This was originally a oneshot but it was long so i've split it into two parts. This is my first attempt at fanfiction so i'd love to know what you think of it.


Grief.

An emotion that Lisbon is well acquainted with. By the time she had hit puberty she had already lost her mother and grief had become an unwelcome friend. Now over twenty years after the death of her mother Teresa Lisbon once again finds herself struggling for air as a tidal wave of grief threatens to suffocate her. The loss of Sam Bosco has hit her harder than she ever would have imagined, and she is ill prepared for the intensity with which the grief slams through her body. She feels like she's 12 years old again, sitting on a plastic chair in the hospital waiting room, watching her father crying on the doctor's shoulder and realising that her mother really is gone forever.

Lisbon struggles to drag herself back to present, to remember that she is a grown woman now and not the same terrified little girl. She opens her eyes and wipes the tears which are still running down her cheeks, taking some comfort in her familiar surroundings. She has sent her team home for the night but she remains in her office, sat on the floor with her back against the wall as she never made it to the chair before she collapsed.

She hears a noise coming from the bullpen and she freezes, listening hard and wondering if it was just her imagination as she could have sworn she was alone. The noise comes again, clearer this time. Footsteps. Lisbon unclips her gun from the holster silently and raises it to shoulder height, pointing it towards the doorway. There was a time when she felt safe in this building, but since Sam died she hasn't felt safe anywhere but least of all here. The blinds are drawn and the office is in darkness, the thought to turn the desk lamp on never crossed her mind before she broke down in tears.

The footsteps come closer until she sees the silhouette of a man in the doorway.

"Stop," She shouts, "Put your hands where I can see them."

"Whoa Lisbon, it's me," She hears the distinctive voice of Patrick Jane say hastily while doing as she said for once and raising his hands above his head.

"Jane?" She hisses, angry that he has once again managed to catch her off guard, "What are you doing here?"

"I was coming to ask you the same question; I was resting on my couch when I heard you in here," He responds. "I thought you had gone home already?"

Lisbon doesn't reply, not wanting to admit that she did in fact pretend to go home so that the rest of her team would leave. She had said goodbye, got in her car and than drove once round the block before heading back to her office.

"Can you put the gun away, please?" He says after a moment's silence, "You make me nervous when you point the thing at me."

Lisbon lowers the gun quickly, not realising that she had still been pointing it at him and he still has his hands in the air. She holsters it and he finally lowers his arms with a sigh. She can feel his eyes boring into her and she suddenly realises how pathetic she must look curled up on the floor. She stands up quickly, trying not to let him see that her legs are shaking and she can barely hold herself upright.

He makes his way over the desk and flips the switch on the lamp. The intensity of the light after sitting in the dark for so long makes Lisbon want to turn her head away and shut her eyes, but she doesn't, not wanting to show any more signs of weakness tonight. She watches him warily as he perches on the corner of her desk, resting in his hands in his lap and just staring at her.

"What are you doing here?" She asks again, after he has made it clear that he has no intention of leaving.

"Are you ok?" He asks, blatantly ignoring her previous question.

Lisbon frowns at him. He looks so calm sat on her desk in the middle of the night, he looks like he belongs there and she feels lost and like a visitor in her own office. She frowns even more when she notices the underlying look of pity on his face, pity that is directed at her. And she hates people pitying her.

"Lisbon?" He says quietly. "I know you're not ok, I can help you."

She knows his words are meant to soothe and calm her but they have the opposite effect. The arrogance he displays in assuming he knows what's wrong with her, and the assurance that he knows how to help her combined with his calm exterior, while she feels like she's falling apart inside, sparks a new emotion in her. It starts in her toes and spreads up though her body, it hardens her heart and dries her eyes, it pushes the grief aside and she welcomes this new emotion with open arms because it makes her feel powerful.

Anger.

Lisbon feels as though the anger is a physical presence inside of her, like a beast which has taken residence in her cells. She clenches her fists so tightly at her sides that her knuckles turn white, and she is fairly certain that her cheeks are flushing a deep red as she lets this beast take over her body and mind.

"What makes you think I need help?" She spits out furiously. "And better yet, even if I did need help, what makes you think that you would be the one to help me?"

He looks at her, a slightly stunned expression on his face. The beast laughs and revels in the fact that for once it appears that Patrick Jane is speechless.

"I...Lisbon? Are you ok?" He asks again, confusion evident in his tone. She smirks when she realises that she has caught him off guard, perhaps for the first time in their turbulent relationship he is completely unable to read her and that only makes Lisbon feel even more powerful.

"Stop asking me that! I don't want your help, you don't make things better; you only ever make them worse. You complicate things, you cause more problems than you solve..."

"Stop it, Lisbon," He interrupts her tirade. "Don't say that, I know you're angry but can we just..."

"You don't know anything," She snaps, interrupting his pleading. He looks at her like she has slapped him and even though some distant part of her realises that she is hurting him she can't stop.

"I do know," He says quietly. "I know exactly how you're feeling right now because I've been there, I know how it feels to lose someone to Red John, I know how helpless you feel right now, I know Lisbon. Let me help you."

His quiet tone and insistence that he can help her only fuels her anger more. She walks towards him slowly until she is standing just inches away from him.

"For the last time, I don't want or need your help." She whispers, so close that she can feel his breath hitting her face. "Maybe you're right, maybe you do know how it feels. After all you're the expert, how many deaths are you responsible for now? Your wife, your daughter...and what about Bosco? Why didn't you pick up on Rebecca? That's your job isn't it, that's why you work for me, because you can read people? So tell me, why the hell didn't you realise that she was working for Red John? Why didn't you..."

"STOP IT!" He shouts eventually. He lunges away from her, moving backwards until his back is pressed up against the wall, as far away from her as he can get. "You don't mean it," He whispers, and Lisbon thinks that he is talking more to himself than to her.

"I mean every word," She whispers, before turning to face him slowly.

The second she lays her eyes on him she feels like she has been doused in cold water. The feeling returns to her body and the anger dissipates as quickly as it came but she knows it's too late, the damage has already been done. She stares at him, or what's left of him anyway, she thinks she has managed to finish what Red John started and destroy him completely.

He stares back at her, his eyes haunted and face twisted in pain the likes of which she has never seen. Before she can make any moves to try and repair the destruction she has caused, he has turned and stumbled from her office like a drunken man.

"Wait," She whispers, unable to shout around the lump which has formed in her throat. She staggers after him, gripping the doorframe for support as her legs give way beneath her. She collapses on the ground, barely aware of the sobs wracking her body, knowing that she can't catch him, knowing that she just destroyed one of the most important people in her life.

The anger has receded completely and in its wake Lisbon is left hollow, until a new emotion presents itself, so intense that it causes shudders to pass through her body.

Guilt.

Lisbon is unsure how long she has been lying in the doorway, long enough that the arm she is resting on has gone completely dead and her back aches as she stretches out. She manages to stumble to her feet and for a moment she stands confused and disorientated, unsure where to go or what her next move should be.

The thought of going home briefly crosses her mind but the rational side of her brain knows that she is in no fit state to be driving. Instead, after a moments hesitation, she carefully makes her way over to his couch. She sinks into the worn leather, finding his jacket still wadded up into a ball which he had obviously been using for a pillow. She rests her head on the expensive material, comforted by the lingering smell of him, and drifts in out of nightmares, neither truly awake nor asleep.

The next time Lisbon becomes fully aware of her surroundings it is daylight and someone is shaking her shoulder gently.

"Boss?" Agent Grace Van Pelt says softly as she tries to shake the older agent awake.

Lisbon opens her eyes, knowing that they must be bloodshot and swollen from the amount of tears she cried. Her hair is sticking up in all directions, her clothes are rumpled from sleep and she has a pounding headache. She groans and raises a hand to her head.

"Boss, are you ok?" Van Pelt asks. The words cause Lisbon to visibly flinch as she recalls the previous evening when he had asked her the same question. She tries to nod her head but the action only intensifies her headache and causes her to groan again.

Van Pelt has never seen her boss in anything like this kind of state before and she is unsure what to do for the best. She wants to ask questions but bites her tongue, seeing that Lisbon is in no fit state to answer them. She realizes by his absence and the fact that Lisbon is curled up on his couch that this must have something to do with Jane, maybe they had a fight?

"Erm, boss? Do you want me to take you home?" She says eventually, unsure what else she can do to help.

"Yes, please," Lisbon manages to say after a couple of tries, her mouth is so dry she is surprised she can open it at all.

Van Pelt helps her to stand up and almost has to carry her out to the car, luckily it is still early and few people notice the two women, and of the few who do see no-one dares to ask any questions. The drive to Lisbon's apartment is done mostly in silence, with the senior agent only speaking to give directions when necessary. Once the car has pulled up outside her apartment Lisbon sighs before turning to face the younger agent.

She feels like doing nothing other than going to bed and wallowing in guilt, but she is aware that she needs to give some sort of explanation as to why she is not going to be at work.

"Can you, uh, tell the team that I'm not feeling well and I'm going to take the day off," Lisbon says eventually. "And...I don't think Jane is going to be working either," Her voice breaks slightly at the mention of his name and she knows she is close to tears again.

"That's ok, we'll manage," Van Pelt responds. She takes a deep breath before continuing. "Boss?" She says nervously, "Is Jane ok? I mean, should I try to check up on him?"

"I don't know if he's ok," Lisbon says after a long pause. "We had a fight, I said some things to him which I..." She pauses again and shakes her head to try and clear it. "Maybe you could try and call him for me, just to check he's ok. I'm not sure where he would go, I don't even know where he lives."

"I'll call him, don't worry, and I'll keep calling him until he answers." Van Pelt says reassuringly.

"Ok then, can you let me know when you've spoken to him?" Lisbon asks.

"Of course, I'll let you know as soon as I hear anything. Take care of yourself, and give me a ring if you need anything," Van Pelt adds as Lisbon gets out of the car slowly. She watches until her boss has made it safely into the building before pulling out her cell phone and dialling Jane's number. The phone doesn't ring once before going to voicemail, she leaves him a message asking him to call her before hanging up with a sigh. Van Pelt drives back to the office on autopilot, unable to get the image of her broken boss out of her mind. She crosses her fingers and prays to whoever may be listening that Jane has also managed to get home safely, and that whatever damage has been caused can be repaired, hopefully sooner rather than later.


Part 2 will follow within the next couple of days, it's already written I just need to tidy it up a bit. Rewiews would be greatly appreciated, and thanks for reading.