"Jane. Office. Now."

The man of the hour, that immature maverick, saunters in unconcernedly.

"What?"

Abbott sits down. He can't wait to hear Jane's explanation. "Williams? Remember?" Jane looks pensive, then shrugs. With no explanation forthcoming, Abbott glares at him. "Unacceptable."

"Meh. Not."

"What?" His voice is low, threatening (and slightly puzzled). Jane remains unmoved.

"Necessary. Useful. Commendable. Intelligent."

"Jane, would you talk sense?"

"Oh. I thought we were seeing how long we could talk in one-word sentences. I was describing my latest actions."

Abbott tamps down a highly inappropriate feeling of amusement and begins his lecture.

"There's no way I'm going to let you go ahead with it. Have you gone crazy?"

Jane grins. "Oh, I've always been crazy. It's kept me from going insane."

Though it is spoken flippantly, something makes Abbott pause. He has a distinct feeling that that's probably far more true than Jane would ever admit to. Jane stares back, not giving an inch. Abbott recalls his mind to the matter at hand.

"I don't care, Jane. No is no, so don't go and do it behind my back."

"I could always plead insanity."

"Jane..."

Lisbon is yelling at Jane on her phone.

"What the hell are you thinking? Have you forgotten the last eight thousand times you ran off and you needed me to rescue you? Now for the last time, tell me where you are!"

Abbott can't hear what Jane says, but Lisbon takes on an apoplectic tint before turning to him and handing him the phone. "Here. He says he wants to talk to you."

Abbott takes the device, somewhat surprised. "Jane?"

"Oh, Dennis. Good. Thanks for taking the phone. I just didn't want to hang up on Lisbon."

Click.

"...then the dog ran up with the glove in its mouth!"

"Jane, you can't expect me to buy that. It's ridiculous. Impossible."

"Now, I wouldn't say that. Merely... improbable."

"Jane, you're not going to get off on semantics. Improbable, impossible, it comes down to the same thing: You're lying."

Jane just sits there, grinning his insufferable grin. "Now, Dennis. Something improbable may be plausible; something implausible may be possible; and impossible is just something that hasn't been done yet."

"How long have you been waiting to say that?" Abbott asks drily.

"About six weeks."

"You know, that chicken actually looks like you, Dennis."

"Jane! Just - just get it out of my office!"

"Well, I didn't put it there," Jane says, offended. "You can ask the janitor."

Abbott grumbles. Of course the janitor will back up Jane's alibi. Jane's either hypnotized him, or tricked him, or blackmailed him into lying.

"Regardless, I don't want to find anything like this again," he says sternly.

This is just great. Not only does he have a chicken to worry about, but he has to find the janitor, make sure the man wasn't hypnotized.

Abbot watches from his office as Jane pulls Lisbon in for a kiss. He notices that Lisbon reciprocates briefly before pulling away and smacking Jane's arm.

He smirks as he recalls Jane trying to convince him that he wasn't interested in Lisbon. He wonders, somewhat maliciously, what Jane would say if he pointed out that he, Abbott, had actually had a better clue what Jane wanted than Jane himself.

He amuses himself with possible scenarios for a moment before dropping the idea. He can be the bigger man. It's enough to know that he was (is) right.