A/N: Boredom! Boredom = fun with drabbles. It's kind of funny, actually; when I had first begun writing fanfics, I basically promised myself, NO DRABBLES. Rarely are they well written. Yet here I am, writing an entire set of them. Joy. This one is set after Red John's Footsteps. Surprise.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Mentalist, its characters, and anything else. I mean, really? The Mentalist would be an epic fail if I owned it. But on the bright side, Jane & Lisbon would've kissed already. :-)

R&R, please! I will update even if you don't do so, but it will speed the process up tremendously!

THEMENTALISTDRABBLEFICBYFIELDOFPAPERFLOWERS

Teresa Lisbon sat at her desk, her eyes skimming like a broken record over the same line in the police report she was supposed to be reading. Her mind, however, was entirely opposed to that, and she was all too eager to answer the knock on her office door.

That is, until she saw Patrick Jane standing there.

She shuffled the papers together fixatedly, avoiding his gaze. He said nothing, and neither did she. Finally the report was as straight as she could possibly get it, and she couldn't evade conversation any longer.

"What?" she asked, her tone colder than she had meant for it to be.

Jane's blue eyes seemed to circumvent her green ones; he looked around her face, but not directly at it. "I…" he started, uncharacteristically hesitant.

Lisbon raised her eyebrows as she stood, her stance displaying a confidence she did not feel. "Well?"

Jane turned his head slightly to look out the window. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "For what I said."

Lisbon's insides recoiled. Despite her perpetually collected façade, she had been wounded when Jane had spoken as harshly as he had. "You all but threatened me," she reminded him, keeping her tone somewhere between neutral and cold.

Jane finally met her gaze. "I was wrong," he told her frankly.

Lisbon cocked her head; she didn't often hear those words from him. Maybe this "confession" was the first step to his moving on from….no! Her thoughts were getting dangerous. She had to keep this strictly impartial. She spoke the first thing that came to her mind. "How do I know you won't do it again?" Tell me anything, Jane; tell me you will, or tell me you won't, just get this over with…

Jane walked towards her --- stumbled, more like. He seemed unsteady. She had the urge to reach out and hold him. No!

"I'll tell you," he said, his slightly teasing tone a relief. "But you have to tell me something first."

Lisbon narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Like what?"

"What would you have done if Hardy would've shot me?"

Lisbon reeled inside. Not a good question. "Um…" She hated stammering! "I don't know." A lie.

Jane searched her eyes, his lighting up after a second. "Liar!" he declared.

"Oh, please," Lisbon dismissed him.

"You know what you would do," Jane stated. "What would it be?"

Lisbon glared at him. "You're the psychic. You tell me."

Jane watched her intently for a moment. "Well, now, that's interesting," he said finally.

"What?" Lisbon sighed.

"I'm not picking up on anything."

"Really." She was pleased, though she kept it out of her tone. It was about time he couldn't just take a peek into her head on a whim.

"Ha!" He grinned and pointed at her. "You suppressed a smile. You do know! And you're going to tell me."

Lisbon fixed him with another death look. "I'm not going to tell you. Leave, Jane. I have work to do."

"You weren't working on it when I got here, and you're not going to work on it if I leave," Jane stated freely. "Come on. You know you want to tell me."

Lisbon sat back down and turned to her paperwork, letting her dark hair fall in front of her face like a curtain. "You're being childish. Go away."

Jane reluctantly turned to go, then paused. "I know what you would do," he said, his serious mood back in full force. "You would've been sad."

Though eager to get him out, Lisbon answered before she could stop herself. "Of course I would. We wouldn't close nearly so many cases without your so-called methods."

Jane clicked his tongue thoughtfully before responding. "I think there's more to it than that, though. I think you want me to stay alive for a more personal reason."

Lisbon froze inside but kept a cool head. "That's preposterous. Now leave." Jane was silent, and when Lisbon looked up to see if he had gone, she saw him studying her. "What?"

Jane's grave expression lightened a shade as his lips twitched into a half-smile. "Nothing, my dear Lisbon." A pause. "You're blushing," he pronounced.

Lisbon could feel the heat rising to her cheeks, dang it. "Never you mind," she muttered, looking back down to the paper again.

There was a small creak as Jane began to open the door. "Just so you know," he said quietly, for her ears only, "whenever you decide you want to talk about this feeling you're repressing, I'll be on the sofa. And then I'll tell you why I won't do it again." He smiled slightly, then left.

Teresa Lisbon went back to pretending to work.

At some point, she decided, she might take him up on that offer.