This is a little one-shot containing spoilers about the season finale of The Men7alist. So if you don't want to be spoilt - stop reading now!
I was asked by a fellow mentalista on tumblr (todayillbuynosorrow) what I imagine the first Jisbon kiss to be like. And as I found out I needed to set the stage for that kiss in order to be able to answer that question, I came up with this little piece and decided to share it with you.
I'm so happy that we'll get another season of our beloved show, an encore as Bruno Heller called it! I hope for some beautiful Jisbon moments to come our way!
Disclaimer: Bruno is God and I'm only a small, lowly disciple...
Somewhere Over The Rainbow Bluebirds Fly
Cho, Abbott, Fischer, Lisbon, and Jane sat around a table in the hotel restaurant of the Blue Bird Inn setting the stage for the next step in their plan to solve their current case. As part of the scheme Lisbon was dressed in a gorgeous pink dress that Jane had picked out for her.
A "lover's quarrel" between Jane and Lisbon was supposed to be the subsequent event in their sting operation, but for the time being the team sat together having a good time, enjoying the company.
Lisbon had just laughed at one of Cho's deadpan comments about one of their suspects in the case when Jane spoke up. "You know, Lisbon, you should really memorize this moment so you'll have something amusing to remember when you're bored to death in DC." He cast her a pointed look.
"Shut up, Jane. I won't be bored in DC. I happen to have a challenging new job there and all," she replied slightly miffed.
"Whatever you say, Lisbon. If it helps you sleep better at night…" Jane retorted.
"What's that supposed to mean, Jane?" she asked, anger audible in her voice.
He sighed. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you want to believe your own lies – who am I to stop you?"
"You're a jerk, Jane, and I'm fed up with you. You said that you want me to be happy and now all you're doing is criticizing my choices. Stop it, just stop it." Her eyes spat fire at him.
He shrugged. "I'm not doing anything, Lisbon. I just pointed out that you'll be bored. And if being bored to death by your agent Pike is what will make you happy then your choice must be the right one," he replied, his face a mask of nonchalance and superiority.
After weeks of indecision and internal debate, heartache and doubt his smug expression made her finally lose it. "What the hell, Jane? Who do you think you are to say these things to me? You? Of all people? With your ever same three shirts, only ever wearing these ridiculous socks that I wished, I'd never given to you in the first place, wasting away on a couch with your nasty cons and lies and demons as your only company. You're nothing but a pitiable wretch, Jane. You'll never be half the man Marcus is. You're nothing. You're pathetic, Jane, and I'm done with you. You hear me? I'm done with you!"
She jumped up from her chair and became aware of the witnesses to her outburst. Pulling herself together as best as she could manage at that moment she said, "I'm out of here. Sorry, agent Abbott, but I'll take the next flight to DC. I can't stand the sight of him a second longer."
She stepped around the table in order to get to the exit when her eyes caught sight of Abbott's water glass. In a flash of renewed anger she took it and doused Jane's face with the cold liquid. "Wake up call, Jane," she spat before she left the restaurant with hurried, big, angry strides, her face a study in rage.
The occupants of the table sat in stunned silence for a long minute until a waiter coming over and handing Jane a towel broke the spell. The consultant, hair and shirt dripping wet, hid his face in the terry cloth.
"Go after her," Cho addressed him.
Jane shook his head. "She hates me," he replied brokenly and barely audible from behind the towel.
"She doesn't hate you. She loves you, you idiot," Cho scolded him.
"Fine line between those two," Jane said sadly. "I think she just crossed it."
"Then make her get back on the right side of it, for heaven's sake," Cho retorted with an unusual amount of emotion in his voice. "I didn't plan to get involved in this mess, not as long as I thought Lisbon was happy. But clearly she isn't. So go and make her happy or I'll break your nose, Jane."
Jane got up and left the table without a backwards glance. He was an emotional wreck. Lisbon's accusations had cut him down to the bone. It took all of his willpower to set one leaden foot in front of the other. His heart was beating a mile a minute and tears were running down his cheeks – thankfully hidden behind the towel he held in front of his face as a poor substitute for all the carefully crafted masks he usually wore but which had been torn from him by the harsh, angry words of the woman he loved most in the world. He felt about two inches tall – brutally cut down to size.
It was more his subconscious mind than his willpower that led him to the outside of her room. After drying his shirt, hair, and face off as best he could he discarded the terry cloth on the floor. With a shaking hand he knocked on the door in front of him.
"Lisbon?" he asked with a trembling voice.
"Get lost, Jane," came the angry reply from inside the room.
"Please, Lisbon," he begged. "Please don't go. Don't break up the team," he said, trying to sound as calm and collected as possible.
"Don't break up the team?" she spat. "That's all you have to say? Hah!" A cold chuckle could be heard through the door. "Fuck off, Jane. I'm done with you. I should have seen it years ago but I was too blind to see what was right in front of me. You're broken beyond repair. You're already as good as dead, buried with your family. But I'm alive, Jane."
Through the haze of new tears streaming down Jane's cheeks his sight fell on the back of his left hand where his wedding band glared at him with what to him felt like a silent accusation from beyond a grave and from the one who'd put it there more than two decades ago. 'I want you to be happy', it seemed to scream at him. 'I loved you with all my heart, Paddy. That's why the most important thing to me is that you're happy.'
He took hold of the ring with a trembling right hand and slowly, but with all the resolve he could muster, he removed it. When he finally held it shakily between his right thumb and pointer finger, he brought it up to his lips and kissed it, before he put it into his jacket pocket, tears of both relief and anguish pouring down his cheeks.
With her packed bag in one hand Lisbon opened the door with caution. The silence outside had made her hope that Jane had left, but one careful look through the gap told her otherwise.
The sight that greeted her sucked the anger right out of her. She'd seen hundreds of different Janes over the years but never this one. This one was raw somehow. His very core visible in his features and stance. Open, vulnerable, utterly beautiful in his primal state. Precious like a newborn, staring in wonder at his own, ring free left hand, a tentative smile on his lips even though his face was wet with tears.
Her heart rejoiced. She'd never loved him as much as she did in that very moment.
Tenderly so as not to spook him, she took his ringless hand into her own, pulled him into her room and closed the door behind them.
His red rimmed eyes found hers and started to sparkle with happiness when he read her emotions in them. He took a deep, calming breath. With a trembling, husky voice full of longing he whispered, "I love you, Teresa. Please don't go. I'm yours, all yours. And I want us to be happy together."
Her face broke into a beaming smile, her eyes shining like emeralds. "I love you too, Patrick Jane," she finally replied, when her loudly beating heart allowed her to.
Drawn to each other by the invisible force of love their lips met. Gently, carefully and a bit shy at first. A feather light touch. And then two worlds collided, exploded, and merged into one. Lisbon's hands did what she'd always wanted to do and buried themselves in Jane's delightful curls, pulling him closer to her in the process. His arms came around her waist and closed the final gap, so not even a sheet of paper would've found enough space to separate them. Open mouths devoured each other, tongues dancing a heated tango together. Groans, moans, greedy little sounds of passion filled the room. Hungry lips, starved of this feeling for years, nipped and nibbled, gave and took eagerly, igniting every nerve cell in two bodies set on fire. Hands fondled, petted, squeezed, explored until both owners were unable to discern what belonged to whom, had lost any sense of self and had melted into each other, completing – at long last – the unity that had been there, just out of their reach, for far too long.
It took at least ten minutes before a sense of delicious exhaustion forced them apart. They beamed at each other, smiling like loons, hair tousled, lips swollen and red, clothes in complete disarray, panting for air. "Wow," she said and he pulled her into his arms, resting his cheek on the top of her head.
"Now let's see what trouble we can make," he replied with an expression of utter contentment that had been absent from his face for more than thirteen years. The only answer he got was a happy little chuckle that tickled his chest.
A few days later when he was ready to use a bit of alone-time for internal maintenance this moment ended up in Jane's memory palace as the new definition of perfect.
The Happy End – or rather the beginning of season 7
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews are very welcome!