AN: A real-life occurrence sparked this idea originally and it grew from there. I hope you enjoy, and would love to hear feedback, good or bad! 01/04/08 X

It's a normal day when he says it. It's been a normal morning after a normal night before. There's no particular reason why it should be said today of all days and not yesterday or tomorrow; there's no significant date today, nothing out of the ordinary has occurred in the last while, and there's no reason in the world that he can see why it should happen today above all other days.

A couple of carefully, tactically dropped hints find Jane helping look through a set of old files sent up to the bullpen from storage for probing. Lisbon doesn't quite understand it, he has no sins to atone to her, not today at least. No sheriffs scorned, no district attorneys ruffled on his behalf. Not recently anyway. God, she thinks, he must bored.

He stretches up from where he's been poring over his latest file beside her and closes it over. His voice wakes her from her thoughts.

"Here, Angie, pass me that next folder there, will you?"

He says it quickly, casually, even, and Lisbon snaps toward him but he is looking past her to the object he seeks.

Time stretches then as Lisbon flushes with colour but says nothing, waiting for a reaction, something from him. It does not come. Maybe he hasn't even realised it has slipped from his lips. He is not looking at her; he looks past her to where the folder he seeks sits inoffensively on top of a hundred more like it in a box on the desk beside her.

Lisbon is still in shock, waiting for the walls to collapse around her and yet still nothing happens despite his fatal error.

"That file there, look," He gestures to it when she doesn't respond, face gaunt and expression blank. "The grey one, from 2008."

Almost mechanically, Lisbon stretches away from him to reach the folder he seeks. Had he said it? Had she misheard?

No, she has heard correctly, she is sure. He has called her her name, as clear as a bell.

She turns back to find he is looking at her then; bemusement and confusion flit across his face as he does so.

"What?" He asks and though he asks it lightly, smile in place and one eyebrow raised, she sees him recognise the setting panic in her eyes and she takes in his slight discomfort at this.

"Nothing."

He looks at her and she pitches a short laugh but it sounds false and empty even to her own ears. "It's nothing." She doesn't want to go here with him, but she doesn't trust herself not to, so she turns to go.

Jane encloses his fingers around her wrist quickly and steers her back to him.

"Lisbon, what is it?"

She looks at where his hand rests, fingers still fixed around her wrist until he drops them. She stands a little straighter, looks up at him, repositions the heavy folder in her arm.

This is not the private and intimate moment his words demand or deserve. They are not alone here: though Cho and Rigsby are absent at present, people are aplenty. Phonecalls go on, footsteps fall and the photocopier in the corner is churning out pro-formas. Van Pelt is clattering away at her keyboard, Ron has passed them by only moments ago, but they are alone in the bubble his words have unwittingly formed.

"You-" he is looking at her curiously as she hands him the damned file. "You didn't call me Lisbon," she says, cursing the blush she feels rising high on her cheeks.

His face falls as she sees him realise his error, watches him try to put himself back together.

"Angie."

"Yes."

"I called you Angie." He is almost speaking to himself. He sets the folder back down on the desk space in front of him.

Lisbon nods, breaking eye contact and looking toward the floor. She shouldn't have said anything. It's not like she minded, it was a slip of the tongue, and bringing it up now was only hurting Jane. And God knows he has enough of that already, she thinks, ready and willing to take the blame.

She looks at him, ready to say so, but when she does so she sees that he is a million miles away.

"Jane," she says gently, hand at his elbow.

"Thanks, Lisbon," he says shortly before his name is barely passed her lips. She can see that she has brought him back to earth, back to the present where they stand in one corner of the bullpen.

"Are you alright?" She asks quietly, not wanting to create a scene.

He flashes her a grin as false as her earlier empty laugh. "Always," he says, and he whirls out of the room.

She watches, helpless, as he goes, and wonders how the hell they ever got here.

Jane pounds down the footpath, walking more quickly and with more purpose than he has in an age. He does not know where he goes, all he knows is that he must get away from here. His fists are clenched and his throat is tight; the public park where he has ended up seems much too civilised for how he is feeling right now, but it will have to do. He sits on an empty park bench and holds his head in his hands.

He had called Lisbon his dead wife's name.

It didn't mean anything, for God's sake.

It was just a name. People made stupid mistakes all the time, his job depended on that fact. And his mind was busier than most.

And if he was going to call someone it, of course it was most likely that it would be Lisbon. He spent more time around her than most others, than any others. It was logical.

Almost convinced, he lies back on the bench and finds himself watching a set of clouds pass overhead.

But how had he not heard himself? Felt himself forming his lips around that name? It had been so long since he had done so aloud, and for it to just fall past him like that, without notice, was really something, something unnerving.

To realise he – he who prided himself on the capabilities of his mind – could have such a thing occur, to be such a non-event shakes him, unnerves him.

And over a folder, over something as unimportant and superficial as a glorified stack of paper. Why had he bothered asking or it? He so easily could have leaned past her and lifted it himself.

Why did he have to have called her that? And why was it proving so troubling now?

The answer hits him that night, having swapped the park bench and the open sky for his thin mattress and attic ceiling. It wasn't that he had said Angela's name, or that he had said it to Lisbon in error, not really. It was that he hadn't felt it, hadn't realised what he had said. It had slipped past him and he realises in that moment that this is the fear – she, Angela, is slipping away from him as easily as her name had slipped past his lips.

She's already gone, has been for years, but this is new.

Time is passing, memories stem from longer ago now and he is losing her all over again.

Memories of her are slipping away, and new ones, ones without her are taking their place. More recent memories, new memories. Memories of feelings the last few years have sprung. Thoughts of the team, of the job; of Lisbon, of course; of Van Pelt, of Cho, of Rigsby. Thoughts of their tears and memories of their laughs.

They're all slipping in. It's only natural, it's only right, he knows, but today Angela has slipped his mind in favour of Lisbon and that can't happen.

He can't let this happen, he can't let himself think this is happening. He sits up and runs a hand through his hair, calming himself.

He reasons once more that if he was to say her name to anyone it would be Lisbon, after all their days and nights and times spent together, and even though they're nothing like it, she's still the closest thing to a wife he's had since his own.

The thought stills him.

She is a very understanding person, but still he wonders how much she understands.

Today she has heard him call her his dead wife's name, and he wonders how she has taken it. She's very sensible, and she is very good, and though he does it often, he hates to cause her pain.

He wonders what she thinks of all this. She does so much for him. He hopes she isn't thinking on it, knowing as he does so that she must. Jane wonders what she must think of him, of this.

He hopes she knows there was nothing in it, that she will recognise what he has figured out – the logical explanation.

She's not stupid, she won't think he thinks of her as a wife, won't expect him to declare passionate love.

He hopes to her God she won't, at least.

He lets the thought weigh around his head until he can no longer ignore the growing guilt.

He could, in another life, have been attracted to Lisbon if he'd let himself have the chance. No point in denying that she is a beautiful woman, and a good one too. She has been such to him.

She would like him too, in this scenario. They would banter back and forth and have more time than they do now. They would laugh more too. They might be very happy.

But that could never be.

Jane hopes Lisbon doesn't think of such scenarios, for they will only bring pain. She does so much for him, is caused so much by him already, he is desperate not to add to this.

He is suddenly desperate to ensure she won't.

Jane has been worrying all day that this is the reason he is so affected – that the pain he has felt for years, since he had lost his wife and daughter, that it is starting to hurt less. That he might diminish the memory of even one moment, that he could begin to be happy, that the pain he feels could lessen and his desire for revenge be decreased; the possibility is shocking and sickening and terrorises him: it is unthinkable. This has been his worry all the day, but the way he feels in this moment, worries and guilts stinging the very bones of him, he feels just as tortured as ever.

Jane sits up, draws a hand across his face, bleary and tired of this day. He pulls himself off his makeshift bed and before he knows what exactly it is he is doing he's going down the stairs, away from his attic. One step and then another until he's almost running.

He rushes down the remainder of the stairs and into the bullpen. Relief floods him when he sees the lamp in her office still lit.

He takes a quick breath and throws open the door.

"It doesn't mean anything, Lisbon. Teresa." His voice is ragged and desperate despite himself.

She is sitting at her desk. There are folders and files in front of her, paper spilling everywhere, but she hasn't been reading them. He doesn't think she's been doing anything in particular, just sitting, waiting. He's not sure for what, and he has a suspicion that she doesn't either.

"What doesn't?" She asks, standing slowly up from behind her desk, but she already knows.

He realises this so doesn't reply.

She takes a step away from her desk but seems uneager to move closer to him. It's probably the subject matter. It's probably for the best.

"What I said today, Lisbon," he says finally. "I'm sorry."

"Don't, Jane."

He looks at her.

"For God's sake, Jane, it's alright. There's nothing to be sorry about."

He tilts his head, pretending to consider.

"Of course not," he says, and wonders why it feels like a lie.

"Of course," she says, and it's a deliberate effort to lighten the mood from where they stand facing each other in her office under lamplight, the bullpen quiet now, the night outside dark. "I suppose I should take any apology I can get from you, the hassle you put me through."

He nods.

"Jane, I'm messing. It's fine. Forget about it," she shrugs, knowing that he won't. She looks at him, nervous and slightly on-edge. This has really affected him, it is clear to her now. She won't lie, it's affecting her too. All day she hasn't been able to shake it from her mind.

She'd felt ridiculous. So he'd called her the wrong name. Big deal. She'd probably done it to others a hundred times and barely noticed. Now that she can see its effect on Jane, that he's been thinking on it too, she feels less silly.

The truth is there is no right answer here, and she tells him so.

"Nothing's changed," she says. "It's just me and you."

He doesn't say anything and she finds herself beginning to wonder why.

"Come on," she says, finally stepping closer to him and nudging his elbow with hers. "Have you eaten?"

He knows she knows that he hasn't. He'd ran out at lunch and made little of himself the rest of the day. She's playing him as well as he plays her.

"No," he says then and she sees his first smile since he'd waltzed out the door away from her in his panic.

"Well then," she says, lightly shoving him towards the door. "Let's go."

"Himself and the Mrs are here again," the younger waitress nods to the elder. "The cops."

"Ah, it's been a while," the elder says. "I told you they'd be back."

The younger watches them as they take their almost usual seat at the corner window, nooked away towards the back of the restaurant. He takes her coat, throws it with his across the booth before sliding in opposite her. They intrigue her when they come, usually late at night, looking tired but always managing a smile, to her and to each other. They intrigue her then and they intrigue her now, framed by passing strangers outside as they hurry past the window which encloses them.

"I wonder if they really are a couple," the younger muses.

"Why do you care?" the older sighs.

"I think they'd make a good one, that's all."

"Maybe they are, maybe they're not, but they're definitely in need of a bite to eat."

"Long day at the office for them, do you reckon?" the younger laughs, and the older even smiles.

"Probably," she says, and then sobers. "Still, cops. We've no idea what they do be up against."

The younger quiets too. "No, we don't."

"You know what I do know though?"

"What?"

"That they're in need of a waitress who'll go and take their order and not wonder if they're married or not."

The younger makes a face and lifts her scribbled notepad. "Right you are," she laughs and makes her way over to them.

Married or not, together or not, she doesn't know, but they're here now and for now that will have to do.