"What you're saying is true Casey? I mean, Mr Jones?" Korsak is a good cop, and his shock barely registers.
"It's true Vince, everything I said, is true." His palms are faced down on the desk. He wonders when the cuffs will come.
They let him off before. For all the lives he had taken as a man of uniform. They let him off before. He was a soldier, he was a lieutenant, until that one wrong fire, one wrong shot. A child had come running towards his platoon, chasing a ball of red, a floating balloon. The child was laughing, chasing and running headlong into an ambush. He was too late, he was too slow, he couldn't call off the fires, the gun shots - and he fired, as they all did, but his bullet did it. He had watched the child fall, quick and heavy to the floor. Blood pooled, smile kept on. They let him off before, for all the lives he had taken as a man of uniform; and they let him off too, for the life of a laughing child that he took. He got his retribution, he did - a shrapnel to his spine, and he could have been paralyzed. He should have been. But then came Jane.
Korsak is looking at him, filled with disbelief; and he supposes it has something to do with how he had minutes ago convinced Korsak to watch Elsie for him.
Korsak clears his throat before he reaches for the handcuffs, "I need you to sign a confession, and I will have a doctor in here to evaluate your mental condition," Korsak looks kind for a second, "And yes Casey, Elsie will be safe with me," Korsak has the cuffs around his wrists and Korsak's looking at him like he has more to say, while he's looking at Korsak, hoping that he'll say something about Jane.
Jane that he once dated, once cared for and still did. Jane that kept all pain and trauma away. Jane that spoke at that event, that event that commemorated Jane being shot - an event that happened because Jane shot herself; and that's how they met again, not at some high school reunion.
Korsak stands, and starts to walk away.
He had to care for Jane. He had to take care of her. He had to get better, get his spine fixed so he could protect her. No more bullets, no more blood, only Jane, happy and his pain and trauma all kept away.
Jane said yes to being a couple again, she said yes to dating, to living together, to being together. Jane said yes, when he could see it even then - back when they first met again - how her best friend came and had her, how the cars had exploded and the fire burned behind them but she had her, she had Jane.
But Jane said yes to him, to them being a couple, and not to her best friend, not to the medical examiner.
He proposed, and he gotten an answer - a bullet engraved with Maura Isles' name.
Jane said yes to him, slept next to him, and held on always, to her best friend, to the one whom Jane ran to as the building collapsed, to the one Jane would spend nights with after tough cases, and to the one whom shielded Jane, whom kept Jane's pain and trauma away.
"I'm lead on this, Jane's off the case," is the last thing Korsak says to him before the door shuts and he sits, a guilty man, waiting to charged.
They let him off before. For all the lives he had taken as a man of uniform. But they won't let him off now. For all the lives he had taken as a clown. For all the children's laughter he silenced, with a bullet and bloody knives.
He's going to prison - Casey Jones is going to prison.
He sits, hands chained to the desk, dog tags around his neck, and clown nose on display in between his hands.
His mission is complete - he's going to prison, and she'll take care of her, she'll take care of her best friend Jane.