Dark brown hair invaded luminous green eyes to hide the owner's emotion. Teresa Lisbon had never been good at handling sorrow, the evidence of which had been etched on her arms as a teenager. She still wears jackets some days to cover the reminders of a silver blade gliding down pale skin even though it had been years. But right now there was nothing to take the emotions away. No knife could cut it off her arms or any gun to blast it into oblivion. Right now, as she kneeled in a pool of blood, there was nothing she could do except hide behind the curtain her hair had built for her. It hid her face from everyone else in the world aside from one, the one who was dying. Lisbon wanted to ask her why she had done it, but no words came out. Her thoughts were attacking her mind and they clouded her so much she couldn't think. She couldn't think to talk, to move, and even to breathe. She just knelt looking at the young woman who just saved her life bleeding out onto the floor, gunshots piercing her chest and shoulder. From what she could tell, it had punctured a major artery. If she was right, VanPelt wasn't going to make it.

Her red hair move as she took in the deepest breath she could muster, "S-Sorry boss."

"No," Lisbon said feeling new tears rise, "don't be sorry; you acted admirably. I should be apologizing to you. You weren't ready for that kind of call. This-"she stopped as she realized she hadn't taken a breath in several seconds, "this is my fault. All my…"

She couldn't finish. Form behind she could hear a loud voice, but couldn't concentrate enough to hear what it said. A few seconds later a firm hand grabbed her shoulder from behind and pulled her away, causing her to fall backwards. She stayed there for a few seconds and picked up her hands to look at them- they were stained in her agent's blood.

"Grace! Grace please, hold on!" Rigsby turned back to face Lisbon, "call an ambulance, NOW!" he yelled behind gritted teeth and a cold stare. But she couldn't. Her focus was now turned to her own injury. A single stab wound to the side of her ribs. She fought for breath as she slowly searched for her cell phone. It seemed to her like hours before she found it.

"This is your 911 dispatcher, do you need assistance?" a voice said on the other end of the line.

"Yeah…an ambulance to the 17th block of Aldridge street…"

xXOoOXx

A tall African American man walked out into the crowded waiting room looking at a clipboard as his long white coat flew behind him. "Family of Grace VanPelt," he called.

Seven adults stood from the crowd and eagerly approached him; Lisbon, Rigsby, Cho, Jane, and Mr. and Mrs. VanPelt. The doctor cocked an eyebrow at the group, "I take it you three are family," pointing to Rigsby and Mr. and Mrs. VanPelt, "and you three are friends," now pointing to the other members of the CBI team.

The former named exchanged glances, "No sir, I'm actually a co-worker."

He shrugged, "Very well. She'll live, but we do need one of you to tell us exactly what happened so that we can fully understand."

Lisbon's stomach dropped. She knew everyone was staring at her, "Uh, well Van- Grace wanted to try her first solo undercover arrest so… Everything was set up, we had ear pieces and she knew the stress word, and I was supposed to be acting as a passerby so that no suspicion would be drawn until she was going to cuff him and take him in. But…uh… when she…the killer saw me and recognized me as a cop. He pulled a gun on me and fired and Grace jumped in front of it. There was nothing I could do- I didn't mean for it to happen, I didn't even know-"

Mr. VanPelt cut her off, "This is all YOUR fault!" he yelled. He reached across his wife and slapped her. Lisbon didn't even bother moving back to the place she was standing before she was knocked off her feet because she knew she didn't deserve to even be standing with them. The doctor and Cho tried to restrain him and get him to calm down but he managed to get one kick to her side in.

Lisbon remembered that she had done the repair work on the stab wound herself and neglected to tell anyone about it. They figure the blood on her clothes was VanPelt's. The kick had reopened the cut and she was bleeding again.

"I'm…so sorry…" she coughed trying to hold back the fourth round of tears.

"Don't tell me you're SORRY! My baby girl is in there undergoing surgery and you think it'll be all better if you say SORRY?" He didn't care if everyone in the waiting room was staring, he didn't care how hard he kicked her, and he didn't care whether or not she was crying. Tears never made any difference to a football coach, even if they were from the last person anyone expected to see them from.

Lisbon managed to stand up using a nearby chair to help her and limp to the bathroom. She tried her best to tune out the man's curses, and tried her best to forget the look on Mrs. VanPelt and Rigsby's faces as he slapped her. The sweet church-going lady Grace always told her about was smiling at her pain and Rigsby, her own agent, folded his arms and just watched.


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