Lisbon's stomach churned with anxiety as she walked with Jane towards the diner where they'd arranged to meet Heather and her boyfriend for dinner. She was not looking forward to this evening of lying. Heather knew the truth now, of course, but Lisbon and Jane would have to pretend they weren't assessing her for signs that she might double cross them. At the same time, they still had to pretend they were Patrick and Teresa Meyers for Caleb's sake, the only person among the four who didn't know their true identities by this point. They would have to pretend to be a happily married couple with no death threats, psychotic ex-lovers, or the specter of a recent event that had nearly fractured their relationship hanging over their heads. Lisbon thought there was a real possibility her brain might spill out onto the dinner table like spaghetti midway through the meal, unable to manage all the lies at once.

Jane put his hand on her lower back and rubbed soothing circles through her shirt. "Relax," he murmured into her ear. "Everything's going to be fine."

Lisbon tensed even further, suddenly and violently turned on by the hand on her back. She cursed herself for her reaction, which was completely inappropriate and unhelpful under the circumstances. She bit her lip and concentrated on not mauling Jane in the parking lot. She wished they didn't have to go on this stupid date. She wished Lorelei would stop sending those goddamn notes and that things were normal between her and Jane again. She wished that she could ask him to take her back to the house and drive her out of her mind so she wouldn't have to think about any of this anymore.

She knew from experience he could do it.

Jane's fingers tensed on her back as though she'd transferred a portion of her tension directly to him through the point of physical contact. "Not that I don't appreciate the thought," he whispered. "But can we focus here?" He looked at her quizzically. "Besides, I thought you were still mad at me."

Lisbon shook him off, annoyed. "I am mad at you." God, couldn't she have a single lustful thought to herself?

"I suppose I should be flattered you still want me for my body, at least," Jane mused. "But to be honest, it's kind of demoralizing, under the circumstances."

"Forget the date," Lisbon growled, her face flaming. "I'm going to kill you in the parking lot."

Jane straightened. "I mean, I'm not saying I'm not amenable to the idea—I'm not that demoralized—"

"Shut up," Lisbon snapped, and led the way into the diner.

When they entered the diner, Lisbon saw Heather and Caleb already seated at a booth by the window. Lisbon pasted a smile on her face and crossed over to the booth with Jane on her heels. Heather slid out of the booth and gave Lisbon a quick hug, then reached out to shake Jane's hand. "You must be Patrick," she said, beaming. "Nice to finally meet you."

"Likewise," Jane said, smiling back. "Teresa's been singing your praises ever since we moved here. Nice to have a face to go with the name." He turned his attention to Caleb, a tall, gangling young man with a shock of red hair that flopped over his forehead. "And you must be Caleb," he said, shaking his hand in turn. "Pleased to meet you."

"Hi," Caleb said, returning the handshake with a shy grin.

Lisbon offered her hand as she introduced herself. "Teresa."

"Teresa, nice to meet you," Caleb said, shaking her hand with more energy. He shook his head. "It's funny, the way Heather talked about you, I thought you'd be, I dunno—" he shrugged apologetically. "Taller."

"She gets that a lot," Jane said, putting his hand on her back again and gesturing for her to slide into the booth before him.

"Oh, hush," Lisbon said, slapping him on the shoulder half-heartedly as she allowed him to maneuver her into the booth.

Once they were all seated, Jane skillfully took charge of the conversation, to Lisbon's immense relief. He asked Heather and Caleb thoughtful questions about themselves and told entertaining stories about their fake life together in Scottsdale. He and Caleb discovered a mutual love of cooking and bonded over a discussion of several modern artists Lisbon had never heard of. Once they ventured into topic areas he was passionate about, Caleb overcame his shyness and grew more animated.

Heather, for her part, turned out to be a gifted storyteller in her own right, nearly reducing the entire group to tears of laughter with her uncanny impression of Givens and his various acts of petty tyranny.

"You should have seen Teresa's face when he tried to put her on this story about a local beauty pageant." Heather finished. "I thought her head was going to explode. She looked like she was going to shoot somebody."

"Oh, I'm familiar with the look," Jane said, grinning at Lisbon.

Lisbon rolled her eyes but accepted the ribbing. "I wasn't going to shoot him," she protested. She looked at Jane. "I did think about taking a leaf from your book and pretending to put a dead mouse in his pocket, though."

"You should have," Jane said, leaning back and stretching his arm along the back of the booth behind her. "The memory of that dead mouse smell is a powerful influencer of behavior."

"Uh—dead mouse?" Caleb asked, his eyes wide.

Lisbon froze, having forgotten their cover for a moment and struggling to come up with some halfway reasonable explanation for the dead mouse comment. Of course, there was no halfway reasonable explanation. Jane's actions rarely crossed paths with 'reasonable.'

Jane smoothly stepped in and told the story of the first time he'd met Bertram and the aide who had so irked him. He changed the names and cast Bertram as the principal of the fictional school he'd worked at in Scottsdale, but otherwise the retelling was remarkably faithful to the original. Not for the first time, Lisbon marveled at Jane's ability to weave together truth and lies so seamlessly.

"…and he never wore that jacket again," Jane concluded.

Caleb nearly snorted soda out of his nose. Heather patted him on the back and shook her head. "All right, enough work talk," she said, fixing Lisbon with a mischievous look. "I want to hear the romantic tale of how you two met."

Jane raised his eyebrows at Lisbon. "You want to take this one?"

Lisbon suppressed a grimace. "You'd better tell it." She was certain Jane was going to make up something horribly embarrassing, but at least she wouldn't have to come up with yet another lie herself.

"Very well." Jane turned back to Heather and Caleb and announced, "Teresa rescued me from a bar fight."

"Really?" Heather said, amused.

"Yep. I had a—disagreement with a gentleman at this bar back home—"

"You mean, you purposefully provoked him," Lisbon put in, thinking of Hannigan. What a sucker she'd been, thinking Jane was actually the victim in that situation.

Jane waved a dismissive hand. "Potato, potah-to. Anyway, the point is, my nose was already bleeding and the guy was about to sock me in the jaw. But before he can hit me again, Teresa marches over and dresses down the guy in front of the whole bar. The guy is so mad he's still trying to get at me, but I was sensibly hiding behind Teresa by that point. But the guy takes another swing at me, and instead of ducking out of the way, Teresa punches him right in the nose."

"Seriously?"

"The guy was six feet if he was an inch and had about a hundred pounds on her, and she knocked him on his ass in one blow." He looked at Lisbon affectionately. "She was a real knight in shining armor."

"So then what happened?" Caleb said, fascinated.

"Well, naturally, I had to repay her for coming to my rescue," Jane said. "So I let her fuss and fret over me and my bleeding nose. And then I did what any man with half a brain would do and asked for her phone number."

That sounded so…normal, Lisbon thought. Asking for her phone number. She tried to imagine meeting Jane in a context outside of work, revenge, and violence. She failed. Trying to visualize Jane asking for her phone number, the closest image she came up with was him pickpocketing her phone and pretending to have mixed it up with his or something. Or otherwise tricking it out of her.

"And you said yes?" Heather said to Lisbon expectantly.

"Oh, well—" Lisbon said, flustered. "He did look pretty pathetic, with his nose bleeding like that."

"I appealed to her nature as a fixer," Jane informed Heather and Caleb. "She could see I was broken. Naturally, I exploited her desire to take care of people as far as possible."

"Oh, man. That guy broke your nose?" Caleb said, scrunching up his own nose in sympathy.

"No, not my nose," Jane corrected him. "It's made of pretty sturdy stuff. I was referring to the fact that I used to suffer from clinical depression."

Caleb blinked. "Oh. I'm sorry."

"That's awful," Heather said sympathetically.

"It was awful," Jane agreed. "I was even institutionalized for a while." He said it carelessly, as though he had no compunction about sharing this deeply private detail with two people he'd only just met. Then added, "But Teresa helped me get better."

"You're exaggerating," Lisbon protested. "You had—" she paused, thinking of Sophie Miller and wondering how far into the land of truth she was allowed to venture into here. God, her head hurt. "You had help," she finished lamely. "Professional medical help."

"Meh," Jane said dismissively. "Doctors. Frauds in white coats." He covered her hand with his on the table. "You're the one who helped me get better."

"Mm," Lisbon said noncommittally. A depressed person couldn't be cured by another individual. She knew that better than anyone. This conversation was growing more treacherous by the minute. All the truth and lies jumbled up together – she couldn't get her bearings. She didn't know which part she was supposed to respond to, the truths or the lies. And then whichever it was, whether she was supposed to respond with truth or lies, in turn.

Heather cast Lisbon a sidelong look. "How did she help you get better?"

"To be honest, I'm still trying to work that out," Jane said with a wry smile. "I was a very contrary patient, you see."

"I'll say," Lisbon muttered.

His hand tightened on hers. "I guess it's just too much to expect a man to remain entirely hopeless when he spends every day around someone who works tirelessly for the common good. Someone who seems so prickly on the outside, but quietly and efficiently takes care of the people around her without ever asking anything for herself." He cast a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. "I can't tell her stuff like that, of course. She'll accuse me of putting her on a pedestal or some such rot. She doesn't understand that she's more inspiring off a pedestal than on one. That her short temper and grumpy morning attitude make her so endearingly and reassuringly real that they have their own healing effect."

Lisbon flushed. "I think it was the medication, myself."

"Don't be silly, darling. You know that stuff only made things worse for me." He looked back at Heather and Caleb. "Adverse reactions, you know. But seriously. She helped me find purpose in something other than anger and pain. Helped me see beyond myself. Did me more good than the most expensive doctors in the country."

"Patrick," Lisbon said helplessly. Why was he bringing all this up now? If he really felt like that, why couldn't he just tell her when it was just the two of them? Without an audience and a protective coating of lies.

He turned and met her gaze. "What? It's the truth."

Lisbon could only shake her head.

"What about you, Teresa?" Heather said. "What made you fall for Patrick?"

Unprepared for the question, Lisbon struggled to articulate the feelings she'd fought for so long. "He makes me laugh," she said finally. She hesitated, then quickly brushed her thumb over his fingers enclosing hers. "I never had that much laughter in my life, before he came along. He reminds me not to take things too seriously, and he goes out of his way to make me smile. And he has an amazing mind. He drives me crazy sometimes because he won't let you forget how clever he is, but he can pretty much run circles around everyone he meets, intelligence wise. It's impressive to watch. I've learned a lot from him about how people think and behave. And he's very good with people, when he wants to be. He's capable of great acts of kindness. He's very thoughtful and caring," she added, risking a glance at Jane. She swallowed at the intensity of his gaze but continued bravely, her eyes on his. "He takes care of me."

Caleb looked back and forth between them. "How long have the two of you been together?"

"Ten years," Jane answered, finally breaking her gaze and squeezing her hand.

"Wow," Caleb said, impressed. "How much of that time have you been married?"

"Nine and a half years," Jane responded. Lisbon cast him a sidelong glance.

Caleb's eyes widened. "You got married after knowing each other only six months?"

"Well, I proposed after six weeks," Jane said. "Six months was the compromise."

"Six weeks!" Caleb repeated. "You sure didn't waste any time."

Jane shrugged. "When lightning strikes, what's the point of waiting?"

Heather addressed Lisbon. "How did he ask you, Teresa?"

"Oh—Patrick, you'd better tell this one, too," Lisbon said, flushing. She told Heather and Caleb, "He's a much better storyteller than I am."

"All right, Patrick. Let's have it," Heather said expectantly.

"Certainly," Jane said. "It was tricky finding the right way to ask her, let me tell you. I thought of whisking her away to Mexico and surprising her with a yacht rental, but Teresa doesn't like boats, so a romantic sail in the Gulf of California was out of the question. She loves sports, but hates big showy displays and doesn't like being the center of attention, so proposing at a baseball game was out. Same for staging something elaborate with her family. A restaurant proposal posed the same problem. Plus, it's so cliché," he said, making a face. "I also thought about buying a house and presenting her with the keys, because that would be an adequately grand gesture and wouldn't involve an audience, but I had to discard that idea, too. Given how long we'd known each other at that point, I thought the prospect of a mortgage would spook her even more than the proposal."

"So what'd you end up going with in the end?" Caleb prompted.

"In the end, I proposed at home," Jane said. "After careful consideration, I thought she would like that best. So I went to one of those chain stores and bought about two hundred candles. Then I broke into her house and cooked an elaborate meal. When she got home, I popped the question."

"So he chose well, then?" Heather asked Lisbon.

"Except for the fire hazard, yes," Lisbon said.

"Oh, come on, admit it," Jane said. "You were impressed by the effect."

"It did look pretty impressive," Lisbon said to placate him. "Very romantic."

"But the candles weren't the important part," Jane explained to Caleb and Heather. "The words were the important part." He tightened his grip on Lisbon's hand and looked back at her. "So I told her I was humbled and amazed by her intelligence, kindness, and bravery. That she inspired me to be a better person and that I loved her more than I ever thought possible. I told her I wanted to watch her yell at the television when her favorite baseball team was losing for the rest of my life. That I loved her crankiness in the morning. That I daydreamed about dark haired children with green eyes." His eyes bored into hers. "I told her that no one would ever love her more than I did. That her happiness was the most important thing in the world to me, and that I would be honored if she would allow me to spend the rest of my life proving that to her. And I told her if she wasn't ready, I would wait for her, because I wanted her to be sure of me."

A lump rose in Lisbon's throat and she found herself blinking back tears. "Sap," she said thickly, burying her face in his shoulder to hide how affected she was by his fake proposal.

"Very smooth," Caleb said appreciatively.

"So what did you say when he said all that, Teresa?" Heather prodded.

Lisbon lifted her head. "I said getting engaged after knowing someone six weeks was insane," she sniffled, attempting to regain her composure.

Jane patted her hand. "She did say that. But I kept asking, and at six months, she finally said yes. We eloped to St. Thomas the next day."

"Super romantic," Caleb said with approval.

"What about you guys?" Jane said. "How long have you two been together?"

"Three years," Heather answered.

"Three years?" Jane repeated. He looked at Caleb and raised his eyebrows. "What are you waiting for, slugger?"

Caleb went beet red. "Oh, I, uh—"

"Oh, I see," Jane said wisely. "You've already got the ring. You're just steeling your nerves in case she says no."

Caleb's jaw dropped. "Wha—I—how did you know-?"

"You should just ask," Jane advised. "Don't let time get away from you. Happiness is too precious a commodity to waste."

Heather stared at Caleb. "You have a ring?" she said, flabbergasted.

Caleb, still beet red, looked skyward. "Erm. Maybe."

Heather beamed. "Oh." She turned back to her mashed potatoes, still beaming.

Lisbon hit Jane on the shoulder, exasperated. "Can't you ever just mind your own business and let people get to things in their own time?"

"But other people are so slow to get to the heart of things," Jane protested. "They need me to help them along."

This from the man who took over a decade to confess his feelings to her. Lisbon gave him a look.

Jane cleared his throat and hastily turned to the others. "So, uh—who wants dessert? I'm buying."

Xxx

Lisbon was quiet on the ride home, lost in thought.

Jane glanced at her from the driver's seat. "Well?" he prompted her. "Aren't you going to ask me what I thought of Heather?"

Lisbon roused herself from her thoughts with some difficulty. "Sorry. Yes. What do you think? Are our covers safe?"

"I believe so, yes," Jane said. "You were right. She's not the type to let something slip by accident. She clearly hasn't told Caleb, who would be the first person she would tell, if she were going to tell anyone. And she looks up to you—she won't betray you on purpose."

"Good," Lisbon said absently. "That's good."

He looked over at her and frowned. "You don't seem that interested in my assessment. I thought that was the whole point of this outing. What are you thinking about over there?"

"Nothing," Lisbon said, turning her face to the window.

"Teresa," he said, warning in his voice. "Come on. Out with it."

She hunched her shoulders. "I don't understand how you do this stuff," she blurted out. "Making up all those lies—it seems so effortless to you. All week, you've been upset and preoccupied with this Lorelei situation. I've barely been able to get a word out of you in days. Then tonight, you're the life of the party. It's like you have a switch inside you, and you just decide when to turn it off and on based on what you want out of the situation. And all that crap you told Heather and Caleb – it's like you didn't even have to think about it. All the details were just…there. Ready to go. And I just—" She blew out a breath. "I don't understand. I don't understand how it's so easy for you to pretend all this is real."

His jaw tightened. "Well, that makes us even then," he said sharply. "Because I don't understand how it's so easy for you to pretend that it isn't."

She flinched but didn't respond. She silently turned back towards the window.

Jane sighed. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"I wasn't trying to…" Lisbon said to the window, just as quietly. "I'm trying to understand."

"I know," Jane said. "I'm sorry. I'll try to explain." He was quiet for a moment. "Didn't you ever play make believe when you were a kid, Teresa?"

Lisbon turned back towards him. "Yeah, of course."

"It's like playing make believe." Jane stared out the front windshield. "It's easy to pretend when it's the thing you want most in the world. When you're a little kid, you're convinced that your destiny is to be a magician, or a pirate, or a spy, or whatever. Logic doesn't matter. You bend the details to fit the narrative you wish was your reality."

Lisbon processed this. "So the whole Patrick Meyers persona is—what? Some kind of fantasy alternate life for you?"

"Is that so difficult to believe? It's that whole thing about 'Why does everybody else get to have a normal life?' Didn't it ever occur to you that part of me wants to be more like Patrick Meyers than Patrick Jane?"

"Even the Prius?" Lisbon said dubiously.

He smiled a little. "The Prius is part of Patrick Meyers. Who wouldn't want to be that guy? Someone who people don't feel sorry for or appalled by when they find out his past? Someone who met an amazing woman and didn't feel the need to hide his feelings for her? Someone who wants to build a nursery and have a kid or two to put inside it?"

"But then—" Lisbon stopped, the words dying on her lips.

"Why doesn't Patrick Jane just be more like Patrick Meyers?" Jane asked dryly.

"Well—yeah."

Jane stared out the windshield again. "Because he's already Patrick Jane," he said gloomily.

Lisbon waited a beat. "So you're saying when we go back to California, you're going to go back to driving the rust bucket."

Jane smiled. "Something like that. And as for the other piece—about switching between reality and the make believe- "

Lisbon winced, feeling guilty about the 'switch' comment.

"I don't really think of it in the same terms," Jane continued. "It's not really like switching on and off to me. It's more like—which priority comes first right now."

Lisbon tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"Earlier this week, I was focused on trying to figure out this situation with Lorelei and how it plays into Red John's larger play," he explained. "But when you told me about Heather, that was a more immediate concern, so I turned my focus to that problem first. And that problem required me to 'switch' more firmly into the Patrick Meyers persona, as you put it, so I shut out all the thoughts about Lorelei and Red John for now and just focused on being Patrick Meyers."

"That's what's so hard for me to understand, I think," Lisbon sighed. "I can't compartmentalize like that. I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings, Patrick, I'm just trying to explain why—when you do that, it looks so easy for you. Like there's no difference between how hard it is for you to be Patrick Meyers and how hard it is for you to be Patrick Jane. And so when you're talking about our fake life in Arizona or whatever, you're so damn convincing, it makes me question the things I know to be true, because you make it so hard to distinguish between the make believe and the reality."

"I suppose I can understand that."

Lisbon looked down at her hands. "As for me pretending this isn't real—it comes from the same place, I guess. It's confusing, having some pieces be real and others not so real. For me, it would be easier if it were all one or the other."

"Well," Jane said after a brief pause. "Maybe, when this is all over—if you're still speaking to me…that's something we could work towards. We could phase out the fake stuff and replace it with one hundred percent reality."

She turned her head and looked at him. "That sounds nice," she said wistfully.

He glanced at her. "But you still don't believe it's possible," he said, resigned.

"There's just—so much in the way," she said with a sigh. Namely, Red John. Lorelei, Scalzi… she thought they could overcome those things, with time. But no matter how she looked at it, Red John remained an insurmountable obstacle in every possible path they could choose to take.

Jane frowned. "Maybe we could just—take one thing at a time."

She considered this. "That isn't really how things have been working out for us, though, is it? I mean, the hits just keep coming."

"Yeah," Jane said, deflated.

He lapsed into heavy silence, dark thoughts taking him over. Lisbon suppressed a sigh, realizing this time she had been the one to 'flip the switch' and send him straight back into brooding mode once again.