I had a problem with the story and had to delete and republish, hence possibly deleting it from your favorite and alert lists. I hope this longer chapter makes up for it a bit. I apologize if that created any confusion. Thank you all again for favorite-ing, alert-ing, reading and reviewing.

5. I'LL SHOW YOU MINE

He drove around for a couple of hours before he went into the office to check on things and to tell Grace not to bother coming to Lisbon's that night. When she asked him if he'd gotten anywhere with the boss, he just shrugged his shoulders.

"Eh. It's a process."

"Maybe I'd better—"

"I'm staying with her tonight." It was a declaration of intent.

"I don't think she'll want you there all night." Grace looked at him warily.

"I'll stay as long as she wants me then. And I'll go back to check on her first thing in the morning."

He managed to say it with a nonchalance he didn't feel. His encounter with Lisbon had left him shaken. He wanted to make things right with her and find out why in the world she had been so angry and so bent on pushing him to such an extreme. Though it was a different sort of madness, he had not felt anything so explosive in his entire life outside his madness for Red John. Never would the idea of striking a woman, much less pinning her against the wall for the sake of sheer anger, ever have crossed the most remote reaches of his mind. Embarrassed that such a thing had happened with Lisbon of all people, he needed to get back at least some of the control he knew was necessary to keep their relationship on the safe and even keel he preferred.

Not knowing anything of his reasoning and the emotional upheaval he had experienced, Grace seemed to be satisfied with his answer. He asked about messages or possible cases to see if he was needed and was a little surprised that no one expected him to stay. No one expected him not to be with Lisbon. He wondered what they all thought they knew.

He went upstairs to retrieve a few things, got back in his car, drove around for a bit, called Lisbon's favorite Thai place and stopped at a wine shop before picking up the take-out and heading to her apartment.

As he walked to the door, the cool breeze blew up from behind him, and he had a sickening sense of déjà vu. He reached for the doorknob, relieved when it didn't turn in his hand. He barely had time to draw his finger back from the bell before he heard the locks slide. He pushed the door open to see Lisbon standing a few feet away hugging herself and stepped in quickly and pushed the door closed behind him, shielding her from the outside world.

His gaze made a circuit around the living room as he discarded his jacket. There were candles everywhere, burning against the darkness. It wasn't anything romantic—she just didn't want the lights on. He caught sight of two place settings on the coffee table. He arched one eyebrow at her in question, and she shrugged one shoulder in response then followed him into the kitchen. He showed her the bottle of wine, and she indicated a drawer. He retrieved the wine opener, and she produced two glasses. He poured cabernet into each glass, set the bottle on the counter and took the glass she offered him. At the same time, they raised their drinks to their lips and watched each other over the rim then lowered their glasses in sync. He had no idea what to do or say past that.

"Please tell me you got duck . . . And Tom yum koong?"

Well, that was easy. Apparently the mutual anger that had seemed so consuming earlier had dissipated. But he still wanted to clear the air.

"Lisbon—"

"Save it."

"I'm sorry about this afternoon." He blurted the words out before she could cut him off.

"Don't worry. It wasn't the first—"

"Please don't finish that thought."

"Sorry," she choked the word out as she looked away from him uncomfortably.

He looked toward the living room and, picking up the take-out boxes, gestured in that general direction.

"Shall we?"

She picked up the bottle of wine and walked past him to the coffee table. One place setting was in front of the couch. She placed her wine glass next to the plate opposite then dropped a large throw pillow on the floor in front of it. Gingerly, she lowered herself, folding her legs to fit under the table before Jane could stop her.

"You're too old and creaky to sit on the floor," she explained without looking at him.

"Ah. Yes. Thank you for that." He smiled at the box of duck with tamarind sauce he was emptying onto her plate. "Just remember you're going to need someone to help you up from there."

They were silent as they situated their food, passing the boxes back and forth, moving in sync again. Lisbon looked at her full plate and sighed. There were things that needed to be said, but where to start? She decided against the chopsticks from the restaurant and lifted her fork, spearing and taking in a bite of duck. He smiled at her, and she paused in chewing to quirk an eyebrow at him.

"People who've been through what you went through tend to react by either adhering to comfortable routines or completely abandoning them." He was careful not to call her a victim. "I was just wondering if your using a fork is a comfort or your version of changing things up."

It was lame, especially for him, but she smiled at his attempt to get the conversation going. Fishing a piece of chicken out of her soup she didn't look at him when she spoke. It was so conversational, as if she was telling him about a new shirt she'd bought. He supposed that made it easier for her.

"I was so angry that somebody got the drop on me. Angry that they came into my home and put their hands on me. Angry that I couldn't get away. That they acted like they had a right . . . " Her voice trailed off, and she frowned at her fork, seeming to remember something-some other time, some other hurt, someone else who had no right. ". . . a right to do what they did. Once I could do something about it, they were dead, and I didn't know who to be angry at anymore."

Knowing what she was remembering about her past, recent and long ago, he felt anger stir in him. He had made it a practice not to think too deeply about the hard parts of her life that he'd learned of over the years-her mother, her father, everything. It always stirred something. He was ashamed that he had handled her so roughly, and he wanted to tell her so, but she had brought any discussion about what had happened between them earlier to a very definite end. He didn't want to be part of that history, and he hoped she didn't think of him that way.

He pulled his mind back to what she had said. She was offering a kind of explanation for her behavior that afternoon. Not an apology. Still, he wished he had a better understanding of what was going on with her. She tilted her head and pressed on, still not looking at him.

"I shouldn't have . . . You acted like . . . you just came in and—" She looked up at him, her gaze intense, her tone definite and firm. "You're not them. Not like them. You're not . . ." She shrugged at him and looked back down, choosing another bite from her plate. When she spoke again, she reverted back to her previous light, conversational tone.

"You started to tell me something earlier about your wife and daughter. Tell me now."

He paused mid-chew and looked at her, contemplating. Apparently Lisbon was playing I'll-show-you-mine-if-you'll-show-me-yours.

"I was . . . undone. That's the only word I can think of that describes it." He looked at her as if he had asked her a question, asking if she could understand what he was trying to say, decipher what he meant.

She wiped her mouth before she took a drink of wine then set the glass down. Looking at him again, she waited for him to continue. Feeling like she truly did know, he tried to put into words what he'd never actually said to anyone before. He wanted to tell Lisbon at least part of the truth, not the version of it he had told Sophie Miller to procure his release from the mental hospital.

"All my life I had tried to get away. I wanted to get away from what my father wanted from me, and then I just wanted to get away from him. Angela wanted to leave the carnie life, and I loved her, and if I wanted to be with her I had to leave it, too. I wanted to leave—not just to be with her and take care of her. I wanted to make something more of myself. Too bad I had no idea what that meant."

He was talking too much, telling too much. He needed to measure his words.

"I wanted more. There was this need, this drive to have more, make more. I was still trying to get away from what I had been. Deep inside, I knew I wasn't any different. I was still my father's son, still that carnie kid. 'The Psychic Boy Wonder'," he laughed mirthlessly. "I was a fake, a cheat. I had to keep moving, keep running. It kept me from looking, from seeing how empty and shallow and nothing—"

She sat watching him, his hands rubbing in agitation up and down the front of his vest, his gaze down and to the side, a slight frown marring his features. She had never thought him capable of such uncertainty—he was always so sure of himself. She didn't dare speak. His shoulders slumped and his forearms rested on his thighs supporting the weight, hands clasped lightly.

"I was a fake . . .," he repeated low and almost mournful. "—except with them." He watched his hands fidget with each other, fingers linking then pulling apart, straightening then twisting together. "That night . . . it all caught up with me. Every lie I had told, every mark I had scammed, every dollar I had ever taken, every ounce of pride and scorn, and I just . . ."

He looked up at her and gave her a weak smile.

". . . unraveled." His eyes were stinging, and he wondered why he couldn't stop telling her these things, accepting that it was too late now.

"The first thing I felt was the pain. It hurt . . . I know I tried to kill myself to make it stop, but I can't remember that part of it. That's why I ended up in the hospital. I can't remember much of anything from then. It's fuzzy. Eventually I came to feel other things: grief and rage. I needed to find him, to make him pay, to finish it, to make it all stop and undo what I . . . I have to do it—I have this . . ."

"Drive?" She said it softly so that there would be no sting of judgment to it, hoping he realized what he was saying. Another weak smile and a shrug told her he did.

"I think there are a lot of things you don't remember."

He picked up his chopsticks to resume eating and watched his noodles spiral around them as he twirled them against the plate. He didn't know what she was getting at. And he didn't know why he was talking about this. This wasn't going at all as he had planned. They were caught in this netherworld of mutual pain and suffering, and he was the one spilling his guts, out of control. It was surreal. That was the only explanation he had as to why it was so easy to talk with her, right here, right now.

"You don't remember any of the good things. Not unless something makes you, not unless something pulls it out of you, forces you to remember. Do you ever remember them smiling or laughing or singing? Do you remember Christmas or playing in a park or watching your wife walk down the aisle on your wedding day?"

He had stopped twirling and just stared unseeing at the plate now. Why was this all about him? A memory welled up in front of his mind's eye, and it almost choked him.

"She had this ballerina outfit—pale pink with a pink skirt. Layers of sheer pink that floated around her when she would spin." He paused, still looking down. His smile was a mixture of sweet memory and pain. She couldn't breathe with watching him. Seeing him like this, over a moment that would seem insignificant to anyone else, she didn't wonder why he didn't want to remember.

"My wife would put dress-up glitter on her face—pixie dust she called it—and she would hold her arms out and spin until she collapsed on the floor laughing." He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through parted lips and turned his head barely to the side, listening for something he seemed to hear in the distance beyond his reach. The breath came out in a whoosh, and his face crumpled in a look of loss and regret. "I would scoop her up and bury my face in her neck—"

Something fluttered over his hand, but it was gone by the time he blinked and came back to himself. He looked across at Lisbon as she speared a piece of broccoli and put it in her mouth. She chewed enough to swallow a part of it then kept chewing, talking around it, looking at her plate, her fork hovering as she decided where her next bite would come from, the ease of her posture and motions so completely at odds with the content of their conversation. He found her detached nonchalance unsettling.

"When my mom died, it was like I was under water. I wasn't drowning, but I wasn't breathing either. I felt disconnected from everyone around me. It seemed odd that people were still talking and eating and getting in their cars and going places. The one person I could've talked to about it was gone. My dad was always the fun one. He took us to ballgames at Wrigley and to the zoo and the Field Museum, played catch in the backyard. But he wasn't so good with the hard stuff. He loved us as best he could—he did. Just turned out to not be very good at it."

There it was again-her past and his stirring. He knew there was much more to it, that it was much worse than she was willing to say. The fact that she linked her childhood with what had happened to her recently was proof of that. He remembered the words he'd once overheard her say to a father, grief-stricken and driven to drink by the loss of his wife, telling him part of her story about her own father. "Killed himself and damn near killed us." He had been surprised she shared something so private and painful with a complete stranger. But not with him. Never with him. It's how he had learned nearly everything he knew about her-inadvertently overheard conversations and second-hand searchings. She picked up her wine glass and frowned into it. He lifted the bottle, and she put the glass down so he could fill it.

"When did you come up for air?"

She smiled at him ruefully and drank deep, inhaling the rich red scent. Seeing that he was waiting for her to answer, she gently put the glass down without taking her eyes or fingers off of it.

"I pretty much always feel like I'm in over my head."

He was startled more at that admission than anything else she had said since he arrived. His only response was to lift his glass to her in salute. She did the same to him, acknowledging his own unspoken confession, and they both took a long pull of wine.

They finished the meal in silence, a wordless agreement that they had talked enough. He stacked the dishes and carried them into the kitchen, leaving the wine and glasses. When he came back, she had rolled to her knees and was trying to get up by pushing against the coffee table top. He rushed to her and grasped her elbows from behind, pulling her straight up. She looked up at him over her shoulder and grinned.

"Now I know how you must feel all the time."

He squeezed her elbows until she winced.

"No more old-age jokes."

She bent to pick up the food boxes. He beat her to it and motioned toward the couch.

"Sit."

"Bossy."

"Brat."

She moved to the bookshelf and slid out a dvd, popped the disk into the player and settled on the couch. She let it play through the promos and ads then pushed pause, giving him a chance to finish up in the kitchen. Eventually, he flipped off the light and came back into the living room.

"What are we watching?"

"'Philadelphia Story.'"

"You're kidding. No 'Die Hard' or 'Terminator'?"

"It may interest you to know I have very eclectic tastes. And I don't own a single 'Terminator' dvd."

"You are a deep well, my dear."

She patted the couch a good arm's length away, and he took the hint. Close but not too close. Sitting near but not next to her, he held the wine bottle over her empty glass with a questioning look.

"No. Painkillers before bed."

He refilled his own glass instead, emptying the bottle, and sat back on the couch as she pushed play, glad she had waited so he could watch the opening credits. As the story played out, he drew attention to every instance of Katharine Hepburn's irrational anger and secret attraction, and she pointed out Cary Grant's limitless conceit and penchant for scheming. Neither of them pitied Jimmy Stewart for getting caught in the crossfire—somebody that sappy who didn't see the good thing right in front of him deserved what he got. By the time the movie ended, he was slumped sideways toward her, and she was nearly leaning on his shoulder. The screen went bright teal and silent. He didn't think before he spoke.

"I was angry at them, too."

"I know."

"Will you be okay tonight?"

"Sure."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

He went up the stairs to use the washroom before leaving and found her pain pills on the counter. Carrying them back down the stairs, he handed them to her then carried the wine glasses and empty bottle into the kitchen. He came back with a glass of water.

"Bottoms up."

"What? You're going to watch me take it?"

"Yes, and then I'm going to stand outside your door and listen to you lock up and punch in your alarm code."

"Who's the mother hen now?"

"Just take the pill, Lisbon."

She did as she was told and rose to follow him to the door. He paused, looking at the keypad.

"No."

"What?"

"I'm not giving you my security code."

"What if I need it? In case of emergency?"

"You having my security code would be an emergency."

"It's supposed to be something you'll remember. Birthday maybe?"

"How stupid do you think I am?"

"Birthday of someone close to you then."

"Nope."

"Anniversary?"

She raised both eyebrows at him. Yes, then.

"Your parents' wedding anniversary?"

"Nope."

"Something you would never forget . . . Graduation day from the academy? Date you started at SFPD? Date you left? Date you started at CBI?"

She chuckled and shook her head. "Nope, nope, nope and nope. But it is definitely a date I will never forget."

He looked at her for a moment with his eyebrows raised, a small smile playing at his lips.

"I will find out, you know."

"Not tonight, you won't."

"See you tomorrow, Lisbon."

"Good night, Jane."