"Okay, people," Lisbon's boss, Givens, announced. "Weekly assignments. Pens ready."

The staff of the paper gathered in the bullpen to listen to their assignments. Lisbon grabbed a notebook and pen from her new desk and joined them for her first meeting.

"Albers, Nightingale, you know the drill," Givens said, addressing two grizzled vets, Roberta Albers and Thomas Nightingale. "Business and Sports, same as usual."

Albers and Nightingale nodded without saying anything.

"Barkley," Givens said to a young woman whose desk was next to Lisbon's. "Since Wilson's out, go with Thomas to the game this afternoon, see if you can get any shots worth printing."

The young woman's mouth tightened but she jerked her head in acknowledgment.

Givens' eyes came to rest on Lisbon and a young man in his twenties, slick and gym-buffed. "Kirby," Givens said gruffly. "Take the metro beat. Meyers," he said, his distaste palpable. "Obits."

Lisbon's face fell. Okay, so she wasn't a real reporter, but even she knew obituaries was a crap assignment. She nodded, covering her disappointment. Guess she had some dues paying to do before they gave her anything really interesting to work on.

"That's it," Givens said. "Copy's due at four. Get to work."

Lisbon went back to her desk and sat down, ready to get started. The young woman, Barkley, ambled over and extended her hand. "I'm Heather. Photographer," she said. "Teresa, right?"

"That's right," Lisbon said, returning the handshake. The other woman's grip was firm but warm. "Nice to meet you."

"Welcome aboard," Heather said. "Sorry you got stuck with obits your first day. That sucks."

Lisbon shrugged. "New kid on the block. You gotta take what you can get until you prove yourself, right?"

"Hm," Heather said skeptically. "Just don't let Gibson pigeonhole you." She sighed. "Believe me, it's tough to break out of if you let that happen."

"I take it you're speaking from experience?"

"Look, I don't want to badmouth the brass on your first day, or anything," Heather said reluctantly. "But let's just say Givens is pretty old school, when it comes to his views on women in the newspaper business. As in—prehistoric."

"That bad, huh?" Lisbon said sympathetically.

Heather made a face. "He keeps assigning me to the fashion section. I mean, this isn't exactly Milan. I only got the sports assignment because Wilson's out."

"How long have you been here?" Lisbon asked curiously.

"Three years," Heather said gloomily.

"What do you want to be doing?" Lisbon asked. "Would you rather be covering sports on a regular basis?"

She shook her head. "I'd rather be doing the metro beat," she said. "But Wilson gets most of those assignments, too. Which is stupid, because the sports stuff conflicts with the metro stuff half the time. Wilson's not bad, but he can't be in two places at once."

"Sounds rough," Lisbon commented. "Any tips for breaking free of the mold?"

Heather grimaced. "I'll let you know when I figure it out."

"What about the rest of the staff? Anything else I should be aware of?"

"Nah," Heather said. "Tom and Roberta are all right. They've been doing the same thing for thirty-five damn years. They're not exactly what I would call inspired, but they're good people. They'll help you find your feet if you have any questions about anything. And Hollis is great," she said, referring to the managing editor. "Really knows her stuff. She doesn't take any crap from Givens, but she's got a lot on her plate. She can't be worrying about stuff like staffing assignments."

"I interviewed with her," Lisbon said. "I really liked her. What about Wilson?"

"Wilson's not bad," Heather allowed. "He works hard, and he's a good photographer."

"And Kirby?"

"Total tool," Heather said succinctly. "His idea of investigative reporting is adding two speculative paragraphs to a press release sent out by some other organization. And his writing's crap."

Lisbon frowned. "He can't be that bad, if he's getting the metro beat. That's an important section."

"Ah, but you are forgetting," Heather said, wagging her finger at Lisbon. "He has a penis. That makes all the difference."

"I see," Lisbon said, deciding to reserve judgment for herself.

"What about you?" Heather asked. "What's your story?"

Lisbon's face heated, already dreading the amount of lying she was going to have to do to get through this conversation. "Me? What do you want to know?"

"What's your deal? What were you doing before this?"

"Freelance work, mostly," Lisbon said cautiously. "Mostly online publications, that sort of thing."

"You been in Salt Lake long?"

She shook her head. "I just moved here from Scottsdale with my husband."

"What's your husband's name? You got a picture?" Heather asked.

Lisbon found a picture of Jane on her phone and showed it to Heather. "His name's Patrick."

"Damn," Heather said, her eyes widening. "You married that?"

"Most days I can't believe it, either," Lisbon said dryly.

"So why'd you move to Salt Lake? Did he get a job here or something?"

"No, we moved because of my work, actually," Lisbon said, sticking to the story she and Jane had agreed upon with Montrose and Soren. "He's a kindergarten teacher, so he can pretty much get work anywhere."

"He's that beautiful, willing to follow you wherever you go, and he's good with kids?" Heather said, impressed. "Sounds like you hit the jackpot."

"Yeah," Lisbon said, her eyes drifting down to the photograph. "He's very good to me."

"You guys got any kids of your own?" Heather wanted to know.

Lisbon blushed. "Not yet. Patrick keeps talking about it, but I'd like to get settled in here before making any more big life changes," she said, gesturing around the newsroom.

"Makes sense," Heather said. She glanced at her own desk. "I guess I'd better get back to work. Just wanted to welcome you aboard, make sure you had at least one friendly face as part of your first day. If you have any questions, just holler."

"Thanks, Heather," Lisbon said sincerely.

"If you ever want to get lunch or something, just let me know," Heather tossed back, sitting down at her own desk.

Lisbon smiled. "I'd like that."

Xxx

Lisbon spent the rest of the day listening carefully to everything going on around her and working on her assignment. She introduced herself to the other staff members, since it appeared Givens wasn't going to bother to take her around himself. They were all polite, friendly, and otherwise pretty much exactly as Heather had described. Her own analysis was that Heather was the sharpest of the bunch, but was stuck at the bottom of the totem pole due to her youth and apparently, her gender.

She heeded Jane's advice about how elicit information by pretending to know more than you did, and she found she was able to gather the basic information about how the newspaper operated this way without asking too many questions that would expose her as a novice. She dutifully submitted her copy at four and spent the last hour doing a little research at her computer before packing up and heading home to Jane promptly at five.

Xxx

"And then Kirby missed the deadline, when all he had to do was get a couple of quotes from the Small Business Administration and add them to the outline Givens had given him," Lisbon told Jane over dinner that night. "Can you believe that? Of all the incompetent morons. I swear I walked by his desk five times today, and every damn time he was watching YouTube videos. At work!"

Jane frowned. "Givens lets him get away with that?"

Lisbon snorted. "Givens thinks the sun shines out of Kirby's ass. I did some digging, and apparently Kirby is the nephew of some big investor type with a stake in the paper. I looked up his resume on LinkedIn, and he's completely underqualified for the job. And I read some of his copy, and Heather was right. His writing is total crap. I can't believe Givens gave the metro beat to him over me. Treating me like some kind of novice, giving me obits, of all things," Lisbon grumbled.

"You are a novice," Jane pointed out.

"Givens doesn't know that!" Lisbon said, indignant.

"You're right," Jane said placidly. "Sexist pig."

Lisbon scowled. "You'd better not be saying that ironically."

Jane smiled into his pasta. "Not at all, my dear."

"It's not funny!" Lisbon said. "I know this is just temporary for me, but Heather's clearly talented and she's being wasted there. Having someone like Givens in charge is toxic to the culture."

"I never said it was funny," Jane protested. "I agree with you."

"Then what are you smiling about?" Lisbon demanded, irritated by his lack of adequate sympathy.

He looked at her with soft eyes. "This. It's so…domestic. Eating together, you complaining about work. I like it."

"Oh," Lisbon said, disarmed. She thought about it. It was nice, coming home to Jane. Sharing a meal together at the end of the day. She found herself caught up in gratitude again that he had invited himself along to this whole strange adventure. She thought about what it would have been like, going into that building full of strangers this morning, and returning to an empty, desolate apartment at the end of the day, instead of this cozy house with Jane cooking for her and listening to her bitch about sexism in the workplace.

She reached out and threaded her fingers through his. "Patrick," she said, her throat suddenly thick. But then words failed her. "I'm so glad you're here," she said finally, giving his hand a squeeze.

He raised their joined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "No place I'd rather be," he said, repeating his words from—God, was it less than a week ago?

She cleared her throat and fixed her eyes on her plate. "So, uh, how was your day?" she said, drawing her hand back on the pretense of picking up her knife. "You met with the administrators today, right?"

"It was fine," he said. "Mrs. Jenkins is wonderful. She's the principal. We're going to get along swimmingly. Tilghman, the vice principal, on the other hand, is your typical petty tyrant. Not to worry, though. I already have the perfect plan in mind to teach him a lesson."

"That's exactly what I was worried about," Lisbon said dryly. "Are you going to get fired your first week there?"

"Teresa, please," Jane said, very much on his dignity. "I managed to keep you, Minelli, Bertram, and Hightower from firing me for ten years. Dealing with Tilghman will be child's play."

Lisbon let it go. "Did you meet anybody else while you were there?"

He nodded. "I met a bunch of the other teachers. They seem nice enough. I think I'll get along quite well there."

Lisbon took a bite of her pasta. "Are you excited to meet the kids tomorrow?"

His eyes lit up. "I am. I read through their files, and it looks like it will be a fun group. Daisy McMillan, she's going to be my biggest troublemaker."

"You can tell that just by reading the files?" Lisbon said, amused.

"Certainly. But I'm confident I can win her over," Jane said. "I got to go look at my classroom today, and I already have some ideas about how to set it up."

"That's great, Patrick," Lisbon said. "Let me know if you want a hand with anything after hours. I can stop by and help."

"Really?" he said, pleased. "I'll take you up on that."

Later, after they'd cleaned up the dishes, Jane trapped her by the sink. "Sounds like you had a stressful day," he said, nosing his way under her hair to kiss the back of her neck.

She reached back and buried her fingers in his hair. "Meh. It wasn't so bad," she said, tilting her head to give him better access. "It's not like breaking into the good old boys club is new territory for me."

"Still," he said. "I'd like to minimize the stress in your life. What do you say? If we retire early and I whisper sweet feminist nothings in your ear, will you let me help relieve your tension?"

She turned around and kissed him. "I think that could definitely be arranged."

Xxx

The next day after work, Lisbon drove over to Jane's school to check out his classroom and help him set it up to his liking.

She found him standing on a chair, hanging a giant multi-colored…something from the ceiling. It had to have been twenty feet long, one end trailing to the ground, the other held aloft as Jane attempted to secure it to the ceiling.

"Hey," she said, amused. "Whatcha got there?"

His face lit up with a smile when he turned and saw her. "Hey, yourself. I can't believe you need to ask what this is, Teresa."

She raised her eyebrows.

"It's a papier-mâché dragon, obviously," he said, turning its head to face her so she could see its long snout, ferocious teeth, and menacing forked tongue. The effect was somewhat ruined by a decidedly cross-eyed stare from two different colored eyes. Not to mention its irregularly shaped body, tail and wings, also in all different colors. Jane gazed at it proudly. "We worked on it all afternoon."

"It's beautiful," Lisbon said indulgently. "What's his name?"

"George," Jane replied. "Doesn't he look like a George?"

"Definitely," Lisbon agreed.

Jane cocked his head. "Come help me."

She went. Through the creative use of a vast supply of paper clips and string, they finally got the thing hanging from the ceiling. Lisbon had to admit it looked pretty impressive once they finished, with the wings stretched out and the snout pointing to the classroom door so George could greet his classmates as they entered the room.

Jane hopped down from the chair and took her hand. "Come on. I'll give you the tour."

He guided her around the classroom, pointing out the sensory bins, the art table, the reading corner, listening circle, and the science and technology table.

"Science, I'll buy," Lisbon said. "I'm sure you've read enough random books and watched enough nature shows to have collected a fair amount of knowledge about science. But are you sure you're qualified to be teaching our nature's youth about technology?" she teased. "These kids probably already know more about how to use a computer than you do."

"It's not like I'm teaching programming skills to young professionals," Jane defended himself. "You don't think I have at least enough technological know how to impart some knowledge to a bunch of five year olds?"

She shot him a look.

He deflated. "I have a teaching assistant," he muttered. "She said she'd run the technology part for me."

Lisbon laughed. "Probably for the best, don't you think?"

"Yeah, yeah," Jane grumbled. "I still think computers are just a fad. They'll go out of fashion any day now."

"Said the owner of the horse and cart about the automobile," Lisbon said dryly.

Jane glared at her. "Are you going to make yourself useful, or not?" He took her hand again. "This way. I want you to help me set up the dramatic play corner."

Jane had somehow amassed a vast collection of costume elements and props in a very short period of time. When she asked, he told her he'd asked at the local theater if they had any castoffs from previous productions, and they had happily donated a number of items when he explained why he wanted them. Lisbon shook her head, amazed at Jane's ability to acquire the supplies he needed for any given situation seemingly in the blink of an eye.

"So what's this supposed to be?" she asked, helping him crumple up long sheets of brown butcher paper into long wiggly tube like shapes.

"Isn't it obvious?" He held one up to the wall. "They're trees, Teresa." He gestured expansively. "This whole area is going to be an enchanted forest."

"Uh-huh," Lisbon said, unimpressed. So far all they had was two white walls, a square of green carpet, a pile of costumes, miscellaneous fabrics, a vast supply of cardboard, and a heap of crumpled up papers.

He shook his head. "You wait. This is going to be a magnificent forest before you know it."

Lisbon decided not to question his vision. She was enjoying sitting on the floor and working with him on a project that didn't involve manipulating murderers too much to quibble about his methods.

But to her surprise, when she had draped the last of the green tulle over the entrance to the 'enchanted forest' under Jane's direction, she had to admit that the overall effect was pretty magical.

"Wow," she said, stepping back to admire their handiwork. Green leaves draped over their paper branches extended outwards, forming a forest canopy over the small space. Various paper animals peeked out from behind the trees—a fox, an owl, several squirrels, and a friendly black bear stuffing his face with berries. Instead of storing the costumes and props in something boring like a cupboard, Jane had hidden them around the whole space. He'd built in clever hidey holes into the trunks of the paper trees, underneath cardboard toadstools, and in the heads of comically large flowers all along the edge of the forest floor. "It looks amazing."

"It turned out well, didn't it?" he said, pleased. "I'm going to change the theme every few weeks. I want to do a pumpkin patch for Halloween. An ice castle in the winter."

"I can't wait to see that one," Lisbon said. She amended her statement. "Actually, I can't wait to see all of them. Can I help with the other ones, too?"

"I would love that," he said, delighted. "You really want to?"

She shrugged. "Sure. This was fun." Impulsively, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks for inviting me along."

He met her gaze, his eyes soft. "Anytime."

She leaned into him, enjoying the low buzz of awareness between them. An awareness that they could not only acknowledge, but actually act on now. What a novel concept. She traced her index finger down his cheek. "You didn't shave today," she observed.

He ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. "No," he admitted. "I thought I might try growing a beard. You know, to complete the absent-minded professor look," he said, gesturing to his jeans and the tie now sticking out of his jacket pocket. His expression changed. "Unless you don't like it," he said, alarmed. "I won't grow it out if it's going to be too scratchy for you."

Lisbon shook her head. "I don't mind." Unexpectedly, the thought of Jane with a beard, which she'd never before considered one way or another, was actually a bit of a turn on.

He breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, good. I don't want to do anything that might deter you from kissing me."

Fat chance of that, she thought. "Well, I don't want to prevent you from 'properly inhabiting the role,'" she said primly.

His eyes twinkled. "You're too good to me."

"Damn right," she agreed. She gestured to the enchanted forest. "Seriously, this is really impressive. It's nice to see your predilection for arts and crafts is good for something besides catching murderers."

His face lit up. "Speaking of arts and crafts," he said eagerly. "I haven't shown you the pictures the kids drew this morning."

He dragged her back over to the art station and tasked her with helping him to tack the pictures drawn by the kids earlier that day up on the wall. She obliged him.

She picked one up, turning it this way and that, trying to guess what the intended object was. She showed it to Jane. "What's this one supposed to be?"

"That's Daisy's," he informed her. "It's a kangaroo fighting a hippopotamus."

She looked back down at the large purple blob and the vaguely triangular scribble of brown. "Of course. How did I not see it before?" She thought of the first piece of art any of her nieces and nephews had given her, a red and brown scribble presented to her with great ceremony by Annie on her fifth birthday. Tommy had later whispered to her that it was a picture of a monkey wearing a red hat. The picture still resided in pride of place on her refrigerator at home, much to the mortification of the now fourteen year old Annie. She'd implored Lisbon to take it down on her last visit, but Lisbon had refused. She loved that picture. It was held up by a magnet featuring the Chicago skyline, another favorite gift from James' kids one Christmas. A pang of sadness ran through her at the thought. She hoped Grace had thought to pack the picture and magnet away for safekeeping. Considering this, she was sure she had. Grace was thoughtful like that.

A wave of homesickness for her family and for her whole team washed over her. She touched her cross. Was Tommy staying safe in his bounty-hunting work? Were James and Stan and their families doing okay? Was Cho's back acting up again? Was Rigsby driving Van Pelt crazy constantly munching on some new snack food?

"Hey." Jane wrapped an arm around her. "You okay?"

She turned her face into his shoulder. "Yeah," she said, her voice muffled by his jacket.

"You're thinking of your family," Jane said softly. A statement, not a question.

"Yeah." She sniffled a little. "The team, too."

He kissed her hair. "I'm sorry."

She held him tighter. "I'm so glad you're here," she said fiercely. She sniffed again. "Sorry. I keep saying that."

He kissed her gently on the lips. "Yet somehow, I really never get tired of hearing it."

"Well, it's true," she said, snuggling closer to him.

He gave her a little squeeze. "Come along, my dear. Let's go home."