The single bullet wound just above his right eyebrow rippled his heart beat around his body.
The other bullet wound to the left side of his chest spilled crimson patterns over his vest.
The last thing he heard was a distant scream from Lisbon.
"Jane!"
Lisbon swallowed the lump in her throat as her heart constricted, horror pumping through her veins as it weighed her down, gluing her to the spot in the kitchen door way. Tears rapidly built and threatened to spill from her wide eyes at the sight before her: Jane was slumped horizontally against the wall, his feet facing the front door. A long curved smear of blood trailed down the wall, stopping where a lifeless Jane's shoulder connected to the skirting board. Blood pooled around his shoulders, seeping into the carpet.
"Oh my God," she whispered in disbelief. She brought her hand up to her mouth. "Oh my God!"
Cho pushed past her through the door way and knelt down next to a lifeless Jane. He gently repositioned him to lie flat against the increasingly blood-stained carpet as he checked for respiration. He began to unbutton Jane's vest and shirt.
"He's not breathing."
Lisbon crashed back down to Earth. He's not breathing. Her heartbeat was drumming in her ears as she fell to the floor next to Cho. Jane was already losing color. The wound above his right eyebrow produced teardrop-like trails down his cheek, severely contrasting his snow-white complexion.
She covered the wound with her left hand as she lifted her right to lightly press two fingers to Jane's carotid pulse.
Rigsby pulled his phone from his pocket, quickly dialing and pressing it to his ear as he sprinted out the front door.
"He's got a pulse, but it's barely there." Lisbon struggled to contain her panic. Her eyebrows knitted together as her breathing became more labored. She gently began to stroke her thumb along his eyebrow as she continued to put pressure on the wound.
Looking up, she noticed Van Pelt still rooted to the spot in the doorway, looking deathly pale and obviously in shock.
"Grace, listen to me. I need you to find me some towels. Now." Van Pelt's head snapped up. She made eye contact with Lisbon, conveying everything she felt before springing into action.
Lisbon turned back as Cho began to press his bare hands to the wound on Jane's chest, doing his best to stem the bleeding. With two fingers still pressed to Jane's neck, her worry grew when his pulse began to flutter under her fingers.
She looked at Cho, his usually stoic face twitching with anxiety. She didn't need to say anything; he felt it too. He immediately began CPR.
She leaned closer to Jane's face, using the hand previously checking his pulse to stroke his cheek as she gently reassured him.
"You're gonna be okay, you're gonna be fine." She tried desperately to keep the alarm she felt from her voice, but she knew she had failed. She couldn't help but think that if Jane were awake, he'd tease her about how terrible she was at lying. She leaned closer to his mouth, checking his breathing again.
Keeping her left hand on his forehead, Lisbon put two fingers of her right hand under his chin, gently tilting his head back.
She moved her blood-sullied hand away from his forehead and pinched his nose shut. She sealed her mouth over Jane's, blowing out a slow, short breath as Cho continued his compressions. She repeated her actions once more.
Van Pelt ran back into the room with a pile of neatly folded white towels in her arms. Eyeliner-stained tears left tracks down her face as she dropped to the floor between Cho and Lisbon.
Seeing both of their hands in use, Van Pelt placed a folded towel over Jane's chest wound. Cho placed his hands on top of it as Grace passed Lisbon a towel.
Lisbon gently pressed it to the wound on Jane's head, continuing to stroke his cheek. She could no longer contain the tears threatening to spill, as they tickled their way down her cheeks. He couldn't leave her now. Not after everything they'd been through. Not now, when he was finally free.
At that moment Rigsby dashed back into the hallway, followed by the EMTs. A young, brown-haired man crouched down and took over from Cho, holding the towel in place on Jane's chest.
Cho stood up and put a hand on Lisbon's shoulder, encouraging her to step back. She stayed glued to Jane's side, stroking his face.
"I think he's going into cardiac arrest." Cho helpfully informed the EMTs, who were preparing Jane for the gurney.
Lisbon looked up towards her team now standing by the front door, each one of them with a desperate expression.
A blonde paramedic gently pushed Lisbon away from Jane and placed a CPR mask over his mouth. Shakily, Lisbon got to her feet and approached her team, gesturing with blood-stained hands.
"Cho, you're in charge. Find out where the suspect went. Talk to the victim's family members, work colleagues, anyone who might know why someone wanted to her hurt her. I'm gonna go with Jane."
"Boss." Cho nodded.
The team watched as Lisbon followed the EMTs out of the door, faintly hearing one of the paramedics announce that Jane still wasn't breathing. The house became eerily quiet, as though taking a minute silence for the tragedy it just withheld.
Lisbon took Jane's hand in her own as she walked alongside the gurney, not caring that his blood was now completely covering her hands and blouse.
The paramedic waiting by the opened doors of the ambulance was lowering the ramp as they drew near. The pretty blonde placed a hand to Lisbon's shoulder.
"Are you family?"
"He's... he's my partner." She squeezed his hand as she begged the paramedic with her eyes to let her on board. The woman reluctantly nodded as they lifted the gurney into the ambulance, Lisbon following closely behind.
"But why was he still there? Why not just shoot Sarah and make a run for it?" Van Pelt frowned, her auburn hair curling over her left shoulder in a ponytail as she swayed in her computer chair slightly, watching Rigsby walk through the archway with a coffee in his hand.
"Maybe he was waiting for Paul to come home, kill him too." Rigsby offered, sitting down at his desk with an eager and hopeful expression.
Cho entered the bullpen with a determined walk, carrying a file which he threw down onto his desk. He sat down heavily, running his hand over his freshly changed shirt. He swung around in his chair to face both Rigsby and Van Pelt.
"You're both assuming this was a man. And if the suspect wanted to kill Paul, he would have done it as soon as he got home, but he didn't. Paul didn't know he was there."
Van Pelt sighed as she turned to her computer, typing away with an air of defeat.
"None of this makes sense."
"Van Pelt, check out their bank statements, see if there's anything suspicious, Rigsby and I will talk to the work colleagues."
Cho stood from his chair, pulling his jacket off the back and slipping it on, straightening the lapels. Rigsby joined him, still sipping at his coffee as Van Pelt turned to them, a fearful expression on her face.
"Do you think he's going to die?" She asked timidly.
Rigsby tried his best to offer her a small smile, failing miserably as his lips pressed together firmly. He turned to Cho. He blinked a glance at Rigsby before indicating with his head that they should leave. Rigsby squeezed Van Pelt's shoulder affectionately as he walked past.
Van Pelt once again sighed deeply as she turned to stare at her computer screen, her lips turning downwards as she blinked away unshed tears.
Lisbon jogged alongside the gurney, holding onto Jane's listless hand as the paramedics raced them into the Emergency Department.
The color from Jane's face seemed to be draining like a sand timer. The firmly-placed mask over his mouth made him look small and fragile as the EMT encouraged him to breathe again. The usually wild and angel-like curls now stuck to the side of his face with crimson glue.
Everything became a whirlwind when they crashed through the automatic doors. Lisbon was forced to extract her hand from Jane's, leaving her standing in the middle of the reception, frozen in place.
The world seemed to carry on without her as she heard cries of pain and fear, orders being thrown out and constant chatter like she had teleported into a morbid playground.
She watched as they raced Jane down the hallway. Two nurses on either side of him were propped up and standing on the bar connected to the wheels, one performing compressions and the other pumping oxygen into his lungs as the gurney roller coaster-ed through the doors towards the OR, separating Jane from Lisbon for the foreseeable future.
As the doors swung shut, she faintly heard the four cruelest words to ever burn her ears.
"His heart has stopped."
TBC