Greetings to any and all of the readers I still have left after my ridiculously long absence. I am so sorry about the wait. My muse apparently decided to go on strike and so I've spent a vast majority of the time just staring a blank screen and waiting for the words to come…needless to say, inspiration didn't strike for a long time. This always happens to me around chapter eight or nine of a multichapter. I've got no idea why.
Thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter.
A big thank you to krolinette who PM'd me to give me a nudge of encouragement. This one's for you.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognisable and probably never will, unless I become a millionaire tomorrow, which I somewhat doubt.
Lisbon woke the next morning, nestled under the covers, head buried in the soft kiss of the pillow. The sun was streaming in, and the only sound was the soft whispering of cars passing by on the street outside. She felt warm, and comfortable and at peace with the world.
It lasted about three seconds.
Because now she was facing something that everybody experienced at some point in their lives. The Morning After The Night Before. This was usually the part when people quietly grabbed their clothes from the floor, and tiptoed out the door in order to avoid the awkwardness with the guy who'd looked real good under the dim lights of the bar, but now under the less forgiving sunlight, turned out to be pot-bellied with a bald spot. Once you were out the door, you were home free. Never had to see them again.
But when the person in question was someone you saw every day, someone you worked with, someone you were currently living with in fact, the situation became a bit more complicated.
Add in the fact that the person happened to be your consultant who you'd been secretly lusting after for longer than you'd care to admit. Your gorgeous, (but heartbroken) intelligent (but internally conflicted,) charming (yet constantly haunted by the ghosts of his past,) consultant. It was a recipe for disaster.
She supposed she should be proud that she'd had the foresight to stop things last night before they got out of hand. She went through it all in her head, like she was watching a movie.
They'd drunk wine. They'd talked. He'd kissed her. They'd talked some more. He'd kissed her again. She'd kissed him back. They'd made out a little (OK, a lot.) She'd literally ripped his clothes off (well, his shirt at least.)
But they hadn't slept together.
Because of the ring. His wedding ring, the real one he kept around his neck, not the fake one that sat on his finger. The symbol of his lost love, of the life that had been snatched away from him.
It had felt almost adulterous, for all intents and purposes like she was kissing a married man. Like she was just the mistress, a random pair of lips to kiss, a random warm body next to his, there to fill in time until he went back to the one he truly loved.
And she hadn't even cared. For those few wonderful minutes all that had been worth noticing was his arms around her, his fingers caressing her skin, his lips on hers.
This scared her.
Such a sudden and total loss of control was something Lisbon was not used to. It was like her emotions had taken her over, her most primal desires (that she usually kept well-hidden under a mask of cool professionalism) brought into sharp relief. Her mind, usually searching for reason and meaning in everything she did, totally blank but for the want, the craving, to have him near her for as long as humanly possible.
Thank God for the ring. If not for that physical deterrent, she knew now she would not have been able to stop. They would have had sex, and she would have woken up this morning with him in her bed (or maybe they wouldn't have bothered to move from the couch, things had been progressing pretty fast.) And nothing would ever be the same again.
She wasn't ready for that, and she didn't think she ever would be. She'd never been able to adapt well to change of any kind and something like the enormity of starting a relationship with Jane was staggering, If she went down that path for better or for worse, it would impact on every aspect of her life. And if things ended badly…
The man was damaged goods, a ticking time bomb. And she didn't want to be standing too close when that bomb exploded. She'd already gotten too attached to him as it was. She was too used to seeing him lazing around on the office couch, too fond of his cheeky smile, too accustomed to bending rules that she would normally have followed to the letter to get him out of whatever messes he managed to get himself into.
It was already going to hurt enough when she lost him to Red John (which she would, one way or another.) She didn't think she could handle him breaking her heart as well.
As much as she would've liked to stay in bed forever, so as to avoid the point of confrontation, she knew she would have to get up and face the music sooner or later. Might as well get it over and done with.
As she sat up, she noticed something white lying on her bedside table. She picked it up and found it was a piece of paper with Jane's handwriting on it.
To my partner in work, life and debauchery,
You were still sleeping when I got up so I've gone for a stroll so I don't wake you. I know this is the first time you've slept properly since we've been here. I'm glad. You needed it.
Fresh coffee's in the coffeemaker. I took the liberty of making it extra-strong this morning as I think you're going to need more of an energy boost than usual.
When I get back, we should talk.
Jane.
Jane sat by himself in a booth of a diner a few streets away. There was a steaming cup of tea beside him (which he had only got to make the waitress stop coming over to his table and ask to take his order, batting her false eyelashes) but he had never been less in the mood for his favourite drink. All the tea in China wouldn't have been enough to even take the edge off how exhausted and listless he felt this morning.
It had taken him a long time to fall asleep after the…events that had transpired last night. When she'd fled from the living room he'd seriously considered going after her, simply refusing to allow her to end the moment he'd been craving so badly. But he'd known in the back of his mind that he'd already pushed her further than he'd ever expected, and that he should quit while he was ahead.
He'd listened to her walking around upstairs, heard water running, and saw lights flick on and off. Even though she was only a few feet above him, he felt further away from her than he ever had before. Something big had changed in the dynamic of their relationship; they were not the same people they had been before. They could not just pick up and go on with their lives as though it had never happened.
He had spent so much time desiring her and wanting her but never having her. Dreaming, and imagining and wishing but never acting on it, because he'd known he shouldn't. It would make things too complicated; there were too many other things to consider.
Like the fact that their jobs were at stake. Or the fact that a serial killer was haunting his every step. Or the fact that he hadn't been intimate with a woman in any way since his wife.
His self-imposed celibacy had become the norm for him now, so much so that he'd forgotten what it was like to be physically close to someone, to hold them in your arms, to feel their heart beating. It was a side effect of being more or less married to a ghost for the best part of eight years.
He'd use the ring as an excuse to turn women down when they approached him at bars. He allowed himself to be shunted around from department to department in the CBI. He kept the world at arm's length, never allowing anybody to get too close to him, never wanting to present Red John with a new target, somebody else that could potentially be taken from him. If there was nothing he loved, he had nothing to lose.
And then Lisbon had come along, and turned his world upside down. Unlike her colleagues, she refused to give up on him, didn't request a transfer, and wouldn't allow him to shut himself off from her. Sure, she'd rant, rave, scream, curse him to hell and back again, but she wouldn't let him go. And so, inevitably, with all his usual escape routes cut off he had ended up doing the one thing he had sworn never to do again: he had fallen for her.
He'd known that it was happening, even though he'd tried his best to make it stop. Suddenly his constant guilt for Angela began to take a back seat whenever Lisbon was around. He began to wonder what it would be like to hold her, to kiss her, to make love to her. He found excuses to touch her, even if it was just the slightest graze of fingers as he passed her a cup of coffee.
For the first time since the death of his family, he'd truly wanted something other than revenge. But he forced himself not to act on it, not wanting to put her in danger, not willing to have to face the reality that this might not be some fleeting infatuation but actual, true feelings.
Then, this assignment had happened. Being forced to spend nearly every minute of every day with her had steadily worn down his resolve. Nowhere to run, and nothing to focus on but the beautiful woman beside him, who every day had found some new way in which to tempt him, whether it be slow-dancing with him in a sexy black dress, or bursting into the bathroom in shorts so tiny they made her legs look like they went on forever, or even just bickering with him as usual over breakfast, with her hair all mussed up and messy.
He'd tried so hard not to let himself be taken in by this woman, hypnotised by those bewitching green eyes.
But now it was too late. It was done, and they couldn't take it back. And now, instead of alleviating all that pent-up sexual tension, kissing her had served no purpose other than to make things even worse. Now he'd had a taste of exactly what he was missing out on, all he wanted was more.
It wasn't supposed to have felt so good. Thoughts of his wife should have been eating him up at the very idea of being with someone else. His mind should not have gone blissfully blank and he shouldn't have felt...the only word for it was well…
Happy.
He'd felt happy. It was an emotion that he hadn't felt for a long time. He'd never thought he could feel that way again, doomed to being miserable for the rest of his life with no love, no laughter, no joy. He'd never even considered the fact that he might be able to feel good again, to want someone's company purely because he liked them, and not for what they might be able to do for him.
Like it or not, rightly or wrongly, the truth of the matter was unavoidable.
He loved her. It was a huge spanner in the works for his plans for Red John, and it would throw both of their lives into disarray, but despite all this, he loved her. More than he'd ever imagined possible. And now there were only two things he could do.
He could beat the feelings down again, keep his mouth shut, and try to keep his distance from her and then eventually have to find a way to endure the gut-wrenching agony of seeing her fall for someone else. He didn't think he could do it, if truth be told. It had been hard enough watching her joking around with Nick a few days ago.
Or alternatively, he could bite the bullet, man up, and tell her exactly how he felt about her. Risky, to be sure, and he stood to lose a lot if it didn't turn out the way he wanted. The close friendship that he and Lisbon had would be gone. No more late nights at the office. No more trust falls. No more support when he did something the CBI rulebook didn't exactly approve of. And those were just the little things.
No more partnership. No more best friend.
And then of course, there was the big one.
Potentially, no more Lisbon.
If he chose to tell her how he felt and it backfired, they'd never be able to fix their relationship. He could easily cost himself not only the woman he loved, but his best friend, and confidante all in one day.
Neither option was exactly appealing to him. But he couldn't very well hide out in this diner indefinitely either. Sooner or later, he'd have to face her.
But what should he do? Play it safe, and be content with adoring her from afar? Or lay all his cards on the table and risk losing it all?
Simply put, he was screwed.
He took a sip of the tea. It was now stone cold.
It was nearly eleven o clock now, and still there was no sign of Jane. This must be one heck of a morning stroll thought Lisbon to herself as she ate a piece of toast. Or maybe he was just like her, wondering what exactly they were going to say when they were forced into seeing each other again.
Two empty wine glasses sat next to the couch, silent reminders of last night. She remembered him kissing her neck, nibbling at her bottom lip. She recalled his touch as vividly as if it had been only moments ago. The sensation of his fingers on her skin alone had made her feel as good as any other man had ever made her feel in bed.
Of course, maybe that just meant she'd been sleeping with the wrong kinds of men. But in the back of her mind she couldn't help thinking that if last night's make-out session had counted as an erotic highlight of her life, what would happen if she and Jane ever took the next step, and had a go at the real thing?
The red-blooded woman in her who hadn't sex in an embarrassingly long time, desperately wanted to find out. It stood to reason that Jane, so observant in reading her body language in their everyday life, would be equally, if not more, quick on the uptake in bed, and would learn fast exactly what she liked.
As she felt herself slipping into one of her more salacious fantasies, the logical Senior Agent in her spoke up. She had to stop thinking about this. In the long term, nothing good could come out of sleeping with Jane. Even if he turned out to be the best sex of her life (and if last night had been anything to go by, that was certainly a possibility) there'd still be his wife, Red John, the threat to their careers.
And there'd still be the fact that it could never be just sex between them. He'd told her last night that he had feelings for her, and however vehemently she denied it, she had feelings for him too. Any relationship they had could never be purely physical, they were already too close, both mentally and emotionally. Somebody would be bound to get hurt.
She walked into the living room to pick up the wine glasses so she could wash them in the sink. Why was it that she seemed to always be attracted to men who could only make her life harder? Why couldn't she go for sweet, smart, available men with no emotional baggage? More specifically, what was it about Jane that made her want him so much? She'd never felt this strongly about anyone, not even her past boyfriends.
Maybe it was the fact that she couldn't have him that made her desire him so. The idea of being able to fantasize and imagine what it might be like to be with him, without any chance of it being able to be ruined by reality was kind of nice.
But the trouble with that was that fantasies were a poor substitute to a strong pair of arms when you were feeling lonely. And all the dreams in the world wouldn't be enough to satisfy you when all you wanted was to feel someone else's skin against your own.
It just wasn't fair. It would be so much easier if she had fallen for somebody else. But unfortunately the heart wanted what the heart wanted, and however unwise it might be, hers had set itself on Patrick Jane.
She looked through the window up at the blue, cloudless sky.
Someone up there must really hate her.
The waitress paused by Jane's table as she passed.
"Something wrong with your tea, hon? "she asked him, fluttering her false eyelashes again and shooting him what he supposed was her idea of a winning smile.
"Oh no," he said. "Just left it too long that's all."
"Yeah you looked like you were doing some serious thinking. I've been told I'm a good listener, you know if you want to vent a little," she added, hopefully.
He wanted to laugh at the thought. He'd need at least a year to explain all of his personal problems, and by the looks of her, this young woman probably didn't have an attention span of much longer than five minutes.
"No, that's all right," he said, forcing a smile. "I'd hate to trouble you."
"Oh it's no trouble at all," she said eagerly. "I've got a break in a little while, you can tell me all about it."
"No thank you," he said, a little more firmly this time. "This is something I need to figure out on my own."
Her face fell. "Well how about I get you another tea instead?" she offered. "On the house."
"That would be lovely," he agreed, anything just to make her leave him alone.
Beaming at him again, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and flounced away.
Before he had time to enjoy his solitude however, someone else spoke.
"Hey there handsome."
He looked up to see Annabelle Beckett standing in the spot the waitress had just vacated. Despite the earliness of the hour, she was wearing make-up heavy enough that he thought she would need a trowel to scrape it all off, and was laden with so much jewellery that he was surprised that she wasn't stooping over from the weight of it.
Even as she smiled at him, he could see her eyes flickering in all directions around the diner. He felt sure that she was looking for Lisbon.
"Good morning Annabelle," he greeted her pleasantly, though wanting nothing more than for everybody just to go away and leave him to his brooding.
"What are you doing sitting here all by yourself?" asked Annabelle, apparently having decided that 'Rachel' was nowhere in the vicinity. "Where's your wife?" She practically spat the last word.
"Having a lie-in," he said shortly. "I didn't want to bother her, so I came here instead."
He thought of how she'd looked when he'd walked in to put the note on her bedside table, curled up on her side, with the early morning sunlight shining on her hair and those oh-so-tempting lips practically begging him to lean down and kiss them.
He knew that for his own sake, he should try not to covet her so much, but by God, she made it hard.
"Well," said Annabelle, now positively beaming. "Her loss is my gain, isn't it? Do you mind if I join you?"
Before Jane had chance to answer, Annabelle threw herself into the booth beside him.
The waitress returned, carrying a fresh cup of tea, which she set down in front of Jane with yet another glowing smile.
"Here you are," she said. "Is there anything else I can get for you?"
"Actually there is," piped up Annabelle. "I'll have a short stack of blueberry pancakes with the maple syrup on the side and half-strength skinny latte with one and a half sugars, well stirred. And it had better all be hot when it gets here," she snapped at the waitress, without so much as looking at her.
The waitress scowled as she scribbled down the order on her notepad. "Will that be all?" she asked, with a bite of annoyance in her voice.
"Wait a minute," Annabelle ordered her brusquely. She turned to Jane. "Do you want anything to eat, Will?" she asked, suddenly all sugary sweetness again.
Jane shook his head, and with one last scathing look at Annabelle, the waitress left.
Annabelle's cell phone rang, and she stepped outside to answer it. Jane watched her through the window. With her blonde hair and ever-present smile, most people would never suspect that Annabelle had such a spiteful personality. She reminded him of himself a little, sunny and upbeat on the surface, but a seething mass of resentment within.
Lisbon wasn't like that. With her, what you saw was what you got. There was no hidden agenda, no game-playing. She was, as he had always said, translucent. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She was honest, genuine, a straight shooter. She didn't waste time trying to be something she wasn't. It was one of the many things he had always liked about her.
In his work at the carnival, and as a psychic, he had been surrounded by lies and deception every day. Even now, at the CBI with every case he saw people concealing things, keeping secrets, putting on facades. Lisbon was different, a refreshing change for him, an assurance that there were still good people in the world.
Honest, intelligent, brave and true, she was everything he could ever possibly ask for, the second chance at love he never thought he would ever find, or deserve. He twisted his ring on it's chain. This more than anything else, was what was holding them back from a future together. It had been what had stopped them last night, essentially what had been stopping him from making a move for years now, the fear of how much he would have to sacrifice in order to have her for his own.
The door opened and Annabelle returned.
"Sorry about that," she purred as she sat back down. "My boyfriend. Honestly, sometimes I don't know why I even date him; he's so possessive. Always wants to know where I am, who I'm with…it's like he doesn't trust me at all."
Jane silently agreed with the unknown boyfriend. If Annabelle threw herself at everyone in the same way she'd been throwing herself at him ever since they'd met, he probably had excellent reason to mistrust his girlfriend.
"Trust is so important in a relationship," said Annabelle. "Don't you agree?"
"Absolutely."
"Rachel must trust you a lot," remarked Annabelle as she slid over on the seat until she was right next to him. "If you were my man, I wouldn't let you out of my sight. And I certainly wouldn't upset you enough to make you want to hide out in a diner, where some other woman might snap you up."
She smiled coyly at him. "Some women just don't know how to treat a man," she went on. "They just don't appreciate what they've got."
She laid a hand on his leg and squeezed.
Jane quickly removed her hand . "Annabelle…stop."
"But why?" she asked, looking both surprised and disappointed. "I could tell as soon as I met her that wife of yours wasn't giving you what you need. Come on, you deserve a little fun." She leant towards him for a kiss, but he turned his head away.
"That's enough Annabelle," he said.
"Oh come on," she persisted. "Rachel doesn't have to know. It'll be our little secret."
"I said no," he said. "I can't do it to her."
"And why not?" asked Annabelle, looking highly affronted at the rejection.
"Because she's a good person, the best I've ever known," said Jane. "And because I can't stand to lose her. And because I love her."
Annabelle said something in response, but Jane wasn't even listening to her. He was too busy marvelling at what he'd just done.
Because he loved her.
He'd said it. Out loud. For the first time since Angela.
Because he loved her.
This made it real. It was out in the open now. Not just 'feelings' anymore, but love. Head-over-heels, madly, totally in love.
Oh no.
He got up from the table just as the waitress arrived with Annabelle's order.
"I have to go," he said to Annabelle, who was now glaring resentfully at him. "And I'm going to pretend that none of this ever happened. I suggest you do the same."
Leaving her fuming at the table, he left the diner.
As she rinsed out the coffeemaker, Lisbon heard the sound she'd been dreading all morning. The doorknob turned. Her heart began to pound. This was it. The moment of truth.
"Lisbon?" came Jane's voice. "Where are you?"
"Kitchen," she called back, hating the way her voice shook.
She heard his footsteps getting closer and closer, and then suddenly there he was, framed in the doorway. But he didn't stay there. Instead he walked right up to her. She just had time to register, with the greatest surprise, the lustful gleam in his eyes, before he took the coffeepot out of her hands and pulled her to him.
And then suddenly she was kissing him again, even though she'd promised herself never to repeat the mistakes of last night. And her mind was going fuzzy again as she melted into his kiss, just as she'd known she would.
And then he stopped. He pulled away from her, and they just stood there, panting for a few seconds, staring at each other.
"What the hell was that?" she asked, when she had gotten her breath back.
He sighed with contentment. "God," he said. "I've been wanting to do that all day."
"Have you completely lost your mind?" she asked, in amazement.
"I wouldn't go quite that far, but I've certainly been confused," he said.
"About what, precisely?"
"Last night was supposed to be a mistake," he said. "I always expected to feel like I was cheating on my wife. Kissing another woman was supposed to feel wrong."
He paused. "OK," she said. "So what's the confusing part?"
"It didn't feel wrong. It felt right. Kissing you was the most wonderful thing that has happened to me in years. For the first time in longer than I can recall, I wasn't thinking about my wife or Red John."
"And?"
"It wasn't supposed to be like that! I don't deserve to feel good again, not after what I did. I should punished for it every day!"
Lisbon didn't have the faintest idea what she should say to this, so she kept quiet.
"Am I a bad person?" he asked her. "Am I selfish for being happy when my wife and child can never be happy again?"
Never before had Lisbon seen Jane so out of control. Usually so good at playing his cards close to his chest, to see him strung out like this was shocking and a little bit frightening. She adopted the calming voice she used on out-of-control suspects.
"It was a mistake," she said firmly. "We'd drunk too much, and got carried away. That's it. You're not a bad person; you just made a bad decision. We both did, but we've learned from it, and it'll never happen again. OK?"
To her relief, he started to calm, his breathing slowed. As if she'd ever needed any more proof that the two of them together was a bad idea; the very thought had sent Jane into a near nervous-breakdown. As she looked at him, she noticed how pallid his skin looked, the dark circles under his eyes, even darker than usual.
"Did you sleep last night?" she asked him. "Have you slept at all this week?"
He shook his head. "Not really."
"Go and lie down," she ordered him. "Go have a nap, you'll feel better when you do."
She watched him amble from the kitchen and fall onto the couch.
"No, you're not going to sleep properly on that couch," she said. "Go on upstairs, take the bed."
"Are you sure?"
"Go."
She listened to him shuffling up the stairs. As she did she uttered a silent prayer. They had to get this case solved soon, before it killed them both.
When he got upstairs, Jane collapsed onto the bed, noticing that the sheets smelled like the apple shampoo she'd been using all week.
This was all her fault, he decided. Why did she have to be so wonderful? Why did her eyes have to sparkle when she smiled and why did she have to have that great dry wit that never failed to make him laugh? And why did she have to be so beautiful?
Why did she have to make him fall in love with her?
I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. It ended up in a way that I never expected. Weird how stories take on a life of their own. Well I hope you didn't hate it and you didn't get to the end and be all "Seriously, I waited a month for THAT?"
I know, still no case, but there will be in the next chapter. Cross my heart.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you!