Sophie Miller. Approximately the last person on the planet he would have expected to hear from. And she needed his help. He'd thought his debt was too great to ever have a hope of clearing it from his accounts, but here was an unlooked for opportunity to repay it, out of the blue. He told her he would do everything he could.

Lisbon had been good about it. She'd gone with him to the university when he'd asked. She stood her ground against the local PD on his behalf when they took one look at Sophie's history with the victim and wanted to throw away the key. And she hadn't given him away to Minelli when he harangued her about taking the case in the first place.

He stopped by her office to thank her, but she didn't respond.

She stood in the corner, her body turned away from him, her head bent studiously over a file he was sure she wasn't reading. Uh-oh. Minelli must have come down hard on her.

"Lisbon?" he prompted her, a little worried by her standoffish posture.

She turned to face him, her eyes blazing. "Tell me the truth."

Not his favorite mode, but hey, he owed her. He watched the green eyes warily and attempted to cool the fire with a little humor. "Truth. Darth Vader? Luke's father."

She slammed the file drawer closed. "Seriously, I've stuck my stupid neck for you for the umpteenth time. I think I deserve the truth."

He assessed her expression, her stance. He'd worked with Lisbon a long time. Seen her standing over a dead body at four in the morning, seen her late at night, poring over her files. He knew her very, very well. Better perhaps, than anyone on the planet. She'd take exception to such a claim, but that was beside the point. The point was, he knew exactly how far he could push her before she would snap. Unless he was very much mistaken, he was rapidly approaching the border of her limits. If he didn't reverse course immediately, it was more than likely he'd pass the point of no return. And as much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, he really didn't want to know what it was like on that side of the line, because that would mean Lisbon would no longer be by his side in this long, horrible journey, and he'd recently started to fear that he really couldn't do this without her.

He closed the door.

He told her the truth. "She was my psychiatrist."

Lisbon's brow furrowed. "But you hate psychiatrists. Or so you always say."

He fidgeted. "She was a good psychiatrist."

Lisbon looked as though she couldn't quite believe her ears. "She must have been, if she managed to keep you in the room."

"It was a locked room."

He saw a glimmer of the truth dawn in her eyes. "Oh," she said quietly.

"I went through a rough patch." Understatement of the century. "Sophie helped me through that time."

Lisbon's gaze pierced him straight through, holding him captive. They looked even greener than usual. "It's not on your record."

He fidgeted again. "No. Believe me, it's not easy to do." Before he knew what was happening, he found himself stepping closer to her, confessing his feeling of shame about his whole stay in that dreadful place. He hadn't meant to tell her that. It was her eyes, he thought confusedly. They had some kind of power over him.

He held his breath, waiting for her reaction, but she just looked at him, her gaze clear and deep, as though she could see straight inside him, into his deepest self.

He wanted to turn away, to childishly insist that she stop looking at him. He didn't want her to see. He didn't want that piercing gaze to penetrate the barriers he'd so carefully constructed between himself and the rest of the world. If she could see who he really was, she'd turn away in disgust. He'd done a creditable job of fooling her, hiding behind his magician's cloak, only affording her the occasional glimpse of his true nature. Until now, it seemed.

She didn't look away. Her eyes were bottomless wells of compassion. "Thank you for being so honest with me." Like that was all she expected of him.

He wanted to walk it back, to turn it into a joke again somehow. To escape the hold of that fathomless gaze. But he didn't look away either, and the words that spilled out instead were, "I'm sorry I kept it from you."

Her eyes didn't leave his. For once, he couldn't tell what she was thinking. He could tell what she wasn't thinking, though. Her eyes held no pity, he noted with relief. That would have been unbearable. No, she looked… unhappy. Not unhappy that she had a cracked up consultant. No, she was unhappy for him. That he'd suffered such a devastating loss that it had broken his mind.

Van Pelt's knock was a welcome interruption. Only when Lisbon broke the gaze to respond to Van Pelt's question could he break free of its hold. He exhaled and looked away.

They went back to the university. Lisbon betrayed no sign of having learned something earth-shattering about his past. She smirked at his joke about the good and evil machine making them all safe from monkey attacks. Tactfully excused herself to wait in the car when Sophie approached him after their interview with Stutzer. She dealt with the widow with her usual grace and compassion, then mocked him for his advice to the widow to fight against her weakness for controlling men. Smacked him on the chest and told him not to patronize her when he explained his theory about Nelson, Carrie Sheehan, and hair dye. It was really quite disturbing how relieved he felt to be smacked on the chest and scolded by his tiny raven-haired spitfire. Er. Not that she was his, of course. Just a manner of speaking.

After the case was closed, Jane, Sophie, and Lisbon walked outside together into the bright afternoon sunlight. Jane glanced at Sophie. She looked back at him. Lisbon looked between them and said lightly, "I'll go wait in the car again."

His eyes followed her. She really was enjoyable to look at, when she wasn't looking at you with that terrifying all-seeing gaze. He paused and had to admit to himself that in fact, she was pretty enjoyable to look at then, too.

"So," Sophie said, interrupting his train of thought. "You want to chat for a few minutes before you take off?"

"Sure," he said absently, tearing his eyes away from Lisbon with difficulty. "That sounds good."

"What's with you and her, anyway?" Sophie asked, nodding in the direction of Lisbon's retreating figure.

Jane blinked. "What? Nothing."

Sophie raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

"Okay, not nothing," Jane amended. "She's my friend. Why do you ask?"

She looked at him appraisingly. "You like her," she stated.

"Of course I like her," Jane said, irritated. "She's a good and kind person. What's not to like?"

"Mm-hm," Sophie said, looking amused. "You sure that's all it is?"

"Yes, of course I'm sure," Jane said grumpily.

"You stand very close to her," Sophie observed.

He stared at her. "What?"

"People in our culture only stand that close to each other when there's a certain level of emotional intimacy and desire between them." She pointed at him. "You taught me that."

He shook his head. "Trust me, you're way off base." He felt a twinge of unease, though. He'd never thought about it before, but he did stand rather close to Lisbon an awful lot of the time. But that didn't mean anything. He just liked the way she smelled, that's all. It was comforting. And he liked looking at her freckles when people around them were talking about boring case stuff he didn't care about.

"Am I?" she said, her voice rich with skepticism. "Who's the psychiatrist around here, anyway? I know intimacy when I see it."

"Meh. Quacks, the whole lot of you."

She smirked. "There's no point in denying it, Patrick. I saw the way you look at her."

"I don't look at Lisbon in any particular way," he insisted. "I was distracted just now, thinking about a conversation we had earlier."

"Oh, yes, I could see you were very distracted," Sophie said, nodding sagely. "Just like you were distracted earlier, when you were trying to advise me to flee the country, but you were too busy watching her walk away from us to focus on the conversation right away."

"I think you need your eye prescription checked," he said in a falsely hearty voice. "Maybe get some new contact lenses."

"Hey," she said, touching his sleeve. "I'm only teasing. I'm happy for you. You deserve to find someone, after everything that happened to you."

That was the last thing he deserved, after everything that had happened. "No, I—" He stopped, and shook his head. He took a shuddering breath. "I can't."

"Why not?" she said softly.

He shook his head. "I just can't."

"Okay," she said quietly. "I'll drop it." She smiled sadly. "She seems good for you, that's all."

Jane cleared his throat and feigned deafness. "Oh, look, there's a bench over there. Looks like a perfect place for a chat, don't you think?"

She shook her head and allowed him to lead her to a bench in the shade. They spoke a few minutes longer. It was nice to catch up with her. He wondered if he'd ever see her again. He wished her well, kissed her on the cheek, and headed back to the car.

Lisbon watched as he approached, mischief in her eye. "Aw," she drawled, her mouth curving into a slow smile. "Jane kissed a girl."

He paused, thrown. What did that mean? Was he such an asexual being in her eyes that even a harmless little peck on the cheek was worthy of comment? He'd kissed girls before, he thought indignantly. Lots of girls. Well, before he'd married Angela, of course. But still. He wasn't asexual. He'd had a child, for God's sake.

This, he realized, was exactly the wrong element of her teasing to be reacting to, given his earlier insistence to Sophie that he and Lisbon were just friends, and his own bone-deep conviction that they could never be more than that. "Well, yeah," he said, going for nonchalant and feeling fairly certain he was failing. "On the cheek."

"It still counts," Lisbon said with a teasing smile.

His eyes narrowed. "Counts as what?"

"Nothing," she said, flicking her eyes down to his mouth for the barest second. "Just saying."

He ignored this and walked around to the other side of the car, feeling strangely defeated.

He felt Lisbon's eyes on him as he got in the car and did up his seatbelt. When he looked over at her, sympathy filled her eyes and concern had turned her full mouth downward. She attempted an encouraging smile. "You want to drive?"

He paused. "That's a very sweet offer. Do I really seem so sad?"

"What?" she said defensively. "I was just asking if you wanted to drive."

"You don't like it when I drive," he pointed out. "You despise it."

"You drive way too fast." High voice. A sure sign she was concealing something.

"I drive just fast enough. You hate not being the one in control, and yet you're willing to overcome your irrational fears to cheer me up." He flashed her a brilliant smile. "That's a beautiful thing, Lisbon. Thank you. I'd love to drive."

She glowered at him, then turned her attention to the road and fired up the engine. "Never mind."

He hid a grin as she pulled away from the curb. That was his Lisbon. Always ready with a kind gesture, but skittish the moment anyone tried to recognize her generous nature.

He thought about his confession to her, and the compassion in her eyes when he'd revealed the broken mess beneath the magician's cloak. A look that, now he considered the matter, wasn't unfamiliar to him. He'd seen it before, on multiple occasions. Perhaps he hadn't done such a good job of fooling her after all. He sat back in his seat and relaxed, feeling unexpectedly content.

She'd seen him. And she hadn't turned away.