A/N: The following is a special birthday gift to my friend and writing partner, starry19. Hope you're still awake to enjoy it!

The Mentalist: I'm Really Here

Lisbon groaned as the phone rang at nine-thirty a.m. on this, her day off. But with the FBI, just as with the CBI, she was never truly off. Jane had once said that death never takes a holiday, but she thought he probably hadn't made that up himself.

She reached for her cell phone by her bed. It was Kim Fischer calling.

"Hello," she said, trying to sound pleasant.

"Lisbon. Sorry to bother you on your day off, but have you seen Jane this morning?"

"No," she said honestly. "Not since yesterday. Why?"

"Because it's not his freakin' day off, that's why, and he's not in the office. I know he took the Weslo file, and Abbot's on my ass to get it back. I'm standing right outside his damn trailer, and his crappy car is parked right outside. The curtains are all drawn—I know he's in there, but he's not answering the door, or his phone."

"He does that stuff sometimes," she said. "He likes to be alone. He also likes to mess with you if he thinks it bothers you. He's like a little kid that way."

"Well, I'm gonna mess with him if he doesn't come into work with that file soon!" She raised her voice on the last few words, so Jane would be sure to hear her inside his Airstream.

"I'll try to talk to him," she said.

"Thanks. And sorry again. Go back to what you were doing. See you tomorrow."

"Okay. Bye."

She clicked off the phone and looked down at the covers, which were currently shielding Jane from her view. She gasped as his tongue flicked her in just the right spot, and she could hear his muffled laughter beneath the blankets.

"Aww, Teresa," she heard him say. "I take back everything I ever said about you being a bad liar."

She moaned aloud, felt her inner thighs tremble as he added two of his fingers to the mix.

"I—I didn't lie. I haven't seen you today. I woke up five minutes before she called to—to find—ahh—to find myself being attacked under the covers…"

She closed her eyes tightly as he sucked on the tight little bud at the apex of her sex. When he crooked his finger within her at the same time, she saw white lights flashing behind her eyes, and she cried his name as she came. Jane was relentless though, would not allow her a moment to collect herself before he slid up her body to suck hard on her nipples before plunging inside of her with a moan of his own.

"Semantics," he breathed into her neck. "But that's what makes a good liar—the ability to parse words to your advantage."

He began with a slow, sensuous rhythm, and her legs, though still numb from her first climax, wrapped around his waist, her bare feet pushing him more deeply inside her body.

"Oh…God…Jane…" she said, her voice coming out raspy as he continued to thrust, filling her completely, then nearly leaving her before plunging back home with the help of her determined heels.

It had always been this way, from the moment they'd first kissed.

A week after he'd gotten out of the FBI's detention suite, he'd tracked her down to her new apartment. She'd answered the door wearing hole-ridden blue jeans and an old CBI t-shirt, her hair in a messy bun, even messier from her fight with the mattresses.

Jane had looked her up and down in amusement, then presented her with a small potted cactus.

"Welcome to Texas," he said with a grin as wide as the state itself.

She shook her head and smiled back at his housewarming gift, ushering him inside.

"Maybe I won't kill this little guy," she said, putting her new addition on the bar in the kitchen. He'd remembered how she had a decidedly black thumb where vegetation was concerned.

He looked around the bright, sunny living room in appreciation, then, from behind his back he produced a six-pack of beer.

"Pizza's on the way," he said. "You know how long it's been since I've had pizza?"

"Two years," she guessed, raising an eyebrow.

"And two weeks and three days," he finished wryly.

He set the beer beside the cactus. "I've come to help," he announced. He was wearing one of his island shirts, untucked, with a pair of his old suit slacks, his new wool socks and familiar brown shoes. He'd actually left off his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves, ready, apparently, to get to work.

She shook her head. "Too late. Cho helped me move all the big stuff in this morning. It's just a matter of rearranging and unloading boxes now."

He frowned. "Why didn't you ask me?"

She shrugged, and she sensed his hurt feelings with some surprise.

"I didn't want to bother you," she hedged, averting her eyes.

Jane normally didn't get his feelings hurt, not by anyone. Normally he was the hurt-er, not the hurt-ee. On the plane ride to Brooklyn, their first job together in years, he'd finally seemed to recognize that he was too self-absorbed to consider the feelings of others. Now, he was about two days late on this offer of help, but at least he'd eventually thought to offer.

"Well," he said, recovering his bright smile, "I can at least help you with those boxes."

"Thanks," she said.

They dined on pizza and beer standing at the bar—she hadn't yet bought bar stools-and two beers in for each of them, she felt his eyes on her, as if drinking her in along with the alcohol.

"I missed you," he said softly. "I missed this."

"I missed you too," she said shyly, and her heart gave a loud thump.

"I promise, Lisbon, I'll never do that to you again."

She was silent, wary.

"Okay." She took a swig of beer to cover her skepticism.

"I understand why you don't believe me, but it's true. I've changed, Lisbon. I find that my priorities are suddenly…different."

"I'm happy for you, Jane. And you do seem different. Lighter. Happier. You wear it well."

He smiled. "Thanks. I feel good. And you—you're different too."

"How so?" she asked, genuinely curious. Of course she had to have changed. Her entire world had been torn apart—her job, her work family. Jane—a category all by himself.

"You seem freer somehow, Lisbon, as if the weight of the world isn't on your shoulders anymore."

"You mean, the weight of you," she added. "I don't have to worry that your bad behavior is going to get me in trouble. You're not my responsibility anymore."

"Well," he said. "I'm really happy for you, Lisbon."

He was hurt again. This must be some kind of a record.

She reached a hand across the bar and touched his hand. "It's a good thing, Jane… for both of us, I think."

He nodded, and she squeezed his hand before releasing him. She stepped away, picking up the paper napkins and closing the pizza box.

"Okay, then. You ready to work?" She held up her nearly-empty bottle and he clinked his against before downing the rest in one gulp.

"Ready."

Two hours later, and Jane had arranged her knick-knacks on the shelves (many of which were seashells he'd sent her from South America), unloaded her books (mostly crime novels) and alphabetized them for her. He even smiled when he'd found the shoeboxes full of his letters that he'd sent her, and placed them lovingly on a shelf of their own. He'd arranged the throw pillows in a perfect line on her couch, and he'd hung her framed classic movie posters on the wall above it. She'd been busy in the only bedroom, and between tapping in nails for her pictures, he could hear her humming some pop tune that he didn't recognize. He'd sort of been out of the loop of everything popular the last couple of years.

Suddenly, a yelp of surprise and a cry for help had him running into the bedroom.

She'd been trying by herself to mount her new flat screen TV on the wall, and apparently one of the bolts she'd drilled in earlier hadn't fully gone into a stud. She was holding up the large TV for dear life. He rushed to her side, taking one end of the flat screen before it fell to the floor.

"Why didn't you call me to help you with this?" he asked, as they lowered it gently to the carpet together.

One look at her flushed face, and he knew the answer. It was the same answer to his earlier question about why she hadn't asked him to help move her stuff into the apartment. She didn't trust him, couldn't depend on him. And he didn't blame her a bit for doubting him.

Suddenly, the need to make her believe overwhelmed him, and he pulled her up from her crouching position and into his arms. He hugged her tightly to his body, so close that he could feel the erratic pounding of her heart beneath his own.

"I'm sorry," he breathed into her messy hair. "For everything. For leaving you by the shore. For running to South America without you. But I'm here now. I'm here. I'm really here."

At first her arms had hung limply between them in surprise, but as his words began to sink in, her eyes filled with tears, and she hugged him back with something akin to relief.

Her breath hitched in her throat, and she squeezed her eyes shut. His warm hands rubbed her back soothingly, and she felt his very first kiss on her wet cheek. He lingered there, hoping she would become accustomed to the feel of his lips on her skin and relax into his arms. But as long as she lived, she would never get used to the trippy way her pulse reacted to him, to the way her stomach clenched as she learned the shape of his full mouth against her skin.

After a long moment, she gave a tremulous sigh, then she turned her head and found his lips with her own. He gasped softly at the first intimate touch, and from there, their bodies took over, and it wasn't long before they found themselves naked and rolling around upon the bare mattress.

Jane couldn't seem to stop kissing her, and she returned those kisses passionately with her own, all the emotions of more than a decade bursting free now, emptying them and filling them both at the same time.

His hands and his mouth were everywhere, as if he didn't know where to start or to settle. He commented ardently on her beauty, and she strained against him, anxious to feel him inside of her after all these years of wondering, of longing.

"I love you," he said, the words wrapped up in the profound sensuality of the moment. She paused to look up into his eyes, misty green with desire.

"I believe you," she said, her small hand resting on the soft beard on his cheek. "And I-I love you too."

"I'm glad, Lisbon," he said with a small smile, and then he joined his body with hers. "Very, very glad."

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

That had been six months ago, and they had managed to keep their affair a secret, even in the midst of one of the greatest investigatory agencies in the world. Jane never failed to appreciate the irony of it. And so he went out in the Airstream with Kim Fischer instead of Lisbon. Allowed Abbot and her to order him onto one boring case after another, solving them easily with only a small part of his brain-the rest of which was consumed by thoughts of Lisbon and what he planned to do with her once they were alone.

She snuggled closer to him beneath the blankets on her bed, their bodies cooling from their recent exertions, their hearts finding their normal, synchronous rhythm.

"Bets on how long it will be before Kim realizes I'm not in the Airstream," he said in amusement.

"I don't know. Do you think she'll try to pick the lock?"

"Doubtful. She's even more by-the-book than you were the first day we met. It took me the better part of a decade to beat that out of you—I've only known Fischer for a few months."

"You're really mean," she said, and he could feel her smile against his chest. "You'd better make an appearance though and give her that file back. She doesn't deserve the hard time Abbot might give her because of it."

He chuckled. "I put the damn thing back into her desk yesterday when she wasn't looking. All she has to do is open the right drawer."

"Jane," she chided, slapping him gently across his naked stomach. "Get on your phone and call her right now—that's an order."

"Oh, really," he said. He turned over and pinned her hands to the bed. "You're not the boss of me. We're partners, remember?"

"Yes," she said, lifting her hips up to meet his burgeoning hardness. "How could I forget?"

A/N: Happy Birthday, my friend :). Thanks to everyone else who read this too.