Title: One of These Days
Summary: "He was never meant to go to the grave without hearing a confession of her feelings at least once. She'd promised herself, promised them that much at least." When Jane and Lisbon are involved in a brutal car accident, they realize that some things can only go unsaid for so long.
Words: 6k+
Rating: T for language and violence.
Notes: Set sometime before 6x03 with no relation to the RJ story arc. PART 1 OF ?
One of These Days
by Elenion Nelde
PART 1
xxx
Lisbon wasn't having a good day.
They'd been called in stupidly early to begin with and since their body had been found a couple of hours away and Jane had needed a ride (apparently the dinosaur he called a car had broken down again), she'd had no choice but to leave when chronic insomniacs and vampires still roamed Sacramento's streets.
"I should have stayed at the office," she had groused to him all the way to the crime scene.
He'd only responded that he was sure her progress reports and paperwork missed her too.
Forensics were in the thick of things when they arrived at the scene a little after seven. They buzzed like bees in PPE around the body of the twenty-something Pharmacology student found dead in his dorm just outside of the South Lake Tahoe area.
Lisbon grimaced as they ducked the barricade tape. "Smells like decomp."
"I do believe it's peeling the paint off the walls," Jane agreed. "You know, I'm feeling a little parched after that drive. I could really do with a spot of tea right now."
"The smell got to you already, Jane?" she teased. "Well, we wouldn't want you passing out on us."
"Behave," she called after him, though she knew it was probably in vain. He'd really have to break this habit of, well, ever leaving her field of vision if she wanted to keep any more years of her life.
Spotting Cho beside a SLT PD officer, she crossed the room so she could get the lowdown from her second-in-command.
"What have we got, Cho?"
"The vic's Marty Bruckner, shot point-blank," Cho briefed his boss. "Massive ballistic trauma too if the bloody mess up the walls is anything to go by. The body was only found after the janitor checked out the smells coming from Bruckner's dorm so I'm guessing he's been rotting away in here for a good couple of days at least."
"Fantastic," Lisbon sighed. "Nothing like blown-out brains and decomposing corpses to start your day."
She knew she sounded irritable but, until she had her morning coffee, her team would just have to be lenient. She had had to spent two hours in a car with Patrick Jane, after all. His pep was often exhausting but at this time of day? She'd probably need an entire coffee press to deal with that cruel hand she'd been dealt.
"The case looks messy too, Boss," Cho continued. "No murder weapon has been found yet so it looks like our perp is packing heat illegally with firearm possession on California campus ground."
"Assuming, of course, that they haven't already crossed the border," she grumbled. She glanced at Bruckner's body. "Haven't we got bigger issues at hand anyway?"
"It's the heavyweights on the case that are more concerned about finding the murder weapon than the killer." Cho never was fazed by his boss' griping. "Bit of a catch-22 situation for us, either way. Where's Jane?"
"Off shirking the scene somewhere," she shrugged. "Where did you think?"
After all, her consultant always did know how to brighten her day.
xxx
Her morning got better still, turns out.
From forensics, she learned that so far they hadn't much more to go on than a little GSR on the vic's clothing and the brain matter up the wall. Jane, naturally, was still AWOL so she couldn't even get some of his 'psychic' input on that little impasse.
"It looks like our vic's been dead for about three days," Lisbon addressed her team after talking tête-à-tête with the ME on the case. "Cho, see if you can track down the roommate, Gabriel Alvarez. He hasn't been seen here since Bruckner's estimated time of death. Rigs, work the body.
"Grace, help Rigsby first but there's some anamnestic evidence I'd like you to follow up after."
Grace looked a little squeamish at the prospect of working Bruckner's blistered and bloated body, the underside having swelled to the unsightly shade of a mulberry bruise. Even Rigsby, a hardened cop, might've pursed his lips a little at that prospect though his attention seemed to be on his girlfriend than much else right now. Lisbon rolled her eyes. Couldn't those two keep it off the job?
Whatever; that could wait. Meanwhile, she had a murder to solve and a rogue consultant to hunt down.
xxx
Lisbon found Jane in the company of wizened little fellow with salt and pepper hair and suits even more ridiculous than Jane's.
"Ah, Lisbon, there you are," Jane said. "Professor Beckett here and I have just been discussing the importance of a good nap. Did you know that a forty-minute nap increases alertness by 100%? Or that twenty minutes of it is more effective than 200mg of that caffeinated sludge you like so much?"
"If only we could all afford to sleep on the job as you do," she said, a little tartly. "Speaking of that occasional pastime of yours, there's a crime scene I'd like you to take a look at. If it's not too much of an inconvenience, of course."
"Oh, yes," Jane's new friend, Beckett, piped in at the mention of their case. "Isn't it terrible? The poor lad."
"We're doing all we can to bring the killer to justice," Lisbon said by way of a response. "Now, would you excuse us, Professor? Mr Jane here needs to spend more time doing his job and less time slacking off from it."
She directed the last part to Jane, who didn't look sheepish in the slightest. Something in her voice did send the weedy professor scuttling off though.
"Can I at least brew that tea I never got round to making?" he asked as they began in the general direction of the cordoned-off John Miranda residency hall, where a partially decayed body lay waiting for them.
Lisbon pretended to think about it for a moment. "Contribute something to the case and I'll consider it."
"You rule with an iron fist, woman," Jane pouted. "Anyway, I have a feeling that this case is going to be a little dull: drugs or a jilted lover, maybe. Not my cup of tea, really."
"Oh, well, I'm sorry. Hopefully the killer might be more receptive to your needs next time," Lisbon said.
Jane only smiled at her dig. "Now, now, Lisbon. Sarcasm's the lowest form of wit, as they say."
"Yet they also say it's the highest form of intelligence too," Lisbon countered, flashing her badge to the officer by the barricade tape for the second time that morning.
Though manoeuvring themselves among the onlookers that were slowly being stymied away from the crime scene by some of the local PD was a task easier said than done, they eventually made it back to the scene. Grace and Cho were nowhere to be seen but Rigsby was stood near the far-end of the room, looking a little lost among all the CSIs in PPE and paper shoes.
"Name's Marty Bruckner, 21, from back East," Lisbon said to Jane, as Rigsby rejoined them. "Found dead early this morning by the residence hall janitor. Apparently, there had been complaints of bad smells that were eventually chased back to here."
"Ah, the delights of biological cessation," Jane said. "So, I'm assuming Marty here has been dead for some time now, any roommate he might've had has gone suspiciously astray and, judging by your air of distinct frustration, there's not a whole lot else to go on."
She forgot it was superfluous to brief Jane on a case; he knew the ins and outs of it with one look at the scene, it seemed.
"Did you find anything, Rigs?" Lisbon addressed her junior agent.
"Drugs." Rigsby held up a Ziploc baggie. "Looks like cocaine hydrochloride."
"Bruckner's?" Lisbon asked, rolling her eyes as Jane muttered something that sounded a lot like 'how predictable'.
Rigsby shrugged. "We found them in his jacket pocket so probably."
"Meh."
Both agents turned to Jane, who had briefly stopped his meandering to rifle through Bruckner's desk drawers. He withdrew an instant coffee filter pack with disgust.
"Jane, how many times do I have to tell you? - if you insist on touching everything at a crime scene, please wear gloves. I get sick of having to explain to forensics why my consultant's prints always seem to turn up on evidence," Lisbon chided. "And what do you mean 'meh', anyway?"
"I mean 'meh'." Jane dropped the coffee pack back into the drawer. "They were probably planted there. Or, better yet, he was keeping them from something. Or, rather, somebody."
"Why would he do that?"
"Well, isn't that the million dollar question?" Jane grinned. "Anyway, Marty here is far too straight-laced for the whole drug scene. The guy looks like he reads dictionaries for fun. Or read, rather."
"Says the man who read phone books as a mnemonic exercise," Lisbon teased.
"Hey - who told you that?"
"Oh, a little birdie." Lisbon smiled mysteriously. That'd been a little something Cho had shared shortly after they'd worked the Porchetto crime baron case.
Rigsby coughed.
"The drugs have been packed up for forensic analysis. Though, as I said, it looks like cocaine," he offered, interrupting their little repartee. Poor Rigs; he never did really know what to do when Lisbon and Jane descended into banter. Especially pitiful considering the junior agent had made something of a habit out of walking in on those sort of moments between them.
"So now we have the issue of finding out who these drugs belongs to." Jane rubbed his hands together in anticipation. So much for the case not being his cup of tea, huh?
"Yes, we do," Lisbon said. "There's a girlfriend in South Lake Tahoe. You and I can go talk to her once you've finished contaminating the crime scene."
"It's a date. Though first," Jane added, "that tea you promised me."
xxx
It was a little after eight when they finally travelled into South Lake Tahoe to talk with Bruckner's weepy girlfriend, Vivien Lusk. Tall and blonde, she was a year younger than the vic, and had been studying at a community college in the city when he died. She and Bruckner had been together just short of six months.
As had become a ritual for them, Jane sniffed out the nearest tea bag like a bloodhound while she sat gingerly in the Lusk family sitting room, waiting for Vivien's sobs to subside somewhat. Rosie Lusk sat beside Vivien, susurrating gently to her younger sister.
After running through the questions that protocol demanded she ask - had Bruckner been engaging in any suspicious activity lately?; was there anyone who might've wished harm upon him?; had she any idea of who at all might've done this? - Lisbon broached the ones that she feared might set off the waterworks again.
"We have to ask," Lisbon began tentatively. "Where were you the night Marty died?"
Vivien sniffed, eyes briefly flitting towards the door. "Here. I got home just after eight, and didn't leave again 'til the next morning."
"Can anyone confirm that for us?"
"No. I was alone. It's just me and Rosie living here now, and Rosie only came in from near Reno about, I don't know, an hour and a half ago?"
"I've been in Nevada since Friday," Rosie added. "I have friends from college there."
"Where are your parents now?"
"Our dad died when I was fourteen. Mom hung around for a while until one day she just reached her breaking point, I guess. She packed up and left; last I heard, she was shacking up with her boyfriend in Detroit," Vivien said bitterly. Her hands shook hard as she spoke.
"I was 22 when Mom left," Rosie explained. "I left college so I could legally adopt Viv, and that's how it's been since."
As a rule, Lisbon generally refrained from becoming too attached to a case; a cop with clouded judgement was a sure-fire guarantee for disaster, something Jane had demonstrated continually for ten years now. Still, it always stung a little to see another young girl without a mother.
"Were you aware of any involvement Marty had with drugs?" Lisbon asked.
Vivien sniffed again. "Drugs? No."
"Liar." Lisbon wasn't even aware of Jane re-entering the room, cup and saucer in hand.
They'd been here for hardly ten minutes and, having helped himself to the Lusks' tea stocks, he was now giving them the third degree. She didn't want to know how much of the house he'd scouted through within the few minutes he'd been gone either. Lord have mercy.
"Excuse me?" Vivien asked, aghast.
"You heard me."
"Jane," Lisbon warned.
"You knew that Marty knew about the drugs," Jane observed. "Not his, I know. Possibly the roommate's, maybe yours. Are they yours? In fact, I have a better question: are you the killer?"
"Excuse me?" Vivien repeated. "You cannot possibly go around making these accusations!"
"Of course I can. I just did, didn't I?" Jane said. "Oh, by the way, you don't possibly have any more tea, do you? I could only find lapsang souchong but I can't stand the stuff. It tastes like a freshly tarred-road." He shuddered.
Rosie glanced at Jane, coldly. "I think you should leave."
Lisbon bit back a sigh. It didn't look as though they'd be doing much to aid the investigation at this rate; Vivien looked ready to cry a river any moment now while Jane seemed more concerned about finding a good cup of tea than much else. Maybe he really was planning on half-assing the case after all.
"No problem," he said nonchalantly, rocking back on his heels. "We'll be going. I have all the information I need.
"Unless," he added as an afterthought, if only to appease a glowering SAC, "Agent Lisbon here has any more questions."
She acknowledged his belated thoughtfulness with a sour smile. "I think that'll do for now. We'll be in touch."
xxx
Cho found Gabriel Alvarez passed out and stinking of booze in what he was fairly sure was the seedier part of the campus.
The smell of cat piss that hung heavy in the air was definitely methamphetamine, for one. Cho had become attuned to such smells, what with his embroilment in gang life and the five years he'd spent in Narcotics before joining the SCU.
That being said, the odds that they could hold Alvarez on drug charges were slim to none as Cho was fairly certain they'd find no more than a stupid amount of alcohol in his system; anyone who mixed meth with that much booze would be pushing up daisies by now. And though he was utterly plastered and probably not far off drowning in the puddle of drool that was beginning to form beneath his chin, Alvarez was definitely alive and kicking.
"Gabriel Alvarez?" He estimated that, in a matter of minutes, Alvarez would be willing to sell his soul for some aspirin. "I'm with the CBI; we need to ask you a few questions about the death of your roommate, Marty Bruckner."
xxx
Gabriel Alvarez sobered up surprisingly quickly for someone who appeared to have drunk the equivalent of a small brewery. And though initially solemn following news of his friend's death, he brightened up considerably when he caught sight of Van Pelt.
Although Alvarez apparently didn't have the best rapport with cops, he appeared to make exceptions for those of the female persuasion. It was only when Rigsby moved in front of her, marking his territory with the ferocity of a linebacker, that Alvarez tamped down on the pass he was about to make.
Grace clearly wasn't impressed by her boyfriend's chauvinism though; she glared at him as Cho sat Alvarez behind the stopgap interrogation table.
Considering Sacramento was nearly two hours away on a good day, they decided to hang around the South Lake Tahoe area to question Alvarez rather than carting him off all the way back to the HQ. The station they were squatting in in the meantime though didn't have any of its interrogation rooms open so they'd had to make do with a two-person holding cell. It was crowded and it did make Cho's reading of Alvarez's Miranda rights a whole lot less dramatic but it wasn't a bad substitute.
With Rigsby standing guard by the door, Cho sat down in front of Alvarez, whose attention now seemed to be on the petite, dark-haired cop to Cho's right. Lisbon apparently wasn't as taken as he; she looked as though she was ready to rip him a new one with each lascivious look in her direction.
"The janitor found Marty Bruckner dead at quarter past four this morning," Lisbon began. "You're his roommate; care to explain why it was left to the college cleaning staff to find Bruckner's dead body?"
"I've been busy, man," Alvarez said. "I've had things to do."
"Like?"
"Chicks," he grinned, quirking his eyebrows at Lisbon who looked as though she'd quite like to hit him.
"And the cocaine we found in Bruckner's jacket pocket? It's a credible motive; maybe you shot and killed Bruckner over dope." Cho said evenly.
"Dope? Not mine, I swear," Alvarez insisted. "But, man, if I'd known that was there all along…" His snicker was cut short by Cho's unimpressed look.
"Life of the party aren't you, bro?" Alvarez muttered. "Look, any drugs weren't mine. Honest; I'll take a test or whatever if I have to. But they weren't Marty's either."
"So who did they belong to then?" Cho grilled.
"Dude, I don't know. Marty was with some chick the last I saw him though. Maybe she had something to do with it."
"Do you have a name?"
"No. Didn't really see her," Alvarez shrugged. "But things looked pretty heated; she seemed to have it in for Marty, y'know? Anyone would've taken a pop right back but Marty? He just took it, man. I left; last I saw of him."
"And you didn't think to check up on Marty afterwards?" Lisbon asked. "To be blunt, this doesn't look good."
"And, to be blunt, you're wasting your time," Alvarez said. "Look, are you finished pinning Marty's death on me? 'Cos my lawyer will have something to say otherwise."
He turned to Cho. "And, bro, seriously, lay off all the frowning and accusations of murder and stuff. Just being around you is giving me a headache."
"You're a murder suspect who's so plastered your breath smells like a week-old deli ham," Cho said flatly. "Your company's not that great either."
At that, Lisbon gave her second-in-command a pointed though decidedly amused look. Clearly she didn't think all that much of Alvarez either. She rose, anyway, indicating for them to join Rigsby outside.
"Lay off the Natty Light, next time, bro," Cho added. "Might help with that headache of yours."
xxx
"Looks like we'll have to cut him loose after all," Lisbon sighed as soon as they'd left their proxy interrogation room. "Even if he takes a drug test, there's no charges to hold him on yet. That's all we're going to get if he lawyers up, anyway."
She rubbed her temples absentmindedly.
"Cho, let him go. Without Alvarez lodging a formal complaint against us, please. We have enough of those thanks to Jane," she sighed. "Rigs, go find Grace. She's finishing up with the witness statements. See if you can find anything that verifies what Alvarez was saying about a girl Bruckner was with the night he died."
"Yes, Boss," Rigsby said with more enthusiasm than Lisbon felt right now.
She closed her eyes, trying to avert the headache that was beginning to thrum in her temples. As if on cue though, Cho and Don Juan appeared at the door, the latter puffed-up and looking at Lisbon as though she was a cut of meat. Fantastic.
"That was fun. We should do it again sometime." His wooing might have been a bit more charming if he hadn't have reeked of cheap beer while he did so. Cho had been right about that much.
Still, Alvarez wasn't to be deterred. Frankly, he made Walter Mashburn look positively retiring, his hands dipping low at her waist; the jerk was honest to go feeling her up in front of her colleague.
"At this rate, it looks like we will," Lisbon snarled. "Now get your hands off of me or I'll arrest you."
"If that's what your into," Alvarez said, hands still firmly planted at her sides.
"Would you rather I break you arm?"
"I gotta say, I do love spunk in a chick." He flashed a grin. "It makes everything more exciting, don't you think?"
Alvarez hadn't known what'd hit him.
Lisbon had well and truly clouted him, it seemed; he swayed like something out of a lousy sketch comedy for a good few moments before tumbling to the floor, clutching his swelling nose and wailing lamely to anyone who might give a damn. Not that anyone really did.
That woman really could pack a punch.
Speaking of, Lisbon turned and left without so much as a backwards glance. It was up to Cho to haul the poor sucker up off the floor.
"Suave," he commented shortly, as he cuffed Alvarez for the second time that day.
xxx
"What an asshole," Lisbon scowled as Alvarez was hauled into the back of a CBI-issued SUV across the lot, "but I like him for it; he clearly has no alibi, and he looks like he belongs in a crack den. Or, better yet, a jail cell."
"Plus, he looks like he could give ol' Giovanni Casanova a run for his money," Jane agreed. "Cho had to all but restrain Rigsby from beating Alvarez to a bloody pulp the way he was ogling Van Pelt. Though I think he was quite up for knocking the poor fool around a bit too. Looks like you beat them both to the punch. Literally."
"Yes, I heard," he added at the questioning quirk of her eyebrows. "As did most of the station."
"Hush, you." Lisbon's small smile belied her words.
She climbed in behind the wheel, turning on the ignition as Jane slid in beside her.
"I think Alvarez is lying through his teeth," she continued. "And I still think those drugs belonged to Bruckner. As Cho said, maybe Alvarez shot him over dope, whatever he might claim."
"A compelling argument, certainly..." Jane began.
"But?"
"But he didn't do it."
"Why not?" Lisbon insisted. "A drug deal gone bad is hardly unheard of. Or has everything got to be wheels within wheels with you?"
"Not at all. But I'll say it again: that cocaine was not Marty Bruckner's. Any Pharmacology student knows better than to get mixed up in the world of drugs; they spend every day of their lives observing the physiological effects they have," Jane said.
"Whatever," Lisbon sighed. "That doesn't rule Alvarez out. And he's still a jerk who's probably about as smart as a squirrel." She knew she sounded petty.
"Meh. More of a domestic turkey, I'd say."
"What?"
Four minutes into the journey and Jane was already fidgeting. He poked her Mustang's hands-free with the distaste he usually had for any technology that was made after 1986. "Squirrels are surprisingly intelligent with adept spatial memory. In fact, they'll rebury a cache of nuts repeatedly to deter competition if need be."
Jane's repertoire of inane facts strikes again, Lisbon thought. She honestly didn't know why she dignified them with a reaction sometimes.
Jane continued, undeterred. "Now, domestic turkeys, on the other hand - they're effectively bred to be simple-minded."
"Thanks, Jane. I'm sure that biology lesson will serve me great purpose in life," she rolled her eyes. "Now, can we please discuss something a little more useful than rodents? Like, you know, the murder case we're supposed to be solving?"
Jane was now fiddling with the car's radio, having tired of the hands-free. The station he found was suitably retro, shuffle notes and Thelonious Monk filling the car.
"Oh, stop your henpecking, woman," he huffed. "I know who killed Marty Bruckner, and it wasn't Alvarez."
"Oh, you know now, do you? Would you care to share?" she pressed. "Or does it require another stunt that'll end up with me losing my job and you your front teeth?"
"Now, Lisbon, don't be such a killjoy. Would it hurt to have a little faith in me just once?" He grinned charmingly.
She scoffed. That she certainly didn't dignify with an answer.
xxx
They'd were nearing the US 50 when Jane suddenly interrupted the quiet or, rather, the calm before the storm.
"Vivien Lusk."
Lisbon turned to her consultant, who'd been woolgathering in the passenger seat beside her for the last ten minutes. She raised her eyebrows.
"The girlfriend? What about her?"
Jane waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, not much. Only that she killed Marty Bruckner."
His sudden allegations of murder were hardly out of the ordinary, so Lisbon responded with nothing more than a healthy dose of scepticism that she always saved for any of Jane's crackpot theories.
"And what possible proof have you got to support that?"
"Meh," Jane shrugged. "I have all the evidence I need - anyone who drinks lapsang souchong has questionable life choices. Evil stuff. But if we're talking evidence you cop-types always insist on having, I'm sure you'll find Vivien Lusk's cocaine stash somewhere in the house. And what's betting that it's the same stash the cocaine we found on Marty Bruckner comes from?"
"You're just full of crap, aren't you?"
Jane rambled on, regardless.
"Now, I don't claim to have an encyclopaedic knowledge on Californian drug laws," - Lisbon rolled her eyes; Jane had an encyclopaedic knowledge on just about most things it seemed - "but I'm fairly confident that that sort of thing is frowned upon by you coppers. Especially if it comes from the same stash as that found on a murder victim."
"Would it have been so hard to have mentioned this when we were, you know, sat right in front of Lusk?" she complained. "God, Jane. The team are expecting us back at the HQ within the next couple of hours; we can hardly run off on some half-baked mission to save the day."
"Sure we can; spontaneity is the spice of life, as they say," Jane reasoned. "And anyway, if I recall correctly, you've got more weapons in this car than all the CBI field offices in the state of California."
"That's irrelevant. Especially when you're the one who'll bolt for the state border the moment there's gunfire."
"And I don't," she added.
Smooth.
"Are you hungry? I'm famished," Jane suddenly said. "If I recall correctly, there's a delightful little lakeside diner not too far from here actually. Wonderful eggs."
Briefly she wondered whom Jane would have wined and dined, all the way out in Lake Tahoe. Angela, perhaps? Or maybe he just travelled around California, sampling eggs and tea. After all, she didn't really know what he did between brooding in his attic, sleeping on his couch and plotting revenge against the man who'd killed his family.
"Jane, we've just let a murder suspect slip through our fingers. Now is not the time to be thinking about your stomach."
Jane paused, but he still had eggs on the mind. The man could be as bad as Rigsby sometimes when food came into play. "But I need sustenance, woman, if we're to keep catching all these bad guys."
Well, then. Two could play at this game.
"No," she said, sourly. "No eggs. For withholding information from an ongoing murder investigation, you can go hungry."
"First tea, now eggs," Jane whined. "That's just mean."
Lisbon pouted. "So is making my life hell, but you still do that."
"Touché, my dear." His grin was tantalising and though she'd never admit to it, left her slightly flustered.
It was also the last thing she saw before a car tore hell-for-leather into the side of her Mustang, clawing at the chassis before the snarl of its engine slid down toward the highway.
xxx
The first thing Lisbon noticed when the blackness began to dissipate was how the headache she'd had all morning suddenly seemed a whole lot worse. It hammered against her temples and brow and occipital bone in a persistent pound that felt like a jackhammer against her skull.
It was then that she noticed that wherever the hell she was stank acridly of engine coolant and chemicals, a combination that probably wasn't doing much to help her throbbing head. So strong was the smell that, if she hadn't a strong stomach, she might've gagged.
Years of working homicides though tended to steel you against such things.
Lisbon's eyes fluttered as the last of the heady fog scattered. She pressed her fingers to the back of her head though she was still too dazed by the smell of chemicals to fret over the warm blood that slid down her fingers when she withdrew them again. She turned to her consultant, vertigo rippling through her as she did so, briefly curbing her movements.
"Jane?" she croaked. The phantom tang of blood filled her mouth, tasting like a crime scene.
She slipped out of the network of totaled metal and cowling, sliding towards Jane. Doing so caused the pulsing at the back of her skull to pound like hell but she was propelled forward by the coppery stench of blood that was choking her senses.
It was then that she did heave.
She'd seen more crime scenes than she cared to think about since her days as a fledgling homicide detective for the SFPD but, in that moment, she realised that until you were part of one, a cop merely drifted between cases, constantly maintaining a professional distance that'd been drilled into them from day one of police academy. And while she'd lost too many people over the years - Sam Bosco and her parents, to name a few - she hadn't had to watch them bleed out before her whilst painfully incapable of doing a damn thing.
Her hand flitted over Jane's cheek, afraid to touch.
"Oh, God," she sobbed, her fingers slipping in blood. From beneath the lattice of scratches on his neck, she found a pulse, thready but there.
Her hand rested against his cool cheek again as she fought the urge to break down into a fit of sheer terror. With a messiah complex like hers, she'd never felt so robbed of control, unable to help the man whose life she would always be willing to put before her own.
She shivered despite the sweat that soused the fabric of her jacket, trickling down torn flesh. Why was it so cold?
And, a better question still, was why there was no goddamn ambulance here yet. The hit-and-run had only happened a little off the highway, for Christ sake! And, judging by the totaled mess her car now was, it'd been one hell of a hit.
Panic began to set in then, vast and choking. She was a cop who hadn't known routine for over ten years now but damn it to hell, this was not how things were supposed to happen.
He was never meant to go to the grave without hearing a confession of her feelings at least once. Though it seemed their love had been star-crossed from the start, she'd promised herself, promised them that much at least.
"Jane," she croaked, eyes burning. "Don't do this, dammit. Don't leave me."
From beside her, she thought Jane might've stirred though, for all she knew, it could be wishful thinking, blinded as she was by a screen of swelling yet resolutely unshed tears.
But then she saw his megawatt smile, crooked and contorted but unashamedly beautiful.
"Nice to see you, Lisbon," he grimaced, "circumstances considered."
"Oh, God," she gasped. The relief was heady.
"Just Jane'll do." His quip was half-assed, his voice hoarse.
In any other circumstances, she'd have smacked him on the shoulder. Now, she was terrified to do so much than keep her hand rested against his cheek.
"Don't." It was the most she could manage.
"You'd rather 'Patrick'? Only if I can call you 'Teresa' then." At death's door or not, she learned the man could still be obnoxious.
"Stop it, Jane." Her voice dropped to a whisper out of the fear of snuffing the little intimacy that the situation, though terrible, still held. "Are you okay?"
"Just peachy," he grinned though his words negated the groan that followed.
"Ssh," she soothed. Suddenly conscious of the hand on his cheek, she dropped it to her side but Jane only took hold of it again, interlacing their fingers.
"God…I-I thought…" she trailed off.
Now it was his turn to hush her, his hand at the side of her face as hers had been at his before. His fingers loosely traced the apple of her wet cheek. Those tears she'd held back had fallen after all.
"Hey, I'm okay. See? Never better."
"I've heard that before." Her smile was mostly tender though she was, in spite of the situation, slightly embarrassed that he was comforting her (something she'd later blame on the airbag propellant and coolant fumes).
He squeezed the hand that wasn't palming her face and, in that moment, she might've kissed him. But her head hurt like a bitch and it was then that that goddamn ambulance began keen from somewhere far off so, instead, she turned her head to press her lips to his palm.
The kiss was feathery and fleeting yet coloured with that promise she was resolute on keeping.
Dewy morning light glazed over them and the two-dollar exchange between EMTs became a distant thrum of white noise as Lisbon watched Jane slip into unconsciousness once more, her hand tucked carefully into his.
End of Part 1.
xxx
a/n: I've just noticed that Lisbon rolls her eyes a lot in this story. o.o
So, I'm kinda nervous about this. The car crash scene was hell to write and, because I haven't written fanfic for a good two and a half years now, I'm probably a bit rusty. Still, I uploaded it anyway and I'm making headway on Part 2 as well.
Title inspired by Pink Floyd's 'One of These Days'. Interpret it as you wish (because I have no clue why I titled it that either).
I'd love to hear what you guys think so far!
~Elenion Nelde x