"Gone with the wind, just like a leaf that has blown away.
Gone with the wind, my romance has flown away.
Yesterday's kisses are still on my lips,
I had a lifetime of heaven on my fingertips.
But now all is gone, gone is the rapture that thrilled my heart.
Just like a flame, love burned brightly
Then became an empty smoke dream that has gone,
Gone with the wind."
Some say it's better to have loved and lost rather than not at all, Patrick Jane didn't believe a word of that. Because he had lost her and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
-FLASHBACK-
"Patrick?" The brunette at his side whispered, raising her head from out of the crook of his neck where she had been resting it and lifting her eyes to meet his.
"Yes?" he said, stroking his index finger across her jawline committing each freckle to memory.
"Are you sure we should be up here? What if the others see us?" She said hurriedly, her spine tensing, the soothing circles her lover had been tracing across the bare skin of her back were doing nothing for her nerves now.
"Shhhhh! Don't you worry about that. Let me deal with them Lisbon. For now it's just us!" Sensing her uncomfortable position he cradled her back into his arms, lulled her back into the false bubble of security he had been trying to build for the entire duration of their relationship. It was a lie, Patrick knew that, they were going to be never safe, never going to be assured they weren't going to get caught. Nothing about their relationship was certain except for the fact that it was built on the foundations of two previously broken hearts ,that were trying to mend by simply latching onto another. Neither of them thought this was going to work, not with their two families each trying to tear them apart. She cuddled into his embrace once more, fisting her hands into the silk of his shirt so tightly her knuckles paled into white. Patrick brought his arms around her middle and buried his nose into her long dark hair with a sigh. If only he could make this work out between them, make the past pale into the darkest depths of oblivion.
The breeze began to pick up and she began to shiver in his arms, he tightened his grip on her waist as the wind began to ruffle the grassy bank they were sprawled across.
"Patrick, we should go, you'll catch your death out here" He whispered. "Just fi-five more minutes" She said, her chattering teeth masking the words.
"You'll freeze even more than you are now, let's just go!" Patrick urged her, sitting up straight and bringing her body flush against him to shelter her from the now-harsh wind. She made no reply.
"Why won't you leave with me?" Patrick asked, his fingers tangled in her chesnut curls.
"If we leave, we're never coming back are we?" Teresa whispered, her small tentative voice carried aloft by the breeze, this time it was Patrick, of whom words betrayed.
"You know I'm right, the second we leave from here everything changes. You'll go back to your camp and I'll go to New York. And we'll never see each other again." Jane's silent reply went unnoticed.
"So no Patrick, I don't want to leave. Dying here with you here is better than dying there without you." Teresa said sadly, her green eyes glassy with unshed tears.
"I don't want you to die at all" said Patrick, as he placed soft kisses along her neck. "I don't want you to leave, the circuit has nothing for me any more, show or no show, I want to be with you" He said with an air of resolve, his grip on her waist tightened and he buried his face against her collarbone, as if hiding within her, was the best way of keeping her.
"You know we can't! I want to, I want to so badly. The minute the others catch wind of this we're done for anyway. Leaving makes it easier" she said, as she cuddled up against him once more.
"Leaving what? Chicago? Me? How can leaving ever make it an easier?" Patrick almost growled and Teresa began to feel a little uneasy.
"No, not you. Never you. Leaving you is never easy Patrick. If we're not here anymore, there's no reason for them to get so worked up about us."
"Then Runaway with me then! We could go to California, or Texas, or ,or New York. Wherever! We could leave tomorrow and never come back! " Patrick said excitedly, getting to stand up, but as he took a glance down at Teresa's forlorn expression, all the pent up excitement from only seconds before dissipated into thin air and was replaced by a thin layer of disappointment.
"We can't do that either, and I'm sorry, I really am Patrick." She said, her tears now leaving dark smudges across her cheeks and lining her eyelid.
"Teresa-I" Patrick began
"No don't! Don't say anything. I just- kiss me. One last time H please? That's all I ask." Teresa pleaded.
Patrick came forward and pressed his mouth onto hers with a ferociousness Teresa had never experienced before. His hot mouth invaded her own, and it was all Teresa could do to stop herself from gasping in surprise when he prised his vice like mouth away from her face, only to return again seconds later.
"I'm sorry Beth, I'm so sorry it has to end this way, I love you" Patrick said, his voice full of all of his unspoken regret. "I love you too H, I always have done." And with that she took off into the world, leaving her secure bubble behind her. She was off to new York tomorrow.
Patrick kicked the nearby tree with vigour, his foot burning but he liked the pain. He remembered the first time he'd seen her,at the coconut shy, throwing the silver balls as if her life depended on it. In some ways, he guessed it did.
He watched her retreating form.
"look back" he whispered to the wind.
But she didn't. Not once. The wind died down, taking Patrick's temper with it, and Teresa remained invisible. She had literally, gone with the wind.
"Gone with the wind, just like a leaf that has blown away.
Gone with the wind, my romance has flown away.
Yesterday's kisses are still on my lips,
I had a lifetime of heaven on my fingertips.
But now all is gone, gone is the rapture that thrilled my heart.
Just like a flame, love burned brightly
Then became an empty smoke dream that has gone,
Gone with the wind."