Previously: "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.

Lisbon lay on the mattress for a while, trying to sleep, trying to rest, trying to hide from all her own painful emotions that had been stirred up in the earlier morning. Forty-five minutes after Jane left the room, she got up. Gathering cleaning supplies she studied the marks on the wall.

Her next move was to pull the mattress out of her way, making it easier for her to reach the stain. But she paused, finding she could not simply start work. She had an urge to mark the moment with some sign of reverence - respecting all the pain and loss Jane had endured as well as acknowledging the woman and child who had lived and died there. She fell back on singing hymns, starting with one that had been used at her father's funeral mass. "What Wondrous Love is This" had been an oasis of absurd beauty at the time. It welled up from her, suited to her alto voice. Singing steadily through the first verse, she began to move. If her voice cracked more than once as she worked, at least none in her audience would complain. Concentrating on singing helped steady her nerves. The somber joy of that hymn consecrated the act of cleaning.

Several verses of "Amazing Grace" were easier to get out without much thought. And by the time it was done, she was almost done. She finished cleaning the wall in silence. The music had done its job - both to mark the importance of what she was doing, and to insulate her from being overwhelmed by it.

In the quiet she could admit that when she had first contemplated taking this action without Jane's permission, part of her knew that ripping it away from him would do damage. That sliver of darkness in her that would have had satisfaction in his pain now shriveled up exposed to the light. She almost wondered at his willingness for it now, but the real wonderment was dedicated to him having asked her to undertake this task for him. It told of layers of trust far deeper than the superficial trust she assumed for most of their working partnership that he had in her - more of a sure knowledge that he could get her to back him up than a genuine, intimate trust. He had put into her hands the cleansing of his home. Like wiping away sin with divine love, she was wiping away the remnants of horror that had consumed his memories of his family and kept him from growing strong to bear up under the burden of grief.

To mark the end of the work, she sang "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee" with her eyes closed against the tears of love that stung her.

IIIIIIIIIII

After this, she took a quick shower, washing her hair, and put on her clothes - jeans and shirt. She still had the cell phone, so she put it in her pocket. Making her way downstairs under an enormous burden of emotional exhaustion, she found that it was almost noon, and that the smell of chicken in the oven had her mouth watering. Before she got far enough to see that Jane was not in the house, the phone in her pocket rang.

She did not recognize the number on caller ID, but answered anyway.

"Patrick Jane's phone."

"Teresa Lisbon, you're awake. That's good. I put something in the oven then got distracted and left. It should be done by now. If you would check it, I would appreciate that. Maybe throw a spinach salad together. If you can stand to wait for me, I'll be home within forty-five minutes. We can reheat the chicken then."

"Jane?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Where the hell are you?"

"I remembered this morning that one of my neighbors is a real estate agent. I'm at her office. There's a lovely little shop that does tea and pastries on my way home. I'm told their coffee is more than passable. If you need a hit of caffeine before then, there's some strong tea in the pot. If you must pour it over ice, just don't tell me about it later."

"Right. I certainly wouldn't want to offend your tea-drinking sensibilities."

"Thank you, my dear. I'll be home soon. Goodbye!"

"Bye, Jane."

She shook her head just a bit before pushing the "end" button. Then she headed into the kitchen.

There was a knock at the door. Expecting the package with her clothes in it to be delivered at any time, Lisbon answered it. To her surprise Van Pelt had brought her overnight bag herself.

"Hi, Boss."

"Van Pelt, come on in. I didn't expect you to deliver that personally."

"I wanted to make sure you were ok." She took in the older woman's dark shadowed eyes, and general weariness and caught a glance of the bruise on her jaw. She recognized the shape of it, and knew that it was more invasively personal, more intimate, an injury than any accident.

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. You look exhausted, and you didn't sound like yourself when we talked on the phone the other day. You said you were here because Jane needed a friend. I thought you could use a friend yourself." It was really bothering her, that Lisbon had fallen back on 'fine' when she so obviously was not. Her own protective instincts stirred up anger on Lisbon's behalf, that she had been backed into the kind of corner that led to this kind of covering. "He's not here right now, is he?"

"No. He just called to ask me to take chicken out of the oven. I need to do that. You might as well come through to the kitchen with me."

Van Pelt followed her. In the kitchen, after Lisbon wrangled the baking dish out of the oven, the younger woman said, "I brought your things, but I also got you a prepaid cell phone. It doesn't seem right, you having to borrow his all the time. So, here." Setting her bag down on the floor, she handed her the phone. "I had it loaded with two hundred minutes. I hope that's enough. I programmed in some of the usual numbers, too."

"Thanks, but you didn't have to do this, you know."

"Boss, we both have had training on dealing with situations where domestic abuse is involved. You are in a precarious place - far from home, limited contact with the outside world. You can make all the excuses for Jane that you want, but you have to know this isn't right."

"Van Pelt, I know what it looks like, but this is not abuse. I don't know what the hell it is, but he's not hurting me. You are just going to have to take my word on that."

"Would you, if you were me?"

"Look, he hasn't crossed the line. And if he did, I'm perfectly capable of knocking him back."

"Those are easy words to say, Boss, but we both know how hard it is to make them stick when someone you trusted is hurting you. And it's more than just the physical - Jane's an expert at using words and feelings to screw people up. Sometimes he has a purpose, but sometimes it seems like he does it for his own amusement. His feelings for you might protect you from that, but maybe not."

"Feelings for me?"

"It's pretty obvious to people who know both of you, that he looks at you, talks to you, thinks of you differently from anyone else. He has feelings for you. I'm not entirely certain what those feelings are, but they must mean something."

"Let's just talk about something else. I don't appreciate having to discuss Jane's feelings with anyone."

"Sure. What would you like to talk about?" Grace had begun to seethe for her, keeping it under wraps so that her own emotions would not get in the way of drawing Lisbon out. They all liked Jane, cared about him - but they respected and loved their boss. If he had gotten to her so deeply that she could no longer see she deserved the highest respect and love, it would be up to the rest of team, starting with Grace herself, to put a stop to it.

"Look, I'm not sure what you were thinking about doing down here, but I'm getting a salad ready to go with lunch, and you might as well stay and eat with us. If you need to use the bathroom, it's down the hall, second door on the left. Then, we have only water and tea to drink - so if you want something else you'll have to go get it."

Van Pelt decided she was happier drinking tea than she would be getting back in her car to get anything from the store. She focused her attention away from her own anger, trying to build a peaceful attitude that would foster a feeling of safety, so that it might be easier for Lisbon to ask for help if she needed it.

Having brought an apple and a banana to snack on on the road, she offered to add them to the tangerines for a fruit salad dressed with a simple mix of brown sugar and cinnamon, with a squeeze of lemon juice. When that was chilling in the refrigerator, Lisbon pumped her for details of the case the SCU were working on.

When Jane returned, he was mildly surprised to see the extra car in his driveway, even knowing to whom it belonged. He played a gracious host over lunch. The man turned on the charm, keeping to small talk while the three of them ate. Suspecting why Van Pelt had come, he knew at some point she would want to talk to him alone.

After cleaning up from their meal, he said, "Grace, you've never been here before, let me show you the patio. We can even walk down to the water if you like." He signaled Lisbon with his eyes to stay inside.

Grace readily followed him. Once outside, she said, very seriously, "Jane, you're hurting Lisbon. You're using her, or you are using sex to control her. Either way, it's going to stop."

"What did -"

"No," she cut him off. "She never said anything. You know she wouldn't. That bruise on her jaw? It says a lot. You didn't just get carried away. You marked her on purpose. I don't know why she's letting you get away with this. Anybody else would be toast by now - you've always been able to slide in under her skin in a way no one else can. You're usually more subtle about it, and you keep a careful layer of manners over it, but to someone who knows what to look for, you are very possessive of her, even dominating, especially when men outside the team are around. I haven't said anything before because it looked mostly harmless, and it wasn't really my business.

"But the thing is, now there's a look in her eyes. I know what it means - too many boundaries crossed. It's a look I've seen on the faces of women whose relationships are beginning to drain their souls. It's a warning sign, before the damage gets deeper. That's when it will be my business. I can't just bury my head when I have reason to believe someone is being abused. I'm a mandated reporter. It's pointless for you to lie about it. This is your warning to stop before you do something to her you can't take back."

"You know that look because you've seen it in the mirror."

"We're not talking about me."

"No, not you, someone you loved, but didn't know how to help because you were too young. She got killed, didn't she?"

"Stop deflecting, Jane. My past doesn't matter right now. We're talking about Lisbon." If he could guess at that so accurately, then he could guess just as well that she would do everything in her power to buy back some good from it by seeing to it she did not fail like that now. "What matters is, you are going to make this right with her - stop using her, step back to the other side of the lines you've over-ridden, tell her the truth about how you feel, let her go, whatever it takes. You make this right. Because here is what's going to happen - I'm coming back to check on her again in three days. If Lisbon hasn't come home - if she's still here and that look is still in her eyes, I will go to Rigsby and Cho, and I will tell them that you have been abusing her, sexually and emotionally."

She turned and started walking toward the front yard. "You have a good imagination. I expect you can fill in the blanks about what steps we will take after that. Tell the Boss I said 'goodbye'."

When she had decided to drive down to Malibu to check on them, Van Pelt had hoped that she would discover that she had read too much into the little signs she had picked up from Lisbon. But seeing just how worn down the older woman had been after just a few days alone with him had been an unpleasant surprise. Whatever had happened between them had obviously been more fraught than she had imagined. There was no way she could just leave Lisbon to Jane's devices with no lifelines away from him.

"Grace, wait," he called after her. She stopped and turned back to him.

"What I've done to Lisbon - it's worse than abuse. I don't think it's reportable, though," he said, a depth of seriousness in voice and face. This was no flippant, arrogant remark. "This house is my hell. After Red John was shot, she would not leave me alone, even when I begged her to."

She responded with a look that showed her doubt in his words, and showed her determination not to be taken in by his persuasive abilities.

"Lisbon insisted on coming with me, because she thought I might be a danger to myself. I was angry beyond reason - who knows, she might even have been right. But when Lisbon kept coming at me, I did the worst thing I could think of - I tried to drag her into hell with me, make her bed down in my torment.

"I've been my own prisoner here in hell for so long, even when I walked out in the world. And I was going to punish Lisbon for caring about me by trapping her here as well - metaphorically, not physically. I didn't, I did not force her. Funny thing is, she simply refused to let her soul whither up and die like mine has. And damned if she hasn't turned around and started yanking mine, kicking and screaming, back into life, too."

He could tell that Van Pelt was still not entirely satisfied. He owed some accounting to her, owed it to the rest of the team - the people who had Lisbon's back. He knew very well that the haunted look in his woman's eyes today had nothing to do with his own horror show, and everything to do with what he had inadvertently triggered from her past. He would rather die than open Lisbon to anyone else's scrutiny like that, though. So he stuck with telling his own tale.

"If Lisbon looks like I've put her through the wringer and hung her out to dry, it's only because this morning I asked her to do something that in seven years I have never found the strength to do." He paused. "And then I fled, leaving her to face it alone, because that is how pathetically weak I am."

He had to draw several deep breaths in order to continue. He was going to gut himself open to Van Pelt's probing mind to protect Lisbon's privacy. "She cleaned Red John's signature, my wife's blood, off the wall of my bedroom for me."

Grace's expression softened as the gravity of his revelation hit her. He so rarely spoke of his family, and never lightly, that this gruesome mention was a seal of authenticity for her. The infirmity of his soul must have been unfathomable to have lived under that sign. She looked at him closely, searching for evidence of the damage it would have done. There were slight changes in the way he held himself, in his color, and face - a lightening of countenance, that showed the weight of the harm done him by its absence. As she looked so closely at him, it also registered on her attention that his wedding ring was now on his right hand. She said, "Jane, I don't know what to say - "

There was a quiver in his voice when he added, "There's really nothing to say. It's ok."

He started walking toward her, to walk her to her car.

"We won't be here in three days. Tonight will be the last night. After that, I'm moving us to an inn. I haven't told Lisbon my plans, but I want to do it myself, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention it to her yet. I have things to take care of here, and I still need her with me. I think we'll be back in Sacramento before the weekend. Lisbon's got my phone - when I get it back from her, I'll text you with the number of the place so you know where she is."

"And Grace?"

"Yeah, Jane?"

"Thank you for trying to be here for Lisbon. If I ever do cross that line, make sure they don't find my body. Have a safe drive back." He waved and turned away as she got into her car.

A/N: Once again LittleMender (Shush, you. I'll give you credit if I feel like giving you credit!) has proved invaluable to polishing this chapter. She reminded me that just because the shortest distance between two points is a wormhole in space does not mean that is the best way to write a story. (Yeah, nevermind, I don't understand what I just wrote, either). Just in case it is no longer easy to find this stuff out, a wringer is part of an old fashioned washing machine. Let's not even get started about ironing clothes with a mangler.