A/N: So many great epis this season I can't help getting inspired, and I can't keep up 'cause I really wanted to write about 7x07 too, but then 7x08 happened and this thing begged to be written. Time flies by too fast.

Spoilers: Up to and including 7x08 The Whites of His Eyes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable from The Mentalist, but that doesn't mean I won't write fics about it, I probably will… I'd do it again.

He just wanted to protect her. And though he'd answered hesitantly to the question about him doing it again, he would, no questions asked. The hesitation was only caused by the fact that he knew she didn't want him to.

It had always been tough on him, the dangers of the job. But love had made it simply unbearable. It seemed that ever since they had gotten together all he did was worry about her safety. Every new day presented a new bad guy that could potentially hurt the most precious thing in his life, her. Was it so wrong for him to want to protect her? He didn't think so. And he'd already promised her once, a long time ago, that he'd always be there for her, that he'd save her whether she liked it or not. He knew he didn't really have the best track record when it came to protecting the people he loved. But by some miracle he'd gotten a second chance and he sure as hell wasn't going to squander it this time around. That was why he'd done what he'd done, and would do again. He'd taken her out of the equation. Removed her from harm's way.

One of the things that bothered him was the fact that there were no guarantees in this job, even when they thought they had explored every possible scenario there was still a chance something unexpected could happen.

Jane had empathized with the young husband, being married to a strong willed woman wasn't easy. And when Abbott had tried to comfort him with his words, Jane felt like he had inadvertently spoken to him also: "Your wife wants to do this and we'll do everything to keep her safe. It was a good decision, you need to trust her on it." Of course being an FBI agent was Lisbon's job, she was good at it, and it was her choice. She could make her own decisions, and he needed to trust her enough to let her do that. He just couldn't seem to do that, there was this little nagging voice in the back of his head that sounded a lot like the young man when he'd uttered his concerns for his wife's wellbeing: "If anything happens to her today and I could have stopped it..." Jane didn't know what he'd do if Lisbon got seriously hurt or worse. He didn't think he could go through something like that again.

She had been seething. He knew that if she found out what he'd done she would be, and of course she'd figured it out, she wasn't stupid, and she knew him too well. He had planned it all beforehand and intentionally sent her out of harm's potential reach. If it had been a real threat he'd sent her after she might have been more malleable to forgive him. However that wasn't the case, no, so what she saw was a problem, a really big problem. He had done it purposely, not on a sudden whim. Then again when did he ever do anything without a purpose, his plans had plans, though he wasn't a control freak, far from it, he liked spontaneity as much as the next guy, and sure you couldn't plan yourself out of everything, sometimes something happened that forced him to improvise, but he'd rather not gamble with the life of someone he cared about.

Lisbon had never been a damsel in distress, and she decidedly didn't want to be treated as one either. He knew that. He just couldn't help himself. The protector in him had only grown with the tragedy he'd endured.

Being disempowered, for her, was like someone stripping him of his mentalist powers. It meant losing control, not having anything to rely on. Not being in control of her own faith was very scary for Lisbon, he understood that. As the daughter of an abusive alcoholic, control was the last thing she had left to rely on. And he had taken that away from her. He only felt slightly guilty for hurting her like that, but that didn't mean he wouldn't do it again. If it meant that he could keep her safe and alive, he would do it a million times over.

The only thing that might scare him enough to not do it again was the prospect of losing her love. On second thought he'd rather do it again lose her affections and know she was alright, than not do it and have her die in front of him.

The way she'd looked at him and said: "I don't know... how do we work together?" had done just that. The words had pushed their grabby little fingers at him, like black thorns they had invaded his heart and cast fear into it. That little pause before she changed the sentence had made him panic more than he cared to admit. What didn't she know? Besides their working relationship status. Was she wondering if she'd made a mistake by loving him? Did she regret it? The life she had wasted on him. Did she wish she'd left? Gone to D.C. and married Pike. Or gone somewhere else, as long as it was far away from him? He knew she had a tendency to run away from love, and truth be told so did he. Love was a scary mistress. It created a weakness. It made you vulnerable in ways you wouldn't have thought possible. But that was all he had left to offer her. His love. Nothing else.

"We work it out." was all he'd managed to choke out as a reply. When on the inside he was screaming, begging her not to leave him, not to break what they had built together. This was just a fight. Couples did that. It was normal. They could get past this. Couldn't they? With all the horrors they had already gotten through in the past this was nothing, right? Just an insignificant hiccup in the story of their lives as partners.

His heart was thorn by wanting nothing more than to make her happy - which incidentally equalled her throwing herself in front of bullets and bad guys to protect the innocents - but at the same time not wanting to go through the pain of loss - however his method of achieving that would make her unhappy. It was a no-win situation. Whoever thought life was easy had not read the pages in his book of life, and seriously needed to get their head examined.

He truly believed they could work through this, could work it out, somehow, and if she didn't think that was possible he'd just have to convince her otherwise. They both knew they worked much better together than they did apart.

A/N: Don't know what it is with me and introspective pieces, it seems to be all I can write atm. It's strange 'cause most of the time I like reading things with actual plots, and these things are basically just haywire thoughts.