A/N: I'm making this Christmas two months into Jane's Vegas stint. Let's roll with that.


A Decade of Lights


eight.

He hates Vegas.

He thinks that maybe, he might have enjoyed it in his youth. Or even a few years ago.

and the lights glitter and blind, and you can't see a thing, and what exactly are you running to?

Once upon a time, there was a man named Patrick, and he was fighting a bad bad wizard. He kept running and chasing and running and chasing for years, and he still couldn't catch him. His friends wanted to help him, but one day, he left his friends behind to go hunt the bad bad wizard… Are you lonely, now?

He repeats the story in his head, the juvenility of it as if he were reading it to a child. To Charlotte.

The childish innocence of a bedtime story makes him laugh, because it is far from where he is right now, (what innocence can you find?) and really, he could surround himself with hookers because he is that lonely. And cynicism kicks in, because he can only see the desperate men and women throwing themselves into the light and glamour and pretense, and nothing else about Las Vegas seems to appeal to him. Almost like carnival games, and they were never meant to work.

Sitting at the bar, with his back to the world, he hears the cheap crooning of white Christmases and jingling bells and reindeers and Santa and friends and family and love. Resting his chin on his hands, he closes his eyes, leans forward, and imagines soft brown couches and tea and origami frogs and long stakeouts and hydrangeas and cinnamon. Then he remembers cause and effect, and realises that he can't have them without losing them, and then he remembers his reason for being stuck in this very bright pit.

"You look like shit."

Unsealing one eye, he draws his gaze up to the bartender looming over his slumped form.

"Don't we all?"

"You look like you need some help."

"What are you, my mother?" Because snark is the only appropriate response to those words. And he has heard those words before, albeit a long time ago (months?) and from a very different source.

"Hey, man, I'm just trying to tell you."

"Yeah, well…"

He's not wrong, and he absolutely hates that he's lost himself at this level, just to move closer and closer to his obsession. He needs to think think think, and he doesn't know if he's been able to do it clearly for the last two months. He's consumed more alcohol since coming here, than in the past five years altogether.

And he hates that he's had to hide and pretend, and damn, this is the carnival, isn't it?

can you look at yourself in the mirror?

Tossing a few notes in front of him, he slides off the stool, slipping and staggering before slowly righting himself and trudging back to a motel room even more impersonal than the one in Sacramento. Picking the lock with a spare pin, the door opens to a dark room illuminated by the array of lights splashed from behind him. His gaze automatically darts to the battered phone lying next to the bed. He picks it up, and it turns and weighs, heavy with unread and unheard messages.

(He counts 87 in total.)

have yourself a merry little christmas…

The music plays and plays in his head and he is so angry and the phone is ready to meet the wall, repeatedly. This is how it feels, to lose it. Are you lonely now?

He opens the first message, and then another, and then another, and then more… He skips a few, and then a lot, and he really doesn't want to know how it ends.

[Jane. Call me tonight, we can fix this.]

[Jane, just let me know where you are, and I'll come and help you.]

[Seriously, Jane. If we talk to Wainwright, we can get you some help, and you can continue working with us.]

[Jane, where the hell are you?]

[Jane, when you get this message, just…call me back.]

...

[Jane, just…stay safe.]

...

He sees her in her office, sitting straight, organised desk, perpetual coffee mug beside her computer. He sees her hunched over triplicate forms, just stacks and stacks of paper, and no, that can't be right, who's generating paperwork for her now?

'twas the night before christmas…

His cell vibrates violently in his hand, jerking him out of his trapped fantasy, and he looks at the screen with trepidation, reminded of a Christmas many many years ago. Mustering enough courage and conviction in his cause, he presses the small button.

[Jane. Just, um…hope you have an okay Christmas, and…you're not too alone. Just…]

Her voice loops around and around in his head for the rest of the night.