A/N: This tag is dedicated to the guest reviewer for another one of my stories who requested an update to this one - here you go! Enjoy. :)
xxx
It was obvious to Jane that Nicole was the key to this whole case. If he could unlock her memories, they would know who had hurt her and killed Kara.
Accordingly, he helped himself to the mp3 player the girls had been listening to that night and pulled up the most recent playlist. This would be the perfect memory aid. He listened to a few of the songs to get himself into the spirit of the thing.
Lisbon jerked one of the earbuds from his ear, trying to capture his full attention, even though he'd already made his recommendation on the subject of the unfortunately named Rulon Farnes. Really, it was perfectly obvious the man hadn't done it. Lisbon, of course, was unwilling to take his pronouncement on faith. She demanded an explanation.
He outlined his reasoning, but Lisbon was less than impressed. She mocked his logic, but before he could mount a defense, her eyes strayed to the music player, distracted. "Is that Kara's mp3 player?" she asked, aghast.
"Yes."
"What are you doing with it?" she demanded.
"Listening to her music," Jane answered. "It's very good."
"That's evidence," Lisbon said, shocked. "You can't play with that."
"Evidence of what? That she liked music?" He chuckled a little at his own joke.
Lisbon was not amused. "It's in the log as physical evidence. It's evidence."
"Okay." He looked to the others for help. "What's with her?"
Three stony faces stared back at him. "Seriously," Rigsby said, as severe as Jane had ever seen him. "If it's in the log, it's in the log. You can't touch it."
Huh. Et tu, Rigsby?
This must have something to do with those 'rules of evidence' Lisbon was always droning on about. He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Law enforcement. He'd never understand how they could be so touchy about every little law.
He distracted Lisbon with a question about her intentions regarding the unfortunate Rulon Farnes and found he'd swayed her in the end. Mostly. He supposed she may have decided to release Rulon because she didn't have any evidence on the man and couldn't legally hold him, but Jane was confident his argument had been the deciding factor. She agreed to let Rulon go, but informed the team she intended to keep him under surveillance.
He considered convincing her that watching Rulon was a waste of time, but then decided perhaps it would be best if Lisbon's attentions were occupied elsewhere for the time being. He had a plan, and he was eager to get it underway. Best not to bother Lisbon with the details at the moment. He was certain she wouldn't approve.
Xxx
He headed back to the hospital. Helping Nicole escape was a trifling matter, and soon they were on their way to the scene of the crime.
He kept the car moving down the road at a steady pace. "Do you trust me, Nicole?"
"Yes." She said it without hesitation, without guile.
He faltered. Trust. It was a precious thing. No one had trusted him like that in a long time. Angela and Charlotte had looked at him with trust like that. It was a huge responsibility, that trust. For a second, he couldn't breathe. He wasn't entirely certain he could bear the burden of it.
He shook off his doubts and hit play on the music player. "I'm going to help you remember what happened to you that night."
She shrank into her seat a little. "I don't want to remember." Poor kid. For a second, a part of him wanted to stroke her hair like he would have done for his daughter and assure her that everything was all right. He was here now. The nightmare was over. She could just go back to sleep and forget all about it.
He suppressed the urge. Ruthlessly, he pressed on. She wasn't a child. She needed to see the truth. "You have to. Wherever you go, until you know the truth of what happened, you'll be haunted. Until you see Kara's death redeemed, you'll be haunted." This, he knew. Ghosts couldn't haunt with nearly the strength that uncertainty did. "You have to know the truth."
After a moment, she spoke again. "It makes me feel sad," she said in a small voice.
The music. It was working. She was starting to remember.
He drew the story from her, helping her to recall more of the details.
She grew agitated. "I'm gonna be sick."
He pulled the car over. He soothed and pushed. More of the story emerged. Nicole remembered what Kara had told her.
She got out of the car. Wrapped her arms around herself. "I don't want to remember anymore."
Ruthless, again. "You must."
She was crying now. "I'm scared."
He put his jacket around her thin shoulders. "Nicole, I've been where you're going. I know how you feel. I know. But you have to be brave. I'm here. I won't let anything bad happen. I promise." He could protect her. He'd failed his wife and daughter, but this girl, he could protect. He could save her from the torture of uncertainty. He could prevent the man who'd hurt them from ever hurting anyone again. This time, he could.
He could see the light flickering in her eyes. She was remembering.
Crying, she told him about Kara dying to save her. About being put in the back of a car, being transported over a bumpy road.
His phone rang. Lisbon. He ignored the call. He didn't have time for distractions right now. He was so close.
"The door is locked," Nicole gasped. "I'm trapped. I'm going to die!"
He continued to press her. "The door is unlocked if you want it to be. Open the door, Nicole. Open it."
She opened the door.
Jane felt sick as she described the scene in halting tones. The man had struck her. Thrown her to the floor and tried to rape her.
But she was okay. She'd fought him off. She'd escaped. She'd remembered.
He tucked Nicole safely away back in the car and called Lisbon. She was annoyed about something. He ignored this and passed on Nicole's description of the man who had attacked her. "We're looking for a tall, well-built man with brown hair and glasses. Mid-thirties."
"That's it?" Lisbon said irritably. "That describes half the men in California."
She had a point. On the other hand, it definitely eliminated Nicole and Rulon Farnes as suspects, so that was something, wasn't it?
Lisbon was less generous in her assessment. "Nice work," she groused. "For this, you illegally abducted her from the sheriff's custody."
Ah, that was what she was annoyed about. He should have known. "I was going to tell you, but I figured, seeing as it's illegal, best to keep you out of it. So you have deniability."
"How considerate of you," she said sarcastically. The woman just didn't appreciate his thoughtful gestures. She exhaled into the phone. "Listen to me very carefully, and do exactly as I tell you. Take her back to the hospital right now and sincerely apologize to Sheriff Nelson."
He considered this. Now that he'd helped her unlock her memories, Nicole probably would be safer back at the hospital under the sheriff's protection, at least until they figured out which brown-haired man was responsible for the attack. But there was no way he was apologizing to Nelson, sincerely or otherwise.
He got back in the car.
He drove a ways down the road, mulling over the problem of the brown-haired man. "Is there anything else specific you can remember about him?" he asked Nicole.
She shook her head. "Just what he looked like. That's all I remember."
"Doesn't matter how small it is. Little things, like what his voice sounded like, or what he smelled like."
She thought for a moment. "Pineapple," she said at last.
He called Lisbon back.
"Pineapple," he said without preamble. "He smelled like pineapple." See? He could share information.
"Pineapple?" she demanded in an endearingly familiar tone of irritation. "What the hell? Go—"
She stopped short. He heard her breathing change. A quick, barely perceptible intake of breath.
Then her voice, eerily calm. "Okay. Good." She spoke in an even, measured tone. She sounded oddly far away. "Listen," she said quietly. "Tell Rigsby Teresa needs his help."
Teresa?
Time stopped.
He sucked in a sharp breath. Lisbon needed help. The team wasn't with her, for some reason. She was alone with Kara's murderer.
She continued speaking, her voice still unbelievably calm. "Me? I'm at the Eagle Pine Lodge off Route 6."
There was a faint rustling as she slid her phone into her pocket. "Kyle." He recognized her soothing, 'let's be reasonable' voice. "Let's stay calm, and think this through." Like they were solving a problem together.
Kyle. The ranger with the brown hair and glasses. It had been one of the searchers after all.
He focused on Lisbon's voice. She sounded calm, controlled. Like she was going to make everything okay, just with the sound of her voice.
He let her soothing tone wash over him, taking several deep breaths. He didn't need to worry about Lisbon. She could protect herself. Hell, she protected him most of the time. Everything was going to be okay.
He heard Kyle's voice again. Reality swung around and broadsided him across the side of the head. Teresa Lisbon was alone with the man who had tried to rape and kill Nicole. This was not okay.
Snapping back to attention, he dialed Rigsby frantically and relayed the message that Lisbon needed help as quickly as possible.
Jane remembered seeing the ranger in the hallway at the hospital when Jason had tried to sneak in to see Nicole. She had grown agitated after the incident, but it wasn't because she was afraid of her fiancé. She had reacted to the sound of Kyle's voice.
He switched back to the call with Lisbon and tried to figure out what was going on.
"Please, Kyle." Her voice was still maddeningly calm. "I really and truly do not want to hurt you."
That was good. Lisbon had her weapon.
He could heard a light chuckle from the man on the other end of the line. "You like your chances, do you?"
That was bad. Kyle was armed as well.
Still, Jane would back Lisbon in a shootout over Kyle the Ranger any day. He frowned. Not that it would come to that, surely. At any moment, Kyle would realize that Lisbon could pulverize him with her hands tied behind her back and he'd surrender peaceably. He'd probably—
Gunshots rang out. A lot of them.
A soft gasp of pain. Then an eternity of silence.
Jane's heart stopped beating in his chest. He licked his lips. "Ah, Lisbon?" No answer. Then more insistently, "Lisbon?" Still no response. From there, he proceeded straight into panic. He really hadn't thought he still had the capacity for this level of fear. What an unpleasant surprise. "Lisbon!"
"Shhh," she hissed into the phone a hundred years later.
He'd never been so grateful to be shushed in his life. "You all right?" he whispered.
"Yeah," she whispered back. "Did you call Rigsby?"
Now that his brain was free from that paralyzing fear, he thought quickly. "Yeah, he's on his way. Listen, I have an idea."
"Fine, go ahead. I guess beggars can't be choosers," she muttered into the phone.
Oh, good, she was snarking at him. He breathed easier.
He explained his plan. Lisbon agreed to try it.
"On the count of three, okay?" he whispered.
"Okay," she whispered back.
"One…two… three!"
He heard the clatter and scrape of the phone as it slid across the floor. He counted two mississippis, then shouted at the top of his lungs. "Lisbon, be careful!" Nicole, next to him in the close confines of the car, flinched at the sound.
More shots. Glass shattering. His eyes flicked between the road and his phone, his stomach churning with anxiety. Had it worked?
He waited a minute longer, then said tentatively, "Ah, Lisbon?"
Nothing. Again.
Belatedly, it occurred to him he'd failed to consider one crucial element of the plan. No matter if the plan had succeeded or failed, he was still stuck waiting, powerless to influence the outcome.
He gripped the steering wheel and focused on controlling his breathing. His heart beat in his chest more quickly than he was accustomed to.
"Mr. Jane?" Nicole said tentatively. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," he said, voice tight. "Why wouldn't I be?"
She glanced at his hands, white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "You seem upset."
"I'm fine." He forced another breath into his lungs. "I'm just worried about my friend." Yes. That was it. Lisbon was his friend. He rolled the word around in his mind. He hadn't considered calling her anything in particular before. He'd never bothered assigning her any kind of appellation that might imply some semblance of permanence in his life. But once applied, he found it was true. The word fit. She was his friend. And he was worried about her. Because that was what friends did when their friends decided to face down murderers by themselves in the middle of the night in isolated cabins.
He forced himself to consider the situation logically. She had slid the phone across the room maybe thirty seconds ago. She'd made a run for it. Kyle had shot at the phone, not at her. The shots hadn't hit her. They hadn't. She'd made it outside safely. If Rigsby wasn't there yet, she might have tried to make a break for the car. Or headed into the woods on foot. He hoped she was wearing good shoes.
Oh, God, was she wearing good shoes? Frantically, he combed his memory palace to recall what she'd been wearing earlier. Classic Lisbon button-down. Tight jeans he'd admired from afar. Leather jacket—she looked cute in leather. But which shoes was she wearing? He worried she wouldn't be able to move fast enough if she was in those high-heeled boots she favored. He flashed on her feet treading the dirt path next to him and breathed easier. No, it was okay, she'd worn good sturdy flats for their tramp through the woods earlier. She'd be fine. Even if she needed to run into the forest. At night. Alone. With a killer chasing after her.
He was having that breathing problem again.
No. He was overreacting. The plan had worked. She'd caught Kyle the Ranger, and was currently making him regret he'd ever been born. She just needed to complete the arrest, lock him up in the squad car, and tell Rigsby to keep an eye on him. Then she'd come back for her phone. These things took time. She'd be back soon. He just needed to be patient.
He took another breath.
Okay, seriously? What the hell was she doing? She'd captured the creepy overgrown boy scout, hadn't she? What was she doing dawdling out there without her goddamned phone? He shouted again, raising his voice even further. "Lisbon!"
Nicole winced again.
Still nothing.
"Do you think she's okay?" Nicole asked anxiously.
He inhaled through his nose. Out through his mouth. "Yeah. I know she looks like a delicate woodland creature from another world, but Lisbon's tough. She wouldn't let Kyle get the drop on her." She better not have, dammit. He'd gotten used to having her around. He didn't want to get unused to it.
The phone rustled again.
His heart jumped in his chest. "Lisbon?"
There was a pause. Then—"Jane?" Her voice was surprised. "You still there?"
He exhaled a huge sigh of relief. "Of course I'm still here, woman, where else would I be?"
"I don't know," she snarked. "Kidnapping another attempted murder victim from police custody, perhaps?"
He pulled the car over and parked it. His hands were shaking. "No, I thought I'd stick with the one I have, actually."
"Did you take her back to Nelson yet?" she demanded.
"Forget Nelson. What happened with Kyle? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she assured him. "Kyle's in custody. Rigsby has him in the back of the rig. We'll take him back to town in a few minutes."
"And no one got shot?" he double-checked.
"No one got shot," she confirmed.
"That's good," he said. "Skin as beautiful as yours should not be allowed to be marred by bullet holes. It would be a crime against nature."
There was a pause as she tried to figure out what to do with that. Belatedly, it occurred to him that he usually didn't voice thoughts like that around Lisbon. Doing so was probably an extremely bad idea.
Predictably, she decided to ignore it. "Take Nicole back to the hospital," she ordered him. "I'll meet you there."
Xxx
They said their good-byes to Nicole the next day.
A wave of melancholy swept over him. The usual post-case euphoria he normally derived from putting one over on someone eluded him. He handed Lisbon the keys. He didn't feel like driving.
Lisbon, trying to cheer him up, gave him a sideways smile. "Hey, can you believe he fell for that old cell phone gag?"
He paused. "Old cell phone gag?" He could hardly let that stand. "I invented that right there and then. Rather brilliantly, I thought." Once he'd gotten past the mind-numbing fear, that is.
"Oh, please. I've seen that done a dozen times."
"What do you mean? Where?"
"On TV."
"Oh, on TV. Well, anything can happen on TV." They got in the car. "The question is, where have you seen that done in real life?"
"Come on, it's the oldest trick in the book," Lisbon protested as she pulled away.
"Name one time you've seen anything like that in real life," Jane said, incredulous.
Silence reigned as she wracked her brain to come up with an example.
"That's what I thought," he said, satisfied.
She smacked him on the shoulder. "Oh, shut up."
He hid a smile. Huh. Whaddya know. He actually felt a little better.
Lisbon glanced over at him. "You all right?"
He pasted on an insincere smile, designed to deflect. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You were a bit quiet last night at the hospital."
This was disturbing to hear. Not that he'd been quiet, but that she'd noticed.
He saw his mistake now. He should have gloated more. That was the behavior she'd come to expect of him. Now, apparently, she considered a simple lack of obnoxious bragging a signal that all was not well in the emotional landscape of Patrick Jane.
She was really getting to know him entirely too well.
Not wanting to give her more fodder for analysis, he shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window. "Meh."
Being Lisbon, she refused to let it go. "Is something bothering you?"
She could be tiresomely tenacious at times. He searched for something to distract her. "Actually, yes. There is something bothering me."
"What's that?"
"Sheriff Nelson's secret life. Fishnet stockings or an unhealthily close relationship with his mother?"
She ignored his attempt to brush her off. "I'm serious. Did something happen yesterday?"
Well, let's see. Your consultant discovered that apparently a few notes of an old song are enough to send him to lala land, because there were a couple points yesterday where he experienced actual lost time reliving old memories so vivid he temporarily lost all awareness of his surroundings. But you probably shouldn't worry too much about that. It's not like failure to maintain awareness of one's surroundings could be a catastrophic liability for someone who works with violent criminals for a living.
No, you have more important things to worry about. Such as the fact that after his little trip down memory lane, your consultant drove a twenty year old girl out to the scene of her best friend's murder and her own kidnapping and essentially browbeat her into reliving the most horrific night of her life for the sake of producing a description of a brown-haired man with glasses. Or, you know, perhaps the fact that said description in turn led to you being shot at. No biggie.
Except it was, actually. Because it caused your consultant to realize that while you might consider him the emotional equivalent of a pebble in your shoe, you're actually a rather prominent figure in his life. The practical effect of which is that through no fault or effort of your own, you're now saddled with an unenviable position of responsibility when it comes to the continued sanity of that pesky consultant. For example, since he is actually literally not capable of dealing with any more loss in his life, he'd really prefer it if you could kindly refrain from engaging in any more gun fights with psychopaths in the future. He's sure that won't be a problem in your chosen profession of homicide detective.
"No. Not really," he answered at last. That much was true, at least. There was nothing out of the ordinary to report. Just another day at the ranch when it came to the neuroses of Patrick Jane.
She frowned. "Not really? What does that mean?"
"Nothing," he said, cursing himself for his mistake. "Forget it."
"You meant something," she persisted. "Come on, Jane. What's going on in your head right now?"
Oh, Lisbon, he thought. There be dragons. Trust me, you don't want a piece of that mess.
Put another way: three things you don't want to see how they're made… laws, sausages, and the inside of Patrick Jane's head.
"I was just thinking about what a fine morning it is," he lied. "All this fresh mountain air." He made a show of inhaling deeply. "Wonderful for the constitution."
Her mouth tightened. "Fine. Don't tell me."
He sighed. Sometimes the best way of dealing with Lisbon was to cede some portion of the truth to her. If he set her chewing on one of his issues, she'd probably leave the others well enough alone for the time being.
He decided to pick the easiest one. "Do you think I was too hard on Nicole?"
She frowned. "What? What do you mean?"
"I pushed her pretty hard last night. She was scared, but I bullied her into remembering. Told her it was for her own good. That she'd never be free, until she saw Kara's death redeemed."
Lisbon was silent a moment. He could tell she'd made the obvious connection.
"I think," she said carefully, "that following a difficult path is worth some sacrifice if you have the promise of freedom waiting for you at the end of it."
He looked down. "I hope so."
She glanced over at him. "She seemed okay this morning."
"I suppose."
"She seemed more okay today than she would have if she was still stuck in that hospital, afraid someone was going to try to kill her again," Lisbon said.
That was a good point. He paused. "So you're saying that actually, what I did was a little bit heroic?"
"Yes, Jane," she said dryly. "Kidnapping a girl from a hospital and driving her out to the middle of nowhere in the dead of night… it's pretty much straight out of Heroics 101. You should probably get a medal."
"Well, since you were the one who actually caught the murderer, perhaps I'd be willing to share it with you," he said fairly.
Her lips quirked. "Good of you."
He smiled involuntarily. Her sarcasm was one of his favorite things about her.
He thought of the sound of the gunshots over the phone the night before. His smile faded. "I was worried about you last night," he confessed.
Her brow furrowed. "About me?"
She acted as though the idea of someone worrying about her well-being was a completely foreign concept.
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Lisbon. Most people find the idea of bullets flying in the direction of their friends and colleagues worrying."
"I'm fine, Jane," she said dismissively.
He looked away. "I know."
Seeing he didn't appear comforted by her assurance, she tried again. "The guy was a lousy shot."
This made him feel worse. "Yeah." The trouble was, the next one might not be.
"I'm a cop, Jane," she said gently. "Sometimes we end up in the line of fire. It's part of the job. I know what I signed up for."
"I know." He did know that, rationally. That didn't mean he had to like it. "It's just…"
She glanced over at him. "Yes?"
He avoided her gaze. "Well, I've invested a lot of time in you and your team. It would be incredibly inconvenient for me to have to train a new person if you went and got yourself shot at this stage of the game."
Her mouth fell open in indignation. "Train?"
Oh, good, she was irritated with him. At last, they were on safer ground. "Yes, it would be dreadfully tedious for me to have to adjust to someone new. Imagine if I got stuck with one of those inflexible old school cops with no imagination. Someone who let by the book thinking overrule true justice and compassion. It would be a disaster. A real nightmare for Minelli and the higher ups."
"You always make fun of me for following the rules," she protested.
He shook his head. "You are awfully coppish, it's true, but at least your character is worthy of respect. You care more about protecting innocent people than ascending the career ladder. And you're pretty decent at picking up cues when I lay them out for you. I don't think I could stomach working with someone who wasn't sharp enough to keep up with me, after working with you. Anyway, the point is, I'd appreciate it if you could make every effort to avoid being shot at in the future. Everyone involved will be much better off."
She paused. "Was there a compliment buried in there somewhere?"
Well, that just proved she'd completely missed the point, didn't it? "Stop fishing. You know you're an amazing cop."
She appeared startled by this assessment. "Thanks, Jane," she said, clearly touched.
He paused. Oh. She really didn't know how amazing she was. He shook his head. It was so strange, interacting with someone truly humble. He didn't have a proper frame of reference for it.
He brushed past the moment, which was entirely too sincere for his liking moment. "Too bad you were too busy wasting time watching Rulon Farnes last night to catch the really interesting action."
She let out a startled laugh. "Oh, you mean like actually catching the murderer? That kind of interesting action?"
"Meh. You wouldn't have even known what you were looking for if me and Nicole hadn't been doing the hard work."
"You're referring to the onerous task of describing a brown-haired man with glasses?" she teased.
"Recovering memories is a delicate business, Lisbon. It requires skill and patience. It's much harder than it looks." He flashed on the image of Charlotte playing the piano with Angela. Sometimes it was worth the pain and effort, though.
He glanced over at Lisbon. A small smile played about her lips as she teased him.
He decided to let this moment sneak its way into his memory palace. Find a home there. After all, Lisbon was his friend, wasn't she? She deserved a little space in there. And if he had a few memories of her eyes sparkling with mischief and her pretty little smiles to call up in the future when she was busy yelling at him, so much the better.
He sat back, idly observing the graceful arch of her neck as they continued their friendly dispute over whose contribution to the case was most significant.
He was willing to grant her that actually collaring the murderer was certainly a praiseworthy achievement by any standards. But surely he deserved at least equal credit for pointing her in the right direction in the first place. Just where would they be without his critical pineapple hint, anyway?
Also, the cell phone gag had totally been his idea.