So, this fic was originally a oneshot, but as soon as I had published it, new ideas for it started growing in my brain. So what I did was to divide the initial story into two chapters and now I'm publishing a third chapter, to which I don't know how many might follow. Actually, I have no idea where this fic is going and that's why I count on you, readers, to let me know what you think so far, as well as to give me suggestions on how to continue with it.

I don't own The Mentalist characters, I just like to pretend that I do.

1. WHAT NOW?

"Don't be silly, Lisbon," Patrick Jane was saying, with a serene voice and that stupid smirk of his, because his neck wasn't the one on the line; he just stood there, like he couldn't care less about what was going to happen to her. "She's only going to tell me I shouldn't be so irresponsible, tell you to control me better… The usual."

Lisbon was so furious that she didn't reply. She just stood, holding her hands together in front of her body, which was completely tense. Jane didn't understand why she was making such a fuss. Hightower wasn't going to fire her; only a moron would fire Teresa Lisbon, a brilliant senior agent who had been top of her class in the San Francisco PD Academy, then had made an impressive career at the local police and then risen as a state agent with the CBI, not taking long to earn a position as head of the Serious Crimes Unit. The elevator doors opened and she walked ahead, hurriedly, not waiting for him, making him rush to keep up. They reached Madeleine Hightower's office.

"You wanted to see us, ma'am," Lisbon said, stopping in front of Hightower's desk, pressing her lips and expecting the worst.

"Yes, I did, Lisbon. Patrick."

Jane nodded his greeting, a flirtatious half-smile on his lips; Lisbon doubted that strategy would work at this point.

"Why don't you have a seat?" Hightower offered,

"Of cour–" Jane started to say, but Lisbon spoke, cutting him sharply.

"I'm fine right here, ma'am," she said, making Jane give up on sitting at all.

"Well," Hightower started. "I believe you know why you're here."

"Yes, ma'am," Lisbon answered, hurriedly, so as to make it faster.

"I'll say it, though, just so we know we're on the same page." She made a pause, probably for effect, Jane observed. Amateur. "So, Patrick, you assaulted the DA assistant, accusing him of murder–"

"I only did so," Jane started to explain, with a finger lifted defensively, "because I had to make everyone believe he was our suspect, so that–"

"I don't care why you felt like you had to do it," Hightower interrupted imperatively, then shifted her glance to Lisbon, "or why you felt like you should let him."

"I had no idea of what he intended to do, ma'am," Lisbon defended herself. "Even though I know I should have."

"She had no idea," Jane repeated, pathetically, Lisbon thought.

"Then she's not doing her job right," Hightower stated, exchanging her look between them. "Now, the DA is urging me to take action immediately."

There was a moment of silence; Lisbon looked down, moving her chin apprehensively. Jane waited, containing an urge to yawn.

"Patrick, you're suspended for a week without pay, effective immediately."

Jane was surprised; he had thought Lisbon would be the one suspended, if anybody would get suspended, because Hightower would often blame her on his behavior, but he thought it was fair enough that she was punishing the right person this time.

"Lisbon, I would like you to immediately check your badge and your weapon, because, as of this day, you are no longer a member of the CBI."

Jane's mouth fell open. Lisbon felt like someone had just stuck a dagger against her chest; the air escaped her lungs.

"Ma'am…" she started, but Hightower shushed her with a movement of her hands.

"There is nothing you can say, Lisbon. It's done."

Lisbon would have argued, but her chin started to tremble and a tear was threatening to roll down, and she would never cry in front of her boss as she fired her just as well as there was no way in hell she was going to cry in front of the stupid consultant who had just got her fired, so she turned around and hurriedly left the room.

"Lisbon," Jane called out after her, and started to follow, not worried whether Hightower was finished with him or not. "Lisbon, wait," he said, as she was practically running now.

Unwilling to wait for the elevator, she just rushed to the stairs.

"Lisbon," Jane called one more time, then he stopped walking, not knowing what to do. Fired? Was Hightower out of her mind? He considered turning around and going back to her office, to try and talk some sense into her, but he figured right now wasn't the best time to do so.

He knew he had to do something, because the idea of CBI without Lisbon was just something he could not conceive in his mind. Still, he figured right now he should just give both women some time; anything he tried now would be useless. The elevator arrived, and he contemplated the idea of facing the team once they had heard the news – had they heard by now? He got into the elevator and pushed the button. When he arrived at the bullpen's floor, his idea was to go straight to the attic, but before taking the stairs, he did not resist going into Lisbon's office. He noticed how she hadn't even turned off her computer or bothered to put away the forms she had been filling out before Hightower called her.

She had only taken her jacket and her keys and left, leaving everything exactly the way it was. He wondered if she had done so because she expected Hightower to reconsider or because she just needed to get the hell out of the building so she could break down alone. Definitely option number two. He took a long look at her things, including the new couch he had bought for her, much to his own satisfaction, he must admit, because he was the one who actually used the piece of furniture: he enjoyed coming in here, lying on her couch and watching her work, while they would share a conversation or just silence. It was easy to be around her most of the time, and he realized, thinking about it, how it had become natural for him to take it for granted she would always be in his life, how he would always know where he could find her, how he could always come into her office and walk towards the couch like he owned it, like he was allowed. And he was.

"Jane?" It was Cho's voice. He was standing behind Jane, who hadn't even heard him coming in. "What happened in Hightower's office? Lisbon just came out of the elevator, came in here, took her stuff and left, didn't say a word. She looked upset."

Jane just stared blankly at him, not finding any words to say.

"Excuse me, Cho," he said, uncomfortably trying to walk past his colleague. "I need to… I need to go."

As he walked towards the stairs, he noticed Van Pelt and Rigsby looking at him, probably expecting the answer as well, an answer he didn't feel ready to provide, so he just walked past them and climbed the stairs on his way to the attic, where he gathered the things he would need most and then left the building, heading to some motel where he'd lie in bed and think about a solution for all this.

Lisbon was driving slower than usual, because tears were blurring her vision. She just couldn't avoid them; she didn't even want to. She would only avoid crying in front of other people, but when she was alone, she would just prefer to cry it all away, especially when she was angry, and she was very angry at that moment. She wanted to break something, to stab something, to shoot something. And yet, she drove slower than usual, because she didn't want to die in a car crash.

She thought about how she had always known this would happen one day; since the beginning, she had imagined the day when Jane would finally get her to lose her job, and she had been willing to continue working with him despite everyone else's advice – Virgil Minelli's, especially, because he closed cases, and because… Well, she couldn't really reach what that second reason was, but she figured it was probably because she felt bad for his personal tragedy, and because she knew that working with the CBI and chasing Red John was all he had left. All he believed he had left, anyway.

And there she was, feeling like an idiot, for having kept him around because she cared about him, while he had bet her whole career over stupid stunts countless times. The bastard. She had always known he would lose one of those bets one day, she just hadn't figured it would hurt so much, but it did, because it made her realize how much he did not care about her. A fresh set of tears had started making their way out, making it much harder to keep on driving, and she couldn't be home soon enough.

When she was finally in the safe confinement of her apartment, she ripped her working clothes off and took a cold shower, while crying and punching the wall in anger. After about twenty minutes doing that, she finally managed to start calming down. She got dressed and went to bed, where she sat in the dark for a long time, not crying now but feeling her face swollen from the tears she had cried before.

She tried to imagine herself looking for another job, well, that dismissal from CBI would probably look terrible in her record. Would she even get another job in law enforcement? If she did, it would certainly not be as a senior agent, head of a unit. And she had worked so hard to get there… Thinking about it now, it had been really stupid to bet her career over Jane. Maybe she hadn't really expected him to get her fired someday. But here she was, after having been fired from her job.

There was no way she could imagine herself without that job; thinking about it, it was her life. Her family, her routine. Next morning, when she woke up, what was she supposed to do with herself? Oh damn it, she was crying again.

Jane woke up really early, and he hadn't actually managed very many hours of sleep. Sleeping was something already difficult for him most of the time, and the unusual bed plus the whole mess he had gotten himself and Lisbon into didn't help at all. He sat up, trying to figure out a brilliant plan to make Hightower beg Lisbon to come back. And possibly resign from her own position – that would be good. Nothing came to mind, not even something stupid. He could usually think of the most genius plans for solving crimes and making criminals confess to murder, why couldn't he find a way to make Hightower change her mind about Lisbon's job? And it wasn't even something ridiculous or outrageous; Lisbon was probably the best agent working in that building, deciding to fire her had been the real ridiculous decision.

Something that also disturbed his thinking process was that he felt the urgent need of letting Lisbon know how sorry he was and how committed he was into the idea of finding a way to bring her back. He decided to try to call her, but, as he had expected, she didn't answer. He tried to call her during that whole day, unsuccessfully. Then he tried again the next day, and the next. He wanted to go see her, but he knew she wouldn't let him in; she wasn't even answering her phone.

The next day, he came up with an idea to get her job back: he would tell Hightower he would quit his job if she didn't hire Lisbon back. That was going to work; she found him way too valuable an asset to risk losing him just because she wanted to punish Lisbon – who wasn't even the one to blame. And besides, strangely, he couldn't imagine himself still working with the CBI if Lisbon wasn't there anymore. Which was stupid, since the reason he worked there was so that he could be on the Red John case. Would he really quit in the remote possibility of Hightower not accepting his conditions? He didn't know the answer to that question.

On the day he was supposed to go back to work, he went straight to the floor where Hightower's office was, but she wasn't there. He went down into the bullpen to ask the team where she was, and found angry faces, especially Van Pelt, who wouldn't even look at him. Cho kept shaking his head, and Rigsby was the only one who answered his question, saying the boss was traveling. How convenient! When he looked in the direction of Lisbon's office, though, everything else escaped his mind. There was movement in there. He turned to Rigsby again.

"Who's that?"

Rigsby didn't answer; he only looked at him with a sad expression.

"New boss," said Cho, hitting Jane's arm with his own as he passed him by.

Jane couldn't believe it. A substitute for Lisbon? Already? He started walking fast towards her office. He was shocked to find that her name had already been taken off the door, which had nothing written on it now. The man inside the office was laying out belongings on the desk, while Jane noticed Lisbon's stuff inside a box in a corner. That was so wrong. The man turned to face him, smiling.

"Patrick Jane, I presume?"

He didn't answer. The man approached him, offering his hand. "I'm Agent Howard Lindell."

Jane reluctantly shook the man's hand.

"What's going on here?" he asked.

Lindell seemed surprised. "I'm moving in."

Jane looked around and then shook his head. "No, you're not."

He just turned around and left. He couldn't let that happen. He tried to call Lisbon once again, and she didn't answer again. Well, he had to talk to her.