In the end, the take down at the kidnapper's hideout went like clockwork. They extracted Mia Westlake without any harm to her or to the kidnappers. Now that they'd ironed out their issues, Lisbon had to admit it felt good to have Bosco at her back during the operation. Like old times. Working with someone whose habits you knew as well as your own, who you trusted implicitly to help keep everyone else safe—well, it was one of the greatest things about being a cop. She was glad to have that sense of fellow feeling restored with Bosco, despite their recent differences.

In a turn of events that should have been gratifying but instead was mildly disturbing, Jane and Bosco emerged from their enforced proximity as—well, if not friends, exactly, then at least with a new understanding and grudging respect for one another. Jane told her Bosco had offered to share the latest details of the Red John case with him, which of course was the most sure-fire method of securing the most cooperative, least-annoying version of Jane. Lisbon was surprised Bosco had unbent so far. She appreciated the gesture, though she had conflicted feelings on the subject of allowing Jane proximity to the Red John case without her to watch his every move in case he decided to do something particularly stupid. Still, it was a relief that the two of them were getting along better.

Bosco stopped by to offer her an olive branch, too, which she gratefully accepted. But then he'd looked at her a little too long when she laughed at something he'd said. She felt a pang of anxiety that there might actually be something to what Jane said about Bosco's feelings towards her. She shook herself free of the thought. No. She was imagining things because of what Jane had said. Bosco was devoted to Mandy and would never do anything to hurt her. Bosco had shown Lisbon the ropes when she was a rookie, taught her how to be a good cop. He'd protected her in the field and gone to bat for her with the brass when she'd applied for the position of inspector at SFPD. He was her friend and valued colleague. After all the tension between them the last couple months, she was glad to have him back.

And then—Bosco was shot in his own office.

His blood on her hands. Her face. Her clothing. Jane, ashen. She'd thought he was in shock, but he was looking at her, at the blood all over her.

"Maybe—maybe you should clean up." His eyes fell to her hands. Not wanting to waste a minute in tracking down the person who'd shot Bosco, she'd started typing into her phone without thinking about the blood all over her fingers from administering first aid to Bosco. Bosco was on his way to the hospital now, a hole in his chest.

She exhaled. "Yeah."

Jane produced a handkerchief and gingerly took the phone from her. "C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up." He wrapped the phone in the handkerchief and pocketed it.

He put his hand at the small of her back and guided her to the restroom nearest her office. "I'll find you something to wear," he said, holding the door open and ushering her inside.

She made her way over to the sink and turned on the tap mechanically. She scrubbed at the blood on her hands desperately—God, it wouldn't come off. How was there so much of it?

Jane came in carrying her go bag and flipped the deadbolt behind him.

"You shouldn't be in here," Lisbon said half-heartedly.

"Meh. You and Van Pelt make up a quarter of the women on this whole floor. They'll just go to the one nearer Minelli's office if they try the door and find it locked." He crossed to her side and set the bag at her feet.

Lisbon didn't have the energy to argue with him. She continued to scrub at her hands.

"C'mere." Jane wet a paper towel and turned her towards him. He gently touched the wet cloth to her cheek, cleaning a streak of blood from her face.

She stood there passively and let him clean her face like a child, her mind elsewhere. Could Hicks have done this? Why hadn't he been with Bosco at the time of the attack? Mandy. She had to call Mandy. Oh, God, Bosco's kids—no, Bosco was going to be all right, he had to be all right—

Jane finished cleaning her face. He tossed the paper towel in the nearest waste bin and then started unbuttoning her shirt.

She roused a little, starting at his familiar touch in an unfamiliar context. "What are you doing?"

"Shh." He finished unbuttoning her shirt and slipped it off her shoulders. "I'll wash this one in the sink while you change." He turned on the tap and put her blood-stained shirt under the cold water.

"Oh. Right." She stood there stupidly, numb.

He turned back to her. "Hey." He abandoned the shirt and took her by the shoulders. He looked into her face with concern. "You okay?"

Her face crumpled. "Jane. What if-?"

"It's too early to start worrying about what ifs," Jane said firmly. "Bosco's strong, and he's stubborn. He's not going to go down without a fight."

Lisbon inhaled shakily and let her head fall forward onto his shoulder. "I'm gonna have to c-call Mandy," she hiccupped.

Jane drew her into his embrace, holding her close and stroking her hair. "She'd want to hear it from you," he murmured soothingly. "It'll be better for her to hear about it from someone who cares about him."

Lisbon closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Jane's waist. "Yeah."

His hand slid down to her back and rubbed gentle circles against her bare skin.

"I guess I'd better get changed so I can call the hospital," she said reluctantly. She made no move to let him go. "And I need to follow up with Cho about Hicks."

He dropped a kiss to her temple. "Guess so."

"Jane." She leaned back and kissed him softly. "Thank you for being here."

He ran his fingers through her hair again. "Of course."

She pulled away with great reluctance and bent to retrieve her go bag. She changed while Jane, true to his word, washed her shirt in the sink.

Two hours later, she watched his face change when Cho relayed the information that the John Doe they'd found in the cemetery that morning—several thousand years ago—was a man named Towlen Morning. The physician of an early Red John victim.

The team had been lured to Morning's body. Hicks had been killed in Morning's office. And Bosco had been shot. All of this was Red John's doing. He'd laid out the connections for them neatly.

Jane went into manic Red John mode, honing in on a lead they discovered Bosco had been following. "Why did Bosco want the medical reports? What did he know?"

"He's in the ICU in a medically induced coma," Lisbon told him. She'd called the hospital, called Mandy, and was planning to stop by the hospital to see Bosco as soon as she had a moment.

"I know, I know," Jane said, distracted, still tied up in his own thoughts.

"The case files. Maybe they can tell us something." Lisbon sent Cho back into Morning's office to search his files, then called Van Pelt and instructed her to search Bosco's office for any recent notes on the Red John case. She went back to the office to check in with Van Pelt and catch the tail end of Minelli's disastrous press conference. She couldn't blame him, though. She felt exactly the same way.

After, she went to the hospital.

When she reached Bosco's room, Jane was there, staring at the tangle of wires for the life support machine and all the monitoring devices plugged into the wall.

Wait…why-? She stopped in her tracks. "What are you doing?" she said sharply.

Jane turned to face her. She saw the calculation behind his eyes—truth or lie? Which would be most likely to keep her from making herself an inconvenient obstacle to his latest plan?

"Unplugging Bosco's morphine," he said finally.

Her heart rate spiked unpleasantly. "What? Why?"

"We need to get him out of the medically induced coma," Jane said. "Bosco is the only one who knows anything about the lead his team found on Red John, and he might die. We need to wake him up and get him to tell us what he knows."

She stared at him, aghast. Jane had that look in his eye, the look she hated. The one that told her he was bound and determined to do something reckless and dangerous, no matter the cost.

"Pain is nothing, Lisbon," Jane said. "You know Sam Bosco. You know he would be willing to suffer pain to catch Red John."

She continued to stare at him in horror. No. This wasn't the infuriating but fundamentally good-hearted Jane she knew. This man—this man was a stranger. "God, you're a cold bastard," she said, horror and disgust bleeding into her voice. She couldn't believe she'd ever let this man put his hands on her. "Pain is nothing? You don't know what you're talking about. The doctors said this is helping keep him alive."

He stepped towards her. "You know I'm right, Lisbon. Bosco would willingly suffer to keep someone else from being hurt."

Her voice rose in fear and anger. "You're twisting this around. You don't know him. You don't know what he'd do."

"I do know," Jane said. "He'd suffer pain to protect the woman he loves. To protect you."

"This has nothing to do with me!" She couldn't believe he was choosing now to bring this up, when Bosco was critically wounded, his frantic wife cutting her trip short to rush back to his side. "This is about you, letting your obsession come before anyone and anything else, including the well-being of your colleague and my friend."

The doctor came in then, wary. "What's all the commotion?"

"Nothing," Jane said. "We're fine."

The doctor's gaze slid past him and landed on the machine behind him. "Did you touch that machine?"

"No," Jane said, then slinked out of the room before anyone could call him out on the lie.

The doctor glared at her suspiciously as she fiddled with the machine.

Lisbon cleared her throat. "Is he—is he doing any better?"

The doctor's expression softened. She examined the screen of the machine she'd just put right. "He's not out of the woods yet, but I'm seeing some moderate improvement in his vitals."

Lisbon's shoulders sagged with relief. "Good." She let out a shaky breath. "That's really good." She took a seat in the corner, her knees suddenly turned to water with relief. She covered her eyes with a trembling hand, trying to compose herself.

The doctor laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'll be back to check on him in half an hour or so. You're welcome to wait with him in the meantime."

"Thank you," Lisbon said hoarsely.

The doctor left.

Lisbon listened to the quiet beeping of the machines keeping Bosco alive, and she kept vigil and prayed.

xxx

The rest of the day, things went from bad to worse.

They identified Rebecca Anderson, Bosco's admin assistant, as the shooter and only barely stopped her from attacking Bosco in the hospital. Then she serenely informed Jane that she'd done it all to clear the field for him. He would get the Red John case back, just like he wanted.

Lisbon threw up, after hearing that. She stayed composed throughout the interrogation, but after, she went to the ladies room and lost the meager contents of her stomach. God, would the nightmare of this day ever end?

But it turned out the nightmare was only beginning. The CBI was breached and Rebecca was killed by another one of Red John's creatures, if not the man himself. And when Lisbon went back to the hospital, the doctor told her that Bosco was dying.

Lisbon went in to see him, her fingertips numb. He was awake now. Mandy was en route, but still in transit. She wouldn't be here for another two hours.

He looked up at her when she came in. "What'd they say?" he asked, nodding to the doctors in the hall.

She hesitated. She managed a broken smile. "They said you're gonna be fine."

"You're lying," Bosco observed.

"No," she said weakly.

"Teresa, I'm a cop. You're a bad liar. Your honest eyes give you away every time. What did the doctors say?"

She fought back the tears welling in her eyes. "They said you lost a lot of blood," she said her voice low. She took his hand. "The doctors don't think you're gonna make it."

"Okay." Bosco took a deep breath. "I'm gonna say it, then."

He took another breath and met her eyes. "Teresa, I love you."

Jane had been right, after all. Looking at Bosco now, she couldn't pretend any longer. Bosco's gaze was clear and direct, and he was no longer trying to mask his feelings. She squeezed his hand, her throat thick with tears. "Love you, too," she managed. It didn't matter that she didn't mean the words the way he meant them. He was her friend, and she loved him, and she was the one who was here with him at the end. That was all that mattered.

"No, I mean—" Bosco began, but Lisbon cut him off.

"I know what you mean," she said, because she did now. This strong, kind man loved her. He'd held himself in check for the sake of his wife and family, and for her as well. And at the end, he wanted her to know she was loved. She had the love of a man of honor and integrity, and she accepted it as it was intended—as a precious gift.

He squeezed her hand. "Hey. I want to ask you something. Promise you won't get mad?"

"Sure," she said, dashing at her eyes. "Shoot."

He looked at her intently. "Are you in love with Jane?"

She snorted. "Definitely not," she said unequivocally, thinking of Jane's cold, ruthless behavior in this very room earlier in the day.

"Mm," Bosco said. He looked mollified, but not entirely convinced. "He around?"

"Jane?" Lisbon said uncertainly. "I—I think so." Why on earth would Bosco want to talk to Jane, of all people?

"Can you send him in? There's something I want to tell him."

"All right," Lisbon said, suppressing her reservations. She went out to the hall, where sure enough, Jane was lurking, pacing the hall with anxious energy.

"Bosco wants to see you," she told him flatly.

He paused in his pacing. "He wants to see me?" He sounded as dubious as she felt.

She shrugged. "Apparently." She fixed him with a steely gaze. "Should I let you in to see him?"

Jane sighed. "I'm not going to do anything to hasten his demise, if that's what you're asking."

Lisbon was unmoved. "It is."

"I only wanted to stop his morphine so he would wake up," Jane said, completely without remorse. "He's awake now, so there'd be no point in me messing with any of the machines now, is there?"

Lisbon's jaw tensed. "I need to know you're not going to do anything to upset him."

Jane rolled his eyes. "What do you think I'm going to do, provoke him into a jealous rage while he's laid up and unable to punch me in the nose? I assure you, Lisbon, I will wait to antagonize Bosco until he's on his feet again."

Her expression flickered. "Jane. He's not—he's not going to be able to punch you in the nose."

Jane stared at her. "But—you said…I thought the doctors said he was getting better."

Lisbon shook her head, tears threatening again. "Things—things changed."

"Oh, Teresa," he said, aghast. He put his arms around her. "I'm so sorry."

Lisbon recoiled and shook him off. "Don't touch me," she snapped.

Jane let his arms fall to his side. "Lisbon, I—"

"Go on, then," she said harshly. "For God's sake, don't keep him waiting."

Jane nodded mutely and went into Bosco's room.

Lisbon walked around the corner where she could watch them through the window from the hall. After everything that had happened, she didn't trust Jane to be alone with Bosco unsupervised.

She watched Bosco speak to Jane, then beckon him closer. Jane glanced at her, then leaned in. Lisbon straightened in alarm. What was Bosco telling him?

After he'd said his piece, Bosco let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. It looked—it looked so final, that heavy sigh. Like a man putting down a heavy burden at the end of a long day.

Lisbon bolted back into the room and took Bosco's hand again. "Sam?" Her voice broke.

But it was too late. The comforting beeping flattened into a long, unceasing tone. He was gone.

Jane tentatively put his hand on her shoulder. "Lisbon—"

She shook him off. "Not now, Jane."

She went out of the room intending to find a nurse, only to meet the doctor rushing in. They tried to resuscitate him again, but this time, there was no recovery.

She called Mandy, then Cho. She stayed at the hospital until Mandy got there, and held her while she cried. She stayed with Mandy throughout the ordeal of dealing with the hospital, then eventually drove her home.

The days that followed were, if anything, worse. The team had three open cases on top of the Red John case suddenly landing back in their laps. There was an endless list of leads to follow around Rebecca, the shooting, and the poisoning of a prisoner inside the CBI—but they all led straight to dead ends.

Lisbon helped Mandy with the funeral arrangements. Called friends and colleagues of Sam's from their SFPD days. She felt cold all the time.

She found Jane waiting for her in her office after the funeral.

"How are you holding up?" he said soberly.

She shrugged. She felt weighted down, like she was trying to swim against a rough current with stones in her pockets.

"I brought you something." He produced a bottle of top shelf tequila and two shot glasses.

A flicker of warmth stirred in her chest. "Tequila. Bosco's favorite." Trust Jane to remember.

She sat down on the couch next to him, suddenly glad he was there. She hadn't seen much of Jane since Bosco had died. He'd taken to disappearing even more than usual, and she'd been so busy and preoccupied she hadn't had the time or energy to chase him down the way she usually did. Besides, she was still mad at him.

He handed her a shot and they clinked glasses. She drank hers down and let herself sink back against the cushions close enough to Jane that their arms brushed any time either of them moved. She allowed herself to enjoy the pleasant sensation of having his warmth so near.

Jane cleared his throat. "Listen, Lisbon…"

"Mm?" She poured herself another shot and tossed it back.

"I owe you an apology."

She paused, then set her glass down. "I'm listening."

He looked away. "I'm sorry for upsetting you at the hospital. For dismissing Bosco's pain. I still believe he would have willingly accepted pain to catch Red John, but—well, I didn't mean to upset you."

He didn't actually apologize for unplugging the morphine drip, she noted. She hated that he'd done that. She didn't like that part of him, that cold calculation that operated with its own sets of weights and measures without regard to the things that other people valued. But at the same time, it was oddly comforting that he didn't just tell her what she wanted to hear. He didn't tell her that he'd been wrong to tamper with Bosco's pain medication. He seemed to place a higher value on her emotional distress than Bosco's physical well-being, which was completely the wrong thing to prioritize. Still, she appreciated that he felt he owed her an accounting for his actions. "Okay," she said finally. "Thank you for saying that." If he wasn't going to apologize properly, she wasn't going to forgive him blindly. But it was better than nothing. It might be enough to get them back to an even keel, over time.

Jane looked relieved. He stood and picked up the bottle of tequila. "Come on, then. I thought you might like to share this with the rest of the team." He took her by the hand and pulled her to her feet. He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Unless you're planning to drink the whole bottle by yourself?"

"Ha, ha." She followed him out into the bullpen, where the rest of the team was gathered around the conference table.

They finished the bottle. The sad ache in her bones was now accompanied by a warm glow in her belly. Her affection for her team buoyed her, and the weight was no longer unbearable. For now, at least, she felt more of a sweet melancholy than the knife-sharp pain of grief. When it was time to go, she looked around for Jane.

"C'mon, boss," Cho said, helping her on with her coat. "I'll drive you home."

She frowned. "Where's Jane?"

"He said he had to go," Cho said. "He asked me to look after you."

She blinked. "Oh. Okay. Thanks, Cho." She was subdued on the ride home. It was unlike Jane to delegate the task of looking after her. Not that she needed looking after, of course. She could take care of herself. But nonetheless, it was odd Jane had asked Cho to do it instead of pestering her himself.

She was being silly, she decided as she slipped into bed twenty minutes later, still hazy from the alcohol. She didn't want Jane. Didn't need him. He was a morphine-messing, revenge-obsessed lunatic. Even if he did smell nice and bring her coffee and tequila and muffins.

She turned onto her side and pulled the blanket more closely around herself. The cold had seeped in again.

xxx

She started having trouble sleeping. She kept dreaming of finding her team, dead or dying, in the bullpen. Work had turned nightmarish, consumed by the endless, tedious running down of leads that inevitably led nowhere. Every time she thought of Rebecca working alongside Bosco and his team in the halls of the CBI for months without anyone suspecting anything amiss, Lisbon had to swallow back a tide of howling rage. The team kept plowing grimly forward, all the while knowing Red John had arranged everything so neatly that all their hard work amounted to little more than the team chasing their own tails for his amusement. The thought of him, smug and laughing at them from afar, made her want to smash her fist through a wall. She started spending a lot of time at the shooting range.

Two months passed in a dull, numb haze. Eventually the leads dried up, and their case load returned to normal.

On the first long weekend after Bosco's death, Lisbon found herself with a rare three days off in a row. She spent the first two days holed up in her apartment, eating takeout and staring blankly at the TV. On the third day, she forced herself out for a long run. She did chores and ran errands she'd neglected for far too long. She felt better for it. She decided to stop by her church in the afternoon. She'd missed mass the previous morning, but she went and prayed in the quiet. Sadness still weighed on her, but it was a clean sadness, drained of the anger that had been plaguing her.

When she left the church, she turned her face up to the warm sunlight and felt a sudden urge to see Jane.

She took her phone out of her pocket and called him. She got his voice mail. "Hey. It's Lisbon. Listen, I was just wondering—" Her voice wavered in her own ears. I was wondering if you would come over and hold me tonight so I wouldn't feel so empty inside. She shook her head to clear the unbidden, unwelcome thought. No. She couldn't, wouldn't ask that. She cleared her throat and pushed back the hollow feeling in her chest. "I was wondering if you wanted to get some ice cream. Or something. Anyway, if you're free, give me a call."

Jane didn't call her back.