Previously: When he spoke again, he looked away. "Help me - I can't let go of my anger, but I won't let go of you."

"What can I do?"

"This," he answered, stepping closer to her. He began to caress her upper arm. After a moment, he leaned in to touch his mouth to hers.

One soft stroke of his lips over hers, then another, and she gave in, moving slowly against his mouth. He brought his other hand up to thread his fingers through her hair. "I'm asking now. Let me touch you. Let me burn it off."

Anger at his words shot through her, displacing some of her desire. He held her, not allowing her resistance to grow strong enough to get away from him. Something like prayer, deeper than mere wish in conscious thought, urged that she clear this last wall and come to him. But her eyes had hardened against his urging. Whatever it was holding her away, he felt the vertigo of loss.

"You want a way to 'burn it off'? You don't need me for that. Any body would do." She could have been facing him across the table in an interrogation room for all the freezing scorn in her voice.

"No, has to be you." He brought his hands up to frame her face, and rested his forehead against hers. For a moment, he closed his eyes to gather strength. When he pulled back far enough to meet her eyes, he opened his own once more. He could see she was at her limit - he was at her limit. She was giving him one last chance. If he did not reach her in the next few seconds, he would never hold her and keep her. Desperation broke him.

He was unable even to try to hide the breaking. He whispered, lacking the strength to fully voice his thoughts, "I didn't mean it like that - I can't, I keep getting this wrong, I can't have just a body for this. Please. Any time, you could leave and I'm afraid. If you go, then whatever is in me that's good enough to want you will be dust and ashes. It's the only part of me left that's worth anything, what sees you and wants you and needs you."

It almost scorched her, seeing this unveiled in his eyes. He was letting her deeper inside, drawing her in. The breath caught in her throat with what she saw in him. She said, gently, "What do you need, Patrick?"

"One card put wrong brings the whole house down, and I'm too weak to hold steady when I put it together. So it's all baling wire and duck tape and popsicle sticks. Can't simply say it, which piece goes where. That's why - " he paused, sucked in a hard breath and continued, "That's why - "

She filled in for him, "That's why you need to have control right now." She met his eyes for a moment, weighing the emotions she had for him, against all her needs. Balanced as she was on the edge of it, she could no longer tell if it was a palette knife or a butcher knife, nor which she wanted most.

He could not speak. His only answer was a barely discernible nod of the head.

She responded by moving closer, tilting her face so her nose brushed along the side of his nose, ready to kiss him. "I understand now," she whispered. "I'm here. I'm with you. I'm not going anywhere."

Their mouths claimed each other, lips and tongues making argument in silence, essence of union in negotiation for their lives. Her hands clung to his shoulders. His travelled over her back, pulling her body implacably to his. His mouth became more assertive, more frantic. His fingers in her hair tightened, pulling at her scalp but stopping short of causing pain. Angling her head to the side, he held her still for the onslaught of his mouth along her jaw, down her neck. He grazed his teeth over her skin, as he tasted her. She needed a breath that she could not catch between the pressure of her own want, and all the pressures of his commanding need.

"Jane -" she said, falling back on old habits to get enough distance to breathe.

"Shouldn't we be on a first name basis before I take you? Please tell me you don't think of this as work."

"Patrick - condoms."

"Don't care. I'll take my chances. I need this. I need you, need you so much," he said. "I'm not going to force you, but if you stay, I'm going to hold you down and push myself into your body. Do you want to leave?"

He stepped back from her, giving her room to get past him. "Do what you want," she answered, with a hint of smirk at the corners of her mouth. She made no move to get away. Challenging him, she offered, "I'm not delicate. Don't hold back."

He waited, marking time in a way known only to himself. His eyes dropped from hers, latching onto the buttons that had come undone at the bottom of the shirt she wore. To a woman expecting a wolfish flash, it seemed almost innocuous for the space of several breaths. Just as she began to wonder if he had changed his mind, he broke into motion suddenly, reaching for her. He spun her around, one hand flat against her abdomen sliding down, the other firmly across her ribcage, thumb brushing the underside of her breast. Nuzzling the side of her neck for a moment, he lightly bit her shoulder. She gasped.

Then he walked her to the back of the couch. He tugged on the boxers, and slid them past her hips. He pushed her so that she bent at the waist, her bare ass in the air. He saw that she was breathing hard, and undid his own pants. Stroking the skin of her back with one hand, he reached under her with the other to lift her so her hips were supported on the peak of the couch. Once she was aligned with him, he pressed his hips against hers and rubbed himself against her heat. The hand on her back felt a shiver as he did so.

She started shaking as she said, "Not like this! Patrick, please, I can't." Her breath was coming in panicked draughts. He stilled. She begged, "Let me go!"

He backed off of her, stunned. She stood up and turned around. "Just - not like that," she said between gasps, "We can still... It's... I need to be facing you, not bent over like that." She brought her hands up to try to unbutton her shirt. She was shaking too hard to succeed.

Realizing that she would make herself carry on, to meet his need and desire, surprised him more than any other thing she had done since he had been informed of the Red John operation. In an instant all his anger with her drained away, and the desire to protect and love her surged forward. If she took so little care of herself, he had to step in. He put his hands over hers. "Stop. Teresa, stop. You're right, not like this. I'm seven kinds of cold-hearted bastard, but none of them is the kind to expect sex from you while you're having a panic attack."

This was the first time in three days she had heard any real gentleness in his voice. "Please get dressed," his voice took on a pleading tone. "Take deep breaths. Breathe, precious. I've jerked you around and pushed you around ever since I brought you here. The whole time, you've felt violated, but you wanted to give me whatever I needed. I do not need for you to martyr yourself to my prick. Breathe - in through your nose, out through your mouth, in through the nose, deeper. That's it, out through your mouth."

He zipped his fly and buttoned his waistband. Breathing with her, he coached, "Keep breathing, all the way into your belly. And again. That's it, keep going." He reached down to the floor and pulled her boxers up. He gently did up the buttons that had gotten undone earlier. "Tell me what this is, sweetheart."

She turned her face away from him, shaking her head. Her breath had slowed a bit, but tears were running down her face, and she could not yet speak. He hesitated, not wanting to make things worse. But he longed to soothe her, so he reached for her hand. Slowly he touched his fingertips to her skin. She did not shrink back from him, so he gently, unhurriedly wrapped his right hand around her wrist. His non-restrictive hold allowed him to monitor her pulse in case any move he made triggered more panic. His own sick unease increasing, he gradually came close enough to stand next to her. At first she was not comfortable with him touching her but made herself still, working to accept the warmth he offered and to allow him the privilege of a man to comfort the woman in his life. He waited to feel her stay with him, not flinching or leaning away, before lightly placing his left hand on her near shoulder. He knew very well how much she hated needing it. When she could get words out, she sobbed out, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm so upset. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"No, precious, Teresa, no, you have nothing to be sorry for." He paused to breathe with her. "Please, you have to believe me, if I had known that would hurt you, I wouldn't... I'm not a rapist."

"Wasn't your fault." She tried to regain control of herself so that her panic would not add to his burden of guilt, but the harder she tried, the further away control seemed to be. It was still far from effortless for her to breathe without hyperventilating. "You had no way to know. I didn't know I would react like that. Didn't expect you to shove my pants down and bend me over." She labored to speak as though every word was a lead brick, inhaling deeply as she exhaled the words. "I don't mind being... manhandled, it can be good that way, but not ... it's never been quite like that. I didn't know, I'm sorry."

He waited a couple minutes, then started, "Your father, did he -"

She cut him off, "Not... just the belt, after the drinking started."

"You were twelve when your mother died. And you've been trying to fool yourself into thinking they were simple, innocent beatings ever since." No wonder she had pleaded with him not to punish her - in order to have anything like a healthy physical intimacy, she would have had to maintain careful boundaries between sex and anything that might make her feel her own strength and power shrink. A little playful wrestling with both partners using their whole bodies' strength might not upset the balance. But so much anger in the underpinnings of the bald-faced dominance he had projected had up-ended the apple cart.

"That's how it was from his point of view - he thought he had every right to whip us. He got my brothers that way, too. It was the same for all of us."

"Equality be damned, Lisbon. It wasn't the same. Oh, I don't doubt your father was too drunk to see that a bare-assed whipping on an adolescent girl is indecent. But that doesn't change the effect it had on you." His own breathing had taken on a gasping imperative. For a microsecond he was grateful his daughter had not survived her mother - what if the only thing protecting her from his inability to cope was her own death? A storm surge of sickness washed over him, leaving him gulping down an urge to throw up. For Lisbon's sake, he employed his own control to calm himself so she need not be distracted from the comfort and safety he wanted to give her. He said, "Precious, it was his responsibility to keep himself from crossing lines. You have to believe that - I know it in a way you can't. He failed you. You were not to blame. You are everything that is beautiful and sweet and good. Strong. Loving. The fault was not in you. "

He paused a moment, then continued, "You know there are two names now on my list of men I would kill if they weren't already dead."

"No."

"Lisbon, I swear if I could go back in time and stop him -" He gently drew her into a full embrace, one hand urging her head to rest on his shoulder.

She resisted. Looking him square in the face, she said, "No, just no. Don't take up anger for me like that. Blood on your hands won't make me less screwed up. You can't make it right for me by wanting to harm anyone else."

He was slow to speak, pausing like he was thinking aloud when he replied, "That's it, isn't it? You couldn't stop him, so you told yourself he wasn't really half a step away from molesting you. You needed your father to not be a monster, so you could be less broken."

He continued, "I understand it now. You need me not to be a murderer. You could stop me, so you needed to." Letting go of her, he dropped onto the arm of the couch, shoulders suddenly slumped, head down, like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

Then he looked directly into her eyes. "When I promised to save you, I thought I was saving your career from the consequences of being associated with me. I didn't know you needed me to save you from myself and your father - I didn't see that it would break you if I did the thing I wanted. And I didn't see how much you needed it to matter to me."

While she had gotten clear of the panic attack, she was now silently crying. A couple minutes later, Jane looked up at her. He got up and wrapped his arms around her again. "I wish I could promise that nothing will ever hurt you like that again, Lisbon. But it's a fool's promise; I couldn't keep it."

She leaned into him for a moment. Then, still crying, she pulled back out of his embrace. Going to the kitchen sink, she splashed her face with cool water, and dried off with a towel. Taking his hand, she led him upstairs to the bedroom. Lowering herself to the mattress, she laid down on her side with her back to the wall and reached an open hand toward him. He came to her, lying flat, a questioning look on his face as he did so. She simply closed her eyes. Her breathing was still ragged, but after a while it evened out, and she slept. He drifted off, but woke again with every movement she made.

It was fully light outside when she started awake. Seeing the gleam of his open eyes, she leaned over him. He wrapped an arm around her, and she rested her head on his chest. She quietly said, "When my mom died, dad told us 'funerals are for the living' - one wise thought left in him. He asked each of us what we wanted for hers. He somehow made it a beautiful, loving time, even when we were drowning in pain we didn't understand. Later, when things got bad, I sometimes wished someone else could die so that he could do for us again what he had then. I couldn't wish anyone else dead, so I thought I was willing to be the one. Everything hurt so much and I was so screwed up. Then he died, and I couldn't make his funeral good for my brothers."

"The rituals of grieving are for the living, Patrick Jane. It's time to remember you are not the only one left alive. Let's clean this wall today. Please?"

He gave no answer. His throat had constricted from unshed tears. After all that had gone between them that night, he would not refuse her, but found he did not have the strength to say it yet. She waited, and while she waited, she fell asleep again. It was after noon when she woke up.

"Go ahead. I can't. You do it for me." He eased himself out from under her, and gathered up his belongings. He looked hard at the face on the wall for a moment, then walked out of the room for the last time.