A/N: This really feels like a time when I should be posting something uplifting, but this chapter is pretty evil, too. Still more angst to come for the next several chapters, I'm afraid. I'll try to write something fluffy after this, I promise!

xxx

"What happened?" Lisbon demanded once Montrose had bundled her into the SUV she had waiting outside the building.

"We don't know a lot," Montrose warned as she pulled away from the curb. "Someone from the school called 911. The witness saw a man approach Patrick in the parking lot as he was leaving work. He grabbed him from behind and forced him into the trunk of a nearby vehicle, then drove off. When the police arrived a few minutes later, there was no sign of them."

"What did the man look like?"

"Big guy. Dark hair. Beard. Wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt. No identifying logos."

"We need to go to the scene," Lisbon said immediately. "Maybe we could talk to the witness—"

Montrose shook her head. "I need to get you to a secure location."

"But—"

"This is how it works, Teresa," Montrose said gently. "We talked about this in your orientation, remember?"

"I know, but—" Lisbon floundered. "It's Jane."

"I know you're worried," Montrose said. "So am I. Soren is going to do everything in his power to bring him home safely to you, okay? I promise you that. But I need to make sure we get you out of harm's way so one of these guys can't take you, too."

Lisbon's jaw tightened. She knew Montrose was just doing her job, but privately, she resolved that if she deemed it necessary to assure Jane's safety, she would ditch Montrose and go after him herself. Protecting Jane was her job, dammit.

xxx

Montrose must have suspected her true intentions, however. After she had installed Lisbon in a secure hotel room, she parked herself in a chair next to the doorway as though she planned to physically restrain her charge if she made a bid for escape.

Lisbon glowered at her and paced up and down the length of the hotel room while she tried to figure out how she could track down Jane. She'd deal with Montrose once she'd determined her next move. The only trouble was, she had been pacing this room for two hours, racking her brain, and she still had no clue where to start.

"He's gonna be fine," she said aloud, trying to convince herself more than Montrose. Her heart buzzed with anxiety, as though someone had set off an old-fashioned alarm clock inside her chest that she couldn't turn off. "All the other times Jane's been kidnapped, he's always managed to talk himself out of trouble."

"All the other times he's been kidnapped?" Montrose echoed. "Is this a common occurrence?"

Lisbon brushed off the question dismissively. "Even if he couldn't talk his way out of it, he always somehow manages to trick the other person into giving him something he can use to escape. Or at least buy enough time for—" she stopped and swallowed hard, unable to finish the sentence. Enough time for her to come rescue him.

But she had no resources. No badge. No team. No CBI databases. No authority to interrogate witnesses or access evidence. She still didn't even have a gun.

She stiffened her spine. None of that mattered. She was still a detective, dammit. She'd wrestle Montrose's gun away from her if she had to. She would find Jane and rescue him, just like she always did. All she had to do was figure out where to start.

"It had to be Scalzi, right?" she reasoned, thinking out loud. "Using brute force to grab him out of the parking lot, with witnesses around—that's sloppy." Not Red John's style.

Montrose blinked up at her from her position on the chair by the door. "Who else would it be?" she said blankly.

Lisbon halted, staring at Montrose in dumb horror. "Are you kidding? Red John could have sent one of his minions to take him." How could this possibility not have occurred to Montrose?

"The serial killer? Why would he do that?"

"Weren't you briefed on our backgrounds?" Lisbon asked incredulously.

Montrose shifted uncomfortably. "I know Red John killed Patrick's family and that you have worked the case together for a long time. That doesn't explain why you think Red John would have gone after Patrick now, though."

"Jane swore revenge on Red John after he killed his family," Lisbon said. "He and Red John have basically been in a messed up battle of wits for the past ten years. Red John has tremendous resources, and he has a sort of strange…attachment to Jane. My team lost the case once for a few months, and Red John had a whole team of CBI agents killed just so the CBI would be forced to give the case back to Jane."

"Oh, shit," Montrose said eloquently. She got to her feet. "I can see why you're worried. I mean—" she amended, "that we might need to look at Red John as a suspect in addition to Scalzi when it comes to Patrick's well-being." She got her phone out and started dialing. "I'll pass the intel along."

Lisbon was about to make a scathing retort when the door opened and Soren came in, looking weary.

Lisbon forgot Montrose. "Well?" she demanded, taking a step closer to Soren. "Have you found anything?"

"Nothing," Soren said, defeated. "We found a witness that identified the make and model of the car, but that's not enough to trace it. We've got a bolo out, but no hits yet."

Montrose hung up the phone. "Teresa thinks there's a possibility Red John might have taken Patrick."

Soren looked surprised. "Really?"

"Yes, really," Lisbon said, still incredulous. Then she stopped. Montrose and Soren obviously had some knowledge of the Red John case. But the most intimate, disturbing details of the interactions between Jane and Red John had never been the primary focus of the written reports. Jane's prolonged absence in Vegas and all his hopes for that disastrous effort—they would have no way of knowing any of the details about that, she realized. The intricate plots and crazy theories and deepest insights about the threat Red John truly posed—those had always remained between her and Jane. She was the one Jane had trusted with that information, no one else.

And he'd infected her with his paranoia about the consequences that their actions could have for her family and the team to the extent that she'd never exposed the team to the full scope of Jane's thoughts on Red John for fear of putting them in even greater danger than they were from being on the case in the first place. Let alone putting it in the case reports for her superiors. Who she'd stopped fully trusting around the time Minelli had left.

All this was besides the fact that she and Jane had been so concerned about the pervasiveness of Red John's influence that they suspected their own protectors of being in league with him. Lisbon had been so worried about Jane's theory that Montrose and Soren were agents of Red John that it had never occurred to her that they might not even be aware of the full extent of the threat he represented.

It was obviously time to rectify that. Lisbon straightened. "Call Agent Cho. He can give you a list of known associates and—"

A knock on the door cut her off mid-sentence. Montrose sprang in front of her and drew her weapon, training it on the door. Lisbon was so disarmed by the experience of someone other than her team and Jane putting themselves between her and perceived danger that she only had time to blink in surprise before Soren had his own weapon drawn and trained on the door as well.

Soren approached the door slowly and cautiously peered through the peephole. "Son of a bitch," he muttered, and lowered his gun.

He opened the door and Jane stood in the doorway. "Hello," he said, greeting Soren with a sunny smile as he stepped into the room.

"Jane!" Lisbon flew to his side, shouldering her way past Montrose and practically knocking Jane back into the hallway with the force of her embrace when she threw her arms around him.

"Hello, dearest," he said, kissing her on the temple. "Miss me?"

"Don't fish for compliments, just tell me what happened," Lisbon ordered, running her hands over his shoulders and chest, checking for damage. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm not hurt," Jane assured her, stroking her hair.

Finding no injuries, she tucked her head into his neck to hide her face, sick with relief. She knew she was holding onto him too tight, but she couldn't seem to loosen her grip.

Jane patted her on the back and cleared his throat. "I'm, ah, I'm afraid this was all a false alarm." He looked at Montrose and Soren. "Congratulations on not being evil minions, by the way. I was really pleased to learn that you weren't in league with any of the people who are trying to kill us. So mazel tov for that. Really."

"Thanks a lot," Soren said sourly.

Lisbon lifted her head, frowning. "What do you mean it was a false alarm? Montrose said a guy forced you into the trunk of a car and drove off with you."

"I hired one of those kidnapping companies to do it," Jane said sheepishly. "They did a really good job, didn't they?"

A cold, jagged sensation slid down her throat and settled in her stomach. "Kidnapping companies?" She stepped back, trying to get her bearings.

"You know, those ones bored office workers pay to pretend to kidnap them so they can experience an adrenaline rush and remember they're actually alive," Jane said.

Lisbon took another faltering step back, feeling sick and shocky. "Pretend," she repeated. The word echoed in her ears.

"You faked your kidnapping," Montrose said flatly. "Why the fuck would you do something like that?"

"Why, to see if you were trustworthy, of course," Jane said. "And I must say, I'm very relieved to learn that you are. It will make things much easier from now on."

"Do you have any idea how many people we have out there looking for you?" Soren demanded.

"Meh," Jane said with a shrug. "Isn't this a good training drill for you guys?"

Montrose shook her head. "Unbelievable."

He'd faked it. The whole thing. Lisbon kicked herself inwardly. She should have known. How could she not have known? It was such a typically Jane thing to do. Self-recrimination for her willful stupidity warred against the feeling of bone deep betrayal, threatening to split her in two. She walked to the other side of the room, her legs shaking. She put her hands on the windowsill to ground herself. Her hands shook, too.

Distantly, she heard Montrose dressing Jane down—not unlike the way Lisbon herself had done countless times before—but she could feel Jane's eyes on her and knew he wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to Montrose.

"Teresa?" he said tentatively. She heard him take a step towards her. Montrose and Soren, behind him, fell silent.

She turned around and faced him. "Please don't come any closer," she said, her voice tight.

He halted, looking crestfallen. "What? Why not?"

She wanted to rage at him. To hurt him. To hurt him as badly as he'd hurt her—not just tonight, but when he'd left for six months without a word, and every other time he'd let her worry needlessly over his safety for the sake of his own ego, his cleverness, or just his own agenda. To repay him in physical pain for every ounce of worry and anguish she'd felt this night and a hundred other nights. She wanted to rain blows down upon him until all the feeling left her body and she could finally be free of this choking, piercing feeling of betrayal. Above all, she wanted to feel nothing. To be empty, hollow. Anything, so long as she wouldn't have to feel like this anymore.

She took a deep breath, her whole body vibrating with so much emotion she felt as though her skeleton might come apart inside her skin. She exhaled shakily, trying to bring herself under control. "Please don't come near me," she repeated.

Behind Jane, Montrose and Soren exchanged a troubled glance. Montrose cleared her throat, looking deeply uncomfortable. "Well, uh—since this was a false alarm, I guess there's no reason you need Soren and me to stay here with you, Teresa. We've got a lot of phone calls to make to undo this mess anyway. You know how to reach us if you need anything."

"Yeah," Lisbon said, her voice still tight. "Fine."

With that, Montrose and Soren beat a hasty retreat.

Jane's eyes never left Lisbon. "Teresa—" he began as the door closed behind the exiting agents.

"How could you do this?" Her voice was hollow.

"I told you, I needed to make sure Montrose and Soren wouldn't betray us when the chips were down. It was the perfect opportunity to put them under surveillance, see who they were in contact with—"

Lisbon shook her head. "Not that. God knows I should have figured out you would have planned some kind of insane test for them, after how paranoid you've been about accepting their help in the first place."

"Then what-?"

"How could you not tell me?" Lisbon asked quietly. She felt—broken. As though a critical piece of her had fractured beyond repair. While Jane had been in Vegas, that piece had been strained, put under immense pressure. But tonight, the pressure had been too great. That piece—that central, fundamental piece—had finally cracked and broken, and she had no idea if she would ever be able to put herself back together again.

Jane shifted uncomfortably. "I—just came up with the plan today. And I knew you were going to be out late, so it seemed like a good time to put it into action—"

"You let me think someone had taken you. Scalzi, or Red John. That they were hurting you. For hours."

Jane winced. "I didn't think about it like that—"

She wanted to hit him again. "That's the problem, Jane. You didn't think about how your actions would affect me. You do these stupid, dangerous things, and you don't think about what kind of impact they have on me."

"I just…" he fell silent, knowing he had no adequate defense.

"We had a deal," she said. "You said you wouldn't cut me out like this anymore. Not when it came to Red John."

"This had nothing to do with Red John," Jane protested.

"How was I supposed to know that?" she said, goaded. "Jesus, Jane. How would you have felt, if I had done that to you? If I let you think Red John had taken me. Leaving you on your own for hours, wondering what he could be doing to me."

Jane went deathly pale. "I—" he swallowed hard. "You would never do that," he finally said.

"No," she said. "I wouldn't. Because I know that it would be the cruelest thing that I could possibly do to you."

He flinched. "I'm sorry." He hung his head. "I made a mistake."

"You said you wanted something real," she continued ruthlessly. "But you don't have the first clue how that's supposed to work, do you? In a true partnership, you don't make these sorts of decisions on your own, Patrick. But you can't do that, can you? You can't give up control. You think that if I'm angry about a decision you make, that's okay, because you can always charm me into forgiving you later. But that's just another way of controlling your environment, isn't it? God, I can't believe how stupid I've been. I should have realized that a long time ago."

Jane looked genuinely alarmed. "No, Teresa, please. It's not like—"

"I'm done," she said harshly. "I'm not doing this anymore."

Jane stopped. "Not—not doing what anymore?" he said, his voice tremulous and strange.

"I'm not going to pretend that we're married anymore. That this is a real relationship." She took another deep breath. "I'm not going to pretend that you didn't hurt me more deeply tonight than anyone has ever hurt me before in my life."

Jane looked as though she had physically stricken him. "No," he croaked. "Teresa, I'm sorry. I'll do better—"

She shook her head. "It's too late, Jane." She swallowed back her own tears. "It's too late."

"Please, Teresa, let's just talk through this—"

"Don't." She took another deep breath. "Please, Jane. Can you please just—can you please leave? I—I don't want to be near you right now."

"You're not—you're not coming back to the house?" Jane said, devastated.

She gestured to the hotel room around them. "I'm going to stay here."

Jane swallowed. "All right. I can respect that. I'll just—I'll leave, okay?"

Her shoulders slumped in relief. "Thank you."

"I'll call you in the morning, okay?" he said tentatively.

She gave a jerky nod. "Sure, Jane."

She was sure he could hear in her voice that she had no intention of answering his call.