Jane froze in the silence that followed the gunshot, unsure of what to do. Put down Lisbon and get ready to fight? Keep hold of her and get ready to run? Yeah, right... like he could outrun a bullet.

A crunching sound to his left drew his attention; his head whipped toward it, body following the motion. A man was stepping out of the bushes with a gun trained on the pair.

"Hold still so I won't miss this time."

"Mr Roy, I assume?"

The man paused, frowning at Jane, "What?"

Jane shifted Lisbon slightly in his arms, trying for a better purchase on her in case he had to run, "You. You're name; Mr Roy, right?"

The man responded with a slow, drawn-out, "Yeah, what's it to you?"

"Well you are threatening to shoot me. I'd like to at least have some formalities taken care of before that. I'm sure that you're not completely uncivilized."

The other man stared at Jane, dumfounded; the gun was still up but the bearer's grip had slackened ever so slightly.

"Now look, you're Alex's brother, right?" at a nod Jane continued, "First name?"

"Uh, Jim."

"Ah. Now Jim, I presume that it was you who slashed our tires?" the man bobbed his head up and down, "And was it your or Alex who suggested to cut the phone line?"

"Him."

"The older sibling always has that little bit of power, don't they?"

The man scowled defensively, "It was a good idea. Why wouldn't I go along with it?"

"Oh, sure; that's always how they spin things. Everything that they want to do is a great idea. Alex always gets his way, doesn't he?"

"Well, yeah, I guess, but-"

Jane cut Jim off with a cluck of his tongue, "He has you really whipped, doesn't he?"

The grip on the gun was tight again, "I know what you're doin'! You're trying to get us to split apart so you can take us both down."

Jane scoffed, "And how am I going to 'take you both down'? Lisbon surely could have but you're already dealt with her, so no problems there. Here I am now, standing with her in my arms, completely defenseless at your gunpoint. I sincerely doubt that I'm going to fight my way out of this. I'm not a superhero or something."

Jim was squinting at Jane, trying to make sense of what he had said, when Jane made his move. When he had repositioned Lisbon earlier it had been to cover one hand, which was now holding his cell phone. He tossed the cell from behind his back to the side were it crashed through the underbrush, drawing Jim's gaze. He dropped Libson, silently pleading with her to forgive him for doing so and trying to ignore the painful-sounding wumph of her body making contact with the ground.

Jim looked back towards the pair at the second noise, his weapon repositioning on them, but was too late: Jane hit him with a tackle that he was sure Libson would have been proud of. The two tussled on the ground - Jane feeling an odd sense of deja vu - for several tiring minutes before Jim got the upper hand and pinned Jane beneath him. One hand went to the consultant's throat to hold him in place; the other began blindly searching for its owner's gun.

"You're right; you aren't going to be getting away from th-"

Jane flinched at a deafening bang. Jim went limp and fell onto him, knocking the breath from his lungs. Jane reached up to push the loose hand away from his neck before shoving the other man off of him. He rolled over, not yet sure about standing, to see Lisbon - looking wobbly even on her hands and knees - with her weapon still raised.

Her gaze met his held for a moment before her eyes slipped shut again and she fell forward into the dirt. He crawled to her, his breath raspy and panting, reaching out to find her pulse when he reached her.

He sighed when he found it, rolling her gently onto her back and pulling her up onto his lap, her head flopping back onto his shoulder. He scooted them both up against a tree before fumbling through her pockets for her phone. He found it and flipped it open: there was a signal! Jane wanted to leap up and dance but settled instead for giving Lisbon's limp form a squeeze and dialing Cho's number.

"Cho."

"Have I ever told you just how much I love your voice?"

"Jane?"

"Yep."

"What do you need?"

"A ride."

"Lisbon finally do the right thing and leave you someplace? Because I'm not sure that she has the wrong idea there."

"She's right here."

"You guys run out of gas or something?" there was a hint of confusion in Cho's voice.

"No; our tires got slashed."

"I thought that you were just interviewing a suspect," there was a definite tone of concern coming through on Cho's end now.

"We were… he's guilty."

There was a pause. Cho was apparently no longer in the mood for Jane's games.

"He attacked us; he's drugged Lisbon with something and she's out cold on my lap. She managed to shoot the suspect's brother for the brief moment she was just awake, though; hell of a shot even when she's not totally with it."

"Where are you?"

"The woods."

"Jane! We don't have time to screw around!"

"Wow, emotion from the stoic Kimball Cho," Jane drawled, "Get Van Pelt to just trace Lisbon's cell. Or mine for that matter. Just don't send the cops."

"Why? They're way closer to you than us. We might be hours yet."

"Then drive fast. If you send a bunch of bumbling uniforms in here we'll be dead; our suspect is probably up by now and looking for us. Any sniff of a cop and we're done for. Then we'll never close the case and Lisbon will be pissed at us when she wakes up."

"Fine, Jane, have it your way. But if anything happens to her-"

"It won't."

"Be sure that it doesn't," Cho's voice softened a little, "You both had better get back here safe. We'll be there as quick as we can."

"Good," Jane sighed after the phone clicked off. He knew that he shouldn't have acted that way with Cho but his head was pounding and he was exhausted. He settled back a little bit more into the tree, closing his eyes and enjoying the warmth of Lisbon's body against his own.

There you go! Hope that the wait wasn't too terrible; it's been a really busy couple of weeks. Thanks for all of the reviews: they're fantastic and I look forward to any more that you so graciously send my way. Ebony10: Forensic anthropology is a practical branch off of physical anthropology. I would love to do repatriation work with war victims, first peoples, etc. but I wouldn't mind working for the local coroners' service either. Basically id-ing people using their bones. I haven't done too much in the field but I have organized some collections. So cool.

Love, Moksgmol

PS: Please allow me my glaring liberties taken for the sake of drama. Obviously they would call the local pd. I swear, one of these days I will write a long, properly thought out fic with no plot holes. Until then I'm going to keep writing chapters like this ,haha.