a/n: This was written over a year ago as a sort of prequel for an AU story that never really got written. It's a little rough around the edges, but I think it does okay on its own, too. There's no Jisbon here. Actually there's no Jane at all. I hope you'll give it a go anyway.
As always, I own nothing except for the writing itself.
She wants Red John.
It is her first thought every morning when she opens her eyes and turns over in bed to find the space to her right vacant. Sometimes she rolls onto her side, eyes firmly shut, and imagines for a moment that he's still there, that in a moment his rough palm will cup her cheek, that his callused fingers will brush her hair from her face and tuck it back behind her ear, that his lips will touch her forehead as he breaks the silence with a husky "Morning, Reese."
It is her second thought when she tiptoes down the hall in her dressing gown, leans into the doorway of the small, lavender painted room, avoids the horrid face on the wall and focuses instead on the fluffy white clouds Andrew painted on the ceiling with careful hands. Tiptoes, so as not to wake the child that no longer sleeps there. That no longer sleeps anywhere. Empty. I want Red John.
It his her thought in the evenings when she returns to a silent, vacant house, when she passes her daughter's preschool, but does not stop.
"Please," she whispers desperately in Minelli's office, her fingers twisting at the locket that's taken the place of the gold cross at her throat. "I can do this, Sir. You know I can."
He scrutinizes her, unconvinced and she forces her fidgets to still, sees that she's losing him. "Please, I'll do anything." It's the wrong thing to say. His face closes, his jaw a hard, sad line.
"That's what I'm afraid of."
She shakes her head, the frustration leaking into her posture, the tensing of her shoulders, her hands. Clench, unclench. "That's not what I meant. I can handle Red John. I'm.." She hesitates, swallows, uncomfortable. She's not good at selling herself, even if it's true. "I'm the best one to handle it. I'm a good agent. My team has the highest solve rate in the bureau, and-"
He raises a hand to cut her off and she falls silent. The firmness, the finality and utter sorrow in his voice as he says her name tells her it's over. She's lost.
"Lisbon, no. You can't. Not yet. Maybe someday. Maybe someday soon, even. But not yet." He plucks a file from his desk and hands it to her across the expanse of mahogany. "Dismissed."
Wordlessly, she leaves the office with a double homicide in some tiny coastal town clutched to her chest, not the one she wanted. She wants Red John.
"Have you thought about selling the house?" Celia ventures, her gaze flitting between the spot over Lisbon's left shoulder and the coffee mug in front of her, clearly uncomfortable.
"No." The force of the word and the vehement shaking of her head leave no room for argument. "I can't. No."
Her sister in law sighs, worry etched into the lines at the corners of her eyes, eyes that are so like Andrew's.
"How about renting an apartment, then? I can't imagine living there. Where-" Celia's voice trails off into horrified silence. She meets Lisbon's eyes. "If it's money you need.. I know with the mortgage it would be hard and-"
"I don't want your money Celia." The words are tiny daggers, harsher than she intended, and she winces at the hurt that flashes over her companion's face.
"Teresa.."
"I'm sorry." And she is. Sorry that her life is in tatters, that the people she loved most in the world were brutally taken from her, that she's alienating those that remain. Tommy is in town, came to see her yesterday, proposed a "girls day" with Annie, as though a day with another little girl, borrowed, can heal the gaping, festering wound of the one she's lost. It only occurs to her now to wonder if this is all supposed to be some sort of intervention.
She doesn't want an intervention. She doesn't want to live somewhere away from the constant reminder of what her life used to be and what was stolen. She doesn't want the slimy executive her best friend Gina tried to set her up with last week, or a vacation, or counseling, or more time off.
With a great gasping gulp of air, she pushes up from the table and spins savagely on her heel, sparing barely a glance at the startled face of Andrew's sister. Pulling her coat tighter around her thinning waist, she strides away, the cool air on her skin the only thing she feels. She wants Red John.
The rain pelts down on her as she climbs the steps to Sam Bosco's front porch, her hair hanging in lank, waterlogged tendrils. Sam Bosco, her mentor, her friend, Sam Bosco who's always wanted more from her than she was willing to give. She'd deny it if anyone ever asked, but she isn't blind. He's a little bit in love with her. Maybe more.
She can see it in his face when he answers the door, the surprise eclipsed by warmth and worry. "Teresa.." He steps out onto the porch, closing the door behind him. Before it shuts, she can hear someone within the house playing a piano.
"What are you doing here?"
She shifts her weight. "Red John. I want to talk about Red John."
"Christ." Sam frowns violently and lurches away, as if she'd struck him. He swipes an anxious hand over his forehead and she hears him draw a deep, frustrated breath before he turns back to face her.
"You know I can't talk about it. Need to know. But especially not to you." There's apology in his tone, but also admonishment and anger, anger at her, perhaps, for putting him in a precarious, compromising position. And maybe she has. She can't quite bring herself to care.
"Spare me the bullshit, Sam." Her patience is gone. Why else would she be here? She spends her waking hours bringing answers, bringing closure, bringing some modicum of justice to others when she can have none herself. Throws herself into her work, so she can forget, so she can keep from remembering, so that she can do something that makes a difference to somebody, even if she cannot help herself. Her sleep is marred with nightmares and memories she could not scrub from her consciousness even if she was sure she wanted to.
"Teresa." Bosco places a soothing, placating hand on her shoulder and she shakes it off as though stung, rage clawing it's way up her throat.
"Just tell me. Do you have any leads? Anything?"
He hesitates.
"Please, Sam." She's aware of the desperation that's crept into her voice, the tears pricking at her eyes.
Bosco grinds his teeth, and she can see his fingers twitching with the urge to reach out to her.
"Dammit Lisbon!"
"Please." It's only a whisper, her voice choked with anguish, muffled with grief.
"Yes, we have a lead. A good lead. Believe it or not, Red John has a girlfriend of sorts. A blind woman. We're doing everything we can. I mean it, Teresa."
She sags, somewhere between relief, exhaustion, and the knowledge that what she wants is unattainable. As her knees buckle, Sam is there to catch her, an arm at her waist, a hand at her back as he draws her to him. She lets him, allows herself to be comforted for the first time in two years. Loses herself in her tears, and the musk of his cologne, and the softness of his body.
"It's okay, Honey. We'll get him. I promise." He whispers against the crown of her head, and she tries to let it be enough. Tries. But it's not. It isn't. Mine. I want Red John.
Each time she hears a siren, she knows, someone's life is falling apart. Someone's existence will be irrevocably changed, as hers was. Knows it in the way she never did when the series of mangled bodies she encountered week after week, month after month, year after year belonged to someone else's loved ones.
She knows her husband's last words, knows without having been there. Knows without the crime scene technicians and the blood spatter analysts, or the coroner to catalogue the defensive wounds. She sees it in her dreams, and in the sleeplessness that comes after, his last act, his last words, the agony on his face, the torture in his eyes as he raises his arms against the knife wielding madman. The small girl shuddering beneath her bed, her solid, formidable husband brought to his knees in a last plea for mercy, seeking out the words over and over with his dying breath. "Please, not my daughter."
And she'd known, known in that moment not long after, with the smell of blood and that hideous smiling face and the tinny voice of the 911 operator from the phone that had dangled from her fingertips, and the slight, bare curling and uncurling of her daughter's fingers, and the blaring of the sirens coming ever closer, she'd known that she would never, ever be whole again.
And in the days that followed, in a stark white room beside the empty shell of her daughter with only the mechanical gasp of the ventilator for company, she'd become possessed. Consumed, lost in the impenetrable darkness of anguish and grief, buried deep beneath the earth in a hole so fathomless she's certain she will never be able to claw her way out of, she'd found purpose. It's not hope, it's not even a bit like it. It's dark, and twisted but utterly strong and it's the only thing she has, so she grabs hold of it like a lifeline, like a tow rope, like it's the only chance she'll ever have to make it back to shore. Because it is. Red John. She wants Red John.