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IV. Fugue in Red
Lisbon
"I'm sorry."
He doesn't say a word, of course not. And you have to fight the guilt-driven nausea to stay here and support him any way you can.
"Take me home, please," he whispers after a while.
"Sure."
.
"This isn't my motel."
His voice sounds hollow, but the ghost of a smile you see on his face makes the boldness of your move worth it.
"No, it's not."
He's reliving the worst night of his entire life, and you thought you'd never get him back before you inflicted him the pain he's in right now. No way in hell were you letting him sleep alone there tonight.
He stares at your building for a moment. Eventually, he pushes the car door open.
"Okay, then."
.
Three am, he's still wide awake. Figures.
You sigh and, afraid of what you'll find, carefully go downstairs.
"Hey, Jane. Can't sleep?"
He doesn't even flinch.
"What, like it's shocking?"
The playful tone is obviously fake, but the familiarity of this Jane makes your heart feel lighter anyway.
"A little. You had no trouble sleeping, and snoring by the way, at the hospital."
"Right. Well, I guess I'm really back then."
You take a deep breath and try to break the awkward silence.
"For what it's worth, it's good to have you back," and yay, you get a tiny smile for that one. "Mind if I sit?"
"Please, do."
You settle in next to him, covering your legs with the blanket he didn't bother to unfold.
"So, you do remember your behavior of these past few days?"
"Ugh. Most of it, I think," he covers his face with his hands, and you would too. "Which means an apology is in order. I'm sorry I was such an ass, Lisbon."
"Hmm… Nice choice of words, considering."
You've rarely seen Jane confused or embarrassed, but the combination is truly as hilarious as it is unprecedented.
"What…? Oh, my God! Lisbon, I'm so sorry!"
He's so horrified at his own actions that you have to laugh out loud.
"It's okay, Jane. You're lucky I knew it wasn't you or you would've paid for it, but really, we're okay."
He groans and hides his face once more, and all you can do is chuckle as you pat his back reassuringly.
"So," he finally sighs and turns to you. "Why are you still up, Lisbon?"
It stings that he has to ask instead of guessing, but you ignore it and grin instead, as you answer with a half-truth.
"Oh, no reason. It's just that guy crashing on my couch who's watching loud TV in my living room, and who apparently forgot that not all of us are insomniacs."
Jane's eyes open wide as he looks around for the remote – that you just noticed you're sitting on.
"Lisbon, I'm sor-"
"If you apologize one more time, I'm gonna have to seriously reconsider that I actually got my Jane back," you interrupt him, muting the TV yourself.
"... Fair enough."
There's a much more comfortable silence now and you let your tired mind rest a little as a few commercials play on the silent screen, until Jane's back muscles twitch under the hand you left there and his fingers brush against your knee.
"You shouldn't have to, you know," he mutters, almost to himself.
"Huh?" is basically all you can articulate, as you try not to feel the sudden tingling spreading through your leg.
"You shouldn't think it odd that I apologized for stupid things I did. It should be normal."
He still sounds like he's far away somehow, and he refuses to look you in the eye.
It's way too late – or early – for you to be justifying Jane's behavior to the man himself, and on any other night you'd throw him out and mock his pity party. But you're the reason he's in this state and you've finally gotten your Jane back, so your conscience isn't giving you much of a choice.
"Well, I guess… you've never been normal, Jane. And it's not like you don't mean well most of the time–"
"Why did you bring me here tonight, Lisbon?"
He suddenly sounds much more confident as his piercing eyes scrutinize your face, still avoiding your glance.
"What? I don't know, I just didn't want you to be alone–"
He smiles seductively, and if it weren't for the traces of tears on his cheeks you'd truly be worried that he's somehow reverted back to that insufferable version of himself he's been the last couple of days.
"Your hair's sticking out in all directions. It's kind of cute," he cuts in as he plays with one strand, and your voice drops to an embarrassingly aroused whisper when his other hand travels a little higher on your leg.
"… What are you doing, Jane?"
Your reaction seems to sober him up a little and he sighs as he looks away.
The fake, creepy cheerfulness is thankfully gone when he speaks again.
"I don't know. I just want to forget for a while."
His eyes finally meet yours, and you swallow at the intensity in them.
"Jane... Look, I'm sorry I brought you there, okay? I wasn't going to, then I realized that's what you, the real you, would want me to do. But you don't want to forget your family, Jane, it's not right."
He shakes his head violently and his hand tightens on your thigh, though it doesn't hurt.
"No, not like that! I didn't mean... Of course I had to come back! I'm just... I'm a mess right now, and I need to feel something. Something other than the guilt that I did, actually, forget about... them... for days."
He looks like he's about to cry again, and without a thought your hands come up to frame his face. Slowly, a heavy sigh leaving his lips, Jane's head falls on your shoulder, and you let it.
"Jane, it wasn't your fault…" you whisper even though you know it's useless, your nose buried in his hair.
"I need you, Lisbon," he says after a few minutes and, when he backs up to face you again, there isn't much you can do.
Your heart is beating too fast, your skin is too hot wherever it's in contact with his.
As you try to logically consider it, the relief of having him back after thinking you'd lost him forever overflows you again, making you wonder which one of you needs the other more.
"Okay."
.
It's been two weeks, and you can't tolerate this anymore. Jane disobeying is nothing new, but Jane trading himself for hostages by insulting a mentally unstable killer and almost getting shot for the third time in half a month, now that's a whole new level of fucked up.
And now here he is, pretending to be asleep on your couch, ready for another pointless round of letting you yell at him only to flee and keep acting this way.
"What the hell were you thinking, Jane? You could've gotten yourself killed!"
He's annoyingly expecting you slamming the door; it still feels good to release part of your anger that way.
"Oh, give me a break," he snorts as he stands up smoothly. "You have your killer, go interrogate him and leave me alone."
"You're not going anywhere, Jane. And you can't talk to me like that!"
He's got that crazy look now, the one that means he's being a clueless jerk on purpose.
"Oh, really? And why not, Teresa?"
"Because I'm your boss," and oh, how you'd like to punch the smile off his face. "Look… this has gone on for too long. You have to stop."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Right on: clueless jerk act.
"Yes, you do. You're mad at me for what happened two weeks ago and you refuse to talk about it–"
He starts to walk away, toward the bullpen, but you're not done. You almost run to the door and stand there, arms crossed over your chest.
"Oh no, you're not getting out of this one, Jane! Sit down, we need to talk."
He glares at you now, all trace of fake humor gone.
"We don't."
"Jane, yes we–"
"We don't, Lisbon!" He growls lowly, and though you hate to see that side of him, you don't move an inch.
He sighs and puts his hands on your shoulders. It's not the threatening gesture you feared it would be, it feels more like he's using you to help keep himself upright; and the sudden proximity allows you to see how exhausted he really is.
"I'm not mad at you, alright? I'm mad at myself. What I did was wrong, and there is nothing I can do to fix it. So let's just pretend nothing happened and go back to work."
"I don't think it's a good idea to ignore what we did, Jane," you try again, but the deep, annoyed breath he takes lets you know that was the wrong thing to say.
"Well, you're in charge of the Red John case and I want in, so I guess we're just going to have to forget about this."
Gently but firmly, he nudges you out of the way, and since you're clearly going nowhere, this time you allow him.
"I'm going upstairs now, and I'd like to not be disturbed. See you tomorrow."
He's gone in a second.
"Look where wanting to forget got us in the first place," you tell your empty office.
.
.
Jane
This is a good thing, you tell yourself as you down your eighth shot of the night.
Lisbon is more stubborn than most, and when other people would have – and did, like the rest of the team – stopped calling and texting after a few weeks, she's only finally stopped today. Six months after you landed in Vegas.
It's a good thing that she's done trying, you tell yourself again, it means that your plan to lure out Red John has a lot more chances of working now.
And so what if her voice mails had been the closest thing to a lifeline lately, or the only way for you to remember that this is all a play and you're not actually depressed or crazy, or both?
You don't want her help, and you don't need her getting in the way of what you really need.
In fact, the more estranged you two become, the safest she'll be, you remind yourself as you finally get up from the bar stool.
For the first time since you've been here, you don't have to fake the drunken walk back to your hotel.
.
She's pretty.
She's obviously broken and twisted, and there must be a lot more to her story than even you can guess right now, but you have to admit that Red John has good taste, because Lorelei is very pretty.
The morning she tells you that she works for him, you have to gather all of your acting skills to look shocked.
You make her leave, sit back down on your bed and take a few minutes to convince yourself of how important this whole masquerade is.
More important than you thinking about another brunette, the entire night you spent in Lorelei's arms. More important than not having heard a word from said other woman in over two days now.
When you meet the minion again, she tells you that Red John has a gift for you, a gift to help you move on from your previous life and remind you of who he is.
She drives you to a patch of deserted land not so far from the city, and lets you open the squared box covered in sparkly wrapping paper that kept hitting the back of your seat on the way here.
You pass out the second you recognize, in the dark red mess surrounding her head, the greenness of Teresa Lisbon's lifeless eyes.
In my defense, I didn't come up with the creepy "decapitated head" theme, the s4 finale writers did.
But, yeah, sorry.