A/N: This episode has always been kind of 'meh' for me. Probably because there wasn't enough J/L quality time for my taste. So I wasn't too sure about what I was going to write about for it. When I re-watched it, I decided my favorite line was Tamzin Dove's 'We're all born in magic. It's taken from us as we grow up.' So this tag is inspired mostly by that line, and Jane's line in Jolly Red Elf when he observes that Lisbon is still looking for magic in her life.
Fair warning: this pretty much devolves into syrupy sweet after the first scene.
xxx
"We're going to have to work a double shift on the stakeout tonight," Jane announced to Lisbon once he'd cracked the case and cast his spell.
"Are you at least going to tell me what's going on?" Lisbon asked with poorly disguised impatience.
Oh, how he adored teasing her. "Oh, come on. You're telling me you don't know what's going on? You don't know who did this, and why?"
"No," she said, refusing to rise to the bait. "But you're going to tell me."
Jane regarded her, a smile playing about his lips. "How bout I show you?" He took her arm and ushered her towards the door.
Lisbon rolled her eyes but permitted herself to be dragged along.
Xxx
Jane was very pleased with how the evening was shaping up. Instead of being stuck in his dreary hotel all night, whiling away the unbearably empty hours until morning, he had the promise of magic, justice, and pleasant company for the evening. Spending the night with Lisbon was infinitely more enjoyable than spending it alone.
Lisbon figured it out on the car ride back to Boonville. "It was the father, wasn't it?" she said, her voice flat. It wasn't a question.
Jane smiled. "How'd you figure it out?"
"The trips to the hospital," she said shortly.
Jane's smile faded. Of course she'd figured that out. "Yes."
Her mouth tightened but she said nothing more.
Jane cast about for a suitable distraction to pull her out of any unpleasant recollections of her own father. "I don't think we'll have much trouble with Elkins," he offered.
Lisbon glanced at him. "You seem awfully confident he's going to fall for your little trick. If he's smart, he'll just ignore your stupid spell and let us wait all night without giving us a clue where he hid the murder weapon."
"Ah, yes, but will he be able to resist?"
"Why shouldn't he? He doesn't believe in any of that crap any more than I do."
Jane paused. "Well, it was a pretty powerful spell I cast on him."
"Oh, really," she said, amused. "I thought you said there's no such thing as spells."
"Well… I did tell Cho that," Jane allowed. "To reassure him because he was so freaked out. But rest assured, Lisbon, the convictions of your heart when you were eight years old were correct. Magic is real."
"You called it 'witchcraft malarkey' not two hours ago," Lisbon said, her dimple showing on the side of her face he could see from the passenger seat.
"I'm not talking about witchcraft, I'm talking about magic," Jane said loftily. "Entirely difference species."
"Uh-huh," Lisbon said, not buying it, but playing along.
"Doubt all you want," Jane said breezily. "Let's see what you have to say about it when my spell of revelation exposes the killer."
Xxx
"What are you doing?" Van Pelt's scandalized voice came from behind him the next morning.
Jane turned from the fire he'd set alight in the kitchen sink. "Ah, just a little favor for Cho," he said mildly. He collected the heap of the ashes in a mason jar, then sealed it closed. He delivered the results of his spell of unbinding to Cho's desk. Cho looked pleased to be released from the witch's power, but Jane didn't give him much time to react before wandering off. That Cho—he could be so effusive with his gratitude.
He went down the street and picked up some lunch, then headed back to the CBI and breezed into Lisbon's office.
"Apple walnut chicken salad," he announced, placing the sandwich before her on her desk. He plopped down in her visitor chair. He popped the lid off his own pasta salad and dug in with gusto.
Lisbon, who occasionally protested his attempts to feed her on some misguided principle of independence, accepted the sandwich with a smile. "Thanks. How much do I owe you?"
Jane waved her off. "You can get the next one." This was his usual strategy to get Lisbon to let him to pay for meals for her. Whenever it seemed she might press the point and insist on paying, he reversed course. If he made enough of a nuisance of himself, eventually it would goad her into insisting he owed her lunch for causing some variation of his usual chaos. It was a delicate balance, but so far she hadn't cottoned on to the fact that aside from meals she expensed for the whole team, he'd managed to prevent her from paying for a single meal they'd shared throughout the duration of their acquaintance. He enjoyed the challenge of engineering these little acts of gallantry. Lisbon deserved to have a little chivalry directed her way, even if he had to resort to trickery to get her to accept it.
"Thanks," Lisbon said again, taking a bite of her sandwich.
"You're very welcome," Jane said, pleased. She was in a good mood. A cheerful Lisbon always made him absurdly happy.
"So," she said with a smirk and a sparkle of mirth in her eyes. "I heard you helped Cho out with his little witchcraft problem this morning."
Jane paused mid-bite. "Oh? Where'd you hear that?"
"Van Pelt said she saw you setting a fire in the kitchen this morning. Then I see Cho clutching a jar of ashes more tightly than he holds his Glock," Lisbon said. "It wasn't exactly hard to figure out."
"Well, it seemed his worry about the whole witchcraft thing was interfering with his job performance, so I thought I'd try my hand at my own spell of unbinding."
"I see," Lisbon said, amused. "This was all to help me out by employing a new management technique."
"Don't knock it til you've tried it," he said. He pointed his fork at her. "You could use a little magic in your life, Lisbon."
"Yeah, right," she snorted.
"It's true. Didn't you hear Tamzin Dove? 'We're all born in magic. It's taken from us as we grow up.'"
"The woman is a nut job," Lisbon protested.
Jane shrugged. "Maybe, but I think she had a point. That's why I'm making it my business to bring back the magic into your life."
"Lord help me," Lisbon exhaled. "If this plan involves me wearing a cloak and drinking chicken blood out of a silver goblet, count me out."
"Nothing so onerous, I assure you," Jane said with a grin. "In fact, you don't have to do anything at all. I've already taken care of it."
"What does that mean?" she asked suspiciously.
He took another bite of his pasta salad. "I cast a spell on you."
"You cast a spell on me," Lisbon said flatly.
"Certainly. I'm two for two when it comes to spell-casting at this point, after all. I figured I might as well expand my repertoire a bit."
"Uh-huh," Lisbon said. "What kind of spell did you cast on me? Something to help me see who's guilty so I can catch killers faster?"
Jane shook his head. "I know we've made an exception for this case, but magic and murder really shouldn't be mixed. Besides," he added. "You don't need magic to help you catch killers faster. That's what you have me for."
"I see. Now you're a wizard, hoarding all the magic for yourself so you have job security," Lisbon teased him. "So, great wizard, spill. What kind of 'spell of revelation' did you cast on me?"
"The spell I cast on you wasn't a spell of revelation," he told her.
"What kind was it, then?"
"This was a spell far more ambitious in scale and scope," Jane said. "I know it doesn't come naturally to you, but you might need to be patient for the results. It might take a while for this spell to bear fruit. But rest assured, the foundations of the spell are already at work."
"At work doing what?" she asked with a touch of asperity. "You still haven't said."
"It's very simple in concept, if not in execution," he told her. "It's a spell of happiness."
She blinked. "A spell of happiness?"
"Yes. I cast a spell on you that a dashing man will fall madly in love with you and devote the rest of his life to ensuring your well-being and happiness," he explained.
She stared at him. "You cast a— a love spell on me?" she spluttered.
He considered this characterization. "If you like. That's a bit of an over-simplification of the true nature of the spell, if you ask me, but to each his own."
She looked at him as though he'd just suggested she bathe herself in a bucket of eye of newt. "An over-simplification."
"Yes, that's only the first phase of the spell," he informed her.
"What's phase two, then?" she demanded.
"Why, that you have beautiful children together and live long, wonderful lives," Jane said, unperturbed.
"This sounds like a sexist spell," she commented. "Like all those Disney fairy tales. A woman can never be happy without a man and 2.5 children in her life."
"This has nothing to do with being a man or a woman," Jane said sternly. "Centuries of literature are clear on the subject. Love is the most powerful magic there it is. If I wanted to cast an enduring spell of happiness for you, love obviously had to be a key ingredient."
"All right, then," she said, rolling her eyes. "Go on."
"Are you ready to hear the rest? Because if you if keep interrupting, who knows what might happen? The spell might not take root. Then where will you be?"
"Sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "Carry on with your tale of your super powerful magic love spell."
"Thank you," he said with dignity. "As I was saying, you and your charming and devoted husband have beautiful children together. And you bicker over things that make your children roll their eyes at you, but that's okay, because everyone knows that's just how you express your deep and abiding love for each other." He met her gaze. "And you both live to a ripe old age, surrounded by your loving family. When you're too old to run around solving murders, or really do any running at all without breaking a hip, you sit on the front porch swing together. And when you sit on that swing and look into each other's eyes, you both smile, because you know you spent a wonderful life together, loving and being loved."
He paused. It was possible he might have gotten a little carried away with his own spell-casting.
Lisbon had been listening, transfixed. When he stopped, she looked down and bit her lip. "That…that sounds like a really nice spell, Jane." She stole a glance at him, then blushed and busied herself fiddling with the wrapper for her sandwich.
He watched the color tinge her cheeks a delicate pink, enchanted. She was so pretty when she blushed.
He blinked and came back to himself. Just who was ensorcelling whom here? he reminded himself sternly.
She cleared her throat. "So, uh, any tips on where I should be on the lookout for this prince charming you've magicked into falling madly in love with me?" she asked, still avoiding his gaze.
"Firstly, I didn't 'magic' him into falling in love with you," Jane corrected her. "He isn't drawn to you because you're a princess in a tower or some such nonsense. He's devoted to you because you're a good and kind person who puts others before yourself and you deserve someone who appreciates those qualities and wants to make you as happy as possible because of them."
"I thought the whole point of this spell was to make some poor sap to fall in love with me," Lisbon protested.
"Don't you know anything about the laws of magic?" Jane said, exasperated. "Love can't be created by magic. Magic can just…facilitate it. It creates the circumstances that make love possible."
Lisbon wrinkled her nose. "So it can't make prince charming fall in love with me, but it can make him bump into me in the street so that we meet in the first place?"
"Exactly," Jane said, pleased. Perhaps he would succeed in teaching her something about magic yet.
"Great," Lisbon said. "I'll just stop looking where I'm going when I go around street corners. Maybe I should start carrying around stacks of files wherever I go so the papers spill all over the ground and the bounds of politeness force him to help me pick them all up."
"Never fear, Lisbon," he said. "No such machinations will be necessary. You have my magic spell to take care of all of that for you, remember?"
"How could I forget?" she said dryly. "You've been pretty vague on the details, though. Just when should I expect this spell to kick in, exactly?"
Jane shrugged. "When the time is right."
"Helpful," Lisbon remarked.
"It could be months, or even years," Jane said. "The point is, tremendous happiness awaits in your future, Lisbon. That's what you need to remember."
She bit her lip again. "If your spell can really do all you say it can," she said softly, "it would be worth the wait."
He couldn't seem to look away from her. "Just you wait, Lisbon. It's a very powerful spell. If you just have a little patience, I don't think you'll be disappointed."
She smiled at him, a soft, dimpled smile. "Well, thank you, Jane, for taking it upon yourself to bring some magic into my life. I look forward to reaping the rewards of your bit of spell work, whenever they might present themselves."
Jane looked at the smile. He was in danger of becoming ensorcelled again.
She stood and picked up a file folder. "I have to go to a budget meeting with Bertram now," she announced, effectively killing the magic. "Thanks again for lunch. And for the magic spell."
"You're welcome," Jane said softly. Lisbon left. He finished his lunch in her office. His mind wandered to the mysterious, faceless stranger he'd assigned in his spell to carry the awesome responsibility of assuring Teresa Lisbon's happiness. He hoped the man would be up for it, whoever he was. He would have his work cut out for him, that was for sure. He'd probably have to spend years to even begin to understand the subtle complexities of her character, for a start. Then, once he had a foot in the door, no doubt he'd have to wheedle and coax her into letting him care for her the way she deserved. Yes, even with a little magic to help him along, the man tasked with winning the love and affection of Teresa Lisbon had a long, hard road ahead of him.
The lucky bastard.