the veil that keeps me blind, 6/15
Title: The Veil That Keeps Me Blind
Chapter: 6/15 (Book II)
Notes: Work this week prevented me from actually posting any of this. For that, I should be posting Chapter 6 and 7 back to back.
Book II
Chapter 6
xxxxx
The few days that follow are peaceful ones for Jane. There is a sense of finality and freedom that comes with his simple realization, and that calms his nerves more than anything.
There has been a general lift in the mood of the bullpen since their trip to San Francisco; the knowledge that their leader will soon be back among them has bolstered their spirits. Cho grumbles more often about his additional paperwork because he knows it will soon no longer be his responsibility, and Rigsby and Van Pelt begin to flirt openly as they have never quite done before. With the holidays almost upon them, Jane suspects it will take those two less than a month to reconcile completely.
He smiles at this. At least theirs is one relationship he can predict, and with some certainty, be assured that this time it will end well.
Thursday of that week, exactly nine days after their trip to San Francisco, Hightower shows up in the bullpen late in the afternoon with Lisbon in tow.
“Are you sure you want to come back on Monday?” Hightower asks as they walk into Lisbon’s office; they pull the door to close it, but it gets left open just a crack and that is enough for Jane. He walks over to the kitchen, pretending to fix himself a new cup of tea, to maximize his capacity to overhear. (He has always hated the term eavesdropping; it sounds entirely too nefarious.)
“You can have whatever time you need.” Through open blinds, Jane watches as Hightower sits on Lisbon’s couch; Jane hasn’t sat there since before she left.
Lisbon sits behind her own desk. The sight is both familiar and new all at once, but right.
“I need to come back. I’ve been away for too long.”
Hightower nods in understanding. “I don’t want you doing anything strenuous in the field until your ribs heal.”
“I understand.” Lisbon appears resigned.
Jane frowns. She must have been more seriously injured than she’d let on. He found that though he had assumed she might be, he still does not like the reality any more for having expected it.
“Thank you for agreeing to this, Lisbon. I know it was a bad time to ask you to leave and that it couldn’t have been easy on you, but Agent Redmond spoke very highly of you. He said you could work for him anytime.”
Lisbon chuckles. “I’d rather not make a habit of this,” she says.
“I think we’re both in agreement there,” Hightower replies standing up. “I’ll leave you on your own to go through your mail then.” She pauses in the doorway. “It’s good to have you back, Agent Lisbon.”
Once Hightower has shut the door behind her, Jane sees rather than hears Lisbon’s quiet “Thank you.”
And then, there she is, alone in her office and already back at work. Jane’s first instinct is to enter her office and lie down on her couch -- the sight of her sitting at her desk, sorting through her mail so normal, so right, that he almost cannot help himself -- but he forces himself to resist.
It doesn’t take long before Van Pelt, who has seemingly appointed herself ambassador, knocks on the door. Lisbon motions the junior agent inside, and Van Pelt accepts eagerly, leaving the door wide open, instead of just ajar.
“Hey, boss,” Van Pelt says pleasantly in greeting. She immediately walks up to Lisbon’s desk and stands right in front of it, forcing Lisbon to crane her neck upward. “When did you get back in town?”
“Just this morning.” Lisbon pauses, her slight discomfort only marginally apparent. “I spent all morning cleaning out my apartment, and then I just had to get out of there.”
Van Pelt laughs. “So you came here?”
“I knew all this,” Lisbon motions to her in tray and mailbox, both overflowing in her absence, “was waiting for me, and I want to get it cleared out before Monday morning.”
“You’re coming back on Monday?” Van Pelt appears incredulous. “They really wouldn’t give you anymore time off?”
Lisbon shakes her head. “They wanted me to take more time, but I’m deferring it for a few weeks. I’ll take some extra time off around the holidays.”
“That will be nice,” Van Pelt smiles. “Spend some extra time with your family. I’m sure your brothers must have been worried about you.”
“They were,” Lisbon nods and looks away. There is more to this than she is willing to reveal.
Van Pelt seems to sense this, but she persists in hovering around Lisbon’s desk.
“I don’t want to keep you. I know you have a lot to catch up on, but we,” Van Pelt gracefully motions back toward the bullpen, “wanted to take you out to dinner to welcome you back. Cho was thinking that Italian place over by the docks that you love.”
Lisbon looks up again. “Thank you, Grace. You guys don’t have to do that.”
“We want to!” Van Pelt insists; no amount of refusal on Lisbon’s part could deter her excitement. “If you can’t do it tonight or you’re too tired, we’ll do it tomorrow or sometime this weekend. Cho and Rigsby said they didn’t have any big plans, and we haven’t asked Jane yet, but I’m sure he’ll come too. He’s been really good about coming out with us these last few months. You would have been happy about that.”
Lisbon seems surprised by this, but she quickly recovers and smiles demurely. “Tonight is fine, Grace.”
“Great!” Van Pelt is ecstatic. “I’ll go tell the others and see if I can make a reservation for 7:00 if that’s okay with you?”
Lisbon nods at Van Pelt’s hopeful question. “Tell everyone I’ll be out as soon as I’m done going through my mail.”
Jane busies himself in the kitchen as Van Pelt takes leave from Lisbon’s office. (He has a legitimate excuse now; his cup of tea has actually grown cold.) He is unsurprised when Van Pelt approaches him from behind.
“Hey Jane,” she says, grinning broadly as she greets him. “You don’t have any plans tonight, right?”
He briefly considers inventing a reason not to go, but then thinks better of it. Dinner with the whole team will be a relatively innocuous affair, and not going would raise suspicions no matter what his excuse. Besides, it will be a valuable opportunity to get a read on Lisbon outside of the office. (He will simply ignore the fact that their destination -- ‘the Italian place over by the docks’ as Grace called it -- is only Lisbon’s favorite because he introduced her to it. The team has gone maybe three times in total, but over the years, he and Lisbon have gone together more times than he can recall.)
Jane tilts his head and flashes a smile. “No, no plans.”
“Good! Then you’ll come to dinner with us?” It’s a question, but it comes out as a statement. “We want to take Lisbon out to welcome her back.”
“I’ll be there,” he says, gripping his teacup just a little bit tighter and bringing it to his lips.
Van Pelt doesn’t wait around for him to change his mind. She turns on her heels and disappears around the corner, footsteps echoing quietly in her wake. Her voice carries as she animatedly relays both his and Lisbon’s acceptance of their dinner plans and then calls the restaurant to make a reservation for five.
Without a reasonable explanation for remaining in his hideout in the kitchen, Jane takes his cup of tea and returns to his familiar perch on his couch, brown leather shifting easily beneath him as he leans back.
On the surface, it appears that everything is finally returning to normal. Lisbon sits in her office, sorting through paperwork and frowning at her computer screen as it takes a few minutes for the slightly outdated monitor to boot up. Van Pelt, Rigsby, and even Cho seem visibly relieved, relaxed by Lisbon’s return; they harbor no hard feelings for her nearly six-month absence.
Of course, to them it’s just the job, all in the line of duty. But his stake is more personal, and that is why he cannot just let it go.
xxx
They take separate cars to the restaurant, which to Jane is a relief.
The hostess has their table ready and takes them back right away, and Jane immediately entertains himself by predicting exactly what each one of them will order. He should have made a bet with Cho or Rigsby, he thinks to himself. His predictions are correct down to Rigsby’s last-minute appetizer addition.
As soon as their waiter takes their order and leaves them with fresh bread and ice water, Van Pelt clears her throat.
“I would like to propose a toast,” she says, raising her glass of water in her right hand. Jane has been expecting this but thought she might wait until the drinks they had just ordered arrived at the table.
The others follow suit, and a soft flush settles on Lisbon’s cheeks, barely visible in the low lighting of the restaurant.
“To the boss,” Van Pelt continues. “It’s good to have you back.”
“To the boss,” Cho and Rigsby echo, each tipping back their glasses.
Jane hesitates for a few seconds, meeting Lisbon’s eyes deliberately before repeating the toast and taking a drink. He feels a chill as the cold water hits the back of his throat that has nothing to do with the temperature of his drink.
As is custom, Lisbon is the last to drink, and by the time she places her glass softly back on its napkin, the rest of the team’s eyes are focused on her.
“So tell us. What was it like?”
It’s Cho who speaks up first, surprising all of them.
“Exhausting.” Her admission comes quietly, subdued by its own honesty. She glances away.
“Six months is a long time to be undercover,” Jane comments offhandedly, but as soon as he has the chance, he gives her a pointed look.
“I was only at the shelter for four and a half,” she counters, retrieving the basket of bread, just to have something to do with her hands. “The FBI was up front with me. I knew when I accepted the task force, there was a good chance they would ask me to go undercover.”
There is a hidden meaning in her words that Jane can’t quite decipher; he wonders if even she knows what it is.
“I’m sure Lisbon doesn’t want to spend the entire meal talking about her assignment,” Van Pelt interjects protectively. “She can tell us about going undercover and the FBI next week. Let’s give her a break and talk about something else.”
Rigsby grins mischievously. “We should tell her about the case we had at that nursing home last month.”
“No,” Cho says shortly. “She doesn’t want to hear that story.”
“I think she does,” Rigsby argues with a conspiratorial laugh. “You just don’t want to tell it.”
“Do you have a new girlfriend now, Cho?” Lisbon teases.
“Her name is Gilda,” Van Pelt adds helpfully, ignoring the glare Cho sends in her direction (as much as Cho’s facial expressions ever change, that is). “She likes to knit. She proposed to him twice.”
“She’s a bit of a forward thinker for a woman of her age,” Jane comments, in as casual and offhanded a manner as possible. He remembers that case well; their investigation at the nursing home had been one of the more intriguing investigations they had handled in the past few months.
Rigsby smirks. “That’s one way of putting it.”
The entire team laughs at this -- even Cho. That seems to break the ice, and from there, the conversation flows freely. Talk of undercover assignments and tentative skirting around issues of the danger and potential risks associated with the aforementioned undercover assignments abandoned in favor general shop talk and stories of some of their more interesting witnesses and suspects from the time that Lisbon was away.
The evening passes quickly this way, friendly conversation and easy team banter pushing any doubts or reservations Jane had about the dinner from his mind. Van Pelt told Lisbon the truth earlier, he had been joining the team more and more often over the past few months, but as much as he enjoyed spending time with the others, there was always an empty seat at the table. Tonight in spite of the uncertainties that plague him, he feels the promise of possibility. This is the family Lisbon always told him they could be, if only he would let them.
He wonders, then, why she was the one who ran off without a word. She appears calm and relaxed as she sits across from him at the table, sipping a glass of Chianti and finishing the last of her meal. Has she simply become that much better at hiding her feelings, or is this newly-acknowledged difficulty in reading her one that has been brewing for some time and is only coming to his attention now?
As other parties come and go, the team lingers over coffee (or in Jane’s case, tea) and dessert, a tiramisu that puts all others in the city of Sacramento to shame. He tries not to watch Lisbon overtly as she enjoys her tiramisu, remembering the last time they had dessert at this very restaurant, on one of the few occasions they had gone out while they were together, right before Red John’s death. He can’t help but grin as she stifles a yawn, fork still in hand.
Her fatigue is catching. Before long, dessert plates have been cleared, the check has been paid, and Jane finds himself in the parking lot, watching as the others drive off one by one, leaving him alone with Lisbon for the first time in six months.
The late night December air is bitter cold for a Sacramento winter, but instead of retreating quickly to the safety of his car, Jane is frozen in place. The city streets are nearly empty at this hour, yet that silence is nothing compared to the one between him and Lisbon. They had been completely comfortable with each other while they had the protection of the rest of the team, but that comfort level seems to have vanished immediately the moment they lost that safety net.
She stands only a few feet from him, illuminated by soft light from the restaurant’s old-fashioned lampposts as she hugs her gray pea coat (one he’s never seen before) close to her body. He is captivated by the sight of her, a part of him wondering if this isn’t all some cruel trick his mind is playing on him, yet another nightmare where he will wake up in the morning and find that she is still gone.
“I, uh... I had nothing to do with choosing the restaurant,” she finally says. Her voice is hushed and hesitant, and her eyes dart away, not quite meeting his. “It was Cho’s idea.”
Jane shrugs it off. She doesn’t need to apologize on his account; at least, not for this.
“They know you like it here. It was a nice gesture.”
Lisbon isn’t convinced. “Still, if I had known ahead of time...”
“Don’t.”
Jane rarely uses short sentences or commands, finding proper manipulation of language one of his most powerful tools, but his own finely-tuned language skills fails him on this occasion.
She exhales, her breath visible in the night air, and laughs uneasily.
“So, Rigsby and Van Pelt,” she motions one hand in the direction of the street before quickly bringing her arm back to her chest, hugging it tight against her body to protect herself from the cold. “How long before they’re back at it?” Then as an afterthought, she adds, “Or are they already?”
“Not yet,” he admits.
Lisbon rolls her eyes. “I give them until New Years,” she half grumbles, although her underlying tone is good-natured.
“That’s very astute, Agent Lisbon. They were really quite subtle about it tonight, but I wouldn’t bet against you.”
“The guys will be disappointed they missed this. The great Patrick Jane, turning down a bet.”
She tilts her head as she speaks, but not in a familiar manner; her posture seems to change with this, suddenly shifting the Lisbon he has always known into someone he barely recognizes. This must be a lingering effect of her time undercover, the result of having adopted another persona for so many months. There are a thousand questions on the tip of his tongue, but not for the first time that evening, words fail him and he remains silent, his questions unasked and unanswered.
Lisbon yawns again, but this time she does not try to hide it. This seems to bring her back to herself. Her lips curl upward in a half smile.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” she says casually, one hand pulling her keys from her coat pocket. The jingle of the keys is accompanied by the click of her remote control key as she turns to her car and unlocks the driver’s side door with the press of a button.
Just before she climbs into her vehicle, she turns and consciously meets his gaze for the first time all evening. There is an honest sadness etched in her expression that lies just beneath the surface, the usual spirit and life in her eyes diminished.
“It’s really good to see you, Jane,” she murmurs.
Before he has a chance to react, she pulls her car door shut and drives away, leaving Jane glued to the spot, staring off into the distance long after her headlights disappear into the darkness.
xxxxx
Chapter: 6/15 (Book II)
Notes: Work this week prevented me from actually posting any of this. For that, I should be posting Chapter 6 and 7 back to back.
Book II
Chapter 6
xxxxx
The few days that follow are peaceful ones for Jane. There is a sense of finality and freedom that comes with his simple realization, and that calms his nerves more than anything.
There has been a general lift in the mood of the bullpen since their trip to San Francisco; the knowledge that their leader will soon be back among them has bolstered their spirits. Cho grumbles more often about his additional paperwork because he knows it will soon no longer be his responsibility, and Rigsby and Van Pelt begin to flirt openly as they have never quite done before. With the holidays almost upon them, Jane suspects it will take those two less than a month to reconcile completely.
He smiles at this. At least theirs is one relationship he can predict, and with some certainty, be assured that this time it will end well.
Thursday of that week, exactly nine days after their trip to San Francisco, Hightower shows up in the bullpen late in the afternoon with Lisbon in tow.
“Are you sure you want to come back on Monday?” Hightower asks as they walk into Lisbon’s office; they pull the door to close it, but it gets left open just a crack and that is enough for Jane. He walks over to the kitchen, pretending to fix himself a new cup of tea, to maximize his capacity to overhear. (He has always hated the term eavesdropping; it sounds entirely too nefarious.)
“You can have whatever time you need.” Through open blinds, Jane watches as Hightower sits on Lisbon’s couch; Jane hasn’t sat there since before she left.
Lisbon sits behind her own desk. The sight is both familiar and new all at once, but right.
“I need to come back. I’ve been away for too long.”
Hightower nods in understanding. “I don’t want you doing anything strenuous in the field until your ribs heal.”
“I understand.” Lisbon appears resigned.
Jane frowns. She must have been more seriously injured than she’d let on. He found that though he had assumed she might be, he still does not like the reality any more for having expected it.
“Thank you for agreeing to this, Lisbon. I know it was a bad time to ask you to leave and that it couldn’t have been easy on you, but Agent Redmond spoke very highly of you. He said you could work for him anytime.”
Lisbon chuckles. “I’d rather not make a habit of this,” she says.
“I think we’re both in agreement there,” Hightower replies standing up. “I’ll leave you on your own to go through your mail then.” She pauses in the doorway. “It’s good to have you back, Agent Lisbon.”
Once Hightower has shut the door behind her, Jane sees rather than hears Lisbon’s quiet “Thank you.”
And then, there she is, alone in her office and already back at work. Jane’s first instinct is to enter her office and lie down on her couch -- the sight of her sitting at her desk, sorting through her mail so normal, so right, that he almost cannot help himself -- but he forces himself to resist.
It doesn’t take long before Van Pelt, who has seemingly appointed herself ambassador, knocks on the door. Lisbon motions the junior agent inside, and Van Pelt accepts eagerly, leaving the door wide open, instead of just ajar.
“Hey, boss,” Van Pelt says pleasantly in greeting. She immediately walks up to Lisbon’s desk and stands right in front of it, forcing Lisbon to crane her neck upward. “When did you get back in town?”
“Just this morning.” Lisbon pauses, her slight discomfort only marginally apparent. “I spent all morning cleaning out my apartment, and then I just had to get out of there.”
Van Pelt laughs. “So you came here?”
“I knew all this,” Lisbon motions to her in tray and mailbox, both overflowing in her absence, “was waiting for me, and I want to get it cleared out before Monday morning.”
“You’re coming back on Monday?” Van Pelt appears incredulous. “They really wouldn’t give you anymore time off?”
Lisbon shakes her head. “They wanted me to take more time, but I’m deferring it for a few weeks. I’ll take some extra time off around the holidays.”
“That will be nice,” Van Pelt smiles. “Spend some extra time with your family. I’m sure your brothers must have been worried about you.”
“They were,” Lisbon nods and looks away. There is more to this than she is willing to reveal.
Van Pelt seems to sense this, but she persists in hovering around Lisbon’s desk.
“I don’t want to keep you. I know you have a lot to catch up on, but we,” Van Pelt gracefully motions back toward the bullpen, “wanted to take you out to dinner to welcome you back. Cho was thinking that Italian place over by the docks that you love.”
Lisbon looks up again. “Thank you, Grace. You guys don’t have to do that.”
“We want to!” Van Pelt insists; no amount of refusal on Lisbon’s part could deter her excitement. “If you can’t do it tonight or you’re too tired, we’ll do it tomorrow or sometime this weekend. Cho and Rigsby said they didn’t have any big plans, and we haven’t asked Jane yet, but I’m sure he’ll come too. He’s been really good about coming out with us these last few months. You would have been happy about that.”
Lisbon seems surprised by this, but she quickly recovers and smiles demurely. “Tonight is fine, Grace.”
“Great!” Van Pelt is ecstatic. “I’ll go tell the others and see if I can make a reservation for 7:00 if that’s okay with you?”
Lisbon nods at Van Pelt’s hopeful question. “Tell everyone I’ll be out as soon as I’m done going through my mail.”
Jane busies himself in the kitchen as Van Pelt takes leave from Lisbon’s office. (He has a legitimate excuse now; his cup of tea has actually grown cold.) He is unsurprised when Van Pelt approaches him from behind.
“Hey Jane,” she says, grinning broadly as she greets him. “You don’t have any plans tonight, right?”
He briefly considers inventing a reason not to go, but then thinks better of it. Dinner with the whole team will be a relatively innocuous affair, and not going would raise suspicions no matter what his excuse. Besides, it will be a valuable opportunity to get a read on Lisbon outside of the office. (He will simply ignore the fact that their destination -- ‘the Italian place over by the docks’ as Grace called it -- is only Lisbon’s favorite because he introduced her to it. The team has gone maybe three times in total, but over the years, he and Lisbon have gone together more times than he can recall.)
Jane tilts his head and flashes a smile. “No, no plans.”
“Good! Then you’ll come to dinner with us?” It’s a question, but it comes out as a statement. “We want to take Lisbon out to welcome her back.”
“I’ll be there,” he says, gripping his teacup just a little bit tighter and bringing it to his lips.
Van Pelt doesn’t wait around for him to change his mind. She turns on her heels and disappears around the corner, footsteps echoing quietly in her wake. Her voice carries as she animatedly relays both his and Lisbon’s acceptance of their dinner plans and then calls the restaurant to make a reservation for five.
Without a reasonable explanation for remaining in his hideout in the kitchen, Jane takes his cup of tea and returns to his familiar perch on his couch, brown leather shifting easily beneath him as he leans back.
On the surface, it appears that everything is finally returning to normal. Lisbon sits in her office, sorting through paperwork and frowning at her computer screen as it takes a few minutes for the slightly outdated monitor to boot up. Van Pelt, Rigsby, and even Cho seem visibly relieved, relaxed by Lisbon’s return; they harbor no hard feelings for her nearly six-month absence.
Of course, to them it’s just the job, all in the line of duty. But his stake is more personal, and that is why he cannot just let it go.
xxx
They take separate cars to the restaurant, which to Jane is a relief.
The hostess has their table ready and takes them back right away, and Jane immediately entertains himself by predicting exactly what each one of them will order. He should have made a bet with Cho or Rigsby, he thinks to himself. His predictions are correct down to Rigsby’s last-minute appetizer addition.
As soon as their waiter takes their order and leaves them with fresh bread and ice water, Van Pelt clears her throat.
“I would like to propose a toast,” she says, raising her glass of water in her right hand. Jane has been expecting this but thought she might wait until the drinks they had just ordered arrived at the table.
The others follow suit, and a soft flush settles on Lisbon’s cheeks, barely visible in the low lighting of the restaurant.
“To the boss,” Van Pelt continues. “It’s good to have you back.”
“To the boss,” Cho and Rigsby echo, each tipping back their glasses.
Jane hesitates for a few seconds, meeting Lisbon’s eyes deliberately before repeating the toast and taking a drink. He feels a chill as the cold water hits the back of his throat that has nothing to do with the temperature of his drink.
As is custom, Lisbon is the last to drink, and by the time she places her glass softly back on its napkin, the rest of the team’s eyes are focused on her.
“So tell us. What was it like?”
It’s Cho who speaks up first, surprising all of them.
“Exhausting.” Her admission comes quietly, subdued by its own honesty. She glances away.
“Six months is a long time to be undercover,” Jane comments offhandedly, but as soon as he has the chance, he gives her a pointed look.
“I was only at the shelter for four and a half,” she counters, retrieving the basket of bread, just to have something to do with her hands. “The FBI was up front with me. I knew when I accepted the task force, there was a good chance they would ask me to go undercover.”
There is a hidden meaning in her words that Jane can’t quite decipher; he wonders if even she knows what it is.
“I’m sure Lisbon doesn’t want to spend the entire meal talking about her assignment,” Van Pelt interjects protectively. “She can tell us about going undercover and the FBI next week. Let’s give her a break and talk about something else.”
Rigsby grins mischievously. “We should tell her about the case we had at that nursing home last month.”
“No,” Cho says shortly. “She doesn’t want to hear that story.”
“I think she does,” Rigsby argues with a conspiratorial laugh. “You just don’t want to tell it.”
“Do you have a new girlfriend now, Cho?” Lisbon teases.
“Her name is Gilda,” Van Pelt adds helpfully, ignoring the glare Cho sends in her direction (as much as Cho’s facial expressions ever change, that is). “She likes to knit. She proposed to him twice.”
“She’s a bit of a forward thinker for a woman of her age,” Jane comments, in as casual and offhanded a manner as possible. He remembers that case well; their investigation at the nursing home had been one of the more intriguing investigations they had handled in the past few months.
Rigsby smirks. “That’s one way of putting it.”
The entire team laughs at this -- even Cho. That seems to break the ice, and from there, the conversation flows freely. Talk of undercover assignments and tentative skirting around issues of the danger and potential risks associated with the aforementioned undercover assignments abandoned in favor general shop talk and stories of some of their more interesting witnesses and suspects from the time that Lisbon was away.
The evening passes quickly this way, friendly conversation and easy team banter pushing any doubts or reservations Jane had about the dinner from his mind. Van Pelt told Lisbon the truth earlier, he had been joining the team more and more often over the past few months, but as much as he enjoyed spending time with the others, there was always an empty seat at the table. Tonight in spite of the uncertainties that plague him, he feels the promise of possibility. This is the family Lisbon always told him they could be, if only he would let them.
He wonders, then, why she was the one who ran off without a word. She appears calm and relaxed as she sits across from him at the table, sipping a glass of Chianti and finishing the last of her meal. Has she simply become that much better at hiding her feelings, or is this newly-acknowledged difficulty in reading her one that has been brewing for some time and is only coming to his attention now?
As other parties come and go, the team lingers over coffee (or in Jane’s case, tea) and dessert, a tiramisu that puts all others in the city of Sacramento to shame. He tries not to watch Lisbon overtly as she enjoys her tiramisu, remembering the last time they had dessert at this very restaurant, on one of the few occasions they had gone out while they were together, right before Red John’s death. He can’t help but grin as she stifles a yawn, fork still in hand.
Her fatigue is catching. Before long, dessert plates have been cleared, the check has been paid, and Jane finds himself in the parking lot, watching as the others drive off one by one, leaving him alone with Lisbon for the first time in six months.
The late night December air is bitter cold for a Sacramento winter, but instead of retreating quickly to the safety of his car, Jane is frozen in place. The city streets are nearly empty at this hour, yet that silence is nothing compared to the one between him and Lisbon. They had been completely comfortable with each other while they had the protection of the rest of the team, but that comfort level seems to have vanished immediately the moment they lost that safety net.
She stands only a few feet from him, illuminated by soft light from the restaurant’s old-fashioned lampposts as she hugs her gray pea coat (one he’s never seen before) close to her body. He is captivated by the sight of her, a part of him wondering if this isn’t all some cruel trick his mind is playing on him, yet another nightmare where he will wake up in the morning and find that she is still gone.
“I, uh... I had nothing to do with choosing the restaurant,” she finally says. Her voice is hushed and hesitant, and her eyes dart away, not quite meeting his. “It was Cho’s idea.”
Jane shrugs it off. She doesn’t need to apologize on his account; at least, not for this.
“They know you like it here. It was a nice gesture.”
Lisbon isn’t convinced. “Still, if I had known ahead of time...”
“Don’t.”
Jane rarely uses short sentences or commands, finding proper manipulation of language one of his most powerful tools, but his own finely-tuned language skills fails him on this occasion.
She exhales, her breath visible in the night air, and laughs uneasily.
“So, Rigsby and Van Pelt,” she motions one hand in the direction of the street before quickly bringing her arm back to her chest, hugging it tight against her body to protect herself from the cold. “How long before they’re back at it?” Then as an afterthought, she adds, “Or are they already?”
“Not yet,” he admits.
Lisbon rolls her eyes. “I give them until New Years,” she half grumbles, although her underlying tone is good-natured.
“That’s very astute, Agent Lisbon. They were really quite subtle about it tonight, but I wouldn’t bet against you.”
“The guys will be disappointed they missed this. The great Patrick Jane, turning down a bet.”
She tilts her head as she speaks, but not in a familiar manner; her posture seems to change with this, suddenly shifting the Lisbon he has always known into someone he barely recognizes. This must be a lingering effect of her time undercover, the result of having adopted another persona for so many months. There are a thousand questions on the tip of his tongue, but not for the first time that evening, words fail him and he remains silent, his questions unasked and unanswered.
Lisbon yawns again, but this time she does not try to hide it. This seems to bring her back to herself. Her lips curl upward in a half smile.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” she says casually, one hand pulling her keys from her coat pocket. The jingle of the keys is accompanied by the click of her remote control key as she turns to her car and unlocks the driver’s side door with the press of a button.
Just before she climbs into her vehicle, she turns and consciously meets his gaze for the first time all evening. There is an honest sadness etched in her expression that lies just beneath the surface, the usual spirit and life in her eyes diminished.
“It’s really good to see you, Jane,” she murmurs.
Before he has a chance to react, she pulls her car door shut and drives away, leaving Jane glued to the spot, staring off into the distance long after her headlights disappear into the darkness.
xxxxx