A/N: Character death yet again, sorry. The title is inspired by 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' by Milan Kundera.
Disclaimer: Don't own anything other than my own tiredness.
For her, being tired wasn't a state, it was a permanent condition. Ever since her twelfth year she had exhausted herself to the bone for the benefit of others. And she'd been happy to do it too. Being influenced by her parents chosen paths in the service business, being a nurse and a firefighter respectively. All her energy had been put into helping others and it had eventually become her entire life. From those very early years of her childhood all the way up until her own career choice, she'd put an effort into being the best she could be without compromising herself in the process, well except for her sleeping pattern.
After her mother died and her father's sorrow had consumed the best parts of him. She'd started out working two jobs, with minimum pay, trying to support her family, getting the boys through school and keeping her dad out of trouble at the same time. Simultaneously she'd gone to classes and eventually, after her dad was gone and her brothers had grown into independent beings, she'd become a cop. Helping out the rest of the world just like she had helped out the people closets to her. Never once complaining about her lack of sleep or the headaches it induced. 'St. Teresa' was a well chosen nickname given to her by the media, for once they'd gotten something right, and captured her personality spot on.
xXx
The tiredness she felt right now though was like nothing she'd ever experienced before. The weight with which it pulled her down was overwhelming. She tried to stay awake, she really did. Even with all the hustling and bustling going on around her, she still couldn't seem to manage keeping her eyes open. She couldn't remember ever being as tired as she was right now. The strange thing was she had tried to be devoid of sleep for days in a row before, without it affecting her this much. Of course she'd been exhausted, well actually after the first hurdle of sleepiness she had experienced a form of exhilaration, which probably had been moved along by her large amount of coffee intake, but when all that had subsided and she had come crashing down and slept for hours, maybe even most of a day, she hadn't been this tired.
It felt like hundredths of 90 year olds female hands were dragging her down. Not forcefully though. More like and airy and gentle feel, like she imagined ghost or shadows would feel like if they had any substance.
And all she wanted to do was to surrender to the tiredness, just let everything go and be free, but there was something holding her back. Something that tried very tenaciously to keep her awake. It was a voice and it sounded scared. Maybe she should be scared too, but she wasn't. In fact she felt very relaxed and peaceful. If only the person saying her name would stop bugging her and let her sleep, everything would be alright.
Eventually her eyes fell shot. The sounds evaporated. Darkness closed in around her.
xxXxx
"Lisbon?! Lisbon! LISBON! Come on! Stay with me! Lisbon! Don't you dare! Come on Lisbon! Hold on!" With each new word Patrick Jane's voice was getting increasingly frustrated. He tried shaking her, violently so, but to no use. He could see how her eyelids got heavier and heavier with each passing minute.
"Please, please." His voice had gone from almost screaming before to being merely above a whisper now. Begging her. "Please, please don't leave me." But it was too late. By the time the others found them Jane was sitting on the cold, concrete floor clutching Lisbon's body tightly in his arms, rocking her gently back and forth like a baby, while his tear filled eyes were staring blankly into space. He was in shock. Judging from the state of his light blue shirt - which was soaked in a new and unmistakable color - and the man lying not ten feet away from the pair, it wasn't difficult to figure out what had happened. Jane had gotten his revenge, but at what cost? Had the vengeance been worth the price?
xXx
In one day Jane had freed himself from the past, kept his promise to himself by avenging his family, while at the same time breaking his heart all over again, and this time having no one to act out his revenge upon, no one else to blame, but himself. You couldn't kill a man that was already dead or cause him any further pain. Jane was doomed to be alone and unhappy, causing anybody that got near him pain or in the worst case scenarios; death.
This day had thorn him in multiple directions, emotion vice. Excitement and anxiousness at being close to his goal. Liberation and fulfillment at having accomplished it. Anger and frustration directed at the man that ruined everything. And pain, horror, fear and sorrow over the consequences. All these conflicting emotions, the ambivalence about the whole situation had put a terrible strain on his nerves. The tear on his mental capacities was too much for him to bear alone. When he'd had someone to lean on, someone to help him carry the burden, he had been able to move - maybe not forward, more like sideways, but it had been better than moving backwards or in circles. What was he going to do now?
Life had given him a second chance, but he hadn't learnt anything from his first mistake, he'd wasted it, forfeited his one change at a possible redemption from his demons. Would he be able to heal again this time? He had done it once, but could he do it again? Did he have the energy and would he even want to? What if it had only been a fluke - him pulling through - a one in a million chance, and he had just won the lottery with that one. Luck. That was it. All he had. And he'd thrown it all away, selfishly used up his winnings without a care for tomorrow.
He knew very well that it had taken a special person to continuously pull, heave, drag, yank and haul him up and away from the abyss time and time again. Now she was gone as well and he didn't have a chance to tell her how he felt, or about what he had kept hidden and locked inside himself for years. He wasn't even sure she knew. She had died because of him. She had died without knowing that she was the most important part of his life. That he loved her. She had been his salvation, made life bearable again, and she'd paid for it with her own life.
From here on out his life was destined to become agonizingly painful and utterly unendurable. Loss of love was the worst kind of loss, especially when unexpected or violent like this. And he had already had more than his fair share of that. He was rapidly sinking, being swallowed by quicksand and spat out on the other side in some excruciating and fiery pit of hell. He'd been blind for too long, and so he deserved everything he got as a result.
xxXxx
The one thing he forgot though, was that he was not the only one that didn't get to finish things, to outlive regrets, or to utter any last words of wisdom. Lisbon never got a change to tell him that he had freed her too. By just being him. It had been a slow process - a transformation, that had grown over the years they'd known each other - but it had happened, that was an undeniable fact. He'd freed her from the walls she'd build to protect herself, freed her from the bonds that had kept her restrained and not allowed her to experience the world's pleasures. Lastly and most importantly, though she might not get to live 80-or-something years she had felt more alive for the last decade of her life than she'd ever felt before. With her death he might have taken away her chance of growing old, and becoming someone's wife and mother. She wouldn't experience the joy of aging, but she'd be spared the heartache of watching people around her die, and all the troubles and sickness that old age brings with it, plus she would forever remain un-ageing in his mind, while the rest of the world would grow old around him.
In a way he'd freed her from the unbearable tiredness thrust upon all of us by existence.
A/N: Did this turn out weird? I don't know. Endings are not really my thing.
As it happens sometimes the story took on a life of its own. It was originally just going to be about Lisbon, but Jane kinda pushed his way into it, and ended up taking on a much more dominant role, hijacking my whole story, oh well.
I really don't think Jane is as careless as described here, especially not about Lisbon or her life, but he do have a tendency to carry the blame for things that are beyond his powers, very destructive tendencies I'd say, so anyways... that's how I wrote it.