Jason Wylie might be a nerd and a geek, but he wasn't as naïve as people usually assumed. He was actually pretty good at reading people, though he seldom used this knowledge to his advantage.
For instance, he'd always suspected that Dennis Abbott was secretly a romantic at heart; that Kim Fischer wasn't so sure of herself as she pretended to be; that Kimball Cho was actually capable of smiling.
He was also fairly sure that there was something going on between Patrick Jane and Teresa Lisbon, and that whatever it was it didn't fall into any of the ordinary categories. Not that it was any of his business; it was all well and good to him, except that he couldn't help but notice a 'communication failure' error message that virtually flashed into the air whenever those two happened to run into one another.
Mixed messages were the worst thing ever, as Wylie knew well enough; they were one of the biggest issues when dealing with IT, and even more so when it came to interaction between people. Bad communication might result into system crash if not handled properly, and that was exactly what was happening between Special Agent and FBI Consultant.
Jane had been flirting with his friend ever since they'd set foot in the FBI headquarters, and possibly even earlier; they'd been dancing an odd sort of dance, as if they wanted to get closer to each other but didn't dare to. The fact that Cho regarded the whole thing as a familiar routine was proof positive that it dated back to their days at the California Bureau of Investigation, something that Wylie had unobtrusively researched in the past few months.
He knew about the tragedy in Patrick Jane's past; knew how long the man had hunted the murderer of his wife and child, and eventually killed him with his bare hands. That was probably reason enough for keeping everybody at arm's length, especially those Jane cared about; it wasn't a strategy that seemed to be working for Teresa Lisbon though, who looked only more determined not to be pushed away.
The tables turned when that Agent Pike with Art Squads took an interest in Lisbon, and the two of them started dating. That was when Jane shut himself away in his favorite spot of the office – the one where he'd insisted for his old leather couch to be positioned – and another kind of dance began.
Wylie could see that beneath her professional façade Lisbon was confused, maybe even scared. She wanted to go away, and yet she was desperately looking for a plausible excuse to stay; she very nearly begged for Jane to stop her, but the man seemed determined to leave the choice to his friend for once.
Jane couldn't bring himself to tell Lisbon the truth of how he felt. Lisbon couldn't bring herself to tell Jane that she was leaving for DC. What a mess, Wylie thought to himself, and wisely refrained from commenting.
Until Cho came back from Miami, and the look on his face told Wylie everything that he needed to know.