Lisbon walked slowly back to the motel—a run down San Diego motel only barely a step up from where they'd found Jared Renfrew's body across the border a few hours before.
It was two in the morning. It had taken forever to process the scene. Exhaustion pulled at her, but more than that, weariness. Weariness of spirit, at the thought of the bleak look in Jane's eyes, at the crushing resignation of having lost to Red John yet again.
Poor Jane. His despair at discovering Renfrew's death had been palpable. He'd been visibly stricken when Red John had called Renfrew's phone with the sole purpose of taunting him.
Jane had disappeared not long after that. Lisbon let him go. She focused on working the scene. He'd turn up eventually. In Sacramento, or maybe in some Mexican jail she'd have to bail him out of three days from now.
You never really knew, with Jane.
She paused as she approached her dingy hotel room. A pale sliver of light peeked through the curtains of the room next to hers. Jane's room.
She hesitated, then went to the door and knocked.
He answered after a moment, his jacket discarded and his sleeves rolled up, but still dressed. His eyes were bloodshot, but his vest was still fully buttoned.
"Hey," she said softly." I saw your light. Can't sleep?"
He shrugged, the answer self-evident.
"You want some company?" she ventured.
He hesitated, then stepped back to let her in.
"Anything new?" he asked once he'd closed the door behind her.
She shook her head. "We won't get anything back from Forensics until tomorrow at the earliest."
He nodded. He'd already known as much. He sat down on the bed wearily, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands dangling between them.
She sat down next to him and placed her hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"
She could have read the answer in the tension beneath her palm even if she hadn't already known it, but there was nothing else to say, so she said it anyway.
"I was so sure I had him this time." His voice a knife edge of despair.
She let her hand slide down to a spot between his shoulder blades and flexed her fingers on his back. A useless gesture, but all she could think to offer. "Yeah."
"I was so close," he said, low and raw.
Her heart ached for him. "I know."
He lapsed into silence. She knew he was castigating himself for his failure, for every perceived misstep along the way.
"We were close," Lisbon repeated back to him. "Really close. We'll get close again, and then we'll catch him."
"Sure, Lisbon," he said tiredly. He made an effort to straighten his shoulders. Somehow, this action managed to signal an even deeper weariness than before.
Her hand slipped from between his shoulder blades. She reached for his hand instead, covering it with her own. "It's a setback, Jane. That's all it is. Don't lose sight of the big picture."
"You're right," he said morosely. "I know you're right." But he sounded so defeated. So broken.
Her chest ached. When he had gotten so entwined in her life that she couldn't see him in pain without it hurting her, too?
She'd run out of words. Anything she could say would be inadequate, in any case, so what was the point? She only knew she couldn't stand leaving him like this, to bear the weight of this thing alone.
She cupped his cheek, turned his head towards hers, and kissed him. A quick, soft kiss.
She hadn't meant anything by it. She'd only meant to reassure, to comfort. Words were inadequate. This was the only place these feelings could go – the only way she could pass that comfort to him. A physical transmission of support from her to him.
Later, she remembered being oddly startled by the sensation of finding his soft, hot mouth against hers. Like being drunk, the brief interstitial moments between the two actions lost and hazy. There was no actively conscious thought behind the whole thing.
It was only when Jane reared back, staring at her with eyes wide with shock, that she realized what she'd done.
Panic set in. Oh, shit, she thought, her mind buzzing with anxiety. What a stupid thing to do.
She opened her mouth to apologize, to tell him she hadn't been thinking. But in the two seconds she spent staring at him in mute panic, his eyes darkened, and he reached for her.
His kiss was bruising. Unexpected. She had a moment of clear thought –wait, that wasn't what I meant.
She opened her mouth to explain, to tell him she hadn't meant to do that, that it had been a stupid mistake. But then his hand found her hip and his tongue slipped into her mouth. Suddenly, he was kissing her so fervently that the pure molten heat of it surged through her entire body. Her brain shorted out.
Oh, she thought wildly, arching into him. Oh, actually, maybe that was what she'd meant by it.
She raised her hand to the back of his neck and stroked her fingers through his curls experimentally. He shuddered against her.
The heat was so intense it was making her crazy. She was going to burst if she didn't put that heat somewhere, so she kissed him to push some of it back to him. He made a noise in the back of his throat and clutched her more tightly.
Then he pressed her back onto the mattress.
She only barely registered the sensation of the scratchy hotel bedspread against her skin before the heat drove out all rational thought and she stopped thinking all together.