A/N: Here is another fic in an effort to pass the interminable time until the new season begins. This idea came to me in the night (as they frequently do), and I couldn't let it go. It is AU in that Jane's life took a different path, one that did not collide with Red John's, but as fate would have it, circumstances still lead him to his soul mate, Teresa Lisbon. As with most AU's, sometimes there are some out of character moments, but please indulge me and don't let that dissuade you from hanging in there with me. I hope you enjoy this new dynamic I've created.
The Psychologist
Chapter 1
Sacramento, 2002
"Dr. Jane," said his secretary over the intercom. "Your four o'clock is here. Ms. Teresa Lisbon."
"Send her in, please," said Patrick Jane.
He got up from his desk with a sigh. The last appointment of the day on a Friday. He didn't know whether he was relieved or filled with dread. Lately, every patient he'd seen had been a complete bore, and he'd figured out their psychosis or phobia or neuroses as soon as they opened their mouths. But then again, the last appointment meant the end of the day, with nothing remotely more interesting to do and no one to go home to. The weekend stretched out before him like a prison sentence, and he sighed again, standing to straighten his three-piece suit (sans tie) and stretch his legs a bit before another hour of tedium.
There was a brief knock at the door, and then a lovely sprite of a woman emerged tentatively from behind the waiting room door. She was not much over five feet, pale skin, wavy sable hair and eyes that exactly matched the sage green of her scoop-neck t-shirt. The tailored charcoal pantsuit bespoke a professional, but the low-heeled boots, commanding air, and slightly furrowed brow told another story: law enforcement.
Interesting.
Jane smiled and held out his hand. "Teresa," he said, in his softest, most soothing tone. "I'm Dr. Jane."
By the way she narrowed those pretty eyes of hers, he could tell she wasn't buying his put-on shrink persona.
"Hi," she said warily.
Her hand was cool and strong for such a small person, and the confidence in it made his smile widen. He put his left hand on top of hers, enjoying the smoothness of her skin beneath his palm, the minor trip in her pulse at his touch. He was tempted to hold it a little longer than was appropriate, but he made himself release her and indicated his couch for her to sit down.
"A couch?" she said, with a slight smirk that brought out her dimples.
"Or, you can sit in a chair if you'd rather. I like to cater to people's preconceived notions about a psychologist's office," he finished dryly.
He was pleased when she got his humor, and her lips curved into a small smile.
She sat on the couch, crossing her legs demurely while he sat in a neighboring leather chair, mimicking her pose and waiting.
"I don't know why I'm here," she said finally, to his unasked question. She looked shyly down at her hands for a moment.
She was certainly a bundle of contradictions. Confident one moment, timid the next…
Intriguing.
"Tell me why you think you're here."
A quick flash of annoyance lit her face, then she shook her head in resignation and met his eyes. "I've been feeling sort of…off lately."
"Oh? Off how?"
"I'm not enjoying my job."
He nodded. "That's a big deal to you, since I'm guessing your job is your life. But you aren't the kind of woman who had a bad day at the office and rushed off to a shrink straight away. Tell me, what brought you to me, specifically?"
"Actually, I heard a coworker sing your praises. She said you did wonders for her uh…disposition."
"Huh," he said noncommittally.
"And by the way, what do you mean my job is my life?" Her hackles abruptly rose and saluted.
"Please don't be offended. It's just what I perceive to be true."
She hesitated, still annoyed that he'd read her so well so quickly. She was likely wondering if she was really that shallow of a person, that he could size her up in an instant. She turned to her go-to defense mechanism: sarcasm.
"So, if you're this great psychologist guy, why don't you tell me what's wrong with me and save us both some time?"
He considered her a moment, wondering how they had gotten off on the wrong foot so quickly. But, she'd asked for it…
"All right, then. You're a police officer of some sort, probably a detective, but you're in a leadership position. Your parents are both dead- for some time now. You were forced to take on their roles in your younger siblings' lives, so you have a tremendous capacity for assuming responsibility-which is a polite way of saying you're a control freak."
He paused a moment, enjoying (as he always did) the befuddled reaction when he had pegged someone precisely.
"Your father was an addict—I'm guessing an alcoholic—" he continued briskly, "and you have been struggling lately with whether tossing back a shot at the end of the day is setting you up to be just like him someday. Your job is your life, which is why you haven't had more than a one-night stand since you were promoted to your current position…"
He let his words hang in the air as she picked her jaw up off the floor.
"How did-? Where did you-? Did you investigate me before my appointment?"
"No, not at all. Everything I've said is written in your eyes and demeanor. And also," he finished somewhat sheepishly, "I admit I was showing off a little. Normally I'd allow a client to use up three, maybe four sessions to pull all that information out, but I figured you're a busy lady, so I'd speed things along a bit."
"Thanks?" she said sarcastically.
"You're welcome," was his dry reply.
She suddenly slapped her hands once on her thighs and got to her feet in extreme irritation. "Well, in that case, I guess I'm cured, Doc."
Jane remained seated and calm. "I'm sorry, Teresa, really. Please sit."
She eyed him appraisingly, which gave Jane a very disconcerting feeling, like he was trying to stare down a nun in Catholic school. And he wasn't even Catholic. But Teresa most assuredly was, given the small gold crucifix at her neck and her ability to so accurately imitate a nun.
He was pleased when Lisbon slowly lowered herself back onto his couch. He smiled benignly.
"Let's start over again, shall we? You've become dissatisfied with your job. I imagine that is a very disheartening feeling for a police officer."
"CBI Agent," she corrected. "I'm head of the Serious Crimes Unit."
"Impressive for one so young," he said honestly. "So what is it about your job that you no longer find fulfilling? You putting the bad guys away regularly?"
"Well, yes. But it's frustrating, because they keep coming, and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed, like I'm not even making a dent in all the evil in the world. I'm starting to wonder if it's worth all the headaches. Cases don't come together as quickly as I'd like, and before I have the chance to solve one, another crops up to add to the pile. I go home exhausted every night, alone, and worst of all…I've started to drink. Not much, but given my family history you so aptly deduced, I have the legitimate concern I could become well, dependent upon alcohol."
"You don't feel like you have anyone else you can say these things to, do you?"
Her eyes turned round and watery, but she blinked and forced herself out of her brief melancholy. "No," she said, just above a whisper. "All my friends work for the CBI. I can't tell them I feel like I'm not up to the job. It's hard enough being a woman in such a man-centric field. One sign of weakness, and it'll be all over the unit in no time."
"So you have some trust issues."
She cocked her head. "I suppose in that case, I do," she conceded.
"How much are you drinking?"
She hesitated.
"I'm not going to tell on you, Teresa," he said mildly.
"No, of course not. Doctor-patient privilege."
"Exactly. So…how much?"
"A couple of glasses of scotch a night." Jane could tell she was extremely embarrassed.
"Does it make you drunk?"
"No. It just passes the time. Helps me to forget. Helps me to sleep."
"You stop off at a bar after work or drink at home, by yourself?"
"Home alone," she admitted. "I know how bad that sounds. That's why I'm here, Dr. Jane."
"Not that I'm not happy to help you, but I wonder that you didn't just go to AA or something."
"I'm not an alcoholic," she protested. "And I really don't believe in the anonymous part anyway."
"Trust issues," Jane reiterated.
She paused, processing this. "Yes," she confessed.
"So, the shrink."
"Yes, the shrink."
Jane smiled. "Okay. Good. Now we know at least part of what we're dealing with here. You feel helpless, alone, out of control. Given your lingering resentments of your out-of-control, drunken father, it's understandable you'd be concerned. I can help you, Teresa, but you do have to trust me for this to work."
"You think I have daddy issues, don't you?"
"Don't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, then. I think we should start there…"
Lisbon spent most of the rest of the hour-long session describing the events surrounding her mother's accidental death, her father's inability to deal with the loss, and her subsequent responsibility for her family at the age of fifteen. She related how she'd protected her little brothers from her father's drunken rages, often taking the brunt of it to save them. When she was eighteen, she'd found her father dead, face down in his own vomit. She'd gotten legal custody of her brothers, and finished raising them on her own.
It seemed to help her just by getting it all out, Jane realized. In effect, she was conducting her own therapy session, which pleased him immensely. It wouldn't take much to snap her out of her malaise, a strong woman like Teresa Lisbon, and he felt a strange twinge of disappointment that her counseling wouldn't last very long.
Jane was surprised to find he hadn't even glanced at the clock, so it was Lisbon who pointed out the approaching deadline of their session.
"Tell me, Agent Lisbon, what are you planning to do now? It's five o'clock on a Friday. Quitting time…"
"I'll probably go back to work. I took two hours off this afternoon for my appointment with you."
"Do you think you're more of a workaholic than an alcoholic?" he teased.
She smiled. "Probably. No Workaholic's Anonymous out there, I suppose."
Jane smiled too. "No, which is a shame, but then no one would take off work to go to the meetings. So, here's your homework for the week. Cut down to one glass of scotch a night. Or, go out with friends from work and drink as much as you like."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're seriously telling a budding alcoholic to go out and drink?"
"As always, the root problem of an alcoholic is not the love of drinking. With you, Teresa, it's your feeling of aloneness," he said gently. "You've felt this way since your mother died. Try a little harder to make close friends, to listen to the problems of others, to take an interest in someone else's life. That's what takes your mind off your own."
He could tell she saw the merit in his suggestions, but they both knew that it wasn't going to be easy for her to pull herself out of old habits.
"Is that why you're a psychologist?" She surprised him by asking.
"Yes," he said honestly. "It is now."
She nodded, a sudden understanding dawning. "You grew up with carnie folk, met your wife at a young age. You escaped that life, went to college, became a successful psychologist in Malibu, settled down and had a child. Your wife and daughter died two years ago in a car accident. You were driving."
Jane felt his mouth go dry, his heart accelerate in his chest. She hadn't said any of that to be cruel, he knew instinctively, but she had certainly put him in his place.
"I'm sorry," she said, noting his tight expression. "I thought you'd like to know just how that feels. Maybe you shouldn't show off so much."
"Tell me, Agent Lisbon, was looking into my background an appropriate use of CBI resources?"
He wasn't angry, exactly, but her words had brought everything back in a rush—the guilt, the pain, the grief.
"No, probably not. Trust issues though, remember?"
They looked at each other for the first time with complete honesty between them. Jane himself felt nearly naked, having successfully hidden his true self from others for more than two years.
No one in Sacramento knew his real past, his real anguish. How he blamed himself for not seeing the car swerve into his lane on the freeway that night. He'd been arguing with Angela again over something stupid—the trauma of the accident had blocked out his memory of what—and he'd just yelled at Charlotte in the backseat to put her seatbelt back on when the drunk driver had slammed into the Mercedes head on. He remembered how the car had spun around like a top, felt the sickening impact as another car plowed into the passenger's side. Then they'd rolled, and Jane had awakened in the hospital, bruised and broken and heartbreakingly alone.
His right hand went unconsciously to the golden band he still wore on his left. He told new acquaintances he was a widower, and women who approached him romantically, that he was married. And now, this fellow wounded soul was exposing him for who he really was: a scarred, self-loathing fraud. He didn't quite know how to feel about that.
"I'll see you next week, then?" Lisbon was asking, rising from his couch.
Jane tried valiantly to pull himself together and focus on his new patient. He should tell her right then that this wasn't going to work, that he could recommend someone else better to help her. He didn't like not being the smartest person in the room, or having anyone one up on him. He saw in a flash how this could get messy and unpredictable and bring up all kinds of confusing emotions. He should just kick the woman to the curb right now, be satisfied with his other patients' dull, humdrum problems—
"Yes," he found himself saying, standing up to shake her hand again.
This time, he did hold onto it a bit longer than necessary. He smiled steadily into her eyes, and got back the odd sensation that this woman knew him, could see through his bullshit and beyond his cool, confident exterior to his real vulnerabilities. She smiled back and squeezed his hand gently before politely disengaging hers from his grasp-but not before he saw how his nearness had affected her. It left him a bit shaken, as well.
"Don't forget to do your homework," he said, opening the door to the waiting room.
"Hmm," she said noncommittally, leaving him to wonder as he watched her walk quickly out of his office, if she'd actually take his advice. "Good night, Dr. Jane," she threw over her shoulder.
"Good night," he called to the empty waiting room, as the exterior door closed softly behind her.
He grinned. He was already looking forward to next week.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Lisbon sat in her dark blue Mustang in the parking lot of Patrick Jane's office building. She took a few deep breaths, trying to comprehend what had just happened in the mere space of an hour. She still couldn't believe she'd found the courage to actually go to a psychologist, and now that she'd met Dr. Jane, she was in awe to realize how easy it had been to share with this stranger what had been silently weighing on her for years. She didn't quite believe he hadn't researched her beforehand, but he knew things that only she did, so where could he have looked to find this information, except into her soul? The thought made her shiver. She could only conclude that he was gifted in reading people, which had to make him a very effective psychologist.
She hadn't meant to throw her own research into his face, but she'd felt oddly defensive around him, perhaps because he'd managed to pull down those defenses of hers so quickly, leaving her feeling vulnerable and a bit frightened by it. She would apologize again the next time they met. She was the patient after all, and he had the right to his own privacy.
She sighed and started her car, driving back toward the CBI HQ just down the street from the Capitol. She would put in a couple hours on the endless paperwork on her desk, then go home and try to limit her scotch intake to one glass. She wasn't ready to join Cho, Rigsby or Hannigan on their usual Friday night of beer and fish and chips at O'Malley's. She'd maintain her usual professional distance, at least for now. One step at a time. Not that she hadn't been invited, and not that she didn't like these men whom she commanded. They were a good team, did good police work. So what if their careful investigations had made them fall behind in the number of cases closed compared to other units in the CBI? When they nailed someone, their cases were rarely thrown out. That was something to be proud of.
She waved as she passed Cho and Rigsby driving out of the CBI parking lot as she drove in, the more senior Hannigan bringing up the rear in his own car. She wondered if they too felt the frustrations she did with the slow pace of things. She certainly knew her boss, Minelli did, and she felt the benevolent pressure from that quarter from time to time. She knew he wished their close rate was as good as the Narcotics Unit.
She sat behind her desk and automatically flipped on her computer to check her email. Absently, she pulled up her browser history, and Patrick Jane's information page appeared. She clicked on it, and immediately his photograph filled the screen. It was some sort of advertising picture for his Malibu practice, and in it, Dr. Jane was smiling that million-watt smile of his, which no doubt had brought in the women patients by the dozens.
He was even better looking in person, she thought, though the years that had passed since the picture was taken had brought more lines around his beautiful sea-green eyes. His curling blonde hair ran more toward dishwater tones now than professional highlights, and it was longer, shaggier, more careless. He still wore an expensive three-piece suit, but he'd abandoned the tie. She wondered idly what that was about.
Still, she couldn't deny she was attracted to him, that he made her nervous, and perhaps that was a good enough reason to stop seeing him. How would she be able to focus on getting control of her life when she couldn't control her attraction to him? But her friend from Vice had been right—this guy knew his stuff. It was like he had a sixth sense- she'd even venture to say, a gift from God. Plus, she was tired of making excuses for not getting help. If she didn't get a handle on this now, she'd lose her career, become a lush, and no man would want her then.
So she'd continue to see him, to trust her instincts that told her he knew what he was doing, that maybe Patrick Jane himself had been put in her path by God. She stared another moment into the eyes of his image, sorry that grief for his family had likely brought those additional lines to his face. But the face she had seen today had infinitely more character, more emotion than the empty eyes in the photo. He was an arrogant asshole, overly confident in his abilities, but there was something within him that called to her, a mutual understanding that stemmed from their similar tragic pasts.
"Okay, Dr. Jane," she said aloud to his image. "I'll give you one month." She smiled wryly at him, but the slick doctor had no reply. "That's about all I can afford of your rates anyway." She wasn't about to use the bureau's insurance plan to pay for a shrink.
She exited out of the CBI's database and sat back in her chair, her eyes dropping to the bottom drawer of her desk where she kept a bottle of tequila. She was sorely tempted to take it out and pour a glass, but Jane's advice that she not drink alone reverberated in her mind. Maybe next week she'd go with the boys to O'Malley's.
Small steps, she said to herself.
In the meantime, paperwork would be her companion. Too bad it didn't have beautiful sea-green eyes.
A/N: I hope you like where this is going, that you see the potential for these two sad souls to find one another. Please log in and let me know what you think so far. The next chapter is already coming along, but in the meantime, I hope you check out my other fics, especially my current collaboration with Nerwen Aldarion in "Double Talk."
P.S.: A special thanks to all my tweeps on Twitter for being such wonderfully supportive sounding boards. You guys rock. Follow me there as donnamour1969 as well.