Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter 17)
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: Hi guys, this will be an experiment, this chapter, to see if I can write something of quality within 24 hours and upload it. It might be a shorter chapter than usual, but I don't like having too-long gaps between chapter updates. It feels cruel to do that to readers. Thanks. Also, important, my sister made me a Charlotte's Web music video when I first started writing this and I feel you guys would get a kick out of it. I prefer to listen to it paired with Santana's Put Your Lights On. I think she did an exceptional job putting clips together and I think it really fits with this fic. If you like this fic, check out the music video (and you can listen to the original version or pair it with Santana, like I do). Go here: www dot youtube dot com/watch?v=PGJ6S95IzIE (obviously you need to take the dots out and write the url properly). I really hope you guys enjoy where I go with this and especially the big reveal with Red John. I have spent a lot of time trying to plan RJ out so that it does justice to the show (frankly, the canon version of RJ fell flat for me). SO "my" RJ is not the show's RJ, and this story is definitely AU, but I hope you still enjoy it.
"Pain produces progress. So if you truly love me, you will try to hurt me as much as you can. If you really want me to grow as a person, you will water me with betrayal, abuse, neglect, derision, thievery, and possibly even torture." Jarod Kintz, Love quotes for the ages. Specifically ages 18-81.
"'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat. 'We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be," said the Cat. 'or you wouldn't have come here.'"
Saturday, November 3, 2013 2:36 pm PST
Lisbon was driving the truck and they were back on the road, Jane and Charlotte hunkering down back in the airstream. Charlotte was lying down on top of her folded blankets, arms folded under her head, face flushed, hair sweaty. Jane could still smell the juicy fruit. He wasn't sure what to say to her. She was watching him carefully, and the pain in her eyes, and the fear, the wariness... reminded him of a feral cat that has been abused and gotten away, but still sniffs around humans, hoping for a handout of food. Jane could remember holding her as a baby, naked save for her diapers, her slightly-too-big mouth cracking into a huge smile, her eyes more blue than green then, full of intense curiosity and awe for existence. Her first word had been "Dada", much to Jane's delight, and he had waltzed around with her next to his chest in the evenings, when she was fussy, until she smiled and cooed.
His little Charlie. Red John had taken her and turned her into a feral, disturbed animal. But she was still baby Charlie in a lot of ways. Jane could see it in her eyes, that longing for safety and to be a kid, that longing to be, finally, safe. Or was he just projecting that onto her? He didn't think so. But these types of situations- a child coming back into a famous mentalist parent's life after a decade of being assumed dead, murdered and in the ground, and being raised by a serial killer? Not exactly typical. Jane was a mentalist, but he still made mistakes and most of his correct "guesses" were based on average, relatively typical situations. Nothing about this situation was average or typical.
"That was very mature of you to leave the beer. Thank you," Jane started. He sat down on the seat across from Charlotte, across the airstream. He felt a bit like a therapist, now, analyzing her. In reality, all mentalists were therapists of sorts- or at least had the same skills. They analyzed people, picked apart their fears and their motivations and figured their clients out before the clients figured themselves out. The main difference was that it was the therapist's job to aid the client towards understanding of the self and subconscious processes, while the mentalist capitalized on his or her understanding of the client's mental processes, by manipulating the scene and manipulating the client's perception of what the mentalist was capable of... Red John was a master at it, and because of that, Jane felt something akin to shame wash over him. He would help Charlotte, be he refused to manipulate her. At least... he refused to manipulate her as much as he could, as much as he could while still keeping her safe. If she needed to be manipulated to get her out of danger, then obviously that was to be permitted...
"Huh?" Charlotte said. She seemed lost in thought. Exhausted. Jane noted, not for the first time, just how much sleep she seemed to require. It made sense. She was running on fumes most of the time, in near-constant fight or flight. Even when she slept, she jerked and startled and called out. She lived on the edge of panic, like a rat stuck in an aquarium with a snake. But for ten years. For ten years with a snake...
"That was mature of you to leave the beer. Thank you," Jane repeated. He meant it. He wasn't angry with her. He knew why she had self-medicated. Who could blame her? He was amazed she was still alive, truth be told. Amazed and deeply thankful to the God Charlotte professed belief in. It seemed miraculous that his baby daughter could have been kidnapped and raised by Red John and be here with him now, alive, and more-or-less sane. Sure- she had deep psychological issues, who wouldn't?- but she was pretty sane. Fairly sane. Nothing some therapy and sleep and time on the beach and a stable home life couldn't undo (or so Jane kept telling himself at the back of his mind...). With time. Even if it took a decade. She was alive. Where there was breath, there was hope...
"I am sorry I upset you," Charlotte said, still watching her father. "I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't mean to hurt you."
Jane smiled rigidly at this. He had been hurt, but not by Charlie. By the situation. By the fact that he had failed his child, however unwillingly that failure may have been. He had failed her. His little cherub-faced baby.
She had only been five. Not even aware of the big things in life yet, like sex or death or that people can say one thing and mean another. Only five, and she had seen her mother killed and she had been kidnapped by a sadist. She had... she had been hurt by him. His little baby. The baby he had waltzed around with in the living room at night when she had colic or a fever, hushing her, stroking her mostly-bald head to soothe her, baby fat hands gripping around his fingers, fingernails like tiny shards of glass, impossibly tiny... His little baby girl. His little princess, with the giant, innocent eyes and the garbled, screamed and triumphant "words". Jane had known early she was intelligent, just by how forcefully she attempted to speak. Screaming out random syllables and then grinning, like what she had "said" made sense, toothless gums splitting into a grin, long eyelashes batting sweetly. It had been impossible not to love her, the epitome of precocious (but always- truth be told- slightly crazy) cute.
Charlotte had come out of her mother independent and funny, red-faced and outraged at her own birth. I was warm and then there were lights and assholes picking at me! Leave me alone, you assholes! I am trying to sleep! Loud and fussy but prone, also, to huge grins, loud coos, screams of delight. Jane could remember being in the mall with her and Angela and Charlie-at-almost-a-year. There had been people dressed up in Halloween costumes half a month early and Charlie had screamed in delight. Screamed so loudly that other shoppers turned to look in alarm, but saw the baby smiling, mouth moving, eyes bright and excited. And they had smiled as Jane grinned like the Cheshire cat and Angela laughed. Charlie was a firecracker, that is what Angela had said.
"Dada! Monner!" Dada, Monster.
"I see, Charlie," Jane had said.
"Monner! Monner!"
"Yes. Halloween monsters."
She clapped her hands happily.
"Vamp-er!" Vampire. Not yet a year and she knew these words, even if she couldn't pronounce them.
"Yes, very good, that's a vampire."
"Wolf! Wooolllfff!"
"Yes, that is a wolf, isn't it?"
"Dog-gie?"
"Now, I think you were right the first time. I think that's a werewolf."
"Where?" She looked confused. She looked around with baby eyes. "Where? Where? Dog?"
"Werewolf," Jane said again, grinning, and kissed her head.
"Ooooh, monner! Monner! Monner-man! Oooooooh!" Pointing and squealing.
"Monster man, yes."
Angela had been feeling faint. Angela had had low blood sugar. They had walked to the food court and Angela had gotten sushi at Jade Palace and shared it with Patrick, and Patrick had purchased himself and his baby daughter a cinnabon cinnamon bun (Charlie loved them even if Angela thought they were far too sugary). Charlie had screamed, of course, as Jane cut the warmed pastry into bite sized pieces and buttered it.
"Cinna-bon-bon-BON!" She screamed this and a family with young children eating Burger King at a nearby table looked over and grinned. The little boy with them, maybe eight years old, laughed and pointed at the loud, excited and blissful baby.
"Cinna-bon-BON-BON!" Charlotte screamed again and Patrick began to laugh. Angela's brow wrinkled.
"Patrick, don't encourage her. She can't always scream like that in public..."
Patrick nodded, but he didn't really care. This was adorable.
"Bon-bon-BON!" Charlie screamed and Patrick gently offered a piece of the cinnamon bun. She took it and smelled it. Got cinnamon sugar-goo on the end of her nose. Licked the doughy, sugary piece of pastry. Grinned. Pushed the piece of cinnamon bun into her mouth and chewed sloppily, mouth open, pieces of partially eaten cinnamon bun falling out onto the table. Swallowed. Clapped her hands. She didn't have all her baby teeth yet.
"Cinna-bon-BON-BON!"
"Charlie, baby, shhhhh," Angela said, and put her finger to her lips. "Shhhhh. Inside voice, baby."
"Inside voice," Jane agreed, smiling.
"In-nide voy?" She was like a strange little mostly-bald alien (still, at almost-a-year, she was more or less hairless except for some wispy golden tufts). Intelligent but completely without manners, bright and innocent and hilarious. She was Patrick Jane's little extra-terrestrial and he loved the stuffing out of her.
"Quiet. We have to be quiet. We are in the mall. We have to use our inside voices." Jane said this tenderly and looked over at Angela for approval. See? He was training her. He was setting boundaries. Angela smiled at her husband, smiled at her baby daughter. Charlotte was Patrick all over again, but a little-girl Patrick with bright green eyes and a wider smile, and, if possible, a more crazy personality. She loved her husband. She loved her baby daughter. But the two of them together were like some odd comedy routine.
"In-nide Voy-cess!" Charlotte screamed happily. Clapped her hands. Jane fed her another piece of cinnamon bun. Angela snorted.
"Here you are, baby," He said tenderly and Angela rolled her eyes.
"And we wonder why she doesn't calm down..." Angela muttered, and dipped another piece of California roll in the soy sauce and wasabi mixture she had made on her plate.
Charlotte had loved her mother, but she had always been her Daddy's little girl. Jane had dolled her up in pink, and she had put up with it- not because she was a pretty-in-pink princess, she wasn't- but because she knew it made her father happy to spoil her and put her in curls and ruffles. Plenty of times he had come home to find Charlie stomping around in mud in the backyard that hadn't been there when he'd left, created by the hose and Charlotte's hands, pink dress smeared, Angela irritated and laughing at the same time.
"Can we get her some boy clothes now? She is not the type to sit around having tea parties, Patrick."
He had smiled and nodded. She wasn't. She wasn't a girly-girl, but he loved her no matter how she acted. So around the age of 4 he had purchased her an entire line of osh-kosh-b'gosh denim overalls and cute little pastel shirts that would be easier to get mud stains out of, and Angela had put her golden curls up in pigtails with white ribbons, and she was still adorable, even mud-stained. Maybe even more adorable.
"You okay?" Charlie asked and Jane blinked. He'd been lost in memories. His baby- now 15 years older than that one year old baby- was watching him with the same fever-bright eyes.
"I'm okay," Jane confirmed, looking at her. Charlotte nodded and closed her eyes.
"I am so tired," she told her father softly, eyes shut. Charlotte didn't wear makeup, but the skin over her eyelids was dark purple. She looked tired.
"I know," Jane said, nodding.
"I don't want to die," Charlotte told him, eyes still closed. Did she have her eyes closed so she could confess these things to him without having to see his reactions? Jane entertained to possibility, filed away the idea for further analysis later.
"You're not going to die," Jane said immediately, but he knew as the words came out that that statement wouldn't sit well with Charlotte. She wasn't a baby, and she wouldn't just accept meaningless platitudes of comfort, no matter how well intentioned.
"I might die," Charlie said, and her eyes slit open like a cat. "I might. You might, too."
"I am not going to die, either," Jane said this again.
"You might. It's hard to say what will happen. I don't think Lisbon will die. Red John likes her and she isn't directly involved with this whole thing..." Charlotte informed her father tiredly. Jane nodded. What else could he do?
Charlie was quiet for a moment, eyes closed, face pale under the flushed cheeks. Jane ran possible scenarios through her head. Was she sick? He doubted she had seen a doctor in a long time... a real doctor. Sure, RJ wouldn't have let her get sick as a child, but she had been emancipated now for a while and she didn't seem like the type to keep on top of annual doctor check ups and tooth cleanings. She seemed perpetually fatigued. A lot of it was- obviously- mental strain, constant stress. But she had also thrown up blood. Jane would make sure she saw a doctor after they were done with Red John.
"Red John is my suzerain," Charlotte whispered tiredly. Sighed. Jane watched her.
"Your suzerain?"
"A state expressing dominance over another state. Like China, over Tibet," Charlotte repeated this as if by rote.
"I know what the word means. I just... how is Red John your suzerain?"
"He just is," Charlotte said this sleepily. "He owns me."
"He doesn't own you," Jane said carefully, trying not to let his own anger leak into the words. Charlotte would become overstimulated by anger, no matter who it was intended for.
"He does, Patrick," the girl said, her breath a shadow. "He has marked me."
"Marked you?" Jane said, and there was an edge to his words. That could mean so many things... He wanted to be sure. But he felt a sudden glut of adrenaline spike into his blood, a cringing feeling in his stomach.
"You mean mentally?" Jane pressed. Charlotte sighed. Shook her head.
"Physically?" Jane tried again.
"You'll be angry..." Charlotte said softly, eyes slit open. "You'll be so angry."
"I won't be angry with you," Jane said stiffly, and he meant it. He would never be angry with Charlotte.
"You won't view me the same," Charlotte said. She still had enough of the beer in her to make her open and talkative, but it as wearing off, and with it, a profound fatigue. She was nearing the shadow of the valley of death and she wanted to escape. She couldn't physically escape, so she was mentally shutting down. Sleep could be an escape when nothing else was.
"I... Charlie, I love you. I think you're telling me these things for a reason. I think you are," Jane said this carefully. His daughter was reaching out to him. He knew that. She wanted to share things with him, wanted to be free of the burden of living with the nightmares and the horrors she had lived with. But she also had lots of conditioning to work through, lots of pain and fear. Jane sighed, caught himself. Used his best therapist-mentalist voice.
"You can tell me anything, and I will not be angry. I will understand. You know that, don't you?"
"I can't show you the whole thing..." Charlotte began. She opened her eyes a bit more. "If... Patrick? If I ever tired to hurt you? If I became possessed by a demon or something, and was trying to hurt you? Would you kill me?"
"What?" Jane said, stunned despite everything. He hadn't been planning for that comment.
"If I ever attacked you and was going to harm you, would you kill me? To survive?"
"I would never hurt you," Jane said resolutely.
"No, no. I want you to. Instead of me killing you. Okay? You have to promise me, Patrick..."
"Charlie, you're not going to hurt me? Okay? You're not going to."
"What if Red John makes me?" This was less than a whisper.
"How could Red John make you hurt me?"
"I don't know. I am his. He has me marked."
"Charlie, I am never going to hurt you."
"What if I tried to hurt you? You'd let me?" Her eyes opened round and scared. "I don't want to hurt you, Patrick."
"I'd restrain you if I had to. I'd disarm you. But no, I would never kill you."
"What if killing me was the only way to keep yourself alive? Or Lisbon? Would you do it?"
Jane took a deep breath and let it out as quietly as he could.
"Charlotte, if you ever attempted to harm me, I could disarm you. I could overpower you. I am stronger, physically, than you are and I pay attention to what you do. Okay? I could contain you. But you're not going to harm me. Okay?"
"Red John might make me..." Charlotte murmured this again. Wiped at her eyes suddenly. "Then you'll be dead. And I'll be stuck with him again. And then I'll either have to be come like him, or kill myself..."
"That is not going to happen," Jane said, edging steel into his words. "Charlotte? Look at me, okay? That is not going to happen. You have me, and you have Lisbon. If you lose control of yourself... if that somehow happens, we can deal with it. But we will not hurt you. You will not go back to Red John."
"Would you kill me if you had to? If you had to, to keep me from going back to Red John? If killing me was the only way to keep me away from Red John?"
"That will never be the only way to keep you away from Red John, Charlie. You're asking me a very specific question, but it is not a fair question, because you know I'd do anything to keep you safe from Red John. But you also know I will not harm you. In any way."
Except, he had let her fall into Red John's hands once, hadn't he? And Red John had taunted him by putting the corpse of a child that wasn't even his in his bed, and he hasn't even seen the difference. He had buried a stranger and gone on with his life, consumed with grief and shame and self-recrimination. He'd obsessively and self-indulgently tracked Red John for a decade and in all that time, he'd never figured out Charlie was still alive, while her mind and soul languished away in the clutches of the beast.
"I prayed for God to give you a dream. To show you I was still alive. But He didn't, did He?" She gave her father a sibylline smile. Eyes drunk with pain.
"If.. Charlotte, if I had thought for one moment you were still alive, I would have done everything in my power to find you." Jane felt exhausted himself. Too many days running, too much anguish and no end in sight. No wonder Charlotte was exhausted. He had only been living this reality for what? Less than a week? Charlie had been living it for over a decade.
"He marked me, and now I am His. If I am ever going to hurt you, Patrick, you have to kill me." She shut her eyes again. Wiped at them. Was she crying? She made no sound.
"I won't let you hurt me. I won't let you hurt Lisbon. I won't let you hurt yourself. And I won't let Red John hurt you, or me, or Lisbon? Okay?"
"Do you promise?" She sounded so ingenuous and forlorn, Patrick had little choice but to promise.
"Yes. I promise."
"I don't know how you can keep it, but I need to believe you can keep it," Charlie said dolefully. "Is that okay?"
"It is okay to believe in things that help you get by," Jane said simply.
"Like God?"
Jane nodded. "Like God, if believing in God helps you."
"God is real, Patrick," Charlotte said, eyes closed. "I know He is real. Don't you think my continued existence is a miracle?"
Jane nodded his head immediately, then realized she couldn't see him with her eyes shut again.
"I think it is a miracle, yes. I think you are a miracle. I always thought that. But... but yes."
"So you think maybe God can be real? Maybe?"
"I... maybe." Jane allowed slowly. He wanted to say no, but he didn't have it in him.
"I can't believe I am alive most of the time. Sometimes I think I am dead, and this is the afterlife. Or that I am dying, like the titular character in Jacob's ladder, and that the fire is getting me. That I am dying right this moment?"
"The fire?" Jane said nonchalantly. He had to be calm, always. Not a father. If he acted like a concerned father, Charlotte would shut down. He knew that. He had to be like a robot, loving and approving, but not overly emotional. He couldn't let her see how much this hurt him. He had to be concerned, but not smothering. It was a fine line to walk.
"When Red John... when he marked me. I thought I was burning. I thought it would burn my lungs and heart right out of me, Patrick..."
Jane was silent, waiting for more. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear this, but knew he had to hear it.
"I thought my heart and lungs were on fire, but I guess it was just the muscle around them."
"I don't know... I don't know what you're talking about, Charlie." Jane's words were tender and firm at the same time, strong. Words that told her that whatever she told him, he would be okay. He would be strong. He would not cry or break down or be shattered. If she thought for a second he would be overly upset, she would keep whatever she was dancing around to herself, and she needed to tell him this. He knew that. More than that, he wanted to know. He had to know.
"You said Red John marked you? Physically?" Jane prodded carefully.
"Mmm hmmm," Charlotte murmured, eyes closed. "To make me his. When I was five. Right after he killed Mommy. Right after he took me."
"How did he do that? A... tattoo?" Jane ventured. Please let it be something like that. Something relatively painless.
"No," Charlotte shook her head against the folded blankets, over her crossed arms. "Not a tattoo."
"Did... Charlotte, did he cut you?" When Jane found Red John, he was going to disembowel this creature with a human face. He was. He was going to slowly pull his intestines out and play with the blood.
"Yes. With a scalpel."
"He cut you with a scalpel? To mark you as his?"
"Mmm hmmm. And then he burned it closed."
Jane felt sick. He felt like he might vomit. He could taste salt. He could taste bile.
"He burned the cuts closed?"
"They tied me down. To a bed. There were candles. There was incense. Dragon's blood. Frankincense. Myrrh. Also the smell of white buffalo sage. They had smudged the room. There was Bach playing at first," Charlotte kept her eyes closed. Her voice was eerily disinterested in this sickest of traumas.
"They tied you down?" Jane had to hear this all. He had to know the details. He did not want his child to have to relive this horror more than once. Although... although he was sure she probably relived it in her own mind all the time.
"Red John and some of his doctor friends. They had leather restraints with lambs wool in them. For around my arms and ankles. And I was given a shot. It made it so I couldn't move. I could blink. I could make noises in my throat..." Jane could hear the panic in her voice, as she told him this, but it was faintly there, hidden by years of emotional distancing. Her voice was higher now, though, just a bit. But Jane caught it.
"Okay. What else?"
"I was in pajamas. Blue and white. They unbuttoned the top part of my pajamas and opened them, so my chest was bare. They pulled my pants down. Just until here-" Charlotte motioned just above her pubis. Jane nodded, eyes refulgent.
"I prayed so hard for God to stop it..." Charlotte's voice trailed. She turned over, back to Jane, and put her face in her hands. He couldn't tell if she was crying or not. He got up. Went to her. Put a hand on her shoulder. She was trembling.
"Did God help you?" Jane said softly, but he knew the answer, and his heart was breaking.
"In a way, He did. He was with me, inside my own mind. Saying 'don't give up, Charlie' and saying 'I am with you, go away from the pain, think of Daddy. Think of flowers'..." Charlotte's voice slurred a bit, still hidden in her hands. Jane kept his hand on her shoulder. He didn't dare do more, but he wanted her to know he was there. With her.
"So God was with you in your own mind? Helping you through?"
Charlotte nodded forcefully. "He made me stay sane. He told me not to cry. But I still did cry. I screamed, but it was weird, because of the shot. Not a proper scream. As it was going on, Red John was playing Bach and then he was reading poetry. William Blake. And then he was playing Ligeti. It was like I was there, and not there. At the same time. Like part of me was watching everything on a split screen, and the other part was experiencing it."
"Okay," Jane said softly. He rubbed her shoulder. "What did they do, Charlie? Can you tell me exactly?" He had an idea, but he needed to hear this. He knew she needed to tell him. Because her being marked had led her to believe that Red John had some paranormal control over her mind and soul, and Jane had to know what had happened to her if he was to help undo some of the damage.
"He cut me with his scalpel. Deep. So deep I thought he might cut into my organs. My heart and my lungs and my kidneys and my liver and my guts. But he knew where they were, so he avoided them somehow. He must have, right? Or I'd be dead? Cut only into the muscles around them. Through the skin. Through the fat. They filmed it on a video camera. And had it on a big screen overhead, while it was going on."
"What did he cut into you?" Jane said as calmly as he could.
"One of the smiley faces," Charlotte said woodenly. "One of his smiley faces that he paints on the walls after he kills someone? One of them. Because I was one of his kills. He said that. He had killed the old me and was remaking me in his image. I was dead and not dead. Would never be old Charlotte again, he said. So in that way he killed me. But he wanted to train me, so he kept my body alive, too. But he did kill old Charlotte. I was never the same after. So he was right, in that he did kill me. In many ways. He did."
"But God was with you," Jane said soothingly, and rubbed her shoulder. "God was with you and kept you sane. And you were never Red John's."
"He burned it closed. Instead of stitching it closed. He burned it closed with fire paste."
"Fire paste?" Jane had never heard of such a thing.
"It came in a yellow tube with red letters. People use it for camping, to start fires. It is like a thick gel. They had a blood pressure cuff on me. It automatically inflated every couple of minutes. They had a little clip on my finger. It recorded my oxygen level in my blood. It recorded my pulse rate. The idea was to make sure I didn't go into shock, or die. They had an IV in me. I think also a bag of blood, because I bled so much all over the bed with the cuts. As I was bleeding, I got drowsy, and that is when they put the bag of blood into me. There was blood everywhere. Red John said that I was bleeding away my old life. The man that was with him said That's enough John, that has to be two liters out now. He meant two liters on the bed, and on the floor, and on me, from the cuts. The doctor said We need to stabilize her. She's shocky. But Red John seemed calm. He was listening to music. He waved his hand at the man, like he wanted him to stop talking, and got the fire paste out, in the yellow tube. The doctor told him I was in shock, that burning me might kill me. So he told me to give me a shot, to numb me, and then they put a shot in the IV tube. And I was floating away, but still awake. Looking down on myself from the top of the room."
"Okay," Jane said with eerie detachment. He was going to gut Red John. Put his fucking head on a pike...
"Then.. then what happened, Charlie?"
She took her hands away from her face. Her skin was washed out and pale. Cheeks flushed, pupils huge but somehow coruscating pure horror.
"They put the fire paste in all my cuts. They were gaping cuts. The doctor said they needed sutures and Red John said no, no.. they would be cauterized. Through fire, I would be redeemed. Like... he said the word crucible. He had bled out the old me and would burn the rest of me away, and the new me would be stronger, like a phoenix from the ashes. He put the fire paste in all my cuts. Everything was numb, I guess. He put the fire paste in the eyes and in the mouth. In the head. The smiley face's eyes and mouth and head, I mean. There was music playing. Classical music. Gyorgi Ligeti's Lux Aeterna was the piece of music. I will never forget that piece of music. That was the music playing when he lit the matches on the fire paste. They were very long matches, like the types people use in Catholic churches to light candles for the dead. He only used one match for all the fire paste. Lux Aeterna was the music that was playing. It means 'eternal light' in Latin, Lux Aeterna means that. Even though I was mostly numb, I could hear my heart go faster when the fire went into me and I could see the light of it, making the room that was dim suddenly brighter and more yellow. I screamed and I think that excited Red John. He was smiling. I screamed louder than the doctor said I should have been able to scream. I pulled at the restraints, even though I was drugged. I screamed as hard as I could. I remember thinking if I screamed hard enough I would wake up and be in my bed at home. The room smelled like burning flesh and burning blood and wet blood. Like copper and like burning blood and like burning flesh and like burning hair. The fire was in me. I was on fire! I thought... I thought maybe that my heart would burn. Because the flames were in my skin with the paste and he was just letting them burn. I thought my lungs were burning..." Charlotte opened her eyes and looked at her father. She made a faint humming noise. Her eyes were slipping into wildness. Jane watched her, careful with his movements.
"I thought I would burst into flames, and Ligeti was playing. And there was blood everywhere, all over the white bed and all over the black and white checked floor. And there was a machine counting out my heartbeats, so so fast. Like my heart itself was screaming. And the doctor didn't care that I was screaming, he only had one job: to keep my body alive. That was it. I looked at him and he looked away. He would not look at my eyes. I screamed for you, I screamed for Daddy..." Charlotte began to cry then. It was sudden, like a dam breaking. Jane moved and held her in a hug.
"I screamed for Daddy, but you didn't come! I screamed and I bled. And I burned on the bed. And then finally they put me out. And I remember... Red John had his hand down his pants and his eyes were bright. He was rubbing himself while I burned, and the room smelled like blood and hair and like him, too. Like his stuff."
Jane wanted to destroy the airstream. He wanted to kick and punch and scream. Instead he held Charlotte. Her sobs were dying down, replaced by numb indifference. He understood why Charlotte believed in God. Because the Devil- evil beyond evil- was obviously real. It wore a human face.
"Charlie.. can I see the scars?"
She stared at him blankly. Moved to tug up the bottom of her shirt. Jane saw the curve of the smile, of the circular face. He gently tugged her shirt up the rest of the way, making a shushing noise as he did so. He could see the start of the eyes. They disappeared under her bra. Red John had carved a smiley face into his child's chest and abdomen, and then lit it on fire to close it. While he watched, and read poetry. And masturbated.
Charlotte's scars were surgical but ugly, white keloid burn scars. Jane didn't think plastic surgery could remove them. Not really. He had mutilated her. Marked her. Jane touched one of the scars and felt a spiritual pain stronger than anything he had ever felt in his life light through him like a flame all of its own, a flame of pain and fear and grief. His baby.
His baby...
She tugged her shirt back into place.
"So you see now? Why he owns me?"
"Charlie..." He couldn't finish the sentence. He leaned forward and pulled her into a hug. She stiffened in his arms, but let him hug her.
"He does not own you. He tried to own you. He tried to make you insane. He tried to make you like him. But you're not like him. You're nothing like him. You're good. We are going to find Red John. You and me. And Lisbon. And we are going to kill him. And I am going to take you back home. And you are going to be okay. You are going to heal. I will be your Dad again. And things are going to be okay."
Charlotte just lay against Jane's chest, breathing shallowly. Jane knew, even as he said the words, that things might not be okay. But what else could he say?
"I'm crazy, Patrick," Charlotte said sadly. Tapped her head. Her eyes were glazed with tears and blood shot. "He broke my mind apart. I can't put it back together again."
"It's okay if you're crazy," Jane said slowly. He wasn't about to tell her she wasn't crazy. It would be a lie. Who could be sane after such experiences? Nobody could be. "It's okay if you're crazy. I am going to protect you. I won't let Red John hurt you, or hurt me or hurt Lisbon. I won't let you hurt yourself or any of us. And crazy can be okay. You're going to be okay."
He hugged her again. She had to be okay after all this. If God was really real, surely he'd let her be okay? Jane checked his watch. It was 20 after 3. They were approaching the beast.
He was going to die.
He was.