Title: The Death of Me
Characters: Lisbon, Red John, Jane
Warnings/Spoilers: Set s2-s3ish, probably no major spoilers. Major Character Death.
A/N: This is my first foray into the Mentalist fandom, having recently fallen madly in love with the show. Apologies for writing a very dark first fic - I tend to hurt the things I love. Thanks to my good friend Faye Dartmouth for beta-ing my messy writing - remaining typos and nonsense are my own fault. Thank you for reading!
Summary: Red John is an artist, and the people he changes and shapes are his work; but who will be his masterpiece? (character death)
-o-
"Alright people," Lisbon announced, walking into the office. "Case closed. Now let's get cracking on those reports."
"The pizza's on its way!" Rigsby said, leaning back with a grin.
"Good. Try not to get grease on your paperwork this time, okay?" Lisbon crossed over to her desk, setting down a heavy manilla folder and dropping into her chair with a sigh.
"Hey, loosen up, Lisbon," Jane remarked from the couch with one of his infuriatingly charming grins. "We caught the bad guy. Take a moment to celebrate that. Be happy."
She raised an eyebrow. "We did our jobs."
"And brought closure to the victim's families," Cho remarked passively from his desk.
"And made the world a bit safer," Van Pelt contributed with a shy smile.
"And we get pizza now," Rigsby added with boyish excitement.
"See? Reasons to be happy!" Jane said. "Stopping bad guys, getting closure, making the world safer, pizza."
"I'll be happy when the paperwork is done, provided Hightower doesn't rip us all a new one for that stunt you pulled at the wife's house," Lisbon remarked dryly, opening the folder and beginning to sort through it.
"Aw, come on. We closed the case; how mad can she be?" Jane rolled over and put his chin on the armrest of the couch, smiling impishly at her.
"You convinced a woman that she'd murdered her husband in her sleep. She fainted. We had to call an ambulance," Lisbon reminded him, feeling her blood pressure rise at the mere memory of it.
"Ah. She was fine," Jane interjected with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Fine-ish. And Hightower will be fine too."
"You say that."
"And I'm always right."
"As if."
"You love me and you know it."
Lisbon rolled her eyes. "You'll be the death of me," she snapped back. "Now how about you make yourself useful until the pizza gets here?"
Jane smirked and stood, stretching. "What, solving the case wasn't useful enough?" he said, earning a dark glower from Lisbon. Her retort, however, was cut short when Jane reached into his pocket for his cell-phone, pulling it out and flipping it open. "Hang on, I gotta take this," he said, ducking out of the bullpen and giving Lisbon a few moments of quiet in which to start her paperwork, shaking her head as she did so.
-o-
Lisbon frowned at one of the evidence documentation forms, which cited a ring she seemed to remember Jane playing with, and which according to the sign-out, never made it back into the evidence locker. "Jane? Can you come here a minute?" she called, setting the form aside and making a small note. A few seconds later, and no Jane. She frowned, looking up and standing slightly, craning her neck to see if he was lying on the couch, or behind the others as they chowed down on the freshly-arrived pizza. "Jane?"
Cho looked around, then gave her a shrug. "He's not here, boss."
"Yeah, he took off right before the pizza showed up. Said he wasn't hungry," Rigsby elaborated around a mouthful of extra-cheesy.
Lisbon put the form down with a sigh. She stood up and crossed over to the table with the pizzas, because unlike Jane, she was hungry.
And that's when she saw the note.
A simple folded piece of paper, lying in the indentation Jane's body had left in the couch cushions. When she reached down to pick it up, her fingers brushed the leather, still warm from his body heat. She frowned, unfolding the note, then felt the bottom of her stomach drop as she read.
Mr. Jane,
I'll be at your family home tonight, in anticipation of a rendezvous.
I trust you will not keep me waiting.
The note wasn't signed, except for a chillingly familiar smiley face drawn in red ink.
No, not ink, she realized, her appetite gone and replaced now with a rising sense of nausea. Not ink at all.
Red John left his mark in blood. And now he'd sent Jane a personalized invitation, and goddamn Patrick Jane would naturally go off half-cocked without backup because it was goddamn Red John.
"How long ago did he leave?" she snapped, stuffing the note into her pocket without thinking and reaching for her coat.
"Huh?" Rigsby had just taken another bite and looked at her in confusion.
"Jane! How long ago did he leave?" she demanded.
"Um, about five minutes ago," Van Pelt offered, brow furrowed. "Is everything okay?"
Lisbon didn't wait to answer, taking off at a run down the hallway toward the parking lot. Patrick Jane wasn't going to get himself killed, however he might try, if she had anything to say about it...
-o-
Theresa Lisbon was usually a cautious driver. She looked both ways, even at green lights, and didn't exceed the speed limit. But now, she was bearing uncharacteristically hard on the gas pedal, ignoring the speedometer as she raced down the highway toward Jane's old house.
Red John's note said he'd meet Jane at his family home. The house where Jane's wife and daughter had died. The house where Jane would be walking into a showdown - into a trap -- if Lisbon didn't get to him first.
Now was not the time for cautious driving.
Eyes on the road, she fumbled blindly in her purse until she found her phone, lifting it to her face and hitting the speed-dial.
"This is Patrick Jane, leave a message."
She cursed as the call went directly to voicemail, then hit another button and waited for the ring.
"Agent Kimball Cho."
"Cho, it's Lisbon," she said.
"Everything okay, boss?" Cho asked, voice level and calm as ever.
"Jane's going after Red John. He sent him a message, I think he's setting some kind of trap at Jane's house. I need you to assemble a backup team, stat," she said, heart racing even as she tried to speak slowly and clearly. Mentally, she cursed herself for not calling from the parking lot - at the time she'd seen the note, her only thoughts had been of catching up to Jane. She'd been so focused, so single-minded, that she'd neglected to clue in her team from the start. Now she and Jane both had a significant head start on whatever backup Cho would cobble together this time of night.
"I'll have Van Pelt work on getting a hold of the local PD. Rigsby and I are on our way," Cho confirmed.
"Thanks," she replied, swallowing as she hung up. She tried to focus on the road and not to let her mind wander to the gruesome memories of Red John's victims, and the equally gruesome fantasies her imagination seemed to determined to concoct of what might happen if she didn't get there in time to save Patrick Jane from Red John and himself.
"You'll be the death of me, Patrick Jane," she murmured beneath her breath, bearing down harder on the gas as she sped through the night...
-o-
Patrick Jane's seaside home was huge and empty. There were no police cars from local PD on scene yet, and it wasn't until Lisbon got out of her car and made it halfway to the door that she realized Jane's blue Citroen wasn't in the driveway either. She took a breath. Had she passed him on the highway, somehow? Jane always drove too fast, and he wouldn't make any pit-stops if he was on his way to facing Red John, so it seemed unlikely. She swallowed her unease, reasoning that Jane's car might be parked elsewhere, or, if she'd truly beaten him here, then she had a chance to keep him out of trouble.
Keep him away from Red John.
She pulled her gun out of its holster as she approached the door, its weight reassuring in her palm. The first time she'd handled a gun at the Academy, she'd been moderately terrified of it. But now, Lisbon knew of a lot of things that were scarier than guns. Her sidearm was her only protection when the badge wasn't enough of a deterrent.
And really, it wasn't much protection at all, walking alone into a large, empty house potentially containing a serial killer. Part of her mind screamed at her to get back in the car and wait for backup; it was the sane thing to do.
But another part of her cried insistently that Jane could already be in there; could already be facing off with Red John; could already be...
She didn't let herself finish that thought. She hadn't broken the speed limit the whole way here from Sacramento just to wait in the car. Finger on the safety, she reached for the door –
– It was unlocked. Pulse hammering, she took a deep breath and stepped into the front hall. The space was open, and she was sure that in the daytime, the corridor would be full of light, spilling in from the large windows and open glass that formed the back wall. But at night, the spacious gloom contained far too many shadows, pooling inky black between shafts of moonlight, and far too many places an assailant could hide.
Systematically, she moved around, clearing the foyer, then the kitchen, moving through the house with a soundless tread she'd perfected over the years. She wasn't big and powerful like Rigsby, but she was small and agile and stealthy. She crossed from room to room, gun raised, and found nothing. The house was empty; almost abandoned. There was no furniture, no sign that anyone lived here at all, except for a heap of unopened mail and papers on the table by the front door, an abandoned tricycle, coated in dust, and scattered cups of cold and forgotten tea. And more importantly, there was no Red John. And no Jane.
Then, she came to the stairwell.
Her eyes traced up the steps. Jane's family had been murdered in the master bedroom, she remembered from the case file. She swallowed hard, wondering if he'd felt this nervous as he'd climbed up these steps that night. If he'd known then...
She climbed the stairs carefully, keeping close to the bannister where the wood was less likely to creak. Not that she would have heard it over the rush of blood in her ears. Something about the silence, the stillness, had her nerves screaming danger, despite any sign to the contrary. In the upstairs hall, there were several doors set along the wall, where voids against the paint outlined where family pictures had once hung, now removed. She found her eye drawn, however, to the one door at the bottom of the hall, where light leaked out beneath the doorjamb.
The master bedroom.
She felt a sense of dread as she approached the door, watching the golden crack of light that pooled beneath it. The metal of the gun was warm and slick in her sweating palms. She kept it raised, holding it in her right hand as she reached forward with the left to turn the knob, opening it to reveal the bloody smile on the wall, illuminated by a golden spotlight.
For a second, her heart stopped.
Jane.
But after the initial shock that ran down her spine like electricity, she looked, actually looked at the gruesome signature. The blood was old. Faded. The face had been there for a while. Years, she realized, stomach twisting as the implications set it. The face on the wall had been painted with Jane's family's blood, and he'd slept on the rumpled mattress below it, all this time...
It was no wonder he was obsessed with revenge.
But in that moment of insight, the clarity with which she saw Patrick Jane blinded her to her surroundings. Because the blood wasn't Jane's, but the display with the light couldn't have been either. And when an arm grabbed her from behind, pressing a sharp blade against her throat, Lisbon had no chance to move, no chance to react –
"Drop the gun, Theresa," a male voice murmured in her ear, the 's' in her name a sibilant hiss.
She took a small breath, and now her heart was practically leaping into her mouth. Stupid! She ought to have waited for backup. She ought to have taken Cho with her instead of calling from the car. She ought...
Her train of thought was derailed as the blade – a knife? boxcutter? She couldn't tell, though her detective's mind was still seeking to puzzle it out – pressed closer, splitting the skin. "Ok," she breathed, loosening her grip and letting the gun fall to the floor with a clatter.
"Good girl," Red John said, breath hot against her scalp. "Now kick it across the room."
She obeyed, reaching out with a foot and sending the weapon skittering into the shadows.
"Very good. Thank you, Theresa. I'm so glad you got my invitation," he continued, casually, pressing close against her. She shuddered with revulsion. "We're going to have fun."
-o-
There was a paralyzing horror to it all.
She thought about fighting back. She thought about lunging to the side and trying to grab the knife. She thought about jamming her elbow back into Red John's solar plexus. She thought about pinning the monster down and raining her fists down on him until he stopped moving.
But without her gun and with a razor sharp edge pressed against her carotid, she couldn't afford to do those things. She would die, and then it wouldn't be old blood staining the walls, but fresh, bright red and still wet, warm to the touch. And, she reminded herself, she'd called for backup. Cho would be here soon. Jane –
– Where was Jane? She thought numbly on that point as Red John guided her into a wooden chair, the knife still hovering near as he tied her wrists behind her. She could feel a hot droplet of blood beading at the tiny cut on her throat, welling until it broke free of the cut and tumbled in a slow, rolling trickle down her neck toward her collarbone.
"What have you done with Jane?" she asked, tongue heavy in her mouth. She almost dreaded knowing the answer.
"Apart from shattering him and leaving him a hollow shell of a man some several years ago?" Red John mused, tone almost conversational. "Nothing. Yet."
She blinked, trying to process... Her mind felt sluggish, clouded. Like her thoughts had closed down in response to the panic, to shield her from the terror inherent in the situation she'd found herself in. "The note... you lured him..."
Red John chuckled lowly. "Oh Theresa. You're smarter than that, even without Patrick doing all your team's thinking for you," he purred. He was still behind her, and she couldn't see his face. He had a voice like rotting velvet.
The note. It had been a lure. A trap. For Jane. Or so she'd thought...
"You planted the note for me to find," she said numbly. "Jane never saw it." Jane had been on the phone... had that been another diversion? One of Red John's accomplices? He'd left, Rigsby said, before the pizza had arrived... The pizza. The pizza guy must have been in on it, planting the note on Jane's spot after he'd left and before Lisbon had gotten up from her desk. Everyone would have been focused on the food and not the delivery man.
The noted had been a lure, a trap - for her. And she'd walked right into it, blinded by her worry for Jane.
You'll be the death of me.
"Why me? As bait?" she frowned, some of the fog parting from her mind as she latched on to the puzzle of it all. "He doesn't know I'm here."
"No, but it will make for a lovely surprise, won't it?" Red John said, leaning down and speaking softly into her ear. She could feel his stubble against her earlobe, and suppressed a shudder.
A surprise. A bloody smile on the wall. A body, left for him to find.
"If you're going to kill me, just get it over with already," she hissed, wishing she felt as brave as her words.
He laughed, stepping back from her with a rustle of fabric. "Oh, Theresa, you are fun. I can see why he likes you so much."
She tested the tape tying her hands together. It was thick, but the chair was old and rickety and one of the spars in the back had a splinter in it. She could work with that. She just needed to stay alive long enough to free herself, or until back-up came. "I'm still a little fuzzy on the plan here," she said, fighting to keep her voice from shaking. "You leave a show in your wake - lights, the face, the bodies. You don't stick around for theatrical showdowns. This isn't your MO."
He didn't answer. Lisbon swallowed, breathing deeply. "What is it about Jane? You've killed dozens of people, left dozens more surviving, grieving families... why is he special?"
"You've come to the crux of it there, haven't you?" he finally remarked, his voice thoughtful. "What is it that makes Patrick Jane special?" He paused for a moment, and Lisbon feared briefly that he wouldn't continue. But then he resumed, buying her precious moments as the conversation endured. "Nothing, anymore. Originally, it was an interesting experiment. I didn't just take the lives of those I killed. The effect radiated outward. So many other lives, intertwined and interconnected... so malleable. So fragile."
She'd slid the tape over the splinter, and had begun to shift her wrists back and forth, slowly rubbing the tape against the broken wood of the chair as she listened.
"I realized I could transform people. Destroy them. Create them. The man Patrick Jane was when I killed his family was an arrogant, despicable worm."
She was fairly sure she'd made a small cut into the tape. It was slow going, though... maybe too slow, though she had few other options.
"But I changed him. I altered him; improved him. Turned him into a different man. A better man. I became a craftsman and death my tools; Patrick Jane was, I believed, my masterpiece..." He crossed in front of her, and though he still faced away from her, it was the first good look she'd got of him. An inch or two over average height. Average build. Black clothing; short-cropped dark hair, caucasian.
Then he turned. She half-expected to recognize him; to see a face they'd run across in reports before - a familiar countenance that would bring with it some heart-stopping revelation. But it didn't. Red John was an utter stranger, his face average and unremarkable and unknown to her.
"Of course, I later realized, that no artist creates his magnum opus on the first try." He smiled, and it was actually an attractive smile - or would have been, if there hadn't been something so deeply predatory in it. Jane had an impish smile; Red John's was wolfish. "So to answer your question; there's nothing all that special about Patrick Jane at all. Nothing beyond sentimental value, at any rate."
She needed him to keep talking. She'd worked through almost half the tape. She needed time; just a little bit more tape to go... "Then why all this? Why target him?"
He smirked, crossing over to her. The knife gleamed in his hand and for a horrible second she feared he was going to kill her then and there, but then he pulled the roll of tape back out and used the knife to cut a piece, which he placed over her mouth with a sickening caress. "I do not approve of sentiment. And I believe it's time for my masterpiece."
From outside, there was a low rumble of an engine, which fell silent. Silently, she prayed for it to be Cho; for the entire CBI to be here with a SWAT team.
Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket, out of reach. She thought of her car, parked out in the driveway. It had to be a warning sign, didn't it? Please don't let it be Jane...
The phone fell quiet after the fourth vibration. From below, she heard the sound of the front door opening. Then: "Lisbon?"
Jane's voice. She squeezed her eyes shut and choked on a sob.
"Right on time," Red John murmured, killing the light and plunging the room into darkness. "Theresa, my dear, I would advise remaining silent if you don't wish for me to open your throat up."
She could hear his footsteps, coming up the stairs. "Lisbon, are you here?" he called, voice tinged with concern.
Run away, she thought. Prayed. Run away, you idiot. Don't come through that door again.
But slowly, the footsteps approached. In the pitch black, she was barely aware of Red John moving across the room, walking toward the door. Her breath hitched in her throat as she fought not to realize the implications. Working her jaw back and forth, she tried to pull the tape-gag free, turning her head and rubbing it against her shoulder. The adhesive was coming loose against the sweat of her face. The tape holding her hands together was almost worn through. Almost...
The hall light came on, the amber glow outlining the door. No, no no no...
Then, the door swung open. Jane's curls formed an almost angelic halo, silhouetted against the hall light, and his blue eyes widened in horror. "Lisbon?"
She tried to scream a warning, but the tape clung to her lips muffling her cry. Blindly, Jane stepped forward, rushing to help her as he crossed the threshold –
– And in that moment Red John stepped behind him, wrapping one arm across his chest as the other drew the knife in one quick motion across Patrick Jane's throat.
-o-
There was a moment suspended in time. Jane never looked away from Lisbon's eyes, and she watched as his expression flickered from one of surprise, to pain, to fear, to unbearable sadness.
She couldn't breathe.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then, a thin red line appeared across the front of Jane's neck. The line widened, growing, until it became a curtain, spilling in a red wash down his front, soaking the fabric of his shirt a deep and glistening crimson. Red John pulled his arm away from Jane's chest, and without the support the consultant folded at the knees and fell bonelessly to the ground.
The moment passed, and the tape finally fell free from Lisbon's lips.
"Jane!" she screamed, and his name ripped free from somewhere deep in her chest, raw and anguished.
This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. It was all some twisted and horrible nightmare.
Red John laughed, reaching down to dip his fingers in the growing pool of blood around Jane. Wetting them, he stepped over the motionless body, crossing to the wall where he traced over his earlier work with gleeful, ghoulish enthusiasm.
She would wake up. She would wake up and find she'd fallen asleep at her desk. Jane would be dozing on the couch, and Risby would have finished off the the pizza while Van Pelt chided him for not offering anyone else the last slice. She would wake up and Red John wouldn't be here and she wouldn't be helpless and Jane wouldn't be...
Dead.
"You killed him," she whispered, and her own voice sounded far away, muted.
"Patrick Jane was just a prologue," Red John remarked. "The opening act."
"Why?" she heard herself ask, hoarsely. She was trembling now, though with fear or grief or rage, she wasn't sure.
"You haven't been listening, Theresa," he admonished with a cluck of his tongue. "Patrick Jane was a vile charlatan; I made him into a better man. But that pesky fixation with vengeance of his dampened the effect. You, however..." he laughed, and the sound made her want to retch. He crossed over to her, gently brushing her hair, and the overpowering stench of blood flooded her senses. "'Saint Theresa' - wasn't that a nickname of yours? You're already a good woman. But I can make you so much worse." He stepped back in front of her and smiled fondly down. "Are you ready to be my masterpiece, Theresa?"
This wasn't happening. She was going to be sick. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed through her nose, but when when she opened them, the scene was there and Red John was looking at her dead on.
"All those pretty little principles of yours, Saint Theresa," he murmured, his fingers tacky with Jane's blood as he ran them tenderly down her cheek. "Let them melt away. Tell me..." He smiled that wolfish smile again, but there was nothing handsome in it now. "Tell me about how you want to kill me. Tell me about all the horrible, twisted things you'll let yourself do."
"Go to hell," she muttered, flinching away from his touch. But in her mind, she was playing through it already; the ways in which she'd make Red John suffer; how she'd pin him to the ground and rain her fists down until there was only pulp and shattered bone where that horrible smile had been; how she'd make him bleed, red, bright, fresh blood, flowing crimson and smelling of copper, slick and warm...
She wanted to. God help her, she wanted to kill him, and tell him every word.
"Come now," he chided, using the same tone one might employ with a petulant child. "Let me shape you, Theresa. Let me change you."
She drew a ragged, shaky breath, meeting his gaze and wishing she could kill him with her eyes alone. Behind her back, her hands were nearly free. Nearly unleashed...
"Good," he whispered, eyes gleaming feverishly. "Let me recreate you, Theresa. Tell me..."
She wanted to kill him. She wanted to tell him. But he wanted it too, a small part of her mind, unclouded by blood frenzy reminded her. He wants this.
Then the words came.
"Red John," she said quietly, her voice quavering as she fought for control. "You are hereby under arrest for the murder of Patrick Jane -"
He recoiled with a snarl, his face twisting in anger. "That's not what you're supposed to say!"
"- Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law," she continued, thankful that the litany had been etched into her brain, or she doubted she'd have remembered it.
"You're in no position-" he hissed, eyes wide and filled with rage, the mask of the eloquent, sadistic mastermind falling away to reveal the inhuman madman beneath.
"You have the right to an attorney," she continued, heart hammering against her chest. "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you..."
"No!" He screamed, the calm composure gone, replaced by pure, rapid fury. "Stop it! You're supposed to change! I've broken you!" he railed, and then the knife was back in his grip and glinting menacingly.
Lisbon felt her breath catch and her words stutter. She'd fought back. But as she'd reflected earlier, when he'd first taken her when she walked through the door, fighting back would only get her killed.
"You're a failure!" Red John raged, and any semblance of sanity was gone. "A worthless waste!" he cried, voice cracking and making the last word a shriek. He raised the knife, still shining with blood, and Lisbon braced herself for what came next.
Then, a shot rang out, deafeningly loud in the empty house. Red John staggered back, staring in surprise at the hole along his ribs.
Another shot, and this time Red John's head jerked aside as the far end of his skull erupted in a spray of blood and gore. He hit the floor half a heartbeat later, eyes still open in anger and shock.
Lisbon stared for a moment, then tore her gaze away from the body and looked up at the door; she expected to see Rigsby or Cho, but the hall was empty. A sound to her right, however, made her turn her head-
Jane made a small, wet, strangled noise as he kept the gun - her gun, that he must have crawled toward - levelled toward Red John. He lay on his stomach and his face was pale, complexion gray beneath all the blood.
"Jane!" she said, and with a final tug, ripped through the tape, pulling her hands free and stumbling over to him. "Oh my God, Jane..."
She fell to her knees beside him, stunned. There was so much blood...
Jane made another gurgling sound, then let the gun fall, and slumped back down weakly into the floorboards.
"Jane? Jane, stay with me, come on..." Her heart fluttered with hope and horror alike as she rolled him over onto his back and tried not to look at the grisly gash in his neck, where blood bubbled and welled as he wheezed wetly for breath. The blood drenched everything; his shirt and vest were both soaked with it and she could feel it seeping into her own clothes as she knelt in it, trying to pull Jane's head and shoulders into her lap. "Just stay with me..."
He blinked lazily, then managed to look up at her, brow furrowing faintly. He opened his mouth, but the sound that came out was garbled and accompanied by flecks of blood. She winced, pressing a hand instinctively toward his neck to stem the bleeding. His windpipe was clearly slashed, but the knife must have failed to sever the carotid. "Hush. Don't try to talk. Help's on the way."
He grimaced, lifting a hand and pressing it down over hers, then mouthed the word soundlessly: "Red John?"
She nodded, eyes burning. "You got him. He's dead."
At that, Jane smiled. "Good," he mouthed, some of the tension easing from his features. The hand that pressed hers to his throat loosened and relaxed. "Got... the bad guy..." he mouthed, eyelids drooping.
In her mind, she could almost hear him back in the bullpen; "Stopping bad guys, getting closure, making the world safer..."
Lisbon choked on a sob, her vision blurring as fresh tears threatened to blind her. "Reasons to be happy," she murmured, echoing Jane's sentiment from earlier that night. Only there was no happiness in this; not for her.
Patrick Jane smiled, his blue eyes unfocused, as if staring off into the distance. A shiver ran through him, then he stilled, relaxing into limpness in her arms.
"Jane?"
There was no reply. Jane's expression was peaceful; motionless.
"You love me and you know it."
"You'll be the death of me."
Wrenching sobs began to shake her. She hugged him close, no longer caring about the blood, which was beginning to turn dry and sticky. "You got him," she repeated, reassuringly, burying her face in his hair. "You got him."
-o-
She was still holding him when Cho and Rigsby rushed in the door, weapons drawn for the few seconds it took them to realize they were too late. Cho swore and Rigsby looked like he might be sick, staring at the fresh blood on the wall.
All too late.
There were police, and medics, and Lisbon knew at some point she'd have to make a statement, but she couldn't bring herself to let go. It took Rigsby and Cho prying her arms free from Jane's body to get her away from him so the coroner could do his work.
Hours later, she was back at the CBI headquarters, wearing one of Van Pelt's spare shirts in place of her blood-soaked one, which had been bagged as evidence. Numbly, she recounted what happened, staring intently at the tabletop (if she closed her eyes, she could still see all the blood). When Hightower left the room and silence settled in, she could still hear Red John laughing...
And when she lay in her bed that night, she could still see Jane. Jane, pale as a ghost in her arms as his blood welled up between her fingers; Jane, a look of horror on his face as he opened that door for the last time; Jane, laughing on the couch as he teased her in the bullpen...
"You love me and you know it."
"You'll be the death of me."
And as always, Jane had been the one who was right.
-ooo-