AN: What a beautiful episode! Hope you enjoy this simple tag, please let me know what you think!
"Goodnight, Teresa," she hears as she walks away.
She doesn't turn back. She is afraid to.
She is afraid of the tears she feels welling up in her eyes, she is afraid of what his reaction would be to them, what that in turn would mean for her, for him, for them.
Hold it together, she wills herself furiously. Hold it together.
She throws her head high, keeps her eyes on the elevator doors and swallows back the rising lump in her throat.
Reaching the elevator doors, she pushes the call button gently with one finger and the doors open. Thankfully there is no one around, and she enters the lift alone. The doors close behind her and she stretches her arm out, putting a hand to the support rail that runs round the elevator's interior and drops her head.
Oh, God.
Why is he doing this? After all this time, after everything that's ever passed between them, why now, when she's finally found someone she likes, someone who likes her, someone that makes it easy, why is it now that he's making her feel like this?
She closes her eyes and breathes in and out; once, twice.
She hasn't done anything wrong, she hasn't, she knows. So why does she feel like she has? Why are her eyes stinging as she feels a tear escape down her painted cheek. She lifts her free hand and brushes the tear angrily away.
She clenches her fists and bites back the tears. She lifts her small clutch bag out from under the crook of her elbow and fires it to the floor stormily. How dare he? How dare he? How dare he make her feel like this, how dare he make her feel as though she's betraying him somehow– when he's always been the one to betray her – how dare he, when he's never given her any concrete sign to make her think he wants her somehow more than he has her now. Sure, there've been hints, consciously and unconsciously dropped over the years, hints that have teased her into a notion that he's been holding out for more from her.
But how long does he want her to wait? She's been at his side the best part of twelve years. She's realised that you can't put your life on hold for hints. You can't put your life on hold at all. It doesn't work like that, it just doesn't. She's known him for twelve years. It's been a heck of a long time – hell, she'd been in her twenties when they'd met. Forty seemed a million miles away, and here it is, coming up, looming, a couple of years ahead of her, and she is alone. It's not what she had imagined for herself at this age, coming up on another decade as alone as the two before; not what she'd have wanted or expected for herself, but life rarely is, she's found. And now she has found someone, not serious, not yet; but it feels like that's something it could be.
And here she is, getting to know a nice man, someone who could potentially make her happy on the long-term and she's being made feel like a traitor because of it.
She didn't sign up for this.
Twelve years ago, she signed on with Jane. She signed on with Patrick Jane as a consultant, not as way of life, and yet that's what he has become. He has consumed every part of her life and being, and still they've never crossed the line to that most important part. She can't hang around the rest of her life wondering if they ever will. He didn't get to do this. He didn't get to sit there and act jilted. He could have asked her out if he'd wanted to. Hell, she'd been waiting ten years for a clue. It's not like he hadn't had the chance, she'd been at his side, every day for a decade. They'd been a force to be reckoned with. He had devastated her many times, and he had enthralled her as many too. She'd thought it'd be different, when he came back; Red John gone, demons battled, time passed. She had been holding out for hiim. She always had. So she'd given up Washington like she'd given up Sacramento, she'd moved halfway across the country and set up shop in Texas, and still, after all that, even that wasn't enough for him to see, to see that she was right there, that she'd always be right there. Except now she wasn't there, he had pushed her till he couldn't push any more, she had cracked and now she was dating another man. He had done this. So he didn't get to sit there and act like she'd turned her down when he'd never worked up the courage to approach the subject with her in the first place, and that was even presuming he'd wanted to.
She hates him, she thinks. Truly, she's had no doubt for years that she loves him, somehow; but she had forgotten how cold, conniving, complicated he could be. What had he hoped to gain, making her feel like this? How dare he sit there, sit there and say those things, tell her-
She blinks.
Jane hadn't done anything.
He'd been lying on his couch. He'd seen her. He'd told her she looked beautiful and hoped she'd enjoy her night. That was it. That was all.
And yet here she is, close to tears, standing alone in a pretty dress, reacting like this?
She screws up her face and puts a hand to her head. She sees the little clutch bag discarded on the floor, where she'd hurled it, its clasp lying open. She sinks to the floor, and kneeling, takes it into her hands.
This was her, this was all her; it was nothing to do with Jane. It was she making herself feel like this. But why?
He hadn't teased her, he hadn't made fun the way the Patrick Jane of a few years ago would have done. He had been respectful, hadn't crossed any lines, hadn't asked anything of her.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she wanted him to.
Her head was beginning to buzz with conflicting thoughts whirling around themselves. She put one hand to the floor, holding on for dear life at this realisation.
She didn't deserve to feel like this.
There is a ding from the elevator and the doors open. She doesn't move.
"Boss?"
She jumps, startled. Great. Just what she needed, to be caught crying in a beautiful dress on the floor of an FBI elevator, after everyone else has gone home. She thanks her lucky stars it's only Cho. He doesn't say a word, doesn't react to the sorry sight he sees in front of him, and for a moment she can pretend this isn't actually happening.
Then he does the practical, thoughtful thing, because he's Cho and he, unlike her, has been thinking clearly for the past twelve years.
He steps forward to the elevator without a word and holds his hand out to her. She smiles sadly up at him as she takes his hand, and he helps her to her feet.
"You look nice," he finally says.
She dabs a bunched-up fist at her eye and hopes he doesn't see. Of course he does, he sees everything, just not so infuriatingly as Jane.
"Thanks," she says.
He looks at her.
"Lisbon," he pauses.
Oh, God. Here it comes.
"You okay? You, y'know, happy?"
She gives him a warm smile she knows he won't believe, she can hardly believe it herself.
"Yes, Kimball, I am."
He looks at her. He can see right through her, and she knows it.
"Good. Goodnight, Lisbon. You need a ride?"
She shakes her head. He's a good, good friend.
"No, I'm fine. Goodnight."
He gets into the elevator she's just left and he gives her a rare smile as the doors close in front of him, leaving her alone once more.
She turns around and fixes her dress. With a toss of her head she tries to empty it of all thoughts of Jane . She will be meeting Marcus now and she doesn't want him to know of the heartache she's feeling. He's a good man and she likes him, and after all, she deserves to be happy too, so she'll give this her best try.
She spies him then, through the glass doors of the FBI reception area, standing outside his car. She makes a valiant effort to relax, and smiles, and she goes outside to meet him. He kisses her on her cheek and holds the door open for her. When she's tucked safely inside, he closes the door gently behind her and walks around the front of the car to his own side. She leans back in her seat and quickly, closing her eyes, prays this will start to hurt less soon.
The elevator doors open once more and Cho steps out. He sees Jane, lying on the battered brown sofa as usual, and he sees how he pipes his head up at the sound of the elevator's polite ding. Cho sees Jane's face fall, slightly, when he sees that it is him. Perhaps he was expecting Lisbon back. Satisfied, Jane lies back down and continues staring at the ceiling. He is in a pensive mood, it would seem.
Cho walks straight up to him.,
"Jane."
"Hi, Cho."
"Sit up. I want to talk to you."
"So bossy, Cho," Jane says, trying to feign a cheerful mood, Cho can see.
"Don't interrupt," he says, and Jane looks at him and, seeing he is serious, sits up. "I'm only going to say this once."
Jane gestures. "Please."
"Don't think for a second that I'm getting involved in this. I'm only saying his to you now because I care about Lisbon; a lot; and I don't want to see her hurt." He pauses. "That and I'm not prepared to put up with another Rigsby pining over Van Pelt for five years."
"What is this about, Cho?" Jane sounds tired.
"You know as well as I do," he answers. "You've been hurting her for years. Unintentionally for the most part."
"What?"
"I get it, I do. It's hard. And she let you, she didn't have to; it's not all your fault. I used to think it was worth it, that you'd both work it out, but now, no. No more."
"Cho-"
"No. Be quiet and listen to me. You're jealous of Pike and you're trying to work out why. I'm telling you now, Jane: don't mess her around, she's too good for it, you know that. Make your decision, make it happen and be done with that. I don't want to find her crying round the FBI trying to hide it anymore. Either make a move or let her go. Don't make her upset. It ends now."
Jane sits forward on the sofa.
"Crying?" he asks softly. "When was she upset? When did I make her upset?"
"It doesn't matter. A thousand times. Here, CBI, it doesn't matter. You were never around long enough to see it."
"Cho, be fair."
"I am being fair. To Lisbon. It's about time someone was. I like you Jane, you do a lot of good, but my loyalty lies with her."
Jane nods. "I understand."
Cho looks at him. "Good. Let this be the end of it. Remember what I said."
Jane nods again.
"Goodnight, Cho."
"Goodnight, Jane."
Cho walks away, back once more to the elevator. He looks back at Jane who sits where he left him, staring into space. He hopes he'll have made a difference.
As the doors close behind him, he shakes his head. He'd thought he was done with all that matchmaking crap. Ah well, he thinks. There's worse ways to spend an evening.
He thinks of the two of them, over the years and he hopes they can work something out.
They deserve to be happy, too.