Yeah, just watched the season finale. Awesome, and kind of sad, and BAMF in a couple of places. My hands were moving of their own accord because seriously: how can you miss the Jisbon in that one?

…

He told her he loved her. Without tenses, like he'll never stop and he always has. Without overture, like it's on a note tacked to the front of a fridge, like he's gone out to get milk and left that instead of his signature at the end. It was so very Jane that she would have smiled if she hadn't been staring down the barrel of a gun.

Lisbon never believed his excuse, no more than he believed it himself. He lies, little lies, all over the place, every minute of every day he lives a lie: she knows he does, she's seen him do it. She doesn't really know when she began to see through the big ones, but maybe it's because she's realized she can't trust him anymore. After what he'd been doing… it's small wonder really that she can't trust him anymore. After who Red John made him, it's a miracle she ever trusted him in the first place.

"Love you."

Two words, spoken like children holding hands in the park, not by a man holding a gun to a woman's chest. A promise, that he'll make it right again, even though she'll be the one to pick up the pieces and she knows it. It's far from innocent, and not even on the same continent as perfect, but it held hope.

But when she's handcuffed, sitting on the curb with her team, all she can think about is his voice, and those words, and how he could be dying now, without her coming to save him. She always saves him; he only really trusts her with that responsibility. It's not her fault by any means, but regardless, she's still failing him, when he needs her the most.

Then it's over, and they realize it never truly began. Red John knew. He always knows. That's why he set the test, after all – he knew that Jane couldn't give up the last thing which made him human, the conscience which spoke to him and told him what was right, and what was wrong. All the same, they're alive, for what good that is. They have a lot to answer for, to the team, the FBI, the CBI, each other. The list goes on.

When he reaches for her arm, she cannot even consider pulling it away. For six whole months, half a damn year, she had reached out for him, desperate to know he was okay, recovering, alive even. It should be too late, by any logic, but it's not. All she can bring herself to feel is relieved when he finally touches her and he's there, solid, alive and real. Maybe there is no logic to what they've been cultivating for almost a decade.

His hand is hot, and a paste of red sand cakes his wedding ring where they tried to take it. He still doesn't take it off, and she knows he never will. She'd tell him she loves him too, but he'd already know. He squeezes tighter, and she knows he's just happy knowing she ever considered saying it at all.

There had been too many lies here today, and neither man nor woman had the energy to live another as they held on for dear life, sitting on the hot sand, watching the chaos around them, knowing that it's still not over.

It's still too soon to broach the lie that one day it will be over, because they both know that it never will. But his skin is hot, and the sand is real, and for today, it's enough to just be alive.