A/N1: No. I didn't. Really, I didn't. I did not write another novel-length Mentalist fic four years after the show ended. Because to do such a thing, I'd have to be disturbed, depraved, and-oh, who am I kidding? I totally did.

A/N2: This is a writing experiment that per usual got way out of control. At some point a couple years ago, I started thinking about how much of the show was centered on the concept of "pretending." Not only Jane's schemes and tricks, but the two main characters pretending they didn't have feelings for one another. So I wanted to play with that idea. The plan was this: write four stories that were thematically linked on this concept of "pretending," but independent of each other in terms of plot. Then of course the first one turned into a novel. I still plan to write the others, but they will not be directly connected to this one plot-wise. This is just the first variation on the theme.

A/N3: This story goes AU at some point in the middle of 5x01. Spoilers up to that point are fair game.

A/N4: My characterization of Jane in this fic is predicated on the crazy idea that instead of doubling down on being a jerk after returning from Vegas, he actually takes stock of his actions and truly measures the cost.

xxx

Lisbon sipped her champagne and scanned the elegant room of party-goers for a man who sold weapons to the highest bidder among the local gangs. She absently tugged at the hem of her too-short dress, then remembered this had the unfortunate side effect of causing the dress to dip dangerously low in the front. She straightened herself as best she could under the circumstances and abandoned the effort in favor of continuing her search.

There he was – two o clock. Conveniently, her partner in this mission was already chatting to him. She squared her shoulders and focused on crossing the room without toppling over in the ridiculously high heels Karen from the support team insisted she wear. When this was all over, Karen was going to get an earful, that was for sure. How was she supposed to run down a perp in these things?

Of course, Karen would probably argue that she wasn't supposed to be running down perps at fancy cocktail parties. Lisbon and her partner were supposed to be gathering intel and reporting back to the head of the Organized Crime unit to help them with their case against Frank Derosa, arms dealer.

Speaking of which…

She reached her partner's side and slipped an arm around his waist. "There you are," she said affectionately, tilting her head up to press a kiss against his cheek. "I've been looking all over for you."

Javier Sanchez turned his melting brown eyes upon her and gazed at her appreciatively. "Forgive me, amor," he said, wrapping his arm around her in a protective and affectionate gesture. "We were just talking business for a few minutes. You remember Mr. Derosa, don't you?"

"Nice to see you," Lisbon said to Derosa politely. Since Jane had advised her that the best disguise when undercover was self-absorbed disinterest, she ignored Derosa's interest in her cleavage and turned back to Sanchez, curling herself closer to him. "Enough shop talk," she pouted. "This is a party. Besides," she said, running her index finger up and down his tie. "You promised me a dance."

He patted her on the hip. "Just a few more minutes, baby. We're almost done."

She sighed heavily to communicate her displeasure, but didn't argue. She laid her head on his shoulder and continued toying with the tie, patterned with a subtle design of gray roses over black silk. She entertained herself by tracing the pattern of the vines with her fingertip as she listened in on the conversation between Sanchez and Derosa.

"So," Sanchez said, stealing a sip of Lisbon's champagne. "When do you expect your new product to come off the line? My employer is anxious to put in an early order."

Derosa sipped his own champagne. "It is difficult to say. There have been some unforeseen…difficulties."

"Is there anything that can be done to smooth the path in the face of these difficulties?" Sanchez asked. "My employer is not a patient man. I would prefer to give him good news."

Derosa considered this. "Possibly…" Lisbon slowed her trailing of her fingertip against the silk of the tie and listened closely as Derosa continued. "There is a small matter in which you may be of some assistance—"

The sound of Lisbon's phone buzzing in her clutch interrupted him. "Sorry," she said, chagrined, and pulled it out to check the display. Jane. She huffed impatiently and hit the button to silence the call.

Sanchez prompted Derosa once the buzzing stopped. "You were saying…?"

"I have reason to believe one of my main storage facilities in the southern part of the state has been compromised."

Sanchez spoke carefully. "My employer would be happy to provide an alternative location, if that will help facilitate the sale."

Lisbon clenched her fingers around his arm and kept her face a bland mask to suppress her excitement. If Derosa allowed them to provide a warehouse, that would be a major coup for the CBI. They could set up surveillance, monitor all the transactions within it, track the players coming to and from the location—

Bzz. Bzz.

Goddammit. Jane again. She stabbed viciously at the button to silence the call. Jane had been an even bigger pain in the ass than usual since this case had started. He had not been happy when he learned Lisbon had been asked to participate in an undercover operation with Organized Crime, and even less happy when he realized that Organized Crime had no intention of inviting him to help with the investigation himself. Ever since then, he'd been making a nuisance of himself by calling her incessantly and showing up uninvited to events she and Sanchez had been invited to as a couple.

Derosa glanced at her. "Your young lady looks like she's about to shoot lightning bolts out of her eyes at her phone." He turned towards her. "Tell me, my dear. Who is it that has angered you so deeply? I want to make sure I never have occasion to stand too closely to him if you are nearby."

"I—" Lisbon stopped, flustered. "No one. I apologize. I didn't mean to interrupt—"

"It's Patrick again, isn't it?" Sanchez took the phone out of her hand and glanced at it. Since she had only muted the call rather than declining it, Jane's face was still clearly visible on the display. He showed the image to Derosa. "Her ex," he explained. "He's having trouble letting go."

Derosa chuckled. "Poor man." His eyes raked over Lisbon. "One can hardly blame him, can they?"

Lisbon cringed, annoyed at Jane for inserting himself into the middle of the scene without even being physically present, but grateful to Sanchez for his quick thinking. She flushed. "He doesn't know when to give up."

Derosa patted her hand. "Don't be too hard on the man. It is not easy for a man to give up a treasure such as yourself."

"If he doesn't give up soon, he's gonna lose his treasure hunting hand and have to get a hook instead," Lisbon said darkly.

Derosa laughed, delighted. "You've got yourself a real firecracker there, Palermo," he grinned, addressing Sanchez by his alias.

Sanchez put his arm around Lisbon and gazed down at her affectionately. "You have no idea, sir."

Lisbon punched him lightly in the ribs. "Oh, hush," she said, but let a smile pull at the corner of her mouth so Derosa would think she was charmed rather than irritated by being discussed as an object to be won. Sanchez's twinkling brown eyes made the task of being charmed easier than it might otherwise have been.

She cleared her throat. "Enough about my past mistakes. Please, continue your conversation."

"Ah, yes," Derosa said. He looked at Sanchez. "Where were we?"

Sanchez picked up the thread smoothly. "I was just saying that if you're in need of a new facility, I'm sure my employer would be happy to accommodate you."

"Hm. I'm afraid that wouldn't be quite suitable," Derosa said. "If, however, your employer was in a position to advance some of the funds required to secure an appropriate location, that would be most useful."

Lisbon suppressed a groan. Great. So instead of providing a warehouse that would provide them a multitude of opportunities to collect the evidence they needed to destroy Derosa's empire, they were being asked to fork over cash from the CBI's coffers to a man selling weapons to drug dealers. Still, maybe they would be able to set up a way to trace the money—

Her phone buzzed in Sanchez's hand, signaling a new call.

"Give me that," Lisbon growled. "I'm going to chuck it out the window."

Sanchez looked at the display. "It's not him," he said, handing the phone back to her. "It's your friend from work."

She frowned and looked at the image on the screen. Van Pelt. She felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe Jane had actually been calling about something important—maybe the team needed her. "Excuse me," she said. "I'd better take this."

She didn't wait for a response, but headed out to the patio so she could minimize the risk of being overheard. "Grace," she said into the phone once she had closed the sliding glass door behind her. "What's up?"

"You'll answer Grace's calls, but you won't answer mine?" Jane's voice came through the line, sounding wounded.

Lisbon closed her eyes. She should have known. "Let me guess. You pickpocketed Van Pelt's phone."

"You left me no choice, Lisbon," Jane said, utterly without remorse. "If you'd answered my calls, I wouldn't have had to resort to such crude methods."

"Jane, I'm in the middle of something here," Lisbon said tightly. "What the hell do you want?"

"Oh, right, sorry, I forgot. You're too busy playing footsie with Agent Sanchez in the name of justice to answer my calls," Jane said irritably.

If she didn't know better, she'd almost say he sounded jealous. "You have ten seconds to get to the point, or I'm hanging up."

"Something that Lorelei said to me when I was interrogating her has been bothering me," Jane said.

"Seriously?" Lisbon said, incredulous. "Jane, I am working. I can't have you calling every five minutes about every idle thought that you come up with when you're staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night in your damn thinking room."

"I didn't think of this while staring at the ceiling in the attic," Jane said defensively. He paused. "I thought of it while staring at Elvis from my couch."

"Good for you," Lisbon said irritably. "I'm hanging up now."

"Don't you want to hear what's bothering me?"

"Tell Cho. He's in charge while I'm on this assignment."

"I thought you would be happy that I'm sharing this with you. You always complain that I never tell you things. Now I want to tell you something, and you won't listen. Besides, I don't think you'd be very happy with me if I shared this particular thought with Cho."

She sighed. "Fine. Go ahead."

"She said she thought I was a little bit in love with you."

Seriously? Eight weeks of silence on the subject, and he wanted to talk about that now? "So what?"

"Don't you find that interesting?"

She found it more painful than interesting, but she declined to mention this. "Right now I'm more interested in bringing down Derosa. So if you'll just let me get back to what I'm supposed to be doing, which is investigating his operation—"

"It's not just that," Jane said. "She also made a point to describe herself as my lover to you within the first five minutes of our interrogation."

"What is your damn point, Jane?" she snapped. This was the last conversation she wanted to be having right now. She looked through the sliding glass door, searching for Sanchez and Derosa. They were still deep in conversation where she'd left them on the far side of the room. That was a relief. At least one of them was getting the job done.

"I'm not finished. The other thing that's bothering me is that when she met you, the first thing she said to you was that she'd heard a lot about you."

She seriously considered punching him in the nose again the next time she saw him. She wouldn't wait for him to say hello, she'd just wind up and let him have it. He wouldn't even see it coming. "And?"

"And she also told me Red John wanted your head as a gift to prove my breakdown was fake."

"He was calling your bluff, Jane. This is not news. Why you had to interrupt me in the middle of an undercover operation to tell me this—"

"The point, Lisbon, is that she knows a lot about you."

"Again, I say, so what?"

"So, I offer myself to Red John on a platter, and all he and his minion want to talk about is you. Don't you find that significant?"

"I don't know, Jane," she said, exasperated. "What I don't find it is useful. How does this little brainwave of yours help us move forward with the investigation?"

"I haven't figured that out yet," Jane admitted.

"Consult with Elvis, see if he has any ideas. In the meantime, I have to go."

"Lisbon—"

She hung up on him.

She went back into the party and rejoined Sanchez and Derosa. "Sorry about that," she apologized, resuming her place next to Sanchez.

Sanchez kissed her hair. "Everything okay at work?"

"Yeah," she said, leaning into him. It might be unprofessional of her, but she had to admit she enjoyed the sensation of folding herself into his arms. He was tall and warm and not at all bad to look at. "Just a little hiccup with the release. They're working on it now. We should be all set for tomorrow."

Derosa looked at her curiously. "What is it that you do, Monica?" he asked, addressing Lisbon by her alias.

"She's project manager for the best software security system on the west coast," Sanchez said proudly, pulling her closer. Damn, he smelled good. She let herself settle into his arms. Honestly, working with drug dealers and crime lords was positively relaxing compared to enduring the chaos and destruction of a typical case with Hurricane Jane. Add in the easy camaraderie of working with the handsome and uncomplicated Sanchez and this was practically a vacation.

"Really," Derosa said with interest. "What is it that this software secures?"

Lisbon shrugged. "Anything, really. Facility access, financial systems, medical records. We have clients in all sectors."

"I see. And what was it that your friend was calling about?"

"My team found a bug in the code we're preparing for our next release," she explained. "If it went out with the release we're planning to push tomorrow, it would have been a disaster. But the team developed a workaround and it passed testing. They called to let me know that the workaround they developed passed testing so I could confirm the go/no-go decision. I talked to the testers and was satisfied with what they told me, so I authorized the release to proceed as scheduled." She mentally thanked Van Pelt for her crash course in software development life cycles, as painful as it had been at the time.

Derosa raised his eyebrows. "What would you have done if they hadn't found the solution in time?"

"Delayed the release," Lisbon answered without hesitation. "I'd rather be late than release a sub-standard product."

"An admirable attitude," Derosa said absently. He looked like he was deep in thought about something.

"Well, I don't know about you," Sanchez said. "But I've had about enough work talk for one evening, haven't you, sweetie?" He released her from his half-embrace only to take her hand and squeeze it. "What do you say we get to that dance I owe you?"

Lisbon grinned. "I say it's about damn time." She turned to Derosa. "Mr. Derosa—it's been lovely chatting with you. I hope you'll excuse us."

"Of course," he said, waving them off. But he was eyeing her speculatively in a way that mercifully didn't seem to have anything to do with her cleavage this time.

"Do you think he bought it?" she whispered to Sanchez once they were out on the dance floor.

He twirled her into his arms and grinned. "Definitely. You're really good at this."

"Really?" Lisbon said, pleased. "Jane always says I overplay it when I have to do stuff like this with him."

"Well, I don't know what he's talking about," Sanchez said firmly. "You were magnificent."

She smiled. "Thanks. Do you really think he's going to go for it?"

"Oh, yeah," he said with certainty. "He's hooked."

Lisbon smiled into his shoulder as she let him pull her in closer. "Excellent."

Xxx

After the party was over, they headed straight back to the office for the debriefing.

When they got to the bullpen, Lisbon was surprised to see her entire team still there. "What are you guys still doing here? It's late. You guys aren't even working on this case." Okay, so technically Van Pelt was advising in a technical capacity, but there was certainly no need for her to work late when all they'd been doing was going to a party to gather intel.

"Someone thought it would be a good idea if we sat in on the debrief," Cho said, casting a disgruntled look in the direction of Jane's couch. Lisbon wondered what combination of bribery and trickery Jane had used to persuade the team to give up their night off to wait around the bullpen all night.

Jane's head popped up from his couch. "I'm all about the inter-departmental cooperation, Cho. Ask anybody. Oh, hello, Lisbon." He cast his eyes over her dress and heels. "I see Karen put you in the dress I suggested. She's a woman of excellent taste, Karen. I must say you look very fetching in it. Your feet must be killing you, though."

"They are," she grumbled. So he'd put Karen up to this, had he? She should have known.

"Would you like me to give you a foot massage?" Jane said courteously, as though this were a perfectly normal thing to offer to do for your boss.

She snorted. "No, thanks." She kicked off the heels and perched herself on the edge of Jane's seldom used desk. Maybe she should put traps in the drawers for the next time he decided to use it to hide something from her. Sanchez leaned on the corner of the other side and she abandoned the idea as too likely to harm an innocent bystander by mistake.

"Hello, Sanchez," Jane said unenthusiastically. "How are you?"

"Good," Sanchez said easily. "How are you doing, Jane?"

"Never better," Jane responded, his eyes narrowing when Sanchez crossed his arms over his chest and shifted slightly closer to Lisbon.

"Okay, people," Owen Briggs said brusquely as he strode into the bullpen. Briggs, Sanchez's supervisor, was leading the task force charged with breaking up Derosa's operation. "What have we got?"

Lisbon and Sanchez broke down the relevant events of the party.

"Sounds like that bust we pulled off last month put pressure on him to locate a new place to store the weapons," Sanchez said with satisfaction. "He's in the market for a new one. I offered to set one up for him, but he didn't take the bait. But he's willing to accept cash to help move things along in that department."

"Good," Briggs said with a curt nod. "Glad to hear all our hard work is slowing down operations. Keep me posted on the conversation about the money—I'll see what I can do when the time comes. Lisbon, what about you? Got anything interesting to report?"

"I found out some more about some of the key players," Lisbon said. "Acardi is second in command, like we thought. The others defer to him when Derosa's not around. I saw different people come in and deliver messages to him three times while we there. Derosa must have a high level of trust in him. I don't think he'd let so much of the day to day operations be centralized in one guy, otherwise."

"So- unlikely that he'd bend under pressure, but if we can sideline him, it would likely have a significant impact on operations," Briggs concluded.

Lisbon nodded. "That's my take."

"What about the others?"

"I'm pretty sure Costa is the one managing the books. I heard a few people grumbling about how tightfisted he is when it comes to managing the payroll."

Briggs straightened. "That's excellent information. We can set someone to tail him, get a sense of where he stores the financial information. Anybody else we should be paying attention to?"

"I watched Lombardi a while, and I don't think he's as prominent in the organization as we originally thought. I get the impression he's more of a heavy that ends up getting treated as an errand boy half the time. Fiore, on the other hand, I think is one to watch. I get the sense he's ambitious—the type to cut down the guy in front of him in order to move up the food chain a little faster."

Briggs frowned. "What made you think that?"

Lisbon shrugged. "I couldn't say, exactly. It was the way he watched everyone around him—calculating, you know? I think we could exploit that, if we find the right pressure point."

"You got all that from eavesdropping and observation?" Brigg said, impressed. He looked at Jane. "It's like working with you, except without the lawsuits and bleeding ulcer."

"Yes, Lisbon is coming along quite nicely," Jane said, slightly disgruntled and apparently feeling the need to behave like even more of a jackass than usual to make up for it. "She is woefully behind on her rate of lawsuit generation, now that you mention it. I'll have to work with her on that."

Lisbon found a paperclip on his desk and threw it at his head.

"What about the software thing?" Briggs asked. "Did he seem interested?"

Lisbon and Sanchez exchanged glances. "He was definitely thinking about it," Lisbon said carefully. "Too early to tell if he'll end up taking the bait."

The fictitious software company had been Van Pelt's idea. Their intelligence implied that Derosa was old school in a lot of ways that he managed his enterprise, and the CBI had been able to exploit some of the vulnerabilities that his old-fashioned style had exposed to more advanced technological tools. Once Van Pelt had learned of some of the stuff Organized Crime had pulled off in this regard, she'd suggested taking the idea one step further—targeting Derosa's weak spots enough to make him realize he needed to invest in technology to have any hope of combating the attacks, then selling him a Trojan horse. She'd designed the ideal company for their purposes—one that had solutions for each of the pain points he'd been experiencing. She'd created a website for it and had set up a separate phone line to the fake company that went straight to her desk. Then she had set the techs from Organized Crime to write programs that would let them extract information from Derosa's system in the guise of protecting it.

After reading Derosa's file, Jane had advised them that Derosa was the sort of person who instinctively distrusted the idea of doing business with people he had never met in person. He believed himself a canny judge of character and preferred to assess for himself the motives of those around him. If he needed something, he would turn first to people he knew to find a solution.

That was where Lisbon came in. Van Pelt printed business cards with Lisbon's alias, Monica Altera, and created a second line for the fake company routed to Lisbon's cell. They would make sure Derosa knew she had knowledge of the sort of technology he needed to modernize his operation. When the time was right, Lisbon would offer to show him the product they'd developed.

"Excellent work, both of you," Briggs said approvingly to Lisbon and Sanchez. He shook his head. "You two are turning into quite the dream team."

Jane slouched further down on his couch and scowled. He closed his eyes and tried to project indifference without quite succeeding.

"Thanks, Briggs," Lisbon said. "It's been kind of fun, actually." She reached out with her bare foot and kicked Jane's old brown shoe gently. "Not least having a break from this one."

Jane opened his eyes, indignant, but when his eyes traced the line of Lisbon's bare leg extended towards his, he got distracted and forgot to come up with a clever retort.

Briggs thanked them again, then bade them good night, but Sanchez lingered, apparently not in any hurry to leave.

"Van Pelt, thanks for all those things you explained to me about all that techie stuff," Lisbon said to Grace. "It was really helpful."

"I still don't see why Van Pelt couldn't have taken this assignment instead of you," Jane said grumpily. "Seems like she'd have been a far better fit with her knowledge of all that computery gadgetry stuff."

"I would have recommended her, Jane, but her picture was in the paper recently for that award she won for that 'computery gadgetry stuff,'" Lisbon explained patiently. "There was too great a risk that someone might recognize her as a cop."

"Besides," Sanchez piped up. "Van Pelt may be tops at the computer stuff, but Teresa knows the major players in California crime like nobody else. No offense to the rest of your team, but I doubt you could put anybody else in that room and have them make the connections she did about that bunch and the relationships they have with one another."

"Yes," Jane said sourly. "She's a real prodigy, isn't she?"

She kicked him again, harder this time. "Don't be an ass. Is it so difficult to acknowledge that I'm perfectly capable of doing detective work without your help for once?"

"I'm just saying, I know a few things about assessing relationships through body language myself," Jane said. "I was under the impression that was what you paid me for."

"No offense, Jane, but I don't think I'd have enjoyed the evening quite as much if you'd been the one to come as my date," Sanchez said with a grin.

"I bet you wouldn't have," Jane muttered.

Lisbon stood, then stretched. "I guess I should check my messages," she said without enthusiasm, glancing in the direction of her office.

Jane rolled his eyes. "They can wait. You should go home."

Lisbon considered this. "Yeah. You're right." She looked at the rest of her team. "You guys should all go home. And," she said, feeling generous. "As long as we don't get a new case this weekend, come in late on Monday." It wasn't much, but hopefully it would be some small recompense for Jane railroading them into staying late when they didn't even have a case.

"Kay," Cho said, and got up.

"Thanks, boss," Rigsby said gratefully.

"Will you be here in the office most of the day on Monday?" Van Pelt asked. "I want to go over some of the programming specs with you."

Lisbon nodded. "I've got a budget meeting in the morning, but we can spend some time on it in the afternoon."

"Okay." She smiled brightly and picked up her things. "Have a good weekend."

"You, too."

"I'm heading out, too," Sanchez announced. "Teresa, I'll pick you up at three tomorrow, okay? Don't forget, it's a pool party this time."

Lisbon made a face. "Oh, joy."

Sanchez and the team left, and Lisbon headed to her office. Jane followed.

Lisbon pulled her messenger bag out of her desk and put her laptop inside it.

Jane leaned against the doorframe. "Forget something?" He held up her shoes, dangling from one finger.

Lisbon made a face. "I'd rather walk home barefoot."

"That doesn't sound like it would be very good for those little feet of yours," Jane commented.

She shrugged. "I have my gym bag. I'll grab my running shoes out of there before I leave." She went to the filing cabinet and pulled open the top drawer. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach the files she wanted from the back – the thing was not designed for short people.

"What are you doing?" Jane asked, a little strangled.

She looked at him strangely. "Just grabbing a few files to review over the weekend. All this moonlighting with Organized Crime has put me behind on some of my other work." She became aware that he was staring at the thin bands of beribboned elastic that crisscrossed her ribs on both sides of her dress. "What?" she said, sinking back down on her heels and running a hand self-consciously down the side of her dress.

Jane gestured to the dress. "I was mesmerized by the cutouts," he said. "They're quite…distracting."

"They're not cutouts," she protested.

He raised his eyebrows. "What would you call them then?"

Lisbon glanced down at herself. "I dunno. Strappy ribbony things?"

Jane, for once, seemed to be at a loss. "I see." He cleared his throat. "So, how is it working with Sanchez?"

The opening was too good to resist. "Oh, you mean going out with another man?" she teased. "It's great. Fun. Intense. Challenging." She smirked. "He's super dynamic. I think we have a great connection."

"Very funny," Jane said dryly.

She grinned. "You a little jealous?"

He hesitated. "Maybe a little."

Disarmed by the admission, Lisbon paused, thrown off her stride. Was he serious?

Jane sat down on her couch. "We didn't finish our conversation earlier."

Her smile faded. He wanted to talk more about Lorelei and Red John. Of course. "I don't know, Jane," she said reluctantly. "It's late."

"This is important, Lisbon." He patted the spot next to him on the couch.

Better to give in now, she reasoned. If she didn't, he'd pester her incessantly, probably at the most inconvenient possible times. "Fine." She crossed to the couch and curled up next to him, her legs tucked up underneath her.

Jane looked away. He pressed his hands against his thighs and breathed out slowly.

"What's the matter with you?" Lisbon, surprised.

He didn't meet her eye. "Nothing's the matter with me."

Her eyes narrowed. "You're acting weird."

He risked a glance over at her knees. "Well… you're sitting very close to me." His eyes traveled upwards, tracing the line of her dress. "And you're not wearing very much clothing."

"Since when do you care about that?" she demanded, incredulous.

Jane frowned. "What does that mean?"

"You've never…" She stared at him. "What the hell, Jane? Did Lorelei turn your sex switch on or something?"

Jane looked scandalized. "My sex switch?"

"You've gone without…you know, for a long time. Then you sleep with Lorelei and suddenly it's like, I dunno, Sleeping Beauty." She gestured vaguely. "You woke up again."

Jane stared straight ahead and didn't answer. "June eighth, 2007," he said finally.

"June eighth?" Lisbon echoed. "What happened on June eighth, 2007?"

He looked at his hands. "That was the first time I saw you in your dark green t-shirt. You know—the one with the scoop neck? The air conditioning was on the fritz and you had this little patch of sweat at the small of your back. The hair from your ponytail was sticking to your neck."

Lisbon's face felt hot. So?

He looked at her. "That was when I 'woke up,' as you so eloquently put it. I couldn't stop thinking about—" He cleared his throat. "Anyway. That was when it happened the first time."

"That was like, three weeks after I met you!" Lisbon said, incredulous.

He shrugged, but offered no further explanation.

"And now?" she challenged, unable to let it go.

He sighed. "I am capable of the occasional human instinct, Teresa."

But you don't normally admit to them, she thought. She leaned back and surveyed him with a gimlet eye. "Why are you telling me this?"

"It's a new thing I'm trying," he said heavily.

"What is?" she said, her voice thick with suspicion.

He looked back at her. "Honesty."

"Ha!" she scoffed. That'd be the day.

He held her gaze. "Specifically, being honest with you."

Lisbon gaped. Was he being serious? Surely not. That wasn't how Jane operated. Abruptly, she asked, "What did you want to talk about, anyway?"

"I talked to Lorelei again tonight."

Lisbon stiffened. "Is that why you called me in the middle of the party?"

He shook his head. "I went to talk to her after you hung up on me."

Lisbon didn't know how to respond to this. "Oh."

"I was testing a theory," he explained.

"What theory?" Lisbon asked, though she wasn't at all sure she wanted to know.

"Lorelei is convinced I'm in love with you," he announced.

Lisbon shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "You said that already."

"No," he corrected her. "In that interrogation during my first week back, she told me she thought I was 'a little bit' in love with you."

"So?" Lisbon said warily. She couldn't believe how casual he was being about this.

"At the time, I thought she was needling me, just trying to get under my skin. But when I talked to her today, I realized she really believes it."

"Why do you think that?" Lisbon said, annoyed.

"Because when I went over there, the first thing she did was smirk and ask me how your assignment was going."

"What does that matter?"

"Firstly, it tells us that she's still somehow in contact with Red John."

Lisbon frowned. "How does it tell us that?"

"How else would she know anything about your assignment?" Jane said impatiently. "I'm assuming you didn't tell her about it."

"Of course not." Lisbon considered this. "What else does it tell us?"

He fidgeted. "It tells us that she knows this assignment is bothering me."

She turned to him in surprise. "The assignment is bothering you?"

He smiled without humor. "Human impulses, remember? You're my partner. I'm not exactly jumping up and down over the fact that the minute I got back, suddenly you started spending all your time with Sanchez."

Lisbon blinked.

"Anyway," he said hastily. "Then I started thinking about why she was so certain that I have feelings for you."

"And what did you come up with?" she asked, a little dazed.

"It was that kiss," he said. "Lorelei asked me to kiss her, remember?"

She was hardly likely to forget it. Her mouth turned down at the corners. "I remember."

"Don't you see?" he said. "It was a test."

"What kind of test?"

"She wanted to see if I would hesitate to show her physical affection once I was back with you."

Lisbon blew out an impatient breath. "So you passed the test." What the hell did that mean? Back with you. He wasn't back with her. He was back with the CBI. He'd never been…with her.

He shook his head. "No. I failed the test."

Her brow crinkled. "What do you mean? She asked you to kiss her and you kissed her."

"I kissed her because I realized my mistake," he corrected her.

"What mistake?"

"I didn't kiss her right away," he explained. "I hesitated. Do you remember what she said to me?"

Lisbon shook her head.

"She laughed at me. And she said, 'First you say you'll do anything I want. Then you refuse the first thing I ask for.'"

"But you didn't refuse," Lisbon said, still stuck on this point.

"I tried to deflect her," he said. "And she picked up on it."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Some deflection. You ended up with your tongue down her throat five seconds later."

"There was no tongue involved," he said, irritated. "And you are missing the point."

"What is the point?"

"The point is I had no interest in kissing her, and she knew it. But she asked me to do it anyway. Why?"

"I don't know, Jane," Lisbon said, aggravated. She desperately wanted this conversation to end.

"I think Red John put her up to it," Jane said.

"Seriously?" Lisbon said, incredulous. "Are you really this paranoid, or is this some kind of twisted effort to get back in my good graces after you kissed a suspect during an interrogation?"

"Think about it, Lisbon," Jane said. "Remember the cantaloupe in the wig."

"You think Red John told her you're in love with me," Lisbon said flatly.

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Jane said. "How else would she even know about you? Why else would she make a point of announcing to you that she and I had slept together ten seconds after meeting you?"

"Fine," Lisbon said. "Say you're right. Why would Red John bother to put Lorelei up to something like that?"

"He wants me to know he knows your importance in my life," Jane said without hesitation. "And he wanted to drive a wedge between us."

"Little did he know you'd already done a fine job of that on your own," Lisbon said tartly. Stupid fake breakdown.

"Lisbon," he said, exasperated. "Why do you think he even sent her to me in the first place? He could have reached out to me a thousand different ways. But he sent Lorelei and ordered her to sleep with me."

Lisbon clenched her jaw. "That's nothing to do with me."

"It has everything to do with you," he contradicted. "It means he knew my breakdown was fake all along. He knew I was always going to come back to you eventually."

Her heart twisted painfully at his choice of words. I was always going to come back to you. "Why are you telling me this now?" she said tightly. "You've been back two months. Why the sudden urgency?"

"Think about it. He knew I would sleep with Lorelei. Not because she's an attractive woman, but because he knew I would do anything to sell the con for a chance at getting closer to him. But I realized today that sending Lorelei to me wasn't the culmination of my con, as I originally thought. He had his own plan, and for him, that was only the first move. He's playing the long game."

"And what exactly does this long game entail, in your considered opinion?" Lisbon asked skeptically. It all sounded pretty far-fetched to her.

"I'm not sure. But it seems like you're at the center of it, one way or another. So I was thinking…given everything we know now, the timing of this assignment of yours hardly seems like coincidence, does it?"

She stared at him. "You think Red John somehow arranged to take your favorite playmate away by having me assigned to a random case in another department?"

"It makes sense, doesn't it? He's trying to keep us separated."

"No, it doesn't! Derosa has been a major player in illegal weapons sales for two decades. Bringing him down has been a priority for California law enforcement for nearly that long. You really think Red John has gone to the trouble of putting a man inside of such a complex organization with the sole aim of targeting me? If he wanted to get to me, there are about a hundred easier ways to do it."

"I still think you being assigned this undercover job with a total stranger right after I came back is far too convenient to be coincidence," Jane said stubbornly.

"Not everything is about you, Jane! Or I should say, you and Red John. You're reaching."

"I don't trust Sanchez," Jane said bluntly. "You need to watch your back around him."

"Jane, I've known the man for eight years," Lisbon said impatiently. "He's a good cop. He's not working for Red John."

"You don't know that," Jane said. "I think we should be on the lookout for a double cross. It's possible it's not Sanchez, of course. We should keep an eye out at the party tomorrow for other possible Red John plants, just in case."

"We?" Lisbon said in alarm. "Jane, this is my assignment. It's at a very delicate stage. I can't have you barging in and crapping all over it."

Jane made a face. "Thank you for that vivid metaphor, Lisbon. I assure you, I have no intention of betraying your cover, if that's what you're worried about."

Somehow, Lisbon wasn't at all reassured by this statement. She stood up. "I mean it, Jane. Stay far away from this operation. And stop calling me in the middle of events when you know I'm supposed to be undercover, while you're at it." She crossed the room and grabbed her gym bag, then stuffed her feet into her running shoes without bothering to put any socks on. "I'm going home. It's been a long night."

Jane was distracted again. "You know," he said, surveying her ensemble of running shoes plus cocktail dress, "that combination really shouldn't be attractive, but somehow you're making it work. Those running shoes really highlight the muscle definition in your legs."

"Good night, Jane," she huffed, exasperated with his ability to shift from the inane to the paranoid and back again in the space of a moment.

"Good night, Lisbon," he echoed, still staring at her legs. "Sleep well."