Disclaimer - The Mentalist belongs to Bruno Heller and CBS. Not me. Obviously.

A/N – Hello one and all. Firstly, this is set after the wonderful season six finale, so if you haven't seen that episode yet, you probably shouldn't read this story, because it definitely contains spoilers. Secondly, this follows on from a one-shot I did called "Making Up For Lost Time" which was essentially just an episode tag for 6x22. I wanted that to stand alone, which is why I'm posting this as a new story. You don't really need to read that to follow what happens in this story, so don't worry too much about it - although you are quite welcome to check it out if you want (find it on my profile). Either way, I really hope you like my newest endeavour, so without further ado...enjoy!

~ Second Chances ~

Part One

Teresa Lisbon slowly traced a finger down the bare chest of the man lying beside her, studiously ignoring the Cheshire cat grin she knew was plastered all over his face as she slowly continued her teasing explorations. For someone who spent most of his time lying asleep on a couch, Jane was oddly toned around his chest and shoulders – though, she thought to herself in amusement, he'd never be defined as "buff". The small splattering of light hair that she'd discovered on his chest surprised her as well, although she wasn't sure why.

It was almost as if she hadn't expected Jane to be quite so…normal.

Which sounded bad when put like that, but it wasn't, not really. In fact, Lisbon liked that about him, because it spoke of a deeper part of his character; the part that didn't seem to care about how he looked to other people, the part that somehow explained the three piece suits, brown shoes and tea-drinking. He was a strange man by anyone's definition, and he was all hers.

She smiled to herself as she continued to trace a finger gently down his body, enjoying the way he tensed when she moved dangerously close to a very sensitive area. He'd been incredibly mysterious and essentially untouchable during the long decade before their first kiss, almost to the point where Lisbon had seen him more as a monk than a heterosexual man, but as it turned out, Jane was pretty normal when it came to that side of being a man as well.

The first time they'd made love, it had been on the floor of his Airstream, so hot and out-of-control that neither she nor Jane had noticed their carpet burns until well over two hours later. Their second time, not long after their first, was such a sensual experience and so unlike anything else she had ever experienced before, that Lisbon had cried genuine tears after they were finally sated. Jane hadn't, but the fact that he hadn't been able to speak for a full half an hour afterwards had spoken for itself.

They'd moved quickly since then.

She and Jane were living together now. It felt strange, it was strange, but even to this day, they hadn't actually talked about living together. They just were. She'd stayed with Jane for the first couple of weeks until she'd finally found another place in Austin that she liked and that was close enough to work. Once she'd moved in there, Jane had followed her. He hadn't spent a night anywhere else since then, and Lisbon, surprisingly, found she was okay with that.

Ecstatic even…

She smiled again – seriously, she couldn't stop smiling - as she continued to lightly trace the contours of Jane's chest with her finger. She'd surprised herself with how well she had adjusted to being in an honest to God, real-life, committed relationship. She'd always thought that her reluctance to commit to anyone was going to doom her to a life alone. Even agreeing to marry Pike had made her feel pressured and tight-chested, and she knew, looking back on it now, that it would never have worked.

But now, with Jane, everything felt…right.

Clearly she had just never been 'committed' to the right man before.

As she continued to explore his body slowly and intimately, almost in curiosity rather than in lust, she marvelled at how he could still surprise her; by much she still didn't know about him, and by how much he – even with his 'powers' – still didn't know about her. They'd known each other for well over ten years now, had been together at such dazzling heights and gaping lows, and yet there was still so much to learn, still so much they had avoided dealing with.

For one, she knew next to nothing about his past. She knew the man he had been ten years ago, immediately after his family had been brutally murdered, and she knew the man he had grown into from that moment, but she knew almost nothing of the man, and indeed of the child, that he had been before that.

Lisbon frowned as she traced a thin scar on his shoulder, certain that it was an injury he'd sustained before they'd met. It…bothered her, more than it probably should. They were together now in every sense of the word, and although Jane had always had a mysterious air about him in the past, such a façade felt wrong now. She wanted to see more, to know more, to understand him completely.

And what scared her and excited her in equal measures was that she wanted him to know her too. Not everything, certainly not all at once, but for the first time in her life, she felt…comfortable sharing the little intricacies that had made up her life up to this point.

She frowned again, stilling her movements on his chest for a moment, suddenly unsure about how to broach the subject. Jane was an uncommonly private man, and as much as she knew he loved her – god, he loved her – she didn't want to scare him off by asking too much of him, too soon.

Jane must have seen something in her face though, because his smile fell.

"What's wrong?" he asked her quietly, and she saw a flicker, just a flicker of self-doubt in his eyes.

"Nothing," she muttered, but then changed her mind. If she wanted Jane to be honest with her, the least she could do was offer him the same. "Actually…there's something I want to ask you."

"Ask me anything," he told her seriously, his eyes intense.

She hesitated, lying next to him. He immediately wrapped his arm around her, cocooning her in his embrace.

"It's going to sound weird…"

Jane smiled. "Teresa…"

"It's just…" she continued, tentatively smiling back. "I don't know much about you."

To her surprise, he laughed, and she realised in that moment that although Jane spent a lot of time smiling, he rarely laughed. It was a sound she could definitely get used to…

She frowned regardless, and glared down at him out of habit more than anything else. "I was being serious."

"And ridiculous, it seems," he retorted, looking up at her with amusement in his eyes. "We've known each other for over ten years. We've spent more time with each other than most married couples."

"More than you and Angela?" she asked. She knew it was cruel, but it was a point well made when she saw the shutters come down over his eyes. Jane's smile remained, but it was colder somehow. Then he sighed, deeply and without relief, and Lisbon suddenly felt terrible.

"Jane, I'm…"

"We met when we were kids," Jane interrupted her, his voice quiet but strong. "Angela and I grew up together, so of course she knew me well." He sighed again, but met her eyes. "But I concede your point. What is it that you would like to know?"

Jane smiled up at her, tentatively at first, but when his smile grew more sincere, she felt relief flood through her.

He was willing to make an effort, she realised. God, she loved this man.

"I want to know you," she leaned over to kiss him, and he responded hungrily. "All of you."

"It isn't all pretty," Jane warned her once she'd pulled away again.

She shrugged. "Like I didn't already know that."

"And," he continued. "I think it's only fair if you return the favour."

She swallowed deeply, but met his gaze without hesitation. "I…I want that too. I…want to tell you things, Jane. I want us – this – I want it to be real."

"I want that too," he replied hoarsely. "I just…I don't want to scare you off. I'm a broken man, Teresa, but despite the fact that I know you deserve better, I don't want to lose you. This is it for me. My second chance. My last chance."

"We don't have to do it all at once," she told him softly, rubbing a hand gently through his curls. "But no matter what you tell me, nothing will change how I feel about you. Nothing, Jane. God, you jumped a fence and dodged security just to tell me that you love me. I just…there's so much I don't know."

He gave her a long hard look, and whatever he was looking for, he must have found it.

"Okay," he said simply.

She didn't buy it. "Okay? Just like that?"

"No, not just like that," Jane replied with a shake of his head. "I…talking about things isn't particularly easy for me." He met her gaze, but instead of seeing a frown as she had expected, the smile that grew on his face almost took her breath away. "But, I love you very much, and if it's really what you want, then I'll do my best to answer any question you might have."

"There's no rush," she said softly, knowing how hard it was for him to open up, and appreciating beyond all measure the effort he was willing to make. "This isn't a deal-breaker for me, okay? I'm not going to leave if you refuse to answer one of my insanely personal questions. We'll have the rest of our lives to talk."

She didn't miss the way his eyes lit her when she spoke about their future, and it did a lot to lighten her heart.

"I know," he smiled. "But you happen to be right for once. If this…" he gestured between the two of them, "….is going to be real, we need to be honest and open with each other."

"Okay, then," began Lisbon, though her mind was a little blank. "So…Where should we start?"

"With a cup of tea, my dear," Jane replied with a grin. "If I'm going to be baring my soul to you, I'm going to need something to keep me going."

It took them another half an hour before they were able to drag themselves out of bed and downstairs. By the time they were sat comfortably on the couch, Jane armed with a fresh cup of tea, Lisbon was having second thoughts. She couldn't help but feel a strange sense of foreboding about the upcoming conversation, particularly because she herself had agreed that Jane wasn't going to be the only one baring his soul. There were things in her past that she had never told anyone, and to have to do so now was terrifying…

"Second thoughts?" Jane asked quietly, taking a sip of his tea.

"No," Lisbon replied, not altogether honestly. "It's just…"

"Scary."

She rolled her eyes. "You know, there's not much point in me answering your questions if you already know everything."

Jane smirked. "Nonsense. I love you, but I'm not so deluded as to think I know everything about you. I'm sure you still have one or two more secrets that I haven't been able to guess yet…"

His grin grew, and she smiled back despite her apprehension. He was trying to lighten the mood again; she couldn't blame him for that, and truthfully, it only made her love him more.

"So, how do you want to do this?" she asked, quite happy for him to the lead now that he had agreed to her suggestion.

Jane took another sip of tea, looking thoughtful. "Well I suppose, since it was your idea, I'll go first."

"Okay," Lisbon agreed, wracking her brain as she tried to think back to her earlier thoughts. What exactly did she want to know…?

Annoyingly though, now that he had agreed to her request, she couldn't think of a single thing to ask him. Damn it…

"Why don't you tell me what you do know, and I'll try to fill in the gaps," Jane offered, a twinkle in his eyes. It felt as if he was playing a game, and she was so relieved that he was truly willing to talk, that she decided to go along with it.

"Okay," she replied with a deep breath, snuggling into his side as she thought back to everything she had ever learnt about the man next to her. "Well…I know you grew up on the carnie circuit in the mid-west. Your father was there for at least most of your childhood, I think, but I have no idea about your mother since you've never mentioned her. You have a juvenile record, but it sealed so I have no idea what's in it…"

"You tried to look into my records?" Jane asked, eyebrows raised. He seemed surprised, and Lisbon rolled her eyes.

"Of course I did," she replied. "I'm your law-enforcement boss. Or I was at the time, anyway."

He frowned, though whether it was because she knew something he hadn't been expecting her to, or whether it was because he was worried about what else she'd dug up, she wasn't sure.

"Can I go on?" she asked cautiously, still worried slightly about scaring him off.

"Of course," Jane replied, a grin splattered across his face once more, though it seemed a little more forced than usual.

"Anyway," she continued quietly, "I know you met you wife when you were a kid, but other than that, I don't really know much about that part of your life all." She wracked her brain for all the little comments that Jane had let slip over the years. "I know, from what little you've told me, that you didn't go to high-school, but I have no idea if you had any other sort of formal education before that point. I also know that you eventually left the carnie world with Angela, but I have no idea when or exactly why."

She paused then, still unsure if he was okay with her bringing up his wife. When he didn't react at all, she found the nerve to continue. "All I know about your life after that is that you eventually married Angela, made a good living pretending to be psychic, got rich, moved to Malibu and had Charlotte."

He flinched slightly when she mentioned his daughter's name, as he always did, but otherwise his face was blank. Jane seemed to be thinking hard though; of course, since she didn't possess his incredible abilities to read faces, she wasn't sure exactly what it was that was going on in his head. She could guess though; because it was one thing for him to have an idea of how much he had been keeping from her, but it was another thing entirely for her to lay it all out in front of him like she just had.

"That's quite a few gaps to fill in, my dear," Jane sighed, confirming Lisbon's thoughts as he ran a hand through his hair. He seemed surprised by how much she didn't know, as if he had only just realised how much he had been hiding from her.

"I know," she replied. "And you don't have to tell me everything, you really don't. I just…"

"I have enough baggage to fill three suitcases, Teresa," Jane told her, almost like a warning. "Even if I told you half of that stuff, it would be enough to make anyone want to run a mile."

She felt apprehension and dread rush through her again, because he seemed genuinely concerned about what he might tell her, and she couldn't help but think that maybe sometimes ignorance was bliss.

And then she thought back to all the times he had lied to her, all the times he had deliberately kept something from her for her "own good". Lisbon knew that she could never force Jane to talk about his past, not when it was clearly a sore point for him for all manner of reasons, but she couldn't deny the fact that it would hurt her irrevocably if he chose to run from this conversation now.

She shrugged, pushing away the last of her doubt. "I'm not anyone, Jane. Anyway, I have a couple of suitcases full of baggage myself."

"Why?" he asked quietly. "Why do you care so much who I was then? Why does it matter?"

"Because it's a part of you, whether you like it or not," Lisbon replied honestly. "It shaped you, it made you who you are today. And I happen to like who you are today, for the record. I just feel...I feel like I'm missing some important pieces of the puzzle."

"My life...it's a complicated puzzle, to say the least," he warned half-heartedly. "This might take a while."

"We have time, Jane," she responded quietly, turning to press a gentle kiss to his lips. "We have forever, if you want..."

"There's nothing I want more," Jane replied, pressing an equally gentle kiss on her cheek before pulling her close to his chest. She could hear his heart beating loudly in his chest, could feel the comforting heat coming from his arms, and when she closed her eyes, Lisbon found herself revelling solely in the moment, her worries and concerns fading away; because despite everything, she couldn't imagine ever being happier than she was now.

Jane sighed deeply and pulled her closer still. And then he began to talk.

A/N – So, as you can already probably tell, this story is going to quite angsty in parts (which won't surprise any of my long-time readers). I'm not really sure how long it's going to be though, because there are two ways (in my head at least) that I could go with it, and - depending on which direction I choose - there could either be quite a lot of angst, or not very much at all. I will say though, that if everything goes how I think it will in my head, it's going to be romantic fluff for the most part. Well, that's the plan anyway. I don't have such a good track record of sticking to plans, but we'll see how it goes. Either way I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Please let me know if you want me to continue this, but for now, thanks for reading!