A/N: This chapter is a little dialogue heavy; hope you don't mind. Thanks for those who continue to follow this story. I know it's not my usual fluff, and it's wearing me out because of it, lol. If I write another multi-chapter story, it will definitely be more lighthearted. At any rate, I hope you like this chapter enough to review. And now…

Chapter 7

Lisbon, having been in meetings with Bertram and fellow special agents, had been gone all morning, so it wasn't until noon that she heard in passing the rumor of LaRoche's alleged assault on Jane. She didn't believe it until she saw him laying on his couch in the bullpen, one eye closed, the other covered with an ice pack. She stared down at his sleeping form. Funny, she thought, how he looked so innocent in sleep—almost angelic, with those soft, blonde curls. Another one of those cruel tricks of nature. She was still pissed off with him, still having trouble accepting that he was choosing the security of his lies over her. But after Saturday night's intimacies with him on this very couch, she knew she had to find a way to reach him, to get past his walls. Cutting him off completely from her life and her bed would bring nothing more to either of them but frustration and pain.

"Jane," she said, jostling the couch with her foot.

"Huh?" One eye opened. "Oh, hello, Lisbon." He yawned, flinched at the soreness, then sat up and removed the half-melted ice pack. Lisbon gasped at the inflamed cheek and his swollen eye, already showing signs of the nasty bruise he would have, despite the ice pack.

"You mind telling me why LaRoche cleaned your clock this morning? Aside from the usual reasons you might get hit, I mean." Lord knows he'd driven her to it herself.

"It was a sucker punch," Jane began. "Came out of nowhere. I didn't even have time to defend myself."

She snorted. "And what could you have done? He's twice your size."

Jane attempted his sunniest smile, which lacked a little of its usual effect, given the swelling on one side of his face. "I might have had time to duck, at least."

The rest of the team had gone to lunch, so Lisbon sat on the couch beside him with a tired sigh. "You're avoiding my original question, Jane. Why did he attack you in the first place—and don't tell me you have no idea."

"You have any aspirin?" Jane hedged, massaging his temples.

"After you explain yourself."

He saw she was serious, and since his head hurt like hell, he said, "I got his old girlfriend mad at me. He was defending her honor."

"You did what?" she said, incredulous.

"Cho and I went to lunch at her restaurant last week. We met her, asked her to cater a party for LaRoche. It was all very civil, I assure you. I swear, Lisbon, I was on my best behavior. I have no idea what I said to offend her."
"What party?"

"LaRoche's fiftieth birthday party, next week. I was going to invite you…"

"You're full of crap, Jane. Why the hell would you throw LaRoche a party? You hate the guy. Here's what I think happened: you're messing with him through his girlfriend, and LaRoche caught on. You're lucky he didn't shoot you."

"LaRoche and I got off on the wrong foot. Things have been better between us since the Hightower incident. I thought a goodwill gesture might pave the way for me. Maybe he'd be more willing to share any new Red John developments."

She looked at him, considering. "You're lying. Tell me the truth. What's this really all about?"

Jane's entire demeanor suddenly changed, and he gave up fighting her, for once. It must have been the headache. "I want him out, Lisbon. The man's a menace." He tossed the ice pack into a nearby wastebasket.

"LaRoche is a good agent," she said, once the shock of his confession had worn off. "I may not care for his methods, but he's beyond reproach."

"I know," he said, with obvious disappointment. "I read his file. Don't worry, I put it back."

"Dammit, Jane, I don't even want to know."

He eyed her triumphantly. "That, my dear, is why I don't tell you things. You don't really want to know, because then you can avoid deciding the morality of my actions, especially when you secretly agree with what I do. You're also afraid that deep down, you are also an ends justifies the means kind of person, just like me, and the very idea of that scares the hell out of you. It goes against all the training you've received with the CBI, all the pretty little lies you've told me and yourself throughout your career."

He could tell he'd hurt her, but he wasn't taking it back, because they both knew he spoke the truth. He did feel immediately contrite for the harsh way he'd said it, however. He reached for her hand, his voice softening. "Look, you want me to trust you with my secrets? Give me time a chance to see if I can. Let my plan for LaRoche work without interfering or running to Betram."

"You're testing me now? That's rich."

He turned toward her, looking deeply into her eyes. "You've trusted me before with my crazy schemes. This doesn't have to be any different."

"In the past, we were working together to get the bad guys, not one of our own."

He shrugged. "Sounds like it will require quite a leap of faith on both our parts. You want the truth, but can you really handle it?"

At Lisbon's sudden silence, Jane played his trump card. "I could have lied to you, gone on with my plan without you knowing I was up to something."

"You could have thrown out whatever you're planning completely," she countered. "You could choose to live within the rules for once and actually try to work with LaRoche, instead of messing with a man's career and personal life for some petty slight he's given you."

Jane gritted his teeth against the acid words that came to his lips. "He's going to ruin the next Red John case, and you know it."

"I don't know that, and neither do you. We haven't had the chance to see what he might do in such a case, since thankfully Red John has been dormant the last few months."

Jane didn't comment, confirming for Lisbon her earlier surmising that Red John had struck again, unbeknownst to anyone else on the team.

"Aside from the gun and kicking you out of the attic, what has LaRoche done to earn your wrath?"

"Isn't that enough?" he said rhetorically.

"No," she answered anyway, "I'm pretty sure there's more that you've been holding out on me. Look, I'll trust that you are doing the right thing, give you free reign, but you're going to have to give me something in return. Tell me a secret you've been keeping from me. I swear to you, I'll guard it with my life." She took his other hand, heedless now that someone might come into the bullpen and see how intimate they appeared. "Do this, Patrick, for us, because… you love me." And that was the card Lisbon played against his.

Jane couldn't help but grin at her cleverness. "You missed your calling, Lisbon. You should put in for hostage negotiator."

Lisbon allowed herself a small smile. "I couldn't handle the stress," she said. But they both knew she thrived on it in her current position.

"Let me get this straight," he continued, "you'll give me free reign in pursuing LaRoche?"

"Yes. Within reason, Jane. I'd prefer laws be bent, not broken, if possible. Are you capable of that, because you've already broken one law that I know of in this." She of course meant how he'd gotten his hands on LaRoche's file.

"I'll try," he said reluctantly.

"Okay, then. Your turn."

When he saw her expression—open and waiting expectantly—Jane felt his heart suddenly accelerate. He felt a little light-headed, and he knew it wasn't just because of his aching face. Red John's secrets were his. If he shared any of them, he would lose the little control he felt he had where his nemesis was concerned. He could be putting Lisbon in even more danger, he could be sabotaging his chances to find him at last. He felt the icy cold hand of fear gripping his shoulder, as he took himself back in time a year before to an abandoned building. The images bombarded him, the face of the macabre, clown-like face of Red John, saving his life, speaking to him in that soft, chilling voice that had added to his nightmares ever since.

Lisbon watched the uncharacteristic display of emotions flitting across Jane's face. He was usually much more guarded than this, hiding his true feelings behind a blinding smile. But now she could see (as her own heart commenced pounding) that he was at war with himself, struggling to decide what he could and could not tell her. He brought one of their joined hands to his mouth, kissing the back of it, closing his eyes so she wouldn't see how torn up he was, how he felt like he was about to plunge off a high precipice. He lowered their hands, took a deep breath, and allowed himself to fall.

"Okay…I lied to you. Back when Red John saved me, he uh…he did speak to me."

This was no real surprise; she'd thought so all along. No, the real surprise was that he was telling her now, and that whatever he'd kept from her must have been either so terrible or so meaningful that he feared what she would do with the information.

"What did he say?" she asked, her voice hushed with fear.

"A quote, from a poem by William Blake. I don't know why he would tell it to me; I don't know what it means to him, but it is obviously symbolic of something. He didn't explain himself, but he took great pleasure in sharing it with me. It must have a clue in it somewhere. I've poured over everything Blake has ever written, studied his biography. I'm beginning to wonder if Red John just said this to get me off the track, to drive me even crazier."

Lisbon felt oddly let down, but he was right; Red John did everything for a twisted reason.

"What was the quote?"

Jane recited the first stanza of "The Tyger," and Lisbon nodded, remembering studying this poem her senior year of high school.

"It has a companion piece, doesn't it? 'The Lamb,'I think."

"Yes." He let loose of her hands and stood up, pacing a little, running his hands nervously through his hair. "If you like, I could recite that one too," he boasted with a trace of irony.

He couldn't believe he'd shared this with her, and he suddenly felt a little panicky, as if Red John himself might appear as if he'd been summoned by speaking the poem aloud. All these months, it had been Jane alone who had known this information, had kept it and nurtured it like a newborn baby. His baby. Well, it wasn't just his, anymore.

Lisbon watched his fretful movements, and, despite her best efforts, felt a sudden sense of betrayal. "Why couldn't you have told me this before? Maybe I could have helped given you some insight. Maybe someone else on the team—Cho, for example; he's well-read—maybe he could have—"

"No!" Jane exploded, making her flinch in reaction. "Red John gave this information to me. It's mine, and clearly wasn't meant for anyone else to know." He looked around nervously and lowered his voice again. "Knowledge is power, Lisbon. He gave me this power. Me. And I don't think he wanted me to share it. If he finds out I told someone else—"

"How do you know he didn't want you to tell anyone? You may think you know this man, but you really don't, do you? He's created this persona, this horrible monster who wants us all to bow down in fear at the mere mention of his name. He's toying with you; he always toys with you. I think you're right, that he's just messing with your head here. You're letting him control you. How many wakeful nights have you spent on this? How many wasted hours reading the books of a long-dead poet to try to find some clue that might not even be there?"

Part of him knew she was right—the sane, logical part. The obsessed, paranoid part was unfortunately what took over his mind when it came to anything Red John.

"That's just it, Lisbon. I don't know. It torments me, just that aspect alone. I can't discount it. I can't forget it or move on. My one time to have come face-to-face with the animal who murdered my family, and this is what he says to me? He could have made threats. He could have killed me and ended my suffering, but he didn't, and that in itself means something, don't you see?"

She stood up and saw his tortured expression. Forgetting for a moment that they were in the bullpen in the middle of the day, she took him into her arms. "Stop doing this to yourself," she soothed. "You're not alone in this anymore, okay?"

Her words weren't helping at all, and he had felt no catharsis by opening up to her. On the contrary, he was feeling a huge sense of buyer's remorse. He didn't know if he could do this again, with the even graver secrets he still had locked away in his tortured brain. He breathed in her apple-scented hair and tried to push his fears away.

"Thank you for telling me,"she was whispering into his neck, rubbing his back like a child's.

"Oh, God, Lisbon. Don't thank me. By telling you, I might have damned you to hell along with me."

The pointed clearing of a conspiratorial throat made the two lovers jump apart, their eyes flying to the doorway where Cho was just coming in from lunch. They stood at a more professional distance as Rigsby and Van Pelt followed only seconds behind. Once again, Cho had covered for them. But the other team members were experts at sensing discord, and they looked at Jane and Lisbon with concern.

"Everything okay, Boss?" asked Rigsby.

"Yeah. Fine."

"Looks like you're gonna have quite the shiner, Jane," commented Rigsby, nodding at the consultant's already purpling injury.

"Yeah, you should see the other guys," Jane joked.

"Eww…does it hurt?" asked Van Pelt, squinting at the ugly bruise.

Jane grinned for everyone's benefit. "Only when I laugh. Thanks for your concern, though, really. I'll be fine. Now, Lisbon, you were going to loan me some aspirin…?"

"Oh, right. It's in my office."

The three agents watched their boss and coworker move out into the hall and down to Lisbon's office. They'd purposefully avoided asking why LaRoche had socked him, falling back instead on speculation that ranged from Jane casting aspersions on his dead mother to somehow interfering with LaRoche's ongoing investigation into Hightower's disappearance. The latter seemed much more likely to Rigsby and Van Pelt; Cho stayed resolutely silent on the matter, and no one ever questioned a mum Cho.

A/N: Thanks for reading. Review please? And I promise to have a tag for this week's new episode (I'm so excited!). See you then.