AN: Hello! I thought I would update next by posting a chapter of my most recent work in progress. I'm also in the process of moving over other stories from my ao3 currently, so hopefully those will be accessible on both websites in the next couple of days. For now, I hope you enjoy this chapter, I hope to be able to update it weekly. :)
All The King's Horses
Six months.
It had been six months since Teresa Lisbon had last seen or heard from Patrick Jane.
She remembered vividly the moment he was fired, taunting Wainwright until he had no choice but to change his suspension to termination out of anger. Lisbon had no doubt Jane did it on purpose. It was just like him to push a person to their breaking point, only to have schemed and manipulated them into falling into his trap.
Well, she was done playing into his foolishness. Gone were the days when she would let herself become tangled in the web of his lies and tricks, only to receive a halfhearted apology for putting her reputation on the line. It was almost as if he didn't realize everything she did for him, from shielding him in the field to protecting him from lawsuits by bigwigs who could demolish him in court. Apologies were one thing Patrick Jane was never very good at. Another was letting people into his life. Over and over he had told her that he was done with tricks, and over and over he proved to be telling yet another lie.
That was the thing about con men, Lisbon supposed. They never could really be trusted.
Just as Lisbon and Jane were beginning to make amends, starting to work better together and really become friends, he had to go and screw it up. Typical. If she got paid for every time he knowingly deceived her, Lisbon would be lounging on a private island somewhere sipping a piña colada.
Life went on, albeit slowly and confusingly those past six months. The most obvious difference was work. It was no longer commonplace for her to come into work and find him sleeping on her couch. Instead, it was as if they had lost their last shred of happiness. The team came in on time and work was done, but there were no more lighthearted conversations in the break room or stupid bets on useless things. It looked more like the other floors of the CBI headquarters than ever, uniform, predictable, and stable. No more yelling matches took place between Senior Agent and Consultant, the former tending to stay in her office unless called out on a case.
Her team worried about her, knowing that she felt responsible for what had happened to Jane. The truth was, she was avoiding them. Avoiding all the questions that were sure to follow about the nature of their relationship, as well as concerns about reaching out and finding him some help. So instead, she found respite in her office, mindlessly filling out paperwork and trying not to think about Jane, wasting away in some dump with no one to look after him.
If anyone asked her about weaknesses, she wouldn't admit to having any, but Lisbon knew that she could never resist caring for someone who needed it. She was self-sacrificial to a fault, using her time and resources to help out when people she knew were in trouble. When Jane first came to work for her, he was a mess, and she helped him bounce back to the person he was now. Or, at least, was six months ago. He never asked and probably didn't deserve it, but something told Lisbon that Jane was special, and could do great things if only he had someone in his corner to help out. She took it upon herself to be that person for him, and as annoying as he could be, she could see the wonderful person underneath.
A wonderful person who left without so much as a goodbye.
The first month was hard.
Hours went by, Lisbon waiting up with her phone on, ready for a call from him asking for help, but he never called or texted. Those hours turned into days, which spun into cruel weeks, the only indication of time passing the spirited voicemails she left on his phone.
She came into the office the first day after Jane's termination, faced with grim looks from her team.
"Boss? Is Jane coming back?" Van Pelt finally asked.
Hanging her head slightly, Lisbon sighed, letting her frustration with Jane seep into her words. "Not sure. He never called or texted. He'll be back on his own time, and not a moment sooner. You know how he is," she said bitterly, handling her coffee cup with a white-knuckled grip.
Cho made careful eye contact with her, trying to convey a message of sympathy through looks alone. Lisbon turned away so that no one could see the tears threatening to spill from her green eyes.
It didn't help that the first week he was gone was so slow, with lots of downtime that would usually be punctuated by lighthearted pranks on the team or plots to annoy her as she worked. They didn't clean out his desk, all of them still in denial that he was really gone. Even as Lisbon's texts and calls went unanswered, she still held a flicker of hope that he would be back. If not for the job, then for her.
Her dreams were punctuated with fleeting visions of him, in her office, in the bullpen, in the attic. Everywhere she saw him in dreams seemed lighter, his laughter rolling through the empty room. But every time she tried to get close or reach out, he vanished, forever just out of her grasp. When she woke, she remembered and cursed her dreams for being such a cruel metaphor for what was happening in her life.
Some days, she tried to pretend as if nothing was wrong, and he had just taken some vacation days off. But as days turned into weeks, she couldn't pretend anymore, and the hole that he left in their lives was as gaping and raw as the hurt that settled in her heart.
It wasn't just that he had left the team. He had left her too.
"This is Jane. I can't come to the phone right now. Leave a message, thanks."
By the end of the first month, she had memorized the cadence of his voice as he instructed her to leave a message, which she did faithfully at least once a day. Many were encouraging, hoping that he would find his way back to them. To her. Some were slurred, sent in the long hours of the night after work when she opened a bottle of whiskey against her good conscience. Not yet had she gotten angry, just sad that he wouldn't return her calls.
It didn't make sense, she reasoned. How could a man with everything he had just leave it all behind? Leave his team behind to chase god knows what fantasy? It just wasn't like him.
This wasn't the first time he had ever left. Maybe he'd be back.
Lisbon had been cleaning out her office when she let the tears fall for the first time. One of the drawers contained a multitude of complaint forms she had never sent, and tucked into the bottom corner of the drawer was a tiny, expertly folded paper frog. Turning the thing in her hand, she admired the tight creases and lines that held it together and pressed it down on her desk to see if it still hopped. Just the movement of the little animal, taking a tiny leap towards her was enough to set her heart aflame, still holding on to a dream that Jane would find his way back. Thankfully, it was the end of the workday and the team had all gone home. Lisbon crept out of her office to the parking lot, where she sat the frog on the dashboard before letting all of her conflicting emotions and thoughts out in a rainstorm of tears.
Every day she prayed for him, not uncommon for a woman who went to church every Sunday. She would kneel on the floor, clutching her rosary beads, letting her anguish dim as she focused on asking for help for Jane, that he would come back to her. At first, the practice of emptying her mind and focusing her energy into prayer did wonders for the anxious thoughts that continued to live in her mind. But after weeks of prayer with no avail, she felt truly, hopelessly alone.
Lisbon didn't appreciate the outreach from a grief therapist, either. He had contacted her at Wainwright's recommendation, but did nothing other than talk through what Lisbon had already reviewed a million times in her head. The scheduled hour always crept by slowly, the therapist blabbing something about stages of grief and how to get proper help, but her head was in the clouds, pulled back to a train of thought revolving around her lost friend.
Everywhere she went, little pieces of him were found. They had to clean out his attic by order of Wainwright, hoping to find a way to get in contact with him. Lisbon volunteered herself for the job, climbing the steps to the place where he spent so many days and nights. Sadly, she gazed at the space, still dismal and dusty, but with the peculiar feeling someone leaves behind when they're gone. She started with the desk, clearing scraps of paper out of nearly empty drawers until she had gotten to the last one. The final drawer to the right contained a photo, folded twice over and hidden under an empty spiral-bound notebook. Lisbon debated whether or not to look, fearing that she was invading his privacy, but curiosity got the better of her.
Carefully unfolding it so as not to crease it any more than it was, Lisbon recognized it immediately. The shot was of the two of them, taken after they solved a particularly tricky case at a high school reunion. Lisbon remembered every second of her dance with him and the way he swayed their bodies in time with one of her favorite songs. He had asked one of the alumni with an instant camera to take a picture of them together, his arm around her waist and hers somewhere behind his back. She remembered taking the photo, but couldn't recall what he had done with it. Tears swam in her eyes as she noticed how worn the creases were, as if he unfolded it to look at it often. Suddenly feeling overwhelmed, Lisbon sat down heavily on his makeshift bed, noticing belatedly that the sheets smelled like him, a mixture of tea and honey and the slight scent of the ocean.
Taking a moment to dry her tears, she finished cleaning and slipped out of the office for the night to make sure no one saw her puffy eyes or the tear tracks that shone on her face. Lisbon tucked the photo away with the origami frog, hiding them in the drawer of her nightstand so that no one could find them unless they knew where to look.
By the time he had been gone for two months, her sadness had subsided into a sort of repressed anger, making her about as volatile as a hand grenade. She drifted aimlessly, floating between cases and meetings without actually taking in much of the information. The team noticed more of a difference than she did. Lisbon had become snappy and unforgiving when working with them, and they secretly referred to stakeouts with her as 'drawing the short straw'.
She lost her patience with Van Pelt when results took longer than usual to come in, she groused at Rigsby for drinking the last of the coffee in the break room, and she complained that Cho wasn't spending enough time on interrogations. In their hearts, they knew Lisbon wasn't truly angry with them but was taking her anger at Jane out on whoever she could. The team was mad at him too, in their own right, but they also understood that abandoning Lisbon was the worst thing he could have done.
They were tasked with working on one case, something that involved a lot of secrecy as well as a protection detail. So one night, the Serious Crimes Unit found themselves at a club, agents tucked into each corner, watching for a suspected drug deal. Lisbon was near the back at the bar, sipping on a club soda as she scanned the room for any familiar faces. Suddenly, a tall, muscular man appeared in front of her, reeking of whiskey and cigarette smoke.
"Hey there, pretty lady," he growled, leaning in toward her. "You here all by yourself?"
Lisbon wrinkled her nose and tightened her grip on the glass. "Get lost."
"Aw, someone seems unhappy. What's wrong, little lady? Get dumped by your man?"
"That's none of your business." She gritted her teeth, trying not to cause a scene, but the man was pissing her off.
He set his drink down on the bartop and moved in closer. "Are you angry, princess?" he sneered.
Before she could think another word, Lisbon reared back and drove a hard punch into the man's nose. With a sickening crack, he stumbled backward, eyes watering, until he was sitting in a heap on the floor. Activity around her came to a screeching halt as more people were focused on the collapsed man on the ground and her fist still up in the air. At the sight of blood, someone called an ambulance, but the medics confirmed that his nose wasn't broken.
She stared at him with a sort of a grotesque satisfaction until Cho led her away. He brought her to the side of the building, away from the prying eyes of the crowd.
"I'm going to say something you're not going to like," he started, eyeing her carefully. "And I don't want to have to be the one to say it, but no one else will.."
Her look dared him to continue.
"Are you out of your goddamn mind? You just punched out one of our suspects. I don't even want to know what he said to you, and I have no doubt he deserved it, but now we don't stand much of a chance holding him without a confession, let alone getting proof that the deal ever happened."
Lisbon hung her head, the full impact of what had just happened hitting her.
"Look, I know you're angry. He shouldn't have left, and I don't know if you're in touch with him, but you have every right to be upset. But you have to make sure that you don't take your anger out on the people we're investigating. I'm saying this as a friend, not as your subordinate."
When she went home that night, she took it into consideration, realizing the effect of her anger on her team. She resolved to find other outlets for her anger, frequenting the handgun range to practice accuracy shots. Lisbon took great comfort in the discovery of kickboxing. Punching the shit out of a heavy bag did wonders for depleting her energy as well as taking the edge off her anger for the duration of the session. The messages that made their way to Jane's inbox were louder and more explicit than before, most of them shouts and curses of his abandonment. A few were deleted by Lisbon before they were delivered because she was seeing too much red to mean everything she was saying.
Sometimes, someone would say something to her that reminded her of him. Many of the comments from other agents were out of pity. It wasn't as if she didn't hear the gossip, it got around fast.
"That poor woman…"
"I heard they were sleeping together...left her."
"She won't last long at this rate."
Tuning it out was difficult, but Lisbon did her best. She knew that the gossip had no bearing on her capability as an agent, but proving that to others would be the problem. The team was good about protecting her from the words thrown her way. What was guaranteed to be a comment riddled with pity was always halted by a sharp glare from Cho or the looming presence of Rigsby. They took care of her, even after she took out her anger on them. For that, they should have been commended.
Lisbon asked Rigsby about it one night after work. "Why do you protect me even after all I've done to push you away?"
He was quiet for a moment, the only sound the hum of the air conditioning. "We do it because we care about you. Jane leaving is hard on all of us, but most of all, it's hard for you. I'm not going to ask why, because it's not my business, but we do care, boss. We're not going to let some assholes with relationship issues get under your skin."
Lisbon smiled sadly. "Thanks, Rigsby."
Her nightmares took a dark turn, many of them featuring prominently the torture of being stuck, unable to move or speak. Shadows floated around her in swirls, dragging their claws up her arms and whispering in her ears. She saw Jane often in dreams, whether it was him chasing her or her chasing him. He always seemed to disappear through a door just out of reach, locking the heavy doors behind him without so much as acknowledging her presence or saying goodbye.
"Where did you go?" she screamed to the wind in one such dream. "Why did you leave me?"
"Don't do this to yourself, Lisbon," a familiar voice replied. "You're making this so much harder than it needs to be."
"What do you mean? Why can't I see you?"
A deep laugh reverberated through her mind. "Just let me go. It's so much easier this way."
Lisbon awoke in cold sweats, heart and head pounding as she tried to process everything that happened. Needless to say, she didn't fall asleep again that night, or the night after.
Her prayers began to turn to desperation when he had been gone for three months with no word. He could be anywhere in the world, in any kind of trouble, and Lisbon blamed herself. Days became waking nightmares, the truth and reality that he was gone for good hitting her like a truck. Every undistracted moment was spent replaying the time before he left, his rejection of her offer to help. It felt less like a memory and more like a punishment.
If only I had insisted on helping him, she thought as she lay in bed for another sleepless night.
Vividly, she remembered how he would help her. Every time he asked her to go out for lunch with him to make sure she didn't skip it, or keeping her company in the office on the late nights when she was swamped with work. Neither said anything, just lapsed into a comfortable and companionable silence, the feeling of being close to someone warding off the stress of the job. And once, in a time of desperation, he helped her when she was at her most vulnerable, hypnotizing her and helping catch the man who framed her for killing William McTier.
Dark rings formed under her eyes as she went longer and longer without sleep, rest evading her as thoughts swirled like a dark hurricane through her mind. The more she considered the ways she could have helped, the more she started to believe that all of this was her fault. If only she could reach him, maybe he'd come back to her. To them.
If only.
Lisbon dragged herself to work, as usual, put on a brave face, and continued to be the boss, the glue holding their team together. It wasn't as if there was much else she could do anyway. She came out of her office more often, even managing a sad smile at one of Rigsby's jokes. Cases picked up, keeping her mind off of Jane. Closure rates had plummeted though, with the loss of their major asset, and the pressure was on to keep going without him. Every time Lisbon walked through the bullpen, she was greeted by an empty leather couch, guilt settling like a rock in her stomach. The persistent feeling of sickness followed her as long as she could see places Jane used to love, not going unnoticed by the team.
Van Pelt noticed the signs more than anyone. How quickly she left after eating case-closed pizza with the team, the way Lisbon kept her eyes on the ground instead of looking up as she walked. The usual badass attitude had been replaced by a guilt-ridden quietness, so unlike the Lisbon they were used to. Even her performance in the field had changed, preferring to stay behind instead of leading the pack the way she usually did.
Her evenings were spent trying to push away the persistent feelings of self-condemnation. She was consuming more alcohol than she had since college, using it to take the edge off and numb her to sleep. Guilt persisted through her dreams as she chased Jane down a long dark hallway, consistently out of reach. His figure would beckon her to follow, before taking off into a dark chasm of black, never to turn around long enough to acknowledge her. Lisbon was getting tired of running, tired of chasing, tired of putting her life on hold to get him back.
Maybe she was better off moving on. Getting her old self back, finding someone to settle down and make a life with. There was no use in pining after a man who would abandon her at his convenience, after all.
Every time her thoughts got on this track, they were soon replaced by a mountain of guilt, plying her into a breakdown.
The messages turned to pleas for him to find her, begging him to get help. She left numbers for crisis hotlines and begged him to call her back, but nothing ever came of it. One night, she decided to search the CBI arrest database for him out of desperation, but nothing came back.
"We'll fix it."
"I doubt that."
"I'll come by your place tonight. We'll talk it out, okay?"
"You're sweet."
"Let me help you."
Their last conversation before he left the CBI forever seemed to feature heavily in her mind as of late. For once in her life, Lisbon was glad she didn't have Jane's memory gift, glad she wasn't able to recall his expressions and the sad look in his beautiful eyes as he left without even saying goodbye.
She did go by his place that night, even though he hadn't said she needed to. When she got there, the cleaning lady was already in his room, vacuuming the carpet. With a pit in her stomach, she asked where he had gone, only to be told that he had checked out of the extended stay motel hours before, leaving no clue as to where he was going.
She was too late.
Van Pelt pulled her aside one day at work, feeling slightly like she was cornering a dragon in its lair. Everyone on the team was worried about Lisbon, noticing the hollow look in her eyes and the way she stayed cooped up in her office more and more with each passing day. They didn't quite know what to do for her, given that it was an unusual situation and they didn't want to upset her further, so Grace volunteered herself for a little outreach.
"Hey boss," she started, opening the door.
Lisbon did not look up. "Any news on the Parsons case?"
"Er...no. Medical examiner hasn't gotten back to us yet with autopsy reports. I was wondering if you wanted to grab coffee? We can go to that place you like," Van Pelt suggested.
Looking up for the first time, Lisbon noticed the hopeful smile plastered on Van Pelt's face, as well as the time. It wasn't as if they could move on with work without the autopsy report, so she reluctantly agreed. Ten minutes later, the two women found themselves at an outdoor table, one more secluded from the others.
"Boss, I-" Van Pelt stammered, not quite knowing what to say.
Lisbon looked up from pulling apart a muffin.
"You know it's not your fault," Grace said quietly. "No one blames you for what happened."
"No one but myself," she mumbled bitterly.
"He would have gone anyway. You know how he is when he has a plan, he'll do whatever it takes to execute it, even if it means alienating all his allies in the process. You're not the cause, just collateral damage."
"He probably thinks the same. Not returning the hundreds of calls and texts, not even bothering to let me know he's okay. God, after all I've done for him!"
Once Lisbon had herself back under control, Van Pelt continued. "I just want you to know there's nothing you could have done. It's rough, but moving on is important. I'm worried about you. We all are."
"There's no reason to be concerned." Lisbon put on a brave face. "It's just...some days are harder than others."
Judging from her look, Grace didn't quite believe her, but was either too polite or too nervous to press her any more.
As she lay curled up in her bed, Lisbon contemplated how long it had been. Four months. Things had improved for a short while, but talk around the office of finding a replacement for Jane had brought Lisbon back to rock bottom once again. Her heart felt heavy, the weight of guilt and sadness over his loss dragging her down whenever she tried to pick herself back up.
She was like a pebble that washed ashore only to be picked up and thrown back into the waves again.
At work, she kept up her usual appearances, but she was more tired than ever after restless nights where the only dreams were nightmares. Any work in the field became a chore, her sluggishness and lethargy catching up with her. Falling asleep on the job, something that had never previously been an issue for her, started to happen more frequently, especially when they were traveling to crime scenes. One of her team members always asked for the keys before they went anywhere, just to prevent her from falling asleep behind the wheel.
Most days, it was hard to drag herself out of bed.
Wainwright insisted on forcing her to see the grief counselor again, refusing to let her back to work until he had signed off on her. In Lisbon's eyes, it was a lot of pointless crap, the man spending most of their sessions questioning her incessantly about Jane and the nature of their relationship before he left. Eventually, she convinced him to sign off on her, but it wasn't as if their sessions had much of an effect on her.
Returning to work didn't feel any different, except for the persistent feeling of sadness that followed her as she tried to live her life. She came into work later than usual and left earlier than usual. No one knew where she disappeared in her free time. Of course, there were whispers, but her team didn't want to contribute to the already harmful enough gossip pool. Snatches of scandals could be heard anywhere they weren't quieted by Rigsby, Van Pelt, or Cho, and it had enough of an effect on Lisbon that she didn't want to be seen much anymore.
Her office remained a place of solace, a safe haven for the tired, dragged down senior agent. She cried more often than she used to, the desperation and despair of the entire situation seeming to reach directly into her heart. Attempts at lighthearted conversation with the team always ended in painful reminders.
"It's a shame Jane isn't here to pass the time with a mind-reading trick or two, right?" Rigsby said carelessly one afternoon as they sat around the bullpen.
All too late, he noticed the flash of pain behind her eyes and tried to retract his statement, but the damage was already done. Excusing herself, Lisbon all but ran back to her office to let the tears flow in private. The littlest things upset her, and it was very frustrating to deal with.
At first, she blamed it on hormones or a stressful week, but she was realizing that it was just something she would have to learn to get over.
It had been a long time since she felt like this, Jane's departure bringing up some rather...unpleasant memories of her parents. In her mind, she knew the thoughts weren't rational, but it was taking too long for her brain to catch up with her heart that there was a disconnect between logic and the sadness that ached deep within her. As many times as she was told it wasn't her fault, she wouldn't believe it.
If only I had gotten there sooner, she told herself, repeating the thought like a mantra. Maybe he'd still be here.
More times than she could count, she fell asleep clutching the blankets on her bed, shaking as she let all of the emotions wash out of her like a river. Mornings brought cold showers to rinse away the tear tracks left behind, just in time for work. She no longer ate with the team, avoiding their tradition of case-closed pizza in favor of leaving early. Eating was starting to become more of an issue, a vicious cycle of exhaustion and hunger.
Noting her gaunt frame, the team made it a point to invite her out more often. Most times she refused, inventing some lie to get her out of spending more time with other people than strictly necessary, but she humored them every once in a while, playing it up as if it were some sort of achievement. All their efforts to get her to come out of her shell were appreciated, but didn't change much in terms of her own internal struggle against herself. Tearful messages popped up in Jane's phone more than ever, begging him to just call her back or reach out to her in some way.
One afternoon, Wainwright called her in to talk about case progress, glossing over the fact that she didn't look as spirited as she once did.
"Ah, Lisbon! There you are," he said, beckoning her to sit across from him. "I wanted to talk about a few things. You're on the Corrigan case, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Excellent. I take it you're making progress?"
"As much as we can. I have a gut feeling that the husband is responsible, but he has a seemingly unbreakable alibi."
"We don't operate on instinct, Agent Lisbon," Wainwright scolded gently. "It may have been different with Jane, but he's gone now. Your team is responsible for some of the highest profile cases we cover. I need your assurance that you will follow standard operating procedure."
Biting back a snide remark, she hung her head. "Yes, sir."
"Good. With that settled, I've been thinking it might be good to have your team talk to a few new academy graduates, look at adding another consultant or even another agent to the unit. Closure rate being what it is."
"With all due respect, I don't think that's such a good idea."
"And why not?"
"My team is working on moving on. Introducing someone new into a mix of people who still haven't come to terms with Jane leaving is a recipe for disaster." This wasn't the whole truth, but it was as much as Lisbon was willing to admit to her inexperienced boss. "Besides, there's always a chance he'll come back."
Wainwright eyed her with a suspicion usually reserved for interrogating suspects. "Agent Lisbon, is there something you're not telling me?"
"No," she lied. "I just don't think it's a good learning environment for an academy graduate to have to keep up with a team who is used to a certain sort of person, that's all."
"Let me get this straight. You're suggesting we keep Jane's place vacant?"
"Yes, just until we hear whether or not he's coming back."
"And if we don't hear anything?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
Lisbon left Wainwright's office that day with a note of pride and an air of finality. Until the day she heard from Jane himself, she would continue to advocate for keeping his spot open for him. They were like his family after all, and she knew from experience that family was not supposed to abandon one another when times get tough.
She kept on, though, following the flow of life, trying to pull herself out of the hole of guilt and sadness she had dug for herself. Sometimes, she thought it might have been better if Jane at least admitted he was leaving her.
"Am I that easy to abandon? Am I that hard to love?" she screamed into her pillow on one of the worst nights.
Even though they were two different situations, Lisbon couldn't help but compare it to her father. Death and abandonment weren't the same, but emotionally, he had abandoned them long before he died. The responsibility of looking after her team and rebuilding their reputation felt akin to caring for and raising her brothers, and the whole situation brought back things she hadn't felt in years.
In an attempt to try and get back into a normal routine, Lisbon attended the occasional yoga class with Van Pelt, neither of them acknowledging the elephant in the room. She could often be found at the handgun range with Cho, using the excuse of brushing up before firearms recertification, but both knew they were there to blow off steam. Rigsby did his best to do nice things for her, but her recent unpredictability hindered his efforts. Doing something with her outside of work was out of the question, she made him too nervous. So instead, he settled for bringing her coffee and pastries from her favorite local coffee shops.
She still refused to eat bear claws, the memories of sharing them with Jane tainting the once enjoyable treat.
As time went on, things began to look better for Lisbon. She still sent voicemails, but less than she used to. Angry messages were rare, the more common variety just a plea for him to get help.
He had moved on, clearly, and she needed to accept it.
Some pills are harder to swallow than others, though, and this one had taken five months. If she were to have to place herself on the stupid curve her grief counselor had talked about, Lisbon would say she was on her way back up. Time heals all wounds, as they say.
Her team was back to a stellar closure rate even without Jane, the highest in the bureau. They continued to work straight, no more tricks coming as a mandate from the higher ups. No one new applied for Jane's position, so interviews were unnecessary, preventing further anguish to the already harrowed agents. Lisbon spent more time in the bullpen with her team, craving the feeling of just being around people after having been so lonely for so long. Anyone could tell she was sleeping better at night, the dark circles fading from their residency under her eyes.
She was looking stronger too, having spent a fair amount of time letting out steam at the gym. On average, she was getting seven hours of sleep per night, which was better than it had been in months. Prayers for Jane's soul were still said every night, with extra time in church on Sundays praying for a safe return.
"Good morning!" Van Pelt called from her desk, already hard at work crunching some numbers from their most recent case.
"Morning!" Lisbon replied, sounding happy for the first time in what felt like forever. "How's that information coming?"
"Almost there, boss. Once we hear back from the victim's insurance company, we'll have all the proof we need to pin this."
"Nice work."
Grace waited until Lisbon was out of earshot before swiveling in her chair to face the boys. "Lisbon's back," she said, smiling.
Rigsby let out a quiet whoop and Cho cracked a tiny grin before turning back to the book he was reading. Workdays and weeks went by quickly, the team adjusting to the new dynamic with their boss back in full swing. They covered ground from the bottom of California to the top, putting away bad people and bringing justice in the way only they could. No one spoke of Jane, nor did anyone move his couch. Both were from a time that seemed to be gone, but secretly they held out hope that neither would become relics of the past.
Around the time Jane had been gone for six months, they caught a case involving a John Doe shot in an alleyway just outside of Sacramento. Van Pelt had gotten there around the same time as the crime scene techs, but Lisbon, Rigsby, and Cho decided to meet her there after the scene was contained. Rigsby had been chattering excitedly about all the things Benjamin was learning to do, when Pat, her coroner friend, beckoned her over.
It never ceased to make Lisbon feel a little bit sick when they came across a victim, but she tried to quell the churning of her stomach as the team discussed possibilities for the identity of their John Doe.
"Give us twenty minutes with him, and you can bag him," Lisbon directed, trying to get out of the way.
"No hurry," Pat replied nonchalantly. "Hey, sorry about Jane, by the way. That's too bad."
"Too bad about what?"
"That he got arrested. I heard it from some guys in vice. He got busted for assault, fraud, narcotics, and resisting arrest in Vegas."
Her heart dropped, and she didn't even hear the outbursts from the rest of her team as she let the realization sink in.
Notes: Thank you so much for reading, I know this one started out pretty heavy. Things will lighten up before too long, but they have to get worse before they can get better, as the saying goes! Your support means the world to me and I appreciate every review.