Author's note: Happy birthday to Chirzuru-chibi!


It had come to this: He was standing in a CVS drugstore, staring blankly at the sentimental junk on offer in the greeting cards aisle. An obnoxious card playing some horrible version of a pop song might have appealed at one time, but now the idea just made him want to push the shelves over. His own heart was going to kill him. It was going to grow arms, reach up through his throat, and strangle him. He wanted to find something that said, "You are my life. I need you and I love you. And the only reason I am not shouting that from mountaintops is because Red John has already laid hands on you; if he figures out that I am more than a 'little bit in love' with you, he will take you away. And in doing so, he will kill me." But there are some subtleties of love that the greeting card industry has yet to capture. None of them were quite right.

Finally he settled on a blank card with a photo of a field of lavender on the front. For a gift, a king-sized pack of cinnamon chewing gum.

His hands held steady when he wrote, "Happy birthday," but shook as he started to write "Teresa". He ended up simply addressing the card to "Lisbon".

He drove around a bit before going back to the CBI headquarters. It would not do to show up looking so shaken over a pathetic attempt at a gift. Somehow he ended up at a fruit stand. He could not resist buying her strawberries, a Red Delicious apple, and a lemon for himself.

If the greeting card companies could not provide him with what he needed, he would do it himself. If he dared not write it in ordinary ink, he would write it in invisible ink.