It was the shoes she noticed first. Smart lace-ups in dark grey leather. Lisbon was no expert on men's fashion but they looked expensive. Quietly expensive. After five years or more of the same scuffed brown numbers, this was worthy of comment.

"Been shopping," she said, pointing at the shoes with her pen.

He murmured his assent then went back to his book. Lisbon returned to her budgets.

Then other shoes turned up: regulation black, a light tan, an understated dark brown.

His shirts improved. They were the same mix of pale stripes as before, but no longer crumpled. No loose threads at the cuffs. No missing buttons.

There were probably new suits as well, but she couldn't pick them out. Clothes weren't really her thing. But he looked sharp, well presented.

He had always had presence, the ability to command a room. But it had come with a certain volatility, an edge of chaos, that left people discomforted, wary, and had scratched her nerves like fingernails down a blackboard.

In its place he exuded calm. It wasn't real serenity, but a carefully controlled appearance of equanimity that fooled most people most of the time. He could still rip into suspects with the same razor sharp mix of pinpoint observation and downright abuse, but they didn't see it coming now. Mostly.

The shoes were a sign, and Lisbon had been waiting for a sign.

They had captured Red John in a violent and bloody showdown. He lived now in a secure facility in some Podunk town in the far east of the state. His physical injuries kept him confined to a wheelchair. His brain damage left him unable to speak or write, and probably unable to think much, although they couldn't be entirely sure how badly damaged he was.

She had no idea what Jane thought about it. He had been part of the team that trapped Red John and his inner circle, and stood beside her and Rigsby as they had pumped out round after round in that last, brutal hour of battle. Was that enough? Had he purged his desire for vengeance? She didn't know.

She knew that she felt good about it. She had dark, unchristian satisfaction at the thought of all that evil sitting slumped in a wheelchair, drooling, unable even to feed himself.

She had kept a weather eye on Jane after the shooting, uncertain how he would react.

The first day back in the office, she had been at her desk, laboriously documenting the capture, detailing each and every shot, formally justifying the deaths and the injuries. Jane had parked himself on her couch, quietly reading a book.

"Too much excitement around your sofa?" She had asked.

"Too much noise," Jane had answered. "The sound of collective backslapping is deafening. I'll wait until it drops to a dull roar."

But he never did relocate. Jane became a fixture in her office, ambling off to make tea when she needed some privacy, providing a caustic commentary on her attempts to manage her superiors, delivering a coffee and pastry each morning and a regular supply of caffeine throughout the afternoon.

She had thought about moving him on. She had made a few digs about how lonely his sofa must be getting, but didn't push it. She could keep a better eye on him this way, just in case things went south. She knew he was fragile, knew about his breakdown, couldn't be certain quite how the cards would fall once Red John was put away.

The shoes reassured her. They were an investment in the future, a statement that there would be a next week, a next year. Lisbon liked that.