Remorse Offerings
Remorse Offerings
Author: browneyesparker
Artist: delugedpapercup
Link to art: http://delugedpapercup.livejournal.com/9483.html
Word Count: 3,397
Rating: K
Summary: Five ways Jane tries to apologize to Lisbon through overtop ways, and the one time he makes the grand gesture and does it right.
Jisbon if you squint.
Disclaimer: Guess what, the Mentalist doesn't belong to me. Shocker, ha?
Notes: This story started out as a suggestion by justlook3 on Twitter. The idea was irrestible, so I put together a playlist of songs and wrote it in two days. Most of the story was inspired by the lines it used to be so easy living here with you, you were light and breeezy and I knew just what to do, now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool from the Carol King song, "It's Too Late". Seeing that I didn't get it edited, all the mistakes are my own. And thank you to delugedpapercup for making the art for my story.
“What are these?” Lisbon asked, storming into Jane’s attic without bothering to knock and waving a pair of tickets in his face.
“I believe that they’re tickets to the Cubs game next month,” Jane replied as he took a sip of tea without even bothering to look at them.
She sighed in exasperation. “I know what they are! What are they for?”
“The tickets are for you of course,” Jane said rolling his eyes like it was the most obvious answer in the world. “They were on your desk, weren’t they?”
Lisbon frowned at him. “Are you being difficult on purpose?”
“What makes you think I was the one who left the tickets on your desk in the first place?” Jane asked, looking at her for a moment.
Lisbon looked at him irritably. “Really Jane, you’re the only one in my life who ever gives me expensive gifts. Now cut the crap and tell me why you
left the tickets for me so I can tell you that I’m not going to do whatever it is that you want me to do.”
Jane raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I want you to do something for me?”
She folded her arms across her chest and looked at him skeptically. “Well, don’t you?”
“I promise Lisbon, I don’t want you to do anything!” Jane said, sighing. “The tickets are. . . well, they’re my way of apologizing to you for everything that happened the last six months. Okay?”
Mirthless laughter spilled from Lisbon’s mouth. “You really think that tickets to see the Chicago Cubs is going to fix the past six months?”
“I’m hoping-”
“Here!” Lisbon took his hand and shoving the tickets into it. “I don’t want them; give them to somebody who does.”
“You’re the only Cubs fan that I know though,” Jane answered.
“Well, you should have thought about that before you wasted your money on these tickets then,” Lisbon said, taking a few steps back and looking at him with a hint of undetectable sadness in her green eyes.
Jane frowned. “What is it that you exactly want from me, Lisbon?”
“If you have me all figured out, I think that it should be pretty obvious to you Mr. Mentalist,” Lisbon answered wearily. She took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders, stealing a glance at her watch. “I’m out of here Jane. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Wait a minute,” Jane said, standing up and grabbing her jacket sleeve before she could escape. “Tell me what it is that you want, and I’ll give it to you. . . I don’t care how much it costs, or what it is, just tell me what it is and I’ll get it for you-”
Lisbon pulled away from his grasp. “I would tell you what I wanted, but right now I just can’t think of any tangible thing that would entice me to forgive you. And even if I could, I wouldn’t tell you what it was because you’d probably just do the cowardly thing and leave it on my desk again instead of giving it to me face-to-face. Now if you’d excuse me, I’m tired and I want to go home. Goodnight Jane, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning,” Jane echoed, his hand dropping to his side as he watched her leave, trying to figure out exactly what was going on in her head, but for once in the nine years that he had known her, he couldn’t make out what she was thinking at all.
.
His second attempt at trying to win her forgiveness didn’t go any better than his first one did. She didn’t even speak to him about this particular gift, in fact he found her in the break room trying to convince Rigsby to take the all-expense paid weekend out of town.
She carefully avoided his gaze as she told Rigsby that he could use the weekend to try and work things out with Sarah. She even offered to take care of Benjamin if he took the tickets off of her hands. After a little more persuading, he finally agreed and went off to place a call to Sarah.
Jane waited until Rigsby was out of earshot and Lisbon was almost out of the kitchenette to say anything.
“That weekend was for you, why did you give it to Rigsby?”
Lisbon turned around to look at him. She folded her arms across her chest and didn’t bother to come back into the room. “Because, I didn’t want it. . . and besides, if it really was for me like you said, then it was mine to do what I wanted with it. So, I had every right to give it away.”
Jane bit back a sigh of frustration. “I never said that you couldn’t do what you wanted with them.”
Lisbon raised a skeptical eyebrow without saying anything to him, and then she turned to go. “What’s done is done. I gave the weekend away to Rigsby, and there’s nothing you can say or even do to make me change my mind!”
As he watched her spin around and march out of the break room with a slightly defeated slump in her shoulders, he racked his brains trying to figure out the one thing that would finally make Lisbon receive him back in her good graces.
.
Lisbon was trying to get housework done on a rare Saturday afternoon at home when her doorbell rang. She shut the vacuum off and ran a finger through her unruly hair before opening the door to discover twelve vases of yellow roses lining the stairs up to her doorway.
She frowned slightly and stepped outside to see if the person who delivered the flowers was still around. But the only evidence she saw that anybody had been there at all, was Jane’s baby powder blue Citroen racing down the street.
Sighing, she sat down on the top step and stared at the roses, wishing that they would disappear. When they didn’t, she decided that she would dispose of them herself. She picked up the vase nearest to her and then stood.
She looked at the beautiful yellow roses and decided that even though she really didn’t want them, she couldn’t bear to put them through the garbage disposal. So, thinking quickly she decided that she’d give the first dozen to her elderly neighbor.
.
After waiting two weeks for Lisbon to mention the roses and not getting the results that he wanted, Jane decided that his fourth gift had to be something that she couldn’t give away or reject easily. After carefully deliberating what that would be exactly, he called up the personal jeweler he had used in his pre-Red John days and looked into designing a custom pair of earrings for her.
He ended up with a pair of relatively expensive set of diamonds that, thankfully, didn’t look too ostentatious for a woman in her line of work. While he shelled out the money for the final product and slipped the velvet box into his pocket, he really hoped that she wouldn’t reject this particular present. Especially since the design wouldn’t fit anybody but her.
When it came time to give them to her, he couldn’t bring himself to actually hand them over to her. So, he went and found the mail room guy that all the ladies in the building found attractive and bribed him into delivering them to her along with her other mail.
A few hours later, Lisbon came out of her office holding the wrapped package like it was a dead mouse; she went over to Jane’s couch and dangled it in front of him. “You wouldn’t happen to know who sent this to me, would you?”
“No,” Jane answered smoothly. “Maybe you have a secret admirer.”
“Nice try,” Lisbon said flatly. “But I’m not buying it. I think somebody in the building asked Brad to deliver these to me, if the lack of markings on the package is anything to go by.”
“Maybe your secret admirer is in the building,” Jane suggested. “Or maybe it’s one of the victim’s husbands we’ve helped and he wanted to thank you for finding the person who killed, but he was too shy to do it personally.”
For a second Lisbon looked like she was considering this as a plausible explanation, and then she shook her head. “You actually had me believe that for a second, but I’m too smart to believe your lies anymore. So, you either tell me the truth or I’m dumping whatever this in the next available trash can.”
“I’m standing by what I said, you have a secret admirer in the building and he doesn’t want you to know who he is right now,” Jane replied. “So, he sent you whatever that is through Brad.”
Lisbon frowned and then dropped the package into his lap. “I don’t want it.”
“I don’t want it either,” Jane said, shoving the package back in her hand without ceremony. “Whatever is in this package rightfully belongs to you.
Now, I know you don’t want it today, but that doesn’t matter. You should still keep it, because maybe you’ll want it tomorrow or next month.”
Her fingers tightened around the object and she shook her head as she turned away from him to go back to her office.
The sense of triumph Jane thought he’d feel after getting her to keep the earrings wasn’t there as he watched her walk away again, because he knew that things still weren’t back to the way they were before he had left for Vegas.
.
“I have something for you,” Jane said as he went into her office three weeks later, his hand in his pocket.
Lisbon sighed and scrubbed at her face wearily. “Whatever it is Jane, I’m really not interested.”
“I promise that it isn’t anything too extravagant,” he replied, holding up two fingers as if to say Scout’s Honor.
She took a deep breath and avoided his steady gaze, knowing that if she didn’t at least take a look at what he’d purchased for her then there was no chance of getting rid of him. “Fine, just show me what it is and then get out of here.”
Jane produced an envelope from his pocket and placed it in front of her. Lisbon looked down at it and saw it was addressed to him from a star naming registry.
“I had a star named after you,” he said, smiling at her with a mixture of uncertainty and hopefulness in his eyes.
Lisbon sighed and picked the envelope up, tempted to rip it to shreds and toss it into the trashcan with him standing there watching her. But she was more mature than that, so instead she opened the top drawer of her desk and dropped it in without giving it a second glance.
She didn’t have to look at him to know that he was frowning, she could feel his disappointment radiating across the desk.
“Listen,” she said slowly as she slammed the drawer shut. “I don’t care if you had a constellation after me! I still wouldn’t want it!”
“I’m trying here Lisbon-” He started to defend himself.
“No,” she replied evenly. “I really don’t think you are.”
“What do you want from me?” He asked again.
“If you have to ask then it doesn’t matter,” Lisbon answered, standing up and hoping that he’d get the hint that the conversation was over.
“Please Lisbon-” Jane tried desperately as he followed her to her office door and out into the hallway. “Just give me some sort of clue to what I’m doing wrong. . .”
She stopped in her tracks and looked him straight in the eyes. “Okay, fine. You asked for it. Stop trying to buy my forgiveness.”
“Buy your forgiveness?” Jane repeated incredulously. “Is that what you think I’m trying to do?”
Lisbon raised an eyebrow. “Expensive trips to spas, tickets to see my favorite sports team, twelve dozen yellow roses, whatever was in that package a few weeks ago, and naming a star after me? If that isn’t trying to buy my forgiveness then I don’t know what is!”
“I’m not trying to buy your forgiveness!” Jane insisted.
Lisbon folded her arms across her chest and stepped back a couple more inches. “Really? Then what is it that you’re trying to do exactly?”
“I’m trying to make up for everything that happened between now and Las Vegas,” Jane answered.
“Do you really think a bunch of expensive stuff is going to repair the damage you did to our relationship?” Lisbon asked stonily.
“I was hoping that it would,” he replied.
“Well, it doesn’t!” Lisbon answered harshly. “And what makes it even worse is that you can’t even give me these so called make up gifts to my face.”
“Would have you forgiven me if I had come to you and given you the gifts personally?” Jane asked as he came closer to her and forced her to look at him.
Lisbon hesitated for a second, and then she shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Because I don’t want stuff, I want you to apologize verbally and mean it-”
“I meant every single one of those gifts-”
“Even if that’s true, they still looked like a bribe to me,” Lisbon answered.
“I’m not good at apologizing in the way you want me to,” Jane finally admitted.
“You’re not even good at apologizing in the way you were apologizing,” Lisbon retorted. “Really Jane, leaving gifts on my desk or having the mailroom guy deliver them is the equivalent of stuffing notes asking a girl if she likes you into her locker. It’s the coward’s way out.”
“It wouldn’t have matter if I had hand-delivered every single one of those gifts,” Jane replied. “Either way you wouldn’t have forgiven me.”
Lisbon wanted to ask if he had bribed Angela into forgiving him, but her conscious pricked at her and she curbed her tongue.
She smiled sadly as she backed away from him again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Jane startled slightly. “Why are you sorry?”
She hesitated for a second, not sure how to tell him what she was really thinking. But he was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her answer with anxiously bated breath.
Lisbon wrapped her arms a little more tightly around her body as she looked away from him and took a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts and fight off the wave of trembles that had taken over her.
“I’m sorry that I can’t forgive you,” she finally answered, turning back and meeting his eyes before fleeing abruptly.
.
Three days later, Lisbon entered the Broiler Steakhouse and looked around the restaurant for Jane. He had waltzed into her office earlier that day and had literally ordered her to meet him for dinner that evening. She had almost told him no, figuring that it was just another one of his attempts at apologizing to her.
But there had been something different in his manner this time. For starters, he had actually asked her to meet him by seeking her out. He didn’t send her a text message, or an invitation via messenger. So, she had agreed to meet him and later on hoped that she hadn’t gone against her better judgment by accepting his invitation.
“Are you Agent Lisbon?” A perky, blonde hostess asked, stepping up and touching her gently on the shoulder.
“Yes,” she answered.
“If you’d just follow me, Mr. Jane is waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” Lisbon replied, allowing the young girl to lead her to a secluded corner, where Jane was sitting and drumming his fingers on the table, looking at the other patrons with a semi-worried expression on his face.
His face lit up when he saw her coming towards him, and he got to his feet to pull out her chair. “You came! I was beginning to think that you had changed your mind.”
“I came,” Lisbon answered as she sat down and pushed her chair in herself.
When the hostess saw that Lisbon was well situated, she announced that their waiter would be with them momentarily and then she disappeared, leaving the pair alone.
Lisbon looked everywhere but at Jane, unsure of what to say to him.
He seemed to have anticipated her uncertainty, because he jumped right in and filled the silence between them.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come to dinner with me tonight,” he said.
“Not really,” Lisbon replied, toying with the linen napkin on the bread plate in front of her, still avoiding his eyes. “I think I know exactly what you’re trying to do.”
Jane’s eyes widened slightly. “You do?”
“I do,” she confirmed. “You’re still trying to buy my forgiveness, even though I specifically told you that-”
“No I’m not trying to ‘buy’ your forgiveness again,” Jane interrupted. “I’ve pretty much given up hope that you’d forgive me through things.”
Lisbon finally looked at him; her green eyes were clouded over with unveiled skepticism. “Then what do you want this time?” she asked.
“I was going to wait until after dinner to tell you,” he admitted. “But I guess there’s no time like the present. I want you to forgive me Teresa for leaving without saying anything to you, for not replying to any of your text messages or phone calls, and for not being a good friend. I want you to forgive me for not telling you personally that I had slept with Lorelei, and I want you to forgive me for not apologizing sincerely the first time. I know
I’ve been selfish and that you have every right not to forgive me, but I don’t know what I’m going to do if you don’t because things just aren’t the same without you.”
Lisbon took a deep breath, he had just said everything that she had wanted to hear from him since he had come and found her in the church sanctuary. And now that the ability to grant forgiveness was finally staring her in the face, she didn’t know how to do it or if she even wanted to.
She looked at him again and saw that he was waiting expectantly for her to answer him; tentative hope was etched in his handsome face.
She shook her head and scrambled to her feet, wanting nothing more to escape. “I-I, oh Jane. . .”
His face fell.
“Just give me a little time,” she whispered before she grabbed her purse and fled from the table.
.
Lisbon went to work early the next morning so she would have a chance to talk to Jane before anybody else showed up. He was the first thing that she saw when she came off the elevator, sitting on his couch with a cup of tea and staring off into space, lost in thought.
She swallowed hard, the words I forgive you was on the tip of her tongue as she approached him as if she were moving in slow motion.
Jane looked up when he heard her footsteps drawing closer and took every inch of her in; his eyes fell on ears and lingered there for a little while as the significance of the earrings she that was wearing sank in.
“Do you forgive me then?” He asked after hesitating for a moment.
Lisbon touched the diamonds self-consciously and nodded. “I forgive you, Jane,” she answered.
Jane bounced to his feet and strode over to her, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you,” he whispered.
She buried her head in his shoulder and after a second she tentatively returned his embrace, closing her eyes and breathing in the spicy scent of his cologne as a sense of normalcy washed over her.
“Come on,” she said, pulling away from him and holding her hand out towards him. “Let’s go and get some breakfast before people start showing up for work.”
“Okay,” he agreed as he touched her fingers and he grinned at her genuinely for the first time in almost a year.
She smiled as they walked to the elevator together; falling back into the easy conversation they had shared for years.
They were back.
Author: browneyesparker
Artist: delugedpapercup
Link to art: http://delugedpapercup.livejournal.com/9483.html
Word Count: 3,397
Rating: K
Summary: Five ways Jane tries to apologize to Lisbon through overtop ways, and the one time he makes the grand gesture and does it right.
Jisbon if you squint.
Disclaimer: Guess what, the Mentalist doesn't belong to me. Shocker, ha?
Notes: This story started out as a suggestion by justlook3 on Twitter. The idea was irrestible, so I put together a playlist of songs and wrote it in two days. Most of the story was inspired by the lines it used to be so easy living here with you, you were light and breeezy and I knew just what to do, now you look so unhappy and I feel like a fool from the Carol King song, "It's Too Late". Seeing that I didn't get it edited, all the mistakes are my own. And thank you to delugedpapercup for making the art for my story.
“What are these?” Lisbon asked, storming into Jane’s attic without bothering to knock and waving a pair of tickets in his face.
“I believe that they’re tickets to the Cubs game next month,” Jane replied as he took a sip of tea without even bothering to look at them.
She sighed in exasperation. “I know what they are! What are they for?”
“The tickets are for you of course,” Jane said rolling his eyes like it was the most obvious answer in the world. “They were on your desk, weren’t they?”
Lisbon frowned at him. “Are you being difficult on purpose?”
“What makes you think I was the one who left the tickets on your desk in the first place?” Jane asked, looking at her for a moment.
Lisbon looked at him irritably. “Really Jane, you’re the only one in my life who ever gives me expensive gifts. Now cut the crap and tell me why you
left the tickets for me so I can tell you that I’m not going to do whatever it is that you want me to do.”
Jane raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I want you to do something for me?”
She folded her arms across her chest and looked at him skeptically. “Well, don’t you?”
“I promise Lisbon, I don’t want you to do anything!” Jane said, sighing. “The tickets are. . . well, they’re my way of apologizing to you for everything that happened the last six months. Okay?”
Mirthless laughter spilled from Lisbon’s mouth. “You really think that tickets to see the Chicago Cubs is going to fix the past six months?”
“I’m hoping-”
“Here!” Lisbon took his hand and shoving the tickets into it. “I don’t want them; give them to somebody who does.”
“You’re the only Cubs fan that I know though,” Jane answered.
“Well, you should have thought about that before you wasted your money on these tickets then,” Lisbon said, taking a few steps back and looking at him with a hint of undetectable sadness in her green eyes.
Jane frowned. “What is it that you exactly want from me, Lisbon?”
“If you have me all figured out, I think that it should be pretty obvious to you Mr. Mentalist,” Lisbon answered wearily. She took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders, stealing a glance at her watch. “I’m out of here Jane. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Wait a minute,” Jane said, standing up and grabbing her jacket sleeve before she could escape. “Tell me what it is that you want, and I’ll give it to you. . . I don’t care how much it costs, or what it is, just tell me what it is and I’ll get it for you-”
Lisbon pulled away from his grasp. “I would tell you what I wanted, but right now I just can’t think of any tangible thing that would entice me to forgive you. And even if I could, I wouldn’t tell you what it was because you’d probably just do the cowardly thing and leave it on my desk again instead of giving it to me face-to-face. Now if you’d excuse me, I’m tired and I want to go home. Goodnight Jane, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“See you in the morning,” Jane echoed, his hand dropping to his side as he watched her leave, trying to figure out exactly what was going on in her head, but for once in the nine years that he had known her, he couldn’t make out what she was thinking at all.
.
His second attempt at trying to win her forgiveness didn’t go any better than his first one did. She didn’t even speak to him about this particular gift, in fact he found her in the break room trying to convince Rigsby to take the all-expense paid weekend out of town.
She carefully avoided his gaze as she told Rigsby that he could use the weekend to try and work things out with Sarah. She even offered to take care of Benjamin if he took the tickets off of her hands. After a little more persuading, he finally agreed and went off to place a call to Sarah.
Jane waited until Rigsby was out of earshot and Lisbon was almost out of the kitchenette to say anything.
“That weekend was for you, why did you give it to Rigsby?”
Lisbon turned around to look at him. She folded her arms across her chest and didn’t bother to come back into the room. “Because, I didn’t want it. . . and besides, if it really was for me like you said, then it was mine to do what I wanted with it. So, I had every right to give it away.”
Jane bit back a sigh of frustration. “I never said that you couldn’t do what you wanted with them.”
Lisbon raised a skeptical eyebrow without saying anything to him, and then she turned to go. “What’s done is done. I gave the weekend away to Rigsby, and there’s nothing you can say or even do to make me change my mind!”
As he watched her spin around and march out of the break room with a slightly defeated slump in her shoulders, he racked his brains trying to figure out the one thing that would finally make Lisbon receive him back in her good graces.
.
Lisbon was trying to get housework done on a rare Saturday afternoon at home when her doorbell rang. She shut the vacuum off and ran a finger through her unruly hair before opening the door to discover twelve vases of yellow roses lining the stairs up to her doorway.
She frowned slightly and stepped outside to see if the person who delivered the flowers was still around. But the only evidence she saw that anybody had been there at all, was Jane’s baby powder blue Citroen racing down the street.
Sighing, she sat down on the top step and stared at the roses, wishing that they would disappear. When they didn’t, she decided that she would dispose of them herself. She picked up the vase nearest to her and then stood.
She looked at the beautiful yellow roses and decided that even though she really didn’t want them, she couldn’t bear to put them through the garbage disposal. So, thinking quickly she decided that she’d give the first dozen to her elderly neighbor.
.
After waiting two weeks for Lisbon to mention the roses and not getting the results that he wanted, Jane decided that his fourth gift had to be something that she couldn’t give away or reject easily. After carefully deliberating what that would be exactly, he called up the personal jeweler he had used in his pre-Red John days and looked into designing a custom pair of earrings for her.
He ended up with a pair of relatively expensive set of diamonds that, thankfully, didn’t look too ostentatious for a woman in her line of work. While he shelled out the money for the final product and slipped the velvet box into his pocket, he really hoped that she wouldn’t reject this particular present. Especially since the design wouldn’t fit anybody but her.
When it came time to give them to her, he couldn’t bring himself to actually hand them over to her. So, he went and found the mail room guy that all the ladies in the building found attractive and bribed him into delivering them to her along with her other mail.
A few hours later, Lisbon came out of her office holding the wrapped package like it was a dead mouse; she went over to Jane’s couch and dangled it in front of him. “You wouldn’t happen to know who sent this to me, would you?”
“No,” Jane answered smoothly. “Maybe you have a secret admirer.”
“Nice try,” Lisbon said flatly. “But I’m not buying it. I think somebody in the building asked Brad to deliver these to me, if the lack of markings on the package is anything to go by.”
“Maybe your secret admirer is in the building,” Jane suggested. “Or maybe it’s one of the victim’s husbands we’ve helped and he wanted to thank you for finding the person who killed, but he was too shy to do it personally.”
For a second Lisbon looked like she was considering this as a plausible explanation, and then she shook her head. “You actually had me believe that for a second, but I’m too smart to believe your lies anymore. So, you either tell me the truth or I’m dumping whatever this in the next available trash can.”
“I’m standing by what I said, you have a secret admirer in the building and he doesn’t want you to know who he is right now,” Jane replied. “So, he sent you whatever that is through Brad.”
Lisbon frowned and then dropped the package into his lap. “I don’t want it.”
“I don’t want it either,” Jane said, shoving the package back in her hand without ceremony. “Whatever is in this package rightfully belongs to you.
Now, I know you don’t want it today, but that doesn’t matter. You should still keep it, because maybe you’ll want it tomorrow or next month.”
Her fingers tightened around the object and she shook her head as she turned away from him to go back to her office.
The sense of triumph Jane thought he’d feel after getting her to keep the earrings wasn’t there as he watched her walk away again, because he knew that things still weren’t back to the way they were before he had left for Vegas.
.
“I have something for you,” Jane said as he went into her office three weeks later, his hand in his pocket.
Lisbon sighed and scrubbed at her face wearily. “Whatever it is Jane, I’m really not interested.”
“I promise that it isn’t anything too extravagant,” he replied, holding up two fingers as if to say Scout’s Honor.
She took a deep breath and avoided his steady gaze, knowing that if she didn’t at least take a look at what he’d purchased for her then there was no chance of getting rid of him. “Fine, just show me what it is and then get out of here.”
Jane produced an envelope from his pocket and placed it in front of her. Lisbon looked down at it and saw it was addressed to him from a star naming registry.
“I had a star named after you,” he said, smiling at her with a mixture of uncertainty and hopefulness in his eyes.
Lisbon sighed and picked the envelope up, tempted to rip it to shreds and toss it into the trashcan with him standing there watching her. But she was more mature than that, so instead she opened the top drawer of her desk and dropped it in without giving it a second glance.
She didn’t have to look at him to know that he was frowning, she could feel his disappointment radiating across the desk.
“Listen,” she said slowly as she slammed the drawer shut. “I don’t care if you had a constellation after me! I still wouldn’t want it!”
“I’m trying here Lisbon-” He started to defend himself.
“No,” she replied evenly. “I really don’t think you are.”
“What do you want from me?” He asked again.
“If you have to ask then it doesn’t matter,” Lisbon answered, standing up and hoping that he’d get the hint that the conversation was over.
“Please Lisbon-” Jane tried desperately as he followed her to her office door and out into the hallway. “Just give me some sort of clue to what I’m doing wrong. . .”
She stopped in her tracks and looked him straight in the eyes. “Okay, fine. You asked for it. Stop trying to buy my forgiveness.”
“Buy your forgiveness?” Jane repeated incredulously. “Is that what you think I’m trying to do?”
Lisbon raised an eyebrow. “Expensive trips to spas, tickets to see my favorite sports team, twelve dozen yellow roses, whatever was in that package a few weeks ago, and naming a star after me? If that isn’t trying to buy my forgiveness then I don’t know what is!”
“I’m not trying to buy your forgiveness!” Jane insisted.
Lisbon folded her arms across her chest and stepped back a couple more inches. “Really? Then what is it that you’re trying to do exactly?”
“I’m trying to make up for everything that happened between now and Las Vegas,” Jane answered.
“Do you really think a bunch of expensive stuff is going to repair the damage you did to our relationship?” Lisbon asked stonily.
“I was hoping that it would,” he replied.
“Well, it doesn’t!” Lisbon answered harshly. “And what makes it even worse is that you can’t even give me these so called make up gifts to my face.”
“Would have you forgiven me if I had come to you and given you the gifts personally?” Jane asked as he came closer to her and forced her to look at him.
Lisbon hesitated for a second, and then she shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Because I don’t want stuff, I want you to apologize verbally and mean it-”
“I meant every single one of those gifts-”
“Even if that’s true, they still looked like a bribe to me,” Lisbon answered.
“I’m not good at apologizing in the way you want me to,” Jane finally admitted.
“You’re not even good at apologizing in the way you were apologizing,” Lisbon retorted. “Really Jane, leaving gifts on my desk or having the mailroom guy deliver them is the equivalent of stuffing notes asking a girl if she likes you into her locker. It’s the coward’s way out.”
“It wouldn’t have matter if I had hand-delivered every single one of those gifts,” Jane replied. “Either way you wouldn’t have forgiven me.”
Lisbon wanted to ask if he had bribed Angela into forgiving him, but her conscious pricked at her and she curbed her tongue.
She smiled sadly as she backed away from him again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Jane startled slightly. “Why are you sorry?”
She hesitated for a second, not sure how to tell him what she was really thinking. But he was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her answer with anxiously bated breath.
Lisbon wrapped her arms a little more tightly around her body as she looked away from him and took a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts and fight off the wave of trembles that had taken over her.
“I’m sorry that I can’t forgive you,” she finally answered, turning back and meeting his eyes before fleeing abruptly.
.
Three days later, Lisbon entered the Broiler Steakhouse and looked around the restaurant for Jane. He had waltzed into her office earlier that day and had literally ordered her to meet him for dinner that evening. She had almost told him no, figuring that it was just another one of his attempts at apologizing to her.
But there had been something different in his manner this time. For starters, he had actually asked her to meet him by seeking her out. He didn’t send her a text message, or an invitation via messenger. So, she had agreed to meet him and later on hoped that she hadn’t gone against her better judgment by accepting his invitation.
“Are you Agent Lisbon?” A perky, blonde hostess asked, stepping up and touching her gently on the shoulder.
“Yes,” she answered.
“If you’d just follow me, Mr. Jane is waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” Lisbon replied, allowing the young girl to lead her to a secluded corner, where Jane was sitting and drumming his fingers on the table, looking at the other patrons with a semi-worried expression on his face.
His face lit up when he saw her coming towards him, and he got to his feet to pull out her chair. “You came! I was beginning to think that you had changed your mind.”
“I came,” Lisbon answered as she sat down and pushed her chair in herself.
When the hostess saw that Lisbon was well situated, she announced that their waiter would be with them momentarily and then she disappeared, leaving the pair alone.
Lisbon looked everywhere but at Jane, unsure of what to say to him.
He seemed to have anticipated her uncertainty, because he jumped right in and filled the silence between them.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come to dinner with me tonight,” he said.
“Not really,” Lisbon replied, toying with the linen napkin on the bread plate in front of her, still avoiding his eyes. “I think I know exactly what you’re trying to do.”
Jane’s eyes widened slightly. “You do?”
“I do,” she confirmed. “You’re still trying to buy my forgiveness, even though I specifically told you that-”
“No I’m not trying to ‘buy’ your forgiveness again,” Jane interrupted. “I’ve pretty much given up hope that you’d forgive me through things.”
Lisbon finally looked at him; her green eyes were clouded over with unveiled skepticism. “Then what do you want this time?” she asked.
“I was going to wait until after dinner to tell you,” he admitted. “But I guess there’s no time like the present. I want you to forgive me Teresa for leaving without saying anything to you, for not replying to any of your text messages or phone calls, and for not being a good friend. I want you to forgive me for not telling you personally that I had slept with Lorelei, and I want you to forgive me for not apologizing sincerely the first time. I know
I’ve been selfish and that you have every right not to forgive me, but I don’t know what I’m going to do if you don’t because things just aren’t the same without you.”
Lisbon took a deep breath, he had just said everything that she had wanted to hear from him since he had come and found her in the church sanctuary. And now that the ability to grant forgiveness was finally staring her in the face, she didn’t know how to do it or if she even wanted to.
She looked at him again and saw that he was waiting expectantly for her to answer him; tentative hope was etched in his handsome face.
She shook her head and scrambled to her feet, wanting nothing more to escape. “I-I, oh Jane. . .”
His face fell.
“Just give me a little time,” she whispered before she grabbed her purse and fled from the table.
.
Lisbon went to work early the next morning so she would have a chance to talk to Jane before anybody else showed up. He was the first thing that she saw when she came off the elevator, sitting on his couch with a cup of tea and staring off into space, lost in thought.
She swallowed hard, the words I forgive you was on the tip of her tongue as she approached him as if she were moving in slow motion.
Jane looked up when he heard her footsteps drawing closer and took every inch of her in; his eyes fell on ears and lingered there for a little while as the significance of the earrings she that was wearing sank in.
“Do you forgive me then?” He asked after hesitating for a moment.
Lisbon touched the diamonds self-consciously and nodded. “I forgive you, Jane,” she answered.
Jane bounced to his feet and strode over to her, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you,” he whispered.
She buried her head in his shoulder and after a second she tentatively returned his embrace, closing her eyes and breathing in the spicy scent of his cologne as a sense of normalcy washed over her.
“Come on,” she said, pulling away from him and holding her hand out towards him. “Let’s go and get some breakfast before people start showing up for work.”
“Okay,” he agreed as he touched her fingers and he grinned at her genuinely for the first time in almost a year.
She smiled as they walked to the elevator together; falling back into the easy conversation they had shared for years.
They were back.