the mentalist fanfiction- Red Shadows in the sunset (Big Bang) 1/11
Title: Red shadows in the sunset
Author: little_firestar and Artist: Browneyesparker
Beta-reader: Tromana
Link to art: coming soon
Word count: ~34820
Rating: T
Summary : To make amend for his past and protect his future, Jane finally killed Red John, but his revenge destroyed the frail equilibrium of his newfound love with Lisbon. And even after a year apart, she still wasn’t sure she was ready to take him back in her life, as much as she knew she simply had to. Also because a shadow from their past was going to threaten them once more, trying to get the mentalist back. The game was on…
Disclaimers: The Mentalist and its rights belong to CBS and Bruno Heller; Brenda Leigh Johnson is borrowed by late TNT’S show The Closer.
Notes: Set after the seventh and final season of The Closer (summer 2012) and in an uncertain post season 4 future for The Mentalist. References and spoilers from season 1 to 4 included, especially to pilot, season 2, 3.08, and season 3 and 4 finales.
She didn’t know if the nightmare had just started, or was finally ending. She didn’t know if she was still living it, or if she had finally woken up. Yes, Teresa Lisbon was still alive, but, while sat in her office, all she could do was think about the last few hours. Like on autopilot, she kept reliving it, without any choice in the matter.
She held her head between her hands, and trembled. Mostly, it was the last remains of adrenalin, but also because of a well-known fear. Well-known, because of the Red John case, but, mostly because since she had allowed Jane to play an important role in her life, she had turned into a target for the serial killer. How many times had she risked her life because of him? Hardy, Gupta, O’Laughlin, Lorelei, and now…
Red John had, once again, sent the temptress, Lorelei. Only, this time the woman wasn’t going after favors, and had decided (or, more likely, she had been ordered) to take matters into her own hands. What bothered Lisbon was that they hadn’t seen it coming; it had looked like a comparatively normal day. The FBI had taken the brunette in for questioning, and once the three of them (Lorelei, Lisbon and Agent Ramirez) were alone, the CBI agent found herself held at knifepoint.
She remembered it so clearly. She wondered if there was any chance she could actually forget all about it. Jane’s look was the worst. She wasn’t looking forward dreaming of his desperation and madness later on. But she couldn’t get rid of the image, even now; it was impressed in her mind. It was the same look he had had when he had shot Hardy, only, different. She knew that on that day he had done so on reflex, but she knew that he had still made a decision. He chose life, chose her.
“It’s okay, Lisbon, I’ll help you out of this ….” With Lorelei holding the knife at her throat, and the killer’s breath hot on the skin of the back of her neck, Lisbon did her best to avoid looking at him. Yes, she was looking in his direction, but she refused to catch his eye by staring at the floor. She wasn’t sure she could handle allowing him to see how damaged by life she truly was. Showing him, would mean opening up to him, and to a universe of possibilities. Possibilities she wasn’t sure she could live with right now. She had almost made that mistake once, and she wasn’t going to make it again. Not when it was pointless.
“Teresa, listen to me. It’s going to be okay.” The determination in his voice forced her to lift her gaze and look straight at the man opposite her. And when sea green met emerald green, the breath died in her throat, and she knew she was screwed. Whatever happened, there was no turning back, for the both of them.
She heard a gunshot at the back of the mirror, and with her peripheral sight, she saw the shiny surface shattered. The dagger went to the ground as Lisbon felt a tiny rivulet of hot blood running down her chest, and with a gasp, Lorelei Martins fell on the ground.
She didn’t know why she wanted to spare Jane the pain. Maybe it was because he had suffered enough already, or maybe it was because she had never forgotten the words uttered in the darkness of her office one night a long time ago, before they were about to fake her death. Good Luck, Teresa. Love you.
But, she knew it wasn’t like that. It had started a long time before, when she just wished for him to move on and to live. When they were just coworkers and she used to smile as she walked by his couch late at night.
Still here, Mr. Jane? With all due respect, but do you really have nothing better to do on a Friday evening than napping on an old couch in the office? I don’t think it’s healthy spending all your time here.
Back then, she had smiled. Even if her words were laced with sincerity, she had still smiled as she teased him. But then, she didn’t know when and she didn’t know how things had changed between them. He had changed, and had been more honest with her, and he hurt when he caused her pain, in his endless war to get his revenge.
So much had changed, and nothing was a joke between them any longer.
You’d choose life. I trust you. We are your family and you are betraying us. There are people who care about you. We can work this out, we’ll fix it. God knows I’m happy you are back, it’s a huge relief.
I’ll never hurt you on purpose. I’ll always save you. I need your help. You are sweet. Love you, Teresa.
After their chance encounter with Sophie Miller, Lisbon had been partly aware that they were getting somehow closer, possibly too close. At night, she had often wondered if Hardy’s words meant something more than what he actually said. Maybe, back then, he had seen something they weren’t ready to face yet. Maybe he knew that there was a certain emotion buried deep within their hearts because they still couldn’t acknowledge it.
Late at night, she had often wondered if Hardy admitted she was a target because she was the leading investigator or because of something else. And why he didn’t want to kill her as he did with all the other “collateral damage” but like he liked to take care of his victims of choosing. What made her special, deserving the same treatment, and time, he took for Angela Ruskin-Jane?
I’ll try to persuade Red John to kill you quick and clean instead of slow and nasty, like he is planning to.
That day, she had almost gotten killed at the hands of one of Red John’s minions. And in the following years, it had happened, again and again. That first time - and this time - she knew that she was terrified, probably because she knew that she didn’t have time to prepare herself for her imminent demise. Not like when another one of Red John’s people put a bomb around her chest.
At times, though, her mind had wandered to Patrick Jane, on the sufferance her death could impose on him, but mostly, on her regrets. And on the regrets he would have, if she were to die. She remembered the trip in his car, and his low voice, sad, sweet, and scared. He had never ended his sentence, always claimed he was buying themselves time, but after he had confessed her of his love in her office, she had always asked herself if it was that he was talking about on that occasion too. Did he get cold feet at the last minute, just before admitting that his own feelings for her run deeper than they should? If he did, then she could understand him. The very same thing had happened to her, a long time before that. Only, they weren’t in a high school or her office, but inside a crate, on their way to Mexico.
“You know, some people might ask you why you signed on with me in the first place.”
“We catch a lot of bad guys, and most days it’s enough. Also, I…” she stared at him, lost in his eyes, the breath dying in her throat. She closed and unclosed her fingers, like she was deciding whether or not to touch something. Then she looked at her own feet as she took a couple of steps forwards She took a big breath, and Jane leaned closer to her, until he was so close she could feel his hot breath on her. She was going to talk, and she had already opened her mouth to make her confession, the one that will change everything, when a noise coming from the outside stopped her. It killed the moment before it could actually begin. In the blink of an eye, they were back to Agent Lisbon and Consultant Jane.
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He always knew that there was a part of Lisbon that desperately wanted to tell him how she felt, how deep her love for him ran. Like he had always known that she had heard him that night in her office, and actually remembered those fateful words. Still, he had never pushed her. Part of him regretted his admission. Not because it wasn’t true; that was one of his most sincere moments. It was because Lisbon deserved so much more than him. He was a broken man who didn’t deserve any happiness at all. He didn’t deserve Lisbon’s love, like he hadn’t deserved Angela’s. Jane knew, and for a long time, he had hoped she did too. Or, at least, that she was smart enough to stay the hell away from him.
So, he found quite funny that he wasn’t the issue in their non-existent relationship.
For starters, Lisbon believed she wasn’t good enough for him. Having grown up with no female role model, with no mother to ask for advice, it meant that even in adulthood, Teresa Lisbon was quite unsure about herself as a woman. The fact that she applied the same process to her work and to her soul as well didn’t exactly help either.
Then, there were her control issues: Teresa had always tried her best to keep an iron grip on her life, and Jane liked to do the same too. She didn’t like it, and yet she didn’t know if she was supposed to give up control or fight to get it.
Mostly, though, it was a matter of feelings. She was scared of admitting what she felt because she was scared he wasn’t going to reciprocate her feelings, and that he’d laugh at her. But sometimes, what she really found scary was the possibility that he could actually feel the same. Because with love came power, and with that, the potential to get her heart broken.
She just didn’t get it. How couldn’t she understand that it wasn’t a broken heart he wanted to witness? He just wanted her, even though she deserved better. It didn’t matter he knew it was wrong. But, now he couldn’t back up any longer. He had said the words out loud once already, and she still wasn’t sure if he actually meant them or not. He regretted having told her he had forgotten what he said because he was hyped up. Then, there was the time when he had once freaked out and closed his mouth before he could actually end the sentence.
Now, it was all too much.
He had almost lost her once again, this time to the woman Red John had offered up to him, and the thought that Lisbon could have died thinking it had been all a ruse just broke his heart. He couldn’t allow her to think she was a means to an end like Lorelei. She needed to know she meant so much for him, more than she was supposed to, actually.
“Hey.” He closed the door at his back as he entered. He smiled that lazy, sad smile of his. Jane closed the blinds, but Lisbon didn’t notice it. She barely registered his presence in the first place. She didn’t even lift her gaze from that point on the marble floor she seemed almost obsessed with right now. It broke his heart, seeing her this heartbroken and shattered.
He sat beside her on the couch and took her face between his strong hands. Then, he forced her to meet his gaze once more, just like he had done in the interrogation room and in this same office a long time before, when he told her the truth only to deny it afterwards.
She was silently crying, but was fighting, and losing, a battle so that he couldn’t see it. He didn’t care, though, and he wanted for her to understand it. He wanted her, no matter what. She was Lisbon, his Lisbon.
He smiled a sad smile, one of the honest and sincere ones, and he told her everything he needed without the need for words. He hoped it was enough for her to understand that this time he wasn’t lying. She knew the difference. He had already shared with her in the past, sometimes because he wanted to, other times because he had to. This time, though, what he needed was for her to believe him.
“I meant every word I said that night” he whispered as he got closer and closer to her, his lips grazing her skin. He didn’t touch her lips yet, though; he needed her to believe him, and not think it was a spur of the moment thing. She needed to know that even back then, he had been honest, and that he still regretted not having finished their talk so many years before.
“Listen, Lisbon, if this doesn’t turn out well, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time, but the moment has never presented itself, and…”
“Jane, no, I don’t think it’s the best time to confess whatever you are planning of confessing….”
“If I don’t talk now, then when?”
He finally decided that enough was enough, and surrendered to desire. He kissed her like he should have kissed her a long time before. But, it had been a long time since he had last been intimate with a woman - one he actually wanted, at least. With Lorelei it had been just sex, biofeedback and allowing her to be on top and do whatever she wanted, so he couldn't see who she wasn’t.
Lisbon was different.
He remembered all the times he had hold her, when he had tried to hypnotize her, when he had danced with her, inspired her scent and almost kissed her hair, and when he had hugged her and hold her hand in the desert. He didn’t know when he got that she was more than a friend, or a surrogate sister, to him. Maybe it was at that high school reunion, when the world stopped and then it was born anew while he was in her arms, or maybe it was being away from her for those six, long months.
He struggled to control his desire, and his need for the woman in his arms, and he could feel it was the same for her. It had been a long time for her too. Not because of the sex - she had been with many other men since they met - but because it was him. He was a man she wanted with her soul and not just her body. It didn’t matter that she had tried to date, that he had tried to show her what was better for her and that it wasn’t him. It had always been about the two of them.
She had wanted him for so long. And right now, it was clear that she needed him. As a consequence, he couldn’t fight it any longer.
He knew that letting it go this way was selfish, that they shouldn’t remember they were alive through sex. But, because it was what they both wanted it, he still allowed himself what he had denied himself for so long: love and affection, on both sides. He got lost in her, in the deepness that was her body and her soul, and he remembered.
He remembered she was there with him, alive, and that nothing else mattered. He forgot everything and everyone else, but just for a fraction of second, until their glares started haunting his mind. Jane could almost hear Red John’s voice, and then he remembered there were things he was supposed to do as well. That it was almost time.
Lisbon knew it. She felt it the moment he froze, for just an instant. But she couldn’t care any less. It wasn’t because she didn’t love him, quite the opposite. She had just come to pact with reality, and had decided to accept him for whom and what he was. There are things you can’t fix.
Besides, she knew that with Patrick Jane there was more than met the eye. He was a good man who was full of passion and had a huge heart. She had always known it, but hearing his confession of love to his late wife on that video just made her understand him better. It made her love him even more than how she already did.
She had allowed Patrick Jane in her life and now, into her bed as well, and she was scared. She knew the truth: he was going to break her heart. She was going to suffer because that was the way of the world. It was how it went for her every time she fell for a man. Her fate had been sealed the moment she first saw him, when she understood with a simple glance that he was going to break her eventually, one way or another. She had compromised herself for him. Lisbon had tried to fight it but she had failed, because there was nothing she could do about it. It was, after all, how her world worked.
Still, she allowed herself a small glint of hope as he moved slowly and carefully inside her. She wanted to believe he wasn’t going to turn her world upside down.
But he was already planning to.