AN: Thanks again for following along! I apologize for the delay in updating, but I wanted to plan out the remainder of this story before I posted more chapters. Now that that's done, hopefully I'll be able to update more often.
Jane watches as Lisbon stops by Cho's desk to say a few words to him. He looks up, immediately taking note of the cardboard box she has set against her hip. After a few seconds, Lisbon leaves abruptly, and Cho looks over to her office. He meets Jane's eye, questioning, and Rigsby and Grace look on with confused expressions.
Jane gives an almost imperceptible nod.
Cho calls out softly to Rigsby and Grace as he stands up, and all three of them leave the bullpen, heading toward Lisbon's office.
"What the hell is going on?" asks Grace as she enters. The others follow her in, and Cho shuts the door behind him.
Jane walks over to Lisbon's couch slowly and sits down. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, and his hands come together almost as though he's praying.
He would if he thought it would help Lisbon.
"Lisbon got pulled from the team," Jane says quietly. "They're assigning her to building security for the time being."
"You cannot be serious." Grace looks furious—her hands are clenched into fists at her sides, and there's a fire in her eyes that has been missing since she'd shot O'Laughlin. "Why?"
Jane gives her an apologetic look. "Bertram's saying she shouldn't have let O'Laughlin near the safehouse."
As he'd expected, the color leaves Grace's face. "But...but that was my fault," she says, her voice small but emotional.
"It was the team's fault," he says. "My plan wasn't foolproof. I should have seen that from the beginning. And I should have recognized O'Laughlin for who he was."
Rigsby steps forward. "Look, I don't care whose fault it was. We need to focus on the boss right now, okay?"
Cho nods. "Rigsby's right." He looks at Jane. "You said Red John was going to target Lisbon. This certainly would count—one look at her and I could tell she was already doubting herself. She walked out of here just now wondering if she was a good cop."
Rigsby and Grace look at Cho, confused, but to Jane this makes perfect sense. Why hadn't this occurred to him right away? Now that Cho has pointed it out, it seems obvious.
Jane shakes himself. He knows why he hadn't made the connection.
He'd been too worried about Lisbon.
He'd been too focused on her to put the pieces together.
Yet another reason why putting some distance between himself and Lisbon is a good thing, he realizes. How can he protect her if his emotions are messing with his objectivity?
Cho looks at Jane, and Jane nods, giving him permission to tell the rest of the team.
And he does, though he leaves out the particulars of the conversation Jane had had with Red John, for which Jane is grateful. He has no desire for them to learn of his feelings for Lisbon.
Grace catches his eye, giving him a scrutinizing look.
Startled, Jane realizes that she already knows what Cho is leaving out of the story.
Before he has time to process this development, Cho has finished talking.
"So," says Rigsby, looking at each of them in turn. "What do we do?"
Jane sighs. "Lisbon doesn't want us to try to get her job back," he says. "She thinks that would put your jobs at risk. She's right to ask us to step away—but not for the reason she thought. If Red John is behind this, any little con I could come up with wouldn't make any difference. No matter what we did to clear her name, Red John's orders would keep her where she is."
Cho nods slightly in agreement.
"So, what—we're not going to do anything?" asks Grace, exasperated. Her tone is desperate. "We're just going to let him win?"
Rigsby grabs her arm and gives her a look. "You know we're not, Grace. We're going to keep working the cases, and we're going to get him. If he's killing more people to remind us of Lisbon, he's going to slip up. And we're going to be there when he does."
"That's exactly what we're going to do," says Cho, and Jane is reminded that he's the new team leader. "And standing around here doing nothing is not going to help Lisbon, so let's get back to work, alright?"
They file out of the office leaving Jane behind, and the door swings shut behind them.
Jane sighs, running his hands over his face, and he leans back against the couch, trying to get his emotions under control.
Despite being one team member short, they return to working the two cases.
Over the weekend, Grace had discovered that the second victim, Paula Greenwood, had been working through a janitorial and maintenance temp agency before getting a permanent job as a janitor at the high school located about half a mile from her home. After several rounds of phone tag, Grace finally obtains a copy of the record of temp positions that had been assigned to the victim.
Grace glances at Jane.
"She worked night shift at Sac State for a couple months as a temp."
Jane sits up on his couch.
"That's where Antonia was a student."
Grace nods.
"And we have our connection." He gestures for her to hand over the files. She does, simultaneously reaching for her cell phone to text Cho, who is on campus with Rigsby speaking with Antonia's former roommates.
A few seconds later, she puts down the phone, and Jane crosses the room to stand by her desk. He opens the file and flips through some of the pages until he lands on Antonia's class schedule.
"Can you tell me where her classes were?" he asks.
Grace pulls up the university website and navigates to the course listings. "What are the titles of the courses?"
"Advanced Organic Synthesis, Physical Chemistry II, and Biochemistry."
Grace's fingers fly over her keyboard, and a new page pops up. "Looks like they were all in Sequoia Hall," she says.
Jane leans on her desk. "Where did Paula work?"
Grace flips through the second victim's file. "Amador Hall," she says, slightly disappointed.
"Doesn't mean there's not a connection," says Jane. Something in Antonia's file catches his eye. There's a beat of silence. "Antonia was also a psychology minor," he says.
Grace is already typing away. Another page pops up. Grace grins at him. "The psychology department is located in Amador Hall," she says. She stands up. "Come on," she adds. "Let's check it out."
Lisbon doesn't look surprised to see him when he shows up on her doorstep after work that evening. She invites him inside, but instead he offers her his arm, gesturing with his other hand to the approaching dusk. "Want to go for a walk?"
She nods, grabbing a jacket that he's pretty sure has a gun stowed away in one of the pockets. Then she threads her arm through his, and they move toward the street.
They walk past the other condos in her neighborhood in silence for a few minutes, then Jane finally speaks. "We found a connection between the victims today," he says. "Paula was a temporary janitor at Sac State. Antonia was a psychology minor there, and Paula was in charge of looking after the building where the psychology department is located."
Lisbon nods as she takes in this information, her brow furrowing as she thinks.
"Cho and Rigsby didn't get anything useful out of Antonia's roommates today, and Grace and I interviewed Antonia's psychology advisor—and basically anyone else in the department who knew her. It wasn't helpful." He sighs. "None of the psychology faculty members match my physical description of Red John. I even gave that description to the faculty chair, and she couldn't think of anyone who fit the bill."
Lisbon watches him warily as he speaks. "You shouldn't be telling me this. I'm not on the team anymore, remember?"
Jane chooses not to respond to this, still refusing to believe it's true. "We found out something else today," he says quietly instead. He leans toward her to speak directly in her ear. "It wasn't your fault," he whispers when she looks over at him. "Cho thinks Red John is behind your demotion."
He pulls away to read her, and he's not surprised to see the range of emotions that cross her face. Bewilderment, fear, anger—and something else he can't quite discern.
Clearly Jane wasn't the only one who hadn't been able to put the pieces together; by the look of relief on Lisbon's face, Jane can tell she's spent the last several hours questioning her competency as a cop.
She stops on the sidewalk, trying to process this information. Jane drops her arm and turns to face her, leaning down slightly to look into her eyes.
"You okay?" he asks.
Lisbon's eyes suddenly come into focus, and she looks up at him. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I'm alright."
"It seems like part of his plan is to make you doubt yourself, Lisbon. Don't let him succeed—you're the best cop I know." He pauses, wondering if he should continue. He does anyway. "You're the best person I know," he amends.
Her eyes shine despite the incoming darkness around them, and the smile she gives him is so tender his knees nearly buckle beneath him.
She takes a step toward him, and he holds his breath as she rocks forward onto her tiptoes and brushes a kiss to the corner of his mouth, steadying herself by holding onto his shoulders.
Then she steps away, a pleasant blush creeping up her neck, and Jane can't stop himself from saying, "What was that for?"
She can barely meet his eyes, and Jane can't remember her ever being so shy around him. "For being you," she says. "Thank you for always looking out for me." She gives him a very Lisbon look. "Even if I can do it myself."
A gust of wind sweeps over them, billowing Jane's suit jacket for a few seconds before it dies down. He looks around at the deserted street and feels gooseflesh erupt down his arms.
"Don't thank me yet," he says, and he can't help the darkness that seeps into his tone. He feels the two halves of his heart warring against each other.
One half tells him to grab her and kiss her senseless.
The other tells him to run as far as he can from her—maybe this way he can save her from him.
"Don't do that," Lisbon chastises.
"What?" he asks, unsure.
She steps forward, and her arms snake around his waist, coming to rest under his jacket. She leans the side of her head against his chest, and he watches in wonder as she closes her eyes.
"You get this look on your face sometimes," she whispers, "when you're feeling guilty about something—this look of pure loathing. But God, Jane, it's so painful for me to see that. Because how can you really think of yourself that way?"
His hand comes up to tangle in her hair as he answers. "It's very easy, I assure you."
Her arms tighten around him. "That is not how I see you," she says forcefully. "That is the farthest thing from what I see when I look at you."
His fingers still.
He opens his mouth, and he nearly asks her. He nearly asks her how she sees him.
But he is afraid he will not like her answer, so he pushes the words down deep.
"Come on," he says instead, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "Let's get you home."
They walk back to the house in companionable silence.
That night, the unasked question haunts his dreams.
Their investigation into both cases the next morning leaves much to be desired.
Grace and Rigsby canvas the neighborhood of the second victim. They confirm what her husband had told Jane—the neighbors liked her, but beyond that they hadn't known her well. Cho spends the morning going through financial records of both victims but doesn't find anything out of the ordinary.
Jane stares at the crime scene photos for four hours straight. By the end of those four hours, he can almost look at the bodies and not see Lisbon.
Almost.
Just after one o'clock, the phone on Cho's desk rings. Jane spares it little attention as Cho answers, instead continuing to pour over the list of faculty in the psychology department, reviewing their research interests. None of them raise any alarms, and he rubs his face with his hands.
"Jane."
Jane looks over at Cho, who's just placing the phone back on the receiver, his mouth drawn in a tight line.
"Erica Flynn wants to speak with you."
Jane cannot stop the look of incredulity that flashes across his face. "Why?" he asks, putting the papers in his hands to the side. He stands up from his couch and walks over to Cho.
"Apparently she has information that you need."
"Those were her exact words?"
"Her exact words."
Jane looks past Cho and out the window, where the California sky has clouded over, making it appear as though evening has come early.
She'd said she had information he needed. Not wanted.
Erica Flynn, despite being in prison for the last few months, has information he needs.
If there's any chance this information concerns Lisbon...
"Damn it," says Jane loudly.
Cho picks up the phone again. "I'll arrange the visit."