Notes: as I hope is evident, this is set during Red Sky in the Morning, between Red John leaving and 'two days later.' Recent developments aside, I like the idea of Lisbon as aromantic and she and Jane as queer platonic partners.
Warnings: canon-typical blood and death, Jane-typical unhealthy responses to trauma, brief swearing.
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It was like something out of a horror movie.
Teresa had been scared before – for her brothers, for her team, for herself, desperate panic and resigned horror and cold dread – but she had never felt terror like this, bone deep and primal. Two dead bodies that she could see, an empty wreck of a building, a camera still running. And somewhere in the darkness, someone was breathing.
"Jane?" she called. Her voice echoed. The breathing hitched. She swept her beam over the room as Cho knelt beside the bodies, but she knew even before he shook his head that it was too late for them.
There. In the chair, strategically positioned in the center of the room – a flash of golden hair.
She gestured to Rigsby and Van Pelt to cover her and moved forward, heart in her throat. He had to be alive. He had to.
"Jane, thank god. Are you hurt?"
"Got another body," said Rigsby behind her. "It's Wesley Blankfeit. Gunshot wound to the leg. Looks like he bled out."
Teresa nodded her acknowledgment, but she had bigger problems. Jane was alive and awake, eyes open and clear, no blood or bruises, but he wasn't responding, wasn't even looking at her, wasn't looking at Rigsby or Blankfeit or anything else she could see. She could hear Cho radioing for EMTs, feel Van Pelt hovering nervously at her side. She swallowed.
"Jane, can you hear me?" She touched his hand.
Jane yelped, high and sharp like a frightened animal, and suddenly he was looking at her, eyes wide and panicked, breathing quickening.
"Jane, Jane, take it easy, it's just me. You're safe."
His wild eyes found hers and recognition flashed through them.
"Get me out of here oh god Lisbon get me out of here for the sake of all you call holy get me the fuck out of here –"
Jane rarely swore and he never begged and Teresa's hands shook as she took one of his between them and tried to keep him still and steady as Cho produced a pocket knife and sliced through the saran wrap binding him to the chair.
Jane pitched forward. He fell into Teresa's arms, and he was heavy and shaking and gasping for air and it was not romance and it was not salvation and it was not healing and he stumbled to his feet without returning her embrace. There were sirens outside.
"C'mon, we'll get you checked out."
"I'm fine," Jane said, unconvincingly. He paused, drew a long breath, let it out. Something still and false settled over his face. "I'm fine," he repeated, and he sounded almost normal, almost calm and balanced and whole. Like he hadn't been strapped down in the middle of a massacre for the past hour at least. Like he hadn't been babbling in terror just moments before. He smoothly sidestepped her hand and skirted the pools of congealing blood as he moved towards the door.
"Stay here and wait for forensics," Teresa ordered Cho, and didn't even wait for his confirmation before going after Jane.
Jane was standing just outside the door, ignoring the ambulance which was pulling up to the curb. His eyes were on the moon, and he didn't look at her when he spoke.
"Dylan and Ruth were forcing Wesley to play a part. Threatening his mother. Red John killed them."
His voice carried no inflection. Teresa shivered.
"Red John was here? You saw him? Why did he let you go?"
"He wore a mask, and I don't know," said Jane with an apathetic shrug. "He didn't exactly hang around to chat."
She was saved from having to come up with a response by a paramedic approaching them. She was young, dark hair cropped short, black eyes fixed on Jane. He smiled at her, bright and empty and horrible, and she slowed to a stop just outside of his reach. Teresa could see her internal struggle, training versus self-preservation. Jane looked wounded. Jane looked like he would take a bite out of the first person to approach him.
"Sir?" the paramedic said cautiously. "Can you step this way, please? We're here to help."
"Thank you, but I'm fine," said Jane pleasantly, and so sincerely that the paramedic faltered despite the obviousness of the lie.
"Jane, you need to get checked out," said Teresa firmly. "You probably have a concussion."
"I'm not going to the hospital," Jane snapped, his paper-thin façade cracking. There was something trapped in his expression, like he thought maybe if he let her take him to the hospital he'd never leave again. Teresa softened her tone and her approach.
"Alright. No hospitals. Just let the paramedics take a look at you and I promise I won't let them take you anywhere."
It said something, Teresa thought, that Jane didn't even roll his eyes at being spoken to like a traumatized child.
Teresa watched as Jane allowed himself to be lead over to the ambulance, where the paramedics took his blood pressure and examined his scalp and asked him quiet questions. He sat too still, visibly preventing himself from flinching at their touch, withdrawing further into himself with every prod and poke. The blue and red lights of the arriving squad cars played over his pale face.
"Is he going to be okay?" asked Van Pelt, coming up beside her, a worried frown on her face.
"He's Jane," said Teresa, by which she meant yes, of course he will and no, of course he won't and he hasn't been okay for seven years.
Van Pelt nodded, taking from that whatever she wanted.
Teresa's phone rang.
"Hightower," she said after a glance at the caller ID. It was just hitting her what a mess this was going to be to clean up. They had three more Red John victims, two of them killers themselves, and Jane right in the middle of it. She steeled her strength and answered the phone. "Agent Lisbon."
"Tell me what the hell is going on."
"Red John killed the copycats," Teresa said shortly. "They had Jane hostage; he saw Red John but he was wearing a mask. I'll make sure he gives his statement in the morning."
"Is Jane alright?" asked Hightower, her brisk tone giving way to sympathy and concern.
"Physically he's fine, but he's in no state to talk to anyone. I'm going to drive him home. We'll sort the rest out tomorrow."
"Okay," said Hightower, because she was fiercely authoritative when she needed to be but she wasn't cruel and she knew better than to order Teresa to do anything that might hurt Jane at a moment like this. "Just make sure it does get sorted out."
"Yes ma'am." Teresa hung up. Van Pelt was still hovering. "I'm going to take him home," Teresa told her. "You guys make sure everything is under control here and then go home yourselves. Cho is in charge."
"Yes Boss," Van Pelt answered, and didn't say all the things Teresa knew she wanted to. She was getting better at that.
Teresa went over to the ambulance.
"How is he?"
"Looks like he had a concussion earlier, but there are no lingering effects," said a paramedic, older than the first one, brisker. "He should be fine with a couple aspirin and a good night's sleep."
"Good. Thanks." She turned to Jane, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during the exchange. He normally hated being talked about as if he weren't there. Right now he looked disconcertingly as if he wasn't there. "Jane. Hey."
She snapped her fingers in front of his face. He blinked at her.
"Yes, what is it?"
His voice was light, his eyes blank. Absent. Teresa swallowed her alarm, kept her voice steady.
"Give me your keys. I'm driving you back to Sacramento."
"Yes ma'am," said Jane, with the slightest hint of mockery, which was a good sign, maybe. Unless it was just reflex. He handed over the keys.
Jane folded himself into the passenger seat of his Citroen and stayed there, still and silent, all the way back to Sacramento. Teresa kept glancing over to reassure herself that he was still there, but it didn't help. In the darkness, with his blue suit and his pale, distant eyes illuminated by moonlight and sickly traffic lamps, he looked like a ghost.
When they pulled up to his motel, the neon didn't make him look much better.
She followed him up to his room, but stopped just inside the doorway. She had never been here before. It was sparse, impersonal. This was where he kept his suits, but no one really lived here. He was just passing through.
"Jane."
He dropped his jacket on the bed, let out his breath in a long sigh.
"Yes, Teresa?"
Something stirred in her chest, and she wasn't sure whether it was at the use of her first name or the weariness with which he said it. She swallowed. She didn't want to leave him alone, but he hadn't invited her in. There was no point staying if he didn't want her there. Patrick Jane always got what he wanted. Almost always.
"Will you be alright here on your own?"
He tensed at that, and something flashed across his face, not the cold calculation he was so adept at but something hot and raw, pure animal cunning. Then suddenly he was across the room, hands on her arms, body against hers, and he was kissing her – and his lips were dry and hungry and his mouth tasted like blood and this was not desire, this was desperation. She pushed him away.
He stepped back without resistance, eyes dark, breathing hard.
"Teresa," he panted, sounding for all the world as if he had never wanted anyone more in his entire life, and if it were anyone else she probably would have believed it.
"Jane. I'm not in love with you," she said, because his wedding band was glinting in the neon light which poured in through the window and because it was the truth. She wasn't sure she had ever been in love with anyone. She wasn't sure she was capable of it.
"Well that's good," said Jane, a weak approximation of his usual flippant self. "Because I'm not in love with you. I care for you, deeply and truly and . . . platonically." He tried to kiss her again. She pressed a hand to his chest, and he stilled, hands on her waist, face inches from hers. She wasn't frightened.
"Listen to me," she ordered. "I'm not going to say I haven't been attracted to you, and if you really want this – if you need the distraction, or the pleasure – I'm more than willing. But you're exhausted and you're traumatized and I don't want you doing anything you would regret in the morning."
His breathing was ragged, his eyes over-bright. She could see his well-oiled machine of a mind sparking and stalling beneath the weight of forty-eight hours' accumulated pain and terror. He was breaking down, and clinging to her like a lifeline.
"Jane." She reached up, gently, and touched him. His hair was soft beneath her fingers. She could feel him trembling. "You don't have to sleep with me to make me stay."
Jane stared at her for a long moment. Finally, he took a deep breath and stepped back.
"Alright," he said, voice shaking, eyes damp. "Good. Thank you. My apologies for . . ." He waved vaguely between them.
"It's okay," she said, and stepped forward, not as close as before but close enough to reach out and take his hand, which she did. "C'mon. We'll put the TV on."
She tugged him to the bed and pushed him down. He wasn't any physical match for her at the best of times, and he sank easily onto the bedspread. She tossed her jacket next to his, found the remote on the bedside table, and turned on National Geographic.
"Scooch," she said, and slid onto the bed next to him once he complied. He hadn't moved far, and they ended up shoulder-to-shoulder, arm pressed against arm. He was still shaking.
God, this man. He was a walking disaster zone and god help her, she loved him, all romance aside.
"You're going to be okay, Jane," she said, and it was an order and a promise and a lie.
His head dropped onto her shoulder. He began to weep in silent, shuddering sobs.
She found his hand, and held on tight.