For weeks, Jane was a demon to work with- quick to anger, deadly in his cutting remarks, barely interested in helping to solve cases. Kristina was still in the wind, and Missing Persons had no hot leads. Every anonymous tip led to a dead end.
Lisbon, for her part, worked their cases as hard as she could, did her best to whip Jane into line enough for him to be useful, and left every night later and later, until she was virtually living in her paperwork-strewn office. Going home to shower and eat was becoming a luxury.
Just as she knew Jane was withholding information from her about his encounter with Red John, she was keeping her constant involvement in the investigation of Kristina Frye's disappearance from him. He didn't need to know the lengths she was driving herself to in the search for his... girlfriend? Lover? Lisbon shook her head. His friend. She had no idea what to label the woman as, so she settled for 'friend.' And if Missing Persons was annoyed that an SCU agent was horning in on their case, they swallowed down their feelings pretty well, because Lisbon always had a seat at their meetings.
Nobody ever had the stones to ask her why she was so fixed on finding a woman she barely knew, even if they all privately wondered if it was for Jane. CBI employees had become quite good at ignoring her determination and its causes, a sentiment reinforced by the brief conversation Hightower had with them. Lisbon was to be allowed full access to whatever she needed. No questions, no stonewalling, no turf wars.
Lisbon wasn't an idiot. She knew Hightower was smoothing the way for her, knew that she was being used, but she was okay with it. Hightower wanted Jane at full power to close cases. She wanted, even more, the prestige of catching Red John. That kind of thing was several steps above 'career maker.' If they busted Red John, Madeleine Hightower would have her pick of jobs in the CBI- possibly even the Attorney General's office or the Department of Justice.
Lisbon had smaller ambitions. Less murders. Less shattered families. Closure for Jane. Still, their end goals were the same, and so she danced to Hightower's tune and harassed Missing Persons and ran herself to the edge of exhaustion chasing down a never-ending trail of leads.
She and Jane never discussed her increasingly gaunt frame or the dark smudges in the hollows below her eyes, just as they never discussed the fact that he would periodically wander into her office, whether she was there or not, and collapse into fitful sleep on her tacky maroon velveteen couch. And no one ever, ever talked about the ghosts that now outnumbered the people in the SCU bullpen.
Van Pelt thought Kristina was dead. Rigsby thought Red John had her stashed somewhere to taunt Jane with at some future date. Cho thought Kristina was Red John, or at least one of his little minions.
Lisbon settled for acknowledging Red John's fetish for all things red, unconsciously touching a finger to the bouquet of red and white tulips on her desk. From an anonymous admirer (though she secretly suspected that analyst from Cyber Crimes, Mike, who'd asked her out yesterday), with only a brief bit of poetry typed on a little florist's card. How he'd known she'd liked poetry was beyond her, but she'd always admired The Nurse's Song- it reminded her of her family before everything went to hell in a handbasket.
When the voices of children are heard on the green
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast
And every thing else is still
Then come home my children, the sun is gone down
And the dews of night arise
Come come leave off play, and let us away
Till the morning appears in the skies
No no let us play, for it is yet day
And we cannot go to sleep
Besides in the sky, the little birds fly
And the hills are all cover'd with sheep
Well well go & play till the light fades away
And then go home to bed
The little ones leaped & shouted & laugh'd
And all the hills ecchoed
Van Pelt was never allowed out in the field alone or with just Jane again. If she had a redheaded agent and a psychopath with an axe to grind with one of her people, then she was going to take every precaution. She thanked her lucky stars that Van Pelt accepted her authority without question, used to Lisbon issuing orders without explanation. If only she could be so lucky with Jane, the observant bastard.
"You can't protect her from everything, Lisbon," Jane said by way of greeting one sunny morning as Van Pelt made coffee. "He's proven that he can get into CBI without a problem, and she's got to go home at night." His eyes looked tired, and old. "Red John's smarter than all of us. If he wants her, he'll take her."
Lisbon rubbed at grainy, exhausted eyes. "So what? You want me to serve her up on a silver platter? Tie her to a stake like your proverbial goat?" She scowled. "Not a chance, Jane."
He shrugged eloquently. "You can't control everything, and you can't protect everyone. He's proven that time and again. He's not just out to kill me, he wants to destroy me. Remove everything close to me, everything that matters to me. Only then will he try to kill me. I'm the king on the board. I don't get to do much of anything except try to avoid hearing, 'Checkmate.'"
Lisbon sighed heavily, shaking her head. It was barely ten o'clock in the morning and she felt half-dead already. "No chess metaphors, Jane. I'm too tired for that crap right now. If you think he's saving you for last, then why did Hardy say that Red John was going to capture you and keep you at Sparrow's Point? That was months and months ago."
The look he gave her bordered fleetingly on hatred, and Lisbon knew that some dark corner of his soul held her responsible for losing Hardy to death. She accepted it, because she agreed. If she'd being doing her job properly, had been alert like she was supposed to be, then Jane never would have had to kill their only lead.
"Because I presented a convenient target, Lisbon." His eyes lost some of their burning blue heat. "Same reason Hardy thought Red John would kill you, too. You were there, therefore you were a candidate." Wiping a hand over his face, Jane closed his eyes. "Every woman I know is in danger from him."
She wanted to push back from her desk, get up, and shake some sense into him, but she was tired, too tired for this today. The thought of a serial killer with her picture as a target was too ludicrous to consider, and a cop couldn't afford to spend her life in fear of what some crazy killer said he was going to do. If that was the case, she'd have quit and fled to a mountain cabin in Vermont years ago. "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he took Kristina because of that interview. Maybe it wasn't some labyrinthine plot to get to you."
Incredulity lent life to Jane's eyes. "You don't believe that, Lisbon. You can't possibly be that stupid, or that naïve."
A sharp bark of laughter tore out of her throat. "I haven't been naïve since I was twelve years old, Jane. I just don't think the world revolves around you. You've got enough arrogance for the both of us."
"Oh, I've got enough arrogance?" Now his eyes were alive, simmering with annoyance and intelligence. "That's a bit rich, Lisbon."
Her eyebrows rose into her hairline. "Don't you dare call me arrogant, Jane. I've swallowed my pride so many times it might as well be my favorite dish."
He lowered himself onto her couch, stretching out in his customary position despite the razor-fine tension filling the small room. "Thinking you can deny your body's need for sleep and sustenance out of pure stubbornness is just as arrogant as anything I do. I try to master other people's motivations. You try to master yourself. Different target, different methods, same goal."
While she couldn't argue with that logic, she could be irate over his ungratefulness. And Lisbon enjoyed anger, because anger was a fuel she was used to running on. It could be channeled, and stored, and used when everything else was gone. "Oh, big surprise. Mr. Observant has noticed that I'm not getting a full eight hours of sleep. Big deal. I'm a cop. It's part of the job description." Sarcasm and annoyance dripped from each word like a faucet with too much pressure behind it for the valves to hold. "What else, Jane? Is my daily water consumption below acceptable levels? Have I been missing a serving or two of vegetables? Not spent sufficient time in the sun to synthesize Vitamin D?"
Jane smiled. "All it takes is fifteen minutes, Lisbon. You get plenty of time outside. Actually, with your skin tone, you're more at risk of developing skin cancer than a Vitamin D deficiency."
"I know that," she snapped back before scrubbing at her face. "Look," Lisbon sighed, shoving the anger back down from the surface, "I've got a ton of paperwork to do. If you're here for a nap, go ahead. But I just don't have the patience to be your verbal punching bag today, Jane. If you're looking for a fight, go pick on someone else, just for today, okay?" It was the closest she'd get to pleading with him.
Lips compressed to bite back the words that kept wanting to gush out of his mouth, Jane nodded and closed his eyes. He couldn't sleep, but he could think.
Red John had a list, because he enjoyed order, symmetry. It was a proverbial list, because he was always vigilant and never lackadaisical in his preparations, and leaving written evidence was the height of poor groundwork. It paid to be vigilant, and prepared, armed with the knowledge of your adversaries, their allies, and their motivations.
He enjoyed chess, the cerebral battle of it. You did not have to be brawny, or fast, or hopped up on elevated levels of testosterone to excel at it. You had to be wily, and patient, and disciplined enough to execute an endgame. Sacrifice for a result. It was a guiding principle in his life. Losing pawns or bishops or rooks or knights did not phase him, and he actually rather enjoyed the challenge of playing without a queen. It required even more discipline, even higher levels of cunning.
And he had found himself a worthy opponent, quite by chance. Red John did not believe in fate, or destiny, but he believed in the symmetry of chance that enlightening a false prophet had gifted him with. Patrick Jane had set an interesting board for him, and both men had lost pieces.
But he did not mind his lost bishop, who had been distracted by his caged whore. He did not mind his sacrificed rook, who had walked straight forward one day, gun clenched righteously in her manicured hand, nor did he mind the feckless and reckless knight that thought he could jump away from him so easily. That one had been forfeited with glee. The pawns he did not bother to tally. Pawns were cannon fodder, nothing more. Obstacles to set for your opponent to maneuver around, chances to observe behavior and tactics and motivation. Opportunities, wrapped up in disposable little packages.
He studied his captured knight, her face sticky with tears and fear. It radiated from her pores in a fragrant perfume that he never tired of, even all these weeks later. He would have to leave soon, attend to business elsewhere. Another segment of his board needed setting, and Red John observed the stores he'd provided. Boxes of cereal and pallets of water bottles would sustain her long enough. If not... He paused thoughtfully. There were always other pieces he could acquire.
The last thing he did before leaving was look at the little magnetic travel chessboard he had found in the children's section of the store. Red John smiled at the kings, anticipating the end of this game with a gleeful shiver. He gently removed the black queen- unnecessary for his victory- and eyed her counterpart.
There was an interesting crossroads. He had had opportunity to remove the white queen, but chosen in the defining moment to leave her on the board. Let his opponent think he had him pinned down. Let him think he was protected by his determined, fiercely protective queen.
There were many, many permutations that could lead to a victorious match, but he decided, in that precise moment, that he wanted to topple the white queen at the last, knock her from the board as his opponent realized in horror that he was in checkmate within two moves.
Red John smiled as Kristina Frye whimpered in her earthen cell and delicately returned the small chess set to his pocket. Time to move. He swallowed down the pulse of anticipation, ruthlessly caged it for later release. Perhaps on his way to his destination he would make a stop, though it would have to be nothing more than a brief chance for a bit of sightseeing.
He had the sudden urge to catch a glimpse of Miss Lisbon.
A/N: Clearly the poem on the florist's card is The Nurse's Song, by William Blake. It's part of the larger collection Songs of Innocence and Experience, which also contains... you guessed it... The Tyger (the poem Red John quotes at the close of the episode).