Hello again... here's Chapter Three. There'll be one more after this. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed! Enjoy, please R&R.

Honestly, I don't own anything apart from my imagination.

She trudged into the kitchen as Jane was making coffee, having spent the past ten minutes paused beside the kettle, waiting for her footsteps. He set the mug gently down in front of her as she sunk into the chair, her hair messy and her eyes soft.

'Thanks,' she mumbled, raising it to her lips and closing her eyes as the liquid slid down her throat. Jane sat down opposite her and observed silently; she didn't seem angry today, at least not yet. Lisbon hadn't headed straight for her whiteboard the moment she'd woken, and he supposed that this was a good sign. Maybe the rage had diminished; maybe the phase was over. It was a strange and horrible game, waiting for something he couldn't hope to predict. The thought drifted away as Lisbon glanced down at the coffee, confused.

'There's no sugar in this,' she said eventually, her eyebrows raised at Jane. As if he'd forget how she took her coffee.

'It'll do you good,' he told her. 'Good for the nightmares.' Lisbon's confusion mounted and he spoke a little awkwardly. 'You were…tossing and turning, in your sleep.'

He didn't add that she'd also been talking in her sleep. He'd watched her for around ten minutes, feeling like some sort of stalker but unable to turn away. Her breathing had taken some minutes to quicken, harshen, and the slurring of urgent words had come soon after. The name Tommy he heard many times. At that moment, the sheer desire to protect her had once again overcome him, and he'd been torn between two actions. The urge to soothe her, to wrap his arms around her and rock her gently into calm as he'd done with his little girl, had been startlingly strong. But also, there'd been a large part of him that longed to turn and wipe the board clear, to take the files and shred them into pieces. He wanted her to solve the case, because he understood that she needed to, but at the same time he wanted her to give it up, because the thought of her darkness destroying her made him feel sick.

Confusion, however, had proven just as bad.

Sometime between finally leaving the room and settling onto Lisbon's other couch, Jane had realised with a start that he was changing. When he'd first joined the CBI, new and vindictive, the world had been full of people standing in his way and he'd observed it as if through glass. But the image of Lisbon before him, he had never seen so clearly. He didn't know whether it was the passing of time or the absence of a lead, but on the way to the couch he had caught his reflection in a mirror and, for the first time in a long time, Red John had not stared back. There'd still been the past, but not quite so visible on his face, and a faint light in his eyes he couldn't define.

Something now occurred to him, as he watched her drink her coffee. At first Jane brushed it away, but it refused to go and he considered it for a moment. If it were false hope, he could bury it, but if it were true… then it meant that, contrary to popular belief, he was actually terrible at observation.

'What?' Lisbon asked suddenly, lurching Jane back to reality and the fact that he'd been staring.

'Nothing,' he replied, but he was lying. The tabletop began to vibrate then and Jane flicked his phone open, glad for the mental distraction.

'Hello?'

'Hi, Jane.' It was Van Pelt. 'How is she?'

'Oh, hey, Grace.' He could sense Lisbon's attention shift. 'She's…alright. How's the case going?' She paused before answering, and the silence was a nervous one.

'We've got him, Jane.'

His first thought was relief. There was now no possibility of Lisbon trapped in her own bloodthirst; no more doubt that she would now come back to them, as controlled and sensible as she'd always been. Jane let out a breath of tension, his eyes fluttering closed. But then he remembered that Van Pelt had paused, reluctant or frightened of saying the words. They'd won, but there was a catch. Something was not quite right.

'He came in this morning and confessed,' Van Pelt continued, evidently finding speech easier as she went. 'Just like that. Turns out we really didn't have to do much at all.'

'Change of conscience?' he asked.

'Seems that way. I don't blame him, seeing that…' she paused again, and then her voice was strong. 'Jane, I don't think it's a good idea to bring Lisbon in today.' Her assertion fell like concrete.

'You know I won't be able to do that,' he told her, refusing to meet Lisbon's demanding gaze.

'I know, but…you don't understand…'

'We're on our way,' he said, standing up, and shut his phone to her stammerings.

'What's happened?' asked Lisbon immediately, pushing back her chair as well, and at last he looked her in the eye. Jane didn't have to speak for her to understand; he knew that the expression he gave her was enough. Something deep down warned him that letting Lisbon come with him may have dire consequences-there was much concern in Van Pelt's voice, and he could sense an emotional wave looming on the horizon. But for every piece of him that saw the warning, there was another defiant piece knowing beyond doubt that Lisbon would not be kept. Because the fire had returned to her eyes, and it burnt a raging hole through him even bigger than before.

He wouldn't let her destroy herself, and he shouldn't give her the chance to but he couldn't find enough sense to stand in her way.

Cho sat like a statue on one end of the table, his hands on the cold surface. Jane stood on the other side of the one-way window and supposed that there was no point in analysing him; he looked like he did with any criminal. In stark contrast, Lisbon shook almost violently in his peripheral vision. He couldn't quite tell whether it was in shock or rage, but he noticed her hands balled into fists and decided on the latter.

On the other end of the table, Peter Lisbon fidgeted, his eyes swollen with the redness of recent tears. He didn't look like a murderer, but then again, they never did.

'Where's Tess?' he asked in a shaky voice. 'Is she here?' He'd queried the same words repeatedly for the past ten minutes. It was only now that Cho thought it worthwhile to answer him.

'Yeah, she's here,' he said, characteristically blunt, and then leaned forward. 'So why don't you tell her why you killed her brother.'

'He was my brother too!' The outburst came from nothing, and after a moment Peter resorted to defence. 'He was sleeping with my wife…what the hell should I have done?'

'Filed for divorce, like everyone else,' Cho offered.

'Look, Agent…you don't get it.' Pete glanced down and then back up. 'I need to see Tess. Can I see her?' His voice had gained strength, and Cho took this into account.

'No,' he replied. 'But she can see you.' It was a long moment before Peter processed the information, before his eyes began to dart around the bare room as if Lisbon would materialise from the wall. Beside Jane, Lisbon's eyes were closed and she looked to be in the midst of some internal war.

'Oh, God,' Peter uttered, his wide eyes back on Cho. 'I'm sorry…I'm so sorry, it was an accident, please, I didn't mean for Tommy to die.' With the last word, he put his head in his hands and began to sob, with the gravity of his action heavier than it had seemed at the time. And in that moment, Lisbon's anger won the war. She made her move for the door on her right, breaking Jane's grasp on her wrist, ignoring him when he hissed her name. But it wasn't her anymore, it hadn't been her since yesterday and she barged through the door nameless and lethal. Shoving past an unsuspecting Cho, she threw both hands down hard on the table and yelled with everything she had.

'You BASTARD!' Rather than pale in fear, surely aware of her capabilities, Peter looked up at her with something akin to hope in his eyes.

'Tess…' he began, but he was cut off.

'DON'T call me that!' She lunged across the table at him, but Cho had stood and somehow managed to restrain her. Jane entered the room a couple of seconds after her and suddenly, from struggling in Cho's grip, she was savagely fighting her way past him. Jane wrapped his arms around her, pretending not to hear her obscenities in his ear, and held on for dear life. Where the hell were Rigsby and Van Pelt? It took all that he physically had to hold her and all that he mentally had to not simply let her go. Peter deserved everything she would do to him, but Cho was already pulling him to his feet.

'Please, Tess,' he pleaded, 'I don't want to go to prison, you can stop them…'

'And why the FUCK would I do that?' Peter stared at her, and a dazed shock seeped into his expression as Cho shoved him through the door. His older sister, second mother, refused to save him. The shock was understandable, the denial was not.

With strength he wasn't aware that he had, Jane pinned Lisbon against the wall. Her eyes were still on the door, their piercing green absorbed into a livid white. In that moment, she terrified him, and he realised that he'd just seen her heart break.

'Lisbon,' he breathed. 'Lisbon. Look at me.' She didn't appear to have heard, but she'd stopped fighting him and he repeated himself, almost whispering. Slowly, her eyes flickered left to meet his, and in one swift departure all her anger, every ounce of her darkness, evaporated into retrospect. And finally, the tears came. Instinctively, Jane pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. He could feel the sobs rack her body and embraced the pain with her, the agony more violent now that it was free. Lisbon cried shamelessly into his shoulder for everything she was worth, and her tears wet his vest but he really didn't care. With her deflated body pressed to his, a shiver ran down his back and he hated himself for making the situation about him.

Jane half led, half carried her to his couch. Past Van Pelt and Rigsby who had just returned from the elevator and could only stare. Lisbon sank horizontally onto the rustic leather, the tears refusing to stop now they had begun. He settled himself on the floor with his back against the front of the couch, somewhere near her shoulder. It was easier, he discovered, to not look at her when she cried; then he could pretend it wasn't her, pretend she was in her office or out following a lead. He didn't like the feeling of not knowing what to do; he knew at least to tread carefully when she was angry, but the sadness had him dumbfounded. The only sound was her anguish, as he tried and failed to process the past half hour.

Eventually, Lisbon's sobs subsided and a silence descended.

'When Tommy was eight,' she murmured, 'there was a boy that would bully him at school. I was taller than him, but I couldn't do anything because I was a girl.' She was bitter with this thought, the weakness of childhood, but then she came to the part of the story that she liked the best. 'Pete walked over,' she said, 'and beat the crap out of him. He got detention, but he didn't care.'

'That's the memory you have of primary school?'

'Yeah.'

'Sadist,' Jane told her, and he could feel her smile as she swatted her hand playfully against the side of his face. He understood, however, why the memory returned to her now. She didn't pull back her arm, but let it dangle near his shoulder.

'Pete has two little girls, you know.' Her voice had quietened considerably, and Jane could feel her breath on the back of his neck. He tried for words but found himself incapable.

They'd come full circle. She'd shifted in between the Lisbon he knew, the Lisbon he feared and Teresa, fragile and happy. Shades of Lisbon he'd never been looking quite hard enough to see. But Jane now turned to meet her soft gaze and the Lisbon he knew looked back, red-eyed and raw. For the first time in eighteen hours, he recognised her.

And her presence in this bright, busy room was the only thing he could see.

Hope you liked it! Please review.

Jess :)