A/N: Hello all! Thank you to everyone who left reviews to the last chapter I wrote. I am humbled and flattered and thrilled that you enjoyed it.

I know there was a bit of wait on this chapter for which I apologize, but I have work and university exams to worry about at the moment, which unfortunately have to take precedence.

As always, I own nothing recognisable.

Chapter 4

She let Cho drive.

Jane wasn't sure whether to take it as a good or bad thing when Lisbon handed the keys off to her second-in-command without any comment. On the one hand, this trip would be difficult enough for her without the added responsibility of driving, but on the other, she must be feeling more out of sorts than she was letting on, to relinquish her control so willingly.

She'd been so calm and collected as they were getting their gear together that it had alarmed him all the more. She couldn't keep internalizing forever. The rest of the team took their lead from her, and a horrible silence prevailed in the van as they drove.

Nobody knew what, if anything, was the right thing to say. And even though they weren't as knowledgeable about her fragile state right now as Jane was, they knew enough to sense that she was not in the mood for sympathy or well-intentioned sentiments.

Jane, for his part, sat quietly in the back seat. He wished there were some way he could erase the pain that she was experiencing. Losing a loved one to Red John was a fate he wouldn't wish on anybody, and even less so on his best friend in the world. She didn't deserve this. She deserved nothing but happiness and wonderful things; and instead she kept getting uncertainty and fear and so much pain. All because of him.

Sometimes he wondered what might have happened if someone else had been given the Red John case, if he'd turned up at the CBI with another name to ask for than Teresa Lisbon. How would things have been different? Would he still have ended up working for them or would another person have sent him away and left him to pursue the serial killer alone? Would he even still be alive right now? And where would she have been without him around to hold her back? She'd have Bertram's job at the very least, and most likely would be flying even higher. She could have been at the top of the CBI hierarchy, exactly where she should be.

She was the best thing that had happened to him since the murders, and yet, he suspected that he was the absolute worst thing that could have happened to her.

He blew out a long sigh. Brooding on thoughts of what might have been didn't change the fact that they were on the way to Oregon to view her brother's viciously murdered body. And it wouldn't help him figure out how to shield her from suffering the same fate. But he had to find to a way. He wasn't strong enough to go on without her.

About an hour out of Sacramento, Lisbon's cell phone rang. Jane saw Van Pelt, sitting on his left, start a little at the sudden noise, and Rigsby, who'd fallen into an uneasy doze, jerked awake. She fumbled for it, as Cho smoothly moved the car into the right hand lane.

"Lisbon," she answered, determinedly stoic, and Jane knew she was expecting the caller to be Kirkland, perhaps with an update on the case. She'd be loath to betray any more distress in front of the man today. But it was in a completely different voice, that she spoke again.

"Oh…Tommy."

Her brother hadn't picked up when she'd attempted to call him just before they left HQ, so she'd left a voicemail. Jane knew that she'd been both dreading and anticipating the return call in equal parts ever since.

"I know, I know," she said, heavily. "Just hold on a minute, will you please?" She covered the phone with the palm of her hand and turned to Cho.

"Cho, can we-?"

Immediately, Cho signalled right once more and pulled the car over to the side of the road. No sooner had they stopped moving then she was out the door, slamming it behind her. She put several feet between herself and the car before putting the phone to her ear again.

Tommy had been informed of what had happened. It seemed that Kirkland had already been in touch, and with Kevin too, but he'd refused to believe it until he'd spoken to her. Keeping her voice as steady as possible, she confirmed the terrible news, and listened, with a shattering heart, as her brother let out a groan full of shock and grief. Given the success of Jane's scream therapy this morning, part of her would have liked to fall to her knees and scream until her lungs gave out, but it was her duty as the eldest Lisbon sibling to be strong. She'd already failed one of her brothers; she wasn't about to fail the other two as well.

"How did this happen?" Tommy demanded to know. She could hear something very like regret in the question; and guessed that he was lamenting the fact that he'd never made up with James, and now, he never would. Part of her hoped that this would help him make some inroads in reconciling with Kevin, and that at least one good thing could come out of this.

She gave him the abridged version; the serial killer they'd been chasing for ten years, the countless near misses, and a very brief account of Jane's relationship to him. She omitted the part about herself also being a desirable target for Red John. There was more than enough bad news to be going on with.

"You and Kevin both need to watch your backs," she advised him. "Double check all the door and window locks, and don't go anywhere alone."

Tommy hadn't been listening. "You say that Jane has a history with this guy?" he asked. "And he's your partner, which puts you squarely in the firing line. You know what you're going to have to do, right?"

"What?"

"Ditch him," said Tommy, firmly. "I know he's your friend, Reese, but you've got a family to think about, and from what I know of Jane, he'll be more than capable of tracking the bastard down himself."

"I've stuck with him for ten years," she replied, stubbornly. "I'm not going to abandon him now."

Tommy let out a huff of exasperation. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to put yourself first for once," he said. "It might even do Jane some good to have to stand on his own two feet for a change."

She'd be lying if she said that the idea hadn't occurred to her over the years, in particular around the time of the Vegas stint. It would certainly be more practical for her to walk away, and yet she still hung in there, waiting for…well, these days she didn't even know what she was waiting for. She just knew that she couldn't give up.

Oh, but it would all be worth it just to see him truly free, and to have him finally live up to his very great potential. He'd been defined by Red John for so long; with the serial killer gone, he would finally have the chance to be somebody, to have a life again.

And maybe, if she were lucky, she'd get to go too.

"I can't do that to him," she said softly, glancing towards the car, where Jane sat with his head against the window, seeming bored.

"It shouldn't be about him," Tommy scoffed.

"I don't have to justify myself to you," she said, becoming annoyed with her brother's prying. "I know what I'm doing. I make my own choices."

"Then can you please help me understand why you're doing this?" he asked. "I know that collaring a serial killer will do big things for your career, but there are other less suicidal ways to do that."

"It's got nothing to do with that," she snapped. Any thoughts of furthering her career went out the window years ago. She knew how she must appear to the top brass, at Patrick Jane's beck and call, too emotionally involved to ever really be able to control him.

"Then what?"

She sighed. "Because I love him, Tommy."

A stunned silence greeted this declaration, and she even felt a little surprised herself. Admitting it to herself in the privacy of her own bed, while her brain conjured up alluring images of unending nights of passion was one thing. Admitting it out loud to someone else was quite another.

"I'm not asking you to like it," she went on, when nearly twenty seconds had passed without him saying anything. "And I don't expect you to understand, but that's the truth."

Another pause.

"Why him?" Tommy asked.

She'd asked herself that question many times over the years. Yes, he made her smile, and he was fun, and brilliant, and handsome, but none of those things truly justified how she had come to love him the way she did, beyond all reason or explanation. So she gave him the honest answer.

"I wish I knew."

Jane couldn't take his eyes off of her. Pacing back and forth at the side of the road, looking as though the entire weight of the world had descended on her. He could see the tense set of her shoulders even from this distance, knew her brow would be crinkling with the stress of it all, and the additional pressure of trying to keep it together for everybody else. She continued to pace, seemingly unable to hold still as she and Tommy hashed it out.

He wanted to go out there and tell her to stop, draw her into his body, and just hold her for as long as it took for all those buried emotions to come out, let her beat him to a pulp for dragging her into this mess, cry on his shoulder, or anything she wanted to release some of that pressure.

"Jane, are you sure it's Red John?" asked Rigsby, unexpectedly. "You haven't even seen the crime scene yet. Could just be a copycat."

He shook his head. "It's him."

"But how do you know?" Rigsby persisted.

"Do you know something that we don't?" Van Pelt chimed in. "You and Lisbon seem to have a lot of secrets lately. Don't you trust us?"

"Of course," he said, shortly. "But the whole situation is kind of delicate. I only felt I could bring one person in on it."

"That's crap," said Cho, from the front. "We've been in this for as long as you have, Jane. We've got just as much right to be involved as Lisbon."

"Not happening."

He wanted to tell them everything. About the DVD, the seven suspects, everything. That he'd only let Lisbon in on it all because Red John would have done it anyway. Did they think he liked playing Russian roulette with the most precious commodity in the world, her life?

"You're not the only one who's lost people to Red John, Jane," Rigsby pointed out, with a sidelong glance at Van Pelt. "We all have a score to settle with him."

"I know that."

He knew that they deserved better then to be shut out like he was currently doing. When this was all over, he resolved to approach each of them individually and personally thank them for everything they'd done for him over the years; but for now, keeping them out of the loop was for their own safety. He couldn't help thinking ahead to whatever endgame Red John might have in mind. One thing he could safely say was that it would involve Lisbon somehow. Putting her in danger was bad enough without the rest getting dragged into it too.

Sometimes in his darker moments, he even entertained the idea of it all ending in some kind of twisted choice scenario, with Red John weighing up Lisbon's life against one of theirs. He was afraid of what he might do in a situation like that. She'd never forgive him if he allowed one of them to die in her stead, but he knew deep down that there could only be one choice for him. The death of one of their team members would ache for many years to come, but there would be no recovery at all for him if he lost her.

Wrong as it might be to admit it, he would choose her over anyone else in the world, and he owed it to the team, as his colleagues and his friends, not to put himself in that position.

The passenger side door opened and Lisbon slid back into her seat. Jane quickly scanned her face for evidence of tears. None. Still repressing. It must all be building inside of her, just waiting to burst out. It was only a matter of time now.

"Are you OK, Boss?" Van Pelt ventured bravely.

"Let's go," was Lisbon's only answer. Cho turned the key in the ignition and they pulled out onto the highway.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lisbon could feel the dread prickling as they turned onto James's street. FBI and DHS vehicles were parked along the entire length of it with squad cars from the local PD dotted here and there. The coroner's van was parked in the driveway of the modest apartment building her brother had called home. She had only ever been here a handful of times, and only for a few days at a time. She'd always planned to come back someday for an extended stay, whenever she took her next big vacation, but work had kept getting in the way, and that vacation had never quite ended up happening. Now it was too late.

Cho had some difficulty finding somewhere to park, but he eventually managed to squeeze them in between a DHS vehicle and a lamppost, and they all piled out. Lisbon set a brisk pace as they marched towards the swarm of cops, journalists and CSU personnel that always marked a Red John crime scene.

"Hey!"

A short, middle-aged man in a police uniform with black, wiry curls hailed them as they ducked under the crime scene tape. He seemed quite agitated as he strode toward them, cutting through the crowd.

"I have had it up to here with goddamn Feds," he growled, glowering around at them all. "First the FBI, then Homeland Security, and now who the hell are you people? The freaking CIA?"

"Close," said Lisbon, coolly. "CBI." She flashed her badge to the man, who continued to scowl.

"CBI?" the man repeated, with a snort of derision. "Seriously? Well no offence, sweetheart, but this ain't California, and you have no jurisdiction here. Next time, tell your bosses to call first, save you all a trip."

Refusing to be cowed, Lisbon kept her expression deliberately blank in the face of the man's disdain, but Jane could practically feel the waves of anger coming off her.

"This is a Red John crime scene," she said, as calmly as she could muster. "Red John belongs to my team. Now I am asking you politely to step aside and let us pass."

Despite his small stature, the policeman did have a few inches on Lisbon in height, which obviously led him to believe he was in control of the situation as he looked down upon her. So many times, Jane had seen local cops make this mistake of underestimating her. On a regular day, he had no doubt that she could have flattened this guy in a heartbeat, but today, with all the stress and the emotion flying around, he genuinely feared for the man's safety. The rest of the team seemed to sense it too, as he saw Grace shooting a nervous look at Lisbon, and Cho's hand came to rest on his holster.

Clearly, the man himself had noticed nothing, as he continued to sneer down at her. "And I am asking you politely to get the hell off my crime scene before I have you escorted away." He gestured toward a pair of uniforms loitering a few feet away.

Lisbon reacted before any of the others had a chance to. Her eyes narrowed dangerously and she reached out and grabbed the policeman by the wrist, hard, so he yelped with pain.

"Boss…" cautioned Rigsby, in a low voice, glancing around to see if they were being watched.

"I didn't drive 300 miles from Sacramento to be denied access to my crime scene," Lisbon said, in a menacing whisper, ignoring Rigsby. "So we can make this hard, and spend a couple of hours causing more bad blood than there is already, or you can make it easy and get out of my way."

Despite obviously being in considerable pain, the local cop's glare stayed firmly in place. Jane could tell that he was old school style, used to dealing with things with actions rather than words, and if Lisbon had been a man, he'd have punched her by now. "Barden! Pearn!" he called out instead, with barely suppressed rage, and the two uniforms snapped to attention. "Please escort these people back across the tape."

With her free hand, Lisbon flashed her badge again at the two approaching men. "CBI. Walk away!" she barked. Barden and Pearn hesitated, clearly unsure of what to do.

"What, do you answer to her now?" their superior snapped, in disbelief. "I gave you a direct order, now do your jobs!"

"I'm real sorry about this, ma'am," said the man called Barden, as he reached Lisbon and tried to take her by the arm. "But orders are orders."

Cho immediately stepped between them. "Don't touch her," he said, fixing Barden with his penetrating stare. The towering figure of Rigsby loomed up behind her and Van Pelt stepped up to her left side; the three of them forming a veritable ring of protection around their boss. Tension was simmering in the air, and Jane could feel the situation becoming more volatile by the moment. He'd never seen Lisbon like this before, always the peacekeeper in tricky circumstances, and never the aggressor. The loss of her brother was already starting to affect her judgement, whether she realized it or not, and if she wasn't careful, she could get herself into serious trouble.

"Lisbon," he began, soothingly. "Do you think maybe you should-?"

"Stay out of this, Jane!"

"Is there a problem here?"

For the first (and he suspected, only) time in his life, Jane was glad to hear the voice of Robert Kirkland, who had just emerged from the apartment building and made a beeline for the impending scuffle.

"Of course not, Agent Kirkland." The policeman's voice immediately changed to become pleasant and professional; he clearly recognized Kirkland as a superior. "Just a small misunderstanding. The CBI were just offering us their assistance in the investigation, but we respectfully declined." He glowered at Lisbon some more, or perhaps it was more a grimace of pain, for she still hadn't let go of his arm.

"I apologize for not informing you, Chief McCombe, but Agent Lisbon and her team are here at my invitation," said Kirkland, smoothly. "They have the most experience with Red John and I thought they would prove beneficial to the investigation."

McCombe's eyes widened with surprise. "Lisbon?" he repeated, carefully scanning her features. "No relation to the victim, I presume?"

"My brother," she said, shortly, releasing his arm at last. Jane could see finger marks on it that he suspected would bruise in the coming days. Privately, he thought McCombe had gotten off easily; in her current state she was capable of doing much worse.

"My deepest sympathies," said McCombe, with such marked insincerity that Jane would have liked to punch him in the face himself. "But with all due respect Agent Lisbon, are you really fit to be a part of this investigation?" He appealed to Kirkland. "Surely this would qualify as conflict of interest?"

"Rest assured, Agent Lisbon is very well-practised in solving crimes in high pressure situations," said Kirkland, and Jane felt the DHS agent's eyes come to rest on him for a moment.

McCombe looked from Kirkland to Lisbon, to the apartment building and sighed. "All right," he said, resignedly. "You're the boss. But-" he cut his eyes back to Lisbon, "-I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your hands to yourself while you're here, Agent Lisbon. And again, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Asshole," said Rigsby under his breath, as Chief McCombe beckoned to his two men and went off to waylay several journalists who were attempting to sneak underneath the tape.

"Pretty good timing, eh Teresa?" said Kirkland, jocularly, when they'd gone. "That looked like it was about to get ugly." His lips curled into a twisty, sinister-looking smile, which made Jane have to work hard to repress a shudder.

Lisbon grunted in response, but Jane noticed her fingers twitching; Kirkland was making her nervous.

"I guess you can owe me one," Kirkland went on. Only fear of letting the DHS agent know they were onto him could have stopped Jane from stepping in at that point. Did he not remember where they were, why they were here? He'd been sympathetic enough back at the CBI, but now? They were standing mere feet away from where Lisbon's brother had been brutally murdered and he was acting as if they'd just run into each other at a bar after work.

Since the DVD, Jane had been keeping a room in his memory palace reserved as a scoreboard of sorts, ranking his seven suspects against each other in their likelihood of being Red John. So far, nobody had emerged yet as the clear frontrunner, but this incident caused him to add a few more points to the 'Kirkland' column. Surely, only a sadist could be so upbeat and uncaring in the midst of such a grim scene as this?

Lisbon made a small noise of non-commitment, and averted her eyes from Kirkland, which he presumably took to be a sign of her grief, for he didn't comment on it. Jane saw her look towards the shabby building and come to rest on a door, clearly marked with more yellow tape. James' apartment.

Kirkland noticed it too and immediately changed his attitude to a far more sombre one. Jane added another point. Sudden changes of mood; definitely a red flag.

"So," Kirkland said, gravely. "We've photographed the scene but nobody's touched anything. We were waiting for you to get here."

"Right," said Lisbon, pulling her eyes away from the door with difficulty. She took a long, slow breath in, squared her shoulders and looked him determinedly in the eye. "I'm ready."

Jane saw Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt exchange glances. "Boss, are you sure you want to do this?" asked Cho, presently. "Because we can-"

"I'm fine," she interrupted him, and strode off toward the building, Kirkland falling into step beside her.

"Jane." He felt Van Pelt take his arm as they followed in Lisbon and Kirkland's wake. "You have to talk to her. Convince her to let us do this for her. She might listen to you."

He let out a grim chuckle. "Sure she will."

"Please," Van Pelt begged. "Just try. You're the only one of us who can truly understand what she's about to find in there. We've all seen what it did to you; surely you don't want the same thing to happen to her too?"

They reached the flight of stairs that would take them up to the second floor. With her every step, Lisbon could feel her heart pounding a little louder. The last time she'd climbed these stairs she'd had her arms full with a suitcase and a duffel bag, yelling for her baby brother to come and help her before she dropped it all.

Several neighbours had stuck their heads over the railing at the noise before he'd emerged at the top of the stairs and ran down to her, divesting her of the suitcase, and hoisting it onto his shoulder as though it were full of feathers rather than clothes.

"Boy, Reese," he'd said, as the nosy neighbour's heads withdrew one by one. "You sure know how to make an entrance."

He'd been up for promotion at the firehouse; he'd told her last time they'd spoken. His old boss, Lieutenant Severide from Chicago, back when he'd been in training, had phoned him up to give his personal congratulations. He'd been so excited; so eager. He'd said he'd call her as soon as he'd had news. Now she'd never know.

He'd always wanted to be a fireman like their father, and even after they'd lost their mother and their lives became ruled by beatings and alcohol, he'd still held onto that dream.

"Lisbon?" Jane's voice broke into her memory of watching a seven-year old James chasing Tommy and Kevin around the yard brandishing a garden hose, shrieking at them to let him put out an imaginary fire.

"What?" she asked, a little more aggressively then she'd meant to.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Now?" she asked, irritably.

"Now. You guys go on ahead."

Kirkland cast them both a curious look, but proceeded up the staircase. Van Pelt, Cho and Rigsby followed, Grace exchanging a meaningful look with Jane as she passed him.

"You know the drill guys. Canvass neighbours, take photos for our records, everything we'd normally do at a Red John scene," she instructed them, voice wavering only slightly. "We'll be right up."

After their footsteps died away, Jane sat down on the staircase and gestured for her to join him. The late afternoon sun bathed the staircase in reddish light and cast his face half into shadow.

"I know I said I wasn't going to try and talk you out of this," he said. "And I'm not, but you need to be prepared for what you're letting yourself in for."

She folded her arms across her chest.

"Once you walk into that room, there's no going back," he said. "You'll never be able to unsee it; it'll be burned into your memory for the rest of your life. No matter where you go, or what you do, you'll never be able to escape it. You'll see it in every crime scene, you'll dream about it at night. It will haunt you, the same way it's haunted me."

"It's not the same as when it happened to you," she said, bracingly. "Remember, I've seen the photographs already." She swallowed. "I already know what I'm going to find."

"You and I both know that photos are not the same thing."

"Then what do you expect me to do?" she suddenly exploded, her voice echoing around the silent staircase. "Run away like a coward and pretend that if I didn't see it, it didn't happen? Because it did happen, Jane! My brother is dead. He's dead! And nothing is going to change that."

Just like in the desert (had that really only been this morning?) screaming her feelings out felt like a catharsis. Why was the world so damn unfair? Why did her brother have to pay the price for her bad judgement in falling for the man with the ultimate checkered past? And why, after all this, could she still not find it within herself to stop loving him?

Before today, she'd never approved of Jane's goal of revenge, but it was like she was finally seeing clearly after years of blindness. Justice for James, safety for her family, a future with the man she loved; killing Red John could achieve them all.

And Red John himself could be here right now, standing in the room over the body of her brother; the man he'd killed.

Oh God, if it turned out to be Kirkland, and he'd been standing right beside her, within her reach, smiling at her as though he'd done her some huge favour, saying she 'owed him one.'

Well if he were the one, she'd pay him back all right. With a bullet to the skull.

Jane was watching her with an unreadable expression on his face. She wondered how much he could guess about what she was thinking. He must go through this same debate with himself every day. How could he stand it?

"I have to go in there," she said. "I owe it to James."

"It's not your fault."

"I have to see him."

Jane sighed. He'd always known that it would be impossible to talk her out of this. She wouldn't have been the woman he fell in love with if she were any different. But he would have given anything to spare her the pain that she was going to go through. If he could have taken James' place, he would have done so gladly, and put an end to this madness once and for all.

She still wasn't crying. It was as though all the sadness that was inside was being pushed aside by anger and her own insistence of herself to be 'strong.' Just as he had broken down after the murders of his wife and daughter, now so was she, though in a different way. His whole life had seemed to go into shutdown, consuming him body and soul, while she was pushing ahead on autopilot, refusing to let herself feel anything at all.

He leaned toward her and kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger for longer then they should have, as though it would somehow convey to her all he so desperately wanted to say.

Her fingers lightly traced the contours of his face. He hoped that meant, at least on some level, that she understood.

The room fell silent when she walked into it. She barely acknowledged the twelve people inside, crime scene techs, cops and the like as she crossed the threshold into her brother's small apartment. He didn't spend a lot of time here, she knew, and it was decorated to the bare minimum-a second-hand couch, and a cheap television. The only thing in here of any value was the set of weights he had stacked up in the corner. She knew they were top-of-the-line because she'd seen them at the gym, and she knew he spent a lot of his time off training to become stronger, faster, a better fire fighter.

His bedroom was towards the back of the apartment. She'd seen from the picture that Red John had chosen to attack him there; true to his MO, and she found herself being drawn irresistibly towards it. Kirkland emerged from the room just as she reached it; but to her great relief, he didn't say anything, just stepped aside to make way for her.

The smiley face greeted her first, leering at her from the back wall, seeming to take on a macabre life of its own, as though it's amusement was heightened still by her arrival. The sheets of the bed were tangled into disarray, and, cocooned between them all, her brother's body.

The cry of pain that flew from her was audible throughout the entire building as she examined every inch of her baby brother. She felt an arm settle around her shoulders, Jane's probably, but she shrugged it off immediately; she didn't want any comfort. There was no comfort for James where he was right now, so she shouldn't deserve to have it either.

She didn't even hear everybody else retreat from the room, didn't even notice she was alone as the sky outside turned from red to indigo and the shadows lengthened.

Jane had been right. Seeing it for real was so much worse than the photograph. Knowing if she reached out to touch him, he would never feel it; that he would never be aware that she was standing right beside him.

Night fell and the room was plunged into inky blackness. The first beams of moonlight filtered through the window, illuminating the smiley face on the wall like a spotlight, but yet she still couldn't draw her eyes from her brothers' face.

"She's been in there for almost an hour." Rigsby glanced from his watch to the closed door of James' bedroom. "The coroner's team are getting impatient."

"The hell with them," said Cho. "Let them wait."

"No, Rigsby's right," said Jane. "She can't stay in there forever."

"What do you think she's doing in there?" Van Pelt asked, cautiously.

"Grace, you'd better go and get her." Jane had several theories about what might be running through her mind in there, and none of them were good.

"Me?" she squeaked, in surprise. "But wouldn't it be better if you-?"

"I can't." If he walked back in there now, with the moonlight all around, just as it had been that night, he knew he would think of nothing but Angela and Charlotte, and as much as he wanted to always remember them, they were dead. Teresa was alive, and she needed him now, and she deserved his full attention.

Almost fearfully, Van Pelt turned the doorknob and let herself back into the room. After an interval of some minutes, she re-emerged with Lisbon in tow, pale, and unsteady on her feet, but otherwise as OK as could be expected.

"Come on," he said gently, as she walked towards him. "Let's get out of here."

She nodded, but not as though she had any conviction in what she did. Numbly, she followed him out of the room as the coroner's team went by, and closed the bedroom door behind them.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They decided to stay in Oregon for the night. It was too far to drive back to Sacramento, and that was without the fact of them all being emotionally overwrought and exhausted. Van Pelt booked them rooms at a Best Western, and wisely ignored Lisbon's snappish suggestion to send the bill to the DHS.

Even Rigsby's appetite had been somewhat curbed by the day's events, but still it was decided by a general consensus that they should at least try and eat something, leading them to a small diner near the motel.

The mood at the table was sombre; nobody seemed very hungry, and Rigsby put away his double beef burger with fries and a side of onion rings with less gusto than usual. Jane could only finish half of his eggs, and Lisbon picked at her club sandwich for all of two minutes before pushing it away completely.

She'd been very quiet since they'd left the crime scene, the jab at Homeland Security practically the only words he'd heard her speak. She got up from the table, excused herself and disappeared off in the direction of the ladies' room, though he'd bet his last pay check that that was not her intended destination.

Five minutes passed, then ten, and though he glanced towards the ladies' room so frequently that people at neighbouring tables were beginning to stare, he saw no sign of her returning. He knew that she wanted to be alone right now, but he also knew that solitude was the worst possible thing for her. When he'd let himself sink into his own misery, he'd at least had her to pull him out. He'd never dream of putting himself in the same league as Lisbon, but in lieu of finding another one of her, he would have to do.

As he'd expected, the restrooms were situated near a back exit to the diner. This opened on to a dimly lit alleyway where the employees of the diner took smoke breaks, as evidenced by the cigarette butts studding the ground. He followed the alley where it lead and found himself back in the parking lot, where he could see the SUV parked under a flickering neon sign.

A few feet away from the SUV stood a bench, and resting upon it, a familiar silhouette.

"Waiting for Godot?" he asked, and she turned her head toward him as he sat down beside her.

"What do you want, Jane?"

"Generally when bathroom trips take this long, it's a good idea to consult a doctor," he said.

She chuckled a little. "Well you seem to have all the answers, why can't I just ask you?

"I charge by the hour."

She looked away from him again, and up into the night sky. Her pale skin looked even paler in the moonlight, almost ethereal.

"So what do we do now?" she asked. "Do we just sit back and wait for whatever he has planned for us next, or do we walk up to every person on the list one by one, put a gun to his head and ask him whether or not he's Red John?"

He grinned. "What the plan lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in simplicity."

"Might get arrested though," she said.

"That is a possible side-effect, yes," he agreed.

"We could just stay here," she suggested. "Throw in our careers and lead nondescript lives in Oregon."

"Doing what, exactly?"

She shrugged. "You're good at talking people into things they don't really want; you'd probably make a killer door-to-door salesman. Women would be falling all over themselves to ply you with money."

"And what would you do?"

"I don't know, get work at the shooting range or something," she said, carelessly.

"It would be a fantastic ending to our story, don't you think? 'And Jane and Lisbon quit their jobs and lived mediocrely ever after.'"

She let out a little huff of laughter. "Well it beats the ending we're heading for at the moment," she pointed out.

"True."

He shuffled a little closer to her on the bench, and for the second time that day, slipped his arm around her shoulders. This time, she let him, laying her head on his shoulder. To a casual observer they would appear to be simply a couple in love without a care in the world.

Well, she thought, as she felt herself relax against him, they'd be half right.

"One day soon this will all be over," he said, his hand moving her hair, and stroking it gently over and over. "We'll get to have normal lives again. Or at least you will. I don't think I'm cut out for 'normal.'"

"No kidding," she said, and felt his body vibrate pleasantly with his chuckles.

She could happily stay here curled up against him forever; she only lamented that it was somewhere so public. The couch in her apartment, the bed in his attic would once have been perfect places to do something like this. Dark, and private, where they could be alone…totally alone. But now Red John was everywhere. Someone had already broken into Jane's attic, and there was no guarantee her apartment would be any safer. James had been at home with the doors locked, and look what had happened to him.

The thought of him brought a prickle to her eyes and a jolt of pain to her heart; so she buried her face in Jane's neck, breathing in his scent. He kissed the top of her head, and pulled her even closer to him.

Oh God, how would she survive it if something happened to him too? Yes, it was far likelier for her to be killed first, to draw out the torture for him a little more, but there was no guarantee. Maybe that would be her punishment, watching him die and never knowing what they could have been without Red John looming in their midst.

Just once, she wanted to be somewhere nobody could reach them, somewhere she could kiss him and hold him, and tell him she loved him without any fear of interruption or eavesdropping. But she wasn't so sure that such a place even existed anymore.

"We'll get through this," she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "With a lot of hard work and a little luck."

"Don't say that," he said softly into her hair. "I think I used up all my luck the day I met you."

"Boss? Jane?"

The team had apparently finished eating.

"We're heading back to the motel now," Van Pelt called out.

Regretfully, Jane disentangled himself from Lisbon.

"Come on," he said. "Our chariot awaits."

She watched him criss-cross between the parked cars towards the SUV. She hated feeling so powerless, and unable to protect the people she loved. James had been the first casualty; who would be next?

There had to be something she could do, some way to get a little bit of control back over this impossible situation.

Red John had changed the rules. Maybe it was time for her to do the same.

A/N: For anyone who is curious, yes James' old lieutenant Severide was named after the Chicago Fire character (another show I like, featuring one of my Australian countrymen putting on a fake American accent.) The opportunity was just too perfect to miss.

I really hope you liked this chapter. Donna's up next!