a/n:who's exited about how the finale played out? I am, and I ahve to see, even if I've considered abandoning the fandom during the year, with this last ep I've been taken back into the good graces of ... the best episode of the season, dark and funny as well at times... I think I'll be able to survie the summer, and that my creativity could eventually come back full force, given time and occasion and muse (in case you were wondering, my muse is called Mini Mino)... aka: next thing, it will be updating introspectiion, that's been neglected over the last few months, with the flash-tags to the alst episodes of season 4...

So, anyway, here we are, and, well, I've told you so in the summary, but here I am again, repeating that it contains spoiler for 4.24; title from the Linking Park's sone" leave out all the rest", from the 2007 album Minutes to midnight.

As he walks away, he doesn't miss the look of hurt, longing and betrayal all mixed together. That's why he has to leave, because he can't stay in the same room as her, looking at her getting hurt, emotionally, over and over again because of him.

Just few hours before, she asked him what he meant when he told her he loved her in her office. He remembers her expression as he did, mixed fear (a lie, a rouse) and expectations and… and reciprocation.

It's a common gossip at the CBI, that Lisbon allows him to get away with everything because she loves him. but… it's not. It's just a little bit different. Everybody thinks they are engaged in rounds of rabbit-like kinky sex all the times, but there has never been anything remotely sexual between them, besides the odd touches and the remarks to get a rise out of her. For Lisbon, though, things are a bit more different, and more dangerous.

She loves him, and definitely not like a sibling would.

He had meant the words, he had almost told her the same things once before, an year and an half before, just to freak out at the last moment, telling her it was to distract Red John's man. He had almost done it, then he had remembered the bomb on her chest, and had changed his mind. He couldn't out her in danger- or in a bigger danger, at least – just because he is a jerk, egoistical and so on.

His happiness isn't worth her death.

But… something is different. The game is different, and as much as a player as he is, he isn't a gamer any longer, not an active one, at least. He can't play according to rules because rules are no more, and everything he thought he know doesn't have meaning, not at all. He left to protect her, and what did he get? He was asked for her head, and he wasn't even close to her.

Red John doesn't want to follow the rules? Well, fuck off, he is done being a little, pretty boy following rules and regulations. If she is in danger being away from him… yes, it stands to reason that she should be even more so if she were close, but, if he'll keep her close, so, so close, as close as his heart, always at his side, he'll be able to never lose sight of her, right? And he'll be able to keep her safe and sound, with him. Besides, he has seen it. What a semblance of life would look like, and it's not that bad. Yes, he had slept with Lorelai, (while drunk, and in the wee hours of the morning, once out from his drunken stupor, he had almost believed it was Lisbon wearing his shirt. And he is pretty positive he called her name at least once while going at it with the waitress), but more over has been saying the words, and staying alone in a warehouse with her that got to him – along with holding hands, even if it has been merely a gesture of comfort on her side. And now? Holding hands isn't enough any longer.

(Besides, fuck you, he'd like to say his enemy. I'll be so happy you'll chock on your bile.)

There's only one problem: she feels hurt and betrayed, and she hasn't exactly forgiven him for… well, everything that has been happening in the last six months. Saying that she is pissed with him is a mere misunderstanding, because Jane knows well, and for the level of betrayal and deception she has suffered, Lisbon doesn't even have a word for it. She knows she thought they were over lies and misleading, but that was the point, that is the point. Lisbon is… well, she is… she is his… person, the only one he has learnt to completely trust over the years, and if he wanted to fake a breakdown, cutting her out from his life was the only way to make it plausible.

She may not know it yet, but he feels worst that she does, he felt worse than she did. She is the one who's been betrayed, feels betrayed but he had to endure knowing that everybody – Lisbon first- has come to hate him. He wonders if she knows now, how he felt every time he had to turn her down, turned off his phone because she was calling him, changing address because she was writing him.

It was hell, that is what it is.

He knocks at her door when it's long past midnight, he has been gone, once again, for more than a day, even if this time a text saved her the worry to not knowing where he was (at a near park) and doing what (taking fresh air and thinking). It was the least he could, after everything she has done in the last… the last 8 years, actually.

8 years, they've been partners for over 8 years, and they've learnt everything there is to learn about someone. He knows her better than any man she has ever dated (with exception of Greg, maybe, but Greg was the past, and even if there is still trace of that Teresa in his Lisbon, she is another person), better than herself, sometimes. And she does as well, even if he thinks she can be a bit too nice in her judgment.

Love do that, it makes you blind.

It's more than 10 minutes before she opens the door in one of her over-sized jerseys, and she does so only because he hasn't left. He didn't keep knocking, but he kept leaning against the door, his forehead against the cold fake-wood, eyes closed, breath dying in his throat, gulping, barely resisting the urge to cry and to sob, an urge that get the bigger as more time passes.

She can't not forgive him, as bad as it is. He knows she shouldn't, but he needed to have at least one good thing in his life, he screwed enough in the last few months, and he needs her, the only good thing in his life, the only thing, person, who makes him feel safe, good, clean. And he needs it, after he has done everything he did, he needs to feel that way, and the only way is to be forgiven by her.

"What do you want, Jane?" she just asks, looking away, embracing herself to shield her body from his view, even if there's nothing he hadn't seen more than once, but still, she feels like there's something different, like, suddenly, there's tension, and desire, and they are both (finally, somehow) acknowledging it. He should have never said the words, he should have never said that he loved her, even if it was fake, a rouse. He didn't have any right, that wasn't words for him to say, words for her to hear. He didn't have any right to give her any kind of hope, to awake back with a passion all her desires, all her dreams, just to crash everything in one mere second. We are lovers. Didn't he tell you so? She hears again and again and again the words in her mind.

"It just happened once, while I was drunk. I didn't know who she was…. That she was one of his friends." He looks at his feet, biting his own lips while admitting his own fault. It's not helping, it will not do him any good, because he knows that she'll hate him even more, but… she needs to know, needs to understand. Hurting her furthermore wasn't his intention.

She is almost in the same position, refusing eye-contact, when she shakes her head. "Jane, don't. You don't have to. It's not my business anyway." She behaves with complete and utter nonchalance, but he knows her, he gets her. he knows when she is lying, and this is the biggest one of them all. She cares, and she wants to know, wants to understand, as painful as it is, and knowing that he willingly turned into her worst nightmare- falling for someone like her father, hopeless, dark, lost, in love with just a bottle – even if it was just a lie, it's not helping his cause, he knows.

"I thought it was you. That you had learnt that I was in jail, and had come to me. I thought you wanted to teach me a lesson." Because that's how sweet you are he'd like to add, but he doesn't. he already told her so once, she already knows. She doesn't need to think that it's just another scam to get once again her trust. "when I opened the door, I thought it was you."

"Jane…" she takes a big breath, and moves inside as she lets him in,, running an hand through her hair. She doesn't need to feel bad, to feel guilty, furthermore. She already feels bad on her own because she hasn't looked harder for him, he doesn't need to add injury to the injured by making her feel like the betrayer- not when he is the one who did the betrayal to begin with.

"I'm not saying that… you did the right thing, and, even if you don't know it, it was the right choice, and I would have done the same, in your shoes, because, let's face it, I would have put me down a long time ago, if I were you. I just… I was… kind of disappointed, I guess." He falls on her couch, hand sin his pockets and eyes fixed on the ceiling. "I don't know, maybe I just want to be saved, after all." He laughs, a bit, guttural, a bit fake, but mostly, nervous. He isn't helping his cause but she needs to understand. That's who he is, he is full of defects, he'll always screw up, especially when Red John will be concerned. If she is to take him back- in her life, on the job, as a lover, as a friend, or even just as her consultant – she needs to know it, needs to get ready for the heart and headache he'll provide.

She sits on the small coffee table in front of the couch, one hand in her lap, the other one on his left leg, and it's then that he looks up; she is smiling- a sad smile, but a smile nevertheless, and it's a start, it's something he can work with - while she rubs his knee; he sits furthermore, leaning in her direction, his left hand, where his wedding band still is, on her one, drawing small circles, touching, caressing. He doesn't need to hold her- he did it because he needed to know they were both alive, both well, both there – this is still comfort, but at a different level. This isn't about existing, this is about being still a part of each other's life. It's not for display, it's intimate, more than any touch he had even given her (he is kind of sorry he knows he grabbed her ass just because someone else told him so).

Suddenly, he feels the need to show her, to make her understand, and his hands slide along her body until they reach her head, one on her cheek, the other fisting the cascade of raven-dark hair, and all the while, he gets closer and closer, so close she feels his breath on her lips.

He doesn't kiss her lips first; he takes his time exploring her skin, her neck and chin and lobes and eyelids, leaving a trail of butterfly kisses whenever he skims over her, his touch lingering, slow, tender and affectionate. Reverent, worshipping even.

She tries to fight him, she does, but she doesn't put all of herself in it; she could hurt him badly with just the right movement, but she doesn't try anything of sort; her hands push on the cotton of his white, blue stripped shirt (just jacket, no vest, she realizes as she touches him) but it's like a ghost movement, an automatic response, and it's… lazy. She isn't doing anything to fight him, to fight it because she knows it's what it was supposed to happen anyway. Jane was supposed to take residence in her life in such a way since a long time, and as much as a sucker for a good fight as she is, it's not worth it, because this is inevitable.

It's inevitable that she helps him out every time, it's inevitable that she had fallen for him, it's inevitable that she is here, right now, ready to forgive and forget (just a bit, step by step, gradually) and accept him in a away she has never thought possible. He is offering himself to her, letting her to chance to say no, to be reasonable, do the right thing, but then, suddenly, there's just one thing she wants to do: offer herself to him just like he is doing with her -they are partners, after all.

Like a wild tiger, she sits on his lap, feeling hard under her body the proof not of need- she doesn't want to think of him as such an instinctual man, victim to blood and lust and with no control - but of desire, his desire for her, and closing her eyes she closes the gap, kissing him, slowly, sensual, small kisses, just pecks, but still arousing; she moves away, smiling when he does a guttural sound of disappointment for the lack of her body against his, but suddenly, she is yet again chest against chest, flat against his torso. The only difference is that her shirt is gone, and she is standing on him just in panties.

He resumes kissing her, this time smiling, with tears of happiness, and she drives his hands away from her head, moving them on her breasts; he is more than glad to oblige, hardening until they hurt her soft nipples, turgid just for him; his mouth descends, kissing all the way, until he licks and kisses and blows on Lisbon's right nipple, his hand moving down until it palms the crotch of her violet lacy panties, feeling the fabric wet with desire, the flesh ready for him, willing to accept him, and he knows, and he hopes she knows as well, this is different, this is something he isn't, will never be, worth, because this isn't a drunken one night stand with a man feeling guilty, but pushing the guilt aside in hope of being able to move on- or even just faking it, this isn't remembering he is man, that he isn't just revenge and hate and guilt, but blood and flesh and desires and a being that actually exists.

This is about living, about commitment, about accepting that she is part of his life, has been for longer than he cares to admit, and that there's no turning back, there's no reason to keep fighting it, this is about giving up hoping that she'll do the same, that she'll understand all of this.

His hand moves once again, desiring to give her happiness, to give her pleasure, wanting to just make her feeling good, but she stops him, she stills his hands shaking with her head, no, without words; his arms fall at his side, while she resume kissing the man behind her, her dark hair cascading and shielding them, like to give them privacy, like to avoid the rest of the world from interfering with what's going on, and suddenly, his jacket is somewhere on the carpet and his chest is naked, no longer covered by the shirt that she sends somewhere far, far away from them, and he smiles while trying to get to kiss her again and again, feeling the urge to just touch her, have her in his arms, in his life.

Did you know that is said that woman are at their sexier form when wearing their man's shirt? He almost says, but he doesn't. There's no time for words, no need for them, and he isn't able any longer, all his strength, his whole mind, his whole universe resolves around this being in his arms, around making her happy, satisfied, about making her understand that she is his, that he is hers. He is so lost in the sensations, in her, that he even realizes that she going for his pants, for his underwear, and before he knows it, she has undressed him, and he is completely naked beneath her.

When their bodies join together with a shudder and a gasp, it's as much about the blood as the soul (or whatever it is); he loves her as much as he wants her, and, truth to be told, he needs her, in his life, at his side. That's the conclusion he has come to while all alone for the streets of Vegas. And he has almost threw it away, almost lost her, all because of a damn, stupid drunken one night stand.

Their union is punctuated by a litany of mine, don't go, I'm here, take me, all of me whispered by them both, and when they collapse afterwards, her head in the crock of his neck, his in the valley between her breasts, he repeats once again his confession of earlier, I love you, and stroking his hair, kissing his forehead, she nods, whispering, once, just once, I love you too; he feels her tears wetting his scalp, he grip getting stronger and stronger, like to make sure it hadn't been just a dream, a fantasy, and he hugs her, sobbing without control.

He cries years of unshed tears, for the wife he lost, the kid he never saw turning into an adult, for all the victims, for Lisbon, all alone and hurt because and for him, and he cries for himself, because he is just a gluttony for punishment, because as much as he wants to keep her safe he wants her in his life as a fixed point. He needs her, actually, as his fixed point.

But maybe, if he'll keep her close enough, if he'll always keep her close, he'll be able to keep her safe, until his last breathing, at least; protecting her, saving her always whatever she likes it or not is no longer an empty promise, is a threat for everyone who'll dare to try to hurt her.

This time he really means it.