It had all happened in a split second. They had just caught their latest suspect; an arsonist gone drug dealer, who had been on the run for the past five years, had finally turned up on the outskirts of San Antonio. The full team had travelled there to complete the sting, which had gone off without a hitch. That was until they had got into his reach.
They had set up Cho to meet him for a deal in their selected location - an old warehouse - before he would be cornered by the door and captured by Jane, Lisbon and Vega on the outside.
However, as the dealer tried to escape, and Lisbon knocked him down, starting to put handcuffs on him, it all went wrong. The 200+ pound, 6ft 6 suspect was able to shove Lisbon onto the ground hard, before punching her in the face, rings scratching skin, as he shook off the unlocked left cuff and leapt up.
Jane went running before he realised it. Although he himself was normally no match against the dealer, adrenaline and pure rage gave him the strength to punch him in the face enough times and fast enough so that the guy was powerless, falling to the ground unconscious. Jane barely noticed the scrapes and sting of his knuckles as he ran back over to the dazed Lisbon, who was still on the ground, being attended to by Cho and Vega.
Cho turned around and looked at Jane. "She's still conscious. Take her to the hospital, Jane. We'll finish with him." He pulled on gloves as he and Vega got up and went over to the dealer, leaving Jane with a proper view of Lisbon.
Blood covered the left side of her face, where she was punched; her nose was leaking and her eye was already starting to swell. Thankfully, she hadn't landed on her head - instead, Lisbon had landed on her elbows and forearms first, which were scraped. Jane's breathing quickened even more, and his hand came up to cover his open mouth.
"Jane?" Lisbon whimpered, trying to wipe the blood from her eyes, instead smudging it even more.
"I'm here," Jane said, his voice shaking. He leaned down and kissed a clean patch of her forehead, before lifting her shoulders with one arm and her legs with the other, effectively picking her up. Lisbon put a bloody arm around his neck to stabilise herself as he ran over to Lisbon's car. "Shit," he murmured as he reached the door.
"I got it," Lisbon said quietly, wincing as she searched her pocket for the keys. She pulled them out and pressed the button to unlock the car. Jane lowered her into the front passenger seat, ignoring the fact that blood now covered his arm and neck, and instead focusing on reclining the seat and putting the seatbelt over Lisbon's chest until she was comfortable. He took the keys cautiously out of her hands and went to his side of the car.
"I'm really sorry, Jane."
"What?" Jane turned to look at Lisbon. She was shaking, too, and she looked tiny, like she was being swallowed by her seat. Blood still came out of her nose, but slower now, and the seat was splotched with red. "It's just blood, Teresa. It'll come out." He reached out and squeezed her hand quickly.
"That's not what I meant," she said quietly, but Jane didn't hear as he turned the engine on and started driving to the nearest hospital. He tried to start a light conversation but he knew that if he opened his mouth, all that would come up was sobs. At a red light, Jane pulled off his jacket and gave it to Lisbon, who wrapped it around herself as if it would cure her shakes of shock. He also manoeuvred his way out of his vest, again handing it to Lisbon, this time used to start wiping fresh blood off her face, the older of which was dried already.
Forty minutes later, they ended up in a curtained off "room" in the emergency ward of the hospital. Lisbon was propped up in the bed, wearing a hospital robe and hooked up to a saline drip. Jane was using wet cloth to wipe the blood off her face, which had stopped bleeding thanks to the help of numerous nurses.
"How are you feeling?" Jane said, wiping carefully at her cheekbone.
"Probably better than I look." Jane momentarily stopped moving to examine her. She was right; her face had swelled up, her eye was starting to purple, she had bandages wrapped around her arms and her hair was caked with blood. Jane was about to tell her that she still looked beautiful to him, when a doctor pulled back the curtain and walked in.
"Hello again, Ms. Lisbon. We got the results back from your scans. You're incredibly lucky; no breaks, head injuries or fractures, apart from a hairline fracture of your eye socket, which will hopefully heal itself, and a small gash along your hairline. You have an immense amount of bruising, scrapes and other small injuries, but they will clear up within the next few weeks, as long as you keep them clean and don't injure yourself further. We don't need you here for overnight observations, so once your drip is finished, we'll get you discharged."
Lisbon nodded at each sentence. "Thank you, doctor," she said, squeezing Jane's hand.
The doctor nodded back, but stayed in his place. "Mr Jane, could I please speak with you for a moment?" Jane got up from his seat cautiously, eyebrows raised. Both men walked outside of the curtain and over to the receptionist desk. Jane instantly spoke.
"I didn't do that, you know."
The doctor stared at him, bewildered as to how he'd read his thoughts. He shook his head and looked down at Jane's fists, which were bloody and scraped themselves.
"You're kidding me."
"It adds up, Mr Jane. I will call the police." He reached over the desk to the landline.
Jane laughed frustratedly. "While you're at it, tell them that you've got Federal Agent Teresa Lisbon and Patrick Jane, who have arrived from the Luther-Angus case, where Federal Agent Teresa Lisbon was assaulted by the suspect after a sting gone wrong." Tears unexpectedly sprung up in his eyes, and Jane turned around and walked away before the stunned doctor could say anything else. He composed himself before he walked back through the curtain to Lisbon, forcing a smile on his face.
"What did he want?" Lisbon asked, looking up from cleaning her fingernails. She frowned. "Jane? What's wrong?"
"He just wanted to see if I would like my knuckles bandaged," Jane said, walking back to the chair beside the hospital bed. He ignored the second question, and took the cloth from her hands and started cleaning her face again. "God, Lisbon. You're so, so lucky." Lisbon swallowed and looked down, nodding. Jane leaned forward in his seat; he wiped her lips, thumbing the corners, then kissed her. She tasted like blood.
This knocked the breath out of Lisbon, and rendered her speechless, for all the wrong reasons. Once Jane finally cleared all of the blood off her face that he could, she curled into a ball, looking absently at the I.V. pole. When she could eventually speak again, her voice was quiet and, once again, shaky.
"I just want to go home."
