A/N: Thanks for those who read and reviewed the last chapter. You are all so kind! This chapter picks up immediately after the last, and the first part is M-rated, so please be advised. Enjoy!

Chapter 9: DNA

Lisbon looked down at the application in her hand, her heart doing a little flip within her breast. She looked up at the president, bleary eyed.

"You want me to become an FBI agent," she stated.

"Yes."

She set the papers gently on the bed between them and rose, turning her back to him. For a long time, she stood there, staring out the window at the Capitol building which glowed beautifully against the night sky. She stood there so long, still as a statue, that Jane began to fidget uncharacteristically, tapping his foot upon the thick Berber carpet. But he didn't want to interrupt her thought processes, so he said nothing.

Usually he could tell what a person was thinking just by their body language, by the tiny tells in their expression. It occurred to him that she understood this skill he had, which was why she was wisely keeping her back to him. If he hadn't been so nervous, he might have smiled.

He swiped a hand though his hair and waited.

At the five-minute mark, she turned, her expression carefully blank.

He watched in some surprise as she began unbuttoning her borrowed blouse, a green silk that must have looked fetching on its owner, the redhead, Van Pelt, but was simply stunning on Lisbon, matching her eyes and complimenting her Irish complexion. It took him a moment to process the fact that she was undressing. For him.

"Teresa," he said, finally, as she slipped the rich fabric off her shoulders. She let it fall to the floor before her hands went to her own grey slacks.

She stepped out of her shoes, then dropped her pants to the floor. She stood before him in her white cotton bra and a pair of nude bikini panties, obviously new, but a little too big for her through the hips.

"I always loved hand-me-downs," said Jane, more than willing to put aside the big picture to enjoy what she was offering him…for now.

"Van Pelt was very helpful."

"Come here," said Jane. He was a man used to giving orders. She walked over to stand before him at his place on the bed. His warm hands came up to nearly encircle her slim waist, and he looked up at her with a heated gaze.

"You're so beautiful," he told her.

She blushed, and he watched in fascination as the mottled color spread from her lovely cheeks to her gently sloping chest.

"Thank you," she managed. She reached up to brush an errant curl from his forehead. "As are you," she said honestly.

Grinning, he pulled her to him until he could kiss the valley between her breasts, and her hands came up to delve into his hair, reveling in its amazing softness. But she didn't want this to go exactly the way it had between them the first time, back in Washington. She put her hands on his, removing them from her hips before she dropped to the floor before him, her knees sinking into the thick carpet.

"Here are my terms," she said, her eyes solemn as she looked up into his, though her pulse pounded in her throat. Her hands went to his belt, unfastening it as she spoke. He raised an eyebrow, but was silent, letting her speak.

"If I should got to Quantico—and as yet that's a big if—you will not interfere in my training or my job placement in any way."

He felt her small hand at the placket covering his zipper, felt himself growing harder when he realized she was just moments away from touching him.

He nodded. "Okay." But he would have promised her Fort Knox just to feel those beautiful hands caressing him.

She lowered his zipper, and his mouth went dry.

"Secondly," she said, slipping her hand inside his trousers to cup the fullness she discovered there. He inhaled sharply, and she found the fly of his boxers.

"You will appoint Agent Cho to replace me as head of your crime task force in California."

Despite his quickening breath, Jane's brain kicked in again. Implementation of his crime bill was still incredibly important to him.

"Is he qualified?"

She gripped his erection. "Incredibly," she assured him, her hand sliding up and down his increasing length. He looked down to watch what she was doing, then closed his eyes as a shudder of desire rippled through his body. He didn't see her smile at her own power.

"Okay," he managed, in answer to her demand. "Anything…ahh…else?"

"Hmmm," she said, thinking.

Lisbon released him for a moment, but only to push his back onto the bed. He fell heavily, seeming now to have no control of his limbs, not even caring about the brief, sharp pain as his sore head hit the mattress. She removed his shoes, then stood to find the waistband of his pants and boxers, sliding the former down as he instinctively lifted his hips to accommodate her. His erection sprang free, firm and ready for her. She joined him on the bed, taking him in hand once more. She leaned over him, swiping a tongue over his velvety tip experimentally.

"Sweet Jesus," he muttered, then clenched his teeth.

"One more thing," she said, working her hands around him.

"Anything you want," he replied. "Nuclear launch codes? Secrets of Area 51? Who really killed JFK?"

She chuckled. "Maybe later. Right now, I just want your promise not to take any more security risks, especially when it comes to me."

He opened his eyes to look at her. "If I don't have to sneak around to see you, there will be no need."

She nodded, seeing his sincerity amidst the passion.

"Okay," she said. "I'll think about it."

Before he could say another word, she took him into her mouth, and neither of them did much thinking for a very long while.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Later, snuggled beneath the covers, limbs and bodies intertwined, Jane grinned.

"I'm rethinking the whole Quantico thing," he said.

"What?"

"Maybe you should become my Secretary of State. I have never beheld such a shrewd negotiator."

"Yeah. Well, you, Mr. President, aren't the only one used to getting what you want. And on that note, just because you're the President of the United States, doesn't mean you're the boss of me."

"Well, technically—"

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. "You know what I mean."

He smiled, kissing her pursed lips. "Yes, I do. I want an equal relationship. I don't want you kowtowing to me, especially in the bedroom."

"You sure about that?" she asked, lips quirking.

"Okay, but only on special occasions. Christmas being one of them." He remembered how she'd catered to his every fantasy, not minutes before.

"Your birthday?"

"Absolutely."

"How about President's Day?" she suggested mischievously. He suddenly rolled on top of her, pressing her lithe body into the soft mattress. He kissed her swollen lips.

"Aw, my dear, when you come to my house, every day is President's Day."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The next morning, they showered together in the large tiled bathroom, but cleanliness didn't seem their number one priority as they brought each other to ecstasy once more, while water and soap ran unheeded down their bodies.

It was more difficult to say goodbye this time, but Jane had to get back to DC, breaking news of a terrorist attack in Europe needing his immediate attention. Lisbon refused to be a distraction, so she would be staying in Sacramento. She was hoping to join him eventually, but it wouldn't be nearly as soon as he had hoped.

"I want to get into the FBI program on my own merits," she warned him as he slipped on his suit coat. "No phone calls from you to the Director, promise?"

She straightened his somber blue tie, her hands lingering on his buttoned vest.

His lips tightened stubbornly.

"Jane."

He sighed. "Fine. But you realize this might take months."

She nodded, hating the tears she felt gathering in her eyes. "Yes. But for me, it is the right way, or not at all. Besides, I never want there to be any question about your abusing your power to get me preferential treatment."

"There will be questions anyway," he reasoned.

"But this way, no one can prove anything, because there will be nothing to prove."

He gathered her close, bent his head to kiss her tenderly. "But you'll come and visit me in the meantime?"

"Yes. I'll take vacation time in a month or two."

"A month?" He frowned.

"Hey, there are phones and texting and even Skype…"

"Skype?"

She smiled indulgently. "Charlotte will teach you."

"This is going to be very difficult," he said, his fingers caressing her cheeks. "I'm going to miss you like hell."

"Me too," she whispered, and his mouth took hers desperately, both of them trying to memorize this feeling, this taste.

"Dad," came Charlotte's distant voice, after a startling knock on the adjoining door.

They broke apart, Lisbon smoothing down her hair and wiping impatiently at an errant tear. Lisbon wondered how obvious it had been that she hadn't spent the night in her own room down the hall.

"Come in, sweetheart," he called, and Charlotte's lovely face appeared.

"Jimmy says the plane is ready. Are you guys?"

"No," he said honestly. "But I suppose I've got no choice."

Charlotte looked from her dad to Lisbon, noting how sad they both appeared that they were leaving. Impulsively, Charlotte went to Lisbon, hugging the woman who had been there with her when her father had been hurt.

"I'm so glad you were here," she said. "Despite Dad's klutziness, I had a lot of fun."

"Hey!" protested Jane.

Lisbon laughed. "I had fun, too."

They parted, and Charlotte smiled. "I'll get my stuff. Jimmy said you're supposed to make a statement about the bombing before we get on the plane, Dad."

Jane sighed. "Yeah. I'll be right there." He'd been on the phone with Mashburn and various heads of state for the last hour. The press was waiting for him to say something public.

"One of my guys will get you home, or to the Rigbsy's—wherever you need to go," he told Lisbon when they were alone.

"Thank you, I'm sure I'll be fine. Now, go," she said, gifting her with her dimples. "Save the world."

He smiled. "I'll see you soon."

"Is that Boy Wonder talking?" she teased.

He closed his eyes and put two fingers on each temple, seemingly deeply in touch with the great unknown.

"Signs point to…yes," he responded, as if in a trance.

She laughed. "So your secret was a Magic 8 Ball, was it?"

He opened his eyes and grinned. "Shh…don't give away the secret to all my foreign policy decisions."

"Hmm," she said, her hands going up to rest on his shoulders. "That explains a lot."

His final kiss was sweet and filled with longing, and there settled in each of their hearts a sharp pain of dread for the lonely days to come.

Jimmy knocked politely, and Jane was immediately on the move, the Marines and Secret Service agents whisking him and Charlotte away like the expert team they were. She watched them go down the hall to the elevator, watched Jane turn and wave to her, his smile wide and blindingly beautiful before his guards crowded around him and she lost sight of him completely.

"Bye, Teresa!" Charlotte called, before the elevator slid closed.

"Bye," she said to the empty hallway.

Another black-suited agent appeared at the door of the suite, and they caught the next elevator to the garage.

And that was how Teresa Lisbon spent her Christmas.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Later, on Air Force One, Jane had a few moments when he wasn't on the phone. All hell had broken loose, and there was talk of military strikes or even putting boots on the ground. In the brief lull, Charlotte came to sit beside him.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, her fine brows knit in concern.

He took her hand and squeezed. "It will be," he said. "Don't be afraid."

"Oh, I'm not worried about you handling the terrorists; I'm worried about how you're going to get along without Teresa."

Jane managed a wry smile. "That's a good question. You like her then?"

"Yes, very much. You should have seen how she took control when you hit your head. She's even calmer than you in an emergency. I could tell she was really concerned about you."

"She was?" he asked, almost shyly.

"Yes. What's more, I think you are falling for her…hard."

His smile faded, but he couldn't deny it. "What do you think about that? I know you said you like her, but it's one thing to like a person; another to have her date your father."

"I told you I was cool with it. She makes you happy, Dad. And in case you're wondering, I'm totally okay that she spent the night last night."

"Charlotte."

"Don't be embarrassed. I'm almost eighteen. I know that even old people have sex, as disgusting as that image is."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

She smirked, but then a flash of gold caught the light from the airplane window. She touched the narrow band that she'd never, in all her life, seen off of his finger.

"You should probably take that off now, don't you think?"

He looked down, his thoughts drifting back to the day Angela had put the ring on his finger, that day at sunset, when they'd stood barefoot before a minister on a Malibu beach. He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.

"I don't want to dishonor your mother's memory."

She smiled gently at her father, so handsome, so wonderful. The best man she knew. The best man in the world. But like most adults, Charlotte thought, he could be incredibly stupid sometimes.

"I think you dishonor Mom more by wearing this ring when you're obviously falling in love with someone else."

"Charlotte."

"Dad," she replied, a challenge.

He met her eyes, green eyes so similar to his, especially when they were being equally stubborn.

"Teresa seems like a patient person," she said after a moment's staring contest. "But maybe she'd be more likely to stay with you if you weren't literally wearing a constant reminder of your dead wife. Personally, I wouldn't want to date a guy wearing someone else's ring. I don't think you'd want that for me either, would you?"

Jane felt stricken by her insight. He shook his head in wonder.

"How'd you get so smart?"

"Probably from Mom."

He grinned and draped his arm across her shoulder, pulling her to his side and kissing her soundly on top of her head.

"I didn't say smart ass. That, you got from me."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Three weeks later…

With a recommendation from Minnelli and a waiver of the age requirement due to her already being a state agent, Lisbon was able to jump to the head of the line in the FBI application process. She'd been interviewed by bureau agents in Sacramento, twice, had undergone an even more rigorous background check, even though she was obviously clear through her employment with the CBI. With her recent presidential commendation after the Red John arrest, along with her exemplary service at the state level, the FBI agents she spoke to seemed excited to have her onboard, assuring her the wait to be officially accepted and to begin her training was just a formality.

In the meantime, she spoke to the president every day by phone, but then she also received funny or sexy texts at all hours.

There had been one amusing attempt to Skype with him, but he quickly gave up in frustration, even though it had been wonderful to see each other's faces on their computer screens.

"I could have you linked up through teleconference in the Situation Room," he'd said on the phone afterwards. "Then I could see you on ten screens at once."

She'd laughed. "I really don't want to use official White House equipment for our personal conversations."

She knew how he was, how sometimes he forgot the time difference between them and woke her with a phone call in the middle of the night, his sensual voice in her ear leading to a round of heavy breathing on both ends of the line. She never would have believed in a million years she'd be having phone sex with the President of the United States, and in the light of day, it still made her blush.

The three weeks they'd been apart had seemed like an eternity, but they were both busy people, and Lisbon was grateful for the CBI cases to occupy the long days, and even some of the nights.

One afternoon, while Lisbon was busy with the endless stack of paperwork that came with the closing of a case, Cho knocked on her office door and entered with a familiar file. The younger agent had been honored to receive the president's invitation to head the task force in California, despite his being the second choice, and he'd been to Washington DC a couple of times to speak to the president personally, as well as a newly formed advisory team. Once the funding for the program came through, Cho would be more than ready to assume the position, at the same time working for the CBI.

"Come in," said Lisbon with a welcoming smile. It was then she noticed the name on the file: Thomas McAllister, the man they'd arrested for Red John.

"We got some more results back from the DNA lab."

After his arrest, McAllister's DNA had been submitted into the system to cross check against other unsolved cases. As with most state-run projects, it had been a slow and arduous process. It had been difficult to use DNA to pin the murders on him, as none of Red John's victims had been discovered with the killer's DNA. Red John had been meticulous in keeping his victims clean, and so far, no crimes had been linked to McAllister's DNA.

At least, that was what they'd thought.

Cho handed the folder to Lisbon. "You need to see this."

She opened the file to see a usual report , half of which was filled with scientific mumbo jumbo she didn't understand. She skimmed down to the bottom of the document to the summary results.

Her eyes widened at what she saw, and she swallowed hard, then looked up at Cho, her heart racing.

"Are they sure about this?"

"Definitively," said Cho. "I called them myself. The results have been triple checked."

"And it's the same person?"

"Yeah."

"Dear God," Lisbon said under her breath. Then a thought occurred to her: "Does Minnelli know?"

"Yes," he replied, "But no one else outside the lab. He said he thought you should be the one to handle this."

She shook her head, her eyes going back to the results. "I don't believe it."

"Pretty heavy," Cho concurred.

"Thanks, Cho," she said.

He nodded and left her to fully absorb the news.

Red John hadn't been known to have raped any of his victims, though there was evidence of his sexual deviancy in the way the women had been stripped bare, in the way they'd been positioned in death.

In a rare, impulsive moment, however, Red John had raped someone.

On a beach in Malibu about ten years before.

"Oh, Patrick," she whispered.

With blurred vision, she pulled up a travel reservation website.

She could leave for DC that night.

A/N: Well, folks, one more chapter to go. Thanks for hanging in there.