Hello Darkness
Summary: Jane very much does not like what he sees. Season 5 drabble- Jane, Lisbon.
Warning: Drabble.
Set: Spoilers up to S05Ep11.
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
A/N: Sept 2013. Part of a massive upload session. All the fics posted this month were started sometime this year and only finished recently. Don't expect me to do this often. :) But – hey, it should continue soon, shouldn't it? I'm looking forward to the next season!
Nowadays, there is a ghost living in Lisbon's office.
It used to be only her, and him, perhaps, sometimes. Jane likes to think that every room takes on the personality of the one who uses it most. Teresa Lisbon's office is small and orderly, almost clinically so, and still it has a certain aura. The latter makes it seem homely and safe, a piece of stability in a fast-running world, and as long as the small woman is behind her desk and buried in paperwork the world is fine. Patrick spends a lot of time in her office, as well, sleeping on the couch and playing chess and just generally annoying Lisbon. But he cannot say whether he, too, has left an imprint of his own character on her office. On her, perhaps? Open questions, open questions. He hates those.
The ghost is not one of the friendly sort. It wears a handsome face and a charming smile like Lisbon wears her gun. It reeks of corruption and secrecy. Of murder, too, but it is slick like an eel and poisonous like tree frogs. One touch and you're on your way to the other side. Lisbon never says anything but Tommy Volker's ghost clings to her like a bad aftertaste. Patrick can see him in her eyes, almost feel him in the way she stiffens at his name, the way her fists clench when she sees the victim's photographs. It is then that he wants to tell her it is not her fault, and that she cannot become attached to the man that clearly is a murderer but who hides behind layers of charm, money, justice and public attention. But he knows her long enough to know it is of no use, that trying to steer her off course only causes her to cling to the trail harder and harder. Plus, he is barely the one to tell her not to embark on her own, personal vendetta. Patrick might be far gone but he knows what self-righteousness means. He also knows Lisbon long enough to know she does not care for her own safety, that she just wants justice for a journalist and a personal assistant and all the others. It is so much more for her, the concept of justice she serves, whereas he just sees it as a means to convict Red John. Not even that, actually. He just has to use it to get close enough to kill the murderer of his family himself. But this is about Lisbon, not about him.
Patrick swallows everything he could say and asks her to be careful. The look in her eyes tells her she is close to tears – whether angry or sad, he does not want to know – but she is so determined, so strong. So much the Teresa Lisbon he knows so well. She is still the same, this is yet another facet of her amazingly intricate character, and yet he very much does not like what he sees.
For the first time he wonders whether this is what Teresa sees when she looks at him.