Sorry!

I said Monday didn't I? But then Sunday night's CBS fiasco happened and then those stupid post RJ spoilers and frankly when's a girl supposed to write with all that voting to do!

So here it is ... I have ignored the spoilers and simply written one way I think things could have panned out in the immediate aftermath.

Many thanks to all my reviewers for last chapter ... I know it's pretty downbeat to say the least, but have faith ... don't you have to go through the darkness to come into the light.

Enjoy! ... and don't forget to vote TM for PCA.

It's thirteen days.

Unlucky for some.

Thirteen days since Red John fell.

Thirteen days since the entire California law enforcement system imploded.

... and twelve days since he fled.

Half the CBI hierarchy is behind bars and the rest is under investigation. Even the feds are poisoned with the stigma of the Tyger.

She sits on a random chair in the almost empty bullpen (there are few stragglers hurriedly finishing incomplete paperwork to cover their backs) and she allows herself a wry smile.

What if there is nobody with an unblemished reputation to carry out the enquiries?

Maybe JJ, if nobody else is privy to the contents of the Tupperware box.

Her watery smile almost manages to grow.

... Jane would love that ... if he were here ...

But he isn't.

... and she's very, very afraid he won't be coming back.

The old brown couch is empty ... she can't allow herself to sit on it, with its ingrained fragrance of Jane and the memories it invokes. Just the feel of its supple leather makes her hand recoil; it's saturated with her partner's warmth, his humanity, his humour. And his pain.

The creamy couch in her office is the same, with its carefully chosen, not too girly cushions and the blue grey throw he slept under the night he burnt the Red John files. She can't sit on it.

When she sits at her desk she can turn her back on the couch he bought her just because he could.

Thank God.

But still she can feel him lying there behind her, pretending to be asleep. She can feel the cogs whirring in that brilliant brain of his.

So she avoids her office and works at any empty desk out in the bullpen, trying to untangle the mess that is left in the wake of Jane and Red John.

She trys to work, and for a while she does.

Then she just sits.

She feels ...

... she doesn't know what she feels, sitting alone, staring into another cold cup of coffee.

Every sip she drinks is tainted with an extra bitterness that no amount of milk and sugar can disguise.

She thinks perhaps a cup of his tea, carefully brewed, the way he likes (liked), will bring some comfort; she can pretend he's there, just holed up in the attic. He'll be waiting patiently for her to go and rap on the door and drag him downstairs (he's waiting just because it annoys her and it's part of their little ritual).

Behind the cupboard door, the Oolong sits there on the shelf, right next to the Lapsang Souchong, but she can't even bring herself to open the box.

And there's a gap on the shelf. Next to the tea.

He's not coming back ...

... his cup is gone.

The matching red one is there.

It makes her feel like throwing up.

So she throws it in the bin.

It doesn't help.

Just makes an ugly noise that echoes around the bullpen.

She escapes; walks away quietly, calmly to the elevator and waits, emotionless and rigid.

When the doors close behind her she hits the button to hold the world at bay for just as long as ... as long as it takes her game face to return.

Who cares?

Who knows?

Anymore.

She cries for the first time since he left.

And it's a flood.

A sobbing, quivering, angry, painful flood.

She feels, all at once, furious, indignant, hurt, betrayed, resigned ... any negative emotion contained within the pages of the psychologist's little hand book of human feelings.

Her tears embody each of those feelings tenfold.

The pain rips into her soul and tears her heart apart.

It's been contained for far too long.

And yet, for all that overflowing, for all that raging torrent, there is still a gaping hole; a pit of nothingness that her anger only serves to paper over. It only takes a pinprick, a sideways glance at a brown leather couch or the imagined sound of the soft shoe shuffle of worn out soles, to slash the paper open and send her tumbling into that lonely void where he is meant to be.

Where he once was ... but isn't.

Because he's somewhere in Mexico.

Trying to find peace at the bottom of the ocean.

.

.

There's a moment when the temptation to give up living has to overcome the inherent strength of the human (animal) instinct to survive.

A moment when the desire to die has to fight against the will to live.

In that precious moment a tiny voice, somewhere deep inside, starts insisting.

Maybe it's fear. Maybe cowardice.

Maybe love.

... I think you'd choose life...

... there's people who care about you, who need you ...

But the water's already filling his lungs.

Making him cough.

He's a swimmer...

Making him panic.

... a swimmer ... but not that good.

Dragging him under, into its darkest blue heaven.

...I think you'd choose life ...

There are some things you just can't fix.

...you're being selfish and childish ...

...people who need you ...

And now he's trying.

Really trying.

But his head won't stay above the water.

He's really trying.

He thrusts his arms up, out of the water, outstretched, up as far as he can reach ... and the bubbles rush up to the surface past them ... ... ... his breath on it's way out.

And there's nothing more that he can do.

And the bubbles keep on rising to the surface ...

.

.

There are some things you just can't fix.

And sometimes it takes the intervention of fate to fix the unfixable.

A third party ...

... or two teenage lovers taking a romantic moonlit stroll along a deserted beach.

The lovers settle underneath the only poor excuse for a tree above the long expanse of sand. They sit, arms lovingly wound around each other, saying nothing; embracing the privilege of this time together, alone.

Unaware that kismet has sent them to this place, on this particular sultry night, they enjoy each other's company and silently watch the strange American wading slowly into the sea.

The moonlight is shimmering silvery gold off his yellow hair. It's how they know it's him and they can see his old brown shoes sitting lonely and discarded alongside his tatty shirt, lying half way down the beach.

And, bewitched, they watch him wading deeper still.

Until only his head is visible.

Then they see him waving.

They wave back.

And he keeps on waving.

And disappearing.

Still waving.

Until they realise ...

... not waving but drowning ...

.

I had intended this to be a longer and final chapter, but I have decided that it needs to have a break at this point ... so don't give up; just hang in there until tonight or maybe Monday for the conclusion ... will the young lovers be in time to save our hero or will he find his Blue Heaven at the bottom of the ocean.

.