Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me, am simply borrowing them for the purposes of this story.
AN: I am stuck in writing about the almost now on the show, not quite wanting to imagine a time beyond what we already know about. I need to write an AU story soon, I think. Anyway, thanks for reading.
Moments of Something Close to Peace
It's dark and cold as she sits in her car in the motel parking lot in the early hours of the morning. She almost allows herself to feel regret for her compulsion to sit here, but the peace she feels now that she's got eyes on his window is enough to allow this weakness.
Teresa Lisbon needs to know Patrick Jane is safe, that will always be true. So she sits here in the early morning and drinks tepid coffee as she wonders when her life is ever going to change. She can laughingly remember a time when the early hours of Saturday morning would have been spent out enjoying time shared with friends. But as she chokes down another mouthful of her awful coffee she realises all over again that she can only barely remember a time when she was out doing anything on a Saturday or any other night. If she were forced to pinpoint a timeline her life then she could admit that maybe her habits outside of work have changed significantly in the last ten years. The reason she sits here tonight is the self-same reason she has lost touch with most of her other friends these last years. They've started families, built relationships and careers while she has fallen hopelessly in love with a married man.
She looks in the glove compartment for gum or anything to take her mind off her melancholic thoughts. She can't regret being here – well maybe here in her car is regrettable – but she can't ever bring herself to regret the love.
In the last few days Lisbon has fought angrily with Jane, witnessed the last moments of a colleague's life, been taunted and hurt by a serial killer and potentially asked out on a date by a man who just might be that serial killer. Frankly sitting here in the dark is one of the more normal things that's happened to her. She continues to watch his window as the light remains on in Jane's long stay motel room, but she hopes so desperately that he is lying in there resting. Or at least attempting rest. She followed him home earlier, not even embarrassed by her deception – she knows the alternative to sitting here would be pacing her small apartment, worrying about him and thinking. Always thinking. She wishes for a time when her nights won't be spent in thought. She wishes for nights filled with rest, and nothingness, and all the other things she shouldn't want.
She is terrified of how close to edge of sanity Jane seems to be these last days. She wasn't exaggerating when she told him how scared she was, as unpredictable as he can be she had always been able to depend on his focus and his will to see this quest through. Lately is has seemed that Red John is always going to be one step ahead of them, regardless of what they sacrifice – regardless of what she forces herself not to want.
She sighs deeply and wishes for some hot coffee to focus her and to keep her awake. It's close to 2am and she knows she won't leave till at least sunrise, then she will go home and try to sleep for a few hours on her day off. If she were braver she would stay here all the time, or find some way to insinuate her way into Jane's day but that would only lead to more want and she is already drowning in that unwelcome emotion.
She pushes her long hair behind her ear as she leans on the driver seat window, and is instantly transported to her hospital room the other day. Where for a few precious moments Jane sat close by her bed and promised her in a caramel hued voice that she was safe, that she was safe. She feels tears pool in her eyes as she lets herself acknowledge how much she wants that to be true. She can't remember what it is to feel truly safe, Red John has been a part of her reality for so long there is a part of her forever given over to the possibility of his violence being the end of her life. She knows also that his violence would similarly render her life over if he were to scar Jane any more than he already has. She wants a time when she doesn't have to sleep with a gun underneath her pillow, or worry about a serial killer hurting everyone she loves. If she could right now she would be looking out for Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt too – but she knows they would understand that her first priority will always be Patrick Jane.
The soft buzz of her cell phone interrupts her musing, and she sighs a little as she hates her selfishness and wonders who has come to harm now. At least, she thinks, she's already up and won't have to drag herself out of bed to go to the latest crime scene. She checks the text and reads – Go home Teresa, get some rest.
Apparently she wasn't quite as subtle as she hoped, but then maybe subtlety won't keep him safe so this is what she needs to do. For herself as much as him. Lisbon ignores the text, staring at the screen as she rages against him for his words. Why does he always have to know everything, why couldn't he just allow her this? She asks him for so very little, would it really have hurt to let her sit here and take care of him from afar. The sting of tears threaten again, as Lisbon rolls her neck to attempt to loosen the tension in her lower back. Which hopelessly, despairingly makes her count the days since Jane last rested his hand on her lower back. It's been years since she started cataloguing her happiness in the length of time his hand spent on her spine in any given day. It's been years since she stopped questioning whether or not this was smart.
Her cell buzzes again and she wants to open her door and yell at him to leave her alone.
If you're not going home, then come in. Please. X
She stares at the kiss at the end of the text for about 8 seconds before she lets out a weak laugh and wonders when she turned into a sixteen year old. She is suddenly exhausted, and can barely focus on her phone as she texts him back the only words she can manage. Ok.
Lisbon slides her leather jacket back on as she locks up her vehicle and with as much dignity as she can manage heads to Jane's room. This has never happened before, this is not something they do – but then he has never caught her in the act of watching over him before. She wonders suddenly if he has always known that sometimes she sits here all night, that since his escape to Vegas she feels the need to be sure her remains with her. Even at a distance she wants to be with him.
She climbs the stairs, exhausted and trying to think of the words she will need to protect herself from his mocking.
Lisbon reaches his door as he slides it open, and she almost allows herself a chuckle at the sight of him in grey pyjama pants and white t-shirt. He looks younger, softer, less like the Jane he has forced himself to become.
"Lisbon."
She wants to interpret so much from that one word, or rather from the way her name is caressed by his tongue – but it's 2am and she can't permit herself to imagine affection and meaning where there is none.
He closes the door behind her and suddenly all she wants is to be home. She wants to be home and to be alone with her stupid thoughts of saving this man. At least in her thoughts she can berate herself while she eats ice-cream. Here she has to endure his lecture in the shabby surroundings of this pseudo home.
"Why are you here Teresa?"
He is behind her locking the door as he asks her this most ridiculous question. Where to even start she wonders? I got a case, I met a man, he got under my skin, I have some feelings, I worry I won't survive without you. She says none of this, of course. She stands in the room and surveys the meagre surroundings he lives in and she wonders how this is going to go.
She hears him turn behind her and then his warm fingers are resting on the small of her back and she has to consciously the effort not to melt. She wants to yell at him "take care of me, just for 5 minutes, take care of me." She enjoys the fantasy while she thinks about it, but knows that these will never be words she can share with Jane.
He feels the tension in her frame, and wants very much to make that go away. He is unsure if he has the right, but surely if a woman sits outside your place all night to make sure you breathe then there are assumptions he can make about what she wants.
Jane remembers sitting with her through the night, holding her hand and gently touching her hair… Promising anything if only he could see her eyes open again. For long hours he was so afraid he wouldn't ever see the particular green of her lovely eyes ever again. He knows this was foolish, he knows Lisbon had been tampered with rather than taken from him – but he allowed his thoughts to go to the worst places they could. He imagined his life without her. He imagined her fingers unyielding and cold, her beautiful skin marred by Red Johns touch. It took all of his control, all of his restraint, to not climb in the hospital bed beside Lisbon and hold her close to have vivid proof of her life.
He traces his fingers along her waist, curling his hands around her until he can turn her around and bring her small frame against him in a comforting embrace. He tries very hard not to rest his lips in her hair and inhale her unique scent; he fails utterly of course and is overcome with her fragrance, and squeezes his arms all the way around her body.
"Why are you here Teresa?"
"Because you told me I couldn't sit out in my car anymore, Jane."
He kisses her hair and wishes once more she wasn't so damn stubborn. Then he kisses her there once more because he can't resist, and he fights the urge to tell her how beautiful she is. And how he adores her stubbornness, and her heart, and every other damn thing about her. He feels Lisbon's heart beat fast against his chest, and he wonders for the hundredth time in the last week what she is feeling.
"You know what I mean, Lisbon. Why are you here?"
She buries her head in his shoulder and wonders how her life would change if she were honest with Jane right now. Being close to him like this almost makes her forget the monsters on the other side of the walls. She blinks, and she remembers they are out there still. But she wants to be honest tonight, or maybe she simply doesn't have the energy to protect herself with a lie.
"It comforts me, Jane. It comforts me."
Her words are a whisper of her warm breath against his neck, and he almost collapses under their weight. He never wanted to be this close to anyone again, to be this dependent and to be someone to be depended upon. But he wants this, whatever this is with the complicated, flawed woman in his arms. Jane remembers wiping blood from her face and swearing to her God that he would never let anything happen to her ever again. He wishes with his whole heart he could believe that to be true.
"Lisbon, this shouldn't be your life."
He feels her arms curl around him, and then it's the two of them together in the doorway of his room, afraid to move.
She wants to yell at him, to tell him that of course this should be her life; she wants to admit to him that he is her life. She remains silent and enjoys how protected she feels in his arms.
She hears Jane make a noise somewhere close to a sob and his fingers start to rub slow, seductive trails on the back of her neck.
"Lisbon."
He kisses her hair again; he really can't stop doing that, and silently promises himself to her for the remainder of his life.
"Let me take care of you, Lisbon. Please?"
Lisbon knows she should make a joke now and find a way to walk out of here, but exhaustion – definitely exhaustion – renders her speechless and liquid in his arms.
Jane thinks about it for several beats of her heart against his chest, and then decides Lisbon is under what passes for his roof so she should be prepared for any craziness that comes her way.
He bends slightly, one hand on her waist and the other behind her knees and then he lifts her into his arms.
She almost starts to argue with him, but he looks at her with such naked adoration she decides to not worry about doing the right thing for a few moments.
She feels reassuringly alive in his arms, Jane holds her close to his body as he leads her over to his bedside. The feel of her head resting against his shoulder is the best thing that has happened to him in weeks. Months, probably. He places her down to sit on the rumpled quilt on his bed and he leans on the floor in front of her. He places his head in her lap and tries to remember to breathe.
She feels like she has entered into a strange alternate universe since she came into this room. She wants to cry for him when she looks at the room he calls home, but mostly she wants to stay as quiet as she can so she doesn't scare Jane away from her.
"What is this Jane, what does this mean?"
He moves his head from her lap, resting his right hand against her thigh as he kisses her cheek. He kisses his way along her skin until his lips are buried in her hair as his nose rubs against her ear.
"You know what this is; you know what this means Teresa."
Jane breathes in and out for a few moments, trying to remain calm, hoping she knows what he has confessed to her. He feels her shiver and once again his desire to care takes over.
He helps her take off her jacket and gun, and with great effort he moves away from her to hang them in the wardrobe. He returns to her and kneels down to undo her boots and pulls them from her, then takes off her socks and rubs his thumbs across the arch of her small feet. He is aware of her exhaustion when he looks up and notices that she is adorably struggling to keep her eyes open.
He knows he needs to talk to her, really talk but right now he wants to be lying beside her as soon as possible. He whispers to her than she needs to go to sleep as he removes her belt from her jeans, his one concession to trying to make her more comfortable while she rests with him in his bed.
He returns his lips to her ear and kisses her softly and then whispers once more to tell her to lie down.
Lisbon is on the edge of sleep now and simply does as she is told and lies almost in the middle of Jane's bed. He smiles at her awkwardness in even these circumstances and crawls under the covers to lie beside her. She is almost asleep as he kisses her hair, and wraps his arms around her; pulling her small body against his so that he can feel her heart beat against his chest.
He wants to tell her everything. He wants to whisper words to her that he has not shared with anyone in so many years. But he hears her breathing become shallow and knows what he wants to say will have to wait. All that matters now is Teresa. He has promised himself before that this is true, but this time he means it. He wants her to know this quite desperately. He allows himself the indulgence of whispering to her one more time before he closes his eyes.
"You know what this is; you know what this means Teresa."
He thinks he can feel her smile against his chest at his words, and when her hand moves under his shirt to rest against his bare skin he becomes certain of it.
He lies with her next to him and he rests. The monsters outside circle closer, always closer, but for tonight they can enjoy the peace they can share together.