This is kind of AU for MBH, 6x09. I wondered: what if those two Jane-free years had had a totally different effect on Lisbon's life?
Context: Jane left after killing RJ, and I didn't change what happened to him (being on the island on his own, making a deal with Abbott..), but I decided to ignore everything on Lisbon's side except the living in Washington part. Jane's POV.

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Chapter 1: The way back

It was the middle of the afternoon, right after 3pm. As always in the state of Washington in November, the weather was cold, but the sun was showing now and then between the white clouds and there was no indication it would rain that day. Which Patrick Jane took as a good sign. He'd never been one to believe that the weather had any incidence on people's life, but today he needed any reassurance he could get, and the bright light of the Northern American sun was giving him exactly that.

Yes, Patrick Jane was nervous. And no, that was definitely not something he was used to be. But then again, after two years of exile in a country where he was the only English-speaker around, he didn't really know what was or wasn't normal for him to feel anymore. He had basically become an ermite, and now he was on his way back home, or close to home anyway. To the US, to English-speaking people. To law enforcement people, even. And today, to her.

He had made a deal with the FBI guy, Abbott. He would work as a consultant for the organisation, but only on his terms.
That was the reason he actually was standing here: Dennis had agreed to meet his demands, but he'd been very clear about the fact that he wouldn't be wandering around the USA for him, as good an asset as he knew he would be. Indeed, Jane's first request was that he would get her back, as his partner. So Abbott had said something in the lines of "alright, but you're the one flying up there in Washington to convince her to join us".
It seemed his new boss wasn't a big fan of airplanes, but Jane hadn't called him on that yet... Something about not wanting to start trouble so soon after getting the job. And she wasn't here to fix everything for him, not yet anyway.

At first he'd thought going himself was an even better idea than to send some FBI agents she didn't know to take her with them in Austin. Especially after two years of not seeing each other: he couldn't wait any longer to be with her again, this time as a man free of his past, his demons, and apparently also free of murder charges. He'd had time to think things through, and a few days earlier he had even taken his wedding band off. For he was ready to move on, and he knew very well who he wanted to do that with.

But right now, looking at the beautiful house in front of him, he wasn't so sure it was a good plan after all. If he was honest, he'd say he was afraid: she was going to be mad at him. Because hey, it had been two years after all. But it was her. She'd understand. She'd forgive. This was what Teresa Lisbon had always done, no matter what, right?
Besides, he'd missed her. He had told her that in the letters he had sent. And by the way those were proof of how special she was to him: he had written to her while he was on the run, for crying out loud! That meant something, she had to know it! Although, he'd had no way of being sure she had actually received said letters.
But still, she would at least let him explain why he'd gone away... if she didn't already get it. He'd had to flee the country because he had killed a man, and mostly because the justice system was so corrupted in California that he knew he would never live long enough to be trialled – which he knew he deserved. He had been obligated to leave, he hadn't wanted to.

Anyway, she probably wasn't even at home right now, given it was Thursday afternoon. Knowing Lisbon, she'd be working until at least 8pm, forgetting to feed herself all day and going home to watch TV alone. He smiled at the thought that maybe, in a very near future if she was willing, she wouldn't have to be alone anymore... So she was very likely at work, but he would try her home address anyway. You never knew.. Except he did: he knew her working habits, and seriously, how much could a cop change over a couple of years?
His confidence restored by that last point, he chuckled, and took a few deep breaths, in and out, slowly. Then he crossed the street to reach the wooden door of 125th, Pine Sreet, and knocked.

To his surprise, he immediatly heard footsteps inside the house. His heart started beating so fast he thought it'd just get out of his chest right there and then, when his attentive ear noticed something: the steps were heavy. Still athletic, but definitely heavier than Teresa Lisbon's.

Then the door opened, and Jane was pretty sure at that point that he'd made a mistake. Because, if not, who the hell was that man and what was he doing here?
He was at the wrong house, surely. Jane put a fake, charming smile on his face, the one that always worked so well – except on her with her both irritating and endearing ability to read him like an open book – and tried to ignore the bad feeling he had about his upcoming question. It didn't prevent him from stuttering a bit though, when he opened his suddenly very dry mouth.

"Hi, I er.. Sorry, I thought this was an... old friend's residence, I was told she lived on 125. Obviously I made a mistake, I apologize for the disturbance... But just in case, do you happen to know where Lisbon lives? Hrrmm, Teresa Lisbon, I mean."

The man in front of him cast him a somewhat... amused look, probably noticing that the weird blong guy wasn't even wearing socks during a Washington fall, but he smiled an honest, trusting smile and even gave him his right hand to shake before answering him.

"Hi, my name's William Mason, you can call me Bill. And you're not mistaken, this is where Teresa and I live. But come on in, you must be freezing out here!"

Jane's face almost fell, but he didn't let it show. His heart skipped a few beats by the time he regained his composure, and he shook the man's hand while watching him as closely as he could in his state of shock.
William, well, Bill was in his mid-forties, tall, had dark hair and warm, light brown eyes. He also wore an irritatingly flattering stubble and of course, his muscle mass wath superior than the one of three Janes put together. The psychic's mind lead him to admit that he didn't look threatening though, on the contrary: his face was that of a nice man, a little surprise apparently because he hadn't been expecting visitors, and his demeanor was definitely betraying his belonging to some kind of a military organisation. Just like Teresa, he was certainly a hero of sort.
Jane tried to sooth himself by using, partly subconsciously, his old favorite Lisbon-related method: denial. So what, apparently, she had a roommate. You were never too old to get one, right? Yeah, right, that sounded like the Teresa he knew to be almost as fond of solitude as he'd been in his CBI years... Ok, then it still could be a friend. Friends lived together sometimes, didn't they? Maybe he was staying at her place for some reason. Except he'd said he lived here with her. And that had sounded a little too domestic to his trained ear...

Trying to ignore the sudden dizziness he was feeling, Patrick Jane focused on the conversation the other man started as he had gestured for him to go inside.
"I'd offer to take your coat, but I can see you're not wearing any. I hope you weren't out there for too long in that outfit though, woudln't want you to catch pneumonia... You know what, you should drink something hot ASAP. I was just making some tea, chamomille ok with you?"

Jane, oblivious to his environement and blindly following 'Bill' to the kitchen, nodded when he realized an answer was expected of him.
He couldn't help but notice that the man's voice was very soft, even if it was filled with that hint of authority you could only find in a soldier or soldier-adjacent's tone, and he seemed like a cheerful soul, an altruist. Hell, the man had even expressed his honest worry that Jane would get sick even though he didn't know him!

The man poured Jane a cup of tea and gave it to him, then filled another, larger one and moved to go to the next room, obviously the living room.
And Jane's heart broke a little when his eyes met the couch. A brown, old leather couch. His couch. He'd been wondering what had happened to it... He should have known she'd have found a way to keep it safe. With her.
Bill put the big mug on the coffee table, before he sat himself down on the meaningful piece of furniture as he obviously was used to do, not exactly in front of the mug but next to it. Jane guessed he was leaving Teresa's spot empty for her to sit in.

"Teresa?" He called out, startling Jane when the sweetness in his voice echoed in his head, telling him that this was clearly way more than a friend of hers. He felt a wave of anger and envy wash over him. "Come down babe, your tea's ready, and we've got company!"

He winked at Patrick Jane, not noticing the ever well-hidden discomfort of the mentalist, and the blond man felt guilty for the rage he was feeling. This was definitely a good man, and you didn't need Patrick's skills to know it.
And of course he was a good man. He was her choice, and what did she deserve other than a good man? A good, very charming, obviously duty-oriented guy who would call her babe and make her tea, and be concerned about a total stranger's lungs.
Jane sat down in one of the armchairs next to the sofa, his back to the door, and tasted his beverage. Damn. Even his tea was good.

"You're not having some yourself?" He asked, trying to make nice and wondering why Teresa hadn't answered.

Then he heard her footsetps above him, and a small "Be right there, hon!" could be heard. He concealed his shudder of pleasure to the sound of her beautiful voice and tried not pay too much attention to the pain he suddenly felt in his chest when she had so naturally finished her sentence with an endearement that he wished had been for himself.

"Tea? Hell, no. I'm a firefighter, we need caffeine to stay alert on the field. I only made this for Teresa: it's basically the only thing she can stand to drink these days. You know how it is. So, what did you say your name was again?"

A firefighter. Yes, definitely a hero. And a coffee drinker, just like she was – or used to be. Figures. Jane got lost in a reverie about the odd change in Teresa's drinking behavior while he'd been away, and came back to Earth just in time to answer the other man as casually as possible.

"Oh, I didn't say it, sorry. I'm Patrick Jane." That's when he realized something was off. He shot a suspicious glance in Bill's direction. "Wait, if you didn't know who I was, why did you let me in in the first place?"

Bill laughed loudly, a strong, confident man laughter. "Patrick Jane! God, I've heard so much about you, I was almost sure it was you when I saw you standing out there! It's an honor to meet you."

The genuinely benevolent smile he shot Jane at that point only annoyed the fake psychic further.
So he knew about his past relationship with Teresa, a working relationship, yes, but definitely not a traditional one, and he didn't consider him a threat at all? Not good... And apparently he'd known who Jane was all along, which meant he was smart too. He gritted his teeth. Well, wasn't that great news. Especially considering Jane himself still had no idea, even if it was getting more obvious with every passing second, who Bill was to his Teresa.

"Well, Patrick, may I call you Patrick?" Jane nodded absent-mindedly, thinking that was the last thing he actually wanted. "As I said, you looked like Teresa always described you – minus some kind of a vest, I guess. Also, this is a small town and I grew up in one of those: you get very trusting, even towards people you don't know. I know it sounds odd to you big city folks, I mean, you should really see how Teresa rolls her eyes at me sometimes. She says I'm so naive I wouldn't last a day in a city like Sacramento." He chuckled, and the simple mention of Lisbon putting on a face brought back a thousand memories that made Jane's hands tremble.
"But what really gave it away is how you called her Lisbon" he continued. "I figured only an old colleague of hers would still call her by her former last name."

Jane's next breathing caught in his throat, as he understood the meaning behind those last words, and he was glad he had already swallowed that sip of tea or he'd have chocked on it. He glanced down as discreetly as he could on Bill. And there it was. The reason 'Lisbon' was Teresa's former last name.

His world crumbled in the flash of a moment, and he fought the tears harder than ever before in his life. He wasn't just upset, actually, he was also quite angry at himself. Because, really, this was con-man 101, and he could almost hear his father's voice in his head, teaching a much younger Patrick Jane how to read people: "one of the first and easiest thing you gotta do when you meet a new mark, son, is to check the left hand". In Jane's defense, he'd been anxious. He'd wanted to see her, and he hadn't expected to run into Mr Perfect in front of him! So he'd make a rookie mistake, and he hadn't noticed that the guy was married.

And now he could hear Teresa coming down the stairs, and he couldn't even brace himself to be confronted to her left hand because he was too busy trying not to fall apart in front of Bill. In front of the man who had everything he wanted, and worse, who seemed to deserve it more than Jane himself.
Oblivious to his distress, perfect Bill was still speaking, now inconsciously playing with that damn golden ring around his finger as Jane himself had done so many times before with his own.

"Hey, I'm no mentalist myself, so I guess this is nothing compared to what you knew about me the second you saw me, but I've got to tell you I'm kinda proud my first guess was a good one!"

Now he was smiling again. God, he was so friendly. And he was married to her.
He was basking over the fact that he'd been able to read a mentalist, but he wasn't even trying to rub it in Jane's face: he seemed to simply express his pride, as the joyful person he obviously was. He had no idea how smug he should really have felt, for Jane had been completely out of his game ever since he'd met him.

Patrick was about to turn the wince he knew was starting to show into a nicer face when he smelled her perfume. Cinnamon, probably from her shampoo, filled his nostrils and he couldn't prevent his eyelids from shutting momentarely while he felt a rush of desire running through his veins, and the warm memories of the woman he loved so much flooding his brain. Oh, how much he'd missed her. And how stupid he had been to wait this long to come back to her.

He opened his eyes again to see Bill staring behind him – and thankfully it seemed Jane hadn't been caught creepily sniffing his.. wife's fragrance – as Teresa spoke.
"Sorry, I was in the shower... Oh my God. Is that... Jane? Patrick Jane, is that really you?!"

The sound of her shocked but obviously pleased voice, so close, made him jump on his feet as if on cue, and he barely had the time to turn around before he felt her throwing herself into his arms, clutching his shoulders as hard as she could with her fingers, drowning his face into her wavy, voluminous and strongly redolent hair. He closed his eyes, taking it all in, unable to move.

"Oh, God, Jane! You're here! You're back!" She whispered in his ear, making him shudder.

He didn't hug her back, afraid his embrace would look a lot more romantic than acceptable in front of her... husband, and anyway he was too lost in his emotions for a while to do anything.
She was there. She was holding him, even though for some reason only her upper body was glued to his. She wasn't mad at him, or at least she wasn't just mad. She was glad to see him, and when he came back from his high, he realized she was actually sobbing with relief on his chest.

He put his hands up to sooth her crying, but she pulled away awkwardly before he could reach her back and she looked up at his face. His heart stopped when he finally parted his eyelids and got a chance to look at the intensity of her affection and worry for him, overwhelming in those deep and beautiful green eyes he'd thought about every day on that island, the red tip of her sniffling nose so cute it took all of his strength not to kiss it, the freckles everywhere making her skin look even paler than it truly was in contrast, and the tears still running down her cheeks like silver pearls he wanted to taste. It all reminded him of how much he'd missed her, and he realized that the image of her he'd kept in his yet perfect memory was really a pathetic copy of the breathtaking reality.

Tentatively, he let his eyes wander a little lower to take in all of her appearance, and that's when the second bomb of the day was dropped on his head, explaining why Teresa Lisb... Mason was at home in the middle of a weekday. Before even finding the wedding ring he'd been expecting to see on her finger, his eyes fell on the somehow very increased size of her breasts, that to his defense the oversized T-shirt she wore wasn't hiding very well, and more importantly on the matching, perfectly round and painfully beautiful outgrowth of her stomach.

Suddenly self-conscious about the crying, and very aware of what Jane was looking, no, staring at, Teresa let out a small, embarrassed laugh as she put a loving and protective hand on her belly. Then, after a quick, almost unnoticeable look towards her baby daddy still sitting on the couch, she shot Jane a somewhat apologetic glance. But even if he knew she sympathized with the sadness she could certainly read on his features, the little smile that played on her lips, conveying her mother-to-be pride and happiness, showed Jane she knew she didn't have to feel bad about this.
Because Teresa Lisbon or Mason or whatever you wanted to call her, the Teresa he knew and loved, would never be ashamed of her child. And when Jane would think about that day later, he would probably conclude that it was a good thing. That it was what he wanted for her. For... them.

"Sorry about the tears", she mumbled, blushing, and Jane almost screamed when he realized he had always subconsciously known how pretty she would look with a huge tummy and her adorable red cheeks. "Must be the hormones."

All three of them stayed silent for a few seconds while Teresa stroked her bump through the clothing, apparently trying to recover from her own shock to see Patrick Jane in her living room. Then she automatically went to sit down next to her husband, who put an arm loosely on her waist without even thinking about it, his eyes hypnotized with her, and she took a sip from her mug.

"So, Jane" she continued cheerfully after a thankful look to Bill for the tea, "Sit down and tell me everything! What have you been up to? And what brings you here?"

Jane swallowed the lump in his throat, turned around slowly to completely face them. He looked down at the woman he loved more than he'd ever think possible after what he'd been through, carrying a new life that he unfortunately had nothing to do with. And she seemed so uncharacteristically relaxed, so peaceful... So at place.

That's when he realized 3 things, that felt like 3 powerful mental slaps.

First: she had never gotten the letters. Which meant she'd hadn't been given the chance to read between the lines, as he was sure she would have had, to understand how much he missed her, how sorry he was... how deeply he had fallen for her. She'd simply thought that he had forgotten about her, that he didn't care and so she had moved on. She had even learnt not to resent him for it, not to care about the way he treated her anymore.

Second: this had defnitely been one stupid idea and he wished he had never had it. He suddenly wondered if Abbott had known about this... situation. Which would most definitely be a deal-breaker if he had, and had chosen not to tell Jane about it. But if he refused the FBI deal, where would that leave him legally speaking?

Third: obviously, the dearest of his wishes would never come true. He would never be able to officially cherish the strongest and most amazing woman he'd ever met. Once more, he had lost the thing he loved most in this world. And even though this time Teresa was very much alive, there was still nothing he could do to be with her again.
There was no way back.

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Ok, a little explanation.

I wrote this a while back, and I think it was a reaction to the way they made Lisbon look in MBH. They made her look lonely and sad and pathetic, while Jane was taking off his wedding ring and going on a date with Fisher on that far away island, because you know, f*ck logic. I did NOT like that, at all. And I think I've read somewhere that Robin didn't like playing it, so, you know, it kind of made me feel even more right about it.

This is my first published story ever, so please, tell me what you thought! Even if you didn't like it: I'm totally ok with any opinion as long as it's useful and respectful. Thank you.