Disclaimer: ok, wait a sec, let me check on my legal papers...no, it's not here, not even here, ah, wait, I got it! Uhm, nope, I don't own the mentalist... I barely create using them, hoping that someone in the right place will see the light and give me a bit of Jisbon every now and then...
A/N- fanfiction dot com is making messes again even with my new email account!. this time, it's with reviews (looks like I can't reply directly from them, ie I ahve to acess the site to do such. so, in case I've forgotten to do so, forgive me. on the bright side: I'm almost done tiping this thing, I think this week I should get it done (on paper, not on the site. Today I wrote 3 chapters...) so, wait soon for teh end (not so soon). just know this: this story will end!
Something like a week after their last encounter with Danny, everything starts to make sense for Jane. that day, he sometimes curses his skills, he sometimes blesses them, because for as much as he knows, there's just as much he doesn't know at all.
He is sitting on his couch in the bullpen, like always, like often, stealing glances to her office every now and then, but only when she doesn't look, only when people doesn't look.
He knows he is probably just paranoid, but he is honestly scared. He doesn't want to enrage the wrong person, doesn't want to see her life being put in jeopardy because of him, of his actions. He didn't want to do it before, but now? Now there's another reason to avoid putting her in danger. He can't risk that precious life, can't risk losing his only reason to breath, his second chance at love, at life, at a life decent enough to be live in the first place.
And if he was a good person, he could say he doesn't want to rob the world of such a miracle, but he can't. he isn't such a good person, he is greedy. Only, it's not money or power what he craves, but her, only her, always her.
After he realized the enormity of it few days ago, he has decided to let it go of revenge. he has decided to allow her, allow to them, to handle this, handle Red John. He doesn't care about the how any longer. He doesn't care about nothing, just the outcome. And the outcome can be still just one: Red John gone. Jail or death, he doesn't care, he just want, he just need him gone.
She is still obvious to this simple yet astonishing fact. Like she is still oblivious to many, many things. Like the fact he does know now at least one of her secrets. And, if he has to be honest, he has known it longer than her. he has figured it out the day Danny "escaped", and still now he wonders if she already knew, or if she was so hell-bent on not knowing it, on refusing it, that she was pushing the thought, the possibility in a faraway corner of her psyche, refusing to acknowledge this chance. Or maybe, she is just confused, and scared – not of the outcome, never scared of the outcome she is, because he knows she is sure she'll made it. he is pretty sure, right now, that what scares her so much is not knowing which one caused the problem. Not that it's really a problem, he knows it's not, nor for her, not for him.
He grins, knowing the team will think he is just plain happy because yet again he solved in record time such a difficult sudoku puzzle, when, instead, to make him so happy (and a bit devilish, because he already has a plan, he always has a plan) it's the knowledge that Samuel Bosco will probably be not so thrilled about this… development.
Soon, Bosco will call things off with Lisbon, sooner than he thought; soon, he'll be the friendly shoulder she'll rant on, she'll cry on (not because of him, but because "how could I be so stupid to fall for such an hideous man, such a monster". He knows she'll never regret the break up, she'll regret having started seeing him in the first place), and then he'll move at God-speed from friendly shoulder to friend with benefits to full-time lover to the one for her. (it's not right, he knows, it's kind of taking advantage of the situation, taking advantage of her, but he is desperate, so desperate, he can't stay away from her, not now, not any longer, he needs her, and sooner rather than later she'll have to admit she needs him as well).
Time isn't exactly on their side, not any longer, and he has to admit- there's still a lingering doubt, not only on her side. He has them as well, he isn't so sure of it himself, but, still… even if it'll come out that he hasn't been causing "the problem" in the first place, even in this eventuality, he'll take full responsibility.
Because he loves her, and soon, sooner than he originally thought, he'll tell her. he'll tell her he has given up on destroying the monster all by himself, that his dreams, because he does sleep now, are now populated by sinfully visions of a green-eyed, dark-haired beauty, or by romantic, so damn romantic illusions (for now) of a girl with lavender eyes, unique eyes, and hazelnut hair- her, how she used to look, how she should look.
He'll not tell her that he hopes that their son will have blond ringlets and her eyes, because he doesn't know for sure if it's his son in the first place. He doesn't care, though -this baby is already his where it matters, his hearth, and it's something, he knows, that Samuel Bosco will never feel for the living miracle growing inside its mother's womb.
A long time ago, he recognized as his own a child of another one because he was forced to, because there was a small possibility it was his, and got to love her despite it all…
Alexander walks in front of his son, pacing, running his fingers through his hair. Patrick is sitting, he stands still, looking at the ground (they both can hear Angela, crying outside, begging her parents for mercy, for pardon, telling them how sorry she is, and they are telling her they'll find a solution. Both Alexander and Patrick know what solution will be, it's what they are talking about right now).
"What the hell were you thinking, son? I know I haven't been a role model, but using Miss Ruskin as a rebound for the Asterson girl? Dammit, Pat, at least you should have been safe! That much I though you!"
The son merely looks at the soil, glassy eyes, because of the pain remembering the girl he wanted to be with for his entire life, and the one he'll have to be with because of a stupid mistake.
He doesn't try to defend himself, he isn't sure he can. He doesn't remember a lot about that night, he was pretty wasted.
He had just wanted the pain to go away, for a while, a short while, he had just wanted to not feel the ache in his heart for few minutes, and the fact that he kept feeling Katy's voice in the back of his head, telling him not to, telling him it was wrong, so wrong on so many levels (because of her dad, it was always because of her dad. it's all his fault) it was what convinced him to let it go, to go with it, to go and get wasted.
So, yeah, he was drunk and wasted, but there are still a couple of things he remembers, or at least he thinks he does.
Angela was the one who went looking for him, she was the one who convinced him to have sex to forget about it for a short while. (he feels like she took advantage of him. he was drunk, after all, didn't know exactly what he was doing, didn't realize he was getting naked until she was naked on top of him, didn't even realize it was Angela and not Katy. He called for Katy, he saw Katy's face, it was he name he screamed at the top of his lugs, of that much he is sure). Besides, he is almost positive she told something in the line of them being safe, of her being on the pill and trust her because she had enough experience for the both of them.
But it's not what Angela says. She says he was the one talking her into sex, to help him to forget about that traitor. She says it was her first and only time while he told her to not worry because he had the experience for the both of them (Angela was his second girl, and with Katy, he has been just two times with her. but Angela is perfect and such an angel, they'll never doubt her words) and that he knew how to avoid such incidents….
He looks at his father, finally lifting his blue eyes, and says the only thing he could say, as wrong as it is, as much as he doesn't want to do it. there's no other chance, not here, not in their world, not with the boss' daughter involved.
"I'll do the honorable thing, sir. Just like you thought me to." They don't smile. There's nothing to smile about. Alex thinks Patrick's getting married to a girl he never liked to begin with because he has been that stupid to not be careful, that stupid to have sex while drunk, that stupid to get drunk to begin with. But Patrick… he doesn't smile because he knows he has been that stupid to have sex with Angela while drunk, he has been that stupid to get drunk to begin with, and because he is going to be a father to a child he never fathered in the first place, he is going to be a husband and a father because people is forcing him to.
It doesn't mean he'll not do his best in both fields, thought. He is in the game, and playing it's the only thing he can do.
A long time ago, he recognized as his own a child of another one because he was forced to, because there was a small possibility it was his, and got to love her despite it all…
right now, he is willing to do the same, but for another reason.
Because this child's mother is the only one for him, always have been, and always will.
With a sideway look, she gets a glimpse of a grinning Jane- a grinning Rick who's grinning in direction of her office all proud and happy and self-conscious. She huffs, when said sideway glance tells her everything.
He knows. Damn the man and his skills and the damn way he knows her so damn well. Sometimes she really hates him.
Rick knows she is pregnant, and soon all the bureau will know it. hell, even Rigsby is starting to notice her lightly bigger breasts- she wonders if it's what gave her away with Rick in the first place, after all he has always been a breast kind of man. In the couple of times they've slept together, he has been cupping her breasts the whole night…
Or, maybe, he just knows, because that's who he is and what he does, what he has always done. He was, after all, the boy wonder, right?
She wonders if he knows everything, if everything is just a game for him, if she is just a means to an end- Red John's death, Red John's slaughter, Red John's cold blood murder. Does he knows that Alexander Jane helped her and her mother escaping? Does he knows what they did and why they did it in the first place?
But mostly… she wonders if he has the answers she is so desperately looking for right now. Does he knows if the baby is his or Bosco's? because she doesn't know.
Not yet, at least. She hasn't even been to a doctor yet, she just made tons and tons of test, hidden in the dark, hidden in places that aren't her home- she can't risk Sam finding a pregnancy test round, not now, not yet, not when she isn't sure whom the baby belongs to.
The only thing she knows is that she was late, way too late for her own good, her own comfort, so she took the stets. And every single one come out positive.
She knows she is pregnant. But she doesn't know how far she is. And she doesn't know what she should hope for – which is, she realizes, scared, while running her fingers through her hair, scary and messy.
She shouldn't feel this way. Not about him, not about them, not about this baby.
She is engaged and getting married to Sam, so he simply has to be the father, there's no other way, and even if she knows he has been quite clear he wasn't ready to be a father again, that he didn't want to be a father again (because his children suffered enough for the divorce, the divorce he got to be with her. he can't add injure to the injured getting his mistress, the other woman, the one who stole him from his wife, so right, so beloved, so perfect, the mother of his children, pregnant) she knows he'll get around.
After all, even if they've always been careful, double careful, both careful, everybody knows that you can be just safe at 99%.
Or was it 99.9%, she isn't sure. But…
But it simply has to be that 0.1%, because, otherwise, that baby will be Rick's, fruit of their union on that fateful night, when she gave herself to him with no remorse or regrets or shame. And she can't do this.
It's not about him, it's not about her. she simply can't do this to this creature, this living miracle growing inside of her. She can't, shouldn't hope it's Rick's baby growing inside of her just because this way she'll always have a part of him with her, not matter what. It's wrong on so many levels and utterly selfish.
And she has never been selfish, if not… if not when it comes to Rick. She has always been selfish about Rick. She has always wanted him (despite claiming the opposite, but he doesn't need to know this fact, he is already too full of himself as it is.) and, at the end, she took him, even if people kept telling her not to.
Last time she did it, couple of months ago, it was her own conscience telling her not to, but she didn't listen. She listened to her heart, and look where she is right now, on the verge of tears for a man who probably never liked her to begin with, a man who used her and keeps using her.
She is pretty sure she just hits a brand new level of pathetic right now.
There's no reason he should love her. there's no reason he should, or could, love the child generated from their unholy union, if the child is his, that's it. He loved, loves Angela. He loved and still loves Charlotte, the beloved daughter born out of love and whished from both her first engaged and then married parents.
She is already heartbroken. It's wrong whishing Rick is the father, because she knows that it would mean that her baby will be heartbroken in the process as well, because it was just sex, it didn't mean anything, because he has always used her and that night wasn't any different, and he didn't, doesn't want a baby, not with her, never with her.
She may trust him on the job, but as a person? Never, not again. Even if he didn't know they escaped and why they did it, she can't forgive him for having married Angela just few months afterward. Did she mean so less to him?
Of course she did, what a naïve little child she was! they were teenagers. He was a teenager boy. He probably just wanted to get into her pants while trying to get into Angela's heart.
But maybe…. She slaps herself, mentally. She can't think about it, she can't think this way. Rick has to be the bastard of the situation, she can't allow herself to fall for him (more) again. Otherwise... this baby will pay the price.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She better schedule an appointment with her doctor and hopes that he'll tell her it's Sam's baby she is carrying inside her. otherwise…
Otherwise, for the baby's sake, she'll have to lie to everyone, let them believe it's Sam's baby, that it is an early born. And hope it will look like her mother – not her, never her, because she'd have to explain while her hair, and her eyes, are of a different color, why she changed them.
She is pretty sure that Rick will never give a damn about her saying this particular lie. She'll just be the one suffering saying so. and not because of the lie in itself.
But because there will always be a part of her that will hope that she and Rick could be back to what they were right at the beginning, to what they used to be, what she used of dreaming about.
She used to dream about a baby boy with his hair and her eyes, and she still does. It's wrong, it's not safe, but she can't help it.
And it scares the hell out of her.
