flame turns blue

by

salvation-dear

Spoilers for 6x08, "Red John".

Author's Note: title is from the David Gray song of the same name.

1) every stone i ever threw

Jane keeps running. Til his knees and back ache, until sweat makes his clothes chafe against his skin, until his lungs burn and his ears ring and his eyes start to tear up. When he swipes a hand beneath first one and then the other eye, his cheeks are soaked. It could be sweat.

He hasn't run like this since he was child, and never then with this kind of purpose: always stopping before he wore himself down. He gets some odd looks on busier streets, but mostly the few people around ignore him. This suits Jane just fine. He wants to be ignored: is looking forward, in fact, to a new life where no-one will look at him or speak to him or expect anything from him. That that sounds more like death than life is not something he's prepared to consider right now. For now, he just wants to run, letting the wind blow across his cold face and feeling his body ache and thinking finally, thankfully, about nothing.

Long before he stops, he has black spots in his vision, then shimmering multicolored mirages. His feet start to hurt and then hurt more and then are excruciatingly painful and then they are numb, and through it all he keeps running. He falls twice, that he remembers – once a graceless slide down gravel that he ends up accepting knees-first and feels the breeze on the skin of his legs when he immediately jumps up afterward, and once over a seam in the path that he didn't even see because his vision was going dark. That time, he stayed down for a long minute, listening to his breath rasp in his ears. Then he got up and started running again. The first few steps were the hardest. They always are.

He doesn't know where he's running. He sees some landmarks again and again, not sure if he's running in circles or running into a dream. It doesn't seem to matter, as long as his mind stays clear and his feet keep moving. For a while, his consciousness seems to leave his body entirely and he floats, floats while his faraway body keeps running as though directed by someone else. He can see from above how terrible he looks – poor broken-down besuited man, running from some demon that can now never catch him.

He comes back to himself in time, though, and then the streets start to look familiar, and he curses himself once his brain catches up. He's not sure he has it in him to turn around, though. He's gone through bone tired and into walking dead. He's been walking dead for years, if he's honest, the only things keeping him going his heartbeat and these labored sucking breaths and Lisbon.

He knows her alarm code, after a moment's thought. 5-8-2-5-9. L-U-C-K-Y. He remembers when she told him the story, remembers her little secretive smile that could have been just because she was telling him a favorite personal story, but wasn't. It was an old joke between her and Sam Bosco, when he'd come by her apartment to give her a ride to work one morning when her lemon of a car wouldn't start. When she'd opened the door, her dog limped out to meet him, waving his tail. The dog had had the limp since before Lisbon found him; had cataracts and skin allergies and he wheezed and had once bitten the UPS guy, who'd threatened to sue. It went without saying that he was Lisbon's kind of dog.

"Answers to Lucky, huh?" Bosco had said, leaning down to pet him.

When she was telling him the story she hadn't provided the details, but Jane knew she'd laughed; probably pushed her hair back behind one ear as she grabbed her keys. Bosco would have watched her with level, thirsty eyes, and tried to pretend he wasn't staring. She wouldn't have even noticed.

Jane wonders if she ever thinks about the fact that there have only ever been two people on the planet who could have guessed her alarm code first try, and that one of them had died with her name on his lips. It's the kind of thing Jane thinks about a lot.

It's cool and too dark in her apartment: Jane hears his breathing, still rough although he'd walked the last few miles. He'd started coughing after another crowd of black spots covered his vision, and when his eyes had cleared he'd seen blood on his hands. He panicked for a moment; scrubbed his hands down his vest repeatedly, hysteria rising in his throat. Then he remembered: he'd coughed into his hands. Raising a finger to his lips, he saw fresh, bright red blood again. It was his own blood: merely his lungs giving out or the beginning of a consumptive illness or some other such minor detail. He almost laughed, then thought about what Lisbon would say if she saw him leaning against a wall at the side of the road, coughing up blood, and he'd started walking.

It smells like her and like clean laundry and, inexplicably, like figs. He is suddenly so homesick for her it hurts. She isn't here. He'd known she wouldn't be, but some tiny, stupid, romantic part of him imagined she would be, worrying about him and furious as a tiny whirlwind.

Her apartment is as quiet as a grave. He wonders about her neighbors, why he's never seen any of them, what kind of security this area has. Lisbon is an arsenal unto herself. He wonders briefly where she keeps her spare weapons, and whether they're loaded, then tamps the thought down firmly. He could figure it out without much effort, even with his brain as muddy and slow as it is. But after everything, he owes her more.

Also, he wants to see her face again. It's unfair to her – this wasn't part of his plan, and if he didn't feel like he was maybe never going to be able to walk again, he'd leave. He'd do the right thing for her and leave her far behind.

Jane's always been good at that in the past. Somewhere along the line it became part of his life goal - along with seeing the light go out of Red John's eyes, whoever Red John might be, and then letting himself rest, for whatever rest might mean after that. Somewhere in that grim tapestry he'd sewn in new words, though - "Save Lisbon", like one of those campaigns he saw advertised on television in between documentaries. He was a one-man Save Lisbon taskforce, and he would let her be hurt if it meant she was alive and well enough to curse his name another day. After everything, he owed her that.

It's turning colder outside, or maybe it's his internal temperature dropping. He does feel like he's sweated out half of his body weight. He thinks about drinking some water but is surprised how nauseated he feels at the thought, and how far away, suddenly, the kitchen faucet seems. Instead, he toes off his shoes and pulls a throw rug off the back of Lisbon's couch and curls up under it, thinking that he'll just sit there for one minute and then he'll figure out what to do.

He blinks at the window, at the evening turning blue, and is asleep almost instantly. He doesn't dream.

Jane has always been a light sleeper, but he hears sounds in his ears for some time before he can force himself to swim up to consciousness again. A light turns on, blinding him immediately. He should be on guard, should be protecting himself. No good ever comes of being surprised out of sleep, unless it's just been Lisbon kicking his couch to try and get him to come and do something boring, like explain what he'd thought he was doing.

He has a strong feeling those days are over, though.

His vision clears, and he sees Lisbon, her face shadowed by the light behind her. He should be grateful she's not a murderer sneaking up on him in the night; instead he's just grateful she's her.

She's pointing a gun at him, he notices idly, and as his gaze travels to it she looks sheepish and holsters it.

"Damn it, Jane," he hears her say, as though from far away. "I nearly shot you and you slept through it."

"I was tired," he says, by way of apology, as she crosses the floor to him. There's an awkward moment where she pauses in front of the couch, and luckily Jane is too wooden-headed to even consider moving, because she kneels down in front of him and crushes him into a hug.

He's been hugged by Lisbon before, but this is something else entirely. He had no idea of her upper body strength before. There's a sound that might be his ribs cracking. He decides he doesn't care, and buries his face in her neck. She smells of gun oil and he can feel her Kevlar vest underneath her jacket.

"Lisbon," he manages to croak out.

She gives him a final, bonecrunching squeeze before letting go, and settles back on her heels, staring into his eyes as though she's searching for signs of concussion.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. I got your voicemail. I thought – I don't know what I thought. How did you...? No. Wait. God."

He's rarely seen Lisbon genuinely at a loss for coherent words. He'd be amused, if she didn't look stricken, and if his head didn't feel like someone was hacksawing through it.

"I was going to leave," he says slowly, every word an effort, and then: "I'm sorry," because it's the only thing that comes close to expressing what he wants to say to her. He is truly, genuinely sorry.

She blinks. "You smell like something died," she says, wrinkling her nose.

He thinks about saying: "Something did," but it's too soon; will probably always be too soon to laugh about this, and anyway his tongue is leaden.

Lisbon makes horrified clucking noises about his blistered and bloody feet and makes him sip lukewarm Gatorade that she makes up for him from powder, with sugar added for shock. It's truly disgusting, but he understands the reasoning, and that she needs to fuss over him.

It's always been a big part of her character, this need to take care of people who don't deserve it. Jane thinks it's a shame that so few of the people she's cared about have deserved her. Lying on her couch, watching her, he thinks he would do anything for her in this moment: slay her dragons, burn down the villages of anyone who slights her. She looks at him curiously, pushing back a strand of hair that's come loose from her chignon as she finds medical supplies. She doesn't keep more food in the kitchen than would feed a mouse, but her first aid kit is a thing of beauty, extensive and meticulously maintained. Jane thinks about her treating her own cuts and bruises and scrapes, and feels a sudden flash of anger at the world.

She's an unsympathetic nurse, but he expected no less. When he leans forward to sit up, he feels it in every muscle of his body and can't stop an involuntary hiss of air through his teeth. She leans across to him and puts her hands on his arms, in a gesture not terribly useful but, Jane thinks, definitely good for the heart.

"How far did you -" she starts, and then stops herself. "Never mind."

"You can ask me questions, you know," he tells her, and his tone comes out snippier than he intended.

She looks at him for a long moment. "I don't want to," she says finally, although not with finality, and then she grabs his elbows and pulls him upright with the air of someone tearing off a band-aid.

He sees stars; hears the whirling of the room around him as though he's spinning. As it revolves, he notices she's drawn all the curtains while he wasn't paying attention. The room is a cocoon, shadowed and wrapped up in its own space. He wonders if he opens the door, will there be anything left outside?

Lisbon is still in front of him, waiting, when he comes back to earth. She's fretting over the state of his knees, now, and threatening to pick the shrapnel-sharp pieces of gravel out of his road rash with tweezers. Jane thinks he'd like them to stay, perhaps as souvenirs.

She looks alarmed, and it's a moment before he realizes he said that out loud.

"I think you need to see a doctor," she says.

Jane sighs.

"I'm serious," she says. "Don't you make that face at me."

"I don't need a doctor," he says, trying to reassure her but also a little frustrated that she doesn't seem to understand the situation. Lisbon is usually lightning-fast to catch on. Her ability to make connections is one of the things he's always liked best about her.

"And 'Don't you understand the situation, Lisbon?'" she says, doing an imitation of his voice that Jane thinks borders on unflattering. "Please, Jane. I understand perfectly. We both knew this day was coming. The only thing that's surprising to me is that you came back."

I couldn't keep going without you, he thinks but manages to restrain himself from saying. He must be even more tired than he thought, because it's definitely not the events of the day coming back to haunt him. Definitely not. He has not the faintest regret. But still, he's terribly maudlin.

"I thought you'd be bored without me," he says finally, but his delivery, he notes, is a little flat.

Lisbon snorts, at least somewhat appeased. "Well, if you change your mind, we could always disguise you."

Jane immediately pictures himself in a fedora, glasses, and a glued-on mustache. He's moderately cheered by the image. He realizes it's possible she knows him better than he thought.

In his dream, he's back inside the psychiatric hospital, all beige walls and windows that don't open from the inside. Charlotte is there – teenage poison-hallucination Charlotte, with her bright hair and smart mouth. She is Angela's daughter, even in his imagination. Angela had had the blackest sense of humor he's ever come across, and he's spent ten years working with cops.

Charlotte has brought him a paper bag full of overripe raspberries, but he isn't hungry. They sit at a picnic table with the bag between them, the berries slowly collapsing into stringy red juice. They talk about secrets of the universe that he won't remember when he wakes up.

The lights click off suddenly, and Jane jerks backward and tries to stand. He has to move toward Charlotte, to protect her, but he's being pulled back down to the bench by his wrists.

When the lights come back on, the first thing he sees is the handcuffs, glinting impossibly bright, making stars in his vision.

Then he looks up, and recoils in shock. On the other side of the table, McAllister is holding Charlotte's hand. Jane feels a tremble start and travel through his body, and stiff-armed he pulls at the cuffs again, not taking his eyes off the man opposite him.

"I'll kill you," he hears himself say. Or maybe it's: "I killed you."

McAllister looks at him expressionlessly, then raises his hand joined with Charlotte's as though in greeting before starting to lead her away.

Jane hears a low, rumbling moan, and it builds and builds to a roar that sounds like pain and outrage, like a wounded animal.

He realizes the noise is coming from him, and then the lights go out.

When they flicker back on, Lisbon is beside him. She's wearing a slinky green patterned-silk slip dress that traces the curves of her body as if it's damp, and her hair is wet and falls straight down her back. She looks like a noir femme fatale, or maybe a mermaid. He feels himself stirring and leans toward her, yearning, and although there's some reason he's not supposed to be doing this, he can't quite put his finger on it at the moment. She leans into him in return, her hair brushing his face, and he pulls at the cuffs, unable to quite touch her, as she whispers into his ear.

"Let me help you," she says, her breath against his cheek, her lips a ghost, and then: "I'm sorry."

Jane wakes to the light again, and he's gasping for breath. He sits upright, immediately feeling the muscles pull in his shoulders and back, and feels the throb in his legs and feet reassert itself. He doesn't know if he's ever been in pain like this before. Car crashes and beatings are somehow taking a very distant second place.

Lisbon is in the doorway, her hand at the light switch. Jane isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed that her night attire is not as revealing as he'd dreamed. She's still in her jeans and long-sleeved shirt, although she's shucked off her boots and jacket. She looks tired, and in some backward part of his brain he thinks he should have asked her what happened to her today.

"You were talking in your sleep," she says softly.

He wonders if that's a concession, if he might have been yelling or perhaps shrieking like some horrified beast. He feels sick again, thinking about McAllister's hand joined with Charlotte's, and it's all getting tied up with his dream-memory of Mermaid Lisbon and it's getting confusing, to say the least.

He realizes he hasn't answered her. "Bad dreams," he says, his voice coming out a croak. He wants to apologize for waking her, but he can't seem to be sorry she came upstairs.

"Do you want company?" Lisbon bites her lip.

"Always," he says. "Anyway, I shouldn't be taking your bed. Were you sleeping on the couch?"

She shrugs. "I can't imagine I'll be sleeping much tonight. This morning. Whatever."

He remembers her shepherding him half-asleep to the bed, her hand on his shoulder. He has a sudden flashback to when they first met, another time she'd led him around broken.

"Come here," he says, moving to make room for her on the bed beside him.

She shakes her head, crossing the room instead to the overstuffed chair that sits beneath the window. She starts picking folded pieces of laundry off it and putting them on the floor.

"You can sleep in the bed," he says.

"I'm not going to sleep with you," she says tiredly, obviously without thinking.

Jane can't help it; his sense of humor has always come out at the worst moments. He thinks of several responses, but satisfies himself with just raising his eyebrows at her.

"Shut up," Lisbon says, throwing a folded towel at his head.

She settles herself in the chair and he hands her the afghan folded over the foot of the bed. She wraps it around herself but her posture stays strained and her fingers play constantly with the blanket's fringe.

"Go to sleep," she says softly, after Jane's been watching her for a while.

He shakes his head.

After a while, she sighs and rearranges herself on the chair, folding her legs underneath her. Jane sees her gaze flick hesitantly to the light switch and then to him.

"Leave it on," he says. He's never been good at seeing her in distress: he desperately wants to offer her something; any distraction. It's probably for the best that she wouldn't lie beside him, really. "The whole division?" he asks finally; quietly.

It seems to break the spell; she gets up, letting the afghan fall, and sits on the bed beside him. He curls his body around so he can see her face.

"The whole bureau," she says, her normally too-expressive eyes wide and blank.

He wants to reach out for her – he aches for the warmth of contact; he's shivering inside. He ends up touching her arm, instead, with his fingertips, as though searching for a pulse. He remembers her touching his arm in the same way before, when he needed comfort, when she wasn't sure if he was going to break down or give up or explode.

There's a long moment where everything seems to hang in the air. And then she leans into him, just fractionally; he barely sees her move.

Someone has to stop being the responsible adult here, Jane thinks, and he wraps his arm around her shoulder and pulls her into his lap. She stiffens, and for a heartstopping second he thinks he's made a terrible mistake. Then she turns, folding herself into his arms, small and warm and alive, and there's a sharp, bittersweet pain in his heart, like the feeling he gets looking at a sunset sometimes. Like everything's too beautiful for him to take in.