Title - Little Stars - Part 35

Author - Kourion

A/N: So we are getting down to it.

Very quickly. This is NOT the last chapter. The last chapter is one I wanted to end from Lisbon's POV for the last two weeks now. I was debating changing it to a Jane POV chapter, but I didn't want to split the last main chapter into two POV's as I felt that would feel fractured.

Hence, you get a relatively short Chapter 35. (You're...welcome? Or not, perhaps. I personally prefer reading longer chapters and longer stories. As I'm sure you can all tell by now :p)

Jane, after all, needs to make some sort of peace with his past. He's so pain-laden in this story, and I don't want him hurting so much anymore. I never did, but I felt it was true to his character in canon. There is no way he feels at peace most of the time, and that knowledge (of how people grieve, especially when they blame themselves) was really the prime focus of the subject I wanted to tackle when I first started writing this fic... eons ago.

The backstory of his abusive childhood will factor (somewhat) in upcoming stories but will not be as prominent. However, I want to lay Charlotte to rest, so to speak. At least the raw, grieving aspects of his loss. Because the follow-up stories I have planned will start to become more romantic in tone and I didn't want to mix anything even borderline romantic with anything this angsty.

Chapter 36 will be longer, and more plot-driven, wrapping up loose ends.

The epilogue (I guess we can call that Chapter 37?) will be a "Thea POV". Shorter, but I have more I want her to 'say' before the story wraps up for good. (Thea has grown on me. She almost seems like a real child to me now, and I don't want her to go off into fanfiction-nothingness. I'm sure you all understand.)

Thank you for ALL the encouragement, you guys! You have been wonderful reviewers. Cream of the crop. I really want to apply all your positive feedback and constructive criticism as much as possible. One reviewer in particular (you know who you are ;)) gave me wonderful input about how not to rely on too-easy generalizations for describing Cho. Or any character. But definitely not Cho ;)

(To this person: I can't tell you how much your feedback resonated with me. It made sense. It made me look at my own potential weaknesses as a writer. I really won't forget your input and advice. Thank you again!)

And for all of you who simply pm'ed me asking when the next chapter would be up? Well, here it is! ;)

For the record, the main music listened to while writing this chapter was the very poignant "Halving the Compass" by Helios. In fact, Helios is a great band to listen to if you want to write and not be overpowered by lyrics, but still want something faintly emotive playing in the background.

Jane's POV

I feel something warm and pressing. Almost painful.

A slight change of movement informs me that I need to use the bathroom.

Quite badly.

I extricate myself from my hospital blankets and kick them back against the edge of the bed with my bare feet. The air feels insanely cool now. I suspect my fever has returned.

My hospital room is without a personal restroom so I look about for my shoes. I can't see anything.

Lisbon's probably swipped them so I wouldn't go wandering off without an escort.

"Where are my shoes? Come on, Lisbon. Where did you put my stuff?," I mutter aloud.

Answer: they're probably locked in the back of the rental car.

Damnit. I have to pee.

A small voice. Little. Young.

"They're over here. Right here."

Not Thea's. But a child's.

"Hello?," I test cautiously, feeling off kilter. The sound is muffled and so I lower myself to my knees, looking under the bed. Resounding giggles follow, as if this is a game.

My head is killing me.

I really am sick.

I really should buzz a nurse.

The little voice giggles again, and the giggles deafen my heart.

I hope this time that I don't come back from the warmth. That I can stay there. In that memory of happiness. Not to return to the coldness of being alone.

To return to a world where I know they're gone. Forever.

And that it's all my fault.

"If I give you your sneaks, will you give me Gippy? Do we have a deal, daddy?"

In the photo I'm winking at her, trying not to laugh.

Charley is grinning wide.

Lips hyper-pink from eating popsicles all morning.

Gippy-Gee sits stoic and proper.

Father's Day tie pulled tight around his Hippo head.

Silk socks dangling off his feet.

"He looks like you, Daddy!"

Ange and I start laughing.

I close my eyes and try to break off the pain.

Before it pumps out and infects all my senses.

"You're not here. You're gone. You're not real," I say to a dark room with walls that in daytime are white, but at night are something not at all familiar.

Walls that - at night - remind me of the psychiatric ward.

"You died."

A small hand, pale and mottled, wraps around the bedframe. I hear scuffling. And then I see her.

Her.

My little girl.

"Doncha want your sneaks, Daddy?"

Her face is whiter than limestone. But her eyes - they are still her eyes.

Still hers. Even if the rest of the body is gone.

I shut my eyes tight and let out a sob.

Sneaks. Sneaks.

I remember.

I remember.

How could I forget? Did I ever?

And does it count as forgetting if she's always been with me? Even when I denied her presence?

Her little voice. That lilt, as if she were a British child and not at all American raised. All Charley. The way her sentences always ended on a high note, even when she wasn't asking a question. The squeakiness that infused itself in her words when she got excited about dinosaurs or building castles in the sand, or eating pistachio ice cream, or laughing at me as I pretended to be a "Pony".

The fact that she was always excited, even though Angie was forever worried that she'd become spoiled from my attention.

The way her face would light up in almost-glee as the sun would set at the park. How she'd hop off from her swing mid-flight, as if she really thought she was a bird. Taking upwards to the sun. How she'd move her hand across the air, across the sky - untouchable, as the sky always will be - but despertately yearning to touch the night.

The way her enthusiasm for the clouds would become my enthusiasm for every little moment.

How she'd make a motion of painting when she spoke about the sky. The pinks and the purples on an exceptionally beautiful night.

How she saw beauty in everything. In everyone.

Even in me.

"I want the green sneaks for school, Daddy! The green sneaks."

I study the sneakers, as if I am debating with myself.

Of course, it's a done deal. She'll have the green sneakers.

"Can I get these ones? Please? PLEASE please? They're soooo cool, daddy!"

And I responded with:

"I don't see why not, Charley-Bean.

You'll be at a big kid school next week. With gym class.

You need the most excellent sneaks, I think."

Charlotte grins at me, full and warm and very pleased with the fact that she's Growing Up.

"They light up, too, Daddy! These sneaks light up. I'll be like a star! A glowy, green star!"

I ushered over the sales girl and got the shoes

the light up shoes

with the green stripes and the purple laces.

And the soles that lit up.

All for $69.95

"You'll be my little star. My baby star."

Charlotte makes a face, scrunching up her face as if embarassed.

"Daddy, I'm not a baby. I'm going to have a gym class soon!"

She pushes against her top tooth with her tongue.

It'll be falling out soon.

Except it didn't.

Except it never fell out.

Because Red John killed her 26 days later.

"Daddy?"

I open my eyes, and she's sitting a foot away from me. One chubby little foot resting on the opposing knee. She's wearing white baby-doll pajamas. Her purple sweater is gone.

It had come off in the night. That night. The night she was murdered.

I put my hands to my head and try to realize that what I'm feeling is grief.

It must be grief.

Everyone said when it came - when it finally hit me...

Long repressed grief. That's all it is. Or else I'm losing it.

I am losing it.

I am sick.

And not just in my heart.

I want to kill a man with my bare hands.

I want to slice him open.

I want to take his organs out of his body

so that he can never touch a little girl again.

Never take another little child out of this life.

It's how I feel about Thea's so-called 'dad.'

He called himself a father?

He was a rapist. A pedophile.

He tore a little girl up from the inside out and made her bleed.

He did that with his body.

Just like Red John.

because you've always known there was a sexual component

with Red John's crimes

the women he attacked

you just couldn't cope with the idea that his perversion

his lust for blood

his sexual appetite for death

was directed towards your own daughter

and your own wife.

And you need to face the fact that maybe

it was.

Or the men that hurt me when I was little.

A toddler. Only a toddler.

You can deny it all you want. But denial doesn't mean it didn't happen.

You know that truth too, Patrick.

"Here are your sneaks, Daddy," the little voice states, quietly. Just as she used to speak when Angela had a migraine. Charley was always so sweet. Always so careful not to hurt her momma's head when she was having one of her attacks.

I stare at the ghost-child, not knowing if I want to hug her or push her awayin horror. If I scream, Lisbon will come. I know that.

But then everything will end. The illusion that I'm alright... will end.

"I don't...," I stop, because my voice is shaking. "Did you take my sneaks, honey-bear?," and I play along, tears pouring down my face. But tears don't matter because ghosts can't see tears. They're too busy hurting over their own pasts.

That's why they're ghosts.

And it's true.

The little ghost-child doesn't seem to notice the tears. The veil of my illusions. Of being okay, when I'm struggling. When every day, I'm struggling just to keep going. Just to find a reason to open my eyes. To smile. To hope.

lisbon

there's always lisbon

but i can't accept that it's true

that i could love her...more

i don't deserve her love

i don't deserve the hope that would come from her love

Instead, the little ghost-child giggles again. Her mouth opens into nothingness. No pearly pink mouth of life and blood and oxygenated tissue.

Her mouth is obscenely dark.

Because she's been murdered.

But at my feet, my shoes now lay. Old, brown and re-sealed at least six times in the last decade.

They were my last fathers day present from my child.

Brown shoes, and venetian red socks.

Socks I couldn't get blood on

when I tried to kill myself

So I took them off.

Because in that Schopenhauerian moment of life and death

my own moment between the two worlds

those socks had meant more to me than my own blood

"Can I have Gippy back now?," my Charley asks.

Her wiggly tooth is gone. Somehow, she lost that tooth. Perhaps in death. I'll never know. But it was important, to her. To me. That marker of progression from little kid to big kid.

I went to a television interview and she had all of her baby teeth. But when I came home, one was gone.

"I don't have your Gippy, baby," I say to the void. The black-outline of a little girl who will never sit next to me again. Never giggle again. Never call me daddy again.

I'll never be anyone's daddy again.

"Gippy is packed up with your baby clothes. Your little red shoes. I don't...keep Gippy with me anymore, honey-bear. Gippy makes me cry. You're still on him. I couldn't even wash him."

The most well behaved member of the Jane family.

Little Gippy-Gee.

Purple hippopotamus.

Who turned red.

Because my daughter held on to him.

Somehow.

Somehow.

Somehow she managed to hold onto Gippy-Gee.

As she died.

When her hand touches my own, the fingertips are cold. Colder than cold. Because cold is something the living feel. But she feels like the shadows. Nothing more than that. Than shadows and yellowed paper and pencils that are out of graphite, and old cracked pottery. Flowers that have dried in their vase, and no longer hold a scent.

My daughter is dead.

And there is something so very lonesome about shadows.

Her petite face falls into sadness.

"Don't cry, daddy. I don't want you to cry anymore."

My throat hurts. My throat hurts too much to even swallow. But, eventually I do.

And eventually I talk to her. Almost like she's with me. Like she's really here.

"I can't...help it, Charlotte. You were my little girl. My one and only child. I've never loved anyone as much as I loved you. When you were born, I was terrified. I was so overwhelmed because you were so tiny. You were only 5 lbs. The size of a Chihuahua dog."

Charlotte smiles up at me, loving the comparison to her favorite animal. Puts her small, mottled death-hand over her mouth and laughs. Almost shyly. Leans her head against my side, where my ribs still ache from grief and now where my ribs suddenly hurt with the cold of her body.

"I was as big as a Chawow dog?"

I try to continue. I do. It's so hard, though.

I close my eyes and try not to burst into tears.

When I feel calmer, I look back into her soul.

"You were so precious to me. You have no idea how precious. I thought I couldn't pick you up. Because you had little arms the size of pencils and I didn't want to hurt my 5 lb Chihuahua dog."

Charlotte grins. Her eyes glow like fireflies in the darkness of our room. It's the only thing about her now that reminds me of my daughter in life. Her eyes. Her soft, sweet eyes. But it's enough to give me strength.

"Nuh uh! My arms were bigger'n that!"

"No they were not. I'm your daddy, and I remember exactly how tiny you were when I saw you for the first time. And you had these little squirmy feet. The nurse came in and you had a pink name tag on your left foot. And then they wrapped you up like an Inuit baby. In cloth with pink and white stripes and a little cap. You were so tiny. So tiny."

I ignore the chills, the fear. I ignore my shoes, sitting by my feet. I can't put them on, and run away.

I can't do that to her.

I can't leave her all alone again. In the darkness. In the blackness.

With no one there to pick her up or hold her when she was her most scared.

Because I did that once already.

And I have no way of knowing if she died in terror. I have no way of knowing. I have no way of fixing that. Of taking her terror away. In that moment that's gone on Earth but never gone in my head.

In some ways - in many ways - the fact that she may have died in terror hurts me the most. More than the fact that she died. Because everyone dies. But no one should have to die like that.

"I'm okay, daddy. Everything is okay now."

She smiles a gap-toothed smile up at me, as I stroke her head. Her head feels wet, and sticky, and I push away the reason for why she feels that way.

"How can anything ever be okay, Bean? Ever again? You're...gone. I made you go away."

Her arm comes across my chest and she squeezes with all her little might.

It's not much - her strength.

But it means more to me than the physical sense of pressure.

"I'm not in any pain any more, daddy. No pain."

I put my hands under her ribcage and lift her up to my lap. Like she's a baby again, and dressed in her Christmas frills, and I'm sitting with her for our first family portrait.

When she's seated, I grasp her hands and I rub them. I blow into them, like I did with Thea's. This time, the hands do not become warm. As hard as I try, they never become warm.

Because Thea is alive, and can be comforted by warmth.

All the same, I have to try.

I blow again. Try in earnest to give her some of my warmth. As much of my warmth as she needs. All that I have, if that helps. Now that I have gotten used to the grotesqueness of her injuries, I can almost ignore the purple markings of lividity that are not going away no matter how hard I try to bring circulation and life back to her body.

I tell myself that dead or not - she's still my Charley. And that she's still holding onto me like Charley would have done, when scared, or when in need of comfort.

And I am her father - so does anything else matter?

I can never be afraid of my own daughter.

I refuse to be afraid of her memory any longer.

Red John took away almost everything that made me whole and made me feel loved.

I bring my lips to her palms and kiss her soft, rounded hands. She still has the slight round fullness in her face from her pre-school years.

"A little warmer now, my little star?"

I feel her damp head nod against my neck. I also know that she's getting blood on me. But that's not her fault.

"I'm sorry, Charlotte. I wish I could take it all back. Take back everything that I did that got you hurt."

My daughter lets out a harsh exhale against my throat. The sound reminds me of the noise she made at birth. Before she took in her first breath; her lungs still full of amniotic fluid. Rattling.

Heavy in her chest.

Too heavy for a little star.

"You didn't do anything wrong, daddy. You didn't do anything wrong."

I'm still hugging an ice-cube of a ghost-child, but the ache in my chest is a little less now.

Because I know that my real Charley wouldn't want me to cry. Wouldn't want me to hurt this much.

"Warmer?," I question again when I feel I can. I rock her back and forth, only this time I am not reminded of the night of her death.

This time, I rock her slowly. I hold her and the pain abates.

"Warmer," she whispers. "Thank you for hugging me back, daddy."

"Of course I'd hug you back."

I grasp on to her even more tightly now, and she buries her face against my shoulder.

"Keep holding onto me, daddy. Don't put me down again. I miss you. I don't want you to forget about me."

Her voice resounds clearly in my head.

Faintly, I can almost her Angela in her. In the sound. I can also hear myself. It makes sense.

She was of us both. Me, and Angela. She was ours.

Charley, Ange, me.

Charley's stuffed hippo Gippy-Gee is closest to the camera.

The four of us are having a picnic.

Little cucumber sandwiches for Ange.

Egg salad for me.

Peanut butter and jelly for Charley.

I'm drinking real tea.

Ange is sipping beer out of her plastic tea cup.

One finger raised in the air, like a proper British monarch.

In the photo I'm winking at her, trying not to laugh.

Charley is grinning wide.

A/N: last chapter will be up by Sunday. I'll do my 'best-est,' I promise, to have it up by that date. :)

Oh, for the record: Jane isn't losing his mind in this chapter. He's still very sane (as sane as Jane ever is, I mean). He's just very feverish. All will be explained in the next chapter.

But if you believe in ghosts or dream-messages or beyond the grave healing, go with it ;)

I hope this "goodbye" was a little more consoling that the goodbye scene Jane had with his daughter on the show. Rip my heart out, why don't ya? ;)

~Kour