Rating: T

Spoilers: 5x22, Red John's Rules

Disclaimer: These characters don't belong to me, and I'm certainly not making any money off of them.

A/N: Not entirely satisfied with this one, but I couldn't seem to recover the places where it felt it was going wrong, so have decided I'd better just live with it and call it done. This started out as a reaction to the "Jane is Red John" theories and then took a left turn somewhere along the line. I'm not convinced I went with the right ending on this one, but it was the one that presented itself to me most clearly, so here you are. Let me know what you think.

xxx

Three weeks to the day after they found the disk in which Red John informed Jane that he had killed one of his happy memories, Lisbon woke suddenly and completely from a deep sleep without knowing exactly why.

It was the middle of the night. She had collapsed into her bed, exhausted, only a few hours before.

She had no clue what had woken her. Then she turned her head to the side and saw a shadowy figure sitting on a chair next to her bed, staring at her intently.

She clamped down her instinct to yell. She channeled her reflexes into more productive action. She scrambled into a sitting position and extracted her gun from her bedside table. In the blink of an eye, she had it trained on the intruder's rumpled outline.

Then her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she realized it was Jane.

"Jesus, Jane! What the hell?" She lowered the gun and put it back into bedside drawer. "You scared me half to death."

"Sorry," he said. His voice was scratchy, raw, as though he hadn't used it in some time. Which, for all she knew, he hadn't. He'd been locked up in his attic even more than usual the last few weeks. She'd left him alone for the most part, since that seemed to be what he wanted. She didn't know how to approach him in the wake of their most recent and terrible revelation from Red John, anyway. She herself couldn't get the image of Lorelei Martins, appearing as though back from the dead, out of her mind's eye. Lorelei's voice kept playing on a loop in her head. A message from Red John… I'm going to start killing again.

Lisbon clutched at Jane's sleeve, suddenly panicked that this proclamation had already come true. "What's happened?" she said urgently. "Has someone been killed?"

His fingers closed over hers. "No one's been killed," he said quietly.

Lisbon breathed a sigh of relief and let go of him. "Oh, thank God." But then—"What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "Nothing."

She waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. "Jane, it's three am. Please tell me you didn't break into my apartment in the middle of the night just to watch me sleep."

"All right," he said slowly. "I won't tell you."

She stared at him. "Seriously, Jane, why are you here?"

He was silent for a long moment. "I've been thinking."

Lisbon prompted him when he didn't go on. "About?"

"My happy memory."

Lisbon had been thinking about it too. How had the bastard gotten into Jane's head like that? She didn't believe in psychics, but this was temptation to believe if ever there was one.

"What about it?"

"How could he know?" he said. His voice was like sandpaper. "How could he know about that?"

"I don't know, Jane. There has to be an explanation, though. Haven't you got any theories?"

"I've been thinking about it a lot," he said, agitated. "But the thing is… only one thing keeps occurring to me."

"Well, that's something," Lisbon said encouragingly. "What's the theory?"

He hesitated. He looked at her imploringly, his eyes tortured. "What if… what if I'm him?"

"What if you're who?" Lisbon said, confused.

"Red John."

She stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"What if I'm Red John?"

"Very funny, Jane."

"I'm serious. What if I'm him?"

"You're serious? You're really asking me if you're the man you've been chasing for the better part of ten years?"

"Yes."

"Jane, you're being ridiculous," she huffed. "You are not Red John. I can't believe you came all the way over here for this."

"I could have done it, Lisbon," he said hoarsely. "It could have been me all along."

"Are you kidding? You're honestly worried about this?"

He looked down. "What if I've been fooling myself all along?"

She looked at him intently. "When was the last time you got a good night's sleep, Jane?"

"I dunno. A few weeks ago, I guess. Why?"

"Because you're obviously exhausted. You're not thinking straight. Jesus, Jane, you're practically delirious."

"I'm not delirious, Lisbon. I can't… it could have been me. It could have been me all along. It would explain everything, if I were him."

She shook her head. "Jane, you're not making any sense."

"Think about it, Lisbon. How else could he know about that memory?"

"I don't know. But he has to have learned about it somehow. He's messing with you, Jane, just like he always does."

"It makes sense, though, doesn't it?" Jane said, obstinate. "How he's always one step ahead of us?"

Dear Lord. He was finally becoming unhinged. Lisbon attempted to draw him back to reality. "What about your wife and child?"

Jane blinked. "What about them?"

"Why would you kill them?"

He shrugged helplessly. "Maybe I recognized that I didn't deserve them and deserved to have them taken away."

"You don't believe that," Lisbon said firmly. "You would never have done anything to hurt Angela and Charlotte. Besides, you had an alibi."

"So you've been led to believe."

"So I know. I checked it myself when the case first came to me. You were doing a show in front of six hundred people at the time."

He struggled with this for a moment. "Maybe I hypnotized them."

"All of them? That would be quite a feat."

"I could do it," he said stubbornly.

"It was televised, Jane. Can you hypnotize TV cameras?"

"No," he said reluctantly. "But I could have paid someone to doctor the footage, change the time stamp on the video."

"All right, fine. What about all the murders since then? Half of them have been in other parts of the state while you were in Sacramento. This most recent murder, you were passed out in the bullpen when it happened."

"You don't know that. I might have gotten up in the middle of the night and done it and then gone back to my couch."

"I don't think so," Lisbon said skeptically. "I was working late that night. I would have noticed if you'd gotten up."

"Not if I waited until you'd gone home and came back before you came back to work."

"You were out cold," Lisbon said. "You didn't budge from that couch."

"Maybe I was extra careful to make it appear as though I never left the couch."

"Fine, if you don't believe me, we can go check the security footage at the office tomorrow and see if there's any indication that you left the CBI that night."

"Security footage can be doctored."

"Yes, but not by you. You have to know how to use a computer to doctor footage."

He set his jaw stubbornly. "I could have had one of my minions do it for me."

"Now you're just being difficult."

"It could have been me, Lisbon," he repeated. "It could have been me all the time."

Lisbon shook her head. "Think about this logically. Have you ever experienced any lost time? Any periods of time that you can't remember clearly?"

"No."

"Well, I worked a case once when I was with SFPD where the killer turned out to have dissociative identity disorder, and she had these stretches of time that were completely blank to her. She had no idea what she was doing during those times. You're a smart guy and everything, but I'm pretty sure even your brain couldn't carry on two completely separate consciousnesses simultaneously for over ten years."

"That doesn't mean anything," Jane insisted. "I could have programmed myself to forget when I'm him."

She raised her eyebrows. "Now you think you hypnotized yourself into forgetting that you're Red John?"

"Well, when you put it like that, it does sound a bit far-fetched," he admitted.

"Exactly. Besides, mental capacity aside, let's just think about the physical."

"I know you think I need to exercise more, Lisbon, but I assure you, I'm perfectly capable of murder when it comes to physical qualifications," Jane said indignantly.

Lisbon shook her head. "That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean?"

"What about when those college kids kidnapped you and Red John shot them to save you?"

"Perfect example in favor of me being Red John. They were a threat, so I killed them."

"You were bound to a chair. Are you telling me you killed them, and then bound yourself to a chair with about fifty yards of plastic wrap?"

"When I was doing an act as a magician I could get out of a straight jacket in forty-five seconds. If I could get myself out of something that restrictive, it stands to reason I could get myself into a comparable system of restraint."

"Fine. Say you killed them. Where'd you hide the gun and the knife you used to do the job?"

"I—I could have hidden them at the scene."

"Jane, the techs tore that place apart once they knew Red John had been there. They would have found the murder weapons if they'd been there."

"Maybe I got rid of them somehow."

"Where?"

He struggled with this for a moment. "That place was near Mono Lake. I could have driven to the lake and thrown the weapons in the water."

"So your theory is that you killed three people, drove ten miles outside town, and then returned to the scene of the crime to bind yourself up with fifty yards of plastic wrap so no one would suspect it had been you all along?" Lisbon said skeptically.

"It's possible." He sounded doubtful.

"Jane, that is a terrible plan," she said, exasperated. "Even if you were Red John, you'd come up with a plan smarter than that."

He looked somewhat cheered by this argument. "That's true."

"Besides," she went on. "You wouldn't have had enough time, even if that completely ludicrous idea was your plan all along. The last body was still warm when we found you. You wouldn't have had time to leave the scene and bind yourself up with fifty yards of plastic wrap in the amount of time that passed between the time the last kid was shot and the time we found you."

"Hm." This meant he was trying to marshal an argument against her point, but couldn't come up with a logical means of refuting it.

"That's only one example," Lisbon pressed on, sensing she was making headway. "What about Lorelei's clue? She said it was a wonder the two of you didn't become friends the minute you shook hands. Do you think you shook hands with yourself?"

"Maybe… maybe I told her to tell me that. Maybe I told her to treat me like two different people at all times."

"What about all of Red John's other followers?" she persisted. "If you were him, why wouldn't they do your bidding when you asked them about Red John?"

"Same reason."

"And none of them messed up," she said flatly. "Ever. All those minions, and none of them ever made a mistake that let you know that they were secretly in service to your evil alter ego?"

He hesitated. "I could have hypnotized them into forgetting the truth."

"What about me?" she demanded. "I know I'm not a mentalist, but do you think I'm such a poor investigator that I wouldn't notice the man I've been hunting for ten years was right in front of me all along? Do you really think I'm that unobservant?"

He shook his head. "I could have hypnotized you, too."

"Fine," she said, exasperated. "Am I hypnotized now? Am I just telling you this because it's what you want to hear? Am I so far under your spell that I've been secretly helping you kill people at night for years and then pretending to look for the killer during the day?"

"Of course not. I told you, you can't hypnotize someone into doing something against their moral character."

"There you go, then."

He shook his head.

Lisbon sighed. "Like I said, does it seem like I'm hypnotized now?"

He peered at her closely. "No. You just seem annoyed."

She reached over and took his hand. "I'm not hypnotized, Jane."

He looked down at his hand in hers. "I hypnotized you before."

"Yes. Because I asked you to. Because I needed your help."

He grunted in acknowledgment.

"You helped me, Jane," she repeated. "I was in trouble, and you helped me. Do you think Red John would have done that, when there was nothing in it for him?"

He stirred slightly. "He probably wouldn't have cared that you listen to the Spice Girls." He sounded hopeful for the first time since showing up in her bedroom uninvited in the dead of night.

"Hey," she said softly. "Look at me. You're always saying you know everything about me without me having had to tell you."

His eyes tracked her in the darkness. "So?"

"So you must know one of my happy memories from childhood. One that I never told you. Am I right? Can you tell me a happy memory I had from my childhood?"

"When you were nine, your mom took you to the ballet," he said immediately. "It was just the two of you, the Lisbon women. Your brothers were home with your dad. You were so excited to have your mom all to yourself."

"See, I never told you that."

"No."

"How did you know about it, then?"

"When you see ballet shoes or hear Tchaikovsky, you smile a little to yourself and your eyes get all soft in that way they do when you're thinking of your mom. You touch your cross when you're thinking of her, too. Nine would have been about the age when that sort of experience would have been the most exciting for you."

"You take my point, then. It's possible there's some kind of logical explanation as to how he found out," she said encouragingly. "Maybe Red John guessed your happy memory, just like you guessed mine."

"Maybe." He sounded deflated.

She squeezed his hand. "Listen to me, Jane. I know you. You are not Red John."

His eyes were desperate on hers. "How can you be sure?"

"I see you every day. No one is that good at hiding themselves," she said. "I know who you are."

He took a deep breath. "You're really sure I'm not Red John?" His voice was pitifully hopeful.

"I'm sure, Jane."

He still didn't look convinced.

She tried again. "Jane, tell me something."

He inclined his head towards her in an expression of mild curiosity. "What's that?"

"Why did you come over here tonight?" she asked softly.

He hesitated. "Because," he said finally.

"Because what?" she prodded.

He sighed. "I don't know. A lot of reasons. I wanted to make sure you were okay. And… because when I'm scared or worried, you're the one I want to see. You're a kind of touchstone for me."

Her heart melted a little at this. "Yeah?"

He met her eyes. "Yeah."

"This is what I'm talking about. If you were Red John, why would you care if I'm okay?"

He frowned. "I don't know."

She tapped her finger against his knee. "I just thought of another reason you can't be Red John."

"What reason is that?"

"If you're Red John, why haven't you killed me yet?" she asked logically.

His expression darkened. "Lisbon, don't even joke about something like that."

"I'm serious. I'm the lead investigator on his case. My team has come close to catching him several times. If you were Red John, wouldn't it make sense for you to just get rid of me? If you were him, what reason could you possibly have for keeping me alive?"

"That's… a good point," he said slowly.

She frowned. "Actually, it is. Why do you think he's never gone after me? The real Red John, I mean."

"Because he knows it would destroy me," Jane said helplessly. "He knows I'd be completely lost without you."

There was a shocked silence as Lisbon processed this. "You… you would?"

"Of course I would," Jane said heavily. "Isn't the fact that I felt compelled to break into your apartment to check on you in the middle of the night because I can't bear to go twelve hours without the reassurance of having you warm and breathing next to me a pretty significant indicator of that?"

"See, that just proves my point," Lisbon said, trying to make light of the situation despite the fact that her heart was beating at twice its normal rate. "If you were a sociopath, you wouldn't care about anybody but yourself."

"Huh," Jane said, considering this. "So you're saying my almost constant state of nearly paralyzing fear for your safety is conclusive proof that I'm not Red John?"

"Among other things," she agreed.

He sat back in his chair, letting go of her hand. "Well, that's a relief."

"You believe me now?" she asked, half exasperated, half amused.

"Yes. You make a compelling point."

"Good," she said, satisfied. "I'm glad you're finally listening to sense."

"I suppose I should probably let you get some sleep, then," he said reluctantly. He sounded as though there was nothing he wanted to do less.

"Yes, you probably should," she agreed.

He made no move to get up. "Maybe I should stay. Make sure you're safe."

She raised her eyebrows. "Aren't you afraid you might try to kill me in the middle of the night?"

"Now you're mocking my deepest fears?" he said, exasperated.

"Yes," she said without remorse. "Your ridiculous theory about you being Red John deserves to be mocked."

"You're right. It was a stupid thought," he said wearily. He stood up. "I'll leave you alone."

"Jane." She caught his hand. "I'm kidding. Stay, if you want to."

He stared at her. "What, here?"

"Of course, here. Where do you think?"

"Here," he repeated. "In your bedroom."

She sighed. "Jane, I know you. If I let you leave, you'll go back to that musty old attic and brood all night. I'd rather have you stay and get some rest, for once."

He was tempted, she could tell. Being able to read Jane for once emboldened her. She squeezed his hand again. "Come on. Get in bed." When he hesitated, she added dryly, "I promise I won't ravish you."

"What kind of incentive is that?" he asked, with the first trace of his usual Jane-ishness she'd seen all night.

She rolled her eyes. "This is a limited time offer, Jane. Are you staying or not?"

A pause. "Yeah, okay." He cleared his throat. "That'd be nice."

"Okay, then." She let go of him and gestured to the other side of the bed. "Get in."

He went around to the other side of the bed. He toed off his shoes, then stripped off his jacket and vest. "You sure about this?"

"No," she admitted. "But if you leave, I'll worry about you, and you just said you'd worry about me. It seems stupid to let ourselves worry pointlessly over something so easily corrected."

"That's true." He crawled into bed beside her, still in his pants and dress shirt. "We could be putting our worry to far more productive use."

She punched her pillow and settled back down on the mattress. "That's the spirit."

He pulled the blankets up to his chin. He glanced over at her. "This is a bit above and beyond the call of duty as a team leader, don't you think, Lisbon?"

She sighed. "Jane, you broke into my house in the dead of night so I could reassure you that you were not, in fact, your own nemesis. Not exactly something that falls within my job description, in case you were wondering. But after everything we've been through together, I think we've reached the point in our friendship where we're past the point of worrying about such distinctions, don't you?"

"Yes," he said quietly. "That's true."

She wriggled down under the blankets. "Get some sleep, Jane."

"I'll try."

"Good."

"Good night, Lisbon."

"Good night, Jane."

She turned her face into her pillow and closed her eyes.

She lay there for several minutes, but her acute awareness of Jane's nearness prevented sleep from claiming her. She listened to him breathe. She could tell he was awake as well.

He fidgeted several times. She waited, wondering if he would settle down, but he didn't. She could feel his tension next to her like a palpable thing.

She opened her eyes and turned her head towards him again. "You okay?"

"Fine," he said in a clipped voice.

"What is it?"

He fidgeted again. "Nothing."

"If it's nothing, why are you lying there like you're trying to imitate a statue?"

His eyes darted towards her. They lingered on her form for a minute before he forced them away and fixed them determinedly on the ceiling. "I'm not."

Lisbon watched him, trying to figure out what was going on with him now. He held himself stiff as a board and avoided making eye contact with her. His fingers twitched on the bedclothes.

Slowly, the truth dawned on her. She bit her lip. If she was wrong, she was going to feel like a prize idiot. "You- you want to hold me, don't you?" She could hardly believe the words coming out of her own mouth. Things must be really bad if Patrick Jane was actually craving human contact.

He let out a deep, shuddering breath. "Yeah. I do."

She swallowed. "Okay."

He turned his head toward her, his eyes full of a strange mixture of hope and regret. "Really?"

She took a deep breath. "Yeah."

"Thank you," he said, his voice rough.

"You're welcome."

He stared at her in the darkness but made no move to shift closer to her. She watched him right back. His eyes remained fixed on hers, dark and unfathomable.

When the intensity of his scrutiny became unbearable, she reached for his hand. "C'mere." She turned, pulling him with her. She placed his arm around her waist and tentatively placed her own hand on top of his.

He scooted towards her and pulled her closer to him at the same time. He didn't stop until his entire frame was molded to hers. Hip to hip, thigh to thigh. His chest pressed against her back. He drew her hair away from her neck so he could nuzzle against the freckles on the back of her neck. He tightened his arm around her waist and cuddled impossibly closer.

She took a shaky breath. "This is probably a bad idea, isn't it?"

"Terrible," he sighed in contentment. He buried his nose in her hair and breathed deeply. "Worst idea ever."

Her fingers tightened against the arm he had around her waist. "As long as we're agreed, then."

"Mm."

Bravely, she rubbed her thumb over the golden hairs on the back of his wrist. "Everything's gonna be okay," she said softly. "We're going to stop him. I don't know when, but eventually, we will."

He sighed against her. "When you say it, I can almost believe it."

She pinched his forearm. "Believe it, buster. We're going to get him."

He chuckled despite himself. "Okay, okay. I believe you."

"Good."

They lapsed into silence. Jane relaxed against her, his entire body surrounding her, warm and comforting. Lisbon started to think sleep was a possibility after all.

Then Jane yawned into her hair and murmured, "You know I love you, right?"

Oh, dear God. Was he seriously bringing this up now, of all times? She considered making some light remark and brushing it aside, but in the end, she decided to stick with the truth. With the way things were shaping up, she didn't know if she'd have another opportunity to have a conversation like this, and she didn't want to have any regrets if things didn't go their way in the end. "Sometimes," she said at last.

He raised his head. "Only sometimes?"

"Well, you make it rather difficult to be certain," she pointed out. "You're always pushing me away."

"That's to keep you safe."

She controlled a flash of anger. She curled up the hot golden thread and tucked it back down into the bittersweet heartache in her chest. "That's not what it feels like."

"I'm sorry. If I knew another way to keep you safe, I would use that instead."

"Pushing me away last year resulted in Red John asking for my head in a box," she pointed out. God, he was supposed to be so brilliant. How could he not see that?

"But it didn't result in your head actually being in a box," he pointed out. "So it worked."

The worst part was, she knew he actually believed that. Idiot. "Do you really want to have this conversation now?" she asked, exasperated. "Five minutes ago, you were afraid you were a sociopath. Now you want to bring up relationship issues you've spent the last ten years avoiding?" Although in a strange way, it almost made sense that he was swinging to opposite ends of the pendulum's arc. All the emotional vulnerabilities Jane kept so ruthlessly suppressed most of the time had a tendency to surface in unexpected ways when he was upset.

"I agree my timing could be better," he allowed.

"No kidding," she muttered. His arm was still around her waist. "Just—go to sleep, Jane. There's no point in arguing about this now. It's not going to solve anything."

Jane ignored this. "You think I like pushing you away?" he demanded. "You think I wouldn't cut off my right arm to be free of this? To be free to pursue you, to be closer to you?"

This from the man who had held revenge so tightly to his chest for the past decade it had literally taken over his life. She turned over in his arms so she could face him. He shifted to give her room to move, but didn't let her go. He kept his arm hooked around her waist, his hand on the small of her back holding her to him. "I think it's awfully convenient for you to use the 'safety' excuse to push me away whenever you're afraid I might see some part of you that you don't want me to see."

"Of course I don't want you to see every part of me," he said, now annoyed himself. "If you could see every part of me, you'd run screaming for the hills."

Their faces were so close together on her pillow she could see every line of worry and tension ingrained around his eyes and mouth. They looked much deeper up close. "So what, then, you want to push me far enough away so I can't see the worst parts of you, but not far enough away to make me walk away all together?"

He hesitated. "Well, yeah. Basically."

She wanted to kick him. "Sounds pretty damn selfish to me."

"I never said I wasn't selfish," he said tightly.

"Right. You're a selfish, compulsive liar obsessed with revenge," she agreed. "I know this about you. So what exactly is it about yourself do you think you're managing to keep hidden when you push me away?"

He didn't answer. His eyes searched her face as though he might find the answer there.

"When did you find out?" he asked at last.

She frowned. "Find out what?"

"When I asked you if you knew I loved you, you said 'sometimes.' When did you realize I had feelings for you?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't know, Jane. Maybe when you said 'I love you,' and then pretended to shoot me." Talk about mixed messages.

"That late, huh?" he murmured, still staring at her.

She bristled at that. "What, I was supposed to guess? When even when I asked you about it then, you pretended to forget you'd ever said it?"

He winced. "Sorry about that."

"No, you're not," she snapped.

He took her hand, balled up in a fist on the sheets between them, and brought it to his lips. He kissed the back of her knuckles. "I'm sorry I hurt you."

Electricity shot up her arm like she'd stuck a fork in a light socket, jolting her heart. The sensation was half pleasure, half pain. Just like most of her interactions with Jane lately. She watched his fingers wrapped around hers. Was this another effort at manipulation? she wondered. "Well, I don't forgive you." Not yet, anyway.

He kissed her knuckles again. "Fair enough."

She sighed. Why did she even bother? "Why are you even bringing this up now, anyway, Jane? I was going to let you sleep here after indulging your crazy with the whole 'I'm Red John' thing. I wasn't going to push this… this thing between us. I was going to pretend that this sort of thing was normal, because we're friends. Well," she amended. "Normal for us."

He was silent for another long moment. "I guess… I guess I just got tired of pretending."

"Are you going to pretend to forget this conversation tomorrow?" she asked tightly.

He sighed. "Maybe it would be better if I did."

"It wouldn't be for me," she said stiffly.

A pause. "Very well," he said at last. "I won't, then."

It was her turn to search his face. "Really?"

He nodded. "Really."

"Okay, then," she said faintly. Where did that leave them, then?

He brought his hand up to her hair and brushed it behind her ear, stroking it softly. Her breath caught in her throat. What was he doing now?

He cupped her cheek in his hand. "C'mere."

But it was he who moved to her. She lay there stock still, watching as he scootched towards her, his eyes never leaving hers. He stroked his thumb over her cheek, sending more little jolts to her heart. These ones were mostly pleasant. Then he tilted her face to his and bent his head to press his lips to hers.

She was so surprised it took her half a second to react to the pressure of his soft mouth on hers. Then she brought her hand up to his face and kissed him back.

They kissed for several long moments, the kisses soft, slow, and intense. When they finally broke apart, they lay there staring at each other, both smiling shyly. Lisbon knew she should still be mad at him, but it was hard to stay angry with someone who kissed her so sweetly. Even if he had broken into her apartment worried that he was a sociopath.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that," he sighed, taking her hand again and pressing it to his heart.

She wondered if it was even half as long as she'd wanted it. "You're an idiot," was the only thing she could think to say.

His face split into a goofy grin. She watched him, her breath catching again. That smile was literally breathtaking. "Stipulated."

"This still doesn't solve anything, you know," she said.

His smile didn't diminish one whit. "I know. In fact, it's already making everything a lot more complicated."

She couldn't help laughing at him a little. "So what are you smiling about, you idiot?"

His smile widened and he swooped in to kiss her again. "Nothing," he said, stealing kiss after kiss. "Nothing at all."

He pulled her closer and arranged her so she was lying half on top of him, her head on his shoulder and her right leg thrown over his. He trapped her hand over his heart with his own. "You'll still let me hold you, won't you?"

"Did you think I was going to draw the line at a little snuggling after I let you kiss me?" Lisbon asked, rolling her eyes a little.

"There's no getting out of it now, in any case," he said, tightening his hold on her. "I really must insist on it."

"Some serial killer you'd make," she teased. "Breaking into a woman's house and demanding to be cuddled. What kind of self-respecting sociopath begs to be spooned?"

"Very funny."

"I try."

He kissed her forehead, then nuzzled her hair again. "You know," he mumbled into her hair. "After this is all over…I wouldn't mind having a bad idea again someday."

"You wouldn't?"

"No," he said softly.

Her heart beat faster in her chest. "Well, you're pretty good at bad ideas. I'm sure you could manage to have another one someday, if you put your mind to it."

He traced his fingers along the line of her shoulder. "I might…" He cleared his throat. "I might want to have more than one."

She tilted her face up to look at him. "Just how many are we talking about here?"

"Ideally, I'd like to have one every night," he said, looking at the ceiling. "You know, if such a thing were possible."

She swallowed. "That… that could probably be arranged."

"Yeah?" he said hopefully.

"Yeah."

He grinned down at her. "You know… come to think of it, I could probably come up with a few worse ideas, if I really pushed the bounds of my creativity."

She rolled her eyes. "Go to sleep, Jane," she ordered. "You need your rest. We have a serial killer to catch. A real one."

And after that, he was going to need to save his energy for those worse ideas.