Disclaimer: It's mine! ... ... ... ...not.

The story takes a turn away from J/L here. And let's just pretend the finale didn't happen. Just so you know.

Two months passed, two months of blissful peace and less-annoying Jane. In retrospect, Lisbon should've realized that it couldn't last. She was in her office, Jane on her couch, when a distinctly ruffled Van Pelt knocked hesitantly on her door. She waved her in casually, but already her mind spun with possibilities, each one less likely than the last.

"Boss? Jane? You guys had better see this…"

She said nothing more, and the pair followed her out with an inexplicable sense of doom washing over them.

An envelope lay on Van Pelt's desk. It was addressed to Jane, followed by a red smiley face that could be only one person.

Jane's hand, suddenly pale and shaky, slid the envelope open and poured the flash drive and note inside onto the desk. His eyes had become blank and distant, and it took several tries for him to insert the flash drive into the computer. A single file appeared on the screen. Van Pelt glanced at Jane, and upon seeing his nod, took a deep breath and clicked the file.

A clearly homemade movie appeared on the screen, showing a cemetery that was instantly recognized by the team.

"No," Rigsby breathed.

The camera moved deliberately slowly through the maze of graves until it reached two that were familiar. Each grave sported a dripping red smile, painted on in something that Lisbon desperately hoped wasn't blood. Not a word was spoken, in the bullpen or the movie. The camera focused on each grave in turn, giving the viewer a good view of the new additions. Then, a knife blade passed momentarily across the camera before the screen went black, making it painfully clear who was filming.

Van Pelt, seeing that Jane wasn't going to move anytime soon, lifted the note with shaking fingers and read, "Dear Mr. Jane, I think you need another lesson in humility. It looks like you forgot the last one. I'll be seeing you soon. RJ."

As one, the team turned their eyes to Jane, then Lisbon.

"Van Pelt, who brought this up?" Lisbon asked, trying not to shake from anger and disgust.

"Security," she responded, her voice quiet. "Dave said he found by the front doors."

"Cho, pull the security footage."

"You won't find anything," Jane said, moving his eyes from the note, his voice carefully emotionless.

"We won't know until we look," she said firmly.

Cho nodded. "On it, boss."

"Rigsby, Van Pelt, get a forensics team and check out the cemetery. Check for surveillance footage, evidence, anything."

The pair nodded and practically fled the bullpen. Now that they were alone, Lisbon gently touched Jane's shoulder. "Jane?"

He walked away without so much as a glance.

It was late that night, when she was the only one left in the office, when Lisbon saw it. The movie flickered on the screen for the umpteenth time, and Lisbon's eyes were barely able to focus on the screen, let alone on minute details. But she couldn't leave, couldn't go back to her empty apartment (Jane was being monitored by Rigsby, after his reaction the team unanimously decided not to leave him alone), not without finding something. Despite Jane's promises, his endless reassurances, he was slipping back to the vengeful man he had been in the past. The man, she supposed, he would never truly be free of.

Really, she should have known better than to trust.

The knife flashed past again, and Lisbon paused the movie, about to admit defeat for the night. She gave the knife a look of deepest loathing, and that was when something on the knife's blade caught her attention. More out of a desire to be thorough than anything, she enlarged the section of the blade and saw what appeared to be two lines of writing etched onto the knife.

"Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,
Tod und Verzweiflung flammet um mich her!"

With sweaty palms and a racing heart, Lisbon quickly googled the phrase. The phrase was the first two lines of the aria "Hell's vengeance boils in my heart", from the opera The Magic Flute. The translation read:

"Hell's vengeance boils in my heart;
Death and despair blaze around me!"

Her first thought was how fitting a phrase it was for Red John. She wracked her brains for some sort of clue the lines might give her, but came up blank. She was just about to dismiss the poetry as another one of Red John's quirks when she remembered Jane's words.

"Red John thinks of himself as a showman; an artist. He has a strong sense of theatre."

"Red John doesn't make mistakes. Everything we get, he gives us for a reason."

Why did Red John want her to see this? Or, rather, why did Red John want Jane to see this? He would have expected Jane to be the one pouring over evidence late into the night, not her. Her thoughts went back to the note. I'll be seeing you soon. Pieces started to click together. The theatre. Lines from the opera. Hints at a meeting to come. She checked the Opera House's website. The Magic Flute was listed under upcoming attractions. In the comments section, someone listed under the name RJ had posted "I'm waiting."

And she knew.

Red John wanted to meet Jane face to face.

She couldn't dawdle. Jane would figure out the clue ten times faster than her tomorrow. She could not give Red John what he wanted, and, more importantly, she could not let Jane take the risk.

She'd have to find him first.

I know, more RJ. J/L will still happen, promise.

Until next time!