A/N: I continue to be overwhelmed with all the lovely reviews for this fic! You guys are amazing! You inspire me to keep writing, that's for sure.

This chapter has a lot of talking. Jane finally gets some of his burning questions answered. There's a bit of angst, a bit of humor, and a touch of romance—hopefully a little something for everyone. Enjoy!

Chapter 4

Long after the closed-case pizza was gone, Jane made his way up to the attic. He couldn't sleep—not even on his couch—so he thought a visit to what Lisbon sometimes referred to as his "man cave" would help him settle his thoughts. He sat languidly in his chair, staring out into the darkness beyond the window. Angela had given him a lot to think about, as had his own behavior toward Lisbon in her office earlier. He had to concede that maybe the ghost was right; there was something in the air between Lisbon and him, something more than just a deep, abiding friendship. Now that he'd allowed himself to seriously consider the notion, Jane found it difficult to think of anything else.

"Why do you hang out in this spooky old attic?" asked Angela's ghost when materialized beside him. "It's a wonder you haven't had more ghosts visit you before—it certainly looks like a place that deserves to be haunted."

"It's quiet here," he told her. "I can think."

"Well, Teresa is right. It doesn't look good. It's…unhealthy. But at least you got rid of that fleabag you called a bed."

Jane shrugged, then grinned suddenly. "I've missed having you busting my chops all the time. No one does it better than you."

Angela chuckled. "Teresa gives me a run for the money, and you know it. That's why you care so much about her. You need someone in your life to at least try to keep you in line."

"Oh, she definitely tries." A vision of the multitude of times she'd punched him in the nose or thrown various desk supplies at him filled his mind, and his grin widened. Maybe she did really love him. What woman would put up with his crap if she didn't?

"I'm glad you're seeing what's been right in front of you for months now," said Angela's ghost beside him.

"For months?"

"I told you she only recently realized her feelings for you. It was after she'd been shot. She woke up in that hospital grateful to be alive, and suddenly fearful she would lose you forever for what you'd done in that mall. You remember how different she was all of a sudden?"

He thought back on that turbulent time after mistakenly shooting Timothy Carter. Despite the circumstances, she seemed almost giddy around him at times, smiling more…blushing more. Was that really when she'd fallen in love with him?

"I remember," he replied. "And then she softened toward me, toward what I was doing."

"You were finally being honest with her, sharing things with her. She realized she might really be able to trust you, at least on some level. That's what's held her back with you all these years, kept her feelings buried from even herself. How can you love someone you can't trust?"

Jane nodded. "I see it now. And I've felt so much better trusting her, felt so much less…alone."

"Oh, Patrick, you've never been alone. You've just been punishing yourself by pushing people away. Why you felt the need to do that, I'll never know. But what I do know is you're not responsible for what happened to me and Charlotte."

And there it was, the refutation of what had in effect become Jane's religion the past eight years. And like a man whose god was questioned, Jane became immediately defensive.

"The hell I wasn't," he said, his voicing raising an octave. "If I hadn't said what I did on television, hadn't been so arrogant, you and Charlotte would be alive today."

Angela considered him calmly. "Perhaps. But you weren't the one who killed us. It was Red John. Everything you said about him was true, but he is a psychopathic killer, Patrick. We didn't deserve to die simply because you called him out. It's not your fault. You have to forgive yourself or you will never have a life beyond that day."

Jane felt his eyes filling as thoughts of that long ago day came back to mind as crystal clear as if it had been yesterday. Seeing Angela before him now made the memories even more defined, and he trembled under the weight of it.

"I can't," he whispered brokenly, both hands moving to cover his face.

"Patrick," Angela said sternly. "I'm here. Ask what you need to."

"I can't," he repeated, but the horrible questions flooded his mind, unbidden.

"No," she said, answering each thought as it came. "It was quick. I awoke to a hand over my mouth and a knife at my throat. It was quick," she said again. "I barely felt anything."

"You had to have been terrified," he said raggedly, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Yes, but my last thoughts were of Charlotte, and of you. How would you get through this? I didn't want you to be alone."

"Oh, God," Jane said, unable to look at her. The tears were blinding, and his body shook. Nausea nearly overwhelmed him, and he had the sudden urge to vomit over and over like he had that night. There'd been so much blood. The butchered image of his little girl captured his memory, but this time, he couldn't hide from it or push it out of his mind. Charlotte.

"She was asleep, Patrick," whispered the ghost. "She never woke up, never knew what happened, was never afraid."

Jane gulped and looked up, wide-eyed at the familiar words. "Kristina—"

"Yes, she was telling you the truth. When she reached out to me, I sent you a message through her. You believed her, didn't you?"

"Because I wanted to believe," he said. "But later I realized she was just telling me what I wanted to hear. It wouldn't have taken a psychic to figure out I would want to know this."

"It's true, Patrick. Kristina Frye has the gift, just like you do."

"I don't have a gift, Angela. It's educated guesses, and a lot of luck."

He sat back in his chair, emotionally drained. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief, then proceeded to wipe at his eyes and nose tiredly. He felt sick and clammy and exhausted.

"Maybe some of it is, but if you weren't psychic, how are you seeing me now? Talking to me? When you were making your living as a psychic, you'd get images in your mind of your client's loved ones, wouldn't you? The words would flow easily from your mouth—their words. I'm telling you Patrick, you were a conduit for them, just like Kristina was a conduit for me. And now, working with the CBI, you still have those flashes of insight that are uncanny. You see visions of crime scenes, or criminals. It's like the victims are guiding you. You tell yourself and others it's guessing, or coincidence, or luck, that you're just paying attention. While that's certainly a big part of it, there's more to it than that, and you're too afraid to acknowledge it."

He stared at her, the truth of her words vying with the usual denial poised on his lips. But she wasn't finished.

"You do have a gift, Patrick, and you've recognized it from the time you were The Boy Wonder. Later, when you were accepting money from wealthy women, you felt like you were fleecing them, but they didn't feel that way. Your knowledge and insight was invaluable to them, comforted them. What made you feel so bad was that you loved the money so much. A poor kid from the carney circuit was finally getting everything he'd been denied his whole life, but you were using your gift for material gain, and that troubled you, I know it did—it always had."

She'd begged him long ago to take her away from the life of being constantly on the move, never able to put down roots, hating the perpetual dirt and stink of the road and the fairgrounds, the claustrophobic press of humanity. So when they left the carnival, he did the only thing he knew how to do.

"The money was mainly for you and eventually Charlotte," he said, finding his voice. "I had to be able to give you the financial security your daddy had always given you, security I'd never known myself. I admit, it became addictive. I liked the suits and the cars and the spotlight. It was the ultimate long con…and it killed you both."

His tears slid down his cheeks again as he relived the past; guilt—his constant companion—finding its home again in the emptiness of his soul. But his newest companion, Angela's ghost, was shaking her head sadly at him.

"Forgive yourself, Patrick. I have. Charlotte has."

At that, his heart quickened again. "Charlotte? Is she here?" He looked around, both fearful and hopeful that his golden haired daughter would materialize before him.

"No, but don't be sad about that. She's moved on; she's at peace. Nothing was left undone for her. She was a happy child and free of care; remember her that way."

"Unlike you," Jane said quietly. "That's why you're still here."

"It's been hell seeing you suffer, seeing you blame yourself. I can move on, my love, when you can move on."

Jane's face turned cold and blank.

"Wow, Angela, if you wanted to twist the knife a bit more, you've done it. How do you expect me to forget what I did, forget what I saw, forget that Red John-"

A thought occurred to him, and it took hold in the obsessive part of his brain.

"You saw him, didn't you?"

"Patrick—"

"Tell me! Tell me who he is so I can kill the son of a bitch and we can both move on!"

"I didn't see him. He was wearing a mask. And even if I had, I wouldn't tell you, not to see you become this madman I don't even recognize."

"Did he say anything to you?"he persisted.

She hesitated, worried by what she saw in him, by that crazed light in his eye she'd observed over the years.

"Angela, please."

She sighed. "He said, 'I bet your husband didn't see this one coming.'"

Jane blanched, but remained painfully silent.

"I'm sorry I can't tell you anything more," said the ghost. "Go home and get some sleep, Patrick. You've had a long, emotional day."

He turned away from her to stare out into the blackness again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jane had just risen from his chair, resigned to return to his motel room, when a soft knock came at the door. He turned from the window, halfway expecting to see Angela, not Lisbon. Of course, he reminded himself, ghosts don't knock. At least, not the one currently haunting him. At is invitation, Lisbon slid the door open with a smile, but one look at Jane's ravaged face and she knew he wasn't as stable as he'd assured her earlier.

"What is it? What's wrong?" She walked quickly over to him, her boot heels clicking on the wooden floor.

"I'm—" he began, intending to tell her he was fine, but suddenly he was tired of the platitudes. He was looking at her as she stood before him, so concerned, so—so very much in love with him. Why had he been so afraid to see this before? She reached out her small hands to take hold of his biceps, and he felt the warmth seep through his shirt, saw the identical warmth of her green eyes looking up into his. It was nearly his undoing.

He smiled wistfully. "Aw, Lisbon. I really don't deserve you."

Her dimple appeared as if by magic. "Two compliments in one day. Now I know something is up."

He laughed softly, and then, before either of them could think about it, he drew her into his arms. He hugged her tightly to his body, felt her heart accelerate against his. He inhaled the sweet fragrance of her soft hair beneath his cheek, reveled in the sensation of her deceptively delicate arms wrapping around his waist. She relaxed into him, leaning her head against his chest. In that moment, something broke free within him, and he held her closer still. Lisbon heard beneath her ear the instant his heart picked up speed, sensed the change in the air around them.

"Teresa," he breathed, and she was shocked to feel his hot, full lips brush against her temple. She closed her eyes tightly, nervously anticipating what he might do next.

Jane realized he had only held her like this a handful of times—to apologize, to comfort, to hypnotize, to dance—never just to enjoy the simple pleasure of holding a warm woman in his arms. This warm woman. Denial of human contact had been another way to punish himself, and Jane was starting to question the logic of all that. How might things have been different had he reached out more, shared more, embraced more? He found that in recent months, since he'd been more open with Lisbon, he had actually focused better, had even slept more readily. He wondered how many important things he might have missed over the years, nuances he hadn't seen about Red John, because of this pointless self-deprivation.

They stood that way for several minutes until finally, Lisbon was the one to pull away. She shyly avoided his eyes and stepped a safer distance away from him. Jane himself was feeling a bit disoriented, as if awakening in a strange place. He watched as Lisbon's hands went nervously to her hair, smoothing it down while she gathered her thoughts. Then her dazed eyes focused on his, and Jane had the sudden desire to pull her back into his arms and taste her trembling lips. He swallowed hard and gripped the back of the nearby chair, waiting for her to speak since he didn't think he could at the moment.

"Are you ready to tell me what's really been bothering you today?" she asked. She remembered now why she'd come up there. "Given how your emotions have been all over the map, I'm betting it has to do with Red John."

"You know me very well," he said, leaning back against the old desk. He sighed, one hand raking through his hair in defeat. "For some reason, I've been thinking about my wife a lot today. I've realized that I might have been wrong about the way I've handled her death—or rather, not handled it."

"You've been punishing yourself all these years for something Red John did," she said wisely.

"Yes, but don't get me wrong—I share in the blame for what happened. The way I lived my life back then was in many ways despicable. And taunting a serial killer wasn't the smartest thing to do, in hindsight. But I'm starting to realize my punishment didn't fit the crime. This whole McCoy case brought a lot of those feelings to the fore, and I feel for those parents, I really do. I can see their future now, if both of them survive it without one of them—likely him—killing themselves. Their son was the one who decided to flee, who chose to drive recklessly to avoid being captured. They won't be able to separate themselves from the equation, however, and I foresee alcoholism and a failed marriage. It's tragic in so many ways."

"Yes." He saw that she was trying to encourage him to keep talking, and he almost smiled at her CBI interrogation skills. When a suspect wants to talk, let them talk.

"And then there is this," he said, holding up his left hand for her to see the ring still firmly ensconced there. "I've been using it to keep women away."

"I've noticed," she said neutrally, but he caught the brief flare in her eyes.

"I'm not sure I want to do that anymore."

"Oh."

He did smile then. "Aren't you going to ask me why?"

"No."

"Afraid to know the reason?"

She swallowed. "Yes," she replied, almost too low to hear.

He shrugged. "Okay then. We'll talk about that another day."

"Whatever you want."

He stared at her a moment, gauging her reaction, willing to bet her pulse was racing as fast as his. Abruptly, he turned back to his desk, where he'd tossed his suit jacket earlier. He picked it up, plus his keys and cell phone, depositing them methodically into his pockets while she watched him warily. He gave an exaggerated yawn.

"Well, I'm headed home. You?"

"Yeah," she said, her voice stronger. She was both relieved and disappointed that particular conversation had come to an end.

He held his hand out, indicating that she precede him out the door. He flipped the light switch and slid the heavy door closed behind them. They walked companionably, side-by-side, down the dimly lit hall.

"Lisbon?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think I've let myself go?"

"In what way?"

"There's more than one way?" he asked, in mock offense.

She smirked. "Mentally, physically, or morally?"

"Why, physically, of course."

She gave him a sidelong glance, trying not to let him see how much she truly enjoyed the way he looked, even when his hair was more disheveled than usual and his eyes were a little red with dark shadows beneath.

"I will say that, compared to when you first joined the team, you look much better now."

"Oh?" he queried, surprised.

"You don't remember how very thin you were? You looked like a war refugee. It was understandable, though. I'm sure eating had been the last thing on your mind back then."

He remembered now, how he'd had to bore new holes in all his belts. Of course, in recent years, new holes had been bored on the other end.

"I'd forgotten about that."

"But if you think you're going soft in the middle, it might have something to do with the hours you spend on the couch and the number of muffins you eat."

"It's a conspiracy," he murmured wryly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Are you thinking of doing something about it?"

"Maybe."

"Well, I go jogging every morning down by the river. I could pick you up on the way and you could go with me."

"I actually used to jog," he told her.

"Maybe you should start again," she said. They'd reached the bottom of the stairs and they both paused. She needed to return for her things in her office, and he was headed toward the elevator. "Jogging clears the mind and releases endorphins. Helps you sleep better at night too. It might make you feel better about other…things."

He considered her offer, remembering how much he used to enjoy jogging. He was terribly out of shape, however, and knew he'd have to put up with a lot of good-natured ribbing from her when he fell hopelessly behind. He grinned.

"Okay. It's a date."

"Six o'clock," she said, her tone full of warning.

"Six?"

"Oh, come on, Jane. You're probably awake then anyway, tossing and turning and trying to get back to sleep."

He sighed. When she was right, she was right. "Okay. I'll dig out my sweatpants."

"You own sweat pants?"

"I'm an American, Lisbon. Every American owns a pair of sweatpants."

She laughed. "True. Running shoes?"

"Why, they're issued with the sweatpants, of course."

"Well, then. I'll see you in the morning, bright and early."

"I'll be ready."

"Good-night, Jane."

"I'll wait for you by the elevator," he offered gallantly.

She smiled, her dimples appearing, her eyes alight with happiness. He grinned in return.

"I'll be right back."

As he watched her leave, he felt a familiar presence. He turned around, but he couldn't see Angela anywhere.

"Well done, Patty," he heard her disembodied voice. "I foresee toned abs in your future."

"Oh, shut up," he said good-naturedly.

Her soft laughter filled his ears, and he smiled.

A/N: Did you survive that emotional roller coaster? LOL. Well, I foresee one or two more chapters of this fic, so I hope you stay with me. And if you feel the need to review, I wouldn't turn it away. Thanks for reading!