Hmm…Jane may be a bit OOC near the end, but not sure if those thoughts/realizations would ever seem quite in character anyway so…that's the breaks. : )

30 Shades of Red:

Red Feathers

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Jane looked down at the photograph in his hand, captivated. Was that really Lisbon? He looked up at their guest.

"Is that really her?"

The man seated on the chair across from the couch nodded, smiling a bit smugly. "She'd be so pissed if she knew I still had that photo."

Jane looked at the man, assessing his personality. He was someone who had worked with Lisbon years ago, back when they were both rookies. The photograph was of Lisbon when she was on an undercover assignment. Her old co-worker—Jim was his name—had relayed the details. She had rarely taken such assignments, but the part called for a dark-haired woman of petite stature.

He wasn't sure if he'd believe that Lisbon had done it if it weren't for the picture in his hands.

Lisbon. A waitress in a strip club.

Nothing against the profession, of course. Just not something he could picture her doing. Well, actually, he could now. Though waitresses themselves didn't strip, they were scantily clad. In this particular photograph, Lisbon was not only scantily clad, but also sporting a red feather boa wrapped enticingly around her neck. The things she did to stop drug rings…

"Jim?"

At the sound of Lisbon's voice, Jane stuffed the photo into his vest pocket. Strange. It was unlike him to be so secretive. Mysterious, yes. But to hide something like this? Unusual. He would normally flaunt it, tease her mercilessly. Jim stood and turned to Lisbon.

"Teresa, good to see you," he said enthusiastically, enveloping her in a hug which she returned with as much force. If Jane didn't know that Jim was happily married (wedding ring tipped him off about the married part; happily, he knew because…well, it was obvious—at least to a mentalist), he'd wonder about the two of them. Jane patiently waited for them to finish their embrace. When they pulled away from one another (Jane thought their hug had been a tad longer than was necessary, actually), they both started talking at once.

"What are you doing here?"

"Look at you. Head of a team!"

They laughed in unison. A bit sickening, Jane thought, openly observing them. Jim responded first.

"Had an errand to run in the area and thought I'd drop in and check out the place crazy enough to give you a position like this," he teased. Lisbon smiled in response. She was used to this Jim's teasing, Jane noted. She didn't blush for Jim.

"You're just jealous," Lisbon replied. "Good thing my team is away today, investigating. I'd hate to think what kind of stories you'd be telling otherwise."

Jim raised a brow. "Not all of your team is away. Who says I haven't shared some stories already?"

Lisbon looked over to Jane warily. Took her long enough to notice he was here. Jane smiled benignly, trying his hardest to look as aloof as ever. She looked between the two men before settling on Jim. "You didn't."

He laughed. "You'll never know, now, will you?"

Lisbon looked to Jane once more, trying her hardest to discern if he knew something he could use against her. Finally, she smiled. "No. You didn't. He would have taken great pleasure in teasing me by now."

Jim's brow furrowed slightly before he was lead away by Lisbon, drawing him into conversation. Jane watched them leave, sinking back into the cushions of the couch. True, he normally would have relished teasing Lisbon into a blushing state. Not today for some reason. Curious.

He pulled out the photo once more. Jim had left it and didn't seem to remember it anyway. He probably had the negative somewhere. He wouldn't miss it. From what Jane could tell (and he was usually right), Jim would just think he had misplaced it somewhere, not remembering that Jane was the last to hold it. Jane pulled out his wallet and tucked the photo into a pocket of it, alongside the portrait of his wife and daughter. He didn't stop to analyze his actions, unsure if he really wanted to.

He couldn't deny, though, that it was an act of caring. Men only carried portraits in their wallets if they cared. It scared him a bit. Look what happened last time that happened. And Lisbon was in the line of danger quite often in her line of work. Maybe not the smartest choice he'd ever made—caring about her. But it seemed that his iron will was fading a bit. Somehow Lisbon was sneaking in under it. The whole team was, really. Perhaps he was getting too emotionally invested in his colleagues.

He didn't think there was anything he could do to change it and could practically hear his wife chiding him. 'Let more people in,' she'd always admonished. Well, whether he wanted to or not, it seemed the CBI team was coming in (sometimes forcefully). He was slowly realizing that they were an integral part of his life now. And today he realized something else. He couldn't deny his attraction to Lisbon—at least he would admit it to himself. She was intriguing. More intriguing was his own silence on the photo and his knowledge of it. What did that mean? And, while he questioned his desire to keep it close to him (with the two other people he cared about most in the entire world), he didn't think he was quite ready to look to closely at his feelings for her beyond friendship. He smiled a bit, lying back on the couch and staring at the ceiling. He loved that he learned something new about her everyday, though.

Who knew she looked so good in red feathers?