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“Red and raw like my brain, unable to shut down, thoughts crashing like electrons orbiting a nucleus of duelling emotions.”
– Ellen Hopkins, Crank, #181
All throughout the race to the bunker, Lisbon kept her eyes on the tablet screen. She flinched every time the cane came down on the man in the live stream—on his back, on his arm, on his hand, on his leg—but she had been watching it for so long she no longer gasped or groaned at impact. Likewise, the man on the screen had stopped screaming a long, long time ago.
“You don’t have to keep watching that, you know.” Van Pelt’s gentle, normally soothing voice pierced Lisbon’s fog of agony. “We have his location. We’ll be there in…”
“Forty seconds,” supplied Rigsby when Cho didn’t speak up from behind the wheel. Nobody begrudged Cho his silence, however, as he wove through civilian vehicles and flew by red lights like a man on a mission.
“Forty seconds,” said Van Pelt. The smile she offered Lisbon was shaky, but maybe that was just the rocking of the car.
“I do know,” she whispered, “but Grace, it’s Jane.”
On screen, the cane cracked down across their consultant’s shoulders, sending him keeling forward on his knees towards the camera. Fury reverberated low in Lisbon’s throat as she muttered that Jane’s captor was going to die, in forty seconds give or take, if he went any closer to the man’s neck.
Van Pelt scooted closer. “He’s not alone in this. You don’t have to hurt yourself to ensure that.”
Surprised, Lisbon glanced over at the not-so-inexperienced rookie. When had she gotten so wise? Or when had Lisbon gotten so easy to read?
Making use of her distraction, Van Pelt placed her hands on Lisbon’s and pushed them down until the tablet screen was out of sight. “He’s not alone in this,” she continued. “No matter what.”
Before Lisbon could decide how to respond, Cho brought the car to a screeching halt in front of the bunker they’d traced to their guy thanks to his live stream.
Lisbon only had one foot out the door when she heard the gunshot.
“Oh, no,” she breathed. “Oh, no.”
“Jane!” shouted Rigsby as he leapt out of the passenger seat. He shouldered past the team of CBI agents that had arrived minutes before them, and his uncharacteristic aggression jolted Lisbon out of her petrification.
Shooting forward, she brandished her gun and ordered, “Out of my way! Get out of the way—that’s my consultant in there.”
Rigsby got to the metal door before her, but as he reached for its knob, it flew open and out stumbled the other team’s leader.
“Hannigan!” said Rigsby.
“What happened, Hannigan?” demanded Lisbon. “What was that gunshot?”
Blinking into the gossamer darkness of twilight, Hannigan helped out a blonde whom Lisbon recognised from earlier in the live stream—Hannigan’s wife. Jane’s fellow abductee. The civilian for whose sake Jane had offered himself up.
“I had no choice but to shoot that bastard,” muttered Hannigan, not looking at them. “He came at me with a weapon. I had to put him down.”
Lisbon’s blood ran cold. “Hannigan, what the hell are you talking about? Where’s Jane?”
Mrs. Hannigan lifted her head at that. “The other man?” she whispered. “He’s in there. He’s… Oh, gosh, he’s hurt badly, you have to help him—”
Lisbon shot Hannigan a dark look. “Paramedics better be outside when we return, Hannigan—waiting to take Jane to the hospital. I suspect your wife is fine.”
He finally met her eye to glare back at her. “Jane wouldn’t let me touch him,” he retorted. “He was the one being a priss; it’s not like I just ignored—”
As Lisbon shoved past him, it was surprisingly Van Pelt and not herself who hissed, “Shut your mouth, Hannigan.”
With her three teammates’ footsteps pounding behind her, Lisbon stormed down the bunker stairs and into the first open door she spotted.
“Jane, are you in—?”
Her words died on her lips as Jane’s head jerked up and his gaze flew over to hers. His trembling descended into outright shaking as he wriggled in his chains, yanking on them in a desperate attempt to pull them off the rusted floor-to-ceiling pipe to which they were attached, to get out of them and out of here and out of this nightmare.
Hurrying over, she reassured, “Okay, okay, Jane, we’ll get those off you. Cho, can you—?”
“On it.” She didn’t have to look back to know her right hand was heading to the body on the other side of the room to check for keys.
Lisbon reached for Jane’s shoulder but froze when he flinched away with a terrorised violence. But then he turned his shining green eyes on her, and she couldn’t ignore the apologetic plea in them.
“Shh, it’s alright,” she murmured, landing her palm lightly on his shoulder. Goodness, he’s freezing. “I’m sorry it took so long to get here… I’m sorry… It’s okay now. We’re going to take ca—”
“Keys,” said Cho as he appeared at her side. She pointed at the group of padlocks by Jane’s hip and thanked God Almighty that her consultant had relaxed enough under her comforting touch that he didn’t shrink back when Cho grabbed them.
“I hear sirens,” announced Rigsby by the door.
Nodding her thanks, Lisbon scanned their injured friend’s bruised and beaten body. “Jane, the paramedics will be here soon. Do you know where they should check first? Anything major? Where does it hurt?”
The last padlock clicked open, and Jane fell forward against the pipe. Panic shooting down her body, Lisbon wrapped her arms around his shoulders and heaved him against her before he could slide down to the floor.
“Jane?” she demanded, throat clogged with worry. “Jane…are you okay? Dammit, Jane, talk to me.”
“Boss…”
She glanced over at Van Pelt, who had approached from behind with tearful eyes. She pointed at something, and Lisbon turned to see that Jane, eyes downcast, was caressing his throat in a self-soothing movement.
A flash of rage melted away her frosted shock as she looked over at the corpse of the man she, at that moment, most wanted to revive from the dead. If only so she could slap her cuffs on him and shove him behind bars.
For torturing a civilian.
For torturing a civilian who happened to be her best friend.
For torturing her best friend to the point that he had screamed himself hoarse.
Shakily, Jane pulled himself up and away from her hold; Lisbon could have believed he had miraculously recovered from his public flogging if not for the humiliated avoidance of her gaze. He took a deep breath, then coughed out: “Can we…go?”
Lisbon winced, horrified that something—somebody—had dared take the smooth silk of Jane’s voice and rip it to shreds. His oh-so-silvery words now sounded tattered, meagre—bloody. His throat seemed to give out completely at the end, his final “go” sounding more like a collapse of his lungs, a ruinous struggle to exhale.
“Maybe you shouldn’t try to talk,” said Van Pelt.
Lisbon nodded. “She’s right. For once in your life, Jane, don’t talk.”
“But—” he tried, but the strain on his throat was audible to everyone in the room.
“Stop talking,” cut in Lisbon, although she knew she hadn’t spoken too harshly when he only pouted in response. “But we can go, yes. Team.”
She only meant to get them moving, but without her direction, the other three gravitated to Jane and didn’t let him out of their sight. As soon as they climbed out of the bunker’s suffocating stairway and into the burning orange of the dawning Sun, they shifted into an easy, natural circle with their consultant at the centre.
An ambulance had parked at the curb, near the CBI vans but, unsurprisingly, less haphazardly. Hannigan’s scowling face appeared from behind it, and then he made his way over, waving a paramedic after him. Because of his apparently newly discovered humility, Lisbon readied herself to forgive his past effronteries against—
“Patrick Jane,” introduced Hannigan, his lip curled but his arm outstretched. “The man of the hour. Every hour.”
Lisbon shot him a look but, turning towards the snub-nosed paramedic, decided not to dignify her former subordinate’s schoolyard taunt with a response. “Forty-one-year-old male, drugged by an unknown substance to be abducted hours ago. Beaten severely with a rattan cane all over his body for an extended period. No allergies, no medications. I’m his emergency contact, so you ask me anything you need.”
To punctuate, she arched her eyebrow; the paramedic’s gulp told her well enough that he understood that asking her anything he needed didn’t just mean asking her questions—it also meant asking her permission.
“Yes, okay,” he said. “Well, uh, I know you’re all probably feeling a little…wary, right now, but I’d like to see—and, um, hear from—the patient himself.”
Lisbon moved to the side—the side Hannigan was on, if only to block his view of Jane as much as she could—but levelled the paramedic with a grave look. “Jane is unable to talk right now. He’s lost his voice.”
Hannigan snorted.
Lisbon turned sharply.
“And here I was,” he drawled, “worried I’d have to put up with this smartass’s incessant talking for hours on end. Looks like the guy in that bunker downstairs did us all a favour—gave us some peace and quiet!”
Jane flinched. Flinched, like he’d been struck.
The air shifted.
Rigsby stood straighter, Van Pelt stiffened, Cho stepped forward. Lisbon took a deep breath.
“Rigsby,” she said, “take Jane with the paramedic to the hospital. We’ll meet you there. Go.”
“Yes, Boss.” He sounded unsure but didn’t act like it, moving without hesitance, shepherding Jane forward without laying a hand on him.
Lisbon waited until the ambulance had peeled away before continuing.
“Agent Hannigan,” she said, not quite revelling in how his smirk froze on his face in an awkward suspension of arrogance, “don’t you think you should be spending some time with your wife? The wife who’s largely unhurt because Patrick Jane, a valued and respected member of the CBI, provoked their mutual kidnapper—via his smartassery—to focus on him?”
Hannigan flushed, his face going ruddy and splotchy. “Yes, Boss.” He looked ill. “I— I mean, you’re right, Agent Lisbon. I should be…”
Making a gesture to a vague other area, he rushed away.
“The nerve of that man,” grumbled Van Pelt. “I can’t believe Jane said he used to be worse.”
Cho huffed, then looked right at Lisbon. “Hospital?”
She nodded. “Hospital.”
When they arrived at the ER and found Rigsby watching Jane like a hawk, not only to keep him from wandering off but also to ensure that he was never in want of anything or made uncomfortable, Lisbon couldn’t help but smile. She even let it widen perceptibly when both boys’ faces lit up at the sight of them.
“You guys got here just in time,” greeted Rigsby. “That nurse who’s walking away took Jane’s vitals. He says he’ll get the doc to look him over first, but everything looks okay.”
“Yeah?” said Lisbon, turning to Jane with a critical eye.
He looked worse for wear all right, with more skin than usual showing from how torn and dishevelled his clothes were, and with that skin being more bruised than unbruised, but he also seemed to be handling his abduction and torture as well as he always did. For Heaven’s sake, the man was swinging his legs on that cot like a content nine-year-old!
Jane caught the glint of incredulity in her eye and shrugged in that ever-flustering devil-may-care way of his.
Watching them, Rigsby turned sheepish. “Well, not okay,” he backtracked. “But, you know… Okay enough to get discharged.”
“Wayne,” murmured Van Pelt. “Relax. She understands.”
Just as Rigsby opened his mouth, a woman in suspiciously stained scrubs and suspiciously spotless eyeglasses approached them.
“Patrick Jane?” She nodded when the blond raised his hand and wiggled his fingers. “Good morning, Mr. Jane; I’m Dr. Nichols. Everything seems to be in working order. Whatever drug your abductor used has left your system without indication of permanent effects. I have no concerns, but before I let you go, I just want to make sure you haven’t been hit in the head, hmm?”
Without waiting for a response, she stepped towards the cot, but Cho intercepted her, arms crossed.
“Um—?” started Dr. Nichols.
Lisbon smiled her politician-appeasing smile. “I’m afraid Mr. Jane doesn’t usually take to being touched, especially by strangers.”
Awkward but not uncertain, Rigsby returned to his position from before he saw the team had arrived, close at Jane’s side. “You okay with her touching your head, your neck…?”
Jane looked around at all of them. Then, his lips twitched and his head bobbed.
Cho and Rigsby stepped aside, and Dr. Nichols poked and prodded around their consultant’s golden curls. Lisbon kept her eye on him, somehow managing not to flinch every time he glanced over and met her gaze with a knowing—and reassuring—glint in his own. She knew she was…hovering, a little, but with Jane’s primary and much favoured mode of communication out of service, she’d be damned if she let anything he wanted to say escape her notice.
“Well,” said Dr. Nichols, stepping away, “you’re good to go. Like I said, no concerns. See your GP if your voice hasn’t come back in over a week, but the laryngitis should improve within a few days by itself as long as you don’t force it. Same for the bruises and aches, as I hear you’ve refused to be prescribed painkillers or a healing cream.” She arched an eyebrow towards Jane; at his angelic smile, she turned it on the rest of them. “One of you’s taking him home?”
“I call shotgun,” said Van Pelt.
“I can drive to give Cho a break,” said Rigsby.
Lisbon didn’t bother glancing between them. “Yes,” she told Dr. Nichols. “We’ll take him home.”
Unfortunately, “home” meant the long-term motel that happened to be closest to HQ. And just as the car pulled into the parking lot, a couple of CSIs passed by with crumpled-up crime scene tape in their arms, pursued by a frazzled old woman.
“Finally!” she shouted after them. “No more police bringing down business! You better not come ba—” Her face went white as she and Lisbon met eyes through the window. “Oh, not more police!”
Sparing a glance at Jane dozing between Cho and her, Lisbon rolled down her window. “Ma’am, could you please keep it down? We’re just here to drop off Mr. Patrick Jane, and then—”
The woman’s face went even whiter. “Patrick Jane! A model client—I’m glad you’ve found him good and safe. But I can’t have this kind of publicity…”
“You’re evicting him?” demanded Lisbon. “The man’s just been kidnapped, for goodness’ sake!”
She almost regretted her severity when the woman blanched further; how much whiter could she go without Lisbon having to call in a medical emergency?
“I’m terribly sorry, terribly, terribly,” muttered the woman. “You can take as long as you need to move out. No extra charge. But I can’t have this kind of publicity, you understand…people thinking my establishment is high-risk, low-security…”
“Maybe it is,” huffed Lisbon, giving up and frustrated about it. “A man was taken in broad daylight, drugged, shoved into a van, and nobody—?”
“Boss.”
She turned at the sound of Cho’s voice and startled when she saw Jane wide awake and watching her, his own complexion a little pale. He didn’t say anything, but she didn’t hesitate to turn back around and smile pleasantly at the woman outside.
“Thank you for your graciousness throughout this investigation and in giving Mr. Jane time to move out,” she said. “We’ll be on our way now. Rigsby.”
“Um—” Clearing his throat, the agent pulled into reverse. “Yes, Boss.”
With a sigh, she rolled up her window. “I’m sorry about that, Jane, I didn’t mean to, er, bring up bad memories…”
He shook his head and smiled at her. Accepting the olive branch, she sighed again.
“I wonder how she knew we were police.”
Jane rolled his eyes, then spread his arm out around the car and spun his index finger at Lisbon. She scoffed, but Cho half shrugged on the other side of the backseat.
“He has a point.”
“Wh—?” she spluttered. “Okay, maybe a black SUV with tinted windows is a bit of a giveaway, but I don’t give off cop vibes.”
Jane pulled a face.
“I don’t!”
Van Pelt coughed.
“Boss,” said Rigsby. “Um, not about that. Uh, no comment about…that. But where exactly am I taking us?”
Lisbon winced; she hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t think you should move from one motel right into another, Jane, and you better sleep on a proper bed and not just a couch while you heal from…”
She spun her index finger at him.
He stuck his tongue out.
“Boss,” piped up Van Pelt. “Should only be a week or so, right? I can host him.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, though Rigsby was already changing directions.
Van Pelt met her eye briefly in the rearview mirror. “I am if Jane’s okay with it. Whaddya say, Jane?”
He made a big show of tapping his chin and rolling his eyes towards the ceiling in an endearing mimicry of contemplation before lifting his hands and making a T with them.
Rigsby glanced in the rearview and furrowed his brow. “Time-out? Need me to pull over?”
“Tea,” corrected Cho, earning him a wide grin and an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “He needs tea.”
Lisbon rolled her eyes, but Van Pelt let out a tinkling laugh.
“I’ve got plenty,” she reassured Jane, earning her an even wider grin and two enthusiastic thumbs-ups.
Lisbon watched Rigsby’s frown deepen as his gaze flicked between Cho and Van Pelt. “Well,” he stammered, “I can make you a cup once we get there, Jane.”
Van Pelt snickered. “Rigsby, he’s not blind this time.”
“I—I know that, but I figure I’ve gotten better since then anyway, so maybe I can show him—you, Jane, if you’re alright with that—”
“You got any honey?” interrupted Cho. “Ginger?”
“Me?” exclaimed Rigsby.
“Me,” laughed Van Pelt. “And yes, I do—both. Why?”
“Add it to the tea.” Cho leaned back in his seat. “Soothes the throat.”
“Jane doesn’t like that stuff in his tea,” argued Rigsby.
“Okay. I only said it soothes the throat.”
“No, you said add it to the—”
“I think he just meant that—”
Her amusement growing, Lisbon rested against her car door. Meeting Jane’s eye, she shared a secret smirk with him before nestling in to watch her team—her family—bicker about tea.
Of all things…
…these meetings are the worst.
Biting back a groan, Lisbon shifted in her chair and tried to refocus on Foley’s presentation about how to most effectively utilise the fingerprint lab. After the panic and distress of Jane’s most recent abduction a few days ago, Lisbon could appreciate the tedium of the biannual HQ-wide team leaders assembly.
She just had to work really, really hard to do so.
“Thank you, Mr. Foley,” said Hightower as she brusquely returned to the front of the room. “As I said earlier, efficient use of CBI resources during investigations is the main way I believe you unit heads can help keep our finances under control, but…”
Lisbon stifled a yawn and leaned forward in her chair to appear more attentive. One thing she was always grateful for about these meetings? Jane’s absence.
Consultants had no business—or, mercifully, interest—poking around the higher-up clockwork behind investigative management, so Jane usually took a day off when these meetings rolled around. What he did on these days off, whether reviewing Red John files or hijacking ice cream trucks, Lisbon did not care as long as she never had to hear about it from the national news, a local hospital, or her supervisor.
This particular day, she was simply glad he wasn’t at work: though he had been obedient to her order that he rest his throat—if only after she told everyone to ignore anything that came from his mouth and not pen and paper—he had refused to take a few days to just rest. And while Lisbon tended to prefer being able to watch Jane with her own eyes to not, it had been two days since his caning and the man was literally black and blue for Pete’s sake!
Lisbon took a deep breath to calm down. The last thing she wanted was for Hightower to—
“Agent Lisbon.”
Sheep dip.
“Yes, ma’am?”
She plastered on a smile, but Hightower arched a fine brow in response.
“I assumed you would have something to add about the efficient use of CBI consultants, seeing as your team works the most closely and the most frequently with one. How is Jane, by the way?”
“Oh! Good, perfectly fine. Being, uh…efficiently used.” Lisbon dropped her gaze to the floor, cursing. What does that even mean? But when she lifted it back up, her eyes met Hannigan’s across the table and all her embarrassment fled in the face of renewed ire.
“I do have something to add though, if that’s alright.”
Hightower raised both her eyebrows. “Well. Go ahead.”
Lisbon nodded her gratitude but kept her attention on Hannigan. “I just want to remind everyone here that consultants are civilians. They are largely untrained, largely inexperienced, especially compared to us. And by working with us, they put themselves in harm’s way—and sometimes, too often than we should like, they do get harmed.”
Finally, she turned to address all of her colleagues.
“Any cop who’d berate or look down on a consultant for being in that situation—the victim there, for goodness’ sake—should be ashamed of themselves. Of their unprofessionalism. Of their cruelty.”
Her gaze shot back to Hannigan, who was looking thoroughly self-conscious.
“Very ashamed.”
Hightower blinked a few times, quizzical but seeming to be piecing things together. “Thank you, Agent Lisbon.” She cleared her throat. “Now, I know you’re all very busy individuals, so I’ll let you get back to work now. But remember what we discussed today in your future cases so that…”
Lisbon gathered her notes and shot out of her chair as quickly as she could without drawing attention—she needed to get out of there before Hightower pulled her aside and started asking questions.
And after a few hours of being left alone in her office, she let herself believe she was in the clear. And then—
Knock, knock, knock.
Lisbon neither bothered to look up nor to hide her slight smile. “Cho, I said you didn’t have to rush the splatter analysis for the Kennedy case, but I should’ve known you…”
She froze as a suited, vested, buttoned, and familiar abdomen came into view. She looked up with a scowl.
“Jane, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be resting. You know it’s a slow day at the office today.”
He flashed her a smile that he usually reserved for her: the miniature version of his know-it-all grin, which meant he wasn’t going to share what he knew just yet but was courteous enough to let her know he knew something. Then it was gone, and he gestured at the notepad on her desk.
She rolled her eyes. “Go ahead.”
He grabbed it, snatched the pen in her hand, ignored her protest, and scribbled away on the yellow paper. She stopped herself from quipping on his handwriting as he slid the pad across the desk.
Hightower texted me about what you did.
Lisbon groaned. “Jane, I—”
Making a face, he waved his hand and jabbed his finger at the rest of what he wrote.
She rolled her eyes again. Maybe she shouldn’t have given the notepad to him.
She wanted me to verify what she’d gleaned. Then she offered to officially reprimand H about it.
Lisbon’s brow shot up. “And?” she questioned him. “What did you tell her?”
Jane gave her an incredulous look. Heaving a dramatic sigh, she slid the notepad back across the desk, then waited impatiently for him to finish writing.
I told her you all need to stop worrying about me. I’m FINE.
She scoffed, both at the sentiment and the triple underlining Jane had given that last word. Glancing at the next sentence, she smirked.
H didn’t bother me.
“You know,” she mused, “you’re a significantly worse liar without your voice.”
“I came to say you’re spending too much time with me, not to get critiqued.”
She grimaced at how weak his voice sounded, even if it wasn’t quite as shattered as it had been a couple of days ago. “Of course that’s the first thing you force yourself to say,” she muttered before hardening her tone. “Jane, shut up.”
“Lisbon—”
“Jane, I mean it.” With a soft sigh, she stood and headed for the door to usher him out. “Your throat needs to rest. It’s okay. I know you…you like to talk, but…”
She paused with her fingers around the handle, images flashing before her of Jane’s insistence on being at work despite the stiffness and soreness of his injuries, of his agreement to consult silently only after she threatened to ignore anything he said out-loud, of his stubborn vocal response to her remark that voicelessness impaired his impressiveness.
Her eyes slid shut as realisation slammed into her. Jane didn’t just like to talk, to fill the silence: he needed to. He found usefulness in his voice—power. He gave himself that.
She opened her eyes and glimpsed through the blinds their team slaving away in the bullpen.
“But it’s okay,” she concluded, awkwardly but even surer. Voice or no, Jane was not useless, and he was certainly not powerless, defenseless. He had them, and they were going to take care of him.
Nodding to herself, she gripped the handle and started to pull, but then she felt a hand on her sleeve.
She turned.
She had already taken note of how Jane was always skittish of human touch at his most vulnerable, yet the way he grabbed her sleeve, not her hand…the way he begged her to listen with his eyes… It still all rent her heart with how childlike he seemed right then.
“Lisbon,” he forced past the roughness of his throat. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me.” She inhaled. Exhaled. “I’ve always taken care of the people important to me. Always.”
He shrugged and let go of her, but there was a smile on his face as he passed her and strolled out the door. Not one of those secret smiles that occasionally passed between the two of them. A kind she’d never witnessed before, but real, and open, and seen.