Causality (1/19)
Causality
Author: tromana
Artist(s): browneyesparker
Link to art: Part One, Part Two
Word Count: 51,333
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Death isn't always the end. Who'd have thought that Angela Ruskin would be the one to introduce Jane and Lisbon? AU loosely based on the movie/musical, Ghost.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist, or Ghost. I just have crazy ideas like this one.
Notes: Written for The Mentalist Big Bang 2011. Thank you to my wonderful beta-come-cheerleader, miss_peg and my artist, browneyesparker for the wonderful art to go alongside it.
Causality
Part One
“It’s perfect, I love it, Patrick.”
She placed a kiss firmly against his lips and he smiled into the embrace. Immediately, he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and lifted her slightly from her feet. As he placed her back down, she was grinning from ear to ear. This was what happiness felt like, Jane decided. It must have been, because otherwise, why else would he have felt like his heart was bursting with joy and unable to stop smiling, even for a second? If it wasn’t happiness, he wondered just what would be able to top this moment. He shivered slightly with anticipation. There was a certain small velvet box in his jacket pocket, but it wasn’t the right moment. Not quite yet, anyway.
This was their first home together, their first real home. Before now, they had only been renting and before that, well they had been constantly on the move. That had always been the curse of a carnival lifestyle; never being able to settle down for long enough in one place to really be able to call it home. It was what they had been dreaming of, ever since they had first agreed to start dating. She had mentioned how desperately she wanted, needed to leave the carnival circuit and Jane had been determined to make it happen for her. And Angela Ruskin didn’t deserve to just ‘make do’ once she finally made her great escape; she deserved the best.
Jane hadn’t told Angela that he had been slowly squirreling away money for precisely this moment. He had wanted it to be entirely a surprise. They had chosen the home together, though that had been stressful enough in itself. He’d wanted to move to L.A., it was closer to work and therefore, more practical. She had preferred Malibu and its sandy beaches. In the end, they’d settled for Sacramento. Though it wasn’t the place either of them really wanted to be, there was a certain charm when it came to the state’s capitol. When they had been faced with a home so spacious, so beautiful, Angela had immediately fretted about furnishing it. It was one thing keeping on top of the mortgage repayments and another entirely to make sure it had everything they needed to make their gorgeous new home comfortable.
“Where did the money come from?”
Angela was frowning as she asked. Jane had told her that he’d been working with the CBI in their L.A. branch, to help solve some of the more complex cases they came across. The move to Sacramento meant that he could continue with his work there. Naturally, she had been entirely proud of him for that. He was using the skills that he’d picked up while working on the carnival trail in a far more honorable manner. She had entirely believed that he had stopped fleecing vulnerable people for all they were worth. However, it was obvious that he couldn’t have offered everything from the meager salary he got from them. Heck, as he was just a consultant, it didn’t even cover things such as dental. If he had even been able to make meager savings from that line of work, he wouldn’t have been able to provide her with everything he wanted to.
He had hated the fact he had been lying to her, but some things were like second nature to him. Unfortunately for Jane, lying had been one of those habits instilled into him since birth by his father. It was something he found difficult to quit and somehow, however much he tried, he always fell back into his old ways. Besides, continuing with his psychic act had been the only way he knew how to support her. Their lifestyle hadn’t exactly been conducive to learning skills required for office work or the like, so he had simply done the best he could with what he had. Still, he couldn’t stand the idea of her finding out; he knew that she would be so disappointed in him, if she did. That was why he hadn’t told her he was still practicing as a psychic, or not yet, anyway. There were still a couple of things he hadn’t told her and knew he needed to before she found out from other sources.
“Patrick…”
“Yes?”
“You’re still seeing clients, aren’t you?” she said, almost whispering.
“Yes,” he repeated, sounding sad and small this time around.
“We left for a reason, so that we didn’t have to do that anymore!”
“I did it because I love you,” he said, grabbing hold of her hand. “Angela, please…”
She shook his hand off and stared at him searchingly. There weren’t many people who could make Jane feel small and insignificant, but she was one of them. And that was the reason he generally tried to avoid disappointing her; he couldn’t stand letting those he loved down. Nor did he particularly enjoy being belittled, but then again who did? It was just he had developed a bigger ego than most and therefore, found it harder to tolerate it when people knocked him. Except with Angela. If he let her down, then he constantly had to try and find ways to make it up to her, to make it all better. Her disappointment at their previous apartment, which was the size of a postage stamp, with shabby furniture to match, was half the reason he wanted their new place to be fit for a princess.
“I’m going for a walk,” she replied, albeit sadly. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Angela…”
He remained stock still and heard the door slam as she left. Half of him was convinced that he’d blown it, that she wouldn’t actually bother to come back at all. Jane had known her ever since they were small, had loved her since then, but it had taken him years to persuade her to even date him. Mostly because when she was seventeen, she had been hurt badly by her then-boyfriend. He’d tried to approach the subject with her, had several hunches about what had happened, but no concrete evidence. She certainly didn’t want to revisit it, but there were times when she obviously had no choice but to. And they were almost always interlinked with times when she was lied to. The woman was desperate to build a relationship on truth and honesty and yet, he had happily shot himself in the foot. All because he wanted to impress her, to make her feel like she was worth every penny. As he sat down on the couch, with his head in his hands, he wondered briefly if it had been worth this.
xxx
Teresa Lisbon drummed her pen against her desk irritably. She was bored. Which, given her line of work, was something which didn’t happen all that often. And when it did happen, she quickly grew frustrated. Half the reason she loved her job so much was because she was always on the go, always had something to stimulate her. It never gave her a chance to stop and think about anything that could possibly be missing from her life. There was always another case to solve, another criminal to apprehend. Or at least, there usually was. If there was right now, then she wouldn’t have been stuck in her office, staring at her phone as if it had caused her a personal offense.
Realistically, she knew that she should have been glad that she wasn’t busy. It was a good thing when cops were bored. If she had something to do, then that meant another innocent person had lost their life and another family had been utterly destroyed. That was a situation she understood all too well and it was half the reason she had wanted to go into homicide in the first place. Yes, her mom’s death may have been an accident, technically speaking, but it didn’t mean that she couldn’t empathize with the devastation the loss of a loved one caused.
Still, Lisbon needed something constructive to do. She was on top of her paperwork, had prepared for upcoming court testimonials and they didn’t even have any cold cases she could look over. And yet, she was still stuck at work, waiting for her phone to ring while the rest of her team wound each other up in the bullpen. That was the problem with a gathering of highly intelligent people; they all knew how to press each other’s buttons. It was half the reason she was wisely staying out of it. However, she was more than aware that if things went too far, she was the one responsible to break it up again. Vaguely, she heard the thud of a bouncing ball going astray, followed quickly by a complaint from Van Pelt, apparently trying to focus on the little work they had. She was always eager to please, that one.
A little while later, though she couldn’t be sure whether it was minutes or hours, Cho knocked abruptly on her office door. Silently, she beckoned him in, relieved to have some sort of distraction. By this point, she didn’t even care if it was simply a request to leave early, at least it was something to do. He didn’t sit down; he never did. Instead, he stood directly opposite her and looked her square in the eye. Lisbon knew she couldn’t expect any small talk from Cho, he simply wasn’t the type. Even when there was little else to do but chat, he liked to get straight to the point of whatever it was that was on his mind.
“Yes, Cho?”
“Minelli wants to see you,” he stated quickly, just as she expected.
“Now?”
“Now,” he confirmed.
She stood and he automatically moved aside for her. Lisbon nodded in gratitude as she headed towards her door and Cho fell into step behind her. They walked a few paces together, in companionable silence, before he paused at the entrance to the bullpen.
“Cho?”
“Yes, boss?”
“Stop winding up Van Pelt. She’s still settling in,” she said in a low voice.
“Yes, boss.”
Quietly, she hoped that Minelli had news of a case or two for them. That would give them all something to do and would finally give Van Pelt something to get her teeth into. Since she started, they’d been given no major cases and Lisbon didn’t want her getting disillusioned about the job. Usually, it wasn’t this quiet, this was just a very rare occurrence. In fact, in her whole career to date, she could only think of two other occasions when she had been this bored and frustrated at work.
Minelli smiled slightly as she stepped into his office. Shoving her hands in her jacket pocket, she closed the distance between them and stood in front of him. It was almost exactly the same position that Cho had stood in front of her merely minutes beforehand. She smirked slightly at the thought of Minelli doing the same with the CBI director, whenever he called to update him on something or other. There was always somebody else to report to, in any job.
“You wanted to see me, boss?”
“Take a seat, Lisbon.”
Immediately, she complied. Lisbon liked Virgil Minelli quite a lot. He always treated her with the respect she deserved, which was a lot more than some of the other, more chauvinistic, men in the agency. When she had moved from the San Francisco department, less than six months ago, he had welcomed her with open arms and immediately given her a lead agent position. That was despite her relative youth and of course, her gender. She appreciated that he immediately had faith in her and trusted that she would do a good job. And thus far, with his guiding hand, she had settled in well. Had gathered together a team that she felt would work together well. Was even trusted with fresh blood in the form of rookie agent, Grace Van Pelt.
“How are things with your team, Lisbon?”
“Good,” she answered automatically.
“And how is Van Pelt settling in?”
“Well, I think. Though in all honesty, they’re a little bored, Boss.”
“About that…”
She glanced down to see a manila folder in his hands. His fingers rested protectively over it, but that wasn’t unusual. Lisbon was relieved. Although she didn’t know what it contained yet, she knew that it was probably exactly what she had wanted. A case. They all came in folders like that one and thus, it meant her over-stimulated and bored team would finally have something to do with their time.
“As you know, Marvin Farrington of Major Crimes has opted to take an early retirement.”
Lisbon nodded, wondering what the hell Major Crimes’ staffing crisis had to do with them. She know Farrington, albeit vaguely, and couldn’t blame him for his decision. His eldest daughter had just given birth to his first grandson and thus, he wanted to spend some time with his family before something happened to him at work.
“You will be working the Red John case.”
“I will?” she answered, gob smacked.
“Yes, you’re the most qualified for the job.”
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate it.”
“Do me proud, Lisbon.”
“I will, thank you,” she repeated, more than aware that she was sounding a little like a broken record.
She accepted the manila file gratefully. It was heavy, but then again, there had already been a lot of Red John murders. It was the one case that everyone wanted to work on, but nobody seemed capable of solving. Even though she had only been with the Sacramento office for a relatively short period of time, it had already passed through two sets of hands. And now, it was hers. Silently, she made a vow that it would end with her. Too many families had already been hurt and it was her job to ensure they had some form of redemption.
“One more thing,” Minelli said as she stood to leave.
“Yes?”
“Have you heard of Patrick Jane?”
“No,” she answered honestly.
“He’s a psychic and he will be consulting on the Red John case,” Minelli said, albeit rather bluntly. “I suggest you look into him.”
To Part Two
Author: tromana
Artist(s): browneyesparker
Link to art: Part One, Part Two
Word Count: 51,333
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Death isn't always the end. Who'd have thought that Angela Ruskin would be the one to introduce Jane and Lisbon? AU loosely based on the movie/musical, Ghost.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist, or Ghost. I just have crazy ideas like this one.
Notes: Written for The Mentalist Big Bang 2011. Thank you to my wonderful beta-come-cheerleader, miss_peg and my artist, browneyesparker for the wonderful art to go alongside it.
Causality
Part One
“It’s perfect, I love it, Patrick.”
She placed a kiss firmly against his lips and he smiled into the embrace. Immediately, he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and lifted her slightly from her feet. As he placed her back down, she was grinning from ear to ear. This was what happiness felt like, Jane decided. It must have been, because otherwise, why else would he have felt like his heart was bursting with joy and unable to stop smiling, even for a second? If it wasn’t happiness, he wondered just what would be able to top this moment. He shivered slightly with anticipation. There was a certain small velvet box in his jacket pocket, but it wasn’t the right moment. Not quite yet, anyway.
This was their first home together, their first real home. Before now, they had only been renting and before that, well they had been constantly on the move. That had always been the curse of a carnival lifestyle; never being able to settle down for long enough in one place to really be able to call it home. It was what they had been dreaming of, ever since they had first agreed to start dating. She had mentioned how desperately she wanted, needed to leave the carnival circuit and Jane had been determined to make it happen for her. And Angela Ruskin didn’t deserve to just ‘make do’ once she finally made her great escape; she deserved the best.
Jane hadn’t told Angela that he had been slowly squirreling away money for precisely this moment. He had wanted it to be entirely a surprise. They had chosen the home together, though that had been stressful enough in itself. He’d wanted to move to L.A., it was closer to work and therefore, more practical. She had preferred Malibu and its sandy beaches. In the end, they’d settled for Sacramento. Though it wasn’t the place either of them really wanted to be, there was a certain charm when it came to the state’s capitol. When they had been faced with a home so spacious, so beautiful, Angela had immediately fretted about furnishing it. It was one thing keeping on top of the mortgage repayments and another entirely to make sure it had everything they needed to make their gorgeous new home comfortable.
“Where did the money come from?”
Angela was frowning as she asked. Jane had told her that he’d been working with the CBI in their L.A. branch, to help solve some of the more complex cases they came across. The move to Sacramento meant that he could continue with his work there. Naturally, she had been entirely proud of him for that. He was using the skills that he’d picked up while working on the carnival trail in a far more honorable manner. She had entirely believed that he had stopped fleecing vulnerable people for all they were worth. However, it was obvious that he couldn’t have offered everything from the meager salary he got from them. Heck, as he was just a consultant, it didn’t even cover things such as dental. If he had even been able to make meager savings from that line of work, he wouldn’t have been able to provide her with everything he wanted to.
He had hated the fact he had been lying to her, but some things were like second nature to him. Unfortunately for Jane, lying had been one of those habits instilled into him since birth by his father. It was something he found difficult to quit and somehow, however much he tried, he always fell back into his old ways. Besides, continuing with his psychic act had been the only way he knew how to support her. Their lifestyle hadn’t exactly been conducive to learning skills required for office work or the like, so he had simply done the best he could with what he had. Still, he couldn’t stand the idea of her finding out; he knew that she would be so disappointed in him, if she did. That was why he hadn’t told her he was still practicing as a psychic, or not yet, anyway. There were still a couple of things he hadn’t told her and knew he needed to before she found out from other sources.
“Patrick…”
“Yes?”
“You’re still seeing clients, aren’t you?” she said, almost whispering.
“Yes,” he repeated, sounding sad and small this time around.
“We left for a reason, so that we didn’t have to do that anymore!”
“I did it because I love you,” he said, grabbing hold of her hand. “Angela, please…”
She shook his hand off and stared at him searchingly. There weren’t many people who could make Jane feel small and insignificant, but she was one of them. And that was the reason he generally tried to avoid disappointing her; he couldn’t stand letting those he loved down. Nor did he particularly enjoy being belittled, but then again who did? It was just he had developed a bigger ego than most and therefore, found it harder to tolerate it when people knocked him. Except with Angela. If he let her down, then he constantly had to try and find ways to make it up to her, to make it all better. Her disappointment at their previous apartment, which was the size of a postage stamp, with shabby furniture to match, was half the reason he wanted their new place to be fit for a princess.
“I’m going for a walk,” she replied, albeit sadly. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Angela…”
He remained stock still and heard the door slam as she left. Half of him was convinced that he’d blown it, that she wouldn’t actually bother to come back at all. Jane had known her ever since they were small, had loved her since then, but it had taken him years to persuade her to even date him. Mostly because when she was seventeen, she had been hurt badly by her then-boyfriend. He’d tried to approach the subject with her, had several hunches about what had happened, but no concrete evidence. She certainly didn’t want to revisit it, but there were times when she obviously had no choice but to. And they were almost always interlinked with times when she was lied to. The woman was desperate to build a relationship on truth and honesty and yet, he had happily shot himself in the foot. All because he wanted to impress her, to make her feel like she was worth every penny. As he sat down on the couch, with his head in his hands, he wondered briefly if it had been worth this.
xxx
Teresa Lisbon drummed her pen against her desk irritably. She was bored. Which, given her line of work, was something which didn’t happen all that often. And when it did happen, she quickly grew frustrated. Half the reason she loved her job so much was because she was always on the go, always had something to stimulate her. It never gave her a chance to stop and think about anything that could possibly be missing from her life. There was always another case to solve, another criminal to apprehend. Or at least, there usually was. If there was right now, then she wouldn’t have been stuck in her office, staring at her phone as if it had caused her a personal offense.
Realistically, she knew that she should have been glad that she wasn’t busy. It was a good thing when cops were bored. If she had something to do, then that meant another innocent person had lost their life and another family had been utterly destroyed. That was a situation she understood all too well and it was half the reason she had wanted to go into homicide in the first place. Yes, her mom’s death may have been an accident, technically speaking, but it didn’t mean that she couldn’t empathize with the devastation the loss of a loved one caused.
Still, Lisbon needed something constructive to do. She was on top of her paperwork, had prepared for upcoming court testimonials and they didn’t even have any cold cases she could look over. And yet, she was still stuck at work, waiting for her phone to ring while the rest of her team wound each other up in the bullpen. That was the problem with a gathering of highly intelligent people; they all knew how to press each other’s buttons. It was half the reason she was wisely staying out of it. However, she was more than aware that if things went too far, she was the one responsible to break it up again. Vaguely, she heard the thud of a bouncing ball going astray, followed quickly by a complaint from Van Pelt, apparently trying to focus on the little work they had. She was always eager to please, that one.
A little while later, though she couldn’t be sure whether it was minutes or hours, Cho knocked abruptly on her office door. Silently, she beckoned him in, relieved to have some sort of distraction. By this point, she didn’t even care if it was simply a request to leave early, at least it was something to do. He didn’t sit down; he never did. Instead, he stood directly opposite her and looked her square in the eye. Lisbon knew she couldn’t expect any small talk from Cho, he simply wasn’t the type. Even when there was little else to do but chat, he liked to get straight to the point of whatever it was that was on his mind.
“Yes, Cho?”
“Minelli wants to see you,” he stated quickly, just as she expected.
“Now?”
“Now,” he confirmed.
She stood and he automatically moved aside for her. Lisbon nodded in gratitude as she headed towards her door and Cho fell into step behind her. They walked a few paces together, in companionable silence, before he paused at the entrance to the bullpen.
“Cho?”
“Yes, boss?”
“Stop winding up Van Pelt. She’s still settling in,” she said in a low voice.
“Yes, boss.”
Quietly, she hoped that Minelli had news of a case or two for them. That would give them all something to do and would finally give Van Pelt something to get her teeth into. Since she started, they’d been given no major cases and Lisbon didn’t want her getting disillusioned about the job. Usually, it wasn’t this quiet, this was just a very rare occurrence. In fact, in her whole career to date, she could only think of two other occasions when she had been this bored and frustrated at work.
Minelli smiled slightly as she stepped into his office. Shoving her hands in her jacket pocket, she closed the distance between them and stood in front of him. It was almost exactly the same position that Cho had stood in front of her merely minutes beforehand. She smirked slightly at the thought of Minelli doing the same with the CBI director, whenever he called to update him on something or other. There was always somebody else to report to, in any job.
“You wanted to see me, boss?”
“Take a seat, Lisbon.”
Immediately, she complied. Lisbon liked Virgil Minelli quite a lot. He always treated her with the respect she deserved, which was a lot more than some of the other, more chauvinistic, men in the agency. When she had moved from the San Francisco department, less than six months ago, he had welcomed her with open arms and immediately given her a lead agent position. That was despite her relative youth and of course, her gender. She appreciated that he immediately had faith in her and trusted that she would do a good job. And thus far, with his guiding hand, she had settled in well. Had gathered together a team that she felt would work together well. Was even trusted with fresh blood in the form of rookie agent, Grace Van Pelt.
“How are things with your team, Lisbon?”
“Good,” she answered automatically.
“And how is Van Pelt settling in?”
“Well, I think. Though in all honesty, they’re a little bored, Boss.”
“About that…”
She glanced down to see a manila folder in his hands. His fingers rested protectively over it, but that wasn’t unusual. Lisbon was relieved. Although she didn’t know what it contained yet, she knew that it was probably exactly what she had wanted. A case. They all came in folders like that one and thus, it meant her over-stimulated and bored team would finally have something to do with their time.
“As you know, Marvin Farrington of Major Crimes has opted to take an early retirement.”
Lisbon nodded, wondering what the hell Major Crimes’ staffing crisis had to do with them. She know Farrington, albeit vaguely, and couldn’t blame him for his decision. His eldest daughter had just given birth to his first grandson and thus, he wanted to spend some time with his family before something happened to him at work.
“You will be working the Red John case.”
“I will?” she answered, gob smacked.
“Yes, you’re the most qualified for the job.”
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate it.”
“Do me proud, Lisbon.”
“I will, thank you,” she repeated, more than aware that she was sounding a little like a broken record.
She accepted the manila file gratefully. It was heavy, but then again, there had already been a lot of Red John murders. It was the one case that everyone wanted to work on, but nobody seemed capable of solving. Even though she had only been with the Sacramento office for a relatively short period of time, it had already passed through two sets of hands. And now, it was hers. Silently, she made a vow that it would end with her. Too many families had already been hurt and it was her job to ensure they had some form of redemption.
“One more thing,” Minelli said as she stood to leave.
“Yes?”
“Have you heard of Patrick Jane?”
“No,” she answered honestly.
“He’s a psychic and he will be consulting on the Red John case,” Minelli said, albeit rather bluntly. “I suggest you look into him.”
To Part Two