Antimony

Story: The CBI is struck from within when several people mysteriously die. The team has to battle against time to prevent more deaths … including their own.

Spoilers: there are no spoilers referring to episodes of The Mentalist, there are however some references to Red John (even though it's not a Red John story). The story takes place somewhere before season 6 with Bertram as CBI-director.

Type: Angst/Crime/Hurt/Comfort/Friendship

All lead characters are present for duty.

Antimony

Chapter One

Janet Gray, Private Secretary to Gale Bertram, Head of the CBI, dropped dead on a bright and beautiful Monday morning, at exactly 8.14 a.m.

She had come into the office at 8 a.m. as she always did. She had fetched her first cup of coffee (two sugars and a cloud of milk), rummaged through her purse looking for a Tylenol (mentioning to a few people she had a bursting headache), sat down at her desk wearily and looking very tired, swallowed her Tylenol with coffee, sighed, started up her laptop, straightened her clothes and hair, dabbed a little bit of perfume on her throat (like she did every day before she started), grabbed the file she had been working on the day before, picked up her favorite pen from her neatly arranged desk, slumped off her chair as she gasped and fell dead on the ground. Her hand still clutched the pen when she lay on the tiled floor.

By the time her colleagues reached her desk, she was already gone. Her eyes stared into nothingness, the light broken in them, her face distorted in a strange sort of pain only she could have felt right before her death. She hadn't even spoken a word as she fell, not begged for help, not cried out. There was just that gasp and then there was nothing.

Gale Bertram, hearing the commotion, stormed out of his office, stared at the 40-year old woman, reached for his phone and dialed 911 as people who had followed First Aid courses surrounded her to help her. As he spoke into the receiver, Bertram knew from instinct there was nothing anyone could do.

Several Agents tried to resuscitate Janet for more than ten minutes, until Paramedics came and took over. By that time, her skin was already turning clamp and her eyes had gained that strange, eerie glance only the dead had. Even for those surrounded by death and murder on a daily basis, it was hard to watch.

Janet Gray was a strong, sportive woman who left three children and a grieving husband. But young, sportive women could die from heart attacks, just like anybody else. So even though her death was a shock, nobody thought better of it.

She left a lot of memories at the office. And a neatly stacked desk she had occupied for over twelve years, working for various Directors at her beloved CBI. The only personal memory of her on that desk was a photo of her family and her small bottle of perfume.

At her funeral, it became clear how much she was loved. Every single Agent that could be missed stood at her grave and mourned her. Nobody understood how a strong, healthy woman could do of a heart attack, just like that. But it happened. It could happen to anyone and now it had happened at the CBI, leaving grief stricken friends and colleagues behind.

Special Agent Teresa Lisbon found herself staring at the woman's grave, watching them slip in the urn with her ashes, not grasping the reality of it. She had seen Janet that morning in the coffee corner, chatting with her about the weekend and her children. And then, four minutes later, she was dead. Just like that.

Lisbon's colleagues, standing next to her, felt the same. Grace Van Pelt had cried when she heard, Rigsby had reacted in shock. Even Cho had shown some of his distress. And Jane, well, Jane heard the news when he entered the office later that morning, then walked slowly into the small kitchen and prepared a cup of tea. Then he sat on his couch, sipped his tea and recalled how Janet Gray had been the first real person to welcome him at the CBI. When he was hired, she had shown him around, had introduced him to everyone and had helped him get used to his new situation.

It was Janet who had found him sitting in grief during those first weeks at the job when he remembered the past. She was the one who had offered him a shoulder to lean onto (even though he hadn't always taken it). He'd had a special bond with her. He had even met her husband once or twice when the man came to pick her up at the office. Janet, despite the fact they'd had practically the same age, had felt like a mother when no one else was eager to work with him.

The few days after her death he couldn't bear to walk past her desk, knowing that life went on and that soon the CBI would go on about its usual business. That's what happened to everyone after their deaths.

Standing near her grave, at a safe distance from her family, Patrick Jane looked around. He saw the entire CBI-top, Agents, secretaries, co-workers and even some people from the maintenance crew. Janet Gray had indeed left a lot of impact. There were faces around he had seen, some he had hardly ever encountered.

Then there was her family, her friends, acquaintances.

God, how he hated Cemeteries.

He withdrew quietly from the small line of people he was with and moved away from Janet's grave, eager to get away from the sobbing. He didn't do sobbing. He withdrew within his own mind, forcing out the memories of his own grieving. He walked quietly over to an old oak tree and sank down, sitting on the grass in the shadows, watching the scene before him.

When it was finally over, Teresa Lisbon turned to nod at her colleagues, only to find Jane gone. As they turned away from the grave, the team spotted him sitting underneath the tree and walked over. From the corner of her eye, Lisbon caught sight of a young, blonde woman standing near Bertram. She couldn't explain why, but the woman drew her attention. Her eyes were covered behind dark sunglasses. She wore a black dress and black smart shoes. She was absolutely stunning. Bertram often looked at her, smiling as they seemed to chat about this and that. Then the blonde woman spotted her and smiled a small, fake smile. It made Lisbon feel uncomfortable.

Jane stood as Lisbon, Van Pelt, Cho and Rigsby approached him. "Ready to go?" he asked fake-brightly. "Let's get out of here. I hate this place."

"Don't we all," Lisbon muttered. "Come on, guys."

All five of them stepped into the black CBI-van with Rigsby driving. None of them felt like going back to work but possible cases kept on coming in and they had a lot of work to do. Van Pelt, sitting next to Jane, caught him staring out the window and touched his arm lightly. "You okay, Jane?" she asked concerned.

"Yeah, everything's swell," he replied, not looking at her. The others knew when to leave him alone and so they did. The rest of the trip was done in silence.

When they returned to the office, the first thing Lisbon spotted was Janet's emptied desk, waiting for a new occupant. That's how it went. As she turned, she bumped into the blonde woman from the funeral, carrying a small cardboard box with personal items. The blonde placed her box on Janet's former desk, took off her sunglasses and looked behind her as Gale Bertram approached.

"Ready for your first day, Kate?" he asked.

The blonde smiled. "Ready to go, sir."

"Good. Just call me if you need anything." Bertram placed a brief hand on her shoulder and vanished into his office, shutting the door behind him. The blonde woman looked around and spotted people staring at her. She gave them the brightest smile she could and then went about unpacking her personal items: A few photos, an engraved pen and the laptop she had been handed as work tool.

Ten minutes later she was logged in and ready to start.

It was only then that she noticed she was alone and that everyone had gone back to work as if nothing had ever happened. The only person looking at her from a short distance was Jane.