AN: I've changed the rating on this to T as it is turning out differently than I thought. In the future, I'll mark any M chapters at the top. :)

Lisbon watched Jane take the news in. He frowned in a way that held more pain than displeasure and she worried that the reasons he had no memory of his mother were greater than he could handle at this moment in time. She didn't want to prod him. She frankly didn't know what to do.

He shook his head, like he didn't know what to do either.

"Jane, why do you think you don't remember her?" she asked. She figured he'd been stewing on that question for some time now.

He stood up like he had a sudden attack of the creepy crawlies. He was a mess, his suit jacket rumpled, his shirt tail hanging out, his eyes bloodshot. He began moving around the dining area, his hands jammed in the suit pockets. "I don't know," he said. "It's like she's been completely erased from my memories. I don't understand it. There are memories she should be in but she's not."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I have these memories of things that happened and she should be there, I mean, I'm sure she was there, but she's not. I don't understand it and I don't like it and I don't want to think about it anymore." He stopped and looked at Lisbon. "I really don't."

"Okay," Lisbon said.

"And that thing she did back there, that thing with the case file," he said getting jittery again. "That was nothing but a card trick. I don't know how she did it but I could figure it out if I wanted to. But I don't."

"Okay."

"I don't. I don't care what the lab results say, I haven't had a mother in 35 years and I am betting that there is a very good reason why I don't remember her or recognize her." He shrugged. "I don't need to know why."

"Okay."

He frowned. "You're agreeing too much. You know something else."

Lisbon shook her head. "Not really," she said, though she knew more about his childhood and Patricia now after Van Pelt's report of the long car ride to San Francisco and then down to Santa Clarita.

"I know she makes you incredibly nervous, though, and that makes me nervous. It's bad enough what Red John is doing, but everything about this situation is off—you, your memories, your reactions to her. It's concerning." Actually, Lisbon thought it suggested something more disturbing, though she also agreed with Jane that it was probably better to just let this sleeping dog lie. "And I have to say I'm a little concerned at your lack of reaction about Lorelei."

Jane was moving again, looking at the artwork on the wall, the decorative pieces on the sidebar. "You can almost smell the warehouse these came from," he said.

Lisbon waited. Jane moved over to the wall of windows blackened in the predawn and reflecting the two of them.

"I'm not thinking about Lorelei," he said.

"Okay," she said.

"Stop it with the 'okays'," he said.

"But I mean them," she said.

"No you don't. You don't believe any of this is okay."

"No, I don't, but I do trust you are doing what you need to do. If that means not thinking about something that happened or is happening, well…" She shrugged.

He went and sat down heavily at the end of the table opposite her.

A pang of empathy shot through her. "Your tea is getting cold," she said softly. When he didn't react, she stood up and brought the tea cup over to him. If there was ever a moment Jane needed a hug, it was now, but Lisbon knew him well enough to just rub her hand over his shoulder in consolation. She went back to reading her file while Jane finished off the last of his tea.

The file in Lisbon's hands held the statements of neighbors, family and friends of the Bakersfield victims. Rigsby had completed them just a few hours before. Lisbon was trying to discover any connections to Lodi or Stockton. She'd chosen a rental house in Santa Clarita for no other reason than its proximity to Bakersfield and Los Angles. Because, like Jane, she did believe that was where everything was headed.

Jane got up and took his teacup to the kitchen, then wandered around the dining area and living room before finally claiming the couch. Downstairs the team was taking shifts: work, sleep, surveillance. Not even Bertram knew for sure where they were. Lisbon had convinced him of the need for going underground, though with two Red John murders in two days and one of the victims being Lorelei Martins, Bertram didn't need much convincing. If Bertram was, in fact, behind the bug she had found in her office two days earlier, he had given no indication. She had swept the office each morning when she arrived since, but even if a new bug had been planted, Lisbon had convinced him that Jane, more than even Patricia, needed protection—mostly from himself. Kirkland and Homeland Security was another matter and Bertram agreed that they needed to keep the loop closed.

Lisbon heard the soft sound of a door closing behind her and she turned to see a light shining out from under the hallway bathroom. Patricia. Lisbon sighed and flapped the file closed. Patricia was complicating the hell out of things. From what Van Pelt had reported, there was less reason to suspect her of being a Red John accomplice. She had no apparent guile, and more than that, Van Pelt's radar was sensitive to say the least after Craig, and she reported that after seven hours in the car with the woman she was 90% certain Patricia was who she said she was and there only to reconnect with her son. In Van Pelt's world, nobody got better than 90% certainty anymore. And yet Lisbon was 100% certain that Jane would find the opposite of solace in hearing what Van Pelt had to say about his mother.

According to Van Pelt, Patricia had spent the drive to San Francisco asking about Jane, and the quality of the questions suggested someone who had no prior knowledge of his circumstances. Was he always an insomniac? Why did he have his things at a motel room? Was he in a relationship? Who was this Lorelei? What was his life like outside of his work? Van Pelt had deflected and told her she wasn't comfortable sharing that sort of information, that Patricia should ask Jane about it. Patricia had understood, apologized, and had gone on to talk about the boy she had known, the life they had lived together. And what little Van Pelt had conveyed to Lisbon was fascinating. Apparently Jane had started working with his mother at age four: Madame Simone and her Boy Wonder. Apparently by the time he was three, his gifts were quite apparent, and Alex had pushed to get the act together.

The only blip Van Pelt got was at Patricia's apartment in the Mission District. The phone rang exactly four rings and Patricia made no attempt to answer it. Van Pelt already knew Patricia didn't have a cell phone and so couldn't access her voice mail remotely, so she pointed out that Patricia might not hear her voice mail for some time, and Patricia had said that it was okay, that it was just an old acquaintance who was pestering her to get together now that she was back in the States. Van Pelt was certain she was lying and had requested a list of all the employees, staff and visitors of the medical research facility on the days the calls were made to Patricia's number.

In the five hour drive to Santa Clarita, Patricia and Van Pelt shared stories of the cases they'd worked. Patricia talked of how she got started in finding children in Bornea and how everything evolved from that for her. She was particularly interested in Van Pelt's stories and how Jane worked to solve the cases. She asked a lot of questions about his methods and seemed surprised at many of the answers, as if they were not anything close to what she expected. A few times she seemed disturbed and, as Van Pelt said, "She sort of checked out of the conversation for a while." But she always came back, curious and thoughtful, asking questions that were neutral enough for Van Pelt to answer.

Lisbon went to the kitchen to make a new pot of coffee, taking the case files with her. She saw Patricia emerge from the bathroom and start towards the kitchen, but when Patricia noticed Jane on the couch, she faltered. She stopped and looked at him sleeping a good long time before turning thoughtfully towards the kitchen.

"Good morning," Lisbon said, leaning against the counter next to the gurgling coffee maker.

Patricia stopped at the large granite topped island and rested her hands against it. "Good morning."

"Coffee will be ready in a minute."

"Oh, no thank you. I drink tea."

"Right. Of course."

Patricia looked deep in thought.

"You okay?" Lisbon asked.

Patricia shook her head and looked at Lisbon. "Yes. It's just… this is all so strange. And it's all happened so fast. But that's how it always happens."

"How what happens?" Lisbon asked.

Patricia went thoughtful again. "There are times in everyone's life when their world gets completely up-ended. You never see it coming. You're just suddenly in the middle of great chaos; sometimes it's sorrowful, sometimes joyful, but it always changes you. I've been through it enough to know that what is most important in times like these is how you decide to put your world back together against forces that seem to want to tear you apart."

Lisbon was speechless.

Patricia smiled sadly at her. "I've been getting an inkling of how Patrick put his life back together."

"Oh," Lisbon said, still unsure what to say.

"Has he always had trouble sleeping?" Patricia asked.

Lisbon frowned. It was the third time Patricia has inquired about his sleep and Lisbon could not see why that, more than anything else, was of any importance. She also didn't see the harm in answering. "For as long as I've known him, yes."

"And how long has that been?"

"Ten years. I take it he didn't have a problem when he was younger."

Patricia smiled slightly. "No, Patrick always slept the sleep of the dead. Even as a little baby. I used to wake him up just to make sure he was all right. The other mothers used to scold me—don't wake a sleeping baby and all." She smiled again.

"You were very young," Lisbon said, wanting to hear more.

"I was. I didn't know anything. The nurses showed me how to hold him, nurse him, change his diapers. Then they released me from the hospital with him and Alex drove all night so we could catch up with the carnival in New Mexico. I didn't trust anyone or anything back then. I never let Patrick out of my sight. I just took care of him with pure instinct. I treated him the way I would have wanted to be treated." She laughed. "He slept with us until he was three. And, oh, the battles Alex and I had over that."

Lisbon smiled. "You married him at sixteen. Were you pregnant?"

Patricia was surprised. "Yes. I was."

"Did you love your husband?"

Patricia hesitated. "I didn't know what love was when I married Alex," she finally said. "I learned about love from Patrick. He opened my heart."

Lisbon had never known anyone to speak so openly about such matters with near strangers. She saw why Van Pelt liked Patricia and a part of her wanted to hear everything about Jane's early life. She almost wished that it had been her in the car ride down to Santa Clarita, but then she saw Jane stirring on the couch, reminding her that she still needed to be cautious. Jane's natural ability to manipulate any situation did not come out of a vacuum after all. The question remained whether he got that particular talent from his mother or his father, or both.

Patricia followed Lisbon's gaze. They watched as Jane sat up in a stupor. As peaceful as the current moment was, Lisbon saw how easily it could fall apart. Given Jane's condition and everything they didn't know about Patricia, Lisbon saw that she needed to take control of the situation and keep it before either one of them had of a chance to provoke the other. She decided that, despite the risk involved, she needed more verifiable information about Patricia.

She pushed off the counter and headed for Jane. As she passed Patricia, she said, "Follow me."

Jane was frowning at her as they came toward him. "Jane," Lisbon said. "I want you to sit down at the table with us and listen to what Patricia has to say."

Jane scoffed. "Why should I do that?"

"She's your mother and she deserves the chance to tell you what happened." Lisbon turned to Patricia, who was obviously surprised by her pronouncement. "The DNA test confirmed it," she said by way of explanation.

"Um, I'm sorry, but what has she done to deserve—"

Turning back to Jane, Lisbon cut him off, "You need to do this, Jane. Judge her any way you want to, but at least judge her on the facts."

Jane closed his mouth and looked at her closely. She raised her eyebrows at him and saw that he immediately caught her drift: they needed to know the facts before they could verify them. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes.

Lisbon turned to Patricia. "Have a seat, Patricia," she said as she went to take her own. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jane push himself up slowly from the couch.