A/N: This again is a story I wrote long ago, two years ago, in May 2010, finished in March 2011, so not very much up to date, but I think it's pretty timeless. Thanks to Lily Jayne and her Story '1,825', which inspired this little one shot.

Summary: "Where?" She asked, all business. "If I knew that ...". "I just wanted to know if this is the general direction or the exact spot you dropped it." A short moment of silence followed. "I didn't drop it, I threw it."

lost on a graveyard

letting go... or not

"Lisbon?" Jane's voice answered her call. The flippant tone asking her what she wanted sounded a little over the top and that broken, lost sound simmered through, the one with which he greeted her with when he demanded her visiting him in prison to deliver a blueberry muffin, although, not that prominent. For a moment she contemplated ignoring the sound of his voice since he was probably playing her again, but that wasn't in her.

"You alright, Jane?"

"Everything fine," again a little too much flippancy. "You need me? We have a case?"

"Uhm. Yes, but... Where are you?"

Jane was kneeling in the grass, phone gripped in one hand, the other hand by his side itching to comb through the grass again. At Lisbon's inquiry he paused, letting his head sweep from side to side, taking a look around, contemplating what to answer. For a moment he couldn't come up with a reason why he should lie to Lisbon and despite what she may have thought about him he didn't lie to her without a valid reason, so he didn't now. "Cemetery."

"Oh."

"Why did you call?"

"I wanted to interview the sister again, see if she'll change her statement, confronted with the affair, wanna come?" Her invitation sounds unsure, she's still contemplating his location, confused, having a little trouble recalling why she called him in the first place.

Jane's gaze, which had just surveyed the scenery, looking faraway while trying to concentrate on Lisbon's voice on the other end of the line, returned to the ground before him, squinting at the wet grass trying to find a glint.

"I can't," he answered shortly.

Lisbon had enough, her consultant wasn't forthcoming with information on a good day and now she had started organizing her desk while talking to him, her forehead scrunched up, this was bad, her gut told her, and this conversation wasn't leading toward a solution.

"Ok Jane. Which Cemetery are you at?"

Lisbon came to stand beside her kneeling consultant, her shoulders hunched, hands in the pockets of her trousers as if to fight off a chill. Jane didn't look up at her, for which she was thankful since the sight of the arrogant man in the three-piece-suit on all fours in the wet grass totally immersed in his search shocked her. Confusion and raw pity was probably edged into her face right now, easy to read, even for less observant eyes than his.

"Jane...?"

"I threw away my wedding ring."

For a moment Lisbon remained where she was, looking down at him, processing the information, then she dropped down beside him.

Jane's eyes left the ground for a second, giving her a sideways glance, her face was turned toward the ground, hair falling forward obscuring his view.

"Where?" She asked, all business.

"If I knew that ..."

"I just wanted to know if this is the general direction or the exact spot you dropped it."

A short moment of silence followed.

"I didn't drop it, I threw it." He stated sitting back upright, watching her, impressed by how she suppressed the impulse to ask him why. When she didn't react to his bait he continued. "That's the general direction, it must be between here and that tree there... I think."

Lisbon raised her gaze slowly from the grass in front of her to the tree, biting her lip while calculating, sweeping to her left and then her right side, where he sat beside her.

"Somewhere between here and there," Jane offered the latitude of the search area, drawing lines with his arms. Lisbon nodded shortly, still not looking at him, scooting a bit to the left. "I'll search this side, you that, we move forward to the tree," she ordered and started the search.

For a moment Jane just watched her, not really surprised by her attitude and still overwhelmed.

Total silence engulfed the two figures as they crawled forward, until Lisbon's left hand snatched something and she sat up again, "Got it." she turned towards her companion, stretching her hand forward, waiting for his hand to drop the ring into it.

Jane raised the ring to examine it as if to make sure it was the right one.

"Thank you." he said, solemnly, still, staring at the ring.

"You're welcome." She curiously watched him, contemplating what to do now, her eyes widening as Jane let the wedding band slip into the breast pocket of his jacket.

She let out a sigh, looking away from him and letting her gaze sweep over the tombstones. "Where are they?" She asked, nearly whispering, intent on giving Jane the chance to just ignore her question.

Jane stood up, sweeping over his trousers, before offering her a hand to get up. Without a word he turned and went down a row, Lisbon warily following.

He came to stand before a stone and Lisbon stayed behind him to his side, reading the names of his wife and daughter.

"I..." Jane started, looking back and forth between her and the headstone, "I wanted to let go."

She bit her lip again, then she turned away from the stone, sideways toward him, stepping closer.

"It's always black and white with you, isn't it," she said, accusing but sympathetic. Her hands came up and Jane stared at her, now really surprised as she took off the cross hanging around her neck. She let the pendant slide from the simple golden chain, pocketing it in her jacket pocket. Holding the dangling chain on one end, she stretched out her other hand, looking at him expectantly. His eyebrows scrunched as, for once, he needed a second to read her intentions. As soon as he got it he fished the ring out of his breast pocket and handed it over, she threaded the chain trough the golden band and holding both ends of the chain now she raised her hands holding it out to him, hands hoovering left and right of his face as if she intended to put it around his neck herself, before remembering their height difference. He took the chain from her, hands touching, and clasped it around his neck, giving her a slight smile.

"This isn't the original chain?" He asks, for once unsure, she's so damn selfless he wouldn't put it past her.

"I'm a cop," she states, as if that would explain everything, "The original broke years ago, and I've got a spare one at home."

"Always prepared!" He says it in a mocking tone, trying for a joke to disperse the tension.

Lisbon swallows audible and Jane turns his head scrutinizing her and what he's just said.

"It broke when I was shot." She offers and Jane stops walking.

"Nothing bad," she continues without looking back at him and he starts walking again, although 'being shot' and 'nothing bad' don't go together in his mind.

"When I woke up the chain was gone... and," she stops talking for a moment, gathering her thought and Jane remains silent, his eyes fixed on her face.

She smiles, "and the search area was a bit bigger than that today. I didn't even know at what point I'd lost it."

Jane nods to himself, she still isn't looking at him. He's still a little lightheaded, it's silly really how much he panicked when he couldn't find his ring. If someone asked he'd say that it's just a ring and he's wearing it for tactical reasons, like everything he wears, or does, these days (clothes, accessories and masks). He doesn't believe Angela is in another place and would notice it if he where to misplace the ring, she's neither here nor there, she wouldn't care if and for whatever reason the ring would get lost. Rationally he doesn't know why he clings to the ring, the way he does, it's not that he has to assure himself that she loved him or that he still is loving her, sometimes he thinks he's wearing it to punish himself and there's even some logic in that, but he suspects there's more. It hurt, searching through the grass not knowing where it was, he didn't feel liberated.

Lisbon isn't a liar like him, maybe she'd get defensive and deflect if someone asked about her cross, but she wouldn't outrageously lie, at least he thinks so and she wouldn't lie to herself about it, that he's sure of, she's braver than that. She knows she's carrying the necklace for sentimental reasons and she's not above admitting that loosing it would hurt. He wonders if that would make it less painful, that and the years that lie between her and the losses she clings to when she's locking that chain around her neck. So many years and she's still wearing it religiously, although she's not as religious as she used to be as a child, not as religious as Grace, unsure about her status herself. The cross around her neck isn't about that, he's known that for a long time. It belonged to her mother, although he hasn't figured out yet how she got it, it's so long ago she hasn't written it in her face anymore, when her hand goes up to touch her talisman. She may have gotten it from her mother, or from someone close to her, after her mothers death, he's quite sure he can count out her father, maybe she snatched it herself and hid it away from him. Jane is quite sure she hasn't much mementos of good times and while Lisbon may not be the type to cluster her home with keepsakes, he suspects it isn't by her choosing that there are so few pictures of her and her brothers, none of her mother he could sneak a look at yet. It must have been her father who choose to drown himself in alcohol and tried to forget.

So Lisbon's cross is one of the very few things she still has in order to remember, she doesn't have a haunted house in Malibu and a rattled mattress on the floor of a memory laden room and that sure isn't something he wishes on her, it's not a good thing, but considering that loosing the cross would cut her off of every physical reminder of the family she had before she had to grow up and couldn't rely on anyone, it hurts him to imagine her waking up in a hospital bed after being shot and not finding it. He concludes it must have hurt her a bit too.

They are standing now he realizes, they still haven't left the cemetery and Lisbon is looking up at him with concern, she seems to wait and he seems to be an open book too sometimes, because she obviously can see him coming back from his thoughts and continues. "The cross turned up in evidence, so I must have lost it at the crime scene, but the chain, maybe it still hung on me, broken, when I was carried away. It never showed up."

Shot, carried away, nothing bad? And now she's telling him this story to reassure him, or what? It's failing if that was her intention. His hand goes up, fingering his wedding band on the short chain around his neck. "Maybe I should stick it back onto my finger." He muses lightly.

"Probably would be even saver there, unless you'd get your hand chopped off...", she agrees, just as much on the joking side as he was, but then she gets serious again, "but letting go... just a bit. Might be good and... you can't make sure you'll never loose anything again."

Jane doesn't bother covering a sigh, "No, not by clinging to anything. If I where to let go of everything that ever mattered to me, on the other hand..."

A hand grabs his. "You don't do that." A firm and bossy voice states and then they cross the gates of the cemetery and Lisbon heads to her car and he get's into his and follows her, just concentrating on trailing her and belatedly he notices they don't go to interview the sister again. Lisbon leads them back to head quarters and when they arrive in the kitchen, after traveling together to and through the building, without exchanging a word, he reaches up to the cupboard to get his cup and she just throws a gaze his way to make him get her a cup too and she prepares his tea for him although he's standing right beside her and could do it himself to avert the possibility of him griping about the results. She grabs the tea cup in one hand and her coffee in the other and carries both to her office. Cho raises an eyebrow when he watches a lost Jane following his boss, balancing both cups, one of them on a saucer no less. Rigsby and Van Pelt don't look up as Jane skips ahead and opens the door for Lisbon. She puts his cup down on her couch table and continues on to her desk with her coffee.

He watches her back, but turns away from her before she sits down in her chair facing him. A sip from his cup affirms that she got it just right and he lies back on her couch, props his feet on the armrest and puts his left hand under his head, his right one goes to his chest and travels up until it reaches his ring and then the chain it's hanging on. He closes his eyes and falls asleep, not letting go.