Title: Will You Marry Me?
Disclaimer: I don't own this. I never have, and never will.
Thank you to phoenixmagic1, Ebony10, NonOmnisMoriar, Teresa Jane, Jisbon4ever, VEEBS8, lysjelonken, Brown Eyes Parker, Hisprincess12, Yen88, x-Pick'n'Mix-x, Frogster, blueMnM415, Streak of the Sun, LizfromItaly, ShunKickShunKers, AddictedToStendanKisses28, waterbaby134, watchyouwalk, JackSam, and govgal for the amazing reviews. I also have to thank all my reviewers from previous chapters, all the alerts and favorites for this story. It's been a rather long journey, but we're finally at the end!
I thought a lot about this ending; the marriage proposals changed, and her answers changed with each one. In the end, I chose the ending that was the closest to my heart. I won't give anything away, but I really do hope you enjoy reading this last chapter as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
XXI.
He cleared his throat as he stood in the middle of the Serious Crimes Unit bullpen, the various officers and employees just barely glanced at him before going back to whatever they had been doing. Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt stared at him, and he grinned.
"Good afternoon, my excellent co-workers!"
"Where have you been all morning?" Van Pelt asked. "Lisbon's been looking for you!"
"Has she now?" He asked her, and Van Pelt nodded. "Oh, Lisbon! I'm home!"
(He wondered how long she would keep him waiting, when she suddenly stormed from her office in his direction.)
"Jane! Where the hell have you been?"
"Good afternoon to you also!" He told her. "Where's my welcome home present?"
Lisbon stared at him. "Present?" She snorted. "You think you deserve a present?"
"Why of course!" He told her, as he pulled something from his pocket. "I haven't been arrested in the past twenty-four hours and… I have something for you!"
"Why?"
"Well Lisbon, I haven't exactly done anything lately that requires the use of a jail cell." She narrowed her eyes. "Exactly meaning I haven't done anything that would require the use of a jail cell!"
"Who did you piss off now?"
"I promise, I just needed to get your completely legal-animal and everything else you hate-free gift!" She seemed to relax, somewhat. "See this piece of paper?" He showed the entire Serious Crimes Unit the white piece of paper, before he turned back to Lisbon. "I'm going to read this to you."
Rigsby muttered quietly, "This better not be another poem."
"I thought the poem was…" Van Pelt offered, optimistically. "…interesting."
"And by interesting, she means creepy." Cho remarked.
"No poems here, just my words." He cleared his throat, before he glanced down at the paper. "The Ten Reasons Why We Should Marry!"
"Jane! We've had this discussion!" Lisbon hissed. "We've had this discussion more than I would care to have it!" He ignored her.
"Ten, both of us have high tolerances against annoying people!"
"I wonder why." Cho stated.
"Nine, we already act like we're married at work! You're my work wife!" Lisbon's eye twitched. "Eight! My poetry, like us, would get better over time."
"You're comparing us to your poetry skills?" Lisbon asked. "You don't have any poetry skills."
He lifted his eyes off the piece of paper. "I have some poetry skills, otherwise there would be no us!"
"Boss," Rigsby interrupted. "It's so bad; you can't look away or stop listening?" Lisbon shook her head.
"Seven," he glanced back down at his list of reasons. "You have handcuffs."
Van Pelt stifled a laugh, and Lisbon glanced at her. "Sorry boss, it's just…" Van Pelt bit her lip. "Jane seems to have a fixation on your handcuffs."
"Tell me about it," Lisbon muttered.
"Six, I could finally follow you around and it wouldn't be considered creepy because I would be your husband!"
"You work with me. Following me, at work, is legal. Following me home, I will have you arrested." Lisbon warned him.
"I want to follow you home though!" He told her. "Where's the fun if I can't follow you home?"
"Now, I just want to arrest you for sounding creepy." Lisbon answered.
"Oh, Lisbon." He said, in amusement. "Five, our lives are more interesting when we're in danger, so our marriage would be the most interesting situation ever!"
"I honestly have nothing to say." Lisbon answered. "This list is completely ridiculous!"
"Four, because I'm the only person who would continuously ask you to marry me, even after being rejected over-and-over again."
"Just because you're an idiot, does not mean you can list it as a good reason to marry you." Lisbon remarked, as the entire unit looked on in amusement.
"Three, our names would look and sound good together! Mr. and Mrs. Patrick and Teresa Jane."
"…"
"If everybody married based on last names sounding good together, we'd have more divorces than marriages." Van Pelt told him.
"Reason two! We're already madly in love; you just don't know it yet."
Lisbon shook her head. "…and I wonder why we even let you work here."
"You can deny your love for me all you want, but we all know you love me." He told her, before reading number one. "And lastly, it's because I say we should and I'm always right!"
Lisbon was quiet.
"You did really well…up until the last eight." Van Pelt gave.
"Were the handcuffs a bit too much?" He asked them.
(He had debated on the handcuffs versus the fact he doesn't snore for quite a while, until he had decided the handcuffs might be more of a valid reason for marriage.)
"Yes." Cho responded.
"Lisbon?" He glanced at her. "Your silence after my long thought-out list scares me."
"I'm glad my silence scares you." Lisbon answered.
"What do you say? Will you marry me?"
Lisbon let out a frustrated sigh. "You just never learn do you?"
"I learn plenty of things, Lisbon! I…"
"Jane?" She interrupted. "Do you even know the definition of seriousness?"
"Of course!" He chimed back. "Seriousness, something that people who can't take a joke have."
"Do you want to know why I won't say yes?" Lisbon asked him, as she loosened her glare for a few moments.
"I already know." He told her, and she raised her eyebrow in response. "It's obvious, you're afraid of commitment. I completely understand."
Lisbon merely shot him a glance, and walked away.
"What?" He asked, and Van Pelt glanced at him. "Did I say something wrong?"
"For somebody who can read people extremely well, you're pretty clueless." Van Pelt explained, and he glanced at her. "If you're going to propose to her, at least try and be serious?"
"Serious?" He asked. This wasn't being serious, this was a game. He was proposing to her because he could, and it had nothing to do with his feelings for her. "My middle name has never been serious."
"Nor will it ever be." Cho answered.
"You're in love with her," Van Pelt responded, with a bright smile.
"No, I'm not." He argued. "Lisbon and I are friends. Just friends."
Rigsby snorted. "The definition of just friends isn't what I'm seeing."
"That's because," he glanced at Rigsby. "You see all office relationships being more meaningful than the next." Rigsby glanced at his desk, before he grinned back at Jane.
"I'm not the one proposing to everybody in this unit, now am I?"
"It's just Lisbon."
"Just? Or…" Rigsby lowered his voice. "Just."
He didn't reply to Rigsby, and went back to his familiar couch to think things over.
Lisbon obviously, was a very special woman to him and if being serious would get him a yes, well then.
He'd go serious.
Just for the time being of course, after all—serious wasn't his middle name and this was just a game.
(He ignored the feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him otherwise.)
XXII.
Lisbon let herself into her apartment, and slammed the door behind her before letting out a frustrated sigh.
Patrick Jane had once again, managed to get under her skin—she wasn't afraid of commitment—she had never been afraid of commitment, but more afraid of taking him on into her unit two years ago. The wedding proposals added a new mystery to the man, who thought he was just playing a game.
(She had a feeling she'd find out soon about the entire wedding deal, because while Jane did have his faults—he was never one about keeping her in the dark forever.)
Her fingers rested against the light switch for a second, before the sound of glass breaking had her gun in her hand, and already heading toward the kitchen. She didn't say anything as she inched closer and closer, until finally she spotted her intruder standing over her sink.
It was dark. She stepped closer and closer. She couldn't see. She swung out with her gun, and the individual fell to the floor with a giant thump.
(When the lights finally came on, she realized that her intruder had been none other than Patrick Jane.)
Sometime Later
"What in the hell were you thinking?" Lisbon ranted, as she held an ice pack to the back of his head.
"I'd like to ask you the same thing, Lisbon." Jane told her, as she removed the ice pack to look at the bruising while the both of them remained in her living room. "If you had said something, I would have told you it was…" She pressed the ice bag to his head, and he hissed in pain.
"Does it hurt?" Jane nodded, and she pressed harder. "Good."
"I only wanted to surprise you!"
"…my only surprise was finding you on my kitchen floor."
"That's your fault, Lisbon." Jane explained and she glanced down at him. "I was only trying to make you dinner…!"
"In the dark?"
"Don't you ever cook in the dark?"
"No."
"It's very therapeutic—stress just melts away." Jane grinned.
"Along with one of your fingers, if you aren't careful." Lisbon threw back.
"I'm perfectly safe with knives. Its politicians and apparently you that I have problems with." Lisbon rolled her eyes in response, as he chuckled. "I'm alive, and we're alone. I should finish dinner."
Lisbon pressed the ice bag into his bruise again. "You're not going anywhere." Jane opened his mouth to argue. "At least until I'm sure you're not going to pass out in some gutter, somewhere."
"I told you my name when I woke up."
"And you also told me you thought you were in Rainbow Fish land."
"You're the one who gave me a concussion."
"You're the one who broke into my home!" Lisbon exclaimed, and she removed the ice pack from his head. "If you want to leave, leave. Last time I checked, nobody was stopping you."
"Actually, I'm stopping myself from leaving—considering I might just have a concussion." Jane replied, as he stood from the couch to glance down at her. "I have something important to ask you."
Lisbon sighed. "If you're asking me to marry you, the answer will forever remain no."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive." Lisbon responded. "And," he slightly moved closer. "If you try and hypnotize me, I will find a reason to arrest you besides breaking and entering."
"Oh Lisbon," Jane softly muttered. "You'll say yes, because you know I'm trying to be serious."
Jane and Lisbon stared at each other for another moment.
"If you say yes," he continued. "There's no need for a wedding right now."
"Who said I was going to say yes?" Lisbon asked, and Jane smirked.
"Who said you weren't?"
In that moment, Jane got down on one knee and grinned up at her.
"You know, this moment is ruined by the fact you've got a golf-clubbed size knot on your head…right?" Lisbon questioned.
Jane softly smirked. "Want to kiss it better?" Lisbon didn't look amused, and he cleared his throat. "Now, I'm going to ask you something." He placed his hand into his pants pocket, and pulled out a velvet box.
"Jane, I…"
"Hush." He told her. "I'm trying to be serious." She only rolled her eyes. "Now, I suppose I should apologize—I not only broke into your apartment, but I uh…broke into your office."
"You did what?" Lisbon asked.
"I needed your phonebook." He told her. "I couldn't ask to marry you without permission."
Lisbon's mouth opened. "You didn't."
"I thought about it." He informed her. "But, you wanted seriousness. I'm going to give you that seriousness." He cleared his throat again. "Teresa Lisbon, I know I'm many things…"
"Annoying, stubborn, impossible, irritable…" Lisbon muttered under her breath, to the amusement of Jane.
"Yes, I'm all those things and more—but, and I've given this a lot of thought, this marriage thing started out as a game and well…it can't end as a game." He smirked. "Clearly, asking you twenty-one times means I'm either really bored or I'm 'in love with you'."
"Van Pelt's words?" Lisbon asked.
"Of course." Jane answered. "Grace is the hopeless romantic of the team, Rigsby might need a proposal though—he seemed a little jealous..."
"Go on," Lisbon interrupted, and he nodded.
"The more thought I put into this, the more I realized that while you probably enjoyed all twenty-one wedding proposals…you didn't know exactly why I was doing them. I'll admit, at first—it was all about the teasing and the banter but toward the end, it became something neither of us could have anticipated." Jane paused.
"If you say sexual tension…"
"Nope." Jane annunciated. "Our working relationship developed into something else, and then that something else involved into something else, which eventually became that something else which defined our relationship."
"And people say you have no logic. I wonder why." Lisbon mocked, dryly.
"Thank you, Lisbon!" Jane gave. "As I was saying, my question started out as a game and now, I'm ready to be serious." Lisbon stared at him. "Okay, as serious as I can be." She nodded. "Teresa Lisbon," he repeated. "Will you marry me?"
Jane flipped open the velvet box in his palm, and inside was a note. "Go ahead and take it."
Lisbon did so.
"Most men don't make riddles within riddles." Lisbon commented, as she opened the note.
Obviously, you'll say no to marriage right now—I expected nothing less from you, Agent Lisbon.
However, will you do the honor and go on a date with me instead?
Lisbon glanced back up at him. "You can't do anything in the correct order, can you?"
Jane beamed. "It would be boring if I did."
"Yes, it would." Lisbon agreed, with a smile of her own. "I suppose I should tell you I can't marry you."
"That would be the general idea, now wouldn't it be?" He asked her, as he slowly got off his one knee. "I mean, you've said no twenty-one times…why be any different this time?"
"…maybe I could find a reason to be different…overtime of course."
"Of course," he continued to beam, as he began to walk away from her, until she caught his arm.
"Where do you think you're going?"
He glanced at her. "I thought I was going home, but your hand is telling me differently."
"You're not going anywhere until you clean up the mess you've made." Her smile grew, as he glanced at her.
"But, Lisbon! I was injured!"
"The cleaning supplies are under the sink." Lisbon directed, and Jane lost his grin. "You're not leaving until you clean it up."
"What if I don't want to leave?"
"Go." She ordered and Jane gave her a mock salute before heading toward the kitchen. "Oh, and Jane?" He turned around. "Friday. 8 o'clock. Don't be late."
The smile on his face couldn't have been any larger, even if he had tried.
(So, he didn't get her to marry him—but this was just the beginning—someday, Teresa Lisbon would say yes, and then some day, she would say I do.)