The White Cliffs of Dover: Final Chapter
Jane was doing his customary search for the suspect's cache of tea leaves. Seven Eleven tea bags were a twenty-four seven indictment on a man's character. No need for DNA swabs and finger print analysis – just look in the tea caddy. Lisbon smiled despite herself and Jane turned and caught a glimpse of the smile.
"No tea," he said. They looked at each other. Everything about this day was disappointing. Was there still a chance it could be rescued? Was there still a chance they could be rescued?
"But look…what do we have here?" Jane was peering into the fridge. He reached in and extricated two bottles of beer. "What do you say to toasting our years of dedicated and devoted service together?
Lisbon reached for her beer and they went back outside to sit on the stoop.
"Dedicated service, Jane? Like the time we had to get that pony down in the elevator at the CBI and the thing wouldn't go through the doors, so Rigsby had to coax it down the back stairs with the apples we found at the back of the fridge?! And how did you serve the great State of California that day? With a trusty mop and bucket!"
"And shovel – don't forget the shovel!"
Lisbon laughed at the memory of them all trying to lead the newly christened Lady Penelope through the corridors after everyone had gone home.
"Okay, so maybe we didn't always focus on the murder and mayhem, but I think over all, we had enough of that to show our commitment to the job. More than enough."
"More than enough. Jane, what are you saying, is the mentalist crime solving super sleuth starting to question his vocation?" She tilted her head and smiled at him.
Jane looked down at his feet, "Maybe I'm starting to wonder what it was I was committed to. You know I had nothing else to do when I started working with the CBI, when I started working with you. It was a life raft… You were a life raft... I was utterly lost. I thought I knew how to find my way back, I thought if I just got him, if I could just get him and…And in the meantime, if I could just keep my mind, if I could just pay attention to other things, apart from me, other things outside myself that needed attention, then maybe I could stop myself from…from disappearing into…from just completely unravelling.
"The thing is, I don't know. Your going…it…" All he could do was bite his lower lip. All his passion had been spent, all his intensity had condensed into killing the one who had destroyed his family. He hadn't let it destroy him; it had defined him, it had reshaped him in its image and to it he had been true to the end. But now, he felt as lost as he had felt when he had first met her. He looked over at Lisbon and her smile had gone and he saw the unutterable sympathy in her face. What were they to do?
"Patrick?" She had been twisting her ring as she listened to him trying to be honest, trying to figure out what that honesty was and what it meant or what it would mean. She slowly moved the diamond ring down her finger and looked at it as she placed it in her left palm. "Maybe that's how I see Pike. A life raft – something…someone who can rescue me from…"
"From me?"
"No, not you, not you. Us. Rescue me from what…this has become, this… safety net we've got entangled in. You say I was your life raft, but you were mine as well, and you knew it. I had a great job and I loved my job and my role and my position and I loved getting the job done and professionally I was so fulfilled. You know the life I'd had and how I needed order and structure and things just so. I thought that's what I needed. But you coming in with your…different way of doing things, your outrageous way of doing things…I hadn't realised I was sad," she looked at him, "until you made me happy."
He loved her. He hadn't thought it would be enough and he still wasn't sure. "I guess a life raft isn't meant to last for ever…but, if our life raft morphed into a safety net, is jumping on to another life raft really the solution?"
"That's why the ring is in my hand and not on my finger. But, Jane…"
"Patrick," he said. It was late now to hide in the professional codes. She had called him by his name only a moment ago and if this was the conversation that had been waiting to happen for a very, very long time, it had to be between two living, breathing people – not two partners hiding behind their badges and their surnames.
"Patrick," she said. "Okay." But she sighed. "Deciding not to jump. Deciding not to choose one solution isn't solving the problem. We're still entangled in our net…and not in a good way." She smiled. This was the conversation they never wanted to have, the conversation they had avoided at all costs. Yet now they were in the middle of it, they knew each other too well for the honesty to be awkward. It had been the denial of the truth that had been so exhausting. Was there some hope that the day might not be an anti-climax after all, was there some way that it wouldn't end in disappointment?
They were entangled. In another of life's ironies, Jane had spent the last ten years trying to live like a nomad only to form a bond that he couldn't bear to break. His humanity had almost been crushed. It had taken him years to not simply laugh at others' trivial preoccupations. Working for the CBI had constantly reminded him of the arbitrary nature of life and death, of joy and pain. He could mock and he could amuse because it was all pretty much a joke anyway. But more recently, he could see that there were things that were too precious to mock. Too meaningful to deride. It wasn't only revenge and justice that had significance. There was kindness, there was loyalty. There was love.
Lisbon waited. She had put her ring in her pocket and was picking at the label on her beer. He had told her to call her Patrick and she had and she had told him that they still needed to work this out. She looked at him. He had to come through. Did he have it in him to take that final leap of faith? She knew he had faith in her, despite her earlier blustering. She knew it was finding it in himself again that was the hardest thing he'd have to do. It had taken her a long time to regain her faith in herself. Taking off Pike's ring had been the final act in that journey. She felt ashamed, though, that he had been the catalyst. Not a catalyst to bring her and Patrick together, that still hung in the balance, but a relationship to show her what she really wanted after all, who she was after all. Who she had become.
He still hadn't said anything. And then he turned toward her.
"Theresa, I owe you everything I am. But I'm not sure. You say I make you happy and I can't think of being happy without you. But, is that enough? I mean, what I'm trying to say is that I love you. I love you, but I don't know if that's enough, I don't know if…"
Lisbon put her beer down and stood up as she interrupted him. "It's enough for me."
He stood up and she reached out to steady him and as she grabbed his arm, suddenly they were clinging to each other in an embrace of overwhelming relief that in the end they hadn't wavered. After all these years, they had rescued each other after all. When they released each other just a little they looked at each other and rested their foreheads together.
"It's enough for me too." Jane was barely audible. Lisbon leaned in and their tenderness was shaped by a love that had been lived for years, an understanding forged through tragedy, through trust, through desperation, through longsuffering, through hope.
As they were walking back to the car, Lisbon new she had to make things right with Pike before the end of the night. But for now, as she kissed Jane once more before they got into his car for a truly romantic drive back to Austin, she was happy in this moment. Not because it was momentary, but because of its promise of love and laughter and, maybe, just maybe after their conflicted lives had left them discontent for so long…peace everafter.