AN: Thanks to everyone for their reviews. They keep me going. :) jw, I so love your thoughtful readings, so don't lose them!

Jane heard a soft knocking on the door. He blinked his eyes open. He'd drifted in and out of sleep for the time it took the sunlight streaming through the slats of the window shade to move from the top of the bed to the foot.

Lisbon poked her head inside. "You awake?"

"Always." He didn't like the look on her face. She was obviously troubled but trying to hide it, which meant something else had happened or she had new information he wasn't going to like.

She came inside and closed the door. He saw her reluctance as she came to the foot of the bed and sat down, folding a leg underneath her so she could face him. Then she seemed to get distracted as she looked him up and down. He lay stretched out on his back with one arm behind his head. He was on top of the covers, still in his suit and shoes.

"Did you even bring pajamas or do you just sleep in your suits all the time?" she asked skeptically.

"When you sleep as little as I do, changing into pajamas gets quite time consuming. Even sleeping naked isn't all that efficient." Lisbon smirked at him and he smiled, glad to get a rise out of her.

"I'm not even going to ask about your showering habits," Lisbon said.

"Touche."

"Are you going to eat today?"

Jane shrugged.

"There's Chinese for you."

He shrugged again.

"Are you okay?"

"You don't have to worry."

"Oh, really? And what about all of this is not worrisome?"

He shrugged again.

"Okay, so, the fact that you are not coming back with some condescending comment is worrisome, Jane. The fact that you have a serious and weirdly specific memory loss is worrisome, if not a little alarming. The fact that—"

"The fact that my long lost mother shows up with some song and dance story of how she's a victim of circumstance right after Red John launches a campaign of terror directed specifically at me is the most worrisome thing here," Jane said hotly. "I certainly hope you are not going to let her distract you from the case, because that would be playing right into Red John's hands."

Lisbon didn't respond immediately and Jane saw she was not convinced. "Jane," she said finally, "the fact that you don't see the error in that logic is seriously alarming."

"Red John doesn't operate on logic," he said.

"No, but we do, and you especially. Do you even see the error? I know there's a Latin phrase for it…"

"Post hoc ergo propter hoc," he said. "But everything Red John does, especially now, is meant to alarm. That's the whole point. He's piling it on."

"I know, and I'm going to ask you again: are you okay?"

He frowned at her but didn't answer.

"We checked out her story," Lisbon said. "Ft. Worth dug into their files. They have a John Doe from near that time that might be a match. Troy Anderson is currently serving time in a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas for armed robbery and manslaughter. Zeke Carlyle is dead, killed in a prison fight in Louisiana, and he was caught on ballistics evidence, so they're looking into comparing that to the John Doe evidence."

"And Lodi and Stockton and Bakersfield and …" Jane didn't want to name the last one.

"We're working on it," Lisbon said.

"How? There are only so many of you."

"Bertram's added a second team. Stanton's. They're collecting evidence. We're mostly processing it."

"Mostly?"

"The team is mostly off the grid, but we're going into the field on a case by case basis."

"And how are you off the grid? Isn't this a CBI safe house?"

"No, it's a rental I chose. Bertram is the only person in the CBI who knows where we are. We've got scrambled IP addresses, secure phone lines."

"So you trust him."

"Not completely, no."

"Good."

"I don't trust you either, Jane. Not like this."

Jane sighed. "Well, that's good too. You shouldn't." He met her gaze steadily.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Do you think any part of your mother's story is true?"

"The best cons are always partly true."

"Yes, but tell me what parts you think are true. Tell me what parts are suspect."

"Fine."

"Start at the beginning. Do you know anything about her life before she met your father or had you? Any family stories?"

Jane considered this. "No. I don't. But everything she said about my father is true. The birthday party is true. The elephant. I remember a lot about that party. I just…" His pulse quickened. He recognized that whenever he thought about what he didn't know, didn't remember, his fear response kicked in. He sat up and swung his feet to the ground, his back to her now. "I realize how strange this is, Lisbon," he said, not able to stop the slight panic in his voice, "and I don't like it."

"Well, if we just walk through the story slowly, we can separate out the parts that don't jibe. Can we do that?"

Jane sighed. "Okay."

"The things she said about you, do you remember any of that?"

"No. I don't remember doing any kind of act with my mother. I just remember my father coaching me. I remember doing a solo act. Just me. Starting when I was … ten or eleven.

"Do you remember the people involved in the murder?"

"Yes. I can even picture them. Ricky Streeter ran one of the ticket booths and he just disappeared. Left all his belongings, which we all divided up. I got his army knife. Everyone said Zeke killed him. Zeke was a scary guy, but it was one of those kid rumors that seemed more like a ghost story than a fact."

"So do you remember if Ricky's disappearance happened at the same time your mother left?"

Jane shook his head. "No, that surprised me."

"Two people disappearing at the same time would be talked about. A lot. Maybe investigated."

"Yeah. Talked about. I remember everyone talking about Ricky. But I don't remember anything about how my mother left… or how people reacted to it. If they did at all. I just remember being with my dad. Just the two of us. I mean, what is that? How can that be?"

Lisbon shook her head. "That's pretty messed up, Jane. Something happened. Maybe another fugue state. Losing a mother at a young age is traumatic. I don't care how you lose her. It's an emotional trauma. Whatever happened, you seem to have lost only memories related to her. But you've lost them for decades. That's not a typical fugue episode."

He turned to her. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"What you've been reluctant to tell me since you walked in."

"You're not going to like it."

"Obviously."

"I think you need to talk to your mother."

Jane scoffed. "About what?"

"About the things you've forgotten. Jane, her arrival has thrown you so far off balance I don't think you're going to get back to any kind of equilibrium until we get to the bottom of this memory loss. It's a huge blind spot."

"She's got you convinced she's not a threat."

"I'm about 85% convinced she is who she says she is. There are still things that need to be checked out, that don't quite add up. But her concern for you is very real. And according to her, your life before she left was fairly idyllic, in a carnie sort of way, so I don't think there is much harm in trying to recover your memory. And there are things to gain from trying."

"Like what?" Jane asked.

"Your equilibrium for one," Lisbon said.

"That's not assured."

"No, and I have considered that there's a chance the opposite might occur. That the more you unearth, the more out of balance you'll become. I think it's worth a try but there is a risk."

"So you think there'll be some sort of "healing" experience just from talking about lost memories," Jane said sarcastically and with finger quotes.

"I think you were a child when you lost those memories. I think as an adult you'll be able to handle them. And besides, the more she gives us, the more we have to catch her in a lie. We can see if lying is a habit of hers. She might hang herself with enough of them, you never know."

Jane looked skeptically at her. "Why do I feel like I'm being played right now?"

Lisbon smiled sweetly at him. "See. A third reason. You can't even read me."

"Speaking of reading. Can you send Cho to the library for some spy novels? I'm going a little stir crazy, what with the not sleeping and not thinking."

"Cho had to drive up to San Francisco. Rigsby can go."

Jane frowned. "Rigsby won't know the bearable from the schlock. And what's in San Francisco?"

"Do you want me to be with you?"

"What?"

"When you talk with your mother."

"I haven't really made that decision yet, Lisbon."

"But you will, and there's no time like the present."

"It's really the only moment we have, Lisbon. The present. Why go back?"

"Do you want to get cleaned up or something? I mean, when was the last time you showered anyway?"

"What is with the sudden interest with me in the shower? Has your GQ subscription run out?"

Lisbon snorted and stood up. "Let me know if you want me there." She turned to go.

When she reached the door, Jane said, "Lisbon."

"Yeah?"

"I do."

"Good."

"Doubtful."

"Take a shower, Jane. You're looking a little cross-eyed." She closed the door behind her.

The panic was creeping back at the thought of what he was going to subject himself to. He'd spent the whole morning not thinking about how Patricia's story would change things if it turned out to be completely true. He'd spent a lifetime hating the idea of his mother for rejecting him and his father. What if the opposite was the actual truth? It made him a little dizzy to even consider it, so he shoved it out of his thoughts. He'd consider it if, and only if, they could verify the truth, the whole truth. He got up. A shower did sound fortifying.