Chapter 52 - Post Mortem

"Should we go in?" Rigsby asked Lisbon as they watched the front door, their weapons raised.

She shook her head. "Jane made me promise we would wait. For one minute after the shot was fired. Just give him some time to...process, I guess." She checked her watch. "Thirty seconds to go."

"But there were two shots," he reasoned at her side. "I thought he only intended to put one in him."

She licked her lips that had suddenly turned drier than the Sahara. The truth was that part of her was terrified of what she might find beyond the threshold when she heard that second shot – would it be McAllister's body she would find or would it be Jane's? Or would it be both men? Would Jane's revenge be over in a mass of bloody limbs as the two men fell together? Her future – their future – would it be one that was never meant to be?

"You're right," she said breathlessly, making a split second decision. If he were in there bleeding out she'd never forgive herself for her apprehension. With more authority she nodded to Rigsby. "Kick it in."

As he raised his right leg in readiness, the door opened slowly in front of them, making the tall agent regain his footing and steady his weapon in response.

Blond hair appeared through the gap and Lisbon breathed out, her eyes rushing over him for any sign of injury as the gap widened, breathing heavily again when she found none. He crossed the lintel, nodding to both of them absently with a faraway look in his eyes. He turned to face her, his movements in slow motion. Quietly, the words drifting aimlessly from his lips and with little regard to the power attached to them, he said simply, "It's over. It's done."

She could only nod in response. Her vision blurred and she sniffed to stop her tears. "Rigs, can you?-"

"I'll make sure he's dead," he replied, sensing the need to leave his boss and her consultant alone. "And I'll start making sure it looks like a robbery that got out of hand," he added. He nodded to Jane a personal thanks and squeezed his shoulder as he entered the house again. Apart from a blink, Jane barely acknowledged the gesture.

Lisbon put her weapon away and moved forward on the porch towards him. She took his arm and pulled him away from the property, away from what remained of Red John, as if extracting him further from his actions would soothe him somehow. Gently, "Come on, let's get you some air."

As soon as he was off the porch he placed a shaky hand on hers and released it gently from his arm, his fingers lingering briefly on hers as he released them. He moved away from her and to the left, his head bowed, and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. She didn't need to be psychic to know he needed space after what had just transpired.

She busied herself with helping Rigsby inside the house cover their tracks. Her breath hitched when she saw McAllister lying beside the fireplace with a bullet hole to his chest and another that had almost obliterated his face completely. Only his eyes, bulging and wide open, in a terrifying last and eternal stare at his killer, were left to identify him. She'd noticed he must have moved from his placed on the couch in what appeared to be a last ditch attempt to disarm Jane. Her first thought was that his murder was ostensibly self defence. His body placement certainly fit better into the 'robbery' angle they were going for. But then she began to wonder if Jane had always planned it this way. He'd have known she'd never have allowed him to face Red John alone if this was how he'd always intended to kill him. She found it hard to comprehend he'd have let his guard drop at any stage with the other man unless he wanted it to look that way. "Reckless idiot," she muttered under her breath, making plans to give him a talking to about that particular course of action in the coming days if she was proved right.

She removed Jane's gun that sat discarded bedside the body and placed it inside the back waistband of her jeans. She'd throw it into a lake or some other deep body of water before they returned to Sacramento. She'd watched Jane like a hawk as soon as he'd removed his gloves and ordered Rigsby to wipe any surfaces or objects he'd touched with his bare hands clean. She'd been scrupulous in ensuring she touched nothing herself until she'd left the house.

It vaguely surprised her how little it bothered her that Red John was dead and that Jane had killed him now she saw the evidence of it lying starkly before her. She'd thought – wondered – if she'd be horrified or would think of him differently afterwards when faced with the physical confirmation with her own eyes. But instead she felt more relief than anything, both for him and for any future they might have. She felt mostly like she did after Carter. If anything, she was more hopeful than the day Jane had been released for that death. Maybe it was selfish of her to think that way but she couldn't deny she'd been waiting for this a long time too, more so after the past year and weeks. He was finally out of their lives and in the rear view mirror.

'Chasing monsters changes people' was a statement she'd heard somewhere once and no truer was it in this instant, she mused. It wasn't just Jane it had changed over the years, she had changed too. Her once long held belief systems now seemed to be in a state of perpetual flux, the black and white she believed in now a palette of grey. She didn't know if it was for the better or the worse in this instant but she felt no guilt over their actions earlier. But neither did she feel all that much satisfaction. It was simply something she told herself had to be done. She took a breath and put her latex gloves back on to continue the cover up.

Apart from checking the scene they'd set up, which Jane completed from the periphery of the living room area, his eyes hardly ever straying to the body lying within it, he said little but a few grunts and gestures to move some items to make it appear more like a bungled robbery.

When they'd finished, the two cars drove away from his property with barely a glance behind them. Lisbon waved at Cho's vehicle, waiting discreetly a mile up the road from Red John's cabin and ready to intercept any visitors he might have had that evening. He nodded his head, his expression as inscrutable as ever but she thought she noticed a glimmer of an upturn of his lips as they passed each other.

The night drive back to Sacramento was quiet with Jane staring out of the front window of his Citroen silently for the first twenty minutes.

Lisbon yawned beside him. "How are you doing with everything?" she asked him quietly.

He shrugged. "It's not over yet. We still have Partridge to set up."

So he wasn't ready to open up to her just yet. His mind was still on the plan and not on what he'd just accomplished. "You still sure about that part?"

He glanced at her quickly. He glared, "You're not? He's murdered people, Lisbon. Youngsters with their lives ahead of them. No wonder he always got a kick out of Red John's work. He's a right sorcerer's apprentice, that one. Tortured them too if you don't recall."

"I know," she said, pulling her jacket around her and grimacing at what she'd seen back at the house. They'd only glanced at the evidence McAllister had of the murders the forensic investigator had committed but they were just as sick and depraved as Red John's kills in their own way. He was only getting started in his crime spree, Jane had surmised quickly, and was still warming up to finding his own signature of killing. Homeless teenage boys were his most favoured from what they could ascertain in the brief time they'd had to investigate, kids too strung out on drugs or too weak to put up much of a fight and easy targets that wouldn't be lost or reported as missing.

Jane continued, his voice becoming louder as he gripped the steering wheel and pressed his foot on the accelerator, "If you ask me he should get a couple bullets put in him too, the damn ghoul, save overcrowding the prison system-"

"Jane, slow the hell down! Last thing we need is to get stopped for speeding!" she exclaimed, noticing he was doing 70 in a 50 mile zone. Her voice interrupted his tirade and made him take the pressure off the gas pedal. He took a breath as he checked the speedometer himself. His hands were shaking and it was obvious he didn't realise the speed he was doing.

"Pull over," she ordered him.

He nodded as he caught his breath before he swung the car into the next lay by. He was out of the door a second later, rushing ahead and bending over to vomit on the grass behind a wooden fence. Lisbon removed a water bottle from her bag and gave him a few seconds to recuperate before exiting the vehicle and handing it to him as he straightened up. He nodded at her briefly, closed his eyes and took a swig of the bottle, rinsing out his mouth before spitting it back out onto the grass verge beside them.

"Thank god for that," she said as he took another large gulp of water, holding this one down.

He raised an eyebrow at her as he breathed heavily.

"If you weren't affected by what you just did, never mind what you saw in that house earlier, then I'd have believed you really were a cold bastard."

He wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve. With eyes as dark as the night they stood in, he glowered. "Don't mistake my actions just now for regret, Lisbon. Because I don't for a second regret-"

"I'm not," she interrupted. "But you just killed someone, Jane."

"I killed Carter without any of these histrionics," he argued.

She shrugged. "But you weren't in his house. You hadn't just found his trophies of your wife and daughter. Saw where he lived. Walked where he walked or sat where he slept. Or had a long drawn out conversation with the man. Jesus, that place gave me the creeps so I can only imagine how you felt when you stepped foot inside."

He crossed back to his car and rested his back against it. He laid his head back as he looked into the cloudless night above. Wearily, "When the hell is this ever going to be over," he said, more to himself than to her.

"When you allow it to be," she said gently, taking up a position beside him.

He chuckled. "Just like that, huh? I was supposed to feel better afterwards. I was supposed to feel...free-"

She turned to face him, "Did you really imagine you'd find peace straightaway?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know but I didn't expect to feel like this."

"Like what?"

He shook his head, bit down on his bottom lip as he stared straight ahead.

"Tell me how you feel," she pressed.

He sighed, the sound carrying over the traffic noise behind them. "Angry." He turned towards her. "I...I can't let go of the rage, Lisbon. I...Killing him...it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough." He pointed at his stomach as he desperately sought her eyes in the dark. "It's still in there...the anger...the frustration...the hate for him. Killing him wasn't enough to make that go away."

"It's not going to disappear overnight, Jane. It's barely been a couple of hours. You need to give it time. Give yourself time. And most of all you need to grieve for them...for Angela...for Charlotte. You need to allow yourself to grieve for them no matter how painful that's going to be. You turned to vengeance instead of going through that process. You found a distraction, a cause, a job, to stop yourself. Me even. And throwing yourself into another crusade against Partridge or Blake isn't going to help matters now McAllister's dead. "

He ran a hand down his face and shook his head. "What if I can't?" he breathed. "What if I can't get rid of this anger? What if it's who I am? Just rage and vengeance? What if it was always who I was supposed to be after he took them from me?"

She laced her fingers with those on his left hand and looked into his eyes. "Because I know it's not. I've known what it feels like to be with you when you let yourself find some respite from the hunt you've been on. Like winding people up at crime scenes or interviews, playing with children, the sympathy you've shown to those who have lost people, your need to get justice for others. And like when you hold me in your arms after making love...Jane, you make me feel like someone precious...someone worthwhile...someone truly loved and blessed. No man has ever come close to how you make me feel when we're together like that. You make me feel safe, and so so happy. And I've seen it in you too, felt it when we're together. When you've been happy to lie there with me as our breaths even out and your heart beats under my ear. I've seen you without your mask many times, Patrick. And that man isn't one consumed wholly by rage. A man full of anger couldn't love me like you do and a man full of anger isn't a man I could ever fall in love with in return."

Tears pricked at his eyes and he rubbed a tear that had fallen from hers from her cheek. "How the hell did I get so lucky?" he said, the vaguest hint of a smile playing on his lips. Then it failed him once again and he took her other hand in his. "But...I'm not dealing with this well, Teresa. I...I don't even know where to start. And the last thing I want to do is hurt you again."

"You won't."

He shook his head, licked his lips nervously. "But what if I do? What if I lash out as I come to terms with all of this? You're right about the grieving...I never really dealt with it. I'm stuck at anger and...I don't know how much longer I'll be stuck here. What if I take it out on you? Because you're the closest person I have, I'm bound to do that."

She arched an eyebrow. "And what makes you think I'm going to take it from you?"

He smiled and nodded at that. "Then we fight, I guess. But then we might both say things we'll come to regret-"

"If we do then we'll deal with it. What's your solution?"

He shrugged, "Maybe for me to take some time. I don't know, really."

"You want to leave again," she said, dropping his hands.

He took one hand in his again. "No! I...I just don't want to cause us more problems if...well, when...I'm bound to act irrationally in the coming weeks...months...whatever."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You take me for an idiot? You think I won't know why you might act out in the coming weeks? You think I don't understand the process you need to go through?"

"I never said that."

"As good as," she glared. "But I also know that you'll want someone beside you in the days ahead. Someone to hold you when you need to be held. Someone to give you your space but who will always be right there when you need them too, even if it's just someone to sit quietly with and watch TV. Someone to help you get through this..." Her voice dipped. "At least...it's what I wished for after my mom died, anyway."

His heart broke for her when he thought of her as that fragile twelve year old whose life was turned upside down one night. And he'd just mentioned abandoning her again like the idiot he was, even if he thought it was for her own good and their future relationship.

He took both her hands again and rubbed them. "You really want me to stay, even though it might be tough?"

She smiled faintly. "It's always been tough, you and I."

"I don't want it to be. I want it to be perfect."

She laughed softly. "Perfect's aiming a little high. How about we just work at it being less tough and work our way up from there? But we can only do that if you stay and we work through this together. And that means not shutting me out and being truthful. Even if it's just to tell me you feel pissed off some days and need space. I'll give you whatever you need, Jane. But you have to let me. And talk to me."

He nodded after a few beats as he crinkled his brow in thought. "Okay, I'll try. If you're sure then of course I'll stay. Though you might regret that decision when I'm shouting at you for leaving the milk out when I'm having an off day." He smiled softly at her.

"Then I'll shout right back at you," she smiled. "And tell you to remove the stick from your ass in the process."

His smile widened. "I suppose if we do end up arguing then there's the possibility of make up sex afterwards. Might be a good way to dissipate any lingering tension." He nodded, taking a deep breath. "All right, then. Got a mint? Because I really want to kiss you right now."

They got back to Lisbon's place a while after and Jane yawned loudly as he all but threw himself on the couch and leaned his head back on it as he closed his eyes.

"We'll move on Partridge in the morning, as agreed," Lisbon said, earning a weary grunt in reply. "You don't have to be there. I think it's better if you aren't, to be honest."

He cracked open an eye. "I have to be there. Wainwright's expecting me to question him."

"I'll cover...say that you didn't think you'd be able to control yourself and that I moved without your say so."

"He won't believe that."

"Won't matter to him if it catches Red John cleanly with minimum fuss. Why Partridge, by the way? Like you said, a lot of killers in those files. Why'd you settle on him?" She added with a slight smirk, "Because he's always irked you?"

Jane laughed softly. "Well, there is that but no. Because I believe he might even help us pull this off in case of any questions. Though I doubt they'll be any."

She frowned and nodded for him to continue. He moved forward on the couch and intertwined his fingers. "He wants attention. Why not make him his own personal hero if he knows he's going away anyway?"

She released a gasp. "You think...you think he'll confess he's Red John?"

He shrugged. "Won't matter if he does or doesn't, the evidence will bury him anyway but I think he might. Might as well be jailed for being a somebody than a nobody. It would help him earn his stripes in prison. Anyhow, I'll see how I feel in the morning, I would like to see this thing play out."

"Okay, we'll assess your part in it then. Partridge will contact you, you know. From prison if he confesses to being Red John. He'll want to talk to you."

Jane shrugged. "Let him ask. I won't be visiting the freak."

"Guess we'll see in the morning."

"Hmm," Jane said settling his head back on the couch with a tired sigh.

She'd told him that she wanted him to be truthful from now on so she couldn't hold her tongue on the question on her mind since she'd discovered the body. "Why did you shoot McAllister twice?" she asked, standing opposite him.

He leaned his head forward again and looked at her. "I had to shoot him twice. He came at me...tried to take the gun from me. Had to back off before I took the shot and the first one wasn't clean as I was moving. You must have noticed that when you saw his body."

"I did. So it was self defence, then? Is that what you're saying? Or was it intentional for it to look the way it did?"

He frowned. "Intentional?"

"For him to believe you were...distracted for some reason?"

He licked his lips and she raised an eyebrow when she noticed him wavering over being honest. He shrugged and let go of a breath. "We had to sell this as a robbery, didn't we? Shooting a man point blank in the head execution style as he sat on a couch wasn't going to cut it, Lisbon."

"Oh my god! I knew it! You stupid...!" Her breath caught in her throat at the thought of losing him and how close she'd come to it. He got off the couch quickly and advanced towards her. He wrapped his arms around her. "You wouldn't have let me do it alone if I'd told you about that part," he said softly.

She broke free. "Damn right I wouldn't! Jane, I swear to god, if we're going to be together then you have to be more truthful with me-"

He leaned in and kissed her softly, hoping it would calm her. "I know. I agreed earlier with you. One hundred percent, from this moment on. I promise."

She eyed him suspiciously then raised her eyes to the heavens as she let go of a sigh. "You damn well better. You could have gotten yourself killed, you damn idiot!"

He took her back in his arms, relieved when she allowed it. "I had it under control, I swear. I was never in any danger, Lisbon. I knew what I was doing. It was a simple distraction and he fell for it."

"Yeah, you only had a serial killer almost attack you, nothing to worry about at all," she said with a roll of her eyes.

He kissed her again and took her hand, pulling her towards the couch. As they sat down he put his arms around her and brought her closer. She was still mad but also exhausted and needed the warmth of him after their day as much as he needed hers.

He closed his eyes and rested his head back on the couch again, his fingers trailing lazy soothing patterns up and down her arms. After a minute he said, "You know what you said earlier, about helping me through this?"

"Uh-uh," she replied suspiciously.

He kissed the top of her head. "Well, right now I'd like to go to bed and hold you like this until the morning. Do you think that's something that you could help me with perhaps?"

"Hmm," she said, "We're talking all night, are we?" she asked as she hid her smile in his chest. "That's a major amount of cuddling, you realise."

"I understand it's quite an undertaking I'm asking of you," he replied, his smile evident in his voice.

She looked up at him and kissed him softly as she placed a hand on his cheek. "Don't ever put yourself in danger again or I'll kill you myself," she told him. Then she made a show of sighing loudly. "Well, I suppose I did say I'd help you in any way you need. Come on, then, boy wonder. I'm exhausted. Let's go to bed."

As they got off the couch and took the stairs to her bedroom, he said, "You know, I think it'll be a big day tomorrow, Lisbon. We might even catch Red John."

"Hmm, and you say you're not psychic."

A/N: Always hard knowing how and when to end these things and I suppose I could have continued on with the Partridge storyline in this fic but I think it's went on long enough (too long, most probably). But I might pick up what happens on that front in a future fic now the seed is planted in this universe. Think it could be an interesting angle to explore. I'll let it germinate for a while, see if anything worthwhile grows from it.

Epilogue coming up next (and yes to all you fluff lovers, there will be some in it).