Lisbon was mothering him again.

Oh, she went about it pretty subtly – for her, at least – but he didn't think it was just a coincidence that his favorite tea was suddenly stocked up in the break room, or that the blueberry muffins she knew he liked were sitting out on the counter.

It wasn't a coincidence that whenever he rubbed his forehead to stave off another headache, it was her knee that nudged him, wordlessly offering her bottle of aspirin.

Lisbon, the queen of skipping lunch, was suddenly and pointedly taking carry-out orders for the whole office, one for Cho, two for Rigsby, and Jane, of course, did he want the pastrami or the tuna salad? Pushing a fruit smoothie into his hands without waiting for him to politely decline. Wasn't sure what you wanted but here's strawberry, his favorite, of course. And then she was gone, ducking out of sight with her cell phone clamped to her ear, not waiting around for thanks.

He was pretty sure she'd burned through her whole paycheck on team lunches, but somehow he couldn't seem to dodge her. It was kind of annoying.

More ominously, his Fortress of Solitude in the CBI attic had clearly been invaded. The first day it was the light, mysteriously unreactive when he flipped the switch. Squinting up into the gloom, he could see the fixture was shattered – as if someone had taken it out with a well-aimed piece of pea gravel. He sat up there all day anyway, feeling suitably brooding and gloomy, but when the sun set he did start to feel a little stupid.

It was shortly after that that he started noticing a faint, obnoxious smell, impossible to trace at first until he finally found the dead mouse in the baseboards. Looked like something she might, perhaps, have collected from that mousetrap in her office.

To be fair, he had given her the idea.

The next day it was crickets, two of them, chirping from some hidden corner and he doesn't even want to know how she got them in here.

"Heading up to the Batcave?" asked Rigsby innocently, when he came into work the next morning. Lisbon was listening in, and her expression clearly communicated some threat of future violence.

"No," said Jane meekly. "Maybe I'll just take a nap down here on the couch."

Their case at the time was a missing child, a ten-year old boy who disappeared on a class trip to the museum. After three days they had no leads and Jane was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the kid's father needed someone to vent on. He was shaking, furious, bewildered, screaming at Jane to do something, my God, anything! And Jane was suddenly, helplessly out of his depth - it was all too much, his own old grief welling up, those half-remembered feelings of loss.

And suddenly there was Lisbon, prodding him out of the way, talking too loud, breaking the spell. Inserting herself like some kind of shield, drawing all of that anger and anguish towards herself and away from Jane.

Yup, it was really getting annoying.

A few days later they did end up finding that missing boy, but not alive.

That night Jane headed straight for the nearest bar, intent on drinking the memory clear out of his head. And what do you know, there was Lisbon's little figure climbing up next to him, hoisting herself with some difficulty onto the high barstool and settling like a ruffled bird on her perch.

"The world is not made for short people," she complained. "I'll take one of those – whatever that is he's drinking." The bartender nodded. "Heck, bring us each another."

"I don't need your help getting drunk."

"I finally got up here, I'm not getting down until I get my money's worth," she said. "You don't have to talk, let's just drink."

He felt kind of bad, knowing that she worried about her alcohol consumption. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying – "

"No talking," Lisbon cut him off. She stirred her glass with a straw and made a face. "This stuff is gross. This is something you'd drink at a frat party."

"It keeps you awake," said Jane. Which kept you from having to dream.

"Uppers and downers," said Lisbon, shaking her head. "Still tastes like piss." She caught the bartender's eye and ordered, "Scotch. And one for my friend."

"I don't – " It was set down in front of him. Jane shrugged. They drank.

"Bosco liked scotch," said Lisbon, out of nowhere. Jane froze, because she never, ever talked about Bosco, voluntarily.

"I'm sorry, Lisbon."

She waved this aside. "I was thinking. If you had never come to the CBI, Bosco would still have been on the Red John case," she said. "I'd still be on the case, even if I'd never met you. I would still be in danger, and everything would be the same."

This was like some messed-up, backwards version of It's a Wonderful Life. "Lisbon . . . "

"Everything would be the same," she insisted, "except now we have a better chance of catching him. You don't - you don't make things worse, Jane. You make things better."

Jane was quiet. He turned his glass around and around in his hand, leaving a circle of water on the polished wood of the bar. "You miss him."

"Yes, I do. And I miss you, too."

"I'm here, Lisbon," said Jane, gently. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Good." She pushed her empty glass away and looked doubtfully at the distance to the floor. "Then I'm going home. But I'll see you bright and early tomorrow."

Jane offered her a hand to help, and after a moment's thought, she took it and slid down. "Goodnight, Jane."

"Goodnight."

Yeah, it was really annoying how she kept doing that.

"See you tomorrow."