Unbroken (1/1)
Unbroken
Author: tromana
Artist: robothor1111
Link to art: Here
Word Count: 2,783
Rating: T
Summary: The degradation of Wayne Rigsby and Sarah Harrigan's relationship after he faked his death to try and capture Red John.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mentalist. This was written purely for pleasure.
Notes: Spoilers for early season 5. Written for The Mentalist Big Bang 2012. With thanks to miss_peg for giving it the once over and robothor1111 for the artwork.
Unbroken
Her whole world came crashing down around her when she heard the news.
Wayne Rigsby was dead. He’d been murdered by Patrick Jane on CBI premises. Teresa Lisbon, kidnapped, presumed dead. There was the usual plea for information, the usual promise of reward for any information leading to an arrest of this dangerous and disturbed criminal. Nobody was to approach him; just call in if they spotted him and urged to stay safe.
All of this flew over Sarah Harrigan’s head. She didn’t know, and she didn’t care.
Wayne was dead. Benjamin was fatherless. She had to bring him up on her own. It all seemed utterly ludicrous. This morning she had bid him farewell, with a rudimentary kiss on his lips and now, he was dead. He’d been stolen from her by Patrick Jane, one of the few men who Wayne had truly trusted. It was practically inconceivable.
It didn’t take long for her cell phone to start ringing, people to start texting and e-mailing her, urging her to reply, to watch the news, asking her if she was okay and offering her pithy condolences. None of it made a blind bit of difference; none of them could bring her Wayne back. However many people said ‘I’m sorry for your loss’, it didn’t get rid of the gnawing loss at the very pit of her stomach.
Part of her was desperate for this to be so kind of trick. Within her career, she’d heard people talking about the mind games that Jane had played. The rules he’d broken, the tricks he’d played, the word play he used and the sleight of hand. All Sarah wanted was for this to be one of those, on a more elaborate scale, just so she could have the knowledge that Wayne would be back within her arms in the space of a week. She didn’t want her son growing up without his daddy and she didn’t know where to turn to.
All this was so painful and so real. Wayne Rigsby was dead and everybody who was anybody knew all the gory details. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She’d known that getting involved with a cop - especially one who investigated murder for a living - had its risks. Sarah knew there was always the possibility that, one day, somber officers would appear at her doorstep with their heads bowed. But she had always convinced herself that Wayne would be fine because he was a good man. All she could think about right now was just how wrong she’d been.
xxx
When she saw him standing sheepishly at her front door, she didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or slap him. In a flurry of tears, Sarah fell into his arms and he whispered numerous apologies into her ears. She could barely here them, she didn’t even know if she wanted to. All she wanted to do was reacquaint herself with his body, his scent, the feel of his hands. She needed to know that he was real, that he actually was standing in front of him and that this wasn’t a dream or a hallucination.
In the end, she allowed her lips to greet his and he responded eagerly to her touch. Ben was sound asleep and completely oblivious to the fact that his father had been announced dead twenty-four hours previously. He didn’t even have a clue that the very same man had suddenly reappeared in his life, very much alive and well.
But Sarah could see that. She knew. And she silently led him to her bedroom, where she shed him of his clothes and took him there and then. Explanations could wait until later. For now, all she needed to do was convince herself that he was there and that nobody was going to take him away from her any time soon. He responded to her every whim just as eagerly, almost like he had literally come back from the dead.
Deep down, Sarah knew that this was just brushing the issue aside. They needed to talk about what had happened and what he’d done. But right now, she was too emotionally shattered and too desperate to even think straight. This was something they needed to talk about when the both of them were in the right frame of mind to do so. Instead, she curled up in his arms as he drifted off into a deep sleep and she stared at the ceiling. Part of her was waiting for Ben’s pitiful wails for attention - he’d never been good at sleeping through the night - but the rest was just thinking about what the outcome of all this could be.
As relieved as she felt to have Wayne back, it also felt all too wrong. She had no answers to too many questions and she didn’t even know where to start thinking about it all. Somebody had once told her that everything always seemed that little bit clearer in the morning. She could only hope that that person proved to be correct.
xxx
“It’s work. I’ve got to go,” he whispered to her in the half-light and Sarah groaned.
Somewhere along the line, she had drifted off into an uneasy sleep which was littered with nightmares, mostly about blood red smiley faces. It was funny how since starting her love affair with Wayne how Red John had infiltrated her thoughts while awake or otherwise. Sarah was sensible enough to know that the chances of Red John attacking her were still limited, in spite of being involved with one of the members of the team investigating his case. However, she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that that automatically meant that a target had been painted firmly on her (and her son’s) back. Statistically, people were far more likely to be murdered by somebody they knew.
She propped herself up on one arm as she watched Wayne pick up his pants and slip them on. Part of her wanted him to come back to bed, to come and join her for another couple of hours sleep, or something else entirely if that was what he had in mind. The rest was desperate for that heart to heart, for the explanations of how and why he’d had to fake his own death. However, with his hurried motions and scant words, it was clear that Wayne didn’t have the time or the impetus to help her clear her addled mind. As frustrating as it was, she knew this was a part of his job. Even so, she couldn’t help but think that she was the one always having to sacrifice things whereas he could get away with what he pleased.
Eventually, when he was done dressing himself, he whispered a quiet farewell and placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. Vaguely, she heard him whisper goodbye and a ‘behave for your mommy’ to Ben before she heard the door click shut, and a few minutes later, the engine of his car whisking him away. Briefly, she allowed her fingers to touch the place where he’d kissed her and she couldn’t help but think of his audacity. Was this all she was worth to him now? Did he only see her as the mother of his child, the woman whose bed he could return to for a few stolen moments before he found something infinitely more important to do?
Did he honestly not believe he owed her more than this?
xxx
Much to her frustration, they carried on stoically not speaking about the fact he had staged his own death in order to try and apprehend Red John. The one time they got anywhere close to working out precisely what the issue had been, it had turned into a screaming match. It had only ended when Ben started crying desperately and Wayne had hurried away to comfort his upset son.
She could still remember it word for word:
“Was it worth it, framing your death?”
“What do you mean?”
“You scared me witless, Wayne. You could have - should have - trusted me-“
“We had to do it to get closer to Red John. To help Jane…”
“And did you catch Red John?”
“We got Lorelei Martins.”
“And did she give you anything before she handily disappeared?”
“That’s not fair! The FBI screwed up, not us!”
xxx
Her heart almost sank when she realized that Patrick Jane was going to be a witness in one of her cases. Generally, she avoided crossing paths with the CBI for the most part; as far as Sarah was concerned, there was too much of a conflict of interests if she did so. However, the plight of the boy she was representing had appealed to her. She wanted to represent him because she believed in second chances. This kid deserved one more than anybody else.
Besides, a gritty case gave her precisely what she needed in order to take her mind off Wayne and the cracks that were appearing in their relationship. She was beginning to think that he had the right idea; sweeping it under the carpet and starting again was a way to get rid of the issue. Not the best way, admittedly, but one way nevertheless. And anyway, she reminded herself, it hadn’t been Wayne’s fault that he’d concealed the truth from her. It was Patrick Jane’s. She couldn’t blame Wayne for the other man’s folly.
Even so, she couldn’t feel optimistic when she walked into court on that day. She knew what she was dealing with, and she knew what she was facing. The fact that Sarah also knew she was good at her job didn’t help her in the slightest. Jane had brought down cleverer people than she. He’d punished them for far less than what the kid she was representing had done. And she’d lost count of the number of people who he had tricked into falling onto their own proverbial sword. That was his style and quite honestly, she loathed it. What was wrong with using the truth in order to get justice in the world?
In the end, she found herself watching as Patrick Jane undid her supposedly solid case before her very eyes. Technically, she knew he was just doing his job. She should have checked and double checked that her defendant had been telling her the whole truth instead of concealing parts of the story in order to cover up for his friends. But even with that knowledge, she couldn’t help but fall into a blind rage. This man had been responsible for causing the problems in her relationship with Wayne and now he had publically humiliated her in the line of duty.
And this was the kind of man that Wayne didn’t just work with, but actively supported? The very thought almost made her sick to her stomach.
xxx
“Your consultant…”
“Lisbon’s, technically,” Wayne replied under his breath, but Sarah remained oblivious.
“Your consultant screwed up my case, for what? To let a guilty man walk the streets free because there was a guiltier one behind the scenes? Or was it simply for cheap thrills, to prove that he is the cleverest man in the room? Is he always like this?”
Sarah was exasperated and justifiably so. She loved her job as a public defender more than anything and she had her eyes firmly on a promotion, too. It always felt like she was giving back to the community which had supported her as a child. However, there were times when it was just draining. Losing an important case like this one - for somebody who was little more than a kid who’d made a stupid error - hit her hard.
And worse, it was Patrick Jane’s intervention that had, once again, caused it to go wrong.
She didn’t know or understand how Wayne could support him. The man was a terminal screw up. Everything he touched fell to pieces. As far as she was concerned, the cost of having him around far outweighed the benefits. Had she had any say in the CBI or how it was run, he would have been behind bars instead of jail.
“It’s just Jane,” he huffed under his breath before taking a sip of his coffee. “You know what he’s like.”
“No, I don’t, Wayne. I don’t work with him. I just see what he does to you.”
Since Wayne had faked his murder - courtesy of Jane - she had felt him getting further and further away from the man she had once known. Sarah deeply missed the kind, sweet, goofy Wayne Rigsby that she had fallen in love with. Since the latest Red John debacle, during this case, she could see just how much Patrick Jane had colored him as a person.
She had fought tooth and nail to keep him by his side.
But she couldn’t help but wonder: was she to be another piece of collateral damage in Jane’s games?
xxx
More arguments followed. More often than not, they centered around one man: Patrick Jane.
“I heard that ADA Maya Willis almost had to throw another one of your cases out of court because of Jane.”
“Yeah, but we had more evidence. The perp got nailed and that’s the main thing right?”
“So you agree with his methods, then? You think we should just throw out the law book?”
“Okay, so maybe he takes things a little too far, but he closes cases.”
“So what if he closes cases if a guilty man almost walks free?”
“But he didn’t, so there’s no harm done!”
“Sooner or later, it’s all going to happen. Why can’t you see that, Wayne?”
x
“Why didn’t you just tell me? Why did you just follow his rules blindly without thinking about me and Ben?”
“Red John has eyes and ears everywhere, Sarah. If I told you, he could have-“
“So, you’re suggesting that I might be working for Red John now? Is that what you’re saying Wayne?”
“No I never - I didn’t mean…”
x
“Sorry I’m late. Jane nearly got arrested and I had to-“
“It’s always Jane, isn’t it?”
“Sarah-“
“Ben hurt himself today. He needed to go to hospital because he fell down the stairs-“
“You said it was three steps?”
“So what if it was just three steps or a whole damn flight? Your son got hurt and you prioritized Patrick Jane over him!”
“I’m sorry, but it was important. You know my job is-“
“More important than your family?”
“I didn’t say that! If I’d known how bad it was I would’ve…”
x
“Why didn’t you return my calls, Wayne?”
“I was busy. At the hospital, you know you can’t have your cell phone on at the hospital.”
“I heard something happened at the CBI. You have no idea how worried I’d been.”
“I meant to, Sarah, I’ve been busy. It’s just-“
“If you say Patrick Jane, I’m going to scream.”
“I don’t want you to scream.”
xxx
In the end, she just hadn’t been able to handle it anymore. She ended things as amicably as possible. Sarah made plenty of promises to remain friends with Wayne - for Ben’s sake as much as anything else’s. Regardless of the decisions that Wayne made, regardless of who he worked with and who he was friends with, he was still the father of her only son. She owed him that at the very least.
But the relationship was becoming toxic. It was destroying her from the inside out. There were days when she was beginning to dread what arguments she might end up sharing with him. There were times when she thought she loathed him just by looking him in the eye. And she hated what they were becoming. Sarah knew there was still that innate goodness inside of him, but that didn’t change how she had changed inside. Since he had faked his death, she had slowly but surely fallen out of love with Wayne Rigsby.
She hated herself for the failure in the relationship as much as anything else. Sarah had always wanted to give Ben a solid home, and she had always had that image of a perfect little family in her mind. However, she couldn’t give him that if it meant sacrificing her dignity and her feelings of self-worth.
There were no tears when she left him. She knew he would still be in her life in one way or another. Despite all of his faults, Wayne Rigsby was a good father. He wasn’t going to let Ben down anytime soon. Especially not in the way he had let her down.
But this was something she had to do. For herself.