Bloodless Bonds Chapter Seven
Title:Bloodless Bonds Chapter Seven
Words: Total fic, about 10,000
Spoilers: All four seasons.
Summary: After Red John is killed, Lisbon must convince Jane that quitting the CBI is not what he should do next. Includes flashbacks to the final confrontation with Red John.
“Back away from her!” Jane shouted. “Or I’ll shoot.”
“No,” Red John said pinning Lisbon to the ground and fighting to get the knife away from her. “You won’t shoot. You won’t risk hitting her. If I move, you’ll kill me. Give me the knife, bitch!” he shouted, bringing his fist down on Lisbon’s neck. She was lying on it, and Lisbon struggled to prevent Red John from rolling her over and revealing it, despite the throbbing pain coming from her head, neck, and shoulder. “Jane!” she shouted, unsure of what he could do. Her hands were busy flailing backward, trying to knock Red John’s weight off again. If she held the knife, he could pry it away from her. Lying on it was the only way to keep him from possessing it. Her thoughts briefly went to her niece, and she wondered how she could possibly want this life - how these life or death situations, while rarer than Anna might think - were what excited her about it. But Lisbon couldn’t judge Tommy’s daughter for it - she herself had taken this job, knowing full well that this could happen one day. Taking on Jane only added to it.
Jane moved toward the struggling man and woman and clubbed Red John over the head. Lisbon tensed as his inexperience with firearms caused the weapon to fire, driving a hole in the wall three feet above her head. In response, Red John threw his arm back into Jane, pushing Lisbon’s head back down into the cement. Groaning, she saw Jane in her peripheral vision. He was no fighter. He had no experience in it. But this was Red John. This was the murderer he was looking for.
Red John gave up on Lisbon and turned to Jane delivering a solid punch to the consultant’s nose. Staggering backward, Jane tripped and fell. Red John whirled to defect a blow from Lisbon, who had thrown herself over to them in an attempt to rescue Jane. “You will never get out of this place,” he told her, eyeing her bleeding shoulder. “You are wounded. Let me go, and I will hurt you no further.”
“You can’t hurt us,” Lisbon said. “Jane has the gun. I have the knife.”
“And I,” Red John said, “have the flame.” He pulled a match out of his pocket, lit it under his fingernail, and threw it into a corner of the room before Jane or Lisbon could react. Instantly, that section of the building was going in flames, the dry, brittle wood taking, fueling the fire. That side of the building was the driest, the most fragile, but it wouldn’t take too long. “Save yourselves,” he said. “Or try to kill me, and chance you dying while I get away.”
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Lisbon said, thrusting her arm forward and plunging the knife into Red John’s side.
He’d moved at her motion, and it inflicted an injury not much worse than Lisbon’s, but it was enough to stall him while Jane got up. “You sick son of a bitch,” he said, swinging his leg around with an agility that Lisbon didn’t know he had, the blow hitting Red John right in the knees. “You’re out of accomplices,” Jane said. “Your time of torturing me has ended. I will avenge my family.”
Red John staggered, appearing to fall to the floor. “The knife, Lisbon,” Jane said, holding out his hand.
Lisbon hesitated. Was it right to allow Jane to cut Red John open and watch him die? She had no idea, but she could feel her hand start to extend to hand him the weapon. So here, now, in a burning barn, is where it all would end.
But Lisbon’s moment of hesitance was enough for the killer. In a flash, he was up on his feet, making a break for the door. In the smoky haze that was beginning to fill the room, the door was hard to see, and he smashed into the wall a foot to the right, staggering backward..
Jane and Lisbon sprang into action. Jane grabbed the knife Lisbon had dropped, and she threw herself in front of the door, bracing herself in the threshold. The metal frame was hot and she groaned as she felt the skin on her flesh protest the heat. Red John’s body slammed into hers, and they fell to the ground. Lisbon drove her knee into his groin, and he flinched, enough movement to show Jane precisely where they were. In a flash he was there, driving the butt of the gun toward Red John’s skull. The killer deflected the blows several times, and Lisbon, in an attempt to help, reached a hand out and grabbed the knife. Jane, not realizing who was attempting to take the weapon, tried to yank it back. Upon trying to pry her hand off of the handle, he realized that it was Lisbon and not his nemesis and let her have it; Lisbon dug it into Red John’s shoulder and twisted while Jane hit him on the head again, appearing to realize when Lisbon leaned her head back to not get hit that she was too close to his target to continue. So he grabbed the man by his collar, tossed him a few feet, and continued clubbing, but Red John’s hands were still able to defect some of the blows.
Lisbon struggled to her feet. “Shoot him, Jane! End it! Right here, right now!”
Jane reached out to touch her shoulder, whether to bring her back out of her thoughts or to examine her stab wound, Lisbon didn’t know. Either way, she appreciated it. “This appears much better.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And my hands are healing well. I can go back to the office day after tomorrow, and the field again in a week or so. Cho’s been in charge these past few days.” She gave a little laugh. “He’s good. I was afraid to put him in charge in the fear of him being given his own team, when what I want is for him to keep working for me.” She laughed. “I’m selfish like that. I’ll probably have to let him go soon, if he wants to go.”
Jane laughed slightly. “Lisbon, you’re the farthest thing from selfish. When we were in that house, I’d inhaled a lot more smoke than you. You could have made it to the front door, and you risked losing your hands to make sure I made it out. That’s not selfish. That’s heroic.”
Lisbon struggled to her feet. “Shoot him, Jane! End it! Right here, right now!”
He turned to her. “Is that an order?”
“Yes!” The building was on fire, she was wounded, he was wounded. It was time for this to be over, and if they didn’t do it now, Red John would never be caught. They were out of tricks, at the last of their resources, and if they didn’t push through and just finish him off, they would never win. This was their chance.
Jane stepped back, pointed the gun at Red John’s head, and fired. Once. Twice. Three times. Red John jerked with the first shot, and then was still.
It was over.
They stared at the body for a moment; a burning beam crashing to the ground behind them jolted Jane and Lisbon back to the present. “Jane!” Lisbon said. “We need to go.”
For once, the consultant wasn’t arguing. He kicked the body in disgust, and ran toward her, holding out his hand. Lisbon grabbed it and they raced through the door to the main area of the barn. “Where’s the exit?” She asked coughing slightly. She blinked a few times to get her bearings, holding a hand over her mouth as her burning eyes searched for light.
Jane shook his head, letting go of her hand and putting both his palms on his knees bending over and coughing. “No, Jane!” She looked toward the nearest wall, and felt the burning on her hands from where they had already blistered. And she decided that their lives were more important. She ran to the wall and pushed, feeling her hands burn and not really caring. The wall shuddered, it was old and the fire had weakened it. Lisbon backed up and rammed her shoulder, the uninjured one, into it, and she felt something in the wood crack. She looked back behind her. “Jane!” She could barely see him. Turning back to the wall, she pushed against it again, and almost fell through when a section of it broke free and crashed to the ground, flames jumping up. “Jane!”
He came up next to her and rammed his shoulder into the same section of the wall that Lisbon was focusing on, and it another section came down. Upon seeing daylight, she and Jane plowed through what remained of the wall and stumbled outside.
“I don’t see how doing one’s job is considered so heroic,” Lisbon said. “And you helped me.”
“Yeah, we’re a team all right,” Jane said, looking away. She wondered why his tone had a hint of sarcasm in it. She felt stupid when she remembered that he technically wasn’t a part of their team anymore.
“Exactly,” Lisbon said. “And in all honesty? This hero talk makes me uncomfortable. No one understands that I’m just doing my job.”
Jane’s words reminded her of Kormiloff’s. “It is different when… when you do it better than the majority of the country.” He smiled. “I’ve hardly ever met someone so devoted to their career. It’s an admirable trait, Lisbon, you have got to know that.”
“I need my job,” she said slowly, sensing it was time to ease her meaning for coming here back into their discussion. Talks of her own bravery always made her uncomfortable, anyway. “Because I don’t have anything else.” She looked down again. Jane was the best when it came to reading people, and he had to know that, even if he detected that she was trying to convince him to return to the CBI, she was serious about what she was saying. “My parents are dead. I have an amicable relationship, at best, with my brothers. If I don’t have the team, I have nothing. And I guess that’s why I’m willing to die for any one of you, because without you guys…” she paused to awkwardly wipe a tear from her eyes. “I don’t know what the hell I’d do.”
“Eh,” Jane said. “You would find something, I’m sure.”
“Jane,” Lisbon said, “you know that I know that you resigned.”
Jane shrugged. “Okay.”
“Jane!” She shook her head again. “What about when you said you have nothing else to do?” she asked him, “back when you quit after that incident with Red John’s sheriff accomplice. You came back because you have nothing else to do, and nowhere to go.”
“Nothing else to do aside from hunt Red John.” Jane shrugged. “And it’s over now. I finally have my revenge.”
“And this team,” Lisbon said slowly, “we devoted ourselves to it. We worked our asses off for years trying to find this guy. He’d be just another killer to us, notorious, sure, but we risked our jobs time and time again to hunt him and it was for you. We helped you get your revenge. Don’t you want to keep helping bring justice to other families? When you work with us we have the highest clearance rate in the state.”
“You had that before me, too,” Jane reminded her.
“It’s even higher now,” Lisbon said. “And work aside, we need you. All of us.”
Jane took in a breath and let it out, and Lisbon glared at him. She didn’t know if he was taking her seriously or not, but he was about to. “Your family is dead, Jane. Nothing’s bringing them back. You killed Red John, and quite frankly, I’m glad the bastard’s rotting in hell. But you’re never going to be with your family again on this earth.”
“I know that,” Jane said quietly.
“So while you’re here,” Lisbon said, “you’re never going to find people that care half as much for you as we do at CBI. No one else will be as loyal. No one else has your back like we do. And you’ve risked a lot to protect us over the years. Are you going to walk away from us?” She stood up. “It’s a symbiotic relationship, Jane. Or at least we all think it is. Rigsby, Van Pelt, Cho, we all want you back. We’re family. You know that. We’ve had this discussion before. Don’t walk away from the only family you have left.”
Chapter Eight
Words: Total fic, about 10,000
Spoilers: All four seasons.
Summary: After Red John is killed, Lisbon must convince Jane that quitting the CBI is not what he should do next. Includes flashbacks to the final confrontation with Red John.
“Back away from her!” Jane shouted. “Or I’ll shoot.”
“No,” Red John said pinning Lisbon to the ground and fighting to get the knife away from her. “You won’t shoot. You won’t risk hitting her. If I move, you’ll kill me. Give me the knife, bitch!” he shouted, bringing his fist down on Lisbon’s neck. She was lying on it, and Lisbon struggled to prevent Red John from rolling her over and revealing it, despite the throbbing pain coming from her head, neck, and shoulder. “Jane!” she shouted, unsure of what he could do. Her hands were busy flailing backward, trying to knock Red John’s weight off again. If she held the knife, he could pry it away from her. Lying on it was the only way to keep him from possessing it. Her thoughts briefly went to her niece, and she wondered how she could possibly want this life - how these life or death situations, while rarer than Anna might think - were what excited her about it. But Lisbon couldn’t judge Tommy’s daughter for it - she herself had taken this job, knowing full well that this could happen one day. Taking on Jane only added to it.
Jane moved toward the struggling man and woman and clubbed Red John over the head. Lisbon tensed as his inexperience with firearms caused the weapon to fire, driving a hole in the wall three feet above her head. In response, Red John threw his arm back into Jane, pushing Lisbon’s head back down into the cement. Groaning, she saw Jane in her peripheral vision. He was no fighter. He had no experience in it. But this was Red John. This was the murderer he was looking for.
Red John gave up on Lisbon and turned to Jane delivering a solid punch to the consultant’s nose. Staggering backward, Jane tripped and fell. Red John whirled to defect a blow from Lisbon, who had thrown herself over to them in an attempt to rescue Jane. “You will never get out of this place,” he told her, eyeing her bleeding shoulder. “You are wounded. Let me go, and I will hurt you no further.”
“You can’t hurt us,” Lisbon said. “Jane has the gun. I have the knife.”
“And I,” Red John said, “have the flame.” He pulled a match out of his pocket, lit it under his fingernail, and threw it into a corner of the room before Jane or Lisbon could react. Instantly, that section of the building was going in flames, the dry, brittle wood taking, fueling the fire. That side of the building was the driest, the most fragile, but it wouldn’t take too long. “Save yourselves,” he said. “Or try to kill me, and chance you dying while I get away.”
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Lisbon said, thrusting her arm forward and plunging the knife into Red John’s side.
He’d moved at her motion, and it inflicted an injury not much worse than Lisbon’s, but it was enough to stall him while Jane got up. “You sick son of a bitch,” he said, swinging his leg around with an agility that Lisbon didn’t know he had, the blow hitting Red John right in the knees. “You’re out of accomplices,” Jane said. “Your time of torturing me has ended. I will avenge my family.”
Red John staggered, appearing to fall to the floor. “The knife, Lisbon,” Jane said, holding out his hand.
Lisbon hesitated. Was it right to allow Jane to cut Red John open and watch him die? She had no idea, but she could feel her hand start to extend to hand him the weapon. So here, now, in a burning barn, is where it all would end.
But Lisbon’s moment of hesitance was enough for the killer. In a flash, he was up on his feet, making a break for the door. In the smoky haze that was beginning to fill the room, the door was hard to see, and he smashed into the wall a foot to the right, staggering backward..
Jane and Lisbon sprang into action. Jane grabbed the knife Lisbon had dropped, and she threw herself in front of the door, bracing herself in the threshold. The metal frame was hot and she groaned as she felt the skin on her flesh protest the heat. Red John’s body slammed into hers, and they fell to the ground. Lisbon drove her knee into his groin, and he flinched, enough movement to show Jane precisely where they were. In a flash he was there, driving the butt of the gun toward Red John’s skull. The killer deflected the blows several times, and Lisbon, in an attempt to help, reached a hand out and grabbed the knife. Jane, not realizing who was attempting to take the weapon, tried to yank it back. Upon trying to pry her hand off of the handle, he realized that it was Lisbon and not his nemesis and let her have it; Lisbon dug it into Red John’s shoulder and twisted while Jane hit him on the head again, appearing to realize when Lisbon leaned her head back to not get hit that she was too close to his target to continue. So he grabbed the man by his collar, tossed him a few feet, and continued clubbing, but Red John’s hands were still able to defect some of the blows.
Lisbon struggled to her feet. “Shoot him, Jane! End it! Right here, right now!”
Jane reached out to touch her shoulder, whether to bring her back out of her thoughts or to examine her stab wound, Lisbon didn’t know. Either way, she appreciated it. “This appears much better.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And my hands are healing well. I can go back to the office day after tomorrow, and the field again in a week or so. Cho’s been in charge these past few days.” She gave a little laugh. “He’s good. I was afraid to put him in charge in the fear of him being given his own team, when what I want is for him to keep working for me.” She laughed. “I’m selfish like that. I’ll probably have to let him go soon, if he wants to go.”
Jane laughed slightly. “Lisbon, you’re the farthest thing from selfish. When we were in that house, I’d inhaled a lot more smoke than you. You could have made it to the front door, and you risked losing your hands to make sure I made it out. That’s not selfish. That’s heroic.”
Lisbon struggled to her feet. “Shoot him, Jane! End it! Right here, right now!”
He turned to her. “Is that an order?”
“Yes!” The building was on fire, she was wounded, he was wounded. It was time for this to be over, and if they didn’t do it now, Red John would never be caught. They were out of tricks, at the last of their resources, and if they didn’t push through and just finish him off, they would never win. This was their chance.
Jane stepped back, pointed the gun at Red John’s head, and fired. Once. Twice. Three times. Red John jerked with the first shot, and then was still.
It was over.
They stared at the body for a moment; a burning beam crashing to the ground behind them jolted Jane and Lisbon back to the present. “Jane!” Lisbon said. “We need to go.”
For once, the consultant wasn’t arguing. He kicked the body in disgust, and ran toward her, holding out his hand. Lisbon grabbed it and they raced through the door to the main area of the barn. “Where’s the exit?” She asked coughing slightly. She blinked a few times to get her bearings, holding a hand over her mouth as her burning eyes searched for light.
Jane shook his head, letting go of her hand and putting both his palms on his knees bending over and coughing. “No, Jane!” She looked toward the nearest wall, and felt the burning on her hands from where they had already blistered. And she decided that their lives were more important. She ran to the wall and pushed, feeling her hands burn and not really caring. The wall shuddered, it was old and the fire had weakened it. Lisbon backed up and rammed her shoulder, the uninjured one, into it, and she felt something in the wood crack. She looked back behind her. “Jane!” She could barely see him. Turning back to the wall, she pushed against it again, and almost fell through when a section of it broke free and crashed to the ground, flames jumping up. “Jane!”
He came up next to her and rammed his shoulder into the same section of the wall that Lisbon was focusing on, and it another section came down. Upon seeing daylight, she and Jane plowed through what remained of the wall and stumbled outside.
“I don’t see how doing one’s job is considered so heroic,” Lisbon said. “And you helped me.”
“Yeah, we’re a team all right,” Jane said, looking away. She wondered why his tone had a hint of sarcasm in it. She felt stupid when she remembered that he technically wasn’t a part of their team anymore.
“Exactly,” Lisbon said. “And in all honesty? This hero talk makes me uncomfortable. No one understands that I’m just doing my job.”
Jane’s words reminded her of Kormiloff’s. “It is different when… when you do it better than the majority of the country.” He smiled. “I’ve hardly ever met someone so devoted to their career. It’s an admirable trait, Lisbon, you have got to know that.”
“I need my job,” she said slowly, sensing it was time to ease her meaning for coming here back into their discussion. Talks of her own bravery always made her uncomfortable, anyway. “Because I don’t have anything else.” She looked down again. Jane was the best when it came to reading people, and he had to know that, even if he detected that she was trying to convince him to return to the CBI, she was serious about what she was saying. “My parents are dead. I have an amicable relationship, at best, with my brothers. If I don’t have the team, I have nothing. And I guess that’s why I’m willing to die for any one of you, because without you guys…” she paused to awkwardly wipe a tear from her eyes. “I don’t know what the hell I’d do.”
“Eh,” Jane said. “You would find something, I’m sure.”
“Jane,” Lisbon said, “you know that I know that you resigned.”
Jane shrugged. “Okay.”
“Jane!” She shook her head again. “What about when you said you have nothing else to do?” she asked him, “back when you quit after that incident with Red John’s sheriff accomplice. You came back because you have nothing else to do, and nowhere to go.”
“Nothing else to do aside from hunt Red John.” Jane shrugged. “And it’s over now. I finally have my revenge.”
“And this team,” Lisbon said slowly, “we devoted ourselves to it. We worked our asses off for years trying to find this guy. He’d be just another killer to us, notorious, sure, but we risked our jobs time and time again to hunt him and it was for you. We helped you get your revenge. Don’t you want to keep helping bring justice to other families? When you work with us we have the highest clearance rate in the state.”
“You had that before me, too,” Jane reminded her.
“It’s even higher now,” Lisbon said. “And work aside, we need you. All of us.”
Jane took in a breath and let it out, and Lisbon glared at him. She didn’t know if he was taking her seriously or not, but he was about to. “Your family is dead, Jane. Nothing’s bringing them back. You killed Red John, and quite frankly, I’m glad the bastard’s rotting in hell. But you’re never going to be with your family again on this earth.”
“I know that,” Jane said quietly.
“So while you’re here,” Lisbon said, “you’re never going to find people that care half as much for you as we do at CBI. No one else will be as loyal. No one else has your back like we do. And you’ve risked a lot to protect us over the years. Are you going to walk away from us?” She stood up. “It’s a symbiotic relationship, Jane. Or at least we all think it is. Rigsby, Van Pelt, Cho, we all want you back. We’re family. You know that. We’ve had this discussion before. Don’t walk away from the only family you have left.”
Chapter Eight