Patrick Jane was sprawled out across the cell's single bunk in the same way that he often sprawled out on the couch in the CBI office, not asleep but pretending to be as Lisbon was escorted in by a burly town deputy. Her hair was pulled back into a loose pony-tail and she wore jeans and a tee-shirt under a jacket, not her work clothes but more the I-just-slipped-out-of-bed-at-three-in-the-morning variety. She gave the incongruous looking pink and red hearts that lined the police station's walls a look as she passed, raising an eyebrow.
"Hello, Lisbon," Jane said. Somehow, even with his eyes closed, he always seemed to know what was going on.
"Jane, I'm going to kill you," she answered him, mustering a glare.
He opened one eye and peered at her with it. "Geez," he said. "Okay, next time I won't say hello if that's the reply I'm going to get."
"You even sound drunk," she said.
This was true enough. His usually honeyed voice was somewhat slurred this evening, only a little, but enough so that it showed.
"I'm going to kill you," Lisbon repeated.
"No, you're not," Jane said, closing his eyes again, sounding self-assured, as usual, and wearing his usual cat-that-at-the-canary grin.
"I'm going to leave you in here to rot," Lisbon answered.
"No, you're not," Jane said. "You wouldn't have come if you didn't intend to get me out and besides, I wouldn't rot. They have to let me out in the morning either way. And you won't kill me, either."
"No?" Lisbon said.
"Of course not," Jane said. "You can't stay mad at me face to face for anymore than five minutes. Already I can feel your resolve slipping away."
"Oh, so you are psychic now?" Lisbon said, resuming the glare that had indeed began to slip away as she spoke with him.
"No," Jane said. "But your voice was getting less angry sounding. Or at least it was. Now it sounds like anger tinged with annoyance." He opened one eye again and peeked at her face before shutting it. "Yeah, that's right," he concluded.
"Do you think this is funny?" Lisbon said.
"Kind of," Jane said.
"You called me in the middle of the night and you told me you needed me to bail you out of some middle of nowhere little jail," Lisbon said, sounding exasperated and angry and vaguely hurt all at the same time. "For drunk driving of all things."
Jane opened both eyes then and for a moment looked genuinely remorseful. "Sorry about that," he said. "But I had no one else to call. It was you, Rigsby, Van Pelt or Cho. Rigsby probably wouldn't have even woken up and Cho would have taken one look at his caller ID, turned off his phone, and went back to sleep. Van Pelt might have come but I'd have to listen to her moralizing homilies all the way back home and then she'd probably expect to be invited in and things would just get awkward. So I called you. I knew I could count on you to come."
Lisbon just glared.
"Besides," Jane said. "All they have me on is speeding. You don't have to pay to bail me out. I wasn't even over the BAC. I was close, but not over."
"And they arrested you for that?" Lisbon said walking up to the cell.
"I'm not actually even arrested," Jane said. "I'm being held for the public safety and I'll be released as soon as someone vouches that they'll see me home safe."
"Really, Jane," Lisbon said.
"Well, they were going to let me off with a warning," Jane said. "But the deputy, I didn't like him. Petty fellow. I, you know, may have told him that the only reason that he was a cop was so that he could pull over people in nice cars, a sort of revenge against all those kids with the nice cars who used to play on the football team and beat him up in high school for being fat. I may have also told him that he was probably twice the size of those guys then and he should have hit them right back. He'd be so much better adjusted for it and he would have the compulsion to pull over people in nice cars. He didn't take it well."
The deputy standing at the back of the room shifted on his feet, attempting to look menacing. Neither Lisbon nor Jane paid him any mind.
"Really, Jane," Lisbon said, "You insulted him? Couldn't you have just talked you way out of it?"
"I could have," Jane said. "But I wasn't in the mood."
"Really?"
"Happy Valentine's Day, Lisbon," Jane said. Lisbon's face fell from her semi-glare to a frown. "See, it doesn't make you happy, either."
Lisbon sighed. "Jane, that's not a very good excuse," she said.
"I know," Jane said. "But I used to love Valentine's Day. Now I realize how much it makes lonely people even more lonely. I don't like it anymore. I'm sure you know what I mean."
"So you take the route that will give you all of these fine officers of the law and myself a reason to keep you company?" Lisbon said, trying to glare again to cover the frown.
Jane shut his eyes again. "See, it makes you sad, too. And lonely. You're just hiding it under the sarcasm."
"Jane," Lisbon said. "I don't know what to do about you."
"Just get me out of here," he answered softly.
Lisbon's glare finally slipped away and she just looked tired instead. She breathed out deeply and then looked to the deputy. "Let him out," she told him. "He's coming with me."
The deputy gave her a look and then pulled out his keys and unlocked the door to the cell. He opened the door wide before Jane bothered to open his eyes again and stand.
"C'mon," Lisbon said. "Let's go. I want to get back to sleep sometime tonight."
"Of course," Jane said stepping out of the cell.
"A minute," the deputy said going to his desk and picking up a piece of paper. "Your ticket," he said, handing it to Jane with a rather nasty smile.
Jane gave the man his best one hundred watt jaunty smile. "Thank you," he said, taking it. "Bye-bye," he said, following Lisbon out. As he went out the door, though, unable to resist, he turned back and added to the deputy, "Now remember what I said about those fancy cars."
Lisbon grabbed him by his jacket sleeve and pulled him out. Jane examined his ticket as she dragged him towards her car.
"I don't suppose you could loan me ninety bucks?" Jane said.
Lisbon glared at him again and Jane just laughed.
"You totally owe me roses for this," she said.