Jane was already lying on his couch when Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt arrived at work early. He greeted them cheerfully…almost a bit too cheerfully, they thought.

"What's gotten into you?" Rigsby asked. taking his place at his desk.

"Red John is dead and gone," Jane replied, grinning; "why should I be anything but happy?"

And they all couldn't help but return his smile. Yes, Red John was dead and gone, and thank heavens for that. No more chasing him. No more waiting for more bodies to turn up. No more wondering who to trust, what his next move would be…Nope. All over.

This would take some getting used to.

Lisbon was the tiniest bit late; she needed a little extra time to prepare herself to not see Jane at work. Still, she soon walked in.

"Hey, everyone," she was already saying, "sorry to tell you, Jane-"

"Oh, hey, Lisbon!" Jane said happily.

Lisbon froze. She blinked at him three times, quickly, as though trying to clear her vision.

"…What are you doing here?" she finally managed to ask.

"Uh, I work here," Jane chuckled.

"No you don't!" she said. "You work in Quantico now - with the BAU!"

"Oh, I see," Jane said as he understood what the problem was. "Nah. I turned them down."

Lisbon blinked. "You did what?" she asked dumbly.

"I turned them down," Jane repeated. "I mean, it was flattering and all, and I guess it would be cool to be on their team, but…well, I belong here. I know my place, and my place is right here on this couch."

"I…You…" Lisbon couldn't think for a minute.

Jane laughed. "Lisbon, it's not that hard to believe. Is it?"

And then her brain started working again, and she quickly realized several things at once. Her eyes widened. "Oh, no," she said under her breath.

"What?" asked Van Pelt, confused.

"I'm guessing she's thinking of what a big deal I am in the media now," Jane told Van Pelt, "and everywhere else besides. For the record, Lisbon, I promised myself I wouldn't abuse my status. I'll promise you that, too. I do. Promise that, I mean."

"Thanks," Lisbon said faintly.

"Are you that big a deal?" Rigsby asked, surprised.

"Oh come on, Rigsby," Jane said, craning his neck to look at his teammate, "I know you and Van Pelt didn't get out much, but didn't you bother turning on the TV every once in a while?"

"Jane, shut up!" Rigsby hissed.

"What?" Jane asked. "Nothing can break up our team - it wouldn't be allowed. We're all a big deal now; I'm just the focal point."

"Yeah, they're calling us the 'Red Team'," Cho added.

"See? Cho's been paying attention," Jane smiled.

"The 'Red Team'," Lisbon repeated. "The Team of Death. Lovely."

"Well, you know, the 'Green Team' sounds like some big ecology movement deal," Jane shrugged, still grinning. "The point is, none of us can be fired or transferred anywhere under any circumstances. Certain rules…" He looked back at Rigsby again. "…no longer apply to us."

Lisbon's brow furrowed in concern - Jane seemed a little too carefree. "Are you okay?" she asked him.

He turned his grin on her. "Never better," he said. "Red John is dead and gone, why would I be anything but okay?"

"You just seem a little…uh…"

"Too happy," Cho inserted.

"Can I not be happy about being rid of Red John?" Jane asked, laughing.

It was then that Lisbon noticed that Jane's left ring finger was bare. Before she could comment on it, though, Bertram came to greet them.

"Well, well, if it isn't the team of heroes," he said, almost sarcastically. "Good."

"Uh, Director Bertram, sir, is there a problem?" Lisbon asked.

Jane chuckled. "How many boxes, chief?" he asked.

Bertram blinked and looked at him. "What?"

"How many boxes?" Jane repeated.

"Of what?" Bertram asked.

Jane grinned. "You know what I'm talking about."

Bertram sighed. "Sadly, yes I do," he said. "And to answer your question, three."

Jane sat up. "Seriously?" he asked, still smiling. "There's a reason I told everyone about our vacation the night Red John died."

"Well, I hate to think what the load would be if you hadn't, then," Bertram said.

"What's going on?" asked Lisbon.

"Like I said, we're a big deal," Jane said. "Price of fame is being famous…and being famous cops is the worst." He said all of this without dropping the smile for even a second.

And Lisbon fully realized just exactly what he meant only a split second before Bertram had someone cart three boxes of case files into the room.

"All yours," Bertram said.

"That much in just two weeks?" Jane asked, raising an eyebrow and still smiling. "Wow."

"Get to work," Bertram said gruffly, and he left.

The team stared at the pile of boxes.

"We're going to have to do all that?" Lisbon asked faintly.

"Well, I will," Jane told her; "the majority of that is just pointless stuff so people can meet me - a lot of them will even be false reports, just to see if I can tell with my super mind powers or whatever people think I have." He chuckled as he stood up and walked over to the boxes. "Most of this stuff is stuff I can just take care of in five minutes - not worth you guys' time. Hang on, I'll sort through it all, see if there's anything you should even bother yourselves with." And he picked up the boxes, brought them back over to his couch, opened the first one, and grabbed a file.

Lisbon, Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt stared at Jane in silent astonishment as he glanced through file after file, muttering things like "Fake" "Easy" "Simple" before tossing them aside. And he wouldn't stop grinning! It was almost creepy.

Also, "not worth you guys' time"? That was an interesting way of wording it… "stuff I don't need your help with" was more like what they would have expected from Jane.

Jane finished a whole box, and not one of the files had particularly caught his attention. He swept them all back into the box, set it aside, opened the next one, and continued.

"Jane?"

"M?" He looked up.

"What are all these cases, exactly?" Lisbon asked.

He shrugged (and wouldn't stop smiling!). "Inconsequential stuff, mostly, whether they're real or fake," he replied. "Stuff like robberies, break-ins…pointless stuff."

"We're homicide investigators," Lisbon said. "Why would anything like that even be in there?"

"The only homicide reports I've found so far have been laughably fake," Jane said, still going through files. "And like I said, we're a big deal now - people will insist on us looking into whatever problems they might have, not accept help from anyone else. Well," he amended, "most of them want my help - they just think of you guys as my sidekicks or something stupid like that."

Lisbon blinked. Not only was that last comment weird, but Jane's smile hadn't wavered during that entire speech. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked him.

"Are you going to keep asking me that all day?" Jane asked, his smile only widening.

She got a feeling he was half-hoping she'd challenge him to the question game, but she had never been less in the mood. She said nothing.

He looked up. "Lisbon, I have never been more okay," he told her seriously. "You worry too much."

Lisbon wanted to believe him. She really, truly did. It would be wonderful if things were to go back to normal except better, without the issue of Red John hanging over all their heads. She would have liked that more than anything. But something about Jane's almost fixed smile set off alarm bells in her head, ones she had learned not to ignore long ago. Something was going to go wrong, she knew it beyond any doubt.

"Oh, okay, here we go," Jane said suddenly. "Found one."

"Give it here," Lisbon said.

Then Jane laughed. "I'm just kidding," he said; "this one's fake, too." And he tossed it aside.

Lisbon had no words.

Two files later, however, Jane did find a case worthy of the whole team. He set it aside even as Lisbon reached for it, though, already back to sorting through the files; apparently, he wanted to do this all at once.

There was one more set aside from the second box, and three in the third box. Five cases worth investigating, out of dozens. Still quite a few to handle at the same time, but with the alternative sitting right in front of their faces, it seemed manageable.

The five cases were pretty standard for the team investigating them. Jane did his thing, as always, typically pissing people off in the process; but unlike before Red John's demise, he didn't seem like he was even trying not to get in trouble - if anything, he was trying to get into trouble. He was too carefree, too reckless even for him…It was like nothing really mattered anymore, like the world was just one big joke to him. To 'laugh in the face of danger' is supposed to mean being brave, but in Jane's case, it just meant being downright stupid. More than once, Lisbon actually, genuinely thought that he was going to die; her role in the cases became chasing him around, constantly trying to save his ass.

The cases were closed, of course, but the results were sloppy even for Jane, and he'd taken far too many stupid, pointless risks to close them. Lisbon ordered him to speak with her privately after the others had gone home after the five cases were done - she couldn't let this continue, not as his boss, and not as his friend.

"Jane, what the hell is wrong with you?" she asked right off the bat.

"Nothing!" he insisted.

"No, something is wrong with you," Lisbon countered. "Do you have any idea how many times you nearly died since we came back to work?"

He shrugged, still smiling. "I lost count around ten."

Lisbon put a hand over her face, almost completely fed up. "Jane, you can't do this," she told him. "If I can't take my eyes off you for five seconds without you almost getting yourself shot, there's a problem."

"Why?" Jane asked.

She looked up at him again; this was a very odd thing for him to say. "What do you mean, 'why'?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Why is that a problem?" he asked.

Lisbon blinked. "Jane…do you want to die?" This was something she had never considered, but now that she thought about it, Jane had lived to hate Red John, just as Red John had lived to hate Jane; with Red John dead, did he really have any other reason to go on?

He shrugged. "Well, it doesn't really matter if I do," he said. "I won't be leaving anything behind unfinished. With Red John dead, I can do whatever I want."

And suddenly, Lisbon understood. He was like a teenager who just got their driver's license and would drive into town several times a day for no reason other than that they can. He was taking stupid risks specifically because he could, without any worries.

But she worried.

She took a breath. "Yes, Jane, it would matter if you died," she told him.

"Why?" he asked again. "I don't care."

"I care!" she shouted, walking over to get in his face now, completely at her wit's end. "I care about you! I care if you die! If you don't give a damn about yourself anymore, at least be considerate of the people around you who care about you!"

And finally, finally, Jane's smile went away.

For a moment, they faced off silently.

Then, Jane sighed, seeming to deflate slightly. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry. I just…I'm not used to this freedom, you know? Red John has chained me down for so long, I…"

Lisbon nodded. "I understand," she said, more gently now. "And that's fine. I'm happy for you that you don't have that freak holding you back anymore. Just, please, try not to get killed? If not for yourself, then for me? You almost scared me to death five times today alone; I can't do my job if I'm constantly worrying about you."

He looked at her. "I'm sorry," he repeated softly; there was something strange in his eyes. "I didn't…I didn't mean to worry you. I wasn't thinking."

Again, she nodded. "Well, please do think from now on," she said. "You'll be better at catching bad guys if you do, anyway."

He gave a half-humorless chuckle that quickly faded.

There was nothing more to say, but neither of them moved. Their eyes were locked, as they had been across the parking lot the night of Red John's demise, but they were closer this time, only a few inches apart…and…neither was quite sure what the other was trying to say…

Lisbon didn't even realize she was leaning into him…She closed her eyes…and their lips met.

There was no thinking, no reasoning. Slowly, the kiss deepened, as their mouthes opened against each other, he put his arms around her…she returned his embrace-

Suddenly, Lisbon found herself being shoved backwards as Jane quickly pushed her away. She caught her balance and looked at him. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes wide with something akin to fear as he stared at her.

Fear? Of all the possible things to feel right now…

Slowly, he started shaking his head, not taking his eyes off of her, almost as though he was afraid she would make a sudden movement. He backed away from her and into the hall, slowly at first, then he turned and started going faster, glanced behind him at her one last time, then took off at a dead sprint, trying to get away.

Lisbon didn't even have time to react before he was gone.

She stood rooted to the spot, blinking with shock. What the hell just happened? she wondered. She wasn't sure which part she was questioning…all of it, maybe. But…just…What the hell?

Used to having someone outside of work to talk to now, she had her cell phone out and she was just about to press the call button before she stopped…No, this wasn't something Charlie needed to know about. Lisbon wasn't in the mood for smug "I told you so"s, and she wasn't even sure what had just happened anyway.

~o~

Of course, someone was always watching.

"Well, well," Dove said, "this is a development. What are you planning to do about it, Jane…?" Ideas were forming, breaking, and reforming in her head, and she began to get a picture of the perfect future, the one she and all of Red John's remaining friends would have to work to bring about.

She closed her eyes. I do not look forward to telling Rich about this…