AN: Thanks for all the lovely comments on part I! I'm so glad you all seemed to enjoy it. Without further ado, here's the second and final part.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Mentalist.

Part II

Three weeks pass.

Nothing has changed, and yet everything has. It's a conundrum that I can't quite solve, but I think it has something to do with Jane.

Or everything to do with him.

He invites himself over to my house one Sunday morning. I open the door and stare at him blankly.

"Do we have a case?" I ask, blinking blearily. I realize vaguely that I'm still in my nightwear, and I tug at my hockey jersey, attempting to cover up more of my thighs.

Jane returns my blank stare, and then a second later he shakes his head as though clearing it. It doesn't occur to me until later that his eyes had been drawn to the skin I was trying to cover up.

"Uh, no," says Jane in response to my question, and he hands me a cup of coffee.

I nod at him. "Thanks," I say, taking a sip. Some semblance of normal functioning begins to return to me. "Why are you here, then?"

He has a difficult time meeting my eyes when he responds. "I, uh…just wanted to see you, I guess," he says, shrugging.

Another sip of coffee, and I remember that social convention dictates I invite him inside. "Come on," I say, and he follows me down the hall after closing the door behind him.

"What are you up to today?" he asks.

"Whatever you'll be up to, I expect," I tell him over my shoulder as I head to my room to get changed. I hear him chuckle behind me.

When I return two minutes later wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a tank top, Jane is standing in my living room, examining the boxes which line my walls.

He gives me a reproachful look. "Lisbon," he says, gesturing to everything which I've yet to unpack after the move from Cannon River. "You've been here for months. It's time to, you know, be here."

I'm about to brush him off, to tell him that most of my stuff never got unpacked even in Sacramento, but the sincerity of his tone reverberates in the room and I realize how much I want what he's talking about. I want a home. I want to stay somewhere for a while. Or better yet, permanently.

Our eyes meet, and he must see something in mine because a second later he shrugs out of his suit jacket and rolls up his shirtsleeves. "Alright, it's settled," he says. "I know what we're doing today."

And without another word, he grabs the nearest cardboard box and rips the tape from it.

Two hours later, we're sitting on the ground, our backs against the only section of wall which we've managed to clear of boxes. Jane has just discovered the photo album my mother put together of my elementary school years.

I am encouraged by the lack of embarrassing pictures I've seen so far, so I allow him to continue flipping through it. The smile that's spread across his face as he glances at the photos makes it easy to share this bit of my past with him.

Suddenly, he becomes more somber. "Is that her?"

I tear my gaze from his lips.

I nod, looking at the photo album. "Yeah," I say. "That's my mom."

"She's gorgeous," says Jane, and I have to agree. My mother was a raven-haired beauty whose smile was nearly as radiant as Jane's. I look at the picture more closely, taking in the way she's looking down at me with a soft smile, her hand around my own. I remember the day that picture was taken. My first day of school. She requested off work so she could walk me there herself.

"Yeah," I say. "I'll tell you all about her sometime."

He looks at me. "How about right now?" When my eyes mist over, he puts his hand on my knee. "I've got nothing else to do today, and I've always wanted to get to know her."

I stare at him for a few seconds before I steel myself to answer. "She was a dancer all throughout high school. And she was fantastic—I remember hearing my grandparents talk about going to her performances."

"What happened?" asks Jane, and he's already noted the slight tinge of sorrow in my voice.

"Her senior year, she was accepted to Julliard. But she injured her knee practicing en pointe one day and never healed quite right." I take a deep breath. "She even had multiple surgeries to try to fix it. She told me once that was the worst point of her life—she said she got so depressed that she built up walls around herself, protected herself with armor. She refused to let anyone in."

"And then?"

I run a hand through my hair distractedly. "And then," I say, "she got to know one of the nurses when she was recovering from a surgery. She said that nurse changed her life. She was no longer depressed, and she knew what she was supposed to be doing. She wanted to help people, like her nurses had helped her." I try to smile at him. "She always told me that nursing was her calling, and her talent for dancing helped her find it."

I look away again. "About a month before she died, she told me that nursing was the crack in her armor—it helped remind her to open herself up to life, to love, to laughter." I take another shaky breath. "She said one day I'd find a reason to put up walls around myself. And the last thing I distinctly remember her telling me was that I'd also find something to break them down."

Jane shifts so that our shoulders touch. "She sounds incredible."

"She was," I whisper, and I turn the page of the photo album.

When he opens up the next box, Jane shoots me a curious look. "Lisbon," he says. "What is this?"

I look over from my place across the room, where I'm in the middle of moving my books from a cardboard box to a shelf. "Hmm?" I ask absentmindedly.

"Lisbon," Jane says again, this time with more emphasis, holding up a shoebox which he's already opened. The shoebox is filled with envelopes.

Oh.

There's a beat where I think of what to say.

"Actually," I finally get out, "those are yours."

Jane just looks at me. I can't remember the last time he wore such an expression of confusion.

I sigh. "When you were in South America," I say, walking over to him, "you wrote to me. And I…well, I wrote back."

I grab one of the letters and hold it out for him to see. Like all the others, it has one word written on the envelope.

Jane.

"You wrote letters to me?" he asks, floored. "And you kept them all? Why?" He answers his question before I've even begun to think it through. "You knew you were going to see me again."

I look up at him, and I'm keenly aware all of the sudden that my hand has come to rest on the bare skin of his forearm.

"I hoped I would."

Something catches his eye, and he leans over to pick up another shoebox. This one, I know, contains every letter he sent me.

When he realizes this as well, he sets both shoeboxes down on the couch behind him and gathers me into his arms.

As I stand there in his embrace, my thoughts return to my mother's words.

She was right, I think.

The day she died, I put up my armor.

I never could have predicted that Jane would waltz into my life and be the one to crack it.

Jane leaves shortly after dinner that night.

About an hour later, just as I'm getting ready for bed, he's at my door again.

Feeling a sense of déjà vu, I tug at my hockey jersey and rub at my arms as the chilly night air rushes past him.

When I look at him, I know he's read my letters.

"I want the same thing, you know," he says suddenly, earnestly. "To stay somewhere permanently. To make a home. To be here."

I think back to our conversation this morning, and I wonder how he's managed to read my thoughts.

He takes a step forward. "But more importantly," he says, "I want to be here with you."

Coherent thought becomes nearly impossible.

But Jane waits expectantly, rocking back and forth on his heels. I meet his gaze and see the inner peace I've found reflected in his eyes.

I grab his hand, interlocking our fingers.

"I want that, too," I say, and the last of the armor falls.