Jane is unmoving. Lisbon screams for paramedics, but it feels hopeless. She half expects that it's a prank, that the criminal they were hunting didn't drown Jane and take his life. This isn't how this is supposed to end.
"Oh God, oh goodness." Lisbon drags Jane's body (not body, not body) to land and the paramedics arrive, ready to revive him.
Lisbon didn't start believing in God until her brother, Jimmy, got unbearably sick and wouldn't get better. Her mother prayed for days, fearful Catholic that she was. The doctors had told them that it would get worse until it got better, but she prayed and prayed until she was sick in the face.
This time, Lisbon can feel her body trembling from the faith. She clutches the cross her mother gave on the day she found out she got into the Academy and she prays.
As the defibrillator hits Jane's chest for the third time, he coughs up a bout of water. Lisbon's heart nearly stops from the relief. She has to physically stop herself from repeatedly asking the EMTs, "Is he going to be alright? Are you sure he's going to be okay?"
Cho comes up next to her, his jaw is tense. "Is he okay?"
"He will be." Lisbon picks at her nails, as she watches the EMTs load Jane into an ambulance. "Cho, watch things here. I'm going to the hospital."hr /
Maybe this was a bad idea.
Jane is just a colleague. Lisbon isn't sure how professional, visiting a colleague at his bedside, is. Probably not very professional, especially when she's working on a case.
But, she's halfway through the drive already and she's panicked and there's no way she can be of any help to the squad.
This is getting to her more than it normally does.
When Lisbon worked with Bosco, she was right next to him when a perp shot him in the leg. Had the bullet been a foot higher, the doctors said there was a high chance he might've never walked again. Still, at that moment, Lisbon hadn't panicked.
Bosco had been her partner for years, at that point, and she still worries more about Jane, an annoying consultant.
Lisbon can't find the doctor anywhere when she gets to the hospital, but the nurse directs her to Jane's room. If he's awake, Lisbon is not sure of what she's going to say.
Maybe something along the lines of: I leave you alone for a minute and you nearly get killed. You need a bodyguard more than the President does.
The door creaks open as she enters the room. She hates the feeling of hospital rooms, but Jane is fast asleep. Or at least, he looks like he's fast asleep.
Lisbon sits on the armchair, trying to look at anything but the peacefully sleeping Jane.
She should've said no. What was she thinking? Normally, when she senses Jane getting up to his shenanigans, she'll attempt to put an immediate stop to it. What was she thinking, letting him loose in a dark forest, especially without a gun?
Lisbon hears a cough, some shuffling and she looks up to see Jane looking at her, almost curiously.
"Hey. How are you feeling?"
Jane smiles, but it's half-hearted. His gaze is searching every inch of her face, almost like he's confused. "Hi."
"Listen, I promise we're doing everything to catch the guy who did this to you. I swear." The words come out of her mouth, like clockwork, rehearsed from when she's said it to terrified victims. "We'll find the guy."
The confused look isn't gone yet and it's starting to make Lisbon nervous. Jane pats the bed beside her, beckoning her closer with two fingers.
"What is it?"
"Are we sleeping together?"
Lisbon blinks. "Excuse me?"
"I can see that you're a cop but what reason is there for you to be here, right at my bedside?" Jane chuckles, running a hand through his hair. "I mean, you're obviously my type."
Coming here was a bad idea, especially without talking to the doctor. There is something horribly, horribly wrong and Lisbon can't put her finger on it.
(Also, she didn't even know Jane had a type.)
"Uh, you really don't remember who I am?"
"I'm sure you're memorable. Nothing against you as a person, but I swear I have no idea who you are."
Holy hell, what in the world happened?
"We work together." Lisbon says. Jane blinks, absentmindedly. "I am Agent Teresa Lisbon with the CBI. You're my consultant."
Still, nothing, no reaction. Lisbon is half-convinced that this is a prank. Jane is one of the most practised liars she's ever met and pulling one on her like this wouldn't be complicated. But, when Jane asked her who she was, there was nothing but sincerity. Nothing about this actually feels like a prank.
"Oh, like I catch bad guys? That sounds like fun."
"Um, it is fun. Most of the time. Actually, you know what, I think I'm going to go speak to the doctor." Anything to get out of this situation.
"I'll catch you later?"
As Lisbon is halfway out the door, she nods. "Yeah, see you later."hr /
"So, he has… absolutely no memory of us?" Van Pelt asks, her eyes darting between Rigsby and Lisbon. "I have… so many questions."
Lisbon sighs. Join the club.
Rigsby crosses his arms and leans against his desk. "Are we sure he should be working?"
"The fine details don't matter. Bottomline is that the doctor wants him to be in a familiar environment and the CBI is probably the best place for him to be right now. So, don't act weird around him or say anything about his family, alright?"
"Don't know how to act normally around him." Cho mumbles, quickly swallowing his words with a sip of coffee. Rigsby snorts while Grace goes back to typing away on her computer.
"Let's try our best, alright? Jane is going to be here in an hour so why don't we get to work?"
Lisbon won't lie, she's nervous about this. Not just nervous, she's on the fence about this. The last thing the team needs is a distraction and Jane's psycho-analytical powers are a very good distraction. Plus, Jane's behaviour from last night… another distraction.
Cho is briefing them on the case but Lisbon is focused far more on the sweetness of her coffee. It takes a lot for Lisbon to have her mind occupied with something other than a case. But, she thought her colleague - not just her colleague, her friend - died last night. This time should count as the exception.
Grace taps her nails repeatedly on the glass table to get Lisbon's attention, cocking her head in the direction of the door, where Jane stands. He awkwardly waves at everyone, "Hi."
From one glance at Jane, it doesn't look like he was drowned yesterday. His hair is coiffed, suit tailored to fit him perfectly, all angles and sharp cuts. He's wearing black, which is a first for him.
"Hey, welcome back, Jane. We're working on the dead fireman case. You want in?" Lisbon asks.
Everyone's eyes are on Jane, who seems to bask in the attention. No wonder he was a famous psychic, he was made for TV.
"So, what do you need me to do?"
"Well, what you normally do is you go along with whoever has a new lead and help them follow up on it. And by helping them follow up, I mean, get into as much trouble as humanly possible."
"Ah." Jane chuckles. "That sounds a lot like something I would do. Uh, what's the redhead up to?"
"You mean Agent Van Pelt?" Lisbon asks, cocking an eyebrow. "
"Interesting."
Lisbon blinks. "What's interesting?"
Jane keeps looking at her with those judge-y eyes. He always does that when he's onto her. "Very, very interesting. Never mind, why don't you tell me what you have going on?"
Lisbon passes the file she finished signing to Jane, who quickly sifts through it. "I was just finishing up some paperwork from the last case we closed."
"What was it about?"
"It's all in the file." She says, returning back to putting down some signatures.
"But, I want you to tell me. I like the sound of your voice."
Oh Jesus, Lisbon almost says. Comments like these make Lisbon unsure about how she's supposed to act around Jane. Candid Jane scares her more than any other Jane.
"Uh, okay." Lisbon coughs. Her cheeks feel warm. "Anyway-"
"Compliments make you nervous. I wonder why. Don't worry, I'll figure it out by the morning." Jane says. Before Lisbon can come up with a dignified response, he's already distracted by another file.
They set Jane up on the couch, which he is more than happy to take over. Even in an amnesiac state, his love for that ugly brown couch remains unchallenged. He's out like a light in a minute.
God, this is going to be a long /
Jane might've been a pain in the ass to work with, but at least he got the job done. She can't say the same for Amnesiac Jane, who finds that flirting with the potential perpetrators is more productive than trying to solve the case.
He refuses to work and Lisbon is stuck. There's only so much good police work can do. Before Jane came along, CBI had a frighteningly low percentage of closed cases. Even with fingerprints and what they consider to be hard evidence, perps still walk. They can't afford losing Jane's over-the-top methods of extracting confessions, or his favourite - annoying the perp into confessing.
If it wasn't for the doctor's insistence that his memories come back natural, Lisbon would've beat it into him.
She's dreaming of punching the living daylights out of Jane when she approaches him on his couch, sleeping - his natural habitat. The office has emptied out. Lisbon and Jane were the only people who didn't have much of a life outside of work, preferring to work extra hours when the office space was flooded with moonlight.
Even though her ego won't let her admit it, she needs Jane's help.
Lisbon clears her throat. No response. She does it again. No response. It's nearing close to midnight and she's running out of patience. She gives the couch a swift kick and Jane shifts onto his side, squinting at Lisbon. There's no annoyance on his face, just a quick grin.
"Hey, hey, Teresa." He yawns, stretching as he points at the file. "What's that?"
"It's called work and it's non-negotiable. I understand you've been through a lot, even before you lost your memory, but there are families depending on us. Families that want answers and it's our job to make sure they have a chance to properly grieve. So, you're going to work on this case, whether you like it or not."
The silence that fills the place is heavy, almost awkward.
"You're an excellent leader." Jane says, and he reaches for the file in Lisbon's hand. "Have you closed the fireman's case yet?"
"...No."
"Alright. I'll get on it. For a price."
Lisbon is lucky Jane can't read her mind right now. "What is it?"
"Say please."
"Fine, you know what? Don't take this seriously." Lisbon snatches the file from Jane's hand. "Everything is just a joke to you, I cannot-"
Lisbon pauses. Jane is almost red in the face, like he's trying to say something but it was less entertaining to try to stop her.
She sighs, running a hand through her hair. If she had any energy left in her, she's be embarrassed. "You're messing with me."
Jane laughs, a whole-hearted laugh and Lisbon's heart skips a beat.
"You're very easy to mess with. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"You did, once."
"Sounds like I knew what I was talking about."
Lisbon leans against Jane's desk, picking at her nails. "You really don't remember a thing, huh?"
Jane's smile turns into a melancholic one as he shakes his head. "Nothing. But, I know something terrible must've happened."
"How do you know that?"
"Really want me to answer that?"
Lisbon shrugs, unable to keep that grin off her face. "Guess not. So, are we ever going to get to work or not?"hr /
"By the way, I finally figured out why you can't take compliments." Jane leans back in the chair in Lisbon's office, sipping on his chamomile tea. He spent an hour looking around the office, claiming it was for 'research' but Lisbon knows he just wanted to snoop through her stuff. "You feel like you don't deserve them."
Lisbon blinks. "That took you two days?" Maybe Jane's abilities were affected, also.
"Nope, knew it from the second I met you."
"Good." Lisbon chuckles. "Almost thought you were losing your touch for a second."
Jane grins, a childish gleam in his eye. "Never, Lisbon. Never."hr /
They close the case in 48 hours. It feels like they're back to /
Jane almost stumbles upon the Red John case file. Grace loses it when Jane swings by her desk and tries to get a read on the file. It's the first time Lisbon ever saw Cho's face turn pale.
It's not easy to lie to a man who can take one look at you and tell you that you're being dishonest. Jane lets it go, though, knowing that there are some things that he isn't meant to understand yet.
It's been two weeks since the amnesia and Jane's memory has shown no signs of returning. A part of Lisbon is unable to get used to it. The ease she used to feel with Jane is gone. His methods of solving cases are the same - he still does his best to get the team in as much trouble as possible. But, he gets the cases solved and that's what /
The team has started inviting Jane and Lisbon to their case closed, let's party! Tuesday evenings. Even though they refuse to admit it, Lisbon knows they're trying their best to get Jane to remember.
The five of them sit at a table, with one bulb hanging over them
Some of Lisbon's favourite moments with the team happened in Jocelyn's dingy bar. She even has a photo of the five of them framed, one they'd taken right after they'd closed the Erica Flynn case.
She finds herself going back to that photograph once in a while. The one thing she notices every time is that the light in Jane's eyes seems dimmer.
Sometimes, Lisbon wonders if Jane losing his memory was a good thing. Spending a few days without being burdened by that soul-crushing guilt could be good for him. She can't imagine what it would be like if she'd lost her whole family and having to relive that day, that horrifying moment over and over and over again.
Maybe, it was a good thing-
You sound insanely selfish. Crazy talk. She tells herself, taking a sip of her beer.
Rigsby is arguing with Jane about how it's scientifically improbable that one person can guess which card is going to be pulled from the deck each time and Van Pelt warns him about betting against Jane.
"You have a damn death wish, Wayne." Van Pelt chuckles. She puts ten bucks onto the table. "Don't let me down, Jane."
Jane grins and Lisbon's smile is almost reactionary. She sips on her beer, casually tuning out the conversation, which is something she's gotten good at over the years.
There's a couple arguing outside the bar and it looks like it's getting pretty heated. Lisbon follows them along, just casual interest, until the woman shoves the man back and they continue screaming at each other. Lisbon tries to come up with different reasons for their arguments, though hers are particularly mundane. Jane's the better theorist, anyway.
"Feeling particularly voyeuristic today, Teresa?" Jane asks, taking the seat beside her. Lisbon's heart jumps into her throat - probably at the surprise - but she manages to keep her poker face.
"Nope. Just… thinking."
Jane turns to her, a gleam in his eye as he says, "Do you know I can read minds?"
Lisbon blinks. "I don't think this bit is meant to work the second time around."
Jane gives her a surprised look, almost taken aback. He puts the empty beer bottle down on the table. "I've tried this on you before?"
"Uh huh. And Van Pelt, and Rigsby, and Cho. You didn't get Cho, though."
"Of course I didn't get Cho."
Lisbon chuckles, shaking her head. The silence doesn't settle for long.
"We were friends." Jane finally says. His soft features are pulled into melancholy, all traces of his boyish charm have left. He runs his thumb along the rim of the bottle.
"Yes, we were." Lisbon says, though she's tempted to say more.
"I hate that I can't remember any of it." He mutters. "My brain feels like a slate wiped clean. There isn't even a trace left."
"It'll come back to you, Jane. You just have to be patient, that's all."
Lisbon is shocked at how confident she sounds. On day one, she'd been warned that there's a good chance Jane wouldn't get his memories back. She doesn't mean to give Jane false hope but he's a man who's undeterred by opinions other than his own.
Still, for once, when Lisbon looks in his eyes, he seems like he believes her.
"Never thought you'd be the positive one out of the two of us."
"I have layers, Jane."
Jane laughs, shaking his head. "I don't doubt it."
The tension in Lisbon's shoulders are starting to ease as she sits by Jane, both of them quietly sipping away at their beers. Jane's mind is occupied as he drums his fingers, absentmindedly.
They were friends before, good friends, but she could never break down his walls. He'd told her once, in a moment of fear and desperation, when they'd both been shot at and Jane almost died. Bad things happen to people who get close to me.
It was his most human moment. It was easy to fall for his easy-going, savvy detective persona, but Lisbon never bought the act.
For the first time in all the years that they've worked together, she feels a small dent in that /
"Nice place." Jane says, when Lisbon lets him in. "What do the guys say at your shocking lack of décor?"
"I don't know, we always end up going to their place."
"Damn, Lisbon. Touché. Tea?"
Lisbon nods and Jane wastes no time, turning the stove on and letting the water boil.
"So, I'm assuming there's a professional reason for you calling me over here at almost nighttime?" Jane asks, leaning against the kitchen door.
Lisbon crosses her arms, raising an eyebrow. (No matter how much she pretends, she can't act like that thought didn't cross her mind either.) "What are you implying, exactly? And yes, there is a professional reason. It's about a high-profile case."
"Yeah, yeah." Jane mutters, waving off Lisbon's comment. "They're always high-profile. What's the case? But, before that, why did you call me over?"
In her ten-year long career, Lisbon had never done one thing wrong except one incident. Her first case, she'd mishandled some evidence. The perp's lawyer jumped at the golden opportunity, leading to the perp walking free. She'd watched Sam Grimes walk - murderer of three young women - just because of a stupid mistake she'd made.
She'd looked into his predatory, beady eyes and she'd vowed she'd never make a mistake like that again.
No matter how small it is, she would never break a rule. Do everything the conventional way and avoid giving lawyers like Vivien Tanaka excuses to throw out valuable convictions.
Of course, when the CBI hired Jane, all of that went out of the window. Most of his confessions were extracted in the oddest of ways, but he closed cases, no way around it.
He was definitely starting to rub off on her.
One of CBI's rules was to never take case files home.
But, there was something about this case that kept Lisbon gripped.
When she tells Jane this, his expression is incredulous.
"You're kidding me, that's your big secret? Wow, you're a real wet blanket, Teresa, and I don't mean that in a sexy way."
Lisbon scoffs. "Anyway, take a look at the case."
"Mia Hunt, 23, unmarried. She'd led a quiet life, working as a cashier at a nearby grocery store, until she was shot through her living room window. Two shots to the chest, clean. Forensics confirmed she'd been shot by a sniper rifle, with the sniper perching on the rooftop of the opposite building.
"That's sad and all, but nothing is telling me why this is high-profile."
Lisbon points to the portion on page two, highlighted in red with three asterisks. "She was a senator's daughter, Jane."
Jane fakes an obnoxious yawn. "Boring." He crashes onto Lisbon's couch, putting his legs up.
"What did I say about work?"
"God, will you stop it?" Jane's face creases with annoyance. "I'm so exhausted with work this work that."
It's like dealing with a three year old being told to eat his veggies. Stubborn and indignant. This is new territory for Lisbon. She wasn't alien to the concept of babysitting Jane, but she'd never to this point.
Jane sighs, picking through the photos of her family until he finally settles on the photo of the five of them at Jocelyn's.
"Maybe I'll quit."
He says it with such conviction that it gives Lisbon pause. "You don't mean that."
He shrugs. Worst of it all, he shrugs. Leave it to Jane to say the most insensitive things and not blink twice. She ignores the chill running up her spins.
"I think you're exhausted. Why don't you take the couch, alright? We'll take it up in the morning."
Jane doesn't move. His jaw is set, eyes focused on nothing. There's a pit in the bottom of her stomach. Surely, he wasn't serious.
"Jane."
"I wasn't kidding, Teresa."
Jane is a man of lies and deception. She can't fault him for that, anymore than she can fault herself for reaching for a gun when she hears a noise in the middle of the night in the dark. Man is a creature of habit, and Jane, no matter how extraordinary he might be, is still a man.
So, she's trained herself to pick up on a few cues that tell her that he's obviously up to something. One, a blinding childish grin. Two, when things seem to be going way too well. Three, when Jane starts promising her something. I'll buy you a cappuccino tomorrow, those sugary ones you like or I'll take you out to lunch, my treat. An obvious sign of his guilt for conning her.
Usually, she can just tell. A cop's instinct never fails. He isn't lying this time. He oozes sincerity, as sincere as a former con man might be, of course.
Lisbon finds herself at a loss for words. She considers herself a good enough leader and she's dealt with enough bad decisions to last her a lifetime. But, she's never had to convince someone to do the job before. Especially not someone like Jane.
Jane matches her gaze with equal ferocity, a lion's hunger. Those eyes of his remain unchanged.
"Why?" She finally asks, and a smile threatens to quirk up the ends of Jane's mouth, like he's glad she's stopped arguing with him.
"Why did I come to the CBI?"
"I told you, I can't-"
"Right, you can't tell me. There must've been a reason bad enough for me to get stuck working with cops. But, this isn't going anywhere. I'm not getting any answers and I can't remember anything. Why should I stick around, then?"
The pang in her chest is just a surprise, she says to herself. Just shock and it'll ease away. But the pang bunches up, knots down and she suddenly can't breathe.
From the day Jane signed on as a consultant, she knew their partnership was a temporary thing. After Red John, he wouldn't stay signed on, no matter how much of an asset he proved to be for the CBI. Jane would move on, buy a house by a beach, maybe start a new family. He'd cleanse his hands of the anger and the guilt and he'd leave.
She knew that and she'd accepted it. It was good having Jane around, someone to challenge her beliefs in more ways than one, but it was a temporary arrangement.
She hadn't prepared for the time to come so soon. Or, having to let Jane walk away without delivering Red John to him in handcuffs.
"So, you'll just… walk away?"
Jane is trying to read her and it's too late in the night to mask how she's feeling. Like she wants to slap him.
"Unless you give me a reason to stay."
Lisbon crosses her arms. Patrick Jane isn't a man of romance. He's trying to get something from her.
"You want me to tell you what happened."
Jane's gaze gleams, almost feline and he nods. "I don't care about what the doctor says. If you don't tell me, I'll leave and you'll never see me again."
Jane never would've put her in a situation like this, having to choose between orders and him, but this Jane is an entirely different person. Lisbon knows perfectly well he means every word. She also knows that he's capable of disappearing.
If Jane's memory ever returns, she's going to shoot him without any remorse.
Lisbon refuses to say a word, just wordlessly motions Jane towards the door, grabbing her coat and car keys on the way out. As she presses the keys into the ignition, she glances at Jane from the corner of her eye.
He's staring out the window and it's then when Lisbon notices the dark circles under his eyes, just how sick he looks, the tense of his jaw. Even after the ghosts have left, he remains just as haunted as he was before.
It was all an act. The flirting, the impulsiveness, the aggressive lack of care. Jane hasn't stopped wracking his brain in two weeks. Having to come up empty after all that effort must've felt like a dagger through his heart.
Lisbon feels guilty.
Lisbon drives them to Jane's old mansion. She remembers the route perfectly, just like she remembers Hammer's voice telling her about the case. He struck again, Teresa. I want to get out of here. Dan Hammer, the detective with a stomach of steel, had been unable to digest what he'd seen at the Jane house.
Jane says nothing on the way over. Doesn't toy with the radio, or take a jibe at her for how long it's taking, nothing. He stares at the dashboard, eyes unfocused. Lisbon's heart thumps away uneasily beneath her /
"Is anything coming back to you?" Lisbon asks, as she guides them up the flight of stairs. Jane's hands are tucked away into his coat pockets, but she can tell they're shaking.
"Nice house, but nothing otherwise."
Jane pauses halfway through and Lisbon stops, too. His eyes are locked onto the photographs of his wife and child. She hears a sharp intake of breath. Jane reaches out, touching a frame of him smiling, his arms around his family.
His face shifts, but it's an expression of annoyance. He quickly shakes his head.
"Nothing."
Lisbon nods. She didn't want to do this again, but she doesn't have much choice.
"Up ahead." She says, motioning towards the door at the end of the passage. She leans back, letting Jane take the charge.
One half of her brain is screaming at her not to let him open the door, the other half is saying a prayer for Jane. There's no coming back from this, even if he doesn't remember.
Jane's hands shake as he reaches for the doorknob. Lisbon wants to close her eyes, so she doesn't have to see this. He turns the knob, the faded but unerasable blood-red smiley face stares back at them.
Lisbon watches Jane's back, tight as a drum with the tension and his shoulders sag, defeated. All his coolness, the confidence leaves his body like it's been punched out of him, as his fingers slip away from the knob. Lisbon comes up next to him, despite her better judgement, just in time for a tear to escape Jane's eye, rolling down his cheek.
He doesn't have to tell her. The air is heavy with guilt, almost electric.
As the moon glows brighter and floods the room with light, they stand next to each other, making two promises.
I swear I'll get him.
I swear I'll stop you before you get him.
Jane turns to her. "I want to see the Red John case file."hr /