A/N: Sorry for making you wait again!
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
'Light years away'
Chapter 8
He felt like visiting her house all of a sudden. Soon, it would all be cleaned up so that it could be sold in the near future.
His fingertips touched every surface, every piece of fabric, feeling her flowing through him, as it were. This place was so… her. It fit everything she was. He felt at home here.
But then he entered her bedroom, and saw the crime scene still hadn't been cleaned up.
For the first time since he had joined the CBI, he felt like throwing up, but he managed to keep it in, and focused on the scene.
It was obvious where Pike had died – there were still dried up blood stains on the carpet. Strangely, nothing else was messed with; no lamps knocked over, no pillows thrown to the other side of the room. Aside from the blood on the carpet, the room was clean.
He walked around the room, observing everything. He walked into the adjacent bathroom, and that was when he spotted the little dustbin next to the toilet. He peeked inside.
"Oh, that bastard."
He got out his phone and dialed Cho's number.
"Cho, I need your help."
~…~
"But how would you know for sure that Lisbon didn't throw it away herself?"
"She hardly knew the guy! Why would she think about having children already?"
Cho frowned at him.
"Aren't you just jealous?"
"No. I know her. She wouldn't do this."
The team stared at him, then at the packs of pills and condoms he had forcefully thrown on the table minutes before.
"I don't think it's enough, Jane. I'm sorry. We just can't prove that Pike threw it away and even then, we can't link it to the emotional abuse. I'm so sorry."
"There has to be something! Come on! She can't go to prison for thirty-five years!"
'I love her too much for that!' he wanted to add but he swallowed the words just in time.
"I think that there's nothing we can do, Jane."
Jane let out a frustrated sigh.
"Do you want me to bring you home?" Cho offered. Jane nodded, giving in. He didn't feel like doing anything right now. He had given himself false hope and had to face the consequential disappointment now.
"Wait," he whispered, then coughed to raise his voice. "Can you bring me to Lisbon's house?"
Cho nodded. "Of course."
~…~
He knew he should feel uncomfortable being in her house like this. He shouldn't even be here to begin with.
He wandered through the house for umpteenth time. Touching every surface again. Swallowing her soul into his.
He got out a bottle of wine from her rack, not such an expensive one, already feeling guilty for taking that one. He poured himself a glass, sipping it to taste.
Hm. She had great taste.
He sat down on the couch, lifting the glass to his lips. He looked around him, seeing the nice plasma TV in the big white closet. Little boxes were stored in the spots underneath the TV behind glass.
He frowned. One of the lids seemed to have been lifted recently, and it wasn't placed back properly.
He took it out, lifting the lid – and felt tears burning in his eyes as he looked at its contents.
His letters.
She had kept them.
"Oh, Teresa," he sighed. He brought them with him to the couch, took another sip of the wine and started reading them. And he was brought back to a time where things had been better, or at least slightly better, especially for her.
Right in that moment, he wished he'd confessed his feelings for her in those letters. It would have saved both of them a lot of trouble.
~…~
He lay in her bed that night, feeling much more comfortable there than he ever had at his own 'home', but he still couldn't sleep.
He called himself a genius. He should be able to fix this, think of a way to get her out. Back at the CBI, he had managed to have a 100% closing rating, having solved every single one of the cases he was served. Yet he couldn't solve this one.
He got up in the middle of the night, searching the house once again. He must be missing something, he must be.
He found a laptop, but it was locked. He called Grace, dodging her questions about Lisbon and cutting right to the chase.
"I have a laptop here. I think there might be something on it that can help Lisbon, but it's locked. How do I open it?"
He followed her instructions carefully, and heaved a sigh when he finally cracked it.
He quickly scanned he files on the computer, and he was starting to lose hope of finding something important on it, until he came across a string of emails, talking about…
Wait.
No. No!
The emails described how and when Lisbon would be brought to Washington DC, only to be snatched from there and brought further on a plane to Mexico. Was this human trafficking? And if it was, why would she first have to go to Washington DC and then to Mexico? It didn't make sense, but it looked real. Was it too good to be true?
For the umpteenth time, he called Cho, only now realizing he was waking all of his friends in the middle of the night.
"I think I finally got something."
A/N: I know this chapter made no sense at all but this is probs the most difficult chapter I've written so far. I couldn't think of a way to aid to Lisbon's cause so I just made stuff up and made it sound reasonably logic? I don't know if I succeeded, you'll be the judge of that. Let me know, please! And kudos to you if you had guessed that Pike wasn't so sweet after all! (I still love Pike, tho. Just not for this story.)