Red Silences
I want to thank lucy, lisbon69, IntoDarkness, and zombienath for the reviews, I also want to thank all the alerters and the readers of this story so far. (I like thanking people, just in case you couldn't tell.)
Chapter Eleven:
Heart of Life
"…and then, he resigned." Lisbon finished, as she and Rhys sat in her living room with Chinese takeout, spread out between them on the square coffee table. Rhys stared at her, a frown working across his face. "I'm sorry, you must think…" Rhys shook his head.
"When we started this relationship, you made two things perfectly clear to me." Rhys told her. "Your career is important, and I understand that and secondly, you are a woman in an almost always man-domineered career."
"I…he…we're close." Lisbon admitted, after a few moments of complete silence. "I don't understand why he wouldn't tell me."
"Pride, perhaps?" Rhys asked. "After all, goodbyes are the hardest things to say."
"What if Alyson suddenly disappeared without even a hint of a goodbye?" Alyson was Rhys best female friend, whom Lisbon had heard about but hadn't met yet; Rhys blinked before he chuckled.
"It wouldn't happen," he told her laughing. "Alyson feels the need to tell me everything…"
"But what if it did?"
"I'd hunt her down." Rhys answered, in all seriousness. "She's my best friend, and it's my job to protect her." Rhys statement stuck a cord in Lisbon, should she really be sitting here with her boyfriend of four weeks when she could be out hunting for an answer on why Jane left? "Have you tried to call him?" Lisbon nodded.
"He ignored the call."
"Have you tried since then?"
"No…" She trailed off, and Rhys raised his eyebrow in response. "Things at work have been busy and…"
"You're afraid?" He asked her. "Teresa Lisbon is afraid?" Lisbon laughed and he grinned. "For a woman who can supposedly tackle men twice her size, calling him shouldn't be a huge issue."
"I just wouldn't know what to say," she responded, softly. "I can't just call and ask him why."
"Then tell him why you need him." Rhys suggested. "If you tell him, he might come back." Lisbon shook her head.
"Hightower won't let him come back; it is part of the new contract he had to sign after Minelli left office." Lisbon answered.
"That's strange; did your contract have that clause?"
"No, but then again…" Lisbon stated. "I don't have an issue with threatening to leave every six months or so."
"So…either Hightower is using this to her advantage." Rhys pointed out, as he waved his chopsticks in his hand. "Or, something else is going on."
"Like?"
"I might be a self-identified cynic but Alyson could definitely come up with a few stray ideas." Rhys joked. "She's always been the more…interesting one of the both of us." Lisbon laughed again. "By the way, she wants to meet you." Lisbon turned her head slightly to stare at him, hazel eyes sparkling in good nature.
"You're kidding?"
"Nope," Rhys responded. "I love her to death, but sometimes she can be a little insane."
"Her ideas?"
"Exactly, she likes the happier me though." Rhys leaned forward to place a kiss on Lisbon's lips, to which she pulled back with a slight frown.
"I'm sorry…"
"No, it's alright." Rhys accepted. "Would you like to watch a movie?" Lisbon nodded, as she resolved to try to call Jane's phone again later.
OoO
Lisbon sunk down onto the couch after he left, exhaustion claiming her weary body from the last few days of work; if it wasn't the insane amount of paperwork that she had been battling from before Jane had left two days ago, it was the increasing amount of homicides that kept her running on barely two hours of sleep and beyond the recommended dose of caffeine each day.
She allowed her eyelids to close, and leaned her head back on the couch to calm her churning stomach, which had been why Rhys had left; halfway through the movie she had lost her stomach's contents into the toilet.
"Have you eaten lately?" Rhys had asked her, which she had ignored in favor to continue to empty the contents of her stomach into the porcelain bowl. "Teresa…"
"I'm fine," she muttered, as she wiped her hand across her mouth. "The food just disagreed with my stomach."
"…probably because you haven't eaten in awhile."
"I ate yesterday." If she did, she couldn't remember what she had-things had been hectic.
"I'm going to go ahead and leave, alright?" He asked and she had somehow managed to carry herself to the door and see him out before she herself had collapsed on the couch in exhaustion.
Sleep weighed down heavily upon her, but she needed to call Jane once again which had her fingers against the cool plastic of the cell phone to dial the familiar number and hold it to her ear, her stomach still churning.
The phone rang several times, before switching straight to voicemail and Lisbon allowed the comforts to listen to his soothing voice, her eyes closing.
"I'm not here at the moment, leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."
The beep, and then she sat in the silence of her home as she wondered if she really wanted to leave him a message, but what could it hurt.
"Jane, we…uh…I want to know why you left, call me back when you get this message." Lisbon hit the button to end the call, and closed her eyes.
OoO
The steps leading to and from Lisbon's home were pure white concrete, which made it somewhat easier for Rhys to climb down as he kissed his girlfriend goodnight and she shut the door behind him with a soft smile.
He considered himself, at the current moment, the luckiest man alive-he had a beautiful girlfriend, a wonderful family, an amazing job and the best friend he could ever ask for in the world but he knew, he wouldn't have a beautiful girlfriend for much longer because said beautiful girlfriend's heart belonged to another man, he had known that from the very beginning of their relationship and he didn't mind it, in fact-he had been in the same situation for three years with someone else once.
Rhys held his sleek silver cell phone in his hands, and dialed Alyson's number, which went straight through to her voicemail.
He had almost ended the call when something heavy collided with the back of his head, with the phone dropping from his hand, he fell into the darkness.
