Fic: Picking Up The Pieces (Mentalist Big Bang 2011)
Picking Up The Pieces
Author: miss_peg
Artist(s): browneyesparker
Link to art: HERE
Word Count: 10922
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Five times Lisbon tries to save Tommy and one time she can't. Includes spoilers for Season 4.
Disclaimer: If I owned the Mentalist I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.
Notes: This has probably been the hardest fic I have ever written. It's really not that easy trying to write 10000 words for a fandom you love but haven't written all that much for. Thanks for tromana for always being a cheerleader, even though for once she has yet to read this fic. Thanks to cifre for betaing, though we only managed to work on the first two sections (that may change, it depends if she's had the time to do the rest? Sorry again for the late notice!) And finally, thanks to browneyesparker for the lovely art, I can't wait to check out the fanmix.
One
Teresa Lisbon stood on the sidewalk by the school and waited. She'd been doing it practically her whole life, stopping off to pick her brothers up on the way home. Especially since James joined soccer and had practice until late. It was different though, now. As though everything that once was had suddenly become something else. She stopped being the older sister four years ago when her mother died and now she had to stop being the older sister legally also. She closed her eyes and bowed her head in an attempt to ward off another wave of sadness. Whatever had happened over the last few years, it still hurt so badly to lose him. ''Hi Reese,' said Joseph. He ran along the school yard towards her with a partial smile on his face. None of them had smiled properly in a while. 'Hey Joey, what's up?' 'I got a 98 on my spelling test.' He held out the paper in glee. Lisbon took it and scanned the sheet before handing it back to him. 'Nicely done!' 'Thanks.' His grin grew wider and Lisbon couldn't help comparing it to the memory of her mother. They all looked a little too like her from time to time. 'Where's your brother?' 'Probably getting beaten up again.' 'Those boys still harassing him?' Joseph nodded his head and folded up his spelling test before placing it in the front pocket of his school bag. Lisbon ruffled his hair as he knelt down. He shook her hand off and when he stood back up he was still grinning at her. 'You did good kid, now let's go find your brother and go home.'
They walked around the side of the school building towards the gym where Tommy had his last class. Lisbon remembered the last time she'd been there the semester before she moved to the high school. Unlike Tommy, she only had good memories. 'He usually comes out before now.' Lisbon nodded and rested a hand on her brother's shoulder. She had a bad feeling. They walked inside where the sound of someone shouting travelled out from the boys’ locker room. 'You wait here,' she told Joseph, staring him in the eye to make sure he understood. He nodded and she left him alone. The locker room smelled not unlike the bathroom at home after a week of nobody cleaning it. She wrinkled her nose and sneaked inside. There was something strangely alluring about being allowed into the boys’ locker room, it would never have happened had she still been a student at the school. 'Tommy?' she shouted out. No answer. Instead the only sound she could hear was the grunt and groan of someone being hit in the stomach. She'd heard it enough times at home with her brothers and before, she’d been both on the receiving end and the one doing the pummelling. Without a second thought she ran through the locker room towards the showers where two teenage boys stood over Tommy, their fists flying as they took it in turns to hit him. 'What the hell are you doing?' she screamed and ran into the shower to pull the boys off of him. 'Get away from him.'
The two boys stepped back laughing as she pulled Tommy to his feet and helped him walk out of the shower block. 'Little Tommy, just cause your dad killed himself doesn't mean your sister has to fight your battles for you as well as read you a bedtime story.' Seeing red, Lisbon let go of Tommy and lunged at the boys. One managed to run away but she caught the other by the scruff of his shirt and threw him against the wall. She edged herself close to him, until their noses were almost touching and spat out her words. 'He didn't kill himself and you probably still get your ass wiped by your mommy. Leave my brother alone or I'll show you what it's like to be pummelled.' 'Ooh, I'm so scared.’ The boy held his hands up in mock defeat, a smile firmly spread across his face. ‘I'm shaking in my boots. I'm not scared of no girl.'
Lisbon lifted her fist up and threw it in the direction of his face, skimming the edge of his cheek purposefully but doing no real harm. The boy’s face turned white and the moment she let go of his clothing, he scarpered.
Lisbon watched him follow the other boy out of the room before turning back to Tommy. 'What the hell was that?' 'Nothing,' he said, talking to his feet. 'Like hell it was.’ Lisbon rested her hands on her hips. ‘If I hadn't turned up you'd probably be in the emergency room.' 'Don’t be fucking stupid Reese, the only reason I'd be in the emergency room is because you turned up. Thanks for nothing.' Tommy walked towards the exit, not caring to pick up his feet or bag as he trailed them along the floor. 'Hey, don’t you walk away from me and don't you be cursing either.’ Lisbon walked behind him. She tried her best; she didn’t know how to be a parent. The least he could be was grateful and less of a handful. ‘Mom and dad didn't raise you to talk back like that.' Tommy stopped in the doorway and turned, his eyes filled with tears. 'Newsflash Reese, mom and dad are dead and even when he was alive, what did dad do? Huh?' 'This isn't over,' she shouted. 'No 'cause I'm gonna get beaten up tomorrow and the next day and the next.' 'I won't let that happen.' 'What are you gonna do? Be there in the corridor when I come out of all my classes? Hold my hand when I do gym? You can’t fucking do anything Reese so don't bother trying.'
Defeated, Lisbon stared at the space her brother vacated and took a few deep breaths. What did he expect her to do? She loved him, she wanted to look after him, she was doing the best she could. Then again, maybe her best wasn’t good enough. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t be a parent to three teenage boys. Maybe the social worker was right; maybe she needed to let Tommy and Joseph go into foster care.
xxx
For three days Lisbon didn’t pick Tommy up from school, instead she raced home and waited in the kitchen with a mug of coffee. Would he turn up with a split lip or bruises on his arms? Would she get a call from the emergency room? She half expected the police to arrive with news that he’d been beaten to death. She didn’t want to make things worse by going to the school and trying to protect him, not when he seemed so adamant he could look after himself.
‘Reese!’ Joseph shouted from the porch.
Lisbon placed her mug on the table and ran through the house towards Joseph’s voice. When she saw him, he appeared almost crippled trying to support Tommy’s heavier form. He let go as soon as Lisbon had taken hold of his other arm.
‘Get the first aid kit,’ Lisbon said and helped Tommy hobble towards the couch. ‘What the hell happened?’
‘What do you think?’ Tommy rolled his eyes and groaned as he sunk against the soft cushions.
‘I think I need to speak to your principle.’
‘How many times do I have to tell you to stay the fuck out of my business?’
‘And watch you get beaten up week after week? It’s not going to happen, Thomas. Tomorrow morning I’m going to speak to Mr Hardy whether you like it or not.’
Joseph dropped the box onto the table in front of them and began rifling through it; he found a box of band aids and held them out for Lisbon. She smiled; his innocence was light relief from the dramas of Tommy’s life.
‘I’m going to need you to put some water on the boil.’
He disappeared back into the kitchen whilst Lisbon tended to Tommy’s wounds. He winced as she helped him to remove his t-shirt and pushed her away when she pressed a cotton bud dipped in antiseptic against a cut above his eye.
‘You might need stitches.’
‘I don’t need stitches.’
‘Since when did you have a PhD?’
‘Since I hit puberty,’ Tommy smirked.
She rolled her eyes and took in a deep breath in an attempt to resist the urge to hit him across the head. He could be pretty humorous when he wanted to be, that moment was not it.
‘Good to see they didn’t knock the comedy out of you, but I really didn’t need to know that.’
xxx
Once the sun had set and Joseph had gone to bed, Lisbon sat at the kitchen table with a mug of hot cocoa and a pile of homework. She was behind, had been for some time, and caring for her brothers only made it harder to catch up. She had dreams, ideas of what she wanted out of life, dreams she considered putting to one side for her family.
‘Got anymore?’ said Tommy as he slung himself carefully into a chair. She filled a mug with cocoa and stirred in some hot milk left in the pan.
‘If I give this to you, you need to start letting me in,’ said Lisbon, holding the mug up and out of his reach. He nodded his head and she passed it across. ‘If we’re going to be a family, like we used to be, we need to start looking out for each other.’
‘Having my sister beat up kids at school isn’t going to help; it makes me look like a wuss.’
‘I promise I won’t do that again, but this has got to stop.’
‘It will.’
‘I can’t guarantee that. I don’t know how to handle it like an adult, Tommy.’ Lisbon stared into her mug and thought for a moment. There were things she hadn’t told her brothers, things she didn’t think they needed to know at the time. She lifted her head and cracked a weak smile. ‘The social worker wanted to take you and Joey away, did you know that? She thinks you’d be better off in foster care but I fought to keep us together. Now I’m not so sure.’
He stared at her, his eyes wide and watery as he heaved each breath. ‘No, that can’t happen. Don’t let that happen, Reese.’
‘I don’t know what to do anymore,’ she admitted, avoiding his gaze.
‘I don’t want to go into care; I want to stay here with you, all of us together. A family. I want you looking after us.’
Lisbon’s smile grew and stretched up towards her eyes; she let out a long, deep breath and reached out to his hand. She squeezed it gently. ‘Okay, I want that too.’
( Two)
( Three)
( Four)
( Five)
( Six)
Author: miss_peg
Artist(s): browneyesparker
Link to art: HERE
Word Count: 10922
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Five times Lisbon tries to save Tommy and one time she can't. Includes spoilers for Season 4.
Disclaimer: If I owned the Mentalist I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.
Notes: This has probably been the hardest fic I have ever written. It's really not that easy trying to write 10000 words for a fandom you love but haven't written all that much for. Thanks for tromana for always being a cheerleader, even though for once she has yet to read this fic. Thanks to cifre for betaing, though we only managed to work on the first two sections (that may change, it depends if she's had the time to do the rest? Sorry again for the late notice!) And finally, thanks to browneyesparker for the lovely art, I can't wait to check out the fanmix.
One
Teresa Lisbon stood on the sidewalk by the school and waited. She'd been doing it practically her whole life, stopping off to pick her brothers up on the way home. Especially since James joined soccer and had practice until late. It was different though, now. As though everything that once was had suddenly become something else. She stopped being the older sister four years ago when her mother died and now she had to stop being the older sister legally also. She closed her eyes and bowed her head in an attempt to ward off another wave of sadness. Whatever had happened over the last few years, it still hurt so badly to lose him. ''Hi Reese,' said Joseph. He ran along the school yard towards her with a partial smile on his face. None of them had smiled properly in a while. 'Hey Joey, what's up?' 'I got a 98 on my spelling test.' He held out the paper in glee. Lisbon took it and scanned the sheet before handing it back to him. 'Nicely done!' 'Thanks.' His grin grew wider and Lisbon couldn't help comparing it to the memory of her mother. They all looked a little too like her from time to time. 'Where's your brother?' 'Probably getting beaten up again.' 'Those boys still harassing him?' Joseph nodded his head and folded up his spelling test before placing it in the front pocket of his school bag. Lisbon ruffled his hair as he knelt down. He shook her hand off and when he stood back up he was still grinning at her. 'You did good kid, now let's go find your brother and go home.'
They walked around the side of the school building towards the gym where Tommy had his last class. Lisbon remembered the last time she'd been there the semester before she moved to the high school. Unlike Tommy, she only had good memories. 'He usually comes out before now.' Lisbon nodded and rested a hand on her brother's shoulder. She had a bad feeling. They walked inside where the sound of someone shouting travelled out from the boys’ locker room. 'You wait here,' she told Joseph, staring him in the eye to make sure he understood. He nodded and she left him alone. The locker room smelled not unlike the bathroom at home after a week of nobody cleaning it. She wrinkled her nose and sneaked inside. There was something strangely alluring about being allowed into the boys’ locker room, it would never have happened had she still been a student at the school. 'Tommy?' she shouted out. No answer. Instead the only sound she could hear was the grunt and groan of someone being hit in the stomach. She'd heard it enough times at home with her brothers and before, she’d been both on the receiving end and the one doing the pummelling. Without a second thought she ran through the locker room towards the showers where two teenage boys stood over Tommy, their fists flying as they took it in turns to hit him. 'What the hell are you doing?' she screamed and ran into the shower to pull the boys off of him. 'Get away from him.'
The two boys stepped back laughing as she pulled Tommy to his feet and helped him walk out of the shower block. 'Little Tommy, just cause your dad killed himself doesn't mean your sister has to fight your battles for you as well as read you a bedtime story.' Seeing red, Lisbon let go of Tommy and lunged at the boys. One managed to run away but she caught the other by the scruff of his shirt and threw him against the wall. She edged herself close to him, until their noses were almost touching and spat out her words. 'He didn't kill himself and you probably still get your ass wiped by your mommy. Leave my brother alone or I'll show you what it's like to be pummelled.' 'Ooh, I'm so scared.’ The boy held his hands up in mock defeat, a smile firmly spread across his face. ‘I'm shaking in my boots. I'm not scared of no girl.'
Lisbon lifted her fist up and threw it in the direction of his face, skimming the edge of his cheek purposefully but doing no real harm. The boy’s face turned white and the moment she let go of his clothing, he scarpered.
Lisbon watched him follow the other boy out of the room before turning back to Tommy. 'What the hell was that?' 'Nothing,' he said, talking to his feet. 'Like hell it was.’ Lisbon rested her hands on her hips. ‘If I hadn't turned up you'd probably be in the emergency room.' 'Don’t be fucking stupid Reese, the only reason I'd be in the emergency room is because you turned up. Thanks for nothing.' Tommy walked towards the exit, not caring to pick up his feet or bag as he trailed them along the floor. 'Hey, don’t you walk away from me and don't you be cursing either.’ Lisbon walked behind him. She tried her best; she didn’t know how to be a parent. The least he could be was grateful and less of a handful. ‘Mom and dad didn't raise you to talk back like that.' Tommy stopped in the doorway and turned, his eyes filled with tears. 'Newsflash Reese, mom and dad are dead and even when he was alive, what did dad do? Huh?' 'This isn't over,' she shouted. 'No 'cause I'm gonna get beaten up tomorrow and the next day and the next.' 'I won't let that happen.' 'What are you gonna do? Be there in the corridor when I come out of all my classes? Hold my hand when I do gym? You can’t fucking do anything Reese so don't bother trying.'
Defeated, Lisbon stared at the space her brother vacated and took a few deep breaths. What did he expect her to do? She loved him, she wanted to look after him, she was doing the best she could. Then again, maybe her best wasn’t good enough. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t be a parent to three teenage boys. Maybe the social worker was right; maybe she needed to let Tommy and Joseph go into foster care.
xxx
For three days Lisbon didn’t pick Tommy up from school, instead she raced home and waited in the kitchen with a mug of coffee. Would he turn up with a split lip or bruises on his arms? Would she get a call from the emergency room? She half expected the police to arrive with news that he’d been beaten to death. She didn’t want to make things worse by going to the school and trying to protect him, not when he seemed so adamant he could look after himself.
‘Reese!’ Joseph shouted from the porch.
Lisbon placed her mug on the table and ran through the house towards Joseph’s voice. When she saw him, he appeared almost crippled trying to support Tommy’s heavier form. He let go as soon as Lisbon had taken hold of his other arm.
‘Get the first aid kit,’ Lisbon said and helped Tommy hobble towards the couch. ‘What the hell happened?’
‘What do you think?’ Tommy rolled his eyes and groaned as he sunk against the soft cushions.
‘I think I need to speak to your principle.’
‘How many times do I have to tell you to stay the fuck out of my business?’
‘And watch you get beaten up week after week? It’s not going to happen, Thomas. Tomorrow morning I’m going to speak to Mr Hardy whether you like it or not.’
Joseph dropped the box onto the table in front of them and began rifling through it; he found a box of band aids and held them out for Lisbon. She smiled; his innocence was light relief from the dramas of Tommy’s life.
‘I’m going to need you to put some water on the boil.’
He disappeared back into the kitchen whilst Lisbon tended to Tommy’s wounds. He winced as she helped him to remove his t-shirt and pushed her away when she pressed a cotton bud dipped in antiseptic against a cut above his eye.
‘You might need stitches.’
‘I don’t need stitches.’
‘Since when did you have a PhD?’
‘Since I hit puberty,’ Tommy smirked.
She rolled her eyes and took in a deep breath in an attempt to resist the urge to hit him across the head. He could be pretty humorous when he wanted to be, that moment was not it.
‘Good to see they didn’t knock the comedy out of you, but I really didn’t need to know that.’
xxx
Once the sun had set and Joseph had gone to bed, Lisbon sat at the kitchen table with a mug of hot cocoa and a pile of homework. She was behind, had been for some time, and caring for her brothers only made it harder to catch up. She had dreams, ideas of what she wanted out of life, dreams she considered putting to one side for her family.
‘Got anymore?’ said Tommy as he slung himself carefully into a chair. She filled a mug with cocoa and stirred in some hot milk left in the pan.
‘If I give this to you, you need to start letting me in,’ said Lisbon, holding the mug up and out of his reach. He nodded his head and she passed it across. ‘If we’re going to be a family, like we used to be, we need to start looking out for each other.’
‘Having my sister beat up kids at school isn’t going to help; it makes me look like a wuss.’
‘I promise I won’t do that again, but this has got to stop.’
‘It will.’
‘I can’t guarantee that. I don’t know how to handle it like an adult, Tommy.’ Lisbon stared into her mug and thought for a moment. There were things she hadn’t told her brothers, things she didn’t think they needed to know at the time. She lifted her head and cracked a weak smile. ‘The social worker wanted to take you and Joey away, did you know that? She thinks you’d be better off in foster care but I fought to keep us together. Now I’m not so sure.’
He stared at her, his eyes wide and watery as he heaved each breath. ‘No, that can’t happen. Don’t let that happen, Reese.’
‘I don’t know what to do anymore,’ she admitted, avoiding his gaze.
‘I don’t want to go into care; I want to stay here with you, all of us together. A family. I want you looking after us.’
Lisbon’s smile grew and stretched up towards her eyes; she let out a long, deep breath and reached out to his hand. She squeezed it gently. ‘Okay, I want that too.’
( Two)
( Three)
( Four)
( Five)
( Six)