AN: It's been a while, Mentalistas, and it's good to be back.

She's silent as she lets him into her condo, and he follows her lead.

Jane is hit with an almost overwhelming wave of déjà vu as they step into the living room together – it's like stepping back in time two years.

Like she had then, she turns to him now. "So how do we do this?"

She's wary and wringing one hand in the other. He reaches out to steady her with one hand, turns on a nearby lamp with the other. Then he looks into her eyes, debating the easiest approach.

"Don't fret, Lisbon," he says eventually. "We've done this before." No need to tell her it hadn't worked before.

"You've hypnotized me before?"

He nods. "I won't waste time explaining it all now since you'll remember it in a few minutes anyway." He bends his knees a fraction of an inch to make their eyes level. "You ready?"

Her eyes tell him she's scared, but she nods anyway.

He holds out his arm to her. "Take my wrist," he says. "Place two fingers there – yes, radial side. Feel my pulse? Start counting."

She closes her eyes without him telling her to, and he watches in the half-light as her lips begin mouthing numbers. He steps forward. "Match your breathing with mine. Deep breath in, deep breath out."

She's falling faster than she had two years ago, he notices immediately. Without the Kevlar her memories had wrapped around her, she's more trusting of him. He's not entirely sure this is a good thing.

Jane continues to speak to her, encouraging her steady breathing, and suddenly her grip on his wrist goes slack. She slumps forward into him, and he catches her, wrapping an arm around the small of her back and placing his other hand at the base of her head.

He moves her into the nearest chair, continuing to speak as he does so. The sentences aren't exactly coherent, but they're calming, and he finds he needs it more than she does.

He leans over her, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.

"Lisbon?"

"Hmmm?"

"What do you see?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing. No – not nothing. A haze."

"Describe it."

Her head twitches slightly to the left, and her brow furrows. "Nebulous, cloudy. It's thick – I can't see through it." She takes a deep breath, drawing Jane closer. "It's fog," she breathes.

Jane nods. "You can see some shapes through the mist. What do they look like?"

"Trees," Lisbon says immediately. "They're tall. An old growth forest?"

Jane forces his heart to calm. Is she seeing the moments before the attack?

"Take a step forward."

He watches as her foot jerks. Lisbon breathes out, frustration clear in her demeanor. "I can't," she says.

"Try again."

He realizes his hands are sweating, and he forces himself to sit down in the chair opposite her. He places his hands on his knees, but they still shake.

Lisbon lets out another irritated sigh. "I can't."

"It's okay; you're okay," says Jane quickly, soothingly. "If you can't move, then listen. What do you hear?"

The furrow in her brow disappears, and Lisbon's breathing evens out. "Frogs. Wind between leaves. And…"

Jane leans forward, his elbows on his knees. "And…?"

"And you," she says.

"What am I saying?" asks Jane.

Lisbon shakes her head slightly. "I'm…I'm not sure. I can't make out the words, just that you're the one saying them."

And without needing to encourage her, he watches her leg move infinitesimally again.

She's moving, he realizes.

"Lisbon?"

"Hold on," she says. "I can almost hear…and the mist is thinning."

Her eyes flash open.

He lurches forward out of his seat, touching his palm to her forehead and then resting his hand on her shoulder.

Her eyes are unreadable.

"Jane?" she asks.

Did it work?

"Lisbon," he breathes.

She looks around the room, then looks at his face. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

He doesn't back away. "Lisbon, what's the last thing you remember?"

She blinks at him. "You," she says. "The back of your head as you turned away to go question witnesses. Then walking into the forest. Then…nothing." She takes a deep breath in, lets it out. "Jane, how did we get here?"

He's not quite sure if he wants to laugh or cry with relief, so he does both, standing up and taking a few steps back. His hands are still shaking – hell, all of him is shaking – so he stumbles back another step to his chair, sitting down on the armrest clumsily.

Lisbon, alarmed, stands and moves toward him. "Jane?"

Before he can process what he's doing, he leans his head forward. Her arms reach for him a fraction of a second later, cradling his head against her chest, and his hands search for an anchor before tethering to her elbows.

"Jane?"

Lisbon Lisbon Lisbon.

"You almost drowned," he says against her shirt, repeating his words from a week ago. "You were oxygen-deprived for a few minutes." He takes a shaky breath. "You lost your memories."

He swears he can hear her heart.

"How long has it been?"

"A week."

"Why can't I remember any of it?"

"You were in a fugue state. You still have the fugue memories, but they're locked away. It might do more harm than good to try to retrieve them."

"Did you hypnotize me?"

"Only because you asked me to," he says. "It can be dangerous with fugue patients – but you can be very persuasive."

He feels her arms tense around him. "Dangerous how?"

"False memories," Jane manages to get out, his throat tight. "I might have given you false memories."

Lisbon takes a step back, and he immediately feels the loss of her body heat. "I might remember things that never happened?"

"If I did it right, you shouldn't."

"You'll tell me, though? If I'm remembering something wrong?"

"Of course," he says. He stands up. "Let's test this. Tell me about a memory; I'll tell you if it's true."

"Your favorite flavor of ice cream is brambleberry," she says without missing a beat.

He smiles. "Got it in one."

Her shoulders slump with relief. So do his.

They play a variation on this game over the next two years. When she can't trust her memory, she trusts him to tell her the truth instead.

Then he runs.

Red John is dead, and Jane can't stay. She never gets to give him a proper goodbye, and this haunts her nearly as much as the dream she has the first night after he flees.

The Citroen. Kevlar. His hands in her hair. His tongue asking permission. His kisses.

His forehead against hers.

And she'll never know if it was real.

Two years later, Abbott offers him a deal.

Jane looks around at his island. With the sun, the sand, and the serenity, some might call it paradise.

But it's not – not to Jane. Abbott correctly reads the look on his face. "What if we recruited Lisbon?" he asks, sweetening the deal.

Jane can't completely hide the elation that floods through him at the offer.

Abbott smiles. "You're out of practice, Jane. You weren't always so easy to read."

I wasn't always in love, he thinks, and he's pretty sure Abbott is still following his thoughts.

He waits patiently for Jane to answer.

"Let me consult with her. I want her to look over the paperwork, but most of all, I want to make sure this is what she wants."

Jane knows he's just shown his hand. If the FBI wants anything out of him, they know how to get it.

But he just smiles softly and glances out over the ocean.

By some miracle, their flights land in Austin at roughly the same time. He sees her at the other end of the terminal, and she catches sight of him not long after.

He doesn't break eye contact until she is wrapped in his arms. He lifts her off the ground, and her arms cling tightly around his shoulders. Abbott waves his security team down as they move to reprimand Jane for running off.

"Let him have this," Jane hears Abbott murmur to his team. "He's been through enough."

Jane's arms wrap more securely around Lisbon's tiny frame, and he feels her sigh.

"I missed you," she says.

"I missed you, too," he breathes.

They sign the preliminary paperwork at the field office and walk down the stairs to the atrium together. It's well past dark at this point, and the only employees they meet are security personal. Jane debates calling a taxi for himself and Lisbon, but he's not quite ready to retire to their separate hotel rooms at this point.

So, instead, he reaches for her hand and pulls her after him out of the building. "Come on," he says, leading her to the courtyard around the corner.

They walk in silence.

Finally, Lisbon stops, pulling on his hand to turn him around to face her.

"Jane?" she asks.

They've had a thousand unspoken conversations, but never one quite like this. He lowers his guard, and she lowers hers, and he asks, "You ready?"

Are you in? Do you want this? Do you want me to ask? I won't take the words back this time. No more running.

She nods, and her expression takes him back four years ago to a dimly light apartment and a similarly anxious moment.

And he knows.

"You remember?"

She swallows. "It was real? It really happened?"

"Very real," he confirms, stepping closer to her and ghosting his fingertips across her neck. "You thought it wasn't?"

"I hoped it was. But when I finally remembered, you weren't around to ask." Her expression is half hope, half heartbreak. "You agreed to help me forget?"

He shakes his head vehemently, reaching out to frame her face between his hands. "I agreed to help you remember."

Her fingers wrap around his wrists, and she closes her eyes. "Jane," she whispers, tightening her grip on him. Two pairs of brilliant green eyes lock onto one another. "You're here."

"And so are you." He smiles. "Is your Kevlar gone?"

She nods. "And yours?"

"Yes," he breathes.

"So how do we do this?" she asks, and she looks just as nervous as she had been four years ago.

He's not entirely sure, either, but he thinks he's got an idea of where to start.

"We fall, we laugh, we love, we fight, we make up," he says, taking her hand. "And we make more memories."