A/N: I had this funny idea and it wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it and posted it. I'm still writing my multi-chapter "Moonlight" fic, but I'll be back here again for a longer "Mentalist" story soon. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this spot of fluffiness.

Red Jane

"Oh, my God, Jane! Wake up!"

Teresa Lisbon shook the blonde who was lying on the beach blanket beside her. Every part of skin exposed by the Hawaiian print surfboard shorts he wore was red as a beet, including his face. She imagined she looked very similar, both of them being fair-skinned and all.

"Huh? What?" Despite her anxiety, she couldn't help the slight jump of her heart when he opened his sleepy blue eyes and looked at her.

"We fell asleep in the sun! We're both burnt to a crisp."

He grinned, closing his eyes again and lifting his face to the sun. "It couldn't be all that bad," he said indulgently, amused by her dramatic tone.

"I knew we should have put on more sunscreen after we went swimming. But no, I trusted you to bring the good stuff. The waterproof, SPF two-million, twenty-four hour stuff. Now look at me! Look at us! How are we ever going to explain this, Jane?"

It had only been a week since they'd first made love. Only a week of hiding their relationship from the rest of the team. They'd done pretty well, Lisbon had thought, despite the fact that he'd been at her apartment nearly every night, both of them losing sleep from, well—not using her bed for actually sleeping. She blushed at the thought of her uncharacteristic overindulgence, enhancing her sunburn tenfold.

Fully awake now, Jane sat up. He looked out at the Pacific Ocean before them, the sound of the surf pounding the shore refusing to allow him to freak out about a little sunburn. When he'd seen they would be having an unusual December heat wave that weekend, he couldn't resist the thought of seeing Lisbon in a bikini. So he'd been ecstatic when she'd agreed to take a ride down the coast with him where they could relax the Saturday away with little chance of seeing anyone they knew. And her bright yellow two-piece didn't disappoint. He wasn't going to let this minor setback spoil their day.

Before she could continue her rant—something about sunscreen and explanations—he rolled over and took Lisbon with him, effectively pinning her to the towel-covered sand.

"Jane—" she protested. But he smothered her words with a hot, wet kiss, slowly savoring her lips while experiencing the heaven of their sun warmed bodies melting together, surrounded by the scents of coconut and the sea. She didn't resist him long, and with a low moan, her hands slid up his bare back to tangle in his hair, made even curlier by the briney water. His legs tangling with hers, he moved from her mouth to her ear.

"Forgive me, Lisbon," he whispered, "but I've gotten even less sleep than usual this week. Can't blame a guy for catching some z's in the warm sunshine, next to a beautiful woman."

He felt her smile against his cheek and he pulled back slightly to look at her. She was adorable, her eyes bright green in the sunlight, chestnut hair finding its natural wave in the salty air. She continued to play with his hair as he grinned at her pink face.

"I think you've gained a few more freckles from our little outing." He leaned forward and kissed her nose. Her eyes narrowed.

"I'll never trust you with something as important as sunscreen again," she said, but he could tell she was just pretending to be mad.

"Yes, you will. And you'll trust me with a case…and your body…and your life." He punctuated each phrase with a kiss. "Those things are infinitely more important than sunscreen."

"You're not concerned with skin cancer? Because it only takes one bad burn-"

She laughed against his mouth as he obviously enjoyed this new way of shutting her up. But things became very serious very quickly, and they forgot for a moment about being on a public beach, surrounded by laughing families on wholesome, innocent outings.

"Get a room, you perverts!" said a mother, dragging two twin toddlers through the sand beside their blanket. Jane and Lisbon broke apart as if someone had thrown cold water on them. They both laughed nervously, then decided it was time to pack it in for the day.

"Seriously, though," Lisbon said later, adjusting her cover up dress as she sat in the passenger seat of Jane's Citroen. "We need to think of a cover story here. I mean, we can't walk into HQ on Monday both looking like lobsters. It's a hive of detectives there—they'll know immediately what we've been up to, then it's bye bye CBI."

"Really, Lisbon. Just tell them we spent the day at the beach. No one will give it a second thought." But Jane was lying merely to comfort her. He'd seen himself in the mirror in the restroom before they left; they really did resemble boiled crustaceans. It wouldn't take much to guess that whatever they'd been up to, they'd been up to together.

"And what reason would we have for being on the beach long enough to have third degree burns?"

He sighed, and she took a moment to admire his bare arms below the sleeves of his blue t-shirt. Who would have thought he'd been hiding such a great body beneath those three-piece suits? Too bad said body was going to be very red and painful by morning.

"You were teaching me how to surf?" he ventured.

She laughed. "I don't surf. You told me you were the surfer once upon a time."

"Okay, I was teaching you. Details, Lisbon. I told you once cops were bad liars. Lying successfully is all in the simple details and in the delivery. Too complicated makes it obvious you're fabricating a story. Too little information—you're likely hiding something. It has to be something simple enough to be believable, but no matter what you choose, you have to believe what you're saying when you say it."

She sighed sarcastically. "Oh, sorry. I totally forgot I was dealing with Mr. Pants On Fire here."

"Okay," he continued, ignoring the insult. "We were running in a marathon. Scratch that—"he said, at Lisbon's snort of disbelief. It might be believable that Lisbon was running a marathon, but Jane? "A walk-a-thon then. For cancer research. We could even end up sounding very noble here."

"I'm not going to lie about cancer, Jane. That's tempting Karma just a little too much, don't you think?"

"Okay…our car broke down in the desert, and we had to walk ten miles…"

"Why would we be in the desert?"

"I don't know—a case?"

"What case?"

"Lisbon," he said, more amused than frustrated, "Stop being a cop for five minutes and go with it."

"I can't. And besides, these are the kinds of arguments the cops at the CBI are going to be asking."

"People will believe anything—even cop people—if you put the right spin on it. You know why we have the old expression about truth being stranger than fiction? We want to believe."

"Okay, Agent Molder," Lisbon grinned. "Spin a tale for me. Convince me that we got these sunburns other than lying on the beach all day."

"Alright, alright, give The Master a minute to come up with something."

"Can I listen to the radio while you do?"

"No. Now be quiet, woman. These things take incredible concentration."

Twenty minutes later, during which time Lisbon amused herself by whistling the theme to "The X-Files"under her breath, then dozing lightly, Jane made a startling sound of Eureka. She jumped a little in her seat.

"Okay," he said, "I got it."

He proceeded to tell her a tale, brilliant in its simplicity, By the end of it, she was looking at him in awe.

"You should really write novels, Jane. I felt like I was actually there, living it, just like you said I was."

He reached over for her hand, bringing it up to his mouth for a kiss. "Good. Now let's go over the details again so we can keep our stories straight."

Monday Morning…

Jane lay on his couch as the rest of the team trickled in. Van Pelt arrived, newspaper and cup of coffee in hand. She caught sight of Jane's face, still bright red, his nose peeling slightly.

"What happened to you?" she asked curiously.

"It's not just my story to tell," he said mysteriously.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Rigbsy around a bite of chocolate doughnut.

"Maybe it means it's none of our business," Cho suggested, taking a seat at his desk, then booting up his computer.

As if on cue, Lisbon arrived in the bullpen, carrying her own Styrofoam cup and a file folder. Her face still held the flush of sunburn, despite her attempt to hide it as best she could cosmetically. Her coworkers looked from her to Jane and back again. Her face reddened even more at their speculative expressions. Jane sat up, catching the eye of his secret lover in amusement.

"Well, here's my partner in crime," he grinned.

"You guys must have had a rough weekend," Van Pelt ventured.

"You don't know the half of it," Lisbon said, her tone carefully understated.

"Well, they're just going to start imagining all sorts of things if we don't tell them, Lisbon," said Jane.

"Fine. Go ahead. You tell stories much better than I do." She acted suitably exasperated.

So Jane launched into the story he'd concocted, his voice by turns intense or humorous, so that by the end, they'd hung on every word in rapt attention. Van Pelt even grabbed a tissue to dab at her eyes.

"Oh, my God, Jane. That was—wow—just, wow."

"That's amazing, Boss," said Rigsby, "the way everything seemed to work out like that in the end."

"Yeah," Cho concurred, but his interrogator's sharp gaze focused on Jane. His dark eyes narrowed slightly. Jane only smiled.

"Well, that's all there was to it," Lisbon said dismissively. "Jane, can you go over this file with me please? Some loose ends with the Ernesto case."

"Certainly, Lisbon."

And the pair left the others to absorb all they'd just heard.

"He's lying off his ass," Cho said blandly, eyes scanning his e-mail.

"I could see Jane making that up, but the boss going along with it? That's not like her," insisted Rigsby.

"What could they be hiding?" Van Pelt wondered. Cho looked up and gave her a meaningful stare. Suddenly, the light of understanding turned on behind the red-head's clever eyes.

"No," she protested. "No way."

"What?" asked a clueless Rigsby. Van Pelt gave him her own version of the Cho mind-meld. Rigsby laughed heartily.

"You guys are seriously messed up. Those two? Come on!"

Cho shrugged. He'd had his suspicions about Lisbon and Jane since Thanksgiving, and this outlandish story to explain a sunburn was the final confirmation in his mind. He'd leave Rigsby and Van Pelt to make their own observations.

The trio fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. Van Pelt picked up her copy of The Sacramento Bee, scanning the headlines as she did every day, mentally filing away information that might come in handy on a future case. On page three, a small article in the Human Interest section caught her eye.

"Mysterious Good Samaritans Save Family of Four."

She read through the article, amazed at the similarities to the story Jane had just shared.

"Look at this," she exclaimed, getting up to bring the paper to her colleagues. The men looked over it, eyes widening as they read.

"I feel terrible now for doubting them," said Van Pelt sheepishly.

"They could have read the paper first, then concocted the whole story," Rigsby said, jumping on the skeptic's bandwagon. Cho noted how Jane had offered a lot more details than were in the article.

"This would be easy enough to check out," he said.

"The names of the family members are right here. If Jane had fabricated this story, he would have had to cover a lof of bases in a very short time," Van Pelt pointed out. "I think it happened just like they said. Wayne's right. No way Lisbon would go along with such an outrageous lie."

"I guess," responded Cho, but he wasn't convinced.

The speculation continued a few minutes longer, until Hightower walked through to say good-morning, effectively stopping all extraneous conversation.

Meanwhile, in Lisbon's office, Jane peeked through the closed blinds to watch the reactions of the rest of the team. The way they were huddled, he'd bet a million dollars they were still discussing the story he'd told them. He grinned at his handiwork, then squinted as Van Pelt brought the newspaper to the men, and the conversation seemed to get much more animated.

"What the-? Lisbon, why would they be interested in the morning paper all of a sudden?" He hated when the unexpected happened to muddy up his well-laid plans.

Lisbon was sitting at her desk, eyes on her computer while sipping her coffee. She chuckled softly, shuffling through the stack of papers on her desk until she found the folded copy of her own Monday edition. She tossed it to him. His eyes scanned the page until he found the article Van Pelt had no doubt discovered. He looked up at Lisbon in surprise.

"How did you-?"

"I know someone at The Bee," she said smugly.

"Now this hurts, Teresa. You didn't have faith in my prevarication skills?"

"Number one rule in police procedure: never go in without back-up."

His appreciative white smile clashed with his red face. "I really want to kiss you right now."

He walked toward her desk, a certain gleam in his eye she'd come to know very well this past week. He leaned across her desk, invading her personal space with his warmth and intoxicating charisma.

"Not at work, Jane," she breathed, her heart picking up speed at the wicked promise in his eyes. "But you can reward me later, however you want."

"Okay," he said, his tongue sneaking out to touch his upper lip sensuously. "Your aloe vera or mine?"

A/N: I hope you had as much fun as I did with this. I'd love to hear your thoughts!