'Dear Patrick.

You know I don't like to be humiliated in the media. I thought you would've learned that by now. I guess you didn't. Let's meet tonight. Come to the location your last happy memory took place. And no police Patrick.

Red John.'

[7:07 Pm.] 

He folded up the letter and buried it in the pocket of his trousers. Walking further, he looked around and watched the trees passing by, steadily inherent to the ground. The forest scent was refreshing and moist, as if it was going to rain any minute. Jane looked up at the darkening sky, it looked spooky. The sun was gone and made place for the moon to shine brightly this night. Full moon, the night where werewolves and vampires came to life to slaughter and eat their victims; Nah. He didn't believe in those stories. When he was  5 years old, his father used to tell him scary, fantasy like stories in the middle of the night; it frightened him, but his mother always comforted him and told him it wasn't real. She told him stories about brave knights saving princesses, tricking dragons so they could eventually be together with their love. He didn't like those either. Both his parents were terrible at telling bed time stories. Well, at least they tried.

Family, he didn't have any. All of them were murdered by Red John, the man he was going to meet in a couple of minutes. As he approached the place where his last happy memory had taken place, he felt himself getting more anxious every second. His heart was vigorously beating in his chest, almost as if it would jump right out of him. It felt like he was sweating buckets, but his hands were cold, dry and numb. Trying to remain calmth, he inhaled and thought about the 'happy memories'.

"Daddy! Where are we going?" 

"To a special place Patrick." The man grasped his 6 year old son's little hand. They were walking through the forest. It was on the middle of the day, a sunny day. The sun shone brightly, its beams making their way through the trees pointing at the anti-cloudy sky. Alex Jane pointed at a small passage, secretly hidden between bushes and trees. The boy followed his father's fingers and gazed at the small passage, he didn't say anything. Alex made his way through the bushes and pushed them to the side so that his son could pass through. With him closely behind him, still holding his hand, they made their way through the passage. Leaves surrounded them, and trees were standing very close to each other, making it hard to pass through.

A while later, they were standing in a wild flower field, in the middle of the forest. Several poppy's, violets, star jasmines, Merry-Bells; Too many types of flowers to enumerate; surrounded them. It looked like a painting with many colours, beautiful. The little boy always had a weakness for the beauty of nature. He could just sit hours in a grass field to watch the birds fly, to see insects living their small life, to observe the beauty nature had given earth.

Alex kneeled down. He ran with his hand through the little boy's golden curls."You know Patrick. I only take the ones I really love to this place. Like your mother. My father took me here when I was young and he told me the same story i'm telling you right now. This flower field is special, it presents our love to others. Not many people know about this place, and we want to keep it like that. Promise, you'll only take the one you really love, the one you want to spend your life with, here. Okay?"

He nodded and smiled. "I promise."

Jane sat down with his back leaning against a tree, and waited for the arrival of his family's murderer. He stared at the flower field in front of him, it was still beautiful, even at night. Fireflies were dazzling above the flowers, illuminating them with their small light. It was silent. He closed his eyes to enjoy the silence for once, slowly breathing in and out. A cold breeze of wind made him shiver. 

"Hello Patrick."

His eyes opened immediately when he heard the voice. He felt his body getting cold, yet warm at the same time. Anger streamed fastly through his veins, he wanted to punch the life out of this guy. Yet, he didn't have the guts since his mind was registering danger, his mind was telling him to run away from that danger.

A man was standing in the distance, in the middle of the flowerfield. Jane could only see the silhouette of the man because it was dark now. The fireflies were zooming around the man's head, enlightening the mask he was wearing. It was a creepy sight. This man was for sure a show man. He slowly approached Jane who had gotten up. All he was doing was staring at the serial killer. He was sure this was the real Red John. 

As he came closer, Jane could see him more clearly. The mask was completely white, with a red smiley printed on it. The Red John sign. He was wearing a long black leather coat, black jeans and black shoes. Jane wondered why he didn't call himself Black John.

Also, he was pointing a gun at him.

"Good evening. Sorry for being so late. I had to do.. some things. Also, I want to be sure you're not holding any weapons on you so I'm going to have to ask for you to stand still, while my accomplice will have a look at you."

Jane was startled when a man jumped out of a tree and walked over to him. The man wasn't wearing a mask; he had brown hair and brown eyes, wasn't very tall, had a lot of muscles and an unkind look. Also wearing black clothes. Jane put his hands up in the air and sighed, not losing sight of the serial killer. The accomplice searched him for weapons, and pulled out a gun from under Jane's jacket. He held it in the air and looked at Red John who folded his arms and shook his head in disappointment. He gestured to the man to go away, and he obeyed.

"It was worth a try." Spoke Jane, looking at the ground. He shrugged. Red John approached him slowly, so that he was standing in front of the shaking consultant. 

"Too bad your father died.. so quickly. I wanted to make him suffer a lot more."

Jane looked away from the killer, he clenched his hands, imagining the feeling of the warmth of his father's hand slowly fading away. The painful look in the bloodshot eyes of the dying man was carved onto his brains. The feeling that someone had died because of him again, tore him apart. Red John pushed the muzzle of the gun against his chest, looking at him in the eye. Jane stared at him, trying to catch his eye; but the only thing he saw were black holes. The cold look reflected on the mask gave him shudders. His right hand was tightly closed around the cold surface of the metallic grey colored revolver, his other arm was hanging loosely alongside his body.

"Your team won't save you. They're on their way to get your friend Van Pelt. I hope you didn't bring any friends with you, otherwise my friend will deal with them immediately."

"They're not your friends. They're your tools. You use people, for your own good." Red John just grinned loudly, letting him know he was proud of his work, his 'art.'

"Makes the two of us. That's what you did for living didn't you? It made you rich." He responded harshly. It was silent for a moment. Only the sound of crickets chirping in choir filled the silence with its nothingness. Jane stared at the ground in embarrassment.

"I've changed."

The serial killer laughed and shook his head.

"You're still a con man. There's a sad, empty, man hiding behind that smile of yours. Your heart and brains are filled with guilt, and fear;  fear you lose the person you love the most. "

Jane looked at him. Deep inside, he knew he was telling the truth, but he didn't want to confess, he didn't want to break again. Fear to lose the person he loved.. It was killing him, tearing him apart, making him anxious and it caused him insomnia; he couldn't sleep at night, wasn't very well rested after awakening and had attacks of tension headaches.

"At least, I'm not a sociopath who kills everyone that enrages him. And I may be sad. I may have a feeling of emptiness inside of me. At least I'm not wearing a mask, like you do; to hide your ugly, tormented face." Spoke Jane heated. He received a hard punch in his stomach, and coughed, slowly lowering to the ground. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and coughed once more. Then he looked up at the serial killer who had grabbed his knife out of his pocket; still bloody but the blood had dried already. The blade of the knife sparkled in the moonlight, it almost looked beautiful until Jane got reminded of the numerous people that had been put silent in a horrible, painful way with that knife. One small thing, that little sharp tool could destroy someone's life, take someone's life..his life.

Red John was going to kill him, slaughter him like a butcher slaughters innocent pigs, like a cheetah who's chasing down a gazelle to eat it, like a tree getting chopped down; he was going to murder him, just like he had murdered his precious wife and daughter. He imagined himself lying motionless in a pool of red crimson blood, he imagined the smiley that Red John would draw with his blood, would stare and smile at him unendlessly. Laughing at him, telling him he had failed to protect his loved ones. 

For a moment, he thought his plan wouldn't work.

"Freeze!"

Lisbon. Finally. He was wondering when she would show up. She was standing just behind a tree, her gun pointed at the serial killer who was looking at her, staring at her with his devilish, black eyes. He was distracted, so Jane stood up and pushed him onto the ground. Red John didn't expect this and lost his grip on the gun when he hit the ground. Jane dived on top of him, sat down with his knees on his attacker's stomach and grasped him by his arms which were uncontrollably moving back and forth to slash the knife into Jane's face. He felt Red John kicking with his legs underneath him. He kicked with his knees relentlessly against his back, causing Jane to loosen his grip onto the arms. Red John took this opportunity to push Jane off of him. 

In the maintime, Lisbon had ran over to the two fighting men, and pointed her gun at Red John's head. Her index finger was on the trigger, ready to fire the bullet. But she knew there was a chance she could hit Jane. She didn't notice, the accomplice of Red John had rushed over to the scene, had pulled out his gun and had pointed it at Lisbon's legs.

The sound of two gunshots wailed through the forest. Jane looked up immediately and saw Lisbon's body collapsing to the ground. She hit her head against a tree, and was knock out.

"LISBON!" Jane screamed as hard as he could, but unfortunately; Lisbon didn't response.

Red John slammed him to the ground while he was distracted, he winced out in pain. Looking around, he saw the gun lying a couple of meters away from him. He reached out to no avail; his arms were not long enough. The hands of the serial killer were tightly wrapped around his neck, he squeezed, trying to strangle the consultant. 

Lisbon's eyes fluttered open. She was dizzy and her vision was blurry. Her hands were searching for her gun. She gasped when heard Jane shout for her help, for her to wake up. After a couple of seconds, she felt the cold metal against her trembling fingers. Without hesitating, she grasped it and threw it towards Jane with all her might. The gun landed right next to him, luckily within his reach. Red John noticed it too late, and was surprised by the feeling of the hard, solid weapon against his head. He fell down onto his side and released Jane from his deathly grip.  Red John reached for his head and rubbed it, still lying in agony in the grass. Jane got up immediately, coughing heavily and gazed at Lisbon; She had two heavily bleeding shot wounds in her right leg.

The brown haired accomplice noticed Lisbon's movements and pointed the gun at her again, ready to shoot and to shut her mouth forever. He was surprised by three bullets penetrating his upper body, leaving him to gargle with his own blood. His black shirt started to get soaked with dark red blood and it was clearly he couldn't breathe anymore.The numbness body of the accomplice collapsed to the ground. Jane threw the gun where he'd shot the man with somewhere out of reach. His hands were shaking, his body felt cold and numb, disbelieving he'd just killed someone.

"Jane! Watch out!" Screamed Lisbon, her voice breaking. Jane turned around and saw that Red John had gotten up again and was drawing out with his knife towards the consultant. Jane tried to dodge it, but was too late. The knife made a huge slash in his arm which started to bleed substantially. He whimpered out in pain, and wrapped his free arm around the wound. Red John punched him against his jaw and pushed him against a tree. Jane tried to get away from him and demurred, but Red John was holding him very firmly so that he couldn't possibly go away anymore. He pushed the knife against his throat, not pushing too hard, but hard enough to make him wince; he didn't want to kill him yet.

"This is it Patrick. You tried to catch me, but failed again. And now, not only you will suffer..She'll suffer too!" Jane looked at Lisbon who was struggling to stay awake any longer. The worrying look in her eyes broke his heart. She was going to die because of him.

"Please. Don't.." He stuttered, barely hearable. Too late, Red John was grinning hideously and pushed the knife against his throat even more, a cut started to appear and blood started to come out. 

Lisbon was crawling over to the accomplices dead body, and rapidly searched for the gun he'd shot her with. When she found it, she pointed it at Red John's arm. Again, she wasn't sure if she could shoot at Red John; she could shoot Jane instead. Closing her eyes for a millisecond, she thought about it, she opened her eyes again. Then, her finger pulled the trigger.

"Aargh" The knife fell to the ground, Red John reached for his arm that had just been pierced by a bullet. Jane took his opportunity and punched him against his jaw, then right on his face. He fell on his back and whimpered out in pain. Jane picked up the serial killer's knife and observed it. Then, he sat down on Red John and stared at the mask.  Apparently, he was exhausted and couldn't get up anymore.

 "Let's see who you are.." Mumbled Jane and he took off the man's mask. 

A almost bald man stared at him with blue eyes, his hair that was left-over was grey. His skin was a slight colour of red. Thomas McAllister, he should've known. The man just stared at him, and smirked.

"Finally.. You did it. You won. I don't know how you did it.. But.. Patrick. I'll always haunt you, even when i'm dead. As you might know.. I've got a lot of friends." Grinned the mad-man, still staring into Jane's bloodshot blue eyes. They both looked at the knife, both knowing what was going to happen next.

Jane forced a smile. "It was all a game. And it's over now. It's done." Red John's pupils widened as he saw the sharp blade where he'd killed plenty of people with, rapidly approaching his throat. Jane thrusted the knife into the man's throat, followed by a loud scream. Blood started to stream out of his mouth and nose, he made very loudly peeping noises, unable to breathe. His body was shivering and trembling like crazy. His eyes started to close and open repeatedly, still focused on Jane's furious eyes. After a lot of blood, unlikely sounds and gargling, the man finally closed his weary eyes after a long battle of life and death. He'd lost. 

Jane stared at the man and wiped away a tear from his cheek. Emotions were overwhelming him, guilt, relief, anger, sadness .. Every emotion he could probably think of was running through his body.

"Jane?!" A familiar voice snapped him out of his thoughts, he looked up and gazed at Lisbon who was still lying on the ground with a small pool of blood around her. His eyes widened and he stood up, ran over to Lisbon and kneeled down next to her. His finger's carefully ran over the wounds in her left leg and he stared into her eyes. His fingers were covered with her blood, but he didn't care. He sat down next to her, ignoring the throbbing pain he felt running through his whole body. 

"You're going to be okay Lisbon" He mumbled, wrapping his arms around her waist to put her in a sitting position so he could hold her in his arms. She winched, but ignored the pain. She rested her head against his fastly moving chest and sighed. His hand ran through her hair, curling it around his thumb. 

"I'm glad you're okay.." She spoke. He looked down at her and nodded. She pulled out her phone out of her pocket and started dialing 911. Lisbon told the woman on the other side of the line their location and information about their health. The woman told her to wait and to hold pressure against the bullet wounds, so that she wouldn't lose too much blood. Lisbon agreed and hang up, looking at Jane. His blue eyes weren't sparkling anymore, his facial expression was peaceful though. He could finally rest after chasing Red John for so long, he could finally leave the past behind him.

[ In the hospital. 1.43 AM ] 

Lisbon had always hated hospitals. It reminded her of that one time her mother had died in a car accident, and she and her brothers had to wait for hours until the doctors finally gave them some news. The beds, machines and almost everything smelt like plastic, or old people. The food was bad, she could barely sleep and the nurses were grumpy and scary. But Jane, who hadn't left her side since they entered the hospital, made her feel safe and protected. At first, he didn't even want to let the doctor take care of him! After a lot of speeching and talking, she finally managed to persuade him to leave her side for a moment to take care of himself. He returned after 10 minutes with bandages around his neck and arm. Luckily, the cuts in his arm and neck weren't that deep to cause any more trouble that'd affected his health.

 The shot wounds in her leg weren't that bad either. She wouldn't be able to ever be a fast CBI agent again, but she could train to make her leg work like it did before. 

Lisbon smiled at the man that was sitting on a plastic chair, next to her bed. His curly hair was all messed up, his cheeks were red, his blue eyes were staring into her eyes. He looked adorable and kind of sexy at the same time.

"Jane.. How did you manage to lure Red John to that forest?" She asked, wrapping the sheets around her body. He sighed.

"Well.. When you were kidnapped, I was.. stabbed. I was helplessly lying in the hospital, not knowing what to do, until my father came to visit me."

"Alex? Why?" Her mouth dropped open in disbelief.

"He said he wanted to .. do something for me. To help me catch Red John. At first, I refused his help, but he started to beg to let him help me, so eventually I accepted. We started to make a plan, a huge plan."

"You and Alex made up a plan to catch Red John, but you conned everyone. You lied to everyone.."

He nodded, looking down at the ground. 

"One thing was true though. Red John tried to control my father, he wanted him to do awful things to you; but he refused. He told me everything, hoping Red John wouldn't find out about him giving me information. I told him to kidnap and torture me instead of you."

Lisbon didn't know if her mouth could drop even more open than this. Anger boiled up inside of her, she wanted to punch him so badly for putting himself in so much danger, but didn't since he was already wounded. Instead of responding, she rested her head on the pillow and listened to his story. He continued:

"When he refused Red John's orders, he knew he was going to die soon. So after that fight in that abandoned place where you were being held hostage, he was glad to be arrested because he would've been more safe in that way. And about Jacob; Jacob doesn't exist. I browsed through different files to find a criminal who was going to die anyway. I contacted a man named Jacob Winsley and asked him if he wanted to do a good thing for once in his life. Eventually, he agreed and got kidnapped by Red John who thought it was my brother."

"You helped a prisoner escape and let him die?!" 

"No. I helped him to do something right. He was sued and executed for killing his family. I didn't believe he had actually killed his whole family; he only murdered his little sister who attacked him with a gun while she was drunk. She murdered the other ones before he'd strangled to death. Jacob wasn't going to live any longer, so I asked him if he wanted to help me."

"I can't believe this. So when I shot Alex, that was also planned!?"

"He wanted that to happen I guess.. I don't know why he attacked me. Presumably, because he didn't want to get murdered by Red John or by one of his accomplices in jail. He rather wanted to die as a bold father than a criminal who'd helped Red John."

It was silent for a moment. Lisbon sighed. "And what about Van Pelt?" She asked, breaking the silence.

"Oh, she wanted to get on a vacation so I gave her a flight ticket to Ibiza."

"WHAT?!"

"Did you seriously think I would've really done that?" He asked provoked, looking at her with an angry, serious facial expression. She gave him a 'Don't' look and he smirked, poking her playfully against her shoulder. Lisbon shrugged.

"She actually got kidnapped by Red John. He set her free after he heard my father was dead." He spoke, his smile fading away.

"So.. You let your father torture you to help me escape, you made up that you have a brother so that Red John would go after him and kill him to give you a mental breakdown? You humiliated him on public television so that he would meet you, thinking you were too weak to stand up to him?" Lisbon was still confused, but things started to make sense right now. All he wanted, was to kill Red John, and he had succeeded. He had almost killed her team, but didn't intend to. She would punish him later.. The strange feeling of liking him had expelled her angry feelings. He wanted to protect her in a weird, but sweet, attractive way and that gave her goosebumps.

Jane nodded. "He thought I was broken, but he was wrong. I've never been so strong." He said, pointing at his muscles. He was joking of course, and it made Lisbon chuckle slightly.

"What about that happy memory?" She asked, staring into his eyes. Jane had told her about the letter before he went to the forest. They met in the park after Alex's death, planned Lisbon would show uo when things were about to go wrong.

"How about I show it to you in the summer?" He smiled.
She nodded, thinking about the plan he'd made up to catch Red John. Everyone thought Jane had a mental breakdown. Red John thought he could control him, break him; he was wrong. Jacob Winsley wasn't even his brother and Red John killed him, otherwise he would've been murdered by the electric chair. Alex sacrificed his life to make his son happy for once. Jane had almost died because he wanted to protect her.
It had all been a game. 

[ 3 months later. ] 

"C'mon Lisbon. You're not scared for some insects are you?" 

Lisbon and Jane were walking in the forest. It was a sunny day. The sun shone brightly and the sky was bright blue, no clouds to be seen anywhere. The birds were happily chirping, the ancient trees were moving along with the warm summer breeze. The smell of the forest was pulpy and humid. Jane loved the forest since he was a little boy. Lisbon on the contrary, didn't like forests.

"Ew! There's a spider in my hair! JANE get it out!" Lisbon yelled like a little girl, she was ferociously moving her head back and forth to get the spider out of her hair. He walked over to her and searched for the creature but didn't find anything. She was probably just imagining things.

"It's already gone, don't worry my angry little princess." He smirked. Lisbon responded with a deadly glare and rolled with her eyes. She tried to fix her hair again since Jane messed it up completely. He walked further and stopped. She followed him and wondered why he was staring at some bushes and trees. She gave him a questioning look. He made his way over to the bushes and pushed them to the side, revealing a passage. 

"No way i'm going through there" She folded her arms and shook her head. 

"It'll be fun." He offered her his hand and smiled, his blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. She couldn't resist it and unfolded her arms, took his hand and wrapped her fingers around his. He stared at her and smiled brightly. His hands were big, warm and comfy; like a couch you could lie on all day; she could hold his hand all day, all night.

He leaded her through the passage. She looked up at the sky; the trees were skyscraper tall, it made her feel like she was so small; just a little part of this world. 

"We're here." He spoke, pointing at the beautiful flower field with magnificent different coloured flowers standing everywhere. She gasped, her pupils widened as she stared at the sea of flowers. She'd seen it before when Jane fought with Red John,  but didn't really see the beauty of the field.
They walked through the flower field, both not realizing they were still holding hands. Lisbon pointed at the sun that illuminated the forest in a fantastic way, everything seemed to give light, everything seemed to sparkle. 

"I only take special people to this place. People I really love. Actually, I better not use the word people. It's just.. I take the person I really love to this place. The person I want to spend my life with." He half whispered, looking at the trees in the distance.

 Lisbon blushed and moved her hair away from her face and stared at him. He turned towards her and smiled. They leaned closer to each other, their noses almost touching. He observed the pinkish hue of her cheeks and the shape of her lips.

"And that person is?" She whispered, chuckling. They both tilted their heads and closed their eyes. He pressed his lips against hers. Her heart raced wildly and she responded equally. His fingers ran through her hair and he smiled during the kiss.

"You"