[the Mentalist, fan-fic] Focus (part 1)
Title: Focus
Author: little_firestar and Artist: justlook3
Link to art:
Title: Focus
Author: Little_Firestar and Artist: Justlook3
Link to art: coming soon
Word Count: 7596
Rating: T
Summary: As much as she had always complained about Jane, asking for help wasn’t her best trait as well, but right now, she didn’t have any other choice. Because she had to save him, save him from the nothing he had become. Too bad she couldn’t, not alone, at least. She just hated asking for help…
Disclaimers: No, nor the characters or the show belong to me. And this time around, there is not even an original character to claim as mine…
Notes: small spoilers for end of season 3 and for few fragments of season 4.
Among the many things Teresa Lisbon claimed to be, she had always assured to be strong and independent. That was why, even at a young age, despite everything that was happening with her family back then, she never asked for help; she never liked the feel of being small, unimportant, fragile like a porcelain doll, and she hated the looks of pity she knew she would eventually receive. She knew she was an hypocrite: she had always been the first one begging Jane to ask for help, let the team on his schemes, despite doing herself the opposite with him as well.
She hated having to ask for help, but this time, she didn’t have any other choice, an besides, technically, she wasn’t asking to get help for herself; Jane was the one in need, Jane was the one so deep into it he wasn’t even seeing it, despite the evidence being right before his eyes.
Still, when she lifted her tiny fist to knock on the door, she hesitated for just a fraction of second, biting her lips, tempted to just turn on her heels and leave, and deal with the situation on her own – despite being almost positive there wasn’t’ much she could actually do about it.
“Agent Lisbon, what can I do for you?” Sophie Miller’s voice was as soft and musical as the first time she had heard it, over seven years prior, but still, there was something very… different about her, it wasn’t just because of the age, she just seemed less stressed and anxious than last time they had meet each other, there was some peaceful quality that come to her with age, and probably, peace of mind. Even her hair were different, no longer of a different shade to impress the man of the hour, but natural, and with white and grey all over the head. It was in moment like those that Lisbon knew that Jane had been right with his evaluation of the scientist; she had even saved her the stress of having to reflect upon her decision, coming to her first. And Lisbon didn’t need to read minds to know that Sophie had seen her walking on the side of the street for over 15 minutes- she had seen the doctor as well.
“Would you like a coffee? I have a fresh pot in the kitchen… I think there’s enough for two.” Teresa nodded, and entered, focused suddenly on her feet and on the doctor’s back; not for the first time she felt at loss of words, she felt like she didn’t know how to explain herself, and yet, she had the feeling Sophie knew more than she was letting believe. She was almost (almost being the magical word) sure that Jane hadn’t called the woman, but she assumed that Sophie Miller wasn’t the naïve little child her (former) consultant claimed her to be.
“I’ve heard of Red John” once again it was Sophie to start the conversation, smiling of a little, sad smile to Teresa, who had been silently stared at the cup of dark liquid between her hands for what she had come to realize had been over 15 minutes. Of course the doctor had assumed something was wrong. Even a blind-deaf would have guessed as much by now, and Sophie Miller, like Jane had told her more than once, was good at her job. “I’m glad he cannot hurt any longer. you and your team did well.”
Once again, before speaking, Teresa nodded, and this time, instead of her shoes, her attention was focused completely on the cold, dark liquid- that remembered her so much of the pain she had endured in the last few months. “That’s why I’m here, Miss Miller. Well… part of the reason, at least. Jane… he didn’t take it that well.”
He was pacing the attic, one hand on his hip, the other kept running through his curls; his breathing was heavy, his face pale, almost grey out of exhaustion. He was clear to anyone he hadn’t bee sleeping lately, and more so to Lisbon. She wasn’t him, that was for sure, but they had worked together for over 10 long years; it wasn’t like she had taken few tricks from him along the road, simply, she had gotten to know the man behind the mask, and what his tells were.
This wasn’t worrying her, though; what was warring her was that he was in Red John mode, crazy, focused on his goal alone, with no carrying for the people around him; actually, she wasn’t simply worried, she was worried, scared and mad with him, almost livid. He dared to talk about treason with her, when he had been the one to force her hand on the matter.
“What the hell were you thinking, Lisbon?” he hissed, close to her, so close she could feel his hot breath upon her face; it wasn’t the first time it happened, not was the first time her body automatically responded with a shivering spine, but this time, there was nothing erotic or teasing about it, she could see, feel his rage, and it scared her, scared her like never before. “You should have never followed me!”
“Well, then, maybe, you should have covered you tracks better. But then again, you never thought things completely through when Red John was concerned” her voice was so low, so trembling, she wondered if he had heard her at all, but then, when his fits collided with the wall with a sound of crushing bones; she closed her eyes, resisting the need for crying, knowing that it would have made things just worse in a matter of seconds if she did.
“Was” she had told, “was”, not “is”, and that was what got him, the use of the past tense.
“I told you what I wanted to do with him! You knew it! I begged you times over times to leave him to me, but no, Saint Teresa has to always walk in the middle of situations that don’t have to do with her, she has to be the savior, the fixer of all things broken… he was mine, Lisbon, mine, he had to pay for what he did to my angels, and yet, you.. you….”
She heard the sound of heavy steps, quick steps, walking away, and when she opened her eyes, she collapsed on the floor, and all the tears she had somehow kept at bay in the last few days, finally erupted while she held herself like for dear life, the emptiness and coldness of the room were her very portrait, a portrait of solitude and sufferance; still, she kept her strength, and followed him outside.
She thought he couldn’t do anything worse than saying those horrible words to her. She was wrong.
“I haven’t seen him in over six months” Teresa continued, taking big breaths like to calm herself down, her emotions just made all the worse by Sophie’s sympathetic hand on her own; Still, Teresa, when looking at the cerulean orbs, didn’t see pity, but compassion, and the desire to help. She wondered if it was because she felt like she had failed with the man as well, just like she did, time after time. “I am… we are all worried about him” she corrected herself at the last minute, and her eyes were suddenly back on her feet and on the wood floor, a slight blush coloring her cheeks out of frustration and shyness. In any other case, Sophie would have found it amusing and sweet, now, though, even if she didn’t know that well Agent Lisbon - and sometimes she felt like she didn’t know Patrick Jane at all – deep down she knew that this little woman was very proud, and she would have never asked for help, especially to her, not if she could have helped it, not unless it was a live or death matter.
But, still, even after all this years, even after over a decade, she still felt like Patrick’s therapist, she still felt like she had to take care of him, had to protect, even from the ones- the other ones- who claimed who wanted to help him. it had always been in her, that nursing instinct, and that was probably one of the reasons she had chosen her line of work, but Patrick Jane had just made it… worse, had increased her pathological need to help people out. The fact that she now owed him her own freedom… well, it was an added line on the long list of reasons why she had to think about Patrick first.
“Agent Lisbon, I know you probably want me to tell you that you should run to him, that you want to hear the words you are supposed to tell him, but the thing is, I can’t. Patrick… Jane” she corrected herself immediately, biting her own lips, and not for the first time, looking at her lowered eyes, at the crimson color of her cheeks, Lisbon wondered if Miss Miller had never crossed the line with Jane, if her former consultant had never asked the woman for comfort in the form of sex, or, at least, allowed her to believe so. Teresa Lisbon, Teresa the woman, the majority of the times, could say that she didn’t know Patrick Jane the man, despite all the gossip and her secret dreams, but the cop in her knew too well the man driven by revenge, the natural born manipulator, and she’d not be surprised to know that he could have used sex to get to the other woman, to let her know, believe, that he was safe and sound in her arms, ready to embrace the world once again. “Jane has always been a very driven man. It was his way to compensate his particular lifestyle as a child and a teenager. To not feel an outsider, to be able to mend, to… forget himself and his life, to survive, in a certain sense, he had to focus on an aim. First it was the boy-wonder number, then it was his family and his work as a psych, and then, it was Red John and his need for revenge. Those things, were all the things he breathed for, and now that Red John is gone, he feels like he has nothing left. He feels like the killer and vengeance have been stolen from him, he doesn’t have any longer his family nor his former work. This way, he has time, time to think, and I assure you, right now his mind is so filled with thoughts he doesn’t know what to think any longer… but still, he probably feels compelled to grief as well, something he has never done properly.”
Teresa shook her head, biting back the tears, and silently, she took a piece of paper from her jacket, holding it to Miller, allowing the woman to examine it. “I don’t want to force Jane into anything. I know he needs time, and I know there’s a chance he’ll never return, I’ve always knew we were just tools in his hands in his personal war, ok? I’m not stupid, and I care for him enough to know that he needs to be free right now. I just want to… I don’t want for him to be alone right now, and… he needs someone helping him, to go to him and tell him what he should do, because this time he’ll not ask for help again, and… I know, ok? I know I can’t be that person, and I know he’ll never want me to!” She didn’t scream, nor cries, but yet, as silent as she was, as hard as she tried to, silent tears still escaped, and she hated it. Never look weak, that was her mantra, and never show what her truly weakness was, caring, loving, fixing. Jane.
She was disgusted with herself, and she didn’t know why. She didn’t wanted to be there, and yet she had to; she didn’t like to ask for her, hated it, actually, but yet she had to; she had never asked for the complication of Jane in her life, never asked to be the fixer, the enamored little girl, and yet, she was all those things, she couldn’t help it. She was everything, and yet she was nothing- at list, for him, at least, yet, and maybe never.
And as silent tears filled Lisbon’s eyes, Sophie, in that moment, saw a myriad of emotions- sadness, fear, affection, and yes, love as well – in the green gems; she took the sheet, Teresa’s hands unmoving, not trying to fight, not trying to resist, and her blood turned cold in her veins, because she didn’t like what she was reading there. She didn’t like that Agent Lisbon was right: drinking, gambling, drugs, fights, conning….
Jane’s self-destructive behavior had definitely taken a turn for the worse, and she didn’t know how much she could do about it, didn’t know if she could actually listen to Teresa Lisbon’s prayers. She’ll try to talk, but she can’t make any promise, can’t say he’ll listen to her. He may be beyond saving, this time- that is, if she saved him at all the first time around. A long time ago, she thought she did it, that she had fixed Patrick Jane. Now, she wasn’t so sure any longer.
She didn’t even say at loud the words, didn’t dare to make that promise, because she wasn’t sure she could actually keep it.
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Word Count: 7596
Rating: T
Summary: As much as she had always complained about Jane, asking for help wasn’t her best trait as well, but right now, she didn’t have any other choice. Because she had to save him, save him from the nothing he had become. Too bad she couldn’t, not alone, at least. She just hated asking for help…
Disclaimers: No, nor the characters or the show belong to me. And this time around, there is not even an original character to claim as mine…
Notes: small spoilers for end of season 3 and for few fragments of season 4.
Among the many things Teresa Lisbon claimed to be, she had always assured to be strong and independent. That was why, even at a young age, despite everything that was happening with her family back then, she never asked for help; she never liked the feel of being small, unimportant, fragile like a porcelain doll, and she hated the looks of pity she knew she would eventually receive. She knew she was an hypocrite: she had always been the first one begging Jane to ask for help, let the team on his schemes, despite doing herself the opposite with him as well.
She hated having to ask for help, but this time, she didn’t have any other choice, an besides, technically, she wasn’t asking to get help for herself; Jane was the one in need, Jane was the one so deep into it he wasn’t even seeing it, despite the evidence being right before his eyes.
Still, when she lifted her tiny fist to knock on the door, she hesitated for just a fraction of second, biting her lips, tempted to just turn on her heels and leave, and deal with the situation on her own - despite being almost positive there wasn’t’ much she could actually do about it.
“Agent Lisbon, what can I do for you?” Sophie Miller’s voice was as soft and musical as the first time she had heard it, over seven years prior, but still, there was something very… different about her, it wasn’t just because of the age, she just seemed less stressed and anxious than last time they had meet each other, there was some peaceful quality that come to her with age, and probably, peace of mind. Even her hair were different, no longer of a different shade to impress the man of the hour, but natural, and with white and grey all over the head. It was in moment like those that Lisbon knew that Jane had been right with his evaluation of the scientist; she had even saved her the stress of having to reflect upon her decision, coming to her first. And Lisbon didn’t need to read minds to know that Sophie had seen her walking on the side of the street for over 15 minutes- she had seen the doctor as well.
“Would you like a coffee? I have a fresh pot in the kitchen… I think there’s enough for two.” Teresa nodded, and entered, focused suddenly on her feet and on the doctor’s back; not for the first time she felt at loss of words, she felt like she didn’t know how to explain herself, and yet, she had the feeling Sophie knew more than she was letting believe. She was almost (almost being the magical word) sure that Jane hadn’t called the woman, but she assumed that Sophie Miller wasn’t the naïve little child her (former) consultant claimed her to be.
“I’ve heard of Red John” once again it was Sophie to start the conversation, smiling of a little, sad smile to Teresa, who had been silently stared at the cup of dark liquid between her hands for what she had come to realize had been over 15 minutes. Of course the doctor had assumed something was wrong. Even a blind-deaf would have guessed as much by now, and Sophie Miller, like Jane had told her more than once, was good at her job. “I’m glad he cannot hurt any longer. you and your team did well.”
Once again, before speaking, Teresa nodded, and this time, instead of her shoes, her attention was focused completely on the cold, dark liquid- that remembered her so much of the pain she had endured in the last few months. “That’s why I’m here, Miss Miller. Well… part of the reason, at least. Jane… he didn’t take it that well.”
He was pacing the attic, one hand on his hip, the other kept running through his curls; his breathing was heavy, his face pale, almost grey out of exhaustion. He was clear to anyone he hadn’t bee sleeping lately, and more so to Lisbon. She wasn’t him, that was for sure, but they had worked together for over 10 long years; it wasn’t like she had taken few tricks from him along the road, simply, she had gotten to know the man behind the mask, and what his tells were.
This wasn’t worrying her, though; what was warring her was that he was in Red John mode, crazy, focused on his goal alone, with no carrying for the people around him; actually, she wasn’t simply worried, she was worried, scared and mad with him, almost livid. He dared to talk about treason with her, when he had been the one to force her hand on the matter.
“What the hell were you thinking, Lisbon?” he hissed, close to her, so close she could feel his hot breath upon her face; it wasn’t the first time it happened, not was the first time her body automatically responded with a shivering spine, but this time, there was nothing erotic or teasing about it, she could see, feel his rage, and it scared her, scared her like never before. “You should have never followed me!”
“Well, then, maybe, you should have covered you tracks better. But then again, you never thought things completely through when Red John was concerned” her voice was so low, so trembling, she wondered if he had heard her at all, but then, when his fits collided with the wall with a sound of crushing bones; she closed her eyes, resisting the need for crying, knowing that it would have made things just worse in a matter of seconds if she did.
“Was” she had told, “was”, not “is”, and that was what got him, the use of the past tense.
“I told you what I wanted to do with him! You knew it! I begged you times over times to leave him to me, but no, Saint Teresa has to always walk in the middle of situations that don’t have to do with her, she has to be the savior, the fixer of all things broken… he was mine, Lisbon, mine, he had to pay for what he did to my angels, and yet, you.. you….”
She heard the sound of heavy steps, quick steps, walking away, and when she opened her eyes, she collapsed on the floor, and all the tears she had somehow kept at bay in the last few days, finally erupted while she held herself like for dear life, the emptiness and coldness of the room were her very portrait, a portrait of solitude and sufferance; still, she kept her strength, and followed him outside.
She thought he couldn’t do anything worse than saying those horrible words to her. She was wrong.
“I haven’t seen him in over six months” Teresa continued, taking big breaths like to calm herself down, her emotions just made all the worse by Sophie’s sympathetic hand on her own; Still, Teresa, when looking at the cerulean orbs, didn’t see pity, but compassion, and the desire to help. She wondered if it was because she felt like she had failed with the man as well, just like she did, time after time. “I am… we are all worried about him” she corrected herself at the last minute, and her eyes were suddenly back on her feet and on the wood floor, a slight blush coloring her cheeks out of frustration and shyness. In any other case, Sophie would have found it amusing and sweet, now, though, even if she didn’t know that well Agent Lisbon - and sometimes she felt like she didn’t know Patrick Jane at all - deep down she knew that this little woman was very proud, and she would have never asked for help, especially to her, not if she could have helped it, not unless it was a live or death matter.
But, still, even after all this years, even after over a decade, she still felt like Patrick’s therapist, she still felt like she had to take care of him, had to protect, even from the ones- the other ones- who claimed who wanted to help him. it had always been in her, that nursing instinct, and that was probably one of the reasons she had chosen her line of work, but Patrick Jane had just made it… worse, had increased her pathological need to help people out. The fact that she now owed him her own freedom… well, it was an added line on the long list of reasons why she had to think about Patrick first.
“Agent Lisbon, I know you probably want me to tell you that you should run to him, that you want to hear the words you are supposed to tell him, but the thing is, I can’t. Patrick… Jane” she corrected herself immediately, biting her own lips, and not for the first time, looking at her lowered eyes, at the crimson color of her cheeks, Lisbon wondered if Miss Miller had never crossed the line with Jane, if her former consultant had never asked the woman for comfort in the form of sex, or, at least, allowed her to believe so. Teresa Lisbon, Teresa the woman, the majority of the times, could say that she didn’t know Patrick Jane the man, despite all the gossip and her secret dreams, but the cop in her knew too well the man driven by revenge, the natural born manipulator, and she’d not be surprised to know that he could have used sex to get to the other woman, to let her know, believe, that he was safe and sound in her arms, ready to embrace the world once again. “Jane has always been a very driven man. It was his way to compensate his particular lifestyle as a child and a teenager. To not feel an outsider, to be able to mend, to… forget himself and his life, to survive, in a certain sense, he had to focus on an aim. First it was the boy-wonder number, then it was his family and his work as a psych, and then, it was Red John and his need for revenge. Those things, were all the things he breathed for, and now that Red John is gone, he feels like he has nothing left. He feels like the killer and vengeance have been stolen from him, he doesn’t have any longer his family nor his former work. This way, he has time, time to think, and I assure you, right now his mind is so filled with thoughts he doesn’t know what to think any longer… but still, he probably feels compelled to grief as well, something he has never done properly.”
Teresa shook her head, biting back the tears, and silently, she took a piece of paper from her jacket, holding it to Miller, allowing the woman to examine it. “I don’t want to force Jane into anything. I know he needs time, and I know there’s a chance he’ll never return, I’ve always knew we were just tools in his hands in his personal war, ok? I’m not stupid, and I care for him enough to know that he needs to be free right now. I just want to… I don’t want for him to be alone right now, and… he needs someone helping him, to go to him and tell him what he should do, because this time he’ll not ask for help again, and… I know, ok? I know I can’t be that person, and I know he’ll never want me to!” She didn’t scream, nor cries, but yet, as silent as she was, as hard as she tried to, silent tears still escaped, and she hated it. Never look weak, that was her mantra, and never show what her truly weakness was, caring, loving, fixing. Jane.
She was disgusted with herself, and she didn’t know why. She didn’t wanted to be there, and yet she had to; she didn’t like to ask for her, hated it, actually, but yet she had to; she had never asked for the complication of Jane in her life, never asked to be the fixer, the enamored little girl, and yet, she was all those things, she couldn’t help it. She was everything, and yet she was nothing- at list, for him, at least, yet, and maybe never.
And as silent tears filled Lisbon’s eyes, Sophie, in that moment, saw a myriad of emotions- sadness, fear, affection, and yes, love as well - in the green gems; she took the sheet, Teresa’s hands unmoving, not trying to fight, not trying to resist, and her blood turned cold in her veins, because she didn’t like what she was reading there. She didn’t like that Agent Lisbon was right: drinking, gambling, drugs, fights, conning….
Jane’s self-destructive behavior had definitely taken a turn for the worse, and she didn’t know how much she could do about it, didn’t know if she could actually listen to Teresa Lisbon’s prayers. She’ll try to talk, but she can’t make any promise, can’t say he’ll listen to her. He may be beyond saving, this time- that is, if she saved him at all the first time around. A long time ago, she thought she did it, that she had fixed Patrick Jane. Now, she wasn’t so sure any longer.
She didn’t even say at loud the words, didn’t dare to make that promise, because she wasn’t sure she could actually keep it.