I think I should already have thanked individually whoever posted a registered review, but in case I didn't: thanks to you all, guest included. I also wants to thank, from the deepness of my heart, Tromana, amazing writer and great artist, who provided addictional art for this story and the cover- you'll have the link for the whole thing posted on my livejournal page as soon as I'll be done posting the whole thing here. Tromana is also one of the reasons this story is how it is, as she is also my beta-reader and my unofficial cheerleader. Thanks sweetie!
Sounds from the baby monitor awoke Lisbon from her slumber, and she immediately jumped, ready to rescue her baby from whatever was happening to him. But when she saw what was happening inside the room, Jane holding his son and singing that lullaby while feeding him, she quickly retreated. She hoped that Jane hadn't seen her: the man needed that moment alone with his son.
She returned to the guestroom and let her body succumb to a sudden fatigue. There was a part of her that wondered if she could even sleep properly at night; she was so scared for her baby. It wasn't just his needs or having an ordinary life, but the knowledge that the world was filled with real bogeymen.
Sometimes, she just dreaded her nightmares.
After Red John had made it clear that he didn't mind killing her, with Hardy, she had started getting them. She had visions of a man under a hood, of knives on her throat, and of Jane finding her butchered body underneath a bloody smiley. After the killer's departure, things calmed down a bit, but, one day, she had started seeing Jane taking his own life; he kept saying that, with her out of his life, he had nothing left.
And then, she had discovered she was expecting Tommy.
Once again, she started having nightmare about Red John. She dreamt of walking into the same room as Jane did so many years before. She imagined finding her lover's remains, and the killer holding her baby, taking it as his own to get revenge on his nemesis. Lisbon knew it was a stupid dream, that she didn't have anything to be scared about, but still, she couldn't help it. She had lived in Jane's shadow for too long, he had marked her beyond comprehension. It was something she was going to have to live with for the rest of her life, whether she wanted to or not.
"C'mon, Mom, we know you're awake!" The sudden light blinded her. She covered her eyes and meowed something, smiling stupidly when she felt a familiar weight on her chest, and a tiny hand holding her hair in his palm. She awoke, nuzzling her son's skin first, and then allowing Jane's lips to tenderly touch her own in a slow, languid melting.
"Would I set a bad example for our son if I were to ask you to call in sick today and spend the whole day with me in bed?" he wondered, deepening the kisses and allowing his tongue to trace the contours of her whole body, leaving a wet trail on her neck, shoulder and abdomen. He had spent so long being unable to touch her that he couldn't do without it, and he was completely oblivious to the outside world. He didn't seem to notice his baby, looking at them and clapping his tiny hands, nor the sound of her cellphone.
"Ugh. Please, don't answer…" he begged her, but she could see his smile and the resigned way he was staring at her, pouting: he already knew her answer. It was probably because he knew her. She grinned, and picked up her cellphone, flipping it open so quickly Jane assumed it had become second nature for her. It probably was, though, and it had always been. Lisbon, after all, was always there when someone needed her; it didn't matter if it was the team or the case. After so many years, the nickname given to her in San Francisco still suited her perfectly.
"Hey Cho, what's up?" she asked, sounding as natural as ever. He grinned, patting himself mentally on the back, for he had transformed her into the best actress ever. He remembered when he told her that, since she was a crappy liar, she was a good cop. Now, the way she had shifted from 'ready to succumb to sensorial ecstasy' to role-model cop mode showed that the first part of the statement become a lie, but the second one had never been truer. With Tommy still clapping his hands, he decided she had to pay for how quickly she had forgotten about his advances. Embracing her from behind, he moved her hair out of the way, and started kissing her way down her neck, his hands busy sensually caressing every inch of skin available.
He grinned when he noticed she was holding her breath, and he instantly knew her eyes were tightly shut. Teresa didn't say a word, something which made him extremely proud of his abilities in the bedroom department, and was merely humming something like an 'uhm?' to her second in command every now and then. She was leaning into his touch, and Jane was close to taking her phone away, telling Cho something not very polite, thus revealing their renovated scandalous affair. Then, they could just make out, like a couple of horny teenagers for the rest of the day.
Teresa, though, suddenly froze. "Are you sure?" she asked. And then, she hummed something under her teeth, listening carefully to what the man on the other side of the phone was saying. "Okay, we're coming." She stood, and she went to the bathroom, without saying a word. Jane kept staring at her back, tempted to lower the tension with a bit of his humor. In the end, he resisted, and just went to her. While Lisbon was looking at herself in the mirror, he embraced her from behind yet again, but this time chastely, and the only place he kissed her was her hair.
"Another month has passed," he just said, and she nodded. They both now knew why Cho had called her on her day off. Wagner had left a reminder of their failures, in the form of the butchered bodies of another poor couple. Two more individuals had died; people who were only guilty of being in love, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who knew what. The monster's MO was as much of a mystery as it had been on day one.
"I don't know. Cho seemed weird at the phone. Maybe he has doubts. Or, I don't know, but it felt like he didn't want for me to freak out. Anyway, he said that I had to see for myself, so…"
"Next time we'll get him," he told her, yet again kissing her hair. She didn't know if she was supposed to cry and hug him, or to turn and slap him angrily on the face. Those exact words were the ones she had shared with him plenty of times in the past, after every Red John case. He had never believed her. Was she supposed to believe him? Were his words worthier than her own? She didn't know. And she wasn't even sure she wanted to answer herself.
"Take a shower and join me at the crime scene when you are done. I'll leave a note on the fridge with the address," she said, trying to leave the room as quickly as possible. Jane was quicker than her though, and he grabbed her for an elbow. He wasn't using enough strength to hurt her, but his touch was determined, and in his eyes, she could see desperation and fear.
Fear that they were back to the day he had killed Red John.
"Teresa, are we alright?" he asked in a voice so low she could barely hear him. Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed by everything, and she simply let it go. She found comfort between his arms, and cried in his naked chest, her arms wrapped tightly around him. For a moment, she thought about reassuring him, explaining why she wasn't questioning him or them, and telling him that they were alright. But then, she decided to simply tell him what she thought, how she really felt.
Because, she realized a little triumphantly, she wasn't transparent, or translucent, to him any longer.
"I'm so tired. I've thought it was over, and yet… we got rid of a serial killer just to end up with another one. And every time I look at a crime scene, I remember what you had to go through for so long. It's not right! You…we deserve some peace!"
He smiled against her skin, nuzzling her neck. He remained silent, because every time Teresa talked to him like that, and showed him how much she cared, how much she put him before herself, he was speechless. It had always been like that: it was one of the reasons he hadn't told her about his own feelings for so long. Yes, there was Red John and her security at stake, but he had always had problems coming to terms with how much she loved him and how unworthy of said love he was. Because, how could a fool be the love of a princess, a charlatan the heart's desire of a saint?
She sniffed, and parted, albeit reluctantly. "Hey, listen, I'm going to ring Fran. Her apartment is on the way to the crime scene, and if she isn't busy, I'll leave Tommy with her, okay? If we're lucky she'll be on full grandma mode, and she'll keep him overnight…." she suggested, looking at him with intent, like a sexy predator coming to life.
"Are you suggesting that I could get lucky because you want me to behave or because you pity me and you want to lift my mood?" he said, strangely blushing at the double entendre.
She laughed genuinely because it was so rare to see him like this. "Both," she admitted, kissing him sweetly and quickly on the lips. "Besides, if we're alone, we can be a little more… creative, so to speak." She laughed, and went to retrieve her son, without saying goodbye to her man.
Behind her back, she could hear Jane grunting. Now that she had installed all those sinful images in his mind, she knew that he wouldn't be able to get rid of them. That would have been enough to keep him quiet all day long, lost in memories and fantasies with just one thing in common: her presence.
Less than half an hour later, she knew why she thought Cho was trying to protect her, because he was, just in his own way.
She scanned the room and it felt like everything was the same, and yet, different. Jane's motel room from his old days in Sacramento was just like she remembered it. She hadn't been there many times over the years –when he lived there, they weren't an 'us' – but the vibe was still the same she got back then. It was the same feeling she got in every room he used to live in on the road before he decided to settle down with her.
The rooms were all the same - poor, with just the essentials, dirty, cheap, and small – but this one was different. This room had been a kind of home for Patrick Jane, and this was where the game, years before, had changed. That was the same room where Madeline Hightower approached him, the place where they went when he had told her "I'm a bit home. Can you take me drunk?" It was the place where he had gone into his fugue state, when he had asked her to sleep with him and she had almost succumbed.
This place held memories for the both of them, good and bad and everything in between. It was as much of a home as he had allowed himself to have during those long years on the hunt for his nemesis and for vengeance. It was his home, and Wagner had just violated it, tainting the memories with this everlasting darkness, and a new notion: somehow, they were next.
He stared at the wall, at the trademark insignia drawn in scarlet blood, and he fought back tears of rage. He felt like hitting something, hurting someone. Lisbon felt him tense, remembering all too well how he used to feel whenever Red John was in the picture. Now, "his" serial killer was no more, but there was still a resemblance. Red John had shattered Jane's little family, but yet again, someone was playing with them in what seemed to be turning into a deadly game of shadows.
"Cho, do we have an ID on the victims?" she asked him, looking at the petite brunette. She was in her late thirties, completely naked and obscenely lying on the bed with her legs wide open. Her body was a canvass of cuts and crimson blood; a horror show coming true, with her glassy eyes staring at them. Teresa felt like she was looking at a mirror from some kind of freak house. Of course, the woman wasn't her twin, she couldn't have been just like her, but she was just like a distorted reflection, almost the same but not there yet.
But they didn't doubt it wasn't the case, that it wasn't a message. If they did… the fact that her 'partner' was in his early to mid-forties, with blond curled hair and was built similarly to Jane should have erased them all.
"He is escalating again. He has never been that wild, brutal and ferocious before. This is… pure hate," Jane said, staring at the two dead bodies, still interlaced in an unnatural post-coital posture even in death. And as he said so, Wagner's words from before came back to her mind. There were many ways to break and hurt a person, he'd said. And that Jane, Jane had asked for it with his behavior. "A serial killer's first and last victims are always personal. He is… shifting MO because he is telling us that he is getting closer to his real objective."
She gulped down a mouthful of saliva. They were his real objective and they had been all along. Wagner was obsessed with Jane. Wagner hated Jane. Wagner had manipulated Jane into returning to them. Not for the first time, Lisbon asked herself how much of the man they really knew, how much he knew. Was he aware that Tommy was Jane's? Was her child in danger, too?
"Boss, we got an ID from SAC PD" She turned, and met Rigsby halfway. He offered her a bunch of photographs, and she took them all, looking at each one. "They were both persons of interest in two ongoing investigations. Looks like ten days ago, at different sites, the bodies of Natalia Richardson, 43, and Thomas Ginger, 41, were found. There was no apparent connection, different neighborhood, social class, a rich housewife and a grocery store employee. But the guy working the Richardson case saw similarities with the inflicted wounds and compared them. Result: same kind of weapon."
"Let me guess: a butcher's knife" Jane interrupted, almost snorting.
"Yeah. They assumed that Ginger's wife, Lydia Alcott, 39, and Matthew Richardson, 44, could be responsible. Apparently, he liked sleeping around, and he had an office close to where Lydia had worked until last September. Detective Newman put a BOLO out on them, he decided that they were lovers and wanted to escape somewhere with Richardson's money. Only…"
"Only, all of Richardson's money is still where it should be, and we know it because Richardson was a bad, bad guy and our FBI friends were looking for him!"
She almost rolled her eyes. She was about to tell him to stop playing the psychic and the showman, but decided to let him indulge for a short while for a change. God only knew if they didn't need it.
"Yeah, well, yes, but it's not that. When the results from the crime scene came back, it came out that there was about twelve liters of blood soaking their mattresses…"
"The average woman possesses around five liters of blood, while the man seven. Twelve liters of blood would indicate that on both crime scenes two people had died around the same time."
"Yep, the blood types match. Also, the coroner says that they had probably been on ice until a few hours ago. It would explain why, after almost two weeks, they are still perfectly fine."
"Boss, CSU found something hidden behind the headboard. Apparently it's for you two." She took the polaroid-sized scraps of papers, and read the note over and over again, with Jane by her side. Cho was still stoic, even if she could see the tiniest hint of fear for the incoming danger.
Greetings old friend, it's been a while. I hope you are keeping well. I am thriving and happy. I wonder why you can't catch me. You must feel so powerless and stupid and sad… oh, well…I just wanted to tell you that I'll soon stop courting my last wife, and I'll have my second child with her. I think you may be familiar with them, old friend. All the best.
She looked at the pictures in her hands and she found herself staring not at a strange reflection, but at herself. She appeared lost in a sensual embrace, late at night in her bed, naked, with Jane buried within her body. There was no shame or embarrassment for what the team had seen – they were not stupid, after all - but merely disgust. Not because of the action, they couldn't, not when she loved him as much as she did, but because that monster had taken away something so sacred from them. He had violated the sanctity of her home. It was the only place where she still felt safe, where she could be Teresa and not Agent Lisbon.
Jane took another picture from her hands, one she hadn't had time to look at, and somehow, it was even worse. It wasn't a picture about sex between two people in love; it was something even worse. At her side, Jane, with eyes wide open, shook his head, as their eyes fell on the little family. Sitting on the edge of the bed, the father held the infant in his arms and the mother at his back, her hands on his shoulders and her chin rested on his hair. They were a perfectly normal and happy family of three.
Only, it was their normal and happy family of three.
She collapsed on the cold pavement, and Jane immediately took her in his arms. He fell onto his knees, his head buried in her hair. "Cho, send someone to Francisca Ramirez's place. I think Wagner will hurt Teresa's baby. I think… he wants to take away another child of mine." He whispered the last part of the sentence. He didn't care about the small gasp of surprise of somebody in the room there with them , people who were apparently unaware of the paternity of the child.
He shamelessly and desperately cried with her and he prayed that it wasn't too late, as Rigsby ran outside.
