AN: Sorry about the delay getting this up! Real life has been just plain stupid, but hopefully things are getting less nutty. Thanks for your patience and support folks - it means the world to me!
Learning to Breathe
Chapter Four
Although she hadn't given him explicit permission to move in, Jane rather felt as though she had. He understood that they needed to take things a little slowly for a variety of reasons. For one, she had literally just gotten out of a relationship with someone else. For another, he had been living like a monk for twelve years.
To that end, he had resisted the impulse to start storing all of his possessions in her house. He had no intention of staying anywhere other than with her – far from it. It just felt like the prudent thing to do. There was a great deal of things about their burgeoning relationship that had the potential to overwhelm; he didn't want to give her another.
He remembered her momentary panic during their first love-making session, a sure sign that her brain was working far too hard. Part of him thought the best plan would have been to simply hold her for the night, but another, long-denied facet told him that this was what they truly needed.
That part of him had been utterly correct.
Lisbon was currently draped across him, dark curls spilling over his chest. His hand ran the length of her bare back, over and over, tracing the contours of smooth skin and fine muscle.
His breathing had finally returned to normal, as had hers, and he could feel her relaxing into sleep.
This would be the third night in a row they went to bed like this, and he thought he was probably already addicted to it. To the warmth, the sense of togetherness, and, yes, the pleasure.
He had made love to her five times now, losing himself inside of her each time, relinquishing the control he usually clung to, forgetting everything but her open arms and the way she said his name.
It was heady, perfect.
After the weekend they'd had, it felt a little surreal that they were going back to work the next day. Granted, their job wasn't exactly routine, and he knew at least Lisbon thought it was anything but mundane, but he hated to give up his time with her.
He supposed that was life now – just like everyone else.
He was luckier than most in that respect, though. Lisbon's desk was four feet from his couch, and he got to spend at least forty hours a week with her in a professional capacity. And now…now he got to go home with her, too.
For the first time in a lifetime, he paused to consider how very lucky he was.
Lisbon's lips pressed against his heart. "I love you," she whispered sleepily, and his arms tightened in response. She also loved hearing the words back, so he murmured into her ear, feeling her smile on his skin.
She beat him out of bed in the morning, and he wrapped his arms around her pillow as she slipped away. In a few minutes, there was the sound of coffee brewing, then the shower running. Normal, domestic noises that made up the background of every day.
He smiled into the mattress, stretching languidly.
Abbott was waiting for them in the briefing area, and he felt his heart sink a little. They had a case.
Lisbon was two minutes behind him, Cho five behind her. Although Abbott didn't look outwardly ruffled (Jane wasn't sure what, if anything, would have that effect), he was unconsciously tapping his fingers against his podium by the time the whole team was assembled.
A big case, then.
A state senator had gone missing, and during the initial investigation, an alarming amount of correspondence between him and a North Korean diplomat had emerged.
Cho spoke up first. "Sir, without trying to sound too cold, what damage could a state senator possibly do? Texas politicians hardly have access to the same information that US senators do."
Abbott nodded in acknowledgement. "Excellent point, Agent Cho. Normally, we would let the local police handle the missing persons case, unless they asked for our help. In this instance, they probably would. However, when not in session, our senator here happens to own a rapidly expanding military technology company. Last year, they landed a DOD contract."
There was the rub.
"What sort of technology are we talking about, sir?" Lisbon asked.
"Although the DOD was purposely a little hazy on the details," Abbott said, and Jane caught the hint of annoyance, "it was something to do with weapons calibration. In the end, I suppose the specifics don't matter. Whatever this senator was up to, we don't need the North Koreans getting their hands on it."
"Are we thinking defection?" Fischer wanted to know. She looked good this morning – her shorter hair suited her. Abruptly, he hid a totally inappropriate smile, because clearly Cho was thinking the same thing, but without his own lack of personal interest.
"As of this moment, that is our primary concern – discovering whether or not this disappearance was voluntary. Once we've established that, we'll be able to move forward," Abbott informed the team, and their dismissal was coming.
Forty minutes later, the team was split into two vehicles, Lisbon following Cho's identical Suburban out of the underground garage, heading towards the state capitol building.
At least, Jane thought, they didn't have to go out of state for this one. Of course, there were certain merits to the idea of Lisbon and a hotel room, but he was enjoying having something resembling a home far too much.
"Thoughts?" Lisbon asked, making a left turn.
"Hm?" he responded, pulling his gaze away from the window. "About this case or just thoughts in general?"
He smiled when she rolled her eyes. "The case, Jane."
He was Jane again, he noted. But that was fine. The use of his first name was going to take practice, even if she only ever said it when they were alone. If he was being honest with himself, although he had no issue thinking of her as Teresa, his default mode was Lisbon. Perhaps they both needed work.
He hoped he wouldn't have to explain to their children why Mommy and Daddy called each other by their last names.
And that was a dangerous train of thought, one he needed to stop.
In time, maybe. Hopefully.
"Oh," he said, trying to sound amused. "The case. I think we'll know a great deal more when we see the senator's office."
Lisbon's voice was teasing. "Like, if we see any posters endorsing Communism, we'll go with the defection theory?"
His smile was bright. "Precisely, Lisbon."
The mood at the capitol building was tense; probably word had leaked out about the senator's disappearance, and his fellow politicians were on edge. Jane figured it was good for them- in his experience, lawmakers occasionally needed to be reminded that they, too, were only human.
His quick search of the office and the man's desk yielded a few clues, though not anything he shared with Lisbon. It wasn't her kind of evidence.
Cho ignored him as he clicked through an e-mail cache, and Fisher was busy interviewing staffers.
"I don't see any hammers or sickles," Lisbon noted, glancing wryly around.
"Nope," he agreed easily. "Let's go to his house."
"Jane, we literally just got here!" she protested.
"Meh," he responded. "Nothing worth seeing here anyway."
She relented, though he did hear her muttering to herself as they walked down the many flights of stairs that led to the exit.
Mrs. Caroline Watts-Marchbanks was the epitome of a gracefully aging Southern Belle. She had the hair, the looks, the figure, and the wealthy, influential husband. Jane was sure she had remembered to apply waterproof mascara this morning, not wanting something so blasé as grief to mar her appearance.
For all of that, she certainly wasn't behind her husband's disappearance. That much was painfully obvious. She might not have loved Senator Marchbanks, but she certainly loved being married to him. Besides, she had more power with him than without him. Married, she was the wife of a prominent senator. Widowed, she was just a middle-aged woman who had no one to take care of her.
"Ma'am, had your husband been acting strange? Even if it was just a little thing? Phone calls late at night? Seeming worried?" Lisbon was going through standard procedure.
There was a thought blossoming on Caroline's Botox-laden face. "Yes, now that you mention it. The past few weeks, Harry had seemed more stressed than normal, like he was wound up tighter than a fiddle. He was always on his phone, too," she went on, brows now furrowing. She hadn't liked that, hadn't liked his attention directed somewhere other than her. "I couldn't even talk him into a quick weekend out at the lake. He loves sailing," she added, as if it should have been obvious.
Lisbon's face was carefully neutral, a well-crafted detective. "Can you think of anywhere your husband might have gone if he was in trouble? Old college roommate? Vacation property? Cousin?"
Eventually, the wife remembered that there was a garage downtown that her husband owned. Restoring collector cars was a hobby of his, but one she disallowed on their property. Something about the smell of gasoline and engine oil.
"I would have thought the locals would have already been all over this place," Jane noted, buckling his seatbelt again.
Lisbon shrugged. "Me, too, but maybe they knew we were coming in and didn't want to waste their time. We would have interviewed her anyway, even if they'd already done so."
The garage was set in the warehouse district, the old brick and industrial steel making it almost indistinguishable from any other place here. Still, he got a distinctly uneasy feeling as they pulled up. He wasn't given to superstitions, so he assumed that his brain had picked up some subtle hint and was telling him to be cautious.
Lisbon was frowning in the seat next to him, and he knew he wasn't the only one who had a touch of foreboding. Ever practical, however, she shrugged her shoulders and got out of the car. He noticed that she had unbuttoned the flap on her holster, though.
They locked eyes for just a moment before she put her hand on the door knob, and wondered if he should listen to his instincts and call for backup.
As Lisbon slowly entered the building, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Cho.
If you don't hear from me in five minutes, track my phone and get here immediately.
He figured that was sufficiently alarming.
Four steps into the dim space, his phone buzzed.
It was Cho. Timer started now. Five minutes.
Well, that was something, he supposed.
On his left, there was a bank of light switches. He looked at Lisbon questioningly, and she nodded permission. It wasn't like they had done anything to hide their arrival, so if someone was inside, they knew they weren't alone anymore.
In one swift movement, he flipped all of the switches, and there was a buzz as the fluorescent bulbs flickered on.
He blinked once, and then heard the tell-tale click of a weapon being primed.
It wasn't at him though.
Lisbon was slowly lowering her gun to the ground, hands held up in supplication. When she was upright, he saw the black metal of a gun barrel digging in to her temple.
He was unprepared for the shudder that went through him.
Her eyes were fixed on his, silently begging him to not do anything stupid. Rapidly, he looked around. There were two other men in the building, definitely not Senator Marchbanks. Apparently, they didn't give a damn who the two people that had just come through the door were. Not a good sign.
He estimated that two minutes had passed since Cho had started his countdown. All he had to do was keep them talking for…well, three minutes for the time to run off, probably another three for Wiley to track his phone, and then…twenty? Twenty six minutes.
It was an obscene amount of time to stall.
But he met Lisbon's frightened gaze, and cleared his throat. Her life depended on this. He had already failed the woman he loved once. He wouldn't do so again.
He started to talk, voice surprisingly even, amicable, doing his level best to get everyone else in the room speaking as well.
In the end, it only took Cho and Fischer fifteen minutes to come barreling through the door, guns blazing. There were a few seconds of confusion in the beginning, and Lisbon used the opportunity to duck, then seize her attackers arm in a brutal hold. The gun fell uselessly to the floor.
It was all over in less than three minutes.
Then, regardless of their potential audience, he wrapped Lisbon in a bone-crushing hug, his nose pressed into her hair, eyes squeezed shut in sheer relief.
Her hands came to rest on his sides, and he knew she was breathing deeply.
"It's okay," she whispered. "I'm okay."
She was trying to comfort him? Ridiculous. Still, she turned her face into his neck, and he felt a little tremor go through her.
Realistically, it wasn't even that close of a call. She had been through far worse, as had he. But it was all different now.
Eventually, Cho found them. "How did you know?" he asked without preamble, ignoring their embrace.
Lisbon stepped away. "Know what?"
"I got a text from Jane, telling me that if I didn't hear from him in five minutes to get her ASAP." He held up his phone.
Full of adrenaline and happiness that no one was hurt or dead or seriously injured, he was compelled to laugh. "You didn't wait five minutes," he told the other man.
"Absolutely not," Cho said, decidedly unapologetic. "I've worked with you for enough years to know that giving you any sort of leeway is a terrible plan."
There was a wall of flashing police lights outside, and he resisted the impulse to take Lisbon's hand.
"Meet you guys back at headquarters," Fischer told them. "We'll see if we can't get anything from these guys." She nodded at the three men from the garage, each ensconced in a separate police car.
The drive back to the office seemed to simultaneously take forever and no time. All he wanted was to be alone with her, yes, but not here. He was suddenly desperate to crush her against him once more, to feel her lips part, to run his fingers through her hair.
He realized belatedly that he was shaking with reaction, which was stupid, since she was the one who'd had a gun pressed to her head.
His eyes closed, and he reached for her hand.
Hours later, he knocked on the door of her house. The three men they'd arrested had done an admirable job of saying absolutely nothing, and Abbott had released his team around six, hoping that a night in jail would loosen some tongues. Jane doubted it – the men appeared to be professionals, but Abbott felt the need to do something, and this was as good of a thing as any.
Lisbon let him in, and he hugged her once more. She was still dressed for work, shoes and all. He glanced around her house – there was a half-full tumbler of scotch on the kitchen counter. She was coping in her own way, despite her insistence that she was just fine.
He also knew she didn't want to talk about it, wouldn't want to talk about, period.
That was just how Lisbon operated, so he figured he should just make sure she knew that he was there.
"Let's order in," he said lightly. It was still his job to take care of her, and letting her get too drunk on hard liquor on an empty stomach wasn't part of the description.
She tried to behave normally, but she was very…close that evening, legs wrapped around his under the table, leaning against him whenever the opportunity presented itself, and sometimes when it didn't. Fine, he could be her rock for a change. The ability to read her like an open book was very handy in this situation – he would hold her for the next ten hours if that was what she needed, and it seemed like it was.
Still, later that night, several drinks in, she had pressed herself against him while they laid on the couch, her movements suddenly urgent.
Her nails raked down his back, teeth nipped at his shoulder.
This was her affirmation – she was alive.
She pushed at his chest, and he let her do what she wanted, lying flat on his back. She straddled him, throwing off the rest of her clothes, hair falling in a heavy curtain around both of them as she leaned down to kiss him.
Her hips rolled, and his fingers dug into her soft skin. Too hard, he was sure, but he also knew that this was what she needed. Rough, heavy, intense.
Some of his own emotions came to the surface – fear, relief, blind panic – and he lost himself in the rhythm of her movements. She was here, she was alive, she was safe.
It ended soon, and she trembled as she sprawled across his chest.
He tilted her face up, kissed her sweetly, then smiled as she snuggled into his neck. He cupped the back of her head, fingers working into her hair, and she let out a soft sigh of utter contentment.
In the years before now, they both would have spent a night like this alone, stirring a drink or two, thinking of all the ways it could have gone wrong, how it could go wrong in the future. It would be a long, dark stretch of hours before dawn finally crept through.
And now, no one had to be alone.
It was a bit of a shock, realizing she had been as lonely and as empty as he had been.
Carefully, he rolled out from underneath her, eased her to her feet. She followed when he tugged lightly on her hand. It had been a long day, and the only thing he wanted to do now was to curl up beside her and fall asleep.
There was something blissful about being able to get what he wanted.
The sheets were cool when they slid beneath them, and he felt the wave of exhaustion crash over him as he sank into the soft mattress. As soon as their body heat collected under the covers, he was out, her cheek against his heart.