Authors Note: This did not turn out how I had intended. IT was to be a fluffy little one shot, featuring a little Jane/Van Pelt friendship and what they would do on a long three day weekend; it did not turn out that way. That being said, this is NOT a Jace fic, sorry to those of you who wish it was. There may or may not be a second chapter, we'll just have to see how it goes.
Disclaimer: I don't own them. I wish I did, but then, I would not be writing this, and it's fun, so I guess I don't wish I owned them
Ahh, blissful silence. Not the insufferable silence of his house or the silence of a nature preserve or park, but the silence of an otherwise busy bustling building, shut down and quieted for a long weekend. He loved it here then when the only people about were the workaholics and the janitors.
He was neither a workaholic nor a janitor, but he was here anyway. He had stayed away all weekend, knowing that today would be the best day to come. Government holidays, three day weekends. Most people loved them, but he didn't. Three day weekends were meant to be spent with families, with friends, having barbeques and going to the beach.
He had no family. He didn't even have real honest to goodness friends. Rigsby had invited him to a barbeque that he was going to with some of the guys from Vice, but he declined. Cho had wanted to ask him to the same barbeque, but he didn't. That just wasn't Cho.
Lisbon. Who knew what Lisbon was up to these days? She'd been distant with the rest of the team and had barely even said good bye before heading out the door on Friday. He knew she was going to visit one of her brothers, the one who lived closer, but he didn't ask why. She had never really gone to see him before, but she was going a lot more frequently.
Grace, now Grace was a different story. He hadn't been able to get a read on what she planned to do over the weekend. Probably the same barbeque as the guys. It would seem logical. Rigsby was going to be there, there was going to be good food, lots of alcohol, and, if she was lucky, a drunk Rigsby with no inhibitions.
He smiled as he stepped off the elevator. This was the type of silence he liked, the hum of machines "sleeping," the refrigerator turning on and off, the air conditioning cycling on and off, the typing of keys…Wait, what was that last one?
Cautiously he stepped into the bullpen and was surprised by what he saw.
"Of all the people I thought I'd run into this weekend, you were not one the top of my list." He said, standing in the door way.
"Jane. What are you doing here?" Van Pelt turned in her chair and looked at him, trying hard to keep her face neutral.
"Coming to make sure my couch is still here. The cleaning crew really likes it and I'm afraid one of these days on the long weekend that they're just going to take it with them when they leave." Having said that, he walked over to the couch he had just been talking about and sat down.
"Really?" She seemed surprised. The cleaning crew wanted to steal his couch?
He chuckled. "No. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be off somewhere enjoying Rigsby's inability to hold his alcohol?"
"They invited me to that Barbeque, but I just didn't want to go. I wasn't in the mood for teenage high jinks and drunken boys. That and I had some work to catch up on."
"Ah." Was all he said as he lay down and closed his eyes. He relaxed into the silence, noting that the tapping of the keyboard didn't throw off the overall balance of the off-day quiet. He found himself dozing off, smiling as the squeak of her chair joined in the mix of other quiet noises. She probably didn't even notice it.
They stayed like that for hours, her working at her computer and him on the sofa, enjoying the quiet. He could tell that it was starting to get dark by the time she spoke to him again.
"I was going to go out to dinner and a movie. Do you want to come?" She didn't look at him when she spoke, not wanting him to see the nervous expression on her face although she was sure could be heard in her voice.
"You were going to go by yourself?" He asked, not opening his eyes.
"Well, yes, but seeing as you are here, I thought I'd ask if you want to come along." She had turned to face him now.
"Ok, sure. What movie?"
"Whatever. It doesn't matter." She said, gathering her things. "But dinner first. I didn't eat lunch and I'm jonesing for a hamburger."
"Jonesing? Really?" He stood, following her to the elevator.
"It is a barbeque holiday after all and I missed out of the traditional food. I know just the place to go too." They rode down the elevator together and walked out to the parking lot.
"Do you want to drive or shall I?" He asked when they reached outside.
"We'll both drive that way no one will be stranded without a car." He nodded and they both went to her cars. He followed her to a small, out of the way burger joint not far from the CBI headquarters.
They settled in and ordered, him a regular cheeseburger and fries and her a double bacon cheeseburger and garlic fries.
"Wow. For such a skinny woman, you sure ordered a big burger. Where are you going to put it all? And, I though you preferred health food."
"I allow myself to indulge a few times a year. And I figure if I'm going to eat junk, might as well make it worth it. I'll just add a few extra miles to my morning run for the next few days. It's all good."
"Ah, so you're going to run all the bacon off. I wish I could order like that, but I don't run, or exercise at all for that matter, so I'll just stick to my regular burger and fries."
"Trust me. I can tell you don't exercise. You're hopeless on arrests because you can't chase anyone. Lisbon outruns you and she's almost a foot shorter than you."
"Speaking of Lisbon, have you noticed how odd she's been behaving lately?" Jane asked, knowing that while she wouldn't admit it, she listened to the office gossip, and while Jane kept an ear open, not all the people in the office would talk to him. Things said to him turned to come around to bite you in the butt.
"I haven't noticed. I did hear a rumor…but I shouldn't say." She said, taking a long drink of her soda.
Was she really going to make him ask for it? "Come on, I know you want to tell me." He said in a joking manner so she wouldn't feel any pressure. She looked as if she was debating before she finally began just as their food arrived.
"Well, I've heard two rumors. The first is that she's dating someone, but I don't think that's it." She took a bite of her burger before explaining her theory. "If she was seeing someone you'd think she'd be happier, excited, smile more. But instead, she's grumpier, a little more jumpy than usual and a little bit depressed."
Jane nodded. Van Pelt had certainly learned a few things from him. Her observation skills had definitely improved since she'd joined the team. "What's the other rumor?" Jane asked after waiting a few minutes so that she could eat some of her burger and fries.
"The other one has her going out of town to visit a sick relative, probably a brother." This time she didn't take a bite of burger, she just paused to think.
"Her anxiety isn't right for a sick relative. She's concerned, but not fearful or mournful." Jane spoke up, sharing his own observations on her behavior over the past weeks—well, months.
"Right," she said, nodding her head in agreement. "My guess would be that her brother's done something that has her concerned. Maybe he'd in jail or something."
"Ever have the urge to check it out?" He asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at her.
"NO!" She looked shocked at the suggestion. "I shouldn't have even said anything" She looked down at her watch. "It's getting late. If we're going to make the movie, we'd better leave now." She signaled to the waitress for the check. She turned to face him again when her cell phone began to ring. "Hold on." She said, slightly annoyed.
She looked at the caller ID and rolled her eyes. "Hello…How drunk?...I'll be right there." She closed the phone and smiled at Jane. "It would appear that our good friend Wayne Rigsby has managed to get himself so plastered that he can't even dial his own phone. I'm sorry. Can I take a rain check for the movie?" She asked, clearly not wanting to disappoint the man.
"Yeah, that's fine. Go play the knight in shining armor. I'll pick up the check. It's the least I can do. Besides, you're probably going to need the money to steam clean your car after you drive him home."
She thanked him and left. Not wanting to go to the movies alone, he decided to take up where he left off and go back to the CBI building. He decided to take the sonic way back and got to the office almost an hour after he left the restaurant.
The silence greeted him again as he got of the elevator, only this time there was no key tapping to be heard. Sighing, he walked over to the worn brown couch and laid down. It didn't take long before he was lulled into a pleasant sort of light sleep.
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It was very faint, which was probably why it took so long for him to notice it, for it to penetrate his mind. It took him even longer after waking to figure out what it was and where it was coming from. It was typing, fast and furious, punctuated by long pauses and then more fast and furious typing. It was distant, not close like it had been earlier in the day, which meant that Van Pelt hadn't come back. She was probably nursing Rigsby's drunken stupor about now.
It sounded like it was coming from down the hall, from behind a closed door. That could mean only one person, the same person he had been exchanging gossip about earlier. Lisbon. Lisbon was back from seeing her brother and had decided to come into work for some reason. Shouldn't she be at home enjoying an old movie and eating ice cream as was her custom?
It didn't take him long to decide that he wanted to see her, to see why she was here of all places on her day off. He walked quickly to her office and stood outside the closed door. He was debating whether he should knock or just barge in when he heard her voice coming from inside.
"Are you going to stand there all night or are you going to come in?"
"Now who's psychic?" He asked, stepping into her office and sitting in the chair across from her.
"Not psychic, just paying attention. I saw you out there sleeping and knew when you woke up you'd want to come see what I was doing here, especially in light of the rumors that have been floating around about me. That and you have a unique way of walking. When it's quiet like this, I can hear you sneaking up on me." She hadn't looked away from her computer screen the whole time she'd been speaking, but he noticed the ghost of a smile playing on her lips. "So are you here to question me about my boyfriend or console me over my dying relative?"
"Neither. I was going to ask what it is that your brother did to cause you to be anxious and depressed all the time." He didn't feel the need to hide it from her. She knew he was up to something anyway.
His last comment made her look sharply at him. "How did you know about my brother?"
"Just a guess. Looks like it was right." He waited, knowing that she would continue. She always did.
"He's been in trouble since my dad died. He's the baby and took my mom's death the worst, but when my dad died, he just lost it. He got into drugs and drank all the time. He started stealing and dealing. At first, I would bail him out when he got arrested. But he started getting into more and more trouble. My other brother and I, we managed to convince him that he needed help, got him into rehab, and for a while he seemed to be doing ok. He was working, actually holding down a job. He'd stopped drinking and stopped the drugs. But he fell off the wagon big time. He got arrested for possession with intent. He was convicted on Friday. I spent all weekend at the jail or as much time as I could. His sentencing is on Tuesday. He's never been convicted of a felony before. He's looking at five years in prison at least."
She stopped. She was staring off into space and she looked like she was having a hard time controlling her emotions. "I failed him. I let him down. There was nothing more I could do for him, but I still can't help thinking that maybe I could have done something different, maybe things would have turned out better."
"It's not your fault, you know." He said, reaching across the desk to grab her hand. "You did everything you could. What happened to him was his own choice, not yours." He looked at her, knowing she wasn't really listening. She would have to come to that realization on her own. "How about we go somewhere? Spend the last few hours of our three day weekend celebrating the way the founding fathers intended: getting slobbering drunk and making fools of ourselves on the dance floor."
To his surprise, Lisbon actually laughed. "You know what, that actually sounds like a good idea. Why don't we get out of here? The silence is nice, but sometimes, you just need a little noise."