(A/N: This is Jisbon in old age, at end of life. A look at their legacy and how their story may continue past the grave. WARNING: Jisbon both die, one before the other (natural causes/old age), so some grief and 'missing you' heartache, but fluffy in all other ways and still a happy ending.
Despite the rough beginning [chapter one is a long goodbye scene] this 3-part story paints one possible ending to the Jisbon story. It's the happiest ending I could dream up, but there are tears along the way. No angst, just the pain of missing each other, and the reactions of those who remain, as they reflect on how deeply Jisbon truly loved each other. To get you to the ending faster, I'll post one chapter a day for 3 days :)
This is an epilogue to my stories: Lost & Found, and Hide and Seek. You can still follow the plot of this story without having read those first multi-chapters, but some of the OC's and historic context might be unclear. I do hope you try out the first two, though - and you'll avoid spoilers if you read them in order :) Either way - grab a tissue and enjoy the feels!)
Patrick Jane and Teresa Lisbon Jane lived to a ripe old age, just as Angela had promised Lisbon in a dream, decades ago. They loved their children and grandchildren well. And though they had the occasional argument or rough patch, they always looked on the bright side - fully knowing how precious their time together was, every moment of every day; still in a bit of disbelief at the life they had created together.
Lately, an old conversation had been playing through Patrick's mind, nonstop. It was an exchange he and Teresa had shared over an end-of-case ice cream sundae, at their favorite rooftop creamery in Sacramento:
"I want to be remembered."
"And you shall be. Fondly. But when I die, they can throw me a parade or burn me in effigy I don't care. Because when you're dead, you're dead."
And now, the time was drawing near, when they would really, finally, have to say goodbye. "When you're dead, you're dead," he had told her. Patrick Jane thrived on being right, but on this point, he had never wished more desperately to be proven wrong.
"When you're dead, you're dead." He had said.
Please, God, be real… Please, be as forgiving as she says you are… Please, let me be wrong, he now pleaded with his wife's beloved deity - feeling a little unsteady and foolish, but desperate enough to try.
The unstoppable Teresa Lisbon had aged so beautifully, like a fine wine. But her once-strong body was beginning to fail her. The quacks in coats were saying she may not bounce back this time. How would he breathe without her? The mere thought felt like suffocation.
"When you're dead you're dead," he had said.
Please let me be wrong.
His mind rummaged through the files in his memory palace, pertaining to their many discussions on the existence of God, and the afterlife:
"Oh, I'm not going to hell!" She had confidently proclaimed during a case in California.
"You're not, huh? you've made other plans?" He had grinned delightedly. She was so adorable when she had strong opinions.
"Oh! Do you really want to get into this? Ready for some theology talk?" She had goaded joyfully, as they drove from an interview, happy to fill his mind with her optimism about an afterlife.
So many conversations… they had debated this more than a few times.
"I just have to believe she's still out there somewhere…" she had said on another occasion, about one of their fallen colleagues. "Do you think that's foolish?"
"No. Of course not, Teresa. But I just can't. Wish I could," he had answered. What if he was wrong?
Please don't let this be goodbye. He prayed, without even realizing that he was praying.
His own words haunted him constantly: "When you're dead you're dead."
Please let me be wrong.
Truth be told, he had encountered moments of doubt, regarding his hardline cynicism on the subject; those times were few, but they did occur: Like the time he'd hallucinated a conversation with Angela, while recovering in a drug-induced stupor after being shot. His late wife had promised to calm Teresa's worries for him. When he'd later learned that Angela actually had appeared in a dream to Teresa, just as her 'hallucinated self' had promised him she would, he'd never solved the puzzle of how that had been possible. Also, he had long suspected Angela's involvement, somehow, in the series of unlikely coincidences that had led him to the CBI in the first place - and again, years later, when he and Teresa had finally, truly, found one another; clinging together desperately on that familiar oceanside bluff.
Decades later, during their retirement travels, he'd actually even found the courage to voice his curiosity on the subject, daring to come clean with Lisbon about these mysteries that had so flummoxed him. In delighted reply, Teresa had offered with visible optimism: "Maybe it's true? Maybe God has allowed Angela and Charlotte, both, to reach out to you from the afterlife?"
"But there is no afterlife, Lisbon - when you're dead, you're dead." He had said.
"You don't know that. You can't know that!" She'd shot back.
He smiled at the memory; his beloved had been so animated that day. On that long ago Ferris wheel ride, he'd been glad to have egged her on; glad to have gotten her so riled. But now, he found that he was mostly glad that, for all he knew, she could have been right.
Please let me be wrong.
The day he'd so dreaded arrived, uninvited, just days later, when Jane found himself at the side of a hospital bed, looking down through a mist of pain at the weakening shell of the woman he had loved so completely for the second half of his life. He held her hand tenderly, accepting the inevitable; smiling for her comfort, while battling tears at the thought of losing her.
"Thank you, dearest Teresa."
Her eyes opened just enough to see him, and she managed a sweet smile, exhausted though she was from fighting her aging body's ailments.
"Thank you for giving me such a wonderful second chance at life. For saving me over and over again, with each smile, each undeserved forgiveness, every touch and every word. Every dream I thought I'd lost, was lived out, after all, with you." He gently smoothed her grey locks and caressed her cheeks - which had grown wrinkled from their life of love, laughter and joy; in fact, the depth of her laugh lines now rivaled that of the thoughtful crease that had always shown between her eyebrows. Overcome, he kissed her. "You have never looked more beautiful."
A silent tear rolled down her cheek, into her hair, as he went on.
"I will continue adoring you, adoring our children, adoring our family. Never forget what you mean to me." His face lightened, with determined effort, as he asked spryly: "So, my love, where shall we go next?" He smiled, thinking of their retirement travels, and recalling those wondrous first weeks they'd had together as a couple; the moment in time that had changed everything.
With that, Lisbon reached up for him, and held him with a fragility that belied her lifetime of kick-assery as a cop and protector. As they both clung to each other, storing the memory of this final moment together, she whispered, "I'll save you a spot, gorgeous!" She relaxed her arms, then, and winked with a smile as she rested her head back against the pillow.
Jane let go a small laugh, "Still saving me, eh, Lisbon?" he sparkled, then gently kissed her.
"Always, love. Thank you for giving me the ride of a lifetime," she chuckled weakly. "You will always have my whole heart, sweet Patrick. I have never loved anyone as completely as I love you. Never forget what you mean to me…"
With that, the irreplaceable Teresa Lisbon was gone. A flurry of medical staff rushed in to check her vitals, then slowed when it became clear she had taken her last breath. With sympathetic looks toward Jane, they began unhooking the many tubes that had been connected to Lisbon, and busily scribbled somber notations on their clipboards: time of death, manner of death, next of kin…
"Never forget what you mean to me."
Her final words were still ringing in his ears. As always, his love had known just what to say. Patrick stayed beside his dearest Teresa for the longest time, holding her hand and resting his cheek on her chest, silent tears streaming. Still, he was grateful; both for the fulfilling life he'd been privileged to share with her, and for the fact that she hadn't been subjected to the pain he was feeling right now.
He and Lisbon were so innately connected that he'd always known: barring a simultaneous end, the survivor would suffer immense pain at the separation. Right now, it felt like a limb had been torn from his body… More like an organ… His whole heart was gone, he thought. But he was still so grateful that she had been spared these gut-wrenching tears.
In his bottomless grief, he clung to his most familiar coping tools. Having no immediate access to tea, Jane began to mull a plan in his beleaguered mind: He resolved to resume writing her letters every day, much like he'd done during those two painful years they'd spent apart after the end of Red John. With no place to send them, he decided he would read each one aloud to her - just in case she could actually hear them.
Please let me be wrong. Please let her be out there somewhere.
He planned to store the letters in a box right beside the island letters - creating for their children a final memoir of the love their parents had shared. That thought made the whole endeavor seem like a mission, and his heart filled at the thought of pursuing it - at having something useful to do with all of the feelings and memories that were flooding his consciousness in between sobs. He wondered if he should write their entire story for the kids, too? That would be such an enjoyable activity while it lasted - they'd heard almost all of the stories at one time or another, but it would be so much clearer to them if everything was in chronological order with all the details in place - even, he resolved, the details that they'd always seemed too young to handle before. Maybe he should make a kids' version for the grandchildren too? He perked briefly at the idea, happy to re-live all (okay most) of those moments.
But he quickly sobered: What if, after the memories were recorded, their freshness made it that much more painful to know she was truly gone? His eyes filled with tears as the reality of 'now' burst back in on him.
Please let me be wrong.
He was broken from his thoughts by the airy sound of the hospital room door opening behind him, and he soon felt two hands on his trembling shoulders: It was Meghan and Brendan. Patrick realized immediately that he had only been partially right about the newly-formed gaping hole in himself. The presence of the younger Janes reminded him that it wasn't truly his whole heart that had been ripped out. Part of his beautifully fierce, fiercely beautiful Teresa lived on in them, and in their children. So, while his heart was truly and irrevocably broken, it in fact remained, beating in his chest… a mournful, slow rhythm, but beating, nonetheless.
He turned and pulled his children in so tightly he thought he might break them. "I love you both so much. Mom was so proud of you and so am I." He gushed through sobs.
"She was also pretty proud of you, Dad," Brendan offered. His words hitting his father squarely in the heart with their deep caress of truth.
"And she loved you so completely… you were truly the love of her life, Daddy," Meghan sniffled as she squeezed him.
The three of them had a good long cry together before Jane asked for one more minute alone with her. Once the siblings slipped back out to their waiting families, Patrick turned again to his love, bracing himself and taking in every detail of this final moment together – all the while pleading to himself and to God if he existed: Please don't let this be goodbye. Please let me be wrong.
"Well, love, the kids have promised to take care of me and keep me out of too much trouble, so there's no need to worry. I promise to take care of them too, but... I will miss you terribly, my dear," his voice caught on his next few words, "I can hardly breathe without you, and my heart is shattered at having to say goodbye, my lovely Lisbon." He struggled to speak through his tears, and through sobs like he'd not experienced since losing Angie and Char. "Teresa, I've never believed in an afterlife, but I hope to your God that I'm wrong. If there's any way to reunite with you someday, please beg him to show me the way and I'll do it. I swear." He spoke with desperation as his red eyes shone with tears; hoping that she was really out there somewhere… hoping that she could close this deal for him with the Big Man, if He was for real. Aside from his memoir-writing plan, he had nothing else to do during the long days when the kids were at work and the grandkids were at school, so he promised to research the 'God' subject, and develop a plan to find her - just in case she had been right about things. After all, it was his turn. She'd done most of the 'finding' in their relationship.
He was sure he'd hear a lot about Heaven from his children, even without his needing to ask: Lisbon had insisted they be raised Catholic. He'd allowed it, but wanted to be sure they'd be given leeway if they decided it was all bunk - at any time. She had agreed to that; but, to his surprise, neither Meghan nor Brendan had ever turned away from their faith - from her faith. She was so beautiful. She was so wise. She was so good. Maybe there was something to it all…
He realized mid-thought how absolutely exhausted he was - and also that he was famished. So, reluctantly, he leaned down and placed the softest, gentlest, most tender goodbye kiss on her beautiful lips. "Please do save me that spot, love. I so hope I'm wrong about God and Heaven. I will never stop loving you, beautiful Teresa." With one last look, he stored the moment safely in his memory palace, breathed deeply, and left the room.
Please let me be wrong.