A/N: This one turned out to be way more serious than the others. The song this time wasn't so happy-go-lucky. Still romantic, in my opinion, but there's not as much humour here.
Song credit goes to The Rose by Bette Midler (cameo appearances by Drivin' My Life Away by Eddie Rabbit and So Much Like My Dad by George Strait).
Some say love, it is a river
That drowns the tender reed
"Teresa? The sink's plugged."
The object of his affection appeared from the living room, looking very annoyed. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything!" he defended himself. "It's plugged. That's not necessarily my fault."
Ten minutes later Lisbon was flat on her back under the kitchen sink, hauling on the S-curve portion of the pipe with a wrench while Jane offered helpful suggestions nearby.
"Put your shoulder into it!"
"Bite me!" she snarled. The bolt creaked open another eighth of an inch. A trickle of water rolled down.
"You can do it!" he cheered.
He was sitting in a kitchen chair right in front of her, so when she twisted to get a better grip, she banged her shins on the leg of the chair. That was enough. She never wanted to see him ever again in this life!
"Go. Away!" She heaved on the pipe with all her pent-up anger and the two sections of pipe came loose, sending a jet of water straight into Jane's face. Soaked herself, she took one look at Jane, sputtering madly and doing his best impression of a drowned rat, and burst into helpless laughter.
Some say love, it is a razor
That leaves your soul to bleed
Lisbon sat alone and lonely at her desk, finishing up the last of her paperwork. The events of the last two days were running in a constant loop in her head.
Jane had solved the case by shamelessly flirting with the murderer's mistress. Now that she was his girlfriend, those sorts of stunts actually hurt. When she'd seen the bouquet of flowers he'd sent the mistress, her heart had twisted up, and not in the that's-so-romantic-I-can't-believe-it's-for-me way. More like the does-he-love-her-more-than-me way.
She put down her pen in disgust as she realized that she'd just written 'flirted with the suspect' instead of 'interrogated the suspect'. In pen, too. She'd have to redo the whole sheet. Sighing, she stuffed the paperwork into her briefcase. She'd finish it tonight, at home.
As she stepped out of the elevator, the first thing she saw was Jane waiting for her, a blue balloon bouncing merrily above him on a silver ribbon. She been planning to rake him over the coals the instant he hove into view, but the sight of that stupid balloon made her lose her entire train of thought.
His face lit up when he saw her. Before she knew what was happening, he was walking beside her, his hand on her back, and the silver ribbon was tied to her left wrist.
"A balloon," she stated flatly, as his apology bobbed along cheerfully above them.
"Don't you love it?" he tossed back exuberantly. "Come on, I'm taking you to dinner."
She shook her head ruefully. She was quite simply incapable of staying angry at him.
And she didn't have any real desire to lose the balloon, either.
Some say love, it is a hunger
An endless aching need
Jane kept an emergency supply of food at the FBI for Lisbon. She had a tendency to forget to eat, which in turn led to low blood sugar and general crankiness. And it wasn't the kind of crankiness he enjoyed.
He was constantly surprised by how much she could eat. Considering how small she was, it was really very impressive. But she just wouldn't acknowledge how important eating was. Not like he did. Eating was one of the most important pleasures in life, and he reveled in that fact.
It was a good thing for her, he reflected, that she had him around. Otherwise, she'd spend her days eating Kraft Dinner.
He shuddered at the thought.
I say love, it is a flower
And you, its only seed
She spotted him sitting in the grass not too far away.
"I made you something!" Triumphantly he held up a daisy chain.
"You ran off when I was interrogating a suspect!" she snapped.
"Nah, he's not a suspect. He didn't do it. He didn't even see anything." Jane stood up and plopped the chain on her head like she was some kind of hippy.
Lisbon reached up to wrench it off but Jane stopped her arm. "Don't do that! You look so nice in it!"
"Don't evade the issue!" she stormed. "You ran off on me, to make daisy chains?"
"I was bored!" he defended himself.
"You can't just pick and choose what jobs you do-"
"Actually I can. And do."
She glared at him, furious, realizing the truth of that.
"But I wasn't just making daisy chains. As it happens, I also found the murder weapon." He flourished his hand towards what, upon closer inspecton, turned out to be a gun, barely visible among the flowers.
Lisbon gave him a look that said: Why couldn't you tell me before? and went over to direct CSU so they could take pictures. Jane followed, grinning.
She was still wearing the wreath.
It's the heart, afraid of breaking,
That never learns to dance
Lisbon liked to dance around her home every now and then. Given the right circumstances, of course. She had to be relaxed, had to have finished all her work, had to be feeling just a bit restless - it was a sort of therapy she indulged in occasionally. She never let anyone see her.
Of course Jane would be the first to find out. She'd had to let him in on her secret years ago, had had to allow him to watch. But he had divined that it was immensely personal to her and had never so much as brought it up again.
Then, as now, he loved watching her twirl around the house. She always seemed so free, so uninhibited. Dancing required letting her emotions show, and that was something she didn't do often. He was pleased that she trusted him enough to let him watch. The years fell away and he could glimpse the little girl she was once (and still was, deep inside).
But he would only watch. Just dancing around for fun required courage he didn't have. It would have meant opening himself up to possible ridicule and teasing, and he didn't like not having control over how she teased him.
He never would get up and dance with her.
Fortunately, perhaps, she never noticed.
It's the dream, afraid of waking,
That never takes the chance
They were walking along the beach after a lovely meal at a fancy restaurant. He'd planned it down to the last detail. It was the perfect way to propose. The sun was just setting...
As he rolled the ring around in his fingers, he was hit by a paralysing wave of doubt. Above all else, he didn't want to spoil the wonderful dream they were living. Given her commitment issues, possibly she would get scared, decide she couldn't be with him for the rest of her life.
He put the ring back in his pocket. Not yet, he decided. He'd let things develop a little more.
Next time, he promised himself. (It was the third time he'd copped out.)
It's the one who won't be taken,
Who cannot seem to give
They were sitting at the table after supper, trying to decide what to do for the evening.
Jane's face lit up. "I know! Let's watch a movie. What was your childhood favourite?"
Lisbon grinned. "Guess."
"Nah, that's okay. Go ahead, tell me."
"Oh, come on. I'm sure you already know."
An undefinable something, a hardness almost, settled in Jane's face.
"What?"
"Look. I don't know. I could guess, and I know I'd be right, but it'd still be a guess. You never tell me anything about yourself. When's the last time I found something out about you without guessing?" Lisbon stared at him. Their carefree mood had completely evaporated.
"Well, that's rich," she snarled, "coming from you. When's the last time you told me something about yourself when it wasn't to get me to do something for you? You never even told me your wife's name. I only know from your file!"
He looked at her for a long moment, his expression still indecipherable, then turned and went into the living room.
"No!" She followed him. He was sitting on the couch, staring into space. "You can't just run away when the conversation doesn't go the way you want!" She waited, seething, for his response.
He finally gave a soft sigh. "I was born in Burney, a no-account town in northern California..."
Astonished, she sat down carefully on the other end of the couch. Jane talked on for half an hour before falling abruptly silent, looking tired to death. Panicking, Lisbon suddenly realized that now it was her turn. Jane looked at her contemptfully.
"Don't worry, Teresa, I didn't tell you all that so you'd open up about yourself," he said, and the scorn in his voice was terrible to hear. "I'm going to bed."
It took her two hours and three glasses of wine to work up the courage to follow him to their bedroom. She defiantly turned on the light there and saw that he was only feigning sleep anyway.
She changed quickly; the sick feeling in her stomach only intensified as she noticed that for the first time ever, he wasn't watching her undress. She doused the light and crawled under the covers. She lay there staring at the blackness above her, trying to gather her nerve and ignore the coldness emanating from the man beside her.
Finally, in a very small, quiet voice, she began: "My favourite childhood movie was Mary Poppins..."
And the soul, afraid of dying,
That never learns to live
She was rather surprised to see her son walk in the front door unannounced. Since he'd moved so far away they only saw him a few times a year. But she found out why almost right away.
"It's Shelley. She says she's had enough, Mom. She says she's gonna leave, it's too late for me to do anything about it." He looked at his mother, trying oh-so-hard not to cry. She was instantly transported back over thirty years, to a plane leaving for D.C.
(It's too late. Jane, it's too late.)
"I tried everything, but she wouldn't listen, and I got this crazy idea. You've always said I'm exactly like Dad."
She nodded, confused.
"Then you've gotta have felt that way about him before."
(You don't give a damn about what I want or need. I am just a convenience for you.)
"I just want to know what he told you, that made you stay."
(You're right. I-I have forgotten how to act like a normal human being. And I play games and I lie and I- and I trick people to avoid the truth of how I feel. But the truth, Teresa, is that I can't imagine waking up knowing that I won't see you. The truth is... I love you.)
"Honey," she said as gently as possible, "I can't fix this for you. You have to find your own words." He sat, dejected, before her. She reached out and held his hand. "Just tell her the truth."
"Sure," he said bitterly. "Hey Shelley, I've got some truth here for you. You know Darth Vader? He's Luke's father."
She couldn't help smiling. "Your father said that exact same thing to me once, you know."
Her son looked up hopefully. "Did it make you smile?"
"No. It made me want to strangle him. Listen, honey. You need to tell her the most important truth in your heart. Be patient. It'll take awhile for it to sink in."
(You let me sit in that room for 14 hours, woman?)
"What if she takes that truth and breaks my heart with it?"
"If you don't want to take that risk, then I understand why she says it's too late." She had never pulled her punches, and didn't intend to start now.
(I needed to get to this, and you deserve to hear it.)
She stood up on creaky legs - she'd had her knees replaced from tackling one too many suspects - and wrapped her arms around her son. "It'll be okay," she told him. "If she loves you, she'll come around. After all," she added, eyes twinkling at her husband who'd just walked in, "I did."
When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
"You better let me drive."
"No."
"Okay, that's your reflex, but you really need to take a break. You're falling asleep."
"I'm fine."
Jane eyed her narrowly. "No you're not."
"Doesn't matter," she said, trying not to smile, "me half-asleep is safer than you fully awake."
"Now that's just rude. And completely false, too, I might add."
She snorted. "So you say."
"Well, I've got to keep you awake somehow. I'll sing something.
Oooooooh, I'm drivin' my life away..."
Lisbon smacked him. "Stop it!"
"Lookin' for a better way, for meeee..."
"If I let you drive, will you shut up?"
"Beg me."
"In your dreams," she muttered.
And you feel that love is only
For the lucky, and the strong
"What's up? And don't say nothing."
She shot him a glare.
"You've been avoiding something all day. Out with it, before I figure it out myself and you get mad at me for invading your mind."
"Fine." She took a deep breath. "Look, I haven't had my period for three months now... I-" she gulped- "I think I'm pregnant."
Jane eyed her skeptically. He knew what a pregnant woman was like, and Lisbon was not it. But given her mental state at the moment, he knew the approriate thing was to bundle her into the car to fetch some pregnancy tests (something he knew she hadn't worked up the nerve to do yet) instead of teasing her mercilessly. He would do the latter later anyway.
She bought five different brands at the pharmacy, much to Jane's amusement. Back home, he was smart enough to stay in the kitchen and make himself a cup of tea when she retreated to the bathroom.
She walked slowly into the kitchen half an hour later, just as Jane was debating the merits of going and checking on her (making sure she hadn't been kidnapped versus having a hairbrush thrown at his head... hmm).
"It's negative," she said quietly. He was curious. Relief stuck out all over her, but she still looked like a cat on a hot tin roof, and she wasn't meeting his eye. He set out to discover why.
"Oh, that's okay," he assured her cheerfully (not upset, because he'd known she wasn't pregnant). "I don't think I could handle you without coffee for eight months."
He succeeded in no less than his intended goal: she looked straight at him. The look on her face hit him like a punch in the gut. Her eyes held mute appeal, and he knew instantly what was wrong.
She hadn't wanted the baby. She didn't feel ready, didn't want a child; something like that - it didn't really matter why. He would ferret out the whys and wherefores later. What mattered right now was that she knew he knew, and she was terrified that he would hate her for it. She was convinced that he would be disgusted with her if she wasn't strong, able to cope with anything.
There hadn't been many moments in Jane's life where he didn't think teasing Lisbon was the right thing to do, but this was one of them. He reached out gently and gathered her into his arms. He stroked her hair, and slowly she wrapped her own arms around him in return.
"I love you. I love you," he murmured. The changing emphasis was subtle, though studied, and it had the desired effect. He could feel her heartbeat steady slightly. Not slow down, yet, but that would come in time.
For now, they would just stand in the kitchen, her hug an unspoken apology, his hug silent forgiveness.
Just remember, in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snow
Lies a seed, that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes a rose...
Abbott watched them walk out to their car, Jane's arm around her.
It had been touch and go for a while there, but in the end they'd had too much history together. It was impossible to imagine them apart. He smiled. He was glad they'd made it (with a little of his help, of course). They deserved a happy ending after everything they'd been through.
It almost made him forgive Jane for having insulted the AG.
A/N: Just to be clear, in that last one, Abbott fancies himself to be the sun.