The Scenic Route (5/7)
Previous Parts: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
Part Five
18th October 2012
"Lisbon," Jane started softly. "I hate to break it to you, but…"
She already knew where this was going based purely on the tone of his voice. Her heart sank slightly in response. It wasn't that she was disappointed, per se, it was more complicated than that. Really, Lisbon wanted some more time to get her head around the situation, rather than having it out with Jane right now. Still, she knew that it was for the best that they were finally being open with one another after all of these years. It didn't make it any easier, however.
"No, don't tell me," she interrupted before she even had a chance to stop herself. "He never existed, did he? It was you all along."
"When did you work it out?" Jane asked.
Lisbon smirked; at least he had the decency to appear at least mildly surprised to discover she had realized for herself. At the same time, she had to wonder why he had been so quick, so willing to give up the façade so easily. It was unlike Jane; he normally held his cards close to his chest and hated it when people discovered he'd made a mistake. Maybe, she surmised, he was just as sick and tired of playing games as she was?
"What does it matter?" she asked with a noncommittal shrug.
"Not long ago then," he answered, sounding a little too smug. "Honestly, woman, it's no wonder you have little more than your career in your life right now."
"And you should be very grateful that I'm driving because otherwise, I don't know whether I'd punch you or…"
"Or?"
"Never you mind," she answered back and could practically feel her cheeks burning.
"Oh I think I should mind given the fact that it's me you'd have been doing it to," Jane said, still grinning. "You're blushing, my dear."
"Shut up, Jane," Lisbon snapped back reflexively.
"As you wish."
In an instant, Lisbon regretted her words. Of all the occasions for Jane to take her literally, he'd had to choose this one, didn't he? This was the one time when they really needed to talk. Angrily, she gripped hold of the steering wheel more tightly, until the whites of her knuckles were showing. It was bad driving technique, but she didn't care. She had to get her frustrations out of her system somehow and besides, she had to get herself back into a work-ready state as soon as feasibly possible. Luckily for them, Mary Whittaker didn't live all that far from the CBI headquarters. It was always easier whenever they didn't have some long distance traveling to factor in.
And she would have loathed a long journey, with the air so thick that it could be cut with a knife, between them.
The tension was practically palpable and that was what worried her. Where the hell did they go from this? These admissions changed everything. After all, she had been near-enough in love with Patrick Jane once upon a time. And, though she tried to hide it as best she could, she had fallen in love with him all over again.
Half the reason she had prevented herself from mentioning it, from pursuing it even was because she had always thought at the back of her mind, 'what would Daniel think?'
(The other issues mostly revolved around trust and Red John. Though this latest revelation did nothing to eradicate them - if anything, it exacerbated the situation - it still changed things, as far as she was concerned.)
When they pulled up in front of the Whittaker residence, Lisbon was frankly, relieved for the distraction. At least it gave her something else to focus on instead of the questions that had been incessantly running through her mind. As she climbed out of the car, she shot Jane a dirty look, almost blaming him for making the whole situation so horribly uncomfortable. She stretched slightly, relieving the tension in her back muscles before ambling up to the front door. It took Jane a matter of seconds to fall into step beside her. Lisbon shot him a furtive glance before she rapped firmly on the door. Barely thirty seconds later, a young woman answered the door, the fear knotted across her forehead.
"I'm-"
"Thank God you're here," she muttered, her hands trembling. "They're through here."
Lisbon cocked her head quizzically, but Jane only shrugged his shoulders in response. In a way, she was almost pleased that he seemed to be as clueless as she was. She hadn't even needed to introduce herself, never mind flash her badge to indicate her position in law enforcement. Resting a hand on her gun holster, she followed the young girl through to the kitchen.
"Mom's just outside. I have no idea what happened, just Uncle David turned up and she just flipped out, you know?"
"We know," Jane confirmed and he placed a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder. "Don't worry, Agent Lisbon is the best cop I know; she'll be able to calm them down."
"You sure?" she asked.
"Absolutely positive," he assured her.
In response, Lisbon tightened her grip on her gun and tried to ignore the jolt of pleasure running through her system thanks to Jane's compliment. She still had a job to do, even if Jane didn't. And besides, at least he seemed somewhat distracted by Whittaker's daughter; that would keep him out of trouble while she walked headfirst into a risky situation. Taking a deep breath, she headed out into the yard, hoping it wasn't as bad as the daughter made it out to be.
The woman had a gun; she wasn't threatening her elder brother. Instead, she was pointing it at her own head, as he was trying desperately to calm the situation down. Though she didn't draw her own weapon, Lisbon didn't slacken her grip either. She needed to make sure that she could defend herself at only a moment's notice.
As it was, she didn't need to. It didn't take her long, but somehow she managed to talk the woman out of taking her own life and leaving her child motherless. However, that didn't change the fact she was admitting to murder in between racking sobs. Lisbon knew that didn't necessarily make her guilty; they needed more than just a confession to solidify the case. And besides, with the state that Mary Whittaker was in, it was hardly reliable. Still, she cuffed the woman with the intention of interrogating her further back at the CBI headquarters.
"Good job, Lisbon," Jane said with a smirk as she approached.
"Shut up, Jane," she retorted.
"Twice in one day?" he quipped back almost instantaneously. "My dear, I think you need to work on your repertoire."
"Are you done insulting me or can we go now?"
"Let's go," he agreed, leaving the uncle to pick up the pieces.
xxx
23rd January 1988
"Patrick."
He ignored Angela; he was too busy scribbling desperately in his diary. Since leaving the carnival circuit, his sleep pattern had deteriorated. Patrick had a vague idea of why; it was because he was so fixated on finding one Teresa Lisbon. Angela was worried about him, naturally and told him so ten times a day, or more. Instead, to try and get rid of his frustrations at the lack of progress, he wrote it all down. How he felt about her, what he would do if he saw her again and how much it was breaking his heart not seeing her.
It had been a year and a half since he'd seen her last and he still couldn't get her out of his mind. How was he going to cope if he never managed to reunite with her again?
Realistically, he knew he was being foolish. That he had to learn to let go somehow. However, as far as he was concerned, she'd been a part of his life for so long now, that it just wasn't as easy as that. Despite all of the other beautiful girls he'd met, Angela included, none of them had had the same spark that Teresa had had. And that was why he was so completely and utterly desperate to trace her down.
There was another problem too. He was living in such close quarters with Angela - their home was little more than a studio apartment. They only kept the roof over their heads thanks to Angela doing odd jobs such as waitressing and him, unfortunately, having been unable to shake off the title of psychic. The only benefit was that he had been able to become pickier over which jobs he actually chose. However, living with Angela in itself was fine; the fact she was clearly developing feelings for him was not.
He'd always liked Angela Ruskin; he would have gone mad without her. She'd kept him sane, when his father had been driving him into the ground physically, emotionally and financially. She was his confidant and he trusted her with his life. However, he was yet to develop anything more than just a strong sense of loyalty and friendship towards her. Patrick hated the fact that this barrier was forming between the two of them, and yet, he felt as though his hands were tied.
"Patrick!" she repeated urgently.
"Yes, Angela?"
"I had an interesting visitor in the bar tonight."
"Who?" he practically demanded, standing up as he did so. "Not Teresa?"
Patrick knew it was a stupid suggestion the moment the words tripped out of his mouth. Teresa wasn't old enough to be going to bars on her own; she was only fifteen. However, that didn't mean it couldn't have been her family; one of her parents maybe, on a night out. When Angela shook her head, grinning, his heart sank a little, in spite of realizing that she couldn't have spotted her. She was the reason they'd settled down in Chicago, after all. And besides, finding her seemed like an impossible task, when really, it shouldn't have been.
If anything, he was beginning to find it to be an insult to his abilities. When it came to people, he knew what he was doing and yet, it felt like she was outfoxing him at every turn.
"I swear you lose brain cells when you think of that girl."
"That's not funny," he answered back, well aware of the dig she'd made about Teresa's age.
"I think it is," she answered back with a smirk before handing him over a business card.
Slowly, he turned it over and read the name of the individual on it. Half of him was expecting to see a link to the person he'd spent a good six months looking for. Instead, all he saw was the name of some unknown man, stating that he was a manager and talent spotter.
"Why do I need a manager?"
"It seems you're not the only person on the lookout for someone," Angela answered dryly, flopping on the couch. "Are you sick of this place?"
He nodded. What else was he meant to say?
"Well then… he could make you huge."
"I thought I left the carnival to stop pretending to be a psychic?"
Angela shrugged and took a sip of her bottled water. Patrick instead, continued staring at the card and trying to come to terms with the ramifications. Management would mean bigger events, more money perhaps. They'd be able to live more comfortably and it would stop the arguments about cash, at the very least. However, he liked being the one in control of his own life, for a change. This would just be selling his soul to another devil, instead of his father. But even he had to admit that he was struggling to earn his keep without the support of somebody else.
And Angela had said that this man hadn't just spotted him, but had spent some time looking for him. That meant he could probably thrash out a decent deal with the man. They could come to agreement that didn't compromise his new-found morality, since leaving the carnival recently.
"What else can you do?"
"I don't know. Become a private investigator?" he said, ignoring the slight insult she'd thrown his way yet again.
"Yeah, and look at what a good job you're doing finding Teresa," she snapped back hotly. "Damn it, Patrick, you need to stop living in the past!"
The words jolted through him like a shock to the system. He glanced down at the notepad he'd spent literally months writing in. It contained everywhere he'd looked, everything he'd done and it had all come to no avail. Looking for Teresa was like looking for a needle in a haystack and probably, just as frustrating. Though he was so desperate to see her again, especially after what had happened last time, he really was getting nowhere.
Leaving behind something which was, quite frankly, turning into an obsession could only be a good thing. And even if he did put this all in his past, it didn't mean he was just going to forget about her. His memory palace was rock solid; nothing could destroy his thoughts and feelings of them. If he took Angela's advice, then he was just choosing to compartmentalize them so he could move on and be more constructive.
He grinned and sat beside Angela. Gently, he place one hand to his cheek and leant in for a kiss. It didn't take long for her to realize what was happening and she reciprocated eagerly. Patrick could practically tell that she had been waiting for an incredibly long time for something to happen between the two of them.
And for the first time, his heart skipped a beat.
It wasn't quite love, not yet, but he knew that one day, Angela wouldn't be second best.
To Part Six
Part Five
18th October 2012
"Lisbon," Jane started softly. "I hate to break it to you, but…"
She already knew where this was going based purely on the tone of his voice. Her heart sank slightly in response. It wasn't that she was disappointed, per se, it was more complicated than that. Really, Lisbon wanted some more time to get her head around the situation, rather than having it out with Jane right now. Still, she knew that it was for the best that they were finally being open with one another after all of these years. It didn't make it any easier, however.
"No, don't tell me," she interrupted before she even had a chance to stop herself. "He never existed, did he? It was you all along."
"When did you work it out?" Jane asked.
Lisbon smirked; at least he had the decency to appear at least mildly surprised to discover she had realized for herself. At the same time, she had to wonder why he had been so quick, so willing to give up the façade so easily. It was unlike Jane; he normally held his cards close to his chest and hated it when people discovered he'd made a mistake. Maybe, she surmised, he was just as sick and tired of playing games as she was?
"What does it matter?" she asked with a noncommittal shrug.
"Not long ago then," he answered, sounding a little too smug. "Honestly, woman, it's no wonder you have little more than your career in your life right now."
"And you should be very grateful that I'm driving because otherwise, I don't know whether I'd punch you or…"
"Or?"
"Never you mind," she answered back and could practically feel her cheeks burning.
"Oh I think I should mind given the fact that it's me you'd have been doing it to," Jane said, still grinning. "You're blushing, my dear."
"Shut up, Jane," Lisbon snapped back reflexively.
"As you wish."
In an instant, Lisbon regretted her words. Of all the occasions for Jane to take her literally, he'd had to choose this one, didn't he? This was the one time when they really needed to talk. Angrily, she gripped hold of the steering wheel more tightly, until the whites of her knuckles were showing. It was bad driving technique, but she didn't care. She had to get her frustrations out of her system somehow and besides, she had to get herself back into a work-ready state as soon as feasibly possible. Luckily for them, Mary Whittaker didn't live all that far from the CBI headquarters. It was always easier whenever they didn't have some long distance traveling to factor in.
And she would have loathed a long journey, with the air so thick that it could be cut with a knife, between them.
The tension was practically palpable and that was what worried her. Where the hell did they go from this? These admissions changed everything. After all, she had been near-enough in love with Patrick Jane once upon a time. And, though she tried to hide it as best she could, she had fallen in love with him all over again.
Half the reason she had prevented herself from mentioning it, from pursuing it even was because she had always thought at the back of her mind, 'what would Daniel think?'
(The other issues mostly revolved around trust and Red John. Though this latest revelation did nothing to eradicate them - if anything, it exacerbated the situation - it still changed things, as far as she was concerned.)
When they pulled up in front of the Whittaker residence, Lisbon was frankly, relieved for the distraction. At least it gave her something else to focus on instead of the questions that had been incessantly running through her mind. As she climbed out of the car, she shot Jane a dirty look, almost blaming him for making the whole situation so horribly uncomfortable. She stretched slightly, relieving the tension in her back muscles before ambling up to the front door. It took Jane a matter of seconds to fall into step beside her. Lisbon shot him a furtive glance before she rapped firmly on the door. Barely thirty seconds later, a young woman answered the door, the fear knotted across her forehead.
"I'm-"
"Thank God you're here," she muttered, her hands trembling. "They're through here."
Lisbon cocked her head quizzically, but Jane only shrugged his shoulders in response. In a way, she was almost pleased that he seemed to be as clueless as she was. She hadn't even needed to introduce herself, never mind flash her badge to indicate her position in law enforcement. Resting a hand on her gun holster, she followed the young girl through to the kitchen.
"Mom's just outside. I have no idea what happened, just Uncle David turned up and she just flipped out, you know?"
"We know," Jane confirmed and he placed a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder. "Don't worry, Agent Lisbon is the best cop I know; she'll be able to calm them down."
"You sure?" she asked.
"Absolutely positive," he assured her.
In response, Lisbon tightened her grip on her gun and tried to ignore the jolt of pleasure running through her system thanks to Jane's compliment. She still had a job to do, even if Jane didn't. And besides, at least he seemed somewhat distracted by Whittaker's daughter; that would keep him out of trouble while she walked headfirst into a risky situation. Taking a deep breath, she headed out into the yard, hoping it wasn't as bad as the daughter made it out to be.
The woman had a gun; she wasn't threatening her elder brother. Instead, she was pointing it at her own head, as he was trying desperately to calm the situation down. Though she didn't draw her own weapon, Lisbon didn't slacken her grip either. She needed to make sure that she could defend herself at only a moment's notice.
As it was, she didn't need to. It didn't take her long, but somehow she managed to talk the woman out of taking her own life and leaving her child motherless. However, that didn't change the fact she was admitting to murder in between racking sobs. Lisbon knew that didn't necessarily make her guilty; they needed more than just a confession to solidify the case. And besides, with the state that Mary Whittaker was in, it was hardly reliable. Still, she cuffed the woman with the intention of interrogating her further back at the CBI headquarters.
"Good job, Lisbon," Jane said with a smirk as she approached.
"Shut up, Jane," she retorted.
"Twice in one day?" he quipped back almost instantaneously. "My dear, I think you need to work on your repertoire."
"Are you done insulting me or can we go now?"
"Let's go," he agreed, leaving the uncle to pick up the pieces.
xxx
23rd January 1988
"Patrick."
He ignored Angela; he was too busy scribbling desperately in his diary. Since leaving the carnival circuit, his sleep pattern had deteriorated. Patrick had a vague idea of why; it was because he was so fixated on finding one Teresa Lisbon. Angela was worried about him, naturally and told him so ten times a day, or more. Instead, to try and get rid of his frustrations at the lack of progress, he wrote it all down. How he felt about her, what he would do if he saw her again and how much it was breaking his heart not seeing her.
It had been a year and a half since he'd seen her last and he still couldn't get her out of his mind. How was he going to cope if he never managed to reunite with her again?
Realistically, he knew he was being foolish. That he had to learn to let go somehow. However, as far as he was concerned, she'd been a part of his life for so long now, that it just wasn't as easy as that. Despite all of the other beautiful girls he'd met, Angela included, none of them had had the same spark that Teresa had had. And that was why he was so completely and utterly desperate to trace her down.
There was another problem too. He was living in such close quarters with Angela - their home was little more than a studio apartment. They only kept the roof over their heads thanks to Angela doing odd jobs such as waitressing and him, unfortunately, having been unable to shake off the title of psychic. The only benefit was that he had been able to become pickier over which jobs he actually chose. However, living with Angela in itself was fine; the fact she was clearly developing feelings for him was not.
He'd always liked Angela Ruskin; he would have gone mad without her. She'd kept him sane, when his father had been driving him into the ground physically, emotionally and financially. She was his confidant and he trusted her with his life. However, he was yet to develop anything more than just a strong sense of loyalty and friendship towards her. Patrick hated the fact that this barrier was forming between the two of them, and yet, he felt as though his hands were tied.
"Patrick!" she repeated urgently.
"Yes, Angela?"
"I had an interesting visitor in the bar tonight."
"Who?" he practically demanded, standing up as he did so. "Not Teresa?"
Patrick knew it was a stupid suggestion the moment the words tripped out of his mouth. Teresa wasn't old enough to be going to bars on her own; she was only fifteen. However, that didn't mean it couldn't have been her family; one of her parents maybe, on a night out. When Angela shook her head, grinning, his heart sank a little, in spite of realizing that she couldn't have spotted her. She was the reason they'd settled down in Chicago, after all. And besides, finding her seemed like an impossible task, when really, it shouldn't have been.
If anything, he was beginning to find it to be an insult to his abilities. When it came to people, he knew what he was doing and yet, it felt like she was outfoxing him at every turn.
"I swear you lose brain cells when you think of that girl."
"That's not funny," he answered back, well aware of the dig she'd made about Teresa's age.
"I think it is," she answered back with a smirk before handing him over a business card.
Slowly, he turned it over and read the name of the individual on it. Half of him was expecting to see a link to the person he'd spent a good six months looking for. Instead, all he saw was the name of some unknown man, stating that he was a manager and talent spotter.
"Why do I need a manager?"
"It seems you're not the only person on the lookout for someone," Angela answered dryly, flopping on the couch. "Are you sick of this place?"
He nodded. What else was he meant to say?
"Well then… he could make you huge."
"I thought I left the carnival to stop pretending to be a psychic?"
Angela shrugged and took a sip of her bottled water. Patrick instead, continued staring at the card and trying to come to terms with the ramifications. Management would mean bigger events, more money perhaps. They'd be able to live more comfortably and it would stop the arguments about cash, at the very least. However, he liked being the one in control of his own life, for a change. This would just be selling his soul to another devil, instead of his father. But even he had to admit that he was struggling to earn his keep without the support of somebody else.
And Angela had said that this man hadn't just spotted him, but had spent some time looking for him. That meant he could probably thrash out a decent deal with the man. They could come to agreement that didn't compromise his new-found morality, since leaving the carnival recently.
"What else can you do?"
"I don't know. Become a private investigator?" he said, ignoring the slight insult she'd thrown his way yet again.
"Yeah, and look at what a good job you're doing finding Teresa," she snapped back hotly. "Damn it, Patrick, you need to stop living in the past!"
The words jolted through him like a shock to the system. He glanced down at the notepad he'd spent literally months writing in. It contained everywhere he'd looked, everything he'd done and it had all come to no avail. Looking for Teresa was like looking for a needle in a haystack and probably, just as frustrating. Though he was so desperate to see her again, especially after what had happened last time, he really was getting nowhere.
Leaving behind something which was, quite frankly, turning into an obsession could only be a good thing. And even if he did put this all in his past, it didn't mean he was just going to forget about her. His memory palace was rock solid; nothing could destroy his thoughts and feelings of them. If he took Angela's advice, then he was just choosing to compartmentalize them so he could move on and be more constructive.
He grinned and sat beside Angela. Gently, he place one hand to his cheek and leant in for a kiss. It didn't take long for her to realize what was happening and she reciprocated eagerly. Patrick could practically tell that she had been waiting for an incredibly long time for something to happen between the two of them.
And for the first time, his heart skipped a beat.
It wasn't quite love, not yet, but he knew that one day, Angela wouldn't be second best.
To Part Six