AN: This is an idea I've had for a long time, only coming to fruition now. It's my attempt to patch up the inconsistencies regarding S1 Lisbon who loves old films and S6 Lisbon who, well, doesn't. I'm not sure how well this will work but I think it was worth a try, little inconsistencies like that are a rare thing with The Mentalist, so here's my attempt to fix one with the added bonus for me of being able to mention some old films, all of which I highly recommend! Please review and let me know what you think! X
Jane had known her fondness for old films since years back, from the moment he'd called her out on it in an office many miles away from here, and probably long before, she reckoned. It had stuck with her, unnerved her, the mischievous look on his face that told her he knew he was right without her even having to say a word.
He'd enjoyed that snippet of knowledge, the penchant for old movies they shared, and she'd indulged him, laughing when he'd called himself the Nick to her Nora, swapping recommendations when the thought struck either of them, and reflecting on her late nights spent watching an array of classics as a youngster to him, both surrounded by her family, happier then, and later, alone.
She remembers divulging these memories to him not awfully long after he'd discovered this shared love of theirs, one late night driving through the dark, both tucked away from reality in the safety of his car when they'd given up on the small meaningless talk which seems somehow easy to drop after night has fallen. It had been a long day, and she'd been tired. She'd been well on her way to falling asleep to the sound of the jazz coming from the radio that had put her in mind of her old films, and in her drowsy state she'd told him how she used to spend long nights absorbing the magic of those films, old even at that time, would take in every detail, even then enjoying the mysteries and excitement of those old crime thrillers, of North by Northwest and The Thin Man, of The Big Sleep and Charade. She recalled to him how she felt safe, tucked away from the world not unlike how she had been in that moment, alone on an empty road with Jane, safe enough to eventually give over to the heavy weight of her drooping eyelids and fall safely to sleep to the lilt and murmurs of those old black and whites.
Next morning Jane pesters to let her fall into his arms and call it a trust fall. She finally gives in. After telling him that story the night before, she realises she must have been trusting him all along.
It's not the same now, years later, when she falls asleep, safe and cosy, slumped on Marcus' shoulder in a darkened cinema as East of Eden plays out in front of them. He likes her a lot, that much is clear, but he seems put off by this from her as he teases her about it afterward, seems almost embarrassed. He doesn't get it, but why would he? She has never told him the story, she tries to defend him, but she finds she doesn't want to tell him.
"Classic movies are the best," she'd said as they had filtered out from the cinema, but he'd taken it as her attempt to feign interest for his sake in a film she'd fallen asleep at, and she hadn't corrected him. He assumes she has no interest in these old films and she goes along with it. It's easier than explaining what seems like a strange and irrelevant habit stemming from her younger years, and she lets it go.
It is mere weeks later when he once more tries unwittingly to attract her attention to one of her favourite films, and she, sensing the danger, feigns disinterest, easier done than simply pretending to be ignorant of the blaring similarities between its events and her own life.
"I've never seen Casablanca," she says, barely looking up from the magazine which is almost unreadable in this darkness. Unfocused on the words on the page, she faintly remembers a long-forgotten talk with Jane on the subject. Jane. She puts him out of her head but there he will not stay.
"I'm not really into old movies," she says, an attempt to dismiss the subject once and for all but this only spurs Marcus on, and then he's asking questions and saying the kind things he says, and even hinting at what she's been avoiding all this time, the issue of Jane, without saying it all, so as not to frighten or hurt her. He is a good man, and she knows she has been making her suffer with all of this, so she decides to indulge him.
"Let's watch Casablanca," she says as she moves closer to him. It won't be so bad to watch it with him, she thinks, as long as they remember it is an isolated work of fiction and does not pertain to real life. It will even be interesting to hear his thoughts on it, as another old movie lover, even if she will not argue it out with him the way she might have with Jane. Jane.
"What's it about anyway?" she asks in an effort to force her mind off the thought of him, and that works fine until Marcus' hand stills in hers as he withdraws from how he had launched into the tale when it comes to the woman in love with two men. So he has recognised the parallels too, it would seem. He murmurs something non-committal and she agrees and before she knows it they're watching the baseball.
So here she is, another Ilsa, in love with two good men. Marcus is in love with her, she imagines, or at least is well on the way, and she wishes she loved him too. He is the Victor to her story, the good man who wants what is best for her, the safe choice. Jane is the Rick, the harder choice, the one she wants, the one who remains unreachable no matter how many times life may throw them back in one another's path.
These old films of hers are beautiful, and devastating, but this is not a black and white movie of old, this is real and it is happening and she feels these conflicting emotions of hers in all their devastating colour. She longs for the black and white of certainty, of right and wrong, but she is lost in the greyness of her reality, torn between what she has and what she wants and what she wants to want, far removed and muted from the vast colour this kind of love should bring. There is no right answer here, only a whole spectrum of wrong ones, and someone else is going to be hurt in this; for this is already hurting her like hell.
Jane has been living a certain greyness, she imagines, since suffering the losses which he had. A self-imposed muteness of joy and light which prevented him from enjoying the colours of life.
She has been glad to see glimpses of colour come to him over the years as he comes back to himself, more often now than in the years before. She thinks of the moment, all their moments, years and years ago now when she'd seen him see the colour appear back in his life for what must have been close to the first time. When he'd seen her reaction to the pony he'd gotten for her, the smile irrepressible on his face; when he'd be having a laugh with Cho and Rigsby; as well as in the everyday, in that moment when he'd teased her for enjoying those self same old films which are proving so troubling to her now.
She thinks back on all their shared times, years and years, thinks for a moment that she might have given him back some of that colour missing in the black and white of his life back then. She wonders might she again.