Fire, Blood and Debris
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything related to The Mentalist or I See Fire.
WARNING: If you're not into dark literature in general or have a problem with portrayal of violence or character death, DO NOT READ. Thank you.
*A/N* The title and the lyrics at the end are taken from "I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran.
I don't really know how I ended up writing this. Anyways, it's done and I hope you'll enjoy it. A huge thanks goes to LetMeWalkTheEarthWithYou who gave this a read beforehand!
You'll find another alternative ending to the Mentalist in my story "Three Bullets, Three Victims" on my profile.
It all came to an end just like she had always thought it would, except for the sky. In her nightmares, heavy clouds had been suffocating the moonlight, making the flames that were devouring the building the only light in the dark.
A ghostly silence filled the night air, disrupted only by the cracking and whooshing of the fire.
On the wallpapers that were slowly smouldering off the walls, blood was splattered like black ink. A handful of bodies lay in the corridors, mindlessly cast aside like a broken toy, their guns beside them, just out of their fingers' reach.
While the floorboards and the furniture were already ablaze and the window panes long shattered, the old couch in the corner was putting up a fight. Its surface was badly singed, the flames had tainted the battered leather pitch black, but the fire had not conquered it just yet.
On one of the desks, within the inferno of orange flames and golden-shimmering shards of glass and black smoke, stood a turquoise teacup and saucer. Its ridiculously cheerful colour seemed almost insulting and it looked so misplaced and fragile, but it made its stand, resolutely facing the heat.
Down on the ground floor near the exit, where the fire had not spread as far, lay a man in a sea of shattered glass.
If it hadn't been for the dark marks forming around his neck, he could have been asleep.
And Teresa just stood there on the parking lot, the dancing flames tinging her eyes a glowing red. Her hair, raven black in the dark, blew into her face, but she couldn't bring herself to move. She just stared at the unmoving form on the floor, her white hands clutching the hem of her thin jacket.
"You killed him," she breathed. Of course, she'd known, deep down. But that didn't mean that she accepted it.
"I told you I would," he replied, his voice perfectly calm. "We both knew it would end this way, Teresa."
She knew that she shouldn't care, that she was in this way too deep herself to judge. And God, she wanted to be this cold, too, she wanted to forget forget FORGET.
It was her fault just as much as it was his. There was blood on her hands, there had been since that day when she had started to wish he would come to find her.
It had all happened so quickly.
She had broken so easily in his hands. And she'd been so ready to be pieced back together. So ready to do whatever he wanted her to, so happy to give him all she had.
She had been his the moment he'd set eyes on her, as he liked to remind her in a threatening, ice-cold whisper. She was his, no matter what. His creation, his possession, his tool.
Saint Teresa. It sounded like an evil joke now.
"Come," he said quietly, put his arm tightly around her waist and led her away. She craned her neck to look back at the sunken form in the entrance, her green eyes stinging with tears.
.
It seemed that, for the men in her life, Teresa had never been anything else but a pawn in their plays. A pawn made of glass and porcelain, adorned with onyx and rubies, but a pawn nevertheless.
She had led him by the hand to his death, blindly believing that he would not be killed.
Somehow, she had managed to convince herself that she had tamed the monster. Somehow, she had convinced herself that he loved her.
And somehow, she had convinced herself that she loved him, too.
And her heart? That bruised, foolish, bleeding little thing that still belonged to a man with a dazzling smile and eyes as blue as the sky in June, a man with golden hair and a broken heart?
It wouldn't be silent, not even now, when the flames had finally closed in on him, too. Not even as the gold of his hair melted in the heat, as his teacup finally burst and the old couch turned to ashes.
She had always been a pawn.
But tonight, a small voice in her head whispered, tonight, you could be the queen.
Yes, tonight she could stop being Snow White, running from the Hunter, only to be overtaken time and time again, to be beaten and cut open and kissed.
She could be the queen.
.
She stopped, her eyes firmly closed. If she resisted, it would cost her life, that was the unspoken rule between them. No matter what she did, she would never be fast enough to come out of it alive.
And of course, he'd taken her gun.
So she spun around, the sudden disgust roaring in her chest giving her strength. He was too surprised to resist when she broke free from his grip and stumbled back towards the burning building, almost breaking her legs in those silly heels he'd bought her.
Teresa didn't have a plan and she surely had not expected him to come after her, the only thing on her mind was the gun that still had to be lying next to Jane.
The heat was unbearable even before she reached the door, but she ran on, fearing the guilt would consume her entirely if she stopped now. Inside the room, there was no air, just blazing light and smoke that stung in her eyes and her lungs and heat scorching her skin and the infernal noise of the flames. Her feet were burned and she gasped in pain, inhaling even more smoke, but she didn't stop until she was beside him.
She fell to her knees next to Patrick, numbly running her fingertips over his face that was treacherously warm. She knew he was dead, but he didn't feel like he was.
"I'm sorry," she breathed, coughing and half-choking on her words and the smoke.
Her fingers found the gun and clutched the white-hot metal, teeth clenched as it burned her palm, and she turned around, finding her master standing only a few feet away.
"Come with me, love," he ordered, his voice barely audible over the noise.
It was her last chance, she realised numbly. She had but seconds before the fire would have caged her for good.
She fired.
And fired.
She emptied the entire magazine in his chest, tears dripping from her eyes and vaporising in the heat.
And then, when he dropped to the floor, from somewhere above her came a tormented groan and a muffled roar announcing the fall of the CBI building. Teresa dropped back on her knees and clutched Patrick's hand, wishing she'd saved a bullet for herself.
While burning debris fell around her like shooting stars, she wondered whether she would be granted absolution.
.
.
If this is to end in fire
Then we shall all burn together
Watch the flames climb high into the night
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