He drove too fast.
Like a maniac, Lisbon said. Cutting corners, pushing speed limits. He was never above abusing his power to get out of speeding charges.
It was a challenge, when he thought about it, a way of taunting the world. Take me, it said. I dare you to take me away. I dare you to end me.
It took several years after they died for him to start driving again. He had to hold his breath as he cleared the remnants of his old life out of the back seat. A car seat, some toys, a jacket his wife had left after dinner out one night, all dumped in the corner of one of the downstairs rooms as he gasped for breath and tried not to vomit.
After that, it helped him get back into the swing of things. The smell of Angela's perfume wore off the passenger headrest. The remnants of Charlie's snacks were vacuumed out of the cracks in the seat at Lisbon's behest. Cho left a book tucked next to the console with a post-it note on the first page – Read it. It's good. Jane never read it, but he never gave it back, either.
He first noticed the change on the way to some nowhere town just south of LA. Poor Grace, stuck on Jane duty, was flattened against the seat like a startled cat as he jumped lanes to get to the right exit. It was an unconscious thing, some paternal urge to ease the fear on her young face, which made him take the rest of the drive more carefully. He decided it was only fair to extend Rigsby the same courtesy on the drive to the motel that night. Before long he had gotten into the habit of it, being more careful. Even when he was on his own he kept generally within the law, no longer darting out in front of eighteen-wheelers or running early reds.
He didn't think about it, really, until one of the CBI vans broke down and left them all crammed into his Citroen for a two-hour drive back to their hotel. Lisbon sat in the front seat with a look on her face like she was mother to a pack of chimpanzees while the three junior agents squabbled in the back, Rigsby demanding Van Pelt hand over the cooler as Cho did his best to lift his book above the mess. Later on, as Rigsby crowed over a years-old "Baby on Board" window sticker found rolled up under Lisbon's seat – "Yeah, that'd be you," Cho told him, perfectly deadpan – Jane couldn't help but laugh until tears rolled down his cheeks. The car fell silent as he struggled to regain his composure, his vision becoming so blurred that, with Lisbon's gentle guidance, he finally pulled over to the side of the road.
His hands trembled as he took them off the wheel and folded them on his lap. Without a word, Lisbon slipped her hand into his, letting him tangle their fingers as he continued to shake with sobs. First Cho, and then Van Pelt, and then Rigsby each put a hand on one of his shoulders and gripped it tightly until he stilled. Then they each slipped away, Lisbon the last to break contact, and he sat up with a shuddering breath and restarted the car.
"Pizza or Chinese?" He asked.
The clamor for pizza was unanimous as they got back on their way.