The next day, the whispers and the furtive glances set her nerves on edge.

"Any luck?" she muttered to Bosco in the break room while she made her coffee. She pointedly ignored the two members of the clerical staff openly staring at her from across the room. She remembered Jane's notes from the day before and let her hand visibly tremble as she poured milk into her mug.

"Not yet," Bosco said, sipping his own coffee. "You sure you don't remember anything about who might have drugged you?"

"I told you I didn't," she snapped. Then muttered, "Sorry. Being suspected of murder by practically everyone I know has me on edge."

"No, it's good," Bosco said, taking a step back and putting a convincing expression of uncertainty on his face. "Jane is right. We need you to look as close to the edge as possible for this to work."

Hell must have frozen over. She was suspected of murder, and Jane and Bosco agreed on something. "Whatever." She glared at Bosco and stormed back to her office.

Pretending to be mad at Bosco was perversely satisfying, after the crap he'd given her at the beginning of this whole mess.

She paced in her office, trying to retain the look of someone "on edge" for anyone who might be watching. God, she hated being on exhibit like this, as though she were a dangerous attraction at the zoo.

The team was out running down leads. She was banned from field work, so there was no escaping this—this powerlessness.

Her mind kept returning to her father. The perpetual feeling of waiting for the axe to fall. Praying to get through just one more day without having to cover any bruises, or lie to people at the hospital, or face that horrible sinking feeling that there was not enough grocery money to feed the boys. Powerlessness had been the central fact of her existence for every damn day until she'd left home. She'd thought she'd escaped that feeling, that she'd left it behind when she'd left Chicago. She breathed in through her nose, the familiar iron bands squeezing the air out of her lungs.

She exhaled noisily. Screw this. She wasn't that girl anymore. She couldn't go out and investigate, but there was one thing she could do, and damn if she was going to permit herself to be too cowardly to do it.

She stalked out to the bullpen and found Jane on his couch. "Jane," she said tersely. "Wake up."

"Oh, hello, Lisbon," Jane said without opening his eyes. "I imagine you want me to hypnotize you now."

"Yeah," she said. "Let's go."

xxx

She still felt edgy when she let Jane into her apartment.

Jane, on the other hand, appeared perfectly relaxed, looking around the place curiously. "I like these pictures," he said, peering at the hangings over her desk.

"Those are from the last tenants," she said. "Didn't you see them the other day?"

"I was a little preoccupied trying to get your half-conscious body up the stairs and worrying that you might die of a drug overdose," Jane said, inspecting a photo of her brothers when they were kids. "I didn't have much of an opportunity to admire the décor."

"It's a bit of a mess," Lisbon said self-consciously. After so many anonymous hotel rooms—neutral ground—having Jane in her space was putting her off balance.

"Not at all." Jane turned his attention to her CD collection. "Ohh, interesting."

"Let's just do this," Lisbon said, wanting nothing more than to just have this over with. "Come on. Let's go."

"Mm…no," Jane said without turning around.

"What?" Lisbon said, incredulous.

"I'm not going to hypnotize you, Lisbon. You're way too tense."

"Are you kidding me?" she demanded. After all the –

He turned and put his hands on her shoulders. "You'd have to let all the stress melt away. You'd have to feel totally calm and relaxed. We'd have to go round and round, maybe count down from a hundred. 99, 98, 97… It is just about impossible, Lisbon. I am not hypnotizing you."

He was doing something to her shoulders. Found some pressure point, or something. Because somehow, her stress was melting away. Like sinking to the bottom of a cool, crystal clear ocean. Not like drowning—the water enveloped her like an embrace, and she breathed more easily than she had at any point in the last two days.

"85, 84…" Jane's voice sounded far away, but at the same time, as though it was wired directly into her brain, like their minds really were linked the way he liked to tease her sometimes.

"Sleep," Jane murmured. Lisbon sank forward willingly, tucking her head against his shoulder, the soft wool of his jacket against her cheek and his familiar scent soothing.

"…now you're at the ultimate place of calm." She was sitting now, Jane opposite her, still comfortingly close.

"How are you feeling?"

"Good," she answered. Having Jane in her head wasn't as terrible as she'd imagined. He made her feel less alone in there. She knew he would never do anything to hurt her, and in fact would do everything in his power to protect her, that he would fight by her side no matter what. That certainty was an inexpressible comfort.

"Good," Jane repeated back to her. "You're going to remain in this relaxed trance state while we talk about what happened on Tuesday. But first—sometimes you dance to that Spice Girls CD, don't you?"

"Yeah." Sometimes it was nice to forget about being a cop and just let her body move to the music. She thought about Jane dancing along with her to the Spice Girls, hopping around her apartment like a couple of kids, him smiling that wide brilliant smile of his and his eyes twinkling at her in delight at their mutual silliness. She smiled and wriggled a little in appreciation of the thought.

She could hear the smile in Jane's voice. "I thought so." She was right then. He'd totally dance to the Spice Girls with her, if she asked him.

"Let's go back to Tuesday. Start at the beginning of the day. Tell me about everyone you talk to that day, everyone who comes near you."

"I wake up a few minutes late," Lisbon said. "Stayed up too late watching the Giants game the night before—it lasted eleven innings. I eat cereal for breakfast, then go for my morning run. I see Mr. Davidson taking out the trash—he waves at me. I wave back—he's a nice man. His wife is sick, and he takes such good care of her. I run down by the river, it's so peaceful this time of day. I see Robert Green running, too. I usually see him out running a couple times a week. He waves and I nod to him, but I don't slow down. He wants to ask me out, and he looks like the serious type. I don't want the hassle, so I keep going. When I get back to my apartment, I see Valentina with her two kids, getting them into the car to go to school. They start so early. I don't know how she does it. Natalia is eight, and Miguel is five. They're so sweet. I wonder if I'll ever have a family like that, kids of my own, but it would be so hard to do it on my own like that, especially with my job. Miguel waves at me. I make a face at him and he laughs and melts my heart." She smiled faintly. "Maybe it would be worth it.

"I get to the office around eight and start going through my inbox. It's a busy day, with depositions and a meeting with the ADA on top of managing six open cases. I'll have to ask Cho to cover the N'guasi case while Rigsby and Van Pelt follow up on the dad from the Richardson case. I'll focus on the Milbank case, I think we're close to catching a break on that one. Ugh, I have to meet with Carmen later, he's the worst. Why won't the damn man sign off on me?

"Jane comes in to tease me about how much coffee I drink, but he's brought me a cup, so I don't mind. He's wearing his gray suit today. He's taken the jacket off, though, and has his sleeves rolled up. Damn, he looks good in those vests. Knows it, too, but still…

"I shoo him away after I finish my coffee. I have so much to do today. I can't let Jane distract me with his nonsense.

"I meet with the team and send everyone out on their assignments. Jane decides to ride along with Cho, which is good. That case is tricky, and it will be just as well if he's not around to distract me this morning."

At Jane's prompting, she went on to describe the rest of her interactions throughout the day. The witnesses she'd interviewed, the last minute meeting she'd been called into over lunch, the people she'd run into when she went to give her depositions for two separate cases, her realization that she was going to be late with her session with Carmen yet again.

"Dammit, he's never going to sign off on me know. He keeps complaining I'm late, but this is such a waste of time. And he keeps wanting to ask me about my dad. What the hell does that have to do with Jane shooting Hardy? And he signed off on Jane in one session, which is completely unfair. If anyone should be chained to a shrink's couch, it's Jane. How the hell did he get off so lightly while I'm stuck coming here week after week? Maybe he hypnotized Carmen. If he did, the least he could have done was hypnotize him to get me out of my sessions, too. At least Carmen always has coffee in his office." She made a face. "It tastes terrible, though. Like he brewed it with motor oil. I leave Carmen's office and go down to the mail room to see if the forensics report on the N'guasi case is back yet—whoa, the new guy in the mail room is hot. His name's Asher, what kind of name is that—oh, who cares, he looks really good in that black t-shirt."

"Wait," Jane interrupted. "Did you say Carmen gave you a cup of coffee?"

"He always gives me coffee. It tastes awful, but it's better than nothing. I need the pick me up to get me through these sessions. Seriously, I'd rather have my teeth pulled out one by one than keep going to these stupid things, but Minelli insists it's required, so there's nothing I can do."

"Hm," Jane said. He paused. "And this hot mail room guy…does he look better in his black t-shirt than Jane does in his vest?"

Lisbon was puzzled by the question. "It's not that he looks better," she said. "It's just…different. Black t-shirt hot vs. handsome in a vest."

"But which do you like more?" Jane persisted. "Hot or handsome?"

Lisbon was still at a loss. "I like both."

Jane huffed indignantly. "Very well. Let's move on. Tell me about the rest of your day."

Under Jane's careful questioning, she described the rest of her afternoon in painstaking detail, up until Jane himself found her that evening, thoroughly out of it.

Finally, Jane sighed. "Okay. When I put my hand on your forehead, you will wake up, and you will remember everything you just told me."

His warm palm pressed against her forehead.

Her eyes snapped open. "Really?" she demanded indignantly. "Was knowing I dance to the Spice Girls critical to identifying the culprit in this investigation?"

He shrugged, unrepentant. "The important thing is, we know who drugged you now."

"We do?" Lisbon said, confused. She ran through what she'd just told Jane. "Oh. Carmen." He was the only one who'd given her anything to eat or drink all day, other than the muffin Jane had brought her in the afternoon, and the non-motor oil coffee he'd brought her at the beginning of the day. She straightened. "That rat bastard!"

"Look at the bright side," Jane said. "At least you have an ironclad excuse to get out of going to any more therapy sessions."

Lisbon barked out a laugh despite herself. "I suppose you're right." She frowned. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would Carmen kill McTier? And if he did, why did he want to frame me for it?"

"No idea," Jane said, getting to his feet. "We'll have to go back to the office and see if the others have come up with anything that can help us make some sense of it. Although," he said, pausing. "Maybe you'd better stay here for a couple hours. Don't come back to the office later this afternoon. Try to look as strung out as possible. If you could arrange to look like you'd spent a few hours in the middle of the day drowning your sorrows at the bottom of a bottle, that would be ideal."

"Why?" Lisbon said suspiciously.

He smiled. "I have a plan."

"And does this plan involve humiliating myself in front of all my colleagues and making everyone I know think I'm on the edge of a mental breakdown?" Lisbon said, resigned.

Jane beamed. "It does, indeed."

He explained his plan. Lisbon was skeptical at first, but then she thought of how Carmen had played her all those weeks. The thought of it left her seething. "All right," she said. "I'm in."

"Wonderful. Come by the office around 3:30. Public meltdown a little after four. Have you got any prescription medication you can leave strewn about to make yourself look as unstable as possible?"

Lisbon thought for a moment. "I've got some antibiotics from when I got strep last year," she said doubtfully. "They're probably expired."

"That's fine. He's not going to be inspecting the label, we just want to set the stage."

"And you'll be here when he comes?" Lisbon asked, hating how vulnerable she felt at the idea of being alone with Carmen. She dealt with tougher, scarier people than Carmen every day. There was no reason she should feel so exposed by the thought of being alone with him again. But he'd manipulated her for weeks. Tricked her into drugging herself by exploiting her coffee addiction. And through pure perseverance, he'd persuaded her to reveal things about herself she normally avoided talking about like the plague. The idea of him being here, in her home, made her skin crawl.

"Yes. I'll hide on the staircase, and the team will be just outside," Jane confirmed.

Lisbon let out a shaky breath. "Okay. You won't—you won't tell anybody about this? On the team, I mean?"

"Oh, Teresa," Jane said, suddenly reaching out for her. He put his hand on her shoulder, then drew her into a bear hug. "Everything's going to be okay, all right?" He squeezed her tight. "I promise."

She leaned her head against his shoulder gratefully. Jane gave such nice hugs. "Okay," she mumbled, sliding her arms around his waist, under his jacket.

After a moment, she stepped back reluctantly. "I guess you'd better go."

He looked just as disappointed at the loss of contact as she felt. "Yeah." He swooped in and kissed her on the cheek, as though he couldn't help himself. "When you come back to the office, don't forget—you're on the brink of madness!" he reminded her cheerfully, and left.

Despite Lisbon's nerves and her keen awareness of every single time over the course of their acquaintance Jane had chided her for her terrible acting skills, her "breakdown" at the office went off without a hitch. It was even strangely liberating, after a fashion, seeing the scandalized expressions of her colleagues and consciously deciding to say 'screw it' and lean into the persona she was playing. Jane had talked her into crazier schemes than this, after all. By this point, the personnel of the CBI were pretty used to rolling with the punches when it came to Jane plans.

Before she knew it, she and Jane were back at her apartment, waiting for Carmen to turn up. She'd changed into her favorite jersey. She felt self-conscious at first, parading around in front of Jane without any pants on, but she'd reasoned the whole 'no pants' thing would contribute to the air of vulnerability she was trying to project to Carmen, and besides, it wasn't like Jane hadn't seen it all before. The way his eyes widened and lingered hungrily on her bare legs when he saw her gave her a feeling of boldness that was very helpful in getting herself into character. She took a slug of whiskey, recklessly enjoying the sensation of Jane's eyes on her as she 'set the stage,' artfully scattering pills over her coffee table while she danced around her living room to the Spice Girls.

She took vicious pleasure in turning Carmen's manipulation back on him. She couldn't deny a spark of unchristian satisfaction at the fear in his eyes as he watched her wave her unloaded gun around. Taking that power he'd stolen from her back from him was a kind of poetic justice she'd rarely experienced firsthand. Experiencing that power double back on itself and return to her two-fold—she thought she had a glimpse of how Jane must feel, executing his cons, and she couldn't deny it left her with a high she could understand chasing after at the expense of almost anything else.

After reading Carmen his rights, she handed him over to Cho to take him back to the CBI for processing.

"You coming back to the office?" Cho asked as he and Rigsby each took an arm of the sullen Carmen, preparing to frog march him back to the car where Van Pelt was waiting to drive them back to HQ.

Lisbon shook her head. "I'm going to let someone else do the paperwork for once. This is Bosco's case, isn't it? He can take care of processing Carmen. Let him know I'll stop by to give him my statement in the morning, will you?"

"Will do," Cho said.

"Night, boss," Rigsby said. He grinned at her. "Nice outfit."

She showed him her middle finger but couldn't help grinning back. "See you tomorrow."

She shut the door behind them and went to find Jane, who had resumed his seat on the stairs. He looked at her legs again and stood. "I guess I'd better be going, too," he said reluctantly. He hesitated, his eyes hot and dark on hers. "You were terrific tonight."

She flushed under the heat of his gaze. "Thanks."

He stepped forward and kissed her. Hot and wet and like he'd barely been maintaining his restraint until that moment, and then the dam had broken, and he was no longer maintaining it at all.

She kissed him back.

He slipped his hand under her jersey and slid his hand over her ass. "You know," he panted between kisses, "The Spice Girls are really starting to grow on me."

Lisbon chased his mouth. "Isn't this against the rules?"

His hand stilled and fell away. Lisbon cursed herself. He took several calming breaths and leaned his forehead against hers. "I'm starting to really hate the rules," he confessed.

"I'm not the biggest fan myself," she admitted, running her fingertips through the curls at the back of his neck.

He closed his eyes against the sensation. "I really ought to get back to the office. It would look suspicious if I get there much later than the rest of the team."

Lisbon nipped at his lower lip. "So we'll be quick," she said pragmatically, and reached for the buttons on his vest.

Jane groaned and met her mouth with his. "This is a bad idea," he gasped. But he put his hand back on her ass and let her press him up against the wall of the stairwell.

They were quick, but it was worth it. And then Jane said, a little breathlessly, "You know, nobody would really think it was that weird if I didn't go back to the office tonight. They're just doing paperwork, right?"

"Mm-hm," Lisbon said, busying herself with his mouth again.

"I could stay another hour or so," Jane reasoned. "Just—just this once."

"Uh-huh," Lisbon said, and dragged him up the stairs.

xxx

After, they lay in her bed. Jane clutched her tightly and didn't seem to want to let go. Lisbon wasn't about to complain. She'd never been much of a cuddler with previous partners, but somehow with Jane she didn't mind. She'd even grown to enjoy the closeness. She curled in closer to him and pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat.

"So, you gonna be jealous of the mail guy now?" she teased him.

He sniffed. "Hardly." But he belied his words by clutching her tighter.

She was secretly flattered by this evidence of Jane's jealousy, but decided she'd better not provoke him further. He might hypnotize the mail guy into moving to Siberia.

Jane sighed. "I'd really better go."

She kissed his jaw. "I'll walk you to the door."

She slipped her jersey back on while Jane dressed. He glanced around her room as though he planned to covertly add it to his memory palace.

He kissed her goodnight just inside the door. "I liked hearing about your day," he said, a little wistfully. "Asher the mail room guy notwithstanding."

"Getting inside my head, you mean," she said. She couldn't believe she'd told him not only about Asher the mail guy, but how attractive she'd found him, Jane, in a vest.

He stroked her hair. "It's a nice place to be. I'd like to spend more time there, if I could." He sounded decidedly melancholy.

Lisbon wondered if the obstacle to doing so, in his mind, had more to do with her own reluctance to share the innermost parts of herself, or his monomaniacal focus on catching Red John. She decided she didn't want to know the answer.

"Thank you for helping me with this," she said. "For being there for me during all of it."

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and smiled faintly. "I'll be your alibi anytime, Teresa."

She kissed him again. "Good night, Jane."

"Sweet dreams, my dear." He hugged her again, hard and fast, and then he was gone.

Lisbon locked the door behind him, feeling a little melancholy herself.

Turned out, having Jane inside her head really hadn't been so bad after all.