AN: Thanks so much for the favs and follows for the first chapter, and to MleeWrite, Hayseed Socrates, shallowdweller, Guest, AlliBeth, and KrrdmN for being my first reviewers. I'm glad you enjoyed the start of my story and I hope this second chapter lives up to your expectations. I'm posting it early because of all that extra Easter time :)
It has been two days since Teresa sat down beside me on the humble steps of my trailer; two days since I almost kissed her in the light of a sun struggling to prevent its last rays from sinking below a scorched horizon. And akin to those of that doomed sun my efforts since have proved equally futile. Two days, and things between us have progressed from bad to pretty damn awful. No longer does she simply tolerate me around the office and out in the field, friendly but in a forced offhand professional manner, conversation meted out as a matter of course to stave off the awkward silence. No, now that I have made my first move, she seeks actively to avoid me when she can. Just this morning, to provide one example, as I was standing nonchalant, not lurking, by the coffee cart near the main entrance, I witnessed her employ evasive manoeuvres and duck up the side steps to the lobby. And, for a second (if you're not yet convinced), whenever we're working (I use the word, you understand, in its broadest possible sense) in the bullpen, she is careful to ensure that there are always other agents employed nearby. At the odd moments when the surrounding desks are empty, she always finds an excuse to also leave the room. Of course, I could devise an elaborate plan to catch her alone in the break room on one of her frequent coffee ventures, or as she exits the ladies' restroom on the basement level of the building, her newly-found site of refuge where she is certain she won't run into me, but I find myself disinclined to do so.
I bragged once to Rigsby and Cho that I could seduce any woman, and, don't get me wrong, I stand by that claim. But I find myself unwilling to simply seduce Teresa. I could do so in any number of inventive ways to which I am certain she would succumb, as her response the other night proved, but what I want from her is so much more than a mere yielding to desire. I know that she loves me, has done for years, but it is an unwilling and guilty love from which she is now attempting to hide; I monopolized for so long her inherent instincts of protection and charity, already so impeccably honed by all those years of caring for an ungrateful alcoholic father, that I fear that she cannot now dislodge this broken image of me far enough to love me as…a man. A whole man, one she can depend on as well as wish to sustain. I have used words to assure her time and again over the years that I will always be there for her, but in my actions… Well, let's just say I wholly deserve the wall she is now attempting to erect between us.
I find myself watching her now, from my usual position reclining on the couch, as she briefs the team on Dr Linus Wagner, that delightfully homicidal shrink whose escape from prison so cannily disrupted our sunset liaison. Teresa shines in the spotlight, all eyes focused on her, all ears inclined; this shift to the FBI has so far operated only to deny her such a leading role, relegating her instead to one of subordinate, and she is clearly capable of so much more. I observe Abbot, too, thinking along these lines, listening to her with calculating features, weighing up her efficacy and the way she holds her audience captive. I did a good thing then, in brokering that deal. She may still think that I did it all for me, but this, this is what she deserves.
And as she speaks I find myself looking at her and really seeing her as if it is for the very first time, not as an assembly of tiny perfect minutiae, but all of a piece, solid and particular and incredible. But, no, not incredible. That's really it. She is merely there, an embodiment of herself, no longer a catena of lovely parts, but pure and untainted and whole. I notice the little line of freckles dotted just above her left collarbone, the delicate indentation marring the smooth skin above her upper lip, a speck of stray mascara in the corner of her eye. Enigmatic is she no more, but instead a woman, just a woman. And somehow by being in this moment simply herself, without pretence or adornment, she makes those around her be present in this way too. In her, and in the way she speaks (I can't pretend to be paying any real attention to the content of what she is saying; besides, I know it all already), the room, the little world of this FBI bullpen in which we sit, settles in its foundation and is fully realized. It is as if she has dropped a condensed drop of dye into the colorless water that is the world and the color has spread and the outline of things is suddenly so much more present. As I sit with my mouth agape and watch her, I feel everyone and everything fall into their most vivid form, shivering and shifting and detaching themselves from me and how I might perceive them, changing instead into what they really are, no longer mysteries to be solved, puzzles to be deciphered, marks to be read; no longer a part of me at all. I am no longer even here in this moment, I…
"Jane?"
Okay, so maybe I am here after all. At least, they are very much aware of me. They being the entire FBI task force. Who are all staring at me, expectant.
The exception is of course Teresa, who is glaring.
"Mmm," I say, closing my mouth with a snap and nodding in what I know to be a knowledgeable fashion , carefully avoiding her narrowed gaze. Confidence is everything when convincing others that you are completely in control and know exactly what you are doing. "A good point, Lisbon. It's like I always say, you can't trust a psychiatrist. Dodgy people. Abbot?"
I throw the ball of conversation on to the senior agent, who frowns at me, but, as I knew he would, catches it and buys me some time.
"I also think it's a good plan. Jane, you're with Lisbon on this. The two of you are going back to California. Try and get us something from the cellmate Wagner had prior to solitary confinement. Fischer, you and Cho can follow the money trail. Start with his accountant, this Watson."
He continues assigning tasks to the rest of the squad, while I turn my attention elsewhere to more important things. Teresa is packing up her notes at the front of the room, still frowning, teeth tugging at her lip in that familiar way that tells me she's extremely irritated. She's going to need coffee before we leave, I think, and rouse myself to fetch it for her. It won't go terribly far toward making this upcoming trip less uncomfortable for her, but…
Wait a minute, we're going back to California?
The vehicle's movement is smooth and powerful, no rattling or shaking or sudden lurchings to the left, as I used to enjoy when squiring Teresa around Sacramento and its surrounds in my old blue Citroen. She wouldn't travel in it very often, but those times when she did are amongst my fondest memories of life at the CBI. Travelling in "the old rust bucket" as she so fondly christened it, always felt somehow like flying, and not the jet-plane kind of flying either. It was as if the very tenuousness of its wheels' grip on the road transformed its precariousness into that of something like an ancient Tiger Moth, open both to the air and to my daring.
The tank we now find ourselves in refuses to register even the most prominent of bumps and grooves in the road. We float along as if skimming inches above the highway, jetting our way west from Blythe Airport to Ironwood State Prison, but every time Teresa's foot hits the accelerator there is a satisfying roar and I feel the pull and vibration of the engine right through my spine. I love to travel like this; it is one of my undisclosed delights, although I suspect Lisbon has always had an inkling of this fact. It is not the speed, I don't think, or even the uterine snugness of my front seat that does it for me, but the circumstance of being all-around enclosed in glass. I believe the windscreen to be one of the most joyful developments in human technological advancement, and our current tinted surround is no exception. The passing world without seems somehow aqueous when observed through this molded arc of treated light, a phantasmal realm of scattering leaves and undulating shadows, where trees and power poles flash past, and the occasional letterbox appears frozen akimbo in the wake of our speed, a carnival clown from my childhood days, capable only of watching in passive acceptance, mouth wide, the flash of our passing.
If I were to believe, as I know Teresa does, in the possibility of anything existing beyond this, our present life - and, that being the case, were there anything other than eternal and unremitting suffering and torture in store for such an accomplished sinner as I – then this is how I see myself arriving at that blue heaven, resting as I now am, arms folded across my chest, in a sort of contented bewilderment, with Teresa in the seat beside me, both of us together at the soothing center of this humming transparent craft. Is this wrong? That my concept of peace has now shifted from an eternity with the beloved memory of my wife and child to exist in the living breathing person of this small woman beside me?
My musing on this somewhat troubling question is interrupted as Teresa pulls the vehicle off the highway and into the parking lot of a roadside diner. My stomach rumbles when it realizes that it hasn't seen nourishment since breakfast, five hours earlier. I am almost embarrassed by the protests of my mutinous organ; that is, until I spot the tiny smile attempting to break through my lovely companion's up until now stiffly-maintained exterior. It succeeds. Those twinkling emerald orbs are raised to meet mine for an extended precious moment and one side of her exquisite mouth curves up.
"Thought you might be in need of some eggs," she offers, her smile widening as she relaxes into the familiarity of this moment.
"You know me so well, my dear," I return, regretting the affectionate term almost instantly when the smile drops from her face.
"Yeah, well…," she peters out, unbuckling her seat-belt and getting out of the vehicle. The door slams.
"Teresa, wait." I too exit the car and skirt its bulk hurriedly in order to follow her across the lot. I am struck by the parallels our present progress shares with that of two nights ago. Then too she strode quickly away from me, heels clicking sharply on the asphalt, the hem of her dress swaying frantically about her knees. I moved in her wake; head adrift, heart in my hands. In this moment, she is dressed in boots and jeans, but the devastating effect on me is nonetheless the same.
She reaches the door and places one small hand on the handle to tug it open. I see a couple of old men, truck drivers probably, watching us through the window glass. They are dressed in almost identical checked shirts and baseball caps, twin chins bearded in wreathes of grey. I smile at them and nod.
Her hand still on the door handle, Teresa turns to me.
"Let's just go in and eat, Jane. We've got a long day of interviews ahead of us."
I smile my sad assent and follow her inside.
AN: Blythe and Ironwood State Prison are real places in California, but I've never been to either – I'm just making a lot of stuff up :) Leave a review if you like – they make me smile!