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Chapter Text

Walking up to her office, she saw Jane talking to her team. He looked agitated in a way that might suggest he hadn’t slept in days and was now running on pure adrenaline. Lisbon truly admired how he could make everybody see the version of himself he wanted them to see. It also scared her that he might only present her one of such versions of himself, too.

Shaking this thought off, she readied herself for what was about to go down. She didn’t need any of that extra anxiety right now. “Jane?”, she called out. He turned around and with a small smile followed her into the office. Once the door is closed, she’s almost startled by the intensity of his hug. It’s been a long time since she’s last had his arms around her like that. She had missed him, sure, but still hesitant, she returned his hug only half-heartedly.

When he took a step back, she was almost immediately staring down the barrel of his gun. She knew this was going to happen, and the fact that his gun was pointed at her wasn’t what almost made her break character. It was his words that were still ringing in her ears.
“Good luck, Teresa. I love you.”

Chapter Text

The pressing heat of the deserts surrounding them caused a small river of sweat to trail down her back, but Lisbon had more pressing issues at hand right now. Their plan to apprehend Red John was a risky one, and she didn’t like it one bit that Jane had to be the one facing the danger head on. Jane, who usually jumped right behind her for protection when danger was mentioned. She liked to protect him, and she hated that she couldn’t do it in this case.

She couldn’t do anything right now but listen to what was happening with Lorelai. When fists started pounding on Jane, she itched to just go for help, but she needed to wait for confirmation on Red John, so she painstakingly waited.

Too emerged in the sound coming to her on the speakers, she didn’t notice that an unmarked FBI vehicle was approaching them. Too late to do anything about it she and her team just raised their hands and explained what was going on to the FBI agents.
Lisbon just hoped that even with the delay they wouldn’t be too late to stop Red John from doing anything to Jane. Just when they were about to get close to where Jane should be, a dark vehicle came at them with deathly speed. Agents got out of the car and started shooting at it from all angles to try to stop it and the criminals in it.

When it finally came to a halt, they opened the doors to check for surviving passengers. Lisbon approached the back doors her weapon drawn and opened it. The smell of blood hit her before she could properly register what was in front of her. Blood was dripping down the man’s arms and his suit was soaked in red. His hair, though, got her attention. It was blond curls. No this was wrong. This couldn’t be. She tried to tell herself that this is not what could have happened, but when she looked the man in the face, she couldn’t deny anymore that it wasn’t Red John who was sitting in the back seat, but it was Jane.

Drenched in sweat again, but this time covered in her sheets, Lisbon woke up, gasping for air, trying to get a firmer grip on reality. It wasn’t Jane, he was alive. He saw him after the shooting. He was fine. All the trying to calm herself down didn’t really help. Her mind was spiralling and kept telling her “But what if the dream was what really happened, and you just imagined the rest trying to cope with the loss?”.

Lisbon was almost hyperventilating as she reached on her nightstand for her phone. With shaky hands she navigated to her contacts and called Jane in hopes that he would pick up and tell her that he was alright.

She felt like she had been waiting for several hours when his raspy voice finally answered in a soft note: “Lisbon?”. She really tried to answer, but she couldn’t get her breathing to slow down enough to talk yet. On the other side of the line, she heard bed sheets rustling as if Jane was now getting into a sitting position. “Hey, Teresa? It’s okay. Just listen to me.” She nodded as if he could see her. “You’re going to close your eyes and put the phone on speaker.” She did as she was told, already feeling steadier than before. “Just breathe with me. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.” He waited for her to follow the instructions and they repeated that breathing pattern a few times before she could finally match his rhythm without feeling out of breath, and swallow that lump in her throat. “Thank you.”
Her voice came out raspy and the words felt heavy on her tongue.

“Are you alright? Did anything happen?”, he asked softly.

“Yeah, it was just a dream. I’m fine.”

“I’m glad.”

The line went silent for several seconds before either of them spoke again.

“But Jane?”

“Yes?”

“You have to promise me not to disappear like that ever again. You have to swear it. I can’t do something like that anymore. I didn’t know where you were or even if you were even alive. I hated it. You know? After some months I even told myself I wouldn’t care if you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I did care though, Jane. I cared every single minute of every single day, so please, don’t ever do that to me again.”

Lisbon wouldn’t usually get so emotional in front of him or anyone, really. But right now, she was tired and still scared by what had happened. She simply didn’t have the strength to conceal anything right now.

“I’m sorry Teresa for doing that to you; I truly am but I can’t promise to never disappear again. You know what I’m going to do to Red John once I find him, and I won’t go to jail for it. I can’t promise you to fundamentally change who I’ve become.”

She felt a lump form in her throat and let lose a quiet sob. Of course she already knew what he was just telling her, but she was still hoping that after today, he would be more careful on his hunt for Red John and maybe start having more trust in her and her team to help him stop the man who had killed his family.

“I just thought you trusted me.”

Lisbon sounded smaller than she liked to admit, and she hated herself for giving her heart and soul to a man who would leave her as soon as his hunt for revenge was over. She hated herself for falling in love with Jane when he was so clearly not over his ex-wife and couldn’t love her back like she loved him. She hated that they hadn’t caught Red John yet and had lost another innocent live to this manhunt.

“Lisbon?” He asked tentatively.

“What?”

“I do trust you, but I can’t let you get sucked into this. You’re too important to me to put you in harm’s way like that.”

“Jane, you can’t decide that for me. I’m a grown woman and a cop, nonetheless. I can take care of myself and don’t need you deciding what’s too dangerous for me and what isn’t.”

“I’m sorry Teresa. Good night.”

With that he hung up the phone. Hours later he was still staring at his bedroom ceiling, knowing that he would be awake until the first light of morning. All he wanted to do was to protect Lisbon and if pushing away the woman that he loved was what it took to keep her safe, he would gladly do that, hoping she could one day forgive him and maybe move on with somebody else.

Chapter Text

It’s only been two weeks since Lisbon had begged Jane to not leave her again and yet he was nowhere to be found again. Sure, he hadn’t promised her to never leave her again, but she still hadn’t expected him to just be gone without telling anyone only some days after hearing her begging and pleading. Honestly, she wasn’t even angry. She was just embarrassed of herself and the vulnerability that she had shown him.

A knock on her door is what interrupts her thoughts. Grace opens the door and looks at her guiltily. “I’m sorry boss for not coming to you earlier, but Jane said not to tell you anything.” “What did he do this time?”
“He called me here early in the morning to look something up for him. Apparently, he had got something out of Lorelai. He wanted to check out an address I gave him, but that was hours ago. I don’t think that it should have taken this long. Something must have happened to him.” “Give me that address.”

Without waiting for anyone, Lisbon got to her car and drove as fast as she could. It was still a 30-minute drive, and she hated every second of it, wondering whether she was already too late. She didn’t care that it was against protocol to go off like that; her new boss, Bertram, surely wouldn’t be happy with her. All she cared about, though, was to get Jane out of whatever dangerous situation he was currently in.

**********

The room surrounding him was dark. The air felt heavy and had a metallic sting to it. Blood. Rationally, Jane knew that it wasn’t his blood. He hadn’t been stabbed or in any other way been hurt in a way that would make him bleed. He wasn’t sure though, what exactly had happened.

Lorelai had finally given up something about Red John after hours upon hours of interrogation. Jane immediately went to check what came up with Van Pelt and was left with the address of this old warehouse. Sure, this wasn’t a location Red John would usually use, but Jane was so caught up in the chase that he didn’t even care whether it could be a potential trap. He just knew that he had to stop his nemesis before something could happen to anyone else in his team or the CBI. It felt like Wainwright’s death had been his fault and he wanted to mend that.

The warehouse looked sketchy upon entering it, and everything in Jane screamed to get out and leave as fast as he could, but there was still a small part of morbid curiosity that told him to just look for something that could help him finally find the monster that had killed his family.

It was dark and smelled badly. When he opened the first door, he was almost slapped in the face with the smell of blood, but it was too late to leave now. Before he could turn around, he felt a prick in his neck and after that everything felts black. He was overtaken by drowsiness and sunk to his knees almost as if lifeless. He could still sense what was going on around him; he had just been paralysed. Whether that was the better alternative to being killed, he didn’t yet know.

He felt himself get dragged over the cold and dirty floor before he was tossed in a corner and tied up. After a while a distorted voice from the other side of the room startled him. “This isn’t how you treat friends, is it Patrick?” Jane couldn’t reply, couldn’t even quiver at the sound of Red John’s voice. “You see. If you had taken my offer and became my friend, there would be no need for this uncomfortable situation you are in right now. But no, you had to betray me and my acolytes for the sake of what? Justice? Your police friends?”

Jane felt footsteps approaching him and mentally prepared for the pain of being slashed. It didn’t come. “You need to learn your lesson, Patrick. Don’t ever think you could trick me again. It won’t work. I’m smarter than you.” Jane felt his hot breath on his face, and he wanted to force his muscles with sheer willpower to move, but they just couldn’t. “Goodbye, I hope you rot here for a while before somebody finds you.”

Again, Jane heard footsteps, but this time they were retreating. After that everything was pitch black and silent as he felt himself slowly drift out of consciousness.

**********

When Lisbon finally arrived at the address, she brought the car to an abrupt halt and ran up to the warehouse as fast as she could. Before entering, though, she took a moment to collect herself and mentally prepare for what she might find once she started opening doors.

With her flashlight and gun raised she took one careful step after the other until she was behind the first door. It was dark beyond the few feet her flashlight could illuminate. She was sure she would startle at every little sound, but there just weren’t any. That’s what scared her even now. No sound meant there was nobody here to make a sound. Either because they were already dead or taken to a different location.

Forcing her thoughts not to go into this direction, Lisbon opened the next door. The smell almost threw her of her feet. It smelled like old blood and sweat. Carefully, she directed her flashlight at the walls. Her hands shaking with fear of what she might find on there. And there it was what she had feared the most. “No, Jane!” She screamed out when she laid eyes on the red smiley dripping down the wall opposite her.

Like the blood was streaming down the wall, tears were streaming down her own face. She didn’t want to look further into the room, knowing what she would find there.

Through her shaky breathing and the pounding of her heart, she almost didn’t hear a quiet voice calling out to her. “Lisbon?”

At first, she thought she must be hallucinating, because it couldn’t be him. He couldn’t possibly still be alive after what Red John had just done to him. But then she heard his quiet voice again. “Lisbon?”

She shone her light to the whole room, but it was too big to see everything, so she advanced hastily, trying to find him as fast as possible. After a few steps, she saw his crumpled form in one of the corners. His hair was damp with sweat and his suit was torn in several places.

Lisbon rushed over to check him for wounds, to see where all this blood came from. Frantically, she traced her arms over his body to check for his pulse and the wound she ought to find. One of his hands closed around her wrist, though, stopping her. “It”, he said slowly as if he was having trouble bringing out the words, “it’s not my blood.”

He seemed to be drifting off again after that. Something was definitely wrong with him even if he seemed to be uninjured. “Jane, stay with me, please. Jane. Stay awake. I’m going to call an ambulance. Just stay with me for another moment.” She reached for her phone to call 911 and with the other hand Lisbon gently cupped one of Jane’s cheeks, trying to keep him awake while tracing her thumb gently over his skin.

“This is agent Teresa Lisbon with the CBI.”
She was asked to state the name of the injured and the address. So, she did.

The wait for the ambulance felt like forever. Jane was drifting in and out of consciousness, making soft noises of agony whenever he was awake again. Lisbon still kept her hand where it was, trying to keep him awake for longer periods at a time, but it didn’t seem to work. The whole time she talked to him and told him to stay, to please stay, to please don’t leave her.

What felt like hours later, several flashlights illuminated the place and the first responders started to come in. She had to be shoved out of the way for them to get access, because she just couldn’t bring herself to let go of Jane yet.

They were quick to load him into the ambulance and the last thing he said before they took him in was: “I’m here, Lisbon.”

Chapter Text

All Lisbon had wanted to do was rush after the ambulance in her own car, but she had to stay behind to give the crime tech’s a statement. She didn’t even know what had happened, so most of her answers consisted of “I don’t know.” She felt useless in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. She couldn’t be helpful at a crime scene, even though that was her job, and she couldn’t be there for Jane.

When she was finally released from giving her statement, she rushed to the hospital. She didn’t even know how she got there, just that she was at the crime scene and suddenly she wasn’t anymore. Suddenly, she was at the hospital running up to the reception asking frantically about Jane, shoving her badge into people’s faces to make them let her get through faster. Suddenly, she was in Jane’s room, rushing over to the bed where he was sleeping.
That’s when she can remember again what she was doing, what she was thinking to get from one point to the other. It was as if her brain was on autopilot to get her to him and now she had her agency back. She sat down on the visitors chair next to his bed, took his hand, and waited for him to wake up.

She must’ve fallen asleep herself, because when she opened her eyes again, it was dark outside. “Morning sleepy head.” His soft voice startled her fully awake. She smiled down at him. “You’re the one to talk.” He let out a small laugh. Probably now realising that they’ve been holding hands the whole time, Jane squeezed hers once, gently. “Thank you for always finding me.” Lisbon just nodded. She didn’t need words to tell him that she would always find him. He knew that already.

“You know, I’m only here because of you, Lisbon. You saved me.” She wanted to answer him that it wasn’t a big deal; that it was her job to protect him, but he didn’t let her speak. “I don’t mean just today. All these years ago when we first met, you saved me. And you’ve been saving me since then. I don’t know how I can ever thank you for that.”

Lisbon felt a tear slowly trail its way down her cheek. She sniffled quietly, wiping her face once.

“The only way I knew how to thank you was by getting you out of harm’s way as good as I can. Being with me, even being just around me, is dangerous. It was selfish of me to put you in that danger just because I needed you by my side. But I see now that it is also selfish to push you away because I’m scared.”

“Jane, there is no need to be scared for me. I can take care of myself, and even if I can’t, I have a whole CBI team behind me for protection. You have that now too; you just have to realise it.”

“But what if it doesn’t work? What if something happens to you before they can get to you? Before I can get to you?”

“But what if it does work? Are you going to keep pushing me away until you’ve killed that man? Don’t you see that that doesn’t work? You tried to keep me away from that warehouse and still I kept running to you. Jane, when I saw that smiley, I thought I was going to find your cut up body. Don’t you think I am scared too? I’m scared to lose you. After everything we’ve been through I couldn’t bear the thought to lose the person that I lo-“.

He took in a sharp breath at the abrupt ending of her sentence as if he was bracing himself for something. By that point tears were streaming down his face, too.

“Teresa, I’m sorry for hurting you by pushing you away, but I’m so scared. I don’t know if I could survive if something happened to you. I love you. I’m sorry for telling you now, I’m sorry for telling you at all, because that will make everything harder for us, but I just couldn’t deny it anymore. I have loved you for a very long time, I think. Every time when I thought about you like that I told myself that I couldn’t. I told myself that my feelings weren’t even real and would just confuse this friendship we’ve had. But I can’t lie to myself like that anymore. I can’t tell myself that I don’t love you anymore. Because I do. I do love you, Teresa.”

Jane looked like he could go on and on about how he’s tried to suppress his feelings for her and how sorry he was. About the danger they were both facing right now with Red John’s target on their backs.

“Jane. I know what Red John is capable of. I know what he could do to me. But I won’t stop living my life because of him. Don’t give him that much power.”

“The truth is, Jane, I don’t even know when I first started loving you. At first you annoyed the hell out of me and then time passed, and you were just a presence I was used to. More time passed and I began to see you as a valuable member of the team. I don’t even know when I began to see you as a friend. All I know is one day, I’ve woken up and been overwhelmed with the sudden knowledge that I have fallen irrevocably in love with you.”

“Lisbon?”

She gazed at him, and his eyes were so incredibly soft. He looked like he didn’t believe what she was saying. She chuckled softly, still having single tear drops running down her cheeks.

“I love you, Jane. I do.”

He sat up slowly but intentionally until he pressed his lips in a soft kiss to her. Lisbon felt herself let go of the last tension in her body. Her hands went to his face to cradle his cheeks. Moving carefully, he deepened the kiss between them. Almost instinctively her hands went to his curls, and she gave them a soft pull to grant her better access. As carefully as this all had started, it seemed to be going into a very different direction, so Lisbon pulled away.

“I think that’s enough for now. I don’t want you to overexert yourself, considering you’re still lying in a hospital bed.”

Jane looked up at her with an overly smug expression, one eyebrow raised.

“Shut up!”, she said as she hit him in the arm lovingly.

“Ouch, that hurt. You can’t just hit a guy in a hospital bed, you know-“

He didn’t get any further before Lisbon kissed him again. This time because she just could. And maybe also to have a very effective way of shutting him up for once.

“That I could get used to, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He waited a few moments before continuing.

“I won’t run anymore, I promise. I know it’s not fair of me to just leave you whenever I want to. I can change.”

“Jane, I don’t want you to change. Just promise me that whenever you feel like running away, you come to me first. We can find a way for you to stay together. And if that doesn’t work, you run. I will come and find you. I will always come and find you.”

“Promise?”

“Always. I promise.”