AN: Thanks again for all the support with reviews and follows. I really appreciate the encouragement :) On with the next chapter…
I constantly find myself intrigued by the ways in which the things that happen happen. And I'm not talking simply about the unusual or the tragic or the absurd; no, it's those small everyday occurrences that keep on accumulating, one on top of another, until, voila, one arrives finally at the full-screen capture of one's life. Sometimes I find myself taking a step back; looking down on what has led to me being me, somehow just floating above it all. But, then again, floating is not perhaps the right word for it, because really there is nothing gentle or lilting about my contemplation of life's events; in fact, you could say I'm in a nose dive, plummeting head first toward…well, back to reality, to the hard rock of inevitability, and landing with a resounding crash. It happens time and time again.
I remember when I was living alone on the island, the lack of distraction meaning daily confrontation with what I had done and what I had become, and I would write to Teresa, long letters detailing the scenery and the characters and the daily trivial incidents I thought she would enjoy. What lay beneath the humdrum, and what would often come out unbidden as I was signing off these missals, was of course the fact that I missed her and that I wished she was there. Her absence was the one thing making it impossible for me to move on in any meaningful way, made my new life continue to be strange and sad, as if a piece of me had been wrenched out or off and could not grow back. Part of me wished, painfully, that she would somehow track me down, piece together the clues I left her, and come after me. But the larger part knew she wouldn't. So one could most definitely say I was relieved when the FBI finally found me and offered me that deal. Clever of them to send in a lookalike in Kim, make me really remember what it was I had left behind, what it was I was now missing out on. So what was five years after all if it meant seeing, being with, Teresa again? I had spent twice that long in pursuit of Red John.
But not in all those two years away from her had it ever really occurred to me to be jealous of potential happenings in her life. Oh, I knew that there was a definite risk that I would lose her, yet distance allowed me to somehow manage to keep my idea of her safe, selfishly manacled to the pillar of my absence like one of those enchanted, long-haired maidens in a Millais painting, the Martyr of the Solway perhaps. I'd done it before, after all. But this now certainty of her cavorting with the stolid and respectable Agent Pike, so unlike the hard-faced cowboys, who in the good old days were always hanging around her, walloped me with the force of a shock to the heart. That first evening when I saw them leave the office together, and knew that their relationship was about to take that step forward, I sat on my couch aghast, my whole body unusually warm, flushing I'm sure with the pain of it all, and saw the whole thing as it was bound to play out. And no matter how hard I try to force it from my mind, it returns to my vision over and over.
They are in the bedroom of Pike's modern bachelor apartment, situated on the upper levels of one of those newly established blocks in midtown. The wide windows look out onto the well-lit city streets, where earlier in the evening they strolled hand in hand, stopping before shop windows to whisper and laugh softly into each other's ear. Now the soft glow from the lights outside falls through the room, softly illuminating the artwork on the walls, the large immaculately made bed, Teresa's pale skin. She looks about her in something like surprise and almost amusement to find herself here: what had seemed accidental was really something wanted, after all, and so here she is, on this otherwise anonymous Thursday evening, in this strange but soon to be familiar room, in this city, miles away from where she once believed her life would lead. He stands almost awkwardly, not looking at her, somewhat nervous now despite all his earlier ease and confidence, and removes things from his pockets in an ordered fashion: keys, wallet, small change are all lined up on the bureau, meticulous. His cheek is flushed, and that endearing touch of color makes her throat tighten. He turns to her now, speaking lightly to mask his awkwardness, then stops to stare at her powerlessly. She sees the apple in his neck bob as he swallows. They are still a moment, poised, listening inside themselves to that secret inner hum as it gradually swells to a crescendo. Then a hand is raised, soft skin touched, an inward breath taken.
This is what trembles my heart, the thought of this silent moment of surrender. Of course what will follow is dreadful too – there are no bounds to this imagination of mine, believe me – but it is right here, when his fingers feather over her cheek and her lips part and her eyes darken, that I find my mind caught on, as cloth is snagged by a piece of jagged glass.
Yet I know too that there is a perverse part of me that revels in its happening, wants to have been there and to have leant over them with eyes burning to feast in lamentation on their entwined forms and drink deep of their passion. What terrible desire is this in me? Am I a vampire, a demon, at their joining, feeding on their fervor to give myself life? That shadow Pike is more vivid, more real, than I feel my own self to be at moments. I am so often trapped here within my own imaginings, forced to live over the torture of such visions.
Why am I thinking of this now, I wonder? Quite possibly it is because Marcus Pike himself has arrived before me in the flesh, and is now standing a couple of meters away, speaking anxiously to a group of other, equally serious, agents, all dressed alike in their dark stiff-looking suits. I know that Abbott, Fischer, and Cho are somewhere around the place too, but for the moment everyone seems to be leaving me alone, too busy securing the scene, looking for clues, drawing up their plans of action. I've already told them all I can about what happened.
The second gunshot rang out, and in the same instant my heart leapt into my throat, I saw Teresa fall. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, and I heard as if from a great distance my own voice release an anguished cry, but in that same split second she somehow tucked her shoulder under her body and managed to roll. Then she was on her feet again and dashing up the steps to the lodge. The last I saw of her was her slim figure, sylph-like, slipping back through the open door and into her room.
I had been so relieved to think that she'd made it, that she wasn't lying there dead and crumpled in a broken heap on the moonlit grass before me, and that I didn't have to go through the agony of such desperate loss all over again, that I almost didn't register the third shot, which was followed immediately by a scream that could have been my name but was quickly cut short. That scream sliced through my chest more sharply than any blade, and I was pushing up from the ground and heading towards it without giving the slightest thought to the threat still behind me in those trees. I didn't feel the bullet hit my arm, only caught myself stumbling and knocking my knees painfully on the wooden stairs leading back up to where I had last seen her. By the time I managed to clear them and limp my way to her room, it was empty, save for one dark stain smeared across the wall near the door, a starkly indignant mark against its bland white background.
As I return to the equally uncomfortable present, Cho makes an appearance in the doorway of the bedroom in which I am currently sitting, my own, slumped on the end of the bed, still shoeless and with my shirt and pants now ruined with blood and dirt, but with the added accessory of a bandage wrapped snugly around my upper arm. The bullet didn't lodge itself in me, so I have refused painkillers and a trip to the emergency room. I can't leave and I need my mind to be clear.
"Jane." Cho greets me, coming to sit beside me on the bed, and I see Pike look over at us at the sound of his voice, dark brows furrowed. "How are you doing?"
"Oh, you know," I say, and shrug my shoulders. "Got a bullet in my arm and my partner's been abducted by a vindictive shrink. I guess I could be better."
"You don't have a bullet in your arm, it's just a graze. And we're going to get her back, Jane." Cho's face is impassive but his solid and familiar presence beside me is nevertheless comforting. If I can rely on anyone (other than Teresa, that is) it's Kimball Cho. "You still sure it was Wagner who took her?"
I look at him. Am I sure? Maybe I take back that earlier thought. "Of course. I'm just not entirely certain why."
"Well I am." Kim sweeps into the room, phone in hand. "These photos were taken at Wagner's cabin." She hands the device to Cho, who flicks through them and then passes them on to me. I look at the first and my jaw almost drops. It's of a room, no windows that I can see from the angle of the photo, but the one section of wall in view is covered in pictures. Of Teresa. As far as I can tell, they're not all recent ones either. In fact, looking closer, I can see at least five from my early years in Sacramento. Wait a moment, that one…
"What is it, Jane?" Pike's voice startles me and I look up. I didn't hear him enter the room and yet here he is, suddenly standing over me with that irritating concerned look on his face. For some reason I feel irked. "Bloody hell." He's seen the screen. "Are those all of Teresa?" He moves to take the phone from me, but I jerk it out of his reach.
"Cho, take a look at this. What do you notice about that picture? That one, in front of the lake?"
Cho uses the zoom function to close in on the photo's detail. He's silent for a long while, before finally: "Rigsby's still got that pathetic attempt at facial hair." He looks at me, the slightest frown of puzzlement on his otherwise blank face. I am impressed. Rigsby is in the background of the shot, after all.
"Yeah? So?" Pike finally manages to snatch the phone to look at the picture himself. "What does an old colleague's beard have to do with finding out what's happened to Teresa?"
Kim is also looking at me in mild confusion, but at least she can wait patiently for one of us to speak.
"We-ell," I begin, simultaneously attempting to process the meaning of this new development, whilst also addressing the question in a civil manner. I accidentally rub my hand over the bandage on my arm and can't help but wince. "That photo was taken before we ever knew Wagner. Long before. Six months, in fact."
"You can tell that?" Fischer sounds impressed. I'm almost hurt. We've been working together for almost a year, after all.
"Well, that day was pretty memorable." I smile, a little grimly, perhaps, thinking back with a mixture of fondness and gravity to the events that took place.
Cho chuckles. "That's right. Thanks to you, the boss ended up in that lake, and, if I recall correctly, had to take a week off work. She was pissed." He puts a hand on my shoulder, the good one, and pats it. I don't usually appreciate being touched, but I'm once again comforted by Cho's presence. I try to dislodge the painful lump in my chest.
"Not that it's the point, but I don't think it was a whole week. Maybe a couple of days." I'm clinging to the small details here, because I'm having trouble computing the larger ones. Something about this doesn't make sense.
Of course. I look up to meet three sets of worried eyes and realize I've been chewing my lip. I release it. "Who took these photos?" I say the words slowly, carefully. "It can't have been Linus Wagner, at least not for any of the later ones. He's been in prison that whole time."
"And yet it's got to be someone connected with him, since we found all this at his mother's cabin. Crime scene techs will be able to tell us how long they've been there. They were just getting started when I spoke to Agent Simpson and got these." For some reason I can't quite yet determine, Kim seems suddenly agitated. "I'm going to go update Abbott. You should get yourself cleaned up, Jane."
She exits the room briskly, and Pike, after a couple of glances from Cho to myself, follows suit. I meet Cho's intense stare.
"What are you thinking?" Always suspicious that one, though I'm far from blaming him for it.
"I'm not sure," I reply, honestly. I need time to put the pieces together, because in this moment they just aren't lining up. "Kim's right. I should change." I stand up and cross to my suitcase, which is still standing, apparently untouched, by the dresser. Cho follows my movements with his usual impenetrable gaze, before rising himself and moving to the door.
"Right. Well, come find me when you're done." He too leaves the room, and I am once again alone with my thoughts.
There washes up and over me then that swelling wave of dislocation, an experience which has been overwhelming me with increasing frequency these days, and which frightens me. It is as if my mind and my body have somehow become disconnected from one another, or as if the absolute, essential center of what makes up my identity has withered down to the size of a dried pea, leaving the rest of me hanging in loose and baggy suspension, enormous but weightless, like an old sheet hung out to dry and then forgotten. I wonder vaguely if it is the result of some kind of malignant astrocytic glioma blooming deep within my brain or some such other devious cerebral malfunction. But I do not believe the consequence of it to be a physical one. Perhaps this is how I shall eventually completely lose it, finally fly apart into little pieces of Patrick Jane never to be reconciled again. The episode, or whatever you would like to call it, subsides as usual, with a sickening sensation of falling from a great height, as if I have been pushed from a plane, dropping out of myself even as I stand here, feet firmly on the floor, whole body rigid with fright. I look about me, somewhat dazed and blinking. The room is unchanged, everything around me untouched. But I recognize that deception the world occasionally cloaks itself in; nothing is innocent, and least of all myself.
AN: Hope you liked it. Let me know in a review - they make me smile :)