Work Text:
Lisbon was just getting her second cup of coffee that morning when her phone rang. She juggled her mug and her phone until she could read the caller ID, and then let out a sigh when she saw Jane’s name flashing on the screen. She propped her phone between her ear and shoulder, grabbing a doughnut as she headed for her office.
“Where the hell are you?" she said, skipping hellos. "You were supposed to be at the office an hour ago. I need you to sign the incident report before I can send it forward."
She made it all the way back to her desk before Jane finally spoke.
“I need you to come pick me up.”
Lisbon closed her eyes, resisting the urge to slam her head against her desk. She put her coffee mug and doughnut down, and moved the phone to her hand, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Jane. If you got yourself arrested again, I'm not bailing you out. You still owe me for the last time.”
There was another silence.
“No, I’m at Doctor Steiner’s house.”
She went completely still, tendrils of dread curling in the pit of her stomach. “Doctor Steiner? What the hell are you doing at Steiner’s house? I swear to god, if you-”
“Please, just- just come and pick me up.”
She was about to argue, but there was something about Jane’s voice that stopped her, a hint of vulnerability which he would normally go to great lengths not to show, and her irritation turned into concern. She walked to the door and looked out into the bullpen where her agents were spending the quiet morning doing paperwork. No-one would miss her if she stepped out for a few hours.
“Okay. I’ll be there in as soon as I can.”
When Lisbon arrived at Steiner's house, she stepped out of her car just in time to see two EMTs lifting a covered body to the ambulance waiting on the driveway. She stopped, briefly wondering if she had gotten the wrong address, until she spotted Jane's Citroën parked on the street a little way off. Swearing under her breath, she crossed the yard to the EMTs and flashed her badge.
“Agent Lisbon, CBI. Can you tell me what’s going on here? Whose body is this?”
The man looked at her badge, and then at her. “It’s George Steiner, ma’am.”
She stared him. “Steiner? Someone killed Doctor Steiner?” Please God, don't let it be Jane, she added in her mind.
The EMT gave her a confused look. “Killed? No, ma’am, it was natural causes. According to his friend, he had last stage pancreatic cancer. From the looks of it, he probably suffocated from the fluid collecting in his lungs.”
“Oh.” She couldn't help feeling that to hear that Steiner had been seriously ill was even more shocking than if he'd been murdered. She just spoken to him not twelve hours ago, and he'd seemed perfectly fine then. How could she not have seen that he'd been dying? She found herself wondering if Jane had known. And thinking of Jane...
She looked around, trying to spot him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Are you here to pick up his friend? Mister Jane?” The EMT gestured towards the house. ”He’s still inside. He was with Doctor Steiner when he collapsed, called for help. He seemed a bit shaken, so I didn’t think it was safe to let him drive himself home.”
"Thanks." She headed towards the house but the EMT called after him.
”Hey, when you leave, could you make sure that everything’s locked up? We’re on a pretty tight schedule here because of all the budget cuts at the coroner's office.”
Lisbon nodded, forcing a smile on her face. “Sure, no problem.”
“Appreciated.” He gave her a small wave and climbed inside the ambulance, slamming the door close behind him. Lisbon watched the car leave before going inside.
She found Jane in the living room. There was a hospital bed at the back of the room and he was sitting on it, hunched over with his head bowed and his elbows resting on his knees.
"Hey."
She knew he must have heard her enter, but he didn't look up from his hands. When she got closer, she caught a glint of metal between his fingers, a coin appearing from thin air and then disappearing again, over and over, the movement like a reflex, almost robotic.
She sat down on the bed next to him and looked around. There was an oxygen bottle by the couch, and orange pill bottles and pamphlets about support groups and hospice care littered the shelves and tables. But even with all the evidence in front of her eyes she still had trouble believing that Steiner had really been so sick. How could she had not seen it?
She shook her head and turned to Jane.
“So the big bad paramedic took your car keys away, huh?”
He finally looked up, his lips quirked to a slightest hint of a smile. The coin vanished, and didn't reappear. “No, but he stood next to me to make sure I really called you. Nothing but bullies, the whole medical profession.”
"What were you doing here?”
He shrugged. “Steiner invited me over. He wanted to thank me for letting him help us solve his last case.”
“His last case.” Lisbon felt the pieces suddenly fall into place. ”That’s why he tried to stop the men who took the body. He knew this was going to be his last case.”
“The only thing he had left to do,” Jane said, his voice so quiet Lisbon could barely hear him.
She ducked her head, trying to get a better look at his face, but his expression was unreadable.
“Did you know he was sick?”
“Yes, he told me. I’d already guessed it, of course, but...” He shrugged, the coin again appearing between his fingers out of nowhere.
“So that’s why you were so nice to him. I was starting to suspect you were up to something.”
Instead of rising to her bait and defending himself like she had expected, Jane remained silent, his eyes fixed on the coin in his hand. When he finally turned to her, there was a strange look in his eyes that she had never seen.
“Did you know that he was married? He never said anything, but he has pictures of his wife. She must have died about four years ago, maybe five. Probably breast cancer. Some kind of cancer in any case. Something that his own illness reminded him of.”
Lisbon couldn't help wondering if Jane's sudden interest in Steiner's personal life was a coping mechanism of some sort - keeping his mind occupied to distract himself from the fact that he’d just watched a man die. It was never easy, witnessing something like that, but it must have been even harder for Jane. He wasn't trained for crisis situations like she was, and she suspected that having found his family dead would have made him even more vulnerable than he average person.
She shook her head. "No, I didn't. I don't think we ever talked about anything that wasn't work-related."
Jane held her gaze, and even though his expression didn't change, Lisbon could tell that it hadn't been the answer that he had been hoping for. She felt a pang of irritation at that, at the idea that Jane might be judging her for having treated Doctor Steiner as nothing but an occasional colleague. Jane, who had never even liked Steiner himself. She was about to tell him as much when he suddenly spoke again.
“Can you do me a favor? Can you make sure that they won’t cut him up? He wouldn't have wanted that.”
“You mean an autopsy?” She frowned, confused by his request. ”With his illness and with you being here when he died, I don’t think anyone would have any reason to request for a full autopsy. But I’ll make a few calls, make sure that the morgue knows about his wishes.”
“Thanks.” He fell quiet again, his fingers back to playing with the coin. There had been something about the look in his eyes that reminded her of that annoyingly patronising way of his to only tell her half of what he'd figured out about a case, and let her finish the train of thought herself. She was certain that now too he wanted her to see something, to understand something, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't figure out what he was trying to tell her. Her hand hovered over his shoulder, but she couldn't quite close the distance, and returned her hand to her lap.
“Jane... Doctor Steiner was a very sick man. He probably wouldn’t have had much time left in any case. There’s nothing more you could have done.”
He gave her a sad smile. “I know, it’s just- it-” He closed his eyes, his hand squeezing into a fist around the coin. “It’s just been a hard year.”
She almost laughed at the understatement. Between being rescued from certain death by Red John, Kristina’s disappearance and reappearance, being taken hostage first by Rachel Bowman and then by Ronald Crosswhite, and finally the whole business with Hightower... She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been worried about his mental health.
“Yeah, it has.” She looked at the room around them, the home of a man who'd spent his last minutes in the company of someone he loathed, and then turned back to Jane. “Look, it's been a quiet morning at the office so what do you say if we stop by for a cup of tea before we go to work. Maybe talk about what happened.”
He smiled again, and this time it was genuine. “I’m not sure if I want to talk about it, but tea sounds good. I could do with a cup of tea.”
“Tea it is then.” She nudged him with her shoulder and stood up. "C'mon. I'm buying."