A/N: For Tiva4evaxxx who tugged me once more into the painful world of caring about this show when I'd managed to escape it.

It was pretty clear to anyone who knew them that Patrick Jane and Teresa Lisbon were treading a fine line. On one side of it was the teasing, tense, controlled partnership they had, straining at the boundaries of madness but never quite breaking them. On the other; undiscovered territory, wild and dark and mysterious, unpredictable, uncontainable, and liable to end in tragedy. And maybe, had they been ordinary people, they would have walked carefully along that line, and managed not to fall into the unknown. But they were far from ordinary.

He was Patrick Jane. The suit wearing classic asshole-with-a-past, reformed charlatan, husband to a dead wife, father to a murdered child. Insomnia ridden, guilt laden, revenge driven. Golden-haired, ice-eyed, bright-smiled: all masking the depths of an unfathomable darkness in his mind that tormented him day and night. Uncurable, unsalvageable, stubbornly beyond redemption.

She was Teresa Lisbon. The fiercely vigilant detective with a damaged intensity born from a lost childhood. Restrained willingly by her own infallible moral compass, untouchable by her own decision. Raven-haired, emerald-eyed, beautiful but inaccessible. Guarded and independent and unbreakable because that's what she had to be. And above all, a saviour, determined to rescue anyone she could as penance for the family that had fallen apart in her hands.

Together they were impossible. He was the classic unstoppable force; intent on a singular goal. She was his opposing immovable object; refusing to let him tumble into the darkness. And two people that broken, that desperate, that extraordinary and contradictory, could never have softly treaded along the fine line of their fate. No, instead they danced upon it.

She kissed him first. Perching on the couch in a dark office, watching his chest rise and fall with his heavy breaths, grateful that he was getting some sleep for once. On a random impulse (the kind she had never followed before he turned up in her life... maybe she wasn't so immovable after all) she bent down and brushed her lips against his forehead. When he didn't stir, she trailed her fingers along his jaw (he needed to shave) and after a brief hesitation, pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. Feeling inexplicably ashamed, she stood and hurried out the door. Jane, who had only meant to convince her that he was getting some rest, smiled.

Naturally, he took it a step further. Or several steps further. That was how he was. A murder case turned into a kidnapping had driven them all to the brink of their capabilities and still, still that had not been enough. When he walked into her office at the end of the day, when everyone else had gone, she was staring forlornly at an untouched glass of whiskey. She looked up when he closed the door.

He walked over to the desk and picked it up, then slowly and deliberately drank it without saying a word. Still silent, he put it down and picked up the bottle beside it to pour another, which he pushed over to her.

"You are not him," he said firmly. "Trust me, Teresa."

With gratitude in her green eyes (shining with unshed tears) she drank. Then she poured another and passed it to him. There was another glass in her drawer, and they both knew it, but instead they continued to share the one, taking turns. This was not a comfortable, companiable drink. It was grief in its purest form. They drank until they could not think and then a little more, until at last she stood on shaking legs and stumbled around using the desk for support, intending to catch a cab back to her apartment and sob in her shower until sunrise, when she would have a cup of strong coffee and a painkiller, go for a run, shower again and still be in work before anyone but Jane, who never would have left. He seemed to have different plans though. He stared at her through the darkness (maybe they only ever opened up at night because the surrounding darkness camouflaged the pitch black demons inside them) and he remembered the feeling of her lips, soft against his skin. Clumsily he grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her forward.

There was no restraint, no control. He pushed her against the desk and she pushed back in a frenzied embrace. But through the haze of alcohol and longing there came a moment of clarity, and they pulled away, breathless, Slightly steadier on her feet, Lisbon left, and Jane let her, and so they pulled back from the brink of oblivion, and the next day, by never mentioning it, managed to land tentatively back on the familiar side of their line.

Two people who have been to such depths of hell should not be so terrified of further pain, yet they were. And when Jane implied, as he would on occasion, that he had nothing left to lose, Lisbon looked at him and wondered what then was stopping him from sweeping her off the edge of the cliff (she knew, really, that he could if he wanted to, that she would let him). Jane looked back at her and knew exactly what she was thinking, and told himself that it was for her own protection, and ignored the slightly bitter taste of partial dishonesty.

The kissing continued, though. Sometimes like the first. Soft and gentle, like it meant nothing. Sometimes like the second. Harsh and desperate, like it meant everything. They never spoke about it, and they never took it further, but they couldn't stop it either.

And then they found Red John. Jane did not get his sought after revenge, nor Lisbon her longed for justice. Grace pulled the trigger. And afterwards, there was just emptiness. Lisbon watched with eagle eyes, expecting Jane to do something, or perhaps just to leave. He did not. In silence, he walked across to stand by her, and their hands brushed and then gripped each other.

God knows how they got through the rest of the day. Jane did eventually disappear, up into his attic. Lisbon filed paperwork in her office. SHe wanted to go and see him, but was loathe to crowd him, so instead left, but not before resting a bottle of whiskey and a glass on her desk. She hoped he'd get the message.

She knew he'd get the message.

It was dark when he turned up outside her apartment. Of course it was. And when he stumbled inside the door (he might have taken the message a little literally) they didn't hesitate for a second. Lisbon barely remembered to kick the door shut before pushing him towards the bedroom, struggling to shove the jacket from his shoulder. It was dark when he turned up outside her apartment, but light when they woke in each others arms.

They had danced upon a fine line. On one side of it was the teasing, tense, controlled partnership they once had, straining at the boundaries of madness but never quite breaking them. On the other; undiscovered territory, wild and dark and mysterious, unpredictable, uncontainable, and liable to end in tragedy. That is, had they been ordinary people. But they were far from ordinary. And two people that broken, that desperate, that extraordinary and contradictory... might just be able to navigate the other side.

This was going to have a really depressing ending but I figured I'd break my norm. Woo! They're not dead and they're actually together. Aren't you impressed?