Thought of the day: This type of writing is all very strange for me, it is very different from my usual writing style- more dialogue, less detail, muuuch less editing. It's more fun though.
A/N Not sure if I'm contradicting canon from previous seasons in this, pretty sure I'm not (apart from the fact the CBI team are in Austin too), but if I am then oh well- might be venturing deeper into AU territory. I have a terrible memory. I think it's because of all the wine.
Also, apparently I'm just writing short chapters now. Not sure when/if that will change!
I lie nestled under his arm. Neither of us have slept much, but I feel rested for the first time since I came to Austin.
"We have to talk about the Twin Killer," I say. "This has been... this has been nice, Jane. But-"
"Nice? Wow."
"Oh shut up. You know what I mean," I say, flushing. "But we have to get back to reality."
He runs a blunt fingernail down my shoulder. "Twin Killer. Hmm, I'm sure we can come up with a better name than that. Probably shouldn't though, killers love a good sobriquet."
"I'm serious. What do you think it means about..."
"That they look like Angela? Honestly, I don't know. But someone has certainly gone to great lengths to get my attention. What are the chances of finding twins here in Austin that look so similar to her? Must have been planning this for much longer than a few weeks."
"And just waiting for you to come back? How did he even know that you were coming back at all? I certainly didn't." I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
He kisses me on the forehead, then again on the mouth. A silent apology. "I don't know. But we'll figure it out. We always do, right?" he replies with a uneasy smile.
"Right," I reply. "And you'll keep me in the loop this time? No secret games or tricks?"
"Only if you say no when I suggest them."
I hit him across the chest. It is probably unfair of me to ask him to change, the intricate plots are part of who he is. And maybe it will take a while for him to completely open up to me, in his mind he has been alone for a long time. I just have to show him that he has me now. He always did.
"I'm not going to come in to work this morning," he tells me.
"Oh?"
"Just show everyone the profile I wrote, I'll be in after lunch."
I make a mental note to have someone type the profile up properly, the last thing I need is for people to start questioning my professionalism this early on in the job.
"What are you going to do?" I ask him.
"I just have to go somewhere for a bit."
I sigh. Already with the secrets. "Please just tell me. Don't go doing anything stupid that will get us all in trouble."
He kisses me again. "I don't know where I'm going to go. I just need to go somewhere quiet to think for a while. Is that okay?"
I nod. "Sorry. I trust you."
He smiles at me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him. "You trust parts of me. Other parts, not so much. It's okay, we're both still learning."
He's right. Of course. I only hope that he'll let me keep learning, that nothing will trip us up.
When I open the drawer to retrieve Jane's napkins, the first thing I see is the photo of his wife. She is a teenager in this picture, and in the background is a ferris wheel and a row of stalls. This was taken before they ran away, before they got married, before Charlotte. Before she died and turned Patrick Jane into a haunted man. I hurriedly put it back in the drawer. I'll give it back to him later.
I bring out the napkins and gather the team together in the conference room. Fischer is looking at me quizzically but I avoid eye contact. I still don't know if she has real feelings for Jane, and this is not the time to think about that situation.
"We'll have to sort these out and type them up properly," I tell everyone. "But I thought if you all knew what Jane is thinking then we could at least get started on a list of suspects."
"Where is Jane?" Van Pelt asks.
"He'll be here later," I reply.
I arrange the napkins in front of me on the table and pick up what appears to be the first one. The notes are written in bullet points. Snippets of Jane's mind, no full sentences, not at all in a logical order. I begin to read aloud.
-Lonely and attention seeking, obviously trying to forge a bond with someone, hence the note. Not sure why me. Trying to copy Red John connection?
-Unhinged, deranged. No pattern in how victims were left so far. Probably good at hiding it, or just learning to hide it- otherwise how would he lure victims to go with him?
-Unmarried. No close family.
-Maybe has medical training or is a hunter. Incisions on victims very precise. Unsure of significance of incisions. Cause of death in Hall twins, maybe not in Grey twins. Cliff important.
-Good knowledge of forensics, no real evidence left at scene. Careful researcher. Or knows someone who has taught him.
-Unusual that first victims are teenage girls and second are young boys. Possible connection to children in his own life or mine.
-Probably knew the Grey's beforehand, thrown off cliff suggests anger and personal connection. Halls collateral- to show prowess?
-Significance of twins? Symbolic of something?
I finish reading then gather the napkins into a pile.
"Can someone turn this into a real profile and make copies?" Fischer asks. "Rigsby, Van Pelt- have you made any progress on that list of people related to the Grey twins? Jane seems to think they're the key to all of this."
"We have a list of people to question, but none of them have any priors- well apart from a few outstanding parking tickets," Rigsby replies.
Fischer turns to me. "Call Jane, get him in here. We need a plan."
He arrives just after lunch. He has yet another napkin in his hands and he comes straight over to me.
"I have a theory," he says. "Well, I have multiple theories, actually."
I hand him the typed up version of his profile along with the rest of the case files, but he puts them back down on my desk. "That profile needs to be changed. Now that I know it's about me."
He waves the napkin at me but when I go to take it, he pulls it away.
"Not yet. I have to go back to the crime scenes. And I have to talk to the families again."
I stand up to go with him but he shakes his head. "No. Just me. I'll call you later."
He is businesslike, completely lacking his usual guile and humour. I am not sure whether to be worried, but I decide to let him be. I realize that even though he is trying his hardest to be genuine, there are still parts of his brain that he doesn't realize are closed off.
"Okay. Don't get into any trouble."
He gives me a wry smile. "I won't promise that."
Maybe he regrets not telling me his theories earlier, because he sends me texts throughout the afternoon updating me on what he has discovered.
The first one says, "Grey girls saw a psychic. Suspicious. Going to find her. Name is Lexi Flain. Probably fake name. Let me know."
Oh great, I think. Psychics always send him off the deep end. When I look her up I don't find anything to start with, but when I recruit Van Pelt to help me, we discover an Alice Flain that goes by Lexi on social media. She is only twenty but she lives in Austin. Rigs and Cho offer to hunt her down.
I send Patrick a message to let him know, and the reply comes an hour later. "Thanks. Found another of her clients. Says she did readings from behind a screen. Doesn't know what she looks like. Got his number. Question him later?"
I reply in agreement. This is definitely strange, from what Jane has told me, psychics do their best work when in close vicinity to their clients and are able to touch them, inspect their microexpressions.
The third text arrives just before I am about to go home. "Went to Hall house. No one home. Broke in (sorry). Look up the Uncle- Vincent Hall. Carny."
My heart sinks at this. I have been in denial, wishing and praying that something will show up that proves this murderer is not after Jane, that it's all a coincidence. But now there is a connection between him and the Hall twins, I have to admit to myself that I don't believe in coincidences any more than Jane does.
I send him a message saying that I'm going home and that I hope I will see him there later. He doesn't reply.
I sit in front of my TV, periodically glancing at my phone and feeling like a jilted teenager. It is almost eight-thirty and I haven't heard from Jane since I left the office. I am not sure whether I should be worried, or angry, or anything at all. Should I call him? I can't remember what to do in a normal relationship, let alone figure out how to deal with Patrick Jane.
He bursts through the door just after nine. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my phone died."
Even though I've been stuck in my own head for the last half hour, I find that I can't be upset with him. All my negative thoughts dissipate and I stand up to hug him, trying to hide the relief that echoes through my body.
"What else did you find out?" I ask him.
He grabs my face and kisses me hard, then pulls back. "Later. I'll tell you later."
"Jane-"
"I will, I truly will, I promise. But this is, what, our third night as a couple? Let's not let some psycopath ruin this for us."
I nearly slump in his arms. He's right. I don't want this relationship to become all about work. We can be together, be happy, and still be good at our jobs. It's possible. It has to be possible.
"I got you something," he says softly in my ear.
I pull back and he holds his hand up to me, his fingers tightly wound around something.
"Well give it to me then," I say impatiently.
"No need to be rude," he replies, putting his hand behind his back.
I feel like stamping my feet but my face clearly shows it all, because he laughs at me and saunters into the kitchen. "I'm not giving it to you until your attitude improves, young lady."
I snort. "Young? You're not going to win me over with lies, Patrick."
He follows me and grabs me from behind, his arms encircling my waist. "You're right, you're a hideous old crone and you don't deserve any gifts from me."
I elbow him in the stomach, but a bit too hard. His hands drop and he doubles over.
"Jeez woman, careful. I'm no spring chicken myself, can't take a hit like I used to."
Before I can apologize he laughs it off, then places something in my hand. It is a pair of green earrings. The same pair, in fact, that he gave me many years before when we were investigating the murder of Jim Myers.
"I kept them," he says. Then with a grin, "I gave the necklace back like you told me to. Because although I am absolutely terrified of disobeying you, Lisbon, I'm also a strong, independent man."
I throw my arms around his neck, the earrings still clutched in my left hand, and kiss him.
"Thank you," I say, feeling like it is too much and too little to say. Did he keep them all these years just waiting for the perfect occasion to give them back to me? Or maybe he thought he might give them to someone else.
"Don't overthink it," he tells me. "I quite liked them, so I thought I'd keep them."
He brushes my hair from my neck and pushes the earrings through the unadorned holes in my earlobes.
"Beautiful," he says with a soft smile.
I kiss him again, pushing him backwards until his spine hits my fridge. He laughs into my lips, but doesn't pull away. I take off his jacket and start to unbutton his shirt and then remember something.
"Should I put these in the wash? Did you bring a change of clothes?"
He laughs again. "I picked the Airstream up, I have all the clothes I need. Right in your driveway. Did you think I pulled those earrings out of nowhere?"
He smiles down at me and I wonder how I had ever managed to look at him without throwing myself into his arms. How the hell did I cope for so many years without touching him? Almost as if in a trance I put my hands on his half-bare chest and stare at them as they move up to his shoulders. He takes my face in his hands and pulls my gaze back up to meet his. His eyes are earnest. "I love you. You believe me, don't you?"
I nod. "Yes. I believe you."
He runs his fingers from my cheek down my neck, my shoulder, my arm, then takes my hand in his.
"The kitchen is no place to seduce a house guest, Teresa. Have I taught you nothing?"
It's cold in my room, I assume colder than it is outside. I look at my bedside clock. 4am.
My head is tucked between his head and his shoulder and I suddenly realise that I am uncomfortable. As I gingerly move myself, he wakes.
"That was a good sleep," he says.
"It's only been five hours."
He beams at me. "Five hours already? Excellent."
I don't respond. I want to ask him about the things he promised to tell me, but I am an eight-hour-a-night type of human and I still want to be able to do my job in the morning. Sleep or talk? Talk or...
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for me, Patrick makes that decision for me. "It's bad, Teresa. It's bad. Whoever it is wants to hurt me," he says with a sigh.
I roll over to face him. "Didn't we already figure that out?"
He leans over the side and brings his discarded trousers up onto the bed. He reaches into the pocket and pulls out the napkin. I don't reach for it this time, because he lets me see him, see his fear. I wriggle a bit closer to him and force myself to be silent, to turn off the cop in me.
He swallows. "He threw Harriet and Lucy off a cliff. He hated them. I think that means he hated Angela."
I put my hands on top of his and rub them gently with my thumbs. His face is troubled, his whole body tense.
"You figured something useful out then?" I ask, and he pauses, then places the napkin in between us, smoothing it with his palm for just a moment.
He has written a list of names, some of them I recognise- Danny Ruskin, Sean Barlow. Others don't mean anything to me. But they are all crossed out. Then, down the bottom, written in thick pen, is another name which is not crossed out. The letters have almost made holes in the napkin, as if he has traced them over and over again.
"No," I say. "It can't be. I thought he was dead?"
"So did I. Well, I assumed he was, we all did. He just left one day and no one heard from him again."
"But he'd be..." I do some mental math but come up short. "Old. Do you really think he's capable of this? Really, Patrick?"
"You don't know..." his voice hitches. "You didn't know him. There are things I haven't told you."
I look back down at the napkin, at the eight letters printed so deliberately.
Alex Jane.
