Title: Five Reasons not to tell the Truth

Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist.

Pairings: Jello! Might have RigsPelt undertones

Set in Season: 3

Spoilers: anything up to 'red hot' (3x07)

AN: So I saw the November challenge... and I was not inspired... then I started doing some research and voila I am writing fanfic instead of reading scientific papers... ain't life funny sometimes? I'll be updating one chapter per day, don't worry, they're all finished and beta'ed and ready to go up whenever it pleases me *evilgrin*

One more thing:

An ellipsis (…) indicates the beginning or end of a flashback, flashbacks will also be written in italics

And thanks to AutumnNicole (from the jello forever board) for the beta!

Five Reasons not to tell the Truth

One – to protect your reputation – Lisbon's POV

It's Thursday night. We're all in the office, completing paperwork for our latest case while eating closed case pizza. Normally this is a celebratory event; there's lots of smiling, grinning, general happiness, running gags, new jokes and stupid pranks. It's a time to laugh and relax. But today, everybody's sulking and the atmosphere is tense. And it hasn't even been one of those cases – dead kids, dead parents and Red John can get anybody down.

We were searching for the murderer of a local politician – not even one of the big wigs – who was shot in the head, execution style. Clean. Violent, but not overly aggressive. Bad, but not one of the cases that I lose much sleep over. I doubt the others are more troubled about it than I am. Maybe they're just annoyed about all the stonewalling that comes with politics. My day certainly started going wrong while we were interviewing the first suspect, the dead politician's rival in the up-coming elections.

He refused to cooperate. Jane decided to piss him off by threatening him, making comments about 'the image one projects when one refuses to help the police solve a murder just to protect one's reputation'. Naturally, the politician went and yelled at Hightower. It goes without saying that I got a nice dressing down minutes after Mr. Wannabe-Politician left. And when I finally decided to call my best friend, Kelly, to vent all my frustration...

...

"Oh, my god, my best friend is a lesbian!"

"What...? I am not a lesbian, why would you even think something like that?"

"Lemme think… oh, right... it's obvious you're in love with Jane!"

"I am not in love with Jane!"

"Are you kidding me, Terry? I've been married for 4 years now, and I've known you since you were in high school. I know what it sounds like when someone's in love, and more importantly, I know what you sound like when you're in love."

"Kelly, I don't even like Jane! Jane's childish and never listens and does unreasonable things and we don't agree on a single thing, not even unimportant stuff. Jane has horrible taste when it comes to music, hates the movies I love, and drives a car that is like a hundred years old; it doesn't even have airbags!"

"I hate to sound like a broken record, but… OH, MY GOD! MY BEST FRIEND IS A LESBIAN!"

"Kelly!"

"Seriously, you so have the hots for her."

"Him."

"What?"

"Him. Jane's a guy."

Silence.

"I'm not lying, and I am not in love with him! He's like a six-year-old!"

"You love six-year-olds. And what kind of parents call their son 'Jane'?"

"Um... probably the same ones who are called 'Jane' themselves?"

"You're kidding, it's his last name?"

"Yes."

"Okay, so what's his first name?"

"Patrick."

More silence.

"Kelly?"

"I can already see the headlines... Patron Saints fall from Grace, St. Patrick and St. Teresa married!"

"I swear, Kelly, if you don't stop it I'm hanging up! I am NOT in love with Jane!"

"Oooh... you're threatening me? I doubted your affections before that, but now I'm absolutely certain... Terry and Patrick sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-..."

Click.

"Terry? Terry, you there? Terry?"

...

Yeah, I did not need to be reminded of my inappropriate crush on my incredibly annoying consultant. Inappropriate on so many levels. Regulations, creepy serial killer who's after him, dead wife (and daughter) he's still in love with, latent death wish, so many reasons not to be in love with Jane... why can't I just fall in love with a guy like Cho? Or someone else who's actually available? It's so depressing, not to mention scary. If Kelly can figure it out while talking on the phone... I don't even want to know what's going on in Jane's head.

Of course, this isn't even the worst that happened today. After all, I almost broke my arm while chasing down another suspect, and a couple of hours later, I found Van Pelt sobbing in the ladies' room, a situation that I had hoped to avoid for the next millennium or so since the 'elevator incident'.

Cho is starting to clean up his desk, so it looks like he'll be leaving for the night. I'm surprised he stayed this late; he's been leaving earlier since he started dating Elise. As he grabs his book, he meets my eyes for a second and nods. Then he wishes us a good night and walks out of the bullpen.

TBC – next time "to protect a secret"