Fic: New Beginnings and Old Endings, Chapter 7 (SGA / The Mentalist, Evan Lorne / Patrick Jane)
Title: New Beginnings and Old Endings, Chapter 7
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis / The Mentalist (Crossover)
Pair: Evan Lorne / Patrick Jane
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Summary: Lorne is trying to settle into his new life, but it`s really not much calmer than his old one. Wrong place and wrong timing lead to a chance encounter in the middle of a crime scene.
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Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 (NC-17) Chapter 6
“Make up your mind.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“No.”
“Then wait.” Jane continued reading the list on the wall, and Evan sighed in desperation.
“It’s tea. Pick one and ask the nice lady to make it for you, a little kid can do it.”
“But little kids don’t know how to appreciate a good tea. What do you think about raspberry?”
“You’ve spent ten minutes reading that, and then you want the second one from the top?”
“Not necessarily, but I think it’s calling for me. I’ll have that.” Jane signalled at the lady on the other side of the counter. “I’ll have the raspberry tea. With milk. Poured, not foamed.”
“That doesn’t really work with tea.” Evan whispered to him.
“I know, but I don’t spend that much time in bars, so I can’t release my inner 007 there.”
“I’ll have coffee.” Lorne ordered. The woman smiled at him, like she was talking to an idiot.
“What kind?”
“Coffee.”
“Yes, but we have a wide variety of-”
“Just coffee, please. Without a funny name.”
“I see… how would you like it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you like it with steamed milk or-”
“Just the regular milk.”
“What sort?”
“Excuse me?”
“Soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, coconut milk, crop milk-”
“Normal milk. The kind that comes from cows.”
“You want…” The woman gulped, as if the whole idea had been foreign to her. “Coffee with milk? That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
The woman nodded shakily. They paid for their drinks and took a seat in a booth next to the window, facing the busy street.
“Are all places like this now?”
“Coffee shops? Pretty much, and by the way it took longer for you to order than it took for me to make up my mind.”
“Twenty years away from civilian life and the world goes nuts without telling me. What the hell is crop milk?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” Jane grinned merrily. His good mood only seemed to improve with Evan’s fish-out-of-water performance.
“Is it something nasty?”
“Shouldn’t a tough Air Force Major be able to handle some nastiness?”
“Okay, tell me.”
“It’s pigeon’s milk.”
“I didn’t know pigeons have milk.”
“They don’t, it’s the extract they regurgitate to feed their babies.”
“Why would people want it in their coffee?”
“People always want something new and there’s only a limited number of ways they can spin the regular milk.”
“That’s…”
“Trendy.” Jane stated. “Ridiculous and disgusting, but trends usually are.”
“Are you always this cheerful when your team wraps up a case?”
“Not always, and not if the end result is one more death. This is more about skipping the rest of the day.” His smile turned even brighter when the waitress approached them and handed them their drinks. Jane wrapped his hands tightly around the sides of the mug and breathed deeply.
Evan observed the quiet enjoying, hiding his face behind his own mug, then he noticed something glittering in Jane’s hand.
A wedding ring.
It took a minute for him to get over the sudden sense of disappointment.
“Must be nice to go home early. Do you get a lot of grief about long days?”
“Grief?” Jane asked, sounding thoroughly puzzled.
“You’re married, right?” Lorne gestured down at his wedding band.
Jane looked down, covering the ring with his other hand, then pulled it away again.
“Yes, married. A lot of people like that word better than widower.”
Evan’s line of thought struggled to keep up with the changing stream of information. Married man meant he would better keep his distance, but a widow would be even trickier concept to handle.
“Sorry. How long?”
“It’s been a while.” Jane gave him a little smile, that didn’t quite reach the eyes. “Before I started working for the CBI.”
“What did you do before that?”
“I talked to the dead.” Jane deadpanned. “What did you do? Before the Air Force.”
“Not much. Air Force was pretty much it.”
“Then how could you leave it?”
“Couple deaths too many.”
“Same here.”
Jane’s last comment made Evan pause for a minute. He sipped his coffee, trying to read the other man’s face. Jane seemed calm, but his expression was just a little bit forced. He looked up and gave Evan an assuring smile.
This time it did reach his eyes.
“I’m moving on. It just takes some time. There’s some issues I have to deal with.”
“Are you dealing with them?”
“Most of them.”
“By switching careers?”
“That’s one part of it.”
“What about private life?” Lorne asked, clutching his coffee cup nervously. “Are you getting back in the saddle?”
“I hate that expression.” Jane grimaced at the word. “That is… I’m working on it.”
“Do you want to move on or is it too soon?”
“Why are you so curious?”
“I don’t know. You don’t need to answer.”
“It’s… probably not too soon, and it’s not too raw. It’s… unfinished.” Jane took a deep sip from his tea. “Although I have a vague idea why you’re asking.”
“You do?” Evan couldn’t guess what had given him away.
“Most men don’t ask other men for coffee, unless they are friends. We don’t have to ever see each other again to talk about the stabbing, so the invitation must have a purpose.”
“Yeah, maybe. But I didn’t know-”
“You couldn’t know, so don’t worry about it.” Jane’s little smile took another turn to sadness. “People are easy to read, but hard to understand. Those two are not the same thing.”
He sunk into a long silence. Each minute seemed to stretch into two, and every one of them was pulling Evan closer. The sadness, that been kept underneath the surface was making it’s way up to Jane’s eyes and Evan had no idea what to do. He leaned closer, and rested his hand on the man’s shoulder.
When Jane didn’t react, Evan shimmied closer to him. He had already lost most of his rational thinking, and he simply leaned closer to the other man. His jaw came to lay on Jane’s shoulder.
Evan closed the small distance between them and he tilted his head, pressing his lips lightly against Jane’s cheek. Another light kiss found a place in the corner of Jane’s mouth before Evan pulled away and gave himself a mental slap in the face.
“Don’t look like that.” Jane gave him a comforting little smile. “I’ve known a lot of carnival folks, so nothing shocks me. I can kiss the bearded lady and still look her in the eye afterwards.”
“What about me?”
“You don’t have a beard, so I don’t know.”
Chapter 8