Authors Note: This is not turning out how I thought it was going too. Not sure if I'm going to do another chapter after this or not. Let me know what you think, or what you'd like to see. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and to Ebony10 for being my beta on this.

Disclaimer: They are not mine, I'm just borrowing them for a minute.

After Thoughts Chapter 3-The Talk

"Jane? What the hell are you doing here? You're on leave. You shot a man tonight. You are not supposed to set foot in this building until you've been cleared." Lisbon stared at him for a minute then went in search of another pen.

"I guess no one told Larry the night guard not to let me in the building." He sat down in the chair in front of her desk and placed the pen he had caught in front of her.

She simply glared at him and ignored the pen, choosing instead a new one out of her desk. She went back to filling out forms in triplicate, hoping that Jane would just go way. He didn't, though. He sat there, hoping that she would just look at him. He knew he'd been an ass earlier, but he couldn't help it. He waited for her to acknowledge him again and when she didn't, he decided that he was just going to have to start.

"I shot a man tonight, Lisbon. I killed someone." He hadn't meant for his voice to sound so unsure. It was the truth, but he was nervous about having to say it out loud. He'd always thought that the first person he would kill would be Red John. He had always figured Lisbon would end up shooting him after that.

"Don't remind me, Jane. Do you have any idea how much more paperwork is involved when there's an officer involved in the shooting? It's even worse when it's not an officer or agent that does the shooting. And when the person dies! Well, don't even get me started on that." She felt the urge to throw her pen again, but didn't want to show Jane how frustrated she was, although he probably already knew.

"I shot a man, Lisbon." Jane repeated. She obviously hadn't realized what he had said the first time. "I always figured when I killed someone that you would end up shooting me, but instead, I'm no closer to finding Red John and the one link we had to him is dead."

There was the urge to throw the pen again. She settled for slamming it into the desk instead. "Damn it, Jane! I know. Ok? I know you're mad at me. You blame me for Red John getting away and you're right. I should have just waited until Red John showed himself, but damn it, Jane, Sherriff Hardy was going to kill you. And I don't think I could handle…" She trailed off there, not wanting to finish the thought. "Do you know how much paperwork would have been involved in that? Minelli would never let me live it down. I'd probably be demoted."

She was trying to make light of the situation and knew it wasn't going to work,

"How do you handle it?" He asked her, eyes pleading with her.

"Lots of coffee. That way I get the paperwork done in one night." She smiled at him and then sobered. That was not what he had meant. "I don't sleep much, not at first anyway. It's never easy. Every time I shoot someone, kill someone, it feels like a little part of me dies with them. It never gets any easier."

"But you're here, every day, even after you shoot someone and you don't seem tormented about it."

"I guess I'm better at hiding my emotions from you than I thought." She sighed as looked at him. He looked broken and it was her fault. If she had just waited for Red John, they wouldn't be here right now. Maybe they would have been able to get Red John. But Jane would probably be dead. And that she couldn't handle. If she had to do it again, she would do it the same. "I would do it the same, if I had to do it again, Jane. Even if we could have gotten Red John, there's no guarantee that Red John would have let you and Sheriff Hardy both live, not to mention the girl. You could all be dead. And I would have been able to stop it."

"You already threw your pen, Lisbon. You'll have to find something else to throw. See, I can read you. I trusted you, Lisbon. I really did. And you couldn't even follow a simple plan. Who cares if we had all died? Just think of how many other lives that could have been saved. Now he's still out there. He could kill again tomorrow!" This was not going how he had planned. He did not come here to fight with Lisbon. They had already hashed this one out and had gotten nowhere.

"I'm going home, Jane. You should too." Lisbon said, standing abruptly and straightening the papers on her desk. She didn't want to have this argument again. She stopped in the doorway, turning back to him briefly. "I would have cared, Jane. I could have had three deaths on my conscience tonight. Instead there's just one and I'm not as upset about that as I should be."

She was gone before he got a chance to respond.