Disclaimer: My name is not Bruno Heller. The Mentalist is not mine. Sad, isn't it?
"What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine." -William Shakespeare
Teresa Lisbon poured hot water over the hot chocolate powder and watched as the powder floated to the top and then was absorbed to form more chocolate-y liquid as she stirred. Hot chocolate wasn't a treat she often indulged in. Coffee dominated her mornings—the caffeine content was more important than taste in her life—and she usually preferred a calming cup of tea at night. However, sometimes, every once in awhile, hot chocolate is exactly what she wanted at night when she couldn't find sleep fall.
So there she sat, quietly stirring her steaming mug, and looking idly out the window. It was dark outside and she had the light next to her on, causing the room to be reflected back at her. Through the reflection, she could see the light gray suit jacket cast haphazardly over the back of the couch.
She also knew without looking that there was a pair of light brown leather shoes left forgotten on the other side of the couch and a divot in the couch cushion that fit one Patrick Jane like a glove.
It amazed her that two highly independent individuals had been able to make allowances for another person so that his and hers became theirs.
If you asked her, it had all started the day that he was assigned to her team. An epic power struggle is what it had been. Cho and Rigsby, and later on, Van Pelt, had always been caught between the two of them; perpetually choosing between her direct orders and his wealth of knowledge and crazy—yet effective—ploys.
The moment that their true dynamic changed was the second she relinquished enough control to acknowledge that it wasn't her team, but their team. Once she made that realization, things changed between she and her cunning and infuriating consultant.
Lisbon started to trust him more and, as such, Jane began to return that trust. Soon, she found herself turning to him when she needed someone to talk to. She had a lot of pain in her past, and sometimes it was hard to keep that to yourself. He'd been understanding, he'd listened, completely accepting, as she told her tale of drunk drivers, black-out drunk fathers, and three rambunctious little brothers. He'd been there to tell her that it wasn't her fault and she'd done her best and turned out to be a fantastic woman.
He was no stranger to pain, himself. Every time that Red John reentered their lives, Jane was left with a little bit less of himself. He had no one to turn to, until one night, she'd bellowed at him that his obsession would kill him before he could ever find Red John, and how was that finding retribution for his wife and daughter?
After that, his pain and her pain, became their pain. She'd held him while he'd poured out his pain in the medium of tears, sniffles, and choked words and it hadn't hurt just him, but it'd hurt her too. Many nights were spent lounging in the very room that she now sat with her hot chocolate, just talking about whatever they needed to get off their chests.
"Lisbon," Jane had said quietly as they sat on the couch on one of those many nights, close together, each with a cup of tea.
She'd turned her head to inquire what he wanted, but before she could speak, his lips were pressed to hers. It had taken a few moments for her to overcome her shock, but he was patient. And, before she'd realized it, her hands had been tangled in his perfectly messy blonde curls and she never wanted to let go.
That's when his love life and her love life became their love life. Instead of just deep dark talks, they now shared homemade dinners, smiles, playful looks, and a bounty of kisses.
Their physical relationship had been taken slowly and gently. He was still struggling with the confusion that stemmed from loving someone other than his wife and she was still worried that he was just using her to fill time until his ultimate showdown with Red John finally happened.
Be that as it may, eventually their waiting stopped and they had taken that final step. It was easier—and better—than either had imagined it could have been and, predictably is segued into Jane spending the night at her house more than he stayed at his own.
He preferred that weird cinnamon toothpaste, the right side—her side—of the bed, and having music or the TV on while he slept. She wanted silence and her regular spearmint toothpaste—and him off of her side of the bed. Not to mention that in the morning, he sprang out of bed, bright eyed and bushy tailed, not a trace of sleep in his eyes while she hit the snooze four times and basically had to drag herself from beneath the covers every morning.
Somehow, despite these differences, they found compromise. He kept his toothpaste on the counter and she kept hers in the medicine cabinet—he still swore that he could tell that hers was in the vicinity of his just by the mere taste of it—and they'd even learned to angle their bodies slightly, so that they'd stopped elbowing each other as they brushed.
To solve the issue of sides of the bed, they made it a point to fall asleep wrapped around one another in the very center of the bed so that it was not only hard to tell where one ended and the other began, but it was also nearly impossible to tell who was on the right side while the tiny little nature-sound-emitting machine played softly in the background.
In the morning, he would spring out of bed at the first alarm, shower, get dressed, and have a mug of coffee waiting for her on the bedside table when she finally dragged herself out of bed to rush into the shower and still make it to work before anyone else.
His routine had melded with her routine and it had become their routine.
As this merging of routines continued, more and more of his things became permanent residents of Lisbon's home. Her closet and her dresser housed as much of his clothing as it did of hers and as such, they were no longer her closet and her dresser, they were their closet and dresser. She'd expected that this realization would bother her, but it hadn't. It had been strangely comfortable and comforting to see his shoes lined up next to hers in the closet and his suits hanging next to hers.
"Patrick?" Lisbon had whispered into the darkness one night as they were falling asleep.
"Hmm?"
"I think you should move in…you spend so much time here anyway that it just makes sense," she'd said in a rush. She wasn't sure what he would say. She knew that on the few nights he actually spent in his house, he still slept beneath Red John's mark—not that he ever got any sleep when he was there, by his own admission. Be that as it may, she knew that he would see it as permanently letting go of his wife and daughter, even if that's not what she was asking from him.
He was quiet then, thoughtful, and she knew that he was mulling over the same things that she was nervous about. "I'd love to move in…but I don't think I'm going to sell the house. You understand, yes?"
"Yes, of course. I just like the idea of you being here full time," Lisbon admitted quietly.
"As do I, my dear," he'd grinned at her and then pulled her up from where she was resting across his chest to kiss her deeply.
And, then her home became his home and together, they made it their home. His messy and disorganized lifestyle clashed with her neat and tidy ways, but they made it work. She learned not to let it bother her when he left his shoes, and shirts, and vests, and even his pants lying around and he learned to be tolerant and humor her on days that she flew off the handle about how messy everything was.
She'd even found a bright side in his tendency to leave a trail of clothes to the bedroom after work. It made it easier for her to find one of his button ups to slip on over her underwear and wear as evening/night wear. The cotton was soft and usually still warm when she slipped it over her skin and his intoxicating scent always clung to the fabric, encasing her and making her feel warm all over.
As Teresa sat there, drinking her hot chocolate, taking in the room and fingering the fabric of the light blue shirt he'd donned earlier in the day, she smiled at the thought of how she was no longer living her life.
Somewhere along the way, somewhere between the closed-case pizzas, late night talks, and the shared cups of tea, it had ceased to be just her life.
Somewhere in there, somewhere between the toothpaste arguments, laundry debates, and Saturday morning waffles, it had ceased to be just Jane's life.
Somewhere, somewhere between the shy and tentative smiles in the bullpen or in the mirror as they brushed their teeth and the bickering about whose turn it was to do the dishes, somewhere between the laughter and the tears and quiet utterances of love and devotion, somewhere, it'd become their life.
"Teresa?" his voice broke her out of her reverie.
She looked over and saw him standing in the doorway, clad in only a pair of blue plaid pajama pants, his chest bare, hair mussed and eyes clouded with sleep.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, I just woke up and couldn't fall back asleep," she told him, indicating the mug of hot chocolate in her hands.
"Everything okay?" he checked. His voice was rough and oh-so-sexy as he spoke and she couldn't help but notice this fact as he ran a hand through his unruly curls. She took a moment to take this picture of him in; she never got to see him like this. The man only needed about four hours of sleep to act fresh as a daisy (even though she knew that was pretty much a farce), so seeing him a sleepy, groggy mess like she was every morning, was something of a treat.
"Yeah, everything's fine," she promised as he approached until he was standing right in front of her.
"Mmm," he nodded.
"Go back to bed, I'll be there in a little bit," she suggested. She hated that she'd woken him from his sleep, he didn't get enough sleep as it was.
He just shook his head and grabbed her hand, pulling her out of her perch on the chair. She followed his lead and allowed him to sit in the chair and pull her back down, onto his lap. His left arm came around her shoulders, cradling her back as she drew up her legs and fairly curled against him, his right hand coming to stroke the legs that were left bare by the blue button up.
He took her mugs from her hands with a practiced intimacy and took a sip. His mouth immediately turned into a look of distaste. "Hot chocolate?"
"Shut up, it's good," she wrinkled her nose at him.
They settled back into a comfortable silence, just relaxing into one another until she spoke again. "Why'd you get up, I wouldn't go anywhere without telling you."
"I can't sleep so well by myself," he told her, his head leaning back and his eyes slipping closed with her familiar weight and warmth against him.
She smiled involuntarily to herself. They'd been at this a long while and his quiet admittances still made her stomach flip. "I love you," she said quietly as she pressed a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw.
"I love you too," he told her, pulling his head up and meeting her eyes as he spoke. He'd told her once that he never wanted to let 'I love you' become something that you just say, so he made a point to look her in the eye when he said it, so that she would know that he meant it.
"Okay, ready for bed," she told him, draining the rest of her mug.
"Excellent," he said and stood up, lifting her into his arms as he went.
"JANE! Put me down!" she squealed.
"Why?"
"Because, I have to rinse out my mug and put it in the dishwasher," she reminded him.
"Fine," he sighed and set her down like it was the biggest inconvenience in the world. She rolled her eyes at him and did just what she said she would before taking his hand and starting down the hallway.
He yanked on her arm and pulled her back into his body. Before she could question him, he laid one of his hands against her neck, his large thumb stroking her jaw and he leaned down, capturing her lips with his own. The kiss was gentle, but passionate. "I really do love you," he reiterated.
"Good, you better," she grinned at him and they made their way back down the hall to their bedroom.
They climbed into the bed and wrapped themselves around each other in the very center of the bed. He leaned over her and hit a button on the little machine, causing animal sounds to fill the room. With one last kiss to her hair, he was drifting off to sleep. She wasn't much behind him, but as she lay there and considered how much had changed.
Teresa knew, without a doubt that there was no one she'd rather share her life with. There was nothing that would rival the complete and utter joy that she felt when she woke up and saw his messy curls right in her face, or the way that he always knew when she needed to talk and when she just needed him to hold her hand.
Their life together wasn't perfect. He still swore that he would kill Red John with no regrets and she still said that she would do anything she could to stop him from killing the serial killer and wouldn't hesitate to arrest him if he succeeded, and they still didn't see eye-to-eye on, well, anything, but they were in it together and perfect it not, it was theirs.
With that knowledge, Teresa Lisbon squeezed a little bit closer to Patrick Jane and allowed his heartbeat to lull her into a deep sleep.
A/N: Okay, well this was my first attempt at a Mentalist fic. I'm new to the show-I've watched the entire first season and about half of the second in the last two weeks-but I absolutely love it. It's truly addicting and is one of my new favorites. Anyway, I was going to write this story for Booth/Bones, but I felt that the idea could apply to Jane/Lisbon as well. Anyway, it's un-betaed, so any mistakes are solely my own and if you point them out, I'll change them. Thanks for reading, I'd love to know what you think!