Work Text:
June 1992
Patrick Jane sat beside the woman and smiled warmly at him. She returned it, albeit weakly, before dropping her gaze onto her hands which rested on her lap. This was clearly a woman who was hurting, who was scared of the future. The way she uncomfortably twisted the slim gold band around her ring finger she suggested doubts in her marriage. Regular glances at the fairly recent photograph from her wedding day also helped cement that thought.
This was the first time he had done a private reading for somebody, in their own home. It was different; a practical mine field of information. He tempered his expression into one of the utmost concern for his client. Quickly, Jane offered her a cup of tea or a glass of water, but she declined. It was clear that this situation was uncomfortable for her and that she wanted it done as soon as possible.
He felt uncomfortable in the suit; the shiny silver felt ostentatious. However, his father had insisted upon it, said it suited him as a now-adult psychic. Usually, Alex Jane spent all of his (and Jane’s) money in gambling, so he knew he had to grudgingly accept the gift. The look on this woman’s face suggested that it worked though. She had seemed impressed by his attire when she answered the door, anyway. If he had to keep up appearances to make his money, then Jane knew he would have to endure it. Maybe later, he would be able to appreciate how it finished off his image perfectly.
“This is… it’s just so difficult,” she sniffed and Jane nodded, understanding.
When he reached out to place a gentle hand on her elbow, she flinched at the touch but eventually relaxed into it. His fingers carefully encircled her wrist as he measured her pulse. Changes in heart rate were always a good measure for just how close to the mark his musings were.
“I understand,” he assured her, “and I’ll try and make this as painless as possible. You believe your husband is having an affair, yes?”
“Yes, yes. That’s why I called you. You can contact living spirits as well as the dead, right? That’s what your manager said, isn’t it?”
He cut off her garbled speech with a quick and decisive nod. “Yes, it’s difficult, but it is possible.”
“Oh good, good,” she breathed.
“Do you have an item, something small, something that’s close to him? Maybe he wears it regularly or…”
His client rushed to her feet, immediately breaking off the connection between them. Jane frowned, but stayed seated as she scurried away into another room. Soon, she returned with a pair of cufflinks. They looked old, but well worn. It wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but he knew they would do the job.
“He inherited these from his father. He always wears them to work, always. Says they bring him good luck.”
She hiccupped slightly on her last word, but Jane soothed her with carefully considered phrases. Holding the cufflinks tightly in one hand, he requested that she circled his hands with hers to increase the bond. Knowing that he now had her focus entirely on him, he closed his eyes and started to deepen every breath. Her hands squeezed tighter around his accordingly, almost willing him to hurry up and give him an answer.
Suddenly, Jane snapped his eyes back open.
“Well?”
“Yes, yes your husband has been feeling… guilty.”
“Guilty?” she echoed, unsure.
“He knows he hasn’t been spending enough time with you, he’s been… busy.”
“I knew it,” she breathed, her anger rising. “I knew it. The bastard, the dirty, lying piece of-“
“Please, Mrs…”
“How many?” she asked and Jane paused, stumped. “No, don’t tell me. It’s a lot, isn’t it?”
He nodded slowly. If that was the conclusion she wanted to make, then he was more than happy enough to go along with it. After all, he really had no idea whether the woman’s husband had been a liar or a cheat. All he’d been doing was playing with her instincts.
It was just a few minutes later when she handed him a manila envelope containing a wad of cash for his services. With breathy thanks, she allowed him to leave and that was the first moment when Jane finally found he was able to relax. This money was going to go straight into his savings. He’d promised Angela the wedding of her dreams and that was precisely what she was going to get.
xxx
October, 1993
He had treated Angela to a brief vacation; they only had three days to spare in their schedule, but it was enough. This place very rarely supplied them with enough clientele to pack out their time, anyway. The town was more skeptical than most on the carnival route. Anybody who was foolish enough to attend was either especially easily to play or simply more fascinated by the animals they had in tow.
Jane knew that Angela was particularly unhappy at the moment and he couldn’t blame her. After all, he wasn’t especially happy himself. Despite the fact they had been married for three months already, his father was still breathing down their necks. He’d even started asking about grandkids – presumably so he could have more children to manipulate for his retirement fund – and the very mention of children made Angela all the more upset.
Despite this being a well-earned break for the pair of them, a belated honeymoon of sorts, neither one of them had appeared ready to rest. The arguments had reached a crescendo the moment they had arrived at the hotel, causing her to storm off in the direction of the bar. He’d been left alone, bemused, standing with their few possessions. After moving them to the room, he’d driven off. Jane knew that he needed time and space to think. And he also hoped that after she had a chance to calm down, they would be able to speak like the mature adults they were. As far as he was concerned, reconcilement was mandatory. Nobody should go to sleep on an argument.
But the fact that the fights had increased in regularity since marriage was a cause for concern. He’d never bought to the concept of wedded bliss, but he had never imagined that it would be as hard as this.
With a wilting bunch of drugstore flowers – they were all that he could get hold of at this time of night – he returned back to their hotel room. Angela had already returned and he could see her passed out on the bed. There were various empty bottles of alcohol scattered around the room and his heart sank. She was getting herself caught up in a dangerous game if she could only sleep with a few drinks inside of her.
Silently, he filled up a glass of water and left it beside her. His hopes of smoothing her ruffled feathers before bed had already been dashed.
Come morning, Jane found himself coaxing scrambled eggs on toast down Angela. She was very hung over and unsurprisingly so. The flower gesture went down fairly well, at least, and that was a relief. However, he knew that he had to get to the crux of the matter and soon. He couldn’t stand to watch her spiraling into a descent of madness when he had the capabilities to stop it. It reminded him of the few sparse memories he had of his mother.
Eventually, she came out with one line, and one line only.
“I can’t return to the carnival, Patrick. Can’t you see? It’s killing me.”
xxx
March, 1995
He scoured the room, looking for his target. Jane had spent an hour previously meeting the people there, talking to them, shaking hands, thanking them for attending. The meet and greet was an essential part of his show; it allowed him to pick out the ideal marks for later on. Of course, they all thought it was him being nice, friendly, approachable, which also helped. It meant that they would be more willing to open up once he was on stage.
When he spotted her, two rows from the front, clinging onto her best friend’s hand, he almost breathed a sigh of relief. Jane knew that the friend had been a skeptic, had been trying to persuade her to leave. It was his interruption that had probably made the younger girl, his mark decide to stay.
Jane breathed in and then out again. He clasped hold of the microphone that had been supplied by this tiny theater for his act before walking out onto the stage. It never took him long to get down to business. His audience was never here for small talk; what they wanted to see was him connecting with the deceased. Their loved ones which had passed onto another realm. They wanted forgiveness, apologies, answers, just an ‘I love you’. And he could give them all of that and more. Though he was just pretending to know, they didn’t know that. Some of them probably didn’t even care because hope was something that simply couldn’t have a value placed on it. It was priceless, except, of course, he made people put an associated value to it and they were always all too willing to pay over the odds.
“I can see… in the light. There’s a woman. She has a warm smile and graying hair. She says she’s looking for her grandso- no, granddaughter?”
There was a shriek from the audience in the exact place he expected. He opened an eye to see the woman touching the pearl necklace around her neck. She had gone several shades paler in the shock and his eyes were rounded.
“Your grandmother?”
“She passed away three months ago.”
“She misses you. She loves you,” Jane said in a stage-whisper. “She hopes that you always understand that she’ll be there for you, even now she’s… passed on.”
“I do, grandma, I do.”
The audience burst into a round of rapturous applause, already and he hadn’t even gotten to the good part yet. This was the reason why he mingled with his attendees first, to pick up useful little tidbits to play with on stage.
“You’re wasting your money? She doesn’t want to see you get hurt?” Jane queried and the friend sent her a scathing look. Yes, she was definitely a gambler. “If you keep on wasting your money on gambling, you won’t be able to support her great-grandson. And that is breaking her heart.”
“I’m sorry!” she answered again, in a strangled sob. “I didn’t mean to grandma, it’s just… I’m sorry. I’ll stop letting you down!”
He basked in the audience approval. This was the kind of reaction which made him feel like he was at the center of the universe. Besides, he had done the girl a favor. Gambling was a waste of time unless you knew you had an ace up your sleeve. Otherwise, the odds were very much not in your favor and the casinos just scooped up the winnings.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Angela at the door, shaking her head sadly. When she disappeared back out of the auditorium, he couldn’t help but feel a nagging sense of guilt in the pit of his stomach. Her approval meant everything to him and the look on her face suggested that he had bitterly let her down.
Still, he took a sip of the water beside him and tried to refocus. He still had a show to put on, whatever Angela had thought of what he was doing.
xxx
December, 1998
“Where did you get that money from?” Angela asked, her tone scathing.
“A poker game,” he answered. Gambling was the lesser of two evils as far as she was concerned.
“Liar.”
He sighed; he should have known that he wouldn’t have caught Angela out. Though she wasn’t as skilled as he was, she certainly did know how to read him and read him well. The pained expression on her face said it all: you’re causing me stress and I don’t need that in my condition. Jane would have felt guilty, but as far as he was concerned they did need the money. They had a baby on the way and he was going to do everything to support the child – his child - that she was carrying. And this, this was the best way he knew of making money with the skills available to him.
“Fine. I got it from Mr. Cornelli; I offered him a free reading, but he insisted upon paying.”
“The rich man who wants kids badly?” she asked, almost sounding intrigued.
“That’s the one.”
She glared at him and Jane frowned. Somehow, the Cornelli family had been convinced that his abilities meant he could see into the future. That he would be able to give them some inside tricks into fertility. Angela’s pregnancy meant that he felt capable of giving limited advice and the man drank it up all too willingly. It also helped that he paid handsomely as well.
“If you keep on doing this, you’re going to live to regret it.”
“How so?”
“Don’t you get it?” she snapped angrily. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing and somebody is going to get hurt.”
xxx
July, 2005
Jane stared at the ceiling aimlessly. He saw his daughter, dancing in the green grasses, picking flowers and laughing enthusiastically. Charlotte had been a gift. She had tempered Angela’s feisty spirit and breathed life into their marriage. The five short years she had been alive had been the best of his life.
But the white dress she was wearing as she danced merrily soon turned blood red. And the happy expression written on her face always turned to one of pain and fear.
She was dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
And it was his fault.
If he wasn’t being taunted by his little girl, it was his wife. She stood there, with a red smiley face daubed over her features, glaring at him. The look of bitter resentment was understandable. He’d made so many promises to her over the years and had kept precisely zero of them.
That had, ultimately, resulted in her early demise.
“I told you so, I told you so, I told you so,” she chanted angrily. “It’s your fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault.”
“It’s good to see you sitting up today, ducky,” an unfamiliar voice cut through the chanting. “I keep telling you, you need to start living again. Though I’m sure the dear Dr. Miller knows what she’s doing with you.”
Jane frowned as he slowly acknowledged the old woman who was pottering around his private suite (if you could even call it that) at the mental institution. He stared at her quizzically as she placed a bunch of peonies high up on a shelf in a vase. Angela’s favorites. She just had to bring them, didn’t she? Slowly, he let out a tempered breath. It wouldn’t be long until she continued her rounds and left him in peace. Or at least, to drown in his own guilt and sorrows.
“I’ll just leave these here for you, ducky,” she said with a smile, which he didn’t have the energy to return. “They brighten up the room nicely, don’t they?”
xxx
January, 2009
“Jane!”
Her voice cut through the air like a knife. Almost immediately, his eyes sprang open. He’d been pretending to sleep on the couch, to avoid the awkward questions from his coworkers. Jane still hadn’t entirely gotten used to the concept of working with other people; for so long he had been used to being a free agent, to coming and going as he pleased.
Now, he had other people to answer to. He had rules and responsibilities and other nasty words like that he was expected to follow. People who were paid to help him out and vice versa.
And a boss.
And he had a badge, of sorts. Well, an identification card, at any rate.
Generally, he liked the people he was expected to work with. There was Van Pelt, who was naïve, open and spiritual. Rigsby was often close by to her. After all, he happened to be hopelessly in love with Van Pelt, but unable to do a thing about it. Then there was Cho, who was a closed book, but had a somewhat surprising deep-seated fear of anything to do with magic.
And there was Lisbon, of course.
She was as fiery and passionate as his wife. Driven to the point of developing an ulcer. Utterly committed to her job. The very definition of no-nonsense. And she carried about an air of cynicism, most likely to protect herself from hurt and heartache.
It was her, who just happened to be storming towards him. If she wasn’t a cop, he would have classified it as a murderous rage. Instead, he knew that she was just very, very angry and that as far as she was concerned, he was the culprit. They had only been working intensively together for a relatively short time, but she already made it clear that sometimes, he could be the bane of her very existence.
“What’s wrong?”
Lisbon rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath.
“Don’t you dare act innocent with me; you know exactly what you did wrong.”
He grinned. Of course he did, and that was half of the fun. If nothing else, she couldn’t complain that the workplace was boring with him around. Unfortunately, the air of professionalism that she insisted upon maintaining seemed to suggest otherwise. It was his personal mission to convince her otherwise. That was something that provided him with a brief respite when he wasn’t focusing on slaughtering the serial killer who murdered his wife and child, anyway.
xxx
September, 2012
Over time, their relationship changed.
Lisbon had a strong sense of loyalty, which he couldn’t fault her for. So many other cops in her position would have long since given up on him, had insisted that he was more of a hindrance than a help. But she stuck by him through thick and thin. Even now, she occasionally threw out the ‘he closes cases’ reasoning for keeping him around, but he knew that it had to run deeper than that.
Because it was slowly but surely running that little bit deeper for him as well
She had seen him at his very worst – on the occasions when Red John had slipped through their fingers and he’d gone onto have a mini breakdown. If he caused problems with people, she was the one to smooth over the ruffled feathers. Lisbon had saved him more times than he cared to remember – and more times than he would ever have admitted to her. She wouldn’t have believed him even if he did, anyway.
Another year had come and gone. Red John had escaped yet another time. His hands were shaking as he placed the teacup down on the counter. Each breath he took felt a little bit more rattled. She insisted that they had taken baby steps forwards in the case, but he just couldn’t see it. Red John felt as elusive as ever and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. If he had the energy, he might have cried. But he didn’t and he wouldn’t have wanted to put Lisbon in that position anyway. He dragged her through hell and back enough as it was.
Only now could he see just how foolhardy his plan had been this time around. And only now could he see the mixture of fear, of anger, of hurt in Lisbon’s eyes.
“If you keep on going the way that you are, you’re going to end up with nothing, Jane,” Lisbon muttered with a sad shake of the head. “Playing games with Red John is dangerous and you know it. I don’t want to see you get hurt, okay? But I know I can’t stop you, so what’s the point?”
Jane paused for a second.
The last time a woman he cared deeply about had said something like that, she had been almost prophetic. It had ended up in tragedy.
How many other people got a second chance to make the right decision?
He couldn’t risk losing a woman that he loved to a monster again.
Could he?