Reversed: Chapter 3
This takes place during Red Flame, 1x09. I use dialogue from the episode.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine
A few months later
They're all sitting in the bullpen, waiting for the case briefing.
She's doing some weird mental-trick on Rigsby and he's falling for it.
He's staring at her while she's busy with something else – the only time that it's ever safe to look at her.
Then she moves her hand and the ring on her left hand catches the light; the ring that sends his thoughts that he will always deny having, skidding into harsh reality.
Her wedding ring. It's silver and has a very large diamond (much larger than he could ever afford… not that that's relevant to anything…) in the dead center, with tiny diamonds encircling it. Personally, he thinks that it's too ostentatious for her. But maybe it was right for who she used to be…
He's way past denying that he's attracted to the beautiful consultant (at least to himself… in the privacy of his own head…), but he knows that there will never even be a chance for a chance for them.
She's in love with a dead man. And the only thing that keeps her coming back to the CBI, and him, every morning, is the hope that she's going to find Red John and make him pay for what he did to her family.
"You wanna try it, Jane?" She asks, looking up and catching his eye. It lacks the teasing twinge that it would have if she caught him staring, and he's grateful for as much.
"Sure, why not?"
"Alright!" She looks positively excited, and it makes him smile a bit. "Imagine there's a screen between you and I." She says, gesturing between them.
He nods.
"Now I want you to imagine a basic shape on the screen: like a circle, but not a circle." Another nod as answer. "Alright, now imagine another shape around that shape."
He's finished: a circle inside of a triangle.
"Alright, now I want you to project that image to the back of my mind…" Her hands are raised as to guide is projected image to her mind. It's actually kind of comical, but he's not going to ruin her fun right now by laughing.
"It's… a circle inside of a triangle." She says with a smile.
Damn, she's good at this! He thinks, but doesn't let on. "No."
"No?"
"No. I was thinking of an octagon inside of a rectangle."
Her face is puzzled at first, but then a smile spreads. "Liar."
He can't help but laugh now. "Okay, you're right. And that's creepy, by the way."
Someone's phone rings, and it's back to work.
X
"Where do you get off letting Machado go just like that?" He asks as she walks out of the interrogation room.
"Oh, we've got nothing on him…" They walk from the interrogation room to his office.
"Nothing on him?" He asks. "He shot at Cho and Van Pelt! Not to mention…"
"Letting him go will lure the real killer. Machado's bait; he's our tethered goat."
"And too bad if the bait gets killed?" He asks.
"Yeah. And that will be why they use goats and not babies or virgins, for that matter." She says as if it's the single most obvious thing in the world.
"Machado's not a goat." He mumbles.
"Well yeah, he's not a goat. He's goat-ish. He deserves to suffer a little."
"Nobody deserves murder."
"Machado helped burn poor Dave Martin alive, out of greed."
"Lisbon, we're officers of the law."
"You're an officer of the law, Jane. I don't care about the law. I do, however, care about justice."
"What you're talking about isn't justice, Lisbon. It's vengeance."
"What's the difference?" She asks.
Cho pokes his head into his office. "Boss, what do you want us to do with Machado?"
For a moment he thinks about it. "Let him go."
"Really? Let him go, let him go?" Cho asks.
"Yes. Like that." Jane confirms.
When Cho leaves the office once again, Lisbon is smiling at him. He doesn't allow himself to look at it, because chances are that he'd get lost.
"Trying some reverse psychology?" She asks, teasing evident in her voice.
"Yeah, you talk tough. Maybe it's time that you learn that your actions have consequences. If anything happens with Machado, it's on you."
She nods, but doesn't answer. Instead she walks out of his office.
He starts typing on his computer, trying to forget her smile, when she pops back into his office.
"We've never discussed this… mainly because I thought it went without saying. But when I catch Red John, I'm going to cut him open and watch him suffer, like he did with my husband and child." She says. Her voice is eerily calm, unlike he's ever heard it before. "And if you have a problem with that, then we should talk."
"Then let's talk." He says. "Because when we catch Red John, I'm going to arrest him and he's going to be tried in a court of law."
"Not if I'm still breathing."
"If you try to do violence to him, I'll try and stop you. If you succeed in doing violence to him, I will arrest you."
"I understand." Her voice is calm and controlled again; back to the normal, infuriating Lisbon.
"I hope so."
"Well, I'm glad we had this talk. I had no idea you were so bourgeois and conventional about the matter." She says, chuckling pleasantly and smiling as she walked out of his office.
He sighs deeply and rests his head in his hands.
Maybe he never wanted to think about the impending situation; the clash that has always promised to come.
Red John.
He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about if he would really be able to arrest her like he said he would.
In the matter of a few short months, she's become such a large part of the team. Her charming personality won them over in record time. Won him over…
Would I? Would I be able to arrest her if she really does what she says she will?
Even after such a short time, he knows that Teresa Lisbon does not make idle threats. Or at least not idle threats without a carefully-planned outcome.
He was going to have to get over this little crush-thing he has developing for her…
It promises to create nothing but trouble.
What do you think? Please review? Pretty, pretty, pretty please?
Zanny X