A/N: lyrics, "Swallowed In the Sea" by Coldplay. So, I'm noticing this season that the word 'cherry' is trending. I don't know about you folks, but I'm waiting for the next title, and I'm not being crass here, for a Mentalist episode to be called 'cherry popped' with the way they're going—they have three titles in the span of 12 eps with cherry in the title. Let's…expand, or at least look up some lipstick colors. Also, I know in the traditional sense, he is supposed to be shown his future death. But this is my story. So I do what I want. But onto the story: the ghost of Patrick's future is…. revealed at the end, psych!
Unchained
Oh what good is it to live
With nothing left to give
Forget, but not forgive
Not loving all you see
"I wear the chain I forged in life! I made it link by link, and yard by yard! I gartered it on of my own free will, and by my own free will I wore it."
Patrick Jane hated the silly line from Jacob Marley. Hated the movie. Hated the book. His wife had loved it all, all the pomp and fluff of the holidays so ardently that she'd watch the movie in July and he'd be sick of it by November. Their daughter had been enamored with the holidays as well, the fantastical idea that a fat man could squeeze himself down a chimney with a bag of presents just for her…of course a child would love the holidays.
And one thing Patrick had learned long ago was that a parent was not allowed to despise the holidays. One became the model for them.
The team quite loved the holidays as well. Grace was the first to decorate her desk in brightly colored paper and the flair his wife had adored. Rigsby, being a new father, would soon learn the perils of the holidays because of his young son. And Cho…well, Cho would always be Cho, showing no emotion to the contrary—but Summer had taken some of his rough resolve with her, and they all knew it.
It was only Teresa Lisbon that detested the holidays as he. She was truly nothing like his wife. She was stronger, harder, worldly, and older in the spiritual sense—she had not been a child for a long time. She despised the pageantry, the false happy glow; presents did not appear as small children believed them to—they were costly, demanded to be wrapped prettily, and as acting mother, she went without. She'd foregone going home anymore. The holidays were for families, and her brothers had their own. She'd take her leave time proffered by the CBI and relax, take a bath with a bottle of wine by her side.
He never realized how thankless he'd been. As bad as her brothers, in all honesty—taking her kindness and ardor for granted. Her friendship had always been his means to an end. She was there for him to use as he saw fit, from day one when he coaxed the fat man to punch him in the nose with his unkind words. Everything had been purposeful, calculated.
If he were truly thankful for her, he would be next to her now, comforting her as she slept instead of here, drunk off of a dangerous tea, being led through the past and the present and whatever else came next by the dead.
She was a childless mother hen. He was all she had. And he knew she didn't deserve to be treated so poorly as he did.
If he were truly thankful, he would not have taken back his untimely confession so many months back.
Ill-fated men as he were not given this sort of luxury though.
Patrick opened his eyes, not realizing they'd remained closed when Charlotte returned him here.
He was met with someone he did not know.
And it frightened him.
XOX
"So, I'm guessing you're going to show me my future?" Patrick said dryly to the hooded figure. There was no answer. No movement. No nod or shake of the figure's head. But he could feel a sickening smile creeping across the figure's face, deep in his bones. "Okay then, glad we got that out of the way."
The figure simply turned away, and with a step, Patrick's bare feet touched wet grass. His Malibu house had vanished. It was raining where he stood, wherever 'where' was.
He looked around, trying to orient himself. He felt dizzy and confused.
He did not recognize this place though. He'd traveled often in his youth, with the carnival, with Angela when they ran, for his profession…
But wherever here was, he had not been.
His gaze fell on a little church a few yards ahead of them. Somehow, he knew he needed to go there. The figure remained, not following the man.
He didn't know what to expect, pushing through the modest, ornately carved doors.
He didn't expect a baptism. He didn't expect Teresa Lisbon to be holding a baby. He didn't expect to see her standing by herself. She looked older, her hair short and almost unkempt, as if she no longer care. The priest appeared, a strange sort of sad grin on his face, almost…well, he couldn't quite say.
"It's just going to be us," she said quietly. "The…they couldn't bear it. Not after…"
The priest put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Okay then. Let's begin," The priest began, reciting the baptismal script. Teresa was crying by the end. The tears were not of joy though. The holy water was poured over the baby's head, eliciting irritation from the child at the foreign, cold, wetness. "…may the angels watch over you, Claire Marie Rigsby."
No. No. What was Teresa doing with Wayne's daughter…? He turned then, distracted by a muffled sniff; an older boy sat in the second pew, not watching the ceremony. He had to be no more than five.
"C'mon Ben, it's time to go. We need to stop…somewhere. Thank you father," Lisbon whispered, taking Ben's hand and leading them out of the church.
Into a graveyard.
They didn't walk far, before approaching the headstone they were looking for. Ben sat between the headstone and the one next to it, reaching his little arms out to touch both. Then, Jane realized, they were looking at two.
Wayne Rigsby. Beloved father, true fighter, wonderful friend.
The grave next to his read a familiar name.
One that startled Jane.
Grace Rigsby.
"What happened here?" Patrick demanded, beckoning the hooded figure.
Patrick felt himself hurtling. Being sucked…backwards? Could one go back in the future that had yet to happen in the first place?
He opened his eyes to see he was in a warehouse of some sort. He heard yelling, a lot of yelling, coming from a separate room.
He wasn't going to like what he as about to witness, he already knew that much. But he would have to anyway.
Red John.
Masked, but he knew, without a doubt. The blood red smiley faces covering every inch of the space told him as much. The mad man had a gun to Grace's head. She was leaning over Wayne, openly sobbing, not for herself, not for her own life. Gold rings circled both of their left hands.
"What now, Mr. Jane?" came the eerie, sickly soft voice of the killer. "Who would you choose? Your friend, here, whose husband is already bleeding out on a dirty floor, with, what was it? Oh yes, two children. Or the woman you just can't admit you love?"
It was then he noticed Lisbon. Tied to chair with cuts on her arms and neck and places he was sure he could not see from his perch. She was unconscious.
"Tick, tock. Mr. Jane. You're running out of time. Choose, or I choose for you. And you won't like my choice…"
He had no weapon of his own. He never had. Teresa was the one who always saved him.
"I can't, take me! Leave them alone. They did nothing but try to help me!"
"No you see; that is just not how it works. A man like you, so obsessed with revenge, will never be free. You mentioned before that you had no friends, no family. You couldn't. Your obsession, your vengeance, Mr. Jane, spreads like fire. You burn what you touch! These people are your means to an end, so choose which one to end, Mr. Jane!"
Jane watched his future self shake his head.
"Fine," the shot echoed off the empty warehouse walls. "Remember, Patrick, this was your choice. This is on you…"
Like his future self, his present self could not look at what he'd done.
The scene faded around him. So his revenge would not get him killed. It would not even get Lisbon killed.
Just his friends.
His selfish, obsessive, choices would lead to two parentless, broken children taken in by his broken best friend—and, he was sure, Teresa Lisbon never forgave him for that.
He turned to the hooded man.
"How do I stop this? How do I erase this future!" he yelled. He could never forgive himself for the deaths of Wayne and Grace, for leaving Ben and the future Claire without their loving parents. He could never live without Teresa; she was what kept him from the edge, she was his angel. And clearly, she would make it her mission to live without him.
That thought made him sick.
The figure tilted its hooded head, as if to consider his question. Then, again, it turned and walked forward.
The figure stopped in front of a small house outside a suburban neighborhood in California, and Patrick eyed the cloaked person with distrust. He walked to the door, hesitating.
There were no lights on in the house.
He blinked, and found he was inside. Being caught in some strange ghostly time loop clearly had its advantages.
"Where are we now? Another death scene? Another bad fate for someone I know or love at my hands?" Patrick questioned the hooded figure self-deprecatingly. He knew he'd never sleep again, not that he did anyway. But that scene would haunt his fragile mind forever.
The cloaked figure was not looking at him, nor paying attention.
"Answer me!" he screamed, loudly enough that it could have truly woken the dead. It did not faze the figure though.
Patrick followed the gaze of the figure. It looked like a framed piece of paper, hanging, alone, on the wall above an unused brick fireplace. He gently took the picture frame down, desperate to read the contents of the letter.
He felt gutted when he realized what it was.
The letter. The letter Lisbon had been writing, for him, in her office…earlier? Yesterday? Last night? His sense of time was gone.
He could see the watermarks of her tears and the smudged lettering.
But he could read it.
Patrick-
I knew you'd be the hardest to write too. I have no requests for you, like the others. I will never change you. It would be foolish to try and you would never listen to me anyway. So instead I give you a confession, or maybe it's a wish.
I think back, in the beginning when we first met, I saw you as a sad, lonely man desperate for answers. When you joined the team, I saw you as a helpful sort of sidekick, but lacking in any true emotion other than pain and sorrow. And guilt. When we had the first true Red John break, I saw hope. You had the ability to hope, and with hope comes belief. Then, when you shot the man ready to shoot me, your only living link to a serial killer, I knew you were capable of caring for someone other than your own selfish obsession. When you killed Timothy Carter and found yourself in jail, I saw relief, which scared me. How could you be relieved? You knew it wasn't him, as you expressed to me when I finally got you out. What was it that you were so relieved about? That your mission was not over, or that you had not become a revenge killer?
When you disappeared to Vegas, I thought so little of you. You became the sad, lonely, desperate man from when we first met. And in my eyes, you also became unreachable, untouchable.
That was the moment I knew I'd never have you.
When you returned, I thought you were just plain stupid, taunting a serial killer with false promises and using me as bait.
When you said you loved me, well, I still don't know what to think.
Your charm will not save you Patrick. Be sure of that.
My confession is this: that somewhere along the way, we became tenuous coworkers, we became mutually respected friends, we became the sort that would move heaven and earth for the other and sacrifice it all, we became the kind of friends that would die for each other.
My wish though? My wish is that we would have lived for each other. We would have loved each other, truly.
Always, Teresa
Something else, another paper folded in half, caught his eye. It was his face, on a memorial booklet cover. He did not look much older than he did now.
In Memory Of: Patrick Jane
The letter was heavy. As was the book of his death. It weighed in his hands and in his heart. It still gave him no way to change the future before him.
"How…what does this change?" he asked the figure sadly.
This time, he saw the smirk on the figures face, but did not feel it as eerily as before.
He watched the figure push its dark, silvery hood back, finally revealing whom the ghost of his futures and deaths was.
"Teresa?" he whispered, almost horrified.
She nodded, smiled prettily, but it was…different. Her eyes were a brighter shade of green, not a wrinkle or a scar or birthmark marred her face, her hair longer than he'd yet to see on his friend. It was her, but it wasn't. "Of a sort."
He gaped, confused and terrified at the revelation.
"I'm your future, Patrick. If you want to change what's been laid out before you, you have to first let go of your past. You are so afraid of losing me that you already are losing. And you will lose it all. You've seen what will happen, these are what your choices lead too."
"I don't want any of it to happen, Teresa. I can't lose them. I can't lose my friends. I can't…I can't lose you."
She nodded again. "I know. The question you have to ask yourself, Patrick, is why?"
He stared at his future ghost, at Teresa, for a long while. He blinked, and found the letter, the little house, had all melted away. He stood in front of her home.
"When you can answer your own question, you change everything."
"And I suppose it goes against your moral ghost code to give me hint. You are just like her. Irritating," he mumbled.
"Well trust me, you haven't' been a picnic to lead through your future either."
He had to laugh at that. "Touché, future ghost Lisbon," he said with a smile. "Why am I at your house at two in the morning?"
She shook her head. "Because right here, Patrick, is where you can change it."
He looked up, where he knew her room was. "But how?" he asked, and then turned back.
But she was gone.
So he knocked on the door.
XOX
"What do you want from me?" -Ebenezer.
"Much." -Jacob Marley
XOX
He felt a little awful, waking her so early when she desperately needed her rest, accounting for the deep blue circles under her lovely eyes.
It took her ten minutes to realize someone was knocking.
"Jane? What the hell, it's two in the morning!" she bit out crankily, leaning on her doorjamb.
He shrugged. He really didn't know how to tell her about the ghosts or the fact that he broke his promise and drank the Belladonna again. So he went with charming observation.
"You weren't sleeping anyways. You're worried he'll come for you, Teresa. He won't."
She stared dumbly for a moment, trying to make sense of his words. "Oh, God, Jane, don't tell me you—"
"No, no! Nothing of the sort. I promise," he said quickly. "I just wanted to talk, if that's okay."
She sighed, rolled her eyes. "I didn't think we were talking?"
He looked down, ashamed. "I thought I was…helping. Turns out I'm wrong on more than one front."
"You're just realizing this now?" she said dryly, letting him in but keeping her distance.
"Well after what I've seen…" he trailed off quietly, speaking to the ether, not meaning for her to hear as he closed the door behind them.
He followed her into her kitchen. She was already brewing tea. He felt sick looking at the concoction but dared not say a word.
"So, Jane, what brings you to my door at this ungodly hour?"
He would have laughed at his words, but the laugh stuck in his throat. "The future."
She stopped her movements, but shook it off. He couldn't see her face fall, but he felt it.
"What do you mean? Or will you be speaking in riddles all night?"
Teresa pulled two teacups down, poured the tea. She pushed the cup towards him, waiting for his response as she took a seat at her table. He sipped the hot beverage, letting it scald his tongue and burn his throat, before setting it on her table.
"I…I had a dream and it got me thinking…"
She raised an eyebrow. "That you might be in desperate need of more sleep Jane?"
He raised his eyebrow at her in turn, but there was no amusement behind it or in his eyes.
She tilted her head. He thought of the ghost-her. "You're not kidding, you're dead serious," Teresa observed.
He flinched at 'dead.'
"Are you okay? I mean, you've never been one to rave about dream interpretations, last I recalled you lumped them with psychic visions."
"Trust me, Teresa, I didn't exactly see this coming."
"What did your dream show you? It had to have been something big to upset you like this Jane?"
"According to my present, my past, and my…future…I'm making a lot of mistakes, especially lately." He cleared his throat. "If I tell you, if I make you believe me…will you just listen to me."
"Sure Jane, I'm awake anyway. So hit me."
"Angela, she showed me the past, and Charlotte the present, but it wasn't mine, Teresa…she showed me yours."
"Okay-y…and why would your dead wife and daughter show you my past Jane?
"Well, she claims she was trying to prove a point. I think she was just trying to make me mad at her," he lamented, more to himself.
"Right. So what did you see Jane?"
"Your mom's funeral. Your brothers' and you, your father. Your dress was too big for you and your father wouldn't stand up, go to the coffin with you."
She looked away. "Patrick, don't cold read me, that's not fair," she whispered bitterly.
He didn't reply and he didn't look away. "I'm not sure how old you were, maybe fifteen…your dad called you Mary, grabbed your arm and let go and you fell on broken glass, a bowl you dropped from dinner. You took a piece of glass and thought about cutting your wrist, for just a moment, until Tommy saw you…I don't think you ever thought about…taking your life...again, after that…"
She was furious now. She'd let him in and he was insulting her intelligence with his mind games. "Get out," she demanded.
He ignored her. "You've been writing a Will, writing letters to your brothers and the team…and me, but you don't know what to write to me. Every night you come home and stare at a bottle of whiskey. You sleep with a gun in your hand, Teresa, and you…you pray for me every night."
Teresa stood then, her chair falling out behind her, clattering to the ground as she loomed over him, breathing heavily with fury. "Get out of my house, Jane!" she screamed. "Get, OUT!"
He stood carefully, but made no move to leave. "No, Teresa, you said you'd hear me out," he said plaintively.
"Yes, I said I'd hear you out, but I never said if you got my information from my brothers and by snooping through my stuff and by spying on me!" she cried, fists clenched tightly at her sides.
"I don't know your brothers well enough to ask them that, and you know me better Teresa, yes, sometimes I go through your papers, but I would never spy on you!"
"You had to find that out from somewhere, that information doesn't just come to you Jane!" she pushed away stubborn tears that coursed down her bright red cheeks. "Please, just leave me alone, you're been so very good at that lately," she said, her voice watery and body on the verge of collapse. She reminded him, again, of a child; swallowed up in an oversize jersey.
He felt his heart sink. He had been quite good at avoiding his lovely friend lately. Her ghost was right, he was already losing…losing her. "Teresa, I didn't mean to offend you or frighten you…I thought you deserved to know what I was shown."
"Stop it, please, I don't want to hear anymore of this! She pounded her fist on the table, desperate to prove her point.
"Too bad, I'm not finished. We need to talk about the future," Patrick said forcefully, standing to loom over her petite form, gripping her upper arms painfully. "My…my choices are creating a horrible future, for all of us. You showed me that, or, some version of you showed me that I don't really know how it works, all I know is that it's a bad future that awaits us and it's all my fault."
"Please, let me go, Jane, now!"
"We never get him…you showed me that we never get him. He made me choose, between you or Grace, and I couldn't because I was going to ruin lives, I mean, they were married, they had two kids, but you…I couldn't choose you either, I couldn't let him take you because I…"
His eyes were wide and unseeing, and he was wondering at his own words. His grip tightened, for someone who probably had not seen a gym since his wife passed, he was far stronger than she'd assumed.
She didn't want to hurt him, but he was hurting her. "Jane, Jane please, let me go!" she winced, trying to get through, shake him out of whatever was happening. "Patrick you're hurting me!"
That startled him. He saw the pain in her eyes, dropped his hold and stepped back away. She crossed her arms over chest, rubbing at the bruises.
He took a step closer, and she flinched away reflexively. "I'm, truly sorry Teresa. I didn't mean too, I'm sorry…"
She couldn't look at him and he couldn't blame her. He'd never hurt her physically before.
"What did you mean, you couldn't choose?" she whispered roughly.
He glanced at her small frame, leaning against the sink. "I was shown the future. By you."
"I've been here all night, I couldn't have," she shot back.
"Obviously. Just because it was you doesn't mean it was you."
"Well that clears it up." She shook her head. She'd roll her eyes, but she actually believed him, not that she was about to admit that.
"Look, Teresa. I'm merely telling you what happened to me tonight. The ghost of the future, you, showed me what my obsession will do to us. Red John, he'll kill Rigsby and then he kills Grace. He leaves you alive, and scarred, and you leave me, because you'd never, ever forgive me for their deaths. I don't know the events leading up to this, or the events that follow. All I know is, they have a beautiful little girl in the future, and they die, and Ben and Claire become yours. They must have had Wills of their own. The point is…I get it. If anything I understand what future ghost you tried to get me to see. Otherwise she wouldn't have brought me here. I will stop, Teresa, I will stop this obsession. When we get him, ever…he's yours."
She was looking at him oddly, fascinated, but also somewhat awestruck.
"Please say something…I feel like I've gone mad as it is."
She covered her mouth with her hand, feeling nauseous.
"Teresa, are you okay? You're pale."
"No, no. No, I do not believe in this stuff," she said through her fingers which muffled the sound. She turned, flipped the faucet on and threw water on her face. She heaved a large sigh, breathing in large gulps of air. "What else."
"I…well, there was a little house," he tried to approach her carefully, not wanting to scare her. "I didn't, I don't recognize it, it's a part of California I have never been too. But the ghost you showed me the letter that you wrote to me, the letter I saw you writing last night. Or earlier, can't be sure of the time anymore. Trips to the past and the future seem to do that," he joked, shrugging. She seemed to tense when he mentioned the letter, her grip tightened on the sink.
"I, um, I liked the letter that you wrote. Though to be fair, I do die, before you. Let's be clear there; I got to see a memorial book with my face on it. Let me tell you, that's a little creepy…and I'm guessing it's not far from now."
"Where's your proof Jane? You love lying, you love making up stories and fabricating massive, devastating, ploys, so why should I believe you now?"
He smiled softly. "My wish is that we would have lived for each other. We would have loved each other, truly."
She whipped around at that.
"It's the last line of your unwritten letter; you've already written it in your mind though, and despite what you think, I cannot read your mind Teresa."
"How?" she felt faint. How could he know what she was going to write?
He shrugged, mulling over the future ghost's words, clicking into place. "Why can't I lose you…?" he asked almost inaudibly.
"I don't know, you tell me, cuz I'd love something to make sense," another sigh. "You asked me once if I feared for your sanity, well, I lied, I do, everyday."
"When I can answer my own question, I'll change it, I'll change our future…" he ignored her again. "This is where it changes. This moment in time."
He looked at her. Really looked at his friend and partner. She loved him, he knew it like his own name. He didn't know how far that love went, how deep.
"Teresa, do you love me?" he asked.
Her cheeks flushed, pink and lovely. She was at a loss for words. She knew he knew, and her denial was easier to see through than his. She bit her lip, not wanting to admit it, but feared holding it back any longer.
"No, Jane. I'm in love with you. There's a difference. I'm not your sister or your friend or your partner. I love you so, so differently than I should but you just…you just," this time she bit her lip to hold back the tears.
"Hey," he tilted her chin up gently. Her green eyes were bright but muddied by the redness. "C'mon, look at me Teresa. Do I look like I'm afraid? Do I look like I'm running? I know you don't trust me, or what I say I've see tonight. You couldn't, not after what I've put you through. When I said I didn't remember, you knew I lied, but you let it go. Why?"
Her smile was grim. "If you love something…set it free."
"If it comes back, it's yours…I came back. I came back for you. I told you I'd always save you. You've kept me…whole. I couldn't imagine leaving you again, I couldn't think about sacrificing you, I…I love you, Teresa."
Her gasp brought on a new slew of tears. She buried her face in his neck, clutching him like a lifeline. Like his grip on her.
"I think I'd very much like to kiss you," came his tentative voice in her ear. Her laugh was strangled, but she gently moved back to look at his face, judge his seriousness. All she could see was her own feelings reflected back. She stroked his cheek, catching her thumb on shadow, catching gold curls in her fingertips. Her nod was almost impossible to see.
But he could see the things that no one else could.
They put a decade of lost time and need and unrequited love into that kiss.
The kiss that would ultimately change their futures.
XOX
It was many years later when he received his justice. Or maybe it was all of theirs, this justice.
He'd passed the case onto others. He'd tossed his wedding ring into the ocean with a bouquet of flowers the day the news came. It didn't suit him, wearing it on his right hand anyway.
He'd let them go long ago. Let them have their peace. And he had his.
No one on the team lost their lives to the maniacal serial killer. Red John had been gunned down by the husband of his attempted victim.
Teresa was the one to tell him, and he was relieved. He'd smiled, nodded, and asked her plainly what she wanted for dinner.
Red John was never spoken of in their home again. The home he'd seen in the future was theirs. The letter hung above the fireplace.
But there were no memorial cards with his face, or anyone else's.
There were pictures of their daughter though. The blue-eyed, dark haired, beauty as precocious as he and as tolerant as she. Pictures of Ben and his half sister, Claire, adorned the mantel as well, amongst the photos of their wedding and the wedding of Wayne and Grace.
Yes, he changed.
And that was the reason he'd changed his future.
Oh the streets you're walking on
A thousand houses long
Well that's where I belong
And you belong with me
Not swallowed in the sea
You belong with me
Not swallowed in the sea
Yeah, you belong with me
Not swallowed in the sea…