Another chapter before bedtime (mine!). Enjoy

"Hey, are you okay?" Grace stood up from the cafeteria table and walked to her quickly. "Is it Jane?" she asked, sounding scared. Wayne was looking frightened as well.

She shook her head. "No – I – I'm afraid I just broke up with Marcus."

"What?" Grace said, startled. She looked swiftly over at Wayne, and then frowned at him fiercely when it looked like he was going to grin. He covered his mouth with his hand and shrugged.

Grace turned back to Teresa and put her arms around her. "I'm so sorry! What happened?"

"We both realized it wasn't going to work," she said carefully, still feeling stunned over what had just occured. "I feel terrible," she said suddenly. She looked at Grace and her face crumpled.

Grace held her for the next few moments as Teresa cried into her shoulder. Wayne looked uncomfortable, checking to see if anyone was watching them. At the same time - when he was sure neither Grace nor Teresa were looking – he made a swift pumping motion with his fist.

Teresa finally calmed down and made her way to her seat, looking around in some embarrassment. She prayed no one had seen her breakdown.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Grace asked her gently. Wayne opened his mouth, but closed it abruptly upon getting kicked by his wife. A glare from her told him now was not the time to make a comment.

Teresa sniffed and shook her head. "There really isn't much to say. He's a great guy, and I feel like an idiot, because he really loved me. But – I realized I wasn't in love with him. It wouldn't have been fair to him to let things go on. And he knew – and since both of you are here now, he decided to leave."

"You did the right thing," Grace told her. "But it's still hard." She glanced over at Wayne, remembering how hard it had been when they'd broken up, although it hadn't been for lack of love on either of their parts.

She was quiet for a moment but then took a deep breath and reached out and gently touched Teresa's hand. "You're sure? That you don't love him? You don't think that maybe you were just feeling stressed, with being here, with Jane being wounded?"

This time it was Wayne who kicked her, but she glared at him and he didn't say anything, although he clearly wanted to.

Teresa sat silently for a few minutes, looking down at her hands and contemplating the question seriously. "No," she said finally. "I've been having doubts for a while, but I ignored them, hoping that when I got to D.C. everything would be fine. But I finally realized that wasn't fair to Marcus. He needs someone who really loves him, not someone who is simply trying to love him."

"You did the right thing Teresa," Wayne repeated, finally breaking in and ignoring his wife's glares. "He would have found out eventually and it would have been much messier if you were living together in D.C."

"Yeah, I thought about that." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Thank you guys, so much, for coming. I can't tell you what it means to me."

"Hey, of course we came! And Cho really wanted to be here too. He said if Jane – he said he'll come on the weekend if he can."

"That would be great!"

"But how is he Teresa? How's Jane?" Grace decided it was time to turn the subject back to what was really important right now. Not that Teresa's love life wasn't – but this was Jane's very life they were discussing.

Teresa spent the next few moments giving them an update. "I should get back," she said finally, looking at her watch. "I've been gone over an hour."

"Have you slept at all?" Grace asked gently.

"I dozed in his room. I'll be fine."

Grace and Wayne looked at each other, and then back at Teresa. "You're going to make yourself sick, and you know he'll need you when he's conscious," Grace said. "Actually," she rolled her eyes, "the hospital staff will need you when he's conscious."

Teresa chuckled at that, but prepared to argue with her friend. She had to stay.

"You need to go back to the hotel, shower and sleep for a little while," Wayne told her kindly but firmly. "I'll stay with Jane and Grace can go back with you. After a short rest you can come back. And if there's any change, I'll call right away."

When had Grace and Wayne become the mature ones, she wondered. Grace had always seemed so young, so innocent. But she knew that was no longer true, hadn't been for a long time. She had been through too much, and was now a wife and mother. And Wayne – she wanted to grin – he'd grown up to be a sensible and loving husband and father. He'd always been a great agent!

Eventually they convinced her, although insisted on stopping in and seeing Jane before she left.

It was the same not so nice nurse who was still on duty, although she did let Teresa know that Jane's condition hadn't changed and he was doing "as well as can be expected". She really wished Jane were with her then, so he could deflate the insufferable nurse. Instead she thanked her pleasantly, and headed out with Grace.

She peeked in on him for a couple of minutes, imagining that he looked better. "Wayne is here, Jane," she bent down and told him softly. She then reached out and grasped his right hand and held it. "And he's going to stay with you. You be good and don't give him or the nurses or doctors any trouble, you hear me? I'll be back in a little while to check up on you."

"Don't worry, I'll watch out for him," Wayne told her again.

She couldn't help it – she walked over to the big guy and stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"I know you will, Wayne. Thank you."

"How did Jane feel about you going to D.C.," Grace asked a few minutes later as they were driving in the rental car to their hotel.

"I – uh – didn't talk to him about it," she responded, the guilt once again surging up in her chest. "I didn't know how," she said quickly.

"So he didn't know?"

"Yes, he found out and he was really upset." She stayed quiet for a moment, but then decided to get it off of her chest. "That's why he left and drove to California. It was all my fault!"

"What was your fault?" Grace asked, puzzled.

"The accident, the fact that he's lying in hospital, practically dead. Oh my God, Grace – he still could die and it will be my fault!"

Grace didn't answer, but a moment later she pulled off the road into a mall parking lot. She pulled into a spot, stopped the car and turned to her friend.

"Don't be an idiot, Teresa," she told her. "You didn't cause the accident and it's not your fault he's been injured. A drunk driver caused it – he's to blame, not you!"

Teresa snorted and regarded the younger woman. "You know, for years I and others told Jane the deaths of his wife and daughter weren't his fault – that it was Red John who was guilty, not him. This is the first time I understand how he felt. It may have been a drunk driver, but I was the reason he was on that road, at that time. If I had told him before – if I had treated him like the friend he is and told him, none of this would have happened."

"How do you know?" asked Grace bluntly. "He might have still been upset, have still run away – because that's what he does. He ran away because he couldn't handle you having a life away from him and he got into an accident – an accident Teresa! That means it was no one's fault – other than the other driver, I guess. It could have happened anywhere, anytime."

"I appreciate what you're trying to do Grace, but I still feel awful and I'm afraid I will until Jane recovers and does something to really irritate me or make me look ridiculous."

They both chuckled at that, and sat for a while longer in the parking lot. Eventually, Grace turned the car back on, and they headed the few short blocks to the hotel.

"Did he say anything to you?" Grace wanted to know.

"Jane?"

"Mmm hmm."

"You mean after he left? Or before?"

"Either. What did he think of Pike?"

Teresa frowned, thinking about Jane and how he had acted the last few weeks. He hadn't been his usual self, and she didn't know quite what to think.

"He was actually quite nice to Marcus," she mused. "I kept expecting him to make fun of him, or do something to make him look foolish, but he didn't. And he told me he was happy for me, that he wanted me to be happy. It was really not like him."

Grace didn't respond. She glanced quickly at the woman who had always been her idol, and then continued to drive, silently thinking about what Teresa had told her.

"What do you think it meant?" Teresa finally asked, a puzzled frown on her face. "That he was nice."

"I think – we're here," Grace pulled into the hotel lot. "I'm going to have to check in and you should go shower and snooze. What time do you want me to wake you up?"

They agreed on a time, and Teresa headed off to the room Marcus had booked for her. She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open. She collapsed on the bed, fully dressed, and was half asleep before she realized that Grace had never answered her question.

Grace stood looking in the hallway at Teresa's closed door. With a shake of her head, she smiled. "You are such an idiot, Teresa," she murmured. "Patrick Jane is so in love with you!" With another shake of her head she moved to her room and opened the door.