Well, here we are, just like I said! Thank you to everyone for going crazy with the reviews this chapter; 60 reviews! I'd like to personally thank 'tigerlily 124', for going back and providing feedback for every chapter. This particular direction the story has taken might not agree with everyone, and I respect that; however, this is the direction that I had always meant it to take, and I promise that it will prove to be more fulfilling in the long run. So if you liked it a little, liked it a lot, weren't sure of what you felt or even if you hated it to bits, please review and tell me what you think! I'd love to hear your feedback, and questions about the case or any aspect of the storyline are most welcome, if there is some detail that doesn't sit right with you. Anyway, on with the show. This one's slightly shorter. Enjoy!

I don't own the Mentalist or anyone associated with it.

Chapter 9: Want.

Patrick Jane stirred slightly, to the point of vague consciousness; slowly, drowsily, he made sense of his surroundings, and a lazy smile crossed his face as he tightened his hold on the woman sleeping harmoniously beside him. He felt warm sunlight drift across his eyelids, and recognised that it must be morning. Simultaneously, a sliver of dread descended his spine when he realised that they would have to get up for work soon, and in stubborn reply he buried his face in her hair.

He had grown sensitively accustomed to her sleeping habits, and so knew now without a doubt that the opening of his eyes would cause her to stir. He was at a loss as to how it worked, but never questioned it; keeping his eyes closed, he allowed his sense of touch to take the reins, aware that her quirk was less of a setback than an insignificant detail. Because he could always see her; boundaries of sight aside, the innocent slope of her nose would never fade from his mind. Her large, expressive eyes; her chinadoll skin. The small, silver 'A' that hung daintily on a chain around her neck.

And her hair. Her beautiful, beautiful hair that currently fell in loose, dark waves around both of their faces. His nose lightly trailing the rim of her ear, he inhaled deeply and was surprised to find an earthier, more intoxicating scent, as opposed to the lighter hint of strawberry he'd come to anticipate. She must be trying a new shampoo. He allowed his hand to brush lightly of its own accord down her wrist, and across to the features of her that he loved the most; her hands. Smooth, gentle, loving. Warm and strong, as she unconsciously threaded her fingers through his, and yet so utterly light and dainty when she succumbed to the daily urge to play piano, and granted them the freedom to dance ever so gracefully across the keys.

But then a coldness washed over him as he hesitated, and an ambitious hope in him wondered if he'd simply imagined it. He repeated his previous action of tracing around her fingers, and sheer confusion took a hold of him when he reached her ring finger. Skin against skin. His mind hadn't been playing tricks on him; she wasn't wearing her wedding ring. And she never took it off for anything.

Now that he thought about it, her hands in question felt different as well. Smaller, rougher, more weathered, perhaps with experience. He wrenched the thought from his mind and concentrated forcefully on the line of her neck. However, the coldness alleviated when he discovered she wasn't wearing her necklace either. The overpowering urge to open his eyes, to answer his questions, was becoming almost impossible to resist; because whether she needed her sleep or not, his gut was dropping rapidly and he possessed the disturbing feeling that something was wrong.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

The first thing Jane became aware of was the feeling of someone punching him repeatedly in the head. But his senses slowly stirred, one by one, and he was able to directly link the torture to one of the worst headaches he'd had in a long time. A constant throbbing, as if his heart was in his head, and he squeezed his eyes shut in a failed attempt to block out the pain. His mouth unbelievably dry, like cardboard; the sunlight, too, refusing to co-operate, burning the majority of the back of his neck. He shifted his head slightly and as a fresh wave of agony ripped through him, he attempted to drag a hand to his temple. However, when a warm, steady hand refused to be denied, his heart skipped a beat and he threw his eyes open, ignoring the additional sting the sudden movement brought to his mind.

When the first thing he encountered was a mess of dark hair, remnants of his dream began to filter through and he wondered dazedly whether maybe it hadn't been a dream. After all, it was morning, he was in a bed, and a female's body was currently tangled with his. The scenarios were all too similar for the bleak hope coursing through his veins to overlook, and hence he allowed it to be so. The logical fragment of his mind repeatedly warned him not to ignore the facts, but he was content with shutting it out; content until he made his one fatal mistake of inhaling gently.

The earthy scent of nutmeg from his dream cracked through him like a whip. A subtle yet overpowering aroma of chocolate, combined with a hint of apples and the one ingredient that caused his entire body to become rigid and his breathing to crash to a stop.

Cinnamon.

Later, he would be somewhat proud of himself for possessing the mindset not to catapult himself out of the bed and run for his life. And he had never wanted to do anything so badly, but he knew that he'd wake her up; instead, he clamped his eyes shut and willed for it to be anything but real, a hallucination of sorts. But when she wouldn't disappear, he chose to place all and more of the blame on the events that led them here. And found that he couldn't because the last thing he remembered was sitting next to her at the slots.

Bravely ignoring that his head was swimming in pain, he forced himself back to the night before and tried desperately to recall anything that followed that moment. He felt like screaming when the only new thing to surface was a shady recollection of Lisbon's past, before the dialogue weakened into a blur. In any other situation, a thrill of triumph would cling to his skin with the uncovering of her secret; but before he could even realise this, the glint of his finger caught his attention. And as his eyes fell on his wedding ring, a terrifying wave of guilt crashed into him with all the merciless violence of a tsunami.

With this guilt careered a rapidly growing panic as, below the surface, he began to lose control. Endless shame overcame him swiftly, and as it did a sudden anger formed itself at the fact that Lisbon continued to sleep peacefully beside him. Part of him wanted to shake her awake, simply so she could share the guilt, but somehow he found the strength to restrain himself. This was never how it was supposed to be; they were never meant to so this. He didn't want them to do this.

Slowly, cautiously and amazed at his composure, he began the daunting task of untangling himself from her. Daunting, because if she woke up now he had no idea what he'd do. His mind on anything but the fragrance radiating from her hair, he gently prised their fingers apart, all too sensitive to her thankfully consistent breathing, and carefully pulled his face back from her neck as he lifted the arm draped over her.

His conscious instructed him to cringe when, halfway across, he accidentally grazed the bare skin of her stomach. However, his nerves betrayed him and sent a shiver down his spine in reaction to the sudden warmth. Suddenly, without indication or warning, self-loathing settled itself in his gut and he made no effort to defend himself from the undeniable fact that this could very well be considered an affair. He was cheating. How? How the hell could he do this to Annie? No longer partial as to whether Lisbon was conscious or not, he all but leapt out of the bed.

Hands shaking uncontrollably, he stood silently, simply watching her. Waiting bitterly for the rocky creaks of the mattress to drag her roughly from her alcohol-induced sleep, and refusing to acknowledge the dramatic increase of his headache. But despite this sudden movement, she merely stirred slightly, before falling back into the depths of her pillow, breathing softly. One half of him hated her for being a heavy sleeper, but the other half realised his opportunity, and it rose to dominate him as he rounded the edge of the bed.

Jane's vest, pants and shoes lay in a wrinkled pile on the floor. He dressed as quickly as the situation would allow, his gaze never wandering from her face, anticipating the fluttering of her eyelids that defied all odds and never came; meanwhile, denying acknowledgement as to what clothes on the floor signified that they'd done.

Fully dressed, he turned without a second thought and headed for the door; fuelled with the impulse to be anywhere but there; the doorknob miraculously turning in silence, and he hesitated, door half-open, to sweep the room in search of evidence of his presence. He possessed no notion of why his gaze flew straight to Lisbon; nor why the image suddenly flashed across his mind of her fingers weaving gently through his, not five minutes ago now. And his panic eased ever so slightly as he witnessed a hypnotic smile tug pensively at the corner of her mouth; a small shred of his conscious remembering the searing warmth of her skin with an unexpected wistfulness…but the remainder of him, realistic, and a fresh wave of self-hatred coursed through him, causing everything else to fade into oblivion.

And so, he left.


Teresa Lisbon was thrust into consciousness by the sunlight beginning to singe her cheekbones; idly, her eyes quivered open to an onslaught of colour, and she was struck by the familiar drowsy confusion as to where she was. But as the various patterns and shades gradually began to distinguish themselves, a mass of baby blue presented itself and the case came galloping back. Galloping, definitely; she could literally feel the pounding of hooves against the base of her skull. She bleakly judged it to be a migraine, more powerful than yesterday's and with the added element of what she would bet on being alcohol, due to her dry mouth and the slightly odd feeling that she'd slept longer than usual. Rolling over to check the watch draped nonchalantly in the corner of her eye, she wasn't surprised at the relief she felt that they were going home today.

Her right arm stretched across the mattress, she encountered a sudden and unexpected section of warmth and a dazed perplexity clouded her thought process. Her heart began to beat the tiniest bit faster as her brain produced the logical reason for the evidence…it was almost as if someone had laid there beside her all night…she inhaled deeply in confusion, and then gasped loudly as the awakening of her sense of smell hurled a scent so horribly familiar into the deep pit of her stomach. It attacked her senses from every imaginable angle; overpowering warmth combined with the damned tea that he loved so much. He was everywhere; she was surrounded by him, endlessly surrounded.

What the hell had Jane been doing in her bed?

Lisbon vaulted herself to an upright position, her heart sprinting, half expecting to see him sitting at the edge of the bed with an amused grin. But before she could decide on a reaction to the room being empty, blood rushed harshly to her head and she rushed a hand to her forehead, wincing as the room began to spin. No trace of Jane, and yet she now knew without a doubt that he'd been there at some point. As the spinning subsided, she continued to reach for her watch and regarded it with a strange sigh a moment later, when it informed her that she was very close to running late. She knew she should be significantly more worried by this, but as she set the watch on the bed and stood shakily, the only emotion she found she could conjure was bewilderment.

Stepping under the scorching jets of the shower, a steaming frustration was added to her confusion as she discovered that the alcohol she'd consumed last night had virtually erased most, if not all, of her recollections. Holy crap, she must have drunk a lot. She could remember entering the casino, could remember finding Jane and reluctantly introducing him to yet another fragment of her past that he was never meant to know. Lisbon tilted back her head and parted her mouth to soothe her dehydration; as water streamed gently into her mouth, she also recalled what he'd admitted to her, and a tinge of lenience trailed her spine.

Fastening a towel around her, the hazy audio of a conversation suddenly began to filter through; she felt confident enough to translate the voices as being hers and Jane's, but as to the topic of conversation, she was clueless. Although, as she dressed as quickly as her hangover would allow, she got the feeling that it had been something to do with the slot machine he'd been using.

Claiming a painkiller from her packed bag and swallowing the vile thing dry, Lisbon closed her eyes for a moment, contemplating if she could handle acting as if nothing had happened. As if it had been a normal night. Part of her wanted desperately to believe that it had been; and yet both her common sense and her gut told her with absolute assurance that it wasn't. Her bafflement increased noticeably when she wondered if, in fact, she actually wanted answers to the questions she would rather not ask. Did she want to know what had happened? She was a naturally curious person; she liked to know things, and so the general answer to a question such as this would be yes. She eventually chose to make her decision based on his reaction, and in any other circumstance she would have laughed at herself.

As if using a Jane method on Jane would work.

The team was waiting for her in the hotel lobby-impatient and incredibly relieved-and she would have scolded them for their immaturity, had she not been feeling the same way herself. She forced herself to stride over confidently and with authority, as always, and shoved a half-smile on her face as she approached.

"You can at least not look so happy," she greeted them bluntly, aware of her hypocrisy but needing something controlling to say.

"Sorry, Boss," Rigsby replied, although his grin refused to fade and it became increasingly evident that he wasn't sorry at all. Lisbon observed him for a moment, inwardly amused at his childness, before it came to her attention that Van Pelt, too, could barely keep still, shifting her weight constantly from foot to foot as she glanced at Rigsby, smiling. And Cho? She turned to him and realised that his demeanour was as close to happy as she'd ever seen it. It was incredible, what two nights interstate could do to her team. The irony of it was not overlooked; one would think that they would have had fun, working in Vegas…

And with a sudden intake of shock, Lisbon realised what she was doing. She was ignoring him; worse than pretending nothing had happened, worse than confronting him. What was she, sixteen? Anger resided in her momentarily at her awkwardness, and she wrenched her eyes off the floor with the ambitious intention to address him. It was a second or two before she realised that blue-green carpet still dominated her vision, and another second before she realised that she simply couldn't. She couldn't look at him, for a reason that she was too agitated to ponder.

"Where's Jackson?" Van Pelt questioned, blissfully unaware, or so it seemed, of the emotion that had to show somewhere on Lisbon's expression. The entire team, minus one, was thankfully oblivious to anything but their return home.

"Who cares?" Cho challenged unexpectedly, and Rigsby's grin widened. "Let's get out of here." Lisbon judged the numbness of her senses to be similar to that she'd felt in the casino, though her mind was decidedly more aware of her actions as she drifted behind her team toward 'LAVA's entrance. She caught a flash of blonde in the top corner of her sight range, and swallowed hard as she closed her eyes.

Did she want to know?

But before she could advance any further on her decision making, she could suddenly smell detergent and her senses informed her that she'd walked into someone. Throwing her eyes open, she discovered that said someone was accompanied by a broom, and she judged him to be a janitor; with the intention of apologising, she opened her mouth hurriedly. But a strange expression of recognition crossed his face, and she hesitated questioningly.

"Hey, it's you!" the man exclaimed, grinning widely to expose a crooked smile and yellowing teeth. Lisbon faltered; whatever she'd stored as a possible response to his sentence was now entirely useless.

"Excuse me?" was all she could invoke.

"How's your hangover doin'?" he suddenly asked, half concerned, half highly amused, and her eyes widened as she stared at him in absolute shock. How the hell did he…hang on. She took in his appearance, his voice, his personality, and something unrecognisable pierced at the back of her mind. She'd seen him before. And judging by his words, they'd met last night; Lisbon gulped subtly, she hoped, and inhaled.

"How did you know…"

"Ma'am," the man informed her seriously, "you can't be that drunk and not feel it in the mornin'. Ain't possible." And with this remark, he laughed as if something were hilarious; a faint glow of embarrassment filled her as he tipped his hat dramatically and turned to continue sweeping, Lisbon was unable to move her gaze or her feet for a good few seconds as she gaped. What the hell had she done? Slowly turning, she eventually tore her gaze from the back of his head to a sight that, without warning, stained in her both the tingle of anticipation and the cold rush of fear that had somehow always been there, lurking just below the surface.

Jane stood utterly motionless, his gaze plastered to the janitor behind her, or so she assumed; whoever he was focused on, it wasn't her. The rest of the team had, thankfully, exited the building. His expression was, she decided shakily, a bitter assortment of both disbelief and something much, much darker that almost reminded her of the effect that Red John had on his demeanour. His fists were clenched, she noticed; his mouth set in a grim smile, his jaw set. His eyes humourless as they refused to waver from their sights; and with the sudden realisation that she could look at him after all, came a rush of confidence as she realised that this was deemed to be her only syncopated opportunity.

"Jane, look at me." The words came from nowhere Lisbon could comprehend; blunt, direct and so much colder than she'd expected them to be. It took a long moment for him to react, to the point where she wondered if maybe he hadn't heard; but then his head tilted slowly, and she gasped softly as she was battered by one of the iciest stares she'd ever witnessed Jane give. And she wondered bleakly if maybe he knew slightly more than she did; her confidence shattered to pieces, she forced herself to continue.

"Do you know this man?" there was no point in indicating whom she was referring to; he glanced to the right of her for a millisecond, before returning to her face and remaining silent. She swallowed and tried again.

"Do you have any idea what happened last night?" Still no answer, and the silence angered her. Damnit, he worked for her; it was written over every inch of the contract that he had to comply with her orders, and she considered these instructions to be simple, even for him.

"Jane!"

"No, I don't." The sound of his voice, eerily calm, caused her to settle slightly; at least she'd got him talking. His response inflicted both disappointment and a strange relief, and she decided to arrange her previous question into something more specific, stepping forward as she spoke slowly.

"Well, can you remember anything about…"

"Why?" Jane's sudden challenge startled her, and she glanced up, taken aback by the hostility in his tone. "What's so important," he almost hissed, "about recalling what happened?"

"Because I want to know." Her immediate retort startled her, and she realised that she truly could not handle the thought of letting this go without answers. She really did want to know.

"You have no idea what you want," Jane notified her harshly, and with that said he turned toward the entrance, ignoring the curious stares of the few people surrounding them, including the clerk. The sight caused her to seethe; he assumed, just because he knew what everyone was thinking, he was better than her…and with that thought, an idea slowly formed itself in her mind, and she acted on it before he could escape.

"Hypnotise me," she proposed to the back of his head, and he paused as she went on carefully, "put me in a trance, do your crap. Make me remember."

"No," Jane refused without any hesitation, and suddenly her newly achieved calm burst into flames, and a lividness ascended her stomach as her eyes flashed.

"No?"

"For God's sake, Lisbon," he whirled around to glare at her, "it's a two-letter word. How hard is it to understand?"

"How hard is it for you to understand?" she fumed. "I want to know!"

A short silence ensued, and it appeared that perhaps Jane had reached the always talked about, but never seen point where he'd run out of comebacks. Eyes glued to hers, he blinked once, and in a millisecond he'd gathered every one of his emotions and consigned them to his eyes. The anger that had always been there, the frustration, the darkness, the coldness, an indescribable and unexpected wave of fear; and a sudden array of guilt that had plunged deep below the surface to puncture her before Lisbon could even begin to comprehend it. She abruptly grew all too sensitive to the stares of the clerk and various hotel residents, and withdrew, deflated, her eyes locked onto his, despite that it hurt. Jane then uttered two words, before turning again, this time reaching the doorway and vanishing before she could reply. Not that she could.

"I don't."

Lisbon had never thought that a mere two words could leave her so wounded.

Don't forget to review! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Oh, and if you think that the story's almost over, then you can certainly think again.
Chapter 10's another Lisbon/Jane one. See you next Sunday!

Jess xx