Disclaimer:Uhm, no, I don't think I own these characters or the shows... or do I? :)

A/N my mentalist Christmas story was supposed to be soemthing full of joy and happiness and love, maybe even too sweet of opur own good. and guess what? It's not. so, even after I worked on Christmas Carol last year sa well, here there is another version, more "personal" this time and less fantastic and paranormal, so to say, but definitely dark and angsty... hope you'll enjoy my little gift to you, and will remmeber to drop me a line!

so...happy Christmas, and could next year be better than your 2010, whatever happened!

December 24th, 2 am, somewhere outside Sacramento

In the small and messy hotel room, Jane was sitting on the bed, still shaken, almost undone by the happening from the previous night, closed fists and white knuckles clenching his tailored pants; his eyes were far, far away, lost somewhere, even if they were focused on the lifeless body of Thomas Silverman, one of Red John's friends, the last of a long list, almost interminable.

They had been that close this time…. He had been sure it was it, that this time, they would have caught him with Silverman's help, that no other blood was going to be spilled, but, like many other times with the Serial killer, he had been wrong. Red John, once again, had been one step forward of them, he had been as quick and as lethal as always, and now, not only his family, Bosco and Kristina and Carter and Panzer's blood was on his hands… now, he had Silverman's as well. He had been the one who saw the man for who, or better yet, he was, he had been the one talking him in helping them out to lure the serial killer on the outside, setting up a trap, and that was the brilliant result of yet another brilliant plan formulate by Patrick Jane's brilliant mind- no Red John, but yet, another Red Smiley printed in blood of a lifeless body on a previous stark white wall.

"We'll get him" Lisbon's words were a mere whisper, a promise that held the same value as sand- nothing. They both knew for what it was, a lie. She couldn't promise him seeming like that, like she couldn't help him to stop the pain from ripping his heart out. It was pointless, everything was pointless. But, still, she still sat at his side, not smiling, because she knew she couldn't, wasn't the right time, she merely grabbed his hand- an intimate gesture for them, rare, and she squeezed it lightly but yet firmly. She knew she could feel them, he tears, the same tears she was fighting, even if he wasn't looking at her, and she knew that, even if she was doing her best, even if she was trying to sound strong and sure, strong and sure she wasn't. Sweet, caring, yes, that she was, but not strong, and finitely, not sure.

"Jane…." she started tentatively, her grip on his hand getting stronger and stronger, almost painful to bear for the man at the other end of it, even if Jane merely kept staring right before him, empty, the shadow of a man, like some emotionless robot, dead inside but not out, and it broke her heart. "Jane… whenever you feel like talking…. I'm here for you, ok? When you'll need…. If you need…. Just…. You know where to find me. came to my place, call me, I don't care, just… I'm always available, ok? Don't… don't do that to us again, don't isolate yourself from us again." She paused, her eyes fixed on the soil. "I… day and night, you know where to find me. Even better, you know what? Why don't take my spare room? There's nothing we can do here, forensic will not be due for a couple of days, and I hate the thought of you all alone on Christmas…"

She cupped his face with her free hand without letting it go of him, silent tears falling like tiny rivulets from her green, shiny sad eyes against her won will, but Jane, he merely stilled for a second, before retreating from the touch, her fingers burning his skin like pure fire, pulling away from her with such a strength, a power coming from he didn't know where, that she fell back on the bed; he fled the room without looking back, nor to the cadaver nor to Lisbon, and he run in the streets of the small Californian town, vanishing between the crowds of people still outside, celebrating Christmas family, love and everything that was good in the world- or just merely celebrating. He melted into the crowds, lights and songs and crowds filling his already trouble mind, sending him into a state of vertigo; he all but collapsed against the first wall of a secluded alley, one of those places you wouldn't be even dead, and he cried, he cried all the tears he hadn't cried so far, his head hidden between his knees like a scared child… he cried for all who were lost to the world because of Red John, he cried for himself, and he cried for Lisbon, broken hearted because of him inside that hotel room, now void of hope, alone, far away from reach just like he was, but unreachable. To him, to him alone, always to him… she wanted for him to be at her side on what was supposed an happy day, a day for celebrating, but he couldn't. being happy wasn't in the cards any longer for him, and he couldn't afford to touch her, for touching her was taunting her with his dark being, casting a shadow of evil upon her brilliant self.

Inside the room, though, Lisbon merely shook her head, laughing silently and maniacally while biting her lips, void, tired, silent tears escaping from her eyes no longer every now and there, but with the power of the current of a river. She knew he was, partially, lying to her, she knew he had never fully told her the truth about his encounter with Red John, and like she had knew that time, few years prior, that Red John had talked when he had saved Jane, now she knew her consultant was hiding something as well, yet again. And that was the real problem of their "relationship".

Could she live with him not reciprocating her feelings, her affection, her love? Yes, she knew she could, like she knew it was getting harder and harder, weirder and weirder, because she knew he knew, and he knew that she knew that he knew, but it wasn't impossible. Of course, it was hard and complicated and messy, but not impossible. What, though, was slowly taking away all her strength was another thing, the knowledge that he didn't want to trust her as his partner, on a strictly professional level- as professional as he could be – and that knowledge, knowing that he could, but didn't want to, was tearing her apart.

He was gone and out of reach, both emotionally and physically, and in that moment, she understood something: it was going to end, sooner rather than later. Their working relationship was doomed to end soon. Their friendship was doomed to end soon. And, as far as a romantic relationship was concerned, they had never even tried it, it had been over long before it could actually start.

Because, even if she had tried so long to deny it, even if she had tried to take things in her own hands, take the control away from him, Jane was empty and broken; he just cared about killing Red John, and she and the team were only a mean to an end, like pieces of a chess-game in his everlasting and twisted crusade for a futile and useless revenge. He didn't care about them, he didn't care about her, and he probably didn't care about sacrificing all of them to get to Red John either, to get the job done.

But it wasn't true. It wasn't true, because, once again, she had let the mask fool her, and because she hadn't seen. She wasn't seeing Jane crying, alone, in a dark alley, and she hadn't seen him steal a note from the crime scene, a little piece of paper, folded into Silverman's hand, a note meant for him and him only, a note left by Red John himself, a note with just few words….

Malibu, Christmas Day, 23.55

But the note said everything. It said where the game was going to end, and it said who was going to pay if he didn't get along, because the piece of paper was folded in a particular way, such that only him and few others could know who the doomed soul was. Because the piece of paper was shaped into an origami, a tiny, little frog, and only one person had ever received an origami from him, and that person, was Lisbon… Lisbon, who didn't know he just wanted to save them all, save her, who didn't know he reciprocated her feelings…she didn't know, and she couldn't, because to love her was to lose her, to kill her; to love her, was to break her heart. Because, in less than 24 hours, he was going to be either dead or in jail, ready to be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

December 24, 7 am, Sacramento, Jane's hotel room

He didn't know what it was, if he was going mad, or if he was dreaming, for his dreams had never been so happy, always taunted by butchered bodies, bloody smiles and dead and sufferance¸ but what he was feeling right now, was just pace, even if the pieces were all there, memories of Silverman's death, him "talking" with Lisbon, going back to his place and taking few pills to rest waiting for the final show between him and the killer.

He was going to go with dreaming, though, because the fact that he was on a seaside, in the company of the blond, young woman who was smiling at his side was good enough indication of the fact that he was, indeed, dreaming.

He knew he hadn't been a perfect husband, that he could have been a better father, but he had always cared about them, cherished them. He had loved them, and he still did, and all those days he had spent on their seaside with them, his beloved family, it had felt just like heaven, pure perfection, happiness radiating from within.

"I'd like to stay here, you know? Till the end of time…" He fell on his back on the soft, wet sand, stretching like a kitty, turning with just his face towards the blonde woman, smiling of pure happiness, really maybe for the first time after almost ten years, everything so perfect he felt watering at the idea of such a feeling of perfection after being lost for so long in the darkness that was his soul and that engulfed his whole being together with his world. "Annie, honey, am I dreaming?"

She chuckled, and, still smile, he jumped her, making her fall in the sand as well, her body behind him, and he nuzzled her neck, inspiring her perfume. He could feel it, filling his nostril, her unique scent, -, and, for an moment, he felt his heart constrict at the memory- Carter, facing him, trying to convince him he was Red John by telling how his wife and daughter smelled like on that fateful day – but he resisted the urge, and willed his mind back into the present, a false present but a present nevertheless, concentrating his whole being on the here and now, hugging her, bathing in the sensation of feeling yet again, after so long, his wife around him, in his arms, her soft and warm skin and the hair, like a blonde cloud.

She closed her eyes, and took a big breath while she caressed his scalp, sweetly, but with a sadness hidden behind her actions, like there was something holding her back. "Paddy, you've been trapped in that house, on this seaside for so long….it's not healthy, love, nor right."

When he shook his head, his hair tickled the tender skin of her neck and her nose. She felt like laughing for the sensation, but she refused to. Because her heart was in pieces for the man she had once loved and still cared for deeply, and she had to fight to keep the tears at bay, because cry she couldn't, because crying she was just going to make it worse for the love of her life, the only man she had ever loved. "No, no I deserve it. I deserve it for what I did to you and Charlie, and to so many others… and… and…" he stopped to talk, words and breath dying in his throat suffocated by tears and sobs, and all she could do was crying along with him, holding his head firmly against herself, hidden in the crock of her neck.

"No, no, Paddy, you don't talk like that, it's not true. You don't deserve punishment… and even if it was the case… haven't you paid enough already? Love, you deserve happiness. You should fight for it, and not for something that can't be no more, something that you didn't do, because as much as you claim the opposite… it wasn't you, it has never been you."

"No, no..my mind, it's just my mind, it's just a dream, you are not here, it's just a dream…" he whispered, words half-whispered and confused, melting into his tears and his sobs as he kept repeating them again and again like some mantra, suffocated by the woman's skin.

Once again, she cupped his face, but this time, she held it, forcing him to lift his head from its position so that he could look at her in the eyes; she smiled of a sad smile while he stopped crying, but not sniffing, her thumbs taking away the drops that had left his cerulean eyes, eyes so shin she had felt in love with them as soon as she saw them when she was barely a teen. "Of course I'm a dream, Patrick, but… weren't you the one who knew me better than anyone else in the world? And you still do… you know me, Paddy. You know me, and you know that I don't consider you guilty, and you should know that I only wish for you to move on with your life and be happy."

He took a big breath, kissing her palms at closed eyes. "I can't Annie… I'm not even sure I want it… not after….after."

"You see, paddy, you were broken, but you are almost complete again" she smiled at him, sweetly but still a bit sad, not for her situation, for having been taken away when she was so young and there was still so many things she could have accomplished, but because of what her beloved had to endure day after day, a punishment, a weight no one put on his shoulders but himself alone. Even her own brother, Danny, the last member of her family, had forgiven Patrick, silently giving him his blessing to forgive but never forget, and move on already with his life, but her own husband couldn't forgive himself, despite what over a year prior he had told to the younger member of the Ruskin Family, that for Danny to forgive him was to gain forgiveness from himself as well. "the cracks will always be there, like scars, but the pain will be no more, and one day, you'll just see them, but you'll not feel the pain they caused you. And that day, love, is so close, you can almost touch it with your fingers…"

He lifted himself and sat in front of her, looking at his wife and the same way he often did with Lisbon, the look he reserved from when Red John was concerned- small eyes, bloody, scary, maniacal. "Of course the time is close! Tomorrow, at this time, Reed John will be dead, and I'll have killed him with my bare hands, and I'll have looked at him while he'll bleed out after I'll have cut him open!"

She shook her head, desperate, crying for the man he was, the man he had never allowed to be and the man he, maybe, could be no more, for the maniac she was seeing, the killer was not the one she once loved, the one she wanted like the father of her children. This Jane, was just a shadow, empty, and shallow. "No, no, it's not just about him any longer? can't you see? Why can't you see! It doesn't have to be this way! It's no longer about him, but you are just….. but do you always have to be so damn stubborn! Why can't you accept the truth!" she stood up abruptly, and he remembered her how she sued to be, fiery little thing, and his mind wondered to another place, another time, another woman, dark haired instead of blond, smaller, and he gulped down. He couldn't think of her, wasn't allowed to… especially not now, that he had been blessed with this beating dream, with the possibility of bathing into his beloved Angela's presence once again for a last time.

He took his hands in her owns, and force him to stand up as well, and as soon as he was at her side, the environment changed in a sea of light, and he no longer he was at the seaside in front of his house, he is everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time, the last seven years flashing right before his eyes, moments, and every time he saw an image, his heart constricted, full of whatever he felt at the time he was living that instant, instants, all different, and yet so similar, but a sole constant, the two of them together, him and Lisbon, Teresa.

…the CBI corridor, Lisbon standing in front of him, flushed, after he had asked for a romantic location for dinner. "I'd never seduce you over a meal, it would be sophomoric"…

…taking her in his arms at an high school reunion, her head falling in the crock if his neck, his chin resting on her dark, wavy, curls. "you used to love this song. It's obvious you want to dance. Shall we?"…

…giving her emeralds "You should keep them. They compliments your eyes"…

… staying at her back while she performed a trust-fall, convincing her, or at least trying to, that he was indeed thrust-worthy. "I want you trust me"….

…putting his hands on her face while she was standing in front of him and he was blind.. "I just want to feel your smile"….

… listening to her over the phone while she is in company of a killer. Listening to her over the phone while she is trying to save a baby girl from a bomb. Listening to her over the phone after O'Laughlin shoot her. staying at her side while there's a bomb around her waist…

…giving her an origami frog, and looking at her smiling. "Jane, it doesn't make it better…."….

…looking at her with the dress for Van Pelt's wedding, helping her to lift the zip on the back, getting a glimpse of her back, of her rear. "You look like an angry princess whose tiara has been stolen"…

…being closer into a container, Lisbon admitting that she knew he was going to ruin her career. "Like it or not, I'm always going to save you, Lisbon"…

…talking with Bertram about her…" she is the only one who's ever had a very, healthy moderating influence on me"…

…collapsing on top her while drunk. "I'm a little home. would you take me drunk?"…

…looking at her after she pull a stunt on him. "For that, I'll get my revenge" while smiling….

…staying at her side when she was scared to death to die, a bomb attacked to her body, almost telling her the truth, more scared to lose her without having admitted his feelings than admitting them at all. "there's something I've been trying to tell you for a long time, but it was the right moment, but now that it could be the end, I think you should know…." and then, stopping, because they were safe and there was no need to make her life more troubled that it already was….

…confessing her of Red John, over and over again… telling her of how he knew Dr. Miller…. Running into the rain holding hands for a second…

"This, Paddy, is the reason you are almost whole once again. She is the missed piece, but you don't want to admit it" she walked once again at his side, taking his hand in her tinier one. "Both times, you were going to do it, do you remember? You were ready to give up on Red John if she couldn't be there with you, that's what you thought when she was suspended…"

He chuckled. "You always pictured me like a man better than how I truly was, Annie. The only reason I didn't want to be around if Lisbon wasn't going to be there was because she can be easily controlled and manipulated. And, let's face it, she is quite partial to both my close case rating and my charm."

She shook her head once again, exasperated. "Really? So it's not because you thought it wasn't worth it stick around if Teresa wasn't there?"

He crossed his arms, like a petulant child, using the same exasperated tone as his late wife-almost funny, thinking of her like his late wife when she was so close, there with him. "ok, you know what? Let's admit for one second- one second, and I'm not saying it's true – that I happen to have feelings for Lisbon. You know I can't. and not just out of respect for you and Charlie! Everything I touch…whoever gets too close to me… they get hurt. They get broken. And I could never live knowing that made suffer… or destroyed… someone I loved. Especially someone with as big as an heart like Lisbon."

"Respect? You think you are respecting me just because you live in the past? Patrick, I know you loved me, I know you'll always love me, but I was your wife. I'm no longer. We promised until dead do us apart, and did us apart, death did… living trapped into that room isn't going to change it, and it's time you accept it!"

"I CAN'T!" He screamed, teary eyes facing his love.

"There's room for all of us, Paddy. Me, Charlotte, and her… you don't have to choose, you can have the happy memories with us and a life with her at the same time!" her words echoed in his ears as a deep fog engulfed them both, and while they disappeared, he heard her last words. "I want you to understand, but you don't want to accept the truth. For you to accept it, you'll have to see the present as you did the past."

He closed his eyes, blood running through his veins, filling his brain, the sound boiling in his hear like a river, a volcano erupting, and he blinked; when he opened his eyes once again, he was not any longer in any of the places he had visited with Annie, nor onto the seaside.

It was an unknown place, one he had never seen before, a modest but cozy and nice home, it wasn't California, the snow covering the city outside the Christmas decorated home said as much, and besides, he could see the landscape outside the window of the living room… Chicago.

He looked around, and there she was, sitting smiling in a classic couch, dressed with a long, soft red dress, a woman, dark haired, green eyes, someone that, even if she wasn't an exact copy of his Lisbon, was that close. He couldn't say for sure if the woman looked younger or older than Teresa, the only thing he knew for sure was that, in her eyes, he could see she had lived, in the real sense of the word, that she had seen a lot, maybe even too much.

"You are not my Lisbon" She laughed, a happy laughter that made everything better for him, even thought it wasn't his Lisbon giggling like a teenager girl at his term of affection; he didn't know why, but there was something about this woman…. Like Teresa, she was… she has dome kind of aura, like, when you looked at her, you just couldn't help but feeling protected, safe, at home, relieved, loved and happy.

"But a Lisbon I am, nevertheless" she offered him her hand, which he accepted gladly and without arguing – how could he? – and helped him standing; then, she started walking, hands in the pockets of her jacket, silently asking Jane to follow her along the path. "So… tell me, Mr. Jane, are you aware of my identity?"

He grinned, mimicking her position, eyes lost in the sea. "Agatha Lisbon, Li… Teresa's mother. I saw a picture of you on her desk, and another one in her b… apartment." He hoped she wasn't going to call him up on his lies. It was true, though, that Lisbon had few pictures of her mother, and even if the first one was in her office, it was carefully hidden inside one of her drawers, safe from preying eyes and any eventual form of danger and damage, while the other one, she kept it on her nightstand, in her bedroom. He still remembered the day he saw it for the first time, when he went over to help her prove her innocence after Carmen had framed her for murder. He still shivered at the memory of that day, he kept remembering how torn he felt that night, looking at Lisbon dancing, totally uninhibited, more naked then dressed, with just a jersey and little to no lingerie (he had wanted to go to her, take her in his arms, and bring her back to her bedroom, and proceed to make love to her for hours), and hearing what she told the shrink, things he knew were true (he had wanted to run to her, take her in his arms and comfort her until the end of days).

"You are about to take a decision that will change your life and have repercussions on the ones you held dear as well, Mr. Jane" she told him in a soothing voice. "but to clear your mind from the fog and the curtain that cover your judgment, you needed to remember the past. But to accept what you already saw, you have to stand witness to present events as well." She smiled and waved her hand up in the air, and just like that, the fog once again covered him, covered them, and when it dissipated, he found himself in reality, in a place he knew well enough… her home.

She was dressed with that same 99 jersey and he assumed lingerie, curled on the couch without the comfort and company of TV and music, just the light of a small lamp. Her shoulders were moving, shaking, and her sobs filled the room, breaking the motionless of the lack of sound.

He got closer, almost skimming over her tears, and that was when he noticed she was holding like for dear life a frame; the breath died in his throat when he realized which picture it was, and why, probably, she was crying, and he felt like crying as well. For Lisbon was holding a picture of the both of them, he assumed the one taken at the charity event sponsored on CBI's benefit a couple of years prior, the day he put the tiara on her and then told her he loved her while posing as her husband while she kept repeating she wasn't his wife. He recognized the dress, long, soft, silky, dark, and smiled at the vision of the both of them with a glass of champagne each, her in a dress, him with a tux, so close they looked like two conspirators.

"God, I can't believe I've been such… such an idiot, how could I believe that….did I really think he was different? That he actually cared about me? it's not like… I'm okay with the fact that he doesn't love me, all right? I know I'm plain and banal and boring, and why trying to get me when there are women such as Sophie Miller or Kristina Frey around? But… he doesn't care! He doesn't trust me, not even as his partner! Sam was right. I should have chosen the job, or him, over Jane a long time ago. , but ehy, we can't decided whom we are supposed to fall in love with, right?"

"Oh, Teresa…" he whispered, tears falling from his eyes; he again tried to reach her, and again he failed, realizing that there was no way he could touch her. he was there, and yet, distant, just like he had been hours before at the crime scene.

"What you are seeing, Mr. Jane, is a mere confirmation of what your heart already knows" Agatha told him sweetly, kneeling at his side and taking in the vision of her grown-up daughter "for that you promised to always save my child, but still, to safeguard your own soul you break hers…"

He shook his head, like defeated, sighing. "What she desires, I can't give her. It's not…" he tried to find the right words, and managed to still for a while, but only one thing crossed his mind, what he had told her once, year prior. "safe. When I gets close to people, bad things happen to them"

"Still, Mr. Jane, in your quest for revenge, you pride yourself as man of word, and as such you promised my daughter that you weren't' going to intentionally hurt her, and that you were always going to save her, no matter what, whatever she wanted to be saved or not. Now, tell me: do you think you are keeping that promise? Because my daughter wants to be saved now. She wants to be saved from the pain she has endured in her life, pain no child should know, and she wants to be saved from nothing she'll become if her soul will keep being kicked."

"If I tell her the truth, if I allow her to get close to me.. I told you…" he whispered, head low. "she deserves more, she deserves better. I'll just make it worse. I can't make it worse…"

"Look at my daughter, Mr. Jane, crying because of you over a picture of you both, and tell me you really believe that refusing her what you both crave from so long is going to make it all better, tell me that you really think that destroying your life over an obsession that will bring no good to anyone is going to make it all better for her!"

Part of him wanted to laugh, because the woman in front of him remembered him so much of "his" Lisbon, so similar he could almost her own voice saying those words to him, but another part of him just couldn't take it any longer. He knew that getting mad with a dream, over a dream, was stupid, pointless and childish, because nothing could be that woman if not a fragment of his contorted imagination, but still… how could she think that getting involved with him, in any way, could bring any good into Teresa's life? What kind of contorted game was his mind playing with him?

"Red John will never allow me to be happy again!" he finally snapped, jumping from his seat at Teresa's side, and when he cried, shouting out his rage and his frustrations, he almost thought he saw Teresa reacting to his scream, stopping to cry, stilling and looking round like searching for some kind of confirmation.; it was over too soon, though, and Jane couldn't say for sure if whatever happened had been a coincidence or real.

Not that it mattered, since it was a dream.

"Mr. Jane, that's why you took this journey, so that you could see by yourself the repercussions of your actions, and what you could accomplish with my daughter if you'll give yourself the chance. There's so much the both of you can do for each other, but yet you refuse to even acknowledge the presence of that something to begin with…"

As she whispered the last words, the fog once again embraced him, and once again Jane willed himself to close his eyes along the "trip", only to open them again once he felt the warm rays of sun on his skin and the soft breeze of the ocean against his face.

Once again, he was at the seaside, his seaside, and once again another person was standing right before his eyes, crossed legs Indian style, face to him and back to the weaves, a teen girl, blonde curls and warm honey-brown eyes, a stranger, but somehow familiar.

"Ready for your last trip of the day, dad?" she asked him with a smile, one similar to the one his wife had showed him more than once, similar to the ones Teresa gave him as well, appreciation, but, at the same time, annoyance mixed all together.

"Charlie… but….you…" tears left his eyes as he forced himself to skim over the porcelain-like skin of her oval, cupping her face, his forehead against her own, tears for the child she was and the woman she didn't get to be because of him.

"It's a dream, dad, you said so yourself…" she reassured him, hugging him as hard as she could "this is just how you think I could have been once grown up, had I lived until today."

"You'd be 13…."

"almost 14, dad…" she replied, annoyed, and it got him smiling- it was the same sentence he had heard Annie saying just few months prior, when Teresa's nice come to visit along with her father, while on a gig; it was strange, but even if he had knew, even back then, that both girls shared the same year of birth, it hadn't been painful- maybe because it wasn't a kid of his own. His only thought, though, had been focusing on Teresa concentrating on the young girl, studying how she dealt with a girl, imaging her taking care of her brothers and yes, he had even dared to think of her with an infant in her arms, an infant of her own- of their own.

"You see dad, fact is" she told him sweetly, caressing his curl, tugging them like she did as a child, when he come back from a show and went to her first thing first, kissing her goodnight "you are seeing a future version of me because what you are going to see is what may one day come to be as well."

"I know what the future holds, Charlie. Red John will pay for what he did to the both of you, and either I'll perish, or I'll spend the rest of my days in jail. The rest, it just doesn't matter."

She shook her head, closed eyes, exasperated, but sad at the same time. "How can you be so stubborn, dad? You know that your life stopped being about just Red John a long time ago, but yet you refuse to accept it…" and, as she said so, the fog once again embraced them, and once again they found themselves in a new environment once freed from its arms.

"Oh, well, looks like option number one it is, right?" He smirked at the sight right before his eyes, turning to look at Charlotte. "Not that I don't mind being at the centre of the attention, but is it really necessary to stay to see my own funeral?" he chocked.

"Go on, dad, and look better before adding anything else…" she told him, at low vice, pale, and sad, oh, so sad… he had never saw his own child so sad, back when she was still alive and real, and just a mere fragment of his imagination. He did as he was told, and all traces of humor dissipated from his own being as he saw the name engraved on the tombstone, Cho, Van Pelt and Rigsby standing in front of her grave, Teresa's grave, where the day of her death, less than a year from his present, signaled when she had met, will meet, her finale fate, November 2012 on the 12th. "You've been right dad, at the end, it come out to option number one. You'll perish trying to kill Red John. But, don't worry, even if with his last breath he killed you, you did it. "

"Who got her, then?"

"But you, dad, of course. You see, with your death… you'll break her heart, and her soul couldn't manage any more. You died, and you refused to open up with her, you refuse to give op on revenge, because you keep preferring a monster to her love. She'll eventually stop sleeping, and, at a certain point, she'll start refusing food as well. Her very soul will kill her, as she'll slowly kill herself, erasing herself from the existence of everyone she ever knew."

"Because of me…" he whispered, his voice low, almost alien to him, as tears of desperation and sufferance and solitude escape his eyes in rivulets.

"No dad, she died because you thought that refusing to love the one you care the most about was better than to love and to lose. And what is really funny, is that even in death, she didn't resent you. She kept feeling guilty, and she kept wanting you happy! She didn't care whatever you were going to be with us or her, she just wanted what was better for you. Because, dad, since you met, her life has been about you, all of you, good or bad. She… she loves you, just that. And… I want you to seriously think about the possibility of doing the same. Because, dad, we don't resent you. We want you to be happy, to understand that she'll never ask you to forget us, and that's enough room for all of us."

The fog come again, and when he opened his eyes, this time he was in his apartment, in his bed, sweat covering his whole body in a cold embrace.

He looked at the alarm clock glowing in the dark- 7.30, just half an hour since he had allowed himself to take a nap. 7.30…In less than two days, he was supposed to meet Red John. But now, now he knew what he was supposed to do.

It was time to stop being selfish.

December the 24th, 8.45, Teresa Lisbon's apartment

The hectic knocking at her door awoke Lisbon -despite the late hour, she had just found her way into Morpheus' arms few hours earlier, after a night populated by nightmares and visions filled with blood and Jane, and as soon as she opened, dressed with her 99 jersey, she didn't have time to cry tears of happiness or relief, she barely had time to register as, as soon as he was inside, Jane took her in his arms, bridal style, and brought her to the couch, leaning on the blanket she had covered herself with.

She didn't register the sound of the door being kicked closed by his foot.

Suddenly, Jane was on top of her, sustaining his weight on his elbows and knees, thighs each side of her body, to not crush her, and he was kissing her, feverish kisses, crazy with passion and need. But there was something else, something Lisbon couldn't point exactly out. Lust? Comfort? She didn't think so – even if she could do that for him – it was more like… desperation. But it didn't sound like a goodbye, so, what it was? She couldn't say, and she didn't care, she simply allowed it to happen, allowed Jane to cry tears of happiness and relief as he slowly removed the only two pieces of fabric from her body – jersey and panties – and then helped her to help him out of his clothes, almost shyly.

She didn't fight him as his hands explored her naked body, nor when he penetrated her, erasing her sounds of bliss with a needy kiss. Instead, when he started moving inside of her, she met him, following his same rhythm, keeping her firmly against her by hugging him and circling his waist with her slim legs; she even managed to reach the highest point of bliss at the same time as he did….

Later, he cuddled her to sleep in his arms, and when she woke up, stroking gently the skin of her back, he did exactly like he had been told earlier that same day.

He talked, whispering everything he knew, every word, in her ear, all the time caressing her, stroking her skin, kissing her hair and shoulders tenderly, to make sure she was really there, and that she knew he wasn't going anywhere, not without her, at least.

He told everything, from the note on the last body and his encounter with John and the info he had avoided sharing the previous year when he had been forced to ask for help to avoid further troubles with LaRoche, to his life, his first memory to the day they met into Minelli's office, already knowing she was going to be troubles. He showed her she could trust him, because now he knew he had to trust her, as a person, as a friend, and as a coworker- she smiled of a sad smile, and nodded, and given him a quick kiss, more or less on peck on the lips, she moved to call her second, and arrange a plan to end the serial killer once and for all, in such a subtle way that he wasn't going to see that coming.

Which, he didn't.

Less than a week later, spent the last few days arranging the first details for putting his old property on the market, he was back into her apartment, sharing this time not her couch but engulfing her smaller body with his larger, naked one in her bed… Red John was gone, killed by a single bullet into the head fired by Cho, while he, himself, had posed as bait. The killer had never seen that coming, so sure that Jane would have never been so crazy to share his plan, and his knowledge of the killer's whereabouts, with his fellow police officers.

He was dead. He hadn't a reason to stay away from her, not any longer. and frankly, he didn't want to, not after having found out a secret of her own after their first time together, when he had made love to her like a starving man to reassure himself that it had been just a nightmare and she was still alive and well.

That day, as plans were shared and promises, no longer empty, were whispered with love and affection, he discovered that she kept, hidden inside a drawer into her living room, a frame, with a picture of the two of them, talking while having a glass of champagne at the CBI fundraiser, her with her long, dark, dress, him with his tux; she even confessed him that she had cried over it just few hours prior, hating herself for her feelings for him and because he refused to even consider listening to her…She even gave it to him, and while he held the frame in his hand, he saw a picture he has never seen before, and yet he knew too well. And he couldn't help but ask, was it all a dream like he had thought at the beginning?

He didn't know. and he didn't care, because, all that mattered was kissing the crown of dark hair of the woman cuddled in his embrace, his new-found love, smiling, feeling her smirking and blushing in return underneath him.

He somehow was sure that, somewhere else, three other women were giggling, happy for the both of them….

FIN