Hello again, this story is to blow off some steam concerning Year 12, I haven't written for a hell of a long time and this is the result of that. Will probably be four chapters, at most.

Please read and review!

If I owned the Mentalist, why would I be here?

'It is.'

'It isn't.'

'It is.'

'It isn't.'

The crunch of the Citroen on thick gravel was a welcomed distraction. As Jane gently brought the car to a stop, Lisbon hissed in frustration, her temples throbbing from a headache only ten minutes old. The drive had taken fifteen, so there was no question as to its cause. On cue, Jane turned to her, unbuckling his seatbelt with a smirk she didn't like.

'It is,' he mouthed. Lisbon groaned.

'For God's sake, Jane.'

She couldn't even remember what they'd been arguing about; something about a bucket struck a familiar chord but she really didn't care enough to delve any further into it. The beginnings of a sunset swirled to meet her as the car door swung open, a light smudging of orange across the sky that suggested something spectacular to come. She wished for it to be here now, to soothe the throbbing in her head and provide at least a nice backdrop for what would probably be a tedious case. They were in an alleyway, of all places, and Jane did not miss the opportunity to point out the cliché. She strung together some sort of response as they strode toward the small crowd of police officers, gathered around what she assumed was the body. The promise of a night of TV and ice-cream called to her softly like some sort of distant dream. In her head, she groaned again.

On reflection, Lisbon supposed that the first sign of something wrong was present in Van Pelt. The redhead walked over almost reluctantly, her eyes glued to the small notebook in her hands.

'Body was found half an hour ago,' she informed, before Lisbon had a chance to open her mouth. 'Medical examiner thinks it's been here at least twelve hours.' Van Pelt's eyes flickered to Lisbon for a moment before resting on Jane. 'Cause of death looks to be blunt force trauma to the head. Rigsby's got the couple who found the body. They're pretty shaken up.'

'Victim's name?' Lisbon asked. Van Pelt chose to meet her gaze then, opening her mouth to reply but then deciding against it. Instead, she looked at Jane again, something in her eyes that would have, on any other day, been directed toward a family member or friend of the victim. Sympathy. Lisbon glanced across to Jane, to see an expression she hadn't seen him wear before. And she would have stopped to contemplate, had her headache not grown quite so irritating.

'I'll find out myself,' she muttered, pushing past the both of them.

The second sign was the fact that Hightower had turned up. Unlike Van Pelt, she did not hesitate to meet Lisbon's gaze, stepping forward with a question on her lips.

'Just what do you think you are doing?'

Lisbon faltered, confusion fluttering in her stomach. 'About to survey the body, Ma'am,' she eventually replied. Hightower took a deep breath.

'Agent Cho will be the lead agent on this case, Teresa,' she told her. The use of Lisbon's first name threw whatever reply she'd prepared straight out of her head, and slight confusion gave way to a wary suspicion.

'What's going on?' she asked, and Hightower's pursed-lipped silence confirmed what she'd unconsciously been putting together. Something was wrong. Not just the usual wrong associated with a crime scene; a particularly gruesome corpse, a dangerous family member, a threatening note. No, this was worse, somehow, and the thought unsettled her. Jane appeared to her left and she could feel his gaze scorching her, causing an anger to burn just under her skin. He knew something she didn't, and the thought made her sick.

Her eyes flickered around the scene, taking in the high grey concrete of the surrounding buildings, the gravel under her feet, the familiar smell of death in her nostrils. She began to move, her feet shifting of their own accord in a gravitation toward the stench. Her hands fumbled for her badge; the officers let her pass.

The third sign was the body.

The man lay on his back, his face turned towards her, his dark hair glistening red in the dull light. His arms were covered by a parka, reaching out to her as if they were about to embrace. His eyes were open, their piercing green gazing directly at her. They were her eyes, she'd always been told. Lisbon wanted to scream, wanted to throw up, cry, do anything other than simply fade into observation with the scenery bleeding to white around them. But she could only stare.

And Tommy just stared back, the dried blood framing his face.

Jane watched her features change, willing himself to look away and hating that he couldn't. Her eyes had fallen on the body of her youngest brother, and that was it. She no longer existed. Her eyes wide, her lips parted, looking for all the world like she'd been hypnotised and he guessed that she had been, in a sense. A voice in his head told him to just get her away, and for once he decided to listen to it. In the silence, his footsteps were an earthquake. Lisbon didn't acknowledge his hand on her shoulder, nor did she resist when he turned her away from the body.

'Jane,' he heard from Hightower. Her face was soft. 'Take her home. Don't let her come back until the case is closed.'

'Sure,' he heard himself say.

Slowly, carefully, he led Lisbon past Grace, past Rigsby and Cho, past the local police officers who barely glanced up from their paperwork. She was silent as they approached his car, eyes down as she fumbled with her seatbelt. Lisbon jumped at the sound of the engine, white as a ghost, and as the car pulled out onto the road Jane realised that, for the first time in years, he was lost for words. He should have had many. His own shadows and regrets should have, if anything, prepared him for this. But then he looked at her, saw her in a way he'd never seen her, even during the McTeir case, and forgot himself.

After a while, when the silence became too intense, Jane pulled into a parking lot and switched off the engine. Lisbon seemed unaware of the new stillness, her face blank when he glanced over.

'You okay?' he asked, and instantly cringed. Of course she wasn't. It took her a very long time to answer.

'No,' she said, very quietly, and Jane assumed that her dazed state would allow her only a word but then she turned her head to him. 'I guess I should be crying, or something, huh.' He wasn't used to her voice shaking.

'No, not really.' Unedited words came to Jane's mouth and he forced them out. 'When my wife and daughter were killed, I didn't cry for two days.'

'You're kidding,' she breathed and he shook his head.

'It was a tricycle, of all things. Left at the bottom of the stairs.' Jane felt the pressing of grief on his back, but pushed it away. His own pain was irrelevant to the matter, he told himself, as Lisbon broke his gaze to stare at the dashboard. Her eyes were as dry as he'd ever seen them. She wasn't an emotional person, he'd learnt that years ago, but no-one was immune to this kind of pain and he felt like the waiting had begun. He could sense it, perhaps days away, perhaps minutes, but it was coming.

Eventually, he eased the engine back into life and they blended into a thick lane of traffic. There were no more words but the silence was less imposing, a silence that held on until Jane drove straight past the CBI.

'What are you doing?'

'Taking you home,' he told her.

'No, no..' she trailed off, then found herself again. 'I can't go home, I can't.' She'd raised her voice and desperation began to leak from every syllable. 'Jane, turn the car around.'

'Look at you,' he gestured. 'You're a mess, Lisbon. You need to go home.'

'What I need is to go to work. I need to catch a killer.' The vein in her neck throbbed. 'I can't just do nothing.'

He very nearly turned the car around. So close to being on her side, because he'd seen it from her side. He was no stranger to the pain, the helplessness, the anger. He understood her need for revenge to be taken, and for just one moment his foot touched the brake. But then the picture of her, frenzied and armed, seeped into his head; violent justice in her heart, blood in her hair, madness in her eyes. No matter how much she would argue, how much she would hate him for it, he couldn't let her turn into him.

'I'm sorry, Lisbon,' he told her. But she'd begun muttering to herself.

'No, I'm not going home…I'm not…' Jane thought that might have been it, but without warning she then reached out and attempted to take the steering wheel from him. The car lurched to the right.

'What the hell are you doing?' Jane tried to wrench her arm away, but driving in a straight line had suddenly occupied all of his concentration. Lisbon had lost her mind, it was the only conclusion he could make. There was a wall of traffic on either side of the Citroen. Was she trying to kill them both?

'Jane, I need…there are suspects, there are…brake, god dammit!' The car had begun to swerve from side to side, resulting in a chorus of angry horns from every direction.

'Lisbon,' he shouted, 'Lisbon..' she wasn't listening to him. He risked a glance at her face, and didn't have the nerve to define what he found there. Sliding across the wheel, his fingers grasped her wrist and she finally looked at him.

'Teresa.'

She stopped then, their faces inches apart, and he wouldn't have been surprised if she saw fear in his eyes. Because what he saw in hers frightened him more than he would admit. It took Lisbon a second to recoil, and as Jane returned her wrist there was shock on her face. His foot must have found the brake because they were barely moving, and cars were overtaking them in frustration.

'I didn't…I wasn't…oh, God, sorry.'

For a moment or two, Jane let the car trundle along at 10 miles, ignoring the abuse from the drivers around him. He didn't hear their words or the incessant beeping of their horns; he only felt the immense grief from the passenger seat, kept inside in the most painful of ways. And, all of a sudden, he felt a sympathy he'd long ago assumed himself incapable of feeling. Thomas Lisbon. It was incomprehensible, that a single corpse in an alleyway could do such things as take a person from their life; not kill them, but keep them, just long enough for the pain to have its way. That a face could change a person as Tommy's had changed Lisbon. The defining feature in life, the same in death. Jane couldn't stand the thought of being defined.

'I'm going to take you home now, okay?' he voiced gently.

'Okay.'

In the near distance, the sunset had arrived, and it's colours shot through them both like a cruel joke.

Thanks for reading, please review! Next chapter will be up soon.

Jess :)