Author's Note: Sorry for the delayed update. This chapter took me a while. Thank you for your reviews!
Disclaimer: Not mine.
CHAPTER 3: Surfaced
"I have never felt so relieved in my entire life." Grace smiled as she glanced across the room at Lisbon's hospital bed. Her anxious, worried expression that she had been wearing only moments ago had been painted over with a softer appearance. Her eyes flicked to Cho. "Does this mean she could wake up soon?"
Cho shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not."
"Seems like anything can happen at this point," Luke jumped in.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
They all heard someone's faint footsteps coming into Lisbon's room, and they turned. The nurse, Caroline, stood in the doorway, an apologetic smile on her face. "Visiting hours are over, guys. Time to go home." Her expression hardened, and she shot Jane a look. "That includes you."
Rigsby snickered.
Jane glanced over his shoulder at the woman in the hospital bed. Her chest was rising and falling steadily. It almost seemed like her eyelids were twitching. Jane briefly wondered if she was dreaming, and what she was dreaming about. A steaming cup of black coffee, perhaps?
Jane was so pleased to see Lisbon breathing on her own that he didn't even have the willpower to put up a fight with the nurse. Teresa would have wanted him to do what the nurse told him to. Lisbon had done what he asked, anyway. She was breathing. That was what he had wanted. It was the only thing he had asked of her, and she subconsciously obeyed.
"Okay," Jane agreed. He noticed that Caroline was a bit taken aback by how easily he had agreed to her request, and he chuckled. He rose from his squeaky hospital chair and waved at everyone before exiting the hospital room.
X
"Jane?"
His eyes fluttered open. His neck was throbbing. His back was tense and his legs were cramped up. One hand was placed behind his head and the other was dangling over the side of his makeshift bed. He was staring at the attic ceiling, groaning as he rolled over in the uncomfortable bed.
"Jane, you up here?"
Her voice was not angry nor irritated. It did not even seem stressed or panicked, as it did on a regular basis. It seemed... relaxed. Almost pleased.
She must have found it.
Her footsteps grew louder as she reached the top of the staircase. "Jane!" she called out once more, but he didn't answer her. He just smiled to himself.
She stopped when she reached the doorway, sighing. "Are you deaf?"
"I'm sorry. I was... thinking."
"Yeah? What about?"
He shrugged, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He eyed the silver chain that dangled from the palm of her right hand. She followed his gaze and blushed. "Is this from you?" she asked him as she uncurled her fingers to reveal the beautiful emerald necklace he had left on her desk.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Tell me the truth."
Jane chuckled, standing. He winced as he stretched his cramped legs. "You needed some cheering up."
"Why do you say that?"
He sighed. "Must you know every detail?" He nodded at the necklace in her small hand. "Like I have told you before, it looks lovely with your eyes."
Lisbon blushed again. "That is very sweet, Jane, but I can't accept it."
"Yes you can."
"I can, but I shouldn't."
"I want you to."
She smiled at him, looking down at the necklace again. "Thank you, Jane. It's beautiful."
"I'm glad you like it."
"I just wish you had given it to me, before everything happened."
He frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"I mean... what if I never get it?"
"Lisbon, what-"
"It's beautiful, Jane," she told him. Her voice was getting weaker, distant. She was growing pale. Jane was frozen. As much as he wanted to move, his legs wouldn't let him. His throat wouldn't open, wouldn't allow him to breathe.
"It is really, really beautiful," Teresa whispered.
Her fingers loosened their grip on the necklace and it fell to the floor. Lisbon's eyes flowed shut, her red lips parted, and she was falling.
This time, he reacted. He lunged for her. "Please! NO!"
He jerked awake with a gasp, hands trembling and breaths short. He had tossed and turned while he dreamt, and his sheets were now twisted and tangled around his legs and torso. He peeked over the side of the bed to see the comforter strung out across the floor. He must have kicked it off in his sleep.
Jane sat up, leaning his head back against the headboard and sighing.
He turned his gaze to the nightstand, where a small, white box sat next to the digital alarm clock. He reached over with shaky hands and picked it up, removing the top of the box and peering down at the emerald necklace that hung on a shiny silver chain.
A few weeks ago, he had decided that his hard-working boss needed something to cheer her up. After several days of deliberating and plotting and planning, he had decided to re-create the day he had given her the expensive emerald jewelry that he had bought with his casino winnings.
He had imagined how her face would light up when she saw it.
He pictured the way her cheeks would blush a brilliant rose color.
He waited too long. He was too late.
I will just have to give it to her when she wakes, he thought to himself, nodding and sliding down under the sheets again. "Because she will wake," he said aloud. "She will."
X
"Good morning, Mr. Jane," Caroline greeted him with a small smile as he walked into Lisbon's room. She was checking Lisbon's blood pressure and recording data on her clipboard.
He suppressed a groan. "Don't you nurses take shifts?"
She just rolled her eyes as she placed the earpieces to her stethoscope into her ears. "So grumpy," she murmured.
"How's she doing?" he asked, ignoring her last comment.
"Better," Caroline announced as she pressed the stethoscope to Lisbon's fragile heart. She smiled at him. "She's breathing."
He beamed before he could catch himself. "Yes, I heard."
She removed the earpieces from her ears and twisted in her chair to look at him. "You know, I'm sure she thinks about you just as much as you think about her," she offered, clearly trying to be helpful.
He shrugged. "She's asleep. She isn't thinking."
"Dreaming, I mean."
"If she's dreaming of anything, it's coffee."
"You underestimate yourself."
It was his turn to roll his eyes. "No, I think you just overestimate me."
"Perhaps."
Caroline rose from her chair, sighing sympathetically at the unconscious patient. She picked up her clipboard and brushed past Patrick as she left the room. Jane exhaled, relieved, and took Caroline's place in the chair next to Lisbon's bed. He glanced around him, confirming that there was no one in the room with him, and then he turned back to his boss. "Well, you have done what I've asked of you," he told her. "Thank you. For breathing, I mean."
No response. Of course there is no response.
"Everyone is so thrilled that you are breathing, Lisbon," he continued. "You should have seen Grace's face when the doctor gave us the news. I couldn't tell whether she was about to laugh or cry, and I don't think she could either." He grinned, remembering. He cleared his throat, glancing around cautiously again. I miss you, he wanted to say but didn't. He didn't say it because he was a coward, even if she couldn't hear him.
She knows, he decided.
The vibration of his phone made him jump, and he chuckled to himself. He fished the device from his pocket and flipped it open. "Grace."
"Hey, Jane," she chirped. Her attitude had become much more relaxed since Lisbon had begun breathing again. "We've got a homicide downtown. A pretty big one, too. Daughter of a Sac PD officer was kidnapped and killed a few days ago, and one of the officer's co-workers has been missing for four days."
"Sounds exciting."
"You're not coming?"
"Not today."
Grace sighed. "Jane. You can't keep missing work like this!"
"Call me if you need me." He hung up before she had a chance to argue with him. He glanced at the clock. It was only seven in the morning. He wondered when the Lisbon brothers would be here. They weren't exactly his biggest fans at the moment, James especially.
His stomach suddenly rumbled loudly, and he realized he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast yesterday. He stood from his chair, stretching the stiff muscles in his arms before making his way to the elevator and to the cafeteria floor.
X
Her eyes fluttered open, and she threw an arm across them, groaning. She hadn't expected the bright sunlight to practically blind her as soon as she woke. She glanced around herself, confused. Where the hell was she?
A grassy meadow.
What was she doing in a meadow?
She ran a hand through her hair and stopped briefly. Her hair was longer than she remembered. And her arms were weaker, not as muscular as she recalled. She was dressed in a pair of tight blue jeans, her plain, grey V-neck t-shirt that she hadn't seen since high school, and filthy, worn-out tennis shoes.
Her track shoes from high school.
She jumped up from the ground, looking around frantically. She spotted a stream near a patch of trees and she sprinted toward it. It seemed like forever before she actually made it there. She stopped at the bank of the stream, taking a deep breath, and then peeked over the edge into the water.
Her reflection almost knocked her over.
She was no longer in her thirties. She had softer, rounder features that were highlighted with pureness and innocence. Her hair was longer and her body was smaller and weaker.
She was sixteen again.
"Teresa!"
She whirled around at the sound of her name, her instincts kicking in. She clenched her fists, grinding her teeth together. Her gaze bounced among the trees, but there was no one.
"Help me, Teresa!"
She whipped around again. "Who's there?" she demanded.
"Teresa! Help me! Please!"
The voice was coming from downstream. She squinted hard, trying to make out a figure that was teetering over the steep edge of the bank on the other side of the stream. Arms were flailing about as if trying to balance the body to which the arms belonged to. The figure was about to fall into the water, which had suddenly sped up drastically.
She gasped. "Tommy!" she screamed. She sprinted down the bank as fast as she could until she reached him, but he was on the other side. "Tommy, get back!" she yelled.
His head was ducked down. She couldn't see his face.
"Tommy!" she shouted over the noise of the water. "Get back!"
She was just about to shriek something else, but Tommy raised his head to meet her eyes. His face put a halt to her orders, because it wasn't Tommy at all.
"Jane?" she screeched.
He stumbled sideways, and the sunlight hit his hair so she could see the unmistakable blond curls.
"Help me," he mouthed to her weakly. She did not know if he had spoken the words aloud, but if he did, the water drowned it out.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the water again. She was no longer sixteen, but in her thirties.
Jane lost his footing, and he began to fall.
"No!" Before she knew what she was doing, she had launched herself from the bank of the stream and hit the icy cold water...
Her eyes flew open, and she was relieved to see that she hadn't drowned.
Or... had she?
Why was she in the hospital?
Why did her head hurt so much?
What was going on?
She heard footsteps, and her gaze fell on the door in the corner of the small, white room. Someone appeared in the doorway, pausing the toss a wrapper of some sort into the garbage. He raised his head to look around the room, and his gaze stopped abruptly on her. His eyes widened, and it seemed like he had stopped breathing.
Even though she cleared her throat, her voice was still disturbingly raspy. "Jane?"
Author's Note: Yes, I do understand how mean I am. A delayed update and an awful cliffhanger? Well, I promise to make it up to you and try to speed up my update for the next chapter!