DESPERATE

Dennis Abbott stood in his office looking at personnel. He was going to be grievously shorthanded for the next few weeks, and wanted to have things under control before handing the reins over to Cho. Suddenly, his thoughts were rudely interrupted by his office door bursting open, without warning.

"Where's Jane?" Lisbon gasped, realizing too late that she'd forgotten to knock before barging into Abbott's office.

She was out of breath after driving much too fast then sprinting up the stairs to the bullpen, expecting but not finding the consultant on his favorite couch nor even in the breakroom behind a teacup. Her face exuded a panicked desperation so clear that Abbott didn't need to be a psychic to read it.

"He's gone."

She caught her throat with her hands & the color left her face.

"What do you mean, 'GONE?!'" she demanded, feeling her knees give out.

"Agent Lisbon!" Abbott exclaimed as he caught her arms to steady her. "Are you okay? What is going on?" his face puzzled, but full of concern.

Too upset to be embarrassed, Lisbon proceeded to relay the events of the night, from her nightmare about Jane, to her breakup with Marcus and her change of heart regarding the DC assignment.

"I see." Abbott slowly folded back into his chair, hand to temple, thinking of how his current labor shortage would have been a non-issue had this happened a day earlier.

"What I mean when I say 'he's gone' is that he has left the FBI and has taken off in the Airstream. Said he couldn't bear to watch you leave, and that he needed to get away from all the death & murder.

In his words: 'Teresa was my light, in the darkness that surrounds this work. Without her, there is no place for me here.' I hate to say it, but he looked absolutely heartbroken."

Tears stung her eyes as she asked about pinging Jane's phone for a location.

"He didn't take it with him." Abbott frowned, reaching into a desk drawer to retrieve the device, handing it to Lisbon.

"Then how will I find him?!" she whimpered, angry with herself for sounding so weak, but also for having been so stupid… so blind… how could she have ever chosen to abandon him?

"Sir, I know I've just told you that I'd decided NOT to leave Austin, but if I could remain on leave for the next couple of weeks, there's something I need to do."

"No surprises there, Lisbon. Be safe, and try not to worry. You know him better than anyone else on earth. You'll find him, and he will revel in being found by you." He smiled, as she hurried to leave – not fully registering Abbott's final words.

Back home, she tried to focus.

Where would he go?

Not back to the island… not with the airstream…

He could be ANYWHERE!

Why did she have to fall in love with such a complicated, infuriating (and gorgeous, and amazing) man?!

She sighed, and dropped her head to her hands, trying to control her breathing like Jane had once taught her: "in and out… just like waves in the ocean," he had instructed.

THE OCEAN! - Epiphany number one.

If he had really thought she was gone forever, he may have fallen back on old habits from before their partnership. There was one place he used to hide out when he needed space to work through his darkest thoughts & deepest pain. Even when he had run away overseas, and even when they'd both transferred to the FBI in Austin, he'd still never sold it.

She quickly started to gather her things into a suitcase. She had to get to Malibu.

Lisbon boarded her flight to Burbank, not looking forward to the scheduled layover in Las Vegas. She'd never cared much for Sin City anyway, but had developed an especially bad attitude toward the place after Jane's 6-month disappearing act there.

Lorelei had probably not deserved to have been murdered (she was, after all, just a victim, like the rest of Red John's disciples). But, the thought of her & Jane together - even under the guise of 'gathering intelligence' or 'playing a con,' had always incited Lisbon's gag reflex. Jane had brushed it off, saying it had meant nothing to him - that Lorelei herself had meant nothing to him (beyond giving clues about his nemesis, or sympathy shared from one victim to another), but she still couldn't shake the lump in her throat, or the knots in her stomach when she thought about the two of them in bed together - even for a single night.

Plus, she was positive that, despite Jane's confidence that he'd been using Lorelei, the truth was likely to show that Jane was the one who had, in fact, been getting played.

She resigned herself to the flight schedule, with the consolation that, at least, she wouldn't need to leave the airport. Maybe she could convince herself she was someplace else? Someplace that hadn't nearly swallowed them whole.

She kept herself occupied, at McCarran Airport, by mentally replaying the time Jane had won big at poker, and bought gifts for the team. Even though her conscience had made her return the jewels, it was worth it to see his eyes sparkle as she & the others opened their gifts. She took a deep breath, as she remembered his words:

"Those emeralds look lovely with your eyes."

She missed the warm, soothing sound of his voice… The memory temporarily reassured her anxious heart.