Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter Twelve) by Lexikal
Rating: M for graphic violence and language
Fandom: The Mentalist
Summary: Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.
Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews, guys. It's nice to know people are digging this story. I am personally really interested in the occult and the "primitive" religions, like "Voudou". If this story piques your interest, I compel you to read "The serpent and the rainbow" by Wade Davis. David was/is a British Columbian ethnobotanist who detailed his accounts of corruption in Haiti and his experiences with unknown forces, and his story was made into a movie of the same name in the late 80s by Wes Craven (scary movie, but not entirely "true" to the book). I believe that there are dark forces at work in this universe and that evil can infect humans and use them as "puppets" (for lack of a better word). Australian metaphysicist Robert Bruce believes that while these dark forces can infect and infest humans and alter their personalities over time, an element of free will is involved (submission or permission is given to these "low energy" spirits/consciousnesses). That is how I see the character of Red John, as something almost supernaturally powerful and evil inhabiting a flimsy human shell, but with exceptional mental powers and an insatiable lust for violence and depravity. I don't think Patrick Jane believes that, though, so I am having a lot of fun with this story. Like always, reviews are very much appreciated. I will try to write this story so that you can believe or not in those dark forces, depending on your inclinations and comfort level. I want people of all faiths and lack of faiths to be able to enjoy this. Thanks again for the reviews.
I'm living in an age
That calls darkness light
Though my language is dead
Still the shapes fill my head
I'm living in an age
Who's name I don't know
Though the fear keeps me moving
Still my heart beats so slow - My Body is a Cage, The Arcade Fire
"By the way, Doctor Allen. What did you dream about this afternoon? A woman in your arms? The sea at your doorstep? Nooooo! You dreamt of me and of the grave. I know because I was there. And I can be there every time you close your eyes. The pain I cause you, in the room upstairs, is nothing to the pain I can cause in your own mind. Remember that... Doctor Allen." - Dargent Peytraud, "The Serpent and the Rainbow"
"Risk discomfort and solitude for understanding." - Wade Davis
After Charlotte's admission, Jane watched her carefully. His mind was filled with the terrible images Charlotte had spoken of, and while he knew that Charlotte had been brainwashed and drugged (what else could explain seeing such atrocities?) he couldn't shake the cold, creepy feeling that had come over him. Lisbon, too, seemed similarly affected and Jane wanted to get her alone and talk to her, make sure she was okay, but they were in a small two-bed motel room with attached kitchenette and bathroom and the fear of Red John was growing. Jane knew he would have to be careful not to let Charlotte's fear of Red John infect him. Paranoia was something that, if allowed to spread, could take over and obliterate all logic and reason. Paranoia was catching.
For the entire time Southpark had been on, Jane sat in his chair, Lisbon on her bad and Charlotte on her bed. Charlotte- at first glance- appeared to be at ease and nonchalant, but Jane knew it was all an act. Her shoulders and back were tense and he could see her eyes following his reflection on the screen. She was watching him, and using the television as a cover. Smart, really. Sad, also.
Jane decided that he would ask Charlotte if she would like to go for a run with him after her show was over, but when the credits came up she crawled off her bed and went to fetch her shoes before he could say anything.
"Charlotte?" Jane inquired, but he already had a fairly good idea what she was doing.
"You said we would run today. It's now after twelve. I need to run."
Jane nodded at this. His kid was intuitive, if nothing else. He cast a sidewise look at Lisbon.
"Lisbon, you want to come running?"
Lisbon still looked a bit pale, a bit uneasy. Most people wouldn't have noticed, but Jane wasn't most people. She shook her head and tried on a smile, but he could tell she was scared, and that she was starting to wonder just what she had gotten involved in, following Patrick Jane and his kid off into the frontier of madness like this. Madness and terror and fingers that came out of senators in the dark and ripped them apart, dirty fingers, fingers with long nails attached to arms... Lisbon's eyes were haunted and full of superstitious dread. She kept picking at her crucifix with her right thumb and pointer finger, playing with it, evidently soothed (if only a little) by the shape of the cross. Jane wanted to hug her, tight, and tell her that Red John was a master of manipulation and that everything would be worked out in time. He wasn't sure how to manage that without it being awkward, though. He could feel Charlotte watching him, watching the interaction he had with Lisbon, all visual and non-verbal, communicating with facial expressions and eyes. He turned back to his daughter and saw something almost approaching envy on her features, but as fast as he had seen it, she had replaced the look with a predictable look of teenage boredom.
"Lisbon, you coming?" Charlotte asked, casting a look over at the woman she had developed such a quick rapport with. Lisbon shook her head, finally found her voice.
"Uh, no thanks, guys. I think I'll just stay here."
"You sure?" Jane pressed. He knew it was silly to worry about Lisbon alone in a locked motel room, and yet, here he was. Worrying. Since Charlotte had come back into his life, Red John seemed significantly more dangerous, significantly more playful in an insidious, demonic way.
"I'll be fine, Jane. I have my gun," Lisbon said, fully aware of what Jane was worrying about. He nodded.
"After this, we'll be back on the road, won't we?" Charlotte said, looking over at Lisbon, then her father. Jane nodded.
"I think that is best."
"And we're going to Mexico?" Charlotte queried. Lisbon was looking at Jane, too, waiting for his answer.
"I think getting across the border might have its advantages right now," Jane finally said. He was operating on intuition. This entire situation was almost unprecedented. What did you do when your daughter came back from the dead (as far as you were concerned) and the man who had stolen and raised her was a megalomaniacal serial killer with minions in the highest levels of government? When those were the cards you had to play, it was hard to know what to do. What was the correct standard operating procedure here? Jane really had no idea, but he knew that the burden to decide what they did was on him. Lisbon was terrified and uprooted and Charlotte was a 16 year old teenage girl, deeply traumatized and full of magical thoughts.
"Are we going to go to Hermosillo? To see the crazy chicken man?" Charlotte asked, then. She was sitting on the floor, lacing up her black converse all-stars, spending more time on tightening them than was necessary, obviously using the time to question her father. Test out the waters a bit more.
"I think that might be a good idea," Jane said, and nodded. He had already decided that they would head for Hermosillo. Anyone with any connection to Red John was worth seeking out at this point, if only for information. Charlotte had said the man Red John referred to as "padre" disliked Red John, and that could also work in their favour. They had to do something. They couldn't simply run around in the dust of California deserts for the rest of their lives, hoping the Red John problem might go away, living in fear... Jane knew Red John would have to be trapped, and dealt with. The more he could figure out about why Charlotte had returned, and the more he could learn about Red John from her, the better off they all would be.
Charlotte was oddly open, considering her "upbringing", oddly unguarded, and Jane wondered about this aspect of her personality. Had she simply been exposed to so many atrocities and traumas that she had no idea how to relate to people and how to carry on conversations? As much as he wanted to trust Charlotte with open arms, he knew Red John and Red John's ability to use people to his own ends, and at the very back of his mind he couldn't help but fear that Charlotte wasn't as completely innocent or non-threatening as she appeared. When these thoughts came to him, the guilt and sense of looking a gift horse in the mouth was profound and he almost hated himself at those moments, but he had Lisbon to consider. He also had Charlotte to consider. How much of her current behaviour was the lead up to something else? Had she really defied Red John, or did she just believe she had defied him? He knew from her body language that she believed she had escaped Red John, but Red John was a master craftsman when it came to programming people, and Jane couldn't shake the feelings of fear and paranoia niggling in his bowels, at the back of his conscious thoughts, in his stomach. A pervasive fear, not of his child, but of what she might be capable of nonetheless.
Yes, indeed, the paranoia was catching. Finally Charlotte had laced up her chucks. She had gotten changed into a pair of jeans, a green t-shirt and one of the dark green hooded sweatshirts Lisbon had grabbed her. She didn't bother brushing her hair and it stuck up at odd angles, a little like Einstein-hair. Apparently make-up and having nice hair weren't big on Charlotte's lists of priorities. To Jane, lower lip sticking out as she stared at him, waiting for their run, hands holding onto the arm-straps of her backpack, she looked much younger. Her height also led to that illusion. If he hadn't known her age, Jane would have thought she was 10 or 11, not 16. At 4 foot, ten inches she was miniscule.
Even thinking of her as 16 didn't really do her justice, though. She had decades of hellish experiences in her mind, stuff that made Dante's Inferno look puerile and sanitized. She wasn't a child and she wasn't an adult. She was stuck in some hellish twilight zone, and Jane thought she might have entered that space the very day Red John had taken her. And she had stayed there, in a hell, where time and age did not matter.
Jane looked over at Lisbon, then knocked out a rhythm on the desk he had taken to sitting at the night before. 4 knocks, then 1, then 3.
"I'll knock that before I come in, okay Lisbon? Four, one, three?"
She nodded at him, and her pupils were bigger than they should have been. Jane's eyes trailed to the desk and the pad of lined paper on it, the pen. She nodded slightly, and the meaning was clear. Anything she wanted to say to him, but didn't want Charlotte to hear, she could write to him as a letter. He'd read it in the bathroom if he had to. Hardly ideal, but these weren't ideal circumstances. This was survival and Jane couldn't really see Charlotte being out of his earshot any time in the near future.
The motel they were in was right off the interstate, but small, unpaved roads (and one poorly paved road) clotted around the motel like a tumor and ran into the dessert, and Jane nodded towards this. The day was bright and hot, dusty and the sky was shell blue, full of the promise of lightning or thunder or tornadoes or something similar. The air around them smelled of dust and heat and the ancient sprawl of desert, of clay and Jane stretched, looked at Charlotte, who was poised to sprint.
"How long do you usually run for?" Jane asked, conversationally.
Charlotte shrugged, darted a quick look over to her father.
"Usually until I'm tired," she said cryptically, and grinned a little lopsidedly at him. He smiled back.
"You want to set the pace?" Jane asked, full of paternal bonhomie. What his daughter had told him a little under an hour ago still haunted him, and he couldn't imagine how Charlotte had dealt with such a horror show for so long. Running seemed a productive way of dealing with stress, though, and Jane hoped he might be able to chat with her as they loped along in the November dust. The temperature was just starting to cool for the year, just cool enough to reasonably get away with wearing longer sleeves, but that would change the further south they drove.
Charlotte nodded at his comment and began to jog. He easily kept up. They ran for the first five or six minutes in silence, with Charlotte's arms swinging tightly back and forth like a machine. Small, but compact, and fast. A little running automaton.
"You can run faster, if you want," Jane said, trying not to sound winded. Charlotte glanced over at him, expression unreadable.
"You won't be able to keep up," she said, and it was almost a whisper.
"Wanna make that a bet?" Jane huffed with a grin. Charlotte shrugged, and kept her pace. Then, about ten seconds later, she burst into a sprint and Jane trailed her. He'd know there would be a delay, had counted on it, and had been right. He knew how much pent-up energy she had, how much anxiety she had, and the idea of her being cooped up in the car with himself and Lisbon for the next twelve or so hours- without burning some of this incredible anxiety off- was a nasty thought. Charlotte almost flew over the ground, sneakered feet kicking up dust clouds. Jane kept pace, but after the first mile could feel a cramp starting.
Charlotte seemed not to be flagging at all and her eyes had taken on a glaze, her face was fuchsia and Jane knew that if he were to touch her skin, it would be hot and dry. She had consumed so many cups of instant coffee that she was probably dehydrated. About a half mile back they'd both seen a little convenience store called Fletcher's with a giant tin sign (presumably from the 60s) imploring thirsty travelers to "drink Coke!" and an old-fashioned barber shop pole with red, blue and white lines spinning around and up into infinity. Charlotte had glared at the pole and Jane had noticed and squirreled her reaction back into the recesses of his mind for later analysis.
On the way back they'd stop and he'd buy Charlie a popsicle or a fudgsicle or something from the freezer. Maybe get her a can of soda. But right now she was still flying, and despite her short stature, Jane knew that if he didn't focus on running she'd easily outpace him. It was pretty impressive, actually.
8 minutes later, she began to slow. She was breathing hard. Jane watched as she leaned over and spat out a wad of saliva into the dust.
"Can't swallow that, or it'll choke me," she said, eyes minatory. Jane nodded. Thankfully, when she began to move again, it was a brisk walk. Jane slowed his pace and matched her's. He could feel the dry heat in his own cheeks, his heart pounding between his ribs, the burn in his thigh muscles.
"You're very fast," Jane said, making light conversation. He hadn't really been alone with Charlotte since she'd come back into his life, and for all his ease with most people, it was an odd situation. He wanted so badly to reach out and pull her into a hug, kiss her messy hair and promise her she'd be okay. But he knew she wasn't ready for that. Hell, he doubted if she could tolerate being touched, and he didn't want to risk it. He was one of two people responsible for her physical existence, but in so many ways she was a stranger to him.
"What you told me earlier, about what Red John... about what you saw? I know that must have taken a lot of courage. To tell me, tell Lisbon," Jane said and eyed her for the reaction. Charlotte kept her eyes in the distance, deliberately kicked up some dust with her feet. People gave off clues everywhere, if you knew where to look. She shrugged. Now that it was just the two of them, there was no Lisbon to distract him with, no TV to distract him with, nothing between her and him, no block between her father and her memories and emotions and the monsters that haunter her and crept the shadows of her subconscious waiting to pounce. She blinked hard, rubbed at one eye angrily.
"There are dark forces at work in the universe," she said softly, and her voice sounded so forlorn and lost to him that the urge to hug her was even stronger. He had to fight his inclinations.
"I know it must feel like that," Jane agreed and Charlotte shot him an annoyed look.
"It feels like that because they actually exist," she said, and the words were barbed with annoyance, and under them, incredible fatigue. "I'm not crazy, you know."
"I never thought you were," Jane said immediately, and tried to hold her gaze but her eyes wouldn't settle on his for long. Her gaze was like a frightened animal. Whenever he tried to connect his gaze to her's, it faltered and she looked away.
"You think I'm weird," Charlotte said sullenly, remarkably sullenly and Jane felt his stomach twist with pain for her.
"I think you have lived through... almost unimaginable horror, horror beyond banal description," Jane said slowly, looking at his child, at the bright pink curve of her still-innocent features.
"I think you have experienced things very few people have experienced, and that they have shaped you and shaped the way you see the world, so that you see things differently than most people," he said. He took a breath. Exhaled slowly. Tried to think of something to say that didn't sound preachy or patronizing.
"You'd be weird if you didn't behave differently than most people," he finally settled for. Looking straight ahead, Charlotte nodded, but it was a sad nod.
"But you still think I'm crazy, at the end of the day. Take away the fancy words, and that is what you think," she mumbled sadly.
"I don't. I mean it when I say I don't," Jane said, and something hardened in his voice. He stopped walking. Charlotte, a few steps later, stopped and turned back. Her face was red, not just with exertion but sudden humiliation and Jane felt something akin to rage for Red John swell in him. He felt almost possessed.
"What?" she inquired, and her eyes skittered across his face as if she was really looking at him for the first time, as if he had said something cryptic. For a second, just a second, bright green eyes connected with his blue ones and he felt the electricity in her, the pain and the fear. The fear that her father would find her crazy, or lacking, or damaged or somehow wrong. Jane schooled his features into the most gentle of smiles.
"I don't think you're crazy, Charlotte." And he meant it.
She stared at him a second longer. He wanted to hold her gaze, but she looked away. She was shivering, despite the fact that they were in southern California and it was nowhere cold enough to warrant shivering.
"Red John once said I was crazy," Charlotte admitted slowly, and her voice was so soft and so whispery and so hounded by shame that at first Jane wasn't sure she had said anything. He stared at her, eyes narrowing. Told himself not to get angry, not outwardly. She would take his anger personally. He knew that.
"Red John is hardly someone whose opinion I'd take to heart when it comes to mental health," Jane finally said with extreme caution, but despite himself he couldn't keep the sarcasm and anger out of his words. Charlotte raised her head a bit, darted a quick glance and croaked laughter. It was savage, bitter laughter but better than self-hatred.
"Ah, you shouldn't talk like that," she said, but she was at least smiling now. A bitter, knowing smile.
"Why not?" Jane said patiently.
"Red John doesn't like people mocking him. But... but I guess you know that."
Jane stared at his child, then, looked at her. He really looked at her and he felt the twin ghosts of guilt and shame screech through him like dervishes. He immediately thought back to that damned television interview ten years ago, to his cavalierly insulting words and the maelstrom his words had conjured forth. He thought of coming home, of that fucking letter on his bedroom door and the way his stomach felt like it was dropping out of him and onto the floor, the painful cringe of his bowels constricting, the heavy cold pulse of fear in his vascular system and the sense of unreality, of dawning, growing horror as he opened the door and saw that fucking damnable smiley face on the wall... What had Charlotte called the fucking thing? Mitchell the sigil?
Jane blinked away the memory, and returned to reality to find Charlotte watching him carefully.
"I don't think I should have said that to you. I think I inadvertently hurt you just now," she said, almost robotically, and Jane sighed.
"You didn't hurt me, Charlotte. Okay? You didn't hurt me. You don't have to worry about hurting me. I am an adult."
"Red John hurt you," Charlotte said plainly. Jane nodded.
"Yes. Red John did. But you didn't."
"Red John likes to hurt people," Charlotte informed her father, words achingly simple, and she cast another sidelong glance at him. Jane shivered then.
"Yes, he does."
"I'm sorry, Patrick. I wish I could have stopped him," Charlotte said, and her voice came fast now, pressured. Her eyes darted away again, bumped and bobbing over the dusty ground, scanning left and right, and a blush rose on her cheeks anew.
"Oh, Charlie," Jane breathed. He wanted to hug her so, so badly. He wanted to touch her shoulder. Something. She was standing rigidly in the dust, not daring to make eye contact, small hands in little fists. So close, but so far away at the same time. Her hands were eerily similar to the hands she had had as a five year old. It was as if her body had stopped growing, almost. She'd grown a little, but not much. Not really. It was almost as if she had grown for the time she had lived with him and her mother, and then, under Red John's "care", stagnated. Which, Jane knew, probably wasn't far from the truth. Babies died from lack of love and proper attention, even if they were fed and clothed. Jane knew that children would stop growing in the vacuum. It made perfect sense.
"Charlotte, you did the best anybody could have done in this situation. You did everything right. Everything. And I'm so proud of you," Jane said, resolute, and then made himself stop talking. He felt choked up, and his child hardly needed a speech. She nodded dumbly, and he knew she didn't believe him.
"I have done very bad things," she said softly, eyes locked on her shoes. Jane watched her face. Her features were tight, too tight, the mask of someone in profound emotional pain trying to look nonchalant. Eyes hot and glassy, lip pulled into a bloodless line. Rigid, strict control over her emotions. She was reliving something, and she was experiencing guilt over it. And the guilt, of course, was misplaced. Jane wanted to take Red John, and slit his filthy abdomen open, let the man's cursed intestines drop into the dust, wanted to hear him howling in anger and pain, wanted to feel the slippery snake of his bowels as he played with the glistening loop of yellow tissue slicked in blood, fingered it and pulled those fucking guts and clawed and clawed and clawed... Jane swallowed bile down into his belly, and the swallow was so sharp it hurt his throat.
Jane couldn't help but stare at her. Hoped his face didn't look too horrified. Or too furious. He didn't want to look horrified. But he felt horrified. Horror was battling rage for dominance. His brain felt hot and he could smell copper, mercury, some sort of metal heating up...
"You... you did what you had to do, to survive," he finally said and it was a miracle how calm those words were. Not for the first time in his life he was silently thankful for his mastery over his emotions and his voice, his mannerisms. Charlotte shrugged, not convinced by a mile, eyes still on the toes of her shoes. Her shoes were safe. Her shoes would not react.
"I did very bad things. You don't even know, Patrick..." her voice trailed in the dust like a limp and bleeding animal, barely audible now, too weak to continue. She was terrified of admitting this, that much was clear, but she was also terrified of not knowing and not being honest. A horrible, horrible double bind.
"Charlotte," Jane said simply, not sure what else to say. He took a small step towards her. He was on instinctive parent mode. Her pinched, shamed face and little fists and messy hair and the heavy, hard blinking of her eyes like she was trying to blink away bad memories that nobody human should ever have had to endure even the first time around... it was all just too much. As soon as he stepped towards her she stepped away, fast. So fast. Lightning in the desert. He'd known she would, and he had still had to try.
"Don't," she warned him, and he nodded. Don't. Don't touch me, her single word meant. Don't comfort me. Not yet.
"Anything you did, you did to survive. No matter what he told you. I promise you that," Jane said, and he edged steel into his voice, the steel hardness of certainty. Charlotte would still not meet his eyes. She was staring at the dusty ground, at her shoes, and Jane realized with a start that she was breathing far too hard. The breathing pattern of someone about to sob. Or throw up.
"It's okay," Jane said kindly. "It's okay, Charlotte," He thought those words would be the switch and that she would cry, and that that would be better than this self-hatred, but instead she took two shaky steps forward and threw up into the dusty clay earth. Jane winced and turned away, nose flaring at the smell of stomach acid and bile, but he turned back when he heard Charlotte moan, a strangled vociferation. A moan of fear. He turned back and looked, saw the bright red in the dust. Bright red like paint, but obviously not paint. She was bent over, hands on her thighs, gagging and puking on bright red blood and Jane felt his world tilt as his own panic hit him.
"Charlie, shhh, it's okay," he said immediately, instinctively, and he reached forward and gently took her shoulders in his hands. He had held her in these same hands, pink and wrinkled and new and yawning up at him, innocent and ignorant and dependent. He had held her, and carried her and picked her up as a squalling, benighted infant and now she was trembling and coughing up blood, breath fast and laboured and a whine of fear in her throat like it had always been there. She was too sick to pull away but he felt her shivering under his touch, her shivering like electricity that was constant and eternal, body humming like a tuning fork. She kept vomiting, and it looked like a lot of blood. Jane felt the first stirrings of real fear, fear that was thought out and not just an instinctive, chemical reaction to the sight of blood. He edged his voice into the calm, patient sussurrus of a good hypnotist... or paramedic.
"You're stressed. It's okay. You're going to be okay. Just do what your body needs to," he said calmly, much more calmly then he felt. Charlotte was shaking harder now under his hands and when he saw her face his belly and chest shot through with a fresh jolt of panic. Her skin was white, eerily white and ashen, the whites of her eyes huge with terror. She stopped and moaned, terrified by the blood, seconds from full out panic by the looks of things.
"Oh nooooooooooooo," she moaned, and then began to wail from somewhere deep inside herself. She pulled away from him and staggered a few feet and fell onto the ground, moaning. Jane was at her side instantly. He saw her eyes roll and he felt another burst of terror in his own belly and chest.
"Charlotte. It's okay. It's probably an ulcer. From stress."
"He did a potion on me," she managed to get out, and coughed out another spurt of foamy, bile-streaked blood. She was on the verge of a full-fledged freak out, and her eyes were shrill with terror. Jane gently got her to her feet, pulled her to his chest. Her entire body was shaking, shaking violently with terror. If she hadn't been so incredibly terrified he wouldn't have dared touch her, but right now, at this moment in time, he didn't dare not touch her.
"I shouldn't have told you about him or the chicken man, he knows, he knows, he did a potion on me, for betraying him and NOW HE KNOWS and my insides are turning to liquid!" Her voice was going up in volume, shaking, the voice of someone screaming out from the abyss. She was, at that moment, a soul in Hell just as much as any damned human in any 15th century Flemish rendition of damnation. Jane highly doubted Bosch himself had ever laid mortal eyes on someone so undone by sheer, unmitigated terror.
"It's an ulcer, Charlie. It's an ulcer. A bleeding ulcer. Shhhh, come on. Come on, Charlotte, I want you to breathe with me," Jane said, and his words were so calm and so safe that he wondered himself how it was possible.
Charlotte was no longer capable of making words. Her body was shaking so hard that the sounds coming from her mouth were moans of terror, edging into shrieks. Christ. Jane, despite himself, cast a lone prayer to whatever God might be out there to help him gain control here. Charlotte had suffered enough. Hadn't she?
It took a few minutes, but the shrieks began to die down to terrified little moans. Jane was repeating words over and over. You're fine. You're doing well. You just have to let your body calm down now. You're doing great. That's it. This will be over soon, just listen to my voice, just let your body calm down, right now you just have to ride this fear out, but you will, you're doing great...
Combinations of words he'd said a hundred times before in different situations, but it seemed to be helping. He could feel her heart, hammering in her chest as he held her, a terrified animal in his arms. He kept his arms wrapped around her tightly, because he was pretty sure if he lessened his hold she'd take off running and streaking blood across the dessert like some tortured Biblical figure.
"Whatever scary thoughts you're getting in your head, right now, Charlotte, they aren't real. They are just scary thoughts. I'm here. You're going to be okay-" he made sure he didn't speak too fast, or too loud. He swayed her gently, and she quaked with fear, hands clutching and unclutching the fabric of his hooded sweatshirt frenetically. Had her body waited until they were alone to cough up its blood? Under stress the body broke down. The mind and body were inextricably linked. To think that they weren't was a by-product of ignorance of the mind's abilities and influence. Had her body waited until she felt safe to cough up its blood? Or has she just been unable to hold it back?
So he kept talking. Soft, smooth, gentle words. Calm down words. How nice the sky was, how nice the cool breeze was. Cool breeze, what colour was the breeze? In her mind, what colour was it? The cool, gentle breeze blowing in from the coast, from the ocean? He thought it might be mint green and turquoise, maybe with spheres of lavender, but what did she think?
And finally, she was more or less silent in his arms. He was amazed, truth be told. She was awake. He pulled back and looked at her. Still pale. Pupils huge. A smear of blood on her white cheek. Her hands were shaking with adrenaline. But the worst was over.
"My stomach hurts," she said faintly, plaintively and gulped.
"You have an ulcer," Jane said resolutely. He wasn't sure, of course. He wasn't a doctor. But he was pretty sure. It made sense. Charlotte blinked at him.
"I'm not dead," she said eventually, and the words crept out, unsure of themselves.
"No," Jane said, sotto voce, and smiled. "No, you're not dead." He suddenly wanted to laugh. He was shaky himself, overwhelmed, and he was certain the smile on his face was too big. But so be it.
"I thought it was a spell he put on me," the teenager said dazedly. She jerked and spit whatever was left into the dust. "My stomach hurts," she told Jane again.
"Do you get stomach aches a lot? Stomach pain?" He queried, already reasonably sure of the answer.
"Uh huh," Charlotte said tremulously. Her eyelids looked droopy now. That level of fear ate up an enormous amount of energy.
"For how long?" Jane asked calmly. He still had one hand on her shoulder, and that seemed to be okay. For now, at least. She shrugged.
"A long time. But never... never..." She wouldn't say the word blood. Maybe she couldn't. She motioned her head in the direction of the bloody stomach acid in the dust, and Jane got her meaning.
"Okay. Are you in a lot of pain right now?" His voice was still so incredibly calm. Charlotte shrugged.
"My stomach hurts," She said a third time, and winced, as if to show him what pain was.
"Where?" Jane asked. Charlotte pointed to her abdomen, exactly where her stomach was.
"On a scale of 1 to 10, Charlie, how bad?"
Charlotte gave him a blank look. "I don't know what that means."
"How bad does it hurt?" Jane tried again.
"I can walk," Charlotte said, which wasn't really an answer, but maybe was the only sort of answer his child was capable of. "And I can talk."
"Okay," Jane said. Ran her responses through his head and shivered. Had there ever been a time when she was in so much pain she couldn't walk or talk? Jesus.
"You remember that little store we ran by earlier? The convenience store?" Jane said kindly. He began to walk slowly, and she walked beside him. Still pale. But walking. Nodding. Awake and aware.
"Yeah."
"We're going to stop in there and I'll get us some things. Some gatorade and pepto bismal and some tylenol. Okay? Maybe some pudding. Do you like vanilla pudding?" Jane was chatting now, boring stuff. Stuff that didn't matter.
"I thought he had put a spell on me, and I was going to die," Charlotte said dazedly, not distracted from her thoughts by Jane's talk of pudding and slurpees and ginger ale. Her fear had made her temporarily forget to hold her tongue. Jane nodded understandingly.
"But he didn't. He can't do that. You'll be okay," Jane said. He wanted to mean the words, but Charlotte's fear was catching. What, exactly, could Red John do? Jane felt a more pronounced chill run through his veins and nerves and fought to keep his face placid.
"Maybe the crazy chicken man made it so I can't die. Or maybe... maybe he did something. Do you think that could be it? Maybe that is it," Charlotte said, voice almost slurred with fear and adrenaline, almost drunk-sounding. She let out a hysterical little laugh of relief. Jane considered her. She was hobbling along. She'd just had one hell of a shock, and she'd thrown up blood. He thought it was a bleeding ulcer, but he wasn't sure. The hospital was out unless he thought her life was in immediate danger. A walk in clinic, perhaps? He had fake ID and enough cash. If things got bad, maybe he could take her into a walk-in place, just for a quick assessment.
"I'm not going to die," Charlotte mumbled to herself. Her hands were still in little fists. She stopped and pulled her backpack off her shoulders. Jane helped her. She shakily zipped it open and pulled out the plush devil doll, pulled it to her chest. Sniffed it. Closed her eyes. Jane watched her sadly. After a moment she opened her eyes and dug around a bit more in her pack.
"I still... I still have some chocolate pudding pies," she said offhandedly, not really addressing her father. Jane smiled despite himself.
"Charlie, you just got sick. Maybe chocolate pudding pies are not the best idea-"
"I think I'll have one," Charlotte told the wide open November desert and pulled a Little Debbie chocolate pie out of the box, ripped the plastic off it with her teeth and let the plastic flutter to the ground, forgotten.
"Charlotte, how about we get some fluid into you?" Jane tried, but Charlotte was apparently in her own world. She shoved the box of chocolate pies back into her backpack, zipped it up, and shrugged the backpack back onto her shoulders. She took a small bite from the pastry and seemed to nod, then put the unwrapped chocolate pie minus one bite in the kangaroo pouch of her hoody and held her stuffed devil to her face. Her eyes looked tired and dreary. No wonder.
"I didn't meant to scare you, Patrick. I'm sorry about that," she said, words still faintly slurred. Adrenaline overload. Her father looked at her, disbelief crossing over his features like a passing cloud.
"You never have to apologize to me," Jane said. He felt like he was dreaming. This entire day was becoming more and more surreal. Could mammals smell fear and shock and the hormones and chemicals associated with them on other animals? Was it a subconscious thing, something humans could actually smell without consciously knowing it? Jane considered this. It made evolutionary sense. And, right now, he was certain that the fear coming off Charlotte was an actual smell. An actual mishmash of scents, the acrid smells of terror. Terror mixing with desert dust.
"Here, you hold Bunsen," Charlotte said and handed her father the plush toy. He took it. Sniffed it, much as she had. It smelled of febreze fabric refresher and, vaguely, marijuana. They walked slowly towards the convenience store, Charlotte's face still pale under the scarlet flush of exertion, but her movements were steadier now. She kept blinking her eyes, hard, as if trying to wake herself up, but she was steady on her feet and not quite as deathly pale.
Jane pushed away the uncertain thought that he didn't know what he would have done if she hadn't stopped screaming, or hadn't stopped bleeding...
Lisbon had written Jane a quick note, and folded the sheet up into a little cube. She intended to hand it to him when he came in the door.
Jane, I'll support whatever decisions you're making, but I think we might want to think about contacting the media and then the FBI. I will support whatever decision you make, though, I want you to know that. I don't know what else to write, this is an unusual situation. Do you think Rigsby and Cho are okay? Do you think they know what we did? Charlotte's comments didn't unduly upset me, so please don't worry about that. Focus on her and I will help any way I can. We will keep her safe, Jane. She'll be okay.
Lisbon had rewritten the note four times. Everything looked wrong to her, but that was the gist of what she wanted to say, so she had decided to just write it, simply like that. She considered Charlotte and the teen's comments and odd behaviour and found herself filled with a profound, overwhelming grief for the young girl partnered with an already fierce desire to protect her. She knew, even without DNA test results, that Charlotte was Jane's child. She had Jane's eyes, except they were bright, electric green as if live voltage was coursing just behind them through that strange little feral brain. Live-current-eyes. Lisbon had never seen such bright, green eyes before, such intense eyes. Not in a human, anyway. She had seen a feral cat as a child, once, and it had stared at her like that for a second, before disappearing into a copse of trees.
Charlotte had Jane's oversized grin and his light, golden hair, but her hair was naturally curly almost to the point of frizz. Unlike Jane, she was sloppier, more cavalier in her dress and mannerisms. Lisbon thought the girl was charming, cute, a little savage in her mannerisms and eye contact, disturbed, traumatized, vulnerable and eerily intuitive. The combination of those traits was a bit disorienting, and she knew that Jane was disoriented and off-balance by the entire situation, though he was handling himself excellently. Physically Lisbon was small, herself, but Charlotte wasn't even five feet and was built wiry. Lisbon couldn't be sure, but she suspected that in a violent situation, Charlotte would naturally be fast and scrappy, as she, herself, was.
The door opened then and Lisbon looked up from the soap opera she'd been staring blankly at on the television screen. Some rich white guy in his sixties was in a coma and histrionic women and men with tans and dazzling white teeth were plotting the best way to get the coma-dude's money. Then... the door being opened. Lisbon felt a sudden jolt of panic, but the chain caught. Jane had said he'd tap out a knock (4-1-3) but there hadn't been any knock. Immediately, she heard Jane's voice and the stress in it, the repressed fear. Something had happened while they'd been out, that much was obvious, something massive enough to push all thoughts of the door knock out of Jane's head.
"Lisbon? It's us. I forgot the knock. 4-1-3."
She got up immediately and went to the door and took the chain off. Jane gave her a meaningful look she couldn't puzzle out and entered. Charlotte trailed behind him, carrying a plastic bag full of unknown objects. Lisbon stared, a bit startled and worried. The girl was scarily pale, and there was a streak of bright red blood on her cheek. Her pupils were huge as saucers, incredibly black, eclipsing out that electric green. Lisbon looked at Jane for answers. He shrugged and gave her the slightest shake of the head to indicate that he didn't know what was going on, but that whatever it was wasn't good.
"Charlie got sick. We think it's an ulcer," Jane said, darting his child a protective, paternal glance.
"I threw up blood," Charlotte said earnestly, looking at Lisbon with her hugely dilated (alien) eyes and that glaring streak of red on her cheek. Lisbon nodded slowly.
"But maybe, maybe... it's not an ulcer. Patrick thinks it's an ulcer. But that's not what I think-"
"What do you think it is?" Lisbon asked immediately, despite the look Jane was shooting her. She had to know. She just... had to know.
"I think Red John tried to kill me from afar, maybe by asking the chicken man for help. But I think the chicken man stopped it somehow. He likes me, you know."
Lisbon shot Jane a look of confusion and fear. Jane's eyes were full of warring emotions: anger, concern, fear, protectiveness, dismissive denial.
Charlotte went to her bed, then, and upended the bag of goodies, paying no mind to either one of the adults.
"You okay while we were gone?" Jane asked conversationally, and his voice was unnaturally light and blase. Lisbon nodded, a profound nod of understanding. She could tell from Jane's expression that the teen had been frightened and was now acting tough, that they were on thin ice, at least emotionally, and that Jane was worried about his child. Lisbon approached Charlotte's bed and assessed the girl. She could feel the fear and stress coming off her, almost like heat or radiation. Charlotte's black, dilated eyes scanned over the items. Lisbon saw pepto bismal, tums, children's tylenol (grape flavoured chewables), two 4-packs of vanilla pudding, a box of Mike and Ikes Jolly Joes (grape flavoured candies, of course), a can of Canada Dry ginger ale, a box of Dramamine chewable tablets (orange flavour), a little plastic trash can that apparently housed candies, a package of neon blue licorice covered in what looked like sugar, a package of Garbage Pail Kids stickers (Lisbon was surprised to see them, had thought they'd stopped making them ages ago), a Sudoku digest and another box of Little Debbie's chocolate pies. Jane nodded at Lisbon's look of concern, and approached Charlotte himself, moving slowly, knowing that moving quickly would freak his daughter out. Right now, she seemed more animal than human. Charlotte already had her hands on the remote control, though, and had turned the channel back to the cartoons.
"Charlie?" Jane said, crouching down a little near her bed, on top of which she was sitting cross-legged again. "You might want to wash your face, okay?"
"I think Southpark is coming on," Charlotte said, flicking through channels, not responding to his words. Lisbon bit down on the small smile she felt ready to burst onto the scene. Jane could make anybody do almost anything, he just seemed to have that power, but Charlotte, apparently, was not affected. Even after a sudden, major shock she was able to tune out his hypnotic charm.
Jane nodded. Decided not to push it. Charlotte pulled the partially eaten chocolate pie out of her kangaroo pouch and took another fast bite.
"Your stomach still hurt?" Jane asked gently, and sat down on the corner of her bed. She shrugged, as if indifferent, but her face was lined with stress. Panic crept just under the surface, barely restrained.
"I think the crazy chicken man put a block on Red John," Charlotte muttered again, and her hugely dilated eyes scanned the channels for Southpark. Sure enough, there it was. Charlotte grinned immediately, and turned up the volume. Eric Cartman was screaming about something being unfair, and swearing, and one of the other characters was telling him to shut up. Lisbon hadn't really ever watched the show.
"How about you take a tylenol and maybe some dramamine?" Jane wondered aloud. Charlotte darted him an exasperated look, stared at him with annoyance, but the utter blackness of her eyes was eerie.
"This is the episode with the crack baby basketball team," Charlotte said, an apparent non sequitur.
Jane picked up the box of anti-nauseants and handed it gently to his daughter. She took it, looked at it, and tossed it back into the pile.
"Dramamine makes me sleepy," she said, and the meaning in that was clear. She didn't want to be knocked out. Jane nodded. He understood. He would have been surprised if being out of control hadn't been an issue for her.
"How about some tylenol and pepto bismal, then?" He knew that over the counter medications wouldn't do much for a bleeding ulcer, but he wanted to do something. As a parent, he needed to do something. And the hospital was out unless things got much worse.
Charlotte sighed, reached over, and grabbed up the bottle of Pepto Bismal. She pulled off the plastic safety seal, unscrewed the cap and removed the foil insert and took a swig from the bottle, then looked over at Jane expectantly. He nodded his thanks and walked briskly to the bathroom. Lisbon heard the faucet turn on for a second, then he came back carrying a wet washcloth. He handed it to Charlotte, and motioned his own left cheek. The meaning was clear. Charlotte took the washcloth, sighed, and rubbed it over her cheek, sighing with exasperation to let him know just how much effort it took to wipe her face. The blood disappeared, leaving only a faint rosy streak. She handed the cloth back to Jane, apparently finished with hygiene, and turned back to the show. He took it and carried it back to the washroom. The faucet turned on and off again as Jane presumably rinsed the blood out of the face cloth. Jane came back out.
"So, I think we'll be leaving in a little bit. Okay?" Jane said, looking at Lisbon, but his comment was directed at Charlotte. She furrowed her brow and turned the television's volume up a bit more.
"According to this, you now own all the rights to Crack Baby Basketball and we get nothing!"
"Yes, our lawyers are damned good. But you didn't get nothing! Why, you boys got experience, didn't ya? You got a chance to play in the big leagues! Sure, we here at EA might have made all the money but you little workers had the chance to make something of yourselves! I'd give you some free video games, but... it's against the rules!"
"You can't do this! We were going to build an orphanage! So the crack babies have somewhere to go!"
"Ohhh? Well... fuck 'em!"
"Charlie? I want to get us back on the road soon. We're going to drive straight through."
Charlotte sighed again. Jane knew she could hear him, could almost see the gears turning in her head. She glanced back over at the stuff on her bed, snaked her hand out and grabbed the dramamine. If she was going to be stuck in a car for any length of time, stressed out and wired, then maybe being a bit drowsy thanks to dramamine wasn't the worst of all worlds. Jane watched as she tore open the cardboard box, fumbled with the foil packet and popped out two children's chewables. She chewed them quickly, then grabbed the can of ginger ale and popped the tab and took an inordinately noisy slurp. Then she reached out a hand for the box of grape Mike and Ikes. Her reward, apparently.
"How long before we leave?" Charlotte said, and she sounded so forlorn that Jane wanted to tell her, okay, fine, they would stay another day. But he knew that the desire to just rest would take over, and that once that happened, the fear would take over. They would become paralyzed by indecision, then paralyzed by paranoia of Red John, his cronies, the FBI and every shadow and noise in the night. Ever howl of wind or creak or animal sound would be death coming on two legs. He wanted to get them back on the road, he wanted to get to Red John before Red John had a chance to get to them. Every hour they remained in the US was gnawing at Jane, freaking him out on a gut level, and he knew it would only get worse, this feeling of profound fear.
"How much longer is this show on?" Jane said reasonably and Charlotte got his message. They were going... and soon. No amount of talking and sucking up and giving her father puppy dog eyes would change that. He'd smile at her, grin at her, and carry her to the car if he had to. Charlotte knew it. Jane knew Charlotte knew it. So much could be said between intuitive people without words.
"15 minutes. But there is another one on after," Charlotte muttered, a last ditch effort.
"Okay, we'll leave in 15 minutes, then. I am going to go put our stuff in the car. Lisbon... you want to watch Southpark?" Jane said, and Lisbon knew that his question was not really a question, but a request. Lisbon nodded at him. Charlotte made an annoyed "shut up" gesture and shushed them and that got a grin out Jane.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Lisbon was also grinning.
"Jeez, people, talk during the commercials, will you?" Charlotte muttered, irritation masking her growing fear, and she turned the television up a few more notches.
Friday, November 2, 2013 12:48 P.M. P.S.T.
They were finally back on the road. Jane was in the passenger seat. He had to get some shut eye or he'd be absolutely useless, but he knew Charlotte, at the very least, needed her own space. Charlotte was camped out across the backseats, all of the stuff Lisbon had purchased for her and Jane had got her in bags on the floor. Her backpack became a pillow Jane suddenly wished he'd asked Lisbon to pick her up a sleeping bag or something similar to burrow under. She had swiped one of the motel towels and was cuddled underneath it, listening to songs on the MP3 player, eyes still dilated (although Jane suspected at this point the dramamine had something to do with it). Lisbon noticed the towel after a few minutes on the road and raised her eyebrows. Jane just smiled. It wasn't worth commenting on.
Lisbon had managed to pass her note to Jane and he had obviously read it. He had caught her eyes the first trip back from the car and nodded. The nod was a nod of thanks. He'd sleep, he'd recharge and reassess the situation. He knew that Lisbon understood the gravity of the situation: no government-run agency was "safe" from Red John and his moles, and they could not afford to let anything happen to Charlotte. Lisbon knew that if "something" were to happen to Charlotte this late in the game, that would be it. Red John would win. Jane would go crazy, Lisbon was quite sure of that.
From the back seat, there was the noise of movement. Lisbon flicked her eyes to the rear-view mirror. Charlotte had pulled her earbuds out of her ears and was sitting up. She rubbed at her eyes, and the gesture was so childish that Lisbon grinned.
"Are you going to go to sleep, now, Patrick?" She said, groggy.
"Yes, I hope so," Jane said, from the front passenger seat.
"Good. You need to sleep or you won't be able to think," Charlotte responded, utterly serious. Then, to Lisbon: "Did you get enough sleep, Lisbon?"
Lisbon smiled, nodded. "I'm fine. Thanks."
"Good. I don't want anything bad to happen to you guys," she said, drowsily. Then, as if to remind them both that she was neither a child nor an idiot: "Metabolic wastes collect in the cells when organisms are sleep deprived. Sleep is essential to proper health. Lack of sleep drives humans in-fucking-sane." Then she put her earbuds back in.
"Hmm," Jane said sleepily, nodding his head.
Lisbon grinned over at Jane. He still had his eyes closed, but was expecting her glance, apparently, because even with his eyes closed he was smiling at her. Lisbon turned her attention back to the road. Jane had asked for a good 6 uninterrupted hours. They were 20 minutes south of Fresno on the Interstate 5. Los Angeles was a good 3 and a half hours away, San Diego (where Jane had asked to be woken up) was a little over 6 hours if Lisbon kept 10 miles under the speed limit. Which she planned to do. She was not about to risk getting them pulled over by the highway patrol.
From the backseat, Charlotte asked: "Are we going to just go through customs? Straight to Mexico? Do you know where we are going, Lisbon?"
"I am taking us to San Diego," Lisbon said, eyeing Jane. His smile got bigger and he nodded.
"No, we have to go to Hermosillo, in Mexico," Charlotte said, voice somewhat agitated. Jane slit an eye open.
"Lisbon is driving us straight on the I-5 to San Diego, Charlie, so I can sleep. Then I'll drive us to Hermosillo."
"The I-5 runs through both Los Angeles and San Diego," Charlotte said resolutely.
"Mmmm hmmm," Jane said tiredly from his seat.
"Chula Vista is about 8 miles outside of San Diego. And the border is about 30 minutes from San Diego, by car," Charlotte informed the adults in the front seat. She had been looking over the road map for the last ten minutes, apparently.
"Yes, that is why we are stopping in San Diego, so we can change drivers," Jane murmured. His cells were screaming for sleep.
"Do you think it will be hard to get through the border?" Charlotte said, then, and she seemed a little worried. Jane shook his head and opened his eyes.
"No, it will be easy. It's getting back into the country that poses a slight problem," Jane said, and yawned. "But not too much of a problem, not even then."
"Do you have fake ID?" Charlotte pestered. "You have to have fake ID, Patrick..."
"I do. In a rental mail box. In San Diego," Jane's words were slurring over with sleep. "So there is no need to worry."
Lisbon, driving, shot a look over at Jane. He shrugged, seemed to intuitively know she was watching him. "Be prepared, Lisbon. It works for the boy scouts."
"I doubt you were ever a boy scout," Lisbon volleyed back, lips tweaking up even at the idea of Patrick Jane even pretending to be a boy scout.
"What about Lisbon? Does she have fake ID?" Charlotte pressed.
"I have fake ID for Lisbon, too," Jane said tiredly, and Lisbon gave Jane an amazed look.
"You do?" Lisbon said. Jane opened his eyes to see the expression on her face, and smiled a brilliant, delighted smile at her incredulity.
Jane nodded.
"Why?" Lisbon asked, disbelief still evident in her voice.
Jane shrugged tiredly, as if procuring fake ID for one's colleagues was a mundane, everyday sort of task. "Why not?"
"So, I imagine you have fake ID for Rigsby and Cho and Van Pelt, too?" Lisbon pressed. Jane let his eyes fall closed again, apparently no longer interested enough in the conversation to keep them open.
"Nahhh."
"Why not?" Lisbon pressed, attention split between the highway and her sleeping partner.
"Rigsby is quite obviously American. Can you imagine him as anything other than an American? I sure can't. Rigsby is as American as apple pie, Lisbon, and it's clear to anyone who is looking. Van Pelt would never go for this, so why waste time and energy on making her ID? And Cho is on his own."
"That's not really an answer," Lisbon muttered, somewhere between amused and annoyed.
"Because he knew you would be the only one coming with us," Charlotte piped up helpfully from the backseat. Lisbon looked in the rear-view mirror at the kid, saw her smiling up at Lisbon.
"Listen to my kid, Lisbon. She's wise beyond her years. Now, ladies, I really must go to sleep," Jane said, and he yawned for effect and lay his head back down against the passenger side window with a soft, happy murmur. He hadn't slept at all since Charlotte had arrived on the scene, and he knew he had to recharge. It was no longer something that could be put off.
"Wake me up when we get to San Diego, too, okay Lisbon?" Charlotte said drowsily. So far, she had spent most of her time either sleeping or watching television, but Lisbon still nodded.
"Yeah, okay."
"Or... or if you need me, of course," Charlotte muttered, and her words were awkwardly bashful. "Hermosillo is about 8 or 9 hours drive from San Diego. It will take a while. We won't be there today."
Jane, head resting on the glass, smiled widely in his almost-sleep and Lisbon smiled, too and turned the car radio on.