Takes place three months after The way back. Lisbon's POV.
Forgot it when I first posted this: thanks to my beta, Ethiercn! :)
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Chapter 2: Timing is everything
The night after they'd found Thomas McCallister's body, Special Agent Abbott's team was out looking for Patrick Jane everywhere they could think of.
Teresa Lisbon, knowing her house would be under their surveillance after her talk with the despicable man, who for some reason was convinced her relationship with Jane was more than what it really was, had decided to go out for the night. She took a cab to a place she'd never been before since she wanted to be alone. They might be tailing her, or not. She didn't even care.
She was sitting at the bar. Not drunk yet, but tipsy enough to know she wouldn't be able to walk straight if she tried.
That's why she didn't turn when she heard someone taking a sit on the stool next to hers. She did however look that way abruptly when she heard a familiar voice.
"Hi."
And here he was. Patrick Jane. How had he found her? That question vanished from her mind when she took a good look at him. He had blood on his clothes, his hair was a mess, and he seemed so tired that he looked twenty years older. She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her by putting his fingers on her lips. She couldn't repress a shudder, but didn't move.
"I don't have a lot of time" he whispered, leaning to speak directly in her ear. "I'm leaving the country. Tonight." she fought his hand to protest, but he shook his head. "Shh, please let me finish. I have to go, Teresa. We both know it's too dangerous for me to stay."
He took a deep breath and pulled away to look intensely in her eyes. He cupped her face with both hands, caressing her skin with affection, and smiled when he saw and felt her cheeks reddening.
"There's one thing I.. No, wait, two things I have to do before I go." He took another long breath in. "Ok, here we go. First: Teresa Lisbon, I love you."
A tear ran down his face, and she felt her heartbeat quickening. She knew what was going to happen next. But she didn't back off. She just stood there and looked in his blue-green eyes.
"Second..." he breathed. And he gently put his lips on hers. She responded immediately, moving her mouth against his, and felt his arms circling her waist, making her stand up so their bodies would be closer to one another...
Teresa was torn from the intense scene by the sound of a crying baby, and she groaned. Why the hell was there a baby in the middle of a bar? It took only another second for her to realize it had been nothing more than the formerly usual 'Jane-dream', and she sat up in her bed completely awake.
"Wantmetogo?" Bill mumbled softly when he heard her move, already rolling himself to the edge of the mattress to stand up.
"No, it's alright, honey" she whispered back, smiling a shaky smile at him in the dark. "You need to rest" and there is just no way I can go back to sleep right now, she added to herself.
He nodded and sighed with relief. She rolled her eyes.
She knew he would have gone if she'd asked him to, but he was glad that she hadn't. He had hurt his ankle at work the week before, and he was still recovering from it. She should have found it cute, but she was just annoyed. Why did he offer his help when he knew he couldn't really do it? Why did he have to be such a martyr?
She froze at her own thoughts. That was unfair, and uncalled for.
She kissed his cheek apologetically, blaming her reactions on the turmoil of emotions she was going through – and not controlling – ever since she'd become a mom. She ignored the insistent inner voice telling her there was only so much you could blame on hormones.
She left the master bedroom and went into the adjoining room, her three-months-old baby's nursery. She lit up a small lamp near the door so she could see without hurting the child's eyes, and leaned forward above the crib to pet her belly, hands still shaking from the passion of her dream. The adorable infant squirmed once more, but calmed down almost instantly when she recognized her mother's scent and her light, soothing touch.
Teresa inhaled heavily to cool down and one look at her daughter's face was enough to help her regain her composure. She couldn't help her grin as she gathered the small body in her arms and hugged tightly, whispering reassuring and loving nonsense in her ear – using it as an excuse to comfort the child as much as herself.
She hadn't had that kind of a dream about Jane for a while now. They had vanished from the moment she'd learned she was pregnant, and her whole subconscious had been busy dealing with the frightening idea that she would soon be a mother.
She walked downstairs, careful not to trip, as always when she was carrying Elizabeth. She went in the kitchen and fixed the bottle, humming a song to keep the little one quiet while they waited, as she had quickly discovered was the best way to appease her daughter when she was hungry. She also did a pretty good job, she thought, at forcing her mind to focus solely on her daughter, avoiding the image of a certain blond man.
When Liz was fed, she cooed to express her contentment, and grabbed a couple of her mother's locks in her hands to admire it as she often did, giggling when some of the hair tickled her sensitive skin. Learning more about her child's character every day, Teresa knew now she wouldn't fall back asleep so soon after eating.
So she resolutely started to pace in the living room, tilting her hair to give her daughter better access to her curls, while talking to her in that silly voice she only ever used with the baby.
She looked down at Elizabeth's face, and saw the tiny girl was now staring at her with a furrowed brow. Even if at that age she was not in total control of her facial expressions, the three-months old seemed so focused on her mom's gaze that Teresa cracked another, bigger smile, and let herself fall in love all over again with her, giving back her adoration glance.
Liz's eyes were a dark, intense brown that almost seemed black – and reminded her of the childhood pictures of her husband. She was fascinated by how deeper this color made the baby's glance, as if it were an open gate on her bright, innocent little soul. Below what already looked exactly like Bill's nose, a few bubbles were escaping the pouty little mouth that often gave Teresa the feeling she might be looking into a mirror. She didn't have any real hair yet, but the light duvet on her head was as dark as Teresa's shade. That last fact made her oddly proud: anyone genetically connected to the Lisbons always had black hair. It was just the way of the world.
The former CBI agent sighed, thinking this overly cute human being was definitely the most beautiful thing in the whole world. And she knew that was a biased statement; still, she had never been so sure of something in her entire life.
When Elizabeth's eyelids got heavier, her mother briefly looked up from the baby's face, still walking, and her gaze fell on the bookcase near the old brown leather couch.
And immediately, the efforts she'd put intro tying to stop herself from thinking about their visitor from three months back were crushed. She stopped moving, and braced herself as she recognized the familiar and yet still shockingly strong pain growing in her heart.
She saw on the TV clock that it was almost 2 am, so, the silence upstairs assuring her that Bill was still asleep, she gently put her finally calm daughter in the carrier near the couch and tied her in it to use her hands freely.
She stood in front of the imposing piece of furniture and transferred a few books from one of the shelves onto the sofa, uncovering a wooden box from behind them. She took it out almost solemnly, sat down on the comfortable cushions, and simply stared at it for a full minute.
A loud sigh coming from Elizabeth's asleep mouth made her jump and she hurried to make sure the baby wasn't chocking on something – even though she had burped her and there were no small objects near her she could have grabbed. Satisfied when she saw she was alright, Teresa went back to her previous position.
She mentally encouraged herself to come out of her torpor, telling herself that she had faced way worse things, in her life, than a stupid box. Eventually, she opened it. She felt her eyes filling with tears while her hands automatically ran, lightly, across the numerous envelopes it contained. All addressed to her in Patrick Jane's elegant handwriting, all of them still intact and closed.
She found the very first one Jane had ever sent her at the bottom of the pile, and let her mind wander back to the day she'd received it, about two years ago.
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Teresa Lisbon, on vacation. Now that's unusual, she thought bitterly.
But then again these days, nothing really felt usual anymore.
It was 10 am, she had just gotten back from the local market to her hotel, and sighed as she got into her room. She had bought fresh strawberries to cheer herself up, and only realized it was a stupid idea when she got to bite into one of them. Great. Another good thing tainted with his memory.
It had been two months since the Red John incident, and the CBI had been destroyed.
Her office, her team, her job, her habits... hell, her life. Everything had crumbled in a matter of days. The CBI reputation and that of every single one of its agent had been ruined in the media and the public opinion, some of their faces or names had even been showed on TV in the weeks following the event.
And then, slowly but surely, everyone had found a way to heal: Rigsby and Van Pelt, the happy married couple, had decided they would start their own company so they could find an ideal compromise between working in some kind of law enforcement and still extend their family, whereas Cho was obviously thinking about joining the FBI. Most of the CBI agents, much to Teresa's incredulity, had been trialed and were in jail because of their link to the Blake association, and the remaining ones were following either one of the former SCU's members' path.
Everyone had moved on with their life. Except her. She'd been crushed by all of this in so many senses of the word it was almost funny.
First of all, she had been the one in charge of a suspiciously long – for an outsider's eyes like the arrogant and condescending Agent Abbott – investigation about one of the worst serial killers of California, that had uncovered a whole organization of corrupted cops through the state. Her name and face had, therefore, been more public than anyone else's everywhere the story was mentioned, and she had been professionally murdered by it all: people were either sure that she was a member of the Association herself, or that she was the most incompetent cop in the country for never realizing who her coworkers really were.
And her former subordinates had had a few other considerable advantages on her: they were officially just following her orders all along – the version of the story she had convinced them to tell to protect their careers; Rigsby and Van Pelt had each other to rely on when times had been hard, and Cho had his usual emotionally detached attitude to hold on to. She had protected her second family as best as she had seen possible, even though the price she had to pay for it was almost unbearable, and that was the only positive thing in this whole mess.
Secondly, there was Jane. Patrick Jane. The man who had done… Exactly what he'd always claimed he would, and what she had swore she would prevent him from doing. The insufferable pain in her ass that had increased her paperwork duty so much she hadn't been able to go home at a reasonable hour for all the years they'd worked together. The fake psychic that, for some reason, everyone thought she was sleeping with, which now made her seem both stupid and unprofessional to the ones who didn't know her personally – and that covered a lot of people.
Strangers outside of law enforcement only either despised or pitied her for her unclear bound to the handsome blond, and for the way he'd publicly killed someone and immediately left the country without looking back.
This was and would forever be the biggest failure of her existence.
But she wasn't really mad at him. He had warned her, repeatedly over the years, that he wanted his revenge more than anything.
So what if she had thought he'd changed, for her, for the team, until and even beyond that horrible night he'd left her in the middle of nowhere after picking her pockets to get her phone? So what if she'd thought he trusted her, after she'd helped him in his quest all these years, and since he knew she was genuinely changing her mind about that killer? She had grown to be the closest person to him, closer than anyone else still alive. She should have known better.
And she knew that Jane had had to leave, of course. She wasn't naive, at least not in that regard.
But she definitely was in the way she had fallen in love with him, and even more so when it had taken her sick mind until after he'd left her in such a complicated new life, to consciously and fully admit it to herself.
She hated herself for all of that, God, she hated herself! She would have slapped the hell out of the pathetic woman she'd become, if the pain her shattered heart caused her every waking hour and in every Jane-related nightmare she got, hadn't already been killing her.
Because she couldn't stop herself from thinking about him, worrying about his well-being, his whereabouts, wondering if he was even alive… And she usually stopped there, because she knew she couldn't go down that road without going insane.
So she had distanced herself from her former friends, colleagues, and the city she'd lived in for so long. She knew she might as well be dead to California law enforcement, and she hadn't been able to stand the concerned looks of her former teammates when each of them had suggested that she'd move on with them. Cho, stoic and impassible Cho, had even joked that he would need help to get his revenge on the way Abbott had treated them when he'd be working for the Bureau.
But she was Teresa Lisbon. She was stubborn, and she couldn't accept anybody's help even when she knew it was obvious that she needed it; so she'd declined all of these offers.
She had sold her apartment and put most of her belongings into storage, including Jane's couch – it was all she had left of him. She'd decided to go somewhere secluded, somewhere safe where she would have time to heal or at least try to get better after that fiasco. And somewhere that absolutely didn't involve her being a part of the police. She wasn't ready for that yet.
She'd ended up in Cannon River in Washington, and she'd been staying at the Old Lumberjack Hotel for about a month and a half now. The environment was as peaceful and quiet as she needed, far away from what her life had been ever since her late childhood.
She didn't have a job, didn't really live here, and she only had a suitcase and her credit cards with her. Well, and her Glock. Of course. Just because she wasn't a cop anymore, didn't mean she had to be careless.
So far, life was... nice. People didn't know of her here, and most of them were friendly, even if something was so obviously off with that skinny-and-getting-skinnier, depressed stranger.
An elder lady named Margaret that Lisbon met on one of her first trip to the local market had actually told her, after thanking her for carrying her bags to her car, that she'd been right to move here and it was the "ideal place to heal a wounded heart". That and the little pat on her shoulder had caught Teresa completely unguarded, but she had nodded nonetheless and said goodbye.
As it turned out, Margaret was the gossip queen of the neighborhood, which meant that first interaction probably had a lot to do with the polite smiles Lisbon often received and the rarity of people's inquiries about her private life. And she was oh so grateful to the old woman for that.
Teresa let out a deep sigh and, suddenly feeling a little sick to her stomach, put the yet delicious treat aside on her bed.
She reflexively grabbed her cross in her left hand, running her fingers on the cold metal, and looked up in the mirror facing her. She frowned a little when she met her reflection: she really had lost some weight, she was paler than ever, and her cheeks were emaciated enough to make her eyes bigger and the pain in them stronger.
Thinking of Nora Lisbon, who she had inherited the piece of jewelry from, she realized her mother would probably disapprove of this self-pitying attitude and would tell her that there was no way the strong girl she had raised would ever behave like that. She smiled sadly and whispered an apology. She knew this wasn't like her. But she didn't know what else to do now.
She took a deep breath and stilled forthright. There was a weird.. smothering smell in the air. Her eyes widened as her mind caught up with reality. Smoke.
She jumped on her feet and got out of her room at the exact moment someone activated the fire alarm somewhere in the building. She got out as fast as she could and found most of the other hotel's occupants on the street, watching the flames spread from the third floor where it had started, to the left side of the hotel. The owner, Al, called the fire department and instructed everyone to stay where they were waiting for them.
That's when they heard a loud female scream inside, coming from near the source of the fire. Before she could help herself, the Agent Lisbon in her gained the upper hand and she ran back into the hotel, forgetting that she was physically a lot weaker than she used to be, and that she had absolutely no training for that kind of a situation. Which she only remembered once she was inside the building.
She shushed her fear, ran up the still standing staircase and could finally see a teenage girl lying on the steps between the second and third floor, unconscious.
Teresa tried to ignore the heat and held the top of her shirt in front of her nose and mouth to avoid inhaling too much smoke. She opened her eyes as little as she could, still feeling inflammation-induced tears running down her cheeks, and tried to carry the motionless body in front of her. She was amazed when her thin self proved strong enough to succeed, and even though it took everything she had, she managed to bring the girl out on the sidewalk before collapsing beside her when they finally reached the outside light.
She closed her eyelids for what only felt like a second.
When she came to, she was half-lying on a gurney with an oxygen mask on her face and an EMT was making sure she was ok. Quite a few people had gathered around the damaged hotel now that the fire had been put out, and she noticed a lot of people looking at her, obviously worried for her health. She stopped examinating her surroundings when she noticed the paramedic was trying to get her to listen to him.
"Oh, sorry I.. How long was I out?"
"About a minute. You likely fainted because of the stress you put your body through and the excessive heat in there. And assuming you didn't eat anything this morning, before, you know, running into a fire, I guess I could add hypoglycemia into the mix?" Teresa nodded, embarrassed, and the man smiled in a condescending way at her, shaking his head. "Right. I'm going to have to ask you a few questions, they will seem silly, but humor me."
She nodded again and had to prevent her eyes from rolling as the man asked her where she was, what day of the week this was, if she remembered her name… And a thousand other silly interrogations. Finally, he reassured her and told her her mental state seemed alright.
Could have told you that myself, she thought, but didn't say anything.
"I checked your throat while you were unconscious and luckily you didn't inhale a dangerous amount of smoke" he continued. "You still have to keep the oxygen mask for a few more minutes as a precaution, but other than that and the scratches on your elbows and knees you got when you fell out here, I'm confident you'll be just fine. You might want to take it easy for a few days, and go to the ER as soon as possible if you experience any difficulty to breath. Would you like some water to wash your face?" He asked, and handed her a mirror when she looked confused.
She barely recognized her features in the black, dirty face staring back at her. She looked down and saw her clothes were intact, but covered in soot, too. Well, at least I saved someone's...
"How's the girl?" Teresa inquired suddenly, worried, her looks forgotten.
"Quite the hero we got here, huh?" Interrupted a sharp, military and disapproving tone behind the doc who was about to answer. "She's fine."
Curiously, it didn't sound like good news coming from his mouth.
"Of course, she would have been just as fine if you hadn't tried to do our job in our place" he added. The voice belonged of a tall fireman with cold blue eyes, probably the head of the division, who was looking at her as if she deserved jail time for what she'd done.
Lisbon had been behaving very unlike her old self lately, wallowing in self-pity and mostly avoiding interacting with other people.
But today, for some reason, her SCU leader personality decided she would not let anyone, ever, talk to her like that. She was not to be despised by that self-righteous jerk. One look at the paramedic's pursed lips told her he didn't like the other man either.
"Well, someone had to", she spat at him. "You weren't here, and that poor girl was trapped in the fire! If you're waiting for me to apologize for dragging an unconscious child outside of a burning building, you'll be waiting a long time. I'm not sorry for saving her life."
Everyone in a close perimeter stopped talking and looked at them when they picked up on the sharpness of her tone.
Ok, she might have pushed a little too far. But she was exhausted, depressed, and she'd just put her now fragile body through a lot. She could think about manners later.
The tough man in front of her reacted in the only way she hadn't imagined. He laughed. Like, really laughed, loudly, for a full minute, his hands to his chest and his knees bending a little as if he'd just heard the best joke of his life. Lisbon stoically glared at him, hiding her curiosity behind a mask of pure hate, and wondering if the guy wasn't just crazy.
"Mason!" he finally called between two bursts. "Come here and tell that woman how useful her intervention was, will you?" He walked away, still laughing, as another fireman came in view.
She followed him with her eyes, more and more confused by the minute by the jackass's attitude. No one else seemed to share the Officer's hilarity, but some people smiled at Lisbon with something akin to pity.
His subordinate finally stood in front of her.
Tall too, although shorter than his boss, he had taken off his helmet to reveal straight light-brown strands and was looking at her with nice caramel-colored eyes. She bit back whatever mean thing she was about to say, for that one didn't look like a complete moron.
His actions upheld that first impression. He gave the curious crowd staring at them a firm, no-nonsense look that reminded her a lot of herself, and the mass instantly dissipated. He then shook her hand with respect, and his tone was definitely more apologetic than patronizing when he spoke.
"Hello ma'am, my name's William Mason" he said. "What my boss tried to, uh, tell you was that… Well, you didn't actually carry that girl out." He smiled softly, apparently amused but unwilling to make fun of her.
She would have appreciated his tactful approach any other day, but this was really getting on her nerves.
"Yes, I did" she stubbornly argued, angrily letting go of his hand.
"Trust me, you didn't" he said again. "You tried to, sure, and you didn't lack determination, I have to give you that. But when I got in there, you were barely able to put our lucky friend's arm around your shoulder... You didn't see or hear me, so I just came near you two and grabbed her other side, then I dragged both of you out. That's when you.. passed out."
She frowned and looked as deeply as she could in his eyes, using her old police tricks to try to know if she could trust that odd story. He answered that question for her when he continued.
"I'm sorry about Sullivan's behavior, you know" he nodded towards where his boss had gone. "He likes rules, that's what makes him so good at this job. But even if you really should have stayed on the street, it was no reason to talk to you like that."
The firmness and obvious displeasure at his superior in his voice intrigued and flattered her. Then he opened his mouth and surprised her again.
"Although in his defense, I think he took you for a random civilian instead of the CBI Agent you are."
Once again she just stared at him, startled. Had she gone mute in the last minute? But she didn't know what to say to that.
How the hell did that man know about her former job? Did that mean he'd followed the news about the case? What would he think of her then? Oh God, she'd have to move somewhere else before anyone else would recognize her...
She shielded herself but before she could ask him anything, she caught sight of his honest, suddenly shy eyes that still held her defying gaze and let him continue.
"It's an honor to meet you, Agent... Lisbon, was it? I heard about you. I don't to pry and I don't know the whole story, but I think we all owe you one for getting rid of that serial killer."
And then he almost ran away, before she could finally talk, when one of his colleagues called his name from the part of the hotel that mainly consisted of debris now.
A couple of hours later, after she'd taken a shower in the new room she'd gotten in another hotel, the fire department called her and let her know that they'd retrieved her stuff from her former room – luckily located on the intact side of the structure – and she was requested there to get them back and talk to the arson police.
Once she was back where the fire had taken place, she was able to learn a little more about the events by talking to witnesses and other occupants. Fortunately, everyone had gotten out in time and even if Lily, the girl she'd 'saved', was still at the hospital, her life wasn't endangered. Her father hugged Lisbon tightly after thanking her, tears in his eyes, and she had to fight not to let the pain she felt showing. This kind of interaction was familiar, associated with the pride she used to feel when she'd closed a case at the CBI, and living it again so soon was like pouring salt on an open wound.
She answered the investigators' questions and had just learned from them that the fire was almost certainly accidental, when she spotted that Mason firefighter talking to another detective.
Lisbon was done before he was, and for some reason when he smiled and waved at her, she almost giggled. Now that the adrenaline had washed out of her system and she was able to form coherent thoughts, she realized that man was definitely good-looking, and he seemed to like what he saw when he looked at her, too.
"Miss Lisbon", he greeted her, that same sweet smile in place. "Nice to see you again."
"Please, Mr Mason, call me Teresa", she politely answered. "Lisbon's what my colleagues... used to call me. It's very nice to see you again, too."
He'd obviously seen the pain in her eyes as she'd mentioned her former job, but he didn't say anything. Instead he seemed to try to gather his courage, and blushed a little.
"Okay, then you'll have to call me Bill, or at least William. I'm really glad I ran into you I, er... I was actually wondering if, maybe, you were available right about.. now? For lunch, I mean. With me..." He paused. "Unless there's another burning building you would like to pass out in first?"
The joke partially erased the nervousness of his invitation and she let out an honest burst of laughter, surprised at herself. Her life and her mind were a mess, but here she was, laughing as a charming man was asking her out.
She ignored the voice in her head telling her that his hair and eyes were a little too dark, his shoulders a little too developed and his emotions a lot too easily readable for him to be the man she really wanted to go on a date with.
That one wasn't there, after all.
"Hey, I passed out in front of the building, not inside it! Anyway no, that's only part of my morning work out session," she playfully said, "I'm free as a bird."
The grin he showed at that, and kept as they walked to a place nearby, sent an almost alien heat through her veins. It was partly arousal, partly a timid start at affection.
Their late lunch flew by, and when Lisbon glanced outside, tearing her eyes away from her companion's for what felt like the first time since they'd sat down, she let out a small gasp. It was night time already! How hadn't she noticed that?
"Is everything alright?" William asked, concerned.
She didn't answer right away, so he lightly touched her wrist, lying on the table near his fingers. She barely concealed her jump, but effectively prevented a small cry from escaping her lips as she withdrew her hand, her attention fully back at him now. She noticed he was worried but didn't seem hurt at her movement.
"Sorry" she whispered. "I just wasn't expecting it to be this late", she explained louder, hoping this would get him to look somewhere else and make the awkwardness of the situation go away.
He tilted his head, not understanding what she meant, so she pointed at his watch and at the window.
Teresa chuckled, then really exploded with laughter when William almost chocked on his beer, as shocked as she'd been that they'd spent so much time together. She got up and went on his side of the diner booth to tap on his back and make sure he was alright, still not controlling her hilarity, and he joined her when he could breathe again. She didn't know why, but her small hand didn't leave his back even after he didn't need it anymore.
They finally calmed down, and apologized to the other customers for the outburst. Then she looked back at his face, noticing how close they were to each other, and how serious he suddenly grew. She thought about getting up and away from him, but he gently caught the fingers still on his T-shirt and held them in his bigger palm before she could do it.
"Teresa..." she shivered, with both desire and the sharp discomfort that he couldn't pronounce her name the exact way she liked to hear it. "I had a lovely time, if a little longer than expected" he continued, encouraged by her reaction. "But as much as I enjoy your company, I'm on call tonight. I have to go. I... I would really like to see you again, say, tomorrow night? Or any other day, really."
The sparkle in his gaze, the charm he didn't seem to know he had and the sincere emotions coming directly from his mouth, echoing the ones she felt herself, made her heart beat a little faster. But she hesitated.
She'd learned a lot about him in the last few hours, had discovered he really was the great man her guts had told her he would be, and she wanted to go out with him a second time. Still, she was glad that he would be on call tonight: she needed some alone time to think about all this.
She'd shared a lot about her own life, too, had even mentioned the fact that she missed her job and she'd like to go back to law enforcement eventually, and she hadn't been able to avoid talking about Jane a little. She hadn't said anything clearly, but she had finally admitted to herself that her feelings for her consultant were transparent when she was telling their cases stories.
I should have recorder myself talking about him years ago, she'd thought, it would have saved us both a lot of trouble.
But with that proposition, she had to make sure the cat was really out of the bag. She took a deep breath.
"William, I admit this afternoon was the most fun I've had in ages. Thank you for that. And I'd love for it to happen again, but before... I'm sorry, I just want to make sure you understand the situation." She steeled herself and looked at her lap. "I'm in love with someone."
She tried to ignore the odd mix of pain, relief, and sense of wrong that she was finally saying the words out loud to a stranger, when the object of her affection hadn't ever heard them. She glanced up warily at William, and was taken aback by the pure compassion she could read in his chestnut eyes. He smiled sadly, and nodded so she would go on.
"It's, well, it's never going to lead to anything with him, so I'm not saying that I'm taken or anything. Only, even if it was never his intention, he hurt me many times and the last one still… stings."
She felt her eyes fill with tears but forced those away. She may be in a dark place right now, but Teresa Lisbon would not cry in front of anyone. She cleared her throat.
"I'm trying to tell you that I don't know if I can offer anything more than friendship. Now, if your offer still stands after hearing that, then I'd be delighted to go out with you. And if it doesn't…"
"Okay, enough rambling," he interrupted and she shut up, a little surprised.
He had told her he'd been a soldier in his earlier years, and that that was were he'd gotten a strict tone, useful in his actual field of work. He smiled to soften his next words.
"We've talked for a long time today, and I told you things I don't usually tell strangers. Because I like you. And I promise it only has very little to do with the fact that you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, even when your whole face was covered in soot."
They both smiled, and she blushed at the compliment.
"I appreciate you being honest with me, and of course my offer still stands. I'd love for us to become friends. Now let's go, I'll walk you to your hotel and go to work. Alright?"
Teresa's heart beat faster again, and she just nodded, feeling drained after all the talking, and a bit numb too. He walked her to her hotel as he'd said, and leaned to kiss her cheek. She shuddered, at least sixty percent out of mere appreciation, and returned the favor once she overcame her slight discomfort at the idea of her lips touching his skin.
After promising her he'd be careful on the job, he left.
She went inside her room and found two envelopes on the desk, with a note on top. "Today's mail. See you around – Al". She smiled. The hotel manager reminded her of Cho a lot: never showing any emotion, never using too many words.
She texted Bill to stay safe even if he'd just assured her he would, finding herself really worried that he could get hurt. It was an old fear, too, that she'd first felt back when her father was a firefighter – before her mother's accident. To distract herself from sad thoughts, she took both letters in her hands and sat down. The first one was from her brother James who was on vacation, the second one...
"Oh, God" she whispered.
She looked at it from every angle, before finally believing it: it was Jane's handwriting! He had sent her a letter?! She held it in her shaking left hand, about to open it with the right, when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and saw William had texted her back.
For ten minutes, she didn't move an inch.
She looked at the letter, and thought about her past life and Jane. A letter, that was all she would ever get from him. He was a criminal on the run after all, and she couldn't even answer him. This letter meant he was alive, or had been during the past months at least, and she knew he wouldn't be asking her for anything material. If there was a man able to hide from the US government after killing someone in such a public manner as he had done and need no help doing so, it was definitely Patrick Jane.
He didn't need her help, which meant this was probably a thank you, or even – if she dared hope for it – an apology letter. Both things she would have loved to hear from Jane, but in person. And that wasn't going to happen, now was it?
Then she glanced at her phone, at the little envelope icon with William's name next to it. William who was here, a phone call away, who wanted to make her feel better no matter what it meant for them. She'd trusted him so easily, and he didn't seem to care about her messed up past – well, what he knew of it so far.
She made her decision.
Stop worrying Teresa, I'm good at what I do. I'm so good I even get the pretty girls out of the fire and then convince them to have lunch with me ;) Get some rest, I'll see you tomorrow.
She smiled and put the untouched letter back on the table before getting ready for an early night.
For the first time in months, her dreams weren't all bad. And they weren't all about Jane, either.
.
Teresa Mason sighed and looked at her sleeping daughter again.
She didn't regret her decision because now she had that little life to protect and worship, and it was the most amazing, all-consuming, yet simple feeling she'd ever had for anyone. It reminded her of what she'd felt for her brothers from the moment she'd become the parent in the house, only thousands times stronger.
But she could finally acknowledge that she had, knowingly and willingly, closed the door on Jane that night, without ever opening it completely.
She'd gone out with Bill, who was funny and cute even if he was a little awkward sometimes, and even if her heart wasn't completely into it all – not at first. The hanging out had soon turned into real dates, and the kisses on her cheek into nights spent in his arms; so, the more letters she'd received, the more wrong it had felt to even consider reading them. She was afraid it would just send her back to that cold, dark place she'd been after Red John's death.
She was finally feeling a little better; what kind of a woman would she have been, yearning for one man who was away and who had hurt her countess times, when she had the sweetest boyfriend taking care of her?
So she'd just put the envelopes away in a box, and ignored the excitement and guilt she felt every time a new one arrived. She'd told herself that no matter what he could be talking about on paper, he wouldn't come back. That he was every woman's dream, especially now that he was free of his demons, and that he never loved her as much as she'd loved him, not in the sense she had fallen for him anyway. She was convinced that he would forget about her eventually…
But she had been wrong, he'd come back not so long ago. And he'd looked so real, so charming, so sad, too… So much like her Jane.
She needed to know what the hell he'd written that was worth risking his freedom for, by sending out letters to her even as he was in hiding, and by eventually coming back to her. She gently tore the envelope and got the first letter out, the only sounds in the room being her fingernails scratching the paper as she unfolded it.
She read that one avidly. Then she read the second one, and the third, the fourth.. and every single one she'd ever gotten in the past two years, feeling her heart break a little more with every line her best friend had written to her from his secluded island. Teresa wasn't stupid, and she knew him by heart. She could read between the lines, and even if she knew it was wrong, she couldn't help the crazy grin she felt on her lips as realization slowly dawned on her. He loved her too.
The last letter, dated from shortly before Jane had shown up here, hang from her hands as she remembered his visit a few months back.
How his eyes had shone so brightly when he'd seen her face, how he'd looked at her and Bill, so happy together, and the way he'd mumbled his congratulations before saying he had to go, that he'd just wanted to check on her 'for old times' sake'.
Then he had reverently, lovingly even, touched her belly when the two of them had stood alone at the door, making her glance at his hands and realize he wasn't wearing a ring anymore.
She thought back to the words he'd whispered while looking into her eyes and stroking her bump, talking to either her or her unborn child so low she wasn't sure she hadn't made it up.
"I wish you a happy life", he'd said. He had left immediately without looking back, and as soon as she'd closed the front door and put her hand where the warmth of his still subsided, she had felt the hot, transparent liquid running down her thighs and the sudden sharp pain of incoming labor in her pelvis and lower back.
Teresa slowly put all the letters back in their envelopes and let the regrets and melancholy win her over, tears falling silently down her face, until her eyes met the golden ring on her finger.
She played with it almost by reflex. She was married to Bill, who had become so much more than just a nice guy she had settled for, long before he'd proposed to her – and she would never have said yes otherwise. He was her husband, and him and their daughter were the two real treasures in her life.
She shook her head and resolutely put all of the memories, mental and paper ones, back into the box that she hid again. Then she got up, carefully took Elizabeth out of the carrier and went upstairs to tuck her in her crib.
She got back to her bedroom and slid under the covers, feeling Bill's arm automatically coming around her waist to keep her close. She shivered and, in spite of her former reasoning, felt fresh tears filling her eyes all over again.
It was a long time before she fell asleep that night, and all she dreamed about was what would have happened if only that first letter had arrived one single day sooner…
.
.
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I hadn't planned to continue the story, but this happened. I love the Lisbon character a bit more than the Jane character, but that doesn't mean I hate him, so I didn't want him to be the only one suffering or feeling like he's missed his chance.
I have no idea if/when there will be a third chapter, I kind of like it that way for now.
Tell me what you think :)