Jane

I look out over a vast chasm, beautiful and desolate. Except for the beauty, it could be my heart.

I tried for ten years to fill it with vengeance. But it was still just as empty when Red John was dead. Maybe more so. I had nothing left but a gaping absence where once there was love, and work, and purpose. And dead is dead. Red John suffered far less over my loss than I did, and it's still not over. He continues to torture me, even after more than two years in his grave.

Loving Lisbon was a desperate grab for life and meaning. It was dizzying and terrifying, like standing on the very edge of this precipice. Wondering if one wrong step would send me into oblivion. But it made me feel alive in ways I hadn't dared feel for 12 years. The emotions I had hidden for so long, in the depths of my aching void, ran deeper than a river, swift and wild and fierce, unstoppable once I allowed myself to acknowledge them.

But if the love was too hard to hold back, the fear was impossible. It was my constant companion. At first the joy of being loved again drowned out the subtle sound of a cold whisper. This, too, could be taken from me. I ignored it while I could. This can't be what she really wants. I shut it down cold. You're broken, you have nothing to give her but a hollow husk. I threw myself into my work. She could die at any time. I began looking for a way to escape. What if you aren't there when she needs you?

You are only holding her back.

You are making her crazy.

You will lose her.

She won't choose you.

You aren't good for her.

These weren't the taunts of an enemy. This was my own mind attacking me. I have learned to trust my own judgment. When an idea is so clear and consistent in my thoughts, I'm usually right. Could I decide not to listen just because it wasn't what I wanted to hear?

What started as whispers became a constant cacophany in my head, and all my working and loving and teasing and playing could not quite drown it out. The nightmares resumed, intensified. If she was right next to me, her touch would hold the horrors at bay. But even when I was awake, the images never slept. All the things that almost went wrong played out in many disastrous variations in my imagination. All the things that could possibly go wrong. Mistakes I could make. The unforeseen accident. The momentary lack of attention. An enemy. Friendly fire. Malice, carelessness, mere chance, fate... anything could work against me. Anything could take her away from me. I'm just a man. No matter how clever I am, no matter how carefully I plan, I am not infallible. I make mistakes. It has cost me dearly before, it could again.

I could not ignore my instinctive need to protect her. I could see how it undermined my own rationality and clarity of thought, but I was helpless against my own inner turmoil.

Even if I could stop worrying over her safety, would that bring peace? Or fatal complacency?

And if I could not, would the growing anxiety become so intense that it would drive her away from me?

Then she caught me. Meddling. Interfering with her work. The stillness of her face didn't hide the fury. She would never run. This was her job. She loved what she did. She was good at it. And I was making it harder.

I told her that we would work it out. Not really believing, but willing it to be so. To lose her was unthinkable. I had already proven to myself that life with out Teresa would be beyond bearing. But for once I could find no workable plan. Nothing that wouldn't hurt or alienate her. Nothing that would not prolong my agonized terror.

When the call came from Abbott, I knew that it was beyond me.

Racing to the hospital with her was surreal. Reassuring myself that whatever happened to Vega, at least my Teresa was near, and safe. She let me drive so that she could pray. She held back tears as she mouthed the words, touching the cross at her neck, rocking slightly as though in pain. I wanted to hold her and tell her it would be alright, even though I didn't believe it.

The desperate dash to her room. Abbott's grim face, his rigid posture. Cho's open misery. The cold pallor of Michelle's skin.

And then watching my Teresa's stricken face as it crumpled into grief.

If I were the one who died, it would be even worse.

It hit me then that no matter what happened, one or the other of us would one day face this loss. I could not even think of living through it again. But could I condemn her to the fate I dread above all else?

I should have let her go with Pike.

But hadn't I made her happy?

She could have been happy with him. Not the same happiness. But not the same fear, either.

Later, she raised the subject of the afterlife with me for the first time. She doesn't talk about things like that, although I know her beliefs are deeply important to her. Her voice betrayed a hint of doubt as she asked if I thought her foolish because she needed to believe.

Had I shaken her confidence, sullied her one source of comfort, with my unbelief?

For a moment I wished hard that I could believe, too, that Michelle Vega was somewhere nice, maybe talking to Angela and Charlotte, telling them what mischief I'd been up to in their absence.

I couldn't. Worse, I knew what that meant to Lisbon. Because Catholics don't believe that everyone goes just "someplace." They believe in Heaven and Hell. Peace with God forever for the faithful. For those who reject God, eternal torment. If anyone deserves that (Red John springs immediately to mind) I do. Teresa might think otherwise, but because I refuse to believe, she will always have cause for doubt. For me to die would not just make her grieve from missing me. It would make her wonder if I were eternally lost to her, suffering beyond help. Would that thought be enough to spoil her hope of paradise?

Numb, I went through the motions to bring closure to this nightmare. For the first time since my fear started to consume me, I felt calm, lucid. Had I been sleep walking all this time? Now I was awake. And I could see that I hadn't the strength to continue this. I had to make it through until the weekend, and we would run. And never look back. And maybe finally we could be at peace.

No. There was no peace for me. She was ready to put herself in danger yet again, and I could not allow it. Given the choice, I was willing to risk my own death and all that it meant to her, rather than to risk what her death would mean to me.

Because my dying doesn't hurt me. And I won't be around to see what it does to her.

That's how much my love is worth.

So here I am. Looking into the abyss. I hadn't the courage to deal with how badly I've messed up. By building my life around a hollow vengeance. By grasping for love and peace at Teresa's expense. By not being strong enough to address and overcome my fears. By proving once and for all that my own pain matters more to me than the pain of those I love.

I asked her to come with me, but I knew that she would not. Because the pain of others matters to her. Enough to share it with them. As she has so often shared mine.

The canyon is big. A person could get lost here. A body might never be found. The oblivion I crave would be all too easy to find.

But something holds me back.

The same thing that stayed my hand when I held the gun over the body of my dead tormenter. I never meant to outlive him by much. I deserved death more than he did. Because I had already suffered enough.

But so had Lisbon.

After all that she had done for me, keeping me going, helping my hunt, could I repay her trust by leaving her with my death on her conscience?

No. And if I couldn't then, before I knew the taste of her lips and the warmth of her body against mine, before telling her how much I love her and hearing her say it in return, how could I hurt her now?

The phone rings. Again. I know that it's her before I even look at it. But I still can't answer. I am ashamed of my foolishness. Of wallowing in despair. Of entertaining, even for the briefest moment, the idea of not going back to her.

It would be the worst in a long list of horrendous mistakes.