White Lies

Summary: She has based her decisions on what others needed for her entire life. OneShot- Teresa Lisbon. Introspection. Set during s06ep21 – Black Hearts.

Warning: OneShot.

Set: During season 6 episode 21 – Black Hearts.

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

A/N: Started out as a drabble written after said episode. Expanded after I saw the season's finale, and woah. The outcome changed, like, completely. Because yes, the finale caught me completely unaware! I'm not complaining, though. (Kyaahhh! .) I'm just not used to writing those two in a way that would feature them as respective love interests with an actual chance of succeeding. I would have thought the writers would keep on with the half-one-sided thing for at least one more season. So I'm starting slowly here.

Edit, July 27th, 2014: A guest (thanks for reviewing, too!) pointed out that I got poor Pike's name wrong: He's called Marcus, not Chris, of course. Shame on me. He's always been Pike for me, so when I had to write his first name the one name that goes smoothly with the last name Pike (little wonder there *sweatdrop*) came to my mind. Thank you! I corrected it - let me know if I missed one.

When every drive lasts an eternity and every silence feels like it is just a little bit too suffocating, Teresa thinks, there isn't just something wrong but something very, very wrong. Being around Jane, as aggravating and exhausting as he could be, never felt this difficult before. Sighing softly, she checks the rear-view mirror and concentrates on upholding the speed limit. It is a warm day, spring-not-yet-summer, cool enough to bring a jacket, too warm for a coat. On the passengers' seat Jane is observing the passing landscape, one hand relaxed on his tight, one hand on the window frame of her SUV. He hasn't said a word for quite some time and Teresa feels

-as if there is something she needs to say but she has no idea what and how and it is just. It is just so unfair that he can look at her like that, smiling and hopeful and like nothing is wrong-

a headache beginning to form behind her right temple. The weather is agreeable outside but she hasn't slept much and the tension a case of such magnitude creates never is to be underestimated. She cannot think of those girls now, how they might be on their way to unscrupulous human traffickers who sell them into slavery and worse.

"We should take Wiley out a bit more," Jane says and doesn't look at her. From the corner of her eyes Teresa can see his profile, slightly tilted, his eyes staring out of the passenger side window. "He's bright, and he learns fast."

"Don't you think he's happier behind a computer screen?" She asks back. And this is not the conversation they should be having.

"Nah," Jane answers casually, turns and flashes her a smile. "Children have to be introduced to new situations at an early age and should be able to observe parents navigate through them. It's the best way to learn."

Teresa can't help but snort. "Wiley's a grown-up man, and we're not his parents."

"We aren't?" Jane pretends to be surprised. "Because every time I look at him I can't help but want to pamper him. He's just so adorable."

"Well, if that's the case you could simply write him into the stage directions of your next act," she suggests and immediately feels bad. Because hell, she of all people knows what happens when Jane puts on a play and ropes in unsuspecting colleagues against their will. "I doubt he'll be happy about it."

"Oh Lisbon, you ought to know your children better." Jane chuckles and Teresa thinks that probably he is right, as he was with Fisher and Abbot and everyone they have encountered so far. It is amazing how

-much she likes the sound of his laughter when it is honest and true. Wry, yes, and always tempered by his own awareness of himself. But so different than a year ago, when Red John was their constant companion wherever they went and was present wherever they were-

easily and effortlessly he manages to manipulate his surroundings into doing exactly what he wants them to do. Moreover: how he manipulates the people around him. Wiley was wary of Jane at first, Abbot was annoyed and Fisher was suspicious and still he has – with some tricks and a lot of sweet-talking and smiling – managed to knit them into a unit that not only is good at what they are doing but also good at doing it together.

"I regret saying anything in the first place." Teresa pulls left into the next street and scans the places they're passing. Somewhere around here should be their destination. She knows because the houses have been growing steadily, the driveways are expanding and the picket fences have yielded to accurate, sandstone brick walls and grand, automated entrance gates. "Little wonder Grace and Rigsby didn't want to bring the kids for their last visit. You offered to babysit, didn't you?"

"You wound me, Lisbon. Children love me."

Lisbon finally spots the driveway and pulls into it, following the gravel path up to the entrance. In front of the house an elaborate, over-grown fountain greets them, water dancing in the midday light.

"Concentrate, Jane, will you please?" Why is she still begging him to focus? She has long ago learned

-that Jane doesn't need her, just goes off and does whatever he pleases and Teresa can only try to follow him or accept being left behind. It shouldn't matter. She has based personal decisions on what others needed for her entire life and it should be the same here. Especially since Jane never needed her before, always had a goal and a place and a mind of his own but when he came to her door that night he had looked so small and so lost-

that Jane is able to concentrate on doing multiple things at the same time. So if he wants to talk about children, of all topics, now, and at the same time can concentrate on going over the case – by all means, he is welcome to do so.

Lisbon turns off the motor, pockets the car keys and checks her holster and her badge in the kind of gesture that has been done so many times it is pure reflex by now. When she looks up again, Jane is eyeing her with an unreadable face. All traces of humor are gone and

-her heart beat stutters to a halt and how long will she be able to hide it when he looks at her like that-

he looks like he wants to say something. Teresa swallows around the returned lump in her throat and meets his gaze.

"You alright, Jane?"

He actually hesitates a second, a second that stretches into an eternity in which she can hear her blood pounding in her ears.

"Yeah," he finally says. "You?"

Teresa swallows, because somehow she doesn't trust her voice. It shouldn't be like this, she thinks almost desperately. They've been friends, they've been through hell and back and it shouldn't feel like she is abandoning him in order to leave for DC with Marcus. Jane is a grown man who has proven over and over again that he can take care of himself. He has made himself invaluable to the FBI, much as he had made himself an invaluable asset to the CBI all those years ago. He has friends now, hobbies, a job and even a place to stay he actually sleeps at some time or others. Teresa shouldn't feel guilty for making her own decisions. She shouldn't feel guilty for

-lovinghim/lyingto/leavinghim-

deciding to live her own life. She should be allowed to choose her own happiness, shouldn't she? And Marcus makes her happy. She feels guilty for it but some part of her is selfishly demanding that she wants to be happy, too, after sacrificing so many things in her life for others. She would never go back to change those things. She loves her brothers, she loves her life and she cares for Jane, too, despite everything and despite the pain the realization entails. Because he is kind and humorous and cruel and twisted and sometimes he seems like he is lost, too, like he is small and lonely and needs her to be there. Despite everything, he has always cared for her. He wouldn't have come back for her and he wouldn't have stopped hunting Red John for her but, in his own, twisted way, he cares for her. And Teresa has long ago stopped wondering when it happened, and how she could ever have fallen in love with him.

There.

She admitted it. She has been in love with Patrick Jane for a long time. She has fallen in love with him and has watched him slowly claw his way back to life despite the ever-present, lingering shadow of Red John. She has watched him try to heal, and seeking help for it. She has watched him date other women and she has clamped down on her own emotions until it felt like she was bleeding out internally, unable to staunch the flow, unable to do anything against it, and she has never said a word. It wasn't her place to do so and besides, she knows how Jane feels for her. She's the stupid one, the best friend, the one he can talk to when he feels down. She won't be more for him. And although she enjoys her time here, enjoys working cases with a team that is almost-but-not-quite like her old CBI team, although she respects her colleagues and her superiors, although she has a good job and a nice place to stay and a good chance on a nice future – despite everything, Teresa is not happy. She can watch Jane flirt with Fisher and can enjoy Wiley's enthusiasm when it comes to computers and can value Abbot's professionalism and Cho's friendship. She can help solve cases that mean something – not that her old work didn't mean anything, far from it – and can tell herself that she is lucky, and that she should be glad.

But Teresa is not happy.

And at some point that has to be it, hasn't it? She has to live in a way she can respect, and defend when others question it. She has to be able to fall asleep in the evenings thinking it hasn't been another wasted day. She has to live the way that brings her the greatest happiness. And if she cannot be happy she at least can be content, and Marcus gives her that. He's nice, he's sweet and thoughtful, and she hasn't felt this wanted in a long, long time. Marcus can give her peace. And. Teresa cannot stay like this with Jane forever, this half-co-dependence of theirs, him half-self-preserving himself, her half-giving-up-herself to him. Nothing should be done halfway like that. Everything ends. At one point or another, people always leave.

But Teresa will have to tell him and she can't bear to see his face when she does. If she didn't love him so much it might have been easier, but it always comes down to the same result. And she

-hates herself for being so terribly in love and selfish and desperate-

grins at Jane quickly and

-I love you-

looks away again.

And she cannot say it.

"I'm perfectly fine."

(I'll end this.)

White lies aren't necessarily kinder than normal lies. Teresa should know better than anyone else.