matter how complicated the situation would be.
"I don't think I could do it" she told herself.
The thing Teresa Lisbon realized she hadn't noticed was that this new perspective she had about her sister's life might have something to do with her own relationship with the consultant of hers.
Right then, she looked up and outside her car, in the distance, stood Patrick Jane.
She watched as Jane waved at her, coming closer to the car. He was smiling, as always, which was the only thing Lisbon wasn't annoyed by about him. She rolled her window down and waved back.
"Oh yeah !" She thought. "He believes he can bail on me back at the elevator situation and get through with it just with that lovely smile of his? Maybe I should punch him in the nose again so that he really gets what I'm made of."
"So, how is Van Pelt?" He asked innocently, standing outside the car, his hands in his pockets.
"She's fine, from what she told... As if you even care..."
"Meh, you hurt me! Of course I care for my colleagues!"
"Yeah right, and you left me alone with Van Pelt because you care so much. Please, don't play me... You're a selfish brat!"
"Wow, someone is in a bad mood! What happened in this elevator anyway?"
"I'm not in a bad mood, and if I was, it would have nothing to do with Van Pelt!"
"But it bothers you that Hightower took care of the situation because you couldn't!"
"You know what, mind your own business! I'm really not in the mood to discuss this with you now!"
"See, told you you're in a bad mood!" Jane answered with the face of a kid playing hide-and-seek. "You know you can't lie to me!"
"Yeah right, I need to go now."
Lisbon turned the key in the ignition and her car pulled away, leaving Patrick Jane standing all alone on the parking lot.
:) Please Review if you have comments :)
All constructive criticism is welcome !
We hope you liked it !