AN: A post-6x01 to pass the time till 6x02! Jane after the phone call. Reviews greatly appreciated and I'd love it you could take the time!
He can't begin to understand.
Red John has Lisbon.
Red John has Lisbon.
In the ensuing rush and scarper, Patrick thinks he will be sick. He feels winded. He has to remind himself to breathe. He's trying very hard not to collapse from shock and the horrific possibilities that are quickly consuming him. Dread and fear is what he sees looking back at him from the others. Grace is crying as she puts her bulletproof vest on. She tries, pointlessly, to not let him see, tries not to make things worse for him. As if they could be worse now. Later he will realise this was an attempt to be brave and to the best agent that Teresa has taught her to be. As her tears fall, Rigsby grasps her arm strongly, but clearly with love, and whispers something urgently in her ear. She nods. Jane can feel Cho's eyes on him and he meets his stare and Jane is shocked by the anger and panic which he sees in the other man. This all happens in the instant after Patrick discloses what he heard on the phone, and it is then Patrick wonders what they're all still doing there when Teresa is with him.
"Let's go," Cho states, never breaking his hard stare.
Jane nods unsurely. Was it really only yesterday that Lisbon had confided in Jane that she was scared, scared because Jane didn't have a plan? He still doesn't have a plan. He wants to run in and end Red John, for everything, for his wife, for his daughter, for touching Teresa. But he can't do that. He needs Teresa alive, needs her safe, so he has to do what she would do. He's told the team and they're going to do this together.
Grace has located Lisbon's phone signal, and she is to drive to the location with Rigsby. Cho and Jane will travel together. Cho is reversing out of the space and getting ready to pull out of the car park when his attention is drawn to the rear view mirror, where he can see Grace running up to their car. He lowers the window.
"Partridge," she gasps breathlessly, tear tracks visible down her cheeks. Jane's heart surges. "Partridge's phone signal is there with Lisbon. Does this mean-"
"Red John," Patrick whispers. "Brett Partridge, all this time" he breaks off.
Lisbon.
"We need to get to Lisbon. Let's go, Cho. Thank you, Grace."
Grace nods, and with a swish of red hair, she jumps into the SUV Rigsby has pulled up behind them in. At this stage, it's barely been three minutes since Jane's phone rang and his world began falling apart, all over again.
Cho pulls out on to the road, and picks up the pace quickly. His knuckles are white round the steering wheel. He is driving, sirens blazing, faster than Jane has ever seen. He supposes he isn't the only one Teresa means a lot to.
The sickening feeling is rising up again in Patrick's stomach. Red John is Brett Partridge, and Brett Partridge is alone with Teresa. This is overwhelming. Patrick looks out at the landscape that is going blaring past their speeding car. He can feel this becoming too much and swallows the emotions which are threatening to overcome him. Teresa needs him in his best form right now, and he can't let her down.
This is all his fault. He has been worried, duly worried, about Teresa for some time now. It has been made very clear, Patrick feels, by both themselves and others, on both their and Red John's side, that it is a known fact that him and Teresa are each other's weaknesses. Because of this, the only way Patrick could make sense of it, was to presume that Red John was saving Lisbon, saving her as his endgame. When Patrick tried to imagine the final showdown, possible scenarios, he was almost sure that Red John would use Lisbon as leverage against Patrick, and he was sure it would work.
But those ideas were vague, saved for some future time when they had got the upper hand against Red John and they were the ones calling the shots. Not now, only days after his threats. Patrick hasn't prepared himself for this. He hasn't got a plan, and he can't think straight now that he knows Red John has her. Once again, Red John – Brett Partridge, he knows now, has eluded him, turned things on their head and forced him to deal with an encounter he wasn't expecting.
Lisbon.
He says her name over again and again in his head. He closes his eyes tight and wills an urgent prayer to her God. Patrick is not ready for this game to end. He thinks with all his might of her, as she was today, yelling at him and storming away. He had run after her car. He wonders could he have ran faster. He'd have apologised and she'd have rolled her eyes and he'd have smiled at her and said he'd see her later.
This is later and he's not sure that he will.
Cho is slowing the car, pulling on the brakes and pulling up. Lost in his thoughts, he hasn't noticed they've arrived in a residential area. It is pitch black dark now, and Patrick is terrified. Cho is speaking to him, he realises.
"-so stay here until we break the door down. Then –" Cho stops. "Then we'll get Lisbon," he finishes.
Jane nods.
"Ready?" Cho asks.
"Ready."
They leave the car and Jane hangs back as he watches the others move forward. He wants to be the first through that door. Lisbon is here, and she needs him, and he will be there for her. She is his endgame, and even if Red John thinks this game is ending, he will be there to see it through, his endgame at his side.