AN: Hello again All, my predictions about changes to 1, 2, & 3 were unfounded once I went back and read them. I realize that many of you were enjoying my story, but as I explained in the Apology in the previous chapter, I decided to change what I had written. Hopefully you like what I've done here and are willing to keep reading. One note on reading this, however, much of the chapter will remain the same, but there are definite changes. If you are like me, who skims the familiar and just looks for the different, I suggest, no matter how much you may want to skim, that you read closely, since I've made some subtle changes.


A quarter hour later, Danni stepped out of the room.

"He's better, but grouchy." Danni looked…flustered. "That fiancée of yours is really quite sensitive about his body. Getting him clean was a lot less work when he was unconscious."

"That's true," conceded Lisbon.

"I must admit," continued the nurse, "I know I've said it before, but he's really quite well endowed."

Lisbon fixed the other woman with a hard glare.

The nurse coughed. "I'll be back with the analgesic for his throat." She turned and walked away.

Lisbon went through the now-open door and sat back in her chair.

Jane was sitting up against his pillows, his arms crossed almost protectively over his chest, staring into nothing, his mask of cool collectedness drawn up tightly.

He looked at her and mimed writing again, but pointed at the stack of papers on the table, his head cocked to the side and raised a questioning eyebrow. The top piece on which he had been writing was gone.

"The paper is in my pocket. Do you want to write?"

He shook his head no, folded his arms, and went back to staring.

Lisbon tried not to be annoyed with his pouting. What had the nurse said that had bothered him so much? Or was it just that he was humiliated by the cleaning process?

No, she knew him too well. He wasn't humiliated. When that happened, he started talking and made a point of putting the person that had humiliated him in their place.

She didn't quite like Nurse Danni. The woman was too interested in her sexual life with Jane. A fascination which stemmed from the fact that the only way Lisbon had been allowed to stay by his side the whole time was to pretend that they were engaged. There was just something weird she could sense about that woman.

Something the nurse had actually said flashed into her mind. Something about Jane's physiology.

Of course she had had dreams and fantasies about the man. Only a few because she had managed to remind herself what he was most times, a widower and a coworker. Most times. After having worked with the man for a decade… could it really have been so long?... she no longer found him blisteringly annoying. His different faces and moods were like a book to her now. Actually, she found him rather endearing.

Attractive, attraction: Those were not words she would allow herself to use in conjunction to the man laying in the bed in front of her. For other women, those words applied to him.

So, she could not really blame the nurse; there was not a woman she knew that met Jane and came away unaffected by his looks and charm. In fact, even many of the homosexual women they had met during their ten years of investigation were affected by him.

Her thoughts drifted to another subject that had occupied her mind for a few months now.

Jane and Lorelei.

The six months he had been gone had been some of the most confusing months of her life. She realized that he hadn't spent the whole time with her, but he had refused to call her or reach out.

It had physically hurt her when Jane hadn't denied sleeping with the whore of the man that had killed his family. When he had kissed her, the fury and pain that had washed through her had made her yell things at him that she had only partially regretted.

The feelings that had run through her, that still filled her when she thought of the kiss, burned of hurt, betrayal, and jealousy.

She wasn't sure what had actually made her hurt so much. Was it the fact that he had buckled to the whims of Red John? Or was it something more personal, something she refused to acknowledge because Jane worked for her?

The name of the emotion she held for him surfaced in her mind, but she attacked it, forcing it to the farthest corners.

She sat quietly, making her mind go blank as she watched Jane, a practice she had found that actually let her rest and recover while fulfilling the duty she felt she had to watch over him while he was in the coma, since she felt it was her fault for taking him to the crime scene. Her method had actually saved his life the second time he had died.

The machines hooked up to him to monitor life signs had failed that second time. She had seen the life go out of his body as one great spasmodic gasp and the little color his skin had held fled almost immediately. When the cardiac monitor didn't go off, she tore down the hall, screaming for help, more terror in her at that moment than at any other point during her tenure as an officer.

The doctors had his heart restarted in just under ten minutes and had his lungs working in eleven.

She had actually cried herself to sleep for the first time since before her father killed himself.

Her phone vibrated twice. She jumped violently in response, and was surprised to see that Jane didn't so much as blink at her motion. She pulled out her phone, checked the texts and looked up.

"Jane," she said, "Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt are all here in the parking lot. They want to know if you are ready to see them."

He shrugged.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," she said, typing in the response text. "But you better make it worth their whiles. Apparently Rigsby drove so fast he only avoided getting a ticket by showing his badge to an officer at a stoplight. The officer had to call in their plate number so they wouldn't get pulled over."

They continued to sit in silence for a short while until three sets of footsteps approached the door. Jane stirred becoming more alive looking.

When the three came in, Jane spread his arms and smiled, both of his gestures wide and welcoming.

"Jane! You're alive!" cried Van Pelt "You don't know how much you've scared us!"

He gave her a look that said, Are you sure? and then tapped his temple. She shot back a slightly exasperated face.

Cho stepped forward then, and dropped a plastic bag of moldy pineapple chunks on Jane's lap. Jane shot him a mischievous smile.

Cho pursed his lips slightly.

"Morning, Van Winkle."

Jane laughed silently and pointed back at him. He picked the bag up gingerly and set it on the table over the pile of papers.

Van Pelt's face had become worried.

"Jane, can you talk?"

He shook his head and touched his throat.

She looked confused.

He held up four fingers.

"Charades? Really?" Those were the first words Rigsby had spoken around Jane in over a week.

Noticing a strange shift in Rigsby's character, Lisbon had questioned him about it. He told her that Jane's collapse was one of the most disturbing things he had ever seen. Secretly, he had told her, Jane was one of the strongest people he knew, and to see him cut so low made Rigsby question his own strength. Having Ben had made him only want to be stronger than he thought he was in order to protect his son, and it scared him.

Jane nodded earnestly.

He pointed to his eye.

"Eye? I," said Cho.

Jane touched his nose and then began air boxing.

"Punched," offered Rigsby, who at a head shake, amended his statement to: "Fight?"

Another nose touch.

He mimed spooning food into his mouth.

"Eating?" asked Van Pelt.

He touched next to his nose to sign for a 'not quite.'

Lisbon sighted. "I'm sorry, Jane. He fought his feeding tube on a couple of occasions. It scratched his epiglottis. The nurse is coming with an analgesic so it stops hurting and he can start talking to us."

Jane pouted.

"I'm sorry Jane, it was just taking too long. I don't want you to get over tired," she explained.

Just at that moment Nurse Danni returned with the dose of oral analgesic.

"Can I ask you to step out for a moment?" the nurse asked.

Lisbon nodded. "We'll be right be right back, Jane."

He sighed.

The four stepped into the hallway.

Lisbon scraped the hair away from her forehead.

"I'm sorry. He was more talkative earlier. I don't know what's wrong with him."

Cho waved it off. "He just woke up from a coma. There are dreams when a person is in a coma. He may just be processing them.

Lisbon nodded. "Why don't you three go get something from the vending machine? Go around the corner, down the hall, then turn left. The machines are there. Could-" She felt for her wallet, but didn't find it. "Would one of you mind getting me something? I'll pay you-"

"It's okay. I'll get it." Rigsby said gently.

"Thank you."

He nodded and they left.

Shaking her head, she brushed her hands over her pockets again, wondering why she didn't have her wallet. As she passed her hands around her hips, her left one caught on her gun.

Even if it didn't make any sense, since she was on leave, she had worn her gun every day. It was a part of her. As Jane had once pointed out, she was poster child for the NRA.

She also had a deep-set fear that Red John might make an attempt on Jane's life.


Twenty minutes passed. Lisbon started pacing. Twenty minutes was too long for giving liquid medicine.

Something was beyond wrong. All of her warning instincts were going off. She had never known them to lie. They had saved her and her brother's lives many times when their father had fallen into one of his drunken rages.

Although her impressions about suspects sometimes weren't correct, when she got these warnings, she knew there was going to be danger.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and pressed redial.

"Rigs, I may need backup."

"Back up?!"

"How quick can you get here? Do you have your guns?"

"Less than a minute– " there was a partially muted mumble from the phone's speakers. "We all have them."

"Good. I'm putting you on speaker so you can hear what's happening. Put your phone on speaker, too. You have to stay quiet." She pushed the phone into her jacket pocket without ending the call and drew her gun.

Lisbon opened the door slowly and stepped into the room.

Nurse Danni's scrub jacket was off and blood flecked the white wife-beater she was wearing. She had a knife in her hands, and was slowly carving into Jane's skin, leaving bloody trails across his torso.

But why wasn't he fighting back?

Then she saw why. His hands and feet were tied down with latex medical tubing and cloth bandages. Another band of cloth formed a gag tied firmly in his mouth, prevented him from calling for help.

She raised her gun, horrified, and said a little over-loud, "You are under arrest for the torture of Patrick Jane."

There was a jumble of noise from the phone in her pocket.

The nurse did not rise, but pulled the knife from the cut she had just made. "I don't really feel like it."

The nurse made another inch-long cut on Jane's chest.

The other three clattered into the room.

Lisbon cocked the gun and stepped closer.

"Step away from the bed!"

"No."

"You are resisting arrest!"

"I'm well aware of that."

Lisbon adjusted her grip on the gun. If she shot the woman– But no, if she did, she risked the bullet passing through her and hitting Jane.

The woman dug her knife into Jane again, eliciting an awful moan from him.

Lisbon snarled, all fear of hurting him gone, she would get rid of this woman. She shot once, the bullet ripping through the woman's calf.

Danni jerked away from him, collapsing to the floor, her knife tearing through Jane's flesh, leaving a six-inch-long furrow across his belly, drawing a muffled scream of pain from his throat that caused Lisbon's blood to ice over.

Rigsby and Cho jumped in to help Lisbon handcuff woman, now flailing on the floor.

The knife, which threw small drops of Jane's blood into the air, kept flashing at Lisbon's face.

She lunged back, ducking behind Rigsby's arm as he in turn dove forward. His hand latched around the blade and he wrenched it from the woman's hand. Cho hit her once, subduing her.

Rigsby flipped her over roughly and bent her arms back, fixing a set of handcuffs firmly around her wrists.

Cho stood and hauled her up.

"Look!" Van Pelt was pointing a trembling hand at the woman's chest.

On the inside curve of her left breast was a tattoo of a smiley face. It was red, and trails of the color parted with the main body of the tattoo and followed the contours of the flesh as if they had dripped there.

Red John.

What was the serial killer's mark doing on this woman?

Lisbon stepped overly close to the nurse and spoke, her voice a near-snarl.

"Who are you?"

"Danniella Thorguil."

"Not what I meant. Why do you have that tattoo? Do you know what it means?"

"Ahh… there you go. More specific. I work for Red John."

"Are you actually a nurse, or are you just a plant?"

The nurse pouted. "That hurts. I studied for years to become a nurse. No, I met him at a party once and he made it worth my time." She shrugged. "Besides, I needed money for my lifestyle."

"Why attack Jane, then?"

"Red John grows tired of their game." She shrugged, "Also, I'm a nurse, which means I have no issue with blood and cutting into a body. Besides, I work here, so I was the best and most convenient choice."

Lisbon curled her lip in disgust.

"Cho, take her back and book her. Make sure to get a doctor to come in here on your way out."

The woman pouted again. "Would you not have a doctor look at me? I'm bleeding, too."

"Why should I help you?" Lisbon's voice was beginning to pitch toward a yell. "You've nearly killed my man!"

"At least I did something. You've done nothing for him in the last month."

"Nothing!" She was shrieking whole-heartedly now. "I've sat by his side the whole time! I've cleaned him, washed him, helped feed him, and I've saved his life!

"And, you! You're nothing but a–" she stopped short when she saw the smirk on the nurse's face.

Without taking her eyes from the woman's, she said, "Cho. Get a doctor for Jane and lock her up."

Cho nodded, pushing the woman toward the door.

The nurse turned her head. "Wait! Wait, there's something else. In my front pants pocket, a second gift to Mr. Jane from Red John."

Van Pelt looked at Lisbon for direction. She nodded her forwards. The younger woman stepped around Cho and slipped her and into the pocket. Finding nothing, she dug in the next one and pulled out a small object.

Cho started pushing her again and they disappeared down the hall.

Van Pelt returned to Lisbon with the object.

It was a gold ring with three diamonds set into it. One was larger, maybe half a carat? The other two were half the size of the first. Around a full carat of diamond. She took the ring from Van Pelt and turned it over in her fingers. She read the hallmark on the inside of the ring, a hand-engraved 22K.

She blinked. This ring was impressively expensive. Well, she realized it wasn't the most expensive ring ever, but it was a lot more than she would have expected for a ring if anyone had proposed to her.

That's when it dawned on her. This was a wedding ring. The case file from the Jane family murders popped into her mind. The only thing that had been stolen was the wedding ring that the wife had been wearing.

Oh.

She would give this to Jane, but not quite yet. She pushed it into a pocket.


AN: I hope you like what I've done here. Again, review however you want, I need feed back on this.


Damn, I really messed this chapter up. Maybe I should have read it before I posted it.

EDITED (again...) 4/20