the veil that keeps me blind, 2/15
Title: The Veil That Keeps Me Blind
Chapter: 2/15 (end of Book I)
Notes: This ends what was the original prologue material, but this was waaaaay too much to put all in one prologue. So there you have it. The end scene is the one I built this entire story around.
Book I
Chapter 2
xxxxx
When he wakes several hours later, the first thing he notices is that Lisbon, Hightower, and the rest of the team have returned, but he doesn’t move from his recumbent position. Instead, he listens for several minutes as the female agent from the replacement Serial Crimes team fills Van Pelt in on everything that happened at the farmhouse after she left to accompany him to the hospital. Jane had not noticed any of the Serial Crimes agents arrive on scene, but then, he hadn’t really been looking. From what the agent -- whose name, Jane remembers after a moment, is Blackburn -- says, Serial Crimes wasn’t the only additional unit that was called in.
The bullpen is in a state of utter chaos by the morning’s unexpected turn of events, and before the end of Van Pelt and Blackburn’s conversation, Rigsby and Cho have joined in, along with several other agents and some IT specialists. This will be the CBI’s top priority for as long as it takes to track down any and all other remaining links to the serial killer.
The only people noticeably absent from what is now a formidable gathering in the Serious Crimes bullpen are Lisbon and Hightower, but in the course of the conversation, Rigsby mentions that the two women have been in Hightower’s office for over an hour as Lisbon gives her official statement as to exactly what happened that morning. Details which seem to remain unclear to everyone else in the room; as far as anyone else knows, Lisbon received a vague message from Jane and went to check it out, not thinking that it would amount to anything. Just as two agents Jane can’t identify by voice started to speculate on whether or not Lisbon will be reprimanded for going in without backup, the group falls suspiciously silent. Although Jane remains motionless, still feigning sleep in order to eavesdrop, he knows that Lisbon must have returned to her office.
A few more minutes pass, during which Jane assumes that all non-essential personnel return to their assigned tasks, and then his more finely-tuned senses pick up on the telltale signs of Lisbon’s office door opening and closing.
“Oh. Hey boss.” Rigbsy’s voice carries over as everyone else becomes aware of her sudden reappearance.
Jane listens with rapt attention as Lisbon rejoins the rest of the team in the bullpen.
“How’s everything coming?”
“I’m just starting to run his aliases now,” Van Pelt replies. “It could take days to go through all of them.”
“Well split them up and do the best you can. We’re gonna do this right,” Lisbon says, as determined and authoritative as ever. “We’ve got Merriman’s team on this, Cavanaugh’s too. Hightower is gunning for us to get to as many of his associates as we can before the story spreads and they all go underground.”
“Okay, will do boss.” Rigsby voices everyone’s agreement, then pauses and remarks, “Actually, forensics found a couple of things on Red John’s body, and they couldn’t figure one of them out. We could ask Jane when he wakes up, but...” Rigsby trails off in obvious discomfort.
“What did they find?”
“A couple of knives and an unregistered gun, which we figured, but he had an old Chicago firefighter’s shield on him. We haven’t had a chance to run it yet, but why Red John would have something like that?”
“To taunt us,” she answers firmly.
“Taunt us? How?” Cho asks.
“Because it was my father’s.” Her reply is short and succinct, without hesitation. “He must have taken it from my apartment.”
“From your...?” Rigsby stutters, eyebrows furrowed as he processes this information. “But how...?”
“I don’t know.” For the first time, Lisbon’s voice holds traces of panic. She inhales deeply as she continues, “He tried to provoke me with it when I got to scene, so you don’t have to call CSU, Van Pelt. I’ve already sent them to my place.”
Jane knows that the others will have questions about why Red John chose Lisbon specifically to single out now, but he also knows that none of them will ask. They don’t even speculate amongst themselves when Lisbon returns to her office to fill out what is certain to be stacks of paperwork and incident reports.
Jane waits another ten minutes before finally stretching and sitting up, alerting the rest of the office that he is now awake. He notices concern register on Van Pelt’s face first, then Rigsby’s, and last Cho’s, as much as Cho’s expression ever changes. But he rises from the couch and strides quickly towards Lisbon’s office. He knocks on the glass paneling of the door once before opening it and poking his head inside.
“Come in,” Lisbon says, her head bent down in concentration as she continues writing her report.
He steps over the threshold and closes the door quietly behind him, and still her focus does not waver. He takes a moment to watch her, brow furrowed and hand scribbling purposefully, before interrupting her work mode.
“Lisbon...”
She finally drops her pen and looks up, her expression subtle and unreadable.
“Hey. You were sleeping when we got back.”
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. The air between them is tense and thick, and he does not like it. He’s never once felt so uncertain in her presence before, never been in the position of not knowing exactly what to say. He finds this unsettling. “I, uh. I just woke up. It was a long morning.”
“That it was,” she agrees. Her hands fumble clumsily on her desk top as she searches for something in her stack of paperwork. Distractedly, she adds, “Van Pelt said everything went fine at the hospital.”
Jane lets out an uneasy laugh. “I’m all patched up.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
He shuffles closer to her desk, until he is standing right in front of her.
“Lisbon,” he starts, his voice strong and clear, forcing her eyes to look up and meet his.
She shakes her head. “Not now, Jane. Not here. Not now. We can’t.”
“Later, then.”
Lisbon sighs, resigned. “Okay. Later.”
“Later,” he affirms.
And with one last, long look over his shoulder, he exits her office and retreats upstairs to the attic.
xxx
Later gets pushed further and further back as the week unfolds.
The more they uncover about the man who is -- was -- Red John, the more they have to investigate. Jane finds himself oddly uninterested in working with the rest of the CBI while multiple teams track down the remaining links in Red John’s network; nine associates in all, including two moles in the Department of Justice network.
The investigation lasts for five more days, but Jane remains in the attic despite multiple attempts on the parts of Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt to get him involved. The one person who never comes to him -- never even calls him, not once -- is Lisbon. He sees her from a distance on several occasions, always hard at work or in a meeting with Hightower.
In Jane’s entire time at CBI, he could not recall another case that had everyone so involved five days later. That doesn’t surprise him though; he could have predicted as much, if he had thought about it. What surprises him is that he does not want anything to do with it. Maybe sometime in the future, he’ll want to go through the files, to know everything there is to know about the man who haunted him for years. But for now, the knowledge that Red John is dead is all that he can take in.
He gives in to Van Pelt on the fourth day when she invites him out to dinner with the rest of the team. He arrives late and slides into the booth beside Rigsby. It is completely normal to be out with the team like this, and Jane relishes the feeling until he realizes that there is no extra chair pulled up at the table, which can only mean one thing.
“Lisbon isn’t coming?” he asks, trying to sound as casual as possible in his inquiry.
“Still stuck in a meeting,” Cho answers quickly without looking up from his menu.
“I left a message on her desk if she wants to join us when she’s done,” Van Pelt adds hopefully. “I hope she comes. She really needs a break.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Cho comments, finally putting his menu down. “There were two men waiting outside Hightower’s office when I went to turn in my report on the guy from Davis. Their badges were FBI. Looked important.”
When Rigsby mutters, “Stupid FBI,” under his breath, Jane can’t help but chuckle silently at the indignation that almost surely has more to do with Van Pelt’s recent ex than the unnamed agents waiting to meet with Lisbon and Hightower.
Van Pelt doesn’t seem to notice this; she instead reminds them that least one of Red John’s accomplices crossed state lines, which would explain the FBI’s presence in the investigation. She stops suddenly and looks away, embarrassed, when she mentions Red John.
“No need to fret on my account, Grace,” Jane soothes. It’s an involuntary response to the concern he sees etched on her face, and the team appears skeptical at his seemingly glib declaration.
But in spite of their concern, there is no need for them to worry. He’s not ‘okay’ and he’s far from being able to completely process everything that has happened, but there is still no need for his coworkers (friends, he thinks to himself for the first time -- just trying the word on for size) to worry about him. They have far more important things to be doing.
He knows they orchestrated this dinner and invited him for the express purpose of getting him out of the attic and assessing just how worried they should be, and he obliged them only to prove that their anxiety was unfounded. That they could stop wasting energy on him and refocus everything on the investigation. But he had hoped Lisbon would be here, too. He finds himself immensely disappointed that she won’t be joining them.
Even as he carries on the conversation at dinner, changing the subject while working to allay the team’s fears, he finds his mind wandering back to Lisbon.
He wanted to give her space for a few days, especially after she seemed so closed off that first evening in her office. Opaque, instead of translucent, for the first time since they met. He still did not know exactly how he felt about that, or what he’ll even say when he sees her.
But now that a few days have passed, he knows he does not want to wait much longer. He cannot.
He decides to wait a day or two more to give himself time to begin to sort through the jumble of emotions that have overwhelmed him for the last 72 hours. Starting as soon as this dinner is over, he will return to the attic to think; this time with purpose, instead of allowing chaos and disorder to overwhelm his thoughts.
This resolution calms him, and he relaxes somewhat for the remainder of dinner. Although the Red John investigation does not come up again -- a conscious decision on the part of the three agents after Van Pelt’s initial slip -- Jane listens carefully every time Lisbon’s name comes up in conversation.
When dinner is over, he wishes everyone goodnight in the parking lot and climbs back into his car. He turns the key in the ignition, and for the first time in a long time, he feels like he’s moving toward something, instead of that something moving toward him.
xxx
As it turns out, the clarity and insight Jane had been hoping for does not come as easily as he anticipated, but he abandons his attic refuge in favor of going off in search of Lisbon. He had promised that he would not wait more than two days, but the truth is, he couldn’t wait any longer if he wanted to.
When he pulls up in front of Lisbon’s townhouse, dusk is settling over the quiet suburban street, and Jane finds the sight so achingly familiar to him that he sits in his car for a few minutes even after he parks. It is the first time in months he’s been able to park safely in front of her place, instead of hiding his car several blocks away. There’s no one watching them anymore.
The cool evening air calms him as he makes his way up her front steps, only a moment’s indecision before deciding to forego his spare key in favor of ringing the doorbell.
The door swings open quickly, but the woman who appears in front of him is not Lisbon. She appears young, maybe college aged, with short red hair, and she furrows her brow in irritation when she sees Jane at the door.
He stares blankly ahead, feeling suddenly very, very cold.
“If you’re selling something, we’re not interested.”
“I’m not,” he manages to squeak out, still completely stunned. “I’m just... I’m looking for... Is Lisbon here?”
“Lisbon?” she asks. “Oh, are you looking for the woman who lived here?”
Jane catches the use of past tense, and he shivers involuntarily. That’s when he remembers that he hasn’t actually seen Lisbon since the evening of his dinner two nights before; she had still been in Hightower’s office when he got back to CBI Headquarters, but as far as he knew, she had not actually been in the office in the last two days. It is hard for him to imagine that a mere six days before, he had happily laughed with her over breakfast before leaving for work; that feels like another life, another time. Once again, he is struck with the odd sensation of not knowing. He finds it more terrifying now than ever before.
He inhales to steady himself, and he asks, “By chance, you wouldn’t happen to know where Lisbon is?”
“I’m sorry. I have no idea.” The girl shakes her head. “My roommate and I are just subletting for the summer during our internships. We were supposed to live somewhere else, but that fell through and the Department of Justice put us here. We just moved in this morning.”
Jane considers the girl’s information carefully. If she and her roommate are subletting for the summer, then this is probably temporary. Probably. Of course, the problem is that even if this is temporary, Lisbon is still gone, and she didn’t tell him. And there’s nothing more he can learn from standing on her front doorstep like a fool.
“Okay, well, thank you.”
“You should call her. Your girlfriend, or whoever she is. You never know.”
“That’s good advice. Thanks,” he says, and with a quick wave of his hand, he turns around and heads down the front walkway.
When he reaches his car, he hears her yell “Good luck” before she disappears behind the closed door.
He sits down in the driver’s seat, his fingers hesitating over the familiar digits before finally completing the number. It doesn’t ring; it’s out of service. The phone feels foreign in his hand, as though it is at fault. And with a heavy heart, he turns the key in the ignition and pulls out into the street, heading back to the CBI. There, at least, he can hope to find some answers.
But as he guides his car through the now-darkened city streets, he realizes the important question is not whether or not he can find her. It is whether or not she wants him to look.
xxxxx
Chapter: 2/15 (end of Book I)
Notes: This ends what was the original prologue material, but this was waaaaay too much to put all in one prologue. So there you have it. The end scene is the one I built this entire story around.
Book I
Chapter 2
xxxxx
When he wakes several hours later, the first thing he notices is that Lisbon, Hightower, and the rest of the team have returned, but he doesn’t move from his recumbent position. Instead, he listens for several minutes as the female agent from the replacement Serial Crimes team fills Van Pelt in on everything that happened at the farmhouse after she left to accompany him to the hospital. Jane had not noticed any of the Serial Crimes agents arrive on scene, but then, he hadn’t really been looking. From what the agent -- whose name, Jane remembers after a moment, is Blackburn -- says, Serial Crimes wasn’t the only additional unit that was called in.
The bullpen is in a state of utter chaos by the morning’s unexpected turn of events, and before the end of Van Pelt and Blackburn’s conversation, Rigsby and Cho have joined in, along with several other agents and some IT specialists. This will be the CBI’s top priority for as long as it takes to track down any and all other remaining links to the serial killer.
The only people noticeably absent from what is now a formidable gathering in the Serious Crimes bullpen are Lisbon and Hightower, but in the course of the conversation, Rigsby mentions that the two women have been in Hightower’s office for over an hour as Lisbon gives her official statement as to exactly what happened that morning. Details which seem to remain unclear to everyone else in the room; as far as anyone else knows, Lisbon received a vague message from Jane and went to check it out, not thinking that it would amount to anything. Just as two agents Jane can’t identify by voice started to speculate on whether or not Lisbon will be reprimanded for going in without backup, the group falls suspiciously silent. Although Jane remains motionless, still feigning sleep in order to eavesdrop, he knows that Lisbon must have returned to her office.
A few more minutes pass, during which Jane assumes that all non-essential personnel return to their assigned tasks, and then his more finely-tuned senses pick up on the telltale signs of Lisbon’s office door opening and closing.
“Oh. Hey boss.” Rigbsy’s voice carries over as everyone else becomes aware of her sudden reappearance.
Jane listens with rapt attention as Lisbon rejoins the rest of the team in the bullpen.
“How’s everything coming?”
“I’m just starting to run his aliases now,” Van Pelt replies. “It could take days to go through all of them.”
“Well split them up and do the best you can. We’re gonna do this right,” Lisbon says, as determined and authoritative as ever. “We’ve got Merriman’s team on this, Cavanaugh’s too. Hightower is gunning for us to get to as many of his associates as we can before the story spreads and they all go underground.”
“Okay, will do boss.” Rigsby voices everyone’s agreement, then pauses and remarks, “Actually, forensics found a couple of things on Red John’s body, and they couldn’t figure one of them out. We could ask Jane when he wakes up, but...” Rigsby trails off in obvious discomfort.
“What did they find?”
“A couple of knives and an unregistered gun, which we figured, but he had an old Chicago firefighter’s shield on him. We haven’t had a chance to run it yet, but why Red John would have something like that?”
“To taunt us,” she answers firmly.
“Taunt us? How?” Cho asks.
“Because it was my father’s.” Her reply is short and succinct, without hesitation. “He must have taken it from my apartment.”
“From your...?” Rigsby stutters, eyebrows furrowed as he processes this information. “But how...?”
“I don’t know.” For the first time, Lisbon’s voice holds traces of panic. She inhales deeply as she continues, “He tried to provoke me with it when I got to scene, so you don’t have to call CSU, Van Pelt. I’ve already sent them to my place.”
Jane knows that the others will have questions about why Red John chose Lisbon specifically to single out now, but he also knows that none of them will ask. They don’t even speculate amongst themselves when Lisbon returns to her office to fill out what is certain to be stacks of paperwork and incident reports.
Jane waits another ten minutes before finally stretching and sitting up, alerting the rest of the office that he is now awake. He notices concern register on Van Pelt’s face first, then Rigsby’s, and last Cho’s, as much as Cho’s expression ever changes. But he rises from the couch and strides quickly towards Lisbon’s office. He knocks on the glass paneling of the door once before opening it and poking his head inside.
“Come in,” Lisbon says, her head bent down in concentration as she continues writing her report.
He steps over the threshold and closes the door quietly behind him, and still her focus does not waver. He takes a moment to watch her, brow furrowed and hand scribbling purposefully, before interrupting her work mode.
“Lisbon...”
She finally drops her pen and looks up, her expression subtle and unreadable.
“Hey. You were sleeping when we got back.”
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. The air between them is tense and thick, and he does not like it. He’s never once felt so uncertain in her presence before, never been in the position of not knowing exactly what to say. He finds this unsettling. “I, uh. I just woke up. It was a long morning.”
“That it was,” she agrees. Her hands fumble clumsily on her desk top as she searches for something in her stack of paperwork. Distractedly, she adds, “Van Pelt said everything went fine at the hospital.”
Jane lets out an uneasy laugh. “I’m all patched up.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
He shuffles closer to her desk, until he is standing right in front of her.
“Lisbon,” he starts, his voice strong and clear, forcing her eyes to look up and meet his.
She shakes her head. “Not now, Jane. Not here. Not now. We can’t.”
“Later, then.”
Lisbon sighs, resigned. “Okay. Later.”
“Later,” he affirms.
And with one last, long look over his shoulder, he exits her office and retreats upstairs to the attic.
xxx
Later gets pushed further and further back as the week unfolds.
The more they uncover about the man who is -- was -- Red John, the more they have to investigate. Jane finds himself oddly uninterested in working with the rest of the CBI while multiple teams track down the remaining links in Red John’s network; nine associates in all, including two moles in the Department of Justice network.
The investigation lasts for five more days, but Jane remains in the attic despite multiple attempts on the parts of Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt to get him involved. The one person who never comes to him -- never even calls him, not once -- is Lisbon. He sees her from a distance on several occasions, always hard at work or in a meeting with Hightower.
In Jane’s entire time at CBI, he could not recall another case that had everyone so involved five days later. That doesn’t surprise him though; he could have predicted as much, if he had thought about it. What surprises him is that he does not want anything to do with it. Maybe sometime in the future, he’ll want to go through the files, to know everything there is to know about the man who haunted him for years. But for now, the knowledge that Red John is dead is all that he can take in.
He gives in to Van Pelt on the fourth day when she invites him out to dinner with the rest of the team. He arrives late and slides into the booth beside Rigsby. It is completely normal to be out with the team like this, and Jane relishes the feeling until he realizes that there is no extra chair pulled up at the table, which can only mean one thing.
“Lisbon isn’t coming?” he asks, trying to sound as casual as possible in his inquiry.
“Still stuck in a meeting,” Cho answers quickly without looking up from his menu.
“I left a message on her desk if she wants to join us when she’s done,” Van Pelt adds hopefully. “I hope she comes. She really needs a break.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Cho comments, finally putting his menu down. “There were two men waiting outside Hightower’s office when I went to turn in my report on the guy from Davis. Their badges were FBI. Looked important.”
When Rigsby mutters, “Stupid FBI,” under his breath, Jane can’t help but chuckle silently at the indignation that almost surely has more to do with Van Pelt’s recent ex than the unnamed agents waiting to meet with Lisbon and Hightower.
Van Pelt doesn’t seem to notice this; she instead reminds them that least one of Red John’s accomplices crossed state lines, which would explain the FBI’s presence in the investigation. She stops suddenly and looks away, embarrassed, when she mentions Red John.
“No need to fret on my account, Grace,” Jane soothes. It’s an involuntary response to the concern he sees etched on her face, and the team appears skeptical at his seemingly glib declaration.
But in spite of their concern, there is no need for them to worry. He’s not ‘okay’ and he’s far from being able to completely process everything that has happened, but there is still no need for his coworkers (friends, he thinks to himself for the first time -- just trying the word on for size) to worry about him. They have far more important things to be doing.
He knows they orchestrated this dinner and invited him for the express purpose of getting him out of the attic and assessing just how worried they should be, and he obliged them only to prove that their anxiety was unfounded. That they could stop wasting energy on him and refocus everything on the investigation. But he had hoped Lisbon would be here, too. He finds himself immensely disappointed that she won’t be joining them.
Even as he carries on the conversation at dinner, changing the subject while working to allay the team’s fears, he finds his mind wandering back to Lisbon.
He wanted to give her space for a few days, especially after she seemed so closed off that first evening in her office. Opaque, instead of translucent, for the first time since they met. He still did not know exactly how he felt about that, or what he’ll even say when he sees her.
But now that a few days have passed, he knows he does not want to wait much longer. He cannot.
He decides to wait a day or two more to give himself time to begin to sort through the jumble of emotions that have overwhelmed him for the last 72 hours. Starting as soon as this dinner is over, he will return to the attic to think; this time with purpose, instead of allowing chaos and disorder to overwhelm his thoughts.
This resolution calms him, and he relaxes somewhat for the remainder of dinner. Although the Red John investigation does not come up again -- a conscious decision on the part of the three agents after Van Pelt’s initial slip -- Jane listens carefully every time Lisbon’s name comes up in conversation.
When dinner is over, he wishes everyone goodnight in the parking lot and climbs back into his car. He turns the key in the ignition, and for the first time in a long time, he feels like he’s moving toward something, instead of that something moving toward him.
xxx
As it turns out, the clarity and insight Jane had been hoping for does not come as easily as he anticipated, but he abandons his attic refuge in favor of going off in search of Lisbon. He had promised that he would not wait more than two days, but the truth is, he couldn’t wait any longer if he wanted to.
When he pulls up in front of Lisbon’s townhouse, dusk is settling over the quiet suburban street, and Jane finds the sight so achingly familiar to him that he sits in his car for a few minutes even after he parks. It is the first time in months he’s been able to park safely in front of her place, instead of hiding his car several blocks away. There’s no one watching them anymore.
The cool evening air calms him as he makes his way up her front steps, only a moment’s indecision before deciding to forego his spare key in favor of ringing the doorbell.
The door swings open quickly, but the woman who appears in front of him is not Lisbon. She appears young, maybe college aged, with short red hair, and she furrows her brow in irritation when she sees Jane at the door.
He stares blankly ahead, feeling suddenly very, very cold.
“If you’re selling something, we’re not interested.”
“I’m not,” he manages to squeak out, still completely stunned. “I’m just... I’m looking for... Is Lisbon here?”
“Lisbon?” she asks. “Oh, are you looking for the woman who lived here?”
Jane catches the use of past tense, and he shivers involuntarily. That’s when he remembers that he hasn’t actually seen Lisbon since the evening of his dinner two nights before; she had still been in Hightower’s office when he got back to CBI Headquarters, but as far as he knew, she had not actually been in the office in the last two days. It is hard for him to imagine that a mere six days before, he had happily laughed with her over breakfast before leaving for work; that feels like another life, another time. Once again, he is struck with the odd sensation of not knowing. He finds it more terrifying now than ever before.
He inhales to steady himself, and he asks, “By chance, you wouldn’t happen to know where Lisbon is?”
“I’m sorry. I have no idea.” The girl shakes her head. “My roommate and I are just subletting for the summer during our internships. We were supposed to live somewhere else, but that fell through and the Department of Justice put us here. We just moved in this morning.”
Jane considers the girl’s information carefully. If she and her roommate are subletting for the summer, then this is probably temporary. Probably. Of course, the problem is that even if this is temporary, Lisbon is still gone, and she didn’t tell him. And there’s nothing more he can learn from standing on her front doorstep like a fool.
“Okay, well, thank you.”
“You should call her. Your girlfriend, or whoever she is. You never know.”
“That’s good advice. Thanks,” he says, and with a quick wave of his hand, he turns around and heads down the front walkway.
When he reaches his car, he hears her yell “Good luck” before she disappears behind the closed door.
He sits down in the driver’s seat, his fingers hesitating over the familiar digits before finally completing the number. It doesn’t ring; it’s out of service. The phone feels foreign in his hand, as though it is at fault. And with a heavy heart, he turns the key in the ignition and pulls out into the street, heading back to the CBI. There, at least, he can hope to find some answers.
But as he guides his car through the now-darkened city streets, he realizes the important question is not whether or not he can find her. It is whether or not she wants him to look.
xxxxx