A/N: And so, just before sunrise, they finally end up on an island together. Just a small warning: This one took a bit of an… uh, emotional turn. And I so hope you like it. Thanks once more for reading this and for the kind favs and reviews. I treasure each and every one. Especially with this one.

Jane looked up into the night sky. With every source of artificial light now behind them and out of sight, he could see hundreds of new stars shining bright in the deep blue heaven above them — tiny dots of bright white, blue and gold, strewn across the sky like diamonds on a scarf of dark blue silk. He shifted his weight away from his injured foot, and the warm, white sand beneath his feet shifted with him in silence. A soft breeze, curious and happy, danced around them, brushing a cool caress over their skin and into their hair, before moving on to draw a soft rustle from the leaves of the palm-trees behind them.

A sense of dream and illusion settled suddenly in his heart and made it beat a little faster. He was on a beautiful beach, barely dressed and with Lisbon in his arms.

Who also happened to be barely dressed.

He felt a little light-headed and needed to ground himself again, so he wrapped his arms around her a little tighter, pressed his nose into her hair a little harder and inhaled her scent a little deeper. Just to make sure this was still very much reality.

Although, when he looked up and a shooting star went across the night sky, he felt that the world was using every trick in the book to convince him it wasn't.

A quiet rustling to his left made him glance down. A small brown crab sat on top of a big white stone and blinked at him from tiny black eyes. Man and crustacean stared at each other for a moment. Then the thing waved a tiny claw. For an absurd moment, Jane was convinced it was a sign for a hidden band of fireflies to start doing backup vocals and strings, so the crab could finally burst into song. But in the end it just blinked at Jane one more time and then scuttled off. For another absurd moment, Jane was seriously disappointed.

When Lisbon wriggled a little and melted deeper into his embrace with a soft sigh until she'd found the perfect snuggling position in his arms, the disappointment vanished. The sense of dream did not, especially when she turned a little, so she could rub the side of her head against his cheek and then suddenly asked.

"So, where is it then?"

"Where is what?"

"Cassiopea."

Requests to point out star-constellations whilst in a romantic situation in a state of undress and in close physical contact were not helpful at all for re-establishing a sense of reality.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, I am. Show me."

This was getting silly. So amazingly wonderfully silly.
He decided to enjoy it.
And then he decided to enjoy it a little more.

So he slid an arm a little lower, fingers stealing beneath the hem of her shirt, resting the palm of his hand on her abdomen, fingertips almost but now quite reaching the seam of her underwear, but close enough for her not to be sure if he meant to or not. So he leaned in a little closer, so slow, she barely noticed, until his lips almost brushed against her ear. Then he turned them a little, so the breeze was coming from behind now and took his scent with it towards her. And then he pulled her against him just a little tighter, pulling and pushing just for the fraction of a second, until he felt her heart-rate speed up, when his fingers brushed over her skin and his breath slow and soft and deliberate against her ear.

Which wasn't easy.
Breathing.
Especially soft and slow.

Lisbon was also struggling with the concept of breathing soft and slow, but it was the least of her problems.

She'd always known that being close to Patrick Jane, really close to Patrick Jane, would be the death of her.

At least now she could take comfort in the knowledge that she was dying in the most beautiful place she'd ever been in. A tiny stretch of sandy beach, the white sand glistening in the moonlight like silver, surrounded on each side by big, round, white stones and beautiful palm-trees and the night and a million stars above. After they'd crossed the suspension bridge without accident or injury, but with a lot of giggling and gentle shoving, they'd found themselves on a tiny path that led down a very small climb to the very small beach.

Once there, everything else was out of sight. The hotel. The jetty. The city. There was nothing and no one. Only them. So it really didn't matter if her final cause of death was a sudden loss of motor function, breathing difficulties, endorphin poisoning or a complete and unstoppable nuclear meltdown of her reproductive organs. No ambulance would get there in time to save her anyway. Not that she minded. There were, she thought, much worse ways of dying, than in Patrick Jane's arms.

Her initial train of thought had been meant to lead her back to reality via humour and sarcasm. Instead it had somehow achieved the opposite. Especially that last thought, that made her knees go weaker than they already were and forced her to hold on to his arm to steady herself. When she felt his breath hot and soft and gentle against her ear, her eyes fell shut without her permission.

Through the thundering of her own heart-beat, she heard him chuckle against her ear.

"You know, it would be easier to show you, if you opened your eyes."

To show her what? Why? Oh.

She remembered. And blinked herself halfway back to reality. Her brain, still a bit sluggish, but trying to be ever helpful and in need of something, anything to do, decided to take on the task of making her blush.

"Uh. Sorry."

He pressed a long kiss behind her ear and whispered through a smile and without taking his lips off her skin in a very low and very amused voice.

"Distracted by something?"

She gave him a small shove.

"Oh, shut up."

He chuckled, his lips still so close to her skin, she could feel them, even though they didn't touch her, while his fingers were now definitely moving slow and teasing along and below the seam of her panties.

God.

"If I shut up, I can't tell you…"

And then she spun around in his arms, not caring that a moan left her lips, not caring that it made him chuckle again and just slid her hands into his hair and pulled his lips down to hers.

Just because she could. She could. Just grab him like that and kiss him. Kiss Jane. After all this time, after all the heartache and the doubts and the lonely nights and even lonelier days and the pain and everything. He was hers. It started to sink in the moment they fell into the sand together, kissing, rolling around, laughing, kissing some more. He was hers. And he was here.

And then it stopped sinking in and hit the bottom of her soul and everything just stopped.

He was here.
Here.

Jane pulled back, an alarmed expression flashing across his face, hands starting to curl around her shoulders, just as her eyes went wide and dark.

"Ja.. ne…?"

It came out as a sob and a cry, so hard and painful and fierce that she almost choked on his name. When the tears came, equally hard and painful, they blurred her vision so much, that, for a moment, she almost panicked, when she lost sight of him, fearing that in a horrible twist of fate, her final acceptance of reality was nothing more than an illusion. Again.

But then his arms were around her and he drew her fast and hard against his chest, holding her close, cradling her head, whispering soft words into her hair, words that she didn't catch, but that brushed like a soothing caress over her and slowly calmed her down.

He held her until the last tear fell, rubbed her back, until she stopped shaking and held her some more in the silence of the approaching dawn, until her breathing was once more soft and calm and she tried to speak.

"I'm sorry… I don't know what…"

A long kiss in her hair. A soft whisper in her ear.

"Shh. It's ok."

"I…"

"Shh."

"I…"

A hand stroking her hair, her back, her thigh, then back up again. Gentle. Soft. Loving. And then there was his voice, quiet, calm, reaching through all the emotional turmoil down into her very soul to tell her:

"It's okay. There's no rush. I'm here. Just. Breathe. Don't talk. Just breathe."

He shifted them, until she was in his lap and then stayed still again. Not kissing her. Not talking to her. Just holding her. Until she finally blinked, leaned back in arms and said in a shaking, confused voice.

"I'm sorry. I… don't know what… came over me."

Jane brushed a strand of hair out of her face and a thumb across her tear-stained cheek, trying hard not to let his own pain show at seeing her hurting like this, knowing why she did and that he was once more the cause of it.

But also the solution.
If he got this right.

He pulled her back against his chest, until her cheek rested on top of his heart and closed his eyes in concentration, while he tried to keep his heart-rate slow and steady. He opened them again, when he felt her breathing match his. After a while her heart, too, was beating in the same slow steady rhythm along with his.

"I do", he said, voice so slow and soft and quiet, she felt the words more than she heard them. Then he pressed another kiss into her hair. She scoffed against his chest and mumbled in a high voice.

"If your next sentence contains the word "overwhelmed" I'm going to kick you."

He laughed softly and quietly, making sure to keep his voice low and calm. Not just for her sake. But for his as well. He knew what came next was almost as painful as declaring his love on a plane full of strangers.

He'd do that again in heartbeat if it meant avoiding this.
Even naked.
And in front of Cho and Abbott.
Three times a week.
For a year.
No problem.

"It doesn't."

He stroked her hair, gave into the urge to smell it and press another kiss into it. Then he said.

"It actually contains a question."

"And if that is in any way hormone-related I'm going to kick you *and* let the sharks eat you", she growled into his chest.

His heart caught the words and contracted painfully around them. She was so brave. So incredibly brave and fierce and strong. Even now, when she felt so small and lost and bewildered and ashamed because of it. He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then said.

"It's almost morning."

She tensed in his arms and he felt her heart stumble and her breath catch. Then she relaxed again and whispered.

"That's not a question. That's a guess."

He started to stroke the nape of her neck, fingertips softly massaging the spot, where neck and head met, venturing out in soft circles left and right, trying to contain the tension headache that he knew was turning from a tiny flame of fear and anger and despair and resignation at the back of her head into a roaring wildfire.

"It's actually a fact. The question is, why are you afraid of it?"

"Why am I afraid of your question?"

"No. The morning. You asked me if it was morning yet. Earlier. Why does it scare you?"

She didn't reply. After a while, Jane carefully lowered them down, until they lay in a tight embrace in the warm sand with Lisbon on top of him, so he could kiss her forehead and brush a hand over her back and the sand off his shirt and out of her hair. After a while, a very long while, Lisbon asked.

"Do you still have nightmares?"
He shrugged.

"Sometimes."

He hoped that she wouldn't ask him if they were still the same ones as before. Because they weren't. Most nights at least. Most nights it was flashing sirens, him running, fast and scared, bursting into a dark room, seeing a body on the floor, relief flooding over him, as he realised this wasn't a dream, but a memory. And then the utter horror and gut-wrenching pain and shock and the feeling of dying, when he took another step into the room, already taking a deep breath to yell for someone to get him some water and then when he took a closer look, he saw the slash across her throat beneath the painted smiley on her face and the blood on the floor and under his shoes and he woke screaming her name with so much pain and despair, he thought it might tear apart his vocal chords and his soul.

Lisbon's fingers started to slide into his hair. He closed his eyes. Then she did ask.

"About him?"

"Yes."

Which wasn't a lie. In a way. When he tried to blink and breathe his own feeling away to concentrate on hers, he almost missed her next words.

"I used to dream of finding you dead next to him."

He flinched so hard, that Lisbon looked up in alarm.

He gave her an apologetic smile and started stroking her hair again.

"Sorry. Foot. Wrong angle", he lied and managed to hold the smile until she settled back down. Then it flickered once like a flame in the wind and then it was gone from his face again, as if it had never been there at all.

He shifted them a little further up in the sand, pretending to find more comfortable position for his leg. Lisbon had closed her eyes again and her head rested on his chest, one arm draped around his waist, the other somewhere in his hair at the back of his head. He waited in silence until she opened her eyes and turned her head, slid half off him and then curled with a shudder and a sigh into his side. He slid an arm around her shoulders, while she draped one back over his chest. When she finally looked up at the stars with clear eyes, he asked softly:

"What else did you dream of?"

She brushed a hand over his chest, slowly, a little shaky, but gaining confidence again. When he suddenly took her hand from his chest and pressed a soft, sweet kiss into her palm, a truth she never meant him to know, slipped out.

"You."

It was nothing more than a whisper.

"I used to dream about you."

When she didn't go on and didn't look at him, he laced his fingers through hers and put their hands on his chest.

"I used to dream about you, too."

Now she lifted her head to blink at him in surprise.

"You did?"

"Hm."

"What about?"

He shrugged. "Small things mostly. Us at the CBI talking. You sitting in the sand next to me. Walking along the beach. Mostly. Mostly just you being on the island with me."

He smiled, a wide soft smile, let go of her hand and touched her chin softly with his fingertips, before whispering.

"Dream come true."

She leaned into his touch, hoping he wouldn't spot the fresh tears in her eyes. When she felt a thumb moving gently across her cheek, she knew it had been in vain.

"What did you dream? About me?", he asked.

"I… uh…"

His fingertips traced her jaw and slid in a loving caress down the side of her neck.

"Tell me?…. Please?"

His voice was so soft, so close, so raw and real and even though it was just as quiet and soft as the one he used when he hypnotised people, it was completely different. And it made her reply in a heartbeat without thinking twice.

"I used to dream I was waking up in the middle of the night. And.. you were there. Sleeping next to me. Sometimes it was just that. Watching you sleep. Most times… I … you woke up and I started telling you about my day, about work and…"

She smiled at the memory and shook her head.

"Believe it or not, you actually helped me solve a case or two."

He laughed softly.

"In a dream? Really? Wow. I never knew I was *this* good."

She laughed with him.

"No reason to be smug about it. One car-theft and one smashed in window. Even I could solve simple things like that in my sleep."

He grinned and touched her chin again.

"Which you actually did.… With my help."

He lifted his head, so he could glance at her, then when he caught her eyes, he raised his eyebrows.

"How exactly *did* I help?"

"It's a long story. Something to do with chickens and ice-cream."

She brushed a hand over his skin without really being aware of it, as she recalled the memory of her dream. Jane caught her hand and covered it with his, so it lay now still on top of his chest, then said quietly.

"Will you tell me the whole story? Preferably on a lazy Sunday morning in bed?"

The soft laugh almost turned into a sob. Jane closed his eyes to hide the pain in them and pressed a kiss into her hair, to take the edge off her distress, hoping that she couldn't feel his. When she started playing with his fingers a moment later, he knew she hadn't.

"So you told me about your day. And then?"

"And then what?"

Her voice was small again. A little too high. A little too shaky.

"How did the dreams end?", Jane asked again.

"I can't… remember."

She let go of his hand and drew hers away.

"Teresa…"

Then put a hand back against his chest with gentle, pleading pressure.

"Don't. Just. Don't. Ignore it. Please."

He pushed his nose into her hair, shut his eyes tight and let out a long breath. "I wish I could."

She'd heard the words, even though he'd tried to hide them in a sigh. At least she thought she had. But then she felt it. Through her own pain. He was upset. Because he saw her pain. Read her pain. Couldn't ignore it, because even though she lay still, it was probably screaming at him. She didn't want him to be upset. So she took a deep breath and said.

"That's… not true. I do remember. I just.. don't want to. After a while, when we were talking, I sort of… knew it was a dream. But I didn't care. You were… there. And that was all that mattered. But around 5 am I would start to worry, knowing that I was about to wake up, to lose you and I'd tell you and then you'd smile at me and lay a hand on my cheek and whisper "I promise you won't" and then you'd lean in and I'd tense, because I'd start to panic and you'd say. "It's just a kiss in the moonlight, Lisbon. Just one." and I'd close my eyes and then… you were gone and I was alone again and…"

His hands curled around her wrists and gently, very gently he started to pull her up into a sitting position, moving up with her, his eyes full of dark pain in seeing silent tears run down her cheeks once more, gaze fixed on her, not straying away from her, not even to blink.

"Say it. Teresa."

"What?"

"Say it. Out loud."

"Say what?"

"Just say it. It feels good to say it out loud. Trust me."

She brushed the tears away with an flick of her wrist, before suddenly scrambling to her feet.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Jane heaved himself up, not caring about the bolt of hot pain that shot up his leg when he finally did manage to put his foot down in a bad angle. He stood next to her, not touching her, both of them staring out into the approaching dawn. His heart was racing in his chest, gearing up for what he knew had to come next.

She needed to say it.
And he needed to hear it.

He closed his eyes. Took her hand in his. Squeezed. Very gently. Once. Then let go.

"I love you", he said.

She kept silent. Another shooting star raced across the sky above them and dissolved in the hazy light blue stretch of light just above the horizon.

"Say something, Teresa. Please."

She didn't turn around, didn't look at him, just kept her eyes glued to the horizon, but they were full with tears and pain and anger and he knew that that was all she saw right now. A ripple of pain went through her and made her fists clench and her voice shake.

"Say what? That I love you? Is that what you want to hear again? You know I do. YOU KNOW!"

Jane's fingers flexed against his will, wanting, needing, screaming to just grab her and never let go, when her whole body suddenly shook with a sob, that was so deep and soft and hard and painful all at once it almost tore her apart.

"I love you, Patrick Jane. I've.. loved you… for… so long. For. So. Very. Long. "

And that was when he did grab her and she fell into him with a soft cry.

"Jane!…so… so"

"I know. I know. Shhh."

He gently rocked them from side to side for a while, another cool breeze suddenly swirling around them, before drifting off to sea and leaving them once more behind in the gentle warmth of a summer's night. After a long while, Lisbon took a step back. Jane rested his hands on her shoulders and waited for her to look back up at him. She finally did, brushed the tears away from her face and shook her head. The last sob turned into a hiccupy snort and then into an embarrassed laugh.

"God, you're right, it does feel good to say it out loud."

He smiled at her.

"See? Told you. I should know."

It was gentle and a little sad, but a soft smile. She'd seen that smile before. But this was the first time that it reached his eyes.

He was here. With her. For real and…

"Then say the other thing out loud, too."

… just as annoying as ever, because, damn, that man never knew when to shut up. She shook her head in irritation.

"What other thing?"

"You know what I mean."

"If you already know what it is, then why do I need to say it?"

And then she saw it. For the first time, it was her reading him. Loud and clear in a complete sentence. Beginning, middle and end - and a few commas in between.

Because if you don't, it will stay with you day and night, every minute of every day and I will see it every day and every night, every minute of every day, seeing that pain, knowing I did this to you. Every day.

More guilt. Fresh guilt. It was the last thing he needed. Either of them needed.

She stepped back into his embrace then, wrapped her arms around him, waited until he shut his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers, before she said - not loud, but just loud enough for him to hear:

"I was so alone, Patrick. So. Alone. You were gone and there was nothing and no one who could make me feel… not alone. I was so angry at you for leaving me alone."

"I know."

A little more pressure against her forehead. A little more pressure against her back. She went on.

"I gave up. I never give up. But up there alone in the cold I did. Because you being absent made my life in Washington cold and silent and unbearable. And then you just waltzed back into my world with all that sunshine and heat and beaming smile and that beach boy vibe and those stupid tropical island shirts as if nothing had happened and I was still freezing cold inside all the time and it… hurt. A lot."

And then something about a phrase at the beginning of her speech lingered within her, lead to another sentence with a similar structure and suddenly it wasn't her pain alone anymore. It was theirs. Now her hands put pressure against his back and she closed her eyes tightly when Jane pressed a long, soft kiss to her forehead and whispered.

"I missed you, too. Very much."

"I know."

And then, when she lowered her head and rested her cheek against his heart and brushed her hands over his shoulders, he said.

"You know I wanted you with me on that island. In the sunshine. In the heat. Talking me out of buying those shirts…telling me to get a hair-cut. Or a shave. Or sun-screen."

She made a soft sound between a sob and a laugh and lifted her head to look at him. When she did, he looked at her with eyes as deep and calm as the sea and said slowly, very slowly:

"Every. Hour. Of. Every. Day. And pretending nothing had happened was the only way I could forget about missing you. For so long. Every. Hour. Of. Every. Day."

He lowered his head.

"Until yesterday."

Lisbon blinked at him.

"Until. Yesterday?"

"Hm."

And then thoughts came tumbling, crashing down on her and she stared at him in shock. He'd been just as alone as she had been, when he came back. Just as stuck beside a familiar stranger as she had. Because every time he had reached out, she'd brushed him off. Out of anger and hurt and fear. And when he didn't get over his and didn't make a move, she had decided to chose someone else. She'd had the choice to choose someone else. Jane didn't. It was her. Or no one. That's who he was. That's one thing she loved about him. That when he made a choice, he did so with all his heart. And it was big heart that he carried underneath that vest and those ugly shirts. Sometimes she forgot that it was. Because he forgot as well.

She brushed a hand over his chest.

"Jane…?"

"Hm?"

"What I've said earlier… about all of this being your fault?"

"I'm really sorry, Teresa. If I could…"

"No."

She was quiet now. Calm. Looked up at him from eyes deep and dark and serious.

"No", she said again in a soft whisper, resting both her hands on his chest, looking down at them for a while, before raising her eyes to his again.

"I don't want you to apologise. I'm the one who has to."

"No, you don't… I…"

"I should have tried, Patrick…"

He blinked in honest confusion.

"Should have tried what?"

"To see past… the sunshine. And the heat. And the beaming smile. And the ugly shirts."

"They are not that bad", he said with mock indignation and tugged on the collar, thereby pulling her closer in the process. She laughed. A very small laugh. But a laugh. She wrinkled her nose and said.

"Actually, they are."

Jane raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Really? You don't like them?"

She shook her head.

"No. Which is the point."

He frowned at her, still a bit confused. Which was rare. But this was too important to be distracted by thinking about how adorable he looked when he was confused.

"You're… apologising for not telling me sooner that you think my clothes are ugly?"

"In a way."

He spun her around on the spot to get a good look at the front and back of his shirt. She made a tiny sobbing laugh again.

"What? Are there any weird hidden symbols on them? Do they make me look fat? Small? Old?"

"No."

She felt a little dizzy, but Jane steadied her again and held on to her shoulders.

"What then?", he asked quietly. She looked down, avoided his gaze and shrugged, not really sure how to find the right words.

"I should have said something. About anything. We've never once talked about… you know, what happened. About anything. And yes, we did argue a bit and yes, we set a couple of rules, but that was… not what… I should have *tried* to get you back. *Cared* about getting you back. Cared about. You."

"Teresa, love… you did… you.."

And then, before he could finish his sentence, it burst out of her with a force that shook her to her innermost core and it was a gasp of terror that left her lips in nothing more than a whisper.

"If not me, than who else?"

And that was when, against his will and all his biofeedback-control, a shadow swept across his face. He wiped it away with an impatient gesture.

"Forget it. All the what ifs and could haves. We're here now. Remember? That's all that matters."

She wasn't really listening, just frowned and went on.

"I just. I hid behind my disappointment and… I don't know… I let things slide. I should have… "

Tried.
Cared.

That was who she was. Not that woman how shrugged and said "he'll understand" and was too afraid to tell him she was leaving. Not that woman who sat moping and miserable behind a cold desk in the middle of nowhere without even trying to reach a warmer, happier place. Not that woman who left him cold and miserable and alone after almost getting shot and falling into the sea. When had she stopped caring? About him? About herself? Who the hell had she become during his absence? That wasn't her. None of this was.

Her eyes caught his bandaged ankle.

*THAT* was her.

She blinked. Blinked again.

Oh.

How many miles of bandage has she actually managed to wrap around his foot? Without really noticing at the time, she'd practically turned about 12.5 percent of him into a mummy.

Her sob turned into a snort. Jane reached out a hand and wiped a tear away from her face.

"Why didn't you say anything?", she said with an accusing whine, pointing at his ankle.

He laughed. And then said in a quiet voice, resting his forehead against hers once more.

"Because I felt.…"

He shrugged, a little helplessly, a little embarrassed and just a little scared.

"loved."

It was Lisbon now who wiped a tear away from his face. Up in the night sky another shooting star fell towards the morning. Down on the island, Jane and Lisbon fell once more into the soft sand kissing.

A/N: That was an emotional challenge to write, so I really really really hope you liked it. We're heading towards the last one now. Sunrise will arrive on November 30th. As promised.