I don't own them, and I am making no profit. I am owned by two dogs and three cats. Spoilers for up to the end of season 6.

Good Soldier

The first Teresa Lisbon hears the word soldier she is around five. "Be a good soldier and take your medicine," her mother cajoles. Teresa shakes her head; she knows it doesn't taste like cherries. "You'll get a surprise," her mother promises. Teresa gambles and swallows the icky fluid. She learns that her mother keeps her promises.

When Teresa is seven, her father tells her part of her job as a big sister is to protect her younger brothers, even if they are stupid boys. In fact, her mother puts in with a smile, they need more protection because they are stupid boys.

A year before his death, her maternal grandfather tells her that a good soldier protects his buddies (her buddies, Mamo puts in, and Daideó nods with a smile) but chooses his, her, battleground and her cause. He's seen a war, she knows. He shows her how to build snow forts, and Mamo shows her how to surprise the enemy or her brothers, which comes down the street first.

After her mother's funeral, her paternal grandfather tells her she must be the good strong little soldier for her father. Teresa, he says, your father and brothers will need you now. Don't let them down. Don't be weak. And she doesn't. She isn't. She takes care of the house and of the food. When more money is needed, she takes jobs, so not to use what Mamo and Daideó had left for college. She fights, and loses, against her father's craving for liquor. She protects her brothers, however. She stands between them and her father's drunken rages. She takes the abuse, both verbal (be a lady like your mother, you should have died) and physical (fists, slaps) and does what a solider does. She keeps the family together.

Somewhere along the way, she decides on her cause: the image of a blind justice, sword in hand. No one should suffer how her family did after her mother was killed. People need closure. She saves her brothers and herself from her father's final destructive act, and studies the two police officers who help them. She knows now what army to join, what battleground to fight on.

She leaves Greg. She feels horrible about it, but everyday she feels trapped as if Greg is forcing her onto a battleground that is not of her own choice. She doesn't know how to reconcile the two, doesn't know if she can, and doesn't know if she wants to. In her bones, she knows what will happen – Greg will become like her father or she will – the battle will be lost. Like a good soldier, she forces her way out of the trap.

Teresa loves being a cop, most days. She straps on her badge and gun, and goes to battle. She wins far more than she loses. She brings closure to those who are left behind. She arrests rapists, murderers, and kidnappers. Those arrests make up for the bad days – the dead child, the slaughtered family, the dead mother who reminds her of own. She powers though and clings to that flag of justice. It hurts when she decides to leave Bosco, the man her father should have been, but a solider makes the hard decisions. She will not be the cause of destruction of an innocent family.

She fights for and protects her team at CBI. First Cho, then Rigsby, and finally Van Pelt. Jane is a special case. If anyone needed closure and protection it's him. Not only from the bad guys, but himself. From her bosses. She protects him from Bertram, Hightower, Bosco – everyone. It's exhausting. She loses much (respect, Bosco, the hope of advancement), but she soldiers on. She fears, knows really, that she cannot save him from himself; she couldn't' save her father after all. But she wants to try, she has to try. It's about more than closure.

Because he brings her apples and bear claws. Because he tries to and does help her. Because he offers some comfort. Because he saves her.

And he's the first person since her mother to do all of that.

It makes being a good solider easier.

She wonders more often if there is something more than being a soldier; wonders if she is something more. Wonders at the shades of meaning in the word partner.

She gets shot, and like a good solider ignores the pain, distracts the bastard. Giving orders, she gets to her feet, and like a solider follows the order Jane gives her. Later, she leaves the hospital far earlier than the doctors wish, but her team needs her. Van Pelt, poor Van Pelt, and Jane who chose a bad battlefield. She buries the resentment of being hurt and alone (even in a house with four other people), pushes aside the desire to be taken care of and goes to battle once more.

He disappears, and it hurts like a mortal wound. But she keeps going. She doesn't give up.

He returns, and then it hurts worse. She didn't think it was possible. It takes forever for her to realize why she still helps and protects him.

She has another cause to fight for.

Love.

Teresa realizes that even if Jane feels something for her that she will be second to the other in his life.

It doesn't stop a good soldier from fighting.

When she loses, she loses spectacularly. Her job, him, her team, HIM. But not quite. His first letter arrives, his second. Teresa reads his letters in her house in Washington where she has begun to learn to be a soldier in peace time. She realizes that she lost the battle, but won a war. He's still alive. Of all her team, he remembers her most it seems, even if he isn't there.

So when he returns, like a good soldier, she returns to duty.

Not that she really left either cause.

At the FBI, she discovers she has another fight waiting for her – to prove she belongs and simply isn't there as Jane's recreational activity.

Not that he seems to want her that way, not that he ever did. She gets tired of being asked whether she did or is sleeping with Jane. One day, Teresa finds herself almost calling her brothers to vent about being called Jane's girlfriend. She stops herself. A good soldier doesn't show weakness to the troops.

She goes home, eats ice cream, and vents in the shower.

She goes for a punishing run when she overhears Fischer and another FBI agent talking about Jane's disappearing and then reappearing wedding ring. She's a good soldier, she knows, worth a job requirement but not the removal or replacement of a symbol. No bear claws or apples now, she notices. No present like the rest of the team. No reason to keep on her good side, not when you have already paid the solider and won the war. His war was always different than hers, she knows.

Like a good soldier, she cedes the battlefield. She soldiers on. She goes out with Marcus. Marcus who brings her things. Marcus who says, almost in passing, that she is a good detective, pointing out that the proof is her lack of promotion, for Bertram would not promote someone who could bring him down. Marcus who she can fall on if she needs, if she can bring herself to fall. Marcus who makes her feels valued.

Sometimes a good solider needs to be carried and she feels she's due.

She still loves Jane, she knows she always will, but she feels more and more each day that the battle is unwinnable. She's his friend, but while that might good enough for him, it isn't for her. She can't move on in Austin. Washington looks more and more attractive. She's a good soldier, everyone (Jane) says so, and she can solider on there. It will be hard leaving him, she doesn't want to, but she wonders what other choice she has.

Then in the most unexpected battleground, a plane, everything changes. "I love you," Jane says, a confession that Marcus did not make, a battle with himself that he did not fight. Jane, however, did and won. She knows what it cost him. She knows it will not be easy. He's broken; she's broken. She needs to show more weakness. He needs to show more strength.

But Jane is who she wants. They are partners. And sometimes, a good solider gambles and goes for the dream.

Her mother taught her that.