-I don't think Jane sorts out the female pronouns in his head sometimes, so this might take a bit of working out...-

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-credit: Ernest Dowson 'Cynara'-

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Between The Kisses And The Wine...

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For once, it's simply physical pain, his wrist, that keeps him awake, but he doesn't want to leave her. So he slides out to watch the late movie, plans to creep back in for an early cuddle.

Partway through, there is a little noise. She comes out of her room, blinks at him. Turns, and a minute later, comes back out with the quilt. Climbs onto the couch beside him, wriggles under his arm, and snuggles down. His eyelids prickle, even as he smiles – he's not even sure of how awake she is, sleepy little dormouse of a woman.

If certain people ever found out how much time he spends here, it could look very dark for her. He tries to be careful, but he can no more keep away from her than he can stop breathing.

The sheer terror in him, sometimes. He doesn't need to hide from her, she sees him as he is, and she loves him. Not unconditionally, more dangerous and more complicated that that, she knows him, the darkness in him, and she will fight to make him be better than he is.

So very different, smooth dark hair beneath his fingers, ivory skin, the feel and smell of her...

He had been exciting and different, a charming bad boy who had won his princess. Life had never denied her anything, why shouldn't she have him? Days when he had felt like a performing pet, only his quick mind and smart mouth saving him from humiliation. Days when only her hand on his forearm kept him from exploding. (One thing, a strange echo, that both women put two fingers on his arm, light touch that says 'please'.) Quiet strength in her, a different strength to Lisbon, one born from security, not adversity.

...Lisbon would have come and sat on that busted couch, drunk beer from a bottle. She understood what it was like to live in a world where the weekend just meant different working hours. He wouldn't have been ashamed to show her where he lived, and she wouldn't have been charmed by the novelty of poverty.

That thought flays across raw nerves. Guilt in him. He does her memory a disservice. She would have come with him, would have met the guys. But he would have been ashamed, and they would have been uncomfortable. She was Money.

He had asked her why, one day, and she had looked at him, simply said – because. My world is full of men who went to the right college, and have proper manners, know which damn fork to use. And none of them make me laugh like you do. His shrug. I'm no prince. Her smile. You're my court jester, then.

All he knows. A lifetime of trickery, lies, manipulation, playing to an audience. And...he likes the applause. He's acknowledged, seen. He's good at it. Really good. Always has been.

And what else is he to do? Become a patron of the arts? Live on his wife's money, while her family despise him?

They had had a huge fight, he remembers. Her father paying for the wedding, he could deal with. But the down payment on the house, the implication that he could not provide for his family...She had not understood the rage in him, then. His pride, his ego.

She had wanted him to give up the stage. Spend more time with them. After all, he didn't need to work if he didn't want to. Her family had enough money that she had never had to. She could spend her time supporting artists, dancers, musicians...magicians.

But...her father had called him 'that gold-digging little shit.' Oh, not to her, and it wasn't something he'd been meant to hear. He'd been well-aware that he wasn't what they ever wanted to see in their home – people like him were the ones who did the catering and cleaned the pool. The 'help'. Not the sort you had sitting at the table.

She didn't mind the stage shows, the card tricks, the hypnotism. She had disliked the parade of the sad, the lost, the hopelessly hopeful who looked upon him as their salvation. Not in our house, Patrick. The job does not come home with you any more. But it paid. And gradually, that started to become the show. Cameras, the first cameras in the background of the theatre. Then the theatre became a studio...

Do you have to do this? Yes. What else is there? It's false hope, but it's hope. And it pays the bills. And this is me, not all of me, but enough. People knew his face, his name.

Because it had all been a game, a show, something that he could leave behind, that did not touch his happy family. Until it followed him home.

Ego. Pride. Vanity. All of it cut away from him.

Blind and deaf, torn from within until he can't breathe. As near to destruction as he has ever been, that place that still lurks inside him, white walls and silence...

All that he fears. A small, blank room confining a small, blank man.

Victim.

He won't be that. Won't ever be that again.

It's a half-life at best, now, on the bad days. Going through the motions, there are days when the parade of violence, greed and stupidity hammer too hard. (But now there is the solace of a pair of arms. Transient, and it doesn't alter the horror, but they can pretend that it makes it a little better, and maybe in some small personal way, it does.)

But on the good days...Oh, on the good days, he feels alive again. Just the touch of her warm lips up under his jaw is enough. Such small things – making dinner together. Fragile little life-raft, small scenes of normality strung together over the abyss.

He cares little for other eyes upon them, the censure of the workplace. That does not touch him, he does not worry about that. His concern is...other. Red John has seen her. She is known, now.

He has to be here. Needs her, wants her. Needs to protect her.

Shocked up from sleep, clawing out of the fear and the dark and the world turned to blood and blades, he has clung to her, held her, and he means every word he says to her, that wild mix of fear and devotion. He has killed for her, would kill again to keep her safe. She's the only thing that grounds him, the only thing that matters. He's seen over the edge, now, knows where he could go without her to hold him back.

Knows that he will have to go there again, regardless, in spite of, because of, her.

It's his right to avenge his dead, to protect his woman. He knows that it is a primitive, dark, angry thought that has no place in the modern world. But he has never been very good at fitting in, however hard he tries...

...Waking in the early grey light, neck stiff and the warm weight still across his knees. He hates to wake her, but he can't carry her back to their bed. Dazed green eyes, and she stumbles ahead of him, fingers laced with his. She burrows into him, grumbles sleepily about the cold mattress, nonsense syllables fading.

Their bed. He realizes his own thought. Wonder and terror in him. Holds her in his arms, and does not know if what he offers up is a vow or a prayer or simple defiance.

Mine. Always.