Authors Note: I tried really hard to wrap this up with a little bow, but it just didn't happen. Sorry. THanks to every one who reviewed and encoraged me to write a fourth part, I hope it doesn't disappoint. Also, thanks to Ebony10 for the beta.

Disclaimer: As much as I wish I did, I really don't like LA, never have, never will. As that's where most of the people on the show are based, I guess it will never happen.

After Thoughts Chapter 4: Disturbance

She was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. She should be sleeping, but she couldn't get his face out of her mind. That look when he shot Sheriff Hardy. That unmistakable look of shock and grief and just a little bit of hatred. It was that last emotion that was keeping her awake.

She didn't know if that hatred had been directed towards her or himself or towards something else entirely. And that was really what frightened her. What would happen one day when that anger and hatred got to be too much for him to handle?

She thought back to the "fight" in the garden outside Rosalind's house. There had been real emotion behind his words. He had really meant that she would regret it if she stood in his way and now she thought that she did.

She had never expected him to shoot a man to protect her. And she wasn't sad that he was dead. This, really, was what was bothering her. She knew that she should be upset that Sheriff Hardy was lying on a cold slab in some morgue and not on a cold slab in a tiny jail cell, but she didn't. He was crazy. He deserved to die. He probably would have gotten sent to a mental hospital where he would manipulate all the nurses and doctors and likely eventually get released with medication.

This line of thinking was not helping any. The same arguments had been running around in her head all night. She couldn't help feeling responsible for what Jane did. If she hadn't put those thoughts in his head they could be down interrogating him right now! They could know who Red John was, what he looked like, where he came from. She knew they could get him to talk. He liked to talk too much. That much was evident.

She looked at her bed side clock. 5:00 am. She'd been in bed for an hour and a half and hadn't been able to get her mind to shut off. She sighed and got out of bed. Might as well get started on the day. She needed to finish the paperwork Jane interrupted anyway.

She showered and dressed quickly. She was standing in the bathroom trying to decide if she wanted to attempt to blow dry her hair or if she would just wear it in a pony tail today when she heard the knock on her door. She looked at her watch 5:26. Only one person would come to her house this early in the morning and she had no desire to see him. She just ignored the knocking at first until he started to pound on the door. She knew that would wake the neighbors and she didn't want to have that conversation with the landlord.

Wrenching the door open mid-knock, she hissed at him "What are you trying to do? Get me kicked out of my apartment for noise violations? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

He stepped around her and into her apartment, not bothering to look around. There would be time for that later. "I had something to tell you. I didn't think it could wait. I knew you wouldn't be asleep anyway."

She glared at him and walked back into the bathroom. "I'm trying to get ready to go to work. I've got a mountain of paperwork to do, no thanks to you." She called quietly. She hastily threw her hair into a ponytail—she could fix it at the office—and turned, jumping slightly when she saw him standing just out of sight of the mirror. "What the hell do you want, Jane?"

"I'm not sorry." He said, his face set in a grim line.

"When are you?" She stormed past him and back into the living room, looking around as if trying to remember why she came in there before walking into the kitchen and starting a pot of coffee.

"I meant about shooting Sheriff Hardy. I did it for one reason and one reason only. I did it to save you and Maya. If I hadn't shot him he would have killed you. You would be dead, and that would be one more person who died because of me, because of Red John, because I couldn't protect them. I couldn't handle having another person that I cared about be killed because of that monster."

She couldn't believe what he was saying. There were tears glistening in his eyes, threatening to fall as she opened and shut her mouth, trying to think of something to say. Before she got a chance however, he turned quickly and left, the only sound the click of the front door as he shut it behind him.