I thought it would go without saying, but apparently not: This story follows all the other Mentalist stories I've written; the only official canon recognized for these is through S4E9; from there, my AU splits off. Please read stories in order. Thank you.


Patrick Jane walked down the sidewalk. It was past midnight, and all was dark and silent. He liked the silence, for the time being at least. After all, he had just achieved his life's mission, and he wanted to savor it.

Red John was dead.

No matter how many times he repeated the words to himself, he couldn't quite wrap his mind around their meaning. It seemed impossible that, after all this time, all these battles and losses, Red John was finally finished. Red John had been so smart, so powerful, so impossible…It had almost seemed like he hadn't been human enough to be able to die a mortal death. But Patrick had watched Red John die, watched his chest stop moving with heartbeat or breath and his eyes become empty and fixed.

Those eyes…He had seen a monster unlike anything he could have imagined in those gray eyes. They hadn't been cold, or empty - dark, yes, but not dark like a void. Darkness had filled those eyes, poured out of them like light. As Red John had always said, there was nothing broken or damaged in him. He was just evil.

And now he was gone. Forever.

The whole state knew it, too. That was part of what made this final triumph so sweet - knowing that every person who hadn't already been pledged to Red John for whatever reason were all up in arms against everything to do with the freak, and Red John had died knowing that. Patrick remembered asking an enormous crowd essentially if they were on his side after his sentencing that morning - had it only been that morning? - and all of them had cheered, rallying behind him and sharing his loathing for the monster Red John had finally been revealed to be. He had seen Red John helpless, powerless, utterly defeated. That had almost been more beautiful than watching him die.

His wife and daughter had been avenged. Patrick had made Red John pay for every drop of their blood he had spilled, and more. All the struggling and suffering had been worth it. And now…

Now, it was time to move on.

It wasn't going to be easy. He had clung to his family, his past, so stubbornly, and for so long…Well, except for his one slip-up with Kristina Frye, a woman who had become a psychic to replace him after he quit the business, and who was the youngest and one of the most well-known of Red John's friends. She had reminded him of his life before it had been ruined, which had brought him equal parts guilt and relief, and…he'd allowed himself to be taken in. He had regretted it, though, even before Red John's plans in sending someone to seduce him started to progress from the first stage.

He shook his head. Kristina was of no consequence now. Well, he had been hurt to learn the truth, that he couldn't deny, but she was gone now anyway. He'd heard the news - the car that had been taking her home had gotten in a wreck, her driver had died, and she had vanished. No doubt she had been taken to some secure place run by Red John's friends - anyone associated with Red John would be burned at the stake by the general public the way things were now, so she had to live in exile. There was some justice in that.

Even though he'd missed all the other signs, he felt that he should have at least guessed she had been affiliated with Red John when the monster himself had told him that his daughter hadn't suffered, hadn't died afraid, hadn't even woken up before her heart stopped. As a father, he had always wondered, and Kristina had told him years ago what he had wanted to hear; he hadn't believed her, but she had been right. How could she have been right about something like that, unless she knew the freak who had killed his daughter in the first place?

Red John had always said that Patrick Jane was the dumbest moron who ever lived, and merely compensated for his sheer stupidity with his "gift" of being able to see everything there was to see and understand it - the gift that had made him a successful psychic. Patrick only needed to think of how thoroughly he had fallen for Kristina's trap to wonder if maybe there was some truth to those words.

But his boss and good friend, Teresa Lisbon, had firmly told him otherwise. There was no shame in being tricked by Red John, she had said, and there was definitely truth to those words. His virtually murderous loathing for Red John had always clouded his judgement, inhibiting even his gift, it had been so blinding. Red John had taken advantage of that to dance circles around him, taunt him, keep him miserable. All because Patrick had insulted him on live television. No amount of suffering would suffice as compensation in Red John's eyes; most things, he shrugged off, but public humiliation - a direct attack on his pride - was unforgivable.

Had been unforgivable. Now, all of that was over. It didn't matter anymore.

Patrick kept telling himself that, and it was true, but believing it - fully comprehending and understanding it, even subconsciously - didn't come easy. It almost felt like there had to be some trick, some secret that he was missing, as there so often had been with Red John. But no, the monster was dead; and as Red John himself had said, when a person dies, they die - they are gone forever, and there's no undoing it.

As Patrick wandered the streets of Sacramento, allowing his thoughts to wander where they would, only half-aware of where he was going, he repeatedly tossed the gold wedding band he had taken off for the first time tonight high in the air like a coin, catching it again almost as though to flip it for the last time on his forearm to see if the face-up side was heads or tails. He was only half-conscious of what he was doing, and not once did it cross his mind that Red John had done essentially the same thing with his beloved knife in his time, tossing and twirling it around without even looking at it.

It didn't matter anymore, anyway.

But he had held on for so long, and everything in his life had been affected by his mission of avenging his family and ending Red John…Now that it was over, he was sort of in shock. He wasn't ready to let go. It was like being forced to stop reading a really engaging book because the pages had run out.

But there were some things he could do about that - things that he would have done regardless, for other reasons. And as he finally found the first place he was looking for, he slowed, then stopped, partially realizing exactly what he was about to do.

Miraculously, there was a light on inside, albeit a we're-closed-but-someone's-here-anyway light…as though whoever was running the store had been expecting him. He hadn't been averse to the thought of just waiting outside until morning - his life was suddenly completely different, and he doubted he would sleep either way - but it seemed he'd be able to start things now.

That was just as well.

~o~

Teresa Lisbon was numb all the way home that night. The trip was a blur, and before she knew it, she was home, her back pressed to her front door. Slowly, she sank to the floor.

What a day. It seemed impossible that so much had happened in just sixteen hours. Red John's death sentence, Kristina being a mole, Red John's execution (that felt the most surreal of all), and Jane with the-

She stopped. No. No thinking about Jane. Not now. It would be too much.

So…what did happen now?

Well, she had two weeks paid vacation. Typically, vacations, for her, were nuisances, and she preferred to do her job…but this time was different.

This time, she could spend the time with her sister.

Charlotte. Her polar opposite and closest friend since they had been teenagers, no less of a sister for the lack of biological relation. Some people would call Teresa a stick in the mud - and Charlotte had been the first to do so - but when she was with her sister, Teresa could relax, like she couldn't any other time, anywhere. Being with Charlotte was the only time having fun didn't feel even the tiniest bit wrong. Sure, Jane had-

She stopped again. No, she told herself firmly. No Jane.

In the sudden silence in her head, the next thing to think about came to the forefront of her mind: Red John was dead.

Red John was dead.

The words didn't really make sense - not in her head, and not when she said them out loud to herself. Red John was an unstoppable entity, not human enough to die or even be caught - a freak, who would always be there.

But he wouldn't be. Not anymore. No more calls at night after everyone else went home, no more mind games within mind games, no more secret parties she attended half-blind, no more worrying about the next time that goddamn smiley face would appear over a corpse…

…No more "I love you, My Dear Little Saint Teresa"s.

Would she miss that?

She was too tired to lie to herself just then; yes, part of her would miss it. Not because she wanted his love - not because she wanted him in her life at all - but because he had become a constant in her life. She was used to him being there, impossible and evil as he was. It was something she just took for granted now, the same as how she took Jane for-

No Jane! she told herself again.

…Oh, who am I kidding?

She sighed; she had to face it sooner or later anyway, so she might as well:

Patrick Jane was gone.

Not dead - quite the contrary - but the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI had offered him a position on their team, and without Red John to keep him here, there was no reason for him to turn them down. She remembered how she'd seen him with them, how their eyes had met across the lot, the question he had asked her silently, which she received even without words:

What do you want me to do?

And she had given him a small nod, that and her eyes giving the reply she knew he could read - as he'd always said, their minds were in sync:

Go with them.

She didn't regret telling him to go, not really…She would miss him, that much she couldn't deny, but he belonged with those agents - the way he'd worked with them had been astounding. All along, he'd pretty much been using the exact same methods to catch one-time killers as one of the FBI's top teams used to catch serials! All that time she had tried to get him to rein it in, told him how unprofessional his reasoning was, and it had been her who had been the unreasonable one. He had worked with the BAU so well, as though he'd always known them and they'd always known him - he'd fit in with the team from the start. And he'd impressed them! His mind games had earned their respect, where her attempts to be professional and rational had not.

No. There was no way he would stay here. Nor should he! He belonged with them.

And she belonged here.

Far away from him.

She'd never see him again.

A world without Red John was hard to comprehend, but a world without Patrick Jane was simply inconceivable. For better or worse, he'd been a part of her life for ten years, every day, always treating her…not so much as his boss, a person he had to obey, but at least as his only true friend. He'd often made her job as his boss difficult, but she was used to that by now, anyway.

And suddenly, something else occurred to her:

She would now have to live in a world without Red John or Patrick Jane.

And what did that leave her with?

Her sister, yes, but after her vacation, all the time she would spend doing her job as part of the CBI…what would she do? What would she have?

Nothing.

Without either of those people, even with her sister, her life felt…empty.

And no Sam Bosco, either, added a cruel voice at the back of her mind.

Yes, that was true, too. Sam had been another good friend of hers, before Red John had him killed for taking the case from Jane…He'd been in love with her, but that hadn't mattered much. He'd been her boss in times past, and he'd been a good one - he'd taught her most of what she knew. He'd been there since just before she'd had to cut contact with her sister, had all but picked up the tab. And then Jane had picked up where Charlotte had left off even more effectively than Bosco had.

She smiled as she wondered what it would have looked like if Sam Bosco had crossed paths with the BAU.

But her smile was brief. Now, with him dead, Jane on the opposite side of the country, and Red John dead…

Did she really count Red John among her few good friends?

…Yes, in a way, Red John had been a good friend of hers, too. In a twisted sort of way. He'd broken her spirit and almost more than killed her, but recently, she had almost started to forget about that.

Almost.

Enough so that Red John had given her life in the end.

He'd given her a world beyond her job - a world that, to be frank, was against her job: fraternizing with a known criminal; and there was no criminal more horrible than Red John. She hadn't loved him, or even liked him - she'd hated him - and he never ceased to disturb her with just what an evil, impossible freak he was…but…he'd given her a personal life, something she hadn't had since she'd cut contact with Charlotte. And in a weird way, she had been happier for it.

In a really strange way, Red John had been her friend at the end. Her scars ached at the thought, and she hugged herself and shuddered. It was horrible to think…but…it was true.

And now he was gone.

And so was Jane.

Two people who by then had composed most of the foundation her life stood on, suddenly and utterly gone.

Plus everything else she had seen and experienced that day, positive and negative alike…

It was too much.

She didn't take a shower, didn't even take off her jacket; it was all she could do to drag herself to her couch. She was asleep before her head hit the cushions.

~o~

Dove didn't have time to mourn her love; he'd given her directions, and she was going to carry them out.

Patrick Jane had made quite a spectacle in the media of the whole affair - everyone who hadn't been on RJ's side from the get-go were up in arms against him…as were some of the ones who had been on his side.

Oh yes, Patrick Jane had done a very impressive job, and now a fraction of Red John's friends had abandoned the cause, turned their backs on their connections to the network. Dove had never run the risk of being one of them - she had known Red John's true nature from the moment she had met him, and she had loved him with every fiber of her being for it. All his other friends, however, believed he had been in a sort of symbiotic relationship with a demon - ridiculous, yes, but they had always believed it…until Patrick Jane had made his case. Some of them had come to realize then just what they'd been supporting, and that they had been used. Some people wanted to desert.

And thanks to a phone tree that had been set up after Patrick Jane's slanderous assault on Red John in the media, Dove knew which members were in and which were out.

And no one turns their back on RJ.

He'd left her "in charge", and to her, the message had been clear: Just because he's dead and won't be killing anymore doesn't mean that what it means to be one of Red John's friends is no longer valid. They would stand together, as they always had, and someday, maybe they'd even avenge him.

Someday, they would avenge him.

But it would take time, and careful planning. It may even take years before the time would be right. But when it came, Dove would know. She would just know.

For now…

She sighed, feeling the reduced wind on her face. The Nightrider, RJ's hunting costume, his knife…he had been prepared for a successor, and all of his things could be adjusted to obey a new master (or mistress). Dove knew he'd never thought she would be the one to take the reins - he had expected there would be a true heir before he died - but there was no one else, and now his life was hers.

Sort of.

Not that she wouldn't have given it all up to have him back.

She focused on the fifty names as she flew through the night.

Fifty zombies, fifty names, fifty phone numbers…one final mission. They would have to meet each other as well tonight, of course, but they would be too distraught to care.

Hopefully.

Tonight, all deserters and zombies would die. RJ's pet was now free to do as he would, but he'd probably die, too. He wasn't her concern, though - the others were. Hundreds of people…all but fifty of whom shouldn't have made the noble choice.