Okay. I'm going to start this by saying that I'm eighteen, and no, I don't think thirty-five is old. I don't even really agree with the rhapsody I have Lisbon go on at the end of this chapter (you'll know what I mean). I just thought it kind of fit. Also, this chapter was going to have Lisbon talk about her fears of getting older and not being able to start a family with Jane, but then I realized that that is SO not something you would complain to Jane about. So yeah. This chapter is about how Lisbon can't tell Jane everything. Also, there's a nod to something I mentioned in Chapter nine, Lisbon loving Dean Martin. It's a character trait of mine I've given to her. Thanks to all the reviewers.

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April 20, 2008

Lisbon was thirty-five.

She hadn't thought about it before, but thirty-five was infinitely older than thirty-four. She couldn't explain it. She had woken up that morning to a world that suddenly seemed different. She'd looked down at herself. All things considered, she aged pretty well. Her skin was still nice. Nothing was sagging. She was the same jean size she was in high school, maybe even a size or two smaller. But being thirty-five was different than being thirty-four.

She'd gotten to work early, to find that Cho and Jane were already there. Neither of them said anything to her about it—Cho cocked his head and gave her his typical, "Morning, boss." Jane nodded genially at her. She went into her office to find a cupcake on her desk. She flashed Cho a quick appreciative grin, to which he bobbed his head and smiled back. It was nice.

The day went on. Rigsby brought her coffee when he got in, which he had never done before. It came from the expensive specialty shop up the street, and had probably cost him at least five bucks. It was fixed incorrectly—too much sugar and not enough cream—but she thanked him, and downed it as best she could, which seemed to make him happy.

At noon, Cho and Rigsby went out for lunch. The two had become fast friends, and their lunch dates were a regular thing. Jane sometimes joined them, but on this day he didn't. He walked into her office unnanounced. She was used to it by now. He sat in one of the chairs in front of her desk, and waited for her to acknowledge him.

"What do you want, Jane?"

He grinned. "It's your birthday," he said.

She rolled her eyes, not looking up from her computer. "Tell me something I don't know."

"It's a big one."

She looked up. Only Cho knew her age. If he'd told Jane, so help her, he was a dead man. "Did Cho tell you how old I am?"

"Of course not," he replied. "I didn't even try. He'd be too scared you'd kill him."

She said nothing. She always knew Cho was a smart guy.

"But you're distant today."

She went back to typing, and not looking at him. "I'm distant every day."

"A different kind of distant." He paused. "Sad."

Her hands stopped on the keyboard, but she still didn't look at him. "I don't want to talk about it, Jane."

He nodded. "Okay. I'll talk. You're feeling like you're getting older, and you haven't achieved anything. Personally, that is. Professionally, you're great, but personally, you're wondering if you're wasting your life. If you're running out of time."

"Don't you have work to do?" She didn't want to talk about this, not with Jane. Not with Jane, of all the people in the world, all the people in her unit. Not about this. Not with him.

He smiled. She hated it. "I'm on lunch."

"Don't you have lunch to eat?"

"No." He paused. He tilted the chair back on two legs. "Are you going to answer me?"

"I don't know why I ever answer you, Jane. You have conversations with yourself." She frowned. She wished she hadn't eaten all of Cho's cupcake at breakfast. She could go for something sweet now.

"You don't want to talk to me." He sounded surprised, and she couldn't, for the life of her, figure out why.

"You know, Jane, you're brilliant. This is what we pay you for."

He looked amused, like he always did when she got sarcastic with him. He never got offended. She had always liked that about him, but now she was beginning to see the darker side of that trait. Never being offended meant that he never, ever, took hints. She thought about it. Jane bypassed subtlety like it was nothing, and because he didn't get upset when someone tried to push him away, he almost always eventually got what he wanted.

"Well, anyway," he said. "I didn't really come in to bother you."

She raised her eyebrows at him, and he elaborated.

"I mean, I kind of did, but that's not the big reason. I came to give you this."

He stood and put a little parcel on her desk, wrapped in something that looked like newspaper. Sloppily, but he was a man, and what could you really expect? It was bound with duct tape. There was a little Christmas bow on it. It was kind of cute.

She stopped typing, she opened it. It was a Dean Martin CD.

She smiled a little, she couldn't help herself. "Why did you get me this?"

He leaned against her doorway. "You were so happy when they played Sway that night. I just figured..."

She smiled, and it felt weird. "How did you know I didn't already have it?"

"Come on, Lisbon, it's what you pay me for." He reached across her desk, and squeezed her hand. She was too surprised to pull hers away. It was warm, it was nice. "Happy Birthday. Even if you won't talk to me about it, I hope you'll stop being sad." His voice was sweet now. Not probing, not cocky. Sweet.

She thought about it, long after he was gone, long after he left the office to go home. The reason she couldn't confide in Jane.

Thirty-five was much older than thirty-four. She wasn't married, she didn't have children. She had always sworn that she wouldn't be one of those parents who still had children in her house past the fifty-five mark, that she wouldn't be one of those parents who brought their kid to the play ground, and had people ask her how old her granddaughter was. And yet she was scaring it to death. She could see it, she was in her mid-thirties now, she was almost in her late-thirties. All she ever did was work. It was all she could see herself doing in the forseeable future. It would be unfair to saddle a husband with that, to saddle a child with a mother who was never home.

And she didn't know how to do it anyway, how to go out, how to conduct a successful relationship. She hadn't been in one in years. She was scared she would never learn how.

And yet she couldn't talk about it with Jane. She couldn't imagine complaining about not starting a family with a man who had had one and lost his.

It just seemed wrong.

***

Next Chapter: "Cho and Rigsby were kindred spirits."