This fic has been written for PetitJ, because she said one day that a Jisbon fic should be written based on the song Real Love, recorded by Regina Spektor and written by John Lennon for the Beatles. I have probably listened to most of the recordings of this song that one could find on YT, each more beautiful than the last, and as it turns out, a fic did come to me based on those apparently simple yet incredibly moving verses.

Situated right after the ending of episode 3x19. There would never be anybody else for Patrick Jane. And that was why it was the perfect deal for her to be in love with him. Inspired by song "Real Love".

Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist, or its characters, neither do I own the song "Real Love".

REAL LOVE

Teresa Lisbon tried to contain the lonely tear which danced in her right eye, wanting to escape. She swallowed, trying to tell herself not to be sad about that. Not only sad about the man who had lost his family, at whose face she still stared now, but about the things he had said. For a minute there – and that was an example of those things that the heart did – she had thought it was her he was talking about in that video which had been recorded during his investigation into a suspect on their latest case, solved a few hours earlier. But it wasn't. Of course not. And she should have known that. There would never be anybody else for Patrick Jane. And that was why it was the perfect deal to be in love with him.

Yes. Lisbon had given up denying the fact to herself very long before that. She was in love with Patrick Jane. That explained why she kept him around despite his manners and methods, which she so deeply disapproved. And no, the "he closes cases" excuse was now only used to tell the occasional person, should they ask. That also explained why she was often more worried about his safety – both concerning his health and his job – than he was, and why it was now one of her reflexes to apologize for him instead of letting him get what he deserved, which had once been her practice.

She was in love with him. But only because she had allowed herself to fall in love. Her plan was not to fall in love, at all, with anyone. She certainly did not want a relationship; every time she had tried to engage in one, something had gone terribly wrong and she had ended up heartbroken. So she had given up on the whole institution. She would, occasionally, allow herself a one night stand, to fill the void of human contact from time to time, but never allowing herself to create any bonds with these men. But she knew, as all women knew, that the heart was sometimes impossible to control and, despite her mind's decision and her better judgment, she would end up falling in love with someone sooner or later. And wasn't she surprised to find that this person would come to be Patrick Jane.

At first, she had absolutely hated the idea. Not only it violated her plan to never fall in love again, but it also violated everything that she appreciated and valued in men; he was the opposite of what she would have wanted for her life. And yet, she found herself sighing at his smile, at his annoying yet witty remarks, and even at his stupid yet well played stunts. Love really was sneaky; it had her falling for the last man on her list.

All my little plans and schemes
Lost like some forgotten dreams
Seems that all I really was doing
Was waiting for you

After the initial stage, after she had admitted to have fallen in love, a stage in which she felt like a teenager – both enchanted beyond reason and inconsolable as though life would not be possible while loving him, since he was never going to love her back – she was able to come to her senses and talk some reason into herself: he was the perfect kind of man to be in love with if she didn't want a relationship, because he would never have one with her.

He was even better than a married man, because he was a married man who would not become separated; he would never have the chance to fall out of love with his wife, for she was never going to have the opportunity to hurt him, to not be perfect. And it was all intensified by the fact that he judged it his fault that she was no longer with him. Of course, the heart would sometimes do its tricks, like it just had, with all the leaping and skipping beats as she heard Jane describe the woman he was looking for, making her heart think, for a moment, that it could be her. Because her mind would never think such thing. He was, however, describing the only woman he could never find, who was no longer anywhere to be found.

Lisbon didn't want a relationship, and what better to avoid that than to fall in love with an unavailable man? He was never going to be available for her, and she, for anyone else.

She stood up, with her laptop in her hands, and spun on her feet to leave the attic.

It had been even easier than usual for Patrick Jane to crack that case, in spite of everyone else's opinion or even of where the facts seemed to be leading the investigation; it had been easy to figure out that Erica Flynn had murdered her husband because she didn't look like a grieving widow, and he knew what a grieving spouse was supposed to look like. He had been one. He still was one.

It hadn't been how she had tried to use her feminine powers on him that had given her away, even though that only made everything even more obvious: a grieving widow would not, hours after her husband's death, even know how to access her feminine powers, let alone use them for whatever purposes. It had been fun, Jane had to admit; she really was a beautiful woman, and letting her believe her strategy was (really) working had been easy. However, she hadn't been able to notice that he was actually disgusted by how she had so clearly been capable of murdering her husband, the person to whom she had sworn love and respect, and also by her terrible performance as the widow, all the while trying to appeal to his sexuality. He thought after she'd realized he had lost his wife, she would realize such a trick wouldn't work with him, but she would have had to not be a psychopath to realize as much.

She wasn't stupid, though; she had noticed quite a few things about him: how he pushed away the people who made him feel something he felt he wasn't supposed to feel was an example. That was true. Jane believed that, for "regular" widows and widowers, it would be natural, after a certain amount of time, to be able to acknowledge, admit and even act on the attraction they might feel towards other people. He also believed it was natural and even healthy that these widows and widowers might fall in love again, and through that feeling, they would slowly heal from that pain in their hearts and be able to find happiness again.

But Jane's case was different. He didn't think he had the right to allow himself to acknowledge, admit or act on the attraction he might feel towards other people, let alone let himself fall in love with anyone and, through that feeling, let himself slowly heal from that pain in his heart, making it possible for him to find happiness again. He didn't think he had any right to feel attraction, or love, or any right to heal, or be happy again. He had been the cause of his wife's death – and his daughter's death. He didn't deserve to rebuild his life; if he was still alive it was because he still owed something to his dead wife and child: he had to kill Red John, their murderer, for their sake.

So it was rather painful, especially if added to all the pain he did already originally feel, to spend his days pretending to himself and to everyone else that that so-called "natural" process had not, eventually, happened to him. After he had acknowledged and admitted the attraction, even though he had refused – and still refused, on a daily basis – to act on it, it had happened: he had fallen in love. And it was that adolescent kind of love, which demands and nags and doesn't leave the heart it inhabits alone; love that finds itself more important than anything. Love that sees no age, no past, no future, no circumstances.

Just like little girls and boys
Playing with their little toys
Seems like all they really were doing
Was waiting for love

Jane had reached the attic, and he noticed that the door was open. When he approached and was about to enter, she appeared at the door, coming from inside. His heart leapt, and he told himself it had been due to the suddenness of her appearance, and not the appearance itself.

"Jane!" Lisbon said, breathless, looking startled herself.

"Lisbon, what are you doing here?" he asked, truthfully surprised.

"Retrieving my laptop," she said, showing the computer while making that annoyed expression which was her trademark.

"Oh," Jane replied, simply, suddenly remembering what he had needed the computer for. "Thank you for lending it to me."

"You'd be welcome if I actually had lent it to you," she retorted, passing him by and leaving without a 'goodnight'. Involuntarily, Jane's lips formed a smile.

Any kind of interaction with her was always bittersweet; it brought both a good, warm sensation inside him, as well as a stinging pain in his heart when it realized its wishes were not going to be fulfilled. Erica Flynn had said he was ready to move on; maybe his heart agreed with her, but his mind didn't. He sure as hell was not ready to move on. He was never going to be.

At times, his heart would find a way out of the tight shackles of his mind and make him wonder what it would be like if he could feel like he didn't have to catch Red John, or if he could feel like he was not to blame for his family's death; what it would be like if his life could be free from his past. If he could just give in to his heart's demands and seek happiness again. Beside her.

Don't need to be alone
No need to be alone…

And at those times, a question would come, challengingly, teasingly, torturingly, to haunt his mind for long hours until he managed to get distracted by something else: if he could, just for a moment, ignore the past, the future and the consequences, and just close his eyes, take three steps ahead, take her in his arms and kiss her… would she kiss him back?

He knew there was some kind of reciprocal attraction between them, some kind of electric current that went between their eyes at times, but he didn't know how much she was willing to act on that, or even the importance of that – if it had any – to her. He always bragged about how easy it was for him to read her, but the truth was that he knew there was much more to her than what she actually let everyone see, and that she did a very good job at hiding all of that. He had never claimed to know about the existence of those secrets because he had hoped she would let something slip at a moment of distraction, but no, she never had done so. She really had a side to herself that she wouldn't let anybody see.

So he really didn't have a clue whether there was a chance she might reciprocate his feelings for her at any level; he couldn't even come up with an answer on whether she would kiss him back or not should he ever even try to kiss her. And that only made it all that much harder to resist those frequent urges.

He walked into the attic, and instantly saw the image of his own face on the computer screen, the only thing illuminating the otherwise dark room at that moment. His cringing face. He could recall exactly what he was saying then, which made his features arranged in that picture of pain; he had been describing what he missed about having his wife with him, what his heart deep inside wished he could one day have again, even though his mind wouldn't allow him to even entertain such thoughts, let alone ever allow him to have those things with anybody else. The reason his wife was no longer with him were his actions, which he would forever pay for.

He got rid of his suit jacket and shoes and lay down on his makeshift bed, staring distractedly at the ceiling, wishing that those voices that shouted against each other in his mind and in his heart would go away, would give him some peace. He lay there for about half an hour, waiting for them to go quiet on their own. Maybe, if they did, he might be able to get some sleep. But they did not disappear.

Such arguments took place more often than not inside him, and he would sometimes relief himself of them by writing down in his journal, the same in which he wrote down about his hatred for Red John. That was actually the only thing that could take his mind off anything else, so he would frequently find refuge from pain and worries in it; hatred wasn't a bad feeling after all, he thought. It gave him a sense of purpose, a reason to get up every morning, a meaning and a motive for all the things that he did. And that was the only thing he would allow himself to use as a motivation for the most important things he did every day.

So he got up from the bed to get his journal, which he remembered having left on top of his improvised desk, next to the computer. If he poured down all the angsty thoughts that inhabited his head at that moment, maybe he could get rid of them after all and find some silence. However, the journal was not where he thought it was. Well, it was supposed to be there; if it wasn't there, then where could it be? He searched for it in other places where he could have possibly left it, but it didn't seem to be anywhere. It was then that it occurred to him that Lisbon had been there looking for her laptop, which happened to be sitting on the same desk where his journal was supposed to be. What if she had found it, read it and taken it with her?

The idea had him panicking instantly. What was in there was for nobody to see, and Lisbon would be the last person he would want to find it. He should have hidden it, like he always did, but he hadn't; he had been writing on it the night before, and he didn't even remember clearly what it was that he had been writing, but he remembered that, at some point, he had started falling asleep, so he had just flipped the journal shut and tossed it in the desk's direction. At waking up that morning, he hadn't remembered to hide it.

After some confusion as to what he should do, he realized there was no other choice; he had to go after Lisbon and retrieve his journal. Not only because it was his property and extremely personal, but also because the entry he had written on it the previous night had just started to come back to him. It had been about her.

He put his suit jacket and shoes back on. He couldn't quite remember the exact words, but he did remember the general idea. It's not like he had never written about her before; the difference was that, this time, he had actually written about his feelings for her. He had been almost asleep, and his writing had become influenced with some kind of dream he had started to have during his light slumber. Without his strict filters, he had let his hand follow the trail that his heart was drawing in the dream and put those usually suppressed feelings into words.

She couldn't read that. Nobody could. Not even him. He should have ripped that page off the journal and burnt it. Why hadn't he done it? Now it would probably be too late once he got his hands on it again; she would have read it and she would know how he felt about her. He flew down the stairs and into the bullpen, but nobody else was there, neither was she in her office. She had probably left right after meeting him on her way out of the attic. Why would she take his journal? She had no right!

He looked for it briefly in her office, but she would be smart enough not to leave it there anyway; she would know he would come looking for it. Well, if she had taken it home with her, then he would have to go after it. And he did it; he left the headquarters in his Citroën, driving fast on his way to her apartment. He wondered if she would be asleep – or if she would be reading it in her bedroom. Or in her living room. Maybe she would have hidden it to read later, she had looked tired after that long day. Maybe she would have gone right to bed – not even had a decent meal. She had that terrible habit of skipping meals for little or no reason.

He parked outside the building and approached, cautiously, checking for any sight of lights on. Well the living room lights seemed to be turned off, but he couldn't see anything from those windows as to whether there were lights on upstairs. Well, he was going in anyway. Ringing the bell would obviously blow any chances of finding the journal in any hiding places without her noticing, so he decided to pick the lock, which took him about five minutes; it was a tough one. As soon as he was in and had closed the door behind him, he stopped and listened for any signs that she might have heard him; everything was quiet for the next couple of minutes. He then proceeded into the living room to take a peek upstairs, and no lights seemed to be turned on there, except if the lights in her bedroom were on and she had closed the door. If that were the case, it should be safe to search in the living room. And that is what he started to do then.

He looked everywhere he judged she might have hidden it. When he had just started looking in the improbable places, he was startled and actually jumped in place at the sound of a voice.

"Don't move. Put your hands up where I can see them."

Her voice. He obeyed her orders; next, he heard her bare-feet steps down the stairs and then the sound of a lamp being flipped on. He turned around.

"Jane!" she snapped, seeming to be at the same time scared, surprised and angry. "What the hell are you doing here? Did you… did you pick my lock?"

"I had to," he said, while noticing all she was wearing was a T-shirt and panties. They were black, and he quickly removed his eyes from there.

"Why?" she asked, still pointing the gun at him, but looking undecided as to whether she should continue doing so or not.

"Because you… you were in the attic."

She lowered the gun quickly, causing him to flinch and then slowly lower his hands. She stared at him like he had some kind of mental problem.

"Yes, I was. You saw me there," she said, as though trying to make him remember. "I retrieved my computer."

"That's not all."

As he said that, he seemed offended somehow. Lisbon was confused; what the hell was wrong with him now?

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean that's not all you did," he clarified, raising an eyebrow as to tell her he knew what she had done.

And it came to her. He had noticed; of course he had. He was Patrick Jane, he would notice any detail in that attic that had changed after the last time he had been there. Not only in that attic, of course, but that would be the place he would pay most attention to these days.

"Oh…" was all she said, looking away and for something else to add.

"You weren't supposed to see that," he said. "Nobody was."

"I'm sorry," was all that occurred to her. "I didn't mean to."

"How come you didn't mean to?" he asked, looking incredulous.

"There was nothing much in it anyway," she said, walking away from him and stopping near the door.

Jane swallowed at the sight of her bare legs moving. That was not what he was supposed to be focusing on right now.

"Well it meant something to me," he said. "It was personal."

"I'm sorry. Okay?" she turned to face him from where she stood. "I just took a look, unintentionally, but I only saw a part of it."

"Well you shouldn't have. The things that are in there aren't supposed to be known by anybody. Especially you. It's like reading somebody's mind, you learn about things you weren't supposed to know."

She took a few steps in his direction again, now seeming offended herself.

"Well you didn't seem to mind about anybody finding it, since you left it lying around on a desk in a room inside the CBI. You have no property over anything you keep in there."

"Well then at least you should have respected the fact that I probably didn't want anybody to get their hands on that. I think you know me a little."

She was about to reply to that, but she had noticed a weird remark in his previous retort.

"Why did you say especially me?" she wanted to know.

He seemed to fail in his resolve, but only for a split second.

"Forget about it, will you just give it back to me?"

"Give what back? I didn't take anything."

How come she hadn't taken it? If she hadn't, then where was it?

"Are you sure?" he asked, seeming confused.

"Yes, I'm sure," she said, wondering why he might have thought she had taken the video. "Are you all right? Have you had something to drink?"

"How far did you go?" he wanted to know that, maybe even more than he wanted to know where the journal really was.

"It doesn't matter," Lisbon said, just suddenly embarrassed about the fact that she had watched that video and that he knew about it. She just wanted to drop the subject altogether.

"How far?" he raised his voice a little. "Did you reach the end?"

She didn't know. Was that the end? She had only hit pause after he had finished saying his wife was a wonderful woman. She couldn't know whether that was the end.

"I don't know," she said, but he seemed unsatisfied and agitated. "I don't think so," she added, and he seemed instantly relieved.

He was relieved. She would have known if she had reached the end.

"Why, what was in the end?" Lisbon suddenly felt like she had the right to know what was it that she wasn't supposed to know, and why.

"You shouldn't know," he said, in a very low voice, looking away from her.

That made her very angry. After the initial shock, she realized she had a right to know what could be so important for him to hide from her, important enough to make him break into the apartment. Now she would find out, whatever it was.

"Oh now you're gonna tell me or I'll find out some other way," she threatened, approaching him. "I'll confiscate that video if I have to, demand it as evidence material."

"Video?" he suddenly looked up at her, surprise all over his features.

Now that just made Lisbon scared.

"Yes, Jane, the one we've been having a ten-minute argument over!" she said. Had he had something to drink?

She approached him suddenly and took her hand to his forehead to check if he had a fever. He looked deep into her eyes, seeming surprised at the sudden proximity.

"What's wrong with you, what the hell are you talking about?" she asked, using her annoyed voice even though she looked genuinely worried about him.

He smiled at her. She was so adorable.

"It doesn't matter anymore," he said, still smiling like a fool.

"What the hell is going on, Jane? You're scaring me!"

"Don't worry, everything's fine…"

She held him by the collar of his shirt.

"What were you talking about and what was in it that I wasn't supposed to see? Tell me or I'll arrest you for invading my property."

His smile widened as his eyes shifted from one of her transparent, green eyes, to the other. He shook his head lightly, as words came into his lips, escaping his filters.

"How can you not know?" he said, not much louder than a whisper.

She raised her eyebrows, seeming as clueless as ever. She was still only a few inches away, clutching at the collar of his shirt. He could smell her hair and her sweet breath. He just closed his eyes and the distance between them, surrounding her in his arms, in a sudden and thoughtless decision to find out the answer to that question that would so frequently take over his mind.

Her lips were sweet and smooth against his touch, but they seemed paralyzed in her shock. Was this really happening, she wondered to herself. Why on earth had Jane decided to kiss her? She felt her eyes involuntarily close, and her heart suddenly race, and felt so childish. However, that feeling was good: the feeling of being young and not minding the consequences, and forgetting that Jane was her consultant and he had a traumatic past and vengeful plans, and think only of that moment, when his lips were vehemently kissing hers, and give in, and let her own lips move as well and return the kiss as her hands moved to rest on his chest then to cup his face.

Yes, she was kissing him back – Jane thought at first that it was only the satisfaction of having her giving in, but his heart seemed to send silly images of rainbows and sunny days into his mind at the sweet taste and smooth touch of her kiss, and it was like it, his enamored heart, had won that terrible fight and felt like it was finally going to have the power to decide what actions he would take next, concerning his feelings for Lisbon. And it was the best feeling he had had in a long time to let himself go and get lost in that dream of what it would be like to spend the rest of his life with her, ignoring his pain, pretending it didn't exist, pretending that nothing bad or hurtful existed.

From this moment on I know
Exactly where my life will go
Seems that all I really was doing
Was waiting for love

Don't need to be afraid
No need to be afraid

Except that he couldn't do that for very long. Unfortunately, his past and his future could not be simply be erased just because, at the moment, he wished they would. So he savored one last second of her kiss, then pulled away, staring at her with sadness in his eyes. He missed her already, and she could see it in his eyes. As much as she would rationally prefer not to know that, her heart fluttered at the realization that he did love her. As simple as that. He loved her, like she loved him. In his eyes she recognized the pain she held in her own heart at that moment, the pain of knowing they were not going to be together, even though now they both knew their feelings were mutual.

And that pain was the most contradictory thing they both had ever felt; just as much as their hearts were gleeful at the realization that they loved each other, they were broken in knowing they were still going to be apart.

Thought I'd been in love before,
But in my heart I wanted more
Seems like all I really was doing
Was waiting for you

Never looking away from each other's eyes, in that blissful and hurtful exchange, they slowly broke the contact between their bodies – they let hands fall to their sides, took steps back away from each other. Jane swallowed and cleared his throat.

"I can't," he voiced what his eyes had already told her. "I'm not ready. I'm not sure I'll ever be."

Lisbon nodded, and he could see her trying to stay strong. After a while, she said something.

"One day you're gonna be," she said, "and when you're ready, I'll be waiting."

He started to shake his head, as if to tell her not to, but she stopped him with a movement of her hand.

"Even if you don't want me to," she explained, "even if I don't want to. I'll be waiting."

He had also read that in her eyes, but he had purposefully overlooked it. He didn't want her to waste her life waiting for him, to waste a minute of her time on such a lost cause as he was. In spite of how much his heart was begging him to just end that pain for both of them and stay with her.

Don't need to be alone
No need to be alone

It's real love
It's real
It's real love
It's real

That seemed to be what he wanted the most at the moment, but he forced himself to remember that he had a past and that he had a goal he had to reach. And that she was better off without him and without any of that which he carried with him anyway. He forced himself to hope that she would not really wait for him.

She took another step back, tugging at her T-shirt to make it cover more of her panties, suddenly seeming to realize what she was wearing. She also cleared her throat and her features formed her trademark death glare.

"Now, if you would, please, get the hell out of here," she said, motioning with her head towards the door. "I don't have what you're looking for, whatever it is."

He seemed to hesitate, as though he didn't want things to go back to normal. Didn't he see that she was trying to make things easier for him? That was what she was wondering as she stared at him, waiting for an appropriate response.

Well he did see that, and his heart broke a little more at the sight of her trying to make things seem normal again, for his sake.

"Get out, now," she insisted, "before I have you arrested. You could go to jail because of this, you know that?"

He sighed, in resignation, and in his lips a sad smile appeared. Then, he started playing along, removing the sadness from his features and adding to his smile that annoying and mockingly hint of smugness and arrogance.

"If I can pick it, it means anyone could. You should thank me for making you aware of that."

She looked outraged.

"Thank you? I should thank you?"

"Well, someone else could have picked it," he pointed out, approaching the door. "You should be glad it was only me."

"I'll be glad once you've disappeared. Go away."

And at that, after one last look in her direction, he left through the door, leaving her staring at it for quite a few minutes, trying to forget all about what had just happened. He reached his car, trying to forget the taste of her lips, and, once he had taken the driver's seat, he reached for a cough drop in the glove compartment, with hopes it might help him with that. He was astounded at what he saw in there.

His journal. He took it, the image of himself remembering to take it to the car with him at the last minute suddenly coming back to him, and went directly to the last entry. Without reading it, he ripped it off. He decided not to burn it, though. He would hide it, and he would find the perfect hiding place. Somewhere where it was very well hidden, like his feelings had been and would be again in his heart.

Later on, as both already lay on their beds, staring at their ceilings, they gave up trying to suppress and forget about everything for the night. They would leave that task for the next day. But they both thought that knowing about each other's feelings was not worse than not knowing. Hearts fed on hopes, and that knowledge had made both hearts hopeful, because, even though they were breaking at being apart, they knew their love was real. And that made them both a tiny bit less lonely.

It's real love
It's real
It's real love
It's real