This chapter just had no good place to cut it. And it would seriously be epically long to try and do it all in one go. Besides the next post is kinda emotional. I didn't want to make it incredibly heavy. Hope you can all forgive me.

After Effects

Lisbon and Carter watched in astonishment as Body Guard #2 rounded one of the pallets, piled high with boxes owned by the pharmaceutical company, with a slightly discomfited Jane following him; mainly due to the fact that Body Guard #2 had a tight grip on his forearm. Jane threw her a sheepish shrug. He truly couldn't not understand how delicate this situation was, could he? Carter thought.

Lisbon couldn't for the life of her curb her reaction to seeing him. She grimaced and dropped her head into her waiting palm. Jane, she groaned inwardly. What were you thinking? How could they possibly play this off as anything other than a cop following them, Antonio was going to be furious. Jane was dead. There was no way out of it. Even if she and Carter broke cover right now, there was no way they were getting out of this warehouse alive. It was five against three, one of whom wasn't even armed and rarely knew which end of the gun was the more effective. Also, Carter currently wasn't close enough to said guns to do anything heroic. Lisbon was, and although she was technically closer to the machine gun, she couldn't use it effectively in such a small space with there being the incredibly high probability of hitting Jane. Body Guard #1 was already moving to intercept Jane. Body Guard #2 had a death grip on the insanely annoying consultant, Antonio too was armed and looking mightily pissed off. Billy was cowering somewhere by the front entrance, and Layla was way too amused for Lisbon's liking. There was nothing she could do.

Carter quickly perused the game plan. He and Lisbon could turn on the mob; try to disarm the three highly trained and vicious members but the outcome of that being successful was exceptionally not likely. They could try to use the guns he was supposed to be selling to Antonio, but they didn't have much ammunition left. He'd, wisely (or so he'd thought at the time) only included enough ammo to allow him (as it turned out, Lisbon) to demonstrate the weapons to Antonio's satisfaction. If he had known he was going to be needing the guns to save Lisbon's idiotic team member he would have stocked up enough to infiltrate the Russian Consulate. So with the remaining bullets they'd really only get a maximum of twenty shots even with interspersing the three guns, and they definitely did not have enough time to try that! Or he could let Jane take the fall for his intrusion, and just let Antonio do whatever he was planning to do. And if he'd been anywhere else, with anyone else, he would have taken Option B. But, he knew, Lisbon would extricate herself from his life quicker than he could blink if he allowed Jane (an innocent/civilian) to be hurt, most likely to be tortured and killed for his stupidity. He couldn't do that to Lisbon, he cared about her too much.

There had to be another option. Option C. There just had to be. He swung a quick glance at Lisbon, she had lifted her head from her hand, and she was looking at Jane in a mixture of dismay, annoyance, frustration and a little extra spice of hate. Probably because she should have known he would try something like this and she'd been giving him a little latitude. She was going to hate herself forever if Jane got hurt over this. He couldn't allow Lisbon to live with the pain and anguish that would cause. There were enough people in her life dragging out self-hate, self-disgust and the ghosts of family member. Hell, Lisbon had ghosts of her own tracking her every movement. She'd just had years more experience with them.

He made his decision. He left her side, immediately walking menacingly toward Jane; a look of pure hatred upon his face. It wasn't that hard to enact; he just pictured Antonio's face superimposed upon Jane's. Body Guard #2 looked surprised but didn't try to stop him from approaching.

Antonio was intrigued, what was going on? He decided he would allow this dalliance a little longer … not much though.

Jane was honestly frightened; one look at Antonio had told him all he needed to know about the man. He was selfish, utterly, viciously and sadistically. Jane had no doubts now, Carter was completely correct in his assessment of the man. If Antonio hadn't been responsible for Violet Carter's death, he was surely responsible for hundreds of others, especially if you took into account his drug and weaponry business. So Jane decided in that split-second that Carter's vendetta was a valid one. He could even understand the compulsion, after all isn't that why he was currently 'working for' the CBI? To find Red John.

Note the word 'find' not 'catch', catching implied a sort of holding onto for another purpose, Lisbon wanted to 'catch' Red John and hold him to trial and jury, prolong the inhumane being's life for countless years, trials, appeals and whatnot. Red John would get publicity, followers, a small cell in a prison full of other criminals who he could boast to, food, entertainment and the like. He didn't deserve such luxuries. What he deserved was death, and whatever happened or didn't happen after that. If nothing happened, good; if something did, Jane was in no doubt that whoever's religion was correct that Red John would reside in whatever realm constituted Christian's Hell.

The only problem Jane had with Carter's plan was the obvious flaw: Lisbon's involvement. She had no business being placed in the middle of Carter's war. She'd get hurt or worse, and Jane wasn't about to let anyone's rage and anger lead to the light that was Lisbon being snuffed out. His thoughts led to his body tensing, Carter was almost upon him. He glared at the man, reproaching him for placing Lisbon in this precarious position.

Layla positively glowed in anticipation of the manly posturing happening right before her eyes. She'd always loved men fighting over her, in fact she encouraged. Obviously ever since meeting Antonio she had had to give up those expectations. Antonio was far too ALPHA for any man to try and steal her away from him. She watched Tina's men face each other. Carter; all dark and brooding, his large, muscled body rippling with tension, his abrupt anger and awareness permeating the warehouse. Jane; all angry and possessive, his tall, almost regal frame motionless with resentment. She shivered in expectation, she wondered who would win. She was almost positive it was going to be Carter. She just hoped that Jane gave a passable try. She'd be slightly disappointed if he went down with pitiable ease.

Carter clenched his hand. He swung his arm around, feeling the sore muscles of his previously dislocated shoulder yowl in pain. He grimaced, but luckily he could pass that off as Jane having a preternaturally strong jaw. Jane stumbled, dropping to one knee on the cold floor in shock.

Lisbon gasped. Not expected.

"Stop following my wife. Stop following her about the room with your lecherous eyes. Stop following her into secluded areas to try and seduce her. She's too good for you." Carter all but yelled at the crouching figure; his voice cutting through the stillness of the warehouse with a decidedly resilient timbre.

Layla was enjoying this so much she had to fight to keep the smile of her face. She hadn't known Carter was aware of Tina's toe dippings. She was pleased; this meant that their relationship was more interesting. She couldn't abide plain and uninteresting people. They were the worst sort of people.

Antonio grinned. Layla had told him everything about Tina's little predicament. He was extremely partial to men owning what was theirs, taking care of the little things, making sure their woman knew who was Boss. It would not do to have his weapons guy being cuckolded by that smarmy man. One look, up close and personal, with the man named Jane let him see everything he needed to. Jane was a showman, a dilettante; he was in the world to be gazed at like a pretty bauble. He had no depth to him, no past, no pain; he wouldn't satisfy their interesting Tina like Carter could. Antonio, while master of many black market arts, was also well versed in the mind of the female. He understood them better than they sometimes understood themselves.

Jane was shocked, but he understood immediately what Carter was doing. Trying to save his life, who was he to try and circumvent him? He stayed on the floor, waiting for an opportune moment. He idly wondered where the rest of the team was. Surely they had noticed he was gone quite quickly, obviously not as soon as Lisbon would have; she did seem to have some sort of Jane-dar. He wondered at that sometimes, alone in the office on his couch, or at home under the red devil's grin. When he couldn't reflect on those intimate, basic happy moments with his wife and child, he thought about Lisbon instead. Sometimes the team made appearances in his projected flashbacks, but Lisbon was a common theme.

The team, in fact, was nearing his position. After some fervent moments of complete panic, with Grace basically hyperventilating (Rigsby looking around awkwardly for a brown paper bag), Cho looked mightily green in the face (Rigsby looking around for an airplane quality paper bag) and random images of Lisbon castrating them all (Rigsby looking around in horror for something resembling a protective piece of equipment – he found a used paper bag); Rigsby suddenly remembered that the car Jane had taken had built in GPS. Van Pelt immediately did her technology thing and got the coordinates. They piled into the other car; the one Cho had used during his stake-out of Lisbon and Layla's dinner, and followed the tiny blinking dot that represented Jane.

Jane was surprised when he felt the coppery tang settle on his tongue. Wow, he had thought the jab was just for show; apparently Carter had issues with him that he was keeping under wraps. Well, good, buddy, he thought, I don't like you either. And given half the chance, if Jane were that way inclined, he'd have a good old fashioned fight with him too. But right now keeping Lisbon safe was more important. It seemed like Carter agreed with that assessment too, so for this particular piece of the present, they were working together. He had two options with the blood currently filling his mouth. Swallow or spit. He couldn't swallow it; too many images of the blood soaked sheets of his daughter's room. The fear and blood stagnating with every breath she didn't take. He didn't want to spit it out either, but he couldn't just keep it in his mouth, with every extra moment he feeling sicker and sicker. He leaned to the side and quickly spat, aiming for B2's shoes. He missed, but only because Carter had chosen that moment to jerk him to his feet.

Layla was suddenly standing beside her. When had she moved? Lisbon was hoping Carter would figure out a way to get them out of here before Jane did something else she was going to regret.

"I can't believe he followed you here." She said, smiling prettily, as if Jane's life wasn't in danger.

"Yeah…" She couldn't even affect enthusiasm.

"Don't worry. About Carter. If he knew and didn't stop Jane straight away, he must have known you would get over the little crush or lust or whatever it was and come back to him."

Seriously? Lisbon looked at Layla in amazement, this is the time you choose to try and develop some girl-bond?

Lisbon shook her head at Layla, looking back toward her husband and Jane. Something was happening.

Carter knew everything he had planned was now over. He couldn't explain the particular reasons why he knew this, he just did. Something about the way Jane had blithely followed them, putting Lisbon in so much more danger, it made him realize that he had Antonio Bloch right where he wanted him. So, it would be a little hard to isolate him, but he had never been adverse to collateral damage. As long as the collateral wasn't damaging anyone he cared about. And there was only one person he cared about anymore. He just had to make sure she was okay, and the best way to do that was to make his actions as surprising and as unexpected as possible. That would be easy. His best (most awarded) assignments had always occurred because of some split-second decision he made on site.

His brain immediately reconstituted the warehouse and its inhabitants into a floor plan diagram. He designated himself as center; Jane was one foot and twelve degrees in front of him. Lisbon and Layla were further afield, about fifteen feet and two hundred degrees behind him, B1 and B2 were a couple of degrees either side of Jane and roughly the same amount of distance. Antonio was twenty feet away and almost a perfect ninety degrees directionally. Superb. He gave B2 a conciliatory gaze. The guard looked confused for a couple of seconds. Then he was acting only on reflex.

Carter jerked Jane to his feet, pulling the oddly possessive man away from the floor and the guards. He swung the off-balance Jane further away from the other men, giving him a backwards push. He then promptly forgot about him. He was too busy dealing with B2 and B1. They had instinctively, and in a show of their exceptional training, automatically raised their firearms. But Carter knew exactly what he was doing. While he had been pulling Jane up and around to the left, he had taken a curving step forward, bringing him closer to B2. As Jane had passed both their bodies, Carter thrust an arm forward, coming in under the man's jacket. He pulled out the Glock concealed near his waist. As he drew the handgun back towards his own body he shot the guard three times in the gut; slowly rising the barrel upwards with each shot. As the guard went down, he pulled on the man's arm, disrupting his final stance. B2 fell, it might have been on Jane, Carter wasn't sure; he was too busy moving to intercept the surprisingly spry B1.

B1 was ready. His accompanying Glock was out and waiting. But he hadn't shot yet. Carter wasn't going to wait around and find out why; he shot him, triple-tap to the chest. Right over the heart. No walking away from that one. As the surprised and quickly dying guard fell, Carter reflected that the well-trained muscle-man was probably waiting for orders from his boss: the ever-knowing Antonio. Well, he wasn't quick enough, was he, he sneered.

Layla was enraged. How dare Carter Jones just kill two of Antonio's men like that! They hadn't even done anything worthy of teaching them a lesson, let alone killing them. If anyone deserved a shot to the head in this warehouse it was obviously Jane. He was the one who had tried it on with the man's wife, not Antonio's two men. She hadn't met them before, of course, but they, by extension, were a part of Antonio, and nobody messed with her man. She shoved Tina out of the way, it was a quick shove, not meant to hurt her or displace her too much. Just enough of a shove to get her to move a few spaces forward; so she could reach the weapons on the table behind them.

She picked up the machine gun first. Antonio had taught her how to shoot on their first 'date'. It had led to some interesting positions in the target range, but that's what made it all the more fun. The only real problem was that Layla hadn't used this particular type of weapon before, she wasn't entirely sure were the safety was, and whether she had to pump the barrel or do some other random macho thing to make sure the gun would shoot properly.

While Layla was focused on figuring out the gun, Lisbon's small cry of surprise at the sudden force of being shoved out of the way had notified Carter of a development behind his back. He twisted with a dancer's ease, gun trained on the last known position of Lisbon. There was Layla, fiddling with the newest incarnation of his favorite model of machine gun. He grinned. It was obvious she wasn't familiar with it. Carter weighed up the option of waiting for her to figure it out or to just shoot her and get it over with, but he didn't usually like killing people whom he wasn't sure were heavily involved. He went through what he knew about her. Layla was Antonio's girlfriend but that didn't necessarily mean that she was 'involved'. He understood, from her picking them up, that she was around for the negotiations, and he had come to understand that she wanted to take Tina under her wing and to train her up for some nefarious purpose within Antonio's organization. Those few reasons solidified her guilt.

She had finally figured out the machine gun. The barrel was already pointing in his direction and from his last calculation the weapon had about ten rounds left. He heard an odd groan from the floor, near his feet. Casting a quick glance downwards, he realized B2 had indeed fallen on top of Jane. The man was finally trying to start moving again. He brought his leg up, extending the lower half and stood on B2's back, effectively pinning Jane to the floor. He didn't need a fourth distraction. Keeping eyes on Layla, Lisbon and Antonio were enough to worry about right now, thank you.

Jane was fuzzily angered. He'd been thrown unceremoniously onto the floor by Lisbon's 'husband'. He knew it was in an attempt to save him, but did he have to be so rough about it? He was also aware that several shots had been fired. By whom, he wasn't sure, but he'd hazard a guess and say Carter. He could vaguely see the outline of Lisbon and Layla, from underneath B2's rapidly dying arm. He shuddered as the man took another weakening breath. He'd never thought he think this way about anyone other than Red John, but he kind of hoped the man would hurry up and die. The wheezing, blood spattered breathing was freaking him out. The man was also incredibly heavy and he couldn't get out from under him. He'd tried, but more pressure had been applied. Jane was too worried about Lisbon to figure out where exactly it was coming from.

Lisbon's brain wasn't really processing much of what was happening, and Tina wasn't faring much better. All she knew was that she needed to protect Jane and Carter. Jane was fine so far, being pinned beneath the second body guard. Carter had a handgun and was pointing it directly at Layla. He'd already killed two men, she wasn't going to let him add to his body count. Her hand connected with the rifle behind her back. It was lying on the table; she grabbed it up quickly, spinning the rifle around so that the butt of the gun was pointing away from her. She rammed the butt into the back of Layla's head. Layla dropped immediately.

"Carter!" She exclaimed, "What are you doing?" She was asking both as herself and as Tina. This was not part of any contingency plan they had discussed.

Carter was surprised when his third target fell to the earth. Lisbon, he realized. It had been so long since he had had a partner in any operation, that he was caught by surprise at her interference with his plan. Of course though, Lisbon was too soft-hearted to allow him to kill the woman. Didn't she realize just how dangerous Layla could be to some other unsuspecting female out there?

Lisbon stared at the expression on Carter's face. She'd seen it before. Once. On Jane. How had she missed this? She had known that he was vengeful about the death of Violet. But it had been ruled an accident. What had prompted him to spend so much time and resource convincing himself that Antonio Bloch was responsible for Violet's death? Jane was right. Carter had been using her.

He saw the exact moment Lisbon understood what he was doing, and for a few moments he let the guilt and shame wash over him. But it would not stop him from what he had planned. He swung his body to greet Antonio.

Antonio reflected Carter's stance. They were mirror images. Silence descended in the small warehouse.

Jane groaned from somewhere under B2.

Lisbon still held the rifle, an unconscious Layla at her feet. She didn't know who to aim it at, Carter or Antonio. Technically, Antonio hadn't done anything wrong at this particular point in time, nothing that she could arrest him on at least. Carter was the one who was deviating from procedure. Carter was the one who had just killed two men, for no clear reason. If Jane was correct, which was becoming more apparent, then Carter wouldn't stop until Antonio was dead. And it was Lisbon's job to stop that particular kind of retribution. They had laws for a reason, so that the old 'eye for an eye' mentality became obsolete.

"Put the gun down, Tina." Antonio instructed.

"Yes Tina," Carter concurred, "Put the gun down. This is between him and me."

Lisbon swallowed. She couldn't do that, but she wouldn't shoot Carter, and she definitely couldn't shoot Antonio. They didn't have adequate evidence to make anything stick to him. He'd walk.

So... Carter's gone Terminator in the warehouse.

But I figure, he's just got his own 'Red John' in his sights, and he's decided it's time.

I know it's a slightly awkward place to end the chapter, but it's only going to get worse, and more sticky... I thought, maybe I'll just do the break between the action and the emotion??? I trust you'll agree, mainly because I haven't given you a choice ;)

Arc, please review. You make me happy when you do. And we all know a happy author is a faster author ;)