Onwards and upwards as they say...wait? Who did say that? Anyone, anyone? Eh...doesn't matter.
Now for some Van Pelt / Lisbon friendship time, you know you want it :)
Girl Talk
They finally had a day off from the 'mob' or whatever it was that they were calling themselves. Billy had needed the time to discuss their intentions with his higher ups. Lisbon had the feeling that they were a lot closer to the inner circle than Billy knew, but it was just a feeling, an instinct…and she didn't have Jane's observations to help her out. She would never let him know but his instincts and beliefs often rang true in some secret part of herself. She had never really allowed herself to rely on her own instincts preferring to use the facts, protocols and procedures to do her work, plus it was frowned upon to accuse people of things without evidence. But Jane's proclamations that someone was innocent based upon a mole, or guilty because their left eyebrow twitched a little when they answered a question while seemingly wholly outlandish often came to be right. Lisbon had taken to listening to her own instincts, waiting to see if her feelings – those without any proof – came true at the end of a case. More and more, they were; she was starting to wonder if psychic abilities, or whatever Jane called them, were catching.
Lisbon had needed and wanted a day away from the house, and Carter, and 'Tina'. She desperately needed to be alone; but she knew Carter and Cho would never allow it, not with the current situation of the 'mob'. So she'd had to enlist Van Pelt's help, they were going to be spending the day shopping, or at a boardwalk, or a carnival, hell…it really didn't matter, she just needed to be somewhere doing something normal-ish. Something normal-ish for Lisbon and Van Pelt, that isl not normal-ish for Tina and Grace because really who knew what that did when they were alone. It was too bad they couldn't go to yoga, but she was sure they would find something of interest.
She tried not to freak out too much about the fact that Carter and Jane were having their own complementary 'boys day out' too. What were they going to be talking about? Having Jane around anyone of normal humanness was bad enough, but Carter wasn't one for tolerating quirks easily. And Jane was a big, bundle of quirkiness…it was going to be bad, so terribly, terribly bad. Jane would pick at Carter, and he would resist, and then Jane would decide it might be fun to discover secrets of Carters. That could lead nowhere good, considering most of the secrets Carter held were sanctioned by the government, and even then not many members of the President's cabinet knew about some of the things Carter had been requested to do. Jane wouldn't give up and then he'd probably be shipped off to some secret governmental debriefing station and their whole operation would be in shambles. She groaned at the thought, even though she recognized she was being a tiny bit exaggeratory. She finally decided; she didn't want to know.
Van Pelt was currently driving Lisbon to the park. She figured the boss might like the outdoors, no parties, no lies, no guns or threats of danger; simply laughing children playing on gym equipment, bike riders, skateboarders. Nothing too extravagant, just a tiny reminder that life was good, it went on, little moments of joy. That's what Grace liked to do when their cases got too much to bear, she went to the park and surreptitiously watched small children, she couldn't overtly watch small children, not in this day and age, she'd get accused of stalking or something, but she would go the park, bask in the sunlight, read a book and listen to the laughs of small children. Tiny trickles of golden warmth heating up her soul. She loved it. Perhaps Lisbon would too.
Lisbon was in heaven. She was lying on a blanket, something Van Pelt had had the forethought to bring with them, they were in a park, a beautiful green, glowing with sunlight, park. There were families of happiness, dogs of loyalty, bike riders of streamlined efficiency, skaters both on boards and blades, kids on tricycles; it was practically perfect. She had her eyes closed but she could still imagine the small children playing in the sand, little chubby hands grasping at tiny plastic shovels; gorgeous eyes peering out at the world in defenseless innocence. She let out a breath, reveling in the midday warmth.
"Hey Lisbon." Van Pelt suddenly said, intruding on her quiet.
"Yeah?" She couldn't even be bothered to open her eyes. She wouldn't even be surprised if soon she reverted to moans and hums. It took too much effort to even think at a normal human level.
"Can I…talk to you about something?" She faltered there in the middle.
Lisbon noticed, damn. That meant it's something not entirely work related, but kind of, and it's important enough that it's got her thinking about ruining my wonderful day off, but at the same time Grace is worried it might ruin more than just today…and it can't wait for this case to be over either. She grimaced as she began the process of raising herself off the blanket. Resting on her elbows, very reminiscent of the other day (when she had had to kiss Carter to distract Billy) she finally asked, "Is it bad?"
"No … no. I don't, I mean … at least. No. I don't think so." Grace managed to stumble out the words. She heaved a sigh. This was a terrible start. Why had she decided today was the day she needed to bring this up with Lisbon. Couldn't this have waited until the case was over? No, there was a reason, Carter and Jane were together today too, and they were alone. She knew Jane was planning something, whether it was simply an information gathering hypnosis or something more dangerous more personally intrusive, she wasn't sure, but the look in his eyes when he'd realized he was going to be spending the day alone with the man was not reassuring. He was up to something and it definitely concerned Lisbon. Grace knew she needed to forewarn her boss. Jane flustered everybody easily, and sometimes you just needed a little warning so you could do damage control before he blew everyone out of airplane.
"Um…I think…um…" Grace frowned at herself, now she couldn't even say what she needed to say with any semblance of any knowledge of the English language.
"Is this about Jane?" Lisbon inquired. She had a sinking feeling in her chest. It was about Jane. What had he done now? She'd thought he understood how important it was for him to behave. "What has he done now?" She groaned.
"Oh no, nothing. He hasn't done anything ... yet. It's more…something I've noticed about him recently, which you wouldn't have because you're busy being Tina." Grace quickly explained.
"What is it?" Lisbon asked, suddenly concerned. The team didn't know Jane as well as she did, they didn't understand to what extent his need for revenge went, they understood cursorily, but they were missing those intimate moments of despair, rage and complete brokenness.
Van Pelt should have been surprised at the sudden change in Lisbon. But she wasn't. Had these two fallen into some kind of love and not noticed? It was the only possible explanation other than some soap opera concoction that they were secretly living together or having each other's alien babies. Van Pelt scolded herself; she did always get carried away when anything of the romantic nature popped up. Lisbon cared deeply about every member of her team, she would probably be just as concerned if she were here talking about some concern she had for Rigsby or Cho, or even Minelli.
"It's not bad…" Grace finally said, with a slight chuckle. Hoping Lisbon wouldn't be too mad when she finally managed to tell her what she thinking. "Well, it might possibly be bad eventually if we don't pre-empt it."
"Oh, ok ay then." Lisbon said; she pushed herself into a sitting position; she seemed to have realized this talk was going to take a while. Grace seemed to be struggling for the right words, and Grace didn't like to say anything unless she could say it productively and prosaically. The woman really did need to learn to just spit it out and wait for the fall out to occur, rather than trying to sugar-coat everything beforehand, sometimes it was just unavoidable.
"Lately, Jane's been…odd."
"Jane's always odd." Lisbon replied with a twisted grin.
"Yes, but no. Not like this."
"How do you mean?"
"I think he's been feeling some emotions that he hasn't felt in a while." She tried to go slowly, she didn't want to just come out and say 'I think Jane's in love with you' but what other possible way could she say it? She'd been trying all last night to figure out a good way to broach the subject and none were forthcoming.
"Emotions?" Now why had that come out sounding like she didn't think he was capable of emotions, of feeling?
"About … you." Grace finished, quickly looking away. She did not want to see the look on Lisbon's face after taking in that piece of information.
"Emotions about me?" Lisbon was thinking hard, what possible emotions could Jane be feeling in regard to her?
Grace didn't think Lisbon was truly that dense, after all, the woman only blushed around Jane. "Yes, you."
Lisbon looked at Grace strangely. What was she talking about? She racked her brains for anything remotely connected to what she might be meaning. Patrick Jane obviously had feelings and emotions. He just kept them entirely under wraps. He was in the middle of some several year revenge-bent. He was devastated by the loss of his wife and child. Hatred filled him; so he took comfort in the simplest things. He enjoyed causing people to smile and he thrilled in the chase of wrong-doers, regardless of the fact that sometimes his actions could be construed as immoral or unethical. But in the grander scheme of things they did have a purpose. She shook her head slowly, what on earth was Grace thinking?
"Okay, you're going to have to walk me through this…" she finally said.
"Ever since Agent Carter's been here, Jane's been acting weird." Grace started, maybe if she re-orientated herself it would become easier to tell her boss that she though the man who made her life hell was romantically interested in her.
Lisbon gave her a look; the one that said 'why is this any different from usual?'
Grace smiled back, "Weird, for Jane." She clarified.
Lisbon was intrigued, 'weird, for Jane' usually only occurred when something from his past, or something concerning Red John happened. She remembered that intense look he'd had when he explained his institutionalized past, with Sophie. That was weird, seeing Jane so human, so broken, he never let anyone see that. She had wanted, so much more than she could have expressed, to say anything rather than 'thank you for being so honest with me', but nothing else had seemed appropriate. Everything else was either too intimate, too clichéd, or too wrong.
When it became clear that Lisbon was waiting of her to continue, Grace said "weird for Jane like how…" she paused, there was only one thing she could say here that would have any recognition for Lisbon. But it would mean discussing a topic the team tried not to … "it's not weird anymore for how Rigsby behaves when other men talk to me." She cringed, bad sentence structure aside, she hoped that statement wasn't too convoluted for Lisbon to follow.
What! Lisbon exclaimed silently. She was glad her training with Jane had caused her to keep a lot of her thoughts internalized. She never would have thought she'd be thanking the day the met Patrick Jane. Rigsby acts weird because he has a crush on Van Pelt, perhaps 'crush' was too juvenile a word, but still … the man was practically neanderthallic when other 'unsafe' men interacted with her. Lisbon slowed her thinking down; she was supposed to be thinking about Jane, not the situation with Van Pelt and Rigsby. Thankfully, they were both observing the 'we work together' line, so nothing untoward had happened yet, except for that hypnotized kiss; which was being excused from the public consciousness simply because he had been hypnotized and therefore, technically, couldn't be held responsible for his actions.
"So, you think Jane's jealous of Carter?" Lisbon said.
"Eh…" Grace tried not to answer that, the tone of Lisbon's voice indicated she thought Jane was being irrational; which did make sense if you didn't know the man was falling in love with you. "I think that you're missing my point." She finally noted.
"What would that be?" Lisbon asked, she was tiring of the conversation, was Jane really childish enough to be playing the 'I want that toy, because he's playing with it' game?
Grace could practically hear the waves of disbelief coming off of Lisbon. "I think, having Carter here, made Jane realize that he may have certain feelings toward you, that he hadn't previously recognized."
"Okkaaay." Lisbon said; looking at her like she was bordering the line of insanity.
"Which leads me to believe that he's thinking about doing his usual tricks. He's with Carter right now, you know." Grace pointed out.
"Carter can take care of himself." She replied.
"Yes, but this is different, because well ... I think he might actually, you know, want to be more than … whatever it is you two are right now." Grace breathed in a huge gasp of air. She felt like she had just a run a lap of a football field, how was this conversation taking so much out of her?
"Grace, I hate to break this to you, but Jane's married." Lisbon said; laughter understood by the tone in her voice.
"His wife died, what? Over five years ago, or something like that." Grace replied.
"Yes. His wife died." Lisbon conceded, "But he's still married to her. He always will be."
Now it was Grace's turn to be confused. What point was Lisbon trying to make?
At the clearly perplexed face of one Grace Van Pelt, Lisbon elaborated, "When someone, that you're married to, dies, it takes a while for that realization to settle in. And until it does, for all intents and purposes, you're still married to that person. Some people can accept it and move on relatively quickly. I mean, grieve and miss them, but still move on. Some people can't or don't."
Grace inclined her head, just what was Lisbon getting at?
"Jane might very well be 'single' to the law and moral/ethical rules but he's very much still married to his wife."Lisbon stopped for a moment to throw a wayward Frisbee back at some teenagers. "Until Jane comes to grips with the fact that he is single, nothing will ever come of any infatuation or crush he may develop."
Grace was astounded; she couldn't believe Lisbon was behaving so 'matter of fact'ly. But, thankfully, she grasped hold of something Lisbon had said 'infatuation or crush'. "But Lisbon, that's what I'm saying. I don't think it's just a crush or an infatuation with you. I think he's falling in love with you."
Lisbon didn't even react. That was the scary part, it was like she either already knew and didn't care or that it was so far out of the realm of possibility that it didn't even matter. "Grace, Jane would have to come to the realization that his wife is gone, in some form of acceptance, for him to even be able to form that kind of attachment to anyone else. And if he does 'love' me as you say, then it's the exact same way he 'loves' you. The same way he loves any member of the team."
Grace was in shock. Completely and utterly in shock. "But, what about…" Now she couldn't even remember what she had been trying to say in the first place, "Do you want him to…" she couldn't finish that sentence either.
"I realize Jane is going to be curious about my past with Carter. It's in his nature. Carter will be fine, trust me." Lisbon finally said, when it became clear Grace was stuck in some shocked form of limbo.
Before Van Pelt had the opportunity to respond, Cho called. There were multiple people arriving at the home, and Carter and Jane had not returned from wherever they had gone, and neither of them were answering their phones.
I totally had to give Lisbon some explanation time for why she hasn't realized thing about Jane, and besides she's been busy being 'Tina' so you know...things are afoot.
If you noticed there was something missing in Lisbon and Van Pelt's conversation, props to you :) If you didn't, hehe, I'm not telling!!!!
Arc, I do so love hearing your thoughts...just saying... *hint*
