Title: Echoes
Author: tromana
Rating: T
Characters: Lisbon/Jane
Spoilers: Up to and including 1.23 Red John's Footsteps
Summary: A case gone wrong, and Lisbon remembers. Jane/Lisbon
Disclaimer: I don't own the Mentalist. I own a three year old headache, if anyone is interested.
Notes: There may be spoilers for Ep 2.03, as this was inspired by discussions in the spoilers section on jello-forever. Written for the August 2009 jello-forever challenge. Theme: Mistakes

Warnings: Suicidal themes.

Echoes

In the middle of Sacramento, a Californian night is more of a hazy glow of orange than the pitch black darkness of the country. You can even still hear the quiet roar of midnight traffic; cities, after all, never sleep. There is always someone, somewhere who has somewhere to go, something to do, regardless of the hour of the day. The headquarters of the California Bureau of Investigation is no different; though being a workplace, you may have expected it to be. Yes, it has it's quieter moments, which usually are after nightfall, but you could never have such silence that you could hear a pin drop. Whether it was the gentle footfall of people scurrying around, hushed whispers of people on their breaks or simply the hum of a generator, you can always hear something there.

Excepting the cleaners and omnipresent security guards, there were currently just two other people in the building. Patrick Jane, as usual, was attempting to gain a few snatches of sleep from his favourite position. 'His' couch in the bullpen was surprisingly comfortable, though no one else would actually believe him. In fact, on several occasions, the other members of the team he worked on often threatened to throw it away. Usually, this was due to the fact that they either wanted to improve his 'work ethic' or he had just been pissing them off too much recently.

The other person wasn't actually in the building. She was on the roof, the breeze blowing her short, dark hair behind her. Tears coursed down her cheeks, like a river working its way through the country to the sea. Ironic, really, considering the hum of traffic could almost sound like waves crashing against the cliff side. She knew she couldn't always win, God knows she knew that. She learned that lesson when she was small, too small. If life has a chance at throwing an obstacle in your way, it inevitably will.

The case had gone wrong. Horribly wrong. This was the kind of case that she had never wanted to happen. Ever. If only she hadn't been quite so disbelieving of Jane's crackpot theory. Normally, she accepted them without too many questions. After all, he was hired to provide the insight that other people simply did not have. But this one had been particularly outlandish, and she had insisted upon him explaining the exact reason why the father's obsession with baseball meant he was abusing his children.

They had had to rush in all guns blazing, and Lisbon was already cursing her normally sound judgement. Both father and daughter were wielding guns, the father was drunk and seemingly out of it. The little girl was scared out of her wits, obviously not sure what the hell was going on. The relief in her eyes was paramount as they barged through the doors, armed, with 'police' emblazoned on their safety vests. Lisbon could tell that the father was about to shoot. She took aim, but she hadn't taken into account that the daughter might just shoot as well. As the man collapsed, dead, (the daughter had been a surprisingly good shot), Lisbon's bullet clipped the girl on the shoulder. She collapsed in agony, and soon fell unconscious.

Getting the girl to the hospital had been a blur for Lisbon. She simply felt like the tides were steering her in ways that she couldn't control, however much she attempted to fight back. There was the almost constant gentle touches on the shoulder from the other members of the team. Van Pelt asking her if she was okay, Rigsby commenting on how 'even the best make mistakes and she is the best and she can't be perfect every time', a gentle nod from Cho and Jane simply staring at her. It almost appeared that they were worried she would break if they didn't interact with her. Truth be told, she was breaking, only they couldn't see it, except for maybe Jane. Though, Lisbon wondered if even he knew the full extent of just how much this case was killing her inside. After all, she doesn't like to remember. If Lisbon could permanently erase those painful childhood memories, she knew she would have already by now.

They all breathed an audible sigh of relief when the news trickled through that the girl would survive.

Lisbon had proceeded to lock herself in her office for the rest of the day, fighting against her emotions. She stayed late, later than she had ever done before. It was once everyone else had left, excepting Jane, of course, that she made her way up onto the roof. She needed to get back in control, somehow, and felt like she was fighting a losing battle. Despite everything else that had happened, it was the terror in the little raven-haired girl's eyes that had brought it all back.

It's cold and the rain is pelting down. Teresa's brothers are huddled in a corner in the living room, all four of them, a shivering mass of limbs. She stares out of the window, wondering exactly where her Dad is. He hasn't been home for over a fortnight. Whilst it wasn't unusual for him to go missing, the length of time was. He usually came home after a couple of days and slapped a scant amount of groceries on the table before stomping upstairs with a copious volume of alcohol.

She wishes that she could just stop caring about him, but he's still her Daddy. He hurts her so goddamn much; he doesn't care what she achieves, however small or big and goes mental if she forgets to do the littlest of things. He constantly rejects her, but still she tries desperately to please him, it's all she feels she can do. But whatever he's done in the past, whatever he will do in the future, she still yearns to make him proud. Her father has never been violent to her physically, but that doesn't mean he hurts her any less.

A crash of thunder and the door slams open. Their Dad has a maniacal grin plastered over his face and he approaches her oh so slowly. He has a bag with him, and Teresa assumes that it's filled to the brim with bottles of spirits. It usually is; rum was his preference because it was the drink that got him hammered the fastest. She backs away as he takes steps closer to her, until she can feel the hard surface of the sideboard digging uncomfortably into her back. Teresa glances over at the breathing pile of bodies that are her younger brothers and then back at her father.

He has a gun in his hand and it is pointing directly at her.

The stream of tears had become a waterfall and a sob became caught at the back of her throat. There was a reason she was so obsessed with the compartmentalisation of memories. It was the reason why Jane getting under her skin unnerved her so bloody much. Still she stood, staring through tear-filled eyes over a city she loved so much.

"Teresa."

He's wobbling slightly and she's surprised he can even remember her name. Her fingers scrabble for the drawer. The only male role model she and her siblings have ever had now has a crazed look in his eyes, and he has a gun. She is almost certain that it is loaded and that fear is confirmed when he swings it in the direction of her brothers and takes a shot into the wall, plaster showering the boys, who all glance up at her in terror.

"We're going to join your mother, Teresa, boys," he leers, "there's no need for us to be unhappy anymore. We're all going to heaven to join your Mom!"

His gun flies between her and her brothers, as Teresa's fingers finally manage to grasp what she's been after for the past two minutes. She pulls it out; she barely knows how to use these things, but it's her only chance to protect herself and her brothers. Her father's gun settles on her once more. Teresa doesn't even hear him shoot, but she certainly feels the agonising pain in her left shoulder and hears the weak screams of the younger of her brothers. Briefly closing her eyes, she pulls the trigger of her own gun before her father has a chance to take another shot at her or the boys and the bullet somehow manages to find its target. He collapses in a heap as her knees give way. He's dead. She's killed him. Teresa Lisbon has killed her own father.

The cycle is never-ending. Why did it always have to be the cases involving hapless drunks that appeared to go hopelessly wrong? Another little dark haired girl was now lying on a hospital bed whilst her father lay on a cold slab in the mortuary. Another girl who had barely hit her teens had now murdered her own Dad simply to save herself. And all Lisbon could think was that it was her fault again. She'd held them up, she had made them that little bit too late. She was the one who had taken the shot and put the girl into hospital.

She wakes in a hospital ward, all bright and airy yet strangely oppressive, to find police officers, both with surprisingly kindly expressions on their faces. Their family has been under the eagle eyes of various social services for quite some time, and justifiably so. As far as the police were concerned, it was only a matter of time before something like this was going to happen. The Lisbon kids should have been taken into care at least two years ago. Her brothers have already confirmed that she was defending them, that he was trying to kill all of them. She wasn't going to be charged for his murder.

Her brothers shamble into the room to thank her for saving their lives. None of them, however can quite look her in the eye. Once she is ready to be discharged, they have all been put into care. She's in a separate foster home from the boys. It's hardly surprising; it would have been virtually impossible to re-home five children, the eldest of which was just sixteen years old, together.

It was only a matter of time before they drifted apart. By the time Teresa Lisbon is working for the CBI, she found she could easily go for years without hearing from any one of her four younger brothers.

Had it been a mistake for her to kill her father? Should she have never bothered trying to fight back? Would she have survived that fateful night? What about her brothers? Lisbon hated the fact that she was so distant from her brothers, but she had been the one who had stolen away their father. Some would argue that in reality, alcohol had done just that long before she had shot him dead, but she had been the one who had ultimately ended his life. Until then, there had always been the hope that he could recover from the alcoholism, one day. Maybe. She had never given him that chance.

She dangled a tentative foot over the sheer drop. What does it feel like to die? To stop living, feeling, existing? Do you get a chance to live your life again, and correct all those silly mistakes that humans inevitably make? Does your soul really go to purgatory to have some divine spirit cast judgement on your soul and either grant you access to heaven or condemn you to hell? If so, where would she go? She has killed, after all, on several occasions and the deaths just never stopped. Or does it all just simply stop once your brain activity ceases? Right now, she didn't know which eventual fate she preferred the sound of.

Suddenly, an arm was wrapped around her waist and she was pulled from the roof edge by an irate Patrick Jane. She had never seen such fury in his eyes as he spun her around and stared at her, almost admonishing her with the fiery gaze he subjected her to.

"What the hell are you thinking, Lisbon?" Jane hissed, "this is because of the case isn't it? Today? What happened to you when your father died?"

"I… I…"

Despite the "no personal life talk" policy she rigorously tried to uphold, somehow everyone and their dog knew that her mother had died in a car crash, about her Dad's descent into alcoholism that had left her to look after her brothers. And that her father was dead by her sixteenth birthday. It was just that the majority of the time they had the common sense to pretend that they knew nothing.

Without another word, Jane led her downstairs. He'd realised something was wrong when he had woken up to see her coat still on its peg and her office light still on, despite her obvious absence. The open door to the staircase leading to the roof made it blindingly obvious where she had disappeared to. She was still shaking as they walked into the bullpen and Jane was still trying to contain the bubbling fury in the pit of his stomach. Was this how she felt when there was cases involving the murders of children? All he knew was that he would have to keep an even closer eye on her from now on.

With numerous arguments, he eventually settled her down on his couch before fetching her a blanket from the store cupboard. Once it was wrapped tightly around her shoulders, he made her a strong cup of coffee, in attempt to settle her nerves. Lisbon drank in silence whilst Jane rubbed her back soothingly, his deft fingers working in small circles, trying desperately to work out the tension. Eventually, she stopped crying and shaking and Jane let out a breath of relief. That was what had been unnerving him the most. It was selfish, but he couldn't bare to see her like that. She was meant to be the strong one in their double act.

"I need to go home."

Though it was a breathy whisper, he knew it was also a demand. As she stood up, she shook the blanket off and stalked to her office to pick up her bag and coat. Jane followed in her wake, feeling a little like a hapless puppy. Lisbon stormed out of the building, feeling the tears slowly but surely prickling at the corners of her eyes again. She reached her SUV and was about to place her key in the door, a task that was proving difficult with shaking hands, when Jane grabbed hold of her once again.

"Lisbon, talk to me."

"No."

"You're in no fit state to drive home, at least let me…"

"No."

"When you saw the Harris girl, all you could see was yourself," he muttered, cursing himself as he did, "when you killed your father. What happened, Lisbon? Surely you had a reason?"

"What do you care?" she snapped, "tomorrow, I'll probably just be back to normal and nobody will know any different. Nobody will care."

"I do," he shouted in reply. "I care, Lis- Teresa!"

"Why?"

"Because I love you, alright," he whispered, before continuing, louder, "I love you and I don't want to lose you."

She collapsed into his arms once more and he placed a kiss gently onto the crown of her head. The admission had taken a lot out of him, and she just simply couldn't react to it. It was one revelation too many for that day. Instead, she gave in and allowed him to lead her to his Citroen and to drive her home. Maybe tomorrow, she'd have the energy to consider what he'd just told her. For now, she had to mourn her father again and as well as the little girl she might have been. There was no one around to know what they had just discussed. No one else would find out the details surrounding the death of Lisbon's dad; Jane wouldn't breathe a word of it. They might find out about Jane's feelings for Lisbon eventually, though. They simply drove away in silence, with the street lamps guiding their way.

The Sacramento street lamps don't care about what goes on underneath, or indeed, above, their sickly orange glow. They are there to guide you in your night time activities and provide the comfort of light when it is meant to be dark. It didn't bother them that a little cop had nearly found it all too much, or that a broken man had just confessed his love for her, when he really feels he shouldn't. They are happy to keep their secrets, and just keep on shining until morning.

end