Chapter Text
The crashing of the ocean against the shore filled his ears as he watched the setting sun on the beach of Mexico.
Red John was dead.
The man who had caused him torment for ten years, the man who had murdered his wife and child, the man who had murdered countless others, was dead.
And all he felt was peace.
Patrick could recall the days when fury and grief suffocated him, and revenge dug its taloned grip into his bones, to the point where he couldn't even act without yielding to the force of it. He had been consumed by it, allowing it to dictate every decision, every plan, every step he took. It had become almost impossible to distinguish where his grief ended and his obsession began.
He was drowning in guilt, wading in an unending ocean with no reprieve in sight.
He made sure of that.
The aged mattress and blood stained wall were his own personal torture, left untouched to ensure he never forgot the reason his family was dead. He had returned to that room again and again, carrying the weight of what had happened with him wherever he went.
No matter how far he travelled, there had always been a part of him trapped there.
But he had avenged them, and now he could finally breathe.
Sea salt and clean air surrounded each breath he took, the occasional rush of water brushing his toes against the sand. The warmth of the evening sun rested against his skin, and for once, there was no voice in the back of his mind demanding that he do something, find someone, or solve something.
There was simply the ocean.
Patrick scooped a handful of sand and lifted it off the ground slightly, tilting his palm to allow trickles of sand to fall back to the ground. He couldn't help but envy the small grains, watching as they returned back to where they came from.
They belonged here.
He had been removed from his old life, and yearned to return home, but unlike the grains of sand, he could not.
He couldn't return home to her.
Over the past year, he'd been doing a lot of 'soul searching,' as his newfound friend, Franklin, called it whenever he spouted some half baked truths at him.
"I had to leave, you see. I did what I needed to do, but some people weren't happy with that."
Franklin had nodded seriously, a chin resting under his head as he leaned against the hotel bar.
Patrick had had one too many drinks that night, and instead of getting blackout drunk like he'd intended, he ended up making a new friend.
"I see many people come and go from here, many Americans looking for something they couldn't find at home. You, Patrick, are soul searching."
He paused dramatically, swiping the glass of whiskey he had been about to reach for, and swapped it with impressive ease for a glass of water.
"And you will not find it at the bottom of that glass."
Patrick had stared at him for several long seconds that night, wondering if Franklin was genuinely wise or simply very good at pretending to be.
He'd been right, ultimately.
Once he had returned to the house he'd come to enjoy, he found what he was looking for in the words he wrote to Teresa.
Tales about his days, things he found amazing and things he missed. Each letter carefully constructed with hidden anecdotes, secret wishes, and pieces of his heart.
At first, he'd told himself that the letters were simply a way to keep in contact.
A way to make sure Teresa knew he was alive.
A way to tell someone about the small things he'd begun to notice now that he wasn't constantly looking over his shoulder.
But, somewhere between the first letter and the last, they became something more.
They became a way of telling her things he couldn't bring himself to say aloud.
He'd come to realise that the part of him that he'd thought died alongside his wife had slowly blossomed since then.
The stubborn organ had stretched and pulsed within him, slowly figuring out how to work with purpose again instead of driving on autopilot.
It frightened him sometimes.
The idea that he could feel something other than anger. That he could laugh without immediately feeling guilty for it. That he could wake up in the morning and wonder what the day might bring instead of obsessing over Red John.
And one night, as he lay on the beach watching the stars glow brightly in the sky, he realised a startling truth.
Somewhere along the way, through teasing and banter, plans and schemes, laughter and tears, the friendship he'd grown with Teresa Lisbon had morphed into something deeper, something purer.
Somewhere along the way, he began to love her.
Love her in an all consuming way that lit a fire deep within his chest.
She became the axis upon which his world spun, and all the dreams he'd had of her couldn't compare to the unyielding force that was the reality of her.
She was good, she was lawful, truthful, strict but fair. She was annoyingly stubborn and beautifully messy, and somehow was able to see all of him and still stayed by his side.
She had ruined her career for him, and he would never be able to repay her for that.
He had spent so long believing that his life had ended with his family that he had failed to notice that Teresa had slowly become a part of his life that remained.
Every argument.
Every smile.
Every time she rolled her eyes at one of his schemes.
Every time she'd stood beside him when she had every reason to walk away.
He remembered them all.
All he could do was love her from afar and send her the best of wishes through the stars in the sky.
The ocean's tide rushed again, this time soaking the edges of his pants, and he jumped backqards, tumbling into the sand as the waves retreated.
He chuckled a little at the foolishness of his splayed limbs on the beach and began to right himself when he heard someone speak.
"It's a wonder you survived this long if you react like that to a little water."
That voice.
That deep, melodic voice that had taunted him in almost every dream.
He didn't want to turn around, afraid that his mind had finally snapped and was giving him one last moment of peace before he slipped into oblivion.
"Jane?"
Bravery pulled at the edges of his skin as he rose from the sand and turned around, his eyes widening at the sight before him.
Teresa was here.
For a moment, Patrick simply stared.
His mind struggled to process what his eyes were telling him. He had imagined this moment so many times that reality seemed almost cruel.
In his dreams, she had appeared beside him countless times, sometimes smiling, sometimes angry, sometimes simply sitting beside him in silence.
But this wasn't a dream.
She was standing there.
Teresa.
Her dark hair swayed gracefully in the wind, and she awkwardly tried to wrangle it in by tucking it behind her ear, but she had no luck.
She looked the same as she always did, but somehow better than ever.
Dark black jeans and boots felt awfully out of place in the usual style of those who settled here, but seeing her favourite leather jacket thrown over her arms as his gaze glided up her tank top and to her face, he found she slipped right back into his life perfectly.
It was almost as though she'd never left it.
"Lisbon?"
She smirked that half exasperated grin she seemed to reserve only for him and approached him, walking slightly unsteadily on the sand in her boots but moving gracefully anyway.
She was amazing.
She was perfect.
She was here.
"Nice beard."
Patrick had to hold himself back from touching the growing stubble and could only stare at her.
"What are you doing here?"
It wasn't said with any hint of force, but a light bewilderment flooded through each cell in his body.
She simply continued walking past him and sat herself down on the sand, throwing her jacket to the side as she gestured for him to sit.
His mind had turned to autopilot, helpless in following any command she made.
If she asked him to jump off a cliff, he was afraid he wouldn't even question why.
He slowly lowered himself beside her, still watching her as though she might disappear if he looked away for too long.
"Grace was able to track down the origins of the stamp and paper used in your letters. After that, it was only a matter of tracking down where each stock was sent and phoning stores until one confirmed that a blonde 'American looking' man routinely brought the same paper and stamps you used.
Next thing I know, I'm buying out my lease, resigning from my job, and asking Ray to use his visualise contacts to get me on a plane undetected."
Patrick blinked.
"Well, that's half an answer," he mused, slightly shrugging his shoulders as he glanced at her. "Why are you here, Lisbon? You had a life in the US. Why risk all that by coming here?"
He looked at her again, finding only steely determination in her gaze as she bowed her head before looking him square in the eyes.
"I missed you."
It was said so simply that it was almost as if they'd fallen into the rhythm of their old ways again, unaware of the unanswered questions and unsaid truths that still flittered about them.
"Every time I walked into the station, I kept expecting you to be lounging in my office, droning on about how boring my life had become and how it was insane that my biggest problem as a police chief was running out of staples."
She laughed, a self deprecating sigh escaping her.
"And then I started getting your letters, and I just..."
Teresa paused, the startling courage she'd mustered to talk so openly about her feelings seeming to die out as she tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear to busy herself in the silence.
Patrick watched her carefully.
He knew that look.
She was nervous.
Teresa Lisbon was nervous.
And somehow that made his heart beat even faster.
"Didn't want to wake up another day knowing you wouldn't be there," he finished for her, hoping to God he hadn't read her wrong.
That the blush spreading across her cheeks wasn't from an unfamiliar reaction to the hotter weather.
That the pauses in between the vocalisation of her feelings weren't from jet lag.
But that the heart beating beneath her skin might feel the same as his.
"Yeah."
Silence stretched out between them following her relieved exhale of a response as they stared ahead and watched how the waves crashed into the beach and returned out to sea.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
The repetition was almost hypnotic.
Patrick watched the waves, allowing the sound to settle around them. He had spent so long running from his past that he had forgotten what it felt like to simply sit beside someone without needing to fill the silence.
With Teresa, silence had never really been uncomfortable.
It had always been something they could share.
"I realise now I've forgotten to be human." She glanced toward him, confused.
"After killing Red John, I realised how obsessed I had become. Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets, but hunting a monster took away my humanity, I think.
I played games. I lied. I manipulated people.
But I was telling you the truth when I said that you had no idea how much you mean to me."
His voice shook a little, unused to the vulnerability tumbling from his lips.
Teresa had come all this way for him. The least he could do was be honest for once.
"The truth is that when I got here, I couldn't imagine having to wake up every single day knowing I wouldn't see you again."
Tears welled in Teresa's eyes, hearing the words she felt repeated back to her, and he noticed how she shook a little.
"The truth is I love you."
The words hung between them.
For once, Patrick didn't try to make a joke.
He didn't smile knowingly.
He didn't use some clever observation to hide behind.
He simply waited.
Teresa wiped at a traitorous tear that traced down her cheek and took a deep breath.
His heart pounded in his chest, and he had a mild urge to throw up, anxiety bubbling beneath his skin as he took all of her in.
"Do you mean that?"
"Every word," he breathed.
She leaned in closer to him, warm air brushing against his face where she hovered inches from him, silently asking a question she didn't need to voice aloud.
Patrick didn't look away and for once, there was nowhere else he wanted to be.
There was no case to solve.
No enemy to hunt.
No lie to uncover.
Just Teresa.
He gripped her chin between his fingers and pulled her face closer to his to close the gap.
Her lips brushed his, hesitance from breaking a decade long companionship vanishing when he heard her whispered words.
"I feel the same way."
He crushed his lips back onto hers with a frenzy, hands grazing her body as hers came to wrap around his neck.
For all the years he'd spent searching for revenge, he'd never imagined that the thing waiting for him at the end of it would be something so simple.
Something so warm.
Something so human.
As Patrick enveloped himself around Teresa, something familiar sparked in his chest, a feeling he thought he'd never get back when he left her.
Home.