I'll Write You A Tragedy (1/1)
Title: I'll Write You A Tragedy
Author: tromana
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jane/Lisbon
Summary: Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.
Spoilers: General for Season 4.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Written for cifre as a part of the holiday fics challenge. Penultimate story... Also for table G: crash and burn on mentalistprompt.
I'll Write You A Tragedy
Let me tell you a story.
It doesn’t have a happy ending, but neither does real life. Why should stories have to apply a different rule of thumb? Why do they need that happily ever after? There’s always something in the ‘after’ which means it isn’t necessarily all sunshine and roses. There are complications and heartache and tragedy, just as there is in real life. But people forget that, because they want closure.
There isn’t much closure in this tale, either, now that I come to think of it.
There’s a hero though. All good stories have a hero. Somebody dashing and brave and charismatic and charming. Somebody who will save the day and the love of their life, all without breaking into a sweat.
Or, she’s five foot three, stubborn, abrasive and persistent. Still brave though; she has to be, given her job title. But that’s beside the point. She’s brave regardless. Built into her, as it were.
The love of her life, he’s the suave one. He’ll break your heart, given half a chance.
He breaks hers on a day to day basis, not that either of them will admit to that.
But this all doesn’t matter. This is just the ground rules. There’s still a tale to tell, if you’ll give me half a chance.
xxx
It starts like any old day for them.
He’s already at the CBI headquarters, having not actually left the night before. She arrives at the crack of dawn, having barely slept.
It’s obvious that she’s shattered, that she’s pushing herself too hard, but he doesn’t say a word. Not his place to say, even though he wishes he could find the courage to do so. He can tease her, cajole her, generally make things difficult for her, yes, but something like that? It’s a step too far. That little bit too affectionate. Suggests that the walls they’ve built up between one another could be knocked down and crossed over.
There are borderlines there for a reason. The unwritten rules specify that they’re not to be crossed at any time and both of them are more than happy to live by them. For now, anyway. They don’t even need to address the reasons why they’re there at all. They just are.
Still, he hands her a coffee, despite all that. Nobody wants to get within a five mile radius of her if she hasn’t had her morning coffee. If she doesn’t have her caffeine fix, then she’s like a bear with a bad head.
She thinks of it as one of the few nice things that he actually does. He merely sees it as damage limitation.
xxx
They’re called out to a case. There’s nothing surprising about this. It is in the job description, after all.
He pretends to sulk, claiming that he’d just drifted off to sleep, but she sees right through it. They’ve known each other too long for her not to so. Eventually, he relents, just as she expects and they head to the van.
The journey isn’t quiet; it rarely is when they’re both in one of these moods. The kind when they just feel like baiting one another, just want to argue about trivial things. Like who’s driving, whether or not the team believes there’s a thing going on between them, about his methodology when it comes to crime fighting. There’s some things they’ll never agree on, but that’s half the fun.
It makes things interesting, disagreeing. Neither of them would want their relationship (not that it is a relationship of course, they are strictly co-workers) to grow stale and boring. They feed off of each other’s energies, in a strange sort of way. It’s important to them both.
Of course, their traveling companions don’t enjoy the sparring matches quite as much. Yes, they’re used to them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t wear a little thin after a while. There’s only so much seemingly bitter disagreement you can listen to without getting sick of it. They can block it out, to an extent, but needless to say, once they finally reach their destination, they’re happy to finally be able to escape the confines of the relatively small vehicle.
However, the other two find their spirits lifted by the time they arrive. Not one member of the team is affected by crime scenes, not anymore. It’s just part of the course. The fact that somebody has died is sad, of course, but they can’t get too overemotional.
They have a job to do.
xxx
The good mood evaporates the moment they see the smiley face on the wall.
Red John changes everything.
xxx
She always says next time.
Now, he’s wondering if this time is that next time she always promises him.
There’s a gun lying on the desk opposite. She doesn’t know he has it, but it’s the same gun he used to kill Timothy Carter. Light fingers make quick work. The old switcheroo trick always works. Deep in the CBI vaults, in the evidence storage area, lays a plastic gun in lieu of this one.
He smirks at the thought of the look on Luther Wainwright’s face if he ever discovers what he’s done.
But he won’t, because the case is dead and buried. Or at least, that’s what everyone thinks.
The team are harried and stressed, of course they are. That’s because they believe this is yet another copycat killer. (Apart from her, of course. She’s in on the little secret, though it makes her feel incredibly uneasy.) One day, they’ll work out that the villain in this piece is alive.
Just not yet.
He’s got a few more things to figure out before he can let more people know what the hell is going on.
xxx
“I’ve got something.”
He’s surprised at the words; normally they’re the ones he directs at her. But regardless of how things appear, he knows that she’s phenomenal at her job, that she doesn’t need him to close cases. She just chooses to have him around. If she’d gotten sick of him, she could have had him kicked off her team years ago. Literally.
Cocking his head slightly he regards her.
She’s tired, more so than usual. The stress and workload she’s putting herself under are taking their toll. It’s almost like she’s trying to work herself into an early grave. Someone - he - should intervene, but he doesn’t.
He knows why she’s doing this, because it’s what he does to himself as well.
This is Red John. They have to work hard. It’s the only way they can give themselves even half a chance of apprehending (of killing) the serial killer.
Laziness is not an option. It isn’t in their jobs anyway, but it’s even more paramount that they throw their heart and soul into this one.
Especially for him. This is his vengeance they are chasing.
xxx
It turns out to be a dead end.
She’s devastated, of course she is.
Not as devastated as he is though. He needs this to be over, more than anything else in the world.
After all, once it is, he can actually start living again instead of existing. That would make a nice change.
xxx
She spends the whole night tossing and turning. The latest dead end has been plaguing her thoughts ever since they found it lead to nowhere.
It just doesn’t add up. She feels like it should have worked out this time around. The fact that it hasn’t just doesn’t make sense. As far as she’s concerned, it’s like she has all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle but isn’t quite sure how she’s meant to be putting it together again.
And it should be so simple. In theory, anyway.
Screwing her eyes shut, she tries desperately to switch her traitorous mind off. She’s exhausted, she needs to sleep. If she doesn’t, she’ll end up with the same kind of problems as him and that will never do.
Somebody has to keep watch of him and nobody else has the determination (or the patience) to be able to keep track of him and his antics.
However, her brain has other ideas. She can’t stop thinking about work at the best of times, never mind the worst.
Her eyes spring open. It could have been mere minutes later, or it could have been hours. It’s hard to judge the passage of time when laying in the inky blackness of her bedroom.
“Gotcha,” she says with a wry smile.
xxx
He looks as tired as she feels when she knocks agitatedly at his motel room door. She almost feels guilty; it looks like she actually disturbed him from sleep. Considering just how dire his sleeping pattern is, it’s a miracle that he had been getting any rest at all.
Still, she cannot feel completely guilty because she knows he needs to hear this. Knows that this is just what he wants, what he needs.
If they hurry up, they could close this damn thing.
And she’ll have saved him from however many more years of misery.
She’s practically brimming with optimism now, which is unusual for her. Especially so when it’s the Red John case that they’re dealing with; that’s always seemed doomed to misery. It just drags down their moods and reminds them how many steps behind him they are. How far away they’ve been from him for years.
Still, this could be it.
Instead of explaining in the motel room, she drags him out, barely giving him time to change into his three piece suit. He senses her agitation, her need to get on the move. The sooner they’re there, the sooner they can spring into action.
She explains on the way.
Now, he understands her impatience.
xxx
It’s a near-derelict building.
The scaffolding looks ominous, somehow.
She instructs him to stay in the van, but knows deep down, that he won’t listen. Really, she’s regretting bringing him at all; she should have left him to his midnight slumber. She and the team are more than capable of handling this. However, if she’d done just that, he’d probably have never forgiven her.
The words Red John is mine ring in her head. That’s what he always says, after all.
In a swift, fluid movement, she slips on the bulletproof vest and removes her gun from its holster. It’s nearly time for action. The adrenalin is beginning to hit her system properly now, she wants to get going, get this over and done with.
But the others are not here yet and the longer she waits, the more likely it is that he’ll slip through her fingers.
It’s foolhardy, but she makes an executive decision to go it alone.
She can’t wait any longer.
And of course, she has to play the hero. It’s what she does best.
xxx
Of course he follows.
She doesn’t start; she can’t risk letting their target know their location.
Besides, there’s always time for reprimands later.
It doesn’t take long, but she spots her target.
Now is the time for action.
xxx
There’s a gunshot. It’s meant for him. It was always meant for him.
She reacts before she can think. This is what she’s trained to do: to save lives.
And as far as she’s concerned, his life is worth saving more than most, however much he’s likely to disagree with that concept.
He screams.
It’s a direct hit.
She stumbles over the precipice thanks to the sheer blow of the bullet hitting her full force.
A building covered in scaffolding is never the best place to have a shootout, after all. The propensity for damage is so much higher than normal.
xxx
She’s left fighting for her life.
He spends each day by her bedside.
Until she wakes from the coma, that is.
xxx
Although she begs and cajoles and pleads, it’s physically impossible for her to return to her job. She’s wheelchair bound now. How the hell can you be an officer of the law when you’re stuck in a set of wheels for the rest of your life? It just wouldn’t work, however much she - and they - wish it would. After all, before her accident, she had been one of the best. If they could have her back, they would in a heartbeat.
But they can’t. That’s just the way it goes.
Instead, she’s offered a placement as FBI liaison officer. It’s still within law enforcement, but it’s not doing what she truly loves. She lost that in a split second decision.
It’s one that she cannot regret for an instant, of course not. Her actions saved a life. Not just any life, but his life. But she still cannot help but feel resentful of the aftermath of it all.
He’s taken off and everything she worked so hard for has slipped through her fingers.
Who would be happy with that?
xxx
Does he come back?
Maybe. Not yet, though.
Would that make either of them happy? Who knows? Not even them, most probably.
They have too many issues to sort through first.
Red John, for starters.
Anything else comes secondary to that.
Author: tromana
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jane/Lisbon
Summary: Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.
Spoilers: General for Season 4.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Written for cifre as a part of the holiday fics challenge. Penultimate story... Also for table G: crash and burn on mentalistprompt.
I'll Write You A Tragedy
Let me tell you a story.
It doesn’t have a happy ending, but neither does real life. Why should stories have to apply a different rule of thumb? Why do they need that happily ever after? There’s always something in the ‘after’ which means it isn’t necessarily all sunshine and roses. There are complications and heartache and tragedy, just as there is in real life. But people forget that, because they want closure.
There isn’t much closure in this tale, either, now that I come to think of it.
There’s a hero though. All good stories have a hero. Somebody dashing and brave and charismatic and charming. Somebody who will save the day and the love of their life, all without breaking into a sweat.
Or, she’s five foot three, stubborn, abrasive and persistent. Still brave though; she has to be, given her job title. But that’s beside the point. She’s brave regardless. Built into her, as it were.
The love of her life, he’s the suave one. He’ll break your heart, given half a chance.
He breaks hers on a day to day basis, not that either of them will admit to that.
But this all doesn’t matter. This is just the ground rules. There’s still a tale to tell, if you’ll give me half a chance.
xxx
It starts like any old day for them.
He’s already at the CBI headquarters, having not actually left the night before. She arrives at the crack of dawn, having barely slept.
It’s obvious that she’s shattered, that she’s pushing herself too hard, but he doesn’t say a word. Not his place to say, even though he wishes he could find the courage to do so. He can tease her, cajole her, generally make things difficult for her, yes, but something like that? It’s a step too far. That little bit too affectionate. Suggests that the walls they’ve built up between one another could be knocked down and crossed over.
There are borderlines there for a reason. The unwritten rules specify that they’re not to be crossed at any time and both of them are more than happy to live by them. For now, anyway. They don’t even need to address the reasons why they’re there at all. They just are.
Still, he hands her a coffee, despite all that. Nobody wants to get within a five mile radius of her if she hasn’t had her morning coffee. If she doesn’t have her caffeine fix, then she’s like a bear with a bad head.
She thinks of it as one of the few nice things that he actually does. He merely sees it as damage limitation.
xxx
They’re called out to a case. There’s nothing surprising about this. It is in the job description, after all.
He pretends to sulk, claiming that he’d just drifted off to sleep, but she sees right through it. They’ve known each other too long for her not to so. Eventually, he relents, just as she expects and they head to the van.
The journey isn’t quiet; it rarely is when they’re both in one of these moods. The kind when they just feel like baiting one another, just want to argue about trivial things. Like who’s driving, whether or not the team believes there’s a thing going on between them, about his methodology when it comes to crime fighting. There’s some things they’ll never agree on, but that’s half the fun.
It makes things interesting, disagreeing. Neither of them would want their relationship (not that it is a relationship of course, they are strictly co-workers) to grow stale and boring. They feed off of each other’s energies, in a strange sort of way. It’s important to them both.
Of course, their traveling companions don’t enjoy the sparring matches quite as much. Yes, they’re used to them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t wear a little thin after a while. There’s only so much seemingly bitter disagreement you can listen to without getting sick of it. They can block it out, to an extent, but needless to say, once they finally reach their destination, they’re happy to finally be able to escape the confines of the relatively small vehicle.
However, the other two find their spirits lifted by the time they arrive. Not one member of the team is affected by crime scenes, not anymore. It’s just part of the course. The fact that somebody has died is sad, of course, but they can’t get too overemotional.
They have a job to do.
xxx
The good mood evaporates the moment they see the smiley face on the wall.
Red John changes everything.
xxx
She always says next time.
Now, he’s wondering if this time is that next time she always promises him.
There’s a gun lying on the desk opposite. She doesn’t know he has it, but it’s the same gun he used to kill Timothy Carter. Light fingers make quick work. The old switcheroo trick always works. Deep in the CBI vaults, in the evidence storage area, lays a plastic gun in lieu of this one.
He smirks at the thought of the look on Luther Wainwright’s face if he ever discovers what he’s done.
But he won’t, because the case is dead and buried. Or at least, that’s what everyone thinks.
The team are harried and stressed, of course they are. That’s because they believe this is yet another copycat killer. (Apart from her, of course. She’s in on the little secret, though it makes her feel incredibly uneasy.) One day, they’ll work out that the villain in this piece is alive.
Just not yet.
He’s got a few more things to figure out before he can let more people know what the hell is going on.
xxx
“I’ve got something.”
He’s surprised at the words; normally they’re the ones he directs at her. But regardless of how things appear, he knows that she’s phenomenal at her job, that she doesn’t need him to close cases. She just chooses to have him around. If she’d gotten sick of him, she could have had him kicked off her team years ago. Literally.
Cocking his head slightly he regards her.
She’s tired, more so than usual. The stress and workload she’s putting herself under are taking their toll. It’s almost like she’s trying to work herself into an early grave. Someone - he - should intervene, but he doesn’t.
He knows why she’s doing this, because it’s what he does to himself as well.
This is Red John. They have to work hard. It’s the only way they can give themselves even half a chance of apprehending (of killing) the serial killer.
Laziness is not an option. It isn’t in their jobs anyway, but it’s even more paramount that they throw their heart and soul into this one.
Especially for him. This is his vengeance they are chasing.
xxx
It turns out to be a dead end.
She’s devastated, of course she is.
Not as devastated as he is though. He needs this to be over, more than anything else in the world.
After all, once it is, he can actually start living again instead of existing. That would make a nice change.
xxx
She spends the whole night tossing and turning. The latest dead end has been plaguing her thoughts ever since they found it lead to nowhere.
It just doesn’t add up. She feels like it should have worked out this time around. The fact that it hasn’t just doesn’t make sense. As far as she’s concerned, it’s like she has all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle but isn’t quite sure how she’s meant to be putting it together again.
And it should be so simple. In theory, anyway.
Screwing her eyes shut, she tries desperately to switch her traitorous mind off. She’s exhausted, she needs to sleep. If she doesn’t, she’ll end up with the same kind of problems as him and that will never do.
Somebody has to keep watch of him and nobody else has the determination (or the patience) to be able to keep track of him and his antics.
However, her brain has other ideas. She can’t stop thinking about work at the best of times, never mind the worst.
Her eyes spring open. It could have been mere minutes later, or it could have been hours. It’s hard to judge the passage of time when laying in the inky blackness of her bedroom.
“Gotcha,” she says with a wry smile.
xxx
He looks as tired as she feels when she knocks agitatedly at his motel room door. She almost feels guilty; it looks like she actually disturbed him from sleep. Considering just how dire his sleeping pattern is, it’s a miracle that he had been getting any rest at all.
Still, she cannot feel completely guilty because she knows he needs to hear this. Knows that this is just what he wants, what he needs.
If they hurry up, they could close this damn thing.
And she’ll have saved him from however many more years of misery.
She’s practically brimming with optimism now, which is unusual for her. Especially so when it’s the Red John case that they’re dealing with; that’s always seemed doomed to misery. It just drags down their moods and reminds them how many steps behind him they are. How far away they’ve been from him for years.
Still, this could be it.
Instead of explaining in the motel room, she drags him out, barely giving him time to change into his three piece suit. He senses her agitation, her need to get on the move. The sooner they’re there, the sooner they can spring into action.
She explains on the way.
Now, he understands her impatience.
xxx
It’s a near-derelict building.
The scaffolding looks ominous, somehow.
She instructs him to stay in the van, but knows deep down, that he won’t listen. Really, she’s regretting bringing him at all; she should have left him to his midnight slumber. She and the team are more than capable of handling this. However, if she’d done just that, he’d probably have never forgiven her.
The words Red John is mine ring in her head. That’s what he always says, after all.
In a swift, fluid movement, she slips on the bulletproof vest and removes her gun from its holster. It’s nearly time for action. The adrenalin is beginning to hit her system properly now, she wants to get going, get this over and done with.
But the others are not here yet and the longer she waits, the more likely it is that he’ll slip through her fingers.
It’s foolhardy, but she makes an executive decision to go it alone.
She can’t wait any longer.
And of course, she has to play the hero. It’s what she does best.
xxx
Of course he follows.
She doesn’t start; she can’t risk letting their target know their location.
Besides, there’s always time for reprimands later.
It doesn’t take long, but she spots her target.
Now is the time for action.
xxx
There’s a gunshot. It’s meant for him. It was always meant for him.
She reacts before she can think. This is what she’s trained to do: to save lives.
And as far as she’s concerned, his life is worth saving more than most, however much he’s likely to disagree with that concept.
He screams.
It’s a direct hit.
She stumbles over the precipice thanks to the sheer blow of the bullet hitting her full force.
A building covered in scaffolding is never the best place to have a shootout, after all. The propensity for damage is so much higher than normal.
xxx
She’s left fighting for her life.
He spends each day by her bedside.
Until she wakes from the coma, that is.
xxx
Although she begs and cajoles and pleads, it’s physically impossible for her to return to her job. She’s wheelchair bound now. How the hell can you be an officer of the law when you’re stuck in a set of wheels for the rest of your life? It just wouldn’t work, however much she - and they - wish it would. After all, before her accident, she had been one of the best. If they could have her back, they would in a heartbeat.
But they can’t. That’s just the way it goes.
Instead, she’s offered a placement as FBI liaison officer. It’s still within law enforcement, but it’s not doing what she truly loves. She lost that in a split second decision.
It’s one that she cannot regret for an instant, of course not. Her actions saved a life. Not just any life, but his life. But she still cannot help but feel resentful of the aftermath of it all.
He’s taken off and everything she worked so hard for has slipped through her fingers.
Who would be happy with that?
xxx
Does he come back?
Maybe. Not yet, though.
Would that make either of them happy? Who knows? Not even them, most probably.
They have too many issues to sort through first.
Red John, for starters.
Anything else comes secondary to that.