(A/N): Okay, this is very angsty, but I feel so angry on Lisbon's behalf that I simply had to write! I think everyone on Instagram is sick of my ranting so I decided to put it into something useful and procrastinate where my university coursework is concerned, haha. If anyone is interested, my Instagram is mentalista_jisbon

So, there will probably be a happier second chapter where they are so happy everyone will probably throw up from the fluff, but a warning that this is indeed full of angst. I figured Lisbon was due a good rant, and Jane has been so selfish in this last ep! Grr.

Let me know what you think, even if it's to tell me that the ending was utterly bad. I know I ended it horribly.

I do not own the mentalist. If I did, I would've throttled Jane by now for what he's doing to Lisbon. And I most certainly would not have killed Vega. I liked Vega.

See ya soon,

HeavenSkye x

Forever and Always.

Was I out of line?

Did I say something way too honest?

Made you run and hide

Like a scared little boy?

I looked into your eyes

Thought I knew you for a minute, now I'm not so sure.

Forever and Always, Taylor Swift.

Well, I've been afraid of changing

'Cause I've built my life around you

But time makes you bolder

Even children get older

And I'm getting older too

Landslide, Fleetwood Mac.

Teresa Lisbon sat curled up on the window sill, a steaming mug of coffee in her shaking hands, the dark liquid threatening to spill over the edge of the china with each tremble. Tears streamed freely down her face as she looked out into the night, the storm raging in the street, yet she heard none of it in her quiet house. It was quiet; too quiet. She wasn't even sure who she was crying for anymore. Was it for Michelle, a bright young star that had been gone too soon, well before her time? Was it for the guilt she saw so clearly in Cho's eyes, at leaving Vega to pursue the others, not being there to save her from being shot? Was it for Wylie's broken heart, and the thought that he should've been able to do something more? Was it for Abbott, who knew his leaving was the worst timing, who felt responsible for the young rookie's death too? Was it for Jane, who was using Michelle's untimely demise to bring forth his fears? Was it even for herself, the knowledge that she'd lost someone who felt like a sister or a daughter to her, even if she hadn't known her for that long? Was it the thought that Jane was leaving her again, and that she wasn't enough, was never enough?

She'd lost control of her thoughts a while back, the questions running through her mind on a seemingly endless loop, inevitably prompting more tears. Her makeup had been cried away a long time earlier, faint smudges the only evidence of its existence in the first place.

She slowly uncurled herself, her joints making popping noises as she stretched, stiff after spending so long in one position. She started to make her way to the kitchen, wanting to pour out the coffee that no longer looked appealing to her, when she stubbed her toe on something peeking out from beneath the sofa. Muttering curses to herself, she set the mug down on the coffee table and knelt down to retrieve the offending item. She almost dropped it when she found out what she'd stubbed her toe on.

Her box. The box she'd so treasured whist Jane had been on the run, full of smuggled letters he'd sent her through Sam and Pete, along with the origami frog he'd given her the first case Van Pelt had worked with them, and the origami swan he'd given her the first case they'd worked together after they'd become a couple. At one time it had also housed the shattered remains of the turquoise tea cup she knew he'd loved for years. Willing the tears to stop, she reluctantly opened the lid of the box, fresh tears welling in her eyes as she did. The last time she'd been in the box, she hadn't had time to refold the last letter she'd gotten from him, and it lay open on top of the others. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the one of the last sentences.

You being absent is the one thing that makes this new chapter strange and sad.

Had it all been a lie, she wondered silently. He'd wrote so many beautiful words to her, describing such a beautiful place and telling her how much he missed her, ending over a hundred letters the same way. Miss you. Kim had told her all about the night they'd gone dancing and how he'd taken off his ring that night, and Lisbon had worked out the time difference and the time it would've taken the letter to get to her, and had found out that whilst she'd been curled up on her couch, alone, reading his letter, he'd been out dancing and having a good time with Kim, with no wedding ring. He could take off his wedding ring for a woman he'd only just met, but he'd never once taken it off for her. What did that say about her? Even Kim was more worthy than her, and she was in the Phoenix Field Office now. Lisbon dropped the box as though she'd been burned, finding herself numb as the paper fell out of the box and spread out on the floor. He'd made so many promises to her, so many lies. It was getting hard to know which was which anymore.

He'd promised to always save her. Where was he when she was being thrown to the wolves? Oh yeah, off killing Red John and then fleeing to his little island getaway. He'd promised not to manipulate her life. He then started pulling her out of operations and going in himself when he realised she still intended on doing her job. He'd promised never to leave her again. He'd issued her with an ultimatum. If she didn't give up her job, the only thing she'd had for over half her life, he'd leave her. He'd probably already left.

More tears escaped. His words in the cemetery had been her worst fears made real. She'd always been terrified that she wouldn't be enough for him, that she was too damaged to be loved, and that he'd finally come to his senses and leave her all alone again. And he had.

Bizarrely enough, it had seemed, to her at least, that when she had finally laid her heart on the line, said those three scary words back, "I love you", He had started distancing himself, shutting a small part of him off, and becoming more and more controlling where her job was concerned.

She'd left Greg when his plans for them had started becoming too much, too much like being smothered. She'd been raising her brothers, and really wasn't ready to go from being responsible pseudo mom to responsible wife in the two months that Greg had planned for. So she'd ran, leaving the ring along with a note on the bedside table, explaining that she couldn't do it. Greg hadn't even come close to wrapping her in cotton wool and making demands of her, knowing she wouldn't react well to them.

And yet, Jane, the man who was supposed to know her better than she did, was issuing demands, without giving her anything in return. He was asking her to make monumental changes on blind faith, when she wasn't so sure that that particular faith existed anymore. She needed more.

She jumped when the front door opened and none other than Patrick Jane walked through, putting his key back in his pocket as he quietly closed the door behind him. Stubbornly, she remained silent, knowing he couldn't see her knelt at the other side of the couch, but he could see the upset contents of the box she'd pulled out earlier.

"Lisbon?" He called out, causing Lisbon to scowl a little. Even after months of dating, he still referred to her by her last name. Well, she did too, but that was because she'd never actually used his first name before they'd started dating. He'd called her Teresa a few times before the case at the Blue Bird Lodge, but now he didn't, and she knew it was another way for him to distance himself. She hated it.

"Lisbon?" He called again, moving through the living room cautiously, spotting her back by the edge of the couch. He breathed out a sigh of relief. He'd tried calling her, but her phone had been switched off. He'd thought she'd done it deliberately, but remembered that she'd told him her phone was on the verge of dying when they'd been on the way to Michelle's funeral. Still, he'd been worried, so he'd gone to look for her.

Lisbon looked up, knowing her eyes were ice cold as she locked gazes with Jane, who looked worried. She almost scoffed. Worried, yeah, right. It was probably another illusion, another lie. Just one more in with a whole bunch of them.

"Are you alright?" He asked, moving to help her stand. Lisbon shot him an icy glare, moving away from him and standing up of her own volition. She would never give him the satisfaction of knowing the struggle it took her to stand without her wobbling legs giving out on her.

"Fine. What do you want? I thought you'd be halfway to Mexico by now." She moved around him, picking up her mug and moving on her original course towards the kitchen. She knew she was being petty and childish, and everything else too, but she didn't care. He got to act like this whenever he pleased, so why couldn't she?

"Teresa, please. It's not like that." Jane moved to stand in front of her, but forgot about her cop instincts as she skilfully avoided him and walked into the kitchen, pouring away her cool coffee. It didn't even look as though she'd drank any of it.

"Really? I'm fairly certain you told me that you were leaving. Thanks for the heads up this time though." She responded sarcastically as she rinsed out the mug in order to use it again in the morning before she went into work, setting it down on the draining board. Strong hands gripped her upper arms, spinning her round to face him. His face betrayed fear, pain and guilt, along with the worry she'd seen earlier. He stroked her cheek gently.

"Oh, sweetheart, you really believed that, didn't you?" He asked rhetorically, seeing the answer immediately in her eyes. "Oh, you did. Oh god, no, Lisbon, I wouldn't do that to you."

Lisbon scoffed then, pushing his hands off her arms. "Don't touch me." She whispered, moving back a little.

"Why? You're not- I would never hurt you, sweetheart." Jane tried to come closer but she held up a hand to stop him.

"Please, there would be no way you could physically hurt me without me castrating you for it." Lisbon snorted, the image of her being angry enough to do such a thing and Jane's expression serving to amuse her a little. "That doesn't mean you haven't hurt me, Jane."

"What?"

"You are so selfish!" She burst out suddenly, turning to face him, hands on her hips as she stared at him, daring him to protest. "It's all about you! Your pain! Your grief! Your fear! We've all experienced loss, even me, but why is your side of things the only side that gets to matter?"

"You have never gone through what I have. And I hope you never will." He responded darkly. "I can't see you get hurt, can't you understand that?"

"You say you love me." Lisbon replied sadly, all anger gone for the moment. "You've said it just before you shot me too. So, I think its safe to assume you fell in love with me back then."

"I did, I do." He insisted.

"Right." Lisbon looked doubtful. "And you've said before that you fell in love with me for who I was, exactly as I am."

"That's true."

"Right. So why are you trying to take away the part of my life that has defined who I am for over half my life?" She asked calmly, well, as calmly as she could when she was still furious with him. "All I can come up with is that maybe you loved the idea of me, without thinking of the practicalities of actually loving me. I won't change my job, Jane, I can't change who I am. All I had before you was my job, and it's all I'll have after you're gone. I'm not giving it up only to end up with nothing at all."

"You wouldn't have nothing, Lisbon, you'd have me!"

"For how long, Jane? Until you find something else you don't want me doing, or you find someone who has never had a dangerous job and can be everything you want?" Lisbon sighed. "Fine, say I do give up my job for a supposed life with you. What will I do then?"

"We're going with what feels right, remember?"

"My job feels right. But you're going to take that away from me. Are there any other demands you want to issue whilst you're at it? Don't drive anywhere, 'cause I could be in a crash? Don't walk anywhere, 'cause I could get run over or hit by a bus? Don't cook 'cause I could accidentally burn myself?"

"Now you're being ridiculous, Lisbon. I promise I'd never ask you to do any of that."

"You've made a lot of promises, Jane. You promised not to manipulate me. Yet you did."

"To keep you safe!"

"No, to cater to your fear, Jane. That's all you're doing. You're letting the fear win. That's not living! You need to move past that fear, or pretty soon you may as well find me a padded room to go along with the figurative one you've already put me in. I can't live like that."

"Are you… Are you leaving me?"

"Can you hear yourself? Hours ago, you strait out told me you were leaving, but the possibility of me doing the same has you terrified?"

"I…"

"You should go, Jane. This is getting us nowhere." Lisbon dropped her gaze to the floor. "I get that you want to let your life be ruled by fear, but leave me out of it."

"Teresa, please, I love you."

"Maybe. I'm not so sure. I told you I loved you, and you started to shut me out. I had enough of that when I was your boss."

"Not maybe, please, I really do. I thought you understood."

"That you will always love Angela and Charlotte? I do, I really do. I'd never ask you not to. But why must I make all the concessions when you don't even make one?"

"I said we'd work it out."

"Yes, you did. But then you issued me an ultimatum, the job or you. That's not working it out. That's making a decision and getting me to go along with it one way or the other. What about compromise?"

"I could compromise. Maybe you could get a job without field work."

"What, no field work whatsoever?"

"Yeah, then you'd still work for the FBI, and I'd know you were safe."

"Sure." She nodded. "But only if you do too."

"What?"

"You heard. What's good for the goose is also good for the gander. I hate the thought of you being hurt too, so if I find myself an office job with no field work, so do you."

"That's unfair."

"Is it?" Lisbon shook her head. "Do you even hear yourself?"

"Look, I'm not the one with a dangerous job here!"

"We have the same job! We BOTH work for the FBI!"

"It's not the same." Jane insisted. Lisbon shook her head sadly, a tear falling from her eye.

"I loved Bosco, y'know? Like I love you, but not as strong. Never as strong. I watched him die. Rebecca might have killed him, but as far as I was concerned, it was on Red John's orders so it was his fault. I knew he was in danger every day, as he knew I was, but we would have never dreamed of asking the other to quit."

"That was different. Nothing went on between the two of you."

Lisbon smiled wryly. "That's what you think, Jane. We never actually slept together, but we came pretty damn close a few times. He was going to leave Mandy and the kids for me. I didn't want that, so I left, moved to Sacramento, to the CBI."

Jane's mouth dropped open in shock as Lisbon wiped at her teary eyes. "Lisbon, I-"

"Jane, I hate you being in danger, but I know I'd rather lose sleep waiting for the inevitable call than ask you to stop doing what you love. You love this job we have and you know it. But, I don't think you're cut out to be a cop's wife, Jane. If you were, you never would've asked me to choose."

"I don't want to lose you."

"There's more than one way to lose me Jane. You're only thinking of the physical way."

Jane stared open mouthed at her as she wrapped her arms around her midsection protectively. He'd been so caught up in himself and his fears that he had failed to notice the light in his girlfriend slowly fading with each new worry and demand he heaped on her for his own peace of mind. She'd been in many worse situations after all. At one point she had had a bomb strapped to her chest, for crying out loud. And he couldn't forget the doubt that had crept into her face when he'd said that he loved her. Seeing that was worse than any other expression she'd given him lately. As he had distanced himself to try and minimise the hurt, she'd started to believe that he didn't really love her, and god only knew what else. Not knowing what to say, he moved into the living room and began to pick up the stray pieces of paper, surprised when he saw that they were the letters he had wrote to her when he'd been a fugitive.

He felt her walk in just as he picked up the last one he ever wrote to her. "I really wanted you to see those dolphins." He commented quietly. He heard Lisbon sigh behind him.

"I wanted to see them too, but if I had gone, I think it would've interrupted your time with Kim." She wasn't jealous of Kim, but she was jealous that he'd taken off his ring for her. Jane looked up at her.

"I would've spent all my time with you, Teresa."

"Easy to say in hindsight Jane. Hindsight really is wonderful. When I look back at that, I can only think of one thing."

"What's that?"

"Whilst I was alone, reading that and missing you, you were dancing with Kim, sans ring."

Jane's face showed horror, though it seemed he was more horrified that she'd found out about that than anything else. "You, you knew?"

"Kim told me, figured I should know that you are actually capable of taking it off." She shrugged. "Guess it just shows it, eh?"

"Shows what?"

"How much I mean."

"I'm not ready yet, Teresa. Give me more time." He deflected. Lisbon nodded as a tear slid down her cheek.

"That's what I thought." She whispered. "I have to give up everything for you, but you won't give anything in return."

"Look, I-"

"Why don't you just take a few days to think about it?" She interrupted in a small voice. "Whether we stay together or not is down to you. You wanted control. You've got it."

TBC…?