Hello, here's Chapter 4! Thank you very much to Kuhlama for providing this quote. It had such a quirky feel to it, but I've used it for something a bit more serious...I hope you'll forgive me for that :) I know nothing about law and order, so forgive me for that as well, I made the details up. Thank you to everyone who reviewed Chapter 3, it was great to hear your thoughts. I hope you'll do the same for this one :)

The Mentalist doesn't belong to me, and I hate that fact.

Chapter Four

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. -Ingrid Bergman

'Where's Jane going?'

It was quite a long time before Lisbon heard Rigsby's words, before she glanced across to the empty seat and heard the creak of the courtroom door behind her. By the time she turned her head, he'd gone, and she sighed. Only ten or so seconds ago he'd been under her watchful gaze, calm as ever, at least on the surface. But if she'd learnt anything from a decade in his wake, it was that surfaces really didn't mean that much at all.

'I'll find him,' she announced to no-one in particular.

For all his history of evasion, he wasn't that hard to find; the grand old hallway was all but empty and the grey of his vest was the first thing she saw, contrasting against the clean white of the wall where he sat. He'd closed his eyes, a sign that Lisbon immediately recognised as his own desperate attempt to steady himself.

'You okay?' she asked carefully, anticipating the moment where he fixed his smile back in place and told her to stop worrying, because he was absolutely fine. Some days she almost believed him, but today his eyes flickered open and she glimpsed, rather than the façade, an exhaustion of it. Slowly, he shook his head and Lisbon kept her silence, waiting for him to begin.

'I can't do it,' he almost whispered, and confusion found her. Whatever truth she'd been expecting, that definitely wasn't it.

'What?'

'I can't do…this,' he said again, his voice gaining strength as he looked up at her. 'This law and order crap, it doesn't mean anything.' Lisbon stared back, unable to find a name for the look on his face, opening her mouth, closing it, blinking. Whatever she did, she still couldn't quite make herself understand.

'No.' It was the only word she had. 'No, do you even realise what you're saying? Have you forgotten who he is?'

It was his turn for incredulity. 'What kind of question is…'

'He murdered your family, Jane.' She stepped forward so that they were mere feet apart. 'With your testimony, he gets death. Without it he only gets life in prison. Is that what you want?'

She'd assumed it was a simple question. However, it wasn't his lack of an answer that shocked her, but the ice in his eyes that accompanied the silence. Standing abruptly, Jane brushed past her and for a moment she just watched him walk away, dumbfounded. She could have been more gentle, yes, but they'd argued over much darker things before and neither had abandoned their case. What had she said?

She followed him. 'Jane…'

'Is that what you want…' he mimicked under his breath, before spinning around to face her. 'Of course it's not,' he almost snarled. 'It's never been about what I want. If that were the case, he'd be dead already.'

'And you'd have blood on your hands.'

'I already do.' Lisbon's stomach lurched at that. She'd hoped that the past week had set him free from that particular shade of guilt, but it seemed scars didn't heal as quickly as she'd presumed.

'You know none of us would ever have let you kill him,' she said quietly.

'Exactly,' Jane said, and launched into the words that had so clearly spent hours and hours building up from inside. 'You've denied me what I want the most. Ergo, you've given him exactly what he wants. And you're expecting me to just stand there and talk to some lawyer about the past?' His dark laugh echoed around the walls. 'Don't you see?' he asked, holding her gaze. 'He's won. He's won,' he repeated quietly to himself, 'and I'm too much of a coward to-'

Jane stopped talking then, and for a moment Lisbon vaguely wondered why but then realised that she'd kissed him. He didn't move his lips, but neither did she; it wasn't that sort of kiss, more of a comfort than anything, and after a few seconds she broke away. She didn't pull back her head at all, didn't retreat; holding his face gently in her hands, she smelt the salt in his tears and made sure she had his full attention before speaking.

'You are a lot of things, Jane,' she began, 'but you are not a coward, okay? I've seen armed men go into very dark places and come out to crowds, and medals, and the effing president shaking their hand…but you're braver than them.' Lisbon struggled to keep the emotion out of her voice. 'You are braver because you live in that dark place, every day, and no-one sees or hears-'

'You do,' he cut her off suddenly, and it unbalanced her just enough to pull her back to her point. She pressed their foreheads lightly together.

'All Red John's ever wanted is for you to suffer,' she murmured, 'and so far you have. But in six months he'll be dead, and you'll be alive.' She watched the words sink in, felt his eyes close with a soft acceptance.

'He's won nothing,' she breathed against his lips, waiting a moment before repeating his words. 'Don't you see?'

Lisbon's words fell away to a silence in which she held her breath and waited, suddenly aware of how close she was to him. When he nodded, her forehead moved with his and she couldn't help but smile as relief crept over her. Jane kissed her again, slightly longer this time, and then at last they fully broke apart. Without a word they ascended the hallway back toward the courtroom, he wiping away the last of the tears and she pretending not to notice. It occurred to her that maybe they would never talk of this moment; maybe it would just be filed away in both of their minds as something that may have happened, but probably didn't. Maybe it hadn't really helped that much at all.

But then she glanced over her shoulder and saw all of the pain and the guilt that he'd left behind, choking the air and staining the walls.

And she knew that it had.

Thanks for reading! I would love it if you could review as well. I've got a quote in mind for Chap 5, but you can never have too much inspiration...hint hint :D

TAJ