Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jane expects Lisbon to call. 

Maybe that’s unfair of him, but he can’t help it. He is the one who left, sure, but can’t she see that Vega’s death has broken something vital in him? Her dark hair, her short stature, her bravery. All mirrors of the woman he loves. Images of the kind of future that awaits them, when someday she’s the one with the unlucky roll of the dice. 

Because that’s what it is: luck. She could be the best agent in the world, and she is, but still, there’s no guarantee. In fact, there is inevitability. One day, he will hold her crumpled, limp body in his arms, his mouth open in a silent scream. The earth will stop its turning and collapse inward, and his life will be over all over again. 

I don't want to lose you. I don't know how I would react.

And Lisbon had brushed him off. Smiled, taken his hand, taken him dancing. As if his fears for her life were nothing more than shadows under the bed. As if his fears didn’t come from the real place of walking up that staircase and finding that note and opening that door—

No. He’s being unfair. He’s upset because she hasn’t called, and it’s been two and a half weeks, and he’s ready to talk. He’s gone somewhere nice, now. He’s seen some sights: the cavernous hollows of the Grand Canyon and the quirky, 50s diners of the Southwest with their red-checkered, vinyl tablecloths. He’s thought about certain things very hard: the curve of Lisbon’s lip, the way she had clung to him at the Blue Bird Lodge, something terrified in the way she held him. There has never been any question in his mind that they are staying together, but he needed to process his thoughts about the work and his own anxiety. Now he’s ready. There are conversations that he’s now more prepared to have, that they need to have. He owes it to her, and she owes it to him.

He waits three more days, his phone at his side. He stays in zones where he has cell service, reading his book without turning a single page. No calls. Something is itching in the space between his ribs and heart. A Lisbon-sense, one honed and perfected over the course of nearly thirteen years.

Strange, really, when he puts a number on it. He’s now known Lisbon longer than he had ever known Angela. 

With the uncertainty clouding his thoughts, he drives back to Austin, parking the Airstream in a campground on the outskirts of the city. He expects to feel more at home. Warmer, now that he is closer to her. He doesn’t. 

On the fourth day, he caves and calls her, and it goes straight to voicemail. Her phone is off. Her phone is never off. 

Without further hesitation, he hops into the van. Twenty minutes later, he’s at FBI headquarters.

When he comes off the elevator, only Wylie, hunched and red-eyed, is in the bullpen. He takes one look at Jane, and something deeply devastated and betrayed crosses his face. Then, he turns away. Slowly. Deliberately. It hurts, more than Jane would’ve thought given their casual friendship, but not as much as the words that come out of Wylie’s mouth.

“She’s not here.”

Jane’s heart, barely-mended and only newly light, drops. 

—

Surprisingly, it’s a temporary-assigned Kim Fischer that gives him answers a few minutes later, long before Jane has finished inspecting Lisbon’s desk. Her things are still there, so not fired or resigned. A case, likely, though something in Wylie’s tone makes him wonder.

He looks up when the elevator opens to three familiar faces, but none as precious as Lisbon’s visage. Cho and Abbott see him at Lisbon’s desk when they enter the room from wherever they had gone, and Abbott is quick to guide Cho away as Jane opens his mouth to speak. But not before Cho pins him with a cold look that stops the words in his throat, his expression glacial even by Cho standards. Clearly, Abbott does not want them to reunite in public. 

The pit in Jane’s stomach grows ever wider. 

Kim, an unexpected but not unwelcome face, enters with them. But as Jane recovers from Cho’s glare and prepares to go after them, she beelines for him.

“Hey, Jane,” she says, softly, blocking his way to Abbott’s office. “I’m sorry about Vega.” 

Jane nods. It would be callous to ask about Lisbon. Luckily, Jane has no problem being callous.

“Where’s Lisbon?” He asks, still assessing whether he can sidestep her to get to Cho. “She’s not answering her phone.” 

Kim gives him a practiced sympathetic look, like he’s the victim of one of the crimes they solve, but he doesn’t want her sympathy. He wants Lisbon. He wants to see her with his own eyes. He doesn’t care if she yells, if she hits him, if she says she can’t forgive him yet another time. He knows that if he can get in a room with her, he’s golden. “She’s on leave,” Kim says over Jane’s thoughts. 

Everything grinds to a halt. Leave? Now? Impossible. Lisbon would never leave the team at a time like this. Something important would’ve had to happen. Something devastating. He pins Kim with narrowed, terrified eyes. “Is she hurt?” He asks urgently. “Is her family okay?”

“No and yes, as far as I know. Listen, Jane, I just got here. But I think you should go.”

“No problem,” he agrees. “Just tell me where Lisbon is.” 

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She looks away. “Only Cho knows. She knew… well. Cho is pretty impenetrable.” She looks back with knowing eyes, and Jane barely contains the shudder going through his body to his hands. Cho knows where Lisbon is. Lisbon knows that Cho is more likely to keep a secret, to be unreadable.

To you, she doesn’t say, but Jane hears it. 

And with sudden horror, Jane realizes that the prickly, itchy feeling is correct. Something devastating did happen to Lisbon: he left her in the midst of a tragedy to go someplace nice.

Kim is still speaking, but Jane doesn’t hear her. He almost heads to his couch, but he can’t bear to be in sight of Lisbon’s desk. She has a picture of the CBI team on that desk. A mug he bought her. A vase for the flowers he likes to leave her. Maybe even the faint scent of cinnamon and oranges, a familiar combination to which he’s fallen asleep many times. 

No, he can’t go to the couch. Instead, he heads for the door. He stops fighting the shaking of his body, ignores the way Kim calls after him. He blindly presses the button for the elevator through his tears, and oh, when did he start crying, he can’t do that here, not in front of everyone—

He faces the truth in the elevator where three weeks ago, he had hit the emergency button to kiss Lisbon a little longer like they were in high school, smiling so hard that the kiss was barely a kiss, relishing in her soft giggles. 

He left Lisbon. Now Lisbon has left him. 

—

Jane is impatient, but he’s not stupid. Confronting Cho head on is not the right approach. So he sits on Cho’s porch for almost fourteen hours straight before Cho comes home. Cho’s ability to hurt him is probably second only to Lisbon’s; he knows exactly what to say and what to do. Jane can only hope that Cho takes pity on him for Lisbon’s sake. Cho knows that Lisbon does not do well without him. Last time, she had lost herself in Washington State. Cho can’t want that to happen to her again. 

Regardless, when Cho sits next to him on the stoop, Jane anticipates a reading so brutal that he may not recover. 

Their relationship has always been neutral, safe, as calm as still waters. Cho doesn’t push him, but neither does he coddle him. He does not offer a shoulder to cry on, nor does he blame Jane when he acts like, well, himself. After Lisbon and he had gotten together, Cho had been happy for them but content not to know the details.

Jane knows that has changed. 

Still, he can’t help himself. He makes his opening pitch with typical, Patrick-Jane flair, despite his clearly unkempt appearance. He wonders if the neighbors have called Cho on the strange, disheveled man on his doorstep; that would explain why he is so unsurprised.

“If you tell me where she is,” Jane offers, as light as he can manage, “you won’t have to see me for a long time.” 

Cho just looks at him. “Tempting.” His tone is deadpan, but there is no typical, secret humor to his words. 

He tries again. “You know I can make this better. Everyone will be miserable until I do.” 

“Are you threatening me?” 

“What do you think?” Jane says cooly. “I’ll do anything for her. You know this.” 

Cho raises an eyebrow. “Anything?”

Jane sighs. He knows where this is going. “Cho-”

“Do you know how Lisbon and I met?” He cuts in. Jane is silent; he can certainly guess, but he’s never actually heard the story. “They ran my background when I applied for the CBI. You know my record. It didn’t look good. No amount of accolades in the Army could wipe that out.”

“Lisbon stuck her neck out for you,” Jane guesses. 

Cho nods. “She taught me how to be a good cop. Hell, she’s still teaching me. When I graduated from Quantico, she was there in the front row. The only one.” His jaw clenches, and he looks to the side. “I let her down, letting her take the fall for you and McAllister. I’m still making that up to her.”

Even in the midst of his turmoil, Jane’s heart goes out to his friend. Cho is one of the four people still living that deserves his attention when it’s needed. “She was happy to give you and the others a second chance,” he says, knowing that’s what Lisbon thinks and would say. They haven’t spoken about it, but he knows it’s the truth. He adds what happened when he was gone to the list of things that Lisbon and he need to talk about. 

He doesn’t want to say what he really thinks, protective of his friend as he is. The truth is that Lisbon’s two years in exile are all of their faults. “She wouldn’t want you to regret a thing,” he asks, soft and gentle. 

Cho ignores his platitude, knowing as well as Jane what the truth is, but his shoulders loosen just a little bit. “She took a chance on a man without many chances left. Sound familiar?” Jane doesn’t speak; he doesn’t need to confirm what they both already know. “And you know why she does it.” 

Jane does. He doesn’t know every detail, but Lisbon’s history is no secret. A mother lost far too young. Abused and parentified. And now that Jane’s met her brothers, he knows that they are grateful, but in his opinion, not grateful enough, for what she did for them.

“You’re not the only one with a past.” Cho looks directly ahead as he speaks while Jane studies the pavement. “You know that, and you know what that past has done to her.” He leans over, but he still doesn’t look at Jane. “And you chose to prove her fears right.” 

Jane shakes his head. “It wasn’t a choice.” 

“That doesn’t matter. Lisbon is afraid you are going to leave her. And every time you’re tested, you prove her right.” 

Jane shoots to his feet, beginning to pace. How can Cho not get it? How can none of them understand? “Vega is dead. That could be Lisbon. Any day, it could be Lisbon, Cho. I can’t go through it all again. I don’t care if it’s an accident or not. If she dies, I will die.” 

Cho doesn’t stand, but Jane can suddenly feel his eyes on him. “One day, she is going to die.” Jane flinches so severely that Cho’s tone actually softens. “Everyone does. But you make her happy. You’re going to take that away from her in the meantime?”

Jane slumps, staring at the ground. He kicks a pebble and watches it bounce off the pavement and disappear into the tall blades of grass. Somehow, it feels apt. “I don’t think this job is good for me, Cho,” Jane admits, finally looking over at his friend. He’s surprised to find sympathy instead of anger, but then again, Cho has always had the ability to surprise him. “I don’t think being here is good for me,” he elaborates, gesturing to their surroundings. 

Austin is where he reunited with Lisbon. He will always be grateful for that. But there’s a reason that he’s thrown every exotic location he can think of at Lisbon in the past few months, and it’s not because he’s a Texas man. 

“As your friend and maybe your future boss, I want to have that conversation,” Cho says seriously, holding Jane’s gaze. “And I know Lisbon would want that too.” 

“She wants to keep going as we are,” Jane argues. 

“Maybe.” Cho rocks to his feet, coming to stand next to Jane. “But not at the expense of you. She destroyed her career for you.”

Jane tilts his head in acknowledgement. “I can’t have that conversation with her,” he says carefully, “if I don’t know where she is.” 

Cho pauses, studying Jane for a long moment. “206 Palisades Drive. Santa Barbara. The owner of the property is armed.” 

Something niggles at Jane’s brain. Santa Barbara. Something he learned, probably, and dismissed as unimportant. “Thank you, Cho,” he says, reaching and putting a hand on Cho’s forearm. 

Cho doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t push Jane away either. “This conversation never happened,” he warns.

Jane nods, distracted, already calling to book a flight. He has an address. The rest, he can figure out once he arrives at it.

Within three hours, Jane is on a plane to Santa Barbara. Within eight hours, he is standing outside a mediterranean-style, two-story home, a few blocks away from the ocean. The land would’ve been expensive, definitely, but the house built on it is modest. Not too far from the university. One average car in the driveway and space for a second, but the lawn and the facade of the house look nice and well-kept. Someone with taste lives here. 

Virgil Minelli opens his front door, and Jane can’t help himself. 

He grins wide and fake, affecting a calm he doesn’t feel. “May had full control over the building plans, didn’t she?”

Minelli doesn’t look very surprised to see him, and Jane fights the urge to preen a little. The man had clearly known he would be quick on Lisbon’s heels, and it feels nice to have his ability to always find her appreciated. Instead, Minelli goes straight for the typical glare and Jane’s jugular. “Jane. You look terrible. Do you want me to slam this door in your face?” 

Jane’s smile flickers, but also warms. “It’s good to see you, Virgil,” he admits, because it is. There’s something nostalgic and comforting about Minelli; Jane knows he cares deeply despite his demeanor. “Where is Lisbon?”

“What makes you think she’s here?” Minelli says, but it’s a pathetic attempt to bluster, and they both know it. When Jane raises an eyebrow, Minelli just sighs. “Put your stuff in the guesthouse out back. You’re going to be here for a while.” 

—

Lisbon pulls up in a car with May in the passenger seat about an hour after Minelli has invited him back up to the house to sit on the porch with him. She doesn’t look surprised; Minelli must have warned her. 

May brushes past him as they come up the drive, but Jane blocks Lisbon’s passage. “Lisbon,” he tries, affecting a wobbly smile, a little drunk on the sight of her despite how angry she looks. “It’s good to-” 

“Why are you here, Jane?” She interrupts, folding her arms over her chest. It’s not her usual upset posture, where she juts out her chin and raises an eyebrow, making herself bigger. Instead, it looks like she’s holding herself together, and he wants suddenly to go to the ocean and drown himself. 

A thousand possible answers pass through his mind at once, all of them true, but none convincing enough. Because I need you. Because I love you. Because I wanted to see you. Because you’re the only light in the darkness, and I’m the moth. Because you’re mine. To apologize. To make it up to you. But when he opens his mouth, what comes out is: “Because you’re here, Lisbon.” 

“Well, if you don’t leave, I won’t be.” 

He ducks down, trying to catch her eye, to discover the parameters of their fight. “Are you leaving me, then?”

“You left me first.” It’s a non-answer, but it’s better than an affirmative. 

“Not permanently. Never permanently,” he insists. He reaches for her, but she flinches back. “I just needed to think.” 

“Then think some more,” she retorts before disappearing into the house. 

—

Several days pass, much in the same way. Lisbon avoids him, and when she can’t, she cuts him to the quick to better escape. But he’s breaking her down; he can tell. He doesn’t know what he’s bringing down on himself by needling her, but he knows they need it. He also knows it’s going to hurt.

As always, he’s right. It does hurt. 

He’s drinking tea with Minelli on the front porch one evening, swatting away curious flies and enjoying the faint pinks and oranges of a nice, Californian sunset, when Lisbon finds him instead. 

“Okay.” The word bursts from her chest with the same power as a bullet from a gun, and Minelli can’t escape back into his house fast enough. He doesn’t even attempt an excuse or sympathetic look toward Jane. Head down. Tea spilling a little as he slips through the screen door. Coward. Jane doesn’t blame him. “What’s the plan, then?” Lisbon begins to pace, stops, then starts again, walking up to him until there’s less than a foot of space between them. “What scheme are you dreaming up?”

“No schemes,” Jane says calmly, setting his tea down. He stays seated; he wants her to feel like she’s in the position of power. 

She laughs, but the sound is bitter. “You? Patrick Jane? You have no schemes?” She gestures at him wildly, waving her arm up and down to encompass all of him. “No cons, no distractions, no unexpected work trips to Florida?” 

He flinches a little. His actions at the Blue Bird are not actions he’s proud of, though he still looks on his time there with fondness because of what it gave him. He knows she hated having to hurt Pike the way she did, and he knows he should’ve just been honest. That’s what he’s trying to do here. It worked the last time.

He’s not going to think about what he’ll do if honesty doesn’t work. He’s grown, but he’s still Patrick Jane. If she turns him away, he’s pretty sure he’ll do anything to get her back. Losing her is not something to which he could bear witness. 

“No schemes,” he repeats. “I just want to talk.” 

She looks away, and then, as if realizing how close she’s gotten to him, she takes two steps back. Her fingers move restlessly, as if seeking something to hold onto. He wishes it was him. “And then you’ll leave?”

“Talk to me, Teresa,” he says, ignoring the question. 

“No, you said you wanted to talk. So you talk.” 

“I’m so sorry,” he says immediately, leaning forward. He presses his hands into the fabric of his trousers, hoping the motion will ground him. No such luck. “I did this to us.” This admittance is soft, as gentle as he can manage. Still, she flinches. 

He waits for her to soften, even a little, but she doesn’t. “What is this, huh, Jane?” She crosses her arms over her chest, waiting. 

“I left.” He gets to his feet, taking a few steps toward her. He reaches for her hands, unfolding her arms from her chest, and to his happy surprise, she lets him. “I ran.” The elaboration is unnecessary, but he doesn’t want her to have to force his words out of him. No use upsetting her more than she already is.  

“Why?” She’s not pulling any punches. 

“I—I panicked.”

“I’ve known you for over ten years, Jane. I can count the times I’ve seen you really panic on one hand.” 

Shaking his head, he tightens his grip on her hands. How can she think that he wasn’t panicking? He’s never felt more panic in his life than when he was crouching in the back of Vega’s funeral, wanting to be a pillar of strength, but too nerveless to stand. When it was Angela and Charlotte, he had only seconds to feel true dread before he saw their bodies. With Lisbon, every second she is risking her life is dread-inducing. Every unanswered call, every gun-toting showdown. Vega is only a reminder of the inevitability. At least Van Pelt and Rigsby are out of the game, and Cho is likely on his way up to Abbott’s office, where he’ll be out of the field. Lisbon is the only one left in danger, and she’s the one loss that he can’t take. “This is one of those times,” he says, and there’s no uncertainty in his tone. 

Lisbon doesn’t even notice, too caught up in making her point. He suppresses the urge to tuck his finger under her chin and force her eyes to his, knowing she’ll probably pull a defensive move that would have him on the ground in retaliation. 

“No. You were calm. You were—you were resigned to leaving. You weren’t even listening to me. You just made up your mind. That’s not panic; that’s giving up.” 

“It was panic,” he replies, doing his best to tamp down on his own indignant tone. “It was just a different kind.” Taking a deep breath, he tries to soften his approach. “Vega was so young. She was new, but she was a good agent. Just like you, and I can’t-” He chokes on the words, but he forces them out anyways. “I can’t lose you, Teresa. I was lying before, at the cookout. I know how I’d react.” He swallows hard, tightening his hands over hers. “I would die.” 

She pulls away in a sharp movement, looking at him with betrayal in her eyes. “You want me to walk away from the job, but I like the work we do. I’m—we’re—good at it. And you… you know how much it means to me, and you know how much you mean to me, and you’re putting this all on me.” The accusation shoots through him.

“I assure you my intentions have never been so rational. I would never risk making you hate me by issuing you an ultimatum. I’m merely telling you the truth, the way you always wanted: when you go out there, you’re risking both of our lives.”

The color leaches from her skin; the genuine dismay in her eyes hurts him, but like her, he can’t pull punches now. Not talking it out is how they got here in the first place. “How could you say that to me?” She breathes. 

“You know what I’ve been through,” he says sharply. “You know what it did to me, Teresa. How could you think you’re any different from them? I love you just as much.”

She fixes him with a stubborn glare, and all at once, he realizes that he has failed to get through to her. Him, Patrick Jane. He’s made his fortune getting through to people. How can he fail with the one person who truly matters? 

“I’m not them, Jane,” she says, the anger in her voice palpable. He can taste it, like the sea salt in the air. Her love has been so sweet, and now it is bitter. “And you’re not that man any longer. If you can’t move past this, maybe that’s your answer.”

And with that, Lisbon spins on her heel and goes back inside. He watches her go like she’s watched him leave many times, moisture stinging the corners of his eyes as an uncharacteristic helplessness creeps over to shroud his mind, wondering just how she survived being on this side of it for so long.

Chapter Text

Jane tries to sleep, but he can’t. Her recriminations echo in his head; he had known that letting Lisbon in at the Blue Bird would mean allowing her to hurt him, but he hadn’t anticipated just how painful her disappointment in him would be. He tosses and turns, wondering why he can’t just pin down the broken part of him and tuck it away, invisible to her eye. He tries and tries, but it remains, a hollow place beneath his heart made of jagged edges. There’s no rest for him. 

In his tear-blindness, he throws the sheets off his body and wanders out to the street with a pair of Minelli’s sandals. He makes his way to the beach, kicking the too-big sandals off at the walkover. It’s six in the morning. The sky is still dark. 

He’s lost Lisbon. 

He twists his wedding ring around his finger, again and again until the skin underneath it is red, and for one bitter, corrupted moment, he hates his dead wife. 

Not that she’s at fault. It had been his words that killed her and his decision to seek revenge. But Angela’s fate still represents the part of him that he’s desperate to escape. And sometimes, it feels like his grief is so great, so overwhelming, that all he can do is drown in the fact that he’s lost her and Charlotte. It’s never really easier. Sometimes he’s happy, now more frequently than ever, but all it takes is one look at his hands and the grief comes again to remind him of what he’s done, what he’s lost. To take off the ring is a betrayal of that still-present feeling. But to leave it on is to dismiss Lisbon's position in his life. 

He slips it off and climbs to his knees at the edge of the surf, staring sightlessly into the wine-dark sea. Gone are the soft, gentle, turquoise waves of day. Now, the waves toss and foam in the dark, and he loosens his fist around the ring.

He pulls his arm back, prepared and determined, and prays for release. He forces his arm forward. 

Release does not come.

The ring is still imprinting its shape into the palm of his hand, and the waves crash hard against the shore, mocking and daring all at once. He collapses back on his heels, grounding his free hand into the cold, damp sand. 

Throw it, he pleads with himself, his breath speeding up as he fights for control of his trembling body. Tears are threatening once more, and he wants to laugh bitterly at what he's become. A mess of a man, but for the grace of one woman. His father would mock him, but Jane doesn’t care. Lisbon gets all of him that’s left. He just wants to be able to give her more. You gave them over a decade of your relentless revenge. Why can’t you give Lisbon something better? 

And, like an apparition, at the thought of her, she appears. 

“Hey,” Lisbon says quietly behind him, nearly causing him to lose his balance and fall into the surf. “I’m sorry for what I said last night. That was out of line.” She walks around to his side. “Maybe”—she catches sight of his face and blanches, dropping to her knees in the sand—“Jane, what’s wrong?” 

“I was gonna…” He trails off,  still hyperventilating. He unfurls his fist and gestures to the ring in his palm, then the ocean. “I tried…” 

Lisbon, to her infinite credit, understands instantly. Her face falls and her hands immediately reach for him. “Oh Jane.”

“I don’t want it anymore,” he chokes out. “I don’t want it. I want you.” The truth is brutally torn from him, but that’s what it is. “I can’t have it,” he admits finally, still staring down at the harmless circle of gold that has caused him so much agony, “but I can’t throw it away.” 

She takes his hand, curling his fingers around the ring. “Set that aside for now,” she tells him, and his shoulders drop like a marionette whose strings have been cut. At least his body is capable of doing what Lisbon wants. “I need to tell you some things that I should’ve told you a long time ago.” 

Swinging her legs around to sit more comfortably, she pauses for a long moment, looking out at the water. The waves are calm now, gently lapping against the sand. He smiles a little at his own poetic mind; why wouldn’t Lisbon’s soothing presence extend to nature herself? 

“It was only two months after my mom died that my dad hit me for the first time.” 

All thoughts of the ocean slip away as he looks over at her in genuine shock. This, even he couldn’t have expected. He reaches over to touch her wrist, light and without expectation. “Teresa, you don’t need to-”

“I do,” she confirms. “I really, really do.” She tilts her head as she looks out at the waves, but she doesn’t pull away from his touch. Then, she shrugs. “He was going to hit Tommy. I couldn’t let that happen. After that, it didn’t stop. Bills were piling up, the boys still had normal kid problems, and if we were lucky, my dad was passed out on the couch when we got home from school. I worked two jobs, and I forced Stan and Jimmy to work too. Their grades dropped, but we needed to put food on the table.” 

Jane stays quiet, letting her continue without pressure, but he studies her with an intensity he’s sure she feels despite not looking at him. “When I decided to come to California, to join the force, it was selfish. I left them all behind. Greg too.” 

This, he can’t abide. Lisbon is one of the least selfish people he's ever known. Her capacity to care is unparalleled. Jane would know; he’s evidence of her refusal to put herself first. “Lisbon-” 

“The job was everything,” she confides in him, low but certain, like she’s sharing a terrible secret. “When I had nothing, I had the job. When you joined us, and you were frustrating and difficult, I had the job. When you went to Vegas, I had the job. When you went to Venezuela… I mostly had the job. When you came back, and I didn’t know… I wasn’t sure… I had the job.” 

“And then I asked you to give up the job,” Jane says softly. 

She nods, bringing up her free hand to rub under her eyes. He doesn’t see any tears on her face, but he recognizes the vulnerability in the gesture. He taps her wrist without intention, a subconscious reminder that he’s sitting here next to her. “I don’t—I’m not proud of it. I knew what it was doing to you. I’m not blind. That bullet that tore my blazer, the nights you sat at the table in the Airstream and watched me sleep.” She exhales shakily, finally meeting his eyes. It is only then that he sees the tears welling underneath her irises, clinging desperately to her eyelashes, and he brings up a hand without thinking. His thumb is shaking, but she doesn’t stop him from brushing the tears free of her lashes and laying his palm against her cheek. He’s holding his world in his hand, and they both know it. 

She brings up her hand to hold his against her cheek. “I’ve never been loved like you love me, Patrick,” she tells him, squeezing his fingers. 

“I know,” he says gently. 

Then, she brings his hand down, putting it back in his lap and wrapping her arms around her legs. “And when I needed you, you left,” she says. Her voice contains no accusation, but that’s almost worse. There’s so much emotion there, a chasmic fear, and he knows without question that she’s permitting him to see a part of her that perhaps no one ever has seen. “You—you were going through something terrible, and you faced it alone. You couldn’t rely on me.” 

He tries to speak. I’m sorry. I love you. I rely on you always. More than you know. Please forgive me. But the words refuse to escape; they’re blocked by the lump in his throat. He tries to find a way to tell her that he’ll watch her run in front of a thousand trains if it means he gets to be the person whose arms enclose around her when the battle is won. That he’ll manage as long as she sleeps beside him every night. That he’ll never leave her again if she would only smile that smile at him and tell him that everything is okay as long as they’re together. 

He can’t speak, but Lisbon looks at him, and he can tell by her face that she sees it all. Every fear, every doubt, and every agonizing moment that he’s loved her and thought her lost. He’s speechless, but at the same time, he’s telling her everything. 

He closes his eyes against his own tears, blurry vision denying him his final view of her, waiting for her to stand and walk away. To leave him to his grief and terror and misery. She’s pushed him away for a week; he has no doubt of the strength of her will. If she chooses not to forgive him, she won’t. Even if she breaks her own heart in the process. 

But then: the soft brush of her little fingers against his elbow. 

Lisbon, in her infinite grace and benevolence, has tucked her arm through his. She squeezes his bicep, and then, he feels the perfect weight of her head on his shoulder. “I know,” she says, taking his own words and making them hers. 

For a minute, they breathe together, the ocean roaring in the background. After he feels like he’s able to open his eyes, he does, looking down first at her hand on his arm, then at his own hands. He unfurls his fist, cradling the ring in his palm. At the sight of it, with Lisbon leaning against him, any twisted feelings toward his wife or Red John or Lisbon or anyone else leach out of him, soaking into the sands, into the earth. The joy he feels is still dashed with pain, but he will take on that pain a thousand times for the joy of it all. 

Part of Jane will always be walking up that staircase and finding that note and opening that door. Part of Lisbon will always bury herself in the work that she believed saved her. He will never fully heal from his life, nor will Lisbon ever truly heal from hers, but they can do their best to protect each other from the past. And it’s going to start with him. 

He brings the ring closer to her, hovering his hand over her lap. “Take it,” he urges, his voice breaking. He’s coming apart at the seams. It’s all for her. 

Lisbon’s eyes dart to his, reading him carefully. He leaves himself open to her scrutiny. He means his words with the best part of him. The same part of him that told her he was simply happy to tell her he loves her and meant it. 

“Take it,” he repeats, “and take me as your husband.” 

For a brief moment, a thousand questions pass across her face. He doesn’t blame her; this doesn’t solve their problems. It doesn’t fix the fact that she runs headfirst into danger or that he leaves. 

Then, her face clears. To his infinite relief, he realizes that she has decided he’s worth the effort to try again. “I will,” she swears, soft and certain. He grins, dipping his head to kiss her. It’s light and simple, a homecoming. After a few moments, she breaks away and taps his knee until he lowers it, climbing to sit between his legs and facing the ocean. He brings up his leg again to trap her against him, and she leans back against his chest. When she inhales, he follows suit, until he has synchronized their breathing. 

Together, they watch the first light of day spill across the horizon. It reflects on the ocean, pinks and silvers and blues, colors of the morning. Wine-dark for crystal-clear. California’s coast at its best. 

In Jane’s opinion, the view is nothing compared to the feeling of the woman cradled in his arms. He presses his face into her dark hair, in that moment, he begins to understand the idea of peace. 

—

When they walk back to Minelli’s house, they do so hand in hand.

Jane doesn’t let go, even when Lisbon blushes and attempts to pull away as they join Minelli and May in the kitchen. May grins wide when she sees their hands. Minelli doesn’t, but Jane can see the twinkle in his eye when he catches sight of Jane’s ring hanging next to Lisbon’s cross around her neck.

“All good, kids?” He asks. 

“Getting there.” Jane looks over at Lisbon with raised eyebrows, and she turns even more red. “Do you mind if we take advantage of your hospitality a while longer?” 

“You are very welcome here,” May says with her typical, motherly graciousness.

“Make sure you wash off the sand before you trail it everywhere,” Minelli adds, but there’s now a smile pulling helplessly at the corners of his mouth. 

Jane and Lisbon spend every morning following Jane’s proposal on the beach. Lisbon attempts to make him go on her morning runs with her, but she has little success. Instead, Jane sets up a towel and sits, watching her until she becomes a little speck on the horizon, then, after turning, becomes larger and larger until she collapses at his side. He likes to hand her a bottle of water and watch her gulp it down. There’s a strange joy and satisfaction in providing a necessity to Lisbon. He’s always enjoyed cooking for her for the same reason. 

They talk about everything and nothing. They discuss the new addition to the Rigsby-Van Pelt clan one minute, and in the next, he’s telling her that he feels the need to retreat to face his problems, and how he plans to do better. They’re discussing Minelli’s attempt at bouquet arrangement for May while they walk down to the beach, and Lisbon is telling him that she needs him to be straight with her when he’s deeply upset on the walk back up. 

A week later, she’s grabbing a tupperware of apple slices that he prepared with bright, eager eyes, her cheeks glowing with sun and sweat, when she moves their conversation out of light chatter and into deeper waters. “I like it here,” she says. 

He’s not sure that she means it seriously, but he doesn’t pass up the opportunity to pry into her thoughts regardless. “Do you want to stay?” He asks, trying to keep his tone breezy. 

It doesn’t work. Lisbon straightens up from where she’s collapsed over the apple slices like a feral raccoon—a very, very adorable, feral raccoon—looking over at him. “What?” She licks the apple’s juice from her lips, and his heart thuds hard in his chest.

“Do you want to stay?” he repeats, more earnest this time. “You didn’t choose Austin. Neither did I. Would you be happier in California?”

He can tell he’s caught her off guard. “Would you?” She asks, handing the metaphorical hot potato back to him. That’s fair. He can be the vulnerable one. 

“Bad things happened to me here,” he admits, stealing one of her apple slices and popping it in his mouth. Her eyes narrow, but she allows it. “But I also met you. And I chose this place a long time ago, when I left my father.” 

She is quiet for a moment, chewing on her own apple slice. “I don’t think I can go back to Sacramento," she says finally, swallowing.  

He shakes his head; he wouldn’t want to take them back there either. “We don’t have to. LA either. There’s an FBI field office in San Diego. Only a few hours from where we are now.”

“I like San Diego,” she whispers, and he knows she’s telling the truth. They’ve had cases in San Diego, and she’s said the same thing offhanded a few times. The food, the energy, the proximity to water. He knows she’s missed the water since Chicago, and Sacramento was far too inland. So too is Austin.  

“I need more than that, Teresa. Tell me what you’re thinking.” 

“I chose California, just like you,” she says after a long pause. “But I’d miss Cho.” 

Jane shrugs. “I’ll take care of it. With his permission, I’ll move us all out here.” 

“How?” 

“Do you think when we’re married, you might stop asking me that?” He asks pointedly, but he winks to soften the blow. 

“Never,” she teases back. “I’ll always want to know what you’re thinking about.” 

“You,” he replies, serious. “Always you.” 

—

At ten a.m. the following morning, they marry at the courthouse with Minelli and May as their witnesses. May promises to host a wedding lunch in San Diego for them in several months so their friends can be present, but the truth is, neither one of them wanted to wait another second to tie the knot. 

It’s Jane’s favorite metaphor. He wants to be so bound to Lisbon that no one can tear them apart. He kisses her deeply at the makeshift altar, bending her back against his arm with an encouraging chorus of May’s and the officiant’s laughter. Minelli complains, but Jane sees him wipe away several tears. After the ceremony, when Jane is finishing up with the paperwork, he even holds Lisbon tightly in his arms in a father’s embrace. Witnessing this, Jane solidifies their decision to move to California. Minelli is good for Lisbon. She deserves to be close to family. 

Jane holds Lisbon’s hand in their taxi to the airport. They’re off to Ireland for two weeks, then Austin for Jane to work his magic, then San Diego to start at the FBI field office there. Abbott has agreed to help facilitate the transfer. Cho has already agreed to move with them, and both men had suggested extending an offer to Wylie as well. The ghost of Vega is far too strong in Austin, and the young man deserves a fresh start. 

Half a day later, they’re cocooned naked in bed together in some Irish castle that Jane had procured through a dizzying juggle of favors. Lisbon lays her head on his shoulder, allowing his long, gentle strokes down her bare back. She picks up his hand from his stomach, toying with his fingers, and he can hear her thinking. At first, he wonders if it’s the novelty of the gleaming platinum band now featured on his ring finger. After five minutes of uncertain silence, he changes his mind. “Speak to me, my dear,” he says. 

“I’m so happy,” she says in a voice that sounds not happy, but anxious. He just waits her out with a raised eyebrow. “You know we’ll be doing the same job in San Diego, right? Same criminals. Same danger.” 

“I do.” 

“Then we haven’t fixed anything,” she says in a rush, fighting to sit up in bed. He doesn’t let her, pulling her back and arranging her body so that she’s half on top of him, her breasts pressing into his chest. He ignores the faint stirring of arousal. They have two weeks to enjoy their honeymoon, but Jane knows he’ll be enjoying nothing if Lisbon gets on an anxious roll. “What were we thinking? We got married, but that doesn’t fix things.”

“You’re supposed to get cold feet before the marriage, darling,” he points out, wincing when she hits his arm. It stings more skin to skin. 

“Hush, you,” she complains. “It’s just—what has really changed?”

“Oh, Teresa,” he says, softly, picking up her left hand and pressing a kiss to the large, sparkling diamond he practically had to con her into, “we have.” 

“What?”

“You opened up to me after I hurt you,” he says, ignoring her faint blush. “And I… well. I just had to acknowledge that true love always contains a trace of bitterness.” 

“And you’re okay with that?” She confirms. 

Jane spends an extra second digesting this question. He’s under no illusions that everything is fine now. He is actively planning for their continuing discussions about the work. The San Diego office is thrilled to have them, and his mind is already rushing ahead, full force, to figure out how to best take advantage. 

But okay? He’s better than okay. He’s in bed with his wife, their vows of forever fresh in his mind, and he’s already called for a bowl of strawberries and cream for later, which he’s going to use to do wicked things to her body. One might even say that he’s floating on air, at this point. 

“The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet,” he quotes, kissing her temple. 

He feels her smile against his chest, then her head rises from its resting place. She crawls up his body until they’re face to face, her eyes dark and warm. “Of that and all the progress, more or less, resolvedly more leisure shall express,” she quotes back.

His mouth drops open in shock. “Lisbon! You’ve been holding out on me!” 

“I read your favorites when you were gone,” she admits, “it made me feel closer to you.” 

He rolls her over, shifting until he’s in between her lovely legs. He nibbles at her lower lip before sealing his mouth over hers, stealing sweetness from her again and again, fighting the urge to grin against her lips. “Lady,” he says between kisses, groaning as she rakes her fingers through his hair, “shall I lie in your lap?” 

“No,” she says, flipping them over in immediate retaliation, “I want to sit in yours.” She drags him up against the headboard, her movements in sync with her words. 

This is acceptable to Jane. He likes her in his lap; when she thinks she’s in control, it’s all the more fun to turn the tables on her later. Still, he can’t resist needling her. “I don’t think that’s what Ophelia said,” he says, kissing his way down her neck. 

“She’s dead, and I’m alive,” Lisbon says, already shifting restlessly against him, her eyes dark and hungry, “so you should listen to me.”

There’s something deeper to her words, perhaps intentional, perhaps not, and Jane pulls back to look her in the eye. “Okay,” he says softly. “I will.” 

He pulls her back into him, as he will again and again, every day, every night, craving forever the aftermark of too much love.