Fic: At First Though Sweet (Crossover)
Fandoms: Eleventh Hour and the Mentalist
Pairing: Rachel Young/Patrick Jane
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: For both pilots?
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine.
Notes: Read over by archerstar. Many thanks.
Summary: Patrick Jane finally finds Red John.
- - -
Face after face, photo after photo. Terror, pain, blood - coupled with the disturbing juxtaposition of smiles, fake and genuine. Family photos, and a serial killer’s trophies.
“It’s him,” says Patrick Jane, finally. “It’s him.”
Rachel Young glances up, from her own perusal. “I know,” she says.
“We found him.” Jane’s fist clenches. They found him.
~*~
Rachel’s first time working with the California Bureau of Investigation, she thinks, will probably go badly. After all, she’s only heard of them once before - as the target of a joke, not even as a serious investigative agency.
“Are they local FBI agents?” asks Hood, aside.
Typical, that he didn’t pay attention. “No,” she says, and explains.
“Oh,” he says. “Interesting,” and doesn’t pursue it further.
One of them persists in watching Rachel, though - the consultant, she realizes. Not an agent. And therefore not subject to the screening process agents have to pass.
Patrick Jane. She’ll check him out.
~*~
He comes at Rachel with a knife - Jane expects her to draw her gun, take him down with a shot or two, but she doesn’t. Doesn’t even twitch towards her holster. Instead, she dodges past the first strike, catches his wrist, and throws him through the wooden double-doors paned in glass.
Art. Pure art.
The man they have now identified as Red John lies groaning, on the floor. Shards of glass glint, reflected from the streetlight outside the window.
Rachel steps through the ruined frame, hand drifting to her cuffs. She backhands Red John, when he starts to move again, and hauls him to his stomach. Ignoring the glass, notes Jane, with appreciation.
The cuffs click into place, around his wrists. Rendered immobile. For half a second, Jane half-believes she’s actually going to arrest him, that their next stop is the police station -
“Get the knife,” says Rachel.
And Jane exhales, in something like relief.
“No,” murmurs Red John, “no,” drifting back into coherence.
Jane snaps on the overhead lights.
“Jane,” says Rachel.
“I want him to know that it’s me.”
Jane picks up the knife - forgotten, on the floor. Calm, even breathing. He thought the anxiety, the adrenaline could prove too much, but his mind floods with clarity.
“Fine,” says Rachel. “Draw the blinds.”
Jane spares a glance out onto the street. Echoingly empty, no lights on in the house across the street, and as soon as he closes the blinds, he turns back to Rachel.
Rachel nods towards the prone serial killer. “He’s all yours.”
Something in her voice -
It can wait.
~*~
“So, how does the panic button work, exactly?”
Rachel glances up, slipping her glasses to the end of her nose. Patrick Jane grins at her, insolent.
“None of your business,” she says.
“I’m just curious,” he tells her. Leans in, conspiratorially. “Dr. Hood is a bit of a wild card, isn’t he? I mean, don’t you have a hard time keeping up?”
Rachel pulls her glasses off, now, all the way. “Why do you wear vests?”
“Excuse me?”
“You used to be a psychic,” explains Rachel. “Psychics wear vests because they need places to hide things. Why do you wear vests now?” Tilts her head - “Or are you still hiding something?”
Jane pauses, for a moment, like he can’t decide whether he should show amusement or not.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.
“It’s none of your business,” repeats Rachel.
Jane does smile, now - grins, more like. “I like you,” he says.
Rachel rolls her eyes, and returns her attention to the casefile.
~*~
Patrick Jane crouches by the man who killed his wife and daughter.
“Everything I said about you was true,” says Jane. “Everything. And you will - I guarantee it, right here, right now - never see the inside of a courtroom. Nor will you ever again take the front page of a newspaper, hurt another family, or take another one of your ‘wives’. You’re done. You are going to die, and the world will forget you.”
Red John spits blood onto the floor. “Like they forgot about your family?” he rasps. Voice rough with from the fight, from his fear. “And a washed-up charlatan that pretended fame was more important than truth?”
Jane finds that a smile has spread across his face. “Please,” he says. “Try to taunt me.”
“You will never be rid of me,” hisses Red John. “You live in the same house, and the ghosts of your family walk over your shoulder. You broke your life in half because of what I did.”
“And now I’m going to kill you,” returns Jane. Matter-of-fact. “I will. In return for everything you’ve done.”
“You,” begins Red John -
And Jane plunges the knife into his chest.
~*~
Rachel leans against the wall of the observation room. Two agents in with the suspect, pretty good evidence. Might be the end of the case, might be just beginning.
Jane slips inside, shutting the door behind him.
A moment of silence, then -
“So, why’d you check up on me?”
“Check up on you?” asks Rachel. “It’s my job to keep Dr. Hood safe.”
“Why me in particular?” asks Jane.
“What makes you think it was you in particular?”
Jane shrugs. “Maybe because you haven’t called Lisbon out on her old solicitation charge or Cho on his plan to overthrow the government.”
Rachel shoots him a look.
“Was it because I was watching you?”
“You were watching me?” Rachel returns, innocently.
“You know I was.”
“And why would you do that?”
Jane’s expression softens. Not quite a smile - a little too suppressed for that. “Maybe I think you’re attractive.”
“I am attractive,” says Rachel. “If you’re going to stay in here, watch the interview.”
“Jacob Hood is carrying a lot of pain,” says Jane. “How long did it take you to notice?”
Rachel pauses. The question takes her by surprise, but her expression doesn’t change. “His wife died,” she points out.
“So did mine.”
“Are you saying you’re not carrying any pain?” she counters, and only realizes how close to home she’s hit when the smile fades from his eyes.
The door opens; Teresa Lisbon steps in, and their conversation is over, before Rachel can apologize.
~*~
Grotesque. Jane would describe it as grotesque.
The killer chokes on his own blood, slowly, between sips of air. Never manages a whole word, not like in the movies.
Horrifying, Jane thinks; he remembers his wife and daughter. The piano lessons, the way his daughter, as a baby, glared at unfamiliar faces like they owed her something. The touch of her skin just after they released her from the hospital; the sound of her laugh.
Finally - finally - Red John breathes his last.
Jane is shaking.
Any composure he had fled as Red John’s soul - if he had one - left his body.
Rachel’s hand encircles his arm, and how can she be so calm? How can she possibly be so calm, while Jane’s emotions fly in all directions, memories and reality hopelessly mixed up, and he turns, to make a quip, maybe, smile, like he always does, but instead he finds that he’s buried his face in her neck. That she wraps her arms around him, holding on just as tight.
Jane sobs, once, horribly, an expression of long-since suppressed emotion wrenched free. Then another sob, then another, and he’s completely lost control, completely forgotten how much he hasn’t healed since his family’s death.
On his knees, over shards of glass. Has to be some kind of penance, right? Some kind of redemption for his incredible hubris, his foolish fucking confidence.
When he stands, brushes off his pants, he notes that the glass didn’t even break his skin.
~*~
“Sign here,” says the mailman, to Jane.
Rachel, at the desk across from him, doesn’t even glance up. Pen whirls across the paper, and Jane tears open the envelope. His eyes scan the note once. Pause. He scans it again.
“Wait!” he yells, at the mailman. “Wait,” and catches him by the arm. “Who gave you this?”
“Whaddaya mean?” asks the mailman.
Rachel pays attention, now.
“Who gave you this?” repeats Jane. “It’s a simple question.”
“It’s mail,” says the mailman. “The guy who loaded the truck gave it to me.”
Ten minutes later, Lisbon bursts out of her office, Jane hot on her heels.
“We have a case already,” she snaps, over her shoulder.
“It’s him,” insists Jane. “It’s him.”
“And we’ll be on it,” says Lisbon. “As soon as we finish what we’re doing now!”
~*~
“What’s next?” asks Jane.
“Get me the hacksaw,” says Rachel, rolling up her sleeves, “and the bleach, from the car.”
“And then we’ll burn this place to the ground.” It’s not a question.
“Dispose of the body,” says Rachel, “dispose of the evidence. I won’t make mistakes.”
Jane meets her eyes. “I’d own up to this if I had to. I’d go to jail.”
“You don’t have to,” says Rachel. “Get the hacksaw. Get the bleach.”
~*~
Jane sits, head in his hands, alone.
He can’t concentrate, Rachel notes. Not since the letter came.
She takes a seat, across from him. “The letter doesn’t give you anything,” she says.
“I know,” responds Jane. Without moving.
“It won’t restart the investigation. Not without a new crime scene.”
“Yeah.”
“Or some new methodology.”
Jane looks up, at that.
“I have two weeks of vacation built up,” says Rachel.
“Are you serious?” asks Jane.
Rachel glances to Jacob Hood, across the room. Flipping through a report. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m serious.”
~*~
“Why’d you do this?” asks Jane, after they’ve finished with the body. After they’ve left the house behind, burning, gasoline and wood and paint drifting to the air in flakes of soot.
Rachel hesitates.
Jane doesn’t press. Just waits.
“I can’t fix him,” she says. “I can’t help him.”
“Dr. Hood,” says Jane.
“Yeah.”
“But you choose to help me murder someone,” says Jane. “To help me?”
Rachel glances at him, askance. “I signed on with the FBI because I wanted to catch bad guys.”
“Congratulations,” says Jane, “you just became one.”
~*~
Agent Lisbon doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like Jane’s excuses, and she looks suspicious as all hell.
That’s the most dangerous factor, thinks Rachel.
But Hood gives her a strange, curious look, when she tells him she’s taking a break, and Rachel wonders how she can possibly go through with this.
~*~
Jane closes the car door behind him -
“How do you feel?” he asks Rachel. And he thinks his breath is caught in his chest, but he can’t quite understand why.
Rachel slides her palm along the steering wheel.
“Guilty?” presses Jane.
“No,” says Rachel.
Honesty. She’s being honest.
Could be the aftermath of the adrenaline, thinks Jane, that’s making him feel this way. This alive. It will pass, of course. It’s not real.
None of that makes a damn difference.
He kisses Rachel, and on the surface he’s the same calm, smooth Patrick Jane as ever. This is just another seduction technique. Another careful manipulation.
But Rachel - she touches his cheek, and kisses him back, and who the hell is he fooling, this is much, so much more.
Neither of them can pull the other quite close enough. Distressingly fast, but Jane doesn’t mind, doesn’t even notice - kisses like breathing, fast, desperate, hungry. His fingers pull at her jacket, at her blouse, and somehow they both manage to make it into the backseat.
When she yanks his shirt off his shoulders, he sees a bloodstain, on the sleeve. One he hadn’t noticed before.
Rachel may be smaller than him, but she’s wiry, strong like he hardly believes. And he trusts her, more than he ever managed to trust Lisbon, or any of the others in the CBI. And she trusts him too, maybe something deeper than the bond she has with Jacob Hood, though he doesn’t deem himself capable of judging that. Not right now, anyway.
She makes this gasp, as he pushes inside her - half-gasp, half-whine, really, cut off almost as soon as it starts. Like she’s a little taken by surprise, a little overwhelmed, and way too caught in the moment to pause to think about it.
Jane knows how she feels.
~*~
“Where do we start?” asks Jane.
Rachel slips on her sunglasses. “You tell me,” she says.
~*~
“So,” says Jane, “when do we get your mental breakdown?”
“Give it a couple weeks,” says Rachel, sliding her hand up his back. Bringing him closer. Though, to be fair, Jane isn’t exactly eager to break contact either.
Jane pauses, then, “do you really feel fine?”
“Why are you asking me again?”
He props himself up, moving back, so he can see her face. “Just wondering,” he says.
She kisses him; he loses himself in it, for a moment. Lets it carry him away. He’s forgotten the acuteness of afterglow, and it’s disarmed him, taken him by surprise. But hasn’t found him entirely unwilling.
“Wait,” he says, pulling away. “You are on the pill, right?” - intended as a joke, to lighten the mood. Or just de-intensify it.
An odd look passes over Rachel’s face. “If I wasn’t,” she says, “would you really be that upset?”
“Maybe not,” says Jane, slowly.
“How upset would you be if I told you I had syphilis?”
Jane almost believes her, for half a second - then breaks into laughter. Real, natural laughter, and she’s laughing too. The smile is in her eyes, which means it’s real, and - and what the hell are they doing? They just killed someone, just disposed of the remains, just had sex (unprotected sex) in the back of Rachel’s car, and this -
This feels right.
“We should probably get some clothes on,” says Jane.
“Yeah,” agrees Rachel. “Probably.”
She doesn’t make any movement towards doing just that.
“Kinda uncomfortable,” says Jane. “On the car seat and all.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“We killed a serial killer today.”
“I know.”
Jane tilts his head. “How many lives do you think we saved?”
“We didn’t have to save any,” says Rachel.
She’s right, Jane thinks. Absolutely right.
Pairing: Rachel Young/Patrick Jane
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: For both pilots?
Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine.
Notes: Read over by archerstar. Many thanks.
Summary: Patrick Jane finally finds Red John.
- - -
Face after face, photo after photo. Terror, pain, blood - coupled with the disturbing juxtaposition of smiles, fake and genuine. Family photos, and a serial killer’s trophies.
“It’s him,” says Patrick Jane, finally. “It’s him.”
Rachel Young glances up, from her own perusal. “I know,” she says.
“We found him.” Jane’s fist clenches. They found him.
~*~
Rachel’s first time working with the California Bureau of Investigation, she thinks, will probably go badly. After all, she’s only heard of them once before - as the target of a joke, not even as a serious investigative agency.
“Are they local FBI agents?” asks Hood, aside.
Typical, that he didn’t pay attention. “No,” she says, and explains.
“Oh,” he says. “Interesting,” and doesn’t pursue it further.
One of them persists in watching Rachel, though - the consultant, she realizes. Not an agent. And therefore not subject to the screening process agents have to pass.
Patrick Jane. She’ll check him out.
~*~
He comes at Rachel with a knife - Jane expects her to draw her gun, take him down with a shot or two, but she doesn’t. Doesn’t even twitch towards her holster. Instead, she dodges past the first strike, catches his wrist, and throws him through the wooden double-doors paned in glass.
Art. Pure art.
The man they have now identified as Red John lies groaning, on the floor. Shards of glass glint, reflected from the streetlight outside the window.
Rachel steps through the ruined frame, hand drifting to her cuffs. She backhands Red John, when he starts to move again, and hauls him to his stomach. Ignoring the glass, notes Jane, with appreciation.
The cuffs click into place, around his wrists. Rendered immobile. For half a second, Jane half-believes she’s actually going to arrest him, that their next stop is the police station -
“Get the knife,” says Rachel.
And Jane exhales, in something like relief.
“No,” murmurs Red John, “no,” drifting back into coherence.
Jane snaps on the overhead lights.
“Jane,” says Rachel.
“I want him to know that it’s me.”
Jane picks up the knife - forgotten, on the floor. Calm, even breathing. He thought the anxiety, the adrenaline could prove too much, but his mind floods with clarity.
“Fine,” says Rachel. “Draw the blinds.”
Jane spares a glance out onto the street. Echoingly empty, no lights on in the house across the street, and as soon as he closes the blinds, he turns back to Rachel.
Rachel nods towards the prone serial killer. “He’s all yours.”
Something in her voice -
It can wait.
~*~
“So, how does the panic button work, exactly?”
Rachel glances up, slipping her glasses to the end of her nose. Patrick Jane grins at her, insolent.
“None of your business,” she says.
“I’m just curious,” he tells her. Leans in, conspiratorially. “Dr. Hood is a bit of a wild card, isn’t he? I mean, don’t you have a hard time keeping up?”
Rachel pulls her glasses off, now, all the way. “Why do you wear vests?”
“Excuse me?”
“You used to be a psychic,” explains Rachel. “Psychics wear vests because they need places to hide things. Why do you wear vests now?” Tilts her head - “Or are you still hiding something?”
Jane pauses, for a moment, like he can’t decide whether he should show amusement or not.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.
“It’s none of your business,” repeats Rachel.
Jane does smile, now - grins, more like. “I like you,” he says.
Rachel rolls her eyes, and returns her attention to the casefile.
~*~
Patrick Jane crouches by the man who killed his wife and daughter.
“Everything I said about you was true,” says Jane. “Everything. And you will - I guarantee it, right here, right now - never see the inside of a courtroom. Nor will you ever again take the front page of a newspaper, hurt another family, or take another one of your ‘wives’. You’re done. You are going to die, and the world will forget you.”
Red John spits blood onto the floor. “Like they forgot about your family?” he rasps. Voice rough with from the fight, from his fear. “And a washed-up charlatan that pretended fame was more important than truth?”
Jane finds that a smile has spread across his face. “Please,” he says. “Try to taunt me.”
“You will never be rid of me,” hisses Red John. “You live in the same house, and the ghosts of your family walk over your shoulder. You broke your life in half because of what I did.”
“And now I’m going to kill you,” returns Jane. Matter-of-fact. “I will. In return for everything you’ve done.”
“You,” begins Red John -
And Jane plunges the knife into his chest.
~*~
Rachel leans against the wall of the observation room. Two agents in with the suspect, pretty good evidence. Might be the end of the case, might be just beginning.
Jane slips inside, shutting the door behind him.
A moment of silence, then -
“So, why’d you check up on me?”
“Check up on you?” asks Rachel. “It’s my job to keep Dr. Hood safe.”
“Why me in particular?” asks Jane.
“What makes you think it was you in particular?”
Jane shrugs. “Maybe because you haven’t called Lisbon out on her old solicitation charge or Cho on his plan to overthrow the government.”
Rachel shoots him a look.
“Was it because I was watching you?”
“You were watching me?” Rachel returns, innocently.
“You know I was.”
“And why would you do that?”
Jane’s expression softens. Not quite a smile - a little too suppressed for that. “Maybe I think you’re attractive.”
“I am attractive,” says Rachel. “If you’re going to stay in here, watch the interview.”
“Jacob Hood is carrying a lot of pain,” says Jane. “How long did it take you to notice?”
Rachel pauses. The question takes her by surprise, but her expression doesn’t change. “His wife died,” she points out.
“So did mine.”
“Are you saying you’re not carrying any pain?” she counters, and only realizes how close to home she’s hit when the smile fades from his eyes.
The door opens; Teresa Lisbon steps in, and their conversation is over, before Rachel can apologize.
~*~
Grotesque. Jane would describe it as grotesque.
The killer chokes on his own blood, slowly, between sips of air. Never manages a whole word, not like in the movies.
Horrifying, Jane thinks; he remembers his wife and daughter. The piano lessons, the way his daughter, as a baby, glared at unfamiliar faces like they owed her something. The touch of her skin just after they released her from the hospital; the sound of her laugh.
Finally - finally - Red John breathes his last.
Jane is shaking.
Any composure he had fled as Red John’s soul - if he had one - left his body.
Rachel’s hand encircles his arm, and how can she be so calm? How can she possibly be so calm, while Jane’s emotions fly in all directions, memories and reality hopelessly mixed up, and he turns, to make a quip, maybe, smile, like he always does, but instead he finds that he’s buried his face in her neck. That she wraps her arms around him, holding on just as tight.
Jane sobs, once, horribly, an expression of long-since suppressed emotion wrenched free. Then another sob, then another, and he’s completely lost control, completely forgotten how much he hasn’t healed since his family’s death.
On his knees, over shards of glass. Has to be some kind of penance, right? Some kind of redemption for his incredible hubris, his foolish fucking confidence.
When he stands, brushes off his pants, he notes that the glass didn’t even break his skin.
~*~
“Sign here,” says the mailman, to Jane.
Rachel, at the desk across from him, doesn’t even glance up. Pen whirls across the paper, and Jane tears open the envelope. His eyes scan the note once. Pause. He scans it again.
“Wait!” he yells, at the mailman. “Wait,” and catches him by the arm. “Who gave you this?”
“Whaddaya mean?” asks the mailman.
Rachel pays attention, now.
“Who gave you this?” repeats Jane. “It’s a simple question.”
“It’s mail,” says the mailman. “The guy who loaded the truck gave it to me.”
Ten minutes later, Lisbon bursts out of her office, Jane hot on her heels.
“We have a case already,” she snaps, over her shoulder.
“It’s him,” insists Jane. “It’s him.”
“And we’ll be on it,” says Lisbon. “As soon as we finish what we’re doing now!”
~*~
“What’s next?” asks Jane.
“Get me the hacksaw,” says Rachel, rolling up her sleeves, “and the bleach, from the car.”
“And then we’ll burn this place to the ground.” It’s not a question.
“Dispose of the body,” says Rachel, “dispose of the evidence. I won’t make mistakes.”
Jane meets her eyes. “I’d own up to this if I had to. I’d go to jail.”
“You don’t have to,” says Rachel. “Get the hacksaw. Get the bleach.”
~*~
Jane sits, head in his hands, alone.
He can’t concentrate, Rachel notes. Not since the letter came.
She takes a seat, across from him. “The letter doesn’t give you anything,” she says.
“I know,” responds Jane. Without moving.
“It won’t restart the investigation. Not without a new crime scene.”
“Yeah.”
“Or some new methodology.”
Jane looks up, at that.
“I have two weeks of vacation built up,” says Rachel.
“Are you serious?” asks Jane.
Rachel glances to Jacob Hood, across the room. Flipping through a report. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m serious.”
~*~
“Why’d you do this?” asks Jane, after they’ve finished with the body. After they’ve left the house behind, burning, gasoline and wood and paint drifting to the air in flakes of soot.
Rachel hesitates.
Jane doesn’t press. Just waits.
“I can’t fix him,” she says. “I can’t help him.”
“Dr. Hood,” says Jane.
“Yeah.”
“But you choose to help me murder someone,” says Jane. “To help me?”
Rachel glances at him, askance. “I signed on with the FBI because I wanted to catch bad guys.”
“Congratulations,” says Jane, “you just became one.”
~*~
Agent Lisbon doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like Jane’s excuses, and she looks suspicious as all hell.
That’s the most dangerous factor, thinks Rachel.
But Hood gives her a strange, curious look, when she tells him she’s taking a break, and Rachel wonders how she can possibly go through with this.
~*~
Jane closes the car door behind him -
“How do you feel?” he asks Rachel. And he thinks his breath is caught in his chest, but he can’t quite understand why.
Rachel slides her palm along the steering wheel.
“Guilty?” presses Jane.
“No,” says Rachel.
Honesty. She’s being honest.
Could be the aftermath of the adrenaline, thinks Jane, that’s making him feel this way. This alive. It will pass, of course. It’s not real.
None of that makes a damn difference.
He kisses Rachel, and on the surface he’s the same calm, smooth Patrick Jane as ever. This is just another seduction technique. Another careful manipulation.
But Rachel - she touches his cheek, and kisses him back, and who the hell is he fooling, this is much, so much more.
Neither of them can pull the other quite close enough. Distressingly fast, but Jane doesn’t mind, doesn’t even notice - kisses like breathing, fast, desperate, hungry. His fingers pull at her jacket, at her blouse, and somehow they both manage to make it into the backseat.
When she yanks his shirt off his shoulders, he sees a bloodstain, on the sleeve. One he hadn’t noticed before.
Rachel may be smaller than him, but she’s wiry, strong like he hardly believes. And he trusts her, more than he ever managed to trust Lisbon, or any of the others in the CBI. And she trusts him too, maybe something deeper than the bond she has with Jacob Hood, though he doesn’t deem himself capable of judging that. Not right now, anyway.
She makes this gasp, as he pushes inside her - half-gasp, half-whine, really, cut off almost as soon as it starts. Like she’s a little taken by surprise, a little overwhelmed, and way too caught in the moment to pause to think about it.
Jane knows how she feels.
~*~
“Where do we start?” asks Jane.
Rachel slips on her sunglasses. “You tell me,” she says.
~*~
“So,” says Jane, “when do we get your mental breakdown?”
“Give it a couple weeks,” says Rachel, sliding her hand up his back. Bringing him closer. Though, to be fair, Jane isn’t exactly eager to break contact either.
Jane pauses, then, “do you really feel fine?”
“Why are you asking me again?”
He props himself up, moving back, so he can see her face. “Just wondering,” he says.
She kisses him; he loses himself in it, for a moment. Lets it carry him away. He’s forgotten the acuteness of afterglow, and it’s disarmed him, taken him by surprise. But hasn’t found him entirely unwilling.
“Wait,” he says, pulling away. “You are on the pill, right?” - intended as a joke, to lighten the mood. Or just de-intensify it.
An odd look passes over Rachel’s face. “If I wasn’t,” she says, “would you really be that upset?”
“Maybe not,” says Jane, slowly.
“How upset would you be if I told you I had syphilis?”
Jane almost believes her, for half a second - then breaks into laughter. Real, natural laughter, and she’s laughing too. The smile is in her eyes, which means it’s real, and - and what the hell are they doing? They just killed someone, just disposed of the remains, just had sex (unprotected sex) in the back of Rachel’s car, and this -
This feels right.
“We should probably get some clothes on,” says Jane.
“Yeah,” agrees Rachel. “Probably.”
She doesn’t make any movement towards doing just that.
“Kinda uncomfortable,” says Jane. “On the car seat and all.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“We killed a serial killer today.”
“I know.”
Jane tilts his head. “How many lives do you think we saved?”
“We didn’t have to save any,” says Rachel.
She’s right, Jane thinks. Absolutely right.