A/n Hello The Mentalist stans, it has been a long time. This is my 50th TM fic which is pretty wild! I honestly have no idea if it is good or not, I keep changing my mind, but it is something that I have had bits written for, for some time.
Anyway, I hope you like it!
/
Cold Feet
Eighty-seven days. It has been eighty-seven days since she got on the plane and flew out of his life. Maybe it is only fair, the number of days he was out of hers during his various runaway attempts vastly exceeds that value. For the first fourteen, or two weeks, to the FBI he disappeared off the face of the planet when in reality he was in the Bahamas to gather his thoughts after taking the ferry from Miami. Gathering his thoughts included a lot of day drinking and holing himself up in a motel room which had seen better days. He wanted to switch off his phone so Cho and Abbott and whoever else would stop trying to contact him, but he couldn't bring himself to, in case Lisbon wanted to get in touch. She didn't and apart from a lone message a week after his return to Austin to say that she had settled in, they've not communicated.
Jane didn't think that he would continue working for the FBI without her, but after two weeks of sulking he came to the realisation that he doesn't know what else he would do with his life right now. In Austin he isn't alone at least. He has Cho and Wylie and Abbott and Fischer (or so he thought but she had to leave to take care of her sick mother). He has lost friends before; this is no different… but it is because he loved her. However, when he told her this, in the middle of a plane full of people, it was too late. Way too late.
It's too late. Jane, it's too late.
Her words sometimes echo around his head in his dreams. They're more like nightmares though, apart from the few when she got off the plane with him and they kiss in the TSA interrogation room, but then he wakes up and discovers that this wasn't the case. Those are the nights he manages to sleep. Before when insomnia struck, he would gravitate to his couch in the bullpen whether it was here in Texas or back in California, but his couch is behind the desk that used to be hers so being there simply adds to his pain.
They went through so much together, some truly awful things but plenty of brilliant things because they were a great team, yet his last memory of her is the tears in her emerald green eyes that matched her blouse as she turned him down. He doesn't blame her for doing that, he's hardly an ideal mate and he has caused her so many problems and so much anguish in the past. She's done the right thing. He knows that.
It doesn't make it any easier though.
Solving crimes has lost its spark. He has just been going through the motions, doing the job to occupy the time, he has even been too dour to cause problems. Initially this pleased his colleagues but now they worry about it whilst knowing that if they were to mention it then it probably wouldn't elicit a good response.
They closed a case today and whilst the rest of the team work at finishing reports before the promise of a beer in the local Irish pub, Jane decided that he didn't feel like socialising anymore. He has been walking aimlessly around the streets of Austin, contemplating what his purpose now is. There is a vaguely green space about a mile from the office, one that he has had many a walk in especially first thing in the morning before work, usually with a to-go cup of tea. Today in the mild climate, he has his hands buried in his pockets as he walks, passing very few people at this hour – which is why she sticks out like a sore thumb.
At first Jane thinks his eyes have deceived him but then he is shaking his head because he has complete trust in his mind, it wouldn't trick him. The black heeled boots are hers, so is the maroon top and the leather jacket. Her long, dark hair that falls to below her shoulders unmistakably belongs to her. It has dropped a little in front of her face as her head is dipped while she is focussed on her fingers tapping the lid of her coffee. A splash of milk and one sugar. He has made it for her that way on many occasions.
She looks up when she senses someone stationary nearby, a flicker of anxiety crossing her face as soon as she spots him staring right back at her. "Lisbon?" He breathes. She opens her mouth to reply, but nothing comes out as she wraps her hands tighter around her coffee cup. "What are you doing here?" He asks and he walks a few paces, so he is immediately next to the bench yet still he doesn't move to sit down.
Lisbon blinks a few times, her lips twitching as if she is about to answer but cannot find the words to, nevertheless he waits patiently. She deserves his patience, especially after all the patience she has given him over the years. "Honestly, I don't know." She eventually replies after a sigh. "I just needed a break from wedding planning." A person doesn't get on a three, almost four hour flight away from their fiancé if they are happy – and alarm bells resound in his head.
"Oh." Jane's disappointment is clear, his expression turns forlorn as his entire demeanour slumps. "How's it going?" He tries to act interested, even if it tears him up inside because she warrants that much, but all she does is shrug in reply and avert her gaze to the lid of her coffee cup. He would have thought if he found her in this way, dispassionate by her own wedding, he would feel a sort of relief, a selfish glee, like there is a chance that she won't become Mrs Pike, however that feeling isn't present. He feels bad for her, concerned that she is not in a good place, and he wants to help her through that, as her friend, not as a man who wants to be more than that. "May I sit?"
His question has her attention snapping to him once more and he watches the slightest of quirks to her eyebrow, as if his inquiry has baffled her and she is trying to work him out, but there is no trick here. "Okay."
They have sat beside each other so often that it feels so natural. They tend to sit close when they do, their knees practically bumping, but this time he leaves space between them. It would feel wrong to have such proximity when their relationship is strained. Lisbon is sharp minded enough to notice the distance and it actually hurts her in a way which confuses her, but she doesn't voice this. She tensely glances his way as he makes himself as comfortable as possible on the wooden slats. "I am glad you are here because it gives me the chance to apologise for… everything really." He breaks the silence, each word difficult to get out but he appreciates how imperative it is that he does. "Your happiness is the most important thing to me and if that means you marrying Pike then I am okay with that."
"Really?" She questions, the surprise clear in her voice and she isn't sure whether she is glad to hear him say this or not. To have his support is important to her, of course it is, but maybe she was hoping for something different.
"Yeah… I mean I am not overjoyed but…" He reveals with a candour that he used to find so difficult. "You deserve to be happy." And he really means this, he even musters up a smile which may be small, but it is nothing but genuine and it is one that she mirrors. "Have you set a date?"
"Not exactly. I was under the impression that he wanted to marry as soon as possible at city hall or something, but now it is looking like a larger affair in the fall." She couldn't hide her shock when he put down some brochures for wedding venues down on the coffee table in front of her. She was in the process of knitting the stresses of the day away and starting to feel herself relax, but she was straightaway tensing back up. Some of the venues are definitely too big, between them they don't know enough people to fill them, and that is with all of her brother's kids attending.
The discussion of the potential guest list was also a fractious one. Marcus wants to invite all their new colleagues, even the ones they don't really know. It is like he wants to show her off, but she isn't some pony at the county fair. Then there was a certain person he doesn't want to invite. "He doesn't want you there." It just comes out and Jane can't hide the hurt from twisting his features. "At first he was talking about a small wedding but now he wants my family there. I suggested Cho, Grace and Rigs but when I mentioned you…" She stops herself from continuing and instead swallows down nothing, hoping to keep her emotions in check but he can see how her eyes have started to water. "He thinks I am in Chicago seeing my brother."
"He really doesn't know you then."
"Jane."
"Lisbon…"
The park is nothing special but it is quiet unlike the busyness of D.C. which can be stifling at times. There is a gentle hum from cars on the nearby roads, an almost imperceivable whistle of wind through the foliage and there is a mixture of sounds coming from the playground about fifty yards behind them of tiny, excitable shrieks and laughter. It is the calming soundtrack of life. A jogger dressed in pink and green sportswear passes them, headphones in her ears as the soles of her expensive trainers pat against the pavement. She briefly makes a detour onto the grass verge to overtake an elderly gentleman walking his greying Labrador at a very slow pace. Lisbon has spent most of her day on a cramped plane whilst Jane spent his morning in an interrogation room, watching a man held under multiple murder charges unfold. The fresh air is necessary for them both but with the situation hanging over them, it is hard to really breathe. "What are you doing here?" He asks again and at first her brow dips, believing that she has already answered this, but the seriousness on his face tells her that he wants the truth.
"I needed to get away and… I missed you." She admits, expecting the knot in her stomach to tighten as she does but it doesn't, in fact it loosens maybe out of relief for finally being honest with him but also with herself. "I don't know how three months can feel longer than those two years apart, but they have done." Realising that she has the gumption to be brave, Lisbon tilts her body in his direction on the bench whilst discarding her coffee cup to the other side of her. Her twitching hands can't hide now, she can't hide now, even if the desire to is strong. "Marcus has offered me a life Jane that I thought I would never get. Companionship is something that has been absent from my life and turning it down would be crazy." Is the line that she has told herself on more than one occasion, the latest time was two nights ago in front of the bathroom mirror whilst he waited for her in bed expectantly, but now she is saying it to Jane – perhaps trying to persuade herself. "He is a good man."
Patrick Jane reads people better than he makes cup of tea which is really something. He can perceive her inner turmoil as if she has it written all over her face and he knows that she is being dishonest with herself. It is painful to see because her being unhappy, makes him unhappy. Once upon a time he would have just spoken out, said what is on his mind and his opinions but he values her need to be independent. If he tells her what he believes that she is thinking, then she will shut off and that will be it. Goodnight Vienna. "I know he is. He is a much better man than me that's for sure and if this is what you want then you have my blessing and support." He agrees with her, and this is the truth. Marcus Pike hasn't deceived Lisbon like he has, he also doesn't have a rap sheet and blood on his hands. "But you're here. You're not in D.C. with him." Yet still he can't quite help himself.
The following silence is deafening. She presses her lips firmly shut and her jaw tenses as she has to bite her tongue. Lisbon is annoyed but what she is starting to grasp is how she is more annoyed with herself rather than him. "So you're still working with the FBI then." She not-too-animatedly indicates to the badge hanging from his jacket and he frowns when he looks down at it. It is a fairly lame attempt at changing the subject.
"I didn't realise I was still wearing this…" He muses as he unclips it before he slips it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "But yes. What else would I do?" It is something he has asked himself most nights beneath the sheets in his Airstream, but his mind is repeatedly blank. "So after you get married to Pike, what's next?" He isn't going to let the topic rest, he is nothing but persistent, tenacious and a Class A mither-er.
"Marcus has his eye on a house just outside the city. He says we need somewhere bigger for if we expand our family..."
"And what do you want?" He presses and the slight creasing of her brow confirms his suspicions – she has continued to be incredibly unselfish, even when it concerns her bliss and future. "All I'm hearing is a lot of what Pike wants. What do you want?"
Lisbon appears to think this over for a few seconds which turns closer to ten. She isn't used to being asked what she wants, she lost that privilege the moment her mother died when she was only twelve years old, and now she is stumped. During her time at CBI her strongest desire was to find Red John and make him pay, when that chapter of her life closed, she would have done anything to see Jane again. She cannot deny to herself that she has had romantic feelings for him, but she has always gone with her head rather than her heart and this occasion is no different. But what if her heart and head are wanting the same thing? She is struggling to distinguish between them as she sits on this moss-decorate wooden bench, staring out ahead at the greenish landscape. "To be loved." And it just slips out.
There is something in the way she says these three words that makes Jane sad. Has she really gone so long without feeling loved that she has felt the need to make a frankly desperate decision? Marcus is a good man, and he is sure that he would look after Lisbon, but he's boring. She doesn't seem excited by him, and they've not known each other all that long. "I understand that." He replies distractedly, clearly completely consumed by the flurry of thoughts in his head. His dazed tone makes her look back towards him, a questioning glint in her stunning green eyes which he only catches after he gets his thoughts in order. "But why can't I be the person to love you?"
"You know why." She says, her voice cracking as she looks back down at her fidgeting hands.
"It's too late." He painfully quotes her, remembering how his stomach dropped when he first heard her say it. "Too late for happiness?" And she is back to studying him but still with a speechlessness that doesn't quite match her usual personality. "Teresa, when I say you deserve to be happy, I mean that... but what if I think I can be the one to make you happy? To love you. Because if there is one thing I know, it is how much I love you and it would be an honour if you let me love you." There is an imploring note to his tone through his spiel. He may not be a man of religion, but it is like he is praying, pleading with a deity he doesn't believe in. "But I'm not going to pressure you because that wouldn't be fair. I'm going to go and-"
"Wait. Don't go." She frantically halts him from standing up and he pauses with both of his hands on his knees. Jane then lets them slip down from the fabric of his trousers as he leans back against the hard bench, obeying her wishes whilst being secretly pleased that he was stopped.
It takes her a period to get her thoughts in order. Everything was coming at her rushed, words that didn't fit together and when it feels like her heart is fluttering like a trapped bird in a cage it is hard not to panic. She is not a stranger to panic attacks, although she thought they had stopped when she went to college and was no longer living in Chicago. During those times she would have to hide in her bedroom and wait them out, praying that she wouldn't be caught – especially by her father. It later turned out that she would have them, occasionally, in her adult life. Twice in fact. The first when Jane disappeared after being fired from the CBI and the second when it dawned on her that the CBI was no more, and he was gone. Perhaps it is idiotic of her that she is even considering having anything other than a platonic relationship with him… but she is. "What would being loved by you be like?" Her question fills him with optimism, and he wants to smile, but there is the risk that he is looking at this all the wrong way. "Because it scares me, Jane. With our history and some of the stuff you've done is-"
"Unforgiveable."
"I was going to say, 'difficult to get my head around' but sure." She is so used to him not being entirely straight that him being so now is tough to process. "Jane if I'm honest with you and myself... I have felt something for you for a while now, but I am at a stage in my life that I need something real. Some of what we've been through together has been so crazy that it has been fictitious-like."
There is a pause which is probably only a few seconds, but it seems close to a minute as Jane thinks this over. It feels like this is last chance saloon and somehow she has hit the ball into his court so he can't waste this opportunity, but his usually sharp mind is scrambling due to the gravity of the situation. "Teresa I..." He loses his words when he notes how hopeful she appears. Her eyes turn more spherical as they shimmer, her eyebrows edging a little further up her forehead. It is difficult to know what to say though.
Jane bared all to her on the grounded plane in Miami. He opened up his heart and poured his love out, ignoring the embarrassment of the audience because it seemed like his last chance. When she turned him down, he thought that was it but now there is something, a trace, that maybe that wasn't his last chance. Like then, he isn't going to let it go. "Do you remember after I had spent six months in Nevada, we staged your death because Red John wanted you dead as a gift to him?" It has been a long time since he has uttered the serial killer's name, and it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
"You see that's one of the many crazy things I'm referring to." She huffs, but her annoyance disappears in an instant thanks to his following frankness.
"I told you I loved you before I fake shot you." She didn't have time to react when it happened. She was so focussed on the plan and as soon as he shot the blanks straight at her she had to go through with it. It wasn't until the dust had settled and she was away from CBI that it really hit her what he said. "I then cowardly told you that I didn't remember that which was a lie. I did it to protect you but also probably to help my destructive cause." At one point he did think he had lost her. After their fallout in the Salton Sea State and she fell off the grid, to then get a phone call from Red John – or Thomas McAllister – he thought the second woman he had ever loved had been destroyed in the same manner as the first. He was ready to avenge her death also before inevitably carrying out his own. "But I meant what I said then and it hasn't changed four years later. I know I don't deserve you, there is zero doubt in my mind about that but... I don't think Marcus Pike deserves you either. If you want to marry him then I support that. I will be there if I'm invited, to support you."
Teresa bites down on her bottom lip, hard, trying to prevent emotion getting the better of her and the tears welling up in her eyes from falling. Jane is talking like she is a prize, the greatest woman there is, and she just doesn't see it. Why doesn't Marcus deserve her? He is a good man and wants to do right by her. She really doesn't think she is all that, but he thinks she is and that is why she is moved. Because Patrick Jane means more to her than he will ever know. "When Red John was gone and then two years later you came back, I thought things would be simpler, but they're never going to be simple with you, are they?"
"I don't know but simple sounds more than appealing." His life has never been simple. Maybe apart from the two years he spent on an island off the coast of Venezuela, but back then he was pretending that the whole situation hadn't made him depressed. He never wanted to come back and be under the thumb of the FBI, but he is glad he came back so that he could at least see her again, even if they can't be together. "I'm tired. Tired and lonely which isn't a good combination, and the thought of moving on with anyone but you is… nonsensical to me." And this is completely truthful because he continues to believe he owes her that. "I want to give you that something real. I want to be allowed to love you, to show you how much you mean to me. I want to have a future with you."
"Shit." She uncharacteristically curses, looking up at the sky as she is suddenly overcome with emotion. Her eyes glimmer with unshed tears and straightaway he is alarmed because this isn't the Teresa Lisbon he knows. Jane wouldn't want her to hide any part of her true self from him, but usually she is so strong or at least acts like she is. Her mental and emotional wellbeing must have really taken a battering to be so vulnerable and for that he hates himself for not being upfront with her sooner, before she made the drastic decision to move to another state with a man who he doesn't think she loves, not really anyway. "I don't know what to do." Her voice cracks and she is bringing a hand up to wipe away a tear as soon as it falls.
"Hey, hey." He says as he puts a hand comfortingly on her thigh without thinking and her eyes snap to meet his but there is no harshness about them. "It's okay." He attempts to reassure, keeping his voice calm and gentle. "Go with your gut. I trust your gut more than anyone's in the world."
"What if my gut is telling me to leave my fiancé, forget about the relationships I have built at my new job and my wedding deposits, to be with the most chaotic man in the world?"
"Then I say definitely go for it." She rolls her eyes at this, but not derisively, in fact she even releases a quiet chuckle. That means she isn't wholly opposed to the idea – and this thought hits him around the head.
It is only now he realises that his hand is on her thigh, but he doesn't move it, in fact he uses it as an anchor to get closer to her. She watches him in her peripheral vision as he leans in and then his lips find her cheek as he leaves a tentative kiss there to test the water. Her skin tingles when he pulls back, and it takes her a couple of seconds to feel the stretch to her face from her smile. Jane doesn't say anything, he just contently observes how she brings a hand up to brush her fingertips against the patch he kissed. Their eyes meet when she looks towards him, both of them clearly happy and it is like the one, brief contact, has caused all her worries and anxiety to drip away.
She isn't thinking about the four missed calls from Marcus. She isn't thinking about her appointment with a dressmaker that she didn't turn up to this morning. She isn't thinking about her inbox full of menu options from a catering company they met last week. All she can think about is the man sitting at her side, her partner of over a decade, her best friend, and the man who she actually loves… although unlike him, she is unable to put this love into words.
So she doesn't.
Lisbon follows her hand down and instead of letting it fall to her side or onto the bench, she lays it on top of his. He feels how it tremors a little with her entire being thrumming with apprehension, but his hand is warm, warm and soft, and that is very soothing. He still remains silent, he doesn't even move, he is giving her the opportunity to go at her own pace as her desire fights rational thought.
She seems to caress the back of his hand and she drags her own from touching his wrist down to the tips of his fingers, before her pinkie tucks underneath, levering the hand off her thigh, inviting him to take hold of hers. Their fingers entwine and she only exhales when his thumb strokes the edge of hers affectionately. "That feels good." She confesses, but who knows if it is to him or to herself.
"It does." But he agrees anyway.
"I don't want to go back to D.C." Her breath wavers after admitting this and she hides her beautiful green eyes by screwing them shut.
Jane feels his throat constrict, something that could be described as a sob threatening to escape him, purely because the emotion of seeing her struggle is almost too much. He wants to make things better and he is hoping that this is the beginning of her letting him. Gently he raises their conjoined hands to plant a kiss on top of hers, noticing how it triggers some of her tension to disperse and he gets to see her beautiful eyes again. "You don't have to go back to D.C." He tells her before lowering their hands back down with such care that it makes her heart pang. "We can talk to Abbott about you transferring back here and if you need somewhere to sleep there is always my Airstream. You can take the bed and I can kip on the couch."
He makes it all sound so easy, and Lisbon knows that realistically it won't be but right now she chooses to believe that it is possible. "What about us?"
"There is no pressure." He says as if it is the simplest thing in the world. He has waited and he can continue to wait. "And that isn't me backing down from everything I have said. I promise that."
Lisbon looks down at their clasped together hands and fleetingly he wonders (and frets) that he has suddenly lost her, but the reality is going much more in his favour. She ponders about how natural this feels, like they've been holding each other's hands forever, and that should be weird, but it isn't. She doesn't want to stop holding his hand and that speaks volumes. Jane is being the perfect gentleman by not being pushy, he has removed pressure from the situation almost effortlessly and it has her trusting that everything else he has said is true.
Teresa, when I say you deserve to be happy, I mean that... but what if I think I can be the one to make you happy? To love you.
She wants him to be the one to make her happy, to love her – because she loves him too.
He is gazing at her with anxiety swimming in his sea-blue eyes when she peers back up through her lashes. Subconsciously her tongue darts out to wet her lips which eases his anxiety away because he has a strong feeling that maybe he will be getting what he wanted sooner than expected.
This morning when the team closed their case and there was satisfaction in the bullpen, it was something he didn't share. He was still grieving in a way, a loss of his closest friend and so he took a walk and somehow bumped into her. That same friend – although soon her title will be updated – is tugging him slightly closer to her as she leans in to capture his lips with her own with a delicateness which makes him transcend onto cloud nine.
Patrick Jane may not believe in a higher power, but he feels like he is in heaven, and she is right there with him and for the first time in months, Teresa Lisbon finally feels like she can breathe, and right now it is him that she is breathing in.
Just like it was meant to be all along.