A figure hunched in a dim interrogation room; this is how she finds him. Her hand on his shoulder makes him flinch, turn toward her, impassive face and empty eyes. She notes the traces of tears on his cheeks, shiny when the light catches them, says nothing but a gentle, "C'mon Jane, let's go."
He stands, nods mutely, eerily, uncomfortably, docile. Trails her through the hallways, stands beside her on the elevator, climbs into the passenger seat of her hulking SUV, nothing more than a silent, ever-present, broken shadow. No argument on who will drive tonight, she steers them out into traffic.
Lisbon sighs, the hand around her heart tightening painfully as she glances across at her companion, golden head turned away, gazing out into the city night, unseeing. He's not ignoring her, but there's nothing to say, nothing he can say, lost as he is in his grief, but she doesn't expect anything anyway. Doesn't push, doesn't prod, doesn't pester, two people, different forms of themselves.
She pulls to a stop before her condo, turns the key in the ignition, and only then does he look at her, question in his eyes.
"I won't take no for an answer." Her voice is soft, but firm. Quiet steel. There is no strength in him to fight her. She knows he won't accept her help, but she refuses to let him sleep in a motel room, or worse, beneath a horrid face painted in blood tonight.
Inside, she sets about readying the bed in her spare room. It's bare - she never really has occasion to use it. Why make a bed that's never used?
She fetches sheets and pillows from the hall closet, a whirlwind of motion. He hovers in the doorway, a fragmented, hollow shell of a man at sea, drowning, watching the world go by him from a place of pain and solitude.
She's finished now, pauses before him, subtly rocking from foot to foot, nervous, perhaps a little stumped.
"Jane, I,"she begins, frowns, shakes her head, closes her eyes, takes a breath, opens them.
"I'll be next door if you, y'know, want anything." She all but flees, ducking past him through the doorway and vanishing into her own room. Draws her door all but closed and freezes, listens to rustling, the eventual sound of squeaky springs accepting the weight of a person, and only then does she relax.
A/N: So, I told myself I would never write Mentalist fic because I didn't think I could. Jane and Lisbon are both so complicated and I didn't feel I could capture them well. And then I saw Seeing Red, and out came the first part of this and I liked it well enough that I kept going. I wrote the second part a week later and then I sat on it for a month or two. In any case, I've finally worked up the nerve to post it, so here it is. I have played with the idea of making this a three-shot, with a moment at work the next day, but in the end I didn't feel the next section was really necessary to the story.
This did not go through a beta, so I apologise for any errors.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed, and I'd appreciate your thoughts on it. Good, bad, or ugly.
Thank you!