The thin red line

Welcome to my very first The Mentalist fanfic! I haven't written fanfiction in years, but the Red John-storyline and solution of it, got me back in the saddle.

This story is basically a fill-in-the-blanks for the events occurring right after RJ's death and Jane's flight. I couldn't accept the fact that the CBI-gang didn't see each other anymore right after these events and felt an urgent sense to fill in some of the questions lingering about.

So basically, this is my take on the first days after Jane's run and what might have happened afterwards. There are spoilers for:

6x07: The Great Red Dragon

6x08: Red John

Type of story: Angst/Hurt/Comfort

Written from Jane's POV

Characters: Jane, Lisbon, Van Pelt, Rigsby and Cho – in other words, all those that we love and care about.

Feedback is very much appreciated. This story is complete so I will be posting a new chapter on a very regular basis.

Thanks for paying attention!

The Thin Red Line

Chapter 1

Run Jane, Run!

My lungs burst out of my body as it began to run instinctively, almost beyond my control. It was as if my entire system was no longer able to listen to my brain. My brain, so foggy and so confused, wouldn't control my limbs anymore. My brain wasn't functioning, a scary thought. And so I ran. I just ran away, even though there was a foggy sense somehow that I knew what I was doing.

The adrenaline holding me upright in my fight against that man was still kicking in. I knew that it wouldn't last of course but right now, it did.

My hands, still trembling like they had never done before, followed the smooth rhythm of the flight. They lingered alongside my body. My legs, strong and adrenalized did exactly what they needed to do. I must have been a strange sight to those who might have seen me, even though there wouldn't be many people here on this early Wednesday evening.

I felt … liberated … and yet so guilty. I had crossed an unforgiving line; the thin red line that some people crossed and others never did. The line where people chose to become murderers, or not.

My guilt was enormous. Not because of what I had done, I was way beyond that, but because of what I was doing to the only people in this world that cared about me. I was abandoning them.

I had no choice.

From this moment on, after the kill, I had become a fugitive. Nobody would believe that I had acted beyond my control, in a range. I could have turned back several times but I didn't. No judge or jury would not convict me after this. I had killed a man with my bare hands and even though he was a ruthless killer who had manipulated tons of people and had killed more than ten innocents, I had still murdered him. The law would state that I should have brought him to justice. Even though there was not a single doubt in anyone's mind, especially not after him faking his own death, that he was in fact the man I had searched for during all these years, it would not rectify what I had done.

I had always said that I would kill him and when we finally met face to face I had known that he would not survive. I had never intended him to live. But I also had not intended my – and his – actions to have such an impact on our lives. I had thought that I would be the sole person punished. The shutting down of the CBI was not included in this package.

I didn't feel guilty over the kill. I couldn't. It had ended my ten year long quest and I had relished the fear in that man's eyes as he lay beyond my hands and begged with his eyes for mercy. Had he had mercy for my child? Had he had mercy when he slaughtered my wife? No. He had taken his time with her, killing her so slowly that she would have suffered beyond any human boundaries. He had slashed her open while she still lived and knew that her own daughter – our daughter – lay dead near her, for he had killed my girl first to add extra tragedy to my wife's gruesome death.

Yes, I too carried the blame. I had been arrogant, cocky, confident and full of myself, earning money off desperate people and thriving on their fears. And yes, I would feel that guilt for the rest of my life. But I did not murder a child, so innocent and so pure, or a woman who had been too good for this world. She shouldn't have married me, yet I knew that until her dying breath, she would have loved me, despite my flaws, my cheating and the way that I made my living.

I could and would not ever forgive him for that. I was glad that he feared death, as his begging and his scared eyes betrayed. It was the perfect ending to his meaningless, blood-soaked life. In the end, he had been a coward. Angela would not have begged for her life nor for her daughter's, but he did. And I was happy for that.

But oh, the guilt, as my throbbing head and tired brain came back into focus and realized that I was still running like a madman. The guilt over Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt, who had all been there for me, giving me the chance to finish this once and for all. I felt oh so guilty for destroying their careers, their way of living. They should not have become involved but chose to do so at their own request. By working with them, I had taken away what was most dear to them.

But I knew that I could not take back what I had done and they had known that too. The CBI was forever gone and so was their partnership. They knew that this was not my fault but Gale Bertram's. Yet it felt as if I had pulled the plug myself.

If, during my entire selfish existence, there was one thing that I could take back, it was the pain I had caused those who cared about me. I didn't deserve their care, did I? Yes, I had rid the world of a bastard but that was all I had done.

Suddenly my legs stopped. Just like that. I could no longer control them and I stumbled forward, suddenly too tired to be able to do anything but sink down to the asphalt and take long, deep breaths. My hands touched the ground, barely feeling the concrete beneath my fingertips. The warm asphalt dug into my hands. It was still very hot out there. I felt like giving in, just dying.

I heard a screeching noise but was too tired to look up. The opening of a car door, footsteps walking towards me. For one second I prayed it was Lisbon but it was a stranger, staring at me with fury in his eyes. "Hey, are you crazy?" he yelled at me. "I almost got you killed! Are you blind?" I noticed the car had stopped within a few inches before me and that I was sitting in the middle of the street.

For one long second I felt regret that he hadn't killed me, just like I hadn't been able to pull the trigger of that gun in my hands while holding it to my head. But at the same time I knew I wanted to live. I had not fought for ten years to catch this man whose name I would never speak out aloud again, to die now. I owed it to my family to live.

"Sorry," I muttered, getting up slowly and praying that my legs would not crumble once more. But they held me up and I was able to stand upright and walk almost normally back to the curb, meanwhile ignoring this stranger who had almost ran me over.

He cursed once more and returned to his car while I sat on the curb and panted. In the far away distance I heard sirens and realized that the man's body had been discovered. I didn't have much time to get back in gear and execute the next part of my careful plan.

Despite my throbbing head I was able to focus and look around me, figuring out where I was. Even blindly I had been running in the right direction. It was only a few hundred yards now before I would reach my getaway car that I had left here late last night with the help of Cho.

Yesterday, when I called him and simply said I needed his help, he had come over immediately and picked me up in his own car while leaving the anonymous, black car for which I had paid cash here. I reached into my pocket and took out the key, getting in stiffly. Nobody noticed me and I kept a low profile.

The only thing Cho had asked me yesterday was, "Tell me where you are going and I'll come over as soon as I can."

"No," I had said, handing him one of the two cell phones I had purchased with a disposable number. "I will call you when the time is right. Keep this with you and don't tell anyone about it, not even Lisbon. She would go crazy if she knew."

Cho, as cool as he always was, had simply nodded and tucked away the phone. We all knew that we were being monitored as of now on but I also knew nobody would find the phone on Cho. He would make sure of that.

"You're my lifeline, Cho," I said with a faint grin. "Let's hope I won't be needing it."

"Whenever you need me, I'll be there," Cho replied, meaning it. "Just be careful and don't get killed."

I resisted the urge to call Lisbon once again, using this disposable phone, but thought against it, knowing it would endanger all of us, and started the car. From here on it would be a small but risky trip to leave the city forever and head out East. First stop would be Las Vegas, if I could make it that far.

My entire body was weary now and I knew why. Only I knew why.

Would they show my face on national television? Would they announce I was a murderer? Or would they keep the scandal, after all the other scandals, to themselves and try to fix the Jane-problem internally? Would they hunt me? Or would they let me go? Would they be too busy digging into their own personal problems and fishing out the dirty Blake-crowd, now that they knew what they were looking for? Or would they invest in me and track me down in order to have a scapegoat?

I couldn't tell at this moment. But I wouldn't take the risk of sticking around and finding out.

I had all the money I needed to flee forever and live a comfortable life, taking care of my bank accounts over the past day. After the bomb, I knew that the time had come and I had prepared myself.

And I had taken precautions years ago. Angela's life insurance policy had been slumbering on an anonymous bank account opened under a false name years ago, with millions just sitting there. I could leave the Malibu house and everything I owned behind but I had still taken enough precautions over these past hours to make sure that I had enough cash on me to live for a while. I would travel from motel to motel and pay in cash, using fake ID's that I had tucked away a long time ago and just hiding under the blanket of anonymousness. I had arranged all of this after I killed him the first time around. After my release from prison at that time, I had known I would not survive a second trial. And then the escape plan had kicked into place, just waiting for me to execute it.

Weariness overcame me as I drove out of the city, over broad roads and highways, avoiding small roads and passages where cops or Feds could be waiting for me. I blended in with the commuters until the roads became quieter and I was able to leave the city forever. I would not return here, I knew. The CBI already seemed like years ago, yet only yesterday I had still been part of it.

A few hours passed and darkness fell quickly. I was exhausted. The headache, my abdomen and my tired legs were wearing me down.

My condition had not been the same since the bomb. I had felt like crap ever since Lisbon took me out of the hospital. I had disobeyed doctor's orders of course, even when they called me a few hours later to tell me that X-Rays had shown that I was suffering from internal bruising, possibly a small rupture in my spleen and needed to come back to be monitored and to be examined further. Lisbon didn't know and I hadn't told her. I didn't tell her about the concussion either. Pain was just pain, you could take it and stuff it away in a far corner from your brain while adrenaline kicked in and took over. That's what I had done.

I had only lived for that man whose name I would never mention again for years and now that he had come so close to me, I had felt my senses take over; ignoring the physical aches he had given me after that bomb. He should have killed me then, yet instead chose to toy with me like the pet he thought I was. But pets can get aggressive and bite their bosses.

Finally I could drive no longer. My eyelids drooped; my head was killing me, my entire body felt like it would die immediately if I didn't stop and rest. My hands no longer shook but now felt cramped around the steering wheel. Oh, how I missed my beloved but oh so obvious Citroën.

About three miles down the road I saw the familiar neon sign of a sleazy motel with hardly any cars on the parking lot. Forty bucks a night, the sign read. You couldn't go any cheaper than that. I had to focus on where I was, using the car's battered GPS to orientate myself.

The car came to an abrupt stop, I crawled/fell out and made my way to the worn down reception where a young guy with greasy long hair waited for new arrivals. I barely looked at him and paid in cash for a room with a clean bed and a single table and chair. He didn't care about me and I didn't care about him. People like them saw people from all sorts. He couldn't care less I was still in my suit and looked like a business man with slow growing stubble and eyes that betrayed his exhaustion. Tomorrow he would no longer remember me, just what I needed.

"Room 20," he barked, practically throwing the key at me. "Be out by noon tomorrow."

I grasped the key and stumbled out of his little room, leaving the car parked behind the building at the same spot. I had no luggage. Tomorrow I would find whatever I needed for my new solitary life.

But my head. My abdomen. Oh my body had never ached this much before, not even after the bomb. I knew I had overdone myself, that I had hurt myself once more. I didn't have to be a doctor to see that.

I was just about able to shut the door behind me before I literally sunk through my legs, not even able to reach the bed anymore. My head barely missed the nightstand. My body just gave up. And I fell to the ground on my side, not knowing anything anymore for a very long time.

To be continued …