Title: Where the Wind Blows Sweet
Summary: "Jane stipples one last kiss to the flushed skin above her collarbone and then again to her cheek. His hand, though, doesn't move from the swell of her hip, and he's fixedly watching his fingers graze over it. Or, rather, the mottle of scar tissue he's found there."
Words: 3k+
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I must give credit where credit is due: the title is taken from Jefferson Airplane's 'Wooden Ships'. And, for that matter, I don't own The Mentalist either.

PLEASE NOTE: This is set outside of anything canon in S6 right now so no RJ/FBI/time skip arcs in this fic. Although there's no real specific timeline given here either, I'd say this takes place sometime around the very late S4/S5 mark.

ALSO: This is my second time posting this story, something you may or may not have noticed. I originally posted it a few days ago but it was since taken down (presumably by FFN; either that or the fic was never uploaded properly). However, since its removal was never justified, I am re-posting it until FFN or whoever explicitly asks for its deletion.

Thanks to my great friend Iida for reading this over.

Where the Wind Blows Sweet
by Elenion Nelde

xxx

'Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.' -Kahlil Gibran

xxx

She's pretty sure she burned off the last of the midnight oil hours ago.

So, as to what Lisbon's running on right now, she couldn't say. After all, contrary to what could be heard on the office grapevine, she doesn't get off on filling out paperwork. And she went cold turkey on the caffeine front hours ago; even she couldn't quite stomach the coffee that's gone so cold it tastes like India ink.

Outside, the bullpen is quieter than an anechoic chamber. And while Lisbon's never minded silence - they say it's golden for a reason, right? - it only serves to remind her of just how late it is. How even the night janitor's gone, tucked up tightly in bed. How the only other person around right now is Jane, who's still somewhere in the vicinity, helping himself to the CBI's stocks of teas and attics again. And it's not like that's a comforting thought, either; that man lingers here like he's the resident ghost.

But who's she to pick holes?

If Jane hangs round this place with the ineradicability of a ghost, you might as well call Teresa Lisbon fricking Caspar. She's the one still sat at her desk at this ungodly hour. She's the one who was once told she should go into co-tenancy with the CBI the amount of time she spends here.

She snorts, tosses her pen aside and watches - irritably, mind you - as it's swallowed up by the paperwork that litters her desk.

It's not like she chooses to stay at the office until the roosters are crowing. Not at all; contrary to popular belief, Lisbon does indeed have a life outside the job. In fact, right now, she wants nothing more than coffee, her couch and a John Huston movie. But the moment she'd found a complaint lodged by the Deputy AAG earlier that day (courtesy of her consultant, of course), she'd known right away that Humphrey Bogart and Moccona dark roast would just have to wait; in the meantime, she had to pick up the pieces of another of Jane's messes.

After all, what was she if not his personal trash truck?

"You've been in your office all day, Lisbon," a voice suddenly imputes from somewhere by the threshold of her office. "Frankly, I'm surprised there's still an oxygen supply in here."

Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear, huh?

"Can I help you, Jane?" she asks, her tone about as sweet as library paste. What, does it look like she's in any mood to deal with that asshole right now?

"No, no. I'm just here for the feng shui." Jane shows his palms as though in surrender but Lisbon's not gonna bite. She's worked with the man for ten years; if she's learned anything in that time, it's that Jane's not here for just the feng shui.

She rolls her eyes anyway. "Yeah, unless you have coffee with you, go balance your ch'i elsewhere please. I'm busy."

"What, you don't want my company?" When Jane holds a hand to his heart, Lisbon rolls her eyes. Seriously, that man's histrionics are more tiring than an IAAF event. "Hey, you never know - maybe mine'll be a blessing in disguise."

"Some disguise," Lisbon snorts. "More like a ghillie suit, I'd say."

Jane grins as he slumps down on her office couch. "Still grumpy, huh? You should really do something about all that pent-up frustration of yours, you know. You'll pop a vein one of these days."

"Oh, yeah. Sure thing, doc. Let me just go rake my Zen garden," Lisbon grunts. "Whatever, Jane. I could reach spiritual enlightenment and you'd still find a way to piss me off."

"Ouch. Don't hold back on my account," he says. "Okay. So no Zen garden then, huh?"

"I think I'm possibly a few mood crystals short of that sort of thing," she affirms. "And that goes for a water fountain or whatever other New Age crap you're going to suggest."

"What's wrong with a water fountain? It'd be great to nap to," he comments. "And the koi carp can always keep you company when I'm not around."

She snorts. "Koi carp, I can deal with. You, on the other hand, are a pain in the ass."

"So I've been told." He grins like he's the cat that got the cream. "Is this about that Deputy AAG? News sure gets round here fast."

She ignores him. "I mean, I know you have a knee-jerk need to piss off every law enforcement official in the state of California but, come on, an AAG? Do you want me to hit you?"

"Meh, he's an insect in a bespoke suit. You should be glad," Jane defends. "And anyway, I was only saying what everyone was thinking."

"Accusing him of being unfaithful to his wife? Yeah, somehow I don't think that's what everyone was thinking." She sighs, exasperated. "Jesus, Jane. I should just keep you on a leash."

Jane smiles, simply. "Do you honestly think that would stop me?"

She doesn't dignify him with an answer. Instead, she feels like pouting. All she wants is peace and quiet and hot coffee but what does she get? A mouthy consultant and a roll of complaints. And cold coffee; God, does her life suck hard right now.

"I take it an apology would be redundant then, huh? To you," Jane adds after a beat, "I'm not apologising to the Deputy AAG, obviously."

Well, at least he has the incongruous good judgement to not push her any further, Lisbon thinks. An apology's a stretch, sure, but it's a start too as God knows they're few and far between.

"You could say that," she says, tightly. "And that goes for paper frogs too. I don't want you to start making origami out of my paperwork or something."

Jane stands; she can smell citrus and tea and then he's by her desk. "I wouldn't dream of it, my dear."

Though his sudden closeness leaves her on her guard (what? She still doesn't trust him), the scent of tea he carries is a balm to the stress she's been feeling all day. Her eyelids flutter slightly as a result and she almost forgets that, thirty seconds earlier, she wasn't above throwing her office stationery at him. She still startles though when she feels his fingers on her back, beginning to work away the tension that's coiled there, tight as a constrictor knot.

"What are you doing?" she demands. His fingers map the soft sweep of her shoulders and, in response, her heart buffets hard against her chest.

"Relax, woman," he says, by way of response. She briefly wonders if he can feel the fluttering of her pulse beneath his fingers. "Forget a popped vein; you'll go into cardiac arrest at this rate."

His hands dance over the arches of her vertebrae, up along the arc of her neck. And though she's still stiff as a board, she can't remember why as his fingers chart the curvature of her collarbone.

"You're tight as a drum," he says into her ear.

"Huh, yeah. That's what tends to happen when your subordinates piss off the AG's office," she responds between the muted commentary of sighs and suspirations that she's letting slip despite her best efforts.

"One slimeball in a suit is hardly all of the United States Department of Justice now, is it?" he comments into her ear. "And subordinate? I'm neither above or below, remember. Strictly to the side."

She's not really listening to him though. Her head's elsewhere, at cross swords with her emotions. Reason's telling her to get the hell out of here but Jane's touch is like a chemical high and who's she kidding? It feels far too good to stop.

His fingers work away the tightness and tension, melt her muscles into malleability. Then, they're brushing aside her hair to stroke the smooth arch of her neck that doing so revealed and she sighs in spite of the warning bells it sets off.

"Jane," she says, thinking she should probably pull back from his touch round about now. "This isn't a good idea."

She's in breach of her words though; when Jane threads his fingers into her hair, she doesn't stop him. And she doesn't put up much of a fight when they start to work away the pressure that's coiled there either.

"You're right," he agrees and, for a moment, she forgets to what. "In fact, it's a terrible one."

But, of course, he doesn't choose to follow through on that with something sensible like removing his hands. Not Jane; no, instead, in his usual fashion, he has to do the most rash, impetuous thing he can think of.

When Jane touches his lips to the curve of her neck, she inhales so hard that she ends up just short of winded. He presses on undaunted though with another kiss to her skin, above the process of her shoulder.

"Jane," she says, breathily. "Stop it."

His response, of course, isn't to listen to her. Instead, he maps the line of her jaw with his mouth, crowning it with a kiss. There, her pulse flutters and he complies to its clamour with a press of his lips to her nose and her eyelids and both her cheeks.

He's robbing her of her control, she decides, each time he stipples her hot skin with kisses, and she's never been good with that. Her thoughts though are like a squall line and, try as she might, she just can't marshal them. At least not with the assault Jane's mouth is making on her senses right now. So, instead, she winds her hands around his forearms, gripping her fingers so tight that, beneath his jacket, she's sure the skin is blanched there. In response, Jane presses his mouth along the fossa of her collarbone, and she gasps.

The atmosphere is pulsing with enough electricity to power a small country, she's sure. Still though, there's something almost playful about it all. So, when she feels his teeth graze the cartilage of her throat, she answers with a head of steam she's since worked up, threading her fingers into his curls and tugging hard. He grunts, and she is, for a moment, pleased that for once she's the one to surprise this psychic asshole.

He does his own fair share of it though when he presses his mouth to hers.

xxx

There's nothing particularly sweet about their first kiss.

In fact, its fervency is like a fire that burns so bright it scalds. His mouth works her into a frenzy, and she's so tuned out right now that she doesn't really notice that she's no longer sat down at her desk, tucked into its security. No, instead, they've impinged her office blinds at some point and she can now feel them score the skin exposed by Jane's hands as he slips them beneath her blouse. His mouth presses against hers once, twice and then his lips are tasting the curves of her neck again, teeth scraping the skin just below her carotid. She impels his mouth back to hers, and the sounds that follow are dampened again by heady kisses.

When she draws back, it's only for the sake of coming up for air.

Her head's still swimming though and she sighs when Jane stipples one last kiss to the flushed skin above her collarbone and then again to her cheek. His hand, however, doesn't move from the swell of her hip, and he's fixedly watching his fingers graze over it.

Or, rather, the mottle of scar tissue he's found there.

"Lisbon…"

Rising from the sag that she's slipped into against the blinds, she swats away his hands, instinctively steeling herself from his touch. From his concern: she'd thought that dealing with his taste for trouble and torment been bad; this, she decides, is much worse.

She pulls down her blouse from where it has risen up and the scar's covered again.

"You should leave," she says. "This is a bad idea. Not to mention totally unprofessional."

Well, that's an understatement if she's ever heard one. She could reel off all the stupid things she's done over the years; Lord knows she's made her fair share of bad decisions. But making out with Jane when she should be dragging him over the coals for his stunt with the AAG? That pretty much blows them all out the water.

Even if their first kiss has left a part of her giddy as a teenager.

Her joints grate and snap as she moves back toward her desk but she pays no mind to it. She's too angry at herself anyway; she should have known nothing good would come of whatever the hell Jane's just broadsided her with. God, he's a jerk.

"Lisbon."

She pauses briefly to collect herself. Their little display has been like flint and steel to the conflagration that's been slowly building inside her and Jane's only adding fuel to the fire now.

"It's late," she says. Cool, clipped.

She begins to shovel her evening's workload into her briefcase, and it's only when Jane rests his hands on top of hers that she stops. She baulks as he turns her to face him, moving his hands up to her shoulders as he does.

"Don't," he says.

"I think you should leave," she insists anyway, and though she makes no more moves to do so herself, she does make a point of avoiding his gaze.

"You know that's not going to happen," Jane presses. The man, she thinks, is as stubborn as a mule.

He shepherds her away from the desk, her port in this storm, and raises her blouse just above her hipbone to reveal the scar again. The streak of white is small and slight but it's still there, distorting the smoothness of her hip.

"You don't have to hide from me, Lisbon," he says softly, grazing a finger along the rugous, raised tissue. "You know that, right?"

And doesn't she just.

She can't bring herself to reply though; her heart is drumming so hard that she can feel it in her throat. The atmosphere too, though tempered somewhat, still thrums with tension. But his fingers, as they begin to sweep the plate of her pelvis, are soothing. And when he runs them along the white web of scar tissue there, she feels a tenderness in his touch that she hasn't experienced from anyone in a long time now.

And though her independence is a force with no holds barred, she decides that maybe she can let it slide just this once.

xxx

For a while, she thinks about lying to him.

Thinks about telling him that that scar is just like all her others. She's a cop after all, and ridding California of crime one son-of-a-bitch at a time is something that's bound to leave its mark. And it has: her body's a story in itself, chronicling every bruise and blow and bust that's gone wrong in her twenty years in law enforcement.

Yet she knows deep down that Jane'd see through something so flimsy. She's as tough as nails; why would she be so out of her mind over the scars she's accrued doing the job she loves? And, besides, that particular one is pearly with an age that predates her career by several years.

After all, it is a marker, a reminder of the first time her dad ever raised a hand to her.

"I know it doesn't seem like it always," she says, softly, "but I do trust you, Jane. I do."

Jane doesn't say anything for a while, content to trace the curves and contours of her hip. But just when she's beginning to doubt he ever heard her in the first place, he speaks at last.

"I know."

She sighs, her breath catching at the thought of sharing part of the life she's kept pretty much deadlocked for a long time ago now. "And I-I…It's just…difficult. That scar…Well, my dad-"

"Don't."

His interruption leaves her feeling a bit put out. God, she should just muzzle him; she's not comfortable with letting slip her past as it is, and he's not exactly making this any easier for her. When he presses his finger to his lips and then to her scar though, she decides that maybe she'll indulge him just this once. Although the gesture's simple, she thinks it's one of the sweetest things she's ever seen him do.

"Don't," he repeats. "Who or where that scar came from isn't what matters right now. What does matter is what it stands for. Gibran once said that the strongest souls have emerged out of suffering, and it's true. You are the strongest person I know, Teresa. Far stronger than me."

xxx

Her emotions were running high as a kite as it was. His words, though, have only flown them higher.

Still, hearing them, she finds herself wishing she could return them. Wishing she could tell him that, mentalist or not, he hasn't any idea of just how much she's come to love him. How much she's come to trust him with everything she's got (well, maybe not her job; she still has an angry AAG to take care of, courtesy of him). But she's not so sure it's words either of them need right now.

So, for now, she'll settle for twining their fingers and promising herself that one day she'll show Jane all of her scars.

xxx