fic: (Ment) Rainbow Tales - Part 7
Part One - Red
Part Two - Orange
Part Three - Yellow
Part Four - Green
Part Five - Blue
Part Six - Indigo
VIOLET - Just By Chance
People were talking. And though they were one of the best CBI agents and a brilliant mind-reading ex-psychic, they had no idea people were talking about them. Maybe because they assumed it was only the usual chatter about the unusual duo. Or maybe they were too occupied with each other. Whatever it was - people were talking, about them, and they never even seemed to notice it.
It all started out as a wedding - an event with them not standing in the focus of attention. Because this wedding was the one of two of their colleagues and friends.
Patrick Jane and Teresa Lisbon were, like so many others, only guests. Admittedly, not only guests, but also very good friends to the soon-to-be-married couple, but still, they were guests.
When Grace Van Pelt and Wayne Rigsby had announced their wedding, it had been the Happy Ending to a long and hard way. A way with many obstacles they had to take and conquer. They had started out as colleagues who fell in love. They had found themselves confronted with a choice - relationship or job. They had almost given up, only to find enough strength to fight for their happiness. They had won. They had wanted their love, and in the end, they had gotten it - without losing their jobs or being transferred.
To show the whole world how happy they were, they chose to celebrate at a place symbolizing freedom and light-heartedness for them - a beach. Guests were allowed to wear whatever light summer clothes they had - under two conditions: no shoes, and there had to be at least one visible piece of a violet color. It was the one color, the couple agreed, that, in the right shade everyone was free to choose, wouldn't be too girly or too dark.
The wedding day arrived with wonderful weather. It was a perfect day in August, and the ceremony promised to be just as beautiful. A traditional wedding at a not so traditional place, but the guests loved it and everyone was happy.
What no one expected - least of all the couple - was that the husband and wife had to share the attention. From the moment the team's consultant and shortly after their boss showed up, stolen glances wandered to them from time to time, and people now and then refrained from paying attention to the main characters of the day's show and celebration, even and especially during the ceremony.
It wasn't that anyone really noticed the shared attention, and still there was a subtle restlessness in the crowd every last person, even the personnel, was confronted with in one or the other way. It was, however, only later after the dinner when even Grace and Wayne noticed what everyone else had already seen and wondered about.
"Wayne. Look at that. Jane and Lisbon - they're a perfect match," Grace quietly told her husband as they sat at the center seats of the long festive table and watched their guests around them.
"Yes, love, I know, that's what I've been telling you for years," the man beside her responded smiling.
"No, that is not what I mean. Look at them. Her dress and his cravat. They are in the exact same shade of violet." Curiously, Wayne looked up at his wife's words. And, indeed, it was as Grace had said. Of all people at the wedding, and all the pieces of violet clothing, only the two of their boss and the consultant were such an exact match that it looked like they were made of the same piece of cloth.
"Wow. The likelihood for that is like... what?"
"I don't know. Considering that no one else's clothes are in that shade of violet, and that Lisbon and I bought her dress on our shopping tour..."
"... and that Cho and I were present when Jane bought that cravat, and both our shops weren't even in the same district of Sacramento..."
"Pretty close to zero, I would say."
"And still, they match perfectly." Wayne started to grin happily.
"You think that means something?" Grace asked, and then nudged her husband to stop staring into their colleagues' direction with that story-telling grin in his face.
"Oh, that definitely means something. Especially at a wedding."
~~~
Maybe they were the last ones to notice. But in the end and with a little help from the newly-weds, they finally did.
Jane and Lisbon hadn't seen it. Unaware of their appearance seen through another person's eyes, it never occurred to them that there was such a striking similarity between them that had all guests talk and wonder. Being told, they at first simply laughed about it. It had happened only by chance; they, as their team had already surmised, hadn't agreed on anything, like a manufacturer or designer. It was only a coincidence.
However, it was a coincidence that wouldn't leave their minds alone. The teasing about its significance by new Mr. and Mrs. Rigsby and even by normally stoic and no-nonsense Kimball Cho had them thinking - and finally talking. To each other.
"You don't believe that, don't you?" Lisbon started warily after she had pulled Jane a few meters away from the party.
"Lisbon, please. Since when do you believe in such things?"
"I don't, but I'm asking whether you do!" she hissed, and Jane grinned.
"Yeah, sure you don't, I can see that. That's why you're asking and why you're obviously very concerned and nervous about it," he answered, not without a teasing note in his voice.
"Jane!"
"What is your problem? Let them believe what they want. Why do you even care?" The consultant was highly amused. It was obvious that Lisbon had her issues with the events, as people now seemed to think that they were a couple. Jane, on the other hand, didn't mind. People loved to gossip; it was part of the human nature. He knew that ignoring them was the best way to silence them.
"Because people are talking!"
"Well then, let them talk. Could be worse." With that, he turned on his heel and was about to walk back to the pavilion, but her hand grabbing his arm stopped him. However, before she could say anything, he took her hand from his arm and pulled her behind him back to the others.
"Jane, stop!" she called, making not only the blond man before her, but also some of the guests turn and look.
"Seriously, Lisbon, what do you want to talk about? There's nothing we can change right now. So maybe they will have some nice topic to discuss for the next few days, but after that, they won't even remember. After all it is Rigsby's and Van Pelt's wedding, not ours."
Straightening to be as tall as possible, and waving her finger in front of his face, she was about to reprimand him, but stopped herself at the sight of his grin. More than once she opened her mouth to start her tirade, but none of the words that entered her mind seemed to be right. Out of frustration she in the end did something she later would describe as something even she had never expected herself to do: she kissed him.
And with an almost deviant satisfaction she noticed his complete confusion.
The other guests, too, didn't disappoint her. Or them, for that matter. People around them were cheering and clapping, not even refraining from their enthusiastic approval moments after Teresa and Patrick had parted again.
"I take it you were out of ideas of what to say to me?" Jane joked light-heartedly and laughed quietly when Lisbon, though smiling, rolled her eyes.
"You better shut up now. You have no idea what else I'm capable of."
"Can't wait for you to show it to me."
Somewhere among the murmuring crowd around them, someone commented, "Knew it from the moment I saw their clothes.", and they grinned at each other before they lost themselves in another passionate embrace.
END