Ugh, I planned for this to be the last chapter, but Jane got all angsty, of course. So maybe one more?
Chapter Fourteen: Light
His attic lair was still intact. He sat in its dim and still space, the room an outer expression of the darkness that had been inside him all of these years.
It was true.
Red John was dead.
Jane had spent hours studying the files, the photos, meeting those who had given testimonials. He couldn't deny it.
Even if Red John's—Brandt Whitford in the everyday world—network hadn't crumbled slowly in the weeks following the murderer's death, Jane would have known simply by the man's (no, the monster's) home and everything in the private chamber of the attic.
He looked around him, shuddering in disgust.
"I only wonder why the two of you didn't become life-long friends the moment you shook hands."
Red John could have been sitting, plotting, in his own attic lair at any given time that Jane was in his hole at CBI HQ.
Jane leaned forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands.
Notes on murders—like a diary. Photos, charts. Covering the walls of Brandt Whitford's room of death.
He had cried when he read about his daughter's murder.
It was the only way he could let it out now that the choice of revenge had disappeared.
Hours passed.
He didn't move.
A creak sounded and he looked up.
Lisbon.
Of course.
She stepped toward him, hesitant. He was struck by how much had happened since this morning. Just this morning he was full to bursting of happiness and the day had chipped away at it, as if he had been scraped out and was now empty. Or maybe just full of a weary sadness.
And guilt.
Definitely guilt.
Because even after crying over the fact that his little girl had—that she…well, even after all of that, Jane still felt something swell inside at the sight of Lisbon.
He didn't deserve that. Didn't deserve her. But he was so happy that she was there.
Even if he forced her to come into the darkness after him.
She squinted a little at him in the dim light of the attic room. "Jane?"
Just his name and yet the way she said it made it heavy with meaning. A million questions reduced to one.
He sighed. "Lisbon, you shouldn't be here."
He rubbed a hand over his eyes and when he drew it away he saw that she had kneeled on the floor in front of him. "But you knew I would come, didn't you?"
Her voice was soft, gentle. As if she was afraid he would break apart. He was a bit surprised to find that even after everything he had learned, he still felt…well, not okay, but still not as broken as yesterday.
And he reached out a hand to softly, reverently, touch her hair. As if she was a vision.
And she was.
A vision of light in his darkness.
"Yes," he responded hoarsely. "I knew you would come."