Title: Foresight

Author: miss_peg

Rating: T

Summary: Nobody knew what you knew.

Notes: I'm on a major block at the moment, so I'm not even sure where this came from…written for the Paint It Red monthly challenge for April!

You watch her from a distance. Trying to save the world as she does every single day, making it seem like a fun task and not the chore that it should be. She kills people regularly, for money. Some could say there was something strange about that, she was a hired hit man, so to speak. A legal hit man.

That was something she had never quite grasped about you. You didn't kill people for the fun of it, you were like her. You did a service to the public; you saved the world from people who would one day screw them over.

Nobody realised then; they just saw the blood and your signature smiley face and they saw the death of someone they assumed to be innocent.

They didn't know what you knew.

Nobody knew what you knew.

You didn't even want to know it. You didn't ask to be this way. Nobody gave you a choice. You were forced to have this gift, this foresight that allowed you to see just where your victims would end up if they didn't become your victims.

Patrick Jane's family, well, they were collateral damage. You knew that if you didn't kill them then you couldn't control him; force him to bend to your every whim or come running should you call.

Without him and his need for revenge, you wouldn't be close to her, close enough that you can almost taste her perfume or smell her desire.

It infuriates you that Jane has her wrapped around his little figure, their little bond that seems unnatural through your tinted glasses. You know it's never going to end well, for both of them. If he doesn't cause her death one way or another, then you may have to kill her, merely to toy with his emotions further.

Or maybe you'll kill him, just to toy with hers.

She doesn't know just how much you know about her, about her past. She hasn't stopped to realise that Jane was never the person he cared about, he was merely a pawn in the game of life. A game which somehow had become so messed up that you weren't even sure what the rules were anymore.

It started with her and you hoped that one day it would end with her too.

You sit in your office across the street, binoculars resting against your eyes as you stare into her glass prison. She'd hardly changed it in the years that you'd worked from there, a new couch, a new pen holder. She didn't personalise it, always the professional. That was something you always admired about her, her drive to be the best that she could be regardless of what it did to her social life.

It killed you to watch her and know that you could never touch her skin, breath in her scent or press your lips against hers.

Sometimes you lie awake at night daydreaming of what you would do to her, all of the wicked things that you would do if you could.

It's late when she leaves the office. You don't know why you do it, but you follow her out onto the street. She parked her car a few streets away because the CBI parking lot was being resurfaced. It was the perfect opportunity. You shouldn't get so close and yet you can't stop your legs from moving on down the stairs and out into the cold night air.

You follow at a distance, your footsteps gentle and unnoticed. You creep along behind her like a stalker, watchful of any movement that might alert her to your existence. She stops by the door to her car, her hand resting on the handle ready to pull it open.

You make your move.

You don't say anything and she doesn't respond. You lay the cold, sharp knife against her throat. She feels it, you know she does because she tenses up in front of you and you're able to breath heavily into her ear. You drag her down the alley at the end of the street and force her against the wall, her hands pressed against the bricks.

She tries to speak, but the knife is already cutting into her skin. You bury your face into the crook of her neck and take in a deep breath, inhaling every last second of her body. Then you run your lips along her collar bone. She shivers under your touch. You want to turn her around and kiss her on the lips, but you can't. You can't let her know who you are.

So you run your fingers along her hands, tracing the direction her blood flows along her arms and you kiss her neck. You try to read her, to understand exactly what she might do next. You don't think she'll fight you off, she's not stupid, she knows who you are and she knows what you're capable of.

In one very brief movement, you walk away, the knife removed with little damage and all that is left is the lingering moment of lust that you were sure you both could feel.

You can't kill her, even if you wanted to.