[fic] Blood of Eden: Postscript
Dec. 12th, 2008 10:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeTitle: Blood of Eden: Postscript
Fandom: The Mentalist
Characters: Patrick Jane
Word Count: 550
Rating: G
Summary: A post-script to the previous fic
The courtroom was packed with reporters, lawyers, college students. The hallways were similarly packed, as well as all the usual personnel scurrying about their business. Frankie Estacado's testimony was up. Jane had the feeling she would meet it with the same quiet strength she had met all her other challenges. Himself among them. He hadn't meant to be.
He'd stayed out of her way since that night. No one thought it was unusual. Not when he already had a reputation for erratic behavior and odd quirks, taking irrational dislikes to people, so on and so forth. He wondered, a little, what Lisbon or Van Pelt had told her. It would have been one of the women who explained or was asked why he wasn't around anymore. This wasn't the sort of thing men talked about amongst themselves, noticed, or above all talked to women about. At least, women they weren't in a relationship with. He hoped whatever answer the other two women had given was satisfactory. He hoped Van Pelt had been the one to talk to her about it.
"Her." He couldn't even think her name. Or didn't dare, or something. His mind skipped around it with an awareness of what it was but no desire to touch upon it, like walking around a snapping turtle in the road.
Which didn't explain why he was here, now, standing with Cho and Lisbon and waiting for her to be done with her testimony, for court to let out. Lisbon had invited him along and said that if Bradley Chesterton was going to try anything today it would be desperate, and he agreed, but that didn't explain why he was here either. The boy hadn't tried anything yet, there wasn't much point to trying anything after Frankie had given her testimony.
There, he'd managed one burst of her name. That was good.
This was stupid.
Jane was about to turn and go when the door opened and the bailiff escorted her out. Familiar dark hair and features that had Moorishness to their fullness, somewhere in the background. Dark eyes, olive undertones that came from her Israeli father. Everything looked sharper in the daytime.
She saw him when she turned to say something to the prosecutor and caught his gaze in the crowd.
It was like watching the sun come out behind her eyes. Her shoulders straightened, her head lifted. The weariness of her interrogation at the hands of both prosecutors and defense attorneys dropped off her shoulders like an old coat. The formal blouse and pants suit still looked strange on her but much less jarring, much less as though she'd been stuffed into them to make her look bad and more as though she hadn't paid attention when she got dressed that morning. Her wrists and hands moved with more grace when she stopped the reporter approaching her with an absent gesture. The corners of her mouth were turning up in a welcoming smile. Worse still, he found himself starting to smile back.
This couldn't happen. This would not happen. He was about to drop his gaze when one reporter became two, became three, became five. He was down the courthouse steps by the time she would have extricated herself from them.
Jane looked up at the sky for absolution, but there was none to be found.
Fandom: The Mentalist
Characters: Patrick Jane
Word Count: 550
Rating: G
Summary: A post-script to the previous fic
The courtroom was packed with reporters, lawyers, college students. The hallways were similarly packed, as well as all the usual personnel scurrying about their business. Frankie Estacado's testimony was up. Jane had the feeling she would meet it with the same quiet strength she had met all her other challenges. Himself among them. He hadn't meant to be.
He'd stayed out of her way since that night. No one thought it was unusual. Not when he already had a reputation for erratic behavior and odd quirks, taking irrational dislikes to people, so on and so forth. He wondered, a little, what Lisbon or Van Pelt had told her. It would have been one of the women who explained or was asked why he wasn't around anymore. This wasn't the sort of thing men talked about amongst themselves, noticed, or above all talked to women about. At least, women they weren't in a relationship with. He hoped whatever answer the other two women had given was satisfactory. He hoped Van Pelt had been the one to talk to her about it.
"Her." He couldn't even think her name. Or didn't dare, or something. His mind skipped around it with an awareness of what it was but no desire to touch upon it, like walking around a snapping turtle in the road.
Which didn't explain why he was here, now, standing with Cho and Lisbon and waiting for her to be done with her testimony, for court to let out. Lisbon had invited him along and said that if Bradley Chesterton was going to try anything today it would be desperate, and he agreed, but that didn't explain why he was here either. The boy hadn't tried anything yet, there wasn't much point to trying anything after Frankie had given her testimony.
There, he'd managed one burst of her name. That was good.
This was stupid.
Jane was about to turn and go when the door opened and the bailiff escorted her out. Familiar dark hair and features that had Moorishness to their fullness, somewhere in the background. Dark eyes, olive undertones that came from her Israeli father. Everything looked sharper in the daytime.
She saw him when she turned to say something to the prosecutor and caught his gaze in the crowd.
It was like watching the sun come out behind her eyes. Her shoulders straightened, her head lifted. The weariness of her interrogation at the hands of both prosecutors and defense attorneys dropped off her shoulders like an old coat. The formal blouse and pants suit still looked strange on her but much less jarring, much less as though she'd been stuffed into them to make her look bad and more as though she hadn't paid attention when she got dressed that morning. Her wrists and hands moved with more grace when she stopped the reporter approaching her with an absent gesture. The corners of her mouth were turning up in a welcoming smile. Worse still, he found himself starting to smile back.
This couldn't happen. This would not happen. He was about to drop his gaze when one reporter became two, became three, became five. He was down the courthouse steps by the time she would have extricated herself from them.
Jane looked up at the sky for absolution, but there was none to be found.