Everyone stared at the phone in Jane's hand. Finally, Jane put the phone back down on the table and said, "Now would you all please go away?"
"Why can't we look at anything from his case file?" asked Van Pelt.
"Because his location is hidden in there somewhere, and that's the only place anyone will be able to find it," answered Jane. Then, seeing the looks on everyone's faces, he added, "Come on, why else would he be okay with you doing anything except that? This is between him and me."
"The hell it is!" snapped Bertram.
"It is, whether you like it or not," Jane said firmly, "now go away!"
"Ja-"
"Names!" Jane shouted before Van Pelt could finish.
Van Pelt blinked; the "names" rule hadn't really sunk in.
"Okay, let's all go around the room and say each other's first names, just to break the habit of using last names," Jane said. He turned to Rigsby. "Wayne," he said. He turned to Van Pelt. "Grace." He turned to Cho. "Ah…Kimball." He turned to Bertram. "Gale." He turned back to Rigsby. "Okay," he said. "Wayne, your turn."
Rigsby was silent for a minute.
"Patrick," he said, looking at Jane. He turned to Van Pelt. "Grace." She smiled. He turned to Cho. "Um…Kimball," he said, fighting the urge to laugh. He turned to Bertram. "Gale."
Jane looked at Van Pelt.
"Patrick," she said to him. She turned to Rigsby. "Wayne." Rigsby smiled as she turned to Cho. "Kimball," she said, more steadily than anyone who had gone before her. She turned to Bertram. "Gale," she said, somewhat embarrassed.
"Patrick," Cho said, picking up his turn right away. "Wayne. Grace. Gale."
"Patrick. Wayne. Grace. Kimball," Bertram said, turning to each of them in turn.
"Good," said Jane, "and remember to call Teresa by her first name when you're talking about her. Now, Grace, what is it?"
"Um…" She hesitated; calling her comrades by their first names added an extra layer of realism - and surrealism - to the whole affair. "Patrick, give us your phone," she said at last. "We can trace the next call that comes in."
"He's using Teresa's cell phone," Jane told her, handing his phone over. "The next time a call comes in from that phone, you can try to trace it. I doubt you'll have any luck, though."
"It's worth a try," Van Pelt replied, sounding much more confident than she felt.
"Yes it is," Jane agreed quietly, almost to himself.
"Okay, I'd like to know exactly what's going on," Bertram said, regaining his composure and superior demeanor. "What sort of 'game' is Red John playing with you?"
Jane took a deep breath, then started painfully recounting the details of the rules Red John had laid down as his friends listened with horror.
~o~
It was a little past midday when Red John returned to Lisbon. She heard his footsteps, and she glared at him as he came into "view".
He casually stuck his knife into the wall, thereby stopping the music that was playing, as per the usual, before greeting her.
"Good afternoon, My Dear Little Saint," he said. "How are you feeling?"
"Oh, I'm fine," Lisbon replied sarcastically.
Red John smiled. "Are you going to behave?"
"I'm not going to go out of my way to try to piss you off anymore, if that's what you're asking," Lisbon replied, "but if you're hoping I'm going to even pretend to respect you, you've got something else coming."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Red John said mockingly, still smiling. "On the contrary, I'd be rather insulted if you did."
"You are one seriously messed-up freak, you know that?" Lisbon asked, shaking her head, as he stalked toward her.
His smile widened as he reached her and crouched down to her eye level. "A freak, yes," he replied; "messed-up, hardly. I'm perfectly sane."
"Right, because perfectly sane people get off on hurting other people," Lisbon responded sarcastically.
"Not typically," Red John admitted, pulling out a needle attached to a syringe full of IV fluid. "That is normally a sign of some sort of pathology…but I am far from normal."
"No kidding," Lisbon said mockingly, holding out her arm to accept the injection.
Red John smiled but said nothing as he injected her with what substituted for her lunch. When he was done, he capped the needle and put it away.
He tilted his head. "By the way, My Dear," he said, "if you need to use a bathroom, you need only say so."
"Why?" Lisbon asked, raising her eyebrows. "So you can laugh at me and walk away?"
Red John smiled. "So I can get you what you need," he corrected. He stood up and leaned against the wall in front of her as he started casually tossing his ever-present knife around. "Excretion of waste is a necessary biological function," he continued; "it would be illogical and unreasonable of me to attempt to deny you that."
Lisbon shook her head with disbelief. "It's fascinating the way your mind works," she said sarcastically.
Red John chuckled. "My Dear, you have no idea how my mind works," he told her, "and I would appreciate it if you not speak to me as if I were My Old Friend. Oh, yes, I know you were repeating something you said to him a few years ago," he added, seeing her expression. "I am always watching My Old Friend - I have been ever since the idiot decided to join the hunt for me. I know perfectly well everything you or anyone else has ever said to him over the course of the past nine years." He tilted his head again. "Do you need to use the bathroom, My Dear?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject.
She smiled in spite of herself. "I find it very hard to believe that you're going to lead me to a bathroom and then let me have my privacy," she said.
"I'm not expecting you to believe that," Red John said matter-of-factly. "The only time I will take my eyes off you for even a second is when you're chained up right here."
Lisbon blinked. "So…you're not going to let me use the bathroom?" she asked him.
"I most certainly will, if you need to," Red John replied.
Lisbon blinked again, her mind working slowly. "Are you saying…you're going to watch?" she asked slowly.
"Yes," Red John answered simply.
Lisbon looked at him with shock and disgust.
"As I said, it's a necessary biological function," Red John added, seeing this; "it doesn't bother me in the slightest. The fact that it would bother you for me to watch is your problem, not mine. Now, do you have to go, or not?"
"No," Lisbon said a bit too abruptly.
Red John's smile widened. "You're lying," he whispered maliciously.
He crouched down in front of her. She drew back. He laughed, then pulled out…What was that? A pair of handcuffs? Lisbon couldn't tell for sure; the vision blockers obscured her vision too much. But that must have been what they were, because a moment later, Red John snapped one ring around her right wrist. Then, he snapped the other ring around her left wrist. The two were connected by a chain. Yes, handcuffs, though they certainly weren't like the ones police used.
Red John then took hold of the shackle that chained her right wrist to the wall, and pulled the ring around her wrist apart. He then did the same with the other. This surprised her; were they supposed to work like that, or was he just impossibly strong? Maybe both.
He grabbed her left arm and, snarling "Get up!", he jerked her to her feet. Okay, yeah, he was impossibly strong.
Red John led Lisbon out of the room and down the hall in the direction opposite the one he usually came from, and Lisbon walked with him as though in a trance; his grip, though it wasn't painful, was strong, and she didn't feel like testing his strength or his reflexes at the moment. He led her through a door, and she found herself in what was, as far as she could tell, a very small, simple bathroom. The toilet looked like it was made of wood.
What the hell? Was he actually living like this?
He undid her pants and pulled them down for her in a way that was somehow completely non-suggestive. He then pushed her down so that she was sitting on the toilet, and only then did he release her, though he didn't leave. He leaned back casually against the wall right next to her and started tossing his knife around, never taking his eyes off her.
She glared at him. No way was she going to use the toilet with him watching. No way was she going to let him demean her like this.
They looked at each other for a minute silently. Finally, Red John sighed.
"My Dear," he said, "I realize that you wish to retain some dignity, but unless you do it now of your own free will, I'm going to have to force you, and that would be even less dignified for you."
"I'm not doing anything with you watching!" she snarled at him.
He sighed again. "Very well," he said, standing up.
He leaned forward and pulled the back of her shirt up to her neck, and she was too confused to try to stop him. What the heck was he doing?
Gently, he placed his right hand on her bare back, and she was surprised by how his hand felt. She didn't know what she had been expecting - perhaps a dragon's claw? - but his hand was…soft. Warm. Human.
Of course it was. He was human, nothing more, after all. She berated herself silently for being surprised by it as he carefully placed his fingertips on what felt to her like random places on her back…but the way he positioned his hand, she got the impression that they weren't random spots at all, because he seemed to be aiming for specific points.
Suddenly, without warning, he applied a large amount of pressure to each of the points under his fingertips, and her breath choked out of her lungs forcefully as everything voided without her willing it.
She couldn't breathe, and she had no control over her own muscles - it was too scary to be disgusting or even humiliating. It was a full twenty seconds before he let go. When he did, she gasped and choked, fighting for air, as he casually activated a spray of water, washing her off, and flushed the toilet.
"What-what was that?" Lisbon finally managed.
"Pressure points," Red John answered with a shrug, and the casual way in which he said it made her suddenly fearful of what else he could do to her with "pressure points".
Red John then jerked her to her feet, pulled up her pants, re-zipped and -buttoned her jeans, took hold of her left arm, and started leading her back to her room. His sudden manipulation of her body had deeply shocked her, so her mind was moving very slowly, and it wasn't until she was sitting back in her bloodstained corner, shackled once more to the walls, that she was able to finish processing the fact that Red John had, in a way, raped her.
"You're disgusting," she finally managed, just as he was standing up.
"Why?" he asked. "Because I'm not bound by cultural convention?"
"Oh, is that what you think your problem is?" Lisbon asked angrily.
Red John's smile really was very irritating. "On the contrary, My Dear," he replied; "that is one of several problems I am blessed to not have. Well," he amended, "if you define 'problem' as 'something that differs from the way everyone else sees things', it is a 'problem', but I don't think that's what you meant."
"Damn right!" Lisbon snarled.
Red John chuckled, and his chuckle was also very irritating. "No, My Dear," he said in a tone that could almost be described as fond, "my problem, as you so call it, is that I'm evil."
"Damn you to hell," Lisbon said flatly.
"Farewell to you, too, My Dear," Red John said back with a smile, and he walked away, sticking his knife in the wall once more as he did so and leaving the now-too-familiar strains of piano music playing in his wake.
~o~
When Red John came to Lisbon again that night to give her her "dinner", she had regained her composure, and accepted the injections in silence, glaring at him.
When he was done, he stayed crouched down for a moment and looked at her.
"Kiss me," he said.
Lisbon blinked, certain she had misheard him. "What?" she asked him incredulously.
"Kiss me," he repeated, smiling slightly.
For a moment, Lisbon just shook her head, too bewildered to speak. "Not even if you begged!" she finally spat.
Red John chuckled. "Good night, My Dear," he said, standing up, and with that, he left her for the night, turning on the music right before he disappeared around the corner.
Lisbon leaned back against the wall, realizing that she had to sleep then if she was ever going to sleep at all…and that this wait would be a very long, trying ordeal.
~o~
Sunrise came and went, and left Lisbon with another cut, if one not nearly as big and painful as the last one had been. Her daily cuts were simple matters of Red John hacking her open and pulling his knife back out, though Lisbon was quickly getting tired of bathing in her own blood. Breakfast time, too, came and went, and Lisbon was getting very good at accepting her injections with silent disdain. As Red John left her, however, she called after him.
"Could you leave the damn music off?" she shouted as he was about to stick his knife in the wall again.
He paused, then turned back to her. "You don't like it?" he asked mockingly. "That's a shame." He walked back towards her, then leaned against the wall in front of her in his normal casual manner, absentmindedly twirling his knife around. "It's one of My Old Friend's favorite pieces," he continued, "which is a tad bit ironic, as it also happens to be my absolutefavorite."
"That's your favorite piece of music?" Lisbon asked incredulously.
Red John smiled. "Does that surprise you?" he asked.
"A little bit, yeah," Lisbon answered.
He tilted his head. "Why?"
"Because it so completely clashes with you…with everything you are," Lisbon replied.
Red John smiled again. "True," he admitted. "I suppose it might be my favorite because it was the first piece I learned to play, and, in doing so, prove to the world that I am a genius."
"So you're a musician?" Lisbon asked, eyebrows raised.
"My Dear, I am many things," Red John replied, his smile widening. "First and foremost, I am-"
"A killer?" Lisbon finished.
Red John tilted his head and shrugged. "I was going to say 'monster', but 'killer' works," he answered.
Lisbon blinked. "Who the hell thinks of themselves as a monster?" she asked.
"I do," Red John said, still smiling, "and proudly so at that."
Lisbon shook her head. "You are one seriously screwed-up freak," she said.
Red John gave a long-suffering sigh. "My Dear, we've been through this," he said with mock exasperation; "I am not screwed up, and I am perfectly well aware that I am a freak."
It didn't seem to get on Red John's nerves particularly, so Lisbon decided not to argue the point. "It's kind of messed up that you like classical music," she said instead.
Red John chuckled. "Well, my adopted parents played it to me constantly when I was an infant," he said. "They later liked to think that it had something to do with my remarkable intellect." He smiled. "Fools. I was born the way I am."
"You were adopted?" asked Lisbon. "At birth?"
"Indeed," Red John answered.
Lisbon processed this. "Have you ever thought about trying to find your birth parents?" she asked.
"My Dear, I have no need to try to find them," Red John replied, "I know exactly where they are: a cemetery in downtown San Francisco."
"Oh," said Lisbon. "I'm sorry."
"Are you? Are you really?" Red John asked, laughing. "If you are, then you're even more of an idiot than My Foolish Old Friend!"
"It's just something people say," Lisbon snarled; "I was being polite. Force of habit. Of course I'm not sorry."
"Good," Red John replied with a smile.
There was a pause.
"Go ahead, ask me," Red John said after a minute.
"Ask you what?" Lisbon asked.
Red John smiled. "You want to know how my adopted parents treated me, do you not? You want to know why I am the way I am, if they were mean to me, if I am not to blame for the way I behave…do you not?"
"Yeah, sure," Lisbon admitted coldly. "How did they treat you?"
"Wonderfully," Red John answered, his smile widening. "They were excellent parents. They couldn't have children of their own, you see, and they worked so hard to be the best parents in the world…and they did a fine job of it, too." Red John's smile stretched a little wider as he watched his knife spin through the air as he tossed it up and down. "Had they been raising anyone else, they would have produced a fabulous human being. Unfortunately, the poor fools got stuck with me."
"Are they dead too?" Lisbon asked, noting that he was only talking about them in the past tense.
"Yes," Red John answered, still smiling.
"Did you kill them?" Lisbon asked.
Red John tilted his head and watched the light reflect off the blade of his knife. "Did I kill them…" he repeated ponderously. "Let's see." He shrugged. "I killed my adopted mother," he said. "As for my adopted father, well, there was no need. All I had to do was go to him right after I killed her, still covered in her blood, and tell him exactly what I had done, and the poor fool did the rest of the work for me." The indifferent manner in which he was speaking made Lisbon shudder internally.
"Why did you kill them if they were so good to you?" she asked, burying her horror.
Red John shrugged. "They went from being assets to hinderances," he answered nonchalantly. "They cut me off, decided I had to learn to make my own way in the world - which is not a bad lesson for parents to teach their children, I readily admit. The thing is, doing that would have taken time, and life is so short…it was simply easier for me to do away with them. It wasn't as though I was asking them for anything illegal, or even anything unreasonable," he added, seeing the look on Lisbon's face. "All I wanted was to continue my education. That, and…one other thing, the only thing I'd ever asked for out of selfishness." He shrugged again. "But they seemed determined to get in my way all of a sudden, so I got rid of them." He smiled as he relived the memory. "It wasn't like I didn't give them a chance, though; after all, they had been so good to me - offering them a chance was the least I could do in return. Sadly, my idiot adopted mother didn't understand. It was her I approached concerning the matter, as she was always the dominant member of my adopted parents' relationship." He chuckled. "The poor fool just couldn't believe that I would actually hurt her," he reminisced, and Lisbon got the feeling that he wasn't even really talking to her anymore. "I was her little boy," he went on, his tone dripping with mockery at the last three words. "I did a little too well at making her think I was something I wasn't, so when the time came…" He shrugged again. "…she just didn't take my threats seriously. Honestly, I don't think she believed it even after I started cutting her up." He laughed.
Lisbon shivered, and was grateful that Red John was too deep into the memory to notice.
"As for my adopted father…" He chuckled. "Well, the poor old fool was lost without her. He simply couldn't go on. He committed suicide almost right away - hung himself. He didn't even think to write a will. He left a note, but all it said was, 'I'm sorry'." Red John grinned. "Between that and the details I gave the police officers who investigated the case, about how their marriage had been going downhill and how they'd been fighting constantly, how I had been so worried that something like this would happen…well, they decided it was a murder/suicide, and left it at that. Little did they suspect that what my idiot adopted father was trying to apologize for was allowing a monster like me to flourish and grow to adulthood." He laughed.
"If they didn't have a will, and since you were their sole heir, you stood to gain everything they had," Lisbon said, thinking out loud. "Didn't the cops ever think that that might be motive?"
"Of course they did," Red John answered; "in fact, they looked at me very closely." He smiled again. "But they saw only what I wanted them to see," he hissed: "a grieving, horrified son, who loved his late parents with all his heart." Red John laughed his evil laugh once more.
"What heart?" Lisbon asked mockingly.
Red John laughed some more. "You still don't get it, do you, My Dear?" he asked condescendingly. "Oh well. I'm not the easiest person to understand, so your lack of comprehension is only to be expected."
Lisbon ignored him and asked, "Was your adopted mother the first person you murdered?"
Red John laughed again. "Oh, My Dear," he said, "do you really think I'm going to tell you something useful? Please. I'm not going to give you anything that you would be able to use against me, in the unlikely event that you ever leave this place alive."
Lisbon hid her disappointment by asking, "Why are you being so careful? Do you think Patrick is going to rescue me?"
"No," Red John replied with a sneer. "Of course not. You're as good as dead."
"Then why are you being cautious?" Lisbon asked again.
Red John sighed and tilted his head. "My Dear," he said, "I hate My Old Friend. I utterly despise him. His very existence disgusts me. But just because I hate him, doesn't mean I can'tlearn from him, and what I've learned from him is this: Never take anything for granted." He smiled. "I'm not going to make the common error of being cocky. As there is a chance that you will live, if an infinitesimally small one, I will not tell you anything you really want to know."
He stood up. "Well, that's quite enough for now," he said with an air of finality. "If you don't like the music, I will leave it off; I merely thought that you might like to have something to listen to other than the tick-tick-tick of your own looming demise." He shrugged. "But if you wish, I won't play it to you anymore. Farewell for now." And with that, he walked away, leaving a very disturbed Lisbon in his wake…but no music.
~o~
At 11:00 a.m., Jane's cell phone was finally hooked up to the CBI call tracing system.
The delay had been caused by the general chaos that had ensued when Bertram had announced to the Bureau (and the world) that Lisbon had been kidnapped. But now, Van Pelt had her computer at the ready, and Bertram was standing next to her.
No sooner was everything set up than the phone rang. Van Pelt checked the caller ID.
Lisbon.
The timing was a little too perfect to be a coincidence, and Van Pelt knew right away that it wouldn't work, but she had to try.
Bertram eagerly watched over her shoulder as the call was traced. Finally, a message came up:
Call could not be traced.
Show possible locations?
"'Show possible locations'?" Van Pelt repeated, confused. "I've never seen that option before."
"Click on it," Bertram ordered.
Van Pelt obliged.
A map of the entire state of California appeared. For a moment, it was blank. Then, a few red circles appeared, scattered far apart from one another. Then, a few more appeared. Then more. And more. First a few, then dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of red circles started appearing per second, covering the entire state.
Bertram and Van Pelt watched as it continued for two whole minutes, speechless. Finally, the red circles stopped appearing.
Then, some more started appearing, close together, one at a time, in a line that curved into a circle that was broken at the top, followed by one curved line, then another, and then another, forming the shape of Red John's signature smiley face.
At last, it stopped.
"Who…" Bertram was rendered all but speechless. "Who…is this guy?"
Before Van Pelt could come up with an answer, a message popped up on the screen, the words colored red:
I'm Red John.
Bertram and Van Pelt blinked. He was watching them closely enough to answer their questions on the spot?
Suddenly, the whole screen turned white. Then, Red John's signature smiley face drew itself in red on the white canvass. Pixellated drops oozed down from the lines, sort of like they did in real life when the picture was drawn in blood. Then, everything was still.
But only for a moment.
Suddenly, all the monitors of all the computers in the CBI started turning white, then having the smiley face drawn in red. In the space of two minutes, every computer in CBI HQ was completely incapacitated, even personal laptops.
For a moment, no one in the building moved, all of them dumbstruck.
Red John was clearly trying to make a point, and his message was heard, loud and clear, by everyone in the Bureau:
I'm the one calling the shots.
~o~
"Here's your phone back," Van Pelt said to Jane, coming in through the door and setting Jane's cell phone down next to the papers on the desk, being careful not to look at any of them.
"Thanks," Jane grunted. He paused a moment, reading through some file or other, then said, "So I take it tracing the call didn't work?"
"Red John took over all the computers in the building and froze them by changing the screens to pictures of his smiley face on a white background after we tried," Van Pelt answered.
"Show-off," Jane muttered.
"He certainly made his point," Van Pelt agreed, signs of shock and awe in her tone.
"Does Gale have a back-up plan?" Jane asked, not looking away from the papers he was going through.
"The only thing he can come up with is to let you do your thing while we sit on our hands and wait," Van Pelt replied.
"Good," Jane grunted, turning a page.
"Have...have you eaten anything? I mean, since this started?" Van Pelt asked after a moment.
"Nope."
"Can I get you something?" she asked hesitantly.
"Tea would be nice, thank you," Jane answered absentmindedly.
"Okay," Van Pelt said softly, and she left.
Jane was so hyper-focused on what he was doing that he would never remember any of their conversation.
~o~
Days passed, and Jane got nowhere. Slowly, the night came that was the one-week anniversary of the night Lisbon had been taken.
Van Pelt came into the office Jane was still poring over Red John's case file in, carrying a teacup on a saucer.
"Patrick?" she said softly.
"M?" Jane grunted.
Van Pelt sighed. "Have you slept at all since this started?" she asked.
"Nope."
Of course he hadn't. He wouldn't have eaten all that week, either, if she hadn't kept coming in, bringing him food and pestering him to eat and drink, constantly telling him that he couldn't save Lisbon if he worked himself to death.
"Patrick…" Van Pelt said, slowly and softly. "Maybe you should…take a break. Get some rest."
"Rest?" Jane demanded, turning on her, revealing a worn, greasy face and heavily bloodshot eyes. "How can I rest, knowing that Teresa's out there, waiting for me - knowing that her life is in my hands, and that I can't waste time?"
"Patrick, be reasonable," Van Pelt replied; "no one can function without sleep. You're probably not even seeing what's in front of you. You need to rest so you can think clearly."
"I can't sleep," Jane told her, almost crazily. "I couldn't if I tried."
Van Pelt sighed. "Well, here, at least drink this," she said, handing him the cup.
Jane snatched it from her hands, and as she turned around and went out the door, he downed the entire cup of tea in one gulp, then set the dishes aside.
Van Pelt hurried to where Cho and Rigsby were sitting around and waiting.
"Guys, come with me, I need your help," she said to them.
"With what?" asked Cho tonelessly.
"I just slipped Patrick some sleeping pills, and I need you guys to help me get him to his couch," Van Pelt answered.
Rigsby and Cho both looked at Van Pelt, wide-eyed.
"Just come help me!" she pleaded impatiently, and without waiting for a response, she turned around and walked back to Jane's temporary office, where he had collapsed into a deep sleep.
Rigsby and Cho followed her, and together, the three of them managed to carry Jane to his couch and lay him down.
"He's heavy," Rigsby commented when they were done.
Cho nodded in agreement but, per the usual, said nothing. Van Pelt looked at Jane's sleeping form and bit her lip.
"I had to," she said apologetically. "I'm sorry…but you were going to work yourself to death…"
"Grace, it's okay," Rigsby said to her reassuringly. "You did the right thing."
"I know," Van Pelt said miserably. "But…"
But now there's no one doing anything to find Lisbon. She couldn't bring herself to say the words, but all three of them were thinking it.
~o~
Jane found himself in his room, standing in the doorway, staring at the faded smiley face drawn in his wife's blood that loomed over his small bed.
He blinked. How had he gotten there?
"It's about time you showed up," said an angry voice to his left.
Jane turned toward the voice with a start…and started again when he saw who was speaking.
"Sam?" he asked, confused. "Sam Bosco?"
"Hello, Jane," Bosco said coldly.
Jane blinked.
"Relax," Bosco said, rolling his eyes, "you're asleep…and it's about time. I've been waiting a whole week to yell at you for this."
"What? I don't-" Jane stammered.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Bosco demanded, taking a step towards Jane.
"What do you mean?" Jane asked dumbly.
"Do you remember my dying wish?" Bosco demanded, getting angrier. "Do you remember the last thing I asked of you?"
"You told me to look after her," Jane said softly.
"That's right," Bosco said angrily, nodding. "So tell me: What the hell is Red John doing with her as his captive?"
"I - what - there was nothing I could have done!" Jane protested, stammering. "I wasn't there!"
"And why the hell not?" Bosco demanded furiously.
"Because I'm not her bodyguard?" Jane suggested.
"And why the hell not?" Bosco repeated, completely furious.
Jane blinked, confused, unable to answer.
"Didn't it ever occur to you, for one second, that Red John would come after her?" Bosco demanded. "Didn't you ever consider the fact that Red John goes after people you care about?Huh? Didn't you ever think that you needed to protect her?"
"I've been pushing her away since the day we met for that exact reason!" Jane exclaimed defensively.
"Well, it sure as hell hasn't been working, has it?" Bosco snarled. "Or didn't that occur to you?"
"It's not like I could just make her accept round-the-clock protection!" Jane protested. "She'd take that as an insult! She can take care of herself!"
"One, no one can fight Red John off alone if he wants to get at them," Bosco snapped, "and two, since when do you give a damn about insulting people?"
"I…" Jane didn't know how to answer. Finally, he asked, "What was I supposed to do? Follow her home every night?"
"Yes," Bosco answered, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "At the very least, you could have done something to make sure Red John couldn't get at her. But no, younever think of whether or not you're endangering people who are close to you, do you?" Bosco's tone had gone sarcastic and scathing. "You never think to check yourself and what you're doing to make sure that the people you care about don't get killed because of you, do you?"
Jane winced, but he accepted the blow without protest; after all, it was perfectly fair.
"Now let me make something very clear to you," Bosco continued after a moment, stepping forward so that he was directly in Jane's face. "If you don't save her, I will never let you live it down!"
"If I don't save her, you won't have to do anything," Jane told Bosco solemnly. "If she dies because of me, and I have to hear it…" He shook his head, fighting back tears. "I won't be able to go on living."
"That's about the most selfish thing I have ever heard!" Bosco snarled. "What, you're gonna kill yourself if you fail? Don't you get it? You're the only one who can stop that son of a bitch! If you die while he's still out there, he has free rein for the rest of his life!" Bosco shook his head in disgust. "We all know it, but you don't have a goddamn clue!"
"'We'?" Jane repeated, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"Everyone Red John has ever killed, or has had killed," Bosco said. "We're all stuck. It's a nice place, a lot better than hell, but we can't pass on as long as that son of a bitch is still having his way with life."
Jane laughed. "Why would my subconscious try to scare me with stories of the afterlife and all that malarkey?"
"I said you're asleep, not dreaming," Bosco sneered.
"So you're saying this is real?" Jane asked skeptically.
"I'm real," Bosco snapped. "I'm the real me, or what's left of me. Look, you don't have to believe it," he said, raising his hand to stop Jane's comment. "Just get Teresa back alive. We don't want her to join us."
"Neither do I," Jane replied.
"Okay, so why did it take a spiked cup of tea to get you to sleep?" Bosco asked sarcastically.
"How can I sleep, knowing-?"
"Knowing what?" Bosco interrupted. "Knowing you have at least twenty-four hours from any given time to save her? Knowing that, ironic as it may be, he's treating her better thanyou're treating yourself?"
"Knowing that my time is limited," Jane finished, a bit shamefaced, knowing that Bosco had a point.
"Yes, Jane, your time is limited," Bosco snarled mockingly, "so do what you have to to be able to use what time you have! You won't be able to do anything if you don't eat and sleep!"
"It's not that simple," Jane said. "I'm…I'm too anxious to sleep. I don't sleep much anyway, and this…"
"So take some sleeping pills!" Bosco shouted. "They've got you sleeping now, don't they?"
"Okay," Jane said slowly.
"Okay," Bosco repeated. "Get some rest, get your act together, and get her back!"
"Yes, sir," Jane said half-mockingly.
Bosco nodded, and everything faded away.
~o~
"It'll be sunrise soon," Rigsby said listlessly. "Should we wake him up?"
"Can't. He's drugged," grunted Cho.
"I'll go get his phone," said Van Pelt, and she left.
When she came back five minutes later, no one had moved.
"What do you think Red John'll do if Ja-" Rigsby caught himself. "If Patrick isn't awake when it's time for him to…you know…"
"I don't know," Van Pelt replied, too anxious to sink into the stupor that Rigsby and Cho were in, "and I hope we won't have to find out."
There was silence for a minute. The three friends hadn't slept much over the course of the past week; the atmosphere, though stupor-inducing, was also somehow too tense for anyone to feel at ease enough to sleep well.
Suddenly, Jane groaned.
"He's waking up!" exclaimed Rigsby, as though the other two hadn't noticed.
In fact, Jane woke up remarkably quickly.
"Ohh…" he groaned. He blinked a few times, then sat up. "What happened?" he asked groggily.
"I drugged you," Van Pelt told him softly. Jane rubbed the sleep from his eyes as she continued, "You needed to sleep; you'd've killed yourself if I hadn't spiked your tea."
"What time is it?" Jane asked, still a bit groggy.
"Its almost sunrise." Rigsby broke the news as gently as he could.
It wasn't nearly enough.
"What?" Jane exclaimed, jumping to his feet, all traces of sleepiness gone.
"Patrick, I'm sorry, I had to-"
"How long was I asleep?" Jane demanded, cutting Van Pelt off.
Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt glanced between each other silently; none of them had bothered to check the time at any point during the night. "Several hours, at least," Cho answered finally.
Jane gritted his teeth and shook his head, too angry to speak.
Then he remembered his dream.
You won't be able to do anything if you don't eat and sleep!...Get some rest, get your act together, and get her back!
Jane sighed and forced his irritation away, knowing that what Van Pelt had done was for the best. "Thank you, Grace," he made himself say as he sat back down, "I needed that."
Van Pelt nodded. "Here's your phone," she said, handing him his cell phone.
Jane looked at the phone gloomily, then reached out and took it.
Two seconds later, it rang. Jane checked the caller ID.
Lisbon.
Jane took a moment to glare at each of his three friends before answering it, taking care to turn on the speaker phone before lifting the phone to his ear.
"Hello," he said flatly.
"Good morning, Old Friend, I hope you slept well?" came Red John's mocking voice over the line. "You had me worried, you know. I was afraid you might die of acute exhaustion."
"Thanks for your concern," Jane said sarcastically.
Red John laughed. "Anyway, Old Friend, it's sunrise!" he said, saying the last two words in a singsong voice.
The sound of a knife sinking into human flesh came over the line, but Lisbon didn't make a sound. Jane gripped the phone tightly, but out of respect for Lisbon, he said nothing, not even when Red John laughed.
"Well, then, back to work for you," Red John said in a singsong voice after a minute. "Oh, and Grace: well played. Very well played indeed." Van Pelt's eyes widened. "I honestly thought that there was nothing you would be able to do to help save sweet Teresa if you held to my rules, but I stand corrected," Red John continued, not sounding upset at all. "Very impressive. Fear not, I there shall be no penalty; you held to my rules, and I gave you my word that if you did, I would not do extra harm to Teresa." There was a pause, and the four teammates could almost hear Red John smile. "Very impressive indeed. Farewell for now, all of you."
The line went dead.
Jane sat in silence for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he stood up and went back to his new temporary office, where the key to saving Lisbon impatiently waited to be discovered among the piles of papers from Red John's case file.