Warnings: a bit dark, very short and a tiny bit of language (just in the flashback, because, well, that´s how I imagine a younger Jane).
Til Death Do Us Apart
With all the lying that came with his (former) 'profession' and his lifestyle in general, it was sometimes hard not to lose yourself in all of those schemes, different identities and conflicting information and behaviours. Therefore he established two rules very early in his con man life, to avoid confusing himself when trying to confuse others. The first rule was not to lie to himself, and he hasn´t, at least not consciously, as ugly and hurtful as that might sometimes happened to be. The second was never to make vows, and if, to keep them.
He made exactly two vows in his lifetime.
The first one was 25 years and about seven months (of course, he could have told the exact number of days, hours and minutes too; but, who cared about that?) ago on a warm summer evening.
He stood there, in his perfect dark blue suit, waiting, the wind blowing light beach sand across his face. He knew he should feel panicked or at least a little nervous, but he didn´t because he had no regrets, no fears and certainly no hesitation. It was almost ridiculous how right it felt to be standing here, doing what he was about to do.
When she appeared he couldn´t keep himself from smiling (and staring, because boy, was that woman gorgeous) and he felt a familiar jolt of joy in his stomach. Her smile was radiating, she was practically glowing in whole, and it was him that was doing that to her, he thought, completely amazed. He was a lucky bastard, no doubt.
The whole procedure happened in a blur where he saw nothing except for her and felt like tapping on cotton candy (cloud-fucking-seven, it was). He awoke when he noticed his cue to say the words:
„I, Patrick Jane, take you, Angela, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you until death do us apart", he vowed.
The second vow he made, was the one to kill Red John, whatever and however long it may take.
He had kept both of them, the last one more or less recently, with his own bare hands...
And the first too, even if the not-lying-to-himself rule may or may not had forced him to admit his feelings for Lisbon.
Lisbon. The very thought of her had kept him from killing himself right after Red John. She was such a good, warm-hearted, forgiving, compassionate, determined, overall good and amazing person, she really deserved to have everything she wanted. The problem was, she wanted him, he had no delusions about that, and that was the one thing he couldn´t give her. He would happily spend the rest of his life making her as happy as possible, with that one exception. Well, it had to be like that, he supposed, because life just never was that easy, was it?
Til death do us apart.
And he wasn´t dead. (yet.)
