Author's Note: This story will wrap up in one more chapter. I guess I had better get writing it, then. To those who have submitted reviews that I can't respond to either because you were not signed in or because you have private messaging disabled, thank you.

When Jane came back into the house, he saw that Lisbon had been puttering around in the kitchen while waiting for him to come back inside.

"Grace said to tell you 'bye, and she'll see you back in Sacramento'."

"That's not what she said."

"No, but after about ten minutes of driving, she will wish she had added that."

"What did she say?"

"I'll get to that later. First, there is something I would have told you over lunch if we hadn't had an unexpected guest."

"Does it have to do with your stop at a realtor's office?"

"Good guess."

"I've been spending too much time with you; it must have rubbed off."

Eyes bright, he smirked, "Rubbed off? There hasn't been nearly enough of that yet."

"Shut up."

"If I do, I won't be able to tell you I'm putting the house on the market."

It was a big step, she knew. She was far from surprised, but once again the speed he dealt with the deepest emotional issues once he had decided to face them gave her a bit of a shock. Not knowing how to respond other than to fall back on practicality, she said, "We need to get some Kilz."

He grimaced and said, "That's a terrible name. Who comes up with that stuff? Someone got paid to think of it, and now everyone else is stuck with it."

She restrained herself from rolling her eyes at him, but did glare at him pointedly. "Do you want to paint the whole room, or just do that one wall? It might be hard to match the colors, so you might want to make it an accent wall."

"I want to be done with it. I'll talk to Megan about hiring painters. Will you put the primer over... for me?"

"Of course. Megan's the realtor?"

He nodded. "Let's go."

They walked out to the Citroen together. The trip to the hardware store took only a few minutes. Soon they were walking back into the house together only to separate at the stairs. Lisbon took the paint and supplies up while Jane headed to the kitchen.

IIIIIIIII

It had not taken her long, as she only covered the one specific area with primer. Once she read the instructions on the can a little more carefully, she almost regretted only getting a quart. It would have been better to cover the whole wall. But it was white-ish paint with white primer over it. Professional painters should scarcely find it a challenge to get the wall covered decently.

Jane stood in the kitchen, with a pomegranate in one hand and a knife in the other, when she walked in. When he had cut the top and bottom off the fruit in his hand, he scored the rind and pulled it apart in sections. He was silent for a few moments while he worked at it. Then he said, "I had an interesting conversation with Van Pelt. She can be rather scary when she is determined to protect someone."

"It's annoying. She seems to think I have Stockholm Syndrome or I'm enabling you somehow."

"She came down here because she cares about you. If I had gone too far - if I were harming you, she would have your back. You are too proud of your ability to take care of yourself, Lisbon. You might be more vulnerable to the kind of damage I can do than you realize. The part of you that thinks it's not so bad if a trip to the emergency room isn't needed is a little too ready to make excuses for me. She was right not to ignore warning signs she saw. But all in all, I'd rather square off with all of your brothers at once for the 'what are your intentions toward our sister' talk than face Grace the Fierce again."

"Oh? Have you got an easy answer for them?"

"For them, the answer is 'not your concern until Teresa makes it your concern.' Which might earn me a beating except I'm sure they are all scared of you. But uncomfortable as it is on the business end of it, investigating abuse and protecting others is part of Grace's job. I would respect her less if I realized she saw things the way she did and ignored it. How much contempt have we had for local law enforcement officers who turn blind eyes to abuse?" His eyes bored into hers as he handed her a section of pomegranate. She took it and nibbled a few seeds.

"There is something I have been wondering for a long time, and I think I need to ask," Lisbon said.

"Go ahead."

"What were you like, before - at home, not putting on a show? How were you with your wife and daughter?"

"How can I answer a question like that? I remember things I did; I didn't always know how those things felt to them."

"Things you did?"

"Mistakes I made, times I was selfish - knowing how to get under almost everyone's skin doesn't necessarily mean knowing a single thing about being loving or intimate."

"Are we going to end up proving Van Pelt right?"

He waited a moment, face cast down, eyes hidden, before answering, "I never lifted a hand in anger to either of them."

Inhaling deeply, he continued speaking, slowly, "I did better by my daughter than my father did by me. I don't know if it was really good enough. She was happy and brilliant and wonderful, probably in spite of me. It was easy to love her." He took a breath, and continued in a quieter voice, "If I had had a son I might have fallen into the trap of repeating the old oedipal conflicts with him.

"My wife - she cured me of trying to manipulate her long before I ever thought I had a chance with her. She just looked at me - angry and disappointed - walked away, wouldn't speak to me. I didn't work up the nerve to talk to her again for a month." At that, he turned away from her, needing a bit of privacy after exposing himself like that, and busied himself making tea.

She sat at the counter watching him and thinking while she finished her section of pomegranate. She waited for him to take a sip then she got up and said, "So, you're saying you want to meet my brothers?" before walking out of the kitchen. She heard him cough, and it made her grin.

IIIIIIIIII

Lisbon had gone into the living room. Relaxing on the couch, she had taken up the book of crossword puzzles, and found one that Jane had not started yet. After a while, he came in and almost sheepishly asked her to go for a walk on the beach with him. When she got up, he took her hand and held it as they left the house.

They walked for half an hour before returning to the house. They finished the leftovers of pizza, antipasto, and fruit salad for dinner then spent some time cuddled up on the couch. She finished her puzzle, occasionally asking Jane for words she could not think of. He played a few games on his cell phone, sent Van Pelt the text message he had promised, then started to pick up Lisbon's historical romance.

"Hey, get your own book. That one's mine."

"Trade?"

"Here." She gave him the puzzle book, and took the novel. A few pages into it she started, her eyes started to close and her head nodded. He wrapped his arm around her, easing her into a more relaxed slouch against him. He took the book out of her hand and laid it on the back of the couch, faced down and open so she would not lose her page.

When she showed signs of waking, Jane whispered, "Don't sleep up there tonight. Stay here with me, please. I meant for us to go somewhere else, but they don't have room for us until tomorrow night."

"Somewhere else?"

"It's a nice bed and breakfast, attached to a family-run vineyard. Megan knows them. This time of year, on short notice it was lucky they had anything available. If it weren't a Wednesday, I doubt even my charm and Megan's connections could have gotten us a room anywhere better than an executive suites hotel. And we can only have it through Friday night.

"It's going to take me a couple of days to get everything settled. You can tell Hightower we'll be back to work on Monday if you like, or we could take more time."

"I'll call her in the morning. I can't remember the last time I took a whole week off. I need to get back."

"This was no vacation for you, my dear Lisbon. You need to get some rest."

Jane shifted them lower on the couch so they could both lie down and sleep. She dozed a while more, waking with a start at an unfamiliar noise, sudden enough to make her jump. Forgetting where she was, rolling over made her fall off the couch. Landing on her butt, she got her breath back, groaned, and began to get up.

Jane leaned over, determined she was uninjured, and said, "I was almost hoping you'd use profanity so I could say, 'Not on that floor, it's too hard on my knees.'"

She grabbed the pillow from under his head and threw it at his shoulder. He grasped her arm and pulled her close enough to kiss. The angle was awkward, and so was his chuckling. Smirking, she said, "You snore." Then she used a bit of leverage to pull him part way off the couch for a slightly better kiss and to put him off balance.

"Left hand, green. Lisbon, I can either slither the rest of the way off with you to cushion the fall, or you can help me get back on the couch so I can get up with a shred or two more dignity than you. And I do not snore."

"Right foot, blue. Let me scoot out from under you, then I'll help you up," she rolled onto her stomach and scooted backwards. She got up, and hooked her arm under his to get him back onto the couch. "Too bad about your knees. Oh yes, you do snore. That's the first time I ever heard you do that."

He sat up, then stood. They were inches apart. He ducked his head toward hers, and she stretched up to meet him. He said, "I never snored before, I'm certainly not going to start now. Take it back," in a low, serious voice. His nose next to hers, breath warm on her face, he slowly moved his lips closer to hers then suddenly changed direction to nip her nose gently. He immediately backed away out of arm's reach.

Indignantly she said, "I can outrun you."

"What makes you think I'd mind if you tackled me?"

"Your creaky old knees."

"Give me a head start? I'll go outside and you can take me down on the beach."

"Sounds like a perfect way to end up with sand in places I really don't want sand."

"You'd be walking funny for a week, and that would do my ego no end of good."

"Little soon to get smug over obvious displays of your prowess, isn't it?"

"You want a more discreet display of my prowess? Where?"

"Where what?"

"You objected to a motel and the beach. I object to the floor. The stools in the kitchen are the wrong height. That leaves the couch or the car, woman. You pick."

"Too bad all the laundry's done."

"What?"

"You heard me. Since we're stuck with popular adolescent choices, we might as well include the washing machine. Put a load of laundry in the wash, and in addition to extra sensation, it has the side benefit of covering a certain amount of noise for added privacy. Bonus points for getting chores done with a minimum of complaining. Also? Less likely to lead to indecent exposure charges than the car."

"This really shows a different side of you, Lisbon. I'm impressed."

"Are you impressed enough to go to the drugstore?"

"Right. Are they open yet?"

"This is your town, why are you asking me?"

"What time is it?"

"I'm not wearing my watch. Where's your phone?"

"How should I know? All the blood's rushing away from my brain."

"It's got to be after seven o'clock. Just go."

"Right."

He straightened up his shirt, and put his vest on, then grabbed the car keys and left. Twenty minutes later, he returned with an utterly chagrined expression on his face. In response to her raised eyebrow, he choked out an explanation, "I forgot my wallet."

She chortled and said, "Patrick Jane, you are the only man I know who can take his life from Greek Tragedy to screwball comedy in less than twenty-four hours."

"It's not funny."

"Oh, I don't know. I think most women are highly amused at how rattled men can get simply from buying condoms. Come into the kitchen, I'll make you some pancakes."