Title: Atonement

Summary: Guilt and what it can do to an innocent man.

A/N: Thank you so very much for the positive reviews for "The Past Is Past" – yes, maybe a little too angsty and tormented to be realistic but I was in the mood to write that and Mr P was the victim.

Okay, so RJ doesn't pan out in this one like it does in canon (sorry y'all) I'm actually quite keen on this so I would heart some reviews for it.

X

The first time he laughs after they've gone, he feels sick. Nausea rises through him like a snake and his betrayal is suffocating. He is supposed to wear a black cage around his heart and he is not meant to feel alive. They are dead and it is his fault and it will never be okay again.

He doesn't engage with anyone for the next two days.

He feels the guilt coursing through him even more – it's always there (an omnipresent force - it tastes of bitterness and pain and everything he wished he hadn't done) though now the intensity feels as though it is will be the death of him - he hopes it will be and the circle will be complete with his death and with that of the man who took their lives from them. He thinks of it as poetic justice or justice or merely the way that the world works. His world.

She is the one that breaks the silence enveloping him (it always would be her, possessing empathy that he can't quite understand) She offers tea - he accepts despite himself (there is sugar and it's the generic brand of tea that the CBI seems to favour) but when she smiles, he hates himself slightly less. She sits down next to him on his couch, hesitant and unsure. "We'll get him." Her tone is hushed and quiet and so genuine that his stomach twists. I will get him, he wants to tell her, to let her in and to feel less alone - it's only ever going to be me.

But he won't and he can't and that's all there is.

X

They are supposed to be a means to an end.

These people are extras, bit players in the slowly developing theatrical production with one inevitable conclusion (death and the desperate redemption of a broken man) and yet…here he stands; betting with Rigsby on how quickly he can get a reaction from the always deadpan Cho, carefully making coffee for Van Pelt just how he knows she likes it and gently teasing Lisbon, always waiting for her sarcastic retort. He isn't meant to care like this and it confuses him – how he arrived at this place where he has begun to gradually change into a person – a person whose burdens don't show in his every move, his every breath.

They distract him from his quest, his purpose. Them - these people who have unknowingly, slowly, broken him down into pieces and have tried to put him back together, different and imperfect but the same. They care and it is painful because he doesn't – not about himself. He cares for them, likes them and he wonders if there might be something after his vengeance rather than the victor falling on his sword, retribution complete.

And then he remembers who he is, what he has done.

(and his sins weigh on him like shackles)

X

Sometimes, he forgets that he will be a murderer. That actions have consequences and meaning that he cannot escape. To him, it is the only possible culmination for his grief – like a novel whose last page he had already read and committed to memory.

And then.

And then, he sees her eyes and in them he sees her determination not to let him become that man – she believes in justice and truth and legality and all the things he cannot rely on any more. Her faith in the rule of law is never ending (it is fervent, honest and he can't stop thinking about her) but so is his determination to live to his promise. He wishes that she didn't care so much about him – he is broken and damaged and not worth her time.

You are worth believing in. (he can read her so clearly)

I'm not. (she can read him right back)

X

When he realises he has fallen in love with her, he doesn't sleep for three nights in a row.

He closes his eyes (briefly and infrequently) on his couch but no rest comes to him - his treacherous thoughts are like contagion and they touch every action, every word he says. He watches her with a gaze laced with guilt – he sees something in her that promises life and future (a hope of something that he doesn't deserve) He is a shadow of a man but she is there and he wants to be better, more alive for her.

His thoughts are filled with her and what he has lost and it drains him.

"You need to sleep." Cho tells him and he wants to reply, I can't. I'm dead inside and now I want to breathe again.

When he finally succumbs, he dreams of her.

X

It doesn't end how he imagined. There is no dramatic finale where the antihero completes his story of vengeance and the curtains close with a rapturous applause.

There is just a gun. And an unnamed agent who has deprived him of what he had sought. And he feels empty.

She finds him because she always does. He is in the attic because he can be alone (he doesn't want to be alone but he is so contrary now) – he is torn into so many small pieces that he isn't sure if he will ever be whole. Then she sits next to him and he can feel every part of her goodness, her honesty (and her love) – it radiates from her and it's all he wants.

"I'm sorry." She knew what he was going to do- she doesn't lie or tell him she wished it was different when she doesn't - Teresa Lisbon would never do that. Instead, her hand reaches for his and her knee rests against his own and something in him breaks. He can try to live now but he's forgotten how to do it.

Her hand feels like coming home.

"I don't know what to do." His voice is scratchy and it is as though he hasn't truly spoken for years. Silence falls over them (it is comfortable and yet not, because there is so much to be said and not enough words to say it all)

Their hands are still intertwined – he can't recall when he started stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. He just knows he can't stop.

"You could stay." She finally speaks and it is like music, slow and languid and hesitant. You could stay for me. "I would like it if you did."

He steals a glance at her from their position on the beaten leather couch, side by side. There is something in her expression that he can't place, something he can't identify and he realises she is still a mystery to him and he wants to solve her.

"Why?" He is challenging her to be the better, braver person. She is always that person and her strength marvels him.

She squeezes his hand and there is a slight wry laugh that leaves her lips. "You already know why." Because I love you. And you cannot leave me.

He has nothing to say any more.

So, instead, he kisses her and he loses himself.

X

He had imagined their future in guilt-ridden daydreams where everything was perfect and their house was a home. He would worship the ground she walked on and she would always be by his side.

The reality, the every day pieces of their lives mixed together, feels like a different universe entirely – he is happy and he laughs and kisses her whenever the mood takes him (frequently) and they bicker and make up (intensely) and he loves her more than he could imagine.

When he first calls her his wife, he feels like he is going to faint. A sales assistant asks him if he needs any help and he tells them that his wife is just getting the insert-unnecessary-technological-gadget-here ("you're living in the dark ages" she tells him with a grin and he laughs because he knows she loves the sound) and that they are fine-thank-you-very-much. She returns to him from an aisle, a box in her arms, and he wants to tell her a million things like he couldn't be prouder to be her husband and that she is everything he wants and his heart feels like it could burst because everything is so right (but he waits and tells her later - in the quiet of their bedroom, candles casting shadows on their faces and there are tears because this what was supposed to be)

He takes her hand and doesn't let go until they get home.

And when her bump becomes a baby, their baby, in his arms and she is exhausted and more beautiful than she had ever been, he is finally free.

FIN.