Title: Impossible
Author: vanrigsby
Rating: T
Summary: Five times when it's impossible to escape, and one time when it only seems like it.
Characters/Pairings: Team
Notes: Written for the Paint It Red May 2013 Monthly Challenge. I had so much fun writing this. I had 3/4 of it actually written before life decided it was going to toss a few curveballs at me. Nevertheless, I finished. Please, excuse Cho's part. I wrote it half-asleep. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Not my characters. I owe everything to Bruno and CBS. All mistakes belong to me, though.
Five times when it's impossible to escape, and one that only seems like it
I.
Some things are impossible to escape.
Straightjackets are one of them. He's discovered that. No matter how good of a showman he is, he's not quite practiced enough to escape his straightjacket. It requires a certain amount of not only precision, but also timing, practice and more flexibility than he currently possesses.
So, exhausted from another round with said straightjacket, Patrick Jane leans his head back against the white wall, and surveys his surroundings. He glances down at the white sheets covering his white bed, then his eyes flit to the bleached white linoleum, and then the blank walls.
Not even in his memory palace has he created a room as blank and dull as this one. He closes his eyes, and memories flash by in the blackness. The walls in front of him are no longer bare, but dripping with hundreds of ominous red smiley faces. They're everywhere, on the ceiling, on the floor. A few feet from the end of the bed, his wife and daughter's bodies lie, curled around one another as if in sleep.
Warring feelings of rage, guilt and despair rise in his chest, and his stomach roils at the unpleasant cocktail of emotion. Tears leak from the corners of his eyes slowly, though from which exact emotion he's not sure. He just wants to be out of this hellhole so he can find the bastard that took away his family. Show the brute no mercy.
In a sudden surge of energy, he throws himself against the restraints that bind his arms. He feels them slip slightly, but after a few more minutes with no progress, he is exhausted yet again. The tip of his elbow connects with the solid wall behind him, and pain shoots down his arm right to his fingertips. As his arm continues to throb, he lets the pain overwhelm him. He knows he deserves it. The bloody, heart-wrenching images that engulf his mind every waking moment are proof of that.
The sound of a door opening tears him from his tumultuous thoughts. Through the door steps a woman, her blonde hair swishing around her shoulders.
"Mr. Jane?" her voice echoes slightly around the small room.
Almost instantly, he can tell a lot about this woman. Her name is Dr. Miller (that wasn't hard, considering her nametag). She used to be a dancer, but stopped because of a knee injury. Her parents dislike her choice of profession. Her favourite colour is blue and she has a severe dislike of pineapples.
His brain halts in its observations. That's what caused the loss of his wife and daughter in the first place.
She perches on the side of his bed, a good foot from where he's resting cross-legged.
"How are you feeling today?"
Patrick thinks for a fraction of a second. "Trapped," he answers, completely honestly, shifting his arms in the sleeves of the straightjacket for emphasis.
"I understand," the doctor answers, obviously choosing her words very carefully.
"You don't really," Patrick retorts quickly. "I bet you've never been a straightjacket in your life."
"You're right," Dr. Miller answers, biting her lip and staying silent for a moment. "What do you see when you close your eyes?"
The question is so left field that Patrick has to pause for a second while he gathers his wits.
"Them," he says the only answer he can come up with. "Them, faces, and blood."
His voice wavers slightly at the end of the sentence, as the images come flooding back to the forefront of his mind.
"That must be hard on you," the doctor's voice is calm.
Patrick looks up, his tear-filled eyes meeting hers, and studies her for a moment.
"Can I at least get out of this straightjacket?"
"I'm sorry," her eyes tell him that the apology is genuine. "But I can't let you out until it's decided that you're not a threat to yourself or others."
"I don't want to hurt myself, or you doctors," he tries to gesture, but his hands don't move. "It's that bastard who murdered my family I want to kill." His voice turns stony at these words, every muscle in his body almost vibrating with the contained rage that has suddenly exploded inside of him.
Patrick talks to Dr. Miller for a while longer, not really absorbing much of what the conversation is about, but not willing to sound indifferent.
As she leaves, and closes the door softly behind her, he's come to the conclusion that he'll have to at least act as if he doesn't want to murder Red John, in order to get out of here. It'll be a slow process, because the doctors know that change doesn't happen overnight, but he's willing to put in the hard yards if it means there's a chance he'll get to watch that evil soul suffer one day.
He leans his head back against the wall again, safe in this realization. He knows that one day, he's going to get out of this place. But, first step: getting out of the straightjacket.
II.
Some things are impossible to escape.
The grief is whole, and all consuming. She could swear that her whole world has turned grey. Nothing has colours any more.
She's been curled up in bed for two days. She has barely eaten anything; only what her father has remembered to bring her in his rare sober moment. As the waves of sobs begin to ease, she vaguely registers the warring feelings of hunger, thirst and badly needing to go to the bathroom.
"Oh, man," her father's deep voice reverberates through her fog of consciousness. "BAD CALL REF. THAT WAS A HORRIBLE CALL." Teresa jumps when the sound of a bottle smashing to the floor echoes through the house. She hears her father let out a string of curses at the loss of alcohol, before thudding ungracefully over to the cabinet where he stores the rest.
She closes her eyes tightly, wishing it would all just go away. She misses her mother more than ever, wishing that she were here to just make it all okay again.
The sound of someone crying drifts through to her ears mingled with her father's constant shouts at the TV and the sports commentators droning voices. Her eyes open of their own accord, as she tries to work out which one of her brothers is upset.
"Hey, kid," her father's voice rings through the house, "shut up."
The cries grow louder.
"JAMES," he bellows, and Teresa bites her lip to hold back a terrified sob.
James only gets louder still.
"Teresa," she hears her father slur loudly. "Yer brother needs ya."
After a moment, she sits up, still hearing James' wails. She wipes at her raw, aching eyes, and swings her feet to the floor.
Her heart clenches painfully at the sight of something pink poking out from the bottom of her closet. She walks tentatively over to the door and opens it slowly, grief rebuilding in her chest like a dam inches from bursting. There, lying trapped between a pair of boots and one of her old books, is a silky pink ribbon.
Teresa bends down, taking the pale fabric in her hand, watching as it slips between her fingers as she straightens. Grief and sadness hit her in a wave so hard she physically cannot stand. Sinking to her knees, her brain begins to whir, images of her mother and this ribbons flashing behind her eyes. Faster and faster, until she has to close her eyes and remember to breathe.
A picture of her mother handing her this ribbon when she couldn't find her favourite green one.
Her mother's face when she'd finally agreed to wear it.
Her mother tying it in her hair. For school, for family occasions. Anywhere she went after that day, because she saw how happy it made her mother to see her little girl finally in pink.
The memory of her mother's fingers in her hair feels so real that she has to gasp. With the sharp intake of breath, she refocuses. James' cries have almost doubled in intensity, and she can hear that Tommy has added his sobs to the cacophony of noise.
"TERESA," her father shouts, and she cringes instinctively. "SHUT UP YER BROTHERS BEFORE I DO IT MYSELF."
Tears well in her eyes at his harsh treatment of her brothers. She remembers her mother saying that back before Teresa was born, he'd had problems with alcohol, but he'd gotten sober. He seemed to have slipped back into his old ways after the traumatic events of the past few days.
She stands, quickly tying the ribbon around her ponytail, and walks briskly out of her room, headed for James' room.
"Hey buddy," she croons, heading towards his bed, as his cries soften. Her youngest brother is huddled in the corner, as if he could make himself small enough to just disappear.
"Reese," his young voice floats over to her through choked tears. "That you?"
"Yeah sweetie," Teresa sits on the edge of her bed as he clambers over to her. "It's alright baby. It's going to be okay."
James crawls onto her lap, tucking his legs up to his chest, and puts his head in the crook of her neck. Teresa can feel where his wet cheeks are pressed against her collarbone, and she rubs his back in what she hopes is a soothing manner.
"Reese?" Tommy's head pokes around the doorframe where he has nudged open the door, Andrew at his shoulder.
"Hey boys," Teresa holds out her arms to her brothers. They creep into the room, shutting the door after them. Tommy curls into her right side, and Andrew on her left. The only light in the room comes from the glow of James' nightlight were it is plugged into the wall by the head of James's bed.
"Reese, is daddy okay?" Andrew's face looks up at her. She can see, even in the darkness, the fear and concern shining from his green eyes. He is the oldest of her brothers, being ten already. Tommy, at eight, is almost as wise, but none of her brothers understand exactly why their father behaves like this.
"Yes darling," Teresa gives him a squeeze. "He just misses Mommy."
"I miss Mommy too," Tommy snuggles closer to her as he says this.
"We all do sweetie," Teresa has to work hard to keep her voice from wavering.
There's the sound of another bottle crashing to the floor, and Teresa can imagine the glass shards skittering across the linoleum, whatever alcoholic liquid the bottle had once contained seeping across the floor. Her father lets out yet another yell, once more full of swear words, and he begins to get louder as he goes on.
Her brothers instinctively curl closer to her as his voice crescendos, his shouts not even just about what's on the television any more. And in that moment, she knows that no matter how empty and dark she feels, these boys depend on her. She may not ever be able to get rid of the grief that is still wound around her heavy heart like a winter coat, and she might never escape the terrors of her father in his drunken stupors, but she knows that no matter what it takes, she has to look after her brothers.
III.
Some things are impossible to escape.
Kimball knows that the gang definitely falls into that category. He doesn't even want to run with the Playboys anymore, but he just can't see a way out. He doesn't know what to do about it. He's tried talking to David, but David's too bent on staying, on having fun with the gang and messing around.
Kimball knows it's wrong. He wants to leave, to start a better life, to make a name for himself that doesn't involve the word 'ice'. Maybe, with his stoic personality and his deadpan attitude, he could be a soldier, or a cop. But these are just distant, unattainable ideals. Even if he did manage to escape the gang, and the punishment that would inevitably follow, then there's no way they'd accept a former gang member into the armed forces. Would they?
He's considering this possibility one dreary day whilst perched on a low brick wall. The rest of the gang is around the corner, smoking and laughing and slicing blades of grass to prove how sharp their knives are. He used to be just like that, but for some reason he's come to his senses. He doesn't know how and he doesn't know why, all he knows is that he wants to leave.
KC laughed at him and spat in his face when he mentioned leaving, a while back. He replays this moment in his mind every time he considers getting out. But each time he remembers, it just fills him with more desire to leave. To get away from these people who break into houses and steal things just for a thrill. Who use and abuse women just because they can.
It's one dark, rainy night when his grand opportunity comes. KC has ordered the gang to hit up a liquor shop; their stash is running too low for his liking. So the gang is suiting up, getting ready to leave. Kimball reluctantly slides his gun into the waistband of his jeans, and his knife into his boot, and then it's time to leave.
Kimball is nervous the entire walk to the store. He doesn't want to do his, not with all these weapons, not go into the shop where innocent people could be hurt or even killed.
The gang approaches the store, waiting in the parking lot, away from the glaring shop-front lights. KC, David and the rest of the gang pull out their guns and grin.
"Lets go," KC tells them, as the group starts towards the entrance.
Kimball pauses, watching their backs as the rain drips down his face. He glances to his left, deep into a blackened alleyway. It would be so easy to slip away, while their backs were literally turned, and leave. They'd know he was out from the exact moment.
He's torn. Part of him wants to sprint towards that alley like his life depends on it. But there's another part, much quieter, that whispers to him 'now isn't the right time'. He considers it for a moment.
As his hand closes around the handle of his gun, and his feet take him towards the liquor shop, Kimball knows that one day, even if he does manage to get out of this crappy life, he's going to do something noteworthy, something important. One day.
IV.
Some things are impossible to escape.
Like love. No matter how hard he tries to push away his feelings, to hide them deep inside of him, he just can't seem to shove them hard enough away to be completely rid of them.
It's hard for him. He thinks of her as he's cutting up carrot sticks for his son, or as he's lying awake at night, missing her warm body in his arms.
She's his everything. She always has been, and probably always will be.
It's hard to not love her. He'd gone out with a vast number of girls since they'd broken up; none of them had even come close to the amount of love he felt for Grace.
But maybe that was because he wouldn't let himself feel that way again.
He'd gone through the heartache of watching her fall in love with Craig. Every moment had been pure torture. The way her eyes lit up when she spoke about him or saw him, the way the corners of her mouth would twitch upwards at the slightest mention of his name. It had been some kind of horrible to endure that. But his heart had still refused to let go. He couldn't let go of her.
And then when Craig broke her heart, he was sure she'd turned off men for good. His heart had gone out to her, with the amount of pain she was feeling, and all he'd wanted to do was hold her and comfort her. But, tough little Grace she was, didn't let anyone see the real pain, didn't let anyone help her and soldiered on. It's one of the things that he loves about her.
He doesn't know why he feels so strongly about her. He knows he loved her, but surely most normal people would have moved on by now? Cho's always telling him to get over her. But he doesn't understand how hard it is. How much effort it takes not to watch her every move, to avoid bumping into her just for the sake of contact.
He sits heavily on the edge of his bed after putting Ben to sleep, staring down at his hands and breathing deeply. He wishes it would go away. The pain in his chest only intensifies when she is around. Maybe because she has a hold on his heart, and he's never really gotten it back.
He pulls off his slippers and clambers under the covers. Greeted only by cold sheets, there's a phantom ache in his arms, they long to hold her again. To curl up with her, her thin frame surrounded by his, and her hair in his face.
He rolls onto his side, throwing an arm across the empty expanse. He misses her. He gets to see her almost every day at work, but he still misses her. He misses the way she'd kiss him goodnight, the way she'd snuggle closer to him first thing in the morning, reluctant to leave the security of his arms.
She occupies all his thoughts, his mind swirls with images of her almost constantly. He wonders if it'll ever get better. If the pain of loving someone he can't have will ever go away. All he knows is that he has to pull through. Maybe one day she'll come back. Maybe one day he'll stop feeling such a longing for her that it physically hurts. Maybe one day he'll escape this torture. He doesn't know.
V.
Some things are impossible to escape.
She's resigned herself to her fate. It's hard to get away from the nightmares that haunt her sleep almost every night.
She wakes up covered in a sheen of sweat, panting hard, trembling and her mind racing.
The bloody images of Craig and brutal dripping smiley faces dance behind her eyelids.
She's had to install a nightlight. The darkness holds too many tortuous thoughts. Her imagination loves to run wild with the darkness, conjuring up pictures of Craig, dying beneath her hands, Red John, and blood. So much blood.
She'd never admit it to anyone on her team that these nightmares are still her companions. They all seem to think that she's made peace with what's happened. Sure, they were all sympathetic for a while, but after a certain amount of time, they kind of just stopped. Grace knows that they still care, but she also knows that they think she's strong enough to get past this. She's got to admit, she'd thought she was too.
But taking someone's life… it changes you. Sure, she's taken the lives of people before, criminals, murderers, people who were going to hurt innocent bystanders. She's got to keep reminding herself that Craig was all of those things. But the sting of his betrayal hasn't eased.
She curls up in her bed after being startled from yet another nightmare. Pulling the blanket up to her chin, she waits as the scraps of memories from the nightmare float away. She can't remember what happened, all she knows is she was terrified.
Her heart rate begins to slow, and her body starts to stop its violent trembling. She's lay in this same position many times before, but more often than not, Craig was curled up at her back. The thought of him putting his arms around her now, when the last memory she has of him is tainted with blood, causes bile to rise in her throat. She swallows hard, closing her eyes and trying to even out her breathing.
Instead, she turns the ghost behind her into someone else. Slowly, she can feel herself begin to relax as the phantom body behind her transforms from one of terror and panic, to one that's only ever made her feel safe.
If she squeezes her eyes closed hard enough, she can almost feel his large, warm body encircling hers, his front flush against her back. A feeling that she hasn't felt in a long time settles over her.
Soon, her breaths begin to slow. She's tried this technique a few times before, and the thought of Wayne always calms her down enough to drift off back to sleep. Granted, he doesn't always protect her in her dreams, but at least she can control how she feels while she's awake.
It's the coward's way out, she knows. But it works for her. Therapy did nothing for her psyche, in fact, it made her more stressed. She doesn't really want to show her weaknesses to anybody, not even those closest to her. So she doesn't talk about it. She doesn't bring it up. Well, at least she tries not to.
She understands now why Jane doesn't open up to anyone. Losing someone so close to you is a heavy burden to bear. And when you were the result of it, it makes it heavy enough to feel like it's going to crush you. She wonders briefly how Jane does it. Granted, he never took the lives of his family, but he's felt loss as great as she has, and he knows the same guilt she's feeling.
Well, maybe not the same guilt. Jane's guilt is more diverted into anger, revenge. He hates himself because he was the cause of his wife and daughter's deaths. But Grace's guilt is different. If Grace had noticed earlier, if she'd been more on the ball, if she's not been so blinded by her love for that man, she'd have seen it earlier. It's her fault that those two police officers were killed. It's her fault that Hightower and her children were put in danger. It's her fault that Lisbon, her boss, her friend, was shot by her fiancé. So many people were in danger because of her. And it hurts even more when she remembers that she was the one to gun down Craig. She took the life of one of the only men she's ever loved. And that's something that will haunt her for the rest of her life, of that she is sure.
She knows that someday these nightmares may ease. But, until then, surely she's strong enough to deal with them alone. She just has to find things that help keep her sane, grounded. She'll be okay. Maybe one day she will be free of these impossible restraints.
VI.
Some things are impossible to escape.
But others aren't.
Not with the right people by your side.
Lisbon watches as Grace walks down the aisle, her green dress trailing slightly on the white sand behind her. Grace turns slightly when she is halfway there, giving Lisbon a dazzling smile. Lisbon continues to watch with a speeding heart as Grace smiles at her husband. The redhead takes her place at the altar beside Annie, and Lisbon becomes aware of a presence beside her.
"Teresa?" Minelli steps into the space beside her, holding out his arm. Lisbon loops her hand through, taking a deep breath.
"I know Jane can be a bastard," Minelli begins, as the music starts to drift towards them, "but just keep him under control. You're good for each other." The sheer pride in his eyes makes Lisbon's eyes tear up, and Minelli smiles at her as they start the slow walk down the aisle. "Thank you for being my daughter."
Lisbon is lost for words, and bites the inside of her cheek to stop from crying. Her hand tightens on his arm.
She gazes lovingly at her family as she approaches them. Tommy, James and Andrew have all managed to be here for her special day, putting their issues with one another aside simply for her. Her heart swells with happiness. Hightower and her children are there as well, and her old boss gives her a motherly smile. The kids wave excitedly, and Lisbon grins back.
Her gaze falls on her second family, every member of her team standing waiting for her at the altar. Her boys, Rigsby and Cho, stand beside her fiancé, each dressed smartly in a suit and each smiling at her. She has to smile bigger at Cho's face being split by one of his rare smiles. On the other side, her youngest (ex) team member holds a bouquet of flowers and one of her trademark grins adorns her face. Beside the redhead, her niece stands proudly, holding her own bouquet of flowers and grinning at her like she's the best thing in the world.
And, most importantly, her consultant is there. Her insufferable, annoying, pain-in-the-ass consultant that has almost ruined her career on more than one occasion. The man she loves. The man who has made her life more, ahem, interesting, since the day they first met. The man she is about to marry.
Lisbon and Minelli reach the altar. He leans over and kisses her cheek, and she bids him farewell as tears spring to her eyes. Grace reaches out to take her bouquet, and Lisbon relinquishes it easily. She steps next to her fiancée, and he takes her hand. She catches his cerulean eyes, the question hanging unspoken in the air between them.
"I'm just happy," she whispers, and he smiles. Her gaze flits quickly to her families, both of them, as the celebrant begins to talk.
They've all had their things that they thought would hold them forever.
Jane managed to keep ahold of his sanity, for the most part.
Lisbon raised her brothers, and quite successfully in her opinion.
Cho has become one of the best cops she knows.
Rigsby married the love of his life.
And Grace's nightmares seemed to have eased.
Lisbon knows, looking them all over with shining eyes, that even though their hearts will never be truly free of their constraints, with a family like this, they can overcome anything.
I hope it turned out alright. Let me know what you think?