Work Text:
"No."
"Agent Lisbon-"
"We dont need some kind of psychic onboard, my team is perfectly adequate. So I have to decline."
"We already hired him."
"You what?!"
-
Jane's here to get his vengeance. She's seen people like him, victims' families and friends wanting revenge, and it's always pointless. Never brings them any closure, only more grief, and they end up hurting other people in the process. She can't trust that he won't be the same.
Not to mention he's incredibly annoying.
So, does she want him on the team? No. Does she like him as a person? Also no; he causes trouble at every opportunity. But does he have a very useful talent that helps solve crimes? Yes. And that's what matters, here, not her personal feelings.
-
And then she sees how good he is with victims' families, especially the kids.
And how he gets along better with her unit than she does, makes them feel like a real team, not just a group of people who work under her.
And he's gentle, and thoughtful, and he doesn't ask for more than she's willing to give. He has so much power with his talents, but he only seems interested in using it to help people, put them at ease. He keeps doing all these secret, kind things and she notices, and... alright, maybe he's not so bad. Maybe she likes him. Maybe even a lot.
He's still a nuisance, though.
-
Jane's oddly well adjusted for someone who went through what he did, or at least he's excellent at seeming that way. Sure, he has his revenge spiel, and a haunted look in his eyes, and odd eating and sleeping tendencies, but he functions well enough. He's managing, she thinks.
That is, until she sees the room.
-
"Where's Jane?" Lisbon asks, idly twisting her pen. He'd been acting a little off today, with that too-big smile on his face that said something was wrong and he wasn't going to let anyone notice. He has those days once in a while, and she keeps an eye on him, but he usually just works late and sleeps it off. Strangely enough, she hasn't seen him since the afternoon.
"He went home," says Cho. "Said he's going to try and get some sleep."
She frowns. That doesn't sound like Jane. "Those exact words?"
"Something like that. Why, you think he's up to something?"
She does. It's a reasonable assumption, given that when he's out of her immediate field of vision, Jane is up to something about ninety percent of the time. They're in between cases, so it's probably nothing she's liable for, but that doesnt mean she's going to sit back and let him be reckless. She dials his number and it goes straight to voicemail.
Maybe she's being paranoid and he really is just going home to sleep, even if it doesn't sound like him. He doesn't sleep, and he certainly doesn't go home. Not often, anyway.
"I had better go check on him, just in case," she says.
-
From outside Jane's house, she can see that the lights are off but for one room. So he really is here, she thinks with relief. She knocks, and no one answers. She knocks again, no answer.
Now is the moment that, visiting a coworker, she should leave, because people's life outside work hours is none of her concern.
But Jane is her concern. She tries the door, and it's unlocked. She steps inside onto the creaky, haunting floorboards. It's almost pitch black. She follows the hall up the stairs until she sees the light from under the door, and she opens it, and… Oh.
Oh, Jane.
Jane jerks awake, and blinks at her from the bare mattress he's sleeping on, still in his clothes from work. Her stomach drops. The bloody face is still on the wall, the room obviously untouched since the day of the murders. She can't believe Jane is sleeping at this place, and from the look of it, probably has been for a long while. No, she can believe it. She can't believe no one ever noticed. He never said anything.
She thinks back to all the times he's been in the office dead on his feet, or in a chair or a table, like he needed sleep desperately. She thinks he might've tried to talk to her about it, once, in his Jane way. That day he had mentioned being in a locked facility, one of the only times he didn't seem like he was mentally 5 steps ahead of whatever was happening, he'd had a look in his eye like he was a lost kid in a supermarket, waiting for someone to take his hand, and she could've, but… she hadn't wanted to. Back then she didn't want that responsibility, too burnt out from raising her siblings and working her way up and running a unit and always being in charge of knowing what to do without any reciprocation. But Jane's always been there, and he always knows what to do. So she's going to be there for him too.
She coaxes him out of the house with a half truth about paperwork, and into the car.
"So, you've been staying there."
"I live there. It's my house."
"You want to stay at mine tonight, sleep in a real bed? I've got a guest room." Having sleepovers is against fraternization policy, but that doesnt matter. It doesn't. Fuck it.
"Can't," he says, head up against the window.
"Can't what?"
"Sleep in another bed."
"Hmm." He can only sleep on that bed? Of all beds? "Yet you seem to be able to sleep on every chair in CBI headquarters."
"That's not sleeping, its napping."
She files away this piece of data for later, because many things about Jane dont make sense until you've gotten every piece of the puzzle. Until then, she will have to find a way to get around his bed aversion and get him to sleep somewhere that isn't a biohazard or a psychological minefield.
As they pull up in the parking lot, a lightbulb goes off. Jane doesn't sleep in other beds. The couch is not a bed.
-
He sleeps, finally, and she should go home because she's too old to pull such late nights, but something tells her to stay. Just this one time, to watch over him.
-
It's not just one time.
-
She doesnt think talking about personal lives is professional at all, but she's starting to revise her opinion on that, because bonding with her team is important to them, so it's important to her. Talking things through with Jane or Cho or Van Pelt can be kind of… nice. A weight off her chest. She's probably going soft, but somehow she doesn't even mind.
Jane, of course, is never going to talk openly about his feelings. It's not how he operates. She has to take a subtler approach with him. She's started keeping several blankets in her office, along with the pillow that she knows Jane favors, and a lamp that's bright enough to keep the room lit but not so bright as to be irritating. It's all bait for her Jane trap. And it works. Sometimes he sleeps, sometimes he comes in and they talk until she has to go home, and sometimes he even comes home with her.
She knows better than to offer the guest bedroom again.
"Goodnight, Lisbon," he says, balancing on her doorstep.
"Goodnight Jane," she says, brushing a stray hair out of his face fondly.
She closes the door as he walks away. Maybe he'll sleep on the couch. Maybe he's gone back to his mattress. She goes to bed.
One step at a time.