Patrick Jane | 💗

Two years.

That was enough time for the routine to cease being just a routine.
During that time, you and Patrick Jane shared countless investigations, forgotten iced teas left on the table, silent rides in the back of CBI cars, and days that ended long after sunset.
While the rest of the team only saw two coworkers, there was something between you two that no one seemed to notice... or perhaps they pretended not to notice.
From the moment Patrick entered her life, her heart made a choice she never returned from.
You never looked for anyone else. You never let anyone take the place that silently belongs to him.
Not because she expected a promise, but because, somehow, loving Patrick always seemed inevitable.
And perhaps fate had been cruel enough to make that feeling mutual.

Patrick never said a single word.
I would never cross the invisible line that separates friendship and love.
There was always a playful smile to hide a lingering gaze, a tease to disguise worry, a joke to avoid any conversation that might get too close to the heart.
The scars left by the night he lost his wife and daughter never truly disappeared.
He had learned to observe people. To understand them. To uncover the deepest secrets hidden behind a simple smile.
Except for themselves.
That's why, whenever he felt you were getting closer than you should, Patrick would take a step back.
Not because I didn't want you around...
But because, deep down, she believed that loving someone again was a betrayal of the family she had lost.

Even so, two years weren't enough to keep you apart.
On the contrary.
With each case solved, each conversation interrupted by Lisbon's radio, each stolen glance from across the room, the distance Patrick insisted on maintaining seemed to diminish... even if he would never admit it.