The next morning, Jane, Lisbon, and Cho were all rather somewhat worse for the wear for the lack of sleep from the night before. Cho wasn't doing too badly, except for rather tired-looking eyes and the occasional jaw-cracking yawn. Of the three of them, Jane was most accustomed to going without sleep, but usually he managed at least a few hours before dawn. That night, he could honestly say he hadn't slept a wink. Every whisper of the wind through the trees was one of Red John's disciples come to steal Lisbon away into the night.

More than once, he considered tiptoeing upstairs and crawling into bed with her on the theory that he might be able to finally relax if she was in his direct line of sight. Ultimately, however, he decided his peace of mind wasn't worth the risk of losing a critical limb at Lisbon's hands when she inevitably woke up to find he'd invaded her bed in the middle of the night. Besides, he needed to stay alert in case Red John or one of his disciples did try to break in.

Lisbon, for her part, was irritable and short-tempered the next day, especially with him. She greeted him in the morning by grouchily informing him that he owed her a new cell phone, and she expected him to deliver one by the end of the day. To Jane's dismay, he discovered she still didn't believe there was any connection between Red John's token and herself. The rest of the team, when he told them, agreed with his interpretation, however. Grace and Rigsby were horrified when Jane filled them in, but agreed that it made sense that Red John would have chosen the lamb as a symbol representing Lisbon.

This of course made Lisbon even more irritable, especially when she discovered Jane had told the rest of the team not to bother spending any more time searching for children who might fit Red John's idea of a lamb and focus on designing protective measures for Lisbon instead.

When she found out they had taken him at his word and abandoned the original search, she threw up her hands. "What if you're wrong, Jane? I'm supposed to just sit back and do nothing when a child could be in danger, just because you're convinced receiving a stuffed animal in the mail means Red John is going to come after me?"

"I'm not wrong, Lisbon," Jane said, growing impatient with her completely myopic state of denial. "Do you honestly believe I would risk the life of an innocent child if I thought there was even the slightest possibility that I might be wrong about this?"

"You never think you're wrong. It has happened before, you know."

Eventually, Jane realized it wasn't so much the idea that Red John might be after her that Lisbon couldn't accept, but rather the symbolism behind his message to Jane that she found so incredible. Catholic Lisbon was deeply uncomfortable with anyone comparing her to a symbol representing her Savior, and Jane eventually realized it was this characterization of herself that she found so hard to accept rather than the notion that Red John might come after her in general.

Once he told them his suspicions, the rest of the team agreed with Jane that they needed to take special precautions to ensure Lisbon's safety. Cho proposed a schedule for them to all watch her in rotations to make sure she was guarded at all times.

Despite the fact that it was four against one in favor of this idea, Lisbon flatly refused the proposed security measures. She and Jane argued over it more than once, but to Jane's increasing frustration, Lisbon remained adamantly against the idea.

"Even assuming you're right about the whole lamb thing, I still wouldn't agree to having the team act as bodyguards," Lisbon told him.

"Why the hell not?"

"They have more important things to do."

"More important than protecting your life from Red John?" he said incredulously.

She had her stubborn face on. "Yes. I'm only one person, Jane. The team can't spend all their time watching me—they need to stay on the work they're already doing so we can finally catch him and stop him from taking any more lives all together."

"That's ridiculous. If one of them was the one who'd been threatened, you'd be the first one to bully them into accepting protection."

She really couldn't argue with that, since it was true, so she ignored it.

"Look, maybe I'd consider it if we could enlist some members of the local PD for the task of watching me go back and forth between work and my apartment, but you're the one who always says we can't trust anyone outside the team. I'm not going to let my team run themselves into the ground trying to guard me twenty-four seven."

No amount of reasoning could change her mind. "We can't spare anyone to babysit me, Jane," was her final word on the matter.

Jane wasn't about to give up so easily, however. He devised some security measures of his own. When Lisbon found him asleep in his car in front of her apartment the next morning, to say she was unhappy with him would have been a vast understatement.

She rapped on the glass of the window to wake him up. He startled awake and rolled down the window.

"This is your plan now?" she demanded. "Hanging around my apartment like some kind of stalker?"

Jane was distracted by her attire. Running shorts and a tank top. "You're going jogging?" he said incredulously.

"As you see," she said shortly.

"Are you crazy?" he demanded. "Do you have any idea how vulnerable that leaves you?"

"What do you suggest? That I never leave my house again?"

He closed his eyes and summoned patience. "Please, Lisbon. Can't you work out at the CBI gym instead for the time being?"

"For God's sake, Jane, you're being ridiculous."

"I'm trying to watch out for you, since you apparently have absolutely no regard for your own well-being."

"Yeah, you're really doing a great job watching out for me by passing out in your car. What were you going to do if Red John did show up? Snore at him?"

"If you weren't being so stubborn about this, I wouldn't have to resort to such extreme measures."

"This isn't a sustainable solution," Lisbon said flatly. "This is exactly why I didn't want the team to try to guard me. If he really is after me, it's too easy to spot the guard and pick them off."

Light dawned. "That's why you didn't want the team to guard you?"

She hesitated. "Among other reasons."

"So you acknowledge that it's possible Red John might be targeting you."

She was silent for a moment. "Yes," she said finally. "I acknowledge it's a possibility that Red John might intend to come after me."

"Then you need to let the team protect you," Jane said immediately.

She shook her head. "I meant what I said before. We need to stay focused on finding clues that will help us go after him, not standing scared waiting for him to come to us. I can't live my life like that."

Jane closed his eyes, sick with the realization she wasn't going to budge on this point. "Lisbon, please. I'm begging you. If you won't let the team guard you, you need to at least take certain safety precautions."

"Like what?" she said warily.

"Not running alone in the wee hours of the morning would be a start."

She sighed. "I guess I can work out at the CBI gym for awhile."

"Thank you."

She was quiet for a moment. "Jane?"

He sighed, prepared for another tirade against what Lisbon called his paranoid and overprotective behavior. "Yes?"

"Thanks," she said quietly.

He blinked. "For what?"

"Look, I still don't know if I agree with your take on this whole lamb thing, and you're definitely driving me crazy with your constant hovering, but I do get that you're just trying to watch out for me. So… thanks for that."

He reached out and took her hand, pressing a kiss to the palm. "I told you. I'm always going to save you, whether you like it or not."

A shiver ran up her arm. "I take it that means I can expect the hovering to continue?" she said, trying to recover.

"I'd say that would be a safe bet," he affirmed.

"Oh, joy," she muttered. But he noticed she didn't seem completely averse to the idea.

They agreed to compromise, when it came to the security measures. Accordingly, she permitted him to have a top of the line security system installed in her apartment. It took the security company four hours to install the system, complete with a keypad and brand new locks, among other things. Lisbon thought he was going overboard when he showed her the shatterproof glass he'd installed in all the windows, but what really got her raising her eyebrows was the tin cans on strings that he hung from the door knobs of her front and bedroom doors.

"Really sophisticated security system you've got there, Jane," she said dryly. "Hard to believe banks aren't lining up for your services in protecting high security vaults."

"Mock all you like, Lisbon," he said, unfazed. "It works."

She eyed the tin cans dubiously. "What are you, nine years old? It looks like something my brothers would have put together when they were kids to keep girls out of their tree house."

"And it kept those pesky females from sneaking in where they weren't wanted, didn't it?" Jane said.

Lisbon was still doubtful. "It's not much of a barricade."

"It's not meant to be a barricade. It's a warning." He swung the door open and shut and the tin cans clattered and clanked. "If someone manages to take the system offline and manages to pick all the locks, at least you'll hear the noise of the tin cans when the door opens. Then you can come down and shoot the intruder. Preferably between the eyes."

Once all the elements of the new security system were in place, Jane spent several hours testing the different pieces. He was able to get through the first three locks on the door with his lock picks, but it took him a long time, and he wasn't able to manage the last two at all, which pleased him. The windows, too, withstood thorough testing. When that was done, he made Van Pelt go through the exercise of trying to hack into the security system. Van Pelt insisted she wasn't a professional hacker, but Jane had confidence in her skills and determined that lacking access to the real deal, she would do.

Even so, when he had finished testing the security system to his satisfaction, he felt a bubble of panic well up inside him at the thought of leaving her.

"Maybe I should stay here with you again tonight," he said after Van Pelt had left. "Just in case."

"No," Lisbon said firmly. "You've just seen for yourself it would be damn near impossible for someone to break in here at this point. I'll be fine on my own."

He smiled with an unaffectedness he didn't feel. "It's just as well," he told her. "You have a terrible couch, anyway."

She gave him a small smile. "Go home, Jane. Get some rest."

Then she did something she'd never done before. She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "Good night," she said softly.

"Good night," he echoed, still reeling from the sensation of her soft mouth pressed against his cheek. He allowed her to shepherd him out the door, though he'd never felt less like leaving a place in his life. On this side of the door, there was warmth and reassurance and a Lisbon who kissed him on the cheek. On the other side, there was nothing but cold fear.

He paused in the doorway. "Call me before you go to sleep?" he said hopefully.

She sighed. "Jane…"

"Please?"

She caved. "All right."

Jane moved into a new hotel that night. The new place was a far cry from the shabby extended stay hotel he'd been effectively living at for the better part of the past ten years. It was chic and luxurious—five stars, with a price tag to match. Best of all, it was only five blocks from Lisbon's apartment. If she needed him, he could get there in three minutes flat.

He'd just gotten settled in when she made good on her promise to call him before she went to sleep.

She teased him again about being overprotective, but he didn't mind. He told her to just think of it as one more check-in. Since the check-ins had been her idea in the first place, she could hardly complain about him being overprotective. She laughed and said at least she wasn't insisting on the team using the contents of their recycling bins to protect them from a notorious killer.

He liked talking to her this way. Talking just to talk, rather than just discussing developments in cases all the time. He liked listening to her low laugh over the phone, how he could hear the smile in her voice as she teased him. Their conversation wandered from the light to the serious and back again, relaxed and unhurried. He remembered glancing at the clock at one point and being surprised to realize that they had been on the phone for over two hours. He didn't suggest they hang up so they could go to sleep, though.

In fact, when Lisbon had started to yawn and finally noticed the time herself, he diverted her before she could make the suggestion that they call it a night, telling her a story from his old carnie days that he was sure would capture her attention.

She fell asleep with the line open. He could tell when it happened because of the change in her breathing. He made no move to hang up. He placed the phone on the pillow next to him and listened. He fell asleep a long time later, listening to the rise and fall of her breath.