Yours truly only owns the story. The rest...the rest is made, owned, and ran by people smarter and more sophisticated than me.

This story is not a wish-fulfillment stuff. It is not a creator's pet thing. It is not a cleverer-than-thou affair. In three chapters, if you are patient, if you are mature, and if you are levelheaded, you will get what it really is.

SACRAMENTO

It was a slow day in the CBI. Not much was going on aside from waiting for one suspect. Most of the paperwork had been completed, and the team allowed themselves to relax a little. Jane, bored with his book, done with his second cup of tea, decided to get off his old sofa. His mind needed engaging, more preferably a little amusement, and a witty banter with the ever-sarcastic Lisbon might provide that. So he strolled to her office.

She was behind her computer.

"Afternoon, Lisbon," Jane said.

"Afternoon."

She barely regarded him. Her eyes nailed the screen. But she wasn't typing. So no paperwork.

"What are you doing?"

"I am reading fanfiction."

Jane snorted.

"What?"

"Who would've known. Our team mum of all people. Teresa Lisbon reads fanfiction."

"This is the United States, 2013. There's no stigma anymore."

"Oh yes there is. That's why people say there's no stigma anymore."

Grumbling, she threw a pencil at him, and he caught it between two fingers like chopstick. He rolled a chair, sat beside her.

"What are you reading?"

"Two Worlds Apart. By the lovely ladygris. A Bourne Legacy fanfiction."

"I've never known you're into that sort of movies."

Lisbon curled her fingers to a half-grip and swung her hand over the table. "Wham," she muttered. Jane didn't get it. Then he did.

"You just have to bring that up."

She wrinkled her nose.

"Fair enough." He pointed at the screen. "Why do you like the story?"

"For one thing. For all those spying and fighting and watching your back, the world Bourne and Cross live in...it is real. They wake up to work nine-to-five, they look up at Yahoo news for information, they talk to outsiders because they must. And they're humans, mature humans with self-restraint. Feelings don't conquer all. Everyone gets scolded once, and when they do, they don't weep or scream or punch—they try to deal with it."

"For another?"

"For another, the protagonists don't fuck. Not in that wanton, hammy or super-hot-and-cold way fangirls sometimes consider romantic. Shearing and Cross, Bourne and Parsons. They care about each other, they appreciate the time they spend with each other, but they don't necessarily lust for each other. And none of those word "love," "desire," or some such nonsense are thrown around like teenagers in hormones. The thing they have in them, it's confusing but not artificial, complicated but not juvenile. And until they sort that thing out, they just have to take as much the other can give. "

"The definition of true love."

"True love is boring. I once read an article about that in Cracked. No one is living out that lustful, unstoppable, consistently passionate version of love endorsed by films because we have to live it for a lot longer than 90 minutes and that would be exhausting."

"A lot of people will take offense at that."

"It's the truth."

"Hurts as one, too."

She spread her arms. "A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent."

"If I haven't been with you for ten years I'd have included you in my list."

She grinned.

The door knocked. Cho showed up.

"Our suspect is here."

Jane and Lisbon rose. Cho led them all to the interrogation room.

"A word of caution for you two," Cho said. "She's got a lawyer."

Jane grunted.

"Boom, lawyered," Lisbon said.

"Not funny, Lisbon," Jane said. "You know that eighty-three percent of my cases would have been thrown out of court if the suspect just hires a lawyer to call out my antics?"

"I know. Thank God for Hollywood. They must have thought they could handle the Man themselves."

"This one doesn't."

"Smart."

"Prudent."

"Dangerously genre savvy."

"Now you're just making me nervous, Lisbon."

"Can't help it. The ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny. Jane versus someone who has a lawyer."

Cho opened the door, and they entered the room.

"Hello, Mrs. Cassandra."