Oh, yes, the damn disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, I'd not be here writing it, I'd be the writeer of a TV Shows and, well, we'd have the LIsbon romance for real...meanwhile, I just "write, draw, create, dream, hope and believe in Bruno, waiting for him to be blessed bu the light of reason..." (No, this discalimer isn't mine, it belongs to one fo the girls who wite Mentalist fiction on the italian site efpfiction, but don't tell me many of you don't share this vision...).

Thanks to everyone who left a review or put me on fav and7or alerts. Even if I'd like to receive more reviews, good or bad ones it doesn't matter, you still make my day. And, yesterday I forgot to tell you-I'm really sorry I let that long pass between chapter 2 and 3, but I've been extremely busy, and I really have time to write, and moslty update, on weekends (in fact, with the exception of Blackdragon, that's posted on the 15th of each month and is written with months of anticipation, you'll notice I mostly update on weekends...) . Also: soemwhere you'll notice that the style is quite old-fashioned. that's why I'm tryong to follow "A Christmas Carol" in every possible way, just changing the basilar settings, so, there are long parts where I merely adjust names, temps of verbs, and so on, letting stay the original structure of the sentence, as Dickens wrote it.


ACT THREE OR THE FIRST SPIRIT

When he wakes up covered in sweat, still shaken by what has previously happened (and Jane isn't sure if it was just a dream or if it really happened, if his father's ghost was really there, with him, trying to save his soul) his room is embraced by darkness. Only the light of the streetlamps send a glimpse of light through the curtains. Jane closes his eyes, inhaling deeply, trying to force the thought that it really happened away from his mind. He was a fraud. Ghosts don't exist. His father's wandering ghost never visited him. It was just a nightmare, a different one but nevertheless a nightmare. He is used to them, when he can actually catch up with sleep.

Still, when he hears a bell from a not so distant church striking twelve times, he freezes, his breath dying in his throat, like it was a bad omen…

It's almost the time. If his father's ghost has really been there with him, he'll receive in an hour the visit of another soul, if it happened, which he doubts. Since he is Patrick Jane and everyone knows that Patrick Jane doesn't believe in immortal souls and spirits and afterlife and so on.

He paces the room from few instants, reaching the window, and stares out of it. The world, his road, is like his own room, fallen victim of the dark, all he can make out is that it is still very foggy and extremely cold, for California standards, and that there's no noise of people running or even living- that's why he is there, because he likes the silence, he likes being alone in a world filled with other humans, he likes the silence, because he can think, and can suffer better.

Taking a big breath and shaking his head, making fun of himself, he goes to bed again, and thinks, and thinks, and thinks it over and over, and can make nothing of it. The more he thinks, the more perplexed he is; and, the more he desperately tries to send that thought away, the more he finds himself focused again on it.

His Father's Ghost bothers him exceedingly. Every time he resolves within himself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his mind flows back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presents the same problem to be worked all through, 'Was it a dream or not?'

He remains still in his bed, in this unfortunate state, pondering the same problem, for what seems an eternity, when he remembers again, on a sudden, that the Ghost has warned him of a visitation when the bell would announce the hour of one AM.

He resolves to lie awake until the hour is passed- trying sleep would be a waste of time and energy anyway, with his sleep issues, so this may be, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.

When he hears the bell again, he realizes it's a quarter to one, and the fifteen minutes are so long, that he is more than once convinced he must have falls asleep or somehow just missed the sound. He even checks his watch and his alarm to make sure he didn't, when, finally…

Ding, dong

"Time has come" He says triumphantly, almost mad with him because he believed, even only for an instant, that it really happened "and nothing happened!"

He speaks before the hour bell sounds, which it now does with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashes up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his window are drawn aside by what looks like a hand, and, before Jane could realizes what's going on, his covers are send by a unknown force on the pavement.

He sits in his bed, looking around what something unusual, trying to understand where the paranormal presence may be hiding, when, turning back toward the window, he finds himself face to face with the unearthly visitor, just few inches of distance between their faces.

He is a strange figure — like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gives him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. His hair, which hangs about his neck and down his back, is white as if with age, and yet the face has not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom is on the skin. The arms are very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if hiss hold are of uncommon strength. His legs and feet, most delicately formed, are, like those upper members, bare. It wears a tunic of the purest white, and round hiss waist is bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which is beautiful. He holds a branch of fresh green holly in its hand, Jane realizes, taken away by the sight, somehow caught by it, and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, he has his dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about him is that from the crown of his head bright clear jets of light are emitted. Somehow, Jane can find the time to think if the jets may still be visible, even when the "spirit" doesn't wear his hat, now steady placed under one arm.

He doesn't know why, but Jane is captivated by the unusual visitor, and he almost grins at him, like a child on Christmas Morning; he looks at his visitor with increasing steadiness but curiosity as well, noticing a quality he hasn't make put of him at first sight. For as his belt sparkles and glitters now in one part and now in another, and what is light one instant, at another time is dark, so the figure itself fluctuates in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melt away. And in the very wonder of this, he would be himself then again, distinct and clear as ever. The only thing he can think of is that Ghosts are really like what has been described to him as child, evanescent and translucent creatures.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" he simply asks, getting closer and closer to the creature.

"I am." He simply answers. The voice is soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, the spirit was far away.

May I ask who and what are you?" Jane demands.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long Past." inquires Jane, observant of the spirit's dwarfish stature, finally resolving to be his usual self, ready to upset and make fun of the rest of the world, supernatural or not.

"No, mortal, I'm the spirit of your past."

As the ghost answered with anger, somehow insulted by Jane's words, the man himself finds himself wishing to see the Spirit in his cap, and mentally begs him to wear it. He doesn't know why, he couldn't explain the reason; all he knows is that he is sure that he hasn't said the words out loud.

"What now?" exclaims the Ghost, furious with rage "Why you would so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?"

Jane doesn't even dare to ask him how he knew his wish, he simply and reverently disclaims all intention to offend or any knowledge of having willfully bonneted the Spirit at any period of his life. He then resolves to come back to who he really is, or at least to whom he claims to be, boldly inquiring on the nature of the business that brought them to be there at the same time.

"Your welfare, what a silly question" says the Ghost.

Jane expresses himself much obliged, but cannot help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, because he immediately answers him, still furious, Jane can tell, but with something that remembers him of a smile, or, maybe, a grin.

"Take heed" he puts out his strong hand as he speaks, and clasps Jane gently by the arm. "Rise and walk with me."

Jane knows that pleading that the weather and the hour are not adapted to pedestrian purposes is vain; he knows that it's useless pointing out that that bed is warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing (for the California standard, at least, but he has always lived south, and this is as freezing as it may get there), that he is clad only in his pajama pants, or that he is probably ill…

The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, is not to be resisted, he knows it; he understands it. He rises from his sitting position on the bed, but finding that the Spirit moves towards the window, Jane fists the too sublet fabric of what he is wearing with sweating hands, unsure if being desperate or trying to sound smart.

"I'd like to remember that, differently from you, I am mortal" he remonstrates, grinning, going for smart "and so, liable to fall."

"Bear but a touch of my hand there" says the Spirit, laying it upon his heart "and you shall be upheld in more than this."

Suddenly, they find themselves outside a city, in a place he could recognize at closed eyes…

"The carnie" he answers, grinning "I think I remember it." Jane looks around, a small smile on his lips; while the Ghost assures him that they can't be seen. He is glad of that, because the place is filled, filled with people from outside, there trying to enjoy their day off with their families, and filled with his people, the carnie people, who seem to be happy as well of the incoming festivity.

"A solitary child, neglected by his so-called friends, is left outside of this all. His father never thought he was supposed to mix himself with lesser people. He taught his own son that he had every right of consider himself superior to the rest of the world because of what he could accomplish with his uncanny abilities"

Jane remembers it, and sobs in silence. He was that child, forced to trick his way into innocents' lives even on Christmas time, because, according to his own father, it was the time of the year when people were easier to influence.

"Let's go on"

As the words are spoken, they pass through the wall, and stand upon the ocean and a beach of light, almost white, sand. The city has entirely vanished, not a vestige of it is to be seen, and the darkness and the mist have vanished with it, for it is a clear, typical Californian Christmas day, with a bright sun and an appealing temperature and a wonderful weather.

"Bloody hell…" says Jane, clasping his hands together, as he looks at the well known place, a place where he is been happy once, not knowing if he should be happy, sad or furious with the creature for what the memory the ghost is forcing him to bring back to the front of his mind. "It's my home… my family's home… where I lived with… where…where…"

The Spirit gazes upon him mildly, his gentle touch, though it has been light and instantaneous, appears still present to the old man's sense of feelings. Jane is conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten, happy memories that just a bad one has erased in his mind, now driven only by sufferance and thirst for vengeance.

"Your lip is trembling" says the Ghost, with the shadow of a knowing and understanding smile "And what is that upon your cheek?"

Jane mutters, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it is a pimple and begs the Ghost to lead him where they are supposed to be, unable to carry on with the memories, already wishing for it to be over once and for all.

"You recollect the way." inquires the Spirit.

"Remember it." cries Jane with fervor, desperation and sufferance; "I could walk it blindfold. Do you really think my mind never goes back to those days? It's my only though, Ghost, my only constant thought, alongside my thirst for vengeance, because this is what I've lost because of my greed, and I deserve every instant of the sufferance I bring upon myself remembering what is gone because of my wrongs!"

"Strange you have forgotten it for so many years, then" observes the Ghost, still with the knowing smile "Let us go on, then"

They walk along the sand, Jane recognizing every angle of the place, every house in the distance, and every particular of the home… a home where only 3 people are present, but all in great spirits, the air full of merry music…

"These are but shadows of the things that have been" says the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us." He remembers him, yet again.

Jane could describe that day perfectly, and with his breath dying in his throat he reflects… Why is he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see this event? Why do his cold eye glisten and his heart leap up as looking at the scene? Why is he filled with gladness when he hears them give each other Merry Christmas, as he holds both Annie and Charlotte at six in the morning on Christmas day, his daughter busy destroying the paper that cover her gifts? What was and is merry Christmas to him? What good has it ever done to him? He may have good memories, but everything's good had been destroyed by a single, terrible instant of seven years prior.

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered" says the Ghost, looking at both women in Jane's embrace "but she had a large heart, they both had."

"So she had," Jane cries, unable to cover his tears "you're right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit, never. Not when they accepted who and what I was. They didn't hate me because of it, they… they simply accepted that I was whom I was."

"That's why you resent yourself so much, because you think you killed them." Jane grunts something in response, and simply looks in front of him, crossed arms. "Its' true, I know it, there's no reason to hide it. I know everything there's to know of you."

Jane seems uneasy in his mind; and answers briefly, a simple "Sure, yeah"

"You gave her a pony, a fake pony, I mean. It was the tony she had asked in her letter to Santa."

"She dictated it to Annie" he looks, with a small smile, at the three people on the carpet, a man in casual clothes enjoying him "I gave her a small doll, a Pocahontas. It was big enough to ride the pony."

During the whole of this time, Jane has acted like a man out of his wits, like, for the first time after so long, he could finally be the man he has always wanted to be, and deep down knew he could be. His heart and soul are in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborates everything, remembers everything, enjoys everything, and undergoes the strangest agitation. It is not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and the two women are turned from them, that he remembers the Ghost, and becomes conscious that he is looking full upon him, while the light upon his head burnt very clear.

"My time is coming to an end. Let's be quick" The Ghost says as he gazes over Jane's forehead with a touch as gentle as the one of a newborn child.

Again, Jane sees him. He is older now, but still a young man, with still a long road ahead of him, but his face has begun to wear the signs of sufferance, self-loathing and thirst for vengeance, he can say it from the motion of his restless and sleepless eyes, he can see it looking at a man who's just a shadow of who he was, of who he could have been.

He is alone, in the same house as before, in the same room even, but the home is empty of life, empty of furniture. There's nothing that could link that place that it was with the one that it is, not even the weather. Where there was sun, there's fog now, there are dark, stormy clouds, like the weather could somehow mirror his own inner darkness.

"Those ones were happy memories, Mr. Jane. Tell me, why do you take upon yourself to bring such a sufferance to your heart when you bring them back here?" The Ghost asks, touching again Jane's forehead, with a sad smile. "What good does it do to you, acting this way, forgetting what was good in honor of the greatest plague of this world, death? Don't you think that you should remember what it was for what it truly was, untamed by what happened? Don't you think that you're not doing them anything good by mixing what they gave you with the evil of a hand that wasn't even yours to begin with? Do you think that they could want you freeze in time, focused only on death, your, theirs, your nemesis'? Do you ever wonder if she, or someone like her, would seek you out, seeing the man you've become? You know the answer to all my questions, Mr. Jane."

"Spirit" Jane orders "show me no more. Bring me back home, and stop to delight yourself into torturing me! Leave me. Take me back, and don't haunt me any longer!"

"One more vision" says the Ghost.

"No more, I beg you, show me no more. I don't wish to keep seeing this…" But the Ghost takes him for the arms, turning him towards what he recognizes as a modern but yet cozy kitchen, quite small, in a quite small apartment. He doesn't know who lives there, he doesn't recognize the place, but of he should associate it with a word, it would be… home.

Then, he saw them, Lisbon and Grace, busy cooking something in the oven. Lisbon isn't exactly at easy, with the redhead around in a private matter, and seems even more uneasy given the place. He thinks he can say when this scene took place, the previous year. He knows that Grace had found herself in the situation of being unable to make home at the last minute, and that the same had happened to Lisbon, blocked with her body in Sacramento while her mind and heart were in Chicago, and he knew that, being the only two (3, with him) of the team, with a distant family, they decided that, even if it was going to be rather uncomfortable, they better had to spend the festivity at least together than alone…

"I saw Jane while I was grocery shopping. Well, actually, it was more like a glimpse of him. He was on the other side of the road, but I know he was rolling his eyes at a Santa. He was all alone… he seemed so… resentful of everything and everyone…" Lisbon says to Grace, extremely said, with tears in her voice. Not for the first time, Jane wonders how long she has felt that way about him, if her love for him was a newfound, or at least recently discovered, feeling, or if it could find its roots in a long time now gone…

"Spirit, please, I wish to leave this place and time" Jane begs at closed eyes.

"Don't blame me, Mr. Jane. I told you these are just shadows of the past, of things that have been. They are what they are; they are what you've made of them."

"Bring me back, I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear it!"

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part is undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Jane observes that the spirit's light is now burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seizes the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action presses it down upon its head.

The Spirit drops beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Jane presses it down with all his force, he cannot hide the light, which streams from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He is conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gives the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed, and has barely time to reel to bed, before he sinks into a heavy sleep.

Before passing out into unconsciousness, he merely hears the Ghost of the past whispering something that seems like "My fellow companion will join you when the bell will ring for three times. Prepare yourself, Mr. Jane."