Happy New Year! That was quick because I've actually been traveling and came back with two chapters ready – this story just seems to need to get out. Thank you to the readers who always review, I really need to read some feedback to make sure I'm on the right direction with my story. We're heading towards the end now, I'm not sure how many chapters but not too many more. Hope you enjoy this one and please review!

11. NOWHERE FAR

Jane looked for Lisbon after the interrogation, worried about her. She had to be disturbed after seeing her kidnapper, so he wanted to comfort her, remind her everything was fine now, help her like she was helping him. But he didn't find her. He tried her cell phone, but it went to voicemail. He then thought about calling the hotel where Van Pelt had booked rooms for them, and found out she was there. He figured she might need some time alone, so he controlled his impulse of going after her right away.

He wanted to talk to Carter, see how the man would react to him, but he wasn't going to ask the team to allow him. If it were their idea, he would go; if not, he wouldn't. He was trying to control his addiction: if it was telling him to face Carter without a plan, that was something he wasn't going to do.

It was night already and Cho decided to call it a day. He told the sheriff that they would transfer Carter to Sacramento the next morning, and that he wasn't supposed to talk to anybody about anything until then. They all left and decided to go have dinner, and Jane joined them just kill some time; after eating, he guessed he had already given Lisbon plenty of time alone, so he left his colleagues and took a cab to the hotel. When he got there, he went straight to her room, feeling an urgent need to see her. Besides the fact that he wanted to see how she was doing after interrogating Carter, he remembered that he still hadn't thanked her properly for allowing him back in the team and offering her support with his plan. He knocked on the door.

Lisbon was lying down, watching TV. Not that she was listening to any of it; her mind was traveling miles away, back and forth, as she kept remembering details about her kidnapping and then tried to forget, in a twisted cycle. In moments like these, she wished she had someone she could talk to, but she wouldn't even know how to talk about this. She was so used to just thinking about things, alone, like she was now. That was the way she coped with things; alone.

And just as she was thinking about this, she heard somebody knocking, and it brought her crashing back to reality. Who the hell could it be at that time? She didn't want to see anybody. She wanted to be left alone, for God's sake! Was that too much to ask? She decided not to answer; if it was room service or housekeeping, they would just go away. But then, after a moment, whoever it was, they knocked again. Lisbon stood up, furious, cursing the fact that she probably looked like she had been crying, which she had, the fact that she was wearing her pajamas, and the fact that even though horrible things kept happening to her, the rest of the world couldn't even leave her alone to deal with them. So, without even looking through the peephole to see who it was, she just violently opened the door with an annoyed and impatient "What?"

She couldn't believe it. Jane stood there, holding his suit jacket in his arms, his shirtsleeves rolled up, looking at her like he was a little shocked at her manners. What did he want? Why couldn't he just leave her alone? He had some kind of radar or something that always told him to go bother her when she needed most to be alone. Maybe it was his psychic powers. "What are you doing here?"

After recovering from the slight fright she had caused with her way of answering the door, Jane smiled at the sight of her, wearing a long football t-shirt, which covered her up a little above her knees, and nothing else. "I wanted to see you," was his honest answer.

"You couldn't have waited until the morning?" She remembered that he might be there for the help she had promised him, and almost felt guilty for being so harsh. But then again, he had that cocky smile on his face, which told her he wasn't feeling that terrible anyway. Which, by the way, she did, so she forgot about feeling guilty. He was annoying her, probably for no reason.

Her whole annoyed demeanor only amused Jane even more. "Actually, no."

She sighed loudly and stared at him, unsure of what to do. He had a big smile on his face, and it was kind of contagious, but she wasn't going to smile back. No way.

"Can I come in?" he asked, like a naughty boy faking his best behavior.

Lisbon's answer was to let the door swing until it was completely open. Jane squeezed his way in. "Thank you," he said, politely.

Lisbon closed the door behind her. "So what do you want?" she asked, anxious to get that over with.

He rested his suit jacket on a chair, thinking about her question and not getting an immediate answer to it from his brain. Then he looked up at her again, with a serious expression, as he remembered one of his reasons. "I never had the chance to thank you for saying you'd be there to help me. And for letting me go back to working with you and the team."

She squinted, trying to read any other motives behind his thankfulness. Or was he just trying to be nice for no other reason? "I might still change my mind," she threatened, with a half-smile, which told Jane she was only half-annoyed now.

He decided to ask her something he had been dying to know. "Can I interpret, from you helping me and allowing me back, that you don't hate me so much for what I did anymore?"

Lisbon sighed, in defeat. She didn't know what to answer at first, but, thinking about it, she realized what the answer was, and gave it to him. "I tried to hate you, and you did give me a lot to go on, but I just can't."

Jane's smile disappeared; he was surprised by her answer. He felt something good inside his chest.

"Thank you," he said after a while, with a small smile.

"Oh, don't thank me," Lisbon answered, sort of amused at his reaction. "If I could choose, I would hate you."

Jane smiled, and then let his smile fade again.

"Well, I still do. I still hate myself for what I caused you."

Lisbon bit her lip, shaking her head. "That's not good," she said. "Not good at all. You've hated yourself all of these years for what happened to your family like it was your fault, and where has it gotten you? Nowhere far, has it?"

A small, sad smile appeared on Jane's face. "Nowhere far."

Lisbon felt her heart start aching at the sight of his sadness. "Well, but now you have that plan, right? That will help you move on. Start over."

He suddenly remembered about when he had imagined a new beginning for him, with her by his side. And how scared he was of even thinking about it.

"I'm not so sure it will," he answered truthfully, recalling the endless battles inside his mind.

She took a step forward, feeling it as her eyes quietly started to water. "You're going to make it. I'm here to help, you know that."

He smiled through the sadness. "Thank you." He contained an impulse of taking her hand. Suddenly, he remembered another reason why he was there.

"You disappeared after the interrogation. How are you?"

She sighed, looking away, suddenly remembering how terrible she was feeling before he showed up and made her feel bad about him. "It was difficult," she started. "I couldn't keep my head while I was in there, with him. Then when I left, I just needed to be alone." She was going to add that she still needed to be alone, but, for some reason, she didn't.

"And how do you feel now?" he asked, approaching her and finally taking her hand in his like he had been wanting to.

She looked at how his hand was bigger than hers and covered it completely; its warmth felt so good against the coldness of hers. She looked into his eyes and detected real concern. She suddenly knew his presence was making her feel better. Those details about her kidnapping were far away from her mind now. "I'm fine," she answered, sincerely.

Jane nodded, and she nodded, too. There they were, sharing feelings with each other as if they were used to doing so. As if they were the only ones who they could share them with. Jane let go of her hand and smiled widely as he took a thorough look at her football t-shirt serving as a nightdress. "I love your pajamas," he said.

Lisbon had to smile, even though she did tug it down to cover more of her bare legs. Then she looked back at him and noticed his expression was a different one; one she wasn't so accustomed to seeing him wearing. An expression of sincerity mixed with uncertainty, with a hint of sadness, as he said, "I also love your green eyes."

She didn't know how to respond. He tried to keep his mind quiet, because it was shouting for him to stop. But he went on. "I love your curls," he made a pause, and then he looked away as he said, "even though I also love it when you straighten them."

He realized he was able to shut his brain down and continue speaking. His expression became more serious, and he looked deep into her eyes. "I love your courage. I love your boring rules and morals. I love your voice. I love the way you say my name when you're mad at me," he chuckled, "I love your annoyed face and your furious face, and that's why I enjoy irritating you so much."

There was a moment of silence. Lisbon was so shocked that she didn't react. She didn't even know what to think. Jane's face became very serious again, and that uncertainty and that insecurity also seemed to intensify in his expression. He wasn't used to acting on impulse, but, for some reason, he was really enjoying the feeling of simply saying what he wanted to say to her.

"I love you," he said, simply. Lisbon felt the air escape her lungs involuntarily, causing her to breathe in hurriedly. "I tried not to," he stated, "but you left me no other choice."

Lisbon didn't know what to do. Her lips moved, but found no words to utter, while Jane was clearly waiting for some kind of response. She swallowed, trying to decode the meaning of those three words. She looked into his eyes, which were pleading for her to say something.

"Jane," she whispered, and left her mouth open, in search of the rest of the sentence.

He looked down, with a smile, waving a hand in front of him, not knowing what to do, something that usually didn't happen to him. He felt he had gone too far, had said too much. "I understand," he said, "I should go –"

"No," Lisbon said, in a hurry, because the idea of him leaving now just felt unbearable for some reason. She didn't want him to go and she didn't want him to misinterpret her reaction. He could always read her so well; why couldn't he read her now? Maybe, she thought, because she was finding it almost impossible to read herself as well. "Don't go," she managed to whisper after a while. Hesitantly, she touched his face; he put his hand on top of hers, never breaking eye contact.

And then, without thinking much about what she was doing, she approached his face and kissed his lips. It was slow at first; he seemed surprised, but responded instantly. It had been so long since he had kissed someone, and at the gentle and inquisitive touch of her lips, he realized how much he had wanted to kiss her. He ran one of his hands through her hair, and the other one seized the small of her back, pulling her closer. Their kiss became more demanding, on his side, at first, but then she responded with equal force.

It didn't make sense to Lisbon's rational side that she was kissing Patrick Jane, with a hand getting lost among his curls and the other one pulling him closer by his collar, but she didn't try much harder to understand what was happening. All she knew was that she needed to find a way to pull him closer. He seemed to have the same objective, as his hand pressed her back so hard that it ached where she had been hurt by Steve Carter. But not even that memory could bother her right now.

Jane broke the kiss and proceeded to kissing the tender skin of her throat, with the occasional bite, making her moan lightly against his ear. It had been so long since he had last done this. It felt so good. He kissed her again, hungrily, thrusting his tongue inside her sweet mouth, as his hands found their way under her t-shirt and up the bare, soft skin of her back. In return, she moved her hands to his chest and started unbuttoning his vest and then his shirt, and, through the opening, she was able to move a hand along his stomach, going up, massaging his chest, grazing his nipple and scratching his shoulder as her other hand rested on his back, pulling him to her.

His body jerked in response to her initiatives, and he groaned against her mouth as they kissed in an excruciatingly slow and sensual rhythm, even though both suffered with the urgency they felt. Lisbon broke the kiss this time, moving her mouth to affectionately kiss his cheek, his forehead and his eyelid, then switching to open-mouthed kisses down his neck, on her way to his shoulder.

In an incontrollable hurry, Jane grabbed both her thighs and held her up, painfully close to him, and she could feel the physical evidence of his immediacy. He took a few steps and reached his destination, where he forcefully threw her against the mattress and slowly crawled on top of her, between her legs, kissing all the skin he could lay his lips on as he pushed her t-shirt up on his way. She pressed her thighs against him in a desperate attempt to never let him go. He was sucking gently the skin around her bellybutton, making her whimper ever so softly. He then continued up, kissing, licking and rubbing his teeth along her ribs.

Lisbon took a handful of his hair and pushed his head to hers until their lips met as soon as he arrived close enough for her to reach him, his hands still slowly pulling her t-shirt up, making a stop at her breasts, where he allowed them to let go of the cloth and seize the skin, squeeze it, massage it, hearing the sweet sound of her delight in response. She was unsuccessfully struggling with his shirt and vest, attempting to get them out of her way, as he moved his hands to her back and lay his weight on top of her, their chests pressed together, and she responded by throwing her legs around him and pulling him even closer, making him moan loudly between kisses. He moved down, licking her neck, kissing it, sucking and biting her skin along her collarbone, making her say his name once, twice, three times, as though begging him for something.

As he pressed her against him, Jane felt suddenly too close to his new beginning, the one he barely dared to think about, and he knew that, once he gave her and himself what they so desperately longed for at the moment, he would never be able to take it back. What if his urges for revenge had the best of him and made him do something to hurt her again? He wasn't completely sure he could control it. What if his love for her wasn't enough against his addiction and, having to choose between her and Red John, he chose him? He still didn't know that he could contain his addiction like that, even though he knew he wanted to. With her in his arms he knew just how he wanted to.

Lisbon had managed to move her hands down to his hips and had started operating on his belt buckle, her hands too close, and he knew he had to stop it now or he would never be able to, so with one hand he grasped her hands, and with the other he pulled himself up, breaking the contact, while moving his legs out of the embrace of hers. "I can't," he breathed, regretful already. "I can't." And he couldn't look into her eyes, as he lay down beside her, being careful not to touch her.

Silence set in, and the only sound they heard were their heavy breaths, in a struggle to get enough air into their lungs. Lisbon felt it as her reason slowly came back to her and she realized she had been on the verge of having sex with Jane. She didn't know how she felt, or what she should do. She turned her head to look at him, who looked up at some point in the ceiling, his shirt and vest wide open, his body outstretched and immobile. He had his left arm on top of his forehead, and she took a painful look at his wedding ring.

She rolled her t-shirt back down and took his right hand in hers. She didn't know what to say, and he probably didn't, either, so she was quite sure that was communication enough at the moment. His fingers intertwined with hers, in a silent response. He knew that she probably wouldn't understand what was going on inside his head right now, but, at the same time, he thought she was the only one who could.

"That doesn't cancel anything I've said," he murmured, his eyes still intent on the ceiling.

Lisbon stared at him. She knew this was going to be difficult, but right now, she didn't feel like she had a choice between staying with him or not. So she rolled on her side and laid her head on his shoulder, tucking it under his chin, and he immediately slipped his arm around her to keep her close.

"If we did it," he started to explain, "it would consummate something I'm not exactly sure I'm ready for right now. Besides, it might give you the erroneous impression that my interest in you is primarily physical, which–"

"Shhh, shut up," she interrupted. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Well, this is your room..."

"In that case, I haven't kicked you out, have I?"

"No, you certainly haven't..." he smiled to himself and squeezed her lightly.

Lisbon couldn't say how long they lay there like this. All the while, she thought about how she could no longer deny it to herself; she was in love with him. There were no excuses left. She knew this was going to be complicated and hurtful, but there was nothing else she could do to stop it now. Besides, she had hopes about his attempts to move on. She wanted to believe his plan would work in many good ways.

Jane's mind was serving as a battlefield for one more of those tiring debates between two opposite sides. One was happy that he had finally confessed his feelings to Lisbon and that he had her in his arms, while the other one told him to feel horrible because he was betraying his dead wife and child. To top that up, the rest of his body also wanted a say in this as it could barely resist reacting to Lisbon's body so close to him. He eventually decided to go to his own room.

"I should go," he said, quietly, hoping she wouldn't be disappointed but also hoping she wouldn't be glad.

"Okay," she said, not so okay with it, rolling off of his chest and sitting up.

Jane sat up, too, buttoning his shirt and feeling rather embarrassed now. Lisbon felt suddenly embarrassed, too. She got off the bed and took his suit jacket from the chair he had rested it on. She looked at it, wishing she didn't have to give it back to him now. They met at the door, where she silently returned it to him.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said, avoiding her eyes.

"See you," she responded, avoiding his glance as well.

When Jane found himself alone in his room, the war only got worse; guilt was screaming inside his head that what he had done was wrong, that he should never consider having a new life with anyone else because, if it wasn't for him, he would still have his old life, with his wife and child. On the extreme opposite side, a tiny voice tried to remind him this was part of his plan; that, in order to be able to move on, he needed Lisbon. She had said he needed to hold on to something good, and she was that something. He needed her to win the game against Red John.

That seemed to calm his guilt down. That was the only argument it would accept, although not for very long. It would be quiet for a while, when it was told it was all just a show for Red John, with the objective of deceiving him. But it would wake up again, with full power, as soon as it detected any hint that he was actually feeling good about the things he was doing. So, when Jane had changed his clothes and was already lying on his bed and his mind slipped quietly into a half hour before, when his lips were all over Lisbon's body, and he felt a sensation that people would ordinarily label "butterflies", his guilt took a swing at him that made him fall so far down that he was quickly in tears, remembering similar moments with his wife; their first kiss, the first time they made love, when they took their baby daughter home.

It was in a desperate attempt to remember once again why it was that he had to fight his guilt that he took his right hand to his left ring finger and, with one pull, took off his wedding band. Before having a chance to look at it, he put it inside the nightstand drawer. In response, his guilt had him cry himself to sleep, all the while thinking about where the ring lay, and fighting the urge to take it back.

The next morning, as soon as Jane opened his eyes and woke up from his dreamless sleep, he felt as horrible as he had felt the moment he had fallen asleep. Usually, it takes a while until a person remembers exactly what happened or how they felt the night before, but as Jane sat up on his bed, his thoughts were on his wedding ring, inside the nightstand drawer, and his guilt kept telling him to open it. Images of the day of his wedding kept coming back to him, being gradually substituted with images of the tragedy that had torn everything apart, of the state in which his wife and daughter had been found, and it suddenly reminded him that, in a week, it would be the anniversary of their murder. Another year had gone by without them. His daughter would be a teenager by now. And the following week, he would relive, as he always did, the day when he had lost them. The day when he had lost everything that he had.

At that thought, his eyes widened and he stood up, his pulse suddenly racing.

Lisbon woke up really early. She had had trouble falling asleep, because she kept remembering what had happened and what had almost happened between her and Jane, and asking herself what would happen next. While she was, indeed, asleep, bad dreams involving different combinations of her, Jane, members of the team, Steve Carter and Red John kept troubling her, until she decided to get up at once. She took a shower, got dressed and went straight to the sheriff's station. She asked to take a look at Carter, and saw him sleeping inside his cell. She watched closely to make sure he was breathing, which he was, and then she was able to start working. Something told her they needed to question him again before moving him to Sacramento. She feared that Red John could find a way to have something happen during the trip, an accident, an interception, something that kept them from arriving safely with the prisoner.

The words in the letter kept coming back to her, and she couldn't make sense of them. She wanted to have Carter read it, see if it would cause him any reaction or if he would know something about it, but she also feared for the legitimacy of the letter; that it might be fake, or even some form of communication between Red John and Carter. The truth was she found it really odd that, on the same day, they had found the diary and apprehended a suspect, both related to Red John and maybe even crucial to finding him. They were usually never able to find anything, because the killer would always flawlessly get rid of any traces or clues he might have left behind, so she found it very weird that they would get two things on the same day. Maybe one of them or even both were already a response to Jane putting his house for sale.

Van Pelt arrived, looking nervous. "I think we should question him before we move him," were her first words. "Maybe not even move him at all."

Lisbon nodded. "I was thinking the same thing."

The young agent looked deep into her eyes. "There's something I want to ask him about."

When Cho arrived, Lisbon had the officers wake Carter up for interrogation. She told Cho and Van Pelt to go in.

Cho started, asking Carter about his personal life and his past, about which he was cryptic as always. Cho did manage, however, to make him tell him that he was an ordinary guy, who had ordinary jobs, who drove a motorcycle, who was not and had never been married and had no children, and whose both parents had died before he was in his they didn't already know, though.

Rigsby arrived around ten minutes after the interrogation had started, and sat down with Lisbon in the gallery, eating something huge for breakfast. "Forensics' final report on the diary has just got in," he said, handing her a folder. She thanked him and started reading it. The only new information on it was that they had been able to determine that the ink on the letter was much newer than the ink used on all the other entries; actually, the report said it was less than twenty-four hours old at the time of the analysis. So Jane was right; that letter had been written after and was probably a response to his move of putting his house on the market.

Cho spent about a half hour talking to Carter about life, past and present experiences, as though that were not an interrogation. The idea was to make him comfortable, consequently making it more likely for him to talk, but Lisbon saw that Carter still maintained himself at a safe distance, immune to Cho's techniques.

"And how was it that your life changed; going from being ordinary to anything but?" Cho asked.

"I know what you're getting at," Carter replied, with a smile.

"And what is it?"

"Red John."

"So, is him what changed your life?"

Carter shrugged. "You could say that, yeah."

"And how did he do that?"

The bald man shook his head. "I couldn't even begin to explain to you."

Van Pelt took a small evidence bag from her pocket. "Then explain to me what this is," she said, putting it on the table for him to see. "This was found in your truck, and, comparing it to your signature, forensics has determined that this is your handwriting."

For the first time, Carter seemed to have a different reaction, one he wasn't completely in control of. It was just something in his eyes at the sight of the "Mayfield" note. But then he pushed it away.

"I don't know what that is."

"I think you do," she retorted. "You wrote this. What is it? An address?"

"Beats me," Carter said, with a smile, leaning backwards on the chair.

Cho stood up, a signal for Van Pelt to give up for now. "That's all for now, Mr. Carter. We'll talk again later."

"Thanks, Mr. Cho," he answered, as to an old friend.

Reluctantly, Van Pelt followed Cho out of the room. They came into the gallery. "He's really hard to get to," Cho complained. "We need something we can use against him, some kind of leverage."

"That's going to be difficult," Lisbon said. "Apparently, he doesn't care about anything but Red John." She was sick of that, sick of how hard it was to ever figure anything out in this case. "It doesn't seem like he cares if he's alive or dead, in prison or free."

"Do you think that's why he's not dead?" Rigsby asked.

"It's possible," she said.

"Mayflower means something, though," Van Pelt remarked.

"Yeah, we just need to find out what," Lisbon said. "Van Pelt, look for places with that name near the places where this creep's been seen or known to be. Rigsby, help Cho work on finding out any kind of leverage we could use to make Carter talk."

At that exact moment, Jane entered the gallery, looking nervous. He looked directly at Lisbon. "I need to talk to you, right now."

She was startled; she had no idea of what he wanted to talk to her about, and she wasn't sure either of them were ready to talk about the previous night. So she didn't quite know what to say when he said his first sentence.

"Next Thursday is the day that Red John killed my family." He said that with the usual sadness and darkness in his eyes and voice.

"The day I lost everything," he continued, making Lisbon even more confused as to what he expected her to do or say. He was probably going to try and justify again why they could not begin a relationship, and, frankly, she knew what he was going to say, so she'd rather not hear it. "When there was nothing left to lose, or at least I thought there wasn't."

Lisbon was about to ask him to stop when that suddenly sounded familiar. She stopped moving to try and remember where she had heard that before, and Jane smiled as he saw the recognition on her face.

"The letter," he said, taking a copy of it from his pocket. "During the interrogation, I was analyzing it to make sure."

"Make sure…" she murmured, still trying to understand what was happening.

"To make sure I was right. I'm quite sure I've figured out what the letter means."