"No", he whispered, tightening his hold on her, "stay with me, please".
"All right", she said, somehow surprised. She was so used to him see him deal with all kind of shock alone, never allowing himself be seen in a moment of weakness. But hadn't he just cried in front of her ? "I already told Cho that you may take a day off, all what I have to do is to warn him I'll do the same. After all, you've just closed our last case."
He smiled. "For once, they'll do the paper work without you. What about lunch, and then a drive and a walk somewhere ? I'd like to go to the ocean."
"It's already quite late", she answered. "Let's grab some sandwiches and go there directly."
In the car, she suddenly realized she had forgotten to make a phone call to cancel her lunch with Pike. She wrote quickly an apologetic SMS while Jane was buying the sandwiches. She didn't feel like reminding Jane of Pike at that very moment.
For once, he didn't insist to drive. The trip was spent in silence, but somehow, it was a comfortable one. Jane seemed deep in thoughts, and his eyes were sad, but the tension she had learnt to detect in almost imperceptible signs, when he was upset, was not there.
When they arrived to the beach, it was late in the afternoon. It reminded Lisbon another view on the sea at sunset. Jane obviously thought about it as well, as he cast her a wistful, guilt-ridden look. And then, suddenly, he took her hand. She allowed him to, not wanting to think about all the possible meanings of that gesture. For the moment, it was enough that he needed to.
They walked quietly along the beach, not talking much, only to show to each other a pelican diving into the sea, or a nice sailboat.
Then, as the last rays of light on the horizon faded suddenly in the warm darkness of the night, they sat on the sand.
"You know", he said suddenly in a low, soft voice," I think I still don't figure exactly what to do with the things I've just learnt… I was so used to think that their death was all my fault, the final, most terrible of all the wrongs I had committed before…"
"And that's the pattern of thought I want you to get rid of", she said, "you are a good man, even Rosalind says so, and there are people who care for you… who love you."
Once again, they both knew that the "people" meant above all herself, just like that day, so long ago, when he had decided to trap Red John using himself as a bait, and when she had not let him sacrifice his life.
He suddenly turned to look at her with piercing, pleading eyes.
"Lisbon… I know that I ask a lot again. That I have no right to ask you anything now. You have Pike, he 's a good guy… But don't walk away from me now, I need a little time, I think, to fully realize the truth, to adapt my perspective to it… But I need you, I need you so badly."
Lisbon almost sighed aloud. Time ? Weren't twelve years long enough ? But she immediately thought that such a reaction was somehow unfair. What he had just learnt may change everything.
She knew he loved her, she had known for years. And she knew that he knew she loved him too. Recently, he had told her that the only thing that had prevented him to end his life after killing Red John was the thought of her possible heartbreak at the new. She had been deeply moved by that -for once - so earnest confession of how important she was for him.
But along these months spent at the FBI together, she had get used to the idea that it would be the only proof of his love that Jane would ever give to her.
On the island, then at the FBI, he had gone on spending his life in limbo. And that hollowness had been all the more visible now that his feverish thirst of revenge, the passion he had put in the hunt of his nemesis had gone with Mc Allister's death. It was as if Jane had found enough strength to come back, to get her an interesting job to make up for the one he considered he had caused he to lose, and nothing else. All what had seemed to remain after that was just the charming shell of the man he had been, still with mischievous, teasing manners, still finding, with the perfect machinery his mind was, brilliant schemes to trap the bad guys, but without these bursts of zest for life, or of unexpected earnestness showing his vulnerable side that had allowed her to know him better, and to love him.
At the beginning, afraid that what prevented him to confess his love for her was her harsh words in the plane, she had considered making the first move herself. But then, she had realized that doing so, she would probably just end up breaking both her heart and Jane's. She'd realized that as long as he would consider himself as responsible for the death of his loved ones, he'd never be able to start a new life with someone else. Because he thought he didn't deserve to be happy. Because he feared to bring some kind of evil upon anyone who would become too close to him. And above all, maybe, simply because he thought he owed to his family to remain solely faithful to their memory. The episode of the ring removed and immediately put back when he had met Fisher had shown that. He had realised that having killed the murderer of his family didn't make him feel any better about his own responsibility. And he had resigned to never be able to truly move on.
That's why in the end she had chosen to go on with the "only friends" fiction. And the fear to shatter him even more, by forcing him to deny her the relationship she wanted, had been an even stronger motive for that than her own fear for rejection.
It was then that she had met Pike, and had thought it was time for her to turn the page.
But her mind was lucid enough to know that as soon as there was any hope for the thaw to come at last, for her to see Jane whole again, back to his former self, and to be his support in that path, his companion for a possible future, there was no man in the world she would chose over such a prospect.
"I'll be there", she whispered, "I'll always be there for you."
I found that for me, Jane's inability to overcome his guilt was a way to explain the characters' behavior in the so disappointing recent episodes of season 6. What do you think ?