Disclaimer: The Mentalist and its characters are not my own, sadly enough.

Authors Note: This is my second Mentalist fan fiction. I was late in the game when I started watching this show and have only seen a handful of full episodes and some clips from You Tube. I hope my first few spins inside these characters heads are not too far off the mark.

This piece is a bit dark and not as humorous as I would like it to be (I love Jane and Lisbon's back and forth's, team banter, and Jane being a clever and naughty Jane), but I have found that the darker side of Jane's personality has captured my interest too. Lord knows I love a tortured soul even if said soul believes he doesn't have one.

This is nearly 2 years after Season 1 Finale. Red John is dead and this is one take I have of the event and Jane's reaction to it. I have a few ideas how it could play out and may write those as later one shots when I get a better feel for the main characters. This particular version is of the angsty sort, but with all one-shots contained here, there shall be a smile.

(AAAAAAND Simon Baker has green eyes. This came from the actor himself during a interview.)

Warning: Small amount of profanity and suggested suicide. And angst…

A Choice

by Anne Pendragon

"Lower the gun Jane." He still feels Lisbon's plea pushing in on his chest. "Please…" her voice had been steady—very much Lisbon, but her eyes had been so scared. "Please Jane, choose life…"

Patrick Jane continued his silent vigil over the lifeless body of the monster—no, the man who had taken away his world, very much all of his soul and tonight almost his life. Red John was dead. That one day had finally come where the meticulously clever killer hadn't been able to stay one step ahead of the Mentalist and his CBI colleagues and disappear into the ether. This was the day Red John, aka Jonathan Redgrave, met his end at the hand of justice…

"Jane." a not too distant voice called to him in the now. He heard her calling to him, but didn't–not really and not yet. Right now his focus was on replaying every moment, every second that linked himself and the dead man slumped under the paint chipped carousel horse before him. All he could hear now was the thumping of his heart in his hollowed chest and the uneven tune of piano music still warbling out of archaic fairground speakers somewhere in the distance. Rigsby had been sent to find the shut off what felt like hours ago, and had yet to find the source.

Jane closed his eyes, squeezing them tight. He could see every gutting, heart numbing moment that more than once took him to his knees and just outside of his sanity, starting with the discovery of his beloved families mutilated remains to the moment he didn't pull the trigger and Lisbon had.

'And now he's dead.' Jane's brows creased and his pale eyes opened once more.He couldn't get himself to react to this reality. Couldn't find the satisfaction he believed was rightfully due him for so long.

'I should be dancing around on the bastard's un-dug grave right now. I should be relieved that the son of a bitch will never take another life...' Jane's spinning inner thoughts continued to fill in the uncharacteristic empty adrenaline had earlier forced on his brain, his mind re-acquiring the advanced tempo he was accustomed to and required, looking for an answer—a reason why…

'I should feel—I should feel something?'

But if anything he felt little-to-nothing. He only felt numb while his eyes and memory held onto the pooling image of vengeance—justice—slumped against the remains of a neglected merry-go-round but a yard away. He didn't even feel angry that he wasn't given the chance to 'gut' Red John as promised, or that it wasn't his hand that pulled the trigger of his enemies own gun. Nor was he disappointed that when it came down to it, he couldn't. He simply felt numb, numb and so very, very tired. Like a man who had been running for so long and had nothing left.

"Jane." Jane continued his stony stance over Red John's body, like a concrete angel over a grave, not moving, barely breathing with a disturbingly obdurate concentration on the body at his feet. Theresa Lisbon felt a chill fall down her spine at the analogy, shivering in the cool night air.

In between the paramedics tending to the slash wound in Jane's forearm—compliments of Red John, and giving statement of the nights events, the Mentalist had made little sign that he was indeed still alive and with her—them. Jane looked more lost than she had ever seen him and it was scaring her more and more with each moment that ticked by.

She'd seen this side of Jane before, where his consummate act and smiling mask fell away to reveal vacant eyes and a decimated and distant heart. She knew something was growing heavy inside her friend. Before tonight that thing would have been his unyielding thirst for vengeance, but now? Tonight Jane's thirst for vengeance had yielded—yielded for her, she hoped maybe for himself too. When Jane had lowered the gun and met her eyes, Lisbon saw something she still had no definition to describe. A face of Jane's she had never seen.

In the few short seconds following, Red John took the opportunity to strike out at them as attempt to escape, forcing Lisbon to end the killers life. Soon after, the rest of their team, half of CBI and a cavalcade of local Leo's were bearing down on the scene, leaving them no time to talk to one another or even breathe.

She had wanted to go to him earlier, stand at his side, even apologize for once again defying his wish for brutal justice via suicide mission, but she'd been held back—not just by her CBI responsibilities or having to give statement, but by the fear and hesitancy in her own heart. Did he hate her for being the one to kill his enemy, for taking vengeance away from him? Did he hate himself still or did Patrick Jane wish for a new beginning after Red John's end? Would he be leaving CBI—would he be leaving her?

Not once had Lisbon ever heard Jane say what he wanted of this life, aside from his couch, a cup of tea and Red John's demise at his own hands. He'd never spoken of a future or led anyone to believe he saw one for himself. Remembering that fact tonight along with the look he now wore, was weighing in on Theresa Lisbon's gut.

Brushing past, the medical examiner finally arrived to claim the body, stirring Jane from his trance long enough for his eyes to look up and meet Lisbon's across the dusty fairway. That indefinable cryptic look had returned to his face. He wasn't trying to hide away—it wasn't a mask, but he also wasn't letting her in. She stepped forward towards him and for a brief moment she saw the corner of his mouth flicker in an attempt at a wistful grin…

"Agent Lisbon."

Theresa turned into the clip board being shoved under her nose for yet another signature and when she was able to turn back to Jane, he was gone.

"Cho, have you seen Jane? He was just here." Cho must have heard the rising panic in his boss's voice, for he too started to look around the old fairground in an alert manor.

"Do you want me to get Rigsby back here and Van Pelt? We can go look for him?"

Lisbon continued to look around the shadows of the dully lit scene and noted Jane's Citroen gone from the grounds. "No, you guys make sure our scene gets finished up right, I'll go look for him."

Cho nodded slowly, an underlying understanding beamed from behind his stoic professional gaze. "Alright, Boss. We'll keep you apprised if anything comes up. You do the same."

Agent Lisbon nodded silently to her senior officer and friend, before running to her SUV.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Patrick Jane stepped through the vacant living space that no longer held any life within it. His house is where Red John had wanted to finish their game. Jane believed his nemesis believed in coming full circle, to finish where it all began, but Jane had figured Red Johns end game and instead ended the cat and mouse in the vacated fairgrounds only a few blocks away, where the serial killer had made his chillingly close base of operations.

Jane stopped at the center of the living room and looked to the stairs. Pulling out the neglected knife he'd bought to gut Red John from its sheath, he closed his eyes and breathed in deep.

His mind had come to a conclusion tonight, while staring down the remains of who-what he had believed kept him alive all these years. He now understood. He had a task to finish in this house. Only one thing made sense to him and it was something that had been due since the evening he found that note and opened the door.

"Just one more thing left to be done here…" his voice caught in his throat.

Step by step, Patrick Jane ascended the steps to look his enemy in the eye one last time.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Damn it, Jane!" Lisbon drove one handed and fast towards the one place she knew Jane would be drawn to after tonight's events. She may not have had his intuitiveness, but she knew Jane and tonight she could not let him be alone in the place Red John had helped him make. "Come on Jane. Pick up!" the fear and frustration rising in her voice.

Lisbon clicked closed her phone and took a corner at a speed Jane would have envied. Pulling up Jane's street and into his drive, she parked beside his car and ran to his front door. Before she could knock or even break the door down, she notice it not completely closed. Quickly entering, she swept through the living room and nearly made it to the stairs, when she noticed the fairly large knife sheath lying on the side table along with Jane's car keys.

"Jaaaane!" she screamed, while running up the steps two at a time. She received no answer.

"Thump" a heavy noise wacked the floor above her, sending her heart and feet faster towards the door at the end of the hall.

"O, God no. Jane…" she cried. Throwing open the cracked door, her mind already racing to a worst case scenario she knew she'd never be able to live with, played out by the man she didn't want to live without, but was met by the one image she hadn't figured on. "Jane…?"

Two sets of startled green eyes met. She could see he had been crying; silent tears still fell as he lowered his weapon of choice to his side—a paint brush. Out of the corner of Lisbon's eye, an opened and overturned paint bucket rolled past then stopped beside a neglected and now paint covered knife Jane must have used to open the can.

Lisbon briefly tore her gaze from Jane's long suffering expression and looked to the wall behind him, half a blood etched smiley glared from behind a violently applied layer of white paint. The same paint flecked across Jane's face, hair and all over his rolled up shirtsleeves and vest.

"I-I needed to..." Catching on his own words, Jane motioned his brush limply towards the nightmarish symbol behind him. Lisbon watched his lips tremble and jaw clench as more tears continued down his angelic features. "I want to feel again, Theresa. I want to live…"

A silent sob racked his body and then one not so silent—loud and deep. Lisbon rushed to him, rapping her arms around his tensed form. Soon she heard the paint brush clack to the hardwood and then felt his body give, taking him to his knees. Before she could react, his arms roughly encircle her waist and pulled her to him, burying his head into her stomach. And then he began to shake.

"Let it all out, Jane. Let it go." She whispered into the top of his head, running her hands over his back and through his thick curls while he continued to poor out seven years of pain and sorrow in her embrace. "I'm right here…"

"I know." She heard his muffled words. "That's why I stayed."

Lisbon cried for Jane's loss that night, she cried for his pain and although his sobs tore through her very core, she cried with happiness. For the tears he'd held at bay all those years and the ghoulish smile now half obscured, were coming down tonight and Lisbon could only feel hope for the man she held in her arms and heart.