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and love… is not what i thought it was.
more like an animal crawling deep into a cave
than a romance novel heroine being swept away.
more like surrendering to something,
and more like resting than running.
—
There’s a beauty in surrender.
This is an unusual thought for Patrick Jane, who has spent his life scrambling and clawing for every itch of his successes. More money for going too far. More notoriety for bigger psychic readings, the ones that hooked his clients for life. More comfort, more luxury, never giving in and never giving up. Even Angela, with whom he had been his most authentic self, had been a victim of his greed, of more, more, more. He had pursued her relentlessly, married her as quickly as possible, convinced her that running away meant nothing if he couldn’t continue his work. By the time they had Charlotte, he had trapped them both in his ideal life.
Even love was something to chase, to run, to cage. Something to win.
In that chaotic hotel room at the Blue Bird, though, full of murder suspects and lovers-left-behind, something wakes in him. An understanding. Perhaps with age, with experience. Perhaps with the knowledge of a desperate man on the cusp of losing everything.
Lisbon is different.
Lisbon has been different from the beginning, of course, even before this particular realization. Jane has been in love with her for so long that it is a part of him. His deep and abiding devotion to her informs everything he does. He feels it from the curls on his hair begging for her touch to the tips of his toes that he would love to be trod on as he play-waltzes her through their shared living room. He feels his love with every fiber of his being, but he’s never really thought about how it feels.
The opposite of before. No chasing. No running. No caging.
Instead, for the longest time, Lisbon’s presence has been the only place he can rest. The only place where he can close his eyes and feel the pit in his stomach loosen, feel the tension ease from his muscles. With Lisbon, his smiles come easier, and his kindness is given more freely. He lowers his defenses, his trust in her fathomless and implicit.
And yet, despite his certainty of her returned feelings and the death of the man who threatened anyone dear to him, he hesitated. After the rush of seeing her again, he had pulled back, knowing their inevitability, but uncertain how to move forward in a way that would ensure her lasting presence in his life. He would rather be Lisbon’s friend than nothing, and he had clung to that excuse, endlessly plotting, never acting.
And then: Ted Randolph’s words about cowardice had cut through the gordian knot of his mind. He had let Lisbon go without any knowledge of his true feelings, to a man who he knows she doesn’t love. The idea of Lisbon settling because of his weakness is a dagger, slipping between his ribs and piercing his heart.
He has been thinking that it’s all so messy, so impossible to untangle, but that’s not true. It’s all incredibly simple. In that conference room, Jane had gathered Lisbon in his arms and felt peace. And ever since then, he’s just been getting in his own head. There’s no need to woo her. Love… Lisbon’s love… is not what he thought it was.
She doesn’t need him to win her. She doesn’t need to chase her, even though he does end up on a frantic run across the Miami airport tarmac. That’s not the point. There is no need to break into the cage around her heart. There is only one thing she truly requires of him: to hold his heart out to her and beg her to let him rest in her arms.
So he does.
He surrenders to her.
And even as she shakes her head, tells him that he’s too late, he feels almost euphoric with his own honesty. It makes him happy to give her the truth, and he tells her so. He doesn’t want her to go to Pike. He wants her to take another chance on the man he is, broken and complicated and ready to curl up like a dog at her feet, but hers. He’s hers.
Even after they’ve kissed, with the TSA agent banging on the window and all, he can hardly believe it. She has claimed him. He’s hers. He smiles at her, unfiltered and ridiculous as she arranges their release. He could care less. He will stay in TSA custody forever, as long as she is with him.
Fortunately, the decision is not his. A few hours later, she winds herself around his body, under his arm, as she helps him hobble out of the airport. The man he was before would call this a win. But this is not winning, this is his path back to that peace he had in her arms all those months ago. She has now seen him as he is: that trembling, dark animal in the road, flayed open to his grieving and greedy soul, unable to escape the horrors of the open road. But Lisbon has stopped the car for him. She’s taking him home.
Peace is coming.
—
It is seven in the morning when they arrive back at the lodge. The lobby is quiet with the exception of a few people gearing up for an early morning run. His room has been cordoned off as a crime scene, but hers is still booked despite her hasty departure. She digs the key out of her purse with her other arm still tight around his waist, and he leans his cheek against her dark hair. He closes his eyes, and he inhales. She still smells of cinnamon. He could cry at the familiarity.
“Jane? Does it hurt?” She sounds concerned, and for a moment, he doesn’t understand. How could she be concerned when everything is finally perfect?
Oh. He is crying. Just a little, of course. Tears of awe, welling beneath his eyelids without falling.
“No, my dear,” he says, soft and warm and completely unarmed. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”
She smiles shyly at him before turning her attention back to the door, carefully easing them both inside. She sets him on the bed before turning for the bathroom.
He catches her hand as she steps away from him, in loathe to let her out of his reach, let alone his sight. What if she changes her mind? What if she leaves him? The ache in his heart at the mere thought is debilitating, and he tightens his hold on her. He can’t lose this new feeling, like the world could end around them and he wouldn’t mind. Like an animal crawling deep into a cave with no desire or need to ever crawl back out. He’ll die without it.
Searching his gaze, she sees enough to squeeze his hand in comfort. “I’m just going to get you some ice,” she tells him. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” he replies. “Come here.”
“It’ll swell-”
“Come here, Teresa.”
She acquiescences immediately, directing him to scoot back on the bed before she crawls in beside him. He leaves his arm lying across the pillows, pleased when she takes the invitation to prop her head up on his shoulder. Curling his arm around her, he tugs until she’s pressed against his side. Her soft warmth against his body is more curative than any bag of ice, he thinks, as he presses his nose against her hair.
“There’s so much to do,” she says quietly. “I have to cancel my transfer. I need to call the airline and get my bags back from DCA. I should speak to Abbott immediately-”
“No more running for the foreseeable future, please,” he insists, raising his hand so he can guide her head more comfortably into the space between his neck and shoulder. When she goes willingly, throwing a leg over his thighs to snuggle in deeper, he sinks heavily into the mattress. There are years of tension leaving his body. He never wants to leave her arms.
When he drops his free hand to curve around her upper thigh, she smiles against his neck. “We’ve done enough of that,” she agrees, before he feels her smile fade. “I need to call Marcus back.”
Jane is relieved at the implication that at least part of that hard conversation is done. He knows Pike got caught up in the mess between them, that it is unfair of them to have worked this out at the last minute, but he can’t say he’s particularly impressed by the man either. “You already called him?”
She nods. “We spoke before I came to you. He deserved to know as soon as I did. Even if you hadn’t meant what you said… it was over.”
It would hurt less if she stabbed him in the heart. He clutches her a little tighter, trying to push down his dismay. He had bared his heart to an entire plane full of people, and she thinks there’s even a chance it was part of a con? He supposes it would be fair to say that his M.O. for the past decade would hardly inspire confidence. At the very least, it has come time to put that particular issue to bed forever.
“You thought I didn’t mean it?” The very idea is laughable. He is a good liar, but to fool Lisbon in this way… it would be an evil even he cannot fathom.
He feels her eyelashes flutter against his skin as she closes her eyes. “It’s not that,” she denies quickly, and he allows the hurt to fade away. Of course. He never should have doubted her. “I just meant. Well. I did something in the heat of the moment that I’m not proud of. He deserved to hear the truth from me before anything happened with… us.”
He feels the paradox warring within her: her reluctance to tell him whatever she did with her need to be completely honest and upright, the way Lisbon always is. He would tell her it doesn’t matter, but he doesn’t want to diminish her anxiety. The truth is she could confess to all sorts of horrible things and his love would remain, strong and unyielding. He has killed men for revenge. Lisbon is due a few bad acts. “Lisbon?” He prompts after a long silence from her.
She pushes deeper into his side. “He proposed to me last week,” she admits. “When I left… after we fought… I accepted.”
He freezes.
I accepted.
Suddenly, her body against his isn’t enough. He needs to see her eyes. Pike’s ill-timed marriage proposal is something of which he had been aware—for heaven’s sake, he had proposed in the FBI bullpen—but as far as he knew, Lisbon hadn’t responded one way or another. To know that she had been engaged to a man who isn’t him, even if only for a few hours…
He tugs gently on her mass of hair until she reluctantly pulls her face away from his neck. Then, he shifts until he’s also lying on his side, taking his hand from her thigh and lifting her chin until their gazes meet.
“You accepted,” he repeats, disbelieving.
Her eyes fill with unspent tears. “It was horrible of me. I was—you made me so-”
Jane can’t bear the sight of her pleading eyes anymore than he could bear her angry words, only said a few hours ago in this very room. “Shh, dearest,” he hums, wrapping both his arms around her. He sighs in relief when he feels her hands slide around his body to grip his shoulders. “If anyone is in the red between us, it’s me. Let it be water under the bridge.”
She buries her face in his chest, and he can feel her tears soaking the fabric of his shirt. His own eyes well up, struck just as she is with the horror of how close they were to never having this. He coos softly to soothe her, humming like he used to do with Charlotte, lifetimes ago. It’s a testament to how upset she is that she doesn’t thump him for it, instead burrowing deeper in his arms as he rocks her gently back and forth. His first glimpse of the permissions Lisbon will give in a relationship that she would never have allowed him as a mere friend.
Raising one of his hands from her back, he strokes her hair. “That’s it, my love. It’s done. We’re here. The rest of it can wait.”
And with that promise, he suddenly feels the emotional and physical weight of all the sleepless nights leading up to this one all-nighter, which they are both far too old to pull. Lisbon, evidently, feels the same, her sobs tapering off as she goes quiet in his arms.
He pulls her back on top of him, enjoying the pressure of her body holding him down against the mattress, feeling every breath as proof that she is alive and here with him, forever. Because he won’t let her go again.
It’s his last coherent thought before he, too, succumbs to sleep.
—
When he wakes, Lisbon is gone.
He has only a few seconds to feel the terror of her potentially changed mind permeate every pore of his body, the numbing sensation of his world crashing to the ground, before his ears perceive the sounds of a shower being shut off. A few moments later, Lisbon exits the bathroom with a luxurious robe wrapped around her body, her hair tightly bound in a towel.
She takes one look at the fear in his eyes, and she half-runs to his side.
He pulls her down without a word, wrapping her in his arms. “Don't do that,” he orders, voice shaking, something coming undone in him. He has only just now slept well for the first time in over a decade. This can’t be it. It can’t be just this once. It can’t. The denials leave the fortress of his mind, spilling out from his lips. “Don’t leave me, please Teresa, please-”
She presses little kisses to his chin until he calms, pulling back slow and careful when he loosens his hold on her, his panic finally receding. “It wasn’t easy to leave when I woke up, but Abbott was calling,” she admits, giving him a rueful smile. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
He breathes deep, inhaling the scent of a freshly-showered Lisbon. He probably needs a shower too. “Give me at least a month without you leaving without warning.”
“A week.”
“Two weeks.”
“Done, because that’s what I asked Abbott for in vacation time.”
“You clever, clever woman,” Jane murmurs. His body, now finally not exhausted for the first time since he kissed her back at the airport, heats at the idea of vacation plans. He wonders if she can be coaxed back into bed and convinced never to leave it. “Do you know what you do to me?”
She sways into him in response, their lips brushing as he fumbles with the tie on her robe. His fingertips graze her bare stomach, soft and smooth and a little bit scarred, but no less precious and beautiful. Her scars are a testament to her devotion to justice, just like his. He slips a hand up to her shoulder to brush his fingers over a more familiar scar, obtained only minutes before he shot Timothy Carter. A wound she bears because of him. A scar he has never had the opportunity to see, to worry over, until now.
She moans into his mouth at the light little touches, hands finding his hair, knee coming up on the bed so she can gain some leverage. At her shift in elevation, his hand falls to her chest, exploring as he encourages her to sit in his lap. The sensations of her so close are almost too much; he’s starved for her, has been hungry for years, wants to consume her and leave them in the ruin of their long-delayed euphoria.
Then, in the midst of his plans, a bulldozer blazes through the room.
No, not a bulldozer. Lisbon’s stomach.
“Dinner,” she murmurs reluctantly against his lips, sitting back on his thighs. For a brief second, a fantasy flashes before his eyes in vibrant color: the same image of her, but sans the pesky robe.
“And a shower,” he confirms before he stops caring that neither of them have eaten in about twenty-four hours, waving away her protests. “I still feel the TSA on my body.”
“Dinner downstairs?” She asks. He nods, smirking at her pout when he rises off the bed. He tests his ankle and is pleased to find it holds his weight, despite being a little sore. He briefly contemplates acting up about it so that Lisbon will hold onto him when they leave the room, but discards the idea immediately. Wouldn’t want her to have any doubts about the efficacy of their future activities in this room. “It’s about seven. They should have a table.”
He pulls her into the bathroom with him. “You can do your makeup while I shower,” he says.
Lisbon looks bemused, but she complies. “You’re taking this ‘same room’ business seriously.”
“I get two weeks. I refuse to waste another second.” He sheds his jacket, then his shirt.
When he reaches for his belt, Lisbon crosses in front of him to hang her wet towel up on the shower door, getting up on her tip toes to press a soft kiss to his cheek. “You get more than two weeks,” she promises.
He feels that vow to the core of him, once more struck with the idea of her love as rest. He will stay with her. No theatrics necessary, no bids to keep her engaged. She wants to stop running, and she wants to do it with him. “Do you still have the dresses?” She nods. “The white one, please,” he asks, taking her hand from her makeup bag and pressing a kiss to her fingers, or one finger in particular. “I want to see you in white.”
“Jane,” she whispers.
“Patrick,” he says back, a little bit teasing. No need to utterly overwhelm her with thoughts of marriage on their first day as a couple. He can’t deny that he’s greedy for the commitment, but it suffices that she knows exactly where he intends on leading them. He can wait a few weeks. A month or two, tops. “I will answer to either, but-”
“Patrick,” she says, and he feels the naming with his entire body. Yes, he is her Patrick. He feels the truth of it to the rotten core of him. He would do terrible, terrible things in her name, and he will stop himself from doing those things for her as well.
Without argument, she wears the white dress to dinner, which they eat in a private corner. There are no grand acts of romance, only a deep sense of intimacy, of knowing that this is the person they will go out to dinner with for the rest of their lives. They’re seated pressed together on the same side of a two-top booth, and the server grins at their positioning. “Honeymoon?”
“Not yet,” Jane says cheerily. “Very soon.”
“I can tell,” the server says warmly as he takes their order. “I can always tell when it's soon.” He winks at them. “Consider us for the actual honeymoon, won’t you?”
Lisbon looks away, blushing, but Jane just silently circles an arm around her, sending a soft smile at her downturned face.
They eat their meals in silence, masquerading as an ordinary couple enjoying a dinner together when all Jane wants, all he knows that Lisbon wants, is to be back in bed together. It’s too soon, too raw, for normalcy. Still, they go through the motions.
“This is strange,” Lisbon says quietly when Jane asks for the check.
He studies her thoughtfully for a moment. “It is,” he concedes. When she looks up at him in question, he explains. “We’re beyond this.”
“A romantic dinner?” She teases, but he can tell she’s just being contrary, as she so enjoys being with him.
He indulges her. “Do you know what I felt? In that aisle?”
Turning serious, she scrutinizes him with her lovely green eyes. He wonders if he will ever stop being struck by her beauty. Unlikely. “Tell me.”
Tapping her chin with affection, because he can hardly help it, he elaborates. “It’s not what you may think. It was terrifying at first. But then… just relief. Even when you told me it was too late, I knew I could do nothing but surrender to you. It wasn’t about cons, or plans, or songs or poems. After years of running, I was finally at rest. You could say no, but it didn’t change the relief at finally standing still.”
With her lower lip trembling, she reaches up, pressing a chaste kiss to his mouth. She tastes like fresh tomatoes and garlic. A not insignificant part of him wants to eat her alive. “Patrick… that’s beautiful,” she wipes her eyes. “But that doesn’t explain the dinner.”
“I want to have these moments with you. I like the idea of treating you to nights out. But those are my desires, not my needs.”
As he anticipated, she bites at the bait. “Your needs?”
He nudges his nose against hers, his eyelashes brushing her cheek in soft butterfly kisses. “I need to be next to you, to be with you in all things,” he confesses. “To carry your burdens as mine, to share my burdens with you. I need to be in your arms.” His voice goes low. “I need you underneath me. I am beyond such niceties as a dinner out. I need us to be one, in all ways, and this dinner is graceless and awkward because you need that too.”
The server drops off their check, and Jane tells him their room number while Lisbon is frozen, still processing his words. Then, he stands, holding his hand out to her. “Well, Lisbon? What are your needs?”
She doesn’t respond, but she takes his hand, and hauls him up the stairs.
—
After, he stays awake as she slumbers on his chest once more. Two times, and he’s addicted. He doesn’t plan to sleep without her ever again. If it were in the realm of human possibility, he wouldn’t ever leave this bed again.
They will go on dates. They will marry. They will buy a house, make a home, and perhaps add a dog or something else that Jane doesn’t have the emotional capacity to ruminate on at this time. All things that love conventionally is.
But Jane knows now that this isn’t all love is. He will surrender to her as she surrenders to him. He will rest with her as she rests with him. He will finally capture that elusive feeling of serenity she provides so easily that has haunted him since they met, since their first embrace on their first case, since their last embrace in an FBI conference room.
He hasn’t won.
He’s been born anew.
peace is coming.