The Way of the World

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That face on the wall above Rosalind's bed. She'd had to rinse her mouth after seeing that, still her instinctive heave. The woman was still serene, perhaps believing Jane's false words, that Roy Talliaferro was an innocent, perhaps clinging to that belief because the alternative was too horrible. More than one type of blindness. A woman can believe anything that a man she loves tells her, she knows.

She couldn't haul him back into the car by main force – well, she probably could, but the damage between them would be irreparable. She would have to hurt him to do it, and with what reason? If Rosalind chooses to let him stay and listen to her play, then there is nothing she can do. She has no music herself; her place is, as always, to do the drudgery, the leg-work, the things that must be done, when no-one else wants to do them.

Duty is a very poor thing to keep you warm, in the long drives between places. Not used to driving solo any more, the seat beside her empty. Grown used to his presence, in her work, in her life. She has to take the evidence back to Sacramento, co-ordinate the search for the store. You cannot point the finger at a fellow law enforcement officer based on chewing gum. They have to have more solid proof. Yet...she has known Jane too long to discount his observations. Even coloured by his desperate need, they still have force and clarity.

All too easy to fight with him, let a little of that frustration out. Too few of them to do what needs to be done, unable to use the resources of the county. She cannot order a cordon round the address, not without alerting the sheriff.

And so - she is going to have to play a dangerous game. She puts herself in harm's way to protect the innocent. Even when the innocent don't want to be protected, are recklessly determined to get themselves killed. It seems that she can, in fact, lie to Jane, that he is so caught up in his revenge, that he does not stop to consider that whilst he might mean every word of his vow to kill Red John, she meant every word of her vow to stop him.

Did he really honestly think that she would leave him on his own? He has no idea how hard it was to walk away and leave him, and that was only a suspicion. He can rage all he likes, but he'll still be alive to rage. He may not value his life, but she does, and if he won't take care of it, she will take that choice away from him. He's not the only one who can be selfish.

Waiting outside that farmstead, sick with the realization that she was becoming the lone crusader of justice that she was trying to prevent Jane being. But there is no time to worry about that, now. Confirmation comes, and she has to move, cannot wait for the team, cannot wait for Jane's nemesis to appear. Cannot leave him at the mercy of a lunatic with a shotgun.

Hardy...Tanner, dear god, had not expected her, had certainly not expected her to fight. But when that hatch bangs down, the terror of it, she is already moving, she cannot lose, and she is every bit as ruthless as any mother wolf fighting for her cubs. If that evil bastard comes down here after them, she has to have this one down and out of the fight, decks clear. Because she will still have two opponents to contend with.

She had thought she had cleared the rooms. Sick sensation at the idea that he was moving ahead of her. Always one step ahead. Cameras and computers and mind games. Clever and determined, and just as intent on this conflict as Jane is.

Relief of hearing Cho and Rigsby, flood of light on her face that does not mean death. Maya, alive, if not completely unharmed, clinging to her. Jane's face, tight and tired.

It is the nearest to true anger with her that she has ever seen in him. And she truly knows the depths of the damage in him, now, as she had only suspected before. So, tired and shaken, she'd let slip something she never meant to. And he'd looked away. Looked back with honest pain, and pushed her away. After everything, he still won't, can't make that step. And she can't make it for him.

She had not expected anything else, really, that uncalculated revelation shocking them both, things better left unsaid. But it still hurt, more than it should. That pain in his eyes, the genuine regret in what he knew was a rejection. Flat weariness in his tone, as she tries to find some crumb of comfort – he truly does not care that they saved Maya, that she saved him, and there is no way to reach past that imposed indifference.

Oh, of course she's going to be angry. Stupid, blind, self-pitying idiot. Just because he doesn't think he can be fixed, doesn't mean she wouldn't try. You can't stop caring about someone even when they are being selfish, even when they reveal how lost they really are. Needing them to be challenging and different, just there, aggravating and themselves.

So she leaves him behind his walls, turns back to the ordered world of her job. He can sit and sink himself in misery, but they have saved a life, they have information and evidence and solid facts with which to work. More to her world than one sad, selfish man. There will have to be.

His world is a simple, stark place, vengeance and self-interest. She lives amongst people, sees a more complicated web. Has seen too many would-be suicides fight against a darkness they thought they would embrace, and seen too many people who never meant to kill, standing in the ruins of their own lives. Perhaps it is because he has always been a showman, that he finds it so difficult to be a part of the crowd. But nothing can live or exist in isolation. She has seen him being drawn back into the living world, step by unwilling step, each case they solve, each day he works with them. Small things – pizza, chess, the gym. No longer playing to an audience with them, but just being. And there is the whole strangeness of their own...friendship, meals and movies and unacknowledged feelings, what could have been, now lying in pieces.

But - things can be mended. There may always be cracks, but if you have the pieces, you can at least try. Not yet, though. Not while she is still raw from it. When the anger and humiliation fade, she knows that she will be able to lock this away, as she has locked away so much else, and they can at least work together. Find out if there is anything that can be salvaged from the wreckage.

And then.

Stark terror and disbelief, when that shot went off, and she was still standing.

Patrick Jane has just saved her life.

He's killed. He's shot a man. She can't fix that. That's something that there is no going back from. The only hope was that blank revulsion, the horror in his face, as he'd flung the shotgun away. (She will not think about whether he would have pulled that trigger for anyone else.) His face, white and stricken, as the twisted giggling died away in blood, and there was nothing she could do.

He doesn't want her to reach out to him, has made that clear. So all she can do is to exert every ounce of influence she has, sheer force of her will to protect him from the consequences of that action, until he finds his own way past it. Still fighting for him, even as he sits, unable to fight for himself. She knows why she does it, and she hates herself, but love is a stupid, inconvenient thing, and it asks no permission, goes where it will.

He quite simply gets up and follows her when the time comes to take Maya home, still no words. They let him, still not quite able to comprehend what is going on, who this man is. Puzzled deputy has to restrain his own curiosity, aware of the presence of Maya Plaskett, and they are both grateful.

They will not talk on their own drive back. But he will be there. Both of them still alive, in a vastly altered world.

She stands in the sunshine, watching a family try and pull themselves back together, and waits for him to come back to her.