Notes:Happy Birthday Petit J! girl, you know How much I love you, few of most precious thing were born thanks to either your art, your prompts or your help! So, happy birthday, and ehre is my gift for you... hope you'll like it!
Disclaimer:The Mentalist mine? Yes, I can keep dreaming about it, but no, I don't own them. The fanrt that provides the cover to this fic? no, it Petite J!
All around her, people was happy, too happy. It was something she couldn't stand, Bertram and her new boss, Carmichael, parading in front of politicians from all over the country and the national press like it was their success… like it was a success at all. Journalists, cameras, photographers, a damn party, it wasn't how Red John's end was supposed to meet. It should have been private, personal, intimate, passed in respectful silence, especially there, where so many good agents, Bosco's whole team, found its end, it wasn't supposed to be something like that, not when it took them over twelve year to stop the killer, it wasn't supposed to be such e celebration when the killer and his more trusted men had been hidden for so long among their very ranks.
They weren't supposed to celebrate in such a way when Jane, Jane, Jane…
She felt nauseous and prey of an incoming migraine, it was too loud, too bright, too crowded, she kept looking around herself, she felt like she was being held hostage, surrounded, and she waited, waited for an opening, for the moment no one was looking at her, just at great director whose efforts stopped the infamous serial killer, and in that moment, she run away, towards the only place she knew no one was going to look into- at least for her.
His attic.
She didn't turn on ant light, just moved towards the huge window, looking in the distance at the river, at the people, just ants from where she was, at the first few small fireworks for the celebration of the Independence, and skimming over the cool surface, she fought back the tears. She had always been strong, because she had to, because it was what people expected from her, it was what people needed from her, but for once in her life, she wished- no, she craved being just those tiny little human ants she could barely see from over there, she wanted to be oblivious to all that evil in the world she had witnessed in her life as a cop, she just wanted, for once, being a normal, common person, not Senior Agent Lisbon, just Teresa, just a normal woman, no weight upon her tiny shoulders, no issued from a troubled past, and not Jane who was, who was, who was….
"You know, in a perfect world, right now Bertram would be sending guards looking for the real superstar of the evening, but unfortunately, where Bertram is nothing but a pompous jerk who has decided that he is the superstar of the evening."
When she heard the voice at her back, she tried her best to smile, to seem normal, but she found out she couldn't do any of it; she hoped, that, for once in his life, in the so many years they had known each other, he'd not call her out on that, or that maybe, that sad expression was because of all those spotlights upon her head, and that jerk of a boss she happened to have, and not because he, he, he….
"Until that vultures downstairs let me live, Bertram can do as he wishes. See if I care."
"YOU should be the star. You should be downstairs celebrating. You almost died to stop the most gruesome killer California had ever seen, and he behaves like he did it all on his own!"
"Jane, really, I don't care, and it doesn't matter. I'm not in a celebratory mood anyway. Today should be remembering, not about throwing a stupid party, 4th july or not." Their eyes met, and blushing, Lisbon immediately lowered her ones, while Jane, in silence, captured between two fingers a rebel lock of hair, and with sweetness, reverence and slowly, he arranged it behind her ear, brushing the tender, soft, hot skin with his knuckles. The contact was so… unusual, strange, that it sent shivers all over her body, leaving a trail of goose-bumps. It wasn't like he had never touched her before, quite the contrary, but it had always been either causal or friendly, the need of comfort at the most, but this time… it was casual and intimate and it had felt so, so natural, so right….like they had touched each other that way right from the start.
"Ehy, you are shivering, you must be cold….here, let me give you my jacket." He quickly get rid of the garment and draped it over her shoulder. "This place is tricky like that, even this time of the year it can turn suddenly cool… you'll need it." He told her, smiling. It was meant to be just simple words, a statement with no deeper meaning, but somehow, it made Lisbon cringe, holding the lapels of his jacket at her collar like for dear life.
"Does it mean that… that you aren't going to need it any longer, then?" she wondered out loud, crying. Here, she had finally said it, voicing her biggest fear, see him leaving her behind, move on with his life somewhere else, with someone else, lose him, her consultant who closed cases, her friend who was always there to save her no matter what, the troubled man, shattered, she had fallen in love with….
"Lisbon, what are you…" he asked her, stating at her, understand what she was trying to say, where she was going with those words… and then, then he saw it, her eyes weren't' merely teary, Lisbon was crying, desperate, sad, like he had never seen her before, not even with Carmen, like there was something upon which her life depended on and she already knew she was going to lose it…. And in that moment, he knew, he understood the real meaning of her words, and despite everything, the thought, the realization, lifted his troubled heart. "Oh, Teresa, no…. why should I leave my only family? How could I turn my shoulders on the woman I love?"
She gasped, the breath dying her throat, her eyes filling furthermore of tears, if even such a thing was possible. "You… you love me?"
"Teresa, silly woman, of course I do! How could I not? Besides, didn't I already told you once?"
At his grin, she answered blushing even more, biting her lips and pouting like a child. "Weren't you too hyped up to remember, Mr. Jane?"
"Thought you were too…" he grinned, getting closer and closer to her until they were just a breath apart, their bodies skimming against each other.
"So, now what?"
"Well, normally, as the romantic I am, I would kiss you passionately under a star field; unfortunately, though, Sacramento's artificial light pollution prevents me from doing so, but…."
"But…?" she waited for him to go on, her lips a lazy smile, feminine and malicious, in her eyes, the same light she got when she was waiting for him to explain to her his latest excellent plan set in motion to get the last killer.
"But I think, my dear, that the fireworks of the fourth of July could work as well for us, too…" and holding her for the lapels of his jacket, Jane pulled Lisbon towards him, and when it the sky a bright-golden fireworks exploded, the hugest of them all, another firework took place in that dusty little room, when two hearts exploded at the same time, when, after so long, after so many sleepless nights of endless desire, their lips finally meet in a small, tender but loving kiss.
It was the first firework of many more, because it wasn't like he didn't need any longer his jacket to keep him warm at night, he had simply decided to switch tools- Lisbon's body could keep him warmer then everything else, after all.