Chapter One

Three days into his incarceration, Patrick Jane lost his sense of smell. And, subsequently, his sense of taste. It wasn't entirely unwelcome, really, as prisons aren't exactly known for their olfactory or culinary delights. For this reason – and perhaps because, like so many things of late, it didn't really seem to matter terribly much – he didn't tell anyone of his condition.

He merely continued with his days. The machinations were in place to get him out – he knew this. His lawyer certainly droned on about it enough; about his request for a speedy trial, the options Jane should consider when it came time to plead his case.

"Well – I'm guilty, of course," Jane said at one such meeting, a bit surprised that anyone would suggest otherwise. How many people had seen him gun Red John down in the middle of a plaza, after all?

The lawyer was a short man with thinning hair and a penchant for fussing with his jacket whenever he didn't like what Jane was saying. He was about to tie himself in a knot at the moment, poor little man.

"You had reasons, though. I'd like to plead temporary insanity. Your history in the institution after Angela – "

Jane looked up sharply at the name. No one used that name anymore.

"Your wife," the little lawyer amended. "That man murdered your wife and daughter."

"Yes – I'm quite aware of what that man did, but thank you for reminding me. I wasn't insane. I wasn't defending myself. I was avenging the murder of my family, and I have no desire to drag their memory back into the public eye with a lengthy trial rehashing all the reasons I was justified in shooting Red John in cold blood. Life is surprisingly comfortable here. Whatever they're offering, take it. I'll serve my time."

The lawyer argued a bit more, but Jane had already moved onto other things. When the time came to return to his cell, he went quietly. Lay down on his bed and stared at the springs of the bunk above him, which belonged to a young Hispanic man with a predilection for stealing fast cars and an unhealthily close relationship with his mother.

Everything had gone grey. That's what it was like. It was an odd feeling, really – for years, Jane had grown accustomed to a heightened sense of light and dark, euphoria and despair, with the bleak shadow of his family's death an undercurrent to every moment of joy he experienced. Losing his family had plunged him into a sort of bipolarity – colors were brighter, pain was sharper, the moments that he could enjoy, he relished.

That seemed to be gone, now.

Seven years had passed since he'd held his wife in his arms, made love to her, worshipped with his body and his heart and even his soul, if such a thing existed. Seven years since he'd held his daughter's hand, woken to her laughter, kissed her goodnight.

He did not regret killing Red John.

It was the least he could do for the family whose fate he had sealed – the very least, and it still wasn't enough. Nothing would be enough. That was the thing he was coming to realize, and the thought that this emptiness, this bottomless void, was the way he would spend the rest of his days, was frankly… unsettling.

Lisbon would not speak to him. He tried calling, but she wouldn't accept the charges and she wouldn't call him back. He wrote to her – or started to, but it came out maudlin and false and he threw the page in the trash, wishing he had never tried in the first place.

Rigsby was Jane's first visitor in prison. The consultant's arraignment had not gone well – bail was denied despite the work he had done with the CBI, and Jane was remanded to custody until the trial. He suspected that some of his more indelicate stunts with the powers-that-be at the CBI had something to do with the poor outcome. Rigsby, Cho, Van Pelt, Hightower, and even LaRoche had been at the hearing. Lisbon had come, as well, but she hadn't wanted him to see – she sat in the back, apart from everyone, and hurried out when Jane was handcuffed, her head down, her arm in a sling.

And now, two weeks later, here was Rigsby. The younger man looked a bit tired, but seemed surprisingly at ease seated at the table in the visitors' area, while children played and spouses chatted.

"Sorry I couldn't get here sooner," Rigsby began.

Jane waved him off. "Please. I'm sure things must be chaotic since…" he lowered his eyes. Stared at his shackled hands. Searched for a joke, something to lighten the mood, but realized he didn't have the energy for it. He had no idea what to say.

"Yeah, things have been crazy," Rigsby agreed. Once they were seated across the table from one another, the agent looked more uncomfortable. Why the hell had he come in the first place?

"How is everyone?" Jane finally asked. Once it was out there, he realized how much he genuinely wanted to know.

Rigsby shrugged his broad shoulders. By the look on his face, no one was doing that well.

"All right, I guess. I mean… A lot happened."

"Yes, of course. Silly of me. How's Grace?"

Rigsby blushed – the same blush he always got when Van Pelt's name came up. The fact that at least one thing hadn't changed was oddly comforting.

"She's okay. I mean… She's taking it pretty hard."

"That's understandable. I mean… One would, when forced to shoot one's fiancé, I expect."

Rigsby had no response to that. They sat there in miserable silence for a minute or more. Jane figured that if he remained mute for another two minutes, the other man would eventually give up. He glanced at the clock on the ugly concrete wall.

"Cho's heading things up for a while," Rigsby said instead.

Jane felt a pang of sadness. Remorse, perhaps? Not for Red John, though – for the collateral damage. Which had been significant.

"Really? I would have thought Lisbon would be on her feet again by now."

He knew, in fact, that Lisbon was on her feet again – he'd been checking on her. Following her progress as best he could from behind prison walls.

"Yeah… She took a leave, though. The bullet hit her shoulder, tore something in there."

Jane thought of the last time he had spoken to her. Of her whimpers, the pained gasp as she'd dragged herself to O'Laughlin to retrieve the phone number that would seal Red John's fate.

Jane had never said thank you.

He hadn't stopped her. Hadn't said, 'For God's sake, woman, just lie still and wait for the ambulance. This will wait.'

He hadn't said anything at all.

"She's got physical therapy, that kind of thing, trying to get her strength back."

"Of course."

That didn't explain why she couldn't tend to the administrative side of her position, however. He tried to imagine what Lisbon was doing now – without the job. He had predicted she would immerse herself in her duties once he was gone, intent on mending the damage he had inflicted on her team.

It unnerved him, thinking that she wasn't working at all.

What was she doing?

Rigsby cleared his throat. "So, uh – I just wanted to come by, see how you're doing. Let you know we're all thinking of you. Everybody says 'hey.'"

Jane smiled faintly at the lie. Rigsby stood.

"I guess I should get going."

"Yes," Jane agreed gratefully.

He watched Rigsby start to walk away. For the first time in two weeks, something penetrated the fog that seemed to surround him since he'd pulled the trigger and Red John had fallen.

Pain.

Loneliness.

An unexpected pang of despair so deep that it physically shook him. He pushed past it while simultaneously clinging to the feeling, wondering at its ability to spur him to action when nothing else had.

"Wayne," he called after the man. Rigsby turned. Paused for just a moment, and then returned to the table.

Jane met his eye for the first time since the agent had arrived, unable to hide his emotions this time.

"Thank you for coming," he said softly.

Rigsby studied him. Jane disliked how naked he felt, how raw; he missed his suit, suddenly, very much. The orange prison coveralls weren't a wardrobe one could hide inside very effectively.

"Yeah, sure," Rigsby said. His words came easily, though his eyes belied his distress. "I'll be back in a couple days. Wednesday. That cool?"

Jane nodded. Repeated the word quietly. "Wednesday. Yes. That would be good."

True to his word, Rigsby returned on Wednesday, and then was back again the following Saturday. This time, he brought a box of herbal tea, though Jane had not asked him to do so. He was touched at the gesture. Their conversation was less stilted this time; he realized he'd been looking forward to the visit for the past two days. They played checkers – Jane would have preferred chess, but Rigsby admitted that he was never particularly good at the game and, further, had no desire to learn.

The agent seemed singularly at ease in the visitors lounge; Jane understood that this was likely due to a childhood in which such facilities had become so commonplace that they'd begun to feel like a second home. He didn't mention this, however.

Halfway through their second game of checkers, Jane finally began making inroads toward the conversation he knew he would eventually need to have.

"So… You and Grace – you're living together now?"

Rigsby blushed furiously, as Jane had known he would.

"We, uh… We're not living together. I'm just, y'know – staying there. It's not like that."

"No, I suppose not," Jane agreed. He jumped two of Rigsby's men, landing on the other side of the board. Rigsby wasn't much of a strategist.

"She's having dreams," Rigsby admitted after a few seconds. He looked uncomfortable for a moment. Then, he leaned in, lowering his voice.

"Bad ones – nightmares. I stayed on her couch, that first night after…"

Jane nodded. There was no need to elaborate.

"I woke up 'cause I heard her scream, and then she just… Cried. A lot. Grace was never that way before."

"Grace never had to gun down her fiancé to save her team," Jane countered evenly. Rigsby grimaced.

"Yeah, I guess you've got a point. Anyway, she's still having them. She went to see a shrink – he said it'd just take time."

"He's right," Jane said. The heroic, former-football-playing fiancé had been too short-lived to leave indelible scars on Van Pelt's psyche. Not when she'd been so conflicted about choosing between he and Rigsby in the first place.

"Two weeks more," he said definitively.

"Two weeks more of what?"

"Two weeks more of nightmares every night," Jane explained. "Crying every day. Then she'll be angry – you'll want to make yourself scarce for that part, I'd expect. She'll pour herself into her work, but she'll keep seeing her therapist. She's not self-destructive."

Not like Lisbon, he tacked on silently. Rigsby caught his eye; Jane realized that he'd gotten the inference.

"No," Rigsby agreed. "Grace is way too healthy for that stuff. She'd never wall herself up. Stop answering her phone. Leave everybody in a lurch."

Jane took Rigsby's last man, and stared at it for a moment. He thought of Lisbon suddenly: the feel of her slight weight the day she'd allowed him to catch her. Lisbon in pink taffeta hauling miserably at her top, face flushed, hair askew. An angry little princess. Someone stole your tiara.

"You haven't spoken with Lisbon at all?" Jane asked. The visiting hour was nearly up. He put the checkers back in their box while Rigsby sat and watched.

"Nobody has. Cho went by her place, but she wasn't there."

"Perhaps she's visiting family."

Rigsby scoffed. "Yeah – I bet she's having a blast. What the hell's she thinking, anyway?"

"She'll be fine. She has the same urge toward self preservation that the rest of us do," Jane said. He sounded argumentative. "She just needs time."

Rigsby looked unconvinced. He stood and pushed the box of herbal tea across the table to him.

"I better go. I'll come back next week."

The words 'You don't have to,' died on Jane's lips before he could get them out. Thus far, Rigsby was the only one who had come to visit. Not that Jane deserved visitors – he wasn't delusional, after all. He knew precisely what he had done when he made the decision to put his need for vengeance over Lisbon's lust for justice. And while he had known for some time that it would come to this, he still found himself unwilling to surrender the one tie he had left to the CBI. To Lisbon.

"Thank you for the tea – they don't have much of a selection here," he said instead. He didn't tell Rigsby that it hardly mattered, now that everything tasted the same. They said an awkward goodbye, and then Jane waited for a guard to reappear and take him back to his cell.

Jane first heard the name Ellie Jennings a few days later. By this time, he had become accustomed to the daily schedule in prison – morning wake-up, breakfast, time in the yard for card games and endless pacing, working out for those so inclined (he was not). As he had done during his brief incarceration with the CBI, he made friends easily enough, though he found he had little patience for games this time, no desire to dazzle anyone.

He listened to the other prisoners when they talked; kept to himself; tried to stay out of the way. Lived for the moments of solitude when he could lie on his back and dream of the past. To his surprise, those dreams were no longer comprised solely of his life with his wife and daughter. Occasionally, more recent memories would slip in: his couch at the CBI, Van Pelt's laughter, fast cars and endless puzzles and, too frequently, an angry little princess in pink taffeta, with a smattering of freckles and blazing green eyes.

It was a Wednesday afternoon when it happened – he was expecting Rigsby in an hour or so. The entire day had felt different: an energy held high in the chest, a sort of pressure that several of the inmates seem to carry on their overly muscled shoulders. Jane went to the yard feeling on edge, ever mindful of those around him.

It was an uncharacteristically gray day for southern California, a low-lying fog on the horizon. Their time outside was cut short by a fight – something Jane would have watched with great fascination had he been on the outside looking in. Now that he was here, however, these outbursts simply unnerved him.

It took three guards to break the men up, during which time other scuffles broke out in other areas of the yard. More guards arrived, wielding clubs and tasers, shouting in a vain attempt to regain control. As soon as a group of inmates had fallen in line behind a few of the guards, Jane followed suit, anxious to return to his cell. He was careful to avoid eye contact – when the men were heightened, anything could spark their ire, and he had no desire to be the focus in such circumstances.

His group was shepherded inside amid shouts and threats. They were nearly through the doors, Jane packed in tightly between two other inmates, when he felt a hand close around his upper arm. The man behind him pressed in tight, a voice at his ear.

"Ellie wanted me to say hi."

Jane didn't move, the chill in the man's voice stopping him cold.

"I don't know any Ellie," he said quietly.

"You will. She wanted me to tell you Red John wasn't alone in this world. Not like you."

They moved forward with the rest of the inmates, another two or three steps. Jane twisted to try and get a glimpse of his assailant. The hand tightened around his bicep; the body moved still closer, and Jane could hear the blood rushing in his ears.

"Red John's not done with you yet," the man whispered.

The shank sank in below Jane's kidney – an unexpected piercing that made him cry out, as much in surprise as pain.

He fell to his knees while the prisoners kept moving, surging around him.

The world went still.

Lisbon was in the infirmary when he awoke nearly twenty-four hours later. As written by Hollywood, she should have burst into tears at sight of his eyes as they fluttered open, a pained smile on his lips.

Lisbon was never really the Hollywood type, however.

The moment she realized that he was awake, a look of pain flashed in her eyes – so pure, so naked, that it pierced Jane nearly as effectively as the shank. She left for the doctor, then waited by the door until it seemed clear that Jane would, in fact, survive. He opened his mouth to speak to her, to attempt some kind of apology, but she fixed him with green eyes brimming with hurt and anger and betrayal.

He closed his mouth.

She left.

TBC