A murder. In one of the remotest spots of California. Actually covered with snow.
Jane is wandering aimlessly through the fields – just quarreled with Lisbon, that's why.
He pauses to observe a small shrub coated in ice. Its branches sparkle in the pale morning sun. Cold, stiff. Frozen.
Suddenly he feels a kind of affinity for that bush. For he is frozen too. Not outside, but within – which is even worse.
His heart is ice-cold. Empty. Dead. It keeps on beating, but that's nothing more than pretending. He's still alive because he has a task to perform. Revenge. This miserable excuse of a life is simply a way to get it.
That's why he's afraid of Lisbon, sometimes. Well, afraid isn't exactly the word. He doesn't bother finding the proper term, at any rate.
She wants to fix him. She always tries to fix everything. She doesn't want him to waste his life hunting Red John. What she doesn't know is that he cannot be saved. He doesn't want to be saved.
He wouldn't deserve it, anyway.
She cares for him. That's the worst part of it, because she didn't choose to be his friend. She just couldn't help it.
When he finally destroys Red John – and hopefully even himself in the process – she will suffer. He knows that. And he doesn't want her to suffer. She doesn't deserve it.
He wonders how he'll live through hurting her.
He has always known he shouldn't have allowed himself getting this close to anyone else. Not after the tragedy that befell his family. Not if he really wants to exact his revenge.
Part of him now desperately wants to be saved. Hopes that she's able to save him.
Then he could come to life again, someday.
He doesn't turn when he hears a familiar footstep in the snow. He doesn't need to. It's Lisbon, of course – who else?
"Jane, what am I supposed to do with you? Surely you're not looking forward to freezing to death, are you?"
She's not angry anymore. Concerned, maybe. Why on Earth does she have to be concerned about him? It's not worth it. He's not worth it.
Yet he would like to be. He's sick and tired of being frozen.
A single tear finds its way down his cheek.
His heart wishes that this can be a first – however faint – presage of spring.