A/N: Thank you everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, or followed this story! It means so much to me just knowing that at least one other person beside me is reading it. I am so excited to continue writing! So without further ado, chapter two! (That rhymed!)

Disclaimer: Nope, still do not own The Mentalist.


Chapter 2: Red Lights

Sirens could be heard in the distance, quickly getting closer. When he heard the voices of paramedics nearby, Jane released Lisbon's hand and made his way to the front door of the old house in order to lead them in. Jane was shocked to see three police cars, two ambulances, and one all-too familiar looking CBI vehicle.

Three burly men equipped with all sorts of medical gear quickly jumped out of one ambulance, skipped up the front porch steps, and barged past Jane to the direction that he pointed to with his outstretched arm and index finger. Jane trailed right behind them, ready to be of any assistance possible.

"How long has she been unconscious?" One of the paramedics asked Jane while unraveling an IV tube.

"I...I don't know. I found her like this about fifteen minutes ago. I could barely feel her pulse and her breathing was really shallow, barely noticeable."

"Okay Barry, get her hooked up to the IV, we need to flush this crap out of her ASAP!" The oldest of the paramedics barked to the younger ones.

Jane cringed as the younger man pierced Lisbon's skin with a sharp needle. He was thankful, however, that that was the only thing that had pierced her flesh today. If he would have been five minutes later arriving to the house, she probably would have been sliced up in the most gruesome way imagined. Images of Angela and Charlotte passed through his mind. Ones of them cut up on their bed, blood covering the floor, and the giant finger-painted smiley on the wall. Jane couldn't imagine what would have happened if he had found Lisbon in the same way. He might have very well ended his life then and there, a classic Romeo and Juliet scene where Romeo would come in and find his Juliet dead and would then take his own life.

Lisbon was his best friend. His anchor. His savior. She was the woman who forgave him constantly and put up with his endless flow of traps, lies, and deceit. She saw past his brokenness and loved him through the worst. When he came to the CBI years ago, he never expected to gain anything except, of course, the revenge on Red John. Instead, he developed a friendship and a partnership with Agent Teresa Lisbon.

And he loved her. Loved her more than anyone else on earth. And he could probably even admit to himself he had romantic feelings for her. He wanted to love her more, but with Red John still in the picture, that wasn't possible.

Two things, both concerning Red John, held him back from declaring his love for her. First of all, he didn't want to make her a bigger target than she already was. Want to get to Jane? Hurt the people closest to him. Secondly, Jane couldn't give himself entirely to Lisbon if he was still on the Red John case. Most people assumed that for Jane, revenge came first, over everything. People always told Lisbon that she was just a pawn to Jane in his quest for revenge, but they couldn't have been more wrong. Jane needed to get the weight off his shoulders before he could even start putting the pieces of his soul back together. With Red John still out there, the pieces were merely taped together, by none other than Teresa Lisbon. Once Jane got revenge on Red John, he could open his eyes to the future.

And revenge he got.

But now, there was a bigger problem. The only person he could see being with in the future was being rolled onto a gurney by three big men.

"Bart, get her some oxygen, lets get her in the truck," one of the men ordered.

All at once, the three men lifted the gurney and carried Lisbon out of the house. Jane followed quickly behind them. As they were making their way out, three SACPD officers sprinted in. They didn't question Jane, they already had enough information for now. All three knew that Jane killed Red John. They walked over to dead man on the floor and flipped him over to his back. One officer bent down and pulled back the mask on Red John's face to reveal his identity. Jane was still watching in the doorway as the face of the killer was revealed. Jane took one look at the face he knew and watched as the officers gaped in shock.

Jane didn't care, he just turned around and jogged to the ambulance. Once the paramedics had hoisted her into the back of the ambulance, he stepped up into the back to take a seat next to her.

"Hey, are you family?" barked one of the men.

"I am her partner." replied Jane with a tinge of bitterness in his voice.

"Her husband?"

"NO. Her partner." Jane was frustrated as hell at this point because all these terms were just technicalities and didn't matter in their relationship.

"Sir, you have to get off, or we will make you get off. Family only." The older paramedic was arguing with Jane while one other was securing the gurney to the ambulance, while the third one was starting up the engine.

"I am not leaving." The older paramedic stood up and grabbed Jane's arm and led him towards the back doors.

"Sir, by doing this you are prolonging the time it takes to get her to the hospital. Please, just make it easy on us and yourself, and get off." Suddenly a person from below clutched Jane's forearm and yanked him, causing him to jump off the ambulance. Before Jane saw who it was, he whipped around trying desperately to get back in with Lisbon. The doors slammed shut and Jane began violently pounding on them almost screaming to let him back in.

The ambulance was put into gear and sped off down the road, red lights flashing until it disappeared from sight.

Jane finally turned around to face the person who had pulled him out of the ambulance. Agent Kimball Cho faced him with the usual serious look upon his face.

"You need to tell me what happened Jane." Cho crossed his arms in front of him, showing Jane that there was no way he was going to get out of this.

"I need to go with Lisbon, I will deal with all your police technicality crap later." Jane attempted to brush past Cho towards his baby blue Citroen, but Cho put his hand up against Jane's chest.

"No, you will deal with it in the car when I am taking you to the hospital." Cho ordered. Jane threw his hands up in surrender and let out an exaggerated breath.


Jane reached over his chest and pulled the seat belt across him. The sound of the buckle snapping was the only sound to be heard before Cho broke the silence.

"You killed Red John."

"Yes, I realize that." Jane was obviously still perturbed about the whole ambulance incident.

"Jane being like this isn't going to make things better. Stop being an ass and cooperate."

"You don't understand do you? Lisbon just almost died at the hand of Red John because of me. Do you know how that feels? To see your partner, your best friend, about to be sliced in front of you. I am a little bit more than mad. I feel absolute disgust at him, at myself." Jane's tone now had more than bitterness in it.

"I understand. You can't do anything about that now. I need to know what happened. It will make things easier on you, easier on Lisbon. Do you think when she wakes up she will want to be bombarded with questions from the CBI and SACPD?"

"No," Jane murmured like a little kid.

"First of all, why was Lisbon there alone?"Cho inquired.

"When you guys went out to lunch, Lisbon got a phone call. It was an anonymous caller saying they thought they might have some information about the Greer case. It was completely unrelated to Red John, you know that. The man said that he had been walking in the neighborhood that night and saw a suspicious man running away from the scene and just wanted to talk to an agent. He gave her the address to the house, so we headed out to leave." Jane explained.

"So you were leaving with her, why didn't you go?" Cho was driving faster than the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic slightly in order to get to the hospital quickly for Jane's sake.

"Right before we left, I got a call saying Bertram wanted to meet with me, immediately. Something had come up on the Red John case. Of course, Lisbon insisted I go to the meeting with Bertram because she didn't like to keep him waiting and she figured I would be antsy until I knew what he had to say about Red John- which of course is true."

"But you could have very well likely been with Lisbon when she went to go question the suspect, why would Red John take that chance?"

"Because Red John knew I had been called to a meeting. I arrived at Bertram's office, and his secretary told me he had been called out to an emergency press conference and he would be back within thirty minutes and that I should just wait there. So I did. That's where I was when I got Rigsby's text saying that you had just discovered the Greer case to be a suicide," Jane explained.

"That's when you realized that the tip about the man running away from the scene must have been bogus," Cho deducted.

"Yes, and that's also when I realized that someone in the CBI had to have made the call, because they knew about the case. That's also when I realized that Gale Bertram was probably not at a press conference, and Lisbon was all alone."

Cho was lost in thought, nearly running a red light. He slammed on his brakes just in time and looked at Jane. He put two and two together, and what did that equal? Gale Bertram was Red John.

"Shit. Bertram is Red John." Cho hit the steering wheel hard with his hand.

"Yeah..." murmured Jane. "So I left the office immediately and drove like a bat out of hell to the address the man had given Lisbon. I caught Bertram completely off guard. For the last year I have kept a pistol in my glove compartment in my car, don't ask why, Lisbon is just rubbing off on me I guess. I grabbed the gun and went into the house. When I came up behind him, he had the knife in the air, ready to come down on Lisbon. I didn't think, I just shot."

"You saved her life Jane, you should be proud." Cho remarked, pulling into the hospital parking lot. He drove around to the front to drop Jane off so he could go park. Jane opened the door and got out, slamming it behind him.

He wasn't proud at all. He had gotten Lisbon into this situation the moment he signed on with the CBI, and now he was going to carry her out of it.


A/N: There you have Chapter 2! I said I wasn't going into detail about the Red John take down, but I couldn't resist. Oh well! Review, review, review!