I made a ff cover for this story and tried to upload it, but I don't think it's working... It's on my deviant art site, though (smdine).

This chapter was really hard to write. In fact, I find this story very difficult to pull off, but we'll see if I can make something of it...

Chapter Six

Two weeks. Amazing how easy it was to convince people of his sanity when he put his mind to it. Say the right things- just what they wanted to hear- and they were all too willing to believe that they had made a difference. That they had benevolently bestowed the gift of sanity.

Jane sighed, looking out the window from the passenger seat as Rigsby shifted uncomfortably behind the steering wheel. He had been able to keep his previous stay at the mental institution unknown (well, from everyone but her), but there had been no concealment of this sojourn. He knew that even five months ago he would have been ashamed to have the team know, but somehow he couldn't summon the energy to be ashamed of his weakness. In fact, he couldn't be bothered to care this time. He was certain that the team had been there when his tenuous hold on reality had snapped. The moment his hold on the land of the living had come undone.

When she had died.

In truth, he couldn't recall much from those first few weeks. He had only the memory- the nightmare- of seeing her unmoving body, hearing Van Pelt's choked and horrified words.

"She's dead."

Then nothing. Until he had opened his eyes to the bright lights of the institution, like a newborn baby being born in a hospital, heedless of his situation.

For some reason, thinking of those first blurred memories of his latest stay at the hospital made him recall his life with his father. That dark red tent, slightly musty from being folded up near the trucks that hauled hay for the animals. The manic gleam in the eyes of people desperate for hope. The speculative glimmer a response in his father's gaze.

The crystal orb that was the centerpiece of the table draped in patterned gypsy fabric, cleverly presented as a family heirloom.

Odd that these two times in his life would be linked.

He dimly remember a cracked image of himself- a reflection- with that same expression of desperation, yearning. Manic.

He sighed again, engrossed in watching the dark clouds on the horizon nearing. Perhaps if he hadn't been so distracted by clouds made heavy and dark with rain (and his own mind heavy and dark with memories and unfulfilled longings) he might have noticed Rigsby swallowing nervously. Or loosening his tie as if the car was somehow lacking air.

Perhaps Patrick Jane would have noticed these tells and realized that there was something Rigsby was keeping from him.

Perhaps he would have tricked Rigsby into spilling his secret.

Perhaps he would have taken one look at the tall man and been able to deduce the secret himself.

But he didn't.

Instead, he stood on the precipice, waiting for the storm to fall from the dark mass in the sky, waiting for the thunder to crash upon the earth like a great awakening.

Patrick Jane stood on the precipice, waiting for something (someone) to restore him to the world of the living like rain gives deadened earth new life.

But he feared that second chances were just that and there would be no third.

Almost a decade ago, his life-restoring rain had fallen. And he had soaked it up, blissfully unaware that fallen rain could be used up. Was finite.

Fallen angels.

Fallen soldiers.

Fallen.

And if that life was gone- fallen- so was his.