Patrick can count on one hand the number of times he's been rendered speechless in his life. With a start, he realizes that most of them have been with Teresa.
"Sacramento?" he asks, wide-eyed. "That's where the CBI is located?"
"The one and only," confirms Teresa. "I can't guarantee a job offer, of course, but I'd like to take you to meet my boss. I think you'd be a great asset to the team."
Patrick sits down in the chair by Teresa's bed, his thoughts whirling, and Elizabeth shifts in his arms. He coos to her, and she stills. Then he looks up at Teresa, hesitant.
"I know I joked about this yesterday, but are you...are you certain?"
It seems too good to be true, after all.
She scrutinizes him. "You're awfully insecure under that bravado you project to the world," she notes. "Look, Patrick. Yesterday you told me the life stories of no less than seven nurses, three doctors, and five nursing assistants - not to mention my own. And you were spot on for every single one of them." She raises an eyebrow. "This isn't just pregnancy hormones talking. You've got a unique skillset that could do the world a lot of good."
Patrick looks down at Elizabeth, raising a finger to brush against the soft skin of her tiny cheek.
"So, what do you say?" Teresa asks, and Patrick meets her eyes. "Come back to Sacramento with me. Let me introduce you to my colleagues, maybe observe an interrogation or two." She smiles. "Let's see what kind of trouble we can make."
Her grin is infectious, and he feels himself returning it. "You're on." He stands, still cradling Elizabeth, and moves to sit on Teresa's bed. "When can I spring you from this joint?"
"They want me to stay overnight." She looks annoyed at the inconvenience. "So first thing tomorrow morning?"
Patrick nods. "I'll be here." His mind is already racing, planning a trip to the store to stock up on things he knows she'll need but doesn't yet have stowed in her car. "Sacramento is a long drive," he says. "Would you be comfortable staying in my guesthouse for a couple days once you're discharged? I don't want all those hours in the car to put you in any pain."
Her eyes go wide in surprise at the mention of his guesthouse, and Patrick has to remind himself that Teresa doesn't know exactly how wealthy he is. He's suddenly self-conscious of the money, wondering why it had taken him so long to feel any guilt at all about charging clients hundreds of dollars per session.
"That's probably best," says Teresa, her voice a little high. "But really, I can just find a hotel - "
Patrick waves a hand dismissively. "You need a proper mattress, and you're not going to find one of those at a hotel. Plus, most of the rooms here in Malibu are probably booked."
And not within the budget of a state cop, he adds mentally. He'd offer to pay for the room if he thought there was any chance that she'd accept, but he knows this is unlikely.
"Why don't you call me tomorrow when you're ready to be picked up?" he asks. Instead of asking for her number, he offers to give her his, and she reaches over to grab her purse, typing his number into her Blackberry.
"Get a cab back here, and we'll take my car," says Teresa, and her tone tells him there's not room for discussion. "Oh that reminds me." She begins to dig through her purse again, and Patrick reaches over with one hand to stop her progress.
"You are not paying me back for the cab rides," he says. "They've been the best use of my money in a very long time."
"Smooth talker," says Teresa without missing a beat, giving him an amused look but putting the purse off to the side again.
Her new motherhood glow dims for a second, and he sees how exhausted she is underneath the wash of hormones circulating her body. "You need to get some rest," he says. "And I have a few errands to run."
Patrick leans over to set Elizabeth in her mother's arms. Unable to resist, he brushes a quick kiss to the corner of Teresa's mouth, delighting in the blush that colors her cheeks and the smile she tries to fight.
"Until tomorrow," Patrick says, and he steals from the room.
The next morning in the cab back to the hospital, Patrick texts his assistant to book a hotel room in Sacramento. A few minutes later, he gets a confirmation text, and he can't help smiling to himself.
The cab driver notices.
"That's a big smile for someone heading to the hospital," she says, glancing at him through the rearview mirror.
Patrick's not used to being on the receiving end of that look. He finds it's rather unnerving.
"My friend just gave birth," he blurts out, immediately wondering why he's decided to share this information with a total stranger.
"Oh, honey, that is not the look someone wears when thinking about their friend. Does her husband know you're head over heels for his wife?"
Patrick's eyes narrow. "She's single, and I don't really see how it's any of your business."
The driver's eyes light up. "Well, this changes things!"
Patrick sighs.
They turn into the parking lot of the hospital, and once she's parked the car outside the entrance, the driver turns around to face him. "Don't let her slip away," she says.
Patrick hands her a few bills. "I don't plan on it," he murmurs, getting out of the car, slamming the door, and striding toward the now-familiar atrium.
He heads over to the valet and requests Teresa's car be brought around front, and three minutes later the familiar mustang rolls into view. He takes the keys from the attendant, tipping him generously, and opens one of the doors to the backseat, reaching for the infant car seat he'd spotted there two nights ago. It takes him a minute to figure out how to properly disconnect the seat from the base, his fingers fumbling for the right motions.
But then the seat comes loose, and Patrick bends down to grab the bag he sees at the floor of the car. He's guessing Teresa will want a change of clothes.
"I'm starting to wonder if you're not actually psychic," she says, clearly grateful, when he steps into her room, holding both the bag and the infant car seat. She looks down at the baby in her arms as Patrick sets the items on the chair. "Here, Lizzie, let's let Patrick hold you so Mommy can transform into a functional human being."
He leans over to cradle the baby again, and it's a welcome weight. He'd strangely come to miss it in the time he'd been away. "Lizzie," he says, testing the name on his tongue, but the infant gives no indication that she's heard him, continuing to doze on.
Teresa heads to the bathroom, and Patrick catches a glance at her bare back under her hospital gown. He looks away quickly, uncomfortable with ogling her without her permission, but not before he notices a smattering of freckles across her skin.
Suddenly, Lizzie opens her eyes, and Patrick freezes. They're precisely the same shade as her mother's. His heart nearly stops.
"Hi," he says, his voice high, and he just stares at her for several seconds. "Hi, Lizzie."
He looks up after a minute or so to see Teresa watching him, clad in clean clothes and leaning against the doorframe. Rather than her usual fierceness, she's looking at him with an expression he can only describe as soft.
"You ready?" she asks.
"I sure am."
"Did you buy the whole store?" asks Teresa when he opens the door to his home to her, gesturing for her to precede him inside.
Patrick smiles. "Only the essentials."
Teresa walks into the living room, carrying Lizzie in her car seat and navigating the maelstrom of shopping bags that Patrick had tossed onto various pieces of furniture. Patrick hurries to clear a space for her to set the car seat down. She does, looking dazed.
"I assembled the bassinet an hour ago," he says, moving the bags in search of it. "It's somewhere around here. Ah, et violà," he says, removing the bag with a flourish to uncover the bassinet.
To his embarrassment, Teresa bursts into tears.
Patrick steps toward her, gathering her into his arms on instinct. "Hey," he says softly, rubbing a hand up and down her back. "You're okay. I got you."
She turns her face into his neck, grabbing hold of the lapel of his dress shirt with one strong fist. Her skin burns against his, and his other hand moves to stroke her hair.
"I got you," he says again and again, and eventually her breaths become more measured and even.
"I'm sorry," she says against him. "I just...I spent about seven months imagining walking over the threshold for the first time with Lizzie, thinking I'd be doing it alone."
Patrick swallows and holds her tighter.
Two days later, Patrick turns on the radio when they merge onto the interstate, glancing at Teresa in surprise when cool jazz flows through the speakers. "Excellent taste. I feared you'd be one of those cops who listens to whatever monstrosity is on popular radio stations these days."
Teresa grins as he turns the dial low so they can converse. "Jazz music is my escape," she says.
"Thanks for inviting me along." He nearly presses his foot harder on the gas to speed up to get around a car ahead, then he thinks about Lizzie in the backseat. He leans off the gas, slowing to just under the speed limit. Plus, he thinks, the slower we go, the longer the car ride...
"What's your escape?" asks Teresa suddenly.
He glances over at her. "It's not so much a thing as it was an event," he admits. "I, uh...I grew up on a carnival circuit in the Midwest. Never went to a proper school, never had real friends. I was...miserable. As soon as I was old enough, I left and moved to where the money was." He taps his fingers against the steering wheel. "Guess that doesn't really count as an escape if I took the life with me."
"You're escaping now," Teresa points out.
Patrick smiles. "Yeah," he says. "I am."
"Did your carnival ever hit Chicago?"
He reads between the lines. "A fellow Midwest-transplant to California! What are the odds?" He watches her from the corner of her eye. "When did you leave Chicago?"
She slaps him lightly on the shoulder. "I asked you first!"
He relents. "Every year," he says in answer to her question. "Just think, we were probably within fifty miles of each other at various points in our childhood."
"Probably closer than that," she says. "After my mom died, I used to take my brothers to those things all the time."
"You're kidding." He can't hide the look of incredulity and wonder on his face. "Do you remember the names?"
She closes her eyes, clearly trying to access memories she hasn't thought about in years. "My brothers liked the one called Razzle Dazzle," she says. "My favorite was The Greatest Show."
Patrick's mouth goes dry. "I was the Boy Wonder on The Greatest Show."
Teresa gapes at him. "I tried to get tickets for that one year. It was sold out."
Patrick shakes his head. "Damn," he says. "If only I hadn't built myself such a reputation, we could have met decades earlier."
"The universe works in mysterious ways," says Teresa. Things go quiet between them for a while before she speaks again, her voice tentative. "What we're doing - you realize this is crazy, right? Driving six hours with someone you've known for mere days?"
"It doesn't feel crazy," says Patrick, his tone matching hers. He lets that hang in the air for a while before he decides to break the tension. "Plus, you can shoot me if I try any funny business."
She giggles, and it is the best sound he thinks he's ever heard.
Then she touches his upper arm with a fingertip, and he looks over at her briefly.
"Do you think we were always supposed to meet?" She's quiet, barely audible over the jazz music, and she doesn't seem to want to meet his eyes.
He can't tell her he doesn't believe in fate, so he just smiles. "I like that thought," he says instead. "Okay, so now your turn - when did you leave Chicago?"
"I left to go to college here," says Teresa.
"You feel guilty about it. Why?"
She sighs. "It was a pretty selfish decision. I had to leave my brothers behind."
"You weren't the parent. How could you be expected to care for them?"
"See, that's just the thing - I kind of was the parent." Teresa runs a hand through her hair. "After my mom died, my dad wasn't really present. He committed suicide soon after."
Patrick reaches over to take her hand. "That's...a lot to deal with," he says. "I'm sorry."
She shakes her head. "It's okay. This may sound horrible, but it was actually easier to deal with everything after he passed."
He interlaces their fingers. "He was abusive, then."
"He was an alcoholic. He had no idea he was even doing it." Teresa blinks quickly and takes a deep breath. "Sorry - I can't believe I just told you that. I hadn't even told…" She trails off, not needing to finish her thought.
Patrick squeezes her hand. "You did what you had to do to survive. I'm sure your brothers will understand someday."
She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear and looks at him. "What about your family?"
"There's not much to tell," he says, shrugging. "I never knew my mother, and my father was a bastard."
"Are they still alive?"
"We're not exactly on Christmas card terms, so I don't know."
"And you don't want to know."
He lets out a breath. "Not particularly." He looks over at her. "That's what I was thinking about, actually, when you showed up at my doorstep. I want to be a better man than he was."
Teresa disentangles their fingers so she can reach up to tuck one of his curls back into place, and he tries to hide the shiver that passes down his spine. "You are a good man, Patrick Jane."
He automatically leans into her touch.
It's quiet for a minute, and their words from the past few minutes sink in. Teresa pulls her hand away, and Jane meets her eye. "That was…"
"Intense."
He clears his throat. "Yes."
"And yet neither of us are running away screaming," Teresa points out.
"The jury's still out on that. It's kind of difficult for you to do when the car is in motion."
She considers him, and he'd give anything to be able to take his eyes off the road long enough to study her and know what she's thinking.
"Being a cop means I've seen the worst of humanity," she eventually says. "And you may have your demons - everyone does - but you're choosing not to let them define you. You're choosing to rise above them. So what I said before stands: you are a good man." She smiles. "I'll keep reminding you of that if necessary."
He's not sure how to respond, so he reaches over to take her hand again, and they fall into companionable silence for some time.
Eventually, a soft cry sounds from the backseat, and Teresa turns around to check on Lizzie.
"Would you mind taking the next exit? It's about time for me to feed and change her."
Patrick spots a sign for an approaching rest stop, and he pulls off the interstate, slowing down on the exit ramp and parking the car. Teresa gets out of the car and immediately reaches for Lizzie's car seat, detaching it, and Patrick grabs her go bag. By silent agreement, they walk side by side to the shaded picnic area, dead grass crunching underneath their feet. Teresa sets the car seat on a picnic table, reaching for a blanket from the bag and spreading it out. Then she picks up Lizzie, and Patrick smiles at the look of pure adoration on her face.
"I feel almost like an imposter," says Teresa quietly as she lays Lizzie down and begins to change her diaper. "I was watched like a hawk in the hospital with everything I did, and now suddenly I'm expected to be an expert on my own."
Patrick hands her a clean diaper and takes the soiled one, tossing it in the nearby waste bin. "No one's expecting you to be an expert," he says. "I imagine that comes with time and practice. And you aren't alone."
Teresa looks over at him, and her hair is tinged red from the sun. "No," she agrees. "I'm not." She looks down at her shirt and sighs. "I did not plan to be breastfeeding when I packed my bag for this trip," she laments, clearly considering her options.
Patrick guides her to sit down, shrugging off his suit jacket. "Here," he says, slinging it half over her chest. Teresa sends him a grateful look before adjusting underneath the jacket, then she reaches for Lizzie. Patrick places the infant in her arms, moving the jacket to cover where Teresa's skin will be exposed but careful not to cover the baby.
"This seems like second nature to you," says Teresa. "The way Lizzie just seemed to fit into your arms the first morning you held her, how you always knew exactly what to do or say when I was in labor…"
Patrick shrugs. "I like babies. They're full of promise and infinite possibilities. And I like you, too. That makes it easy."
He can't remember the last time he'd smiled so much. Maybe he'd never smiled as much as he has in the past few days.
Teresa ducks her head, blushing again.
He reaches out to touch her shoulder, and she looks up at him. "You're already a great mother, you know that, right? It's my job to watch people, and I've been watching you with your daughter. I rarely see the look of pure love that you wear when she's in your arms. That's the most important thing, and everything else will work itself out."
Teresa nods, and a soft wind blows between them. He's close enough that her hair tickles his neck as it dances in the breeze, and this time he doesn't try to mask when he shivers.
They approach Sacramento as the sun dies, bringing a temporary respite from the heat. She directs him to her condo, and he pulls into the quaint neighborhood. After parking the car, he grabs as many of the bags as he can carry and follows Teresa to the door. She unlocks it, and they step over the threshold together.
He sets the bags down on the floor, squeezes her hand, and heads back to the car to get the rest of the bags. "Don't unpack these tonight," Patrick says. "I'll stop by tomorrow morning and do it myself. You shouldn't be lifting anything you don't have to."
"You're not staying?"
Her disappointment is obvious, and he feels his insides twist not unpleasantly. "I have a room booked already," he says. "If you need anything, call me, but I don't want to intrude on you in your home."
She sets the car seat down and picks Lizzie up gingerly, raising an eyebrow. "How is this different from you insisting I stay at your guesthouse?"
He doesn't want to answer the question, but Teresa guesses correctly without him needing to speak a word. She smiles. "Who said chivalry was dead?"
A car pulls up outside, its headlights shining in the front window. "That's my ride," says Patrick, leaning forward to kiss her cheek. "Sleep well," he says.
"Goodnight, Patrick," he hears her whisper as he closes the door behind him.