Murky waters

Story: A second or so after Cho calls out my name, I fall into the murky water. Not realizing that this will be the beginning of a whole lot of trouble.

This story is a Christmas-story my way. With all the Christmas stories posted here, I felt it was time to do my own version of it. So expect trouble for Jane, some angst/hurt/comfort/friendship and a hint of Jisbon.

One-time shot, set before season 6.

Some references to Fugue in Red and Jane's family.

Reviews are very much appreciated and welcomed!

Murky waters

We're running through the woods, chasing him. Cho has his gun in his hands, shouting, "CBI, stop or I'll shoot!"

Of course he doesn't stop. He keeps on running as fast as he can, trying to get away from us. Cho and I avoid the tree branches as we follow the sounds of our suspect heaving heavily as he keeps on running.

Then there is a loud splash and then nothing. It's pitch dark out there with no moon, no stars to accompany us. There is just Cho's flashlight that I follow blindly. And then that too vanishes as Cho is suddenly out of my sight.

"Jane!"

A second or so before I fall into the pond, I can hear Cho's strong voice barking my name. Then I just slip and there is nothing much I can do about it. I just enter the water, sliding down the small ledge, heading directly into the muddy water, barely missing the side of the wooden dock with my head.

Then I'm underneath the surface.

I'm unable to see anything in the darkness, unable to close my mouth on time and keep the water out of my throat and lungs. For a few seconds, I am dazed, unable to realize I have to fight the forces pulling me down. But then I start to struggle automatically and my mind starts to react again. The water isn't deep and I know that technically I shouldn't drown.

I feel something nearby grazing me. A human hand. I reach for it but it's gone already and then my head is suddenly out of the water and I can breathe again. I take deep breaths, pushing away flashbacks to my earlier drowning experience.

You are safe, my sanity screams at me. You stupid jerk, my pride yells at the same time. It was just a stupid slip.

"Jane, grab my hand." I swim to the dockside and allow Cho to pull me out of the water. I'm pretty sure that I can manage this myself but I'm grateful that he is here anyhow. "You okay, man?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. My pride and ego have suffered serious blows though."

Cho smirks. "That's what you get for not wearing boots. Next time listen to Lisbon. Speaking of which …"

We hear Lisbon approach through the woods, calling out our names. Quickly I get up, shivering and cold in the darkness of this winter night, at the same time extremely happy we are in California.

"Cho, Jane, where the hell are you?" Her flashlight shines through the woods, aimed at the pond and I instantly realize she's having the same flashbacks as I have experienced. "Did you get him?"

"Jane …" she stops instantly, staring at me standing there soaking wet. "What the hell happened?"

"I fell," I say, pointing at the pond. "Don't worry, I'm fine."

She mutters – or curses? – something under her breath and shines her flashlight towards my brown shoes. "Next time –"

"Yeah, yeah, wear boots." I shake off some of the water and point at the pond. "Your man's in there."

"What?"

"Our suspect. He's in the water. Get the troops in and let's fish him out. He's dead."

"Damn, Lisbon says."

I just smile wearily. "Slippery docks."

Again Lisbon curses slightly underneath her breath, undoubtedly thinking about the family Christmas party she is supposed to attend tomorrow. With our suspect gone, she has no excuses left. Case closed.

"That sucks," she actually says, almost unhappy. Then, at that moment, I realize that she was actually quite happy to have an excuse to escape the obligatory Christmas feasts. And I also grasp at that very moment that she and I have a lot more in common than we ever thought. I was just as happy as she was that we had a reason for being here.

"Cho, get divers in here to retrieve the body," she orders. "Make sure there is an autopsy planned. Even though he probably drowned, we have to make it official."

"And the woman?"

She shrugged. "There is no way of finding her now."

"That's not exactly true," I say, pointing at two emptied bottles of whiskey lying on the dock, realizing now that our dead suspect probably tripped over one of them. Oh, the irony of fate. "I'm pretty sure that he had his own little private party with her here. They probably were having sex. She might not have agreed. She might have tried to get away from him, fell in and drowned. And since he panicked, he acted as if nothing had ever happened and returned to the party."

Lisbon nods reluctantly, then decides to aim her frustrations at the first person nearby that deserves some yelling at. "Sheriff Peterson," she says, looking at the greyish man who obviously has seen too many movies and gets pretty bored doing nothing in a sleeper town like this one. "Next time you call in the CBI, please think twice before wasting our time."

"I'm sorry," Peterson mutters, "but there was a disappearance and I was short staffed and …"

"And so you decided you wouldn't mind if we had to drive for hours to get here and solve your mystery for you, on Christmas Eve of all nights. Next time, think again please."

I smile at Lisbon's firm approach. Then she looks at me firmly. "Jane, you're shivering. Let's get you out of those clothes before you catch anything."

"Lisbon," I retort, "is that a come on?"

She pulls a face. "Funny."

I shove my arms around my chest, trying to stop my teeth from clattering. Lisbon and I walk back to her car where she turns on the engine, turns up the heat and then rummages in her trunk where she digs out a blanket. "Here, use this."

Then she leaves me alone and I remove my jacket, holding the blanket over my freezing body while refusing to remove my other clothes. I have some dignity left, you know. There are no spare clothes here and the drive back will take about three hours, something I'm not looking forward to at this point. Bathing in the car's heat, I feel miserable.

Lisbon taps on the car window and I slide it open. "You okay?" she asks, checking me out. "We have to stick around a bit longer until the coroner arrives. They're locating the body now."

"Yeah, I'm fine," I lie. "I'll wait here."

"Okay." She smiles. "You did a good job, Jane. We caught our killer. Even if you had to fall into the water to do so." She walks away again, her words leaving me somehow warmer.

An hour or so later, when I'm almost warmed up, Cho returns to the car and update me on the events. "We found Kristina's body in the water too," Cho says. "You were probably right with your theory."

I nod, unable to be happy to be right. "That's good. Case closed."

Cho frowns. "Are you sure you're alright? You look like you've been to hell and back. You know Lisbon will kill you if you lie."

"I'm okay. Really, honestly and totally," I sigh wearily.

"Okay then. We can leave as soon as Lisbon gets here. You up for driving back tonight?"

"Dying for it."

Cho almost grins and gets in behind the steering wheel. I have turned off the engine about an hour ago, trying to save up battery and the inside of the car is cold. My clothes have dried though and the clammy feeling of wetness is slowly going away.

Finally we leave the crime scene and head back to Sacramento. It's a horrid three-hour drive in the middle of the night and the three of us all feel like crap when we finally arrive back at the CBI Headquarters. We haven't said much at all, just trying to get home. Fortunately, on Christmas Eve, the roads are quiet and it almost feels as if we are alone out there.

Cho instantly leaves for home while Lisbon and I walk in together. "I'm just going to wrap up on the paper work," she says when I ask her why she's not going home. "No chance of sleeping now. Go to bed, Jane, you look terrible."

I smile. "Goodnight, Lisbon."

I push the elevator button, step in and go up to the CBI attic that I've made my one and true home. There is no shower here, for that I would have to go to the CBI's basement where there are showers and dressing rooms in the workout area. Too tired to even bother, I strip off my damp clothes and change into a warmer outfit. Then I work on getting that foul taste out of my mouth. I can still taste the water, filled with death, as it entered my mouth. I brush my teeth over and over again, drink four cups of hot green tea and chew on gum – which I hate. Nothing helps. I can't get the taste out of my mouth.

My throat starts to ache. I finish with another cup of green lemon tea, knowing it won't help. Then I finally decided to catch a few hours of sleep. Tomorrow is Christmas and the CBI will be closed, except for a few suckers who are on call.

I'll be staying here too, reading a book and trying to get my mind off the ghosts of the past.

I crawl on my bed/couch, pull three blankets over me and grit my teeth, trying to feel better.

During the rest of that short night, I'm having the strangest dreams. I wriggle underneath the blankets while dreaming of corpses lying in water, staring at me. I try to get away but they grasp my legs and pull me under, preventing me from escaping death.

I wake up bathing in sweat, aching for some comfort, knowing it's not going to come.

Around 7 am I just give up and crawl out of bed, feeling like crap. Knowing it's no use, I change clothes and make my way downstairs, nodding at the few on call. In the kitchen, preparing my first cup of the day, my phone rings. Lisbon.

"Good morning," I say. "Couldn't sleep either, huh?"

"Nope," she replies wearily. "How are you?"

"Okay."

"You don't fool me, Jane. You sound like crap."

"Thanks."

"Do you want me to take you to a doctor?"

I smile, realizing her excuses for not going to the family party are running out. Even though she's probably a bit worried at the same time too.

"Nah. You just go to your party."

"Jane …"

"Yeah?"

"You really sound terrible. Does your throat ache?"

"Just a bit. I took in some water last night."

"How much?"

"Just a bit. Lisbon, seriously. Go to your party and stop worrying. It's Christmas."

"I hate Christmas."

I smile at her confession, knowing she would never have said that to anyone else.

"Guess what? Me too."

"Cho was there."

I could almost hear her smile.

"Jane, do me a favor. Grab some Tylenol and get back to bed. I'll come in tomorrow. If you still sound the same, I'm taking you to a doctor. Okay?"

"That's fine, Lisbon. Now hang up and go get ready. I want photos of your little black dress."

Silence. "Who says I'm wearing a black dress?"

"I am."

"But how did you …"

I laugh. "Goodbye, Lisbon. Enjoy yourself."

Before she can say anything else, I hang up and return to my cup of tea. Despite my promise to go to bed, I have other things to do today. Things that I hate doing but have been done since … well, since my life has changed so radically.

After an hour or so of stalling, I go back upstairs, grab my keys and wallet and head outside, blinking against the frail sunlight on this strange Californian Christmas day. In less than a week, a new year will begin and then the same thing happens that happens every year, over and over again. People start hoping that this year will be a better one, that pain that lingers will be forgotten just a little bit more, that life as we know it will continue and improve, day by day. I hope that too, every single year.

Yet every year I find myself wishing I could turn back time and go back to that fateful night where my arrogance killed my family. If I had a time machine, I would have changed everything. I would not have become that arrogant bastard, that con artist that ruined so many lives. I would have become a better man.

But there is no magical time machine, there are no wishes granted to us, there are no secret words. There are just memories.

So just like every year, I drive to my Malibu home to remember what it had been like before he came and killed it all. There are no Christmas trees for me, no presents, no gifts or cards. There is just the memory of the past, with a woman and a child loving me so much that it almost ached.

As I arrive in the early afternoon, I find myself coughing and feeling feverish. Ignoring it, I walk inside my home, staring at the covered furniture that almost blinks from its gathered dust. I know I should sell this place but I can't bear the thought of losing the last memories I have of them.

I ignore the bedrooms this time, knowing this is not the time to think about Red John and her blood on the walls. Today, I am standing in my living room, closing my eyes and remembering the smell of pine, recalling the beautiful lights she had put up everywhere, recalling the beautiful decoration Charlotte had picked out only a year before her death. She was crazy about silver and red and we had indulged her.

I could hear her laughter, could smell the classic turkey in the oven, could remember our final Christmas and New Year's Eve together. It was all so long ago yet today it felt never closer.

"I love you guys," I say out loud, knowing that they couldn't hear me as I didn't believe in the afterlife. But I needed to say it anyhow, if only to myself.

I sit down on one of the covered couches and allow myself to lay back, to remember and to relive. I close my eyes and drift away.

Finally I wake up, feeling worse than before. It's the coughs that actually wake me. My lungs seem to burst out of my chest. They feel … heavy. My entire body feels like that. I can't explain it any differently. Something is seriously wrong.

I know I must be running a fever because I feel extremely hot and uncomfortable. Realizing I had fallen asleep on what used to be "my" couch, I scramble up and take my time to gather my strengths, knowing I have to go to a doctor.

I lock up the house and walk outside, breathing in the fresh Californian air. I unlock my car and get inside, grasping the steering wheel hard. I have no plans for the rest of the day, there is no one I need to see, no one to be with. I feel strangely alone, hating this time of year more than ever.

Lisbon would kill me if she knew how lousy I truly feel. She would kill me knowing I was driving in this state of mind.

I abruptly take a turn to the right on my drive back to Sacramento, stopping at a beautiful sight I have loved ever since I came to Malibu. It's a cliff, with the most stunning view over the bay you could ask for. Here, I proposed to her. Here, she agreed to marry me. Here, she told me she was pregnant. So many memories here.

I park the car, walk the short walk to the cliff and sink down, sitting on my behind as I look over the water. Here, I am at peace with my past, my present and even my unknown future.

I remove my jacket and place it carefully on the ground. Then I lie down, resting my head on it and just stare at the most beautiful sunset known to man.

Suddenly I am shaken roughly.

"Hey. Hey! Are you okay?"

"He's dead, I'm telling you. We should call the cops."

"No, he's breathing."

I feel hands on my chest and someone leaning over my face, listening to my rasping breaths. "Yeah, he's breathing. But he's in pretty bad shape. We should call an ambulance."

I listen to the different voices, trying to recognize them, only to realize that I've never heard them before. I open my eyes confused and see four teenagers stare at me. They must be about eighteen or so, hovering over me.

The one leaning over me is undoubtedly a jock, bringing his girlfriend to the cliffs to show off. He backs away as I cough and try to get up.

"He's awake," the kid says, as if the others are too stupid to see that.

"Yeah," I groan. "What's going on?"

A girl comes into view. "We've been trying to wake you for some time. We found you here. You're sick."

I realize she's right. I feel like crap."

Another girl places her hand on my forehead, turning to her friends. "He's running a very high fever. We really ought to call an ambulance."

"No need," I rasp. "I'm fine. I'll just drive home."

I try to get up but realize that I can't without dropping to the ground like a brick. Okay, that wasn't such a good idea. I try to figure out what to do next, knowing I probably won't be able to avoid a hospital.

I watch wearily as one of them picks up his iPhone and calls 911. I hear them speak and feel defeated. But they are probably right. And I need a bed. I honestly need a good, warm, safe bed.

The sirens of an ambulance, followed by a police car, approach quickly. Before I even know it, I am surrounded by several men who hover over me and start asking me questions.

How do I feel?

Can I recall what happened?

How long have I felt bad?

Has anything happened to me over the past 48 hours?

I dutifully tell them everything as they prepare me for transport. I am so exhausted I don't even bother to react but my dignity forces me to struggle. "I can walk," I say, trying to get up.

"Like hell you can," a paramedic says. "Don't move."

"But –"

They lift me up as if I weigh nothing.

"Ready to move," someone says and I'm up on a gurney. My car is still parked near the cliff. "Don't worry about that," a cop says. "We'll sort that out."

"Look," I say weakly. "My phone. Call Special Agent Teresa Lisbon and tell her what happened. Can you bring my car to the CBI Headquarters?"

"Will do. Don't worry, buddy. You'll be fine." The police man pats me on my shoulder. "Merry Christmas, by the way. This is one you'll remember for a long time."

I grin stupidly and close my eyes as the ambulance starts to move, realizing Lisbon is not going to be happy when she receives the call.

About two hours or so later, the tests and examinations were over. Photos had been taken of my lungs. I had recalled the story of the pond about twenty times to about twenty different people. They took blood samples and were talking about lung tissue to be examined.

Now, I am on oxygen and an IV dripped antibiotics and other medication into me.

I am feeling strangely, warmly out of it, almost high, resting relatively peacefully in a small, separate ER cubicle with an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth, helping me to breath better. There is a buzz of activity outside my cubicle, voices whispering to each other, monitors beeping here and there.

Then the front curtain is shoved open and Lisbon steps in, along with a doctor explaining my situation to her.

"He was unconscious, we don't know for how long," the doctor explains. "We're talking aggressive pneumonia. You didn't notice any signs before?"

"I wasn't unconscious, I was sleeping," I say weakly through my mask, knowing they won't listen to me anyhow. Lisbon looks at me, then again at the doctor.

"Will he be fine?"

"Of course I will be," I mutter, annoyed they are ignoring me. "It's just a pneumonia."

Lisbon raises an eyebrow. "Just a pneumonia?" she repeats. "Jane, you are poisoned."

"I – I'm what?"

The doctor looks quite seriously as he comes closer, explaining to me what has happened. "You swallowed a lot of water when you fall into that pond," he says. "Unfortunately there were a lot of bacteria that you took in as well. One of them is a very aggressive bacteria that has attacked your lungs, causing this pneumonia. We are currently fighting this off with antibiotics. You will be moved to the ICU shortly to monitor your heart and lungs for the next 24 hours." The doctor looks at Lisbon. "This will be a crucial period, it might be touch and go."

I grin stupidly at Lisbon, delirious from the medication. "Wish you were at that Christmas party now in your little black dress, right?"

"Shut up, Jane," she says firmly, but her smile is fake and her concern genuine. "Can I stay with him, doctor?"

The doctor nods, leaving us alone as he goes to prepare my admittance to the ICU. Lisbon sits down, grasps my hand and squeezes it. "I can never leave you alone, can I?" she asks.

I look at her, feeling extremely guilty all of a sudden, even if it wasn't my fault I had fallen into that water. "I'm sorry, Teresa."

She smiles. "You know what?" she says. "I am too. Because I didn't go to that party. I stayed at home, watching stupid movies, thinking about nothing. And all this time you were out there in need and I didn't even realize until I got that call. So basically, no, I don't miss the party. I'd rather be here with you at any time."

She flushes when she says that and I realize suddenly that she is hoping that I won't remember by morning. She thinks I'm so high on these meds that I'm completely out of it and barely hear what she's saying.

I lift the oxygen mask off my face and look at her intently. "Lisbon?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you're here too. But I still wanted to see those photos."

She leans forward. "There is always New Year's Eve, Jane."

I cough. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

She smiles her brightest smile and leans back on her chair, just watching me watching her, until my eyes cannot fight sleep off any longer and I drift away on a happy, delirious cloud.

Next year, who knows, I won't have to go to my Malibu house anymore. This next year, anything could happen.

Now, that's a happy thought.

The End