Chapter 9.
Jane made it through the first 24 hours. His other injuries were tended to, including skin grafts for the burns and he finally seemed to be firmly on the side of the living. The doctors still kept him in a coma to allow proper healing.
Lisbon visited every day after work, often staying until late at night. Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt also came for visits, as now Jane was out of isolation. Even Minelli joined them once, although he didn't stay for long.
The team had found out surprisingly quickly what had taken place and how Culpepper was the culprit. They couldn't quite wrap their heads around how Red John became involved. They did speculate about him keeping Jane's house under surveillance, but they didn't find any evidence of it. Lisbon had been to his house with Cho, as it was a crime scene. Knowing how Jane cherished his privacy she hadn't wanted to take the full team with her and the others understood. Cho had always been closest to Jane from the team apart from Lisbon so it made sense to take him as a backup. They didn't find anything.
There was no evidence pointing towards Red John's involvement in the kidnapping and torture. They wouldn't have known that he was involved except for his signature on the wall and the phone call to Lisbon. They also had to grudgingly admit that it was only due to him that Jane was still alive and that was a bitter pill to swallow.
While Jane was in the hospital the team hadn't had any new cases and Minelli was more than happy to have them catching up with their paperwork. That gave the team the chance to go home on time and that meant that Lisbon could regularly visit Jane. Especially after it turned out that he had made her his emergency contact, she felt that it was her responsibility to look after him and his affairs. She tried to ignore the little voice in the back of her head, which kept nagging at her that this wasn't the only reason why she was at Jane's side more often than not.
Therefore it wasn't surprising that when Lisbon went to the hospital on that evening, Jane's doctor was waiting to talk with her. He took her to a quiet room and they sat down.
"I wanted to discuss something with you", the doctor started.
"Mr. Jane is healing very well and there haven't been any set backs that we were so worried about", he continued and while Lisbon was very happy to hear that, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was a but coming.
"We are planning to bring him out of coma in a few days time, but before doing that I wanted to talk with you. You see, I'm confident that he will recover physically almost to his pre-trauma state, barring the injury to his shoulder, which might give him limited range of motion and of course all the scarring will be present. What I'm more concerned about is his mental status", the doctor stated.
Lisbon looked thoughtful and the doctor gave her time to think about what he had said. She knew the patient the best and although they had Mr. Jane's medical history, it was always useful to talk to people that were close to a patient as there was always something that wasn't included in the official notes.
Lisbon had to admit that the thought of Jane's mental status had crossed her mind few times, but she had always pushed it away as it had always been his physical injuries that had demanded more imminent attention. She was pondering how much to divulge to the doctor and decided to place her words carefully.
"You know about his family being killed?", Lisbon started to which the doctor nodded.
"He didn't do well with that, but came through seemingly coping, although I would say that he still hasn't fully recovered from it", Lisbon continued trying not to bring up the fact that Jane had been an inpatient in a mental health hospital. To her relief the doctor seemed to get what she was trying to say.
"Has he been trained in the physical aspect of work in police force and how to react to injuries and such", the doctor then asked.
"No, he hasn't as he is a consultant. Not an officer as such", Lisbon answered, not quite sure where the doctor was going with this.
"My concern is that he experienced a massive emotional trauma when he lost his family, from which he never recovered. Add to that the physical torture that he went through, probably without ever considering that he might find himself in a such situation thus having never prepared for the possibility", the doctor explained himself and Lisbon had to agree with what he was saying.
"I'm almost 100 % sure that he will suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. Add to that the physical trauma to his brain and I wouldn't be too surprised if his personality has changed", the doctor said carefully trying to make sure that he didn't alarm the woman in front of him unduly, but having to warn her of might happen.
Lisbon started at his words. It hadn't even entered her mind that when Jane woke up, he wouldn't be his normal, annoying, charming self. She berated herself, of course he would be different. Anybody would be after going through that kind of torture.
"I just wanted to warn you before we bring him out of the coma in case he behaves uncharacteristically for him. Also I would like to refer him to a psychologist with a solid experience of PTSD", the doctor continued.
"Before I would have said that Jane would never agree to that, but now I just don't know. It's worth a try though", Lisbon answered feeling helpless.
"I would like you to talk to the psychologist first so she can give you some insight into PTSD and how you can help Mr. Jane", the doctor suggested carefully. Lisbon wasn't too sure what she thought of it, with her experience of psychologists, but she was willing to give it a try if it helped Jane.
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Lisbon had her first sessions with the psychologist and to her surprised, she liked the doctor. She even willingly started talking about her relationship with Jane and about her worries for Jane as she couldn't talk to anyone else and all the thoughts were really weighing heavily on her. To her relief the doctor listened, but didn't start digging any deeper.
Then came the day when Jane was weaned off from the ventilator and all the medications to keep him in the coma were stopped. Now they just had to wait until he wanted to wake up and the doctors were reassuring Lisbon that it was normal if that took some time.
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Lisbon was coming from the office after an other uneventful day and passed by the nurses station greeting them in passing. Jane was now on a regular ward and he had a room to himself, which made it so much easier that being in the open ward of the intensive care unit.
Lisbon stepped in to the room, folded her jacket on the chair next to Jane's bed and sat down. She started telling him about her day as had become her habit, when she noticed that his fingers were twitching. Lisbon grabbed his hand and stood up leaning closer to Jane.
"Jane, are you awake? Open your eyes for me, please. It's me, Lisbon", she pleaded and was totally unprepared for the reaction she got.
Jane pulled his hand away and tried to shrink into a small corner of the bed while whimpering and groaning from pain. He still had to open his eyes.
Lisbon still had her heart in her throat, Jane's reaction had scared the crap out of her. She pressed the button to call the nurse to let them know that Jane was awake. Kind of. In the meantime she tried again, " Jane, you are all right. You are safe. You are in a hospital". A nurse popped in and took the scene in front of her.
"Are you all right for a moment, I'm going to call the doctor?", she asked and disappeared after Lisbon nodded.
Jane had now opened his eyes and the panic and fear in his eyes broke Lisbon's heart. He was looking around the room and seemingly came to a conclusion that he was indeed in a hospital. Then his eyes came to rest on Lisbon and she could see the hesitation in them. And the fear.
He reached a hesitant hand towards Lisbon's face touching her cheek and whispered, "You are really here".
"I'm here and not going anywhere", Lisbon answered tearfully. She slowly reached out and placed her hand on his, trying not to startle him. But again Jane shocked her. Once he realised where he was and who was with him, he pulled Lisbon to him in a hug, holding her close ignoring all of his injuries. Lisbon held onto him, letting him dictate what was happening. She could feel him smelling her and stroking her hair, clearly wanting to feel the sensation and she was happy to let him have that. She was grateful that she had been warned about the possibility of uncharacteristic behaviour as otherwise she would have freaked out already.
Lisbon became aware of the presence of others in the room and apparently so did Jane as he eased his hold of her, but before letting her go any further whispered into her ear, "Can I call you Teresa? Please?"
Lisbon wasn't sure why Jane would say that of all the possible things he could have said, but she whispered back, "Of course you can" and was surprised to see what looked like a relief washing over his features when she pulled herself up. Then the doctor and the nurse took over checking Jane, while Lisbon stayed quietly out of their way.
When Jane had stirred, the first thing he knew was the pain, once again that awful pain, somebody touching him and then he heard the word Lisbon, which was surely a sign that he was still being tortured as that was the only word that he could hang on to. When he became more aware of his surroundings and finally when he set his eyes on Lisbon, he knew that he had been rescued. An overwhelming urge to hold Lisbon came over him and without thinking he reached for her. To his relief she came willingly and he was now shamelessly clinging onto her, smelling her and feeling the silkiness beneath his fingers to make sure that this wasn't some cruel twist of fate.
When he became aware that there was someone else in the room, he reluctantly let Lisbon go, whispering a final request to her as he couldn't bear calling her Lisbon any more without thinking about the dreadful pain and the torture and the fear that he would never see her again. He was relieved beyond words when she gave her permission to call her Teresa.
While the doctor and the nurse prodded and poked him, asking questions to which he answered truthfully but absent mindedly, he kept his eyes on the petite brunette, never letting go.
TBC