This was kind of fun to write. I'm constantly scared of getting OOC whenever I write Jane/Lisbon flirting, and this is no exception. This chapter is when Lisbon finds out about Jane's insomnia. I like reviews. Thanks to all the reviewers so far.

***

Early April, 2008

Lisbon wasn't sleeping.

The team was working a case in a quaint little town in Oregon, and staying in a picturesque bed and breakfast near the state line. It was after one in the morning, and Lisbon was finding her room suddenly suffocating, looking up into the depths of the ceiling in the dark, unable to sleep.

She decided she could go for a cup of tea, she was always game for some caffeine, and remembered the little nook in the lobby that kept hot water on at all hours, and little serving plates of scones and muffins. She slid on a pair of slippers and crept out of the door, past the room Cho and Rigsby were sharing, down the stairs.

She was surprised to find Jane in the lobby, feet up in the recliner like he might have been at work, still wearing a gray suit and a blank expression, looking up into the light fixtures.

"Hey, Lisbon," he called, and got up to follow her. He looked like it might have been the middle of the afternoon.

"So, Jane, is that suit never-ending for you?" she asked him.

For a moment he looked confused.

"I mean, it's three in the morning. You sleep in that thing?"

He leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "No. I don't sleep in it."

It took her a minute to realize the significance of that statement, mulling it over as she poured hot water into a tiny styrophoam cup. Jane never just said what he had to say. He felt the need to be short and cryptic when a detailed explanation was required, and the need to be long-winded when you wanted him to shut the hell up.

"You don't sleep," she said, not a question.

He shrugged, good-naturedly. He grinned. "Not much," he said.

She went back in her head. She tried to remember a single time she had gone by Jane on the couch when his eyes were closed when she had to actually wake him up. She couldn't think of one. He was trying to grab a few seconds here and there, and she thought he was most likely failing miserably.

"Don't look so grave, Teresa. It doesn't suit you."

She rolled her eyes, looked around the wooden cabinet for a tea bag. "You know you don't call me that, Jane."

He grinned again, full of energy. Like it wasn't past one in the morning, like he hadn't worked a ten-hour day the day before, like he wouldn't work one again in a few hours. "We're off hours, Teresa."

The look she shot him was deadly, and he put his hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. But something tells me there will come a time when you won't mind it so much," he said. She had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but didn't ask.

"Well, until that time comes, which I doubt it will, don't."

Jane was closer to her now, behind her, reaching around her to grab the tea bag she had just extracted from the cabinet. He wasn't offended. Jane never got offended. It was a quality in him she had always liked.

"Earl Grey?" he asked, picking it up. He looked at her face over her left shoulder."Seriously? I wouldn't have pegged you for Earl Grey, Lisbon."

"Shut up, it's my favorite," she returned, snatching it from his hand. He didn't move away. She was suddenly aware that she was wearing a wife-beater. Her shoulders were out. Jesus Christ. She was almost naked. She wished the shirt had a higher neckline. Like up to her nose.

"It's for old men. I think it comes with a complimentary cane," he teased heartily. He was leaning against the wall now, and she could breathe again. "And no worries, Lisbon. Your night time attire is very tame."

She closed her eyes. "Bite me." Opened them again. She wasn't going to let Jane ruin a perfectly good cup of tea. "And I know you aren't talking about someone having old man tastes. You're leaving yourself awfully vulnerable, there."

He looked amused. "How so?"

She laughed. "Jane, you wear three-piece suits to work in California. Vests, for Christ's sake. And those shoes you love so much look like they might have actually seen combat in Korea."

He looked down at himself.

"And I like Earl Grey, canes or no canes," she continued. "It's minty."

She turned back around, feeling saucy, and poured some sugar in her tea. She went to take a scone, but Jane stopped her.

"They refill every fourty-five minutes. They should be coming any time with fresh ones."

As if on cue, a hotel employee appreared, carrying a big plate of fresh scones. She took one, chocolate-chip, and sat in the lobby next to Jane's recliner. He sat with her, leaning back. She noticed for the first time how drawn he looked, the bags under his eyes, how glassy they were. She wondered how she hadn't put it together before. Jane just always had so much boundless energy that it deflected those sorts of questions.

"Did you always have trouble sleeping?" She asked him.

He shrugged. "I always stayed up late. Even when I was a kid. But it's obviously worse, you know, since... then."

"So all those times you're sleeping on the couch, and I'm having conversations with Cho or Rigsby?"

He laughed wickedly. "Every word," he said.

She should have been annoyed but wasn't. She sipped at her tea, old-man tea, she remembered him saying, and it made her smile. It was a bizarre new piece in the Jane puzzle, a puzzle which she hadn't realized until now that she was putting together. Jane wasn't the type of person that just let you see him, even though with his genial personality it seemed like that at first. He was someone who unfolded before you, bit by bit, almost unwillingly. She thought she might have been the same way. In fact, she was sure she was.

He moved from the recliner to sit next to her on the couch. "You see that guy there?" He asked her.

He was pointing out a middle-aged bald man carrying a briefcase. He was wearing a rumpled black suit, and leaving the hotel. "Yeah."

"He just cheated on his wife," he informed her. "And left his wedding ring in the hotel room. He'll be back later to get it."

She chuckled. "And how do you know that, Jane?"

He crossed his legs. "I'm psychic. Haven't you heard?"

"Sometimes, Jane, I swear you're making things up. Just because you know we won't call you on it."

He didn't look annoyed in the slightest. "Oh yeah? So why don't you go over there and ask him?"

She rolled her eyes. "Just tell me how you know that."

He sat up. He scooted closer on the couch, put his head next to hers conspiratorially. "Okay," he said. "Number one, whenever anyone leaves a hotel at one-thirty in the morning you should be suspicious. It's shady. I'm just saying."

She nodded. "How do you know he left the ring?"

"It's hard to commit adultery with a wedding ring on. And he definitely normally wears it—check out that tan line."

She noticed it. "Okay. But how do you know the ring isn't in his pocket, or his briefcase?"

"You don't put your wedding ring in your pants pocket. You're scared it will fall out and under the bed, right? And have you ever tried to open a briefcase in a moment of passion? Total mood-killer."

She laughed.

He continued. "And anyway, he looks like he knows he forgot something. He's fidgiting. He just can't put his finger on what." Jane leaned back again. "He'll be back, but not for a while, I'd say. He'll get all the way home, and come back here before the sun comes up, quite frantic, I'd gather."

Lisbon drained the last bit of her tea. "Is that what you do all the time? People watch?"

Jane shrugged. "Sometimes. It's fun. You should try it."

"I used to when I was a kid. I used to make up names for people at the check-out counter when I worked at the supermarket. Stories about their lives." She didn't know why she gave Jane that personal bit.

"Really?" His face lit up. "And what's our friend with the ring's name?"

She considered. He looked distinguished at first glance, but at second, he seemed like a little boy playing dress-up. "Robert," she said. "But people have called him Bobby his whole life. He wants them to call him by his full name because it's more important-sounding, but no one can take him seriously."

He looked at her as if she had said something immensly interesting. As much as she hated to admit it, she enjoyed it. Jane was a character, in every sense of the word. The idea that she was enough of a character for him to find her illuminating was oddly flattering. Not that she'd ever tell him that.

"Huh," he said. "Well, we don't know what his name is, but you might be onto something, Lisbon. Bravo."

"Don't patronize me."

"Not at all."

She turned toward him on the couch. "And what do you know about me, Jane? Since you do this all the time?"

He smiled at her. "Not nearly as much as you're afraid I do."

***

"You're tired," Jane said, bemusement tinged in his voice.

Lisbon fought back a yawn. It was after four. She had been on this couch with him for over two hours. Shockingly, she was on her sixth cup of Earl Grey ("I swear, Lisbon, that stuff makes you old," Jane had said.) More shockingly, she didn't want to kill him.

"I'm not," she said. "I'm fine."

"You can go to bed, you know. You've been great company. But I'm fine."

"I'm not staying awake for you," she replied defensively.

He raised his eyebrows in wordless contradiction.

Maybe a little, she thought, but kept it to herself. "It must be hard," she said, quietly. "You must be tired all the time."

He smiled at her. It wasn't his cocky smile, or his triumphant one when he figured something out, or the one he wore when he was teasing her. It was something else. "Sometimes. But, you know, there's something to be said for insomnia."

"Oh yeah?" She was laying on the arm of the couch now, tired in her voice.

"Sure. It's a different world at night. You can go walking in the quiet. It's nice. Even the most mundane settings become more interesting, almost magical."

She was smiling now, too sleepy to put her mask entirely on her face.

"Maybe sometime..." he stopped.

"Maybe sometime what?" She asked.

"Maybe another time, we can walk. If we're in a hotel, if we're away, if you aren't asleep. I can show you."

She was still smiling. "Maybe," she said, not knowing exactly what she was agreeing to.

"And people are different at night," he said. "Co-workers that are crabby during the day almost become... human."

"Shut up, Jane."

"Our friend is back," Jane said suddenly. "Bobby."

Lisbon turned around to see the man in the rumpled suit had come back, was frantically flapping through the lobby to the Customer Service desk.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"I left my wedding ring in one of your rooms. 208."

Jane was laughing, and Lisbon rolled her eyes. He was always right. Always right.

She hated it.

***

The next Monday, she came into work to find that Jane had beaten her there. Her office door was open, left ajar. Lisbon walked to her desk, to find a huge box of three-hundred Earl Grey tea bags sitting on top of her paper work. And a wooden cane laying on top of it.

"I told you," came a voice from her doorway. "The cane is practically complimentary."

It was going to be a good day.

***

Next Chapter: "Cho liked his boss."