Authors Note: Written for a Writerverse challenge over on LJ title "one second on the clock" that made you time your writing and then make very minimal changes. This is one of the results I wrote.

Love

She knew that it was just something he said, knew that it wasn't something that he really meant, not in the way she'd almost wished he had. They were friends, good friends (or at least that's what she hopped) but that was it. And he didn't even have the courtesy to tell her that he was faking his mental break down

But that wasn't important now. What was important is that they barely, barely, escaped from this latest fiasco with their jobs. And the FBI had been the one to screw it up this time, not them. The mole, the reason that they didn't have Red John handed to them on a platter was because there was a mole in the FBI. She never did care for them.

And sitting there, across the table from his "lover" (her word, not his) she couldn't help but think of the way that he'd hugged her, held her for just a second, and the words...I love you...that she had told herself she didn't want and didn't need form him.

"You will tell us" she reiterated, mimicking Jane's words, knowing that she would, if she didn't end up dead first. Who was she kidding; there was no way that this minion of Red John was going to end up anywhere but in the cemetery in less than six months. Wither by Red John's hands or those of a disciple in a jail cell, she was going to die. Even in solitary with no visitors and only minimal contact with the outside world she would be dead.

And later, sitting at home, those words haunted her again. "I love you" replaying on a loop in her head. Why couldn't he just leave well enough alone? Why couldn't he just admit that he only contacted them when he needed to use them? A gun in the box. They weren't going to get Red John; Jane was going to shoot him...again. Even if it was the wrong man.

The phone had been a dead end. The number that had called it a burn phone, from a batch of stolen phones that had been reported over a year ago from Nebraska. And the theft...well, there was no security camera or finger prints.

"I love you" why was it haunting her. Jane didn't love her, and Red John, that man was haunting her too. She didn't want to think about why he'd wanted her head on a platter, there was too much to that. Maybe it had to do with Jane's words to her just before he shot her, the words that he didn't remember (though, when was the last time he didn't remember something) that she couldn't get out of her mind.

Lying in bed, sleep escaping her, staring at the celling and all she could see was his face, goofy grin, shaggy hair and three day beard. The way he'd showed up in the church, and again in her office, and looking like he hadn't a care in the world.

He was bad for her, and she didn't care. How many times had he wanted to call, how many times had she wanted to force him to get help, to let her help? And in the end she had, because she would always help, because she would always be there for him. And that was really it wasn't it. The way it would always be.

And as she drifted off to sleep she heard his voice one more time "I love you" and she smiled in her sleep.