Disclaimer: I love Jane and the crew, but they're not mine.
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1. Under a Killing Moon
Anywhere else in the world, a Friday night would be, in and of itself, grounds for celebration. However, this particular Friday night – December 19th – and this particular place in the world – the CBI office in Los Angeles – the mood was somewhat more melancholy and subdued than one might imagine. This was not for lack of occasion; what with Christmas less than a week away, and what with California State Prison being one murderer fuller, the office should at least have had an air of grim triumph. The main reasons for this emotional lapse were twofold. One, as the empty desks and sleeping computers would attest, was the inherent lack of people present to feel anything at all, as they'd all left much earlier, at a reasonable time, for merrymaking elsewhere. Two, directly related to number one, was the identities of the remaining people.
Lisbon moved through the office sluggishly; the last two weeks of catching at straws had drained her severely, and unfortunately, as she'd just been informed by the powers that be, the weekend didn't hold any peace and solitude for her either. Sighing, she pulled crisp, glossy photos off the whiteboard, piling them in a folder for further use and trying hard not to notice the mangled 12-year-old that was their subject. For the other occupant of the room, this last part was impossible; even at eleven thirty at night, he could not suppress his unique sight.
A tear in a skirt.
A smashed bottle of lip gloss.
Eternally dilated pupils.
A wristwatch he knew somehow was stolen, but not by her.
He watched Lisbon perform her task wordlessly, though his deeper thoughts were far from here.
"There's a press conference tomorrow at ten," Lisbon said.
Jane raised his head, jerked away from bloody smiley faces and back into the present. "That'll be interesting with no parents."
"It still amazes me that with our technology, we could find her killer, but not her name," she remarked, erasing the name JANE DOE – the only thing left on the whiteboard.
"I found her killer," he corrected with the softest of grins. "It's not so hard to believe. Her DNA's not in the system. Her face was unrecognizable. Dental records require teeth to match with. Unless you want an analysis by the Human Genome Project, I think we're out of luck."
"You seem to be the expert on this one," she said sarcastically. "You going to be at the conference to back me up?"
The smug smile dimmed as if in the shadow of something immense. "May I remind you that have not had the best experiences with the media."
Realizing what she had touched on, she quickly crossed to her desk, grabbing her keys and her bag, and tried to think of a good excuse to leave abruptly.
"I have to write out our formal statement still," she said. "It's pretty late. Planning on sleeping here?"
Almost immediately, as was the way with Jane, he regained his sunny demeanor.
"I'm not sure the custodian would live through the experience," he declined. "I'm afraid our last such encounter left him rather… surprised."
The anecdote was meant to be humorous, and yet something in his tone didn't sit quite well with her.
"You okay, Jane?" she inquired gently.
"Of course," he replied with a nonchalant wave. Suddenly, he added, "any plans for Christmas, Lisbon?"
"Nope."
"Liar," came the reply. "You're going to visit your family because your brother-in-law is getting off active duty on the 28th – just in time for New Year's. Oh, and by the way, I'd suggest wearing the red dress, not the black one. The neckline is a little low, but at least you have the excuse that it's a seasonal color."
"Very good," she commended him dryly. "Good night, Jane."
Jane sat slumped in the office chair for some time following her departure, considering.
"Oh, what a twisted web we weave," he muttered quietly, then rose and shut off the light, content to make his way through the vacant hallways without the companionship of a friendly light. Tonight especially, the glow of the nearly moon was sufficient to light his way; in any event, he had become accustomed to the dark, as he rarely bothered to turn on the lights at home.
Home.
A neatly typed note.
A hot spotlight.
A bloody grin on the wall.
Shaking the thoughts from his mind, he tried to interest himself in something mundane, such as the quality of the stargazing tonight, as he pushed through the glass front doors of CBI. On the outskirts of the business district, the lights here were dimmer than downtown, and as a consequence, the stars shone brighter than usual, like they had that night— No. As he climbed into his CBI-provided SUV – he'd wanted something smaller, but Lisbon had, after witnessing his driving skills, insisted he needed the extra protection in the likely event of a crash -- he forced himself to fixate in something else.
Spilled coffee on the steering wheel the cleaners had missed.
The dry-cleaned smell of the upholstery.
The new windshield.
The gentle purr of the ignition.
The red light of a bomb winking from the underside of the car.
Wait. What?
For once in his life, Patrick Jane acted independently of his mind. Kicking open the car door, he threw himself out onto the pavement as behind him, in a sudden burst of activity, the brand-new SUV exploded with a shower of glass and a blast of hot air. Stretching out a hand to break his fall, his wrist hit the ground, then his body on top of it with a snap, crackle, popping noise that put the best Rice Crispies to shame. With a grunt, he finished the graceless roll, bouncing to a halt as the flames roared behind him, anxious to consume the luckily vacant vehicle.
Staggering to his feet, Jane's eyes danced over the wrecked car, his mind working on overload. Turning, he was about to make a run for the CBI building when –
--BANG BANG BANG.
His eyes still peeled for his attacker, even with the lids half-closed, he heard the glass panels shatter behind him, and he fell to his knees, already numb. Numb – it was a strange and alien feeling to him, to not be able to feel, to sense, to collect information. With a quiet exclamation of disbelief, he fell back to lie among the scattered remains of the doors. His hands briefly explored the region of his chest and came back laced with scarlet – not from one location, but two. Footsteps retreated into the night – he tried to catch their owner, but his eyes sifted through only shadows before the sounds faded.
He tried with little success to heave himself up off the glass shards, as the door frame he was using as leverage did little more than slice up his hands with the jagged edges still attached to it. Still attempting to think logically, he reached into the pocket of his increasingly stained suit jacket and searched it with shaking fingers; eventually he pulled out his cell phone, whispering words of relief. However, a minute later, when his fingers faltered on the power button, and the phone announced with an angry chirp that it was dead, his only thought was that he was too.
See, Van Pelt? he thought jokingly as he drifted further and further away towards his memory palace. There is no God.
He couldn't die, he told himself firmly. He was mortal, sure, but he couldn't die now. Red John was still out there.
A neatly typed note.
He wondered briefly what the team would think. Lisbon.
A hot spotlight.
His wife. His child. Butchered. In this much pain. More.
A bloody grin on the wall.
In a sudden burst of inspiration, he realized he could leave a note of sorts. Coherent sentences were out of the question, but a simple pictogram, a will in a single image, was within his grasp. With small gasps, he slathered his life's blood on his fingers and reverted back to the finest art known to kindergarteners: finger-painting. When he was done, he sat back and admired his work, vaguely content, but still unwilling to go gently into that dark night.
From the asphalt before him, a grotesquely formed smiley face giggled at him.
-----
Forty three minutes and two and a half pints of blood later, Lisbon returned to the office to get the file of photos on her desk that she had forgotten.