Disclaimer: *tries to think of something witty and clever* I don't own the Mentalist.
A/N: Everyone who reads this and watches Bones, PM Tiva4evaxxx and tell her to UD ROL. She said she would, and just because she said it yesterday doesn't mean I'm letting her back out. Thanks again for the betaing, Em. :P
"You?" Minelli asked, stunned.
Lisbon looked surprised. "Yeah, me. Is there a problem, boss?"
"Just… changes everything," said the lawyer, finding her voice.
"I can't see it's any different to other times I've had to shoot a suspect," she feigned. "I'm sorry… I thought you knew. It didn't occur to me… but of course you thought it was Jane."
She knew she seemed suitably lost and vague, as their stunned expressions turned to sympathy again. And so they pushed on with the report, Lisbon was truthful about everything except the moment when Jane grabbed her gun – and since she was lying anyway, she decided it wasn't necessary to tell them everything Red John had said, besides, she wasn't sure she could say it aloud.
"Look at him, Agent Lisbon," she heard again, as she'd been hearing ever since it happened. "He doesn't even know," the mocking voice continued. "The Great Patrick Jane doesn't even realise… because he cares more about killing me than seeing you – but you know that, don't you? He can't love you Teresa. Not like you love him."
She remembered his veiled disappointment that neither she nor Jane had reacted.
Jane, for one, appeared to be in a different world, and she had been determined to stay strong, to not to give Red John what he wanted. But really his words had had the desired effect, they had burned into her head. He can't love you, Teresa. I don't care, she thought furiously, it doesn't matter, so long as he survives. She didn't love Jane as Red John had guessed, but she did care for him. Again the possibility that he wouldn't make it hit her like a physical blow. She didn't want what had happened in there to be her last memory of him. But what she really couldn't stand was to think of him pale and cold, eyes staring blankly. Shaking herself violently to dispel the image, she tried again to focus on the room she was in. Minelli could read her though, and suggested that since they had the essentials, they stopped for the day for them "all" to get some rest.
Lisbon was grateful, and murmured thanks to show it, but she had no intention of resting. Half an hour later she was back in the hospital. Grace, at least, was sleeping, with her head on Rigsby's shoulder and her hand in his.
"You back together then?" she asked, forcing a smile from her out of practise lips.
"Well, not, just, everything happening…" he tried to explain.
She nodded. "Good man."
That shut him up for a few seconds until he eventually said, "Thanks, boss," and quickly adding, "Cho's in with him."
When she entered, Cho stood from one of the chair's at Jane's side. She lifted a hand to stop him. "Stay."
Obediently, and without a word, he sat again. She dragged the other chair around the side of the bed and sat, leaning forward onto her knees. For ten minutes she just looked at Jane; held his warm hand to prove to herself that he was still alive. Cho waited patiently, knowing she was working up to whatever she needed to say.
"I lied in my statement. I said I shot Red John." All the elaborate wording she'd tested in her head suddenly seemed unnecessary when it got to facing him. Of course she'd thought of lying to the team too, but it felt like a disservice to those who'd been loyal to her for years, through a lot of shit.
"Why?" Cho asked.
"They… they said Jane was facing twenty-five years for premeditated murder," she whispered, wincing slightly at the thought. "There isn't a lawyer in the world good enough to say that Jane didn't want to kill Red John."
"He knew what would happen. He was… he is willing to do the time."
"I won't let him. I'm not willing."
Cho stood, nodded, and left in silence. She'd told him all she'd asked him to stay for, and he had nothing else to say, so he left her with Jane and her thoughts.
By the next day, Red John's killing had reached the media. The team couldn't walk down a street without seeing a paper with Jane's picture, or hearing his name from a TV or radio. He had been in the public eye before, but it was disconcerting the frequency with which Lisbon was coming across herself. A coffee run from the hospital had her hearing the radio in Starbucks: "… by team leader Teresa Lisbon," she'd visibly started at her name, "according to anonymous sources within the CBI."
She knew immediately that her statement had been leaked, and wasn't surprised. It always happened with high profile cases. But she had still been in the police the last time the media had any interest in her, and had enjoyed being a non-entity in her years at the CBI. Automatically letting her hair fall to hide her face, she bought coffee for everyone as quickly as possible, and hurried back to the hospital. She found that they had mobbed seats in the ICU waiting room so that they weren't facing the entrance, and received an explanation when she sat down. Van Pelt inclined her head toward the desk where a man with a camera and another with a notepad were harassing an increasingly irate nurse.
"Journalists," she said with a grimace. "Wayne was all for getting them to back off, but it'd just end up in the papers."
"Good thinking, Van Pelt," Lisbon said, handing out the styrofoam cups and joining them. Like Rigsby, she had a desire to forcibly remove the men, but she knew Grace was right.
Cho took a long suffering sip of his coffee. "Thanks."
She faked shock. "Speaking to me now?"
Very soon she wished she hadn't commented as her whole team, who now knew, glared at her.
Cho shrugged. "When Jane wakes up, he's going to kill you. All we ask is to watch."
Eventually the doctors eased up on the only two visitors rule, on the special circumstances that they needed to hide from journalists, and they all camped out in Jane's room. Lisbon's phone, which she should have turned off, rang and she was shoved unceremoniously out.
"Lisbon," she answered.
"Lisbon, find a TV," said Minelli. "Stay on the line, and don't talk to any reporters."
She didn't reply but set off at a brisk walk to the waiting room where the new played on near-mute for 24 hours. The first thing she saw was an old picture of her on the screen, quickly followed by news cameras on a professional looking man.
"I have no volume, what am I seeing?"
Minelli, obviously watching wherever he was, said, "The man who just publicly accused you of murder."
So exciting. :P Or I hope so... okay, not really. But c'mon. Be nice. It's my first Mentalist multi-chap (next time's excuse - it's my second Mentalist multi-chap... third, fourth, fifth....)