So just a little fyi before you read it, this occurs after Jane shoots someone on his team and then sleeps with someone. He goes back to the CBI and goes to Lisbon to check the if the person (who I made Rigsby) is alright.

Oh, I also don't own anything from the Mentalist (do people actually check these stories to see if everyone puts these down?)

Just A Pawn

Peeking his head in, Jane saw Lisbon's head bent down over her desk, examining some sort of document. Stepping inside her office without asking her, he shut the door behind him and waited for her to look up or at least say something.

She didn't.

Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Jane took a big breath and asked, "How's Rigsby?"

"He's fine." Lisbon said right away "He's still breathing and the surgery went fine. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, he can be up walking again."

Sighing with relief, Jane felt the knot of guilt loosen a bit in his stomach to weigh about the same as he normally felt, "That's great."

"Uh huh." Lisbon muttered, her head forever bent down and her eyes glued to the paper. She even dared to make them move side to side as if to fake reading it.

This was not a good sign for Jane however; he needed to see her eyes, her eyes that showed so much. Then he'd know for sure how bad the damage was.

Walking cautiously over to her desk, Jane put his hand on the desk and waited for her to look up. She stubbornly kept her head down and eyes glued to the paper, though they no longer attempted to fake read it.

"Lisbon?" Jane whispered

"What?" She asked; her voice controlled but there was a slight edge to it.

"Can you look up?"

"No."

"Come on, just look up."

"Jane, go away."

"Not until you look up."

"Jane, like I told you, Rigsby's fine. If you don't believe me, ask Van Pelt or Cho."

"I'd rather you look up."

"Well I won't."

"Well, then I'm not leaving."

"Jane, just go."

"Lisbon, just look up."

With an aggravated sigh, Lisbon slowly looked up and their eyes locked and there, that's when Jane saw it. Oh no, Rigsby was fine, no doubt about it. There was much relief in her eyes. But there was something there that Jane hadn't expected to be there.

"You're angry with me?" He asked, as if such a thing never occurred before.

"Angry, no. Of course not." She snapped, taking Jane by surprise.

"Why are you angry with me? I shot Rigsby on accident, and I'm very sorry about it." He told her sincerely.

"Oh, and that makes everything so much better." She said with the equal amount of venom.

"Well you're not giving me much to work with." Jane said stiffly.

"Well, you are the mind reader Jane, figure it out." But as she watched him try to figure it out, she snapped, "Oh my god Jane, you're so stupid! Do you honestly think that you can just waltz in here after shooting Rigsby and we wouldn't be pissed at you? Do you know how close to the heart your bullet was? He could have died! His son could have grown up without a father!"

"And I'm sorry!" Jane shouted back, "You're acting as if I did it on purpose! I thought he was Red John or one of his followers! Do you think I'm proud of what I did?"

"Proud, no, but completely out of controlled!" She screamed back, "You're getting to the point that you'll kill anyone without a second thought if you suspected they're with Red John! Are you proud of that? In the process of killing him, you're becoming just like him Jane! You're becoming a killer!"

"Don't you dare tell me that I'm becoming just like him." Jane hissed coldly his eyes becoming cold, empty, and angry.

"But you are! Look at just this past year alone what you did! You killed a man you thought was Red John, you manipulated Red John to kill Panzer, and you nearly killed Rigsby! Almost three people, Jane! One of which is your team member. It's getting out of hand."

"I can control it." Jane snapped back.

"No, you can't Jane, you can't control anything." Lisbon said, and Jane swore he could see tears start to well up in her eyes.

"What's that suppose to mean?" Jane said as the statement hit him like a ton of bricks.

"Look at the facts Jane. You're always manipulating people to do your biding but then, when the going gets tough, which it usually does, you have always relied on someone else to do the clean up! You're so irresponsible! I mean, even here, you didn't even check to see if Rigsby was alright!"

"Hey, I was worried as hell! I thought I'd killed him!" Jane shouted at Lisbon.

"But you never took action to actually see what the results were, Jane!" Lisbon yelled back, "Instead of going to the hospital like the rest of us, you instead went to some bar, got drunk, and then got laid!"

"How do you know about that?" Jane hissed.

"I've been a investigator for a long time now," Lisbon growled, "I think I may not be in need of your magical insight to be able to connect the dots what you having alcohol on your breath and you smelling like perfume might mean."

Biting his lips for a moment in embarrassment, Jane then jumped in to defend himself, "Fine, okay, maybe that wasn't the best of plans, but that doesn't mean I wasn't worried."

With a scoff Lisbon then said, "You worried? Yeah right, to worry Jane, you need to actually care for someone, which is something you don't for this team because if you did, you would have been in the hospital with the rest of us!" Jane opened his mouth to defend himself once again but Lisbon just cut him off, her temper rising so much that she even stood up to yell at him, "And don't you dare open your mouth to attempt to convince me otherwise. I know what you think of us. We're all just pawns to you! Aren't we Jane? We're just chess pieces in your game against Red John and, as long as you win, you don't care who you have to sacrifice to get it. And honestly, Jane, I'm tired of it."

Momentarily stunned, Jane quickly recovered to ask once again, "What's that suppose to mean?"

But before Lisbon could open her mouth to tell him, the door opened behind them and Cho poked his head in.

"Hey Boss, we've got a new lead." He told her, ignoring Jane.

"Alright, I'll be right there." Lisbon told him.

Cho then nodded his head and shut the door behind him, leaving an hair raising silence between her and Jane to look anywhere but at each other.

"I mean." Lisbon finally said venomously, breaking the silence and causing Jane to look back down at her burning emerald eyes, "that you've no longer got this pawn to play with."

And then she walked past him and into the room, leaving Jane feeling worse then he had when he had woken up this morning.