The Mentalist: Atonement
Atonement
Author: alternaterocker
Artist: dearthursday
Link to Art: http://dearthursday.livejournal.com/13165.html
Word Count: ~3000
Rating: K+
Summary: Lisbon gets a phone call in the middle of the night to say her brother has been badly injured. She doesn't tell anyone about it after her other siblings do not accept her methods of coping. Jane is the only person to coax the truth out of her and attempts to make it work for the better.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with The Mentalist. The characters belong to their rightful owners, I'm just using them for entertainment purposes.
Notes: Fic for mentalist_bb. This was written before Where in the World is Carmine O'Brien? was aired so this was all my own imagination. Special mention has to go to tromana. Without her I would not have even been writing a Bang fic, and she was an amazing cheerleader whose prompts were helpful (and required) throughout. And freekydisaster who is always wonderful and this time as my speedy beta. :)
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Bad news was inevitable whenever she was awoken at two-thirty in the morning by the phone in her front room ringing. This time however it had nothing to do with the CBI or Jane.
"Miss Teresa Lisbon?" a female voice asked on the other end.
"Yes, who is this?"
"Miss Lisbon, I am Nurse Henderson from Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. Your younger brother was brought in a few hours ago after being in a car accident. He is in a critical condition at this moment and your name was his 'in case of emergency' number."
Lisbon was fully alert now and she could not think clearly any longer, "Which brother? Sorry, I have three."
"Christopher. If possible you should tell the remaining family members about this as we cannot say for certain if he will improve."
Without responding to the request made by the health professional the call was ended. Lisbon sank down against the wall until she was sitting on the cold floor while she breathed in and out deeply, going over what she had been told.
Out of all her siblings she and Chris had been the eldest so she had never felt the need to protect him as much when she was caring for them yet here he was now, almost dying in the same state she lived in.
Guilt choked her even though they had not spoken in about five years; the partially maternal sensations coming straight back to her as she considered how she could have prevented this from taking place. She had long since exhausted herself of actually crying over her family so the entire house was silent, not even any of her clocks were traditional ones that ticked irritably. There was not a thing to distract her mind from thinking of the mistakes that she had lived through.
The next morning Lisbon was woken by the harsh light of day streaming into the room. She couldn't remember lying down on the wooden floor, never mind actually getting to sleep. Knowing for sure this was later than usual mornings for her, she hastily stood up while wiping sleep from her eyes and balancing herself on one foot as the other began to experience the pins and needles sensation that came on after resting on it for too long.
Curses flew out of her mouth when she looked at her alarm clock, seeing she was already slightly late heading off to work. Unless they had a case this very moment she would not be penalized severely yet her team would know something was wrong, they always did when one of their own had troubles. Deciding against wasting more time by having a shower she tied her dark hair into the neatest ponytail she could manage and splashed freezing cold water over her face, rubbing away any of the dust or crumbs that had taken refuge on her flooring in between the rare occasions she found the time and energy to clean her apartment thoroughly.
The phone calls to her family could wait until a spare few minutes had to be filled in at the CBI headquarters, or until she got home. It wasn't that she wanted to hide the awful news from them, she just felt that if she didn't say it out loud then it was not truly happening.
When she arrived in the bullpen a little while later the only thing she was thankful for was that the three agents and Jane were all there, leading her to believe there was no case or else one of them surely would have went to the scene or to interview the general public.
Rigsby was the first one to speak with an obvious fact, "Aren't you normally in before now, boss?"
"Well done for noticing guys, maybe you could have spent the past half hour doing work instead of gossiping about where I might have been."
"Sorry boss." Van Pelt had the decency to blush which proved that she had been spot-on with her assumption about what they had been doing.
The response from Jane was nothing like the teasing she had grown to expect on days such as this but he had not looked up from the book he had been reading since she had walked in. The feeling in her caused by this was unexplainable because she was somehow saddened by the thought of him not caring and as much as she tried to shake it off, it wouldn't leave her whilst she walked into the private sanctuary of her office.
Lisbon made sure the door was closed properly behind her and moved across to the chair next to her cluttered desk. The temptation to procrastinate and tidy almost won her over but the rational, depressed side of her brain had to get the event out in the open. She knew she had reached the point whereby she needed to call at least one of her brothers but she was terrified, both of the two uninjured boys would take great delight in finding out she was the person to break their silent agreement not to talk any more. All four had no true hate or even vast dislike for each other - they had just taken the loss of their parents in different ways and didn't approve of the opposing reactions. She placed her head in her hands as she went through the pros and cons of either phone call, finally settling on the brother who she had the smaller level of tension with. He answered a few rings later and was stunned by the voice he heard.
"Teresa? Long time no speak. If this is you wanting to forget everything and be friends then it ain't gonna happen."
"James, it isn't about that right now. You should know that Chris was taken into hospital last night and apparently it's pretty serious."
"Have you been allowed to see him or speak with him?" She could hear slight hints of panic in the young male's question.
"No, I've been too busy to get over yet."
"Of course you have! How had I forgot that work will always take priority over us?"
"Hey! That's uncalled for. I can't simply tell California to stop killing so I can get to visit someone I haven't spoken to in five years."
"He is your little brother and I know for a fact you have colleagues who are qualified for one day of your job when you need to take a personal break." She quickly told him which hospital Chris was at and ended the call, not wishing to hear any more of the reprimanding from a down-and-out like Tommy yet.
The receiver was barely back in its holder before there was a knock on the door. In all the time he had 'worked' for her, Patrick Jane had never once waited for an answer but she settled now for the notion that there was a first time for everything. After she had granted him permission to enter he sat across from her, smiling softly and held out a box of mini-muffins. She took a chocolate one, more out of politeness than actual desire, her appetite having not recovered from the early hours. She feared that eating the snack would make her ill so spoke prior to putting it to her lips,
"What stupid plot do you want - or have you - undertaken?"
"Many but I wouldn't waste money on bribes when I know I can just do them, then you get mad for a bit, then we're fine and the cycle begins again. No, this time you can have a muffin because chocolate is known to make people temporarily feel better."
"It's going to take a lot more than these to sort my feelings out."
"You can punch me on the nose if you want?" She surprised herself by giggling slightly at his offer. Lisbon wondered if it was really this obvious that she was upset because she didn't want to be the leader who was letting her personal life get in the way of doing what she was supposed to - it did not click in her brain that she was acting exactly how her brother said she would.
Jane continued to sit and watch her, causing her to feel as though she was being cross-examined but made no effort to persuade herself to tell him what was wrong. When the silence seemed to grow too uncomfortable she finally asked him to go away which would leave her this time with a small muffin to share in her misery but he didn't exit immediately. She knew it was not much in comparison to some gifts she could have received it had made her happy for fraction of time, taking her from revisiting the human weaknesses of unconditional love that had made her feel so strongly on this day.
"Thank you Jane, seriously."
Jane widened his grin and replied, "You're welcome," he finally stood up and started toward the door before turning back to her, "I am here, you know, if you want to speak about whatever." It was the only time she could remember that he had actually offered to listen to somebody else's problems and it unnerved her. He had already left the room which was a good thing as she continued to stare at the spot his head had been for many minutes following.
This small conversation had hardly been a break from reality since she had sensed the tension throughout yet he was always so calming in situations such as this one. She knew she never had that effect on anybody but she didn't mind since she was not in the mood to act cheerful or sympathetic, she wanted to be on the taking end of the bargain. The exact help she needed was usually found in those ocean-green eyes and a large, if occasionally inappropriate, smile that got him into dangerous interactions with other humans.
During the day Van Pelt kept checking in on her, veiling the disturbances as questions which she could have asked any person with common sense and querying as to whether Lisbon had ate lunch or not. Lisbon obviously lied but was sure Jane would be okay with covering for her. The young female wasn't irritating, just seemed to pop out when they all least expected the intrusion. The care and sensitivity compared to her normal behaviour was overpowering in addition to the questioning.
Rigsby and Cho occasionally asked if she was okay, but for the most part tried to act as though there was nothing strange going on. After their discussion earlier Jane was the only member of the team who didn't seem to be affected by this alternate demeanor of the senior agent who also doubled as his friend. He lay back on his couch in the bullpen and read the book he had started the day before. The sole hint that he was a little worried was that whenever Lisbon finally picked up a pen to attempt some work he would magically appear in the doorway to distract her and that when she left after the shift he did not suddenly 'wake up'.
-----
A week later she still had not went to the hospital yet she knew there had been no change because of the messages that greeted her when she checked her answering machine each day from the other two boys. Until one day there was no red blinking light. They were not spiteful enough towards her to hide any information which caused guilt to seep into every cell of her body as she surmised her silence was a main factor in this development. She had listened to every phone message out of sheer curiousity if nothing else. The majority however was attacking her tendency to shield herself away from the truth when it scared her, like this current situation did. These formed the tears that fell down her pale face since they were so clearly being honest. Work was, for once, quiet but she didn't want to come into close proximity with her responsibility as big sister straight away.
The fear mainly spawned from having to be in the same room as the other two brothers for any length of time because she wouldn't know how to apologise for not showing up earlier and in addition she didn't want to be the reason that the arguments would turn into blaming one another for what happened years previous. She did not know how much of it was ultimately her fault. Maybe if she hadn't tried to keep them so confined to the house they might not have rebelled so aggressively, particularly Tommy - he was always going to believe she was why he acted up, joined a gang and took certain, not all legal, substances. Teresa had long since understood why he felt that way but that didn't make it sting any less when it was brought up in conversation.
Jane had not even approached the subject of her depression once, which somehow made her more willing to share with him. No details about the initial fall-out had been said aloud, it was just a given that unsavoury things had occurred that were not to be broached. When she had finished telling him that she had yet to set foot in the hospital Jane nodded slowly then wandered off without another word.
An hour after he had walked away he re-entered the room and simply looked at her and said, "Come with me."
"Where to?" No matter how kind he could be at times there was no chance of her ever trusting all of her plans. Yet she followed him out of the building and to his car. This meant he would be driving and as much as she was curious about where he was taking her all of her common sense was still telling her his driving was a worry.
The journey was silent on her part although Jane did ask her countless questions to which she pointedly ignored, her fingers subconsciously drumming the car dashboard with no clear tune or pattern. He wanted to ask her if she needed him to help her in any way but feared a violent response from the anxious female.
When he slowed down his car outside a hospital she knew what his plan was and instantly began to loathe him. The anger made itself even more obvious when they eventually entered the building and saw Tommy and James waiting outside the room they had been directed to. She wanted to turn around and run away but when Tommy looked at her and gave a small nod of his head she felt a wave of calm come over her. He had never acted like this around her in many years but it felt better this way.
Lisbon grabbed the man next to her's arm and dragged him over to the corner of the room.
"What's going on Jane?"
He opened his eyes wider and tried to look as innocent as possible, "Nothing, I have no idea what you're talking about. You are just going to visit your injured brother."
"While my other siblings are bordering on civil towards of? What did you do?" Her hands were on her hips as they usually were when he was around and he couldn't help but smirk.
"All I did was phone a guy and tell him his sister was coming over and that it would be pointless to cause any commotion."
"I am not even going to ask if you hypnotised them because I honestly don't want to know the answer," she commented honestly, shaking her head while saying it.
"And that is all the gratitude I get for setting all this up?" She ignored him but he was sure he noticed a tiny smile creeping on to her mouth.
Slowly Teresa stepped nearer to the ward door and eventually opened the door and disappeared from Jane's line of sight.
As she sat next to the unconscious boy - man, she reminded herself - Teresa realised how she felt now. She wasn't scared any more. Her family was always going to be messed up - possibly even beyond proper repair - but she had another set of people who were with her every step of the way. She appreciated them on a level which they would never understand; that she would never discuss with them unless a tragedy involving one of them took place.