Scarlet Fever: Lisbon and Van Pelt share a moment in the hospital, post Strawberries and Cream.
This fic was a collaborative effort between myself and Little Miss Erudite. She wrote the first chapter, and I wrote the second. It was written on request of BlueEyedMentalistFan. We hope you, and anyone else who reads it, enjoys it :)
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mentalist, it's characters, or anything to do with it. If I did, it would say my name instead of Bruno Heller's.
Grace perched on the side of the hospital bed, staring at the pale, supposedly calming green walls. The events of the past few hours were still catching up with her, and adrenaline was still coursing through her veins, making it nigh on impossible for her to sit still. She sighed, and stood up, pacing around the room with her hands clasped behind her back. Where was everyone? She hadn't seen anyone from the team since arriving in this hospital; Lisbon had been wheeled away down corridors, doctors running alongside her; Cho and Rigsby hadn't been allowed in the ambulance and had been forced to follow in the car, so they hadn't even arrived when she got there! And as for Jane...what had even happened to him? The last she'd heard, he was in the cafeteria with Bertram, and he'd just figured out that the mole was...him. She still couldn't think his name; the betrayal was far too fresh in her mind. But surely to God Jane would be here, if only to check that Lisbon was okay! Van Pelt smiled slightly to herself as she paced; those two were so sure that no-one else knew how they felt. As if! She just prayed it worked out better for them than it had for her and Rigsby.
As if on cue, the man himself strode through her door, looking wildly around when he saw that the bed was empty. He caught sight of her standing in the corner and relief visibly washed across his face.
"Grace!" Rigsby said as he closed the distance between them. "How're you holding up?"
She shrugged. "Okay, I guess. The doctors want to keep me in for observation or something. I keep telling them: I'm fine! Okay, so I shot and killed my fiancé, but there's nothing they can do to make me feel better about that!"
Rigsby looked taken aback by this outburst and didn't really know how to respond, so he simply remained silent.
Van Pelt took a deep, calming breath, and then spoke in a normal voice. "So, where is everyone?"
Rigsby looked relieved at the change of subject. "Cho's visiting the boss. She's just got out of surgery."
"Surgery?" Grace echoed, shocked.
"Yeah. The bullet was still lodged in her, so they had to get it out. I think it went okay," he added hastily, for at the very mention of surgery Grace had looked like she was beginning to panic. "She's still unconscious, but that's just from the drugs they gave her. She'll probably be coming around soon, though."
"Right, well that settles it," Grace said, and started towards the door. When she was still a few steps away, it opened and a man wearing a white coat entered.
"Ms Van Pelt? I'm Dr. Wilson," he said, with a reassuring smile. "How are you feeling?"
Grace scowled at him. "What does it matter? You can't do anything to help me anyway." She moved to walk past him, but he side-stepped and blocked her path.
"Ms Van Pelt, I'm going to have to ask you to remain calm and just sit on the bed for me while I run some quick tests," he said, moving forward to try and force her backwards.
Grace stood her ground. "No," she said simply.
The doctor stopped in his tracks. "No?" he repeated, as if unsure he'd heard her right.
"No. I'm not going to sit here for another however many hours while you run tests for things that aren't there and try to help with something that you can't. Today I found out that my fiancé was the right-hand man of a cold-blooded murderer. Then he tried to kill my boss, and ended up wounding her so badly that she'd had to have surgery, so I shot and killed him. So, I'm sorry doctor, but unless you've got a pill that can rewind time and make all that go away, you can't help me. So I'd appreciate it if you'd just let me go." She said all of this in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, and looked him directly in the eye. He looked at her for a minute, as though making up his mind, then stepped to the side and allowed her to pass.
She nodded her thanks, and then emerged past him into the corridor, which was also painted in that sickly green colour. The smell of disinfectant reached her nostrils, and she crinkled her nose in disgust. Looking left and right, she realised that there was only one room she wanted to visit. Luckily for her, Cho was coming down the corridor to her right.
She ran up to him. "Cho, where's Lisbon's room?" she asked him in a rush.
Cho, as usual, didn't look remotely surprised by this question. "Room 312," he said, and pointed out the way to her.
"Thanks," she said breathlessly, and started to walk quickly away. Rigsby, who had followed her from the room, made to go after her, but Cho grabbed his arm and held him back.
"Let her go," he told Rigsby. "She needs to see her."
