Sorry for the delay, but you'll get another chapter this week, so... cheer up! Also: big celebrations, as the show has been renowed for another season! And... sorry if I haven't answered your reviews yet. I'll do it asap, I swear!
Hiding and escaping wasn't Lisbon's style, so, after what had happened to Jane, she resolved to do the only thing she was supposed to- maybe what she should have done right from the start- and asking Pete and Sam for a phone, she dialed the number she had gotten to remember at heart: Wayne's.
She held herself together as she gave him her position, all the while she thought about fabricating a plausible story to cover what had happened. She knew she couldn't get Red John involved yet, and yet she didn't want to tell her coworkers that Jane had took her away against her own will, forcing her to follow him around the South-West with a gun pointed at her side. Jane had saved her life: saving, even if just a little bit, his reputation, was up to her. Besides, hadn't he told her that sticking as close as possible to the truth was the best form of lie?
So, sniffing a little, she simply told him that she would have talked with him once he had gotten there, and then went to sit in a corner in Sam's trailer, hugging her knees like a child; she didn't cry, because she was a strong woman and because she had cried all her years a long time before, but Teresa felt a weight on her chest, a pressure that was crashing her whole being. It was like something had been ripped away from her, and a bloody wound was slowly getting infected, her own flesh rotting where her heart had used to be.
Wayne arrived over fifteen hours later along with Cho, and she was still sitting in the same corner in the same position, Sam in front of her, an hand often held high like to touch her, but never daring to caress the skin. Teresa had refused food or even just water, looking from the window as the firefighter turned off the flames. She had sobbed just for a few minutes, when a body his body - had been taken away in a black bag she was all too familiar with. What she wasn't familiar with was how people died in fires: Wayne as the arson specialist in her unit, and she hoped that he wouldn't try to break the ice by telling her if Jane had suffered or not.
When a knock at the door came, Teresa didn't move, but hugging herself, Sam went to open the door, finding in front of herself a young man, she guessed the one Jane had called "Rigsby" in an couple of conversations; a cop, son of a wonnabe criminal, raised in the biker world, and Teresa's on again/off again lover. The black-skinned woman could understand why the young girl she now dared to call a friend had been attracted to him; Wayne Rigsby wasn't just good-looking, but there was something in his eyes, too, intensity, sweetness and danger mixed together in a nice-looking package.
And yet, she also immediately knew why Teresa would have never loved him with her whole heart.
It wasn't because of her feelings for Jane- although Sam guessed that there was more than lust and attraction between her friend and the cop- it was that Teresa had told her something, snippets of her past in drunken or casual conversations, that brought her to believe that damaged intensity wasn't what Teresa Lisbon needed- not in the measure that Wayne Rigsby would have provided. Teresa came from a dangerous world, and had a dangerous, suffering past at her back; Wayne wasn't right for her, for the mere fact that being at his side would have remembered her every moment of what she wanted to move past from, and vice versa: they were too similar to make it work outside of the job.
Jane, instead… Jane had given Teresa a reason to let it go, and be the person she wanted to be instead of the woman she was supposed to be because of the job or because of her family. They had both had their baggage, but there were enough differences to actually build something on it: they both a common foundation, because as troubles souls as they were, they both wanted to move past their legacies, and yet, as the damaged souls they were, they had common ground enough to understand that they weren't perfect- nor they could reach total perfection.
"Samantha Turner? I'm detective Wayne Rigsby, with…"
"Sam's fine." She cut him short with a wave of her hand, taking the few steps that divided her from the back of the trailer, where Teresa still was, still looking at the burned ground. "I think she may be in shock. She hadn't said a word after she had called you."
Rigsby nodded. He had guessed that something could have been wrong with her friend, but "Pete" had enlightened him a little bit; there were still few blind spots every here and there, as why Teresa was there with Patrick Jane to begin with, but the strong guy had told him that Lisbon and the gigolo had been there for few weeks, and that Jane had died the evening before saving his own life. Teresa hadn't said a word even since, saved from the quick phone call, and apart from that, she had always stared in the void in complete silence, like she wasn't even alive any longer.
"Reese?" he asked her as he put a hand on her shoulder, and Teresa finally turned, and Wayne's heart broke a little more, as his mind was suddenly filled with images of Teresa immediately after her mother's death, the shell of a human being, feeling like her life had come to an end in the blink of an eye.
"Reese… I spoke with the local department, and… they agreed to release you to me." she simply nodded, not even a syllable leaving her mouth as she stood and walked, leaning on her long-time friend as she took the few steps that separated her from his car. "We'll talk about it once in Sacramento, all right? Take your time."
She didn't even nod. Just looked outside the window as the car drove away, leaving this people she had gotten to consider friend behind, thinking that, with Jane gone, she would have never seen them ever again.
She didn't know how wrong she was- nor that her pain was going to end, sooner rather than later.
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As soon as she arrived in Sacramento, Minelli called her in his office, Internal affairs already there as well, much to the man's disdain. Teresa didn't saw too much into it; she wasn't fond of the unit, but she understood why they had to exist (Who watch the watchmen, was a line from a Graphic Novel she had read few years before) an accepted their presence there. Besides, J.J. LaRoche was a man of solid values, a long time before an homicide detective, who had taken the job only for the less hours and the minor danger, as he was an only child who had taken upon himself to watch over his old, sick mother. He was the kind of man she could trust, Teresa had long ago decided, and she knew she had done nothing wrong; for that reason, when asked if she wanted a lawyer or a representative from the Union, she had said no; in her mind, only the guilt ones asked for a lawyer, and she had nothing to hide.
LaRoche hadn't interrupted her, but had listened as she had talked with Minelli, explaining what had happened with Smith and O'Laughlin and the "safe-house", even if her Captain filled in few particulars she wasn't aware of yet; both men had been found dead on the scene, but preliminary examination showed that Smith had died few hours before O'Laughlin and from a different weapon. Minelli didn't say it, nor Teresa acknowledged the fact, but it was implied that someone had gotten there and cleaned house, in order to avoid any whistleblower. So, yes: no one was saying it out loud, but Red John had hit again, killing yet another dirty cop to avoid Justice.
Minelli sent her home, both he and LaRoche agreeing on calling her again, or paying her a visit, was necessity to arise, and she simply nodded. She was still wearing the same clothes she had put on for Jane, and she felt like a child in need of love and affection. There was a part of her who hated herself with all her being, for this was how her father had looked when he had lost her mother, frail and just the shell of a human being, void of any emotion. She had sworn back then to never love, and until that moment she had kept her promise. Her men were one night stands, or meaningless fucks done for the fun of it and for the pleasure they could give her. She had never allowed any of those men, not even Wayne, to get too close to her.
But with Jane, it had been different. She had been affected by his charm and good look, but then he had mesmerized her with his mind as well; he was smart and well-read, with a lot of interests, a quick mind that never failed to bring up any kind of random info about this or that; he also had a good heart he tried to keep hidden, behaving like he didn't care, but listening to her and comforting her with simple gestures and soothing words for her aching soul. Jane had given her what she wanted and needed before she could actually acknowledge it: he had helped her escape from Red John, but also from a life she wasn't so sure she still wanted to live.
And now, just when she had understood that she wanted to have that life with him, she had lost him.
She spent the next few days curled in her apartment, leaving her bed only for her ouch; she never opened the blinds, letting darkness engulf her, so that the outside could be just as she felt inside her very soul. She barely slept, barely drank water, and food was out of the question, and didn't answered the phone. She didn't feel like talking with anyone, and if her coworkers wanted to talk with her about the case, they knew where she was.
Wayne was the first one to go and see her on her third day of being back, claiming there had been some developments but that the ME hadn't released all the details yet, sharing with him only through a "confidential channel of communication",(i.e. The ME was female and wanted to have sex with him despite the miles and miles that separated the two of them), but Teresa knew that at first glance no one would have said so much about the details about Jane's autopsy.
"I think there's something wrong here." He told her as soon as she opened him the door, putting few sheets of paper on her dining table without even sitting, and indicating few details from the exams. He was looking at her with a mixture of plea and rage, like he didn't know if she was up to something with the man or she was a victim as well. "Teresa, tell me what's going on, and maybe I could help you."
Teresa lifted her eyes, and for the first time in days she felt like the fire she had worked on for so many years was suddenly back; staring at him like he was suddenly someone she didn't know any longer- and maybe had never known for real –she lifted her right hand, and slapped him on the face, once, hard, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"You." She said, her voice low but like a scream nevertheless. "How can you say that to me?!"
"Teresa…" he plead as he walked backward, her index pocking at his chest as she left it all out.
"How can you say something like that, after we've known each other for so long? How?"
"I don't know you any longer, that's how!" he screamed, his eyes filled with rage and possession. Teresa gasped, and hated herself as realization hit her. It wasn't that Wayne didn't know her nay longer, he just wanted her back, his friend, his lover, the woman who was willing to warm his bed up every now and then without any complications. But apparently he was the complication, because he seemed to have read too much in their friends with benefits deal, despite Lisbon having been always clear about what was going on between them.
"You were my best friend, Wayne." She told him, her words hissed between clenched teeth, Rigsby's heart breaking and exploding at her use of the past tense. "But if this is how you see me… I want you out."
Without saying another word, knowing that being out mean being thrown away from her whole life altogether, he angrily grabbed the details the ME had sent him, and stormed out her place without turning back. Teresa stood where she was, and only moved after few minutes, to peek through the window curtains and make sure he wasn't there any longer; Wayne was still there, inside his car, and was hitting the wheel, but after few minutes, he stopped, and shaking his head he drove away. Teresa took a breath of relief, and from a hidden compartment in her writing table she retrieved a burner Pete had gave her "just in case".
If this isn't the case, I don't know when I'm supposed to call him, she thought as her heart pounded in her chest, her whole being filled with hope and despair, what ifs and buts. Part of her wanted for it to be true, but the other side of her was scared of admitting where that truth would lead her. And yet… yet, she had to know. She had been thrown inside the game, and she wasn't going to back out, not now.
She took a big breath as soon as she heard the voice at the other side of the line. "I know what you did. Let's get together and tell me everything."
She hanged up, without waiting for a reply; he would have called, once made out his mind.
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She had just taken few steps when she saw a silhouette on the patio of the beautiful mansion, and careful of not being spotted nor heard, she crossed with long steps the distance dividing them. When she arrived at the top of the stairs, he was looking at the sunset, leaning against the balustrade, clad only in a towel, his body dripping water just like the first time they met. But yet, he was different: gone was the arrogant expression he had always spotted, and in its place, there was an aura of sadness and deepness she had rarely seen on his face, but had always known was there.
"Nice place you got yourself here, Mr. Boy Wonder…" Patrick turned, and almost chuckled, shaking his head as he walked in her direction, stopping when he was a couple of feet from her; Teresa wasn't supposed to be there, to know about his secrets, but apparently, he had underestimated Detective Lisbon's skills. Or maybe… just her passion, both for her work and for him.
"Did you know I thought you were dead?" She said at low voice, almost like she was talking with herself or couldn't believe it was really happening, closing the distance between them. They were just a breath apart, and she could smell the Wild musk fragrance that covered his whole body, could see drops of water glistening on his again blonde halo of hair.; he was bare-chested, and there was a part of her that longed to reach out for him, put her palm on his heart and feel for herself that he was there, alive, right before her eyes, for real. "You know, you should be more careful with the people you entrust your secrets with. Your friend Pete, for example, he is quite partial when a cop points a gun at his head." It wasn't really the truth, as Pete had told her everything as soon as he had seen her, saying that he had never agreed with Patrick's plan to begin with, and that he could see that she needed the truth; Jane, though, didn't need to know that; not yet, at least.
He just grinned, chuckling shamelessly while dilating his pupils. Getting lost in her emerald eyes. "You know Teresa, we should really stop meeting like this, people will talk…" she barely resisted the need the slap him across the face- a need he read very well on her features – and put some distance between them. She gave him her back, crossing her arms, holding herself. The last few days had been terrible, she had cried, she had done things she had never thought she would one day do over a man, and deep down he knew it. He had really seen her when Teresa had gotten closer; she was dehydrated, with deep dark circles under her eyes, and her clothes… they were the same, and yet just after few days they were bigger than last time he had seen her in them. She had lost weight and sleep, and all because of him.
He joined her side, and tried to reach for her, but Lisbon snapped, holding an hand in the air, like to slap him, but she didn't; it was merely a warning. "Don't, just… don't. I'm too mad with you right now, and I don't want to do anything I'll eventually regret…."
"Like kissing me senselessly?" he asked, teasing her, his voice hot in her ear; immediately, though, he turned serious again as he felt her tensing. "I'm sorry, Teresa, but I didn't know what to do. Almost getting murdered multiple times wasn't part of the plan."
What plan is he talking about? She wondered. Because apparently, Patrick Jane had always a plan. To escape the carnie, the sex-worker life, to escape Red John. And she had been that silly to think she had could have been part of that life, that maybe, just maybe, he could have changed. For her.
"Yeah, while I guess it was indeed part of your master plan cuddling me to sleep while sweet-talking me into trusting and believing you when you claimed to actually feel something for me, and then, the next day, faking your own death with your friends Pete and Sammy, right? What did you want to accomplish? You hoped that if you could have made me fall for you I would have never looked into your death, even if the cadaver didn't match your height?" she paused, fuming, turning now towards him, but no words left her mouth. She had been too scared, and was too relieved, to just think… for words alone.
She walked towards the balcony, right before the beach, and she left the wind mess her short hair; Patrick immediately joined her, and stood at her side, in silence, even if he had to fight the desire to move the bangs away from her face to see once again those mesmerizing eyes he had fallen victim to and lean towards her to kiss the woman senseless. But he didn't, already feeling that Teresa wouldn't like it, would read it as another try at getting into her good graces.
"Whose house is this anyway?" she suddenly asked, a bit annoyed, when he didn't try to defend himself, preferring the silence, allowing his imposing presence to speak for him, the heat between them for what they both knew they felt.
"Mine" he simply answered, laughing when she rolled her eyes, obviously not believing him. "Really. It belonged to my wife. She left it to me when she died" He stunned her, and she felt the breath dying in her throat; yet again, there was something she didn't know about this man, something she wasn't sure she was ready to accept- that she could accept at all; yes, she had guessed from the way he had been watching at their rings that they had belonged to him once, but knowing it and accepting it rationally were two different things.
It was Jane who resumed speaking, sensing her uneasiness, how divided she felt, and, maybe, even betrayed. "I met Sophie when I was… 24, and she was a few years older than me. She come to me one evening while I was having a drink at the Soiree in Los Angeles , and told me straight to my face that she wanted someone to spend her last months with. She was… Angie remembered me a bit of her, you know? Didn't hold anything back, strong, brave, and beautiful. We spent six months together, and even if I knew that it wasn't part of the plan, I fell for her." He paused, looking at the sun, sad, looking older than his years. "Before I could understand it, I was a widower, and this was everything that was left of her. I didn't care about love or affection any longer after her, I didn't want to go through that ever again, so, I…. well, I think you know what I was doing for a living before meeting you, right?"
"Did you love her?" she suddenly asked, and Jane didn't even have to think about it, to ask her whom she was talking about- he already knew it, like he had always knew that it was a problem for Teresa, that it was painful and a reason for guilt knowing that she and Angela had shared the same man.
He got closer and closer to her, without breaking the contact, sea green eyes lost in grass green, and lowering herself towards Teresa, he fisted her hair into his hands, his breath hot as he whispered into her ears between butterfly kisses along her whole face. "I was fond of her, liked her even, but…" he didn't ended the confession, but took possession of her lips instead, in a slow, sensual and steady rhythm, and like the time before, Teresa didn't fight him, and helplessly surrounded to Jane.
He walked her backwards towards the bedroom, and still, she didn't fight him. She didn't fight him because her goal was the same as him- belonging together, becoming one, dancing the oldest dance of the world, the dance of life and love and passion.
She didn't want to lose time any longer; after all, who could say when she would have lost him, this time for real?
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She was leaning against the balustrade, looking in the distance at the stormy sea in the early hours of the morning, with just his dress shirt on, wondering about how her life had turned out in the last few months.
Teresa didn't know how she was supposed to feel after what had happened few hours before; she felt, not for the first time in her life, divided. There were so many possibilities, and she didn't know what was wrong and what was right any longer…. she was happy because of the sensual night shared with Patrick, and yes, she felt like the feelings she had felt for him from the instant she had seen his pictures were slowly blossoming into something more, but she was also feeling guilty.
As a cop, she had been asked to protect him, a witness, and to check on him, a sort of wonnabe criminal; she knew she should have kept her distance, but she had soon realized she couldn't, as wrong as it was: after all, what did she know about his own feelings? He was a Machiavelli, a misleading and manipulative son of a bitch who took everything he wanted without asking first, without a care in the world, without giving a damn about the others. He had showed her that much just the night before, when she had tried to move away once in his bedroom, and he had grabbed her, forcing her to collide against his chest, and then kissing her, senseless, talking her into making love to her the whole night. On a soft bed between silky covers.
And besides, were they to escape or stay hidden, if someone was to discover that Jane was alive, Red John would have never allowed them to survive, not with what they knew.
But there was something else keeping Teresa from experiencing this love to the fullest: Patrick had been Angela's lovers, not just her gigolo, but a man she had fallen for, a man who seemed to reciprocate her feelings, even if not as strongly. Sometimes she wondered if Jane had been in love with her aunt or he had just merely been fond of her like he said, if she hadn't used him as much as he had used her…. what kind of future were they supposed to have together? They were a cop and a prostitute, was they really naïf enough to actually think it could work? God. Hadn't she learnt anything from Cho's experience with Summer?
"I knew who you were the moment I saw you at Marie's doorstep from the window of the bathroom" she heard a voice at her back, and turned, seeing Patrick casually leaning against the doorframe, naked chest, juts trousers, no shoes, no socks, hands in his pockets. He walked in her direction like he was some predator, putting her in an angle, his hands on the wood of the balcony, each side of her body, chest pressed together, his breath hot on her lips, mere inches apart.
"Angie always told me of what an amazing creature you were, are. She never regretted her choices, because she didn't want for you to pay the price of your family's mistakes. She loved you, and now I understand why. How could I not?" Suddenly, he took her in his arms, holding Teresa like for dear life, kissing lustfully the skin of her neck while his hands were already trying to undo the buttons; she arched in his arms, trying to give him better access, and her own hands roamed his body, trying to give as good as she was getting. "How could I not love you, Teresa?"
Suddenly, though, memories flashed through Teresa's mind, images of Angie, and everything she had done to help her niece and nephews, and here she was, with the lover of the woman who had loved her like a daughter, who had given up on her freedom to allow that child to be really free.
"Teresa'" he asked, sensing that something was wrong with her, that she was having second thoughts. The night before she had tried to push him away too, tried to retreat in herself, but a touch and a kiss had brought her back in his arms. Now she was doing the same, but she seemed far more convinced in giving up on him and what was going between them.
She closed her eyes, biting her own lips, trying to push him away, knowing all too well there were just too many things to discuss; but as soon as her hands touched his solid, warm body, felt his heart beneath her palm, she was lost. Patrick was there with her, and it had been so long since someone had wanted her like he did… her small fits started to hit him, him who didn't fight back, him who allowed her to release all her tension, her fears and anger, until the hits turned into soft, erotic caresses, and once again she was lost in his embrace, her lips seeking the comfort and the warmth of his whole person with a passion she didn't remember having felt for any other man in her life.
Differently from the night before, Patrick didn't go for slow and tender, nor he tried to reach the bed: he took her there where they stood. He wanted to show Teresa how she made him feel, how the controlled Patrick Jane could easily lose it whatever she was concerned. He ripped apart her (his) shirt, and merely freed his member from his pants while pressing her against the hard wood, her legs around his waist while he pressed into her, biting the tender skin of her neck to remember the woman who she was supposed to belong to right from then, marking her as his own as he took her to highs she had never known before, the waves of the sea crashing against the reefs and the seagulls like some kind of natural symphony , their personal background… because, like the water was crashing against the rocks, so Patrick was doing with her.
He was rocking her own world, taking it apart and then reassembling it, and for the first time in her life, Teresa Lisbon didn't mind that someone else took control away from her own hands to take the situation in theirs; losing it could be good, sometimes… and if it was Patrick Jane doing it, it was all the better. Maybe she could still hope, maybe she could still dream, maybe life wasn't as bad as she had gotten to think.
Maybe he could save her, from herself and her past. She just had to save him as well, and to do, they had to have a plan.
He left her body groaning, and both sat on the wooden floor, Teresa in his lap, her head on his shoulder, drawing invisible patterns on his legs. "I know you have the USB" she told him, still looking in front of her, his lips stilled on her shoulder. "And we'll need it, if we want to stop Red John once and for all. What do you say about it?"
Jane looked in the void for a while, lost in his thoughts, then he lifted his gaze to meet Teresa's eyes.
"There's something you should know before going on with this plan, Teresa." He told her, serious, his eyes filled with worry for what he was about the tell her. "I've got a friend of mine to decrypt the files, and you'll not like what we found out…"