A/N: Hi ya'll! *waves* So this is a little fic inspired by the song of the same name by Blake Shelton. The first time I heard it, I fell in love with it. The second time I heard it, I squealed, fell off my bed, and yelled, "JANE AND LISBON!" True story. :) You don't need to listen to it to read this, but I highly recommend it. This was beta-ed by lysjelonken, as I'm still giving Lizzybeth93 her Christmas vacation. A huge "thank you!" to both of them! And now, on to the story!

Disclaimer: Bruno isn't sharing, so I'm still hoping. :)

Warning: Spoiler for 3x07 "Red Hot" and language (not terribly bad 'cept at the end)


Who Are You When I'm Not Looking?

As the door slams shut behind her, Lisbon sighs.

What a horribly long day: the lead suspect in their case escaped out of the interrogation room and the AG was on her ass because of it; Hightower was threatening to fire her again; Jane was... well, he had been himself every second. Which made everything just that much worse.

All she wants right now is a drink, a hot bath, and a good night's sleep.

She drops her keys and badge on the side table near the door and heads for the stairs. When she takes the first step, something catches her eye. There's a piece of paper taped to the wall. She looks around suspiciously; nothing else is out of place. Hesitantly she walks towards it and pulls the piece of paper off.

My, oh, my, you're so good-looking
Hold yourself together like a pair of bookends
But I've not tasted all your cooking
Who are you when I'm not looking?

"What the hell?" she wonders aloud.

Lyrics? Someone left song lyrics in her house? ...What if they're still here? She crumples the paper as she continues up the stairs, eyes raking over the familiar surroundings that may now be hiding an intruder. Before she reaches the second floor, she tosses the paper out into the hallway, waiting to see if someone appears at the sound.

No one does, so Lisbon moves up the last few steps. Then she stops.

There is another paper on the wall in front of her. She tears it down, annoyed and more than a little agitated.

Who left these notes? She wonders if she should read it; she decides she should. Maybe it gives her a clue…

It doesn't.

Do you pour a little something on the rocks?

She really wants that drink now.

Slide down the hallway in your socks?

She only does that after they close a case, when there's a reason to celebrate. But how does the note writer know that? Is he spying on her? Does he have cameras? What is going on? Angrily, she tears the paper to shreds and throws them on the floor.

She stares at the shredded pieces for a while, questions racing through her mind.

She's a very private person; there aren't many, if any, people who know these things about her. But, apparently, some unknown person does. It scares her.

She takes a deep breath and attempts to shake it off.

This was creepy as hell, but she wasn't going to let it get to her.

She walks to her bedroom, flipping on the light and making a beeline for the en-suite bathroom, turning on the hot water of the tub. She adds a generous amount of lavender-scented bath soap. The scent overwhelms her with a wave of relaxation. She hopes it will help her sleep; this note-thing has her anxious and more scared than she cares to admit. Sleep isn't going to come easy tonight.

She goes back downstairs to fix her drink. She doesn't find anymore notes on her way down, while she's in the kitchen, or on her way back upstairs; the worry eating at her ebbs a bit.

But then when she reaches the top of the stairs, glass in hand, she comes face to face with another note taped to the wall.

She almost drops her glass.

She tears the note off the wall and reads it:

Don't be scared, Lisbon. It's just me.

Jane

Good Lord. Jane is in her house!

"Where are you?" she yells, knowing full and well he won't answer her.

Bastard.

"Get out!" Nothing.

Lisbon growls as she scrunches it up and throws it down the stairs, nearly shaking with rage. How dare he break into her home and scare the living hell out of her?

She is a trained officer of the law. She could seriously injure him. She would seriously injure him if he showed his face right now!

He knows that, yet he insists on being an idiot. And how can she enjoy her bath knowing that Jane is watching her?

Suddenly, Lisbon smirks. If he's watching her, then she'll give him a show.

Maybe that will teach him a little lesson in professional boundaries.

As she heads back to the bathroom, she begins to undress for her bath, tossing her clothes behind her as she walks. When she reaches the bathroom, she leaves the door open a bit so that if Jane decides to make an appearance, she'll see him. Then she slips into the water with a soft, contented sigh. The lavender-scented bubbles tickle her nose; it makes her smile.

She reaches for her drink and notices something underneath it: another note. How is Jane getting around without her seeing him or, at the very least, hearing him? She sips her drink as she reads.

When you undress, do you leave a path?
Then sink to your nose in a bubble bath?

Lisbon almost chokes. He obviously had been watching her. "Where are you?" she asks again. "What's the point?"

As if to answer her, another piece of paper slides under the bathroom door. She climbs out of the tub and wraps herself in a towel. Her eyes widen when she sees that this is the first note she found, the one she'd used as a decoy to lure him out.

My, oh, my, you're so good-looking
Hold yourself together like a pair of bookends
But I've not tasted all your cooking
Who are you when I'm not looking?

Now there is more, scrawled at the bottom of the page.

I wanna know
I wanna know
I wanna know

"Ah," Lisbon murmurs. The whole purpose of this was to invade her personal life. How thoughtful of him.

"Do you ever wonder why you don't know everything about me, Jane?" She knows he hears her. "Maybe it's because I have secrets. I want to keep some things to myself. You're acting like a stalker or something, and I really, really don't appreciate it. I can't understand why everyone always has to know everything about me!"

Maybe she'd grabbed the wrong booze from the cupboard. Something just a little bit stronger than she intended… Because she's getting a little out of control.

"I hate it! Stop analyzing me!" With that, she heaves her glass at the wall, cringing when it shatters.

She's acting just like her father would have, and that is unacceptable.

She's so frustrated, so angry at Jane. It was like she was yelling at a ghost. Like she was going insane…

She sits on the edge of the tub, her head in her hands. "Just stop," she whispers. "Please."

Unsurprisingly, another note slides under the door.

Lisbon feels the unbelievable urge to shoot it, but what would that accomplish? (Besides, her gun is in the bedside table in her room.) She picks it up wearily and reads the seven words on the piece of paper.

Do you break things when you get mad?

"Funny…" Lisbon mutters. She sighs. She doesn't feel like getting back in the bath, so she drains the water and dries herself off.

She leaves the mess to deal with later and walks to her bedroom in her towel, falling backwards onto her bed. "Jane, I really hate you right now. Just so you know." She doesn't get an answer, but she didn't really expect one either.

Chocolate. She needs chocolate. Now. As if on autopilot, she gets up and goes back downstairs to the kitchen. She knows she has an unopened box of chocolate around here somewhere... Of course. It's in the last cupboard in the row. She pulls it out and jumps a bit when yet another note falls to the floor. She picks it up, sets it on the counter, and tears into the chocolate. After consuming much more than one serving size, Lisbon remembers the note.

Eat a box of chocolates 'cause you're feelin' bad?

The candy turns bitter in her mouth. Leave it to Jane to ruin one of life's simplest pleasures.

She's had enough of this BS, and she wants it to stop, now.

"Jane, I'm not kidding," she calls. "I will report you for breaking and entering, stalking, and vandalism. Get out of my house!"

Utter silence, only broken when Lisbon yawns a few moments later.

He won't try anything while she's sleeping; not if he wants to live.

She trudges upstairs for what she hopes is the last time tonight. She's still in her towel, so she changes into her jersey, too tired to care if Jane is watching. When she goes to her bureau for her hairbrush, there's another note tucked between the only two bottles of nail polish she owns. She has to read it twice, because the lines keep blurring together. Maybe from exhaustion, maybe from the alcohol.

Do you paint your toes 'cause you bite your nails?

"Yes, I do," she snaps. "Now go away."

She lays down and pulls the sheet up to her chin.

Just as she's turning out the light, she hears a phone ringing. Muttering a few choice expletives, she gets up and searches for the pair of jeans she'd been wearing and finds her phone in the front pocket. Locating it, she answers it and yells, "Jane, you son of a—" before she hears the dial tone.

And, of course, there's a note here, too.

Call up Momma when all else fails?

"No," Lisbon says, her voice cracking, "I don't."

Stupid Jane.

Is he trying to make her cry? If so, he's quite close to succeeding.

"I just want to sleep, so leave me alone." She stumbles back to bed and drifts off into a fitful sleep. Her rest is cut short when someone knocks on the bedroom door.

"Jane!" Lisbon screams. "I hate you!"

But still, for reasons unknown, she gets up and staggers to the door, which is now wide open. She slams it shut and locks it securely, then goes to her windows and closes the shades. "If this is another one-liner," she warns the silence.

Who are you when I'm not around?
When the door is locked and the shades are down?

She groans. "You know I hate you, but do you hate me, too? 'Cause that's the message I'm getting."

She goes to the stereo she has in her room and turns it on, spinning the volume dial almost all the way down. Maybe this will help her sleep. Somehow, she ends up back in her bed. Her head falls against the pillow—and something else. Another note.

Guess that means Jane's in her bedroom. Hey, his funeral.

Do you listen to your music quietly?

Lisbon gets up again, stomps over to the stereo, and turns it off. "No, I don't, actually." Her words are almost slurring together. "Please, Jane, just leave."

She was getting tired of this; stomping around her own house, being taunted by scribbled words on scraps of paper!

Once back in her bed, the blankets wrapped around her securely, she finds herself thinking of her night with Walter, for who knew what reason.

She wants to see him again, soon. Maybe they can get married and move far away from Jane and live in a house with the best security available. He could arrange that for her, couldn't he? He liked her well enough. And besides that, his kisses made her melt… You can learn so much about a person in just one night...

...like tonight, with Jane learning almost everything about her that she didn't want him to know.

But Jane doesn't know about her and Walter. Not that she thinks that 'her and Walter' can ever have a future beyond exhaustion-driven fantasies, partly fuelled by anger at another man…

She becomes aware of something touching her shoulder and reaches to brush it away.

It's a note.

Again.

Ugh.

And when it feels just right, are you thinkin' of me?
I wanna know
I wanna know
I wanna know

Okay, maybe he does know... Exhausted and angry, Lisbon lets the paper fall to the floor.

A thing about her is that she can't keep a secret – Jane calls her translucent. Ironically enough, his actions were what made it easy to hide her deepest secret: her true feelings.

She loves him… Or, at least, she did. After tonight, she isn't so sure anymore, but he has no one but himself to blame for that.

"My, oh, my, you're so good-looking," a voice murmurs. "But who are you when I'm not looking?"

"Why are you asking?" Lisbon snaps, her tired eyes opening halfway. "You know now." She's so exhausted that she doesn't even care anymore.

"Hush. Sleep. You need it."

"No shit, Sherlock," she mumbles. Sleep-deprivation makes her add: "But there's one thing you haven't figured out."

"Oh?" Jane purrs. "And what may that be?"

"I'm not telling."

"Come on, Lisbon. It'll just be between you and me."

"You sure?" She can barely keep her eyes focused on his beautiful, smiling face.

"I'm sure. Our little secret."

"Okay... I love you."

Jane laughs. "Oh, Teresa," he breathes, "I already knew that." He kisses her cheek, unsurprised when she doesn't respond. She's asleep now, peaceful and happy.

Just how she should be when he's not looking.

Fin.


A/N: So how did you like it? My birthday is coming up soon... guess what would make a lovely birthday present? Reviews ;) My friend said she's getting me Simon Baker, so I'm excited! :D

When you tell me boring things, I set them free immediately. ~ Patrick Jane