(A/N: This fic was inspired by reviews for my other 'blurred white lines' story. Someone [Samm4M?) had mentioned that maybe i could try a love triangle with Lisbon, Jane & Kim, then add complications when Pike enters the scene. At first I balked. wasn't sure I wanted to wallow in that much angst (lol), but then I realized I'd already begun short stories for almost all the season 6 eps involved, and decided if I could do it without breaking my own heart I'd give it a try, linking them together. [pro tip - write the happy ending FIRST... it helps!] Here is "Triangles!" I think the fluff at the end is worth the angsty chapters that make up the chapters before it. Hope you think so too!)

Kim Fischer was quickly learning more about the real Jane, during the predictable 'baptism of fire' that was a day in the field with the man. She was caught off-guard by the fact that, despite his charm and good looks, he was just as shifty and meddlesome as Teresa had warned he was. She was growing tired of being the punchline every time he made her the fool during the course of one of his plans, but his ability to get straight to the point was refreshing in a government bureaucracy. His annoying habit of pushing her buttons at every turn was not so attractive, however. She began to accrue a list of ways to get even with the consultant, depending on the size of her annoyance.

"She wasn't like this on the island." Jane quipped, as he, Fischer and Lisbon traversed the hallway at the Austin field office.

"How was she on the island?" Lisbon said, with forced calm, and a tinge of sarcasm.

"Less 'agent-y.'" Jane said, with the dual goals of defending himself against Kim's recent sternness while also flirting with the agent in question. He was sure the Kim he'd danced and dined with on that island had been the 'real her,' and he was bound and determined to prove it. Both to himself AND to Fischer.

"Well, you weren't what I expected." Kim admitted, with a sudden, disarmed softness.

"I rarely am." the consultant wiggled his eyebrows and beamed a beautiful smile, eyes twinkling in fun.

Teresa rolled her eyes and smiled knowingly at the typically sly response from her longtime partner. But her expression shifted to awkward anxiety as she caught Kim's charmed blush at Jane's irresistible flirting. Lisbon's eyes jittered side to side, not knowing where to look, but desperate to avoid eye contact with either of the two island buddies beside her.

Teresa knew from her conversations with Abbott and Fischer, during her transition from Washington, that Kim had been assigned to find Jane on that island and to make contact… Monitor his movements and such, so Abbott would know where to find him - Enabling the FBI's pitch of a job offer.

But there was something in the way Kim said he 'wasn't what she expected.' And Teresa remembered how Jane had lit up when Fischer entered the room on the day he had first arrived in Austin - the same day of their own reunion as long-lost partners. Lisbon's eyes widened slightly as her eyebrows inched up.

Oh.

She came to the tentative realization that the flirting she'd witnessed today wasn't just Jane being himself in a new situation with a new colleague to initiate or haze. The flirtations she was witnessing had some sort of history. She wasn't sure exactly what, but something had gone on between those two back in the tropics. She didn't like it.

Lisbon buried her concerns beneath her detective face, as she slid in beside Jane for a briefing on the Whitaker murder case. She had hoped to garner a little perspective on the island thing during innocent small talk before the meeting started, but Jane wouldn't stop looking intently at Kim through the glass wall, while she talked in the hallway with a serious-looking man in a suit.

"What are you doing?" Teresa asked with some agitation.

"I'm following the conversation." Jane answered, with knitted brow. "G-man says that I don't have high enough security clearance to work on the case and Fischer is arguing."

"Are you reading their lips?!" she asked in amazement.

"Yeah, I would be if I didn't have to answer inane questions." he answered with irritation, still looking through to the hall.

"Okay, boss." Lisbon spewed sarcastically, rolling her eyes with impatience.

"I'm not your boss. Why would you say that?" Jane was finally moved to turn and make eye contact, a sincerely concerned look on his face.

"Well, it's just that sometimes now it feels like you are." Lisbon squirmed, vulnerably, with discomfort.

"We're partners. Equals." Patrick wondered where she'd gotten such a ridiculous idea.

"Okay, well… just remember that." She said with a half-baked threatening tone, her fragile heart and strong mind in battle with each other.

"I will. I will remember that…" he touched her hand with a conciliatory pat. He hadn't meant to treat her in a way that would cause her to think that he— "OH GREAT!" He exclaimed suddenly, rolling his eyes with sarcasm, noticing that Kim's conversation had ended while he had been focused on Teresa. "Now I don't know what they decided!"

Jane retracted his hand and snapped back into frustrated consultant mode, forgetting any concerns he may have just had regarding his partner's convoluted theories about the balance of power in their arrangement. He took his frustrations out, in part, on the infuriatingly pompous Agent Daniels, who had just stormed into the conference room - with Fischer in tow - to bark at Jane. Daniels insisted that the consultant leave, citing some national security risk.

At Patrick's mocking tone and seemingly impossible knowledge about the victim's work with the Pentagon, Daniels proceeded to malign Kim about the situation.

"Fischer, this is unacceptable!"

"I… apologize sir…"

Jane broke in: "No, no! Hush! Don't apologize!" He was incredulous that Kim felt the need to cow-tow to this pompous ass. Thoroughly irked, he turned to Daniels.

"Don't take it out on her, she didn't do anything!"

Before Kim could smile or blush or argue that she didn't need saving, Abbott walked in and interrupted the proceedings, clearing Jane by procuring written permission from the upper ranks of the FBI.

With a steely glare, Agent Daniels resigned himself, lashing out at Abbott with a sneer. "Well then. I guess this is on YOU." The self-important G-man then turned on his heels and stormed away.

Jane distracted Abbott from Daniels' veiled threat by thanking him for getting the full security clearance. The consultant gave his supervisory agent a strong slap on the shoulder and asked with overzealous excitement: "So Dennis, tell me… Area 51… What's the real story? Come on, give me the skinny!"

Teresa couldn't decide if she should laugh at Jane's typically playful sparkle with Abbott, or to cry at seeing him jump to defend Fischer. She couldn't make sense of how simultaneously familiar and foreign her partner felt to her these days. The monotony of Washington almost seemed preferable to the frequent free-falls of Austin, she thought, momentarily.

The next day, Teresa and Kim were questioning the owners and employees at Cartesian Studios, trying to gain perspective on who may have wanted to harm their cartographer, Charles Whitaker.

After informing the boss's assistant, Avery Shultz, that she would not bow to company policy by leaving her Beretta or her phone at the front desk, Kim convinced the woman to ask her boss to forego said policy on account of them being FBI.

"You carry a Beretta?" Lisbon questioned Kim in surprise, as they awaited Avery's return.

"Yeah, why?"

"I carry a Glock 26, but—" Teresa was interrupted from her sudden feelings of gun inadequacy by a phone call from an old acquaintance. Osvaldo Ardiles wanted to fly his jet from Chicago to meet her there in Houston tonight for a business date. He sounded quite paranoid, but politely insistent. Teresa was more than curious to hear what had the attorney so rattled, so she agreed.

Avery returned shortly thereafter, escorting the still-armed Fischer and Lisbon up to the conference room.

After fielding the gambit of official-questioning-in-the-presence-of-a-corporate-lawyer, Lisbon and Fischer exited to the parking lot. Descending the front steps, Lisbon answered another phone call. This time it was Jane. Teresa explained what they'd found out about Whitaker as she followed Kim to the SUV.

Continuing her conversation, Lisbon climbed into the passenger seat as Kim sat behind the wheel: "He suspected industrial espionage."

The two women jumped, in concert, at a booming voice that hit them in stereo, both from Lisbon's phone and from the back seat of the vehicle: "Yeah! I'm way ahead of you on that!"

Jane was grinning ear to ear behind them, playing one of his typical pranks. Teresa shook her head with an appreciative smile and Kim looked back at him with shock as the two agents vented their alarm through a bout of nervous laughter.

After recovering, Kim accused, "you broke into my car?!"

"I… entered your car without your knowledge." Jane corrected, in his familiar film-flam way. "But," he smirked, "the good news is that tomorrow, around two, this case will be cracked!" Patrick sat back with an air of self-congratulation.

Kim raised an eyebrow. "You sound awfully sure of yourself!"

"Always…" Lisbon remarked, with sarcasm and a knowing grin.

Despite Fischer's distaste for his carny conman tactics, she had to admit some appreciation for Patrick's playful side. That side of him was most like the man she'd met in the tropics. Maybe she had been too hard on him before. After all, the island had been unfairly easy. She could hardly fault him for not being as relaxed as he had been on that beach. The place had had a similar effect on her, she recalled. But after Jane's prank, Lisbon brought up Osvaldo Ardiles. And Kim was curious about Patrick's subsequent obsession with the idea of her business date with him.

In the meantime, Jane had, of course, already developed a plan. This sunny afternoon, that meant him and Lisbon, waiting on a park bench, watching the newspaper he had mocked up as spy-bait.

Patrick couldn't help discussing Ardiles' dinner invitation, and Osvaldo's seemingly paranoid concerns.

"Maybe he just wanted a date with you? Have you considered that?"

"Please. Stop!" Jane was being ridiculous, but Teresa couldn't deny loving the familiar feeling of being playfully taunted by her favorite consultant. She had missed these exchanges more than she cared to admit.

"Ardiles, he always had a crush on you." Patrick insisted, with a grin and a sparkle in his eye.

Lisbon couldn't let him continue. She was starting to feel uneasy about the conflicting emotions being dredged up by this conversation. So, she changed the subject by checking Jane's watch - grabbing his wrist with familiarity to look at the hour.

"This is a waste of time. Your theoretical spy isn't showing up."

"You have to have patience, Lisbon."

"I'd rather have coffee. There's a place over there - do you want anything?"

"I'm good." He dismissed her with a wave, still panning his gaze around the park for suspicious characters.

Lisbon walked for her coffee, while Jane allowed himself a moment to enjoy the comfortably familiar chat he'd just had with his favorite partner, while still looking for the spy who would, no doubt, appear anytime now.

And appear, he did. Teresa nearly missed the whole thing, arriving with her coffee just as the flummoxed foreigner was pulling Jane's ringing phone from his pocket, handing it to a policeman Jane had flagged, with a look of complete confusion as to how it had gotten there. She shook her head with a smile. Of course, Jane's takedown had involved a pickpocketing trick, she laughed.

Back at the FBI, the two partners gathered at Lisbon's desk, filling in Abbott and Fischer on how they'd captured the foreign spy, who was brokering deals for government secrets through clandestine messages in coded newspapers, like the one Jane had created for the operation. The consultant couldn't help but bring up Lisbon's date with Ardiles, delighting in her flushed discomfort with the incorrect and disconcerting picture he was painting for their new boss.

For someone who reportedly had no romantic interest in Lisbon, Patrick certainly had a very strong general interest in what the woman did with her life, Kim thought. The subconscious jealousy that that realization stirred, encouraged Fischer to give him the benefit of the doubt, where his work-personality was concerned. After all, the Patrick she'd known on the island was the real him, right? She could wait out the storm of this 'consultant' persona, and 'beach Jane' would eventually reappear, she surmised.

When it came time to investigate the suspect, Lisbon watched Jane from the observation room as he questioned the foreign spy. It was always invigorating to see him in action, and she was reveling in their reconnection. What's more, he had finally shared his thoughts with her after the arrest, just like the old days. She felt like she could breathe around him again. She only wished that Abbott and Kim (okay, especially Kim) hadn't been in on the sharing session too. It would have felt more significant if it had just been herself in whom he'd confided. Suddenly, her subconscious rattled her train of thought.

Wait… What if... What if he wasn't confiding in her as much as he was with Fischer? She shook the thought from her mind as she left the interrogation area, immediately running into Kim in the hallway.

"His investigative techniques are… interesting." The newbie shared.

"You've no idea." Lisbon agreed. "Today was fairly mild."

"So, you and Jane. Were you ever…"

"No!" Lisbon snapped too quickly, covering with a laugh and an incredulous expression.

"I see." Kim smiled with apparent relief. "So… what's with the ring? How long has it been anyway? Yet he still wears it?"

Teresa was completely uncomfortable discussing such an intimate part of Jane's life and heart with Fischer, whom she barely knew. And she was slightly offended at the casually flippant way Kim had brought up the subject. Plus, the agent had willfully misrepresented herself to Jane on the island, so she was suspect, in Teresa's estimation. Still, Lisbon knew that no one was closer to Jane than she had been, for years and years… so of course Fischer would come to her for the inside scoop on the ring.

"Yes. He still wears it. It's been about twelve years since his wife and daughter were murdered, but he still feels their loss deeply. The ring is a part of his connection to them, and he's just not felt ready to move on. I've never seen him without it."

"Oh, I have." Kim assured, waving away the weight of Teresa's words. "Once. On the island." Fischer smiled; eyes focused on a memory of the faraway beach.

"Oh." Lisbon felt pins pricking every inch of her face at the revelation. They had been close back at the CBI. So close that many assumed they were a married couple, or at the very least involved. But when he'd finally felt ready to leave that laden symbol of love and loss behind, it had been with Kim. How much time had he actually spent with her on that island? Why hadn't he mentioned anything in his letters? Lisbon felt tears threatening, but put on her best 'business' face.

"Well, I've got some paperwork, so…"

"Sure, Teresa. Thanks!"

Lisbon noticed, with consternation, that her meetup with Ardiles had really gotten to Jane. He wouldn't stop bugging her about it…. Wouldn't stop calling it a date when it was actually a business meeting… Wouldn't stop suggesting that Osvaldo had ulterior motives, or that the attorney had always harbored feelings for her. She wasn't sure which was more off-putting: Jane's sudden interest in marrying her off to anyone besides himself, or Kim's apparent interest in Jane. She was jolted back to attention by an incredulous voice:

"You can't just arrest someone under false pretenses!" Fischer corrected, emphatically.

"Well, I guess we'll have to think outside of the box…" Jane put a finger to his lips in thought.

"That's always a bad sign." Teresa quipped.

Despite the misgivings of the two women, Jane successfully convinced Cho to go along with his provocation of Curtis Whitaker, brother of the victim - Arresting the man after Patrick incited him to a disappointingly docile chest push, by whispering an apparently distasteful lie in the brother's ear.

Fischer drew the short straw as the agent who got to smooth over Jane's trick, sitting across a table from the entrapped Curtis Whitaker. Kim leaned into the table, with authority. "Curtis, this is not about you. It's about national security and getting justice for your brother. Deal with it."

Kim was perfect in her role, Jane thought as he stood in admiration, observing her agent-y side at work within the confines of his plan. His glowing smile at the way Kim had worked Curtis, did nothing to calm Lisbon's unease about his suspected level of intimacy with the agent.

Teresa buried her concerns, pragmatically clearing her mind for the next phase of Jane's plan. She was slated to join him at the park for surveillance - hopefully snagging the Cartesian employee who had been working with the foreign spy. She would have to get used to the fact that things were different between them, and she would need to guard against his ability to see right through her.

Jane sat on the park bench leaving more space than usual between himself and Lisbon. Teresa wore a black dress, dark sunglasses, and a fashionable black hat with a sweeping, wide brim. She'd remembered all the times her partner had told her how 'cop' she looked, so had been intentional in her clothing choice for this fairly exposed surveillance.

"Mmm… this is like a stakeout of old. You - skeptical and grumpy. Me - confident and cheerful." Jane poked playfully, not able to resist, with the virtual 'Euro-spy costume' his partner was wearing. She was always a little over-the-top when she was trying too hard.

"You're only being cheerful to irritate me." Lisbon shot back, with a smirk.

"I'm cheerful because I get to sit here with you in this park on such a beautiful day."

Jane seemed unusually sincere. Just as Teresa's mind was wrapping itself around that realization, she noticed Avery Shultz nearing the targeted bench with a newspaper. She identified the woman to Jane, as the boss's assistant at Cartesian. Within seconds of Jane's signal, Cho and a handful of agents surrounded the woman, circling the shallow fountain at the park's center.

"I would've never thought it was her." Lisbon muttered in surprise.

"Oh? Really? You surprise me. Normally you have such good people instincts." Jane remarked.

Teresa lit up with a big smile at the praise. "I do?!"

"No. I was kidding." He said dismissively, turning away with a sly grin.

Teresa swatted her partner with a playful arm slap.

"Well, I was kidding that I was kidding." Jane backpedaled. "You have very good people instincts It's just your people skills are a little… meh." Patrick was glowing with mischief, eyes twinkling at his partner.

"You're hilarious." Teresa rolled her eyes.

Jane spoke into his wrist microphone, taking a moment to commend Kimball on the takedown at the fountain before turning his attention back to Lisbon.

"You look great in that hat." He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned, goading his favorite cop. Though he'd wrapped it in a tease, the statement was not a lie, he cautiously admitted to himself.

Teresa's only response to his obvious joke was a narrow-eyed glare - and she enjoyed every second of it. This was the Jane she remembered. This was the rapport she had missed. It was the closest she'd felt to him since they'd joined the FBI. Her hope that their old partnership could be renewed was palpable. Maybe she had been wrong to speak so harshly to him after the New York case? He was just being himself, after all. She was the one who agreed to move to Austin for this. What did she expect? She was relieved to find herself finally able to relax around Jane.

Jane, however, was growing inwardly more tense. Ever since she'd read him the riot act on that plane from New York, he'd decided she was right. It was wrong for him to guess what she wanted or needed. Two years apart had meant that he no longer knew what was best for her - maybe he never had. Despite his sincere feelings of affection, he decided that the best thing for her was to be allowed to move on without him… without his criminal influence… without his hurtful games… without his tarnished history. But after today, he feared he and Lisbon were getting too close. He knew that he may lack the willpower to suppress his love for her if these moments of easy conversation and playful flirtation continued. Especially if she insisted on wearing black dresses and alluring hats like she had today. She'd looked like a classic Hollywood star in that getup, and he couldn't stop sneaking glances.

Patrick developed a plan. He would pursue Kim, chasing after the beach side of her personality, and then Lisbon would be safe. She would never get in the way of his happiness, nor would she meddle in his personal life. Lisbon was too loyal a friend and too ethical a person for that. Plus, he and Kim made sense together - they'd had fun on the island, hadn't they? Also, she made really good tea, which should be considered. Of course, there was the fact she'd basically conned him, as an undercover FBI spy searching for his fugitive shell-of-a-self, but still. The fact that she'd pulled one over on him had actually made her more fascinating in his eyes - people rarely fooled him. She had had the advantage, though. He'd been quite weak and out of practice during those lonely years. Regardless, Kim was attractive and fun. And fun to tease. He could really enjoy being with her. That is, if he could avoid breaking his own heart in the process.

Kim didn't need to know how he had dreamt quite vividly of doing everything they had done together on their island date that night - and more - but with Lisbon. He had been alarmed when he'd woken the next morning and remembered the reality. His heart had been so full at the thought of waking up beside Teresa. Honestly though, he had surprised himself with that dream. He'd had a really good time with Kim that night, and he was quite attracted to her. But, whether by habit of memory, or by subconscious truth, he had longed for Lisbon as he slept, and the pain of that longing had followed him into his waking hours.

Jane eventually did ask Kim on a date. And he made it very clear that it was a date, not a business meeting. When his heart protested, he told himself it was only a ploy to test Lisbon's reaction after her dinner with Ardiles.

"Yes Lisbon, a date. After all, why should you and Ardiles have all the fun?"

Of course, Lisbon thought. This was Jane having a bit of fun with her. Well, two can play that game! Her eyes glinted.

"But that wasn't a date! It was just… oh, never mind." She rolled her eyes in mock frustration and marched to her desk with purpose.

Jane's heart clenched in pain, but his mind was content. Good. This plan will work nicely. His guilt-ridden conscience told him. We can't hurt her if we're not near her.

Charles Whitaker was posthumously branded a hero for his efforts in bringing down the spies who sought to buy secrets from Cartesian. After talking to Curtis about the medal ceremony for his late brother, Abbott gathered his things to attend the proceedings. "Are you coming, Fischer? Lisbon and Cho are already there?"

"I'll be along in a minute." she said, waiting alone as Abbott took the surviving brother to the presentation room.

Waiting in the bullpen, Patrick heard the sound of women's shoes approaching.

"Hey. He's gone, scaredy-cat" Fischer teased Jane, who was sitting on his sofa, hiding from Curtis under a blanket like a ten-year-old in a ghost costume.

With a sigh of relief and a charming-as-always smile, Patrick threw the blanket aside. "By the way, I just found the trailer I've been looking for." He enthusiastically waved his future girlfriend over to see the ad he'd circled.

Kim was not impressed with Patrick's second-hand, less-than-flashy Airstream choice, but he ignored her criticisms, defending his decision with talk about how great it will be and about how it "could change his whole approach to crime fighting."

Neither of the two saw Lisbon peek around the corner, in search of Jane. Teresa was taken aback at finding Kim nestled beside her partner, and even more chagrined at Jane's giddiness with the woman as he pointed to a photo of his apparent next home. Not wanting to interrupt, but unable to keep her curiosity at bay, Teresa pulled back just enough that she could see and hear without being noticed.

"So, what did you tell him that made him so angry?" Kim asked with an expectant grin, wondering what could have made Curtis Whitaker so upset with Jane.

"I have a fool-proof lie." He glimmered, quite proud of himself, as he glibly approached Fischer. Leaning intimately toward her, lips to her ear, he whispered what Teresa could only imagine was the lie he had just mentioned so proudly.

Kim immediately pulled back, playfully slapping him on the chest. They both walked away together, laughing lightly, sharing flirtatious glances the whole way.

Teresa cowered behind a post until the two were out of sight, a lump growing in her throat. She had felt so 'back to normal' with Jane today. But despite their comfortable conversations during this case, when Patrick was ready to share his excitement at having finally found a home, he had shared it first with Kim. And it was that same woman who had coaxed him into revealing his 'big secret lie' that everyone on the team had been wondering about. Lisbon suddenly felt sad and lost. He used to confide in her with stuff like this. Suddenly all of the comfortable feelings from the day dissolved into gloominess. Lisbon grabbed her bag, listlessly sliding it across her desk, and walked slowly to the elevator, the bag hanging like an anvil from her left hand.