Disclaimer: This is for fun and no money.

Spoilers: Everything through 4x24.

Summary: Post ep for 4x24.

Three Conversations

Agent Darcy was writing up her report on the events that had taken place in Nevada when Patrick Jane showed up in her office at 10:37 in the morning. He didn't have an appointment and he didn't knock.

Of course.

"Good morning, Agent Darcy," he greeted her cheerfully, blasting her with one of those megawatt smiles that seemed to charm everyone in his path.

No need to ask how he'd gotten past her assistant, then. She raised her eyebrows at him. "Patrick," she said coolly.

His smile faded ever so slightly. "Still upset, I see."

"You interfered with my investigation."

He smiled again. This one wasn't so charming. It was cold to the point of chilling. "You interfered with mine."

"The thing is, Patrick, you don't work for the CBI anymore. You were fired six months ago. So your investigation counts for exactly nothing with me."

He raised his eyebrows in turn. "It counts for nothing that it got us closer to Red John than we ever have been before?"

"How exactly do you figure that, Patrick? Your debacle in Nevada didn't get us anything but a witness who won't talk and a good man killed in the crossfire." She trailed off, thinking of Wainwright bound in the back seat, a bullet through his head. She hoped to God she never found out whether it had been one of her rounds that had dealt the killing blow.

"Wainwright dying wasn't your fault, Susan," Jane said.

"No. It was yours," she said sharply.

"Believe me, I'm well aware of that," he said quietly. This surprised her. She expected him to deny it, to turn it back on her. For a moment the mask slipped and she thought she saw a glimpse of the true Patrick Jane for the first time. He was a very weary, very sad man.

He sighed. "Look, I didn't come here to rehash my mistakes with you. I took a risk with the whole plan, and it ended up costing more than I could have imagined." She got the feeling he wasn't just talking about Wainwright.

She sat back in her chair. "Why did you come here?"

He ran his fingers over her desk, picking up a paperweight and examining it, then picking up the picture of her sister on her desk and peering at that just as closely.

"Put that down," she said sharply.

He obeyed, setting it down exactly where it had been a moment before. He met her eyes. "I came here to convince you that I'm not working for Red John."

She blinked. She hadn't expected that. Truthfully, she'd kind of started to rethink that theory when she'd seen the psychotic female obviously under Red John's command trying to cut off two of his fingers with a pair of garden shears. "Is that so?" she said neutrally.

"Yes."

"Thought you didn't need to prove that."

He gave her a withering look. "I don't."

"So why tell me this now?"

He fidgeted, ever so slightly, and Darcy stared, fascinated. He'd never betrayed so much in front of her. "Just wanted to make sure we're square."

She couldn't help it. She laughed. "I don't think so. Try again."

He glared at her. "Fine." He seemed to undergo a serious internal struggle, and then he said, "I tampered with the evidence in the Panzer case."

Well, she hadn't been expecting that, either. "You did what?" she said, aghast.

He sighed. "I manipulated the evidence to make it seem like that girl's father killed Panzer. He never killed anyone. Red John killed Panzer, and I doctored the evidence so no one would find out."

She shook her head. "That may not have been the best thing to lead with if you're trying to convince me you're not working for Red John. Why would you do all that to protect him, if you aren't working for him?"

"I told a courtroom full of people that I killed Red John, and a jury decided to let me go free. If I admitted that the man I killed wasn't Red John, it's almost certain I would be thrown back in jail."

She looked at him appraisingly. "You know I could have you brought up on charges for obstruction of justice for what you've just told me."

He smiled slightly. "Obviously, I'm hoping you won't do that."

"Betting that I won't is a pretty big gamble. Why would you take such a big risk just to tell me that?"

He gritted his teeth. "I'm trying to make amends."

"You don't give a rat's ass about my opinion. Why would you go out of your way to make amends with me?"

He glared at her. "I never said I was trying to make amends with *you.*"

He was definitely agitated. He wasn't happy about telling her all this, and being here was not his idea. And if he really wasn't in league with Red John, that left one person. She sat back. "Why don't you tell me why you're really here, Patrick?"

"I told you. I came to tell you I'm not working with Red John."

"That's what you came here to do, but it's not what motivated you to come. Care to share what the real reason is?" She had a pretty good idea what it was, but she was enjoying having him in a place where she had one over on him, for once. It wouldn't kill him to admit it.

He scowled. "Lisbon made me come," he said, sounding for all the world like a petulant little boy.

"Ah, confession is good for the soul, isn't it?" she said with a smirk.

"Usually I find it's better for getting a punch in the nose," he muttered.

"Don't tempt me," she said dryly. She smiled at him. "So, Lisbon, huh?"

He looked back at her, still looking very put out. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I owe you an apology, Patrick. It seems you're not quite the sociopath I thought you were."

"How do you figure that?" he said suspiciously.

"Well, obviously there's at least one person in the world you care for quite a bit, or you wouldn't have allowed yourself to be railroaded into coming here against your will."

He shifted uncomfortably. "Lisbon and I are good friends. Of course I care about her."

Boy, for a professional charlatan, he really had a bad poker face when it counted. "Of course. Just like you care for everyone else on your team. The exact same amount. No more, no less."

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "That's right."

"I suggest you work on being a little more convincing when you say that if you expect to keep that secret a little longer."

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. "I think that ship has sailed, actually."

"Oh? Lisbon already knows?"

"No. Or, not exactly. I may have slipped up a little bit, but I think I have that covered. I was actually referring to Red John."

"What do you mean?"

"He was very explicit when he was trying to get me to meet him. He asked for her head as a gift. That was when I knew he must suspect that I—" he stopped.

"Have feelings for her," she supplied.

"Yes," he said grudgingly.

"Plus, he sent you a Lisbon look alike for a present," she observed.

He squinted at her. "What do you mean?"

"Lorelei Martins."

"Lorelei?" he scoffed. "She doesn't look anything like Lisbon."

"Tiny, tough, dark haired, and beautiful. No, you're right," she said sarcastically. "There's absolutely no resemblance whatsoever between the two of them."

He looked appalled. "You think he sent Lorelei because he thought I'd… what, want to be close to some kind of Lisbon proxy?"

"Are you telling me that he wasn't at least a little bit right about that?"

He looked sick. "Well, that's a whole other level of disturbing I hadn't considered." He barked a short, harsh laugh. "There I was thinking I was so clever by leaving her behind. Looks like he was two steps ahead of me the whole time once again." He buried his head in his hands. "I'm so stupid. Six months…"

He looked up at her. "You have to help me protect her. You can do what you like to me. Throw me in jail, I don't care. Just help me keep her safe."

"Jane, Lisbon is a big girl and one of California's finest agents. She's perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and she won't thank me for trying to interfere."

"I don't care. You don't understand what he's capable of. He knows she's important to me. He'll try to use that against me."

"Look, Jane, I'd like to help. I really would. But I'm not sure what you want me to do. Put a detail on her? I can do that, of course, but only if she agrees to it. Somehow, I don't think that she'll be wild about the idea."

He sighed. "Probably not. But maybe you could talk to her. Convince her."

"She's hardly likely to listen to me, of all people."

"What does that mean? 'Of all people?' Why shouldn't she listen to you?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

He looked at her shrewdly. "You were wrong, you know. About what you said to me a few months back."

"Wrong about what?"

"Lisbon. She doesn't dislike you."

"She does, but it really doesn't matter—"

"She doesn't. It's because she's a terrible liar," he interrupted her.

"Excuse me?"

"She's a terrible liar," he repeated.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I wasn't sure what had made you think that she disliked you, at first. Then it occurred to me you might have gotten that impression because she avoids making eye contact with you whenever possible."

Darcy was silent.

He smiled at her. "She doesn't dislike you. She was trying to protect me, and she was afraid that if she looked you in the face, you would guess that she was lying about Red John being dead."

"So Lisbon has known that he wasn't dead this whole time?"

"Pretty much."

"How'd she find out?"

"I told her right after the trial."

Well. They really were even closer than she'd thought. "So you knew during the trial. Did you know the man you shot wasn't Red John when you shot him?"

"No. He told me he was Red John, and I believed him. It was only afterwards, when the gun he had in his newspaper went missing that I realized that he wasn't Red John. Red John was the only person who would have any reason to make it look like I killed an innocent man, so obviously the man I killed couldn't have been Red John."

"Obviously," she said dryly.

"Anyway, the point is, Lisbon doesn't dislike you. She respects you, and she hates the fact that we've been lying to you this whole time about Red John being dead. That's why she couldn't look you in the eye. She's too honest." There was an obvious note of affection in his voice as he said it, along with a hint of pride, like he was proud that someone so honest was willing to call him her friend. He really had it bad.

Well, this made her life easier. "All right. Well, I'm happy to talk to her, and see if we can't get her set up with a protective detail, at least for a little while. I still think she'd rather hear it from you than me, though."

Jane snorted. "Believe me, I'm about the last person in the world Lisbon would listen to regarding matters of personal security."

"Your team, then."

He didn't answer.

"Ah. Already asked them, huh? You're just covering all your bases."

"Well, yes."

"Very well. I'll speak to her."

"Thank you."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "What are you going to do for me in exchange?"

He feigned innocence. "In exchange?"

"Yes. You're too smart to come in here and ask me for a favor without being ready to bring something to the table yourself. So what's it going to be?"

He sighed. "Look, I'm not going to promise to tell you all my plans. It was a mole in the FBI who ruined my last plan, so I'm sure you can understand my reluctance to share. But I will tell you everything you want to know about the Panzer case and I will provide you with my insights on Red John free of charge. And I will let you know if there is anything you should be aware of, as we move forward, as long as I have your assurance that you keep it to yourself and do not record anything I tell you in any official capacity."

"That bargain seems to leave you with a lot of room for interpretation on your end," Darcy remarked.

Jane shrugged. "Take it or leave it."

She looked at him. "How do you know you can trust me? How do you know I'm not the mole?"

He laughed. "Because, Susan, you suffer from the same affliction that Lisbon does. Honest eyes. You can't conceal your passion for justice worth a damn."

"Well, I still don't trust you as far as I can throw you," she told him bluntly.

"Lisbon would say that's very wise of you." The bastard was still laughing at her. "So," he said. "Are we friends again?"

She looked at him askance. "Let's just call it a collegial professional relationship and leave it at that, shall we?"

He beamed at her. "As you wish." He scooted around the desk and kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks, Susan."

And he was gone.

She sighed. Only Patrick Jane could make a peace offering so… annoying. Still, it was better than trying to work against him. She smiled a little to herself. At least now she had some leverage over him. After all, he'd practically tattooed on his forehead how much he hated disappointing one Teresa Lisbon. So if things got really bad, she could always appeal to that other agent with the honest eyes.