This idea was totally innocent from redbadges on Twitter, but I have somehow made it a bit heated. Anyway…

The prompt was: "Jane is considering starting school."

This contains mature themes – it is a tad steamy.

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Back to School

A part of Jane hoped that after having their child, that she wouldn't to return to law enforcement. As soon as they took their son home, bawling his eyes out but it didn't matter because he was, is, adorable – that's when the nightmares started. Jane was envisioning Lisbon returning to work and something awful happening resulting in him losing another wife and their son losing a mother. If that happened, he would be broken but broken with a responsibility to this small person that they brought into the world. It was the fourth restless night in a row, when Teresa found her husband sat on the couch in the living room, head in his hands, their baby happily snoozing in his crib, and she instigated an important conversation. "I can't lose you." He told her, his heart open and honesty pouring out. "I am sorry. I promised that I wouldn't get like this again but I just… we can't lose you." But what surprised him, is that she agreed.

It took one look at her son in her arms to know that she couldn't return to the dangerous job she loved so much because she loves him, she loves her family more. She couldn't turn her back on work entirely though and she has landed a role at Austin PD's Police Academy teaching several days a week. It means she is still connected to the job that kept her going all those years, earn money, but also be around more. Occasionally she does offer consultancy to Cho for the FBI, finding it funny that she is the consultant now, but never in the field. "I wouldn't be able to concentrate if you were my teacher." Jane murmured sultrily to her this evening, cuddled up together on the couch with their son in bed.

"Patrick…" She dragged his name in a way she knows he likes and that was enough to have him carrying her to bed.

It is no secret that he likes it when she gets all authoritarian on him – he told her this once when they weren't even together many years ago – and proved it only two months into their relationship when she tried her handcuffs on him. He may have spent a long period disobeying orders because his cause was more important than the, what he considered to be, pointless cases, but he doesn't mind being bossed around by her now. "I guarantee that nine out of ten of the new recruits are scared of you." He says, propping himself up using his elbow so he looks at her in the post-sex glow, tracing his fingertips up and down her stomach.

"Why do you think that?" She asks, wanting to be annoyed by this but it is impossible to be annoyed at a man who has just made her feel like that.

Lisbon thought that after having their child, he wouldn't worship her body as much as before, but nothing has changed. He kisses her stretchmarks every time like they are the best part of her. It always makes her blush. "I worked with you for years. I remember when Grace started." His hand gets higher and brushes the underside of her breast, agonisingly close to the tender bud which received in depth treatment barely half an hour ago. He is a master with his tongue, a tongue that she threatened to cut out of his head on more than one occasion back in their CBI days. She is now very glad she didn't. "Whoops." She is pulled out of her pleasant daydream by a finger grazing over where her neck ends and her clavicle begins. Jane has a kind of contrite look on his face, and it doesn't take a detective to work out what he has done. "When is your next class?"

"Tuesday."

"Four days… The bruise should be gone by then." He mutters, his blue eyes looking heavenwards as he thinks this over before they snap back to meet her green ones. "Sorry, got a bit amorous. I could give you a matching one on the other side."

She understands that he is joking but the idea does turn her a little hot again. "As much as that is tempting. I have to say no."

"Oh?" He raises his brow, not realising before now that being marked is something that turns her on. Patrick then does that thing he does that always turns a steady heat into a full-on fire burning inside of her, when he rolls on top of her, but somehow without putting any weight on her, and suggestively crawls up her body. He dips his head down to just next to her ear, his hot breath is like a hand, tight, around her neck but in a good way. "Are you sure?" He whispers and he hears her gulp. Most of the time, he prefers being at her mercy, but he also loves her being at his.

Teresa gasps when his lips find the soft skin of her neck, he doesn't do anything but trail kisses, closer to her clavicle on the opposite side to her love bite. "Jane." She moans but does begin to push him away, feeling far too sensitive right now to go any further.

"You alright?" He immediately asks, leaning away from her slightly to get a good look of her features, trying to work out if he went too far.

"Yeah… I just think if we go again then I might die." It is fair enough really, they have been in bed for almost two hours getting up to passionate activities, and he will never push her. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise." He says without missing a beat with a loving smile and he carefully rolls off her, the loose sheet almost uncovering him entirely as he does so. "Never apologise for that." And instead he opens his arm, inviting her to nestle closer, and despite how hot she is right now, evident by sweat adding a glisten her skin, it is an invitation that she can't refuse.

"I can't believe us talking about my day of teaching got us into bed." She muses but with a hint of humour in her tone that has him smiling beside her. "A lecture on negotiation tactics is hardly a turn-on."

"I don't know. I've seen you negotiate." He flirts earning a light thump to his chest by the back of her hand which he exaggerates the hurt it causes him with an oomf.

They lie in a content silence for a few minutes, both just listening to the other person's breathing, until their breaths begin to sync. It could be chaos outside, and he wouldn't notice because being like this, with her, he is nothing but calm. If he believed in a higher power then he would think that she is an angel, his angel who saved him from himself. Growing up in the way he did, he was never destined for great things. He was at a disadvantage, like many young people across the world, because he didn't grow up in an environment which gave him opportunities. However, without the show, without his act, he probably would have been something even less. He tried to be a better person for Angela and then for Charlotte and in some ways, he succeeded but in others, he really failed. Now he refuses to know the meaning of the word 'failure'. He has been given a second chance and he truly endeavours to grasp it with both hands. "I was thinking… Maybe I could go back to school too."

He knows that this really dumbs down what she is actually doing, but he doesn't mean it in a dismissive way, and she appreciates that. He has been completely supportive of her and everything this career move has brought her. "They wouldn't let you teach at the Academy." Lisbon mumbles, frowning to herself.

"That's not what I meant." He replies with a chuckle, and she feels his chest vibrates. However, it is swift, because now it is him who is frowning. "Why wouldn't they?"

"What do you mean then?" She asks, ignoring his question.

"I never went to High School as you know." She remembers when he told her this the first time and she was flummoxed, not quite comprehending how anyone can go through life without going to high school and what further baffled her is how he has become a sort of genius without it. Following his confession, she gradually, throughout time, would ask him about this but never overloading him, not wanting to seem nosy. It is nice that she is allowed to be nosy when it comes to him now. "I am not saying I want to go to High School – with my record they wouldn't let me anywhere near."

"And your age."

"Shh." He shushes and she smirks even though he cannot see her face. "I was thinking though, I could go to the Community College and take a class a week, maybe two. We could fit it around your teaching the best we can and find a nursery for when things clash. I think it would be good for me, give my brain a workout." Teresa can tell that this is something he has properly thought over, probably researched in depth but was waiting for a good time to bring it up. She can picture him now, holding their son in one arm, bouncing him up and down to keep him happy, and with his opposite hand scrolling through the website using the trackpad on her old laptop that became his the moment he treated her to a new one after she got the job. "But also, one day when our son asks me about my school experiences, I can't tell him that I never went." He says, his voice very low in the way he does when he is thinking too deeply. "It would make me ashamed, and he would probably lose respect for me."

Lisbon doesn't think this is the case, of course she doesn't, but she doesn't think it is a bad idea either. Her husband loves to be a stay-at-home dad and he is very good at it, but spoon feeding a young child and watching kid's TV, is hardly a tough, mental exercise. He has been burning through puzzle books like no-one would believe. If he goes to community college, she has no doubt that he will be one of if not the smartest person there, but that would be the same for a top university. Patrick Jane has a brilliant mind which is currently sitting pretty idle. She only teaches three mornings a week; they can easily make this work without sacrificing too much time together. "What would you study?"

"Hm, not sure." He hums, mentally scrolling through the list of courses in his head.

"Well, when you were a teenager, what subject's books would you steal from libraries?"

"How did you know I used to steal from libraries?"

"Lucky guess." And he can detect the smile in her voice, like she is glad to have got one over on him, but it is enough for him to mirror her expression, with them both smiling at the ceiling.

"Science books mainly, occasionally ancient history too." He reminisces, thinking about how he used to read them on top of his family's trailer, sometimes even making notes before he would get rid of the books, not risking them being found by either his father or one of the other carny kids. "I could study astronomy." It was an area he found fascinating when he was younger and he would stare up at the stars on a clear night, avoiding going to bed until the last possible moment. "They also do a sign language-interpreter course." She tenses in his arms, something that he perceives instantly, and he shifts slightly because of this, moving away so that he can study her face, although she tries to hide it but fails. "I know we are doing a good job at learning it for little Louis, but it wouldn't hurt getting better."

Teresa does smile then, although it is laced with sadness, still experiencing the heartbreak of discovering that their child is severely deaf. "He would definitely respect you then." She forlornly utters but then she manages to turn her desolation around, focussing on a more amusing scenario. "I can just imagine you two, communicating behind my back."

"Who says we don't do that already?" He teases, his tongue poking out between his teeth.

"Jane, he is only a one-year-old."

"He's very bright." She glares at him, playfully, but it disappears at his next statement. "He gets that from you."

She pushes herself up and edges towards him, lowering her lips to his cheek, finding the trace of stubble there strangely enticing but that could be because barely an hour ago it was scratching against the inside of her thigh. "I think it is a great idea." Teresa tells him after kissing him ever-so-sweetly and Patrick beams, a glisten in his already stunning eyes.