A/N: Thank you for the great response to Part I of this tag. I know some people disagreed with me on the no kissing thing, but that's okay. It didn't mean I hated the episode. As I've said, I loved all the Jisbon; indeed, I'm overwhelmingly grateful for it. I guess I'm just being greedy because I have high hopes for even more. Anyway, I'm so used to writing Jane's perspective on things, that I felt the need to add this second part. It is a little more morose, but I believe that is Jane's underlying nature given his past, though he certainly appears very much in love and happy with Lisbon. Despite that, I sensed a real fear in him in this episode, like it might all be taken away from him at any time. I focused on that here.

Part II: Jane

Jane felt his stomach clench when Lisbon casually offered to give him a key to her house.

"That would be a step," he said after a beat, a moment he'd needed to calm his swirling mind and pounding heart.

His reply had been an understatement. In fact, it was a step for Jane as big as stepping off into the Grand Canyon. (Definitely a loo-loo.) He actually felt for a second like he was falling. This was a level of commitment he didn't think he'd ever reach again, not with any woman. It had only been in his wildest dreams that such a woman could be Lisbon.

She trusted him with her house, with her life. Hell, he wasn't even sure he could trust himself, that he could trust this. Life was so tenuous, so fragile. He'd talked a good game on that plane nearly two weeks before, but had he really considered the consequences of admitting his feelings? The possibility of her leaving him forever had been too much for him to bear, so he had confessed his love in front of a plane-full of people. It had been selfish and risky on his part, subjecting her to the bad luck that had cursed every close personal relationship he'd ever had. Not that he believed in curses, not really, but had it been fair for him to offer himself to her like that, knowing that to choose him over Pike meant giving up a life of security and a unambiguous future?

Offering him that key should have made him feel closer to her. Pike would have felt that way, he thought bitterly. Instead, he felt himself close himself off even more, like a Victorian miss fastening that last button at her throat.

In Florida, he'd allowed himself to forget who he was, had been so caught up in the wonder of it, the wonder of her, that he'd neglected to keep his protective walls up. These walls were meant to protect others, not himself. What had he been thinking, putting Lisbon in danger that way?

He remembered walking along Miami Beach with her, openly holding her hand, leaning over now and again to kiss her, just because he could. He'd tried not to think of walking on another beach, on another ocean clear across the country, with another woman he'd loved. He pushed aside the symbolism of it, the inherent momentousness of what he was doing now, with Lisbon. Instead, he'd spoken of a more neutral beach—the one where he'd taken refuge for two years in South America.

"One day, there was a whale beached near the village," he told her. "And all the children of the village tried to push it back into the sea."

"Oh, no," she said, her expressive brows knitting with concern. "It's always so sad to see when whales do that."

"Hmm," Jane said. "Yes."

"And the adults just let them do it? Didn't they even help?"

Jane shook his head. "No. They knew what would happen. Sure, they could get the poor thing back into the water, and maybe it would even swim away. But it would only find another shore where no one would be there to stop it. The old men especially cautioned against trying. No se puedeluchar contra el destino, they would say."

Lisbon translated the words in her mind, reaching back to her high school Spanish and her years spent in California. "You can't fight fate?" she said after a moment.

"Exactly."

"I'm not sure I believe that," said Lisbon, ever his little Pollyanna.

"Me neither," said Jane, because he really wanted to think that way. "And so I helped them."

She stopped abruptly, and he took a few steps passed her, stretching his arm a bit since he still held fast to her small hand.

She looked back at him, her eyes bright with love and pride. "You did?"

"Yes," he said, almost shyly.

"That was so sweet of you."

He shrugged, and he hated to disappoint her. "We couldn't move it. It was too heavy. It died there on the beach. Two days later, la policía came with a big boat and dragged the corpse back into the water. The tourists were complaining of the stench."

They resumed their stroll on the sand, both of them quietly contemplative.

"Why didn't you write to me about this?" she asked him after awhile.

"I tried not to share anything that would upset you," he told her.

She moved closer to his side, wrapping her arms around one of his, leaning her head on his shoulder as they walked.

"Well, stop that," she ordered.

Now, on her porch, he couldn't tell her that yes, he would take her key because he was selfish like that, but he could make her no guarantees that this wouldn't end badly. Despite what he'd told her on that beach in Miami, Jane was more of a fatalist than he wanted to admit.

No se puedeluchar contra el destino.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hearing that Pike was in Austin had thrown him for a loop to say the least. Here was the Real World Lisbon had mentioned, smacking him in the face lest he forget who he was, who he'd been lucky enough to be with. After Abbott's casual warning, Jane had retreated to the park area near the field office, ostensibly to read the file on their victim, Jeremy Geist, that Agent Vega had procured for him, but really because he'd felt the walls closing in on him, and he'd needed to breathe.

Fate had arrived in the guise of a handsome FBI agent who could (and had) offered Lisbon the world. What had Jane offered her? Mind-blowing sex and a finger that still held the wedding ring of his dead wife.

Shit.

In the relative quiet of the park, he felt the onset of a panic attack. He took several deep breaths, used every trick in his biofeedback arsenal to ward it off, so that when Lisbon found him, he was mostly under control. He saw her at the top of the steps, and pretended to read the report in his hands.

She looked happy to see him, though a little worried about his sudden disappearance. He regretted that immediately. She would always have a fear that he would leave her suddenly, without warning. He supposed she couldn't blame her.

She practically begged him to share what was on his mind, what had brought him outside in the middle of a workday. He apologized with an awkward formality for his secrecy, while in the next breath he lied by omission and told her his findings on Geist. He was too much of a coward to mention Pike, and her good mood suggested she hadn't seen him yet, though he was certain the man wouldn't pass up the opportunity to seek her out eventually.

Jane knew he wouldn't have.

Later that day, he caught Pike leaving a note on Lisbon's desk. He felt dread at the sight of him, his formal (and current?) rival bringing back all the uncertainty he'd felt two weeks before in this very office. But part of him—the overly optimistic part-was also hopeful because Pike had apparently missed seeing Lisbon.

He approached the man with trepidation, though he had no right other than to be civil with him. Pike had done nothing wrong. Pike was a good guy. Jane felt he owed him an apology for stealing his girl, so he gave it sincerely, feeling for him because he knew what it was like to lose Teresa Lisbon.

Their conversation was a punch in the gut.

Lisbon liked plans. She wasn't generally impulsive or unpredictable—well, except that one time when she agreed to marry Pike because Jane had pushed her to it, had given her no clear choice.

But what now? Looking at the lovelorn expression on Pike's face, Jane knew with a sinking heart that Lisbon certainly had a clear, well-informed choice now. Jane had told her his true feelings, had given her his heart and his body, just as Pike had done. If she saw Pike again, would she remember what she'd passed up? Would memory of her time with Pike leave Jane wanting?

Too late to stop Fate, Lisbon entered the bullpen, her face stricken to see her former fiancé waiting for her, while her current lover walked away with sweating palms. The walls began to close in again and Jane hovered in the elevator landing, openly listening, that stupid optimism making him stay in case she needed him.

And she had let Pike go again.

Maybe there really was a God, he thought, then mentally kicked himself for being so stupid.

He felt sick when he was honest with her minutes later, in the first floor lobby, when he confessed he had no plans for their future. She recovered admirably though, even smiling as she pretended to agree with him that doing what felt right was enough for her. Just as always, she gladly took anything he could give her.

It made him feel like crap. He vowed to be a better man. For her. Because Fate had led her back to him once more.

And then he'd deflected the whole thing with her grandfather's car, fell back on his old showman shtick of using something pretty to distract what was really going on beneath the audience's very nose. She had gladly fallen for it, mostly because the whole thing with Pike had been just as uncomfortable as it had been for him.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Later that night over dinner, she'd presented him with the key she'd had made on her lunch hour. She hadn't been messing around, apparently.

He took it with heartfelt gratitude, stepped off the edge into the Grand Canyon, used it to open the door to the first home he'd known in twelve years that wasn't rented or rolled around on wheels. Before she could turn on the light switch and see his damp eyes, he'd lifted her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

Deflection again, of course, but people didn't change overnight.

Fate, he realized, would have its way with him regardless. If it was going to take this away from him, he would make the most of it while he could.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I'm excited for next week's episode, and hopefully I'll be inspired to be back with another tag.