It's a bitch convincing people to like you
If I stop now call me a quitter
If lies were cats you'd be a litter
Pleasing everyone isn't like you
Dancing jigs until I'm crippled
Slug ten drinks I won't get pickled

-"I Can't Decide", Scissor Sisters

Previously:

He pulled back to look at what he had done to her, satisfied he had not broken skin. Seeing his imprint on her, his own breathing came quick and shallow. At once both aroused and disgusted with his actions, he let go of her and stepped back. He commanded, "Go inside. Now. Do your laundry." Stalking off in the other direction, he went around the house to his car.

Lisbon followed his instructions, moving slowly, shaking. Before she could close the door behind her, she heard the sound of a car starting. She waited until she heard it drive off before allowing tears to come.

With several deep gulps of air, she held back the tears. Still trembling, Lisbon started her small load of laundry. Ingrained repugnance against waste made her dash upstairs to collect the towel and wash cloth she had used to add to the load. She began to feel steadier on her feet. Back in the kitchen, she looked around, and found a glass pitcher with no lid. Filling it with water and hanging four tea bags over the side, she covered it tightly with plastic wrap then found a sunny window in one of the dusty, unused rooms on the first floor. Going outside, she walked around the house, looking at that window. She then walked out to the beach, not getting too close to the high water mark and the smooth sand where the few people out this early were. Briefly turning back toward the house, she felt as confident that he would see her pitcher of tea only if he were looking for it as anyone who knew him could be. Though it was by no means a sure thing, she figured she had at least a sporting chance at drinking it.

There were only a handful of people within eyeshot this early in the morning, far enough away that she did not worry about her attire. It had begun warming up, so Lisbon was less uncomfortable than she had been earlier. She stood and listened to the waves crashing on the beach. The sound was cleansing, allowing her to release some of the tension and fear that had flooded her that morning. Even though they had never spoken about it, she thought Jane had to know she was more than half in love with him. Lisbon had occasionally wondered if he refrained from addressing it directly for all those years because he was embarrassed by her feelings, or because he felt enough himself to take them seriously. There had been a certain intimacy to their working relationship that she had thought did them both some good. The things he said that morning out on the patio cast an ugly shadow on how she felt about that intimacy - how blind she had been to never notice and put a stop to the way he so frequently assumed a dominant position in relation to her. Now even his habit of opening doors felt poisoned; it had seemed graceful and natural, a point in favor of his good manners even while he insulted the people around him, manipulated them, played them.

Since leaving Sacramento with him, she had mentally prepared herself to meet his need for catharsis in a number of ways - letting him rant and yell, maybe asking local law enforcement for the loan of safety equipment for a sparring session to let him work off his rage, holding him while he wept. The thought crossed her mind that if he asked her for sex out of a need for comfort, that she could have given him that. The result might be bittersweet, even painful, for her. But it would not have ravaged her heart the way he had this morning. There was enough anger in and around her - angry sex had never appealed to her as a way to sort it out. The few times over the years that he had shown up in dreams or that she had allowed herself to speculate what being with him might be like, rage-filled domination had not been part of it. She was relieved that he had not gone far down that course. As a woman who had been raised by an abusive man, and as a law enforcement professional, her ability to instinctively assess the people around her for potential threat to herself was fairly reliable. In all the time she had known him, her internal alarm system had never warned her that he could turn his underlying fury against her in such a debasing fashion. That kind of aggression and possessiveness in any other situation, from any other man, would turn her heart cold, and shut down any connection; common sense dictated that she run as fast and as far as she could get from him.

But somehow Jane had managed to reinforce the flow of energy in their bond all the while hacking at the foundations of it. He was not marching steadily on toward destruction - whether it was two steps forward, one step back, or ten steps up to the edge and one step back. Between threatening gestures he slipped in protective measures too. On the road yesterday, stopping to let her out, giving her money, having her put that knife out of his reach, and the warmth of his hand on her chest this morning all bore witness to the fact that his rage had yet to consume all of their partnership and friendship. As she listened to the surf, she knew she was not ready to give up on him yet, sensing that he had not reached full crisis. Once again, Lisbon steeled herself to stick with him while he needed her.

Returning to the house, with every step she felt heavier. Going through the door of the utility room, she felt leaden. The washer had stopped, so she made herself put the load in the dryer, then went upstairs. Lisbon felt like she was moving in slow motion until she entered the bedroom. The meaning of the room had changed for her, as she hoped it would when she started talking to Jane's wife and daughter. While it was still the seat of his torment, she also felt the presence of love, however broken. Angela and Charlotte had become her allies in her imagination. Something else came to her mind: Jane had hauled her outside when arousal overtook him. Something about how he felt made it impossible for him to face her with it under the same roof he had shared with his family. Whether it was because he could not bear to profane their home with such crude, unloving actions, or simply because he still felt married and therefore unfaithful in reacting to the sight of her the way he had, Lisbon was not sure. But she reckoned this bedroom the safest place in the house. It would protect them both by preventing him from crossing lines that could not be uncrossed.

IIIIIIIIII

In the Citroen, Patrick Jane drove cautiously, aware that his internal fury could do harm to people who did not deserve it. Aware that the universe was just spiteful enough to prevent him from doing the harm that was his heart's desire, yet allow him to hurt an innocent person, he followed traffic laws with an uncharacteristic level of care, particularly as he was driving aimlessly. At least, that is what he thought he was doing until he ended up in front of the cemetery where his family was interred. When he realized where he was, he could not bring himself to get out of the car. He felt more guilt heaped onto the burden he already carried.

He started talking aloud. "Angela, I thought it would be all over by now. But she stopped me, and I can't be anything other than angry. I've never wanted to hurt her before, and I only saw today how much I want to have her." The raw pain of loss that led to his breakdown brought with it a burning nakedness in what he said when talking to her after her death. The man who refused to believe in any survival of the spirit and habitually shredded the defenses of those around him in order to sustain his own, willfully shed them only to the shade of his wife inhabiting his mind. It was a depth of intimacy that cannot be achieved in the flesh, not even in the truest of marriages. The only barrier there was his own self-deception. Things he had blotted out knowledge of - his years'-long claim on Lisbon, his selfishness in pursuing a revenge that could not matter to those he had promised it to - were crashing down on him this morning. A paroxysm of self-directed fury at the blindness that covered those things shook him, making him feel the loss of his wife and child again. It left him not only weeping at renewed grief but also jittering and fidgeting in his seat. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said it over and over, until he was no longer sure if he was saying it to his wife or to Lisbon. Moments frozen in the throes of overwhelming guilt stretched into minutes.

As he wept it dawned on him that if he had not spent so much time twisting himself under the weight of guilt, he could love Lisbon in a way that would not dishonor the family he had lost; what he had done to her - he knew it would have sickened his wife to think he could treat any woman like that. It had been so long since he had heard her voice in reality, that it had faded away in his memory yet he clearly heard her now, "The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit is to be joyless." He remembered Angela reading that to him from some classic mystery novel. The shame he felt for it, though, did not force him to unbend, untwist. He was not ready to let go of his anger.

Betrayal pollutes all human bonds except one: that of enemies. Friends, kin, lovers betray each other in every moment, with every selfish urge, with every barrier they put up between themselves. He knew it. He knew the ways he had betrayed his family - crimes against the intimacy of his marriage, false moments in attention to his daughter, holding out against their need of him to slake his ego's need of fame, calling down the wrath of a madman on them. The part of his mind that was capable of weighing justly knew that Lisbon felt betrayed by his actions this morning, as he felt betrayed by hers of two nights before. Worse, he clearly saw how they could have been together - himself standing as Champion for the Dead, Lisbon as Exacter of Justice, their partnership a pact not only for the benefit of the innocent but also binding them together in richer ways. He saw how his quondam search for revenge hurt what was between them. Now he had dragged her down to his dark kingdom, and as surely as he knew she belonged above him walking unfettered in the world of light, he knew he would grasp tightly to her as a dragon to its jeweled hoard.

One thing Jane did realize was that regardless of whether he would let go of his anger toward her so that the bond between Lisbon and himself could heal or continue on a course of destruction, seeing her walking around in his underclothes was not conducive to clear and rational thought. He had to find something else for her to wear. Checking his pockets, he realized that his wallet lay on the floor of his bedroom. He was going to have to go back to the house and retrieve it.

IIIIIIIIII

It had hardly seemed like an hour had passed since she lay down on the mattress - Lisbon must have drifted in and out of stage one sleep. So she started awake at the sound of his footsteps when he entered the bedroom. She saw him carrying his overnight bag into the bathroom. A short time later she heard the shower running. A few minutes after it stopped he came out, wearing a fresh shirt, pants and vest. He hadn't bothered to shave, but that was hardly new.

Picking up his wallet and cell phone, he said, "I'll be making a few calls and leaving again. I'll put the phone on the kitchen counter so you can call Cho or Hightower or whoever. Or you can grow some sense and call a cab to get you out of here," Jane said then walked out, closing the door behind him. A little reverse psychology, a strategy to bind her closer to him, offering her a way out would keep her from feeling the walls of her confinement.

When he got to the kitchen, he located the number for the grocery store he had deliver supplies when he was in town, then placed his usual order, adding chicken, mozzarella, tomato sauce and pasta. Before he left the house again, he found a piece of scrap paper to write a note on - "$10 for the Pavillion delivery". He put the note and the money under the phone and went out.

IIIIIIIIII

When Lisbon heard the car start, she found a window facing the driveway, and watched him leave. Then she went down to the kitchen and used Jane's cell phone to check in with the team again. Cho did not answer after several rings; Rigsby's went straight to voice mail. Van Pelt picked up on the second ring.

"Jane?"

"No, it's Lisbon. Just wanted to see how things were going and I have a huge favor to ask."

"Everything's under control. There's a case, but it's moving along. The guys are out interviewing witnesses. What do you need, Boss?"

"It looks like we're going to be here a while. I didn't have a chance to grab my 'just in case' bag from my office before we took off. I need you to Fed-Ex it to me - second day air is ok if it is too expensive. There should be a twenty in one of the pants' pockets - it won't cover the whole cost, so I'm going to have to pay you back for the rest. And ask Cho if he has any books in his desk you can slip in with the bag - I suspect I'm going to be dying of boredom, and Jane only has so many games on this cell."

"Sure, I can do that. Can you give me the address or do you need me to look it up in his file?"

Lisbon told her the address, and was about to say good-bye when Van Pelt spoke up again. "While I've got you on the line, the Red John reports you delegated to Cho, he delegated to me, and there are a couple details I'm not clear on." She asked her questions, and Lisbon answered quickly. Then Van Pelt asked, "And how are you holding up?"

"I'm ok. No need to worry about me."

"Yeah, Boss, I think we do. I checked the parking garage security footage - he pushed you into his car. We found an empty gun case in Jane's attic. And your phone - we found it in the street over on 6th, smashed to bits."

"I appreciate your concern but there really is nothing to worry about, Grace."

"Has he gotten more physical with you?"

"Look, Jane is not holding me prisoner. He just needs someone, a friend, to stay with him."

"If he's there listening to you, and you don't feel safe telling the truth, say you're looking forward to getting a double chocolate muffin from Marie's when you're back in town."

"Jane's not listening in right now. He left the house a few minutes ago. I won't lie and say everything is easy and comfortable here, but he handed that gun over to me, and a knife as well. He stopped twice on the drive down here to try to get me to call for a ride home so I didn't have to keep going with him if I didn't want to. He was actually kind of pissed off that I stayed with him. Yesterday, he offered to call a cab to take me to the airport, and before he left, he told me he was leaving his phone here so I could call a cab myself."

IIIIIIIIIIII

After the call ended, Van Pelt became more and more uneasy. Lisbon's words did not reassure her. After turning it over in her mind, she went to Hightower. "Ma'am, I talked to Lisbon about half an hour ago. Something isn't right. Her voice doesn't sound as confident as she usually does. She called me Grace; she doesn't do that very often. And when I asked if Jane was hurting her physically, she wouldn't give me a direct answer."

"What are you saying, Agent?"

"I'm saying that I won't stop worrying about her until I or another woman who knows her has a face to face conversation with her. I know it's just a suspicion, but it needs to be checked out. If it is alright with you, ma'am, I would like to drive down there."

"Clear it with Cho, first. Lisbon is tough; she has been holding her own with Patrick Jane for a long time. The Serious Crimes Unit is already down by two. This murder investigation has the priority."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Tread carefully, Agent Van Pelt. Whatever is going on between those two, it might be more of a powder keg than we think. You don't want to be the spark that sets it off."

Author's note: The classic mystery novel referenced is Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers - a truly feminist love story that also doubles as a psychological thriller. But for those readers unfamiliar with Lord Peter Wimsey's love story with Harriet Vane, I recommend starting with Strong Poison, followed by Have His Carcass. After Gaudy Night comes Busman's Honeymoon. Altogether these are very satisfying as both mysteries and as a cycle of romance.

A/N 2: Many thanks to Blue and other anonymous reviewers whom I cannot thank directly. I appreciate your encouragement, and your thoughtful comments.