Title: Unbound
Author: tromana
Rating: T
Characters: Lisbon/Jane, Team
Summary: What if Lisbon was the wife that Jane loved and lost?
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Oh well.
Notes: Very much an AU fic.

To explain the title: the company that makes my favourite Doctor Who audio plays, Big Finish, have a range called 'Doctor Who: Unbound'. This is their home for all of the Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality plays they do. The title kind of stuck and refused to let me not use it for this AU story.

Thanks go to lil smiles for being my beta for this beast (and it will be a beast). Anyway, authors notes are boring, so I'll just let you get on with reading the fic, yes?

x tromana

Unbound

Part One - Our new consultant has arrived.

"Lisbon!"

Agent Lisbon snapped her head up from her keyboard as her boss, Senior Agent Richard Hotchkiss, stormed into the bullpen. Cho shot her a sympathetic look and she smiled slightly in return. While many people recognized Hotchkiss as a brilliant agent, most were also quite terrified of his tongue. Lisbon, however, knew that there was nothing to be scared of, not really. If anything, Hotchkiss often seemed more intimidated by her than she was of him. Still, as he walked towards her, she rose to her feet and met him halfway. It was only polite, after all. Also, it amused her somewhat to see the way it unnerved him, not that she would ever dare to mention that. Whatever way she looked at it, it was still ever so slightly cruel, but it did amuse Cho and Rigsby too, so she wasn't the only one in the wrong.

"Yes, boss?" she inquired.

"Er, Minelli has informed me that our new consultant has arrived," he muttered. "If it's not a problem, could you?"

"Go fetch him for you?"

"That's if you don't mind? If not, I can send Rigsby or Cho?"

"Sure thing, boss," she replied.

She took the elevator down, and somehow felt like the whole proceeding was slightly ominous. Hotchkiss had only told them that very morning, they were due to receive a consultant. He hadn't even said what this person specialized in or why the Serious Crimes Unit specifically was receiving one. It wasn't as though they had a bad solve rate, in fact, they were one of the better units in the CBI. They'd had a few problems with staffing recently though. An agent quit after his family was threatened by a murderer and was now apparently working as an accountant somewhere and there was that rookie who just couldn't hold his stomach at a crime scene. He'd simply been reassigned to petty crimes. As the elevator doors sprang open, she decided that Hotchkiss definitely hadn't told them the full story. He was edgier than usual around her, which said something, even for him.

It didn't take her long to work out exactly who she was meant to be meeting. He was standing in a crisp, three-piece suit staring intently at the CBI bulletin board as if it was the most interesting thing in the known universe. Blond, worked out a bit and looked like he just knew that he was good looking. Exactly the kind of man Lisbon hated. She decided in that moment that she would have murdered Virgil Minelli if it wasn't illegal and wouldn't have caused severe problems with her career prospects. She sighed, approached him and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, his face plastered with a silly grin.

"Hi," he said brightly, "I'm looking for an Agent Lisbon? I was told they'd meet me here."

"You weren't."

"I was."

"No, you weren't," she insisted. "You were looking at our bulletin board."

She stalked off again and he stood, thoroughly bemused. She spun on her heels when he didn't follow and shot him a steely glare. Hotchkiss wasn't the only one capable of those kinds of looks.

"Come on, if you're coming."

"Oh, so you are Agent Lisbon, then."

She sighed. "Yes. I'm sorry, I'm a woman. You were probably expecting a man."

"Wasn't."

"Let's not start this again," she replied with narrowed eyes as they boarded the elevator. "What's your name and what do you specialize in, anyway? Toxicology?"

"Patrick Jane and I'm a psychic."

Lisbon was very relieved that she wasn't holding anything or drinking something. That could have been rather dangerous. Something could have been broken or someone could have been hurt. This was probably why Hotchkiss hadn't bothered informing them what this Jane did; they would have laughed him out of the building had he even tried. Immediately, she found herself questioning both Hotchkiss' and Minelli's sanity while she scrutinized the man standing beside her, waiting for the punch line to the joke. Instead, he just raised his eyebrows, positively daring her to either question or rebuke his statement.

As she walked off in a huff out of the elevator and towards the bullpen, Jane decided that he already liked Agent Lisbon. Not typically his type, but she was small and perfectly formed. She also had a flare in her eyes and was more than willing to argue with him, even if she didn't always realize it. Plus, even he couldn't deny just how cute she looked when wound up. She was right though, he had expected a man to welcome him, but that was only because Serious Crimes was probably the most dangerous unit to be working for. He had believed that men like Minelli wouldn't be willing to expose the fairer sex to that much danger. Two misconceptions in one day, he mused, he must be losing his touch.

Jane couldn't help but grin as she approached him again, with a weedy, balding man behind her. This was obviously the Richard Hotchkiss that Virgil Minelli told him that he would be working for, previously. He seemed disconcerted, nervous and he had a feeling that it wasn't due to himself and more the feisty little thing next to him. After he introduced himself with a firm handshake, he was certain of it. The man kept observing Agent Lisbon nervously, even while he introduced the rest of the team, a bookworm named Agent Cho, and the muscle, apparently an arson specialist called Rigsby.

"You're nervous around women, you're scared that they're always hiding something," Jane suddenly announced. "I wouldn't worry too much, Agent Lisbon here is like an open book. She likes simple pleasures like a good movie with a bottle of soda, spending time with her dog and running in the rain."

Lisbon gaped at the psychic. The civilian had just told her boss more about her personal life in a sentence than she had in the two years she had worked underneath him. Hotchkiss' hand rubbed the back of his head nervously, not quite sure what to make of Jane's revelation. He did intervene when it looked like his new consultant was on a roll and dragged him into his office to brief him on what his role would exactly entail. Lisbon simply rolled her eyes and flopped back down in her seat in front of her desk.

"That man!" she growled.

"Jane or Hotchkiss?" Rigsby inquired.

"Both. Hotchkiss needs to learn I won't bite. For God's sake, we've worked together for two years now. And as for Jane…"

"You find him creepy," Cho finished. "Is it true, what he said? That you like movies, dogs and running in the rain?"

She nodded, there was no point denying it. It wasn't as if it was terribly revealing. Most people knew little things about their work colleagues like that, so she knew she was overreacting slightly at the fact he had just spouted off all that in front of them. It was just that she was a private person, she didn't want everyone knowing inane facts from her favorite color to what time she went to bed at night, unless they absolutely had to. Lisbon picked up the case file and buried her nose in it, hoping that getting up to date with their current case would help distract and ease her mind again. She just comforted herself with the fact that this Patrick Jane was only working on a part-time contract.

"Lisbon, I'd like you and Jane to go to the Sandler place and question the victim's wife again," Hotchkiss announced. "I think Jane could be useful there, he might be able to do a psychic reading on her."

Lisbon sighed heavily and both Rigsby and Cho shot her sympathetic glances. Despite the fact that they only discussed it briefly, they knew just how much Patrick Jane had rattled her. What she needed was to have a quiet afternoon in the office, not to be goaded by a man who she obviously disliked already.

"Yes, boss, I'll just grab my jacket and we'll be off," Lisbon replied, before turning to face Jane. "Now look here, you. No funny business, no winding up suspects or victims. We just do our job and then we get the hell out of there. Got it?"

"Of course," he grinned. As she stalked off to fetch her jacket he called after her. "Hey Agent Lisbon, you know what they say about short people? Explosive. I bet you're a demon in…"

"Enough!" she snapped, cheeks flaring a bright red. This was going to be a long day.

TBC...