Fic exchange prompt: Lisbon's phone doesn't ring in "Black Hearts" when she's talking with Jane on the couch, allowing them to finish their conversation, which takes an interesting turn.

Rating: T for language and non-explicit sexual situations

Spoilers: Through 6x21, Black Hearts

Disclaimer: If you believe I am making money off this, please allow me to refer you to the credit holders on my student loans. I'm sure they will disabuse you of this notion right quick.

A/N: Well, I'm a little late to the fic exchange party, but half agony and hope graciously agreed to let me come anyway. When I picked the prompt for the fic exchange, I thought, great! I'll write something short for once. But then I remembered I always had this half formed intention of writing a tag to Black Hearts that focused on the fact that Lisbon's decision to go to DC was so clearly and blatantly a reaction to the whole scene with Jane and Ridley in the hospital and everything that went with it. So I thought (uneasily), well, I guess I could try to combine the prompt with that idea. Ahem. 30 pages later...sigh. I guess I just need to accept that brevity is not my strong suit. On the plus side, I finished something in less than a month! It's a Christmas miracle.

This is a two shot.

xxx

The job's yours…if you want it.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting when Abbott called her into his office, but it hadn't been this. When she walked in, she'd found Marcus already seated in one of his guest chairs, his face alight with anticipation. She hadn't had time to do more than send him a questioning look before Abbott had informed her they were expecting a call from the D.C. office and the video conferencing system had flashed the alert for an incoming call.

The next thing she knew, she had an offer for a job with the major crimes unit in D.C., gift-wrapped and handed to her, no questions asked.

When the call ended, Lisbon walked out of Abbott's office, her head swimming.

Suddenly, the issue of Marcus's invitation to move across the country with him had taken on unexpected urgency. She had been thinking about it, of course. Outside of work, the decision had consumed her every waking thought for the better part of the last several weeks. But now, belatedly, she realized she'd been considering it as a sort of idle, hypothetical fantasy. A kind of daydream, something that was nice to think about but didn't have any immediate bearing on reality. But Marcus had been waiting patiently for an answer and now she had a job offer. The need to give him an answer pressed in on her with new immediacy. Other people's lives would be impacted by her decision, and it wasn't fair to string him—them—along indefinitely.

She was acutely aware of Marcus behind her, his hand gentle on her elbow.

She yielded to the gentle pressure on her arm and turned to face him, resisting the instinct to shield herself from him while she marshalled her thoughts.

"So…" he said eagerly. "What are you thinking?"

She didn't know what she was thinking. Her mind was a buzzing, empty blank. "I…don't know yet," she said honestly.

"Well, Abbott's right—it's a great job," he said with a hopeful smile. "Don's the best."

She couldn't help but be charmed by his efforts to sell her on the offer. He was so damn sweet. She smiled. "I believe you." She wanted to offer him more, but the words remained stuck in her throat. Her smile faded and she looked down, ashamed of her inability to give him freely what he so clearly and desperately desired.

He gave her an earnest look. "Teresa…I've been patient." He exhaled a deep breath. "I kinda went out on a limb for you. I pushed Don to pass on another candidate so I could have you with me in D.C. I mean, I know it's a big decision… but it's a decision you need to make."

She knew he was right. She just needed a little more time to think, and then she'd make a calm, rational decision like a normal human being.

"Morning, Lisbon." The sound of Jane's voice, tighter and more clipped than usual, jarred Lisbon from her thoughts.

She turned to look at him, disoriented, only to see his gaze fixed on malevolently on Marcus. Jane jerked his head in the tiniest nod of acknowledgment. "Pike," he greeted the other man coolly.

Oh, yeah. She was totally going to be able to make a rational decision about this now.

Xxx

The database was thwarting her.

She'd been trying a tried and true method of coping with intense emotional situations—burying herself in work. And truthfully, avoidance wasn't even the primary motivation. She was well aware of the clock metaphorically hanging over her head, an ever present reminder that if they didn't solve this case quickly enough, over two dozen young women were almost certain to lose their lives. But now the database was thwarting her.

She'd sat down determined to trace the owner of the truck used to traffic the girls to the Cassimi brothers through the complicated morass of leasing documents, shell companies, and various other legal documents. She'd been making good progress, too. But the latest query Wiley had given her was taking forever to run. While she stared at the spinning wheel on her screen, her thoughts inevitably skated back to the offers before her—one for a new job, and one for a life with a man who loved her.

She let her fingertips stray to the cross around her neck. Objectively, both of the offers at hand were a good deal. A great job and a wonderful, affectionate man. So what was in her way?

Jane.

She knew it, down at the bottom of her heart, in a place deeply buried and ruthlessly suppressed. She'd been resisting the fact for…well, it felt like forever, but particularly over the course of the last several weeks.

She'd loved Jane so long that it felt like an intrinsic, inextricable part of her. Sometimes she didn't even think about it—it was just there, like her left arm or her spleen. But people could have their spleens removed and still get along just fine, couldn't they? If only she could remove her love for Jane so easily. Sometimes she thought she'd give damn near anything to cut the part of her that loved Jane out of her body, but where was she supposed to start? It was a type of surgery for which she was ill-equipped. Besides, (as another, darker part of her whispered on the bad days), what if once she cut that part of her away, there was nothing left?

She wasn't sure she loved Marcus. She certainly liked him an awful lot, and she loved a lot of things about him. She loved that he had warm brown eyes, that he was a terrible liar, and that he knew more about art than she could ever hope to learn in a lifetime. She loved the way she felt around him. She loved that he was in a band and liked old movies, even if she didn't share those things with him. She loved that he was clear and direct and never hid the fact that he wanted to be with her. How many things that you loved about a person did you need to add up before you knew that you loved them?

On the other hand, what had love ever gotten her? A churning, anxious feeling in her stomach and a constant dull ache in her chest, punctuated only by the occasional sharp pain directly in the heart.

Non-love, meanwhile, gave her a giddy, pleased feeling, conversations that bore no resemblance to walking through a minefield, and regular sex for the first time in—you know what, the exact amount of time was irrelevant. The point was, Marcus was good for her, and Jane was like…gangrene. Wasn't it better to chop the arm off and learn to do everything one-handed than to maintain the status quo and let it slowly poison her to death?

It was annoying—she hated a lot of things about Jane, but she still loved him. She didn't hate anything about Marcus and she couldn't bring herself to care for him the way she knew he deserved. Still, she thought she could love him, eventually. Given enough time. Which seemed to be in short supply these days.

"Whatcha doing?" Jane again, his voice softer this time.

Lisbon, startled again, spun around in her chair to face him, hoping the question foremost on her mind wasn't stamped all over her features (did he love her/had he ever loved her/would he ever love her?). "Nothing," she said hastily, willing herself not to blush. "Thinking."

Instead of lounging on his couch as usual, Jane sat down in the chair opposite her. "What?" he said, looking at her intently. "Meaning of life type stuff?"

She smiled a little. "Something like that."

Jane shifted in his chair, looking like he was about to say something else, but Wiley interrupted. "I got something."

It looked like Wiley had been more successful in the hunt for the owner of the truck than she had been. He'd gotten a name—Michael Ridley.

Lisbon got up to go with Jane to interrogate Michael Ridley, abandoning her musings gladly. She bent to lock her computer screen before she left.

The query was still running.

Xxx

It was a relief to drill Ridley with pointed questions, going on the offensive. She and Jane worked in seamless rhythm, him provoking the other man with questions stemming from his observations of his surroundings, her following up with well-researched details. Despite the frustration of dealing with the slippery Ridley while the clock continued to run down on those girls' lives, Lisbon spared a moment to acknowledge to herself that if she did leave, she would miss working with Jane. They'd been working together so long, any interrogation they conducted together proceeded like a well-rehearsed dance. Even if Jane decided to improvise now and then, she was comfortable enough with his ways now that she was usually willing to go with the flow, trusting that if she kept step with him, eventually they would reach their goal together. His methods still exasperated her, though, and sometimes she feared she went along with him too easily. Certainly she was more willing to go along with his mad schemes than she had been when they first met. But the mad schemes so often worked, and it was so satisfying to see perps brought down by the results of their tag-teaming. And now that she wasn't his boss anymore, it wasn't her problem if he colored outside the lines a little to get the bad guys. Truthfully, she'd never had a professional partnership so rewarding, before meeting him or since. It was on the personal side where they tended to flounder.

xxx

When they got back to HQ after the interview, her mind reverted back to the problem at hand—her apparent inability to separate the personal from professional. When she saw Cho fixing himself a cup of coffee, she gratefully turned into the break room, intending to avail himself of his advice. Cho's judgment wouldn't be clouded by emotional considerations, and no matter what happened, he wouldn't bullshit her. He would tell her the truth.

A slight raising of his eyebrows betrayed his surprise when she told him about the job offer, but he offered no judgment. Just asked, calmly and dispassionately, "You gonna take it?"

She admitted she hadn't decided yet. He acquiesced to her request that he not mention it to anyone yet, then said unexpectedly, "It'd be a great move, though."

"You think?" she said, not concealing her own surprise.

"Absolutely. You remember the first day we worked together?"

She blinked, thrown by the unexpected reference. "Sure."

"I almost quit."

"Really?" she said, surprised again. "Why?"

"Rigsby."

She couldn't conceal a smile at that.

"But then I saw the way you worked," Cho continued. "And I knew I had to stay. I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for you. Whatever decision you make, it's been an honor."

Emotion welled up. Lisbon blinked back unexpected tears. She didn't have words to express what his words meant to her, so she stepped forward and put her arms around him, hugging him for possibly the second time in their nearly fifteen year acquaintance.

If she left, it wasn't just Jane that she would miss. She had been so lonely in Washington after the collapse of the CBI, but here in Texas, she had been rebuilding a real life. She was part of a team again. She had formed a real friendship with Kim, and Wiley made her laugh. She even liked working with Abbott, now that they'd gotten the initial sticky phase of him accusing her of being a corrupt cop and her lying to him for two years about not being in contact with Jane. And nobody could replace Cho.

"By the way," Cho said, when she released him from the hug. "They're ordering Chinese for lunch."

She had to smile. Classic Cho.

She really would miss him, if she decided to leave.

Xxx

She went back to working the case. After Cho and Fischer ran down Lark's daughter, she and Jane went to Ridley's house to rattle his cage. Ridley stayed cool, however, and showed no sign of being rattled. Lisbon eyed him with contempt and pointed out that once they tracked down Lark, they would be able to prove once and for all whether he was involved. She knew he was, though. She could feel it. Her lip curled, thinking over the matter in the car on the way back to HQ. Ridley reminded her of Volker. There was no physical resemblance, but they shared the same kind of attitude. The 'nothing can touch me because I'm too clever and well-connected' attitude. Fortunately, she and Jane specialized in taking down people with that kind of attitude. Once they tracked down Lark, they would have him.

Kim and Cho, somewhat worse for the wear after being caught in a blast intended for Lark, hauled Lark in that night. Kim and Abbott took him into interrogation the next morning and cracked him like an egg in less than half an hour. Once Lark signed his statement, Jane accompanied Lisbon as she arrested Ridley at his office.

They interrogated him for several hours, but Ridley remained cool as a cucumber. He didn't give them a damn thing. Then, frustratingly, he was released on bail, despite Lisbon arguing strenuously that the man was an obvious flight risk. Still, they had Lark. The case against Ridley was shaping up, whether he cooperated or not.

She got home late that night. She called Marcus and told him she would catch up with him the following day. Then she proceeded to pass a sleepless night staring at the ceiling and thinking about every time Jane had ever touched her.

xxx

Disgusted with herself and guilty over her treacherous heart's disloyalty to Marcus, she resolved that she needed to have a real conversation with Jane before she could decide anything. She would tell him about the job offer. And if he said, in effect, 'have a nice life,' the way he had when she'd told him about the possibility of moving to D.C. in the first place, well… then she'd have her answer, wouldn't she?

Her courage lasted through getting ready for work, driving to work, and all the way through preparing a cup of coffee for herself and a cup of tea for Jane. Armed with her mug and a white cup and saucer, she headed out into the bullpen. That was when her resolve flagged. Jane was sleeping on his couch.

Well, this was unfair. She'd imagined herself marching up to him and demanding a reckoning, fully intending to unleash her wrath upon him if he showed any signs of messing her around. But whenever she saw him asleep on that couch, part of her melted into a puddle of goo and short-circuited her entirely reasonable intentions of giving him a piece of her mind. Back when they were at the CBI, the frequent threat of litigation had been a useful means of offsetting this feeling, obliterating the tendency towards goo and allowing her to focus on the task at hand. Namely, waking him up with a swift kick to the couch and yelling at him like he deserved. Now, however, she had no convenient lawsuits to return her to her senses. The familiar softness at the sight of him stole into her heart and slowed her steps.

She took a deep breath and continued towards him.

"Jane," she said softly, leaning down to give him his tea.

He turned his head to the side before blinking himself awake, disoriented. His face relaxed into an expression of relief and utter contentment as he gazed up at her. He let out a long, satisfied sigh of pleasure as he saw the cup and saucer she'd extended towards him and accepted the tea gratefully. See, this was why she could never stay mad at him, despite her best intentions. Who could stay angry at anyone who looked that happy to see them when they first woke up?

He always looked like that when he saw her right when he woke up, she realized, thinking of every time she'd had to wait for him to wake up in a hospital bed or after some other dire occurrence. In unguarded moments, even after being tasered or half blown up, he always looked so happy to see her. Her heart softened further. She smiled a little. "Scooch over."

He didn't hesitate. He sat up and scooched.

This was another thing she'd miss if she left. Even if he never had the same feelings for her that she did for him, they would always have this. This comfortable, profound sense of companionship. The unquestioning acceptance of each other's company. If she left, she'd miss these quiet moments with Jane. Every one of their quiet moments had made them closer, and they'd amassed quite a lot of them over the years. The thought of approaching a finite end to those quiet moments made her heart constrict in her chest.

Suddenly, she didn't want to have a serious conversation with Jane. She just wanted to have this quiet moment with him, to hold and treasure for years to come. She wanted to talk about something silly and meaningless, something where the substance mattered less than the shared moment.

She watched him rearrange himself on the couch to make room for him, sat down next to him and gave him a gentle smirk. "How often do you sleep in your own bed, anyway?" she teased.

"Oh, I don't like that bed," he said, casting her a sideways glance. "Too many lumps."

"Maybe you should get a new bed," she said lightly, taking a sip of her coffee.

"Mm." He acknowledged the point with a shrug.

Belatedly, it occurred to her that talking about beds with Jane might not quite be the light and inconsequential subject she'd intended it to be. She took another sip of her coffee and hastily changed the subject. "Actually, you know what? I always did like this couch." They'd had a lot of their quiet moments on this couch. She looked at the seat cushion next to her with fondness. Somehow, the fact that it had crossed through all these years and multiple state lines and was still with them was immeasurably comforting in that moment.

When she looked back at Jane, he was looking at her intently, despite otherwise appearing like he'd just woken up. She felt a pang of regret for having woken him, thinking of all his years of lost sleep. She looked back into his eyes. He looked back at her steadily, his eyes managing to convey both affection and resignation.

All the reasons for needing to have a real conversation with him rushed back to her.

Her smile faded. "Jane…"

He just looked back at her, a half smile on his face, tired and vulnerable.

She tried again. "Jane—"

She faltered and couldn't get the words out.

Jane interrupted. "I meant it, you know," he said quietly, taking a sip of his tea.

"Meant what?" Lisbon asked, thrown by the non-sequitur. That he just wanted her to be happy? That he was happy for her leaving, that he wasn't upset? That his bed really was intolerably lumpy?

His shoulders hunched ever so slightly and he kept his eyes on his teacup. "What I said to you before I shot you," he said, his voice low.

Lisbon stopped breathing. "You—you meant it?"

Jane looked weary. "Yes."

Lisbon didn't know what to make of this. He meant it. Great. So at some point, roughly four years ago, he had meant it when he said he loved her. Thanks, Jane, that really clears things up. Was this a friendly, sisterly love? He had been in love with her then, but now it was all in the past? He'd gone to his island for two years and now he was thoroughly over it?

"I got offered a job in D.C.," she blurted out.

He kept his voice even, but the knuckles on the hand holding the teacup turned white. "Are you going to take it?"

"I…I don't know," she said confusedly.

He took another sip of tea. "What's holding you back?"

"I…" She swallowed. "It's a big change."

"Yes," he said evenly. He paused. "It's a good opportunity for you, though."

"I suppose," Lisbon said, a little put out. It was a good opportunity, but did he have to be so irritatingly encouraging about it? The man conned people for a living, for God's sake. He could at least have the decency to pretend to be upset that she might be leaving.

"You deserve to be recognized for your work," he persisted. "It's long past due."

Lisbon felt unreasonably annoyed by the praise. She'd always resented the perception that she'd attained a significant measure of her professional success by riding Jane's coattails—now she was irritated at herself for how little she actually gave a damn about the new job. "Thank you," she said stiffly.

"Teresa. I'm serious. You deserve this." He hesitated and looked down. "You deserve him."

Infuriating man.

"Jane." Her heart beat in her chest at four times its normal rate. "What…why did you say that to me just now?"

Jane shrugged. "He's a good man."

"No, the…the other thing."

He turned his shoulders towards her, then his chin. His eyes, forced by the angling of the rest of his body, came last. He met her gaze. "Because you deserve to hear it." He inhaled deeply through his nose. "And if you decide to go to D.C., this might be one of the last chances I have to tell you before you go."

Her heart sank into her stomach. "You think I should go, then?"

He sighed. "I told you…I just want what's best for you."

"And you think that's going to D.C. with Marcus," she interpreted.

He summoned a smile. "A great job with people who understand your true worth and a cute boyfriend who adores you? Who could ask for more?"

Lisbon grimaced. Hearing Jane utter the words 'cute boyfriend' was just wrong on so many levels. "Yeah," she said gloomily. Well, she'd wanted clarity. Now she had it. Jane thought she should go to D.C. He'd finally responded to the question she'd left unspoken for so long. She couldn't very well complain now if she didn't like the answer.

Having a left arm was overrated, anyway.

His smile faded. "Lisbon, I—"

A familiar voice interrupted them. "Bad news, guys." Fischer said, her expression grim. Cho stood next to her, equally dour.

Lisbon blinked up at them, trying to get her bearings. "What happened?"

"We just got back from the jail," Cho told them. "Lark killed himself."

"And our case," Fischer said darkly.

Lisbon straightened. "Without his testimony, we don't have enough to make the charges stick on Ridley." God dammit. That bastard was going to get away with it.

Jane made a 'hm' noise that indicated displeasure. "Sounds like this problem might require a little creative thinking."

Next to him, Lisbon tensed. "Jane, we can't afford for one of your insane plans to let Ridley get off on a technicality because you entrapped him or something. The lives of those girls depend on us getting the information we need from him."

"Relax, Lisbon," Jane said, sipping his tea and leaning back into his couch. "I guarantee you Ridley won't get off on a technicality. We'll get the information from him before the ships dock, so we can save Daniela's sister and the rest of the girls. I promise."

Hope warred with a familiar queasy feeling in her stomach. Jane's tone as he offered this guarantee reminded her of the time she'd been fretting over the gas gauge creeping perilously closer to the 'E' indicator as they approached a crime scene on the edge of the Mojave Desert together with no fuel station in sight. Jane had cheerfully advised her not to worry about running out of gas. He'd been right—she hadn't needed to worry about running out of gas, because twenty minutes later, he'd taken the car and abandoned her at a fruit stand one hundred miles from anything. "You already have a plan?"

Jane sipped his tea again. "Working on it."

Xxx

It wasn't until late that afternoon, after another dead lead, that Jane revealed his plan to her.

She and Fischer spent most of the day running down a lead on a potential organ recipient, a wealthy oil tycoon from Nigeria. But by the time they finally tracked down his driver, Diop had fled the country and they were back to square one.

She called Jane and told him about Diop leaving town. "He was our only lead," Lisbon said into the phone. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. All those girls. "I'm running out of ideas."

"Well, I'm not," Jane said confidently.

"You have a plan?"

"Yeah. But I'm going to need your help."

Another tone she recognized. She groaned inwardly. "Why don't I like the sound of that?"

"Well, I'm going to need you to be deceitful and corrupt," Jane said mildly. "And you'll be breaking numerous laws."

Lisbon closed her eyes.

"Lisbon?"

"I'm thinking," she snapped.

"Ridley will walk," Jane said. "This is the only way." Apropos of nothing, he said, "Are you a medium, or a small?"

She scowled into the phone. "You're not helping yourself out here, Jane."

"Meet me at Wheatondale in two hours," he said. "I'll leave the scrubs out for you. You bring a can of hydraulic fluid and some sponges."

"Hydraulic fluid?" Lisbon repeated. The disturbing thing was, this was not even remotely the weirdest thing Jane had ever asked her to provide as part of his schemes.

"Yeah, you know, that reddish stuff. The darker the better."

"What for?" she asked suspiciously.

"Oh, we're going to convince Ridley that we're going to torture and murder him," Jane said blithely. "We're going to need a lot of fake blood to sell it properly. Hydraulic fluid is just the stuff. It's the perfect consistency."

"Jane," she hissed into the phone. "We can't do that. It's illegal."

"I'm aware of that, Lisbon," Jane said, rustling around with something in the background. "See previous comment about breaking numerous laws. Oh—and I'm going to need you to give Wiley a fake tattoo."

A tattoo? What the hell? "This is a bad idea, Jane," she warned.

"I agree it's not ideal," Jane said. "But it's the best option available to us, so we might as well do the thing properly."

"And who cares if I throw away that 'wonderful opportunity' we were talking about earlier in the process because I've violated every code of ethics known to the federal government?" Lisbon said sarcastically.

"Please, Lisbon," Jane said, pained. "Like I'd allow that to happen to you."

Lisbon ground her teeth. Of course. Because it was always about him and how damn clever he was. "Even if your terrible plan works, the minute we let Ridley go, he's going to run straight to his lawyer and slap the FBI with a lawsuit. I'm certain our names will feature prominently."

"It'll be his word against ours."

"Yeah, but everyone knows you're a big liar. Your word isn't going to be worth much to Abbott."

"No," he acknowledged. "But yours will. All you have to do when he asks you about it is not flinch, and we'll be home free."

"You mean lie to my boss through my teeth," Lisbon said flatly.

"Now you're getting into the spirit of the thing," Jane said, sounding pleased that she was catching on.

"Jane, you're asking me to put my integrity on the line," Lisbon said. "That's not—" she exhaled. "I don't want to be the sort of person who would do this kind of thing."

"Lisbon, the man is evil. He's using those girls like products in a factory line for his own financial gain. He deserves to suffer."

The annoying thing was that part of her agreed with him. A bigger part of her than she liked. She thought about what he was asking her to do. Back in her early days at the CBI, such an idea would have been unthinkable to her. But somewhere along the line, she'd grown desensitized to Jane's outrageous behavior. After all, was this any worse than what she'd done to stop Volker? To help stop Red John? Once you sacrificed your principles the first time, could you cross back to the other side of the Rubicon? She thought of Marcus, so sweet and guileless. She pinched the bridge of her nose. Suddenly, getting on a plane with him and never speaking to Jane again seemed remarkably tempting.

"You're talking about kidnapping and torturing a man, Jane."

"I'm not going to hurt him. But yes, the kidnapping, that part is correct."

"Jane, it's too risky. Do you not understand how easily this plan could fall apart? We might not even get what we need from Ridley. We could lose our jobs or end up in jail and have absolutely nothing to show for it."

"Have a little faith, Lisbon. I know what I'm doing."

She didn't answer, still thinking. She brought her hand to her cross. All those girls.

"Teresa." She heard a funny kind of hitching sound in his breathing. "I kinda bared my soul to you earlier. Don't you think you could find it in yourself to trust me, this once?"

Now he was using her emotions to manipulate her. Again. In some ways, the old wound from that evening on the cliff side in Malibu was still fresh and raw. "You didn't bare your soul to me," she snapped. "You made a cryptic comment about another cryptic comment you made four years ago."

He took a deep breath. "Okay. That was…not my intention. But I can see how it might appear that way, in a certain light. From your perspective. And we should talk about that, later, once we've taken care of Ridley."

"Because you just assume I'm going to go along with this illegal, ill-considered plan of yours," she said bitterly.

"We-ell… assume is a strong word," Jane hedged. "I merely have faith that ultimately, you will find it within yourself to agree with me that saving Daniela's sister and those other girls is worth the price of some temporary discomfort on Ridley's part. Of course, it's possible that I'm wrong. Maybe this new job is too important to you. Maybe you'd rather keep your nose clean and go out on a nice romantic date with Pike tonight so you can contemplate your wonderful new life together instead of saving those girls' lives."

"Oh, shut up," she said irritably.

He paused. "So you'll do it, then?"

She sighed. "What kind of tattoo do you need me to put on Wiley?"

Xxx

The whole kidnapping affair went down pretty much exactly as Jane said it would. A little fake screaming from Wiley, a generous portion of hydraulic fluid splashed all over her and Jane, and Ridley crumbled like a cookie. He gave them the password to the encrypted laptop. The girls were found on the container ship when it docked in Columbia less than two hours later.

The aftermath of the kidnapping went down pretty much exactly as Lisbon said it would.

After they let him go, Ridley turned up at the FBI with a thousand dollar an hour lawyer, spitting mad. Lisbon tensed when she saw them come in. Jane put a comforting hand at the small of her back and murmured into her ear. "Don't worry. I'll handle this."

Knowing her poker face wasn't nearly good enough to last through a confrontation with Ridley, Lisbon let him go without a fight. She watched as Jane smoothly inserted himself into the debrief with Abbott. She stole into the observation room next to the interrogation room and watched for a few minutes. She marveled at Jane's bold, confident lies as he coolly denied every accusation. When Ridley started to lose his cool and accused them of murdering his tattooed compatriot, Abbott raised his eyebrows and showed Ridley a video feed of the very man he'd just named cooling his heels in jail, alive and well. Lisbon watched Jane smirk slightly, clearly enjoying Ridley's impression of a gutted fish at this revelation. She shook her head and headed back to the bullpen to help Wiley get the ink off his arm.

A few minutes later, Abbott called her into his office. He did not look happy. A pit of dread opened in her stomach. He'd played it off in front of the lawyer, but the grim line of his mouth told her he suspected something pretty near the truth.

She followed him into his office and cast a worried glance at Jane, but Jane stayed cool, his focus on Abbott.

Abbott folded his hands on his desk in front of him. "Mr. Ridley and his lawyer have made some serious claims against you two."

"They're only serious if they're true," Jane pointed out.

Abbott looked at Jane with his 'don't bullshit me' face. "Are they?"

Jane, of course, was immune to 'don't bullshit me' expressions of all varieties. "No."

Lisbon, in the chair next to Jane, just sat there and felt ill. Abbott turned his attention from Jane and looked at her expectantly. A beat late, she remembered to offer her line. "No."

Abbott raised his eyebrows. "So you didn't threaten to kill Ridley, and you didn't stage the death of his associate?"

"No, of course not," Jane said, injecting a trace of indignation into his voice.

Abbott smiled, one of those 'too many teeth' smiles that never boded well for anyone. He injected his own voice with a measure of false cheer exactly calculated to counterweight Jane's false indignation. "Great!" He spread his hands. "Well, then, I'm done with you."

Lisbon let out a tiny breath and started to stand.

"Not you, Lisbon," Abbott said sharply.

Damn. He'd decided to go with the divide and conquer strategy, and he clearly considered her the weakest link. She hid a cringe and sank back into her chair.

Jane glanced at her and hesitated, but apparently determined that leaving her would be the better strategic move for the time being, because he made his way out of Abbott's office quietly, leaving her to fend for herself.

Abbott waited for Jane to leave, then turned back to Lisbon. "Jane is a liar," he said calmly. "No need to deny it. I expect it of him." He fixed his gaze on her. "But you're not a liar, Lisbon. You're an honest, good person with a long career ahead of you. And I don't want to see you throw away this new opportunity of yours. So I'm going to ask you one more time." His tone was even and measured. "Is there any truth to Ridley's accusations?"

Lisbon felt worse than the time her mom had asked her calmly, with that all-knowing, penetrating gaze, who had hit the baseball through the front window. She felt like the lowest worm alive. A good, honest person. She had been those things, once. And now she had covered up how many crimes, obstructed justice how many times, all in the name of 'poetic justice?'

The worst part was, she knew she'd do it all over again, if the occasion arose. And it would, if she stayed, because that was how Jane did things. As long as she stayed with him, this would keep happening.

Abbott was still waiting for an answer. She thought of Jane, advising her that all she had to do to when Abbott asked her about this was to not flinch. She felt weary from bearing all the lies, but she went ahead and added another one to the pile. "No," she said mechanically. "Everything Jane said was true."

Abbott sighed, resigned. He made a dismissive gesture, and Lisbon hastened to make her escape.

xxx

She saw Marcus come around the corner when she exited Abbott's office. His face broke into a happy grin when he saw her. "There you are," he said.

She smiled at him, glad to see him. She felt some of her tension ease at the sight of him. Being around Marcus was such a relief. She didn't have to constantly be on the defensive with him. If being around Jane was like stepping out into no man's land in the middle of a war zone, being with Marcus was a respite from the flying shrapnel. Heartache to heartache, we stand, she thought absently, then grimaced, recognizing the lyrics of "Love is a Battlefield" bubbling up from her subconscious. Dear God, now she was comparing her life to a 1980s rock ballad. She needed to get a grip.

Marcus reached for her. "You ready to go?"

"I am so ready," she said feelingly, stopping to give him a kiss. "You wouldn't believe the day I've had." She put her arms around him and held on for a minute, inhaling his clean, woodsy scent. This was another thing she loved about him. He was so openly affectionate. He kissed her so sweetly, and he hugged her all the time, not just as a marker of one end of some prolonged and painful separation or when one of them was about to die, or pretend to die.

Good luck, Teresa. Love you.

She let him go abruptly, confused and irritated with herself for letting Jane intrude on her thoughts yet again.

Marcus took her hand in his. "Look, uh…about D.C. I know it's a lot to take in. I didn't mean to pressure you."

She smiled a little. "Yeah, you did." But she didn't mind, because at least he was honest and straightforward about it.

He smiled back, sheepish. "Yeah, I did. Maybe a little. But it's your life. I just want to be a part of it."

Thinking of her guilt over the Ridley situation and her lies to Abbott, it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she'd made up her mind. That she was going to call Don the next day and tell him that she was going to take the job.

An image of Jane's face, tired and vulnerable, flashed across her mind's eye. I meant it, you know.

She shook her head a little to clear it. "I…I thought a lot about the job today," she told Marcus truthfully. "I just…" she trailed off.

That funny hitch in his breath. Teresa, I kinda bared my soul to you earlier.

The thing was, she realized with a sinking feeling, that he probably actually believed that. Jane was possibly the only person she'd ever met who was less equipped to talk about complex emotional issues than she was.

She took a deep breath. "I need a little more time," she finished.

Marcus made a valiant effort to conceal his disappointment, and almost succeeded. "Okay. No problem." He hesitated, then took a deep breath. "Would it, uh, sweeten the deal if I asked you to marry me?"

Lisbon froze. Panic seized her chest. "Wha…what?" she stammered at last.

He rubbed her arms. "Wow, I wish we were somewhere more romantic. But what the hell… will you marry me?"

Her mouth worked, but no sound came out.

Marcus watched her less than enthusiastic expression. He squeezed her hands. "Don't freak out."

"Wow - marry you?" Lisbon said, panic etched on every feature. Inwardly, she groaned at herself. Worst response to a proposal ever. She tried to make it better. "Um..."

"I know," Marcus said hastily. "You need time to think about it."

"Yeah," she said, gratefully seizing the out he was offering her. "It's a big decision. It's huge."

Marcus smiled gently. "No pressure. Okay?"

He kissed her gently. A sweet, honest kiss. She kissed him back, enjoying the closeness.

You're a good, honest person. The words sounded accusing in her own head.

Her heart sank into her toes and she broke away.

She looked up into Marcus's sweet, hopeful face, and realized that if she accepted his proposal, it would be the single most selfish act of her entire life. She thought back over the past fourteen hours. The truth dawned on her with blinding clarity. She'd been deceiving herself this whole time. She'd been processing every event in her relationship with Marcus not as a progression in intimacy between the two of them, but as a reaction to something that Jane had said or done, or not said and not done, as the case may be, over the course of the past thirteen years.

It didn't matter what crap was between her and Jane. Staying with Marcus because it was gratifying and pleasant for her wasn't right. That wasn't a solid foundation for a real and lasting relationship. If she was certain of one thing in all this, it was that above all, she wanted something real. She didn't want to be the sort of person who used someone for her own convenience, without any regard to what her behavior might to do him in the long run. Marcus was a wonderful, kind man. He didn't deserve to be relegated to serving as her release valve, her means of escape. He deserved a good, honest woman who adored him wholly and unconditionally. Someone who didn't get tied up in knots over a handful of words uttered by another man.

Tears stung her eyes. She did care for him. Giving him up was going to hurt.

"Okay," he said, his smile fading into a look of concern. He squeezed her hands again. "What just happened?"

She swallowed a sob. "Marcus," she said, her heart breaking. "I can't marry you."

His face fell. "You don't—you don't want to think about it?"

She shook her head mutely. "I—" She choked on the words.

He searched her face. "You don't want to come to D.C., either," he concluded, his eyes going dark with pain.

She wanted to laugh bitterly. Wanted to explain to him that want had nothing to do with it. She raised her eyes, luminous with unshed tears, to meet his. "I can't."

Marcus slipped his hands slowly out of hers, reading the truth on her face. "So…this is it?"

She nodded miserably. "I'm going to call Don tomorrow and tell him I'm going to pass on the job."

"And us?" he said, his voice heartbreakingly uncertain. "We're over, just like that?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered. She was lower than a worm.

He tried to put on a broken smile. "I knew I should have asked somewhere more romantic."

She gave out a little huff of slightly hysterical laughter, then kissed him one last time. "I'm sorry," she said again into his neck when he tentatively slid his arms around her. She gently extricated herself and dashed at her eyes. "You deserve so much better than me, Marcus. You deserve the best."

He just shook his head, his heartbreak clear in his honest eyes. He raked his hand through his hair. "I guess… there's not much left to say, huh?"

"I guess not," she said sadly.

"Okay." He nodded. "I'm just gonna—you know, try to leave here with a shred of dignity intact, so, you know—I guess I'll say good-bye."

She looked at him with regret and longing. "Good night, Marcus."

"Good-bye, Teresa," he said softly, his own longing stamped on his features. "I'll—can we talk again, sometime before I leave? Not—not right away. But maybe in a couple weeks?"

"I'd like that," she said quietly. "Be well, Marcus."

"You, too, Teresa," he echoed. "Take care of yourself." He cast one more searching look at her, and left.

She watched him leave, her heart feeling like a balloon with all the air let out. She took several shuddering breaths to regain control of herself, and then, panic-stricken, realized that the spot she where she was standing was directly in the line of sight from Jane's couch. If he had seen— She turned her head quickly, then exhaled with relief. Empty. Thank God. The idea of him witnessing the scene that had just transpired was nothing less than nightmarish.

The reading lamp next to his couch was on, however, which meant he was still rattling around the building somewhere. She hurried to her desk to get her things, desperate to get out of the bullpen before he returned.

She almost made it. She'd punched the 'down' button and was standing with her keys clutched tightly in her hand, silently urging the elevator to hurryhurryhurry. It was at that moment that Jane wandered out of the break room, a cup of tea in one hand and a book bound in white leather tucked under his arm.

He paused when he saw her. Their eyes met for a long, charged moment. He opened his mouth and took half a step toward her.

The elevator dinged.

The corners of her mouth turned downward and she looked away, staring straight ahead as the doors opened.

She pressed her lips together into a grim line and left without a word.