Authors Note: This was my original alternate ending. It will be two chapters, more if you all ask, but as of right now, just the two. No death warnings on this chapter :) Doesn't that make you happy? Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed, and to lgmtreader for the beta.
Disclaimer: If I owned them I would be in California, not in Statistics and tiny little Dixie College.
Jane had just tipped his feet to go off the building when he felt a tug at his arms and the sensation of falling... backward? He felt off balance and waved his arms in the air, turning until he was facing the roof and falling flat onto his 'savior' Cho.
"What the hell, Jane? Were you doing what I think you were doing?"
Jane couldn't speak. Cho was crushed beneath him, but he couldn't seem to move. He'd gotten so close; so close to ending it all and now he was back; back to this pain, this misery of life and existence. An existence where Lisbon was getting married and where he was stuck in a destructive path of revenge and hatred for a person that he would probably never see brought to justice. The realization of what he'd almost done overwhelmed him, and he began to shake uncontrollably.
He felt Cho shifting beneath him until he was cradled in his arms; Jane didn't even care that he was in such an undignified position. He felt the emotions that he'd been killing with the poisonous alcohol begin to surface; the pain, the despair. He felt the sobs start to wrack his body, tears streaming down his face, not caring that it was Cho witnessing this pitiful display.
Cho didn't know what to do, other than hold Jane as he sobbed. It had been Grace's idea to meet this morning to talk to Jane. They had all known that he'd gone downhill fast since the case with the little girl a year before, but they had no idea it was this bad.
"God, what was I thinking?" Jane sobbed out. "I loved her; I forced her away from me. I made her go, and now… I've lost her forever. It was just like my dream, only I think I'd rather not be here to see it. I told her it was a mistake, that I would only end up hurting her; but look how it's turned out. She's happy and I'm in pain, so much pain." He tried extracting himself from Cho's arms, he needed a drink. The drinking was the only thing that had stopped him from thinking of her; the only thing that had been able to keep him focused enough to work, the only thing able to remove the pain and phantom touches. He pulled himself roughly out of Cho's arms, going to where he had left his bottle by the bucket, and snatched it up angrily.
"I need a drink," Jane said, opening the bottle and taking a deep swallow. Cho angrily grabbed the bottle from his hands, throwing it violently across the roof. Jane winced as he heard the bottle shatter.
"So they were right. I didn't think you were really drinking that much; I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, trying to see you as a good guy here, but this... This is just self-torture. Did you ever once think about what it was doing to the rest of us? Did you even once think that maybe Lisbon was just as devastated by this whole mess as you were?"
"She seems fine to me. She just got engaged, she hasn't been tortured by thoughts of Red John killing her, destroying her like he's done everyone I've ever loved. She hasn't been caught up in dreams that…" No, Cho didn't need to know about their night together, that was his and his alone.
"That's what this is about?" Cho asked Jane. Jane just ignored him, pacing around the roof. The display of emotion was unusual from Cho, and he didn't quite know how to deal with it. "You're going off the deep end because you're a coward?"
That last word caught Jane off-guard, stopped him in his tracks. Was he a coward? Had he been a coward? Using alcohol as a means of escape instead of dealing with his emotions, instead of talking about them. He had been, hadn't he? He collapsed onto his knees; he was a pathetic mess. He really needed to get away from here, away from the team and the building, get away to somewhere he could think. The easy way out was no longer an option, now that Cho had caught him at it.
"I've got to get out of here."
"Not so fast, Jane. I don't think that's a good idea, you've been drinking."
Jane choked back a laugh. Of course he'd been drinking. Drinking had slowly become an integral part of his life over the past year, to the point that in the last five months he'd been drinking almost every day. Rigsby had been right, he hadn't been sober more than a week in the last year.
"Are you going to stop me?" Jane asked, with a touch of bitter humor in his voice. He knew Cho was stronger than he was, but at the same time, Jane knew that he could get out of any hold Cho could pull on him.
"He might not stop you, but we will," came a voice from behind him. Rigsby and Van Pelt had found them. They were both panting slightly after running up several flights of stairs.
"What's going on?" Van Pelt asked, coming up slightly behind Rigsby.
"Jane was trying to learn to fly," Cho said, his usually dry wit not really helping in this situation.
"Jane?" the concern was evident in her voice, as she looked him straight in the eyes. Jane found he couldn't look at the love and concern on her face; he had to look away.
"Is it really that bad, whatever it is that you've got going on in your life, that you can't talk to us about it? That you have to hide it with alcohol, that you think you have to end it like this?" She shortened the distance between them, not noticing as he flinched from her gentle touch on his arm. "Jane, we care about you, why didn't you tell us something was going on sooner?"
"Nothing's going on, Grace." The use of her first name was a calculated risk; he knew it always threw her a bit when he used it, and he was counting on it now to distract her enough for him to get past them and leave.
"I can use first names too, Patrick."
She started to speak again when the sound of the door opening behind them interrupted her. Lisbon walked out onto the roof, looking around at her team assembled there: Cho covered in dust, Van Pelt with her hand on Jane's arm, and Rigsby looking like he was standing guard. Jane knew she was looking at him too, taking in his rumpled suit and his red-rimmed watery eyes, still puffy from when he lost control and was sobbing earlier. He knew the smell of alcohol was everywhere from the broken bottle.
"Guys, what's going on?" Lisbon asked, a touch of wariness in her voice.
"Just looking at the sunrise," Jane evaded, wondering if any of the team would contradict him. It hadn't escaped his notice that they had all pinpointed that case as when he had started to go downhill; he knew that they all must realize that it was Lisbon that he had been running from all this time. Would they share with her what they had discovered, would they share with her his embarrassment?
"I'm not stupid, Jane. What the hell is going on?" Now less wariness and more frustration tinged her voice at being kept out of the loop.
The rest of the team stood there. Jane could tell they were trying to decide how to explain this to Lisbon. Mentally he placed a bet on it being Rigsby who spoke first; he let a pitiful smile escape when he was proved right.
"We're here to help Jane. We've been concerned about him, with good reason, and today seemed as good a day as any to talk to him about it."
Lisbon looked at Rigsby for a moment before looking back at Jane. "I just got a call from security; apparently someone across the street saw someone who looks like you try to take a swan dive off the building. What were you thinking?" She stepped towards him, coming to stand beside Van Pelt who moved over slightly, letting the boss stand in front of her charge. "Were you really going to jump?"
"No, of course not; I was just looking at the sunrise." He wondered if he kept repeating it often enough he could convince her of it. Convince himself.
"Jane." Her voice took on a note of pity and she pulled him to her; she circled her arms around him, holding him loosely, but closely. "You need help, Jane, we all know that; let us help you, let us take you to the hospital, they can help with whatever your problem is."
He panicked; he saw the concern in her eyes, an echo of the look she'd given him when she had found out about his stay in the mental hospital. She of all people knew what it had cost him to admit that to her, how that situation had scarred him. He couldn't stand to be locked up again, to be forced to go through all the degrading and dehumanizing therapies that went along with the "treatment" for his "illness." He couldn't take the risk that she would make him go there, couldn't believe that she would be the one to cause even more pain. But she knew – and she was still doing it.
"NO," he bellowed. He wasn't going to take pity from her, wasn't going to take comfort from her. He'd done it once, and where had that landed him? Another nervous breakdown, this time in front of all the people at work who thought they cared about him.
He could tell by the look on her face that he had shocked her, that she hadn't expected him to fight her. He looked around wildly. He knew that for now his plan to jump had been thwarted; he had to think of something else. Reacting quickly, he pushed Lisbon out of the way and into Rigsby, dodged around the frightened-looking Van Pelt, and ran toward the stairs. He knew he surprised them with how quickly he was moving in his inebriated state. He rushed down the stairs, winded by the exertion, and kept going until he reached the exit to the ground floor, the lobby, the path to the outside, the path to FREEDOM. He needed to get out, he needed to escape.
"Jane, Jane, come back!" He heard shouts – he didn't try to differentiate the voices – calling to him, telling him to stop. He heard them chasing him, the commotion of yelling – stop him, don't let him go – but the people he passed were confused. They all knew him and couldn't figure out why his friends and colleagues would be chasing him like a criminal. Jane didn't care, he was running on a purely primal instinct now, running because he was being chased. Wasn't this why suspects always ran when they were cornered? Why even the innocent ran? Because they were being chased? But he didn't have time to think about that now, he needed to escape, needed to get away, needed to run.
He ran to his car, still gasping for breath; he hadn't exerted himself like this in ages. He found to his chagrin that he couldn't get the car open, he didn't have keys. He looked around and saw Rigsby and Cho coming quickly toward him; he knew Lisbon would be there right behind, he couldn't stand to let her catch him. He turned and ran out the main gates, right into traffic, not caring or noticing that there were cars coming from both directions. He heard horns honking and tires squealing, and felt the pain from the impact as he flew over the hood of the car that was unable to avoid him – his last thought "I won" before the world went black