Title:Another world
Author:Little_firestar84
Rating: T (to be on the safe side)
Characters: Patrick Jane, Teresa Lisbon
Summary: They call it the butterfly effect. Just one small, random adjustment, and all changes. And here there is, another world. A world where his daughter has never been, his late wife is an ex and he is still a psych. And yet, few things just can't change. Some things are written in the stars, just like love at first sight.
Disclaimer: Uhm. well, my father is called Bruno, but since it's Negro and not Heller, I'd say tha t I don't own the rights to the Mentalist.
Notes: Extented version of "In this life", published around mid-September.
thanks to Guest (whoever you are), MNoonserenity089, Sorchauna, Aania71, House Ever, 666bloodyhell666, Teresa L Jane, and Irisun: your kind words and encouragement provided the nevessary energy for this chapter. and also: Reig, the "Rick" reference wasn't for Castle, I just wanted a different nickname for Jane. I thought that, a childhood friend, wouldn't call his with his full name pr with his surname, and Rick was the nearest thing. BUT the othere things you found? Yes, from Castle, who "appears" in my Mentalist story, What Castle wrote...
So, you'll be goo, and you got a brand new chapter BUT either you give me as many reviews as with last chapter (at least) or I'll be a very bad girl and I'll not update... and you want to know how it will end, right?
4/8
Minelli had asked her to join him in his office as soon as she had arrived, and, Lisbon had to admit, the thing quite worried her.
It wasn't like she and her boss didn't talk, because they did- maybe even too much, she was after all, like he often said, the closest thing he had to family, he wasn't only her mentor, he was a surrogate father figure of sort too - but she knew Virgil Minelli better than she did herself. She knew when there was a trouble. And his tone, it was screaming all bad things about troubles.
She wondered, as she politely said hello to Henrietta, Virgil's assistant, what it was all about. Was it about the Lane investigation? She knew that rules told she was supposed to deem it a cold case, but she didn't have the necessary strength to send it to the vault. Doing so would be admitting that her mother's murderer was living happily ever after, and she couldn't do it. Not if she wanted to keep being Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon. She wasn't going to become some sort of Punisher, a modern-day, female Lone Ranger.
She sat outside her superior and mentor's office, waiting for the "hail hitcher" to join him, and, out of boredom, and also because of her training, she looked with the corner of her eyes at Henrietta: she was acting more weirdly than usual.
"Etta" was probably just few years younger than Virgil Minelli himself, and, as far as Lisbon knew, she had always been so much in (unrequired) love with him that she had never left his side, despite the many occasions of brand new, flashy positions and carrier making spots (and romance). She had always said no, to both new jobs and other men lusting after her, a beautiful woman 20 or so years prior when she had first joined Minelli, and she had never regretted her decision, even if she knew that her love was unrequired, even if he had always been oblivious to her feelings, and had gotten married twice in the years in between.
Today, though, the "plain Jane" Etta was acting in a strange way. She seemed rather flirty, like she was trying to impress someone, to look younger and less average. AND she had never done so with Virgil. Many years prior (and now again), he had been a married man, and as much as she was in love with him, she couldn't fathom the idea of breaking a marriage, ruining a family.
Lisbon was almost asking her what the hell was wrong with her, when Virgil himself opened the door to let her in.
A look alone told her that there was indeed something wrong with him, even if she wasn't so sure any longer it was about a case. He looked sorry and apologetic, kind of like a baby who tried to tell his mother that it was his imaginary friend who broke the cookie jar. This knowledge wasn't helping, though. She knew that when Minelli was troubled... the troubles were indeed big. Enormous.
She took a step inside the pristine room, not talking. She knew there was no real need to, he knew her well enough to understand what her look might mean. Some sort of, what the heck, boss?
"Lisbon, I want you to know that I didn't do it. The higher-ups took this decision for me, presenting us just the outcome without any chance of replying."
Yes, he really looked like Tommy after he had broken the cookie Jar.
"Sir, I don't understand..."
He closed his eyes, massaging the bridge of his nose. She was almost positive that he would start talking nonstop like a kid. But he didn't. He preferred being simply blunt, take off the heavy weight on his shoulders and chest. "Director Bertram assigned a consultant to your unit. Apparently, the guy is a genius, got a record closed case rate to every unit in the state he worked with, and now he has offered his services to the CBI, almost for free. But he has asked for you and you alone. He'll work with no one else, and Bertram thinks we can't give up this kind of publicity. Not after so many of our own have been arrested as moles of Red John."
She almost groaned in frustration. That was Bertram for them, all right. They barely had money for patrol cars, ammos and bulletproof vests, but given the chance of having good PR, he didn't know what saving money could mean. Why bother saving the lives of good agents and citizens of California, when he could look so good in one of his tailored suits?
He was definitely the kind of man who had married his way to the top. As in, getting married to a State Senator's daughter.
She took a big breath. Resigned. She already knew there was no war to fight, not when the director was concerned. "Well, I just hope I'll be able to handle this new consultant of us. You said he, right? Well, at least it's not some kind of dumb bimbo he met at some event, or a cocktail waitress he slept with during one of his travels to Vegas..."
"I don't know, Teresa. I'm aware I'm not a cocktail waitress from Vegas, but am I a dumb bimbo? I think you should tell me. You said something about knowing me oh so well, after all. I think, just a couple of days ago."
She was dead. She felt dead. Still motionless, without daring to take another step, she slowly turned, and here he was, sitting on the old, but comfy, brown couch in the corner.
The jerk was smiling again of his cat got the canary grin. Only, this time with reason.
"Mr. Jane" she hissed between clenched teeth.
" Oh, Teresa, I told you. You can call me Patrick. Or Rick, if you prefer. I don't mind, all my friends do."
"And I remember, Mr. Jane, telling you to call me Agent Lisbon. And that if I were to never see you face again, I wouldn't have minded."
"Yeah, well, you told me so just once, the first evening I got you flowers. I think you've become quite fond of me in the last couple of weeks, though." He was so smug and arrogant, she couldn't stand him. She... yes, he was sexy and hot and charming, but he was also a manipulative lying bastard. And that, she definitely didn't like.
"Mr. Jane, listen to me clearly: I am sick and tired of this game of yours, whatever it is. You think it's funny? I'll see who will laugh when you'll be denounced for stalking, and I'll have obtained..."
"A restrain order with our names on it? I know Teresa, you explained this to me just yesterday evening, when you slapped me in the face with the 14th bouquet of flowers. But let me ask you something: are you sure that the director will be very happy to know that the same consultant he hired can't work, because a fellow coworker denounced him for stalking and got a restrain order? I imagine that Gale wouldn't approve of your behavior, not when the two of you have as many issues as you do. He doesn't like people who don't think about his political connections, the repercussions of involving rich and powerful individuals in investigations, nor women who don't fall naked at his feet, for what it matters. I gather you are part of all 3 groups, right?"
She grunted, in a very not so lady-like manner, but he couldn't stop grinning, because here they were, those flames who kept him awake at night, that doomed him as her humble servant as soon as their eyes met over two weeks before. He couldn't believe she hadn't understood he was lost and hers as soon as she had looked into his eyes. If she had asked him to behave like a normal person, to woo her like any other man would have, he would have done as she asked.
"The only good thing coming from this... whatever it is to you, Mr. Jane, is that I'll get to denounce you for sexual harassment instead of stalking!"
She blushed as she said sexual. It didn't matter that she had said it with a negative connotation , it seemed that her brain could only register the first 3 letters, sex. All she could think about, all she saw with her mind's eye, it was the two of them, naked and tangled, sweaty and satisfied as he kept pleasuring her even after the fact with every part of his gorgeous body.
And she didn't even like him. (That much. Well, she had never been that idiot, or blind, for what it mattered, to deny that he was sexy.)
He immediately got her thought, more than satisfied that she, at least, lusted after him. He looked at her like she was just a child who was trying to get the upper hand in something. He shook his head, clearly amused by the whole situation, tsk-ing her again and again, like he knew everything about her and her world. Just because he had found out on Google that her name was Teresa it didn't mean he knew her. Not at all. If he did, he would have stopped harassing her day one, he would have never showed up at her work's doorstep for two weeks, with a different kind of flowers every night. Getting every night the same answer.
"If you didn't want me, you'd never deny the attraction so much, Teresa. According to my personal experience, it's always who despises that, at the end, is the most valuable and happy buyer" he said, with amusement very clear in his voice. She didn't need to look at him to know that he was showing off a huge grin.
She suddenly felt his hot breath on her skin, she felt he was so close that she could have sworn that she had felt the softest touch of lips on the tender skin of her neck. When did he get so close? She didn't know. She was normally quite good at picking up details, due to her line of work and her chosen career, but apparently she wasn't so good at paying attention in this particular circumstance. Not, apparently, when the Mighty Jane was involved.
"You are up to something, Mr. Jane" she hissed his name with disgust, tempted to hit him there and then, the hell with consequences, with what the director would have done to her. "I know the ones like you. You are all about the long con. And I know this is just another act for you. What do you really want, Mr. Jane? Are you here because you are bored and you just want to have fun, or are you after a case? Are you trying to hide that you are involved in some investigation?"
He tsk-ed her again, again shaking his head like he was a disappointed parent or teacher, and yet again she felt rage rising in her. She remembered being a teenager, smaller than the other girls her age. People called her girly-girl, cute, they liked to mess with her hair, to suggest her to wear silly dresses, to try make-up. They believed her to be delicate, fragile, innocent, silly, naive and stupid, all because she was petite. She could see that Patrick Jane thought the same thing about her. Here he was, yet another person - another man - who underestimated her because she was petite, because she was a woman in a work line filled with big bad men. This was reason enough to hate him, she thought. Of course, many, many times, angry sex was the best sex ever, but she wasn't going to think about it. Not when the other party involved was Patrick "Con Artist" Jane.
"I told you, Teresa, all I want is a chance with you." he told her, sweet and yet luscious and erotic. It wasn't fair. No man should have been able to awake desire in women in such a way. Not when he was such a bastard. But then again, when a sexy and hot man had ever been Straight, respectable and honest too?
"I know you are lying, and I'll eventually prove it. You can't want me. Grace is a fan of yours, she reads all the magazines that talk about you. I've seen your type. Tall blondes, fake breasts, silly behavior, short to none dresses, all bimbos. You'd be too scared of a real woman to get so close to me, and trust me, I'm as real as they get."
He got so close, she thought he was going to kiss her, but he didn't. Instead, he whispered in her ear, leaving a trail of goose bumps on her whole body. "I don't know why you are so determined to not have not even a single dinner with me, Teresa, but I can assure you, one day you'll say yes." He smiled at her, and nodded in direction of Virgil as he left the office.
He was going to keep asking her out, every day if it was necessary. But he was going to get her. Because of his broken pride, to prove her wrong on all fronts, and because he wanted her.
He needed her, actually. Teresa, and those marvelous flames that made him remember how it felt to actually be alive. They... thrilled him. It was like when he had first started playing the role of the fake psych. The chasing and the fight had made him who he was, but he had never had any satisfaction, if not in the form of money. The thrill had been short-lived, soon replaced by boredom. Every show was the same show, after all. With her, though, he knew that it would be ever-lasting, that every day he would discover something new.
With her, he could finally be the better man, he could change his ways for her. Because, deep down, he knew that those eyes were the ones of his one and only.