I know I said I'd have this up yesterday, sorry about that, my son's decided climbing on furniture is his new favorite hobby so I was a too busy to type this up. The next chapter will probably be in Lisbons POV and will go up sometime this weekend, I hope. Thanks to Jbon, lucyyh, lysjelonken, LittleMender, JelloFanatic123, MentalistLover, Jisbon4ever and Anna for their reviews and for everyone that added me to their favorites amd alerts. Thanks for the encouragment.
Off to see The Wizard
Jane's thoughts and his heart raced, confusion, disbelief, pain, anger. Since his family had died he'd tried to avoid deep emotions, his charm, cynicism, the caustic cheerfulness it was all just surface feelings, a mask he wore. But from the moment he'd met Teresa Lisbon all those years ago she'd been finding cracks and stripping layers off the mask.
It had been at a crime scene, a body found dumped in the woods. Lisbon was second in command of the unit in charge which is why she found herself traipsing through the woods looking for the consultant the mayor himself had sent to help them, the dead body being the mayors personal assistant. It was this guy's first case with her unit so you think he'd be trying to make a good impression instead she'd found him in a field of wildflowers, looking up at the bright blue sky and spinning in circles.
Jane had stood staring up at the blue sky where big fluffy white clouds occasionally drifted by. His daughter had loved picking flowers, it was hard to believe standing in this beautiful place that evil existed in the world. He'd stared up at the sky and holding his arms out had started spinning until, dizzy, he'd collapsed on his back. He laid there until a vision came into his sight, if he hadn't known any better he'd have sworn he was hallucinating, it was a pixie. Beautiful, tiny, brown haired, green eyed and furious. His heart had leapt and he'd felt momentarily disoriented, he'd blamed it on the spinning and the heat of the day. He'd covered his surprise with a charming smile and playful banter "Hello there. I'm sorry, did I crush your house Tinkerbelle? No, not Tinkerbelle, you look more like a Titania."
Lisbon's scowl had deepened and she'd said "It's Lisbon, Teresa Lisbon and you must be Patrick Jane. Well come on Scarecrow if your done frolicking through the flowers the crime scene's this way or are you waiting for the Wizard to show up with your brain and solve the crime for you?"
Jane had watched for a second as the fierce little agent had turned to march away then he'd jumped up, smiling and said "I don't need to be a Wizard to know the mayors wife is the killer."
Lisbon had stopped, turned and giving him a narrow eyed skeptical look had asked "and how do you know this?"
"Simple, I deduced it," Jane quipped.
"Really? You deduced it? Well to bad you couldn't deduce the poison ivy in the patch of flowers you just rolled in." Lisbon had replied then she'd smiled and walked away.
The banter and the smile had made Jane's blood surge and his skin tingle, it had made him feel alive again. He'd chosen to concentrate on the banter. The rest, the chemistry, the attraction and the urge to run his thumb over the curious little dimple on her cheek. Those feeling where complicated, confusing so he ignored them and concentrated on the easiest and most fun part of it the fact that he irritated her and he loved getting a reaction out of people. So it had become his fall back position for the rest of the case, as short as it was (yes the mayor's wife did it) and when he met her again a year later, was assigned to her team by Minnelli, for the rest of their relationship.
So when he walked into the bull pen and saw something that confused and scared him he fell back to what had served him so well in the past. "My my Lisbon you look like you've been busy."
Grace gave a small gasp at Jane's comment, Rigsby crossed his arms, giving him a dark look and Cho gave a brief frown, his face hardening, his hand rested more fully on her back. Jane watched as the asian man's hand rubbed small circles on Lisbon's back before it skimmed across and came to rest on her shoulder giving it a slight squeeze. She glanced at Cho giving him a smile of reassurance. The interaction confused Jane even more Lisbon didn't like to be touched, it had taken him months of systematically invading her space before she'd stopped flinching every time he so much as touched her wrist to check the time on her watch. He been proud of himself when she finally had stopped flinching, when she's stopped shrugging his hand off her elbow, when she'd started letting him open doors for her. She never let anyone else do those things for her and she'd certainly never let a subordinate touch her, offer her comfort. Unless…. No that wasn't possible. His Lisbon wouldn't' do that. Cho was his friend, he would have told him if...
Lisbon caught Jane's look from the swell of her stomach to Cho's hand on her shoulder, back to her stomach until he finally met her eye's.
Jane looked into Lisbon's impossibly green eyes and for a second saw blazing anger then like a curtain dropping her eyes shuttered all the emotion wiped out of them, leaving more of the nothing he'd last seen before he left.
Lisbon gave a hard brittle smile. "Contrary to what you might think Jane the world doesn't revolve around you and our lives don't stop just because your not in them," She replied cooly.
Jane opened his mouth not sure what to say, what he was planning on saying. At the moment all he wanted to do was shove Cho away from her. He was torn between pulling her into her office, pinning her to a wall and asking her what the hell was going on. Was she really pregnant? Was the baby his? Was it someone else's, Cho's? How could she do that to him? Either that or he'd tell her how much he'd missed her and end up doing to her what he'd done last time he'd had her pinned to a wall, run his tongue along the side of her throat and grind his hips to her until she moaned out loud.
Whatever he was going to say was lost at the arrival of Director Hightower.
"Well, well Patrick Jane, I'm assuming you were on your way to notify me of your arrival?" /Hightower/
The intense look on Jane's face was replaced with his showman's smile, the mask, worn at the edges but firmly back in place. "Madeline, a pleasure to see you again. I've only just arrived, you must have had someone on the look out for my return. I'm flattered. "
Hightower returned Jane's smile. replying "Don't be, there's a standing order from Minnelli's days to notify the director of the CBI at the first sign of your arrival. That was we can get a head start of the damage control."
"Ooh my own personal bat signal, is it a giant J for Jane?" /Jane/
"Well," Hightower nodded "Jane is one of the things a J could stand for." Hearing Rigsby snort and the laugh Grace tried to cover with a cough, Hightower looked at the others, her gaze lingering on Lisbon. "As for the rest of you, you have a case." She handed Lisbon the file she'd been carrying and turned to look expectantly at Jane. When he opened his mouth to protest she added "Patrick you can join them after we discus the terms of your return."
Jane lingered for a second watching the others gather their things. Catching sight of Lisbon pulling a shoulder holster on over her dress, her 9mm glock and black suit jacket completing her ensemble, he'd turned to look at Hightower incredulously. "Your not letting her go out in the field in her condition are you!" He exclaimed.
"Patrick, Teresa is an experienced and capable agent who just so happens to be a woman who is expecting, being one does not make her incapable of being the other. She knows her limits and she's intelligent enough not put herself or her child in danger." Seeing the still skeptical look on his face she added. "Besides they are just going to check out the scene which has already been cleared."
Jane nodded and followed Hightower out of the bull pen. He was far from reassured but the sooner he got this interview over with the sooner he could get back to the team and Lisbon's side. That way he could keep an eye out for and maybe get some answers from her.
Yeah I know the suspense is killing you guys, sorry to keep you in the dark for one more chapter but I'll be answering some of the questions in the next chapter. I'm pretty sure most of you know who Tinkerbelle is but Titania if you didn't know, is the name of the fairy queen in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream. She's also the wife of Oberon the fairy king and has quite a temper, I can totally picture Lisbon wanting to magically give Jane an asses (as in donkey) head. For some reason when I was writing the scene where Lisbon and Jane first meet I kept picturing the Wizard of Oz when they're skipping through the field of poppy's and they fall asleep. For some reason I've always pictured Jane as the Scarecrow, maybe because he doesn't always think his ideas through or maybe it's the color of his hair?
Hope you liked it, please R & R.
