The first several months passed without major incident. Their interludes were necessarily irregular, given the unpredictable impulses of Californian murderers. Neither of them ever took any action that could be perceived as engineering time alone together. Van Pelt, as rookie, had long ago been delegated the thankless task of coordinating travel arrangements, and it would have been strange for Lisbon or Jane to suddenly volunteer to take over handling these sorts of tedious logistics. If they went out of town with the team, they stayed away from each other if both of them had a room anywhere near another member of the team. They had no need to discuss the fact that they didn't want to risk anyone on the team seeing or hearing anything they shouldn't.

But the thing was, this happened surprisingly rarely. When Lisbon discovered she and Jane had rooms on the opposite side of the motel from Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt for the third time in a row, she looked at Jane, bemused. "Do you think she knows?"

"No," Jane said, pulling her onto his lap so she was perched sideways on his knee. He kissed her collarbone. "Three things are happening. One—" punctuated by another kiss –"We're always traveling at the last minute, so it's not as easy to get five rooms together as it is if we could plan ahead. Two—" another kiss—"Van Pelt is scared of you and wants you to think well of her. She doesn't want you to see her when she's half awake and less than one hundred percent professional. She figures the others feel the same way, so she puts them near herself."

Lisbon took his face in her hands and kissed him. "What about you? You're not the boss of anyone."

"No," Jane agreed. "But Van Pelt's smart, and she knows me. She doesn't want to give me any opportunities to mess with her for my own amusement if she can help it. She figures you'll protect the rest of them from me, so she puts you and me together as far as possible from the three of them. She'll make a fine tactician one day, our Van Pelt."

Lisbon threaded her fingers through the curls at the back of his neck and kissed his throat. "And three?"

Jane's fingers tightened on her hip. "Given the choice, the teenage kids are always going to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Mom and Dad."

"Oh, hush," Lisbon said, and pushed him back onto the bed.

xxx

Lisbon had never had a relationship quite like this one before. She mentally shied away from that word at first—'relationship' was so weighty and fraught. But she did have a relationship with Jane. He was her friend, and that was so much more important than the sleeping together part. But she had to admit, the sex was a nice perk. A really nice perk. The things the man could do with his tongue…

But anyway. She'd tried having normal relationships before, but they'd never really taken. With Jane, it was so much easier. There was no tedious logistical coordination of dates, no back and forth over scheduling, no apologetic texts when she got pulled onto a new case. No need to feel guilty over working late. No expectant pauses, waiting for her to say things she didn't feel. No demands that she give more of herself than she was willing to give.

He still drove her crazy, of course. Annoyed her constantly. Infuriated her occasionally. Sometimes not so occasionally. But it was actually easier to deal with his maddening behavior, knowing that the promise of release awaited only a few days—or at most, a few weeks—away.

She wondered if there was something wrong with her, that she was able to compartmentalize so easily. Surely she ought to be tying herself in knots, wishing for something more? That was how it always went in stories, and in her own observations of friends and even witnesses and suspects. But the truth was, she found being with Jane was almost like being with two different people. Her brilliant, damaged friend and co-worker by day, and a sweet, attentive lover by night.

She was relieved very little of Jane's sweetness crept into their daylight interactions. That, she decided, would make it much harder to believe in the separateness of the two Janes. An unwanted softening of a load-bearing wall.

Only about six months after that night in San Diego, in bed with Jane in some little motel in the back of beyond east of Mendocino, she caught herself laughing at some joke he'd told and experienced a moment of disquiet. He'd been teasing her, his hair shining golden in the late evening light, his smile wide and open. Like he wasn't thinking about murder or Red John or any of it. And that was troubling, because this wasn't supposed to be light and fun. It was supposed to remain dark and hidden, and definitely not remotely resemble anything that might be called joyful. Oh, crap, she thought. Feelings were definitely going to become a problem.

But God help her, she didn't want to give this up. So she shoved away any thoughts about feelings into a corner, determined to beat them back with violence if necessary whenever they threatened to escape the boundaries she'd set for them.