AN: Cyclical fic exploring personal relationships between our Golden Five, post- Red John, post – CBI Breakdown. I'm leaving for America in two and a half hours so excuse mistakes! Please review.
Jane misses Cho. He misses them all, of course, all those people from the CBI, and all those not. Some more than others, he misses of course, but today he is being reminded of Cho.
He has been watching a black-haired fellow American sitting at the bar here. He has been sitting, very still, for close to an hour now. He is reading, and for the moment Jane can pretend that this is Cho. He watches the man, who has now leant over the bar, speaking to the waiter. He sits back down and a few moments later the waiter returns to him with a small pineapple and a sharp knife, and, cutting a few pieces, scatters them into his drink. Pineapple. Ah, not Cho then, after all.
Jane watches his fellow for another while and decides to make his way over to the man. He's lonely, if he needs an excuse, but he doesn't need an excuse, for no matter what else has changed, he is still Patrick Jane; so he doesn't think on his loneliness, just makes his way over and sits down beside the stranger.
"Morning," Jane says, adjusting himself on the chair.
"Morning," the stranger says, not looking up.
"Good book?"
"Yes."
"Oh."
Jane can hear the reader's patience wearing thin, but after all, he is lonely and so he doesn't care. ,
"I don't read much."
"No?"
"No. My friend, he used to read all the time. Any spare moment, he'd have a paperback to hand."
Silence.
"It used to annoy him, you know? When people would talk to him, when he was trying to read."
The reader stops, his eyes rolling to a stop along the page. He looks up, smiles, knows he is being played. A friendly, middle-aged, mild tempered man looks back at him.
"Very good," he says and Jane smiles. The stranger takes a drink.
"Your friend," the stranger says, and Jane looks up. "He died?"
"No," Jane shakes his head. "No, no. Just an old friend."
"Why you look so damn sad then?"
Jane's mouth falls open.
"I'm sorry, friend," the man says. "You just looked very sad just now. Try and enjoy your life, y'know? You're in a very beautiful part of the world right here."
Jane hums his agreement. "Just not the part I'd rather be," he says. He stands up. "Excuse me, " he says. "Sorry for the interruption. Enjoy your book."
The man nods and Jane walks away. It's funny that even his bluntness reminds him of Cho. Jane wonders what Cho would say if he knew Jane was moping around a tropical island being reminded of him. Something witty, something sharp. Something to make him laugh. And oh, how Jane would love to laugh today. He hasn't laughed in a very long time. Something that will come again with time, he is sure; but Jane is missing his friend today, and so it's something he's sure would come a hell of lot quicker if someone like Cho was here to bring it about.
Anyone would assume Rigsby would be the one to miss Cho. He was the follower of the two, always looking to his friend for advice, for help, for counsel. While equal as friends, Cho was often the leader of the two. He was the one Rigsby came to for advice, fourteen important questions scattered around them before lunch, and rarely the other way round. Anyone would bet Rigsby would feel the loss of such a friend deeper. And Rigsby would miss Cho, miss him dearly; but here and now, Cho misses Rigsby. He misses the questions. Silly questions, important questions. Questions about Van Pelt, about Jane and the Boss. Questions about superheroes and questions about life. Rigsby trusted Cho implicitly, valued his opinion. No one values Cho's opinion here, yet. No one asks any questions. Here he's just another new FVI recruit. Here he's just that one recruit from California who might as well be crooked as hell based on the fact he'd worked for the CBI. Cho is still a loner here, but that doesn't surprise him in the least.
He tries to imagine someone coming to him to ask his advice on some matter or other. He tries to imagine what he might say. He might even welcome such an event. But for now, he remains unasked, silent, alone.
Rigsby wouldn't be alone here, he thinks. Rigsby was friendly, easy to talk to. He had a cheerful disposition that meant people warmed to him. Cho didn't have that much.
Rigsby would have new friends already, and besides, despite the fact they had lost everything, Rigsby still had Van Pelt. It would be easy for him to crack a smile and charm a room full of strangers. For Cho, not so much. He'd never been one to have bosom buddies, Jason had probably been the only one, and see how he had let him down. Friendships with former colleagues once outside of the gang and of the army were different, uneasy somehow, without a common purpose or goal. So Cho had taken to Rigsby after joining the CBI and they had become friends without ever really meaning to. Rigsby was as loyal as anyone Cho had ever met, and even now Cho misses such loyalty. They had all been loyal to the CBI and to each other, but that was all over now, and here and now, no one is willing to be loyal to him; not here where there's no shared history, only rumours of a past life and hard seats which wouldn't feel just so hard if Rigsby were here sitting beside on the next one, cracking a joke and offering food. But the chair beside Cho remains empty, so he tries hard to put his friend out of his head and make an effort with these new people who won't laugh as heartily as him or provide questionable snacks to turn down on stakeouts, so Cho sits on and thinks of his friend a little longer.
Sharon from management must have been feeling particularly good this morning, for she arrives in at the start of the early shift armed with a box filled to the brim with freshly baked bagels for everyone. They're a really nice bunch of people he's working with here, and he's fallen on his feet he knows, but coming from the team he'd been a part of for close to ten years, he doesn't appreciate it as much as he knows he should.
Sharon places the box of bagels on the counter and Mike starts pouring coffee for all. The smell is delicious but Rigsby holds back. His colleagues are nice, but he hasn't been here long, knows he won't be here long, doesn't want to seem too eager. He's only here to try and help save together a bit of money. He and Grace are considering starting their family, and what with putting the finishing touches to their new business before launching, it's all getting a bit much. But that's okay – they never were ones to do things by halves, and it's all good things that are happening, despite the fact the way they'd gotten here was unconventional.
His colleagues start to disperse and Rigsby makes his way over. There's one poppy bagel left. Rigsby lifts it, raises it quickly to eat . He has half of it crammed down his throat before he realises what he's doing.
He's trying to finish it before Lisbon can see and give off to him for taking her favourite. But Lisbon can't see. Lisbon's is hundreds of miles away, with no notion of what Rigsby's doing. Rigsby lets his arm fall from his mouth, half the crumbling bagel still in his hand. Somehow it doesn't taste just as nice anymore.
"Alright, Wayne?" Sharon asks, approaching the coffee jug for a refill. "You okay?"
"Oh yeah, Sharon, thanks." He gestures to the bagel in his hand. "These are nice, thanks."
She shrugs. "You know, got to keep momentum up, and nothing works like food!" She lifts her cup back up. "See you," she says and makes her way back to her desk.
Rigsby looks down at the bagel in his hand, poppy seeds scattered over its top. He wonders what Lisbon is doing now. No harm to Sharon, but Lisbon hadn't needed to stuff her team full of baked goods to keep them inspired during late nights and early mornings, and their settings then had been a lot bleaker than a comfortable office with an air conditioner humming in the corner. No, they had spent mid-night hours cooped up in the backs of vans on stakeouts, had sat waiting in cold corners for criminals who would never come, and yet they did it without bribes or gifts of food – not that they had turned her down on rare occasions where Lisbon would treat them, Rigsby quickly thought, but point was, they didn't need to be convinced. They did their job and they give it their all, always, out of love and respect for the job and for her, and each other.
But he's not in the CBI anymore, he's stood in this little back office with the last remaining poppy bagel in his hand, and Lisbon's not here to fight him for it, so he stands there, and misses his friend, and eats it.
It's true that things are quiet here in Washington. At of first Lisbon found it boring but she's getting used to being the police chief of a small town. Less mid-night wake up calls here, she has found, but also more work in isolation; early evenings with little work, but longer nights to spend alone at home. The towns around here are all much of a muchness too, so when she gets involved investigating a case of fraud a few miles away, meeting Police Corporal Matthews comes as a surprise. Corporal Matthews is a good police officer, if young, and she really seems to care. She is assertive and her face lights up whenever they make any kind of break in the case. Lisbon finds herself being reminded of Van Pelt when she looks at her, Van Pelt in her first days at the CBI. Corporal Matthews is young, and probably a bit idealistic, but maybe that just comes from her working in a jurisdiction where small-time fraud means calling up the next town over for support. And yet, there seems to be something deeper, and Lisbon gets the feeling that Matthews could thrive in some place more challenging.
Grace herself would thrive here in Washington, Lisbon thinks, in a community where the police chief's role was more pastoral than anything. Not that Grace hadn't suited the drama too. She'd been hard as nails in the end. She didn't get enough credit, perhaps. Perhaps that was due to Lisbon herself, she thought. Grace had been written off as the rookie for much too long of her CBI career, and the truth was that at times she had been tougher than anyone else on the team. Of course, Lisbon had been tough on her too, probably tougher than she had been on Cho or Rigsby when they'd started.
Truth was, Van Pelt had been the first woman Lisbon had ever been in charge with, and with the exception of a few others scattered through her career, one of the few women she had worked alongside. Jane had hit the nail on the head one day, years ago now, when trying to shock Lisbon with his knowledge of her personality. He'd said Lisbon didn't make time for many girl-friends. It was true. She didn't see the point really in picking friends based on gender, and she knew boys, had raised her brothers, gone through the police academy, just had a lot of friends who didn't happen to be women. She knew what it was like, so she wasn't going to start by making it easy on Van Pelt just because.
But Van Pelt had been excellent and they had become friends, not because they were both the only women on the team, but because they were both exemplary agents who did their best and got on well. And now, here and now, seeing Agent Matthews try her hardest in a workplace of men, as Van Pelt had, as Lisbon had before them, Lisbon is reminded by Matthews of another strong, assertive, wonderful agent, and Lisbon misses her friend.
"Over there, please, just there, in the corner." Grace gestures over to the space she'd cleared and neatly hoovered earlier that morning. "That's perfect, thanks."
When the movers are gone, she stands and looks at the sofa, soft and beaten, a couple of cushions scattered over it. Inspired by Jane, and the memory of him lounging around the office, she'd picked out a suitable match for their new workplace. She sits down on it, pats it. It's comfortable, alright, but it probably won't have the desired effect, just not the same without some former psychic loner making it his home, she finds.
Grace misses Jane. They'd never been as close as they might have been, and she was sure the others missed him just as much, but she misses him still. Recently, sitting on their phones, waiting for business to call, she'd caught herself craving a good Jane trick, a good spontaneous debate and more than a little divilment. Grace buys the sofa for their new office anyway, and her mind strays to Jane as she sits on it, wondering where he is, if he is okay, what he is doing.
She hopes he will be okay. She prays they all would. Even as she prays this she can't help but smile as she imagines how he'd chastise her for doing so. In her early days it had annoyed her, his cheeky know-it-all attitude, especially regards her faith, and in some instances it still had, but she had learned to enjoy a good sparring debate with Jane, and she misses him even now. She had been naive back then, but she had been young. By the end she had seen enough, felt enough to allow her to grow up over the years, and she has seen enough of life's hardships to concrete her position as the grown up type of adult she used to aspire to be.
She had grown up then, due in part to Jane and all the circles of events he had been the cause of to her, simply by being in her life. She had loved him at times, and hated him at others, had been enthused and disgusted by him enough times to make her head hurt, but still, and after all, he was a wonderful thing to have happened to her, he was, and sitting on a sofa she really only bought to remind herself of him, she misses her friend.
Scattered. They have all been scattered.
Scattered.