Title: Bed of Nails
Author: tromana
Rating: T
Characters: Jane/Lisbon
Summary: How could she feel so betrayed and yet, still feel so desperate to come to his aid? Post-3x24
Spoilers: All of Season 3.
Notes: Extremely belated not-so-secret Secret Santa fic for Divinia Serit.

"In fact, being - forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."
Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Part One

They got the case.

Of course they did and Teresa Lisbon wouldn't have expected anything less.

Cho had told her, in a quick visit. Just long enough to ascertain that yes, she was on the road to recovery and tell her that Patrick Jane had been transferred into their holding cells for the murder of the serial killer more commonly known as Red John. That was Cho, brief and to the point.

Knowing that didn't make it any easier.

There was, after all, a reason why she was currently hospitalized.

Briefly, she glanced across at Van Pelt. She had curled herself uncomfortably into a plastic seat and was currently dozing fitfully. The poor woman was drained and unsurprisingly so. It wasn't every day that you found out your fiancé didn't really love you and had only been with you to provide vital information to a serial killer. Nor was it a regular occurrence that you shot said conniving bastard to death. Lisbon knew that after the dust had blown over, the youngest member of her team would have a lot of recovering to do.

Even more so than herself, in a way.

Lisbon looked at her arm. No bandage, just a dressing. The blood had already begun to seep through. She had only been out of surgery for two hours as well. On the plus side, she wasn't in any pain yet. Clearly, the morphine was yet to leave her system and she was grateful for it. This was a situation she had been in time and time again, so she knew from experience what to expect as time progressed. Eventually, this would be just another scar to add to the growing collection. Another memory to stoically ignore, given time. There would be other occasions when she got injured in the call of duty. That was something she could virtually guarantee. It was, after all, a common hazard in her line of work. Sooner or later, they were all expected to put themselves into harm's way. It was practically written in the CBI handbook.

She glanced up as the door swung open yet again. It was the nurse, coming in for her half-hourly check up. To make sure that her blood pressure had remained stable, that her oxygen levels were still good, that she still knew where the hell she was. Automatically, Lisbon answered each and every question, almost by rote. The worst part was knowing that these visits were going to continue throughout the night, just to make sure she didn't take a downward turn. Really, all she wanted was the chance to close her eyes and go to sleep, but how could she do that knowing she was going to be disturbed again soon?

And not once did the medic ask how she was. Mentally, that was. He was simply interested in how she was feeling physically, post-surgery. That she didn't feel sick or disorientated or worse.

But just how was she feeling?

Lisbon couldn't be sure.

A lot had happened in such a short period of time. If anything, she was lucky to get out of it with her life. Two near-death experiences so close to one another was draining on anyone. Before she even had a chance to come to terms with the fact some psychopath had strapped a bomb to her, Craig O'Laughlin had shot at her. Aiming to kill, naturally. Her escaping both situations in one piece, or at least, just about, was mostly good fortune.

That and…

Well, that was where it got complicated. During the first incident, Lisbon could pretty much guarantee that Patrick Jane had saved her life. When she had come round, with that hideous contraption tied around her, she had been petrified. Yet, at the same time, she knew that if Jane hadn't been there, things would have been so different. Despite the terror, she would never have given into Gupta's demands. There was no way she would have even considered for a moment putting other people's lives in danger, especially those of her colleagues at the CBI. If Jane hadn't been there to persuade her to act otherwise, she would have been blown into hundreds of tiny pieces in half a second. Of that, she was certain.

However, more recent events weren't so clear cut.

How could she be certain that Jane hadn't known that O'Laughlin was the mole earlier? That he hadn't lead them up a garden path, believing it was Gale Bertram? As far she knew, he could quite easily have sent her on her merry way, to protect Hightower while he flushed out Red John, alone. It easily pushed her to one side, meant she was literally out of the way. Completely unable to do what she had sworn she would always do.

Stop him from ruining his life. Again.

How could she have ever believed that she had enough control of Jane to stop him?

Her less cynical side was begging her to give him the benefit of the doubt, to believe that he had genuinely slipped up. That, like the rest of them, he had genuinely thought Bertram was Red John's mole. And that Bertram would have confessed so that Rigsby and Cho could bring him into custody.

In hindsight, Red John being there made sense. She just wished that she had had the common sense to go to the mall herself, to station Rigsby with Hightower instead.

Deep down, she also realized that they hadn't meant as much to Jane as she had believed. None of them did. Not Cho, Rigsby, Hightower, Van Pelt and most certainly not herself.

Somewhat pettily, she remembered the half-baked promise that he'd call her back. Ridiculously, Lisbon had clung to the foolish belief that he actually would. That he cared enough about her wellbeing to ensure that she was indeed receiving the medical attention she so obviously required. Of course, she should have known at the time that it would be a broken promise. She had already known that Red John was in the vicinity at that point in time. That Rigsby and Cho would have already left the scene in order to try and catch up with O'Laughlin.

She should have known that being left alone to his own devices, Jane would never let Red John slip away. That he would exact his revenge, just as he always said he would. And that nobody was there to stop him. Just like he had probably planned, all along.

As the medic slipped through the door, she cursed quietly to herself.

How could she have been so naïve?

xxx

He'd been in this room before. Not for an extended stay, just to work on other cases. Help get confessions and the like. Those times, he hadn't particularly noticed just how dreary and depressing the holding cells were. Then, Jane had always been too fixated on the job in hand; they had always provided an adequate distraction from his ulterior motive. Stopped him from getting bored while Red John planned his next move and kept him stimulated. Besides, the CBI would never spend excess funds on something like this. They were already stretched to breaking point as it was. Why waste money on making criminals feel more comfortable before they were transferred to jail? The basic necessities were all that was required for a relatively brief sojourn. A chair, a bed, a light. A guarded door to ensure the prisoner didn't escape. Nobody stayed in there for longer than seventy two hours, so nothing more was needed. By that point, the CBI were legally obliged to move them on, whether that be in the form of release or by charging the individual and transferring them to jail.

Or, if the individual's case had become compromised one way or another, of course. That was something that had happened thanks to himself relatively recently. Somehow, he'd persuaded Lisbon to work against her instincts in order to get Donny Culpepper off the hook, a man charged with attempted burglary. A man who had only tried to commit said crime because Jane himself had paid for him to do so. And the only reason Lisbon had agreed to do so was because she could see the bigger picture. That Jane was trying to find out who had framed Madeleine Hightower.

A wistful smile crept across his lips. The team had been genuinely good to him, Lisbon especially. Jane had always known that she loved and loathed him in equal measures; the look was frequently apparent on her face. And really, it was her grudging respect for his ability to close cases like a demon that meant she didn't get sick of him for once and for all.

Until now, of course.

He dreaded to imagine what she thought of him now.

She probably believed that he had intentionally set up this whole situation, purely to get her as far away from him as possible while he faced Red John, alone. Part of the flaw in that line of thinking was that she would be fairly accurate, believing that. Jane could only hope that her optimistic side would seep through and give him the benefit of the doubt. Due to prior experience, Jane knew that was highly unlikely. When it came to him and his exploits, Lisbon was cynical to the very core. She would never willingly judge him favourably, despite the fact she was a cop and a big believer in the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty'. Quite frankly, in the past he had never given her any reason to do so, however. Usually, the most he could promise her was that he didn't actively try to screw up the SCU's cases.

But then again, he had always been up front about what he intended to do to Red John. Lisbon could never say that she hadn't had the forewarning. She couldn't take it as if it were an unexpected blow. Even in recent conversations, he had confirmed that he would kill the serial killer, given the chance. That that was something that hadn't changed since he had been assigned to her unit. Yes, she had always believed that she would be there to stop him, but Jane had always known otherwise. Jane had always known that she was determined to try and 'fix' him, that she couldn't say no to a hopeless cause like him.

Maybe, if she had had longer, she would have got lucky. However, they had known one another for over seven years, so that was still very unlikely.

Briefly, he wondered why he hadn't been questioned yet. It was an open and shut case, there was nothing to worry about. They'd already caught their killer and he was locked behind closed doors. There were video recordings of him committing the crime from the mall. They had plenty of witnesses and no doubt many of them had already confirmed that he had shot Red John in cold blood. They even had the murder weapon. All they needed to do was get a recording of his confession and then, they could send him on his merry way. Then again, Cho probably assumed that Lisbon herself would want to question him. At least, he would want to give her the option to anyway. But if he was, they couldn't guarantee that Lisbon would be discharged from hospital before his seventy two hours were up, never mind being cleared for active duty once more.

Jane genuinely hadn't expected her, or any of the others, to get injured in the fray with O'Laughlin. When it came to Lisbon, he had always been somewhat blind to her abilities. Almost believed that she was superwoman, able to get out of any scrape completely unscathed. Not that he hadn't seen her get injured or have close calls in the past; he just found it easier to ignore those memories rather than dwell on them. Hearing the shot over his cell phone had unsettled him, especially so when he realized the bullet had hit Lisbon.

He hoped she'd make a swift recovery, she deserved that at the very least. Especially so as he was somewhat to blame for her receiving said injury in the first place. As far as Jane was concerned, he should have realized that Van Pelt would tell O'Laughlin where Hightower was and lead him straight to them. Really, he just expected them to be able to take control the FBI agent before things got out of hand. Jane couldn't feel sorry for the man's passing; he had hurt too many people he cared about. Who knew what lasting damage he had caused Lisbon and especially Van Pelt? Besides, he had willingly worked for Red John, for no obvious reason. Or rather, reasons unknown to him. And considering his current predicament, he was unlikely to discover them any time soon.

There was the sound of footsteps outside, quickly followed by silence. Obviously, nobody was interested in questioning him yet. It was simply guard duty being switched over, the start of the night shift.

Jane laid back on the makeshift bed.

He had done it. He'd killed Red John.

But really, had it changed a thing?

TBC…