13. WHAT FOOLS THESE MORTALS BE

(A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act 3, Scene 2)

She had turned off the lamp as soon as he bolted, feeling less exposed and vulnerable in the dark. She scrubbed her hands down over her face and let loose a shuddering sigh. Had they really been in her living room only a few minutes before . . . humping each other?

She had to think. If she couldn't make sense of this, there was no way they could continue working together, let alone continue . . . She didn't know how to finish that thought, didn't know how she wanted to finish it. She needed to think about what was going on with Jane and how to help him. She wasn't being selfless, putting him first. It was just easier not to think about what was going on in her own head.

As far as she knew, people at the CBI and a few hotel and motel clerks around town were Jane's only acquaintances these days. Beyond that, also as far as she knew, he was closer to her than anyone else. Not just closer . . . He had always been more focused on her than anyone else. He teased her to the point of torment sometimes then tried to protect her from everyone else, when she would let him. He angered her and worried over her when she was sad. When she had been at her lowest, he had comforted and helped her when no one else could, keeping her team on point and believing in her when one of her oldest friends suspected her of murder. He cheered her when no one else could and had done everything he could to insert himself in that space, the no-man's-land she kept between herself and everyone around her.

She realized that thinking about Jane's feelings was part and parcel of thinking about her own. Somehow in working together as much as working against one another, in the flow and the push and pull of their relationship, they had grown close and become important to one another. It made her feel good to think it—to think that she wasn't quite as alone as she had believed herself to be and that Jane wasn't so alone either. But things had shifted when she came home from the hospital.

No, she knew it was before that. Before the hospital even. Cho had gone over every moment of what had happened during their search for her. Jane had been the one to go to her apartment, had been the one to discover what had happened. If they had waited until she didn't come in on Monday . . . That was something else she had never wanted to think about. Jane had also used every ounce of pull he had to get Hightower to let them stay on the case instead of handing it over to Missing Persons. Cho didn't know what had passed between the two of them, but he'd told her Hightower was badly shaken after the exchange. He hadn't been able to sleep, hadn't hardly eaten during the case. It had been his idea to check her computer, and when the team had come for her he had adamantly refused to stay behind.

After that it was the hospital. He came only at night when everyone else was gone and stayed until just before anyone might be expected to come. Why never during the day, and why never when others were there? She knew he had wanted to keep her safe and didn't want her to be alone, but again there seemed to be more to it. It was as if he had wanted her to himself, even if she were only sleeping.

Then she had come home from the hospital, and although she had never expected it, he suddenly showed up one morning. She knew Van Pelt was beside herself with not knowing what to do to help her, to draw her out. She wanted to be all right, but she just didn't know how, like she had forgotten and was waiting to remember. Then Jane had brought her donuts and Van Pelt had abandoned them to what turned out to be a few days of mutual lunacy and two-person group therapy. They had eaten meals together that Jane cooked with food he bought, never allowing her to pay him back. They had comforted one another in both silence and conversation. He came over every day for a while until she was able to take care of herself, then still came nearly every day and called her when he couldn't make it. And if she invited him over, the answer was never, ever no. Early on he had started kissing her, just a peck on the cheek or dropped feather light on her head. They had eventually gotten so close that each missed the other when they were apart.

Their relationship had progressed like a courtship, blooming through stages of friendship and attraction and emotional attachment. Under other circumstances, what had just happened and what had been happening with him for the past few days—the lingering looks and touches and finally the blatant desire—would have been part of that progression.

But they weren't like that. Admittedly, she found him attractive, and he flirted with her to distraction, but it was all harmless, meaningless. And then tonight . . . she shivered and forced her lungs to take in a deep breath. It didn't matter how they were, they had just almost had sex in her living room. Jane—tightly wound, permanently celibate, never looked at a woman with that look Jane—had had his hands on her skin, his lips, his tongue . . . She had to stop thinking about it. Apparently she was more susceptible to him than she had ever thought or ever believed possible. But Jane? She couldn't come to grips with Jane being susceptible to anyone, let alone her. But it was specific to her, like his near obsession with seeing her, knowing where she was all of the time. She hadn't missed that look of near panic in his eyes when he momentarily lost sight of her. Before they started spending so much time together, before the hospital, whatever was happening with him had started that night when she had been taken and harmed so brutally.

She closed her eyes and thought about that night—walking into her apartment and feeling the cold air blow across her face, realizing the significance of the sensation too late as rough hands grabbed her and tried to force her to the door, her legs sagging, her body crumpling into dead weight to resist being taken. She had managed to pull away, and they had thrown themselves after her, pushing over lamps and bookcases in their attempt to bring her down. Finally they had both gotten hold of her, and then they started beating her. She had gone down, they had kicked her. One of them had drawn a knife, and her hand had caught it on the down thrust. Her skin was sliced through, and she could feel the blood, warm and sticky. The other one had sworn, commanded the knife be put away. A car alarm went off in the distance, and there was muttered cursing, and they had half carried, half dragged her toward the door. She had tried to grasp something, anything to slow the inevitable. As her torso passed through the doorway, her forearm banged against the frame, allowing her to slide her hand to it and take hold. She had held on with all her strength, but it had not been enough.

Then another image passed into her head—one she could only imagine—of Jane walking into her living room, standing there looking around, registering everything in a matter of seconds before he called it in directly to Cho. The scene must have been unsettling to say the least: the overturned furniture, sign of violent struggle, her blood on the wall—

Her eyes shot open as a curious though took hold. It would explain his overprotectiveness, his need to rescue her and then to care for her, saving her from her pain, her aloneness, her nightmares. She thought back to other more recent things: Jane riding in the car watching out the window, taking in their surroundings every time they were outside, his requests for Cho to go with them when they were going to be out a long time. She should have realized sooner. Nearly any cop would have taken the same protective measures.

If he associated her blood on the wall in this case with—she couldn't bring herself to say the name, even in her head—it would account for the obsession with her safety, perhaps, but not the other. There had to have been something there before, something untapped deep beneath the surface . . . in both of them.

She lifted her right hand and lightly touched her lips, still slightly swollen from his bruising kiss, remembering the taste of him. She could feel his hands on her bare back under her shirt, stroking deep into her flesh, his hand shifting and moving down over her, pulling her into him.

She smiled in the dark. She had enjoyed it. She shivered with the realization. And he was right. She had been that girl with him. Her kidnappers had broken everything down except her will to fight and live. Everything in her world had been shaken out of place and the spiky exterior that, for years, had been her protection against everything from slights on the job to unwanted male attention had fallen away and she had been the way she used to be—the way she would be if so many things had never happened. She had been that way with him, and she knew she could never be that girl with anyone else. I'm in love with him.

It was a quiet epiphany. She drew the words out slowly in her mind, testing them, making certain they were so, and certain she was. And while this was the kind of knowledge, the sort of revelation that should leave her upset and angry and wanting to put her fist through something, all she could do was sit on her stupid couch in the stupid dark and grin like an idiot. Even if the man she was in love with was a near raving lunatic, damaged as hell, with two of the worst cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ever suffered by a human being.

She smiled at the thought of being able to actually think about loving him. It felt good—such a relief after pushing it away for so long. She didn't want to think about how long—no need to embarrass herself. Then she smiled at the thought that she had figured it out before he did. Yes, he believed he was beyond repair, but she found she really didn't want to fix him. Help him and keep him from doing something rash and dangerous, certainly, but she kind of liked him the way he was—bizarre and impulsive and unpredictable and a little dangerous. She knew that no other man could bring out in her the things that he did. And though she would never tell him, she liked it that he was the smartest person in the room. The fact that he was quite probably the most handsome man she had ever seen in person was just icing.

There was a lot more to think about, certainly, and most of it quite serious, even deadly. And thinking it through to any possible solution would fall to her. She knew which of them would be the most rational about it. But there was some time—she knew he wouldn't be in tomorrow. She finally stood up from the couch, walked to the door, put on all the locks and set the alarm before walking up the stairs to lie in bed, relive a few sweet moments and drift into a remarkably peaceful sleep.

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What was he thinking? He had gone there to make sure she was all right, to give her some company if she needed it, and he had just . . .

How was he ever going to face her again? What was wrong with him? What had been wrong for the past few weeks? He was looking at her, watching her, couldn't bear to be away from her. Even after what had just happened, he couldn't bring himself to drive away. He sat with both hands clenching the steering wheel, peering at her living room window. The light went out. Was she going to bed? He hoped she wouldn't just sit in the dark beating herself up. Why should she? She hadn't done anything wrong. It had been him—all him.

He laid his head down on the steering wheel and groaned when he realized he could still smell her on him. He resolutely turned on the ignition, slammed the car into gear and drove away, his breathing becoming more ragged and wearying as he moved farther away from her. He was relieved when he finally made it to the hotel. He could break down in the privacy of his room and try to think through what was going on in the white, swirling, foggy mess his mind had become.

He gave a less than half-hearted wave to the night clerk and took the elevator upstairs. His thought was to simply collapse on the bed, but he was just delusional enough to believe he would rest better in his pajamas. He slid on the bottoms but couldn't bring himself to wear the top. He held it crumpled in his hands.

"I'm just saying it makes you look very . . . grown up."

She had seemed so youthful, he'd almost felt like he was robbing the cradle.

The thought startled him. That was months ago. He hadn't felt like this then. He knew he didn't. He didn't even know what this was, but it certainly wasn't that. Not then. Gah, he wasn't even making sense.

He flung the pajama top aside and lay down on the bed, rolling to his side to turn off the light. Images of Lisbon floated through his mind. He rolled back to his side and turned the lamp back on. Lying in the dark would not do. He was so tired. Maybe if he closed his eyes he would at least doze through the night. But thoughts of Lisbon broke in then just as readily as they had in the darkness.

This was very bad. He didn't know what was going on with his head, but he knew he needed to figure it out before he saw her again. And he might as well face the fact right now that wouldn't be tomorrow. Tomorrow would be Friday, they had no case and he could call Cho to tell him he wouldn't be in. It was the coward's way out, but it couldn't be helped. Come Monday he would go back in, his resolve and dignity back in place. She would want to talk, and he would let her and agree that it shouldn't have happened and would never happen again.

He felt a little saddened at that. He sat on the edge of the bed leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, hands rifling through his hair. He kept wondering why he had grabbed her, why he had held her, kissed her, touched her.

He was living for one thing and one thing only. And nothing—nothing would make him deviate from the course he had chosen.