Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist or any of the related characters. If I did Jane and Lisbon would be together, Rigsby and Van Pelt would be together and Cho would have a lovely girlfriend of his own.
A/N: Just a quick one-shot that popped into my head a few days 's POV, present tense and angsty because that's pretty much my favourite combination to write in a Mentalist fanfic. Anyway, enjoy despite the angst.
I always knew this day would come. He told me. He told me time and time again that he was going to do this. It was almost as if he was begging me to stop him. Almost. He wasn't of course. He was just trying to open my eyes to the consequences. Trying to let me know what I would have to deal with. But I knew from day one. I didn't need anyone to tell me, not even him. I knew he was capable of doing it, I just held on to that little bit of false hope in the back of my mind that told me he wouldn't. I don't think the rest of the team really knew what he was capable of. I don't think they understood.
I knew that if he succeeded he would be arrested. He had to be. I would have to arrest him. If he was lucky he'd get life. I didn't like to think much of the alternative.
He told me once that he wanted me to be the one who arrested him. He wouldn't let anyone else take him away. If they tried, he had said half-jokingly, he would escape and run straight to my front door. That was where we found ourselves now. Him standing outside the front door, his hands and clothes soaked with blood and me standing inside staring at him, trying to comprehend that it's time, trying to comprehend that he's just killed a man.
He looks at me. Hatred and guilt and satisfaction dance about his eyes. Hatred for himself and the man he just killed. Guilt for leading that man to his family and guilt for killing him, because he knows I'll be hurt by it and he knows the team will be shocked and disappointed. But most of all there's the satisfaction. Satisfaction that he's finally done what he set out to do all those years ago. I just stare. I feel dead inside, because I never told him and maybe now I never will.
I sigh, because I can hear the sirens and I know I have to do it now. Slowly I find the handcuffs and show them to him, to show I'm fulfilling my promise. Then I turn his body around so that he's facing away from me and I pull his arms behind his back. And then, as I place the handcuffs on his wrists I say the words. The ones I always waited for but never wanted to say,
"Patrick Jane, you're under arrest..."
A/N: Yes. Yes I did just kill Red John. Reviews and crits are welcomed.