A/N: All mistakes are mine. This chapter (I don't think) is as gory as the last chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. If I did, I'd probably treat them better.

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Chapter 10: The Calm Before the Storm

It had been about two hours since the ambulance had pulled up and the victim had been transported to the emergency room.

It had been about thirty minutes since the doctor had came out and told him that she would be fine, but that she needed lots of time to heal and maybe more blood transfusions. It would be a wait and see battle now.

It had been twenty minutes since he'd dialed her parents and quickly hung up. Bad news, more bad news for the family, could wait until the morning.

It had been fifteen minutes since she had been taken to a private room and left at the mercy of beeping machines and a hypnotic IV drip.

It had been five minutes since Cho had called saying that he and Rigsby would be there within in the hour to check on them. It had gone longer than expected interrogating Sam Dixon.

And it had been going on an hour and a half since he'd heard from Lisbon.

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3:17 am

Patrick Jane sat in the dim light of the hospital room, watching. It was what he did after all. Watched. Observed. Figured people out simply by studying their body language. If he were to read Grace right then, he would have said that she was a woman who probably should have died that night. The left side of her face was a collage of ugly blues and raised purples from the tip of her hair line all the way to her cheekbone. The doctor had known that he wasn't family upon arrival, but Grace had waken just long enough to give her consent for Jane to know about her condition. The doctor had informed him that she could have been much worse. No concussion. Wounds treatable. Slit wrists? Well, they would leave scars, but she'd gotten help in time. Thank God.

She would be ok.

So why did he feel like he wouldn't be?

He watched her as she slept. A mixture of emotions crept through him. He wanted to be there for her when she woke up because if not for him her sister would be alive and she wouldn't be in the hospital bed. Another part of him wanted to leave and go after Red John because he was so close. So. Close. But he had no idea where to start. Grace and Lisbon had been the only two who'd had any verbal contact with the serial killer on that night. He'd changed his game and now was unpredictable. Unpredictable and serial killer didn't go well together when you were the one trying to catch him.

When he thought of Lisbon, he felt sicker. The last time he saw her, she was all alone in the swarm of police blue, waiting for Minelli to come and 'talk'. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't.... not really anyway. He wanted to be there to tell Minelli that. That if she hadn't of let Red John go then he and Grace would be dead. She'd saved his life, and what had he done for her?

So many places to be.

He wanted to go to the house of Jason Copola, where ever that was, and beat the hell out of him. Jane wasn't a violent man by nature, but he felt he'd been pushed too far. He knew that Jason had killed those people... he knew it. His trap had failed, though. And Sarah Manning had died. Jason deserved whatever it was coming to him. The bastard officer had used Red John up as a decoy and the latter hadn't taken it well. He could only imagine what the killer would do when and if he found him.

As he thought all of these conflicting things, he sat motionless, watching Grace's slow and steady breathing. The transfusion had worked as he had suspected and her color was coming back... whatever color could be seen behind the black and blue.

He heard a knock at the door, but didn't turn. It was probably just one of the nurses to take her vitals again.

"How is she?" Not a nurse... not a nurse by far.

"When did you get here?" he asked, not looking at his room companion. How could he?

"I just did. Minelli let me go a few minutes ago, and I came straight over."

"Oh, yeah." Be calm. Breathe. "How did that go?"

She shrugged, finally making her way into his peripheral line of sight. "Could've been worse. I'm on leave for two days."

"What? Why?" he asked, his voice louder than he meant, angered by the ridiculous nature of her being suspended. Grace's heart monitor quickened hearing his loud reaction. Instinctively, he rose and tried to get to her to calm her down. Lisbon beat him to it. "It's ok, Van Pelt. That was just Jane over-reacting." she shot him a dirty look. "It's ok now. You rest."

Jane sat back down in his seat and watched. That's what he did after all. Lisbon was standing in front of him, leaning over Grace's bed whispering something to her. Whatever it was worked because her heartbeat slowed back down to normal.

He saw her flinch when she raised up, and then he saw the tear in the back of her black blazer. "You're hurt." he raised up in his chair and, without asking permission, he lifted her jacket. She protested, but he didn't care. Her green shirt underneath was wet and sticky to his touch. It had been stained red with blood. He lifted that piece of cloth up and shuttered. In the small of her back, Lisbon had what appeared to be a 1/2 long gash. It wasn't deep and probably didn't need stitches, but still..... "He did this."

She jerked away, not wanting Jane to be that close to her. It made her feel too exposed, vulnerable. "I'm fine." she said.

"You're not--"

"I'm. Fine." she said more slowly and with more authority.

"He was going to kill you." he realized, his face whitening. How could he have missed that?

"He was going to kill us all." she answered as calmly as she could.

The man couldn't move for a second, couldn't take his eyes from hers. Finally, he got up, went to the door, and opened it wide. "We need a doctor in here!" he yelled to anyone who would listen.

Quickly, Lisbon slammed the door before he could say any more, praying that no one heard him. "I told you I'm fine. It's just a scratch."

"That is more than a scratch. He could have infected you with something. Something could have been on the blade, Teresa. He could have drugged you like Grace." His voice carried an urgency that she couldn't argue with, and a worry she'd never head from him before.

She froze, the reality of what he was saying sinking in. She had just been thankful that the steel hadn't met her innards, now Jane had put a new set of worries in her mind. It wasn't something she wanted to particularly think about. "I'll get it checked out later, ok?"

No, it wasn't ok. None of it was ok. He wanted to yell, beat the door, throw something, anything to release the insane anger swelling up inside him, but he didn't. He decided to let it stew... to take it out on the man who deserved it.

"Tell me everything he said to you." he relented, taking her by the forearms and staring directly into her eyes. Again, he didn't care that he was in her personal space. He didn't care. "Don't leave anything out. Red John is a man of riddles. Maybe he told you one and you don't realize it."

She did her best to compose herself with this side of Jane, the side she'd never seen. She thought back, trying to remember exactly what was said. "The last thing he said was 'Tell Jason Copola I don't like being toyed with. And tell Jane I said hi."

Lisbon knew that look. She hated that look. "I have to go." he said, releasing her, retrieving his jacket and moving back toward the door. Before he got to it, however, she was in front of him. "Where are you going?"

"Move." he demanded without any hint of the humor he normally put on words. "I stayed with Grace in the house. I stayed with her here. I didn't go after Red John like I damn well should have. Now you are here. You can take care of her. Let me go."

Seeing the fire in his eyes, she knew she couldn't stop him. "Just tell me that you have an idea where he is and I'll send back up."

"I have no idea where he is." She knew it was a lie, but also knew that she couldn't do anything about it. He walked passed her and out the door. Neither noticed that Grace had woken up just in time to hear the last part of their conversation.

"What was that about?" Cho asked, walking in after Jane had left. The blond had ran into him outside in the hall without saying a word and kept going.

Before Lisbon could answer, Rigsby ran in past them and settled down beside Grace's hospital bed in the chair recently occupied by Jane. "Hey." he said as softly as his hoarse voice would allow. "I'm sorry I'm late."

Drowsily, she smiled back, or at least she thought she did. She still felt funny, like it was all a dream. "Rigsby-- he's gone?"

"Who's gone?" he asked, lightly running his fingers through the red hair sprigs that had fallen haphazzardly across her bruised forehead.

"Jane." she replied weakly. "He's gone to go kill him."

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It wasn't particularly difficult to find Jason Copola's address. All it took was a call to Kelsey Evers, a CBI agent whom he had talked to on several occasions as they passed each other in the building most every morning. He was arriving about the time she was leaving. Kelsey worked at night, taking calls that couldn't wait until daylight. She was slightly short and a little chubby with hair as black as night save for the few blond highlights that surrounded her face. She had told him that it was natural and he tended to believe her. She was as nice as could be, and he had known that he niceness would come in handy some day. He just hadn't been sure when or how. It has only taken her seconds to find Copola's address.

It turned out that Copola's house wasn't located too far away from where he was. Within the hour, he was there, standing at the officer's front door. It was now almost 4 am.

The curtains weren't drawn.

Strange.

From his post, Jane could see one set of lights bellowing out from inside. Upon further inspection, he concluded that by the way the drapes looked, the lights were probably coming from the living room area.

He started to knock then intuition hit and he simply tried the knob. It was unlocked.

Interesting.

Patrick Jane didn't believe in guns. Well, he believed that some people should have them. He believed that cops should. Security guards. Soldiers. Convenience store workers. Men who were trespassing in a serial killers house. A man who was trespassing into a serial killer's house who was probably being held or stalked by another serial killer... definitely a reason to carry a gun. That's why he'd taken a cab home from the hospital to retrieve his own .45 before he went on his mission. It was the gun he'd imagined using on Red John for years. If his hunch was right, he'd be using it on him tonight... after the torture was over in any case.

Gun in hand, Jane entered the residence. "Mr. Copola?" He called. No need in hiding. He kept walking from the door way into a small foyer and then into the living room where the light had came from. The lamp light beside the black leather couch was on, the only light in the room. Jane halted, taking in every detail. It wasn't a large room, but definitely more than he assumed a cop could afford. Dirty side-job perhaps, or maybe a rich girlfriend? The room was very organized, save the tower of empty beer cans and adult magazines mounded on the coffee table. With this, Jane deduced that the wife/girlfriend/sugar-mama was out of town, had been for probably a few days, and since it didn't appear as he was cleaning yet, said woman wasn't expected back for a few days.

At the same time, two things caught his eye. The first was a red, gold, and black oriental rug that rested below the coffee table and to the couch. It didn't look like the rest of the room. It didn't fit with the flow. The room was very modern with black and silver touches with just the right about of homeyness. The rug was from some other time.. some other house... like it didn't belong... like it was covering something...

He reached down to look under it when the second thing caught his eye. A note on the DVD player sitting on a stand next to the large flat screen tv saying, "Play me."

Jane knew that the sign was for him as well as he knew his own name. He raised back up, walked to the DVD player, and pushed play......