The plastic wheels of Cho's chair skidded sideways across the room, whirring elegantly on the grey linoleum floor. He stopped beside the desk of Van Pelt who transferred her gaze from the computer and looked at him questioningly.
"What have we here?" he asked her, and nodded towards the figure strolling walking through the entranceway carrying a large package.
Jane stopped before a bemused Van Pelt and ceremoniously motioned for her to take the oval box wrapped in red tissue paper.
"A package for you," he said, smiling. The rest of the team gathered closer to watch. Rigsby got up from his seat and strolled forward slowly with his hands in his pockets, lips half parted in eager expectation. Even Lisbon reached into a drawer and pulled out paper plates and napkins, then tucked them behind her as she strode forward to join the others.
Van Pelt looked as if she were holding her breath as she gingerly lifted the cardboard top from its bottom half. It stuck, and she freed it with a gentle pull that sent the wrapping paper tumbling to the ground. Van Pelt exhaled and let her arm holding the cardboard box top fall limply to the desk.
"Guys," she sighed, "you shouldn't have."
Inside lay a round cake with scarlet frosting and white words scribbled across it in an elegant hand. Happy B. Agent Van Pelt.
"Happy 'B'?" she recited, glancing around at the people standing around her. Lisbon raised an eyebrow at Jane, wearing a somewhat exasperated expression.
"Ah, my fault," he explained, with an apologetic shrug. "I was in charge of the frosting decoration and there wasn't enough space on the cake. So I chose to shorten the phrase in the least compromising way."
"But "B" could stand for anything," protested Rigsby.
"Yeah, like 'bitch'."
Everyone's head turned to Cho, who shrugged under the weight of their combined accusatory gaze.
"No offense," he added.
Rigsby scratched his neck thoughtfully, head tilting sideways to get a better look at the guilty lettering.
"You could have taken out 'Agent' instead," he offered. There was suddenly a scattered collection of "no"s from the others.
Jane looked at him. "It seems too formal without the 'Agent'," he explained.
"You could have just written 'Grace'," Rigsby countered.
"Look guys, it's over, the cake is done," Lisbon interceded quickly. "The important thing is that Van Pelt gets the message."
Van Pelt smiled.
"Thank you, I do get the message; it's very sweet." She looked quizzically from one to the other.
"Did one of you bake it?"
"Cho and I did," came the voice of Rigsby from the back. "Well, it was mostly Cho. I got the supplies and helped with all the mixing…stuff. And Jane did the icing. And boss got the—the plates and forks."
"And napkins," Lisbon added in her defense, waving them in the air.
"Did you bring the knife?" asked Jane, who had been eyeing the supplies with an amused expression.
There was a silence as they all looked at Lisbon.
"What, I thought—you were…"
Jane stepped back and held up his arms in mock surrender.
"Ah—ah! I was in charge of icing; you were in charge of the parts that didn't require any cooking skills."
"Excuse me," protested Lisbon. "I can cook."
"It's okay, we can just eat off the container," said Van Pelt, laughing. Cho reached for the forks and passed them along to Jane, Rigsby, and Van Pelt. Jane was still looking at Lisbon with some amusement.
"What?" she said.
"Nothing!" he replied with equal earnestness.
Jane smiled at her patronizingly.
With the team being so inadequately supplied it was impressive how quickly the large cake disappeared.
"So Grace," started Jane, who was currently seated at the corner of Van Pelt's desk. He wiped his mouth on a folded napkin, "what exactly is your age?"
Van Pelt looked up from her typing. Although she was the cause for celebration and sweets she was also the first one back to work. The others loitered around her desk, wielding toothpicks or running their tongues over their teeth. Even the ever-busy Lisbon was lounging on the couch nearby, only half-heartedly filling out a file of paperwork.
"I'm twenty-eight," Van Pelt replied.
"I remember myself at that age," commented Cho.
"Oh stop," Lisbon said, smiling at him over the top of her manila folder. "You're not much older."
"Nor you, for that matter," said Jane. "Now, I can remember myself at that age."
The others chortled. But really, it wasn't too far from the truth. It had been such a short time but felt longer. He remembered when he was that age he expected for every year to feel shorter than the last, and even feared it somewhat. Well, at least that fear had been sidestepped. Twenty-eight seemed forever detached from the present moment, like looking at pictures from some other person's life. But it wasn't, of course. He remembered it; he remembered all of it, so well.
He stepped down from his perch and crossed the room, taking the seat beside Lisbon. She glanced at him briefly.
"The cake was good," she commented.
"Yes," Jane agreed. "It was good. Cho's a good baker."
Lisbon's pen paused briefly over the file. Her eyes scrutinized him under slightly raised eyebrows.
"I can cook too, you know."
Jane tilted his head sideways in an odd sort of acknowledging grimace.
"Well…"
"What, you don't think I can cook?"
"You don't seem like the cooking kind of person—not a kitchen-philic type," he said apologetically.
Lisbon nodded slowly, not buying it.
"Oh? And how exactly does a kitchen-philic type behave like?"
"Well, for one they're patient—
"I'm patient," Lisbon cut in. "I'm more patient then you wild turkeys are; that's why I'm in charge of this unit and you aren't."
"It takes a special kind of patience. And yours is…it's, well—the wrong type."
"The wrong type."
"Right."
"And Cho has the right type."
His eyes twinkled.
"Let me put it to you this way," he said, leaning forward and fixing her with one of his looks that Lisbon quickly recognized meant imminent mischief. She sat back into the couch with a silent sigh and pushed the folder towards him, as if she were putting some invisible barrier between her and the oncoming onslaught.
"Cooking is a type of art. It requires patience and skill, yes—but also inspiration. The spark of inspiration comes first and then you go into the kitchen armed with your patience, your skill and your spatula."
He leaned back with a shrug, widening again the gap between them.
"Cho is all about that. You on the other hand…you are very much a metonymic worker. You make check up on everybody's backgrounds, run through all the lab work, and only after everything has been carefully weighed and measured, so to speak, do you dump it all into the pot and turn up the heat—very carefully."
"Hold on a minute," said Lisbon. "You're using my work methods to hold judgment over my cooking abilities?"
"Now that's rather dramatic, isn't it? I just mean that you're not wired to be a cook. It's all about the sudden illumination followed by patient drudgery; you've got it backwards."
Lisbon was quiet for a little while. During Jane's lecture a strange look had been slowly creeping into her face.
"Is that the way psychics work?"
"There's no such thing as psychics."
"I know. But you pretended to be a psychic for a while so they must be—as you put it—wired the same way you are, and that's the way you work: sudden moments of inspiration followed by halfhearted steps to patch up the havoc caused by your sudden illumination."
She was grinning now. They looked at one another.
"What's your point?" said Jane.
"Oh, nothing. I'm just thinking about how different our methods are."
"I don't exactly hide it," said he with a smile. "Is it going to be a problem?"
Jane rose as Lisbon turned back to her folder, feeling along the edges of the seat cushion for her pen.
"I don't think so."
She paused, and glanced up at him.
"I hope not," she corrected. They exchanged a small smile, and Jane turned and walked towards the door.
Lisbon stood up and looked at the couch behind her.
"Hey, have you seen my—
Something hit the folder she held in her hand with a hard "thwack" and clattered to the floor. It was her pen. Lisbon looked up just in time to see the familiarly irksome smile as it disappeared around the partition.
"Son of a…" Lisbon said under her breath, and smiled. She picked up the pen and sat down again slowly, looking from it to the large stack of paperwork in her hand with somber thoughtfulness.
"I hope not," she repeated quietly to herself.