A/N: I don't own the Mentalist, because if I did, things wouldn't end very well for Frye.
Chapter One
First Date
"Unless it is
mad
passionate
extraordinary
love,
it is a waste of time. There are too may mediocre things in life.
Love should not be one of them."
Patrick Jane opened his eyes, feeling the miracle of that small effort. He ignored everything else-the sound of sirens wailing, handcuffs clicking around bloodied wrists, the grunts of a breathless serial killer against the blacktop. He felt warmth on his face, and he was sure that it had been sunny before this moment, but he couldn't recall feeling it with such relish since his family had been murdered. Since Red John had cruelly stolen them away.
Before they ushered the twisted, deranged man out of Jane's line of sight, their gazes met. Jane had wondered, on those many sleepless nights, how he would feel when he looked into the eyes of the last person to see his family alive, and it was true; Lisbon had been right. Everything, the last five years, dissolved away and he couldn't remember what he was doing in that place or why he felt so exposed. Red John was forcibly turned away, but Jane didn't notice; he was searching frantically for another pair of eyes. Green eyes.
"I'm here, Jane," she murmured, kneeling down beside him. She ran one hand through his hair, from his loose, blond bangs to his crown, and smiled softly at him.
"Did I call for you?" he heard himself ask, and then immediately wished he had not. Lisbon hid her injury well, though.
"No. But I thought you might need a friend." Her hand rested on his shoulder, and he was grateful for it. Without her holding him down, he might float away. Lisbon looked inquiringly into his bruised face.
He grasped her hand in his own; his voice shook as he spoke.
"I definitely need a friend. Thank you."
After a few minutes, she helped him to his feet. He'd been on the ground since Red John had wrestled free from him, pulled a gun on him when he was down...and then Lisbon had been there. He knew he would never be able to remember exactly what had happened, but all that mattered was that no one else had had to die because of Red John.
"And you're sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" she asked, leading him to her car.
"Don't need a hospital. I'll be fine. Just take me away from here."
After Lisbon's seatbelt clicked into place, there was complete silence in the car. Jane knew what she was asking, but he didn't know how to answer her. He could only stare at his knees, twist his wedding band around and around on his swollen finger.
"Where to?" she asked tentatively, taking charge and cranking the car. "Your house? The CBI?" Jane only swallowed, and suddenly he didn't think he wanted to be anywhere anymore.
"Wherever. Somewhere, please."
"...Okay. We'll go somewhere, then."
Jane remembered that about an hour later, they had parked outside Lisbon's home and she had helped him to her sofa. He had collapsed immediately and slept for quite some time. When he awoke, the television in her living room was showing the ten o'clock news. Red John's face was everywhere. Everyone would know exactly what he looked like in a matter of hours; a face could be put to the crimes he had committed. He would never lead any semblance of a free life again. Jane relaxed, truly relaxed, for the first time in years.
Lisbon appeared in the living room and clicked off the TV. At that moment, he had never seen anything so beautiful: Teresa Lisbon in cotton pants (with a drawstring, no less) and a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt. He knew right then that his life was going to get better, no matter how dark things seemed.
"I made us dinner, if that's okay?" she said quietly, smiling a little. Jane stood, smoothed out his clothes and shoved his hands into his pockets with a genuine grin on his face. Lisbon responded immediately, almost lighting up.
"Dinner would be great," he said, and that was the night that he started over.
-:-
Two years later, Jane sat on that very same couch, watching the news. A special report came on just as he sipped at his glass of wine.
"Oh, Teresa! Come and look at this," he called, and she emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of cake batter and a whisk. She leaned against the arm of the sofa and Jane casually stuck his finger in the mixture before popping it into his mouth. "Delicious," he said appreciatively.
"Shhh! I want to see this!"
And for the next five minutes, the report celebrated the two-year anniversary since Red John's arrest, and went on to say that only a few weeks after his capture, he went to trial and was sentenced to death. Jane remembered the whole thing, and he was utterly unsurprised to find that Lisbon had been right once again. Over the past two years, something had healed that broken person that he used to be. He no longer felt tied to Red John by anything, and he quietly looked into Lisbon's face, wordlessly asking a very important question.
She nodded, and changed the channel.
"So, how many of these dinners have I cooked for you now, Patrick?" she inquired, chuckling under her breath.
"Hmm...well, today marks exactly two years since the first one. If you leave out the odd sick day or two, and the few nights we've spent apart, with you on those crazy dates of yours-"
"What nights? You've been eating me out of my paycheck every single night since then, whether I'm home or not."
"Have not!" he retorted, as he followed her to the kitchen. She poured the cake batter into a greased pan and carefully slid it into the oven.
"Have too," she said, straightening up and putting her hands on her hips. Jane backed down immediately. It didn't matter how casually she may have been dressed or that she was baking like the perfect soccer mom. She could still beat him up, and he knew it.
"Okay...fine. But it has meant just as much to you as it has to me!" he shot back, and his voice was playful, but the words caught her attention. Realizing the implications of what he had just said, he tried to shrug it off as cooly as possible. "You know...since you were so lonely before me, and all. Seriously, Teresa. Without me, you'd have no social life."
"Very funny, Jane. But you're incorrect yet again," she said, and to his relief, she seemed just as desperate to ignore his slip as he was. "The cake will be finished in about an hour. You'll have to take it out of the oven using pot holders, please, and set it on top of the stove to cool." She set a digital timer for sixty minutes and placed it on the counter. Then she turned and left the kitchen and headed to her bedroom; Jane followed, wondering why she was giving him so many difficult instructions. "Now, I have to freshen up. There is spaghetti in the fridge for you. I, on the other hand, have a date tonight!" she called behind her, and Jane stopped short.
He heard her bedroom door close, heard her humming through the walls. He thought it was quite possible that she only went on these dates because she needed time away from him, but, to his intense (guilty) pleasure, none of these guys had ever struck her fancy. To Jane's knowledge (and he believed it to be diverse and thorough) Lisbon had not even brought a man to her home in the past two years. Beside himself, of course.
And with that comforting thought in mind, Jane settled back into Lisbon's sofa, remote in hand.
This night would be like any other night. Lisbon would come home, take off her "date shoes," frost the cake (and let Jane eat the remaining icing), watch some TV and tell him goodnight. And the best part? She would be alone...at least until the morning, when they had to go back to work. No one would be sleeping in Teresa Lisbon's bed but Teresa Lisbon, and that was all Patrick Jane had to say on the subject.
And when she left ("Don't forget to turn off the oven, Patrick!"), he felt quite confident that she would be back before midnight, tired and blissfully alone. So when she walked out her front door, he wasn't worried. Not at all.
Until sunrise came and went, and Teresa Lisbon wasn't home.
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