Firstly, I must apologize for posting this story while Kindred Spirit is still uncompleted. My motives are completely selfish. I do not want to post the final chapter of that story if I am not happy with it. I have had some wonderful reviews and it would be a shame to finish with an ending that is not worthy of those great reviews. Thus far, I am not satisfied.

So I have written this story to cheer myself up. It is unashamedly Lisbon and Jane goodness with no crime and no real conflict between them and while that may not appeal to all of you it's what I have to write for myself for now.

Then I will finish KS

In the meantime, I hope some of you will enjoy this.

To Keep our love safe.

Lisbon wrapped up at the scene of the jewellery fiasco with a briskness over and above her usual professional efficiency. She set about battling with the inevitable afternoon rush hour traffic with her usual determination, intending to return to the office in time for her debrief with Abbott. Jane needed her, so, uncharacteristically, she resolved to make this a flying visit; it went against the grain, but the urge to get her partner back to the dubious comfort of his Airstream as soon as possible pulled her conscience in diametrically opposing directions. Love won out over duty.

She arrived feeling weary; as weary as Jane had sounded while he was whispering instructions to her through the tiny earpiece she wore earlier. The painfilled sound of his voice as it struggled past the frog in his throat was now playing on repeat in her head. It both exhausted her and spurred her on.

She made it back to the office in record time.

Dennis Abbott and her duty to the FBI was the last thing on her mind when she entered the bullpen, idly wondering why she, or anybody, still called it that, since it felt more like a call centre.

As she entered her eyes instinctively homed in on the incongruously cosy corner of the grey room that was exclusively Jane's; the only corner with books that could be read for pleasure and a lamp that glowed gold instead of white.

What she saw there made her resolve to take her sickly partner home without delay and to ask Abbott if she might come in early in the morning to write up the report that would normally have been done immediately.

Jane was sleeping.

She didn't go directly to him though, electing to do a little research first.

A brief chat with a couple of the few agents still on duty, revealed that Jane had been asleep all afternoon and hadn't stirred, only rising to stand like a statue, shivering solemnly while the same two mysterious burly men who'd moved his old brown couch earlier returned it to its usual place by the window.

The witnesses claimed they'd seen no trips to the break room to brew tea.

No peering over shoulders to relieve boredom.

They'd received no invitations to enter into wagers that no one but the crafty consultant could possibly win.

And, to their knowledge, there'd definitely been no pranks.

Nothing.

Except for the occasional sniff, sneeze or cough nobody had heard a peep from the man huddled under the homely beige blanket.

Eventually she wandered over to him.

When Jane instinctively felt Lisbon crouch down next to the couch he slowly opened one rheumy eye, slowly followed by the other, and one look at those eyes confirmed it; his inherently duplicitous nature had certainly not been encouraging him to feign sleep or sickness this time.

Patrick Jane was not faking it.

Teresa's heart skipped a beat when she looked into those blearily soulful eyes, but in deference to the public setting, she steadfastly resisted the urge to give her lover's fevered brow a comforting stroke. Instead she elected to smile reassuringly at him and squeeze his hand, then raised her head to glance meaningfully in the direction of the boss's office.

Whether by chance or not, Abbott happened to be looking their way and understood immediately what she was trying to say, so she received a half hidden but knowing smile accompanied by a slight nod and a beckoning finger.

Within moments she was on her feet and half way to his door.

Abbott rose courteously and when he silently drew up a chair for her, she thought she saw a glimpse of Minelli in him - except her former boss would have grouched and understood whereas her current one said almost nothing, but still she knew he understood.

She liked them both.

"Sir …."

He cut her off. "I know Agent Lisbon. You need to take Jane home."

She let her tension go and tried not to let it show.

Abbott smiled and picked up his pen, "Just give me two minutes, then. Tell me the basics and leave the rest for the morning."

So the verbal debrief he demanded on the case was mercifully short, before he ushered her out again, saying simply, "Go. Do what you need to do."

When she and Jane arrived at what their boss referred to as her partner's 'home' (although she and, she thought, sometimes even Jane, didn't regard it as such), without uttering a sound Jane unwrapped himself from the cocoon of his woolly blanket, dragged off his jacket, slumped onto his unmade bed and pulled another blanket half over himself.

He'd been very quiet on the way there; only telling her he was fine, but tired and had a headache and had taken some of the cold remedies she'd bought when she took him his bean soup.

He told her he didn't think the little lemony sachets laced with drugs were any good. They tasted bitter and fresh honey and lemon was healthier, he said.

She made him a cup of tea, unbidden, which he took gratefully and sat up to drink half of, while she persuaded him to at least get rid of his shoes before he lay down again, still fully clothed apart from his jacket.

The tea succeeded in reviving his spirits a little, and once he was settled and comfortable Lisbon joined the consultant, lying beside him in the dwindling evening light to listen to his ramblings about one thing and another. He lay there smiling lazily and musing in lyrical whispers about an interesting day (which he'd only been awake for the most engaging part of anyway). He laughed, amused at how well she'd pulled off his plan and the fun he'd had directing operations from his sick couch.

She'd enjoyed it too, loved his trust in her, loved how well they worked together, how 'sympatico' they were.

After a shaky start she'd reveled in his confidence in her abilities, and was flattered by his faith in her, loved how gently he'd coached her is his 'methods', which he claimed were simple, but she'd always found a mystery. But she felt she'd done him proud. And she thought she could detect pride seeping through, undisguised, in his husky voice as he instructed her.

In fact, she'd enjoyed it so much that she thought more cases where he whispered in her ear were something to be encouraged. If the whispers contained a few sweet nothings, so much the better, but, and she smiled at the thought, even work whispers were enough to get her heart racing.

It had been a good day all round: case closed, well behaved consultant, happy agent.

Yes.

Maybe Jane could be sick more often - there was hardly a down side really - after all; he didn't even whinge when he was actually genuinely sick.

Also, he was quiet.

She knew exactly where he was.

He didn't cause trouble.

And he was happy - as long as he was with her.

There really didn't seem to be a downside.

Except … she didn't like to see him suffer.

Sometime later, as she was creeping silently towards the door to leave Jane to get some restorative sleep, Lisbon paused to stifle a sneeze. A slightly croaky "sorry" wafted after her.

She quickly grabbed a tissue from the box she'd dropped off for him that morning (before he'd insisted on coming back to the office to crack the case that, obviously, nobody else could solve).

The tissue box was half empty and his little wicker wastepaper bin was already beginning to overflow.

As she pondered this, Jane's soft apology followed her, mixing with the sharp sound of her sneeze and echoing like a hypnotic chord in her brain. It made her smile. It made her marvel at the thought of a man - her man - who could imbue one single, almost inaudible, word with humour, irony and affection while full of cold and almost asleep and thus, barely aware of what he was saying. Or of the effect he had on her.

That man had magic in his voice.

And it made her love him more.

With once final backward glance, Lisbon closed the door of Jane's mobile home and as she muffled the sound of the latch with her hand, she made a mental note to drop by the drugstore for some cold remedies to replace the ones she'd been dosing him with, and now needed for herself.

She left his home with a definite hint of regret that spoiled a strangely pleasant day.

It had been a good day for so many reasons, despite Jane's illness, and as she got in her car and prepared to drive home to her empty house, Lisbon had time to think.

She felt a pang of guilt for the way she'd shut him out so harshly when they were lying there on his bed mere minutes ago; him half under the covers and her on top of them.

There hadn't been anything awkward about the way they were. They lay side by side but separate and lying straight, like soldiers, except that Jane, as was his habit, had his fingers interlaced loosely on his chest.

They'd been perfectly at ease; no need for physical contact. Just being together was often enough.

Jane been free-thinking about the future.

It was obvious he was mostly letting his thoughts run free because he was relaxed and drowsy and didn't feel like thinking them through before he actually said them. Even though it was hard to tell Jane's random thoughts from his artfully constructed and targeted ones, the way he'd been tonight had been different.

When she'd left his side so abruptly, it hadn't occurred to her that it wasn't often she was privy to these innermost dreams. That perhaps she should make the most of these precious moments.

She hadn't had time to dwell on it then, but now on the short drive home , she did.

Even now that they were 'together' she was never sure how much of himself Jane actually revealed. Certainly, it had always been, and often still was, hard for him to show the world his true self after so many years spent protecting his broken heart and concealing those parts of him that he was ashamed of. They both knew that even though they were almost at that point where he could trust his heart and his feelings to her implicitly and completely, it was something they were still working on. And they both knew that particular truth cut both ways.

He'd always declared with the utmost bravado that he trusted her. And she'd always made a point of letting him know in no uncertain terms that she didn't trust him.

Both had been telling the truth, up to a point. And the truth was neither of them found trust easy.

But they were teaching each other and now they were almost there.

One thing she was sure of now though, was that he loved her.

And she loved him.

And they were learning to be more open.

So, yes, she felt guilty for overreacting to his suggestion that they blow the FBI and sail off into the sunset. She now realized that she'd practically leapt up off the bed as if he'd demanded she hand in her notice at once.

That wasn't what he had done at all.

No doubt the ideas he was rambling on about had been running rings around his mind for some time and no doubt they were serious thoughts, or they wouldn't have had the strength to rise to the surface now, when he was sick and definitely not his confident self.

Although it was reassuring that this meant Jane was being honest with her, what he said made her uncomfortable. And she did wonder how long he might have kept these thoughts to himself if circumstances had been different.

But, on reflection, Lisbon knew he hadn't meant to hurt or challenge her. It was just that she hadn't seen it coming. Now that she thought about it, it was clear that Jane's suggestions (if he even remembered having voiced them) ought to be the subject of rational discussion, not something slapped down so defensively. She resolved to put the subject aside till he was better and they could chat about it over an ice cream.

Nevertheless, the thought of a life outside of law enforcement was scary, and it re-surfaced as a nagging drumbeat in her head before she got through the third set of lights.

It lingered with her through the rest of the short drive home (via the drugstore), and made her night a restless one, until she finally found sleep.

Lisbon rose ridiculously early, the lack of any desire to stay wide awake in bed when there was absolutely no point and the promise made to Abbott last night all she needed to get going.

But instinct diverted her from making the FBI offices her first port of call.

It wasn't her famous cop instinct.

She didn't know whether it was a good thing or unprofessional, but she didn't feel guilty that the thoughts that disturbed her lonely night had to be exorcised by an early visit to see Jane before she could concentrate on work. After all, she had promised she'd call to check on him in the morning. She just hadn't specified how early she might be.

At well before seven a.m. a weak sun glanced in fine silvery spears off the dewy surface of the Airstream's curved roof and bounced in bright sparkles off the wet grass. She'd never seen it looking like this, glistening smooth and sleek among the green; Jane's own private, shining silver palace, a memory of the better times in his childhood, maybe.

It was still chilly and the unwelcoming coldness of the metal door handle, as she tried to get the key into the lock, made her regret leaving him alone last night and glad that she had returned so early; she imagined that no matter how romantic it appeared in the morning sunshine, the silver bucket would be freezing inside.

A little below par herself and grumpy from the combination of a bad night's rest and getting up earlier than usual, she found herself smiling anyway; Jane's key was in her hand and it was in her possession because she had stolen it from his pocket.

Okay, so he hadn't been wearing his jacket at the time. Still it was a good feeling, to turn the tables occasionally, and it was for his own good; she could sneak in quietly without disturbing the sleep her consultant so badly needed.

But the sight that met her eyes as they adjusted to the dim light inside made Lisbon glad she had trusted herself and not her cop self.

Wedged into the corner where the back of the bench seat at the foot of his bed met the window, sat the hunched figure of her pitifully woebegone friend.

The blanket he had dragged with him all around the office yesterday, was once again pulled up over his head and clutched tightly around his body. She couldn't tell at first if he was awake or sleeping, until he heard her and slowly lifted his head and peered at her with dull greenish eyes that couldn't seem to focus.

He looked completely miserable.

Then he blinked slowly and spoke.

"Hey."

The sound seemed an octave lower than usual, gravelly and weak, his delivery sluggish. "What time is it?"

"Too early." She sniffed and threw down the pack of medications on the table, beside two cups that sat discarded with their dregs of long forgotten tea. "You get any sleep?"

"Tried." He cleared his throat them mumbled tiredly through the stubborn croak. "Had to get up. Couldn't settle."

"I was worried about you."

Lisbon frowned at him for a long time before depositing her bag next to the pills.

"I'm fine," he insisted and shifted forward slightly, leaning towards her. And suddenly an arm was unfurling lethargically from under the shelter of his woolly comforter, long fingers searching for contact.

His hand was hot and dry as it enveloped hers and pulled her to him, and slightly shaky.

As skin met skin, Jane's face softened with a wan smile. "I missed you."

And when he looked up at her in the thin morning light, she could see a hot pink flush flooding over skin that looked pale, translucent and dry - as if fever had drained it of life.

"Come here," he invited, opening the folds of his blanket, struggling a bit to find a way out.

She felt his heat escape into the cool Airstream.

"Need a cuddle," he told her.

Initially Lisbon resisted, not really knowing why, but finally she allowed herself to be dragged into a disorganized and slightly feeble embrace.

Jane planted his burning, crusty lips gently on her cheek with such delicate longing that she felt a sudden urge to cry.

But she sneezed and the contact was abruptly broken.

Jane flinched and blinked, then grimaced.

So she sat back in order to see his face properly. "I can't stay Jane."

His expression fell to thoughtfulness, until ...

"Yes you can," he exclaimed brightly and with a hint of triumph, told her, "You've got what I've got. No reason to stay away - we can be sick together. I'm sure Abbott would be perfectly amenable to you keeping our germs out of his clean zone …" His voice ground to a painful halt and he stopped to clear his throat. "… and besides you playing nurse means he gets his most valuable asset back in tip top working order sooner rather than later."

Lisbon almost scowled at the nurse suggestion, which she knew he'd thrown in to tease her, but she thought better of it.

"I feel absolutely fine Jane. I just have a little sniffle. No fever. Whereas you …" She stroked the tip of her finger playfully down his nose and gave him an exaggerated glare. "… are ill."

Jane opened his mouth again to object, but the deep breath he needed to fuel his indignation was arrested by a ferocious cough that rattled deep in his chest and drew his face into an unattractive expression of pain and forced his body to crumple in on itself.

He closed his eyes for a few moments, waiting for the accompanying cold sweat to disappear.

"See! ," she retorted rather too loudly.

Lisbon tried, really she did, but she failed not to sound either amused or unsympathetic, although soon she found her hand rising in concern to feel his forehead and brush through the messy locks above it. His brow was burning but suddenly sticky where it hadn't been before and she could feel the pulse racing in his temple.

"Patrick," she told her consultant in her most solicitous and persuasive tone; not difficult since she was in fact growing more and more concerned. "It's cold in this tin can of yours, and you're sitting here swaddled like a baby in your blanket, shivering and miserable, yet you're not even aware that you're burning up with fever. Your temperature's way too high, you obviously haven't slept and I could hear that cough making horrible noises in your chest from outside the door of this stupid so called home of yours. And you gave the game away when you let the pain show on your face … you let your mask slip Patrick Jane and … and where did that cough come from … you …"

"But I've stopped sneezing …" he protested hopefully when she paused her anxious tirade to come up for air.

"Doesn't mean a thing," she blasted back.

"Would I lie to you Teresa?" came the counter argument, delivered in a pathetic whine, that on any other day would have been a blatant wind up, but today she knew was genuine. "I came clean about it yesterday, didn't I? Stayed in the office on my sick bed like a good boy, while you took the limelight - and I must say that sounded like some performance." He grinned briefly and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. "Very proud of you," he mumbled.

"Yeah, you did. You did admit you were sick yesterday." She knew she had him now, so ignored his last appeasing remarks and thundered on. "So why are you saying you're fine today, when any damned fool can see you're not."

She brushed the warm hand that lingered on her arm away and glared at him properly now. "I'm not a complete idiot you know. What's the game Jane?"

He didn't answer.

It was then, as she watched him gradually wilting under the steely gaze she tried to maintain, that she realized the truth of the man and his still messed up sense of self.

That foolish, sweet, screwed up man-child.

He hadn't felt well yesterday but instead of blustering his way through the day on a diet of aspirin and in otherwise complete denial as he would usually have done, he had given in to the inevitable when Abbott had called his bluff. He'd gone home as he was told, but had used the situation for her advancement and his own amusement.

Over the years, he had been cautiously letting her into the inner sanctum of his world of mental trickery and subterfuge; a realm which, to outsiders, most of the time looked like nothing more than flashy showbiz and cheap magic.

It had started with small things, then graduated to stage work, like displaying stuffed dead wildlife to show off his magnificent memory and trap a killer.

The next step had been as assistant to his mind reading act at that god-awful men only club in the middle of nowhere. She'd had to deliver the correct key words carefully disguised so he could give the right answers.

That was also the time when he'd done the selfless, gentlemanly thing and arranged a 'copter so she wouldn't have to forego her date with Pike. She didn't know whether to kiss him or slap him for that when she thought about it now. Sweet, stupid man.

But that job had been fun for both of them … she'd seen it in the gleeful way he'd bounced around the stage. And she'd felt a fleeting, joyful closeness that, at the time, she'd thought they'd lost.

A lot of water had flowed under the bridge since then and there hadn't been a case that had called for them to perform together like that, but yesterday his sickness had presented the perfect opportunity to push her to the next level; to include her completely in his fun way of detection.

She wasn't sure now, as she sat watching him - all shivery, pale and feverish, whether he had actually been well enough to put on the show himself anyway.

Possibly not, but who could ever know with the enigmatic Patrick Jane.

One thing was certain though, yesterday's hour of coaching in the Airstream and his supportive prompting in her ear that had led to the dramatic unveiling of the killer, had been like a present for her.

Another sign of his trust.

It had been another building block in the budding relationship that seemed to have been in suspended animation for so many years and was only now beginning to blossom.

That had been yesterday, but today Jane had reverted to the security (or insecurity) of his old persona; that closed off man who deflected, protected himself from pain and anything or anyone who could subject him to it or remind him of it, and most importantly (today, anyway) that included any hint of doctors. And, although she hadn't even mentioned that dreaded profession, he was already feeling threatened.

So Jane, or so he said, was not now, and not ever, ill - except that looking at him today it seemed that he was indeed ill and, unfortunately, a doctor was the very thing he needed.

Eventually, when he saw that her exasperated expression had melded into something altogether more compassionate, Jane sighed in defeat and answered her question. The question she'd almost forgotten asking. What was his game?

"Okay," he grumbled. "I give up. I was only a little bit sick yesterday - well, maybe just a little bit more than a little …"

She frowned and huffed.

He coughed and grimaced.

"… and perhaps I might have milked it. But, in my defence, we had a perp to nab, and we had fun, didn't we? You know we did."

He used his pointer finger in that inimitable way of his and shrugged weakly under cover of his blanket.

"Besides they wouldn't have caught her without us," he added seriously.

She was going to object, but he swiftly turned that pointing finger into a deflecting palm and continued.

"And, okay - as you've pointed out, I don't feel too good this morning. But I'm sure I'll be better tomorrow. Just had a bad night. Need to hit the sack. Catch me some zeeees."

With that, intending to transfer back to bed, he manfully wrestled the blanket from around his body, and scrambled from the seat, causing Teresa to jump up out of his way.

He stood there before her in the creased, slightly damp clothes that he'd been in for a full twenty four hours, swaying and wobbling like a newborn foal while he found his equilibrium and something to hang onto.

"Thanks," he said gratefully when she quickly grabbed hold of his arm to stop him from tumbling into an embarrassed heap on the floor.

"Got up too quickly …" he bluffed, but she thought he looked like he might be about to vomit. She dipped to examine his eyes and took hold of his shoulders firmly while he blinked, took a few rapid, shallow breaths and steadied himself.

"Okay now?" she asked when it seemed the crisis was over.

He nodded bashfully and attempted a small smile.

"Right. This is what's going to happen," Lisbon told him sternly while he stood there in something of a daze. "You're going to get out of those stinky clothes and take a cool shower, while I mix up one of these cold thingies - if nothing else that should get your temperature down a bit. I'll sort out the bed so you can snuggle down and get some sleep while I go do my job, which I should have been doing half an hour ago. Hopefully when I get back, you'll be better and I won't be forced to call a doctor."

"Yes Mom," Jane muttered meekly because he knew when he was beaten and didn't have the energy to resist.

Then he squirmed out of her grip, dropped down onto the side of the bed and started fumbling with his shirt buttons, studiously ignoring the last part of his dear Teresa's instructions (specifically the 'doctor' part) because to be honest he just wasn't up for a fight - not even a small banter session.

"Need some help getting undressed?"

He looked straight up into her kind green eyes and quipped with remarkable deadpan, "Not tonight Josephine - but would you tug my socks off?"

"Bending down could be dangerous," he explained. "Feeling a bit dizzy."

Unfazed, she knelt and pulled off each soggy Washington sock, threw them toward the corner where she knew he stashed his laundry, and started on the buttons that he'd already given up trying to unfasten.

"Where d'ya keep clean pyjamas?"

"Down there, bottom drawer," he indicated with a small nod that made his head swim and had him closing his eyes briefly, then he wriggled out of his shirt as soon as she had finished unbuttoning it and pushed himself up off the bed.

She was still kneeling, so he held onto her shoulder as he stepped carefully out of the trousers that had slid down his legs to a sad pool of cloth at his feet.

"Thank you, Teresa," he said quietly and she felt a little waft of something indefinable sweep over her.

She couldn't figure if it was shame or simply shyness – the moment was so strangely intimate.

She hesitated for a moment.

"Are you going to be alright in the shower?"

But he had already turned away.

"Yeah. I'll be fine," came the morose reply as Teresa Lisbon watched Patrick Jane and his very attractive boxer clad bottom shuffle and wobble cautiously into the bathroom. "I'll yell if I'm not."

Thanks for reading