Chapter 13: things we're all too young to know

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"So, the whole team knew you were kidnapping me?" asks Lisbon. She squints into the afternoon sun as she drives west.

"Rigsby and Cho were all for it," says Jane cheerfully.

"And Van Pelt?"

"Ah, I'll admit she was a little uncomfortable lying to you. And she didn't appreciate falsifying a murder. But with persuasion she felt the benefits outweighed her scruples."

Lisbon doesn't reply. She doesn't need to consider any 'benefits' the team might have discussed with Jane.

"Take the next exit," says Jane and suddenly they are driving along the coast road. Ten minutes further on they pull into a driveway.

Jane leaps out of the car. He's up the stairs, jangling keys in hand before Lisbon opens her door. His excitement has been barely contained through the last few minutes of driving so Lisbon figures she's lucky he waited until she stopped the car.

Outside, the air is salty and full of the roar of the ocean. Lisbon follows Jane up the stairs to the front door. The house is set into cliffs facing over the Pacific.

Jane holds the door open. As she steps past, he reaches a hand out to touch her. She doesn't meet his eyes as she skirts around it. Then she's inside.

"Oh," she says involuntarily as the room opens in front of her. It stretches past a stone fireplace to the ocean, spanning huge windows. She feels like they're suspended over the waves. It's predictably spectacular, a place only Jane would find. She can't help but smile.

She feels him close behind her. She turns toward him away from the view. She's keeping space between them. She is aware he has noticed.

"If I touch you-" she says. She hesitates, looks up to meet his eyes. They reflect the sky and the ocean behind her.

"If you touch me?" he prompts.

She speaks in a rush. "If I touch you I don't think I'll be able to stop."

He flashes the devastating smile he's used on her since he first started working with the CBI. "And that's a bad thing because?" She closes her eyes to block him out for a moment.

"Because I think there are things we need to discuss."

"Okay," he says. "Then let's discuss."

He pulls out a dining chair and sits. After a pause she sits beside him.

"What things?" he asks. "The way I see it, and I tend to be correct about most things, you're in love with me," she looks sideways at him. He continues quickly, "And heaven knows I'm in love with you. But I'm more than comfortable debating any other topic that comes to mind."

"We need to discuss our working relationship," she says. She sounds more official than she'd like, but she's trying to control her heartbeat. "I don't know exactly what you plan to do next, but if it involves staying with the CBI in any capacity then that work has to be a priority for us. So I don't want to do anything that might jeopardise that relationship."

"Ah. That's a pity, because I do." She looks at him. His eyes are dark and she feels his intent low in her spine. "There are a multitude of things I want to do that might jeopardise our professional relationship," he says.

She glares at him momentarily, and then laughs aloud. He beams. She thinks that maybe when he smiles like that she'd do anything he asked. In any case she is fairly certain she doesn't want to discuss their working relationship or really anything further right now.

"When you smile at me like that I worry I'll do anything you ask," she says. She shifts toward him.

"I know," he says. His eyes are warm.

This time she reaches for him. He doesn't move away.

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The master bedroom is a combination of Californian redwood and glass. Best of all, to Jane's thinking, there is no spectre of a serial killer looming distractingly over them.

Jane has spent years in crowded rooms and hectic bullpens with Lisbon. Even alone, there's always been a nifty problem to solve or someone's life in jeopardy, frequently their own. There have been a hundred diversions. Now, for this moment, she's all he can see.

There's late afternoon sunlight in her eyes as she straddles his hips and looks down at him.

He runs his fingers down her clear skin, tracing her slim torso and wrapping his hands about her hips. She bends down to kiss him. He feels like he might come apart with the joy of her.

"I love you," he murmurs around her smile. He knows exactly what she means when she murmurs back unintelligibly.

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Later they unpack the car. "You bought me a suitcase?" asks Lisbon as he hands her a small navy bag.

"I bought you the clothes inside it too," he says. "Grace advised that it would be creepy to rummage through your wardrobe. I was disappointed." He shrugs.

"Thank heaven for small mercies," says Lisbon.

"Always happy to oblige."

"You're a more considerate kidnapper than others I've dealt with," she says.

"Oh please, this is far from a kidnapping, Lisbon. You are taking too much pleasure in it."

She doesn't argue. She's clearly diverted by thinking about what clothing he has selected for her.

Fifteen minutes later she comes down the stairs in a skirt and a t-shirt. Jane is delighted she passed over the jeans but for the time being he refrains from mentioning it. Her hair is damp and curling from a shower. To his practised eye, she looks both ordinary and exquisite.

"It will cool down tonight," he says.

"I don't think I need to worry about that," she says with a glimmer of laughter as she eyes him.

"Touché," he says.

As the sun sets they position themselves side by side on the deck. They are standing, ostensibly watching for the sleek charcoal backs of whales among the white caps.

"Gray whales travel North at this time of year," says Jane. "We may see a humpback too." He's half watching the ocean and half eying the bare expanse of Lisbon's legs stretching from her skirt to the wood at her bare feet.

"Good to know," Lisbon says. She leans her frame against him. "More wine?" she asks after a moment. She pads into the kitchen on his nod.

He watches her walk away with all her customary economy of movement. There's nothing like the knowledge that she'll return. He has shrimp marinating on skewers in the fridge. It's all some kind of unexpected domestic bliss. He's intellectually aware this is largely holiday and ocean and sex talking but his heart is amazed.

When she returns she stands on her toes to kiss him, pressing his lower back against the railing.

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The ocean's roar is more noticeable at night. It almost drowns the sound of Lisbon breathing beside him.

There are things he tries to avoid thinking about with her this close: not Angela, who loved him despite everything; not his bright-eyed Charlotte. They were here first. There's nothing left of them save dust and memories, and he suspects they would welcome Teresa Lisbon.

But in the dark there is a creeping whisper. The voice of his serial killer brother asks, "What would you be, without me?" The question was asked in a bright room in their dead mother's house but Jane remembers it as though they were two small boys locked in the dark. And what would he be without Red John?

Because, before everything, Patrick Jane was a fake. Before everything he was someone Teresa Lisbon would be ashamed to know.

There's good reason not to think about it.

He tilts his head and presses his lips to Lisbon's hair. She stirs against him in sleep. He closes his eyes.

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"I thought you should know I bought this house," Jane says over breakfast. They're at the kitchen bench watching the Pacific come to life.

Lisbon steadily continues chewing her granola. It's her favourite brand. There's Greek yoghurt too. Jane has obviously done some research about her breakfast habits. She hopes he didn't break into her apartment to do it.

"You bought this house," she says eventually.

"We haven't settled at this stage. But give me five weeks and I'll be the proud owner of all you survey."

She's been expecting him to leave the CBI, take a trip or leave the state or write a memoir or something. It still sits heavy in her stomach.

"Will you keep the chairs?" she asks. They are from the 70s and orange vinyl.

"Whatever your heart desires, my dear."

"I like them," she says after thought. There's a brief silence. "Does this mean you'll be living here?"

"Aha. The million dollar question."

She holds his gaze.

"I haven't spoken to my boss, yet," he says. She figures she's in trouble when he's referring to her as his boss. "I take it as read that you are not about to leave the CBI to inhabit this lonely piece of the California coastline with me?"

She smiles her no.

"Mmm. I thought as much. If it's the crime you'll miss we could be a cracking team of private investigators in our spare time. Sleuths in love, say. Someone from Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers. These little towns are rife with murder."

She doesn't need to answer him. He knows how enormously she values her role and her team.

"No then? No." He looks at her then out at the ocean. "Look at this place, Lisbon."

"It's amazing," she says simply.

"Everything changed with Red John's death."

She takes a breath. "Yes."

"I've been imagining living here. Walking along that tiny stretch of beach, learning to rock fish. But also, you obviously can't do your job without me.

She rolls her eyes.

"So I was considering offering my services as a consultant on a casual basis – just when you need me. Which will clearly be constantly."

"We can hardly solve a case without you," she says.

"That's what I thought. Also this place is what, two hours from Sacramento? Even less at your madcap CBI speeds. You could come here frequently. Any time. All the time."

"Okay," she says and she thinks, "this could work."

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So it begins. She comes and goes, works long hours for weeks then stays in his bed for days or walks with him until the stars light in the sky. He turns up on awkward cases without being asked; turns up in her apartment with salmon steaks and wine.

In public he tosses her outrageous compliments, and poetry, and promises of eternal devotion. She blushes. "Stop it," she says briefly. When they're not in the office she says, "Love you too." But in the dark against his skin she says all the things she doesn't in daylight.

"Do you believe in love?" he asks her one night on her couch.

"Of course I do," she says. She gestures elusively at him, "How could I not believe in love?"

Her head's never been in the clouds. She doesn't dream of being the whole world to someone. But some days she arrives at the coast house, finds him walking on the sand. And when he catches sight of her he smiles as though she is everything he ever hoped to see.

THE END