Title: Missing

Rating: T - Includes some violent themes and sexual situations, but nothing too graphic.

Spoilers: Mid-way through season 4, I guess, but nothing really specific.

Disclaimer: This is for fun and no money.

A/N: Shameless hurt/comfort fic. I actually wrote this ages ago but never got around to editing it and breaking it into chapters til now. Figured I would post it now to help us get through all the intensity that has been season 6 so far. After last week's episode, I think everyone could use a little Sweet!Jane to remind us why we love him so much. Hope this will do the trick. This fic is twelve chapters total; the early ones are pretty short but they get longer as we go along. Giving you two chapters tonight because the first one is more like a prologue.

Lisbon had been missing for five days before they found her.

A man named Kevin Taggart had taken her. She'd gone to interview him about a case relating to three known homicides in which the killer kidnapped his victims and held them hostage, beating them for days before finally breaking their necks and dumping their bodies by the side of the road. She'd gone to interview him, and she hadn't come back.

She'd wanted Jane to go with her. To placate her, he'd said he would, but privately he thought interviewing Taggart was a waste of time, and he'd skipped out on her at the last minute to pursue his own interests. Lisbon wanted to check Taggart out because he had a couple of priors that indicated a history of violence and a connection to the first victim. Jane, on the other hand, had been intrigued by a sinister air he'd sensed from the headmaster of the college that all three victims had attended at one point in their lives, and had felt his time would be much better spent springing a trap for the head of school. He had left Lisbon a message telling her where he was going, and wishing her luck on her 'destined to be fruitless' interview. He could imagine her listening to his message with a huff of exasperation, and then climbing into the SUV to go interview Taggart by herself. As a result, he'd found himself with a headmaster on his hands who had no more sinister proclivities than trying to conceal an affair from his wife, and Lisbon's empty SUV found in front of Taggart's abandoned apartment.

He wasn't sure what was worse, knowing what state she was likely to be in when they finally found her, or knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything that had happened to her was completely his fault.