(A/N: A bit of angst in this one, but the angst is mostly case-related. Jisbon are still finding their footing, but they lean into each other as they deal with the anxieties of the investigation - and of Jane's 'idiotic' plan to save the day...)
The Ardiles thing had gotten even more depressing. The prosecutor had been murdered by an unknown assailant, and JJ LaRoche had been the victim of a fatal booby trap while searching for the man.
Wayne Rigsby had narrowly missed becoming a victim himself, when his family's home was invaded by an armed intruder, shooting at Wayne as he held his infant daughter. Grace had scared the man off with return fire, but the two decided to send the kids to safety at relative's houses and fly to Austin; they had skills that could help the Ardiles investigation - AND they reasoned they weren't going to feel safe in their house until the matter was solved, so it would be good to get away.
When the couple showed up in Austin, Teresa shared how good it felt to have the old team back together. But she heartily wished the reunion had happened under better circumstances. She was rattled by the murders of their colleagues and had been on edge for days. Who would be next?
Lisbon later received an unwelcome answer to that rhetorical question: next was Grace Van Pelt. It wasn't clear that the woman was dead, but she had been abducted; and the way her alleged abductor bragged about what he'd done made some on the team fear the worst.
As the team pressed the suspect Richard Haibach for information, the man's agitated mockery raised more questions than answers, frustrating the agents and ending with the man being released after threats to the FBI from his lawyer.
As attorney and suspect made their way out of the building, one man was at the absolute end of his rope: Wayne Rigsby found Jane on his couch and begged for his help. "Jane… Whatever it takes… please… we have to get Grace back!"
After that desperate plea, Jane walked quickly with the man to the parking structure - but not before swinging past Lisbon's desk.
"Where you headed?" She asked with concern, noting the slightly manic look in his eyes.
Leaning close, in a quiet voice he answered: "Rigsby and I need to go poke Haibach."
Alarmed, she whispered back: "You're gonna poke the head of that snake?! Dammit Jane, I don't like this!"
With steady eye contact he pleaded: "I know and I'm sorry but it's the only way, Teresa… I'm thinking of what I'd want someone to do for me if you had been taken by someone like Haibach," he pleaded with his words and with his eyes.
The terror Jane saw in Lisbon's pools of green broke his heart, but he also deeply identified with Wayne's desperation; he knew that brand of terror. Rigsby and Grace didn't deserve it - and neither did their children. "Please Teresa, just trust me."
With a resigned sigh, she argued: "I do trust you, Jane… But…" her eyes looked side to side skittishly, "What if-"
He whispered close to her ear: "Emergency management plan… pink envelope… desk drawer… top left." With a wink and a barely-distinguishable air-kiss, he was gone.
Lisbon's stomach was tied in knots the entire day and right up to the moment Dennis Abbott briefed the team on this fact: Haibach's lawyer had been found abandoned on the highway, her car and Richard Haibach were missing, and suspiciously no one could find Wayne Rigsby or Patrick Jane.
Teresa might have been more appreciative of the ingenious way her partner had kept her in the loop while also giving her deniability with Abbott by leaving his plan in a sealed envelope IF she didn't so badly want to kill the man for his stupidity right now. She wished he'd at least taken Cho. Rigsby was a big man, and a sure shot, but she knew his mind was not in the right place to be of any guard to Jane today.
Lisbon knew how the whole thing had most likely gone down: Rigs had heard Fischer's theory that Grace may already be dead. He'd had to manage a good night call to his son Ben, explaining that Grace couldn't be there to read the boy's favorite story right now - while holding his own terror inside to avoid startling the preschooler. Rigsby had seen Jane work veritable miracles during the CBI days and he knew the consultant had always had a brotherly soft spot for Van Pelt; so, he probably went to the couch and begged for help.
Jane wore a hard shell when he needed to, but no way would he have turned down a desperate request from a dear friend - especially one with possibly the saddest puppy dog eyes of the bunch.
Teresa flipped back and forth between tender emotion for her love's big heart, and frustration at his insistence on going it alone. Yes, he probably felt confident that he could pull off whatever outlandish plan he'd quickly formed; he was always confident - on the outside anyway. And yes, he would tell her it was for her own good; her career had always been his excuse for keeping her in the dark until after the fact - 'plausible deniability' he'd often reasoned. But the newly-reinstated federal agent continued on her emotional rollercoaster: sweet, tender gratitude for Patrick's inner-goodness, followed by worried anger at Jane's need to play the lone ranger in order to 'save her.' She didn't need saving; she was a cop for crying out loud!
"This has Jane written all over it!" Abbott fumed, jolting Lisbon from her internal tug of war. "Completely reckless! Did either of you know about this?!"
Cho shook his head with disciplined concern.
Lisbon didn't have to lie or cover, when she answered: "I have no idea where Jane is or what his involvement might be, but I wouldn't put it past Haibach himself to be in the middle of this. That man is unstable, and we should be focusing on the safety of all of our people in this: Grace, Rigs, and Jane. Her arms flew to her sides and her eyebrows shot up, punctuating her words.
The moment the meeting finished, Abbott glared at Cho and Lisbon, despite their lack of inside knowledge on the matter. The supervisory agent then sent Fischer to find the missing car and the three men.
Stealthily, Lisbon made a stop at her desk and opened the top left drawer. As promised, there was a pink envelope labeled "Emergency Management Plan" in Jane's handwriting. She couldn't help a quick smile at the ridiculously flowery handwriting before glancing around the room nervously and opening the seal.
The smile fell from her lips as she read how Jane intended to trick Haibach into kidnapping himself and Wayne, in hopes the psychopath's pride would move him to take the two men to Grace's current location. With a deep sigh, Teresa put the note in a locked drawer and rushed to Wylie's side of the bullpen, where the team were currently gathered.
"What'd I miss?" Teresa asked urgently, walking up to Kim.
Fischer turned slightly to answer in a hushed tone: "Abbott thought Haibach must have an accomplice. Wylie just found a cabin in the Sangre de Cristo mountains that's owned by Haibach's sister."
Lisbon's eyes grew wide. "That's huge."
Within seconds, Abbott had called for a chopper, and the team were on their way.
Please let them be okay… Please let HIM be okay… Lisbon repeatedly prayed as she and the team rushed through snow and icy air.
From the sky, Cho had seen Jane's seemingly-lifeless body in the snow near an equally lifeless Richard Haibach. Fearing the worst, Kimball sent Lisbon (who'd been sitting on the other side of the copter, so hadn't seen) to secure the cabin, not able to stomach the thought of his close friend having such a scare. He wanted to see if the man was actually still alive before putting his respected former-boss through that amount of torture. Besides, Wayne had made a comment at the bar the other night that had raised suspicions that the two partners may be closer than advertised, so he especially wanted to insulate her from the scene - at least until he could confirm Jane's true status.
"Grace!" Teresa rushed to her friend, with a relieved hug. "Are you hurt?"
"Not me," she sniffled shakily, "but Wayne's been…" unable to say it, Van Pelt tearfully struggled to maintain her composure.
"We know; medics are with him and he's going to be fine. Let's get you both to the chopper - the hospital is expecting us."
"Is Jane alright?" Grace asked with suddenly remembered urgency.
"He's not here in the cabin with you?" Lisbon tried to control the sudden wave of panic that pulsed through her like a seismic wave.
Van Pelt's face was grave: "Haibach took him outside… just after the shooting… Boss, he- "
But Lisbon was already off like a shot into the snow, panicked by the dreadful images flashing through her mind. Worst-case scenarios were so much worse when they came to the mind of a seasoned cop; she'd seen it all and that fact was NOT helping her palpitating heart AT ALL right now. Scanning the scene outside as she sprinted from the porch of Hazel Haibach's cabin, she caught sight of Cho waving her over. There were two bodies in the snow beside him; and she recognized the brown shoes on one of them. She shifted her feet into high gear.
"Jane?!" She yelled as she ran, "Jane?! You alright?!"
"He's okay Boss," Cho said as she approached.
But Teresa barely heard Kimball's voice through the sirens of alarm that were sounding in her head, seeing her infuriatingly idiotic love there in the snow. Why did he take such risks?! His overconfidence in his mental abilities had nearly caught up to him today.
Once she reached him, covered as he was in powdery dust of winter, shivering from cold, fright, and shock, she pulled him into a tight hug. She didn't care who saw; her heart needed to be pressed against his right now, to make sure it was still beating. Plus, she reasoned, after such a scare any law enforcement partner might react in the same way.
"Lisbon…" he breathed with heavy relief.
She pulled back to look at him, and was chilled to her core. It had been years since she'd seen the stark empty terror that was haunting her love's eyes right now. She didn't want to even think about what tortures the psychopathic Haibach may have put the poor man through. "My God Patrick, what were you thinking?!" She said with trembling sternness.
His sea-colored eyes were littered with bolts of bloodshot red as he shivered, shaking his head: "Was thinking that… what if it was you? … that I know what it feels like… that Wayne didn't deserve to… his eyes were so desperate, Teresa… and I know that feeling, and I just couldn't let… I had to try to…" With that, he gave up his words and just held closely to his partner; sobbing quick short sobs right up to the point when crunchy-snow footsteps approached.
With a parting squeeze, the partners shook off their emotions and put on business faces for the rest of the team. They helped the medics get the critically-injured Rigsby into the chopper, then guided Grace in beside him.
As the helicopter sped toward the nearest hospital, Jane discreetly moved his hand to the seat beside him and interlaced his fingers with Lisbon's.
Thank you, God, she prayed.
Once they arrived back home to Lisbon's place, Teresa ran upstairs to change clothes while Jane remained in the kitchen to brew some much-needed tea.
When Lisbon came back downstairs, she found him sitting quietly on the center cushion of the couch, leaning back, eyes focused blankly on some distant point in space and time. His teacup and saucer were on the coffee table, apparently untouched.
"Jane?" She called from the bottom step.
No response or reaction.
Walking carefully to the sofa, she peered into his glassy stare, speaking quietly: "Patrick? Can you hear me, love?"
This time a slow, minute nod of acknowledgment, but his stare remained unbroken and he did not speak.
Remembering the life-threatening scare her partner had today, Teresa was struck by concern for her beloved shyster. With care and tenderness, she sat beside him, burrowing her right arm between his waist and the back of the couch, and snuggling into him gently.
Jane had seemed to brush off the traumas of the day when the team were gathered in Rigsby's hospital room earlier, but it was clear now that he had been more affected by the terror of that mountain than he'd let on. She should have expected this… she should have known; he'd never been comfortable with the violence that surrounded them daily in this job, and today he'd had a front row seat: He had told Dennis during the team debriefing that he'd witnessed both of the shots that had hit Wayne, AND that he'd watched Grace become a helpless witness as her soulmate was nearly killed - just feet from where she was standing. Jane had also shared the torturous, cruel things Haibach had done to him, personally.
Lisbon had had to work her own biofeedback determinedly during the meeting to avoid the absolute breakdown that had threatened to overtake her as her beloved Jane had shared his horror story of maniacally cruel threats and evil laughter, accompanied by an ax threatening to chop down onto his splayed hand - then being saved at the last second by his wounded friend's well-placed gunshot.
Lisbon's silent thoughts, as she tucked up beside him on the couch, gave her beloved partner the time he needed to finish processing his own mental encumbrance. And now, at last, he was ready to speak:
"My God Teresa… I thought my smarmy tactics had gotten Wayne killed," he sniffled, "and with Grace there to see it happen… it was so awful."
Lisbon held her beloved closely, whispering warm assurances in his ear. She could argue how idiotic he'd been another time; right now, he needed her support: "Oh Jane, without those tactics we'd have never found Grace in time… deep down you know that, don't you?"
"Maybe, but between that and Haibach's threats and psychological torture I just… You know how I am with violence…"
"I know, and I'm so sorry," she pulled him against her even tighter, her heart breaking for the hell he'd been through.
"All I could think about, Teresa, was that he was going to chop me up into little bloody bits and make a show out of it for you to find… so I was not only petrified for my own safety, or that I would never see you again… or feel your warmth against me again… but I was also sick to my stomach for you. I know very well what it feels like to see your dearest love bloodied, beaten, and lifeless in front of you… and I was desperate to not let him give you that view."
Lisbon was sobbing so hard by this point that it felt like all the oxygen had left her lungs, despite her diaphragm's insistence on continuing to spasm. She hadn't even considered his added worries for the effects that his possible murder might have on her. With an audible gasp for air, she said shakily: "I'm so sorry, love… God, Patrick… I'm supposed to protect you and I was helpless. I was so terrified for you. And I was terrified for me - that I'd have to live without you again… and I don't know how to do that anymore… The world loses all its color when you're not in my life. I haven't stopped thanking God since you showed up in the FBI conference room that day… Jane, I need you… please don't ever do this to me again," she struggled through her tears and held him in a vice grip. He was so fragile… she wanted to protect him from everything harmful in the world. "You're safe now… I'm here… We're okay… I've got you…"
Jane squeezed her tight. "Yes, you do, love… You've got me, in every way… and I'm so grateful for that. Please don't let go… even when I screw things up like I almost did today. I'm so sorry."
"I'm never letting you go… Never ever ever…" After another strong squeeze, Lisbon pulled back to look into her partner's tearful eyes. "Patrick, you know I love you, right?"
Still so full of emotion, the man trembled as he spoke: "I do know that, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't deeply moved by hearing you say it out loud, my dear. I hope you know how infinitely I love you, too."
With a smile and a quick sob, she pulled him back into a full embrace. "I do, sweet love… thank you for being who you are. I'm so proud of what you did for Grace and Wayne today, and I'm certain they agree."
Lisbon's heart thumped harder for a few seconds in gratitude and romantic thrall until a mischievous thought popped into her head:
"Patrick?"
"Yes, my dear?"
"I got that chauffeur's hat from the evidence lockup…"
"Okay?"
"Put it on," she winked.
"Yes ma'am!"