Jane was blind.
Temporarily, according to the doctor. But Jane was so anxious, a tiny crack in the wall appeared.
It was a hairline crack. So small it was hardly worth noticing. But Lisbon was worried about him, and in the back of her mind, it occurred to her that it had been the same kind of worry and desire to comfort him that had led her to that first ill-advised kiss in the first place.
Jane was desperately trying to cover his fear and anxiety by being an even bigger pain in the ass than usual. Fortunately, that made it easy to repress the urge to offer any physical expressions of comfort. She pinched him and told him off for being a bad patient instead. Perversely, Jane seemed to find this reassuring.
She considered visiting him in the hospital that night. She was still worried about him, and she grudgingly acknowledged to herself that she believed they'd both feel better if she stopped by to hold his hand.
But she knew Jane would freak out about such a gesture—he was still paranoid about Red John finding out about them. So she stayed home and spent half the night thinking about all the ways Medina's killer—or Red John, for that matter—could get to him in the hospital. She'd assigned an agent to protect him, but she could think of any number of ways someone could exploit the weaknesses in the hospital's security system to lure the agent away and attack Jane when he was most vulnerable.
It was not a restful night. Still, it was thoroughly exasperating to learn the next morning that Jane had gone AWOL from the hospital and alienated half the ward staff in the process.
She really shouldn't have been surprised when he barged into Rigsby's interrogation of Mr. Andrews after turning up at the CBI that morning, spouting off about how he was basically Daredevil now. She scolded him with real annoyance and restrained the urge to flinch when Jane reached out and grasped her shoulder so he could use her movement as a guide on the way back to the bullpen.
She could feel about ten degrees of tension train out of him when he made contact with her shoulder.
She pretended not to notice how tightly he was gripping her shoulder and focused on her annoyance. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop interrupting interviews like that?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Jane said, utterly unrepentant. He stopped abruptly when his cane clanged against a metal post. He felt for the post and leaned against it. "Just a minute."
"What are you doing?"
"How will I know if I can see again if I have bandages on?" he said. He said the words dispassionately, but she could hear the anxiety bleeding through his off-hand tone, ever so slightly. It didn't escape her notice that he'd waited to brave pulling off the bandages until she was there with him.
"Here goes." He peeled the bandage tape off and opened his eyes.
"Well?" Lisbon prompted, worry bleeding into her own voice despite herself.
He blinked. "Black as night."
"I'm sorry."
"Never mind," Jane said brusquely. He put his sunglasses back on. "Andrews didn't do it."
"Did you sense that with your superpowers?" Lisbon teased him.
"Yes," Jane said. "I did. He's filled with anger, but not fearful, guilty murderous anger. That has a tang of ammonia about it. His is a more clean, righteous anger. Lemony."
"Lemony," Lisbon repeated. The way Jane's mind worked was still a complete mystery to her.
"This blind thing really works," Jane said, pleased. "Without my vision, I can tune into my other senses much more clearly."
"That's great," Lisbon said, smiling at his ridiculousness. "Let me go make you a superhero costume. What do you want to be called?"
Jane's fingers twitched. He tilted his head so it appeared as though he were looking straight at her from behind the shaded lenses of his glasses. He inhaled sharply and his hand tremored.
Lisbon's smile faded. "Jane?"
"It's nothing," he said sharply. "Never mind."
"Uh—boss?" Rigsby interrupted hesitantly before she could pursue the matter. "What's the deal?"
Distracted, Lisbon told him to let Andrews go. Rigsby left and Jane returned to his glib self. "Before you make me that superhero costume I'm looking forward to, could you take me to visit the widow?"
"Yeah," Lisbon said with a sigh. "Sure."
xxx
Jane sank deeper into himself as the day wore on and every new lead pointed to someone he had conned in his past.
Lisbon knew Jane was plagued by guilt on the best of days, but she'd never really realized the extent of his guilt over his former profession. Or rather, she had, but she'd connected it more with his guilt over taunting Red John more than his day to day client work. Watching him silently fret over his former clients, she realized that vein of guilt ran even deeper than she'd known. He regretted hurting those innocent people, and his self-recrimination was nearly a tangible thing.
When he stood abruptly from his couch and passed out in the bullpen, for a moment, she half-feared he'd done it to himself by succumbing to the acute stress of reliving that guilt.
Don't be stupid, she chided herself. He had a head injury and had left the hospital against medical advice. Under the circumstances, she could only be grateful he'd passed out in the bullpen where he was surrounded by people who cared about him instead of wandering off on his own and doing himself an even greater injury.
Jane, of course, resisted reason. "I'm fine," he insisted. "No need to send me back to the hospital."
Lisbon ignored Jane and addressed Minelli, who was studying Jane with a dubious expression. "Sir, he needs to be in a hospital. He has to go if you order him to."
"I could," Minelli said, considering. "But someone did try to kill him, remember? We can protect him better here. At less expense."
"Sir," Lisbon interjected. "I really must insist. He needs professional medical attention."
"Oh, very well," Minelli said. "Jane, you heard her. Off to the hospital with you." And he escaped before Jane could argue.
"C'mon," Lisbon said briskly, taking Jane's arm and helping him to his feet. She'd physically drag him to the hospital if she had to.
Jane grumbled, but he went.
It was late by the time Lisbon got him settled into the hospital bed and cajoled the doctor into taking another look at him. Assured nothing critical about his condition had changed, she spent some time soothing the ruffled feathers of the other ward staff from Jane's visit the day before. By the time she felt confident the night staff no longer harbored any inclination to poison Jane's Jell-O, it was close to two in the morning.
She returned to Jane's room and collapsed into the visitor's chair in the semi-darkness with a sigh. She had left the main light off and the room was only barely lit from the dim glow from the lights in the hall. "Why do you have to be such an ass all the time?" she chided him, half-exasperated, half-affectionate.
"It just comes naturally," Jane said gloomily.
She found his arm in the dark and gently squeezed his wrist. "What am I going to do with you?" This time, there was no denying that affection tipped the scales.
Jane tensed under her hand. "Are there any security cameras in this room?" he said abruptly.
Lisbon frowned. "What?" She looked around. "No. They only have them in the hall, I think."
"Turn the light on and check," Jane said.
She did so, and then, at Jane's insistence, went out into the hall and confirmed that no, the security camera at the end of the hall had no line of sight into his room, and no, it had no audio feature that could possibly be tuned in to hear what they were saying.
Jane still instructed her to turn out the light when she returned, and seemed only barely mollified. "You shouldn't stay long," he told her. "I don't want it getting back to him that you had any reason to linger at my bedside."
Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Jeez, Jane. Paranoid much? Would you relax? You're acting like Red John is in the hallway just waiting to pounce."
"For all we know, he could be," Jane said stubbornly.
"Relax," Lisbon repeated, taking his hand. "You're going to give yourself a stroke on top of everything else, you keep carrying on like this. Red John is not going to jump out at me from the medical supply closet, okay?"
He inhaled deeply, and his hand shook a little in hers. "You turned the light off, right?"
"Yes, Jane. It's so dark in here, I can barely see two feet in front of me—"
He let go of her hand and reached for her, fumbling and clumsy, and cut her off with a kiss.
"What was that for?" she asked a moment later, a little breathlessly.
He shrugged and didn't answer. He picked at his blanket instead.
Lisbon composed herself. "Are you going to freak out if I hold your hand again?" she asked after a minute.
He let out a little huff of half-laughter. "No. Not this time."
She reached out and took his hand again. "Everything's going to be okay, Jane. I promise."
His hand tightened on hers. "You think so?"
"Of course." She squeezed his hand. "You just need to be patient for once. I know that isn't your strong suit, but try to exert yourself, won't you?"
There was a pause. "I'll try."
She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. "Good. Daredevil didn't sit around feeling sorry for himself, did he? He just got on with saving people. Right?"
"I suppose," Jane said, subdued.
"Well, if you want that superhero costume, you'd better lighten up," Lisbon said.
Jane brightened. "Will it have a cape?"
"Sure, I guess," Lisbon said.
"What color will it be?"
"I dunno. Red? That's the color of Daredevil's costume, isn't it?"
"Yes. But blue-green would be more striking with my eyes," Jane mused.
Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Is Daredevil as vain as you? Are you going to get on with saving the world, or are you going to going to keep wasting time debating costume details?"
"Well, I need to look adequately heroic," Jane said. "I can't just copy some other superhero's look. I need to be original."
"No one would ever doubt you of being that," Lisbon said, laughing despite herself.
Jane let go of her hand and started groping his way up her arm.
"What are you doing?" Lisbon said, startled.
He found her shoulder, then cupped her face in his hand. "I want to know what your face feels like when it's smiling."
She caught his hand with hers and turned her face to kiss his palm. "You already know what it feels like when it's smiling."
He said quietly, "Remind me."
Lisbon swallowed. Suddenly, she didn't remotely feel like smiling. She cleared her throat. "Yeah. Okay."
Jane traced the contours of her mouth with his fingertips. "You aren't smiling anymore," he observed.
Lisbon made an effort and forced a smile. "Maybe you aren't as funny and charming as you think."
"No," Jane said confidently, stroking her lower lip with his thumb. "That's definitely not it."
This provoked an unwilling chuckle. Her smile broadened under his fingertips.
"That's better," Jane said. He traced his hand down the column of her neck, setting her nerve endings alight. Her breath caught in her throat. He leaned forward and kissed her again.
"Lisbon," he said, his voice low. His hand was on the back of her neck, buried in her hair. His forehead leaned against hers. "If I end up being a blind superhero, will you help me steer when it's time for me to fly?"
She pulled back a little, suspicious. "What am I, your sidekick? Hanging onto your cape and giving you directions?"
He shook his head. "Of course not. You'll be flying along beside me with a cape of your own."
Her expression softened and she kissed him again. "You bet your ass I will be."
Jane stroked her mouth with his thumb again, satisfied when he discovered her smile had gone wide and real beneath his touch. "That's more like it."
He leaned forward and kissed her neck. "You smell particularly enchanting today," he murmured into her neck, setting her skin tingling again. "Is that cinnamon somewhere in the mix?"
"Yeah," Lisbon said, struggling to marshal her thoughts. "It's some kind of fall spice thing that Van Pelt gave me for my birthday last year."
"I like it," Jane breathed into her neck.
Lisbon reminded herself she absolutely could not sleep with Jane in a hospital bed, not least because he had a head injury. She eased back. "I'd better go. No lingering, remember?"
"Yeah," Jane said, but he sounded unhappy about it.
She kissed him one more time. "Sleep well, Jane."
"You, too, Teresa."
She stood reluctantly and was halfway to the door when his floated to her through the darkness. "Lisbon?"
She turned. She could only barely see his outline in the bed. "Yeah?"
"I wish you could linger," he said quietly.
She hesitated, but decided to hell with it. He was her friend, and he was scared, and she owed him the truth. "Me, too."