So I just finished watching "Red Rover, Red Rover" and my heart literally broke at the end of it when I saw Lisbon's face. I wanted to explore how her agents would have responded in the wake of what happened to Jane and Lisbon, so here's my take on it. Enjoy?
PS: Spoilers ahead. Do not read if you haven't watched the episode. You've been warned!
Disclaimer: I own a penny, a gumball, and a teddy bear. No you can't have the teddy bear.
If there was a time for Kimball Cho to ever feel bad for someone, this would be it.
He watches helplessly as Jane strolls casually from the conference room, seemingly unaffected by his sudden unemployment. His first response, however, is not to turn to Rigsby or Van Pelt. It's not even to yell at Wainwright. He doesn't even want to go after Jane (well, okay, he wants to, he just doesn't think Jane will listen to him). No, Cho's first response is to look after the well-being of his leader. He looks to Lisbon, and her face is enough to make his fairly unemotional face twitch.
It only lasts a few seconds, but he sees Lisbon's face crumple and twist into something that resembles utter misery before she begins to try and reassert her calm demeanor. "Jane," she says before striding out of the office space. "Jane!"
Cho watches her go running after the fired consultant, unconsciously analyzing her tone in his head. Lisbon isn't one to reveal her true emotions often, choosing to hide them behind a façade of humor and alternating that with serious, organized let's-get-down-to-business mode. Cho supposes that that's why he likes working for her so much; she's like him, but there's more to it. She keeps life interesting. Or her chemistry with Jane does, at least.
Cho is brought back to the scene by Van Pelt surprisingly speaking out of turn. "Bit of a harsh statement, Chief," she says with not a little bite of bitterness in her tone.
"He had it coming," Wainwright replies, trying to straighten his tie and then growling as he gives up and tears it off his neck.
"Jane's not usually like this," Rigsby tries to explain. "He's had a hard week-"
"To hell with him and his hard week," Wainwright spits. "I've had enough of him and his tricks- it's ridiculous how many times I've had to bail the CBI out of the messes we've had with him around-"
"Yeah?" Cho's voice is dangerously calm and cold. "We've closed more cases ever since Jane was here. Excluding the Red John case, we've only ever left maybe five, six unsolved in the last four years. What sort of mess is that, Chief?"
"I will not tolerate any more of your uncooperative attitude, Special Agent Cho," Wainwright gets out through gritted teeth as he rounds on the stoic Asian man. "I am Chief here, and none of you should forget who writes your checks at the end of the day."
"Not you," Cho says simply, and Wainwright's eyes flare up in anger.
Before the young chief can say anything, Van Pelt, ever the diplomat, steps in. "I think what Cho is saying is that maybe you stepped on Jane's toes a little bit too much, Chief. Like we said, he had a hard week, his wife and daughter have been dead for nine years, Red John-"
"I'm tired," Wainwright explodes, "of hearing that blasted name in this office! Red John, Red John! There are other people to catch, would somebody like to tell me why we're wasting resources on a psychopathic consultant bent on catching another psychopath?"
"Oh, I guess we could just not do anything and let that particular psychopath kill more people," Cho says flatly.
"Do you want me to fire you, Agent Cho?"
"Enough." All four heads turn to see Lisbon stepping back into the room, her face tired and troubled. "Chief, I don't want to hear you firing any more of my team tonight." She holds her hands up when Wainwright steps forward, mouth open to berate her further. "I know, I know. I should keep a tighter rein on my team, be more responsible for their actions, I know. I don't want to hear any more tonight."
Wainwright doesn't even bother saying anything. He just turns on his heel and storms out of the room, and a few seconds later the team hears the door to his office slam. Rigsby is the first to break a silence by letting out a low whistle. "Wow."
"What did Jane say?" Van Pelt asks.
Lisbon sinks into a chair, running her hand over her eyes. "Nothing."
"Nothing?" Cho repeats.
"Nothing." Lisbon closes her eyes and folds her hands over them. "I swear he got himself fired on purpose."
"It would be like Jane," Rigsby agrees. "Always the master planner."
"So you think he has a plan?" Van Pelt asks hopefully.
"No." Cho says it with so much finality that all three heads whip to turn to look at him. Cho picks up a pen and begins tapping it against his nose. "Jane doesn't have a plan. Not that we know of, at least. And even if he does, it's always best to assume he doesn't. Saves us a lot of time."
"We can't just let him walk out of here-" Rigsby begins to protest, but Lisbon cuts him off.
"No, Rigsby. Cho's right. We don't know what Jane has up his sleeves. If he won't accept my help, he won't accept any of our help. That much I can tell you." She rubs her eyes. "We should all just go home and get some rest. It's been a long day."
She opens her eyes when she doesn't hear any movement to find all three of her agents still sitting there staring at her. "Well, go."
"Nah," Cho says flatly, turning back to his computer.
"Yeah," Van Pelt agrees, "I have no plans for tonight."
"Sarah's in Connecticut visiting some family and she took the baby with her. I'm free." Rigsby plops down into his chair and picks up a discarded newspaper.
Lisbon narrows her eyes at them as she stands up. "Please do not tell me you feel sorry for me. I hate it when people feel sorry for me."
"We don't feel sorry for you," Cho says nonchalantly, accepting the section of the newspaper that Rigsby hands over.
"Maybe a little," Van Pelt mutters as she pulls up another case on her computer.
"Boss, we know that you didn't want to do this to Jane." Rigsby says it so plainly, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "We just don't want you to... er, miss him?"
Lisbon tries to laugh it off (as usual, Cho finds himself thinking, she always tries to laugh it off when it comes to Jane). "Miss him? He deserved it."
Three eyebrows lift at that remark.
"Okay, maybe he only deserved part of it," Lisbon amends her statement. "But that doesn't mean that he's justified to do whatever he wants! Wainwright's right. He did get us into a lot of messes."
"And a lot of solved cases," Rigsby points out.
"And he's rubbed the DA the wrong way, not to mention the Sac State police, Alameda County, the FBI…" Lisbon shakes her head. "Jane was a valuable asset, but he was also a little volatile."
They all just stare at her.
"Oh, don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about," Lisbon snaps.
"Boss," Van Pelt sighs, "you know that we can't get anything done without Jane."
"Maybe we were getting a bit lazy." Lisbon shakes her head. "This will be a good opportunity for us to get back to what we do best- police work."
"What we do best is put bad guys away," Rigsby points out.
"With Jane," Van Pelt emphasizes.
"And we'll learn how to do it again without Jane," Lisbon says flatly.
Cho picks up his phone and Lisbon turns to him, well aware that Cho hasn't said anything in a while. "What are you doing?"
"Ordering pizza."
Rigsby perks up at that one. "Oooh! Don't forget I like onions."
Lisbon blinks at Cho while Van Pelt asks in confusion, "Why are you ordering pizza?"
"Because I'm hungry," Cho says dryly. "It's eight at night and I didn't have lunch."
"So go home and eat," Lisbon says, taking the opportunity to kick her agents out of the office.
"Nah, no point. You're going to be here all night filing paperwork for Jane's dismissal. I might as well stay and keep you company." Cho keeps on listening to the dial tone.
"I like pineapples," Van Pelt pipes up.
"What are you three doing? Go home." Lisbon frowns.
"We told you, boss, we don't want you to grieve alone- yes, hello." Cho turns away from his visibly perplexed boss as she turns to Rigsby and Van Pelt.
"I won't be grieving alone," Lisbon says indignantly. "I won't be grieving at all!"
"Uh huh." Van Pelt nods absently and goes back to her computer while Rigsby picks up a folder on his desk and begins pulling out forms.
"Don't 'uh huh' me, Van Pelt. I won't be grieving," Lisbon insists, though she's starting to become aware that none of her agents are listening to her.
"Hey boss, you like your pizza with mushrooms right?" Cho covers the mouthpiece and rotates his chair so he's facing Lisbon again.
Lisbon struggles not to say something sardonic- she has a feeling that that isn't going to go down well- and sighs. "And peppers."
"Mushrooms and peppers," Cho says into the phone before swiveling away again.
"Guys," Lisbon tries again, "it's not like I care…"
"You can keep telling yourself that, boss." Van Pelt's fingers fly across the keyboard.
"If you cared, you wouldn't have run after Jane," Rigsby says simply.
"I-" Lisbon sputters. "I did not run after Jane!"
"Then what did you do?" Cho hangs up the phone and turns to look at Lisbon.
"I went after him," Lisbon says with as much dignity as she could muster, "to get him to come back and apologize."
"You know as much as we do that Jane would never apologize," Cho points out.
"Boss, you miss him already. You began as soon as Wainwright fired him."
"I did not," Lisbon protests.
"Uh huh," Rigsby and Van Pelt mutter at the same time.
Lisbon gives up and sits back down into her chair. "Go home," she says again, hoping that the third time she says it will be the charm.
"No," all three of her agents say in unison.
Lisbon throws up her hands and pulls out her phone, contemplating whether to call Jane and try and talk him out of his stubborn streak. Her fingers hover over the phone, knowing that she could just hit one and speed dial would take her to Jane. But she remembers his face when she came running after him- defiance and sadness and regret all rolled into one. She knows that expression. She's only seen it when Jane deliberately keeps her out of the loop or hurts her. And he's never apologized. Not verbally, at any rate. His apology comes in the form of the criminal in handcuffs, visibly annoyed at having being caught by the slightly irritating consultant.
Ah, she hates it when she realizes how much she's grown attached to Patrick Jane.
She puts her phone away and looks up to see her agents all suddenly resume working. Scowling slightly, Lisbon stands up. "Call me when the pizza's here," she addresses Cho. "I'm going to go to my office."
"You got it, boss."
When Lisbon leaves, all three of them turn to each other. "What are we going to do?" Van Pelt hisses.
"Nothing," Cho shrugs. "What can we do? You know that if Jane won't listen to Lisbon, he's not going to listen to us."
"We could try," Rigsby offers.
"No point. Wasted energy and he doesn't want to see us, he wants to see Lisbon."
Van Pelt bites her lip. "I miss him already," she mutters.
"So do I." Rigsby nods.
Cho says nothing and his face belies no expression, but both Van Pelt and Rigsby know that he silently agrees with them. The three agents sit alone in the empty office, watching their boss work in her office- alone and lonely. The office seems colder already without Jane around to warm up the atmosphere.
Rigsby breaks the silence. "So what now?"
Van Pelt looks to the ever stoic, strong Cho.
Cho shrugs again. "We work. We make Lisbon look good. And some time later, we can find Jane." He turns back to his work. "He'll come back," he tosses over his shoulder. "He always comes back."
When the pizza comes later, all three agents note that their boss has been crying, but she says nothing and Jane is never mentioned again. He'll come back, Cho reassures himself when he thinks about how stilted the conversation is without Jane and how lost Lisbon looks without the consultant hovering by her side. He'll come back and we can restart.
Somehow, he's never sounded so hollow to his own ears before.
Reviews appreciated :)