"Any news?" Lisbon asked as she paced her room, arms crossed, her boss, Captain Minelli, sitting on her couch in her living room, shaking his head, hand on his knees. Teresa had known the man for the better part of a decade, and in a way he was like a father to her. And like her real father, he fought the same demons. For so long, Virgil Minelli had managed to keep them at bay, but looking at him, knowing what had gone on in the last few days, she could see the dark desire in his eyes. He was losing his will to fight, and was probably begging, in some twisted part of his soul, for a drink. Just one. and then two, three… same old song of her life.

"You all right?" she asked, sitting at his side and putting a hand on his knee, reassuring him of her presence. It was the question she had never made to her father, and she hoped that saying the words now would mean something. Change everything- at least for this man. I couldn't save dad, but maybe I can help Virgil.

"Have you already been told that she is dead, too?"

Teresa nodded. "Yeah, Cho phoned me early this morning. They think it's poisoning?" she asked, a little surprised, like she couldn't believe what was going on. It was… too much, too strange, like a B-rated spy story set in the Cold War.

"I can't believe there's people who really hides poison in an empty teeth." Minelli snickered, more to himself. Then, he shook his head, and turned to face Teresa, serious and worried. "Lisbon, this is crazy, but you heard what Hardy said. Red John says hi. We know it's him…"

But Lisbon shook her head, helpless. "We may know that Red John sent Hardy, but there's no evidence linking Red John to McAllister, or McAllister to Hardy, and you know it. Without any kind of evidence, or a living witness, we are back at square one. We both know we'll never be able to prove anything with just circumstantial evidence."

"We need to the USB Stick. If what it's rumored to be there is real…" he said, standing and pacing the room as well, gesticulating nervously. Sometimes, Teresa wondered if it was just in his nature – he was a nervous man who survived on anti-acid, after all – or if what had been written on Murder on the Orient Express was true, and all Italians tended to move their hands a lot as they spoke. She had never paid too much attention to it: did it mean she was a bad cop?

"Yeah, well, sorry to tell you this, but I don't exactly see Jane collaborating in the near future…" she sighed as she looked in the general direction of her bedroom. "Sorry, I think I may have heard a moan…"

She excused herself, and grabbing a cup of her favorite tea- she preferred coffee, unless she was stressed and in dire need of calming down, such as right now- she went in her bedroom. With a small smile, and half a grimace, she sat on the soft mattress, and gently caressed the fluffy hair of the man still half-asleep.

"I must be dead. " he said as he started to came around, smiling bright as nothing had happened at all. "for this is sure the afterlife. Well, guess I'll have to change my mind, after all. There's something after we die." He chuckled, arrogant and smart-ass as always. After she shooting she had pitied the man, despite their rough beginning, but now that he was awake again, all he had needed were few word to unnerve her, and to become a pain in her ass.

Idiot. She thought as he hissed in pain as he tried to seat. "Ehy, Steiner, come over!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, and soon a fifty-something, semi-bald man entered the room, way too happy for someone who was dealing with someone who had been shot at.

"Well, well, well, our patient finally returned to the land of the living. Gotta say, Lisbon, I'll never be able to express my undying gratitude to you. I think it's been, oh, fifteen years since I last dealt with a still breathing human being. Well, with the exception of that guy who bled on my table while I was cutting him open and…" the ME's eyes fell on the man right before him, tight as a cord, eyes wide open in shock. "But… that's a story for another time. And anyway," the MED continued, patting the man on the cheek like he was a baby. "he wasn't as sexy as hell as you are, handsome."

"I stand to be corrected. This isn't paradise. That's what your people calls hell, right?"

"Well, you'd probably deserve hell anyway, but…" Teresa sighed, amused, and shook her head. He turned to look at her, and saw something he hadn't seen before. Her eyes, there was still that amazing fire, but added to that, something else…. Amusement? He wasn't sure, but the realization that he couldn't stop staring at her, desiring to see that light again, that smile that made her whole features shine, made him gulp in fear. That wasn't his life, he had sworn a long time before he was done with love and affection and all that jazz. "Why sending you to hell, when I can look at you, Jane, getting a taste of your own medicine with Doc eying you like a piece of meat?"

"Don't insult me, Lisbon. I've always made sure to make women feel better. About themselves, and what they had with me. I've never put my needs before their owns."

Teresa rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Doc, clean his wounds, and let's see if we can get back to business."

"You know Mister Jane, I could make you feel better too…" Doc said, his voice filled with innuendo, cleaning a wound on his right arm Jane hadn't even noticed until that very moment.

"Uhm… sorry but… I kind of play for the other team, you know?" Jane answered, slightly embarrassed. One thing was turning on his charm with women, but when it was other people trying to flirt with him, initiating the whole thing, it was always harder. And even more so when he wasn't interested in the flirt at all.

"Oh, the lovely Detective Lisbon, I know." Doc rolled his eyes, huffing a little and ending it on a sigh. "Find a sexy man around here, and he'll have the hots for her. Not that I blame them, mind me, I'd try to do her too if I were straight, but, you know, I'm not, so…"

Jane thought about denying what Doc had just said, but he didn't see why bother. Besides, it was true; with the pale skin, the dark hair, the deep emerald eyes and the right curves in all the right places, Teresa Lisbon was hot. And he still was a male who liked women, so, yes, given the chance, he wouldn't have minded a go with her.

"Uhm. What happened exactly? Last thing I remember, a man you called hardy was pointing his gun at me…"

"I couldn't get Hardy before he fired at you, but at least he didn't hit any major organs. Doc said it's just a flesh wound- you'll get a scar that will attract all women, and no lasting damage."

"My shoulder doesn't think the same as you, Lisbon." Jane answered, pouting. He turned to look at what the doctor was doing, and found the man almost nuzzling his nose. In panic, he turned to face Lisbon yet again. "Is he talking?"

She shook her head, going to seat on the bed. "Hardy tried to fire again at us. I had to use lethal force to stop him before he killed us all."

They stood in silence, never breaking eye-contact, Jane looking at her like he was searching her very soul. The eyes are the mirror of the soul, she remembered. "What are you not telling me, Lisbon?" he asked, and as she opened her mouth, she remembered something the bellboy had told her: people felt compelled to give Jane whatever he wanted, just to make him happy, see him satisfied. "Someone else shoot too. One of my colleagues, Detective Bosco, got killed in the altercation."

"And that's why I'm here? In your bedroom instead than in an hospital?" Teresa waited for Doc to finish cleaning up Jane's wound, then, as soon as he left the room, she got closer and closer, until she was whispering the words to him alone, and no one else could overhear their conversation.

She nodded at his previous statement. "After we put down Hardy, we heard other gunshots, coming from the bullpen. It was a woman -her name was Rebecca Anderson. She worked with us, as a secretary. We think it was a contingence plan, in case something went wrong with Hardy." She paused. "Rigsby had been able to disarm her, but… it was all for nothing."

Jane nodded, her fingers on his arm a burning sensation of pure desire and ecstasy that run through his whole body, his lips a tight line of worry as he registered the past tense and the words she had chosen; so, apparently, their two leads to Red John were gone cold for now, as cold as their dead bodies, and only one remained. Him.

"You don't have to share details of the investigation with me." he simply said, looking at her fingers on his skin. He desired to reach out, take her hands in his own and bring those exquisite small finger to his lips, and kiss them, and he didn't' even know why. Maybe it was because he felt like he already knew her, maybe it was because she was a beautiful woman, but he felt like there was more to it than mere physical desire. That, he had been always been able to control. Her… he wasn't sure what he could do about that.

I want… need to. It was what she almost said, but instead she shook her head, breaking the reverie she had fallen victim to as soon as she had gotten lost into his eyes. The air was charged with tension and energy, and she felt herself burning. That man was going to be her damnation, her downfall, and she wasn't sure if she actually cared at all. She had loved only once in her life, a young man called Greg who called things off with her because of her family, and she had desired, and had, many men in her thirty-one years, but none of them with the intensity she felt for Patrick Jane.

"SACP has been compromised. We don't know who we can trust."

"Thanks." he said, the word foreign on the tip of his tongue. She simply shook her head, like to say, you are welcome. "Now… what?"

Teresa took a big breath, and took away her hand from his skin. They both immediately missed the contact, and Jane, like on autopilot, reached out for her, but she joined her fingers on her knees, like to avoid temptation. "Red John thinks you know something about him, maybe you do, maybe you don't… it doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that he thinks you have something that belongs to him."

"I don't know anything about a USB pen." He said, and they both knew it to be a lie.

"I know you are lying, Jane, we all do. That's why Minelli wants me to look after you. The FBI is going to put you in protective custody in a safe house, and I'll accompany you, and I'll be your shadow until you'll not give up what you know."

"You can't put me in protective custody unless I want to. You can't take over my life!" he hissed between clenched teeth. The temptation was strong, and there was nothing he desired more than being in a secluded space with Teresa Lisbon for an uncertain period of time, just to see how long it would take him to seduce her, but that was too much. He had been a prisoner once as a kid, prisoner of a life he hadn't wanted and didn't like. He couldn't allow the same to happen again, now that he was an adult, that he had fought so hard to get back what he had been denied all along.

"The law says we can- the California Johnson act, to be more precise." She smirked and left the room, and leaned against the door as she reached him, her eyes teasing him, seductive in the half-light of the room. "Just watch me."

Just watch me as I take over your life, he almost heard, and knew it to be true. because Teresa Lisbon had already taken over his life.

And she didn't even know it yet.

|/\|/\|/\|/\|

With help from the FBI, they moved Jane to a secure location. It was a two-stories house in the suburb, with more or less nothing to do. Jane behaved more or less for the first four days, reading everything he could find and making Sudoku puzzles while sitting on the couch, ankles crossed. Then, though, he finished the books, and he decided that he couldn't play Sudoku all day long.

So, he started looking at the TV.

Unfortunately, there was nothing that could even remotely be of any interest to him; he simply switched channel all day long, with Lisbon sat at his side whenever he was awake, infuriating her; there wasn't a lot of channels, and sometimes Jane put on the fog channel, as she called it, just to make sure she got an headache. But what she hated the most, though, was when he looked at his favorite shows: documentaries; about animals, mostly about carnivorous ones.

They made her sick, and she hated being sick. It remembered her she was a woman, and whenever she did so, Jane did too, trying to turn on his charm as she was a mark, to avoid her persistent questioning about the USB Stick and Angela.

All questions he still refused to answer to: frankly, she was that close to call a judge and have him persecuted for obstruction, but not knowing who they were supposed to trust, how could she? All she could do was waiting, and hoping for the better.

"Can I walk a bit?" he asked on their sixth day of permanence in the secure building. Teresa simply shook her head. Jane couldn't leave, and even if he could, she would have never allowed him to, the risk that he would hypnotize someone to help him escape was too big, too real in her mind, especially after he had tried to do the same with her as soon as they had met.

"You want to have a walk, Jane? Fine with me." she said without looking at him, her eyes in the newspaper, and yet, from the energy radiated from his body she knew he was smirking, jumping at the chance of breathing some fresh air. "Tell me where the USB Stick is and I'll allow you to go where you want."

"I already told you that…"

She rolled her eyes and stood, going to the kitchen to retrieve a cup of coffee before he could even end the sentence. It wasn't like she didn't know what he would say, they would be the same things he had already repeated, again and again and again, always the same lies. She didn't care: she was going to push, push, and then push some more, and sooner or later Jane was going to give up. Complete isolation was bound to make him crazy, after all he was the truest definition of social animal with his life-style, and once she'd seen an opening, she would be there, ready to take her chance. She wasn't going to allow Red John to walk free just because he was a petulant and self-centered child.

"That you don't know anything about a USB Stick, yes, I know Jane, but I don't believe you." As she said the words, she heard the front door opening, and FBI Special agent O'Laughlin and his partner, Reede Smith, walked in. O'Laughlin joined her in the kitchen, while Smith stood in the living room, staring at Jane, strangely amused. Lisbon could feel the tension, like she could have been able to cut it with a knife, and her sixth sense told her that something was very wrong.

"Ehy guys, you all right?" she asked casually as she walked back to Jane, leaning against the back of the couch like she belonged there. Her left hand went to the gigolo's shoulder, and she patted it, hoping that her message would transpire. After all, she could see that Jane knew something was wrong, too, and all she needed in that moment was for him to do as she said and keep calm.

"Tyger, Tyger, burning bright, in the forests of the night; what immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry?" Smith quoted, looking all smug and arrogant outside the window. It seemed almost like he could see what was going on in the outside world, despite the blinds being closed.

Oh, God. Teresa thought as her hand went to the holster at her hip.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, sweetie." O'Laughlin chuckled at her back, and she felt the cold metal of a gun against the back of her neck. Teresa breathed in and out as she lifted her hands in surrender, the FBI agent taking her gun away from her as he kept getting closer and closer. She could feel his breath on her neck, and it was like the tongue of a viper licking her skin, shivers of fear running all over her body as she understood that not only SACPD had been compromised, but the whole Justice system…

God. It was bigger than what they had always assumed, way bigger than that. And by asking for the FBI's help… they had fallen into Red John's trap like they were children asking to be robbed of their candies.

"Craig… you are a good man… you're getting married to Grace in a few months…" she closed her eyes, seeing with her mind the well-known movements that would have signaled her end. Secure. Trigger. Gunshot. Death. Part of her didn't want to plea for her life, but the instinct of survival was too strong, fight or flight. And if she could fly right now, it would mean living another day, a day that she would have used to fight Red John.

"Sorry Teresa, these are the orders." He chuckled, playing with the barrel of the gun against her pale skin like a sadistic torturer. She wanted to live, wanted to escape, if not only to tell Grace to change her mind. Fight for Wayne. He just thinks he is in love with me, but it's you he loves. Just, dump this psycho already, will you? In front of them, Smith took a dagger from his jacket, and started to play with it, like it was his favorite toy, a magnet, like had fallen victim to a spell.

The FBI agent got closer and closer to Jane, but before he could do anything, the gigolo jumped from his spot, and tackled the bigger man to the ground, using his mass against him; as the two fought on the ground, she saw O'Laughlin hesitating, and took advantage of the situation by grabbing his wrist and twisting it; the fought for a short while, the charged gun between their bodies, until a shot didn't resonate in the room, and as she fell on the couch, Craig did the same, but on the floor, his mouth and eyes wide open, a tear of blood escaping his lips.

"Lisbon!" she heard, as she awoke from her shock to look at Jane, still struggling with Smith. The FBI agent still had the knife, and the crimson blade was indication that he had hit the target at least once.

Gasping for air, she joined the fight, grabbing the larger agent for the shoulders, and threw him on the ground. One heeled foot on his chest, she pointed O'Laughlin's gun at him, Jane retrieving the blade in the meanwhile. "You all right?" she asked, her eyes fixed on Smith. She didn't look at Jane, didn't see until later that he had been hurt again, this time in the chest, and that a blood stain was soaking the cloth of his white shirt.

"I'll survive." He sighed, getting from the kitchen some scotch-tape and Lisbon's handcuffs from the back of her jeans. As Teresa was still pointing the gun at the dirty cop, he cuffed him against the baluster, tying with the tape his hands, his legs and his mouth, as he had been a goat at Easter. "We need to leave." He said, taking the money from the jackets of the dirty cops, and their phones. He crashed them with his foot, and then rushed in the whole complex, trashing the landline as well.

"What? We can't! We need to call Minelli and…"

"You are the only one I trust, Lisbon." He said, grabbing her for a wrist. He took her phone and did the same he had done to the other two, and then, once outside, he walked directly to the car the FBI had used.

"You want to steal it?" Teresa asked, but he shook his head, and without saying more, he sabotaged it so that they couldn't be followed for a while. "What do you want to do, Jane?" She asked, her voice low as they looked around themselves, fearful of the impeding danger.

"We can only trust each other, Teresa." He said, as he took her hand in his own. "And if we want to have at least once chance… we have to run."

And that was exactly what they did.