Jane had spurned everyone's attempts to help him in the kitchen. Clearly he was having a lot of fun, so the others left him to it. Lisbon took the snacks Jane had made for her and went and had a leisurely bath to warm herself up. Cho stayed buried in his book and Van Pelt and Rigsby watched sports on TV, arguing good-naturedly about the merits of the different players.

The dinner was worth the wait, and Jane lapped up everyone's praise with undisguised pleasure. Naturally he already knew he was a wonderful cook, but it was nice to have everyone else say so too.

After they had put all the dishes in the dishwasher and straightened up the kitchen, Lisbon waited apprehensively to see what Jane was going to try to force them to do for the rest of the evening. Much as he enjoyed keeping her in suspense, Jane decided it was probably safest if he didn't push his luck, so he triumphantly produced a pile of DVDs and told Lisbon to pick which movie they were going to watch.

"A movie, Jane? My, how very original," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

The others looked through the selection Jane had brought and also registered surprise.

"Old black-and-white movies and romantic comedies," Cho said, clearly unimpressed. "Do we look like teenage girls having a slumber party?"

Jane looked at Cho appraisingly and said, "Not even by the wildest stretch of the imagination, Cho. But it can't hurt to broaden your horizons."

Cho gave a grunt that clearly indicated that he didn't agree.

Jane focused his attention back on Lisbon, who was now looking through the movies with what could only be described as astonishment. Jane smiled to himself. He had chosen the movies with great care, and it looked as if he had managed, with his usual unerring insight, to find all her favourites. She glanced up at him and met his gaze for the briefest of moments, but it was enough to make the bottom fall out of Jane's stomach. Suddenly this didn't feel like a game anymore.

Cho had retired to his chair with his book. Why Jane had bothered to bring the rest of them along on this trip was a mystery to him. It was clear the man was trying to woo Lisbon. Not that he objected to a front-row seat to Jane getting squashed like a bug, but he still thought it odd that even a man as obsessed with the limelight as Jane would want an audience for this kind of thing. He mentally shrugged and carried on reading.

"Pick one, Lisbon," Jane said, after Lisbon had examined the whole lot twice.

"Why me?" she asked. "I thought this was a 'no boss and subordinates' trip."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm not asking you to choose because you're the boss," Jane said, though this wasn't entirely true. Picturing a world in which Lisbon was not the one in charge of their little group and, more specifically, of him was a lot harder than he'd anticipated. He had a horrible suspicion that he was whipped.

"Really?" She didn't sound like she believed him. "Okay, then let one of the others choose."

"Lisbon, no-one actually cares which one we watch. Just pick one already, and stop being so difficult, woman!"

Lisbon raised her eyebrows and gave Jane a tiny, crooked smile that clearly said, 'Round 1: Lisbon' - a conclusion that Jane considered a bit premature. The round was by no means over yet.

She then picked up Notting Hill as if nothing had happened and said, "This one."

Van Pelt's face lit up.

"Oh, I love that movie!" she said. "It has Julia Roberts in it," she added for Rigsby's benefit.

Rigsby looked pleased. Julia Roberts was his favourite actress.

"I hope you brought popcorn," he said to Jane.

"Rigsby, we just ate!" Van Pelt chided. "You don't need any more food."

"Gotta have popcorn to watch a movie," Rigsby said obstinately.

Jane grinned and told Rigsby where he could find the microwave popcorn.

The movie was a universal success. Even Cho, to his surprise, found himself drawn in from the beginning. Rigsby realised a few minutes in that he'd actually seen the movie before, but he had no objections to dividing his time between watching Julia Roberts and watching Grace. Two hours well spent, in his opinion. Both Lisbon and Van Pelt loved the movie, so they watched it with unwavering attention from beginning to end.

Jane scarcely watched the movie at all. He initially pretended to, but soon found himself captivated by something much more compelling. He'd never watched TV or a movie with Lisbon before and he hadn't expected the experience to be so engrossing. She was completely oblivious to anything other than the story she was watching, and her emotional responses flitted over her face in the most fascinating, revealing way. Jane was mesmerised, especially when she laughed (which was often). And her expression when she was watching the love scenes made his pulse race and the blood drum in his ears until he felt almost light-headed. Up until that moment, Jane hadn't been prepared to admit to himself how he felt about Lisbon, but it suddenly became so blindingly, overwhelmingly obvious that he could avoid it no longer. He was in love with Teresa Lisbon. And he had no idea what to do about it.

How had his plan to get Lisbon to let her guard down backfired so magnificently on him?

After the movie ended, Lisbon gave a deep sigh of satisfaction and got up to make some tea.

"Admit it, man," Rigsby said to Cho, "You really enjoyed that."

Cho shrugged, "Yeah, it was good. Really funny. Especially Spike." He got up. "I'm going to turn in. Night everyone." He headed off to his room with his book.

Van Pelt and Rigsby took this as their cue to leave centre-stage, and also said good-night. They had thought it would be somewhat awkward, but neither Jane nor Lisbon was paying much attention, so they escaped unscathed.

Jane sat down on one of the barstools on the other side of the kitchen counter and watched Lisbon making the tea.

"Okay, so how do you do that?" she asked him. "That thing with the movies."

"Got all your favourites, didn't I?" Jane said smugly.

"How?"

"It's not that hard. I know you pretty well."

"Oh, please, you do that with total strangers!"

"Actually, no I don't. I can make pretty good guesses as to a stranger's general tastes, because there are surprisingly few variations on the theme. Once you've learned all the variations, it just takes a bit of practise to learn to recognise them. But to correctly guess someone's ten favourite movies, you have to know that person pretty well."

Lisbon gave him his tea and sat down next to him.

"I couldn't guess your ten favourite movies."

"You'd be surprised, Lisbon. Have you actually tried? In all those hundreds of hours we've spent in each other's company, we've picked up massive amounts of information about each other, much of it subconscious. When you intentionally access that information, you'll find that you know all kinds of things you didn't think you knew. Try it."

Lisbon looked suspiciously at Jane. "Maybe another time," she said.

"Nice tea, by the way," Jane grinned at her over the rim of the cup. "Thanks."

They drank their tea in comfortable silence, both of them lost in thoughts too complicated to articulate. Draining her cup, Lisbon got up to go to bed.

"Sweet dreams, Lisbon," Jane said, taking the cups to the sink.

"Yeah, you too, Jane," she replied, before disappearing into the safety of her room.

Cho was still reading when Jane came to bed.

"Closed her door on you again, huh?" he said, smirking at Jane unsympathetically. "She seems a bit impervious to your whole love and affection shtick."

"A, I'm not trying to seduce Lisbon, and B, even if I were, these things take time to fully mature and come to fruition."

"Yeah – in this case years and years and years."

Cho put his book down and turned out the light.

Jane lay on his bed and wondered gloomily how he was going to get himself out of the unexpected hole he suddenly found himself in. Normally he relied on Lisbon to get him out of tricky situations, but since she was the tricky situation in this instance, he was just going to have to fix this himself.

'I'm a resourceful man,' he told himself, 'it'll be fine.' But it took him hours to fall asleep, and even when he did, Lisbon invaded his dreams, smiling that disarming smile of hers. This had not been a part of the plan.

TBC