Author note- Wow, I was seriously amazed at the feedback on Snapped, I didn't think it was really good enough to warrant so many reviews. But reading the reviews and watching the show gave me this idea, so without further ado here it is.
Disclaimer- oops, sort of forgot this last time, anyway, not mine, just playing with them for a while.
Great truths have a longstanding habit of revealing themselves because of the weirdest things, like Newton discovering gravity because an apple fell on his head, penicillin being discovered because Alexander Fleming was too lazy to wash his dishes before he went on holiday, and Patrick Jane finding that he loved Teresa Lisbon because a murderer punched her in the face.
Jane and Lisbon sat across the table from what had to be the single most average looking man Jane had ever seen. He was in his mid to late 30s, had light brown hair that was slightly balding around the crown even though the man would have denied it, small glasses on his nose that probably housed very low prescription lenses that the man needed only for reading and working on a computer, and he was wearing a suit that was halfway in between expensive designer and cheap supermarket wear. The man worked in middle management at a medium sized company, had a medium sized car in the middle of the prize range, neither extraordinarily expensive nor economically cheap, and had a house that was exactly in the middle of the prize and size range for the area. In short, if Jane was hired to cast the average American man in a movie, this was the guy he would chose.
Except the guy had killed his wife and left her body by the side of a road just outside Sacramento. Seriously, that was the only unique thing about the guy, everything else was perfectly average.
Lisbon began her interrogation immediately, running through the standard questions and ascertaining that the guy had means, motive and opportunity. All that was left was to extract the confession from the guy. Lisbon dove right in, asking the guy straight out "did you kill your wife?"
It was best to start with the simplest way of asking before resorting to Jane's reverse psychology and twisted questioning, and ever so occasionally it actually got the confession out of the suspect, the outright question leaving little room for manipulation or any answer other than a straight denial or an admission of guilt, and some guys couldn't handle directly lying to a cop. This guy was not one of those guys.
"No. I did not kill my wife." He said it without letting any emotion colour his speech, leaving only the flat monotone of a practiced liar.
"I ask again Mr Garret, did you kill your wife." Lisbon was clearly growing more agitated, and who could blame her. All the evidence was pointing right at this guy. He had a history of domestic violence, had found out his wife was having an affair, had left work at 7 and not arrived at a party at a friend's till 9, when his wife was killed between 7 and 8, and he owned a gun that was the same calibre as the murder weapon. The guy had practically been caught red handed, but Lisbon knew that without a confession the jury would probably not convict the nice middle class, completely average man of his wife's murder. She needed that confession.
Unfortunately Mr Garret was not willing to give it. He stared Lisbon directly in the eyes before replying:
"I say again Agent Lisbon: I did not kill my wife."
Lisbon was growing angrier by the second, and the man's obvious, yet clean and practiced, lies were really getting to her. She only had one more trick left before she had to let Jane drag the confession out of Mr Garret, and he would be smug about it for weeks, cracking the guy who had bested the interrogatory skills of Agent Lisbon. Last trick time.
"Dammit Mr Garret, I know you killed your wife, just admit to it and maybe I can cut you a deal." Her voice was loud and the words dripped with anger and desperation, and the fist that was slammed onto the table showed that those emotions were not just for emphasis.
Lisbon didn't expect it to work, when she got agitated her success rate tended to slump, and if the guy was going to confess out of guilt he would have done so already. She expected what happened next even less.
Mr Garret slammed both hands palm down on the table and rose to his full 6 foot something height and bellowed "I did not kill my wife!" Then he drew back a fist and smashed it into Lisbon's face as hard as he could, breaking something in her skull with a grating crack, and sending her chair to the floor with her shocked body barely having time to react before the impact. She dived away as best she could, but still hit the floor with the full force of a 200lb man's hit, pushing the air from her lungs in a painful whoosh and slamming her back and ribs to the floor with a grunt of pain and then another for whatever had cracked when he impacted her cheek.
Jane didn't wait for the Agent to recover before hurtling across the room towards the perpetrator and pulling him up sharply by the collar, lifting his feet off of the ground before shoving him hard up against the one way glass of the interrogation room window. His hands shook with barely controlled fury, but maintained enough stability to keep the bastards feet at least two inches from the ground.
"If you ever lay one finger on her ever again it will be the last thing you do, understood?" the man nodded forcefully.
"Good" Jane thought as he dropped the guy to the ground in a heap. He was highly tempted to go back and hit him, but Lisbon needed his attention first.
The rest of the team had rushed in after they had gotten over the shock of seeing their normally resilient boss thrown across the room by a suspect, and Rigsby and Cho were already stood over the guy, murmuring in no uncertain terms that if he moved so much as an inch towards their boss they would not hesitate to show him their guns.
But Jane didn't hear any of that, as he dropped to his knees and knelt next to Grace as she tried to assess the extent of the damage the madman had inflicted on Lisbon. Even from his partially obscured vantage point he could see that a huge purple bruise had spread across her left cheek and eye, and could see that her chest rose and fell in awkward, strained breaths. So, from what little he could see Jane had already assessed that Lisbon had a black eye, a probable broken rib based on her wheezing breaths and the whimpers of pain that followed, and a fractured cheek bone, if the crack he had heard was any indication. The whimpers and grunts of pain that she made as Grace checked for any obvious internal injuries broke his heart, and he knew in that moment that he had to protect her from anything that might cause her pain, himself included. He just couldn't bear to see her looking this vulnerable again.
Lisbon noticed his staring, as she had noticed his outburst with Mr Garret, and knew that there was something very wrong with her consultant, she just didn't know what.
Later that day, after being examined by the doctors in the ER after Grace decided (unnecessarily) that her boss needed to have x rays taken of a now decidedly swollen cheek, and given the all clear other than a bruised rib and fractured cheekbone, and a nasty looking black eye; and after being told by Hightower that she was taking a couple of days of whether she liked it or not, Lisbon sat at home with an icepack on her cheek and eye, a matching one on her rib and a half empty tub of Ben and Jerry's on the table feeling bored. Her thoughts constantly flicked back to a certain consultant and his bizarre actions after she had been hurt. What was up with him?
At that exact moment Lisbon's doorbell rang, and as she was trying to figure out a way to extricate herself from the layer of blankets and cushions Grace had surrounded her with before she convinced her to leave without hurting her rib she heard three scratches on the inside of her lock and then the door swung open. Patrick Jane walked into her living room carrying a large bouquet of flowers, a massive box of her favourite chocolates and the largest bear that she had ever seen complete with a bow around its neck.
But what she noticed the most was the uncertain look on her consultant's face, something she had never seen before, Jane was so sure of everything, always knowing exactly how everything would pan out.
"Er, hi Lisbon, I er thought that you might need some cheering up after what happened today, so I brought chocolates, and flowers and the largest teddy I could find. And of course I am giving you the pleasure of my company for as long as you permit it." The nervousness she could see on his face bled into his voice, and, as much as she wanted to tell him she was fine and could cope on her own, his quiet, unsure smile caused her to mutter something and pat the seat next to her.
Jane's face lit up with happiness at her acquiescence to his presence, and Lisbon could not fully hide the answering smile that graced her features. Why should she lie, even to herself? She like that he had cared enough to come over, even if he had picked the lock to let himself in.
He walked over to where she was sat on the couch and moved a few cushions around to clear a space for him to sit before sitting down as slowly and gently as he could, barely moving the couch at all with his large frame. Barely any movement still means that there was movement though, and even the small amount caused Lisbon to wince as the cushion under her back moved, pulling at her painful rib. Her pained whimper caused Jane to grimace and berate himself internally for causing her pain, even if it was unintentional and almost entirely not his fault.
She righted herself and decided to talk to Jane as a distraction from the pain that now burned at her chest and shoulder. Although she knew she should be nice and civil to the man who had brought the chocolate she had been asking herself one question since the incident: Why had he attacked the guy?
"Jane, why did you hit the guy after he hit me?" her voice was inquisitive but in a relaxed way, but the remnants of her pain, and the drugs she had taken to deal with it, had given it a croaky edge.
"He hit you Lisbon. He shouldn't have done that, so it was only right that I showed him that he shouldn't have done that. Chivalrous nature and all" he added the last bit with a bow and a flourish of his hand, bowing towards Lisbon as he did so.
She laughed at the sight, and winced yet again, clutching at her side as the ripples of laughter pulsed through her aching ribs. Jane's eyes turned concerned once more, but Lisbon thought she saw something deeper than friendly concern in the blue pools before he stood up with some muttered comment about water and vases. Hmm, that was an interesting development, the consultant didn't want to see her in pain, and in more than a friendly way, and had felt that he had to hurt the guy who hurt her. How interesting.
That was very interesting indeed, especially given that she could think of only one reason that he would defend her so strongly from Mr Garret. But that wasn't possible. Everyone knew that the only person he felt like that towards had died years before, and his capacity to feel like that with her. But why else would he have reacted so strongly to Mr Garret's assault. There was only one way to find out. She would have to ask and hope for a straight answer out of the man who was notorious for twisting questions around. This was going to be damn hard.
Jane returned shortly afterwards, putting the massive bouquet he had bought for her in a vase on the coffee table and handing Lisbon a new ice pack that she gratefully accepted and replaced the partially melted one that she had been clutching to her aching rib. She had ditched the one that she had had pressed to her face while he was gone, and when he regarded her she could see that his hands tightened into fists when he saw the massive bruise down the side where the psycho had connected with her.
He sat down next to her again, this time sitting down almost glacially slowly to keep her from suffering any discomfort. It was as though she was made of glass and he was trying desperately hard to prevent her from cracking. Seeing his quiet concern for her reminded Lisbon of the question she was dying to ask. So she just came out with it.
"Jane, why were you so hard on this particular man for hurting me, when other people have hurt me worse in the past and you certainly didn't go medieval on their asses. Why this guy?"
"Most of those people didn't hurt you right in front of me, and anyway, that was before."
"Before what?"
"Before I realised how I felt, how I fell about you." Wow, that had really piqued her interest. Now he had feelings for her? She felt her heart contract almost painfully at the thought of her constantly supressed feelings being requited by the object of her affections, and she felt that maybe something good could come out of this whole damned situation.
A small smile erupted on her face when she asked him her final question.
"So Mr Jane, how exactly do you feel about me?"
"I thought you would have realised by now, Senior Agent Lisbon, I love you."
A smile a mile wide burst onto both their faces at his admission, and Lisbon barely had time to whisper "I love you too." before their lips met and any further comments were pressed back by the thought overriding kiss that filled both their minds in a moment. The kiss was the perfect culmination of years of tension, and even the painful twinges of Lisbon's rib were forgotten in the passion and love that radiated off of their kiss. Lisbon pushed Jane back into the arm of the sofa and climbed into his lap, deepening the kiss by opening her mouth to Jane's and pulling on his collar to give her leverage to pull him even closer to her.
The twinges in her side deepened into full on aches, and her moans of pleasure turned into short whimpers and grunts of pain. Jane pulled back, shocked at her continuance even when she was in such obvious pain.
"Lisbon, I don't think it would be a good idea to try this right now what with-"
She silenced him in mid-sentence by recapturing his lips with hers and using her tongue to quell any further thoughts of stopping this. She had waited too long for this to let it be ruined by a bruised rib, she had endured worse pain than that before, she could handle it, and anyway, the pleasure afterwards was sure to be worth the short burst of pain. Jane stopped that idea before it had had a chance to develop by calmly easing Lisbon back without touching her rib.
"Jane." She whimpered, angry at the loss of contact.
"Lisbon, perhaps I didn't make my point clear earlier. We are not doing this. I just beat a guy up for hurting you, and now I am going to let you hurt yourself? I don't think so."
"Jane, let's just say my safe word is apples and leave it at that."
"Teresa, while I would LOVE to explore that with you I am not going to let you hurt yourself to do it. I have thought at length about what our first time would be like, and it never included a bruised rib and a fractured cheekbone." At the mention of her other injury her cheek flared with pain. "In about a week when you've healed up we will explore every inch of each other, particularly your safe word. Until then I am an excellent cuddler."
She acquiesced at that point and snuggled deeper into him, willing to wait just another week for the man she had waited 3 years for.