Hi,

First of all, yes, I am aware that the summary makes absolutely no sense at all. But it will come!

So here is a new story. It's my therapy to learn to be more descriptive so it's going to be different than my other one! I'm going to try to keep the characters as close to the show as possible but I'm taking some liberties here by making it an AU story. You'll soon see how much but it shouldn't be too disturbing, I promise. It should just bring some Jisbon action! But still the CBI, still Jane as a pain in the ass consultant, still the team, still cases to solve.

Well, you'll see! I don't want to spoil too much now. I hope you'll like it!

And before I let you read I'll just add a big thank you to Habeous Corpus for being my beta reader and for her Etoile d'or ;)


Lisbon shut quietly the door behind her and was now out of her boss' office. She wasn't moving though. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to react. Surprised? Probably. Shocked? Definitely. Aprehensive? Without any doubt. Happy? Not so sure. Still, fear seemed to be getting the better of her.

30 minutes ago she never would have guessed what she was about to be told. She never thought that a wave of such intense feelings could ever come back to the surface. She had tried so hard to make those feelings disappear... She knew she would have to face that part of her past sooner or later but not that soon and certainly not like that.

Eventually, she came out of her thoughts and managed to move. She went straight to her office. She didn't pay any attention to the members of her team who must have been staring at her for quite some time now. They sure weren't used to see her like that. They were fearing the worse but didn't try to get her attention as she was making her way to her office either. They knew she would come out eventually.

Lisbon was now at her desk. She was staring into space, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do. Well, she knew what she was supposed to do but didn't know how. Her eyes landed on the file in front of her. A standard brown CBI file that would have seemed so innocent to anyone who would have taken a quick look at it. And still she couldn't remember any file making her so apprehensive.

When Minelli had explained what it was and why she should read it, she froze. She felt like a ton of bricks had been thrown on her shoulders. During his speech she simply nodded and stayed very quiet, waiting for it to end. She didn't say she knew exactly what was in the file. Not a word. She just nodded. Minelli seemed surprised. Probably waiting for the fight he was sure she would have started the second he began to tell her why he called her in his office. In other circumstances, she would have, but that? She wasn't prepared for that. She wasn't sure she could have done anything else than nodd and stay quiet.

And now she was alone, hadn't any case to solve, hadn't anywhere to go but had this thin file staring at her. If she opened it, the wave of feelings she felt earlier would grow even bigger and would definitely be unstoppable. And there was nothing she could do about it.

She took the file. Her heart began to pound faster, her chest tightened and she felt a wave of heat making its way from her knoted stomach to her temples. Why the stress was taking over her body was a mistery. It was not like she would have learned anything more from the file than she already did.

And still, the name on the bottom was enough to make her want to run in the opposite direction.

She was a tough person. Always has been. Especially in difficult situations. She made a carrier out of it, she wouldn't have her own team if she wasn't strong. Fleeing wasn't something anyone would picture her doing. That just wasn't her. But right now? In this office? Looking at this file? That was definitely something she wanted to do. As far as possible. But she couldn't go back to her usual state of permanent denial, the file she was holding was making it all real.

She was begining to feel ridiculous. All those memories were long behind her. Maybe she was supposed to be happy about all this after all. After all this time. And she was a grown up now. How could that affect her so much now? Probably just the effect of surprise.

But as she eventually opened the file and took a look at the first page, she felt a single warm tear falling down her right cheek, leaving her with a salty taste as it ended its course at the corner of her mouth.

That's when she realized she wasn't sure she could be strong enough to see Patrick Jane again.

I know it's very short but I don't have a lot of time these days. I will next time though! I hope it wasn't too boring and that it was enough to make you want to come back for the next chapter ^^

Thanks for reading and see you to my next therapy session!