Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The Mentalist. Lyrics from Feist's "My Moon My Man" from the album The Reminder.
A/N: I've returned to academia and the workload is immense. So, I'm only getting around to updating this now. My other stories "El Scorcho" and "World Your Rock" are still in play, I will update them, but it will be a slow process. It's the best I can do while school's on.
This chapter is for Yaba who is fighting the same fight as me with the books right now, and Merrywillow and Donnamour who keep the candles burning for me in the window of fanfic just in case, because they know I might go away sometimes, but I always come back.
Conversion Chapter 3:My Moon My Man
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
Charles Darwin
My moon, my man
So changeable and
Such a loveable lamb to me
My care, my coat
Leave on a high note
There's nowhere to go but on
Heart on my sleeve
Not where it should be
The song's out of key again
My moon's white face
What day and what phase
It's the calendar page again
Take it slow
Take it easy on me
And shed some light
Shed some light on me please
Take it slow
And shed some light
Shed some light on me please
-Leslie Feist "My Moon My Man"
Teresa Lisbon perched her sunglasses on her forehead and waited for whatever was going to come out of her colleague Patrick Jane's mouth next. His last garbled sentence was just hanging there between them, and she had to assume there was more to come. He'd just interrupted her first day off, during her first vacation in five years. Surely he had a good reason, and wasn't about to leave his answer to her inquiry as to what exactly he was doing butting into her day with, "You're uh, not wearing your necklace".
No shit Sherlock. She wasn't wearing much of anything come to that. It was summer in California, and even if they were in the Northern portion of the state Sacramento was experiencing a heat wave. Plus, she was at The Pier, chilling out riverside as the young people put it, so of course she was wearing a bathing suit. True, it was a tiny, sparkly, green bikini that she had never meant for anyone she worked with, or knew, to ever see her wear, but that was beside the point. Jane was not supposed to be here, standing in front of her, dress shoes sinking into the sand, and laden with shopping bags.
He didn't seem to be ready to revise his answer so Lisbon prompted him again.
"Jane? So, I'll ask again…what are you doing here? You're supposed to be at work."
Jane tried to stare anywhere but at her semi-nude body. He fixated on a point over her head and imbued his voice with mirth and false confidence. "Meh, Lisbon aren't we all supposed to be doing something? Work, school, achieving, settling down, having kids, you know adhering to the Protestant work ethic?"
"Um no? You're supposed to be at work and I'm supposed to be on vacation. I'm free to be wherever I want for the next two weeks. You however, are supposed be at the CBI building doing your job."
Jane continued to stare at the grass waving on the dune above her head. "We both know my terms of employment are…fluid. I retain the right to come and go as I please on a consulting basis."
Lisbon's eyes widened and she snorted. "No, you are contractually obligated as is any other non-bargaining employee to be at work for a certain amount of time, at a specific time, in return for the above average salary we pay you for consulting."
"Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe, Lisbon. I get paid like a boss because the CBI needs me, because I close cases quicker than their most seasoned agents. Such expertise, in my opinion, also warrants my right to make my own hours. Plus, who spends more time in the CBI doing extra hours- me or you? I sleep there woman, this is a fight you can't win."
"You aren't working in those extra hours! You're sleeping on that disgusting couch or-
"Lisbon really, disgusting? Mind Mildred's feelings would you? She's an old girl, but a reliable, comfortable girl who holds me while I sleep and asks for nothing in return."
"You do know that it's ridiculous you named your couch Mildred?"
"Why? Van Pelt named her fancy, new Macbook Air, Photon because it's faster than a beam of light. No one made fun of her for that. Well, I did behind her back and I could tell Cho was inflamed with sarcasm on the inside, but neither of us said anything to her face."
Lisbon scrubbed at her eyes and then cursed. The damn tanning lotion was still on her hands, and now it was in her eyes. Her patience was waning. "Jane, this is my vacation, I'm supposed to be relaxing. I shouldn't have to see anyone from work, discuss work or deal with you. Why are you here? Is there some pressing reason why you hunted me down or are you just being a nuisance as usual?"
Jane hid the dip in his spirits at her classification of him as a nuisance behind a blinding smile. When he'd first been acquitted the team had been so relieved they'd granted him a grace period. For a short time he could do no wrong and work no nerves no matter how hard he tried. And he really didn't try that much. He was too happy to be back and still accepted amongst the closest thing he had to friends.
It would seem, however, that getting out of jail for free was no longer a catch all, get out of jail free excuse with Lisbon.
"Absence really does make the heart grow fonder," Jane grumbled under his breath.
"Come again?" Lisbon asked.
"I said yes, Lisbon I have a pressing reason to be here!"
Her eyes were full of skepticism. "Let's hear it then."
"I have it on Van Pelt's good authority that you came here today with the intention of sun-bathing, during a heat wave, with little more than SPF 8 to protect yourself with. Tsk, tsk Lisbon."
Jane stuck out the shopping bags towards her. "In order to rectify your oversight I took it upon myself to purchase, and deliver to you the following goods."
Lisbon reached for the bags and looked inside. One bag contained a large beach towel, while the other was occupied by a floppy, lurid colored sunhat in a paisley print and a bottle of SPF 45.
"I'm not wearing that hat," she stated.
"Yes you will. From the position of the sun it's about 2 o'clock. We're right in the peak time for the UV index. Noon to 4pm is dangerous for people like you Lisbon, you know this, and that's why you bought the tanning lotion. It's not going to work you know, you won't tan, you never do. You'll burn and peel, like always, as you know. You know you should wear the hat and put on some sunscreen."
Jane kept his voice pitched at an even, soothing pace throughout his soliloquy, and repeated the phrase "you know" as often as he could. Lisbon would never succumb to his mental prodding if she thought he was manipulating her. She needed to hear key words that suggested whatever action she took was her idea first.
Lisbon considered his reasoning. Now that she thought about she did feel warm, and it didn't help that as she pondered Jane kept exclaiming about the heat. She didn't want to admit he was right, but she also didn't want to spend the rest of her vacation nursing a burn.
"You know," she said, unconsciously echoing his prompt. "I don't want to ruin my vacation with a burn. And Van Pelt said to only do twenty minutes in the sun with this stuff, so I think I'll put on some sunscreen, but I'm still not wearing that hat."
"Totally your call Lisbon," Jane said and sat next to the shopping bags. He removed his jacket and vest before hauling off his socks and shoes. He proceeded to roll up his pant legs as Lisbon stared at him hard. "What?" he asked.
"So you're staying then? You're not just going to drop this stuff off and leave? You're seriously crashing my vacation?"
Jane made a hurt face designed to bring on her Catholic guilt. "I'm sorry Lisbon, I just assumed you wouldn't mind some company, especially since I was thoughtful enough to bring you sunscreen," he added just enough hesitation to his voice, "and I just thought, well I thought we could spend some time together. We used to do that a lot, and then, well jail has a way of curbing a man's social calendar."
"We never socialized before you went to jail," Lisbon fired back without thinking.
The look on his face was already giving her the guilts and now his expression had morphed into something even more pitiful. She scrambled to save the situation.
"But," she drew the word out slowly, "things are different now, and maybe we should make an effort to socialize. You deserve it after a year of solitary confinement."
The scent of Lisbon's tanning lotion wafted up between them. The smell reminded Jane of summer, but first and foremost of girls.
Memories of sunny, hot afternoons spent trying not to seem like he was ogling the local girls at whatever watering hole, in whichever town the carnival had stopped in, came flooding back to Jane. The recollections were little more than jumbled images now, a flash of sun browned skin, a flip of hair, the snap of chewing gum. He'd never had a normal childhood, so he treasured the tiny bits of his coming of age that fit with the universal norm. His interaction with girls had always been that of an ordinary boy, an ordinary boy gifted with extraordinary good looks.
Maybe it was the sweet, coconut like scent of the lotion, or the way the tanning oil glistened on her skin, Jane couldn't say why, but he felt a deep pull of physical longing, the kind he'd not experienced since those days at the watering holes when the feel of a woman's body underneath him was something as yet to be experienced.
The desire battled with his usually steadfast self-control, and lust won out long enough for him to mumble, "I was in solitary confinement for a lot longer than a year Lisbon."
It might have been the greatest truth he'd ever told her, even bigger than the revelation about the mental hospital or his part in Hightower's disappearance. Still, there was something else needed, another admission before Lisbon was willing to give this simple utterance a gold medal.
"I guess that's true," she said nonchalantly. "So…"
"So, I'm thinking enjoying a sunny day at the beach with a close friend is a good place to start."
Lisbon did her best not to look flabbergasted because Jane seemed completely at ease with his previous statement.
Still, she couldn't help blurting out, "We're close friends now?"
He smiled and sighed. "Lisbon we've always been friends, even when I didn't want to be. You, Grace, Rigsby-not really Cho, but he's come around-you've all been there the last nine years trying to cajole me into some semblance of friendship. Largely I'm sure in order to try and pre-empt my plans to end Red John. To give me something to live for, and make me more than a man with nothing left to lose. "
"You're not wrong," she admitted. "But you seem much more amiable to our overtures now."
"Overtures hey Lisbon? That word of the day calendar is really coming in handy."
"It was a Secret Santa gift from Rigsby. What was I supposed to do? Throw it out and hurt his feelings? Don't change the subject."
Jane spread his vest and coat beneath himself and lay back in the sand. "I don't know if I'd say I'm more amiable, so much as I'd say these days I'm not taking any part of my freedom for granted. Jail is…it is punishment Lisbon. It is exactly what it is supposed to be, and more so for a Traveller like me. We don't grow up in houses, we roam, so to confine us… it's counter to everything I am. Being inside, it was the first time I felt like I couldn't handle something through sheer will power alone. I could feel myself diminishing."
"But, you always said you'd been in jail before."
"That was just bravado. I've done a lot of things that should have landed me inside before now, but no, the only time I was kept against my will was in Sophie's hospital. Even then it wasn't really against my will, at the time I had no will, I was lost and she brought me back. I was free to leave as soon as I was no longer a danger to myself."
Silence hung between them for several beats. Jane propped himself up on one elbow and turned to face Lisbon. "I'm not here to ruin your day. I just want to be outdoors and feel the sun on my face and the sand in my toes. Is that okay?"
"Yes," she replied. Lisbon knew part of his request remained unspoken. She knew he was also here to spend time with her, to not be alone and for that reason she allowed him to stay.
Jane gave her a look that could be described as nothing else but beseeching. His gaze was becoming less and less guarded these days when he looked at her and it was unsettling to say the least.
Lisbon had first noticed the change when she began visiting him behind bars. There was bullet proof glass between them, and an old school phone receiver full of static mired their conversation, but it didn't matter, because his face was so open. Jane's mouth would tell her mundane details about his life behind bars-the food was bad, the soap was harsh, he was bored a lot-but his eyes were full of revelations that needed no articulation.
His revelations were not world changing, mind you, just small incremental changes to his fundamental self. The kind of change that lasts because it does not come on in one quick, fell swoop, but instead begins gradually and builds foundations so solid that no disgruntled member of the old guard can hold back the oncoming, quiet revolution. She had not sensed any internal, personal civil war going on inside Jane's mind. He seemed to accept the new way of things tacitly and without drama.
At first she'd worried for him, and wondered if he'd lost his direction in life with Red John dead, and the reality of life behind bars creeping up on him. Lisbon didn't need to express her fears to Jane, change in demeanor or not, he was still Jane and even with Plexiglas separating them he could divine her concern for his well-being.
"I know you're worried about me," He'd mumbled into the phone during one of her earliest visits, "But I want you to know Lisbon, that I am nothing, if not adaptable."
Then he'd given her the exact same look he was giving her now, only this time between the heat of the day, the silly bikini, his obvious admiration for said silly bikini and the general air of possibility that had been trailing about him since he'd won his freedom, it felt different. She gotten used to the fact he'd accepted his new lot in life, what she wasn't ready for was the freshly hatched desire in his gaze.
"You should wash off that tanning lotion," Jane said, and his words startled her back to the present.
Lisbon jumped at the chance to put some distance between them. "Right, yeah, I'll just um go down to the water, but damn it!"
"What?"
"I've just got this one towel, and if I get in the water I'll need to dry off and then I'll have to sit on a wet towel and that, well, that sucks."
"I bought another towel," Jane said, indicating to the second shopping bag. "It's a big, proper beach towel. You wouldn't believe the things they sell at pharmacies now Lisbon. I saw people doing their grocery shopping in there! What happened to the days of running in to pick up Tempra and tampons only?"
Lisbon stared at the water, and slid her sunglasses back on. "Wal-Mart happened. Now everyone has to hustle to compete. Wait a second, Tempra and tampons?"
Jane shrugged and pulled the newly purchased towel from the bag. "I had a wife and child once. I did a lot of after midnight runs for Tempra and tampons."
"Right," Lisbon replied. It was all she could think of to say. Jane was more willing to speak of his family nowadays, and she had yet to reconcile herself to this particular change. He never overshared. There was no heart-wrenching outpouring of memories and grief while she held him on the living room floor of his little house of horrors in Malibu, just small dropped crumbs about harmless incidents that were easily digestible. "Well, I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Take your time," Jane said as he stretched out on drugstore towel.
"Kay."
Jane lay back and closed his eyes against the sun's bright glare, and Lisbon's retreating form. He didn't need to witness what that bikini looked like while walking away from him. He wanted to know what it looked like, but it was safer not to indulge. Adaption is only easy when you take it slowly. That's why evolution took hundreds of millions of years. Better the animals don't notice they're losing their tails and gills in exchange for a brave new world. Plus, she'd soon return dripping wet, her hair plastered sexily to her neck and chest while that damned bikini sparkled even brighter.
In order to redirect his wayward mind Jane began running baseball stats in his head. He'd never been much of an organized sports fan, but baseball had always appealed to him. He liked the stats, he liked that you could have a beer belly and still play at the national level, and there was something intrinsically Americana about the sport that the wanderer in him loved. He'd rolled through every state in the Union, save for Hawaii and Alaska, before the age of twelve, and while traditional patriotism meant little to him, Jane held a great love for all four corners of the country and its national past time.
He was trying to imagine what it would have been like to witness Enos Slaughter's "Mad Dash" during the 1946 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals when something wet and cold landed on his chest.
Lisbon was back, and she was glorious. Barring the invention of time travel Jane would never get to witness the "Mad Dash" for himself, but he had a hunch the sight of Lisbon standing over him, practically naked and dripping wet was just as phenomenal.
"Can you pass me my towel?" she asked, oblivious to his awe.
Jane nodded and silently filled her request. He remained quiet while she toweled off and wrung out her hair.
Once she was reasonably dry Lisbon plopped down next to Jane on the beach towel and reached for the bottle of SPF 45 he'd bought for her. Their eyes met and suddenly Jane's mute admiration became uncomfortably apparent to Lisbon. Could she-should she- rub sunscreen all over herself while he was looking at her that way?
Jane sensed her discomfort, and it was not surprising given that he was wallowing in his own. He needed to do something to normalize their interaction, to slow the pace of change, or at this rate they'd be crawling out of the ocean before they'd even grown some limbs.
He propped himself up on one elbow and aimed to look stern as opposed to awestruck. "You need to do something about Grace," he said in the same tone of voice that he used when he told her something, or someone, was irksome.
"Jane," she drew his name out as she said it and rolled her eyes.
Excellent, she'd followed him exactly where he'd wanted to go, and fallen back into their comfortable routine of harried supervisor and belligerent consultant.
"Whatever Grace is doing I'm sure it's not as irksome as you think," Lisbon said and rubbed sunscreen forcefully onto her legs. "And I've already told you I think you should hear her out-
"Hear her out? Lisbon she wants me to accept Jesus!"
"No she doesn't!" Lisbon cried and plastered cream on her forearms. "Does she?"
"Well, she invited…me…to…her…church…group…" Jane's words trailed off as Lisbon dabbed lotion between her breasts.
"Jane she just wants to help you heal," Lisbon didn't notice his lack of focus as she was too far gone, playing Special Agent in Charge Who Manages with Equal Parts Steel and Sympathy. "Grace feels that you two share a unique bond because you've both lost loved ones to Red John, and she's not wrong you know. It wouldn't hurt you to have a heart to heart with her. You don't have to go to the church group, but that also wouldn't kill you. I went with her once-
"You did?" Jane asked. This tidbit was interesting enough to trump her glistening cleavage.
Lisbon snapped the bottle of sunscreen shut. "Not for any religious reasons. I just wanted to be sure Grace wasn't falling into something too radical. I wanted to be sure the place was legit…and she asked me to go at a time when it was hard to deny her anything, so I went."
"Mother Teresa, what won't you do for your followers?" Jane asked jokingly. Lisbon opened her mouth to retort but he cut her off. "Still, you had your doubts about the organization, as do I. Grace comes from a very evangelical background Lisbon, I don't blame you for worrying. That crowd is very good at sniffing out the weakest amongst the herd and assimilating them at a time when standing on one's own two feet seems impossible. Our little Grace would have been a sitting duck, an already partially assimilated, yet lapsed, sitting duck no less."
"Well I checked them out and they seem fine. It's just a bunch of charitable Christians doing what charitable Christians do." Lisbon said while debating whether or not she should ask Jane to put sunscreen on her back.
She couldn't reach back there on her own, but she also didn't think asking him to lend a hand was a good idea either. Maybe she could just lie on her back for the duration of the day.
"What? Like starting crusades and inquisitions full of blood and repression?" he asked with a sneer.
The Catholic in her decided to make him pay for that comment. If her people knew about anything it was how to dole out punishment in the name of the Lord.
"Jane, would you mind putting some cream on my back? I can't reach, and my back and shoulders are always the first to burn."
The snide look on his face quickly shifted into a combination of fear and longing. He reached for the bottle of sunscreen with hesitation before drawing his hand back.
"Know what Lisbon, I'm afraid sunscreen isn't gonna cut it. We need to cover you up with something more substantial," Jane said and began to unbutton his dress shirt.
Now it was Lisbon who was full of equal parts fear and anticipation. "Wh-What are you doing?" she stammered.
"Being a gentleman," he replied and shrugged the shirt of his shoulders to reveal a very respectably built upper body. "Here," he said and passed her the garment. "Put this on, it'll do more to keep the sun off than any sunscreen."
"Don't you need it?" she asked while staring at the proffered shirt like it might explode.
"Nah, you know how I am with the sun. I don't burn."
It was true. She couldn't count the number of times they'd spent hours outside at a crime scene while she quickly turned pink and he slowly browned. Despite the three piece suits it was obvious to anyone who spent enough time with him that Patrick Jane's inner soul resided on a beach.
Lisbon took a deep breath and plucked the dress shirt from Jane's outstretched hand. She stuck her arms through the sleeves and resisted the urge to gather the lapels up and take a big sniff. Jane watched her long enough to ensure she was adequately covered and then he flopped onto his stomach to enjoy the sun.
"Lisbon," he mumbled while turning just his head to face her. "I think it's time for the hat."
"What? No! I'm wearing the sunscreen and your shirt that's enough."
"Remember the Winethrope case? More specifically remember when your scalp peeled?"
"It happened once! Once in eight years!"
"Trust me when I say once was gross enough for another eight years."
Lisbon crossed her arms and considered his argument. The hat was ugly, but a peeling scalp was disgusting. The hat really was the lesser of two evils.
Jane, of course, already knew where her thoughts were going. "As long as you've got that suit on Lisbon no one's going to notice your hat."
She stared at him; surprised he would offer such a loaded compliment. It wasn't odd for Jane to compliment her, he did it all the time, but never in way that implied he was affected by her appearance. Instead, he would phrase his admiration in a neutral way like, "You've got a great skull", "You look like an angry princess", or "That guy over there won't stop looking at your ass, ask him what he knows about the victim, but take what he says with a grain of salt because he'll go overboard trying to impress you".
Maybe it was the heat, the suit or the strange new light in his eyes that pushed her, but she decided to ascertain just how personal his most recent compliment was.
"So, you like my bathing suit?" she asked airily while rolling up the cuffs of his shirt.
Jane didn't raise his head from where it was cradled on his forearms. "I said it was noticeable Lisbon, I didn't say anything about my preference for it one way or the other."
She wouldn't be deterred. "It's green."
He offered nothing in the way of reply so she continued. "You're always saying I should wear more green, so I just thought what the heck I'll buy it. So, what do you think? Good purchase?"
Jane finally rolled onto his side and assessed her. "I guess that depends," he said and sat up to face her, "on what your motivations for buying the suit were."
Lisbon arranged the hat on her head and slid her sunglasses back on so she wouldn't have to look Jane in the eye.
"I bought it to do something different, to…well just to do something out of the ordinary."
"What brought all that on?"
Lisbon huffed and rolled her eyes behind the shades. "Come one Jane, you know what! We got Red John! You killed him. Everything is different now, everyone is different, Cho, Grace, Rigsby, you…everyone but me. I wanted to buy something that was just for me that I wouldn't usually buy, and to use it as a motivator to actually take my vacation this year."
She trailed off and hoped she hadn't just ruined what otherwise could have been a lovely, carefree day, by dumping a huge pile of serious on the towel between them.
Jane gave no indication she might have rained on their parade, instead he just stared at her for several beats with the same "I'm vulnerable now" look he'd been giving her since he'd been hauled off to jail after his bail hearing. She really couldn't handle vulnerable Jane; he brought up too many possibilities she'd regulated to the "Do not touch" corner of her mind.
"Seriously Jane, stop looking at me like that, it's-
"You think I've changed?"
They were both momentarily confused and silenced, as their words crashed into each other like waves hitting the beach.
Jane recovered first. "Wait, you think I've changed? How?"
She didn't want to have this conversation, just like she'd never meant for him to see her in the suit. "Jane never mind okay, it was just a dumb thing to say, it's my own shit, really. If we're going to have an awkward conversation let's talk about what to do about Grace's obsession with helping you."
Jane cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at her. "For shame Lisbon. Poor Grace always the conversational scapegoat. Besides, we've got all day to talk, so we'll get to Grace, but first answer my question. How have I changed?"
TBC…..there's room for one more chapter, it's like dessert. You're never too full.