With a Thousand Memories
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to their rightful owners, this text was written merely for the purpose of entertainment.
*A/N* Well, since Advent is here and Christmas just another four weeks away (yay, watching "Love actually" is justified again!), this is my little present for my Mentalist-readers. Mainly for LetMeWalkTheEarthWithYou. (I borrowed your paper frog-theme (that I love to bits and pieces) for this one).
The title was taken from the song "Driving Home for Christmas", I thought that would be a laugh. Pretty lame, I know.
Again, sorry, I know my word choice is, if anything, mostly British, I can't write in American and I won't try.
Enjoy and happy first Advent to you all!
On the lawn in front of her house, amidst the snow that had fallen the previous night just in time for Christmas Eve, sat a frog. Not a real frog, obviously. A paper frog, made from one of these terrible Christmas-themed sheets of paper, crimson with golden snowflakes.
Said frog was the reason Sheriff Lisbon was already over ninety minutes late for work. She had stumbled right back through her front door the moment she'd spotted it and then spent most of the next hour sitting on her living room floor. A few times she had succeeded to convince herself she'd imagined the little red menace and attempted to leave the house once more, but every time she opened the door, the frog was still there and her feet carried her back to her living room out of its reach.
It was childish, she knew that. She also knew that Jane was not the only person in the world who could fold a frog. Maybe it was some sort of joke, or maybe some kid had left it in her garden. Maybe it was just someone's way of saying "Merry Christmas".
Patrick Jane had disappeared to God knew where, taking her gun and her heart with him, and a bloody frog on her lawn didn't mean he'd come back. And why would he? He had been gone for two years now, not a call, not a single letter. Not a word.
He had forgotten all about her while she was sitting in her house having a complete freak-out about a goddamned bit of paper. It was pathetic.
Swearing loudly, she jumped to her feet and stomped outside, picking up the frog about as carefully as one might pick up a bomb, and dropped it on her kitchen counter when she found she just couldn't throw it away. Then she deliberately turned her back on the little thing, grabbed her keys and left without another look at it.
Sadly, that didn't keep it from haunting her all day.
~o~o~o~
The frog seemed to be staring at her while she cooked up one of her infamously disgusting dinners. She could practically feel its eyes following her around (which was even more embarrassing given the fact that the wretched thing didn't even have eyes). She tried her best to ignore the prickling feeling in her neck, wolfing down her horrible pasta dish like her life depended on it, but caved in less than an hour later, angrily deciding to stuff it into the box she kept in the lowest drawer of her bedside table, hidden underneath some clothes she never wore. It was one of these smallish gift boxes, covered in a light blue silk. To a stranger, this box would contain nothing but rubbish.
Another paper frog, a little bigger than the other, made from a simple white sheet of paper. It had grown battered and faded over time.
A photograph, some ten years old, that was looking just as bad. Five people smiling at the camera, three men, two women.
These two objects buried underneath pieces of turquoise china, the edges where the cup had broken apart still sharp.
Her anger suddenly dying away, she placed the red frog gently next to his twin. For a moment - just a tiny little moment - she allowed herself to contemplate the photograph and touch the fragments, remembering times when the cup had still been whole and its owner still driving her crazy, lying on that battered old leather couch with that gorgeous, dazzling smile on his lips.
Then she tenderly shut the lid and put the box away, forcing all those feelings back into that other box, the one she had created in her head for the safekeeping of her precious, poisonous memories, while she closed the drawer.
Deep down she knew that storing those memories away, those memories that were such a big part of her, was basically crippling her. But she also knew that she was doing a very good job pretending she was healing.
~o~o~o~
The mysterious appearance of the frog still lingered somewhere in the back of her head and kept her from sleeping.
In the end, she was still working out how it was possible to breathe without thinking about Jane. It seemed impossible.
And maybe the frog had just been there to show her how fixed she really was on him, even now, after all these years.
All this time.
You can't not think of me, Patrick. It's not actually possible. I have to be on your mind, because you're on mine, you know?
Always.
She kept telling everyone that she was trying hard to move on, that she was moving away from him, that Teresa Lisbon would stop running after someone who was far too lost himself to find her. That she was finally going to be herself. That she was going to live.
But the truth was, she didn't want to, not really. She didn't want to let him go. She couldn't let him go, because she needed him, because she only knew who she was when she could say she was his friend, his boss, his whatever, because she was scared that if she did let him go, there wouldn't be anything left of her at all.
So she kept on lying.
And kept on waiting.
~o~o~o~
She was alone on Christmas Day, and happy about it. She would just ruin everyone's good mood anyway and she couldn't stand the cheerfulness of this day.
Maybe she was just a little bit jealous because Christmas had never made her feel like that. Not even now, with fresh snow falling outside her window and the Christmas tree in her house that she'd put up because everyone in this goddamned small town would have known if she hadn't bought one.
The ring of her doorbell made her flinch. For a moment she entertained the thought of ignoring it.
Probably it was Van Pelt, having decided she couldn't be left alone because it was Christmas.
But she got up anyway, walking towards the door as slowly as possible, half-hoping whoever it was would have left again by the time she reached the door.
"Hello Teresa."
A couple of snowflakes blew into her face and melted on her skin, but she didn't even notice.
She was going mad, she had finally lost it, it was the only explanation.
Because it couldn't be, could it, he couldn't be standing there outside her door with snow on his shoulders and white flakes clinging to his curls.
Tears blurred her vision. She had tried so hard to keep sane, and the disappointment tasted all too bitter. She'd worked so hard to keep it together, and a stupid frog was all it needed to shatter her? How damn weak did that make her?
She couldn't tell how long they were standing there in the freezing evening air, the snow on his jacket glittering. It was a very long time, anyway, until the truth finally, finally hit her.
He couldn't be her imagination, because she knew how those looked like. Jane in his grey three-piece, clean shaven and with a proper haircut, usually even with that goddamned teacup in his hand.
Not like this, not like someone fresh off a plane, tired and windswept, in a thin, battered jacket , worn jeans and a pair of dusty trainers.
She wasn't going mad at all.
"Jane?"
He smiled, a shy, diminished version of that bright beaming grin he'd usually sported. Probably scared she'd beat him to a pulp the moment she'd come to her senses.
She didn't, though. Instead, she crossed those last few inches between them and pulled him close, inhaling the smell of that horrid jacket and feeling the snow melting on her bare arms.
Probably sobbing, but didn't she have the right to cry? Just this once?
At some point he seemed to realize she wasn't planning on letting him go any time soon, gently picked her up and carried her back into the warm house. Softly putting her down on her couch, not letting go for a second.
The fairy lights were glistening between the branches of the Christmas tree and the snow kept on falling outside her window when she finally managed to stop crying and he pushed the hair out of her face, wiping the tears away slowly, an almost reverent expressions in his eyes.
Whispering in her ear and pulling her close, finally kissing her. Twelve bloody years she had waited for that kiss, but that was forgotten for now.
"Merry Christmas, Teresa."
Please take a moment to review.
*A/N* I know, looooots of sticky sweet icing on the cake, but well, that's me trying to write up the equivalent of a fluffy teddy bear. (I'm quite pleased with the first part, though.) And if this was anything other than a Christmas story, believe me, she'd beat him black and blue first of all.