Disclaimer - The Mentalist belongs to Bruno Heller and CBS. Not me. Obviously.
A/N- So here's the next instalment. Thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews after the first chapter. Hopefully this will live up to your high expectations. Enjoy!
~ Chapter Two ~
Missing, Presumed Alive
Jane had been kidnapped. Again.
Lisbon tried to take a deep steadying breath and calm her beating heart as the news finally started to sink in. Her stomach clenched in rising panic, but she did her best to squash it, knowing that she had to stay strong. She was the leader. If the team saw her weak...
She shook her head and forced herself to focus on the facts.
As soon as Jane had hung up on her, she'd tried to ring back, but the line had been dead. Both Cho and Rigsby had tried as well, but neither of them had been any more successful. Either Jane had turned off his phone or...
Lisbon shook herself again. There was no time for that. In cases like this, the first few hours were crucial. Thank God Jane had managed to let them know he was in trouble. It gave them a head start; now was the time to make it count while the trail was still fresh.
"Cho," she began, thankful that her voice was strong. "Call SAC PD. Tell them to set up a perimeter around the fruit stand. No one goes in or out until we get there."
"Okay, boss," he replied, taking out his phone.
She turned to her other agent. "Rigsby."
"Yes, boss?"
"I want you get in touch with Van Pelt back at base," Lisbon continued, clenching her fists to keep her hands from shaking. "We need a trace on Jane's phone. When she's done that, tell her to get Jane's old client lists out again."
"You think it's someone getting revenge for his psychic days again?" asked Rigsby.
"I don't know," Lisbon answered after a long pause. Truthfully, a part of her hoped it was. When he'd called, Jane had said that he didn't recognise his kidnappers, but there was a chance that these 'goons' could just be working on behalf of one of his old clients. The alternative was that it was Red John, but Lisbon didn't really want to consider that possibility. If it was Red John, she wasn't sure they would get him back a second time…
"Okay, boss," Rigsby said, taking out his phone to ring Van Pelt. "You want us to meet you at the scene?"
Lisbon nodded, looking skyward as she tried to keep calm. Jane had been through this before and he'd survived that, she told herself. He would survive this as well.
She would make sure of it.
"Patrick…"
The voice called to him, dragging him from the abyss of unconsciousness and back to the land of the living. Jane clenched his eyes shut, however, fighting against it with every instinct he had. This couldn't be good. Waking up like this was never good…
His head throbbed dangerously and his thoughts were a jumbled mess, so much so that he just wanted to go back to sleep and never wake up. Jane clenched his eyes shut even more tightly, trying to ride the wave of pain that came with his return to consciousness. He didn't want to wake up, didn't want to face reality.
Through the daze of pain, memories hit at Jane's subconscious.
He'd had days like this in the asylum. Days when he couldn't remember where he was or how he'd got there. Days when they'd drugged him to stop him from hurting himself…
"Patrick…"
Was that Dr Miller? It didn't sound like her, although with the thudding in his skull he was surprised he could hear anything at all. He groaned and shifted himself, but found, to his surprise that he was lying face down on the floor. Even with the throbbing in his brain, Jane realised that something wasn't quite right. If he'd been at the mental hospital, surely he would have been on the bed…
"Patrick…please…"
The voice was like a whisper, making its way through his throbbing skull like a ghost walking through walls. It wasn't Dr Miller's, he was sure of that now. It didn't belong to a woman at all, he realised slowly. It was a child…a boy...
"Patrick, you okay?"
Jane frowned. No, he was not okay. Of course he wasn't okay. How on earth could he be okay?
Jane didn't reply out loud though, scared that his throbbing temple would overload. His body ached as well, though not nearly as much as his head. Maybe they'd drugged him again. He certainly felt drugged…
"Please be okay…"
Who was that? Jane wondered, his mind finally catching up with him. It definitely sounded like a child, but why would there be a child here? And for that matter, where was here?
Steeling himself and pushing the pain in his temple away as best he could under the circumstances, Jane forced his eyes to flicker open, blinking rapidly as he tried to adjust to his new location. He was still lying face down on the floor though, so with an effort that would have made Lisbon proud had she been there to see it, Jane pulled his body up and dragged himself over onto his back.
Ow…
Blinking rapidly in the dark room as he looked around in his new position, Jane tried to work out where the hell he was. Not the mental hospital, he concluded with no small sense of relief. He wasn't exactly on top form – he suspected he was suffering from a mild concussion of some sort and he'd probably been drugged - but at least he wasn't insane…
"Patrick?" came the quiet voice again. The boy sounded scared. "Are you awake?"
What had happened? Where was he...?
Jane groaned as realisation hit. He'd been kidnapped. Again. He finally remembered what had happened, pushing away the throb in his temple as the memories began to filter back into his mind. He'd been at the fruit stand on his way to a crime scene. At some point, men with guns had arrived and they'd taken both him and…
"Liam?" he asked hoarsely.
A relieved sigh met his ears. "You're okay."
"I'm okay," Jane replied, trying to shift himself so that he could see how the kid was. He blinked in the darkness, trying to make out the small form, when he heard a shifting to his right.
"You don't look okay," came the solemn reply.
"I'm okay," Jane repeated, pulling a hand up to wipe at his eyebrow. His fingers came back wet. Blood.
Ow…
"They hit you pretty hard," Liam told him. "You were out for a while."
"Are you okay?" Jane asked, trying to squint through the darkness.
"I'm scared."
"Me too, kid," Jane sighed, trying to work on numbing the throb in his head long enough to concentrate. "But are you hurt?"
"Not really," Liam replied. "They pushed me into the van, and that hurt, but they didn't hit me."
"Okay, good," Jane said, trying to make sense of his jumbled thoughts. God, he really wasn't on form today. His memories were foggy at best. Oh, he'd definitely been drugged, though he had absolutely no memory of it. In fact, the last thing he remembered was talking to Lisbon.
Lisbon…
"My phone?" he asked Liam hoarsely.
"They took it," Liam replied shakily. "They found it when they stopped for gas. That's when they hit you. It knocked you out."
Now he remembered, although he wished he didn't. Damn, he wished he'd given Lisbon a bit more information.
"Where are we now?" he asked. All he knew was that they were no longer in the van, and frankly, that thought terrified him.
"Don't know," Liam replied, sounding close to tears. "We stopped ages ago but before they took me out of the van, they blindfolded me and gave me some sort of drug. I woke up here. They must have given it to you too, but…I thought you wouldn't wake up…"
"Hey," Jane interrupted gently. With great effort, Jane began to drag himself over to where he thought the boy was sat. He leant against the wall with a sigh. "I'm fine. See. We're going to be alright."
God, he hoped he wasn't lying to the kid. The truth was though, until he knew who had taken them and why, their lives were pretty much in the balance.
Not that there was anything he could do about it now, he realised. A quick glance around the small dark room told him that they'd be stuck here a while. Why, Jane had no idea, although he had a feeling he wouldn't have to wait too long to find out.
Meh, he'd worry about that when his brain hurt less…
Anyway, he'd spoken to Lisbon. No matter how mad she was with him, Jane knew that she'd stop at nothing to save him.
"Patrick?"
"Yes, Liam?"
"Do you think she's dead?" Liam asked quietly after a few moments pause.
"Lisbon?" Jane asked, a throb in his temple making his confusion even worse. He really hated being drugged...
"No," came the quiet reply. "Jenny."
"Oh, your nanny," Jane replied solemnly. Another memory came roaring back, almost as if it was in Technicolor. When the men with guns had come, the young woman, Jane remembered, had jumped forward to protect the boy. The kidnappers had shown no mercy. A gunshot to the chest had shown just how much these men meant business.
A realisation hit Jane then, his taxed mind working much more slowly than usual. The nanny had been protecting the boy, which could only mean one thing. The boy had needed protecting.
They'd gone for the kid first. They'd been there to kidnap the boy.
They hadn't even seen him at first, Jane remembered, the memory choppy but clear enough. But then another thought hit his mind, a thought that complicated things even more. If they had been aiming for the kid, why, Jane wondered, was he here, and why the hell was he still alive?
None of this made any sense. If only his brain didn't feel so fuzzy…
"She's dead isn't she?" the kid said, having already, it seemed, come to the dark conclusion.
"I'm sorry," Jane replied softly, pushing away his desperate thoughts. "She seemed like a nice lady."
"She was," Liam told him quietly.
They were silent then, although Jane noticed that Liam had shuffled closer to him, leaning into him. Oh, the boy was shaking like a leaf…
"She'll find us, you know," Jane told him quietly.
Liam frowned. "Jenny?"
"Lisbon," Jane corrected gently, closing his eyes for a moment when they began to feel too heavy. Not for the first time, Jane hoped he wasn't lying to the boy. "She's my very best friend, you know. She'll find us."
A/N - So what did you think? This isn't one of my better chapters, but I've fiddled with it a lot and this is as good as I can make it. Hopefully it's okay? Let me know what you think, and until next time, thanks for reading!