Paramedics and Charlotte's team of reporters arrived on the scene at essentially the same time. Lisbon hardly noticed the arrival of either - she just kept breathing for Jane and pumping his heart for him, her surroundings a blur. Everything felt almost like a dream, a horrible nightmare she might wake from at any moment.
Jane couldn't die. Not now. Not now that Red John was dead and gone. Jane still had a life to live, a life he had only just gotten back! He couldn't die now! He couldn't!
She moved aside only for the paramedics with their defibrillator. She kept her hands pressed together in front of her face, praying, unable to help but flash back to when Bosco had been shot - they'd been able to revive him, though he'd lost too much blood to recover…but at least they'd gotten his heart started again. Even if someone's shot, sometimes it works…
She clung to that memory as Jane convulsed under the shock. They checked. No pulse.
Oh god, please…
They gave him some more breath, then tried again. Zap!
Nothing.
No…
"Charging."
"Clear."
Zap!
The paramedic felt for a pulse…then shook his head. He turned to Lisbon. "I'm sorry," he said; "he's g-"
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Lisbon's cry was so strong, so filled with anguish, it almost seemed like it couldn't be human - no one could be in so much pain as to cry out like that and survive it to do so, surely! Guilt twisted in Walter's heart as he watched and listened from afar, the knowledge that he was the one who had done this to her weighing down on him heavily; she was taking this far harder than even he had expected.
"I'm sorry," he whispered out loud, for all the good it would do. "I had to…"
The pain Lisbon felt was impossible, made her three weeks with Red John seem like a few scrapes and bruises - nothing could compare to the pain she felt now, nothing at all.
It couldn't be. Patrick Jane could not die.
She shoved the man aside and resumed giving Jane CPR - there was nothing else she could think of doing.
"You have to keep trying!" she yelled at him.
"I'm sorry!" the man repeated. "He's gone! He's dead!"
"He can't be dead!" Lisbon snarled. "He can not be dead!"
"He is." He tried to pull Lisbon off of Jane, but she shook him off.
Then, another paramedic spoke up.
"Hey, it this who I think it is?"
Lisbon glanced up at him while pumping Jane's heart. "This is Patrick Jane, if that's what you're asking," she told him.
The younger medic's eyes widened, and he rushed over to help Lisbon, giving Jane air while she pumped his heart.
"We do have to keep trying," the younger medic told the other.
"He's dead," the doom-speaker insisted.
"Do you know who this is?!" the younger cried.
"I don't care if he's Jesus effing Christ-"
"This is Patrick Jane!"
The older medic blinked, surprised.
"Well, I'm sorry," he said at last, "but he's dead. It's tragic, yes, I won't deny that, but there's no changing it."
"Get him in the ambulance, and keep trying," the younger medic insisted. "What could the harm possibly be? If he's dead, we can't make it worse."
The more realistic medic sighed, but he relented and joined in the help.
When they loaded Jane's body, Lisbon insisted on going, refused to leave his side. She couldn't let him go. She couldn't.
They hooked Jane up to monitors; maybe his pulse was just incredibly weak? But no, he was flatlining. Still they kept trying. Lisbon stayed out of their way now, though she couldn't let go of Jane's hand.
"You can't die," she whispered. "You can't. Not after you've come so far…"
Several minutes passed. Lisbon was painfully aware of every second, every moment Jane still wasn't breathing in spite of the shocks, the pumps…
"What the hell?"
The query broke through the haze in Lisbon's mind, and she looked up. One of the medics was tapping the monitor that showed that Jane's heart wasn't beating, as though he thought it was malfunctioning.
"Hey," he said to one of his fellows, "you seeing this?"
The second one looked, too, and he squinted. "Yeah," he said. "That's weird. Must be a misreading…maybe from all the times we've zapped him."
Lisbon couldn't see what they were looking at, but if there was anything to see, then maybe, just maybe…
And then the constant tone that signaled the flatline was broken.
"No way," one of the medics watching breathed.
Beep. Beep. Beep…
Jane's heart was beating.
By some miracle, he was alive.
Lisbon couldn't hold back her tears anymore; it was all she could do not to collapse and get in the way of the paramedics who were swarming around Jane with new energy. Alive. He was alive. She knew he couldn't die, not now, not like this…He was going to be okay…
"Whoa!"
The exclamation sounded like it was signaling something negative. Oh god, what now? Lisbon thought, looking up, trying to see through the tears that blurred her vision. What else could possibly go wrong? Not something to kill him again, please not something to kill him again…
The medics were tearing off Jane's jacket, vest, and shirt, and turning him on his side. Blood was everywhere.
Of course. His heart was beating now, so blood was flowing, and that meant…
The sound of Jane's heartbeat slowed, and everyone caught their breath for a second, wondering if it would stop again. But it stabilized, going at an incredibly slow pace but staying steady nonetheless.
The medics started trying to stop the bleeding.
"The bullet's still in there," Lisbon heard one of them say. "Looks like he caught it in the shoulderblade…are those bone fragments?"
"We can't fix this ourselves; he needs surgery," another said.
"We have to keep him alive until we get to the hospital. Ma'am."
Lisbon didn't realize she was being addressed.
"Ma'am? Ma'am!"
"Oh!" She jumped, still clinging to Jane's hand, and acknowledged the one who had spoken. "Yes?"
"What's his blood type?"
Blood type? "Uh…I…I don't know," Lisbon stammered; her brain wasn't working right, she couldn't think…
"Doesn't matter, we've got some o-negative," someone said.
"It had better be enough to last us all the way back."
And suddenly, something occurred to Lisbon, bursting through the mess in her head.
"No one can know he's alive," she said, addressing the medics.
"What?"
"Someone just tried to kill him, and if I had to guess who, I'd say it was one of Red John's friends," Lisbon told them. "If someone in the hospital happens to be another one of Red John's friends and hears that he's alive, they'll come and finish him off. And no one outside the hospital can know he's alive, either," she added quickly, her brain abruptly tying things together now. "We need as few people as possible to know he's alive - only those acting directly to save his life."
"Yes, ma'am," one of the medics said, and he got on the phone, called for the hospital, and began making arrangements per Lisbon's advice.
Relieved that the medics hadn't questioned her, Lisbon clung to Jane's hand, all the tighter now. Though his heart was beating again, and his lungs were working (as well as they could through his injuries), he hadn't stirred otherwise. She couldn't look away from those closed eyes…Eyes she knew so well, that could twinkle with mischief or glow with kindness or burn with wrath…
He'd been dead for several minutes, and she knew the potential for brain damage was very high…but she had to believe he was still in there. There was only one Patrick Jane; a world without him would be…would be…
…unbearable, she admitted to herself.
~o~
Charlotte was trying to get what news she could out of Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt now that Jane, Lisbon, the medics, and the ambulance were gone.
"What happened here?" she asked them on camera.
"We don't know," Cho replied. "We got a call saying there was a body here and that we should look into it; we came, and Jane was shot before we took five steps."
"Did any of you see anything, hear anything…?" Charlotte prompted.
"No," Rigsby replied, holding tightly onto Van Pelt, as much for his own comfort as hers.
"Actually," Van Pelt said abruptly, turning in his arms, "I, uh…I thought I heard a noise…I guess like the sonicboom from a bullet."
"Probably used a silencer," Rigsby said.
The others nodded.
There was a pause for a moment. Then Van Pelt asked Charlotte, "Why aren't you asking us who might have done this?"
"Yeah," Rigsby said - now that she mentioned it, that did seem odd. "And how did you get here so soon, anyway?"
Charlotte took a breath. "A man who claimed to be the one who shot Patrick Jane called me," she told them, not caring about the cameras anymore.
"Did they give a name?"
Charlotte nodded. "Does the name 'Walter Mashbourne' mean anything to you?" she asked them.
All three cops blinked.
"Yeah, we've met him a couple of times while working cases," Rigsby said; "he had a thing for Lisbon."
"A thing?" Charlotte repeated. Well, that certainly explained why he had specifically told her to apologize to her sister for him…
"Why would he do this?" Van Pelt asked.
"He…also said that, among Red John's friends, he's known as Red John's 'Little Rich Boy'," Charlotte told them.
"He's one of Red John's friends?!" Van Pelt exclaimed.
Charlotte shrugged. "That's what he told me."
"Oh my god…" The implications of this were mind-blowing…and not just for the people present on the scene.
Far away, Dove watched the report, fuming. The fact that Rich had taken responsibility for it and given both his nickname and his real name meant that he wanted to go to jail, probably because he knew what would happen if she got to him first. He had promised her on Red John's grave that he wouldn't do the very thing he had just done, and that was not an offense that could go unpunished.
Jail won't keep you safe, she thought wrathfully. Jane had better not be dead, or you will have ruined everything, and not even RJ would forgive you. An attempt on Jane's life was never the answer, and if you'd thought about it for two seconds, you would have realized that. You let your heart rule your head, and you've disgraced us all. Whether Jane lives or not, I will make you regret this.
~o~
When Cho's phone rang and he saw that it was Lisbon calling, he picked up right away.
"Yeah?"
"Get Rigsby and Van Pelt and come to the hospital now," Lisbon told him; "don't ask, I'm not saying another word until you get here - just grab them and go."
"Yes, boss." He hung up and turned to his comrades. "Rigsby, Van Pelt, boss wants us to go now."
"Did she say-?"
"She said she'd tell us when we get to the hospital," Cho said, already headed for their car. Rigsby and Van Pelt followed - after all, it wasn't like they had anything else they could do.
~o~
Lisbon was outside the hospital; Jane had been taken in just a little while ago. After she got the message to Cho, she hesitated, then called the person she had to talk to - there was no one else in the world she could talk to, and…
"Hello?"
"Charlie, it's Terry," Lisbon said. "Can you talk without being heard?"
"Uh, no, but…hang on." Sounds came over the line as Charlotte moved away from the scene; Lisbon heard her give directions of privacy.
"Okay, now I can talk," she said at last. "Is he-?"
"He's alive," Lisbon said, "or he was the last time I saw him…but the wound's bad, sis, and…he was dead for so long…"
"But he's alive as far as you know," Charlotte said; "hold onto that."
"Yeah…" Lisbon hesitated, then asked, "How did you get to the scene so quickly?"
"The…uh…person who shot him called me," Charlotte told her sister hesitantly.
"Did they say who they were?" Lisbon asked. "Was it Dove?"
"No, it was a man…Red John's 'Little Rich Boy'?"
"Rich?" Lisbon repeated, surprised. "I've talked to him a couple of times at Red John's parties, he didn't seem like the type…"
"Well, uh, he also told me his real name," Charlotte said. "And he told me to tell you that he's truly sorry for the pain he's caused you, but, and I quote, 'the bastard had it coming and it's for the best anyway.'"
Lisbon's gut twisted. "What's his real name?" she heard herself ask, though she suddenly got the feeling that she didn't want to know.
"The name he gave me was…uh…" Lisbon could almost see Charlotte brace herself. "…Walter Mashbourne."
It was all Lisbon could do to not drop the phone. "Walter?" she repeated, completely taken aback. "He's Red John's Little Rich Boy? Him?"
"Yeah, your team told me he had a thing for you, you guys crossed paths during some cases, something…?"
"Yeah," Lisbon said. "He, uh, liked me, right away, and never really gave up…Oh god." Her gorge started to rise as she remembered.
"What?"
"Look, sis, I…I didn't want a relationship with him - I didn't even want to see him again - so I…figured our pact didn't apply," Lisbon confessed. "So I…uh…"
"You did not."
"I was…kind of messed up after this case, a bullet went through my shirt collar and a bunch of other crazy stuff happened…I don't know!" she cried. "I…"
"You…?"
"I slept with one of Red John's friends," Lisbon finished faintly. "Yeah. Excuse me while I throw up." And she very nearly did.
Charlotte was silent for a minute, then said, "You couldn't have known."
But that was wrong. As with Kristina, it was so obvious now that she looked back on everything. Walter had known right away that Jane was an ex-psychic…and at the first party Lisbon went to, Siren had said she was surprised Rich had come - that made sense now, because there was the risk she might recognize him…How had she not recognized him, if only by his voice? How had she talked and drank with him repeatedly and not realized…? And the way Brett had smiled when she mentioned how Rich had almost told her his story - the fact that she'd slept with him as Walter Mashbourne was probably commonly known to Red John's friends…they'd probably all had a laugh about it, in fact, as well they should have…She wondered what Red John himself had thought of it, before and after he had taken her…
"I could have, if I'd had a mind to," she said at last. "I could have recognized him at Red John's parties…"
"But you had no reason to think of it," Charlotte said. "It's okay, sis."
Lisbon nodded. "Thank you for forgiving me for breaking our pact," she said.
"No, you're right, if you didn't even want to be with him for real, it's okay," Charlotte reassured her. "I must say, I'm kind of surprised that you'd do something like that, but…"
"Yeah, not one of my proudest moments," Lisbon said, half-laughing at herself, almost hysterical.
"Yeah…so…he failed. To kill Jane."
Lisbon nodded. "Yeah." She hesitated again…She didn't really want to say it, but…she had to say it, she thought she might burst if she didn't -
"I think I love him."
"Who?"
"Jane," Lisbon said. "I…I don't know, I just…when I thought he was dead, I…I mean, when he came back, I just…I couldn't…He can't die, sis," she finally managed. "I wouldn't be able to live in a world without him."
"Uh, wow…" Charlotte was surprised by this sudden confession, but she quickly recovered, and was considerate enough not to gloat or act smug or say 'I told you so'. "He's alive," she said instead. "He'll make it."
"Yeah." There was a pause, then, "He kissed me. Like, for real, not to help me out of what Red John did to me…"
"Did you kiss him back?"
"Yeah," Lisbon admitted, blushing now. "And then, the next thing I knew, he was running away like the room was on fire. He looked scared…Called in sick the next day, said he thought he was going clinically insane." She shook her head. "What am I supposed to make of that, sis? I've been trying to figure it out and I just…"
"He had a family once," Charlotte reminded her; "he's probably afraid to move on."
"Yeah…" And there was nothing else to say. "Listen, I'm going to go inside now and wait for whatever news comes."
"I'll handle things here," Charlotte said. "No one can know he came back, right?"
"Yeah, no, as far as you or anyone else knows, he's dead," Lisbon said, relieved that her sister understood the situation.
"Got it."
"Thanks, sis."
"Yeah…Hey, I love you."
Lisbon smiled. "Love you too," she said.
They hung up.
Cho still hadn't arrived with Rigsby and Van Pelt, but Lisbon couldn't wait any longer; she went inside, as far as she could get past the waiting room, then started pacing, anxiously awaiting news. Not knowing how he was was absolute torture…But he's alive, she reminded herself. As far as you know, he's alive…
~o~
"Boss!"
Van Pelt's voice was the first to jerk Lisbon out of her stupor. She turned to see her team running up to her.
"What's going on?" Rigsby asked.
"His heart started again in the ambulance, but the bullet wound's really bad," she told them. "He's in surgery now…They're trying to keep as many people out of the loop as possible in case another one of Red John's friends might hear about it, but I don't know what that means as far as what they're doing to help him…"
"But he's alive?!" Rigsby exclaimed.
Lisbon had to force herself to nod. "As far as I know, yes, he's alive," she answered.
"Oh, thank god," Van Pelt gasped.
Cho remained grim. "Boss, Charlotte told us-"
"That Walter Mashbourne is the shooter, and Red John's Little Rich Boy," Lisbon finished. "Yeah, I know - I called her after I called you, and she told me."
"So…"
"It's probably true," Lisbon told them, "I won't lie. Based on what I know of the man called 'Rich' at Red John's parties and what I know of Walter, it's probably true." She told them about the message he'd asked Charlotte to give her.
"For the best?" Van Pelt repeated. "What could that mean?"
Lisbon shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine," she said. In truth, though, she had a hunch: If Dove was supposed to lead Red John's friends 'as he would', she probably had access to his surveillance technology, which meant that that kiss may well be common knowledge among them all; between jealousy and the contempt Lisbon now knew he had for Jane, Walter probably thought that it was in Lisbon's best interest for him to kill Jane before things could go anywhere.
If Jane dies, I will destroy you, Lisbon thought. Jail won't protect you, and neither will Dove - I'll make you pay for this.
There was nothing else left to do but wait. Lisbon resumed pacing, Cho and Rigsby stood still, and Van Pelt had taken a few steps back - she was praying, silently but with all her heart; after all, praying had worked when Jane had needed to save Lisbon from Red John two lifetimes ago…
o~X~o
Special guest star time! This doesn't really qualify this story as a crossover, but a few words about the BAU…
Penelope Garcia never forgot Patrick Jane, and she secretly kept tabs on the California news, just to see how he was doing - he was almost a member of the BAU, and the team was her family; he was close enough to qualify.
So she found out right away when the report came in that Patrick Jane had been shot and was probably dead.
The BAU had just closed another case, and it was the absolute worst time to bring news like this to the others, but she had to - she couldn't face this alone. So she got up and left her computers to meet the others in the office.
"Garcia?" Morgan asked, surprised. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"
She shook her head. "No pleasure," she said. She met the eyes of her teammates tearfully and said, "Patrick Jane is dead."
There was a very long, stunned silence.
"…What?" Rossi finally asked.
Garcia shook her head. "He was shot earlier tonight, paramedics couldn't revive him," she said; "that's all I know, but…" She hesitated, then burst out, "If he had come and joined us he would have been safe!"
Any high spirits the team had had from closing another case came crashing down. Everyone thought of the mentalist they had respected as one of their own, and mourned his loss.
Or no, not everyone. It took the others a minute to notice it, but there was a strange expression on Reid's face…something like surprise, awe, confusion, doubt, and…more confusion.
"Reid?" JJ asked.
"He…might not be dead," Reid said slowly.
At once, everyone turned to him.
"Reid, do you know something?" Hotch asked.
Reid hesitated, then said, "He called me a couple of days ago, asking if there was a way to spontaneously fake death so effectively that even heart monitors would be fooled," he told the others. "Such a thing has never been done, but…I told him that since, in theory, the brain controls the body and the mind controls the brain, it might be remotely possible to shut down his vital organs without losing consciousness, then restart them later…Self-induced body death." He shrugged. "That was the only thing that fit his requirements - he said it couldn't be a poison or a staged thing, and, well…I guess it's remotely possible…"
"So he might be faking?" Garcia asked.
Reid shrugged again. "If there's anyone who can pull it off, it's him," he said; "I don't think the shooting was staged, in any case…I think he was preparing in case something like this happened."
"Red John had a lot of friends," Hotch remembered out loud, nodding.
"I will keep a very close eye on the news," Garcia said, and she hurried back to her computers.
For the record: Yes, I know this is all complete and utter BS for convenience's sake - the most exasperating of all types of plot devices. I swear, it's not going to be so simple as "oh, he's fine, everything's okay" - it won't be - and I hope you'll pardon my taking an "author's out"…This was always part of my story, years ago, and honestly, it was a little too important to change or remove; you'll see why later.
Also, sorry for the delay, I know I left you all with the worst cliffhanger ever; I myself have been in and out of the hospital lately, so that's made things difficult. I even typed some of this one-handed with a needle in my arm in the middle of the night. You're welcome.