AN: This turned out to be shorter than I had anticipated, but inspiration is a fickle master. Also, I am crazy busy, so it was basically write what you can for an hour or not at all. I chose the first option, and here's what came out.

PS: I love reviews like Patrick Jane loves his teacup.

Pieces and Particulars

Chapter Two

She didn't think she would ever get over the look on his face when he'd opened his present. He had been...stunned. And touched.

For a second, she thought he might cry.

She'd seen Jane in tears just a few times, both in very recent months. The first time had been on the plane, the second time in the hours following. And though he'd tried to hide it, she knew his face had been wet after they'd made love the first time.

All very poignant moments, all things she would remember until her dying breath.

She hadn't expected tonight to be another one.

He was asleep now, arms wrapped around her, his heartbeat beneath her cheek. She'd drifted off earlier, but had woken sometime in the night, head full of spiraling thoughts.

That silly teacup was symbolic of a great many things. First and foremost, it had been his, and that gave it a new level of importance.

He'd sounded surprised when he'd realized what she'd done. You kept the pieces. Well, of course she had. It was all she'd had left of him. Just a few shards of porcelain, and the memories that went with them. The thousand times she'd seen him standing in the break room, methodically making tea. The countless times he'd set that cup on the table beside her couch, stretched out for a nap in her office. The day it had broken on the bullpen floor, along with the rest of the world around them.

With the CBI suspended in its entirety, it hadn't been difficult to come in very early the next day and commandeer the trash bin the held the cup. For a long time after, she hadn't done anything with it.

The pieces had gone in a shoe box, first under her bed in California, then in her closet in Washington.

When she had moved to Texas, she'd thought about putting it back together. After all, they were working together again. The cup was his.

However, in between the unpacking and getting used to the FBI, she simply hadn't had the time. When it occurred to her again, Marcus was already in her life, and she and Jane were locked in this strange game of pretending they didn't know how the other felt.

The box would have gone with her to DC. She would have hidden it from Marcus for any number of reasons.

And now...now Jane had given her himself. She didn't need to hold onto some broken bits of turquoise. She had something much better. She had messy curls on the pillow next to her and ice cream on rooftops and open arms whenever she wanted them. She had lazy Sunday mornings spent making love until she couldn't think and stolen kisses in elevators and text messages reminding her she was loved when she was having a bad day.

So she'd given him the cup back.

A very good decision if she'd ever made one. Almost as good of a decision as getting off of that plane had been.

They'd left a window open in the Airstream, and she shivered lightly in the night breeze, snuggling closer to Jane. He reacted instinctively to her movements, shifting to bring her even closer.

Softly, she ran her fingers over his, feeling the warmth of his wedding ring. To her complete surprise, she had found that she really and truly wasn't bothered by it.

For years, she had thought about it as a burden, an anchor, something holding him in the darkness he'd surrounded himself with. And she'd hated it for that reason.

In the end, however, it hadn't stopped him from telling her how he felt. Hadn't stopped him from kissing her, from taking her to bed before they'd even left Florida.

If he could overcome so much, she wasn't going to be upset by a small circle of gold. He hadn't chosen to end his marriage to Angela, and if he wanted to continue to have that connection to her, Lisbon wouldn't begrudge him that. The Jane she knew wouldn't exist if Angela hadn't loved him first.

Some day, she hoped she could replace the symbol of the other woman's love with one of her own. Until then, she would be content with things the way they were.

She felt Jane's lips brush her bare shoulder. "I thought you were sleeping," came his murmur.

"I was," she told him."I just woke up."

He kissed her shoulder again. "Everything okay? Bad dreams?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Everything is just fine."

In the time they'd been together, she'd only ever had one nightmare. It had been an old one, full of red smiling faces and her haunting fear that she would lose him to his cause.

Jane himself had them a bit more frequently, though as time went by, he had them less and less. She didn't mind. In fact, she was simply grateful to be able to hold him after, to stroke his hair until his breathing slowed and his trembling eased.

The covers rustled, and he turned onto his side, facing her.

A warm, sleepy, mostly-naked Patrick Jane was something out of her most private fantasies, and she smiled a little as he brushed her hair back with his fingers.

In the beginning, she had been surprised at how easily he had adjusted to sleeping in a bed. For thirteen years (give or take), she'd been watching him steal naps on couches or lay down across plywood resting on sawhorses.

She liked to think that she was the reason for the ease of this transition, that she made the idea of a proper bed not a lonely concept. She also knew that this meant Jane really and truly wanted to be in a bed with her.

"Your place tomorrow," he told her, seemingly at random. "I have the urge to make chicken marsala, and it's much easier in your kitchen."

"Sounds great," she answered, inwardly rejoicing. Out of deference to their new relationship, she was trying to be fair with where they spent the night. But if she could pick, they would always be at her house, with the bed that was always a bed and a bathroom that actually had an outlet where she could plug in her straightener.

"And maybe the next night, too," he added. "I hate to sound old, but I think my back likes your mattress."

She chuckled, heart swelling a little with hope. "Your back is welcome to sleep in my bed as often as it wants."

He stretched, groaning for effect. "I might take you up on that. As much as I hate to admit it, things are a little easier at your house."

She knew Jane well enough to know that there was something else behind his words. In her heart of hearts, she hoped Jane wanting to be at her house more was a step towards them officially living together. But she would not push. She was working on continuing to be grateful for him - just him. Anything else was just icing on the cake.

She tucked herself into his side again, gently pushing him to his back, kissed the spot just over his heart.

Jane's deep exhalation stirred her hair as he wrapped his arms around her. He sounded...content, she decided.

For a brief moment, she thought about how far they had come to be in this moment. All of the hurt, the darkness, the senseless death, the lies, the obsession.

It had all led them down this path to each other. True, it had taken them a little longer to get to here than she would have liked. But the repaired teacup had reminded her that even broken things could be beautiful again, and that sometimes they were loved all the more for coming back.

She certainly loved Jane more now than she ever had, as broken as he sometimes still was. And, like the teacup, she would fix him, too. He would never be as good as he was before, never be as whole, but he would be loved even more because of it.

Her arms tightened around him for an instant.

Although he didn't speak, he hugged her back, and, like always, she knew he understood.

Sometimes having a mentalist for a boyfriend really had its perks.