AN: Thanks again for your comments on the last chapter. This should be my last time updating while abroad, so hopefully I'll be able to post chapters a little more frequently from now on. That's my goal, at least. Anyway, onto the chapter!
Jane lifts the kettle to pour the steaming water into his teacup. He moves too quickly, and the boiling water splashes over the edge of the teacup and onto his fingers. He hisses, dropping the kettle in the sink with a loud thunk, and he shakes his hand vigorously in an attempt to get rid of the burning sensation that's seeping into his skin.
"Shit," he says under his breath just as Grace appears at the entrance to the breakroom. She sends him a worried look, understanding right away what has happened.
Without a word, Grace moves to the freezer, grabbing a tray of ice cubes. She shuts the freezer door with one hand, and she's already reaching for the cupboard with her other, searching for a plastic bag. When she finds one, she dumps the ice inside and zips it up, grabbing a towel on the sink to wrap around the plastic. She reaches for Jane's hand and places the ice on it gingerly.
Jane winces. "Thank you," he says.
Grace looks up at him with tired eyes, and Jane suddenly realizes how late it is. Night had fallen over an hour ago, and he looks over her shoulder to see that the bullpen is now empty.
"Did the others go home?" he asks absently.
"A while ago," Grace says, mimicking his low tone.
"Why are you still here?"
"It's my night to look after you," she says simply.
Jane gives her a sharp look. "What do you mean?"
Grace sighs, and Jane is suddenly aware that she is still holding the ice to his burned fingers. "It's been a rough week for you," she says. "Cho and Wayne and I…we wanted to make sure you were okay."
Jane closes his eyes. It has, indeed, been a rough week. He hasn't spoken to Lisbon for eight days—since she shut the door in his face after he'd found her handcuffed in her apartment. He'd tried calling several times, but she never answered. He'd had to hear from Cho that she'd reported the incident with Erica to the CBI.
He opens his eyes in time to see Grace swallow. She hesitates before deciding to speak anyway. "You were right about the letter we found at Stan Lisbon's house," she says. "Well, you were half-right. There weren't any fingerprints. But, uh…one of the techs examined the letter under UV light, and he found the outline of a pair of lips. Like someone was wearing clear chapstick or something."
Jane's eyes widen. "You got DNA," he whispers.
She nods. "I had the results rushed by calling in a favor."
"It's Erica's DNA, isn't it?"
She winces. "Yeah, it is."
Jane sighs. "We already knew she was involved, so this doesn't tell us anything new."
"So why leave it for us to find?"
"Because he can," Jane says weakly.
Grace finally pulls her hand away from his, and Jane attempts to refocus. "I'm sorry I've been a mess this week," he says.
He has been a mess this week, and they both know it. Though he's been attempting to look into Erica's client list to follow up on the information she let slip before she drugged him, the man he met at the mall has not been among the clients he's researched. It's a long process, however. Erica had many clients, not all of them easy to track down.
Grace shakes her head. "It's not like we've had many leads to follow. We've hit dead ends with the three female victims as well as with Lisbon's brother."
"But you have other open cases I could work harder to solve. I'm sorry. I'll do better tomorrow."
She gives him a halfhearted smile. "You know we'd do anything for you, Jane," she says. Then she hesitates again. She opens her mouth, obviously wanting to ask him about Lisbon. He clearly hasn't done a good enough job of hiding his personal life from the team.
He cuts her off before she can get the words out.
"I don't know," he says helplessly. "I don't know how she's doing because she kicked me out the other night and hasn't answered my calls in over a week. Grace, I have no idea how to fix this, especially considering I have no idea what the hell is wrong."
This isn't completely true, of course. Just over two weeks ago, he'd told Lisbon he was in love with her. And then a few days later, they'd almost had sex. Jane is fairly certain that these two things have terrified Lisbon and that this is, at least in part, the reason behind her distance.
However, Jane also realizes that Lisbon hadn't seemed so distant the moment he'd dropped her off from the airport when they'd returned from Chicago. If she'd needed time and space to process these developments, why had she only begun to push him away after Erica had shown up in her apartment with a gun?
And suddenly, everything falls into place.
Jane tosses the now slightly-melted ice pack into the sink. "I need to go," he says.
"Where?" asks Grace, looking slightly alarmed.
"Lisbon's," he says, already hallway out of the breakroom.
Lisbon opens the door exactly eight seconds after he knocks.
"What did Erica say to you?" asks Jane urgently, taking in Lisbon's furrowed brow and piercing stare.
"What?" asks Lisbon, stepping aside to let him pass through.
He does so, and she shuts the door behind them.
He continues walking into the living room. She follows.
"What did she say to you? I mean, apart from what you've already told me?" He whirls around to face her, trying not to get lost in the way her jade eyes flame.
Lisbon crosses her arms across her chest, staring at him determinedly. He watches her calculate, weighing her options.
"Lisbon, please," Jane says. "Tell me what I did so I can fix it."
"That's just it, Jane," she says, her voice monotone. "There's no fixing this."
"What do you mean?"
The silence stretches between them before she snaps it. "Why do you love me?" she asks suddenly.
Jane is thrown by the sudden change in topic. He answers without needing to think.
"So many reasons," he says, taking a step toward her. "Your ferocity, the way you care for your team…the way you care for me. And you're the only person who has the courage to tell me when I'm being a bastard."
He knows immediately from her expression that this is exactly the wrong thing to have said, though he cannot for the life of him understand why.
Jane moves toward her again. "Teresa, what is it?"
Lisbon closes her eyes as his hands come to rest on her upper arms.
Ten seconds later, she looks up at him. "You don't love me," she says.
Jane blinks at her, stunned. "Of course I do," he says. "I haven't been so sure of anything in years. In a decade, in fact."
Lisbon shrugs helplessly. "Maybe," she admits. "But even if what you feel for me is love, the only reason you feel it is because I remind you of your wife. You're not in love with me—you're in love with the qualities I share with Angela."
Jane immediately drops his hands from her arms.
Oh.
He takes a deep breath, swearing internally. Of course Lisbon had reacted when he'd rattled off the list of reasons why he loved her.
She had easily seen those qualities in Angela, too.
There's a strength in her eyes that he hasn't seen in weeks when she looks at him again, and he knows she's steeling herself to do something difficult.
He braces himself.
"I can't say yes, Jane," she whispers to him. "I can't be sure you're in love with me. Hell, I can't even be sure you're going to stick around. I wish I could be, but I…I can't."
Jane feels like his heart has been ripped out all over again. It's nearly as painful as opening that dark door at the end of the hallway a decade ago.
"No, Lisbon, please—listen to me. Erica said those things because she wanted them to have this effect. She wanted to put doubt in your mind!"
Lisbon's eyes flash at him. "Jane, you've done that well enough yourself without Erica's help. Just because she said the words doesn't make them untrue."
He gapes at her, wishing he could rewind everything about these past few days, praying that he could return to that hotel room with Lisbon where things made a hell of lot more sense.
"Lisbon…"
She doesn't respond.
"I do love you," he says, his voice raspy. "I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone. And I'll always love you."
She doesn't answer for a few seconds.
Then, finally, she says, "I wish I could believe you."
He looks down at the ground. "This is your final decision?" he asks.
"Yes," she whispers. "Please don't try to change my mind."
He nods. He loves her too much to try to do that.
And because he loves her, he slips past her without another word to the door, pulling it shut after he leaves.
His chest physically aches when he hears her slide the deadbolt into place behind him.