There's No Place like Home
Chapter 2
Still trudging onward, she wasn't sure how much time had passed before they heard what sounded like a rumbling. She had begun to feel a little peckish, but she doubted her stomach was making that much noise. She looked over at Cho. He looked like he always did and shrugged his shoulders.
"Wasn't me," he stated.
Lisbon stopped and looked around for the noise. She seriously wished she'd made Cho keep the ax as neither of them had their guns on them.
"What was it? Lions, Tigers, and bears? Just what I need," Lisbon groaned. "Please, just once, don't let there be any of the above." She cast a prayer to whatever powers that be that controlled dreams to go easy on her. She'd had her share of nightmares and this dream was bad enough as it was without throwing those into the mix.
"It was me," a familiar voice spoke from somewhere out of sight.
"Rigsby?!" Lisbon frowned, "Where are you?" She looked around from where the voice came.
"Stand here, they said, scare off the crows, they said, never once did they offer me something to eat, no," the voice continued to speak as if not hearing her. "They only thought about what the crows would do to the corn. They didn't once think about what the corn would do to me. If only I had a fire, I could make popcorn. Yeah, that would be great. Popcorn! That would take the edge off until my shift is over."
Lisbon motioned to Cho and headed off in the direction she thought the voice was coming from. They found him standing in the middle of a field. At another time, Lisbon might have laughed at Rigsby too. He wore a straw hat, a flannel shirt that had seen better days, and a pair of overalls that had more patches than original fabric. He had a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth as he gnawed on the other end.
"Rigsby, what on earth are you doing?"
"Oh, hey, Boss, Cho, I'm trying to light a fire," Rigsby looked up at them before returning his attention to what he was doing before they arrived.
"With what? You don't smoke and you're not likely to find flint rocks in the middle of a field," Cho finally said something that sounded more Cho like.
"Don't worry about it, I've got it covered," Rigsby said seriously.
"Don't you need a magnifying glass or something," Cho crossed his arms. At least one thing hadn't changed.
"I'm starting a fire with my mind," Rigsby said as though he firmly believed it.
"Did the Wizard trick you again? The last time I checked, you don't have a brain, I'm still called 'Iceman', and Van Pelt… well Van Pelt is Van Pelt," Cho said.
"You know where Van Pelt is? Where is she?" Lisbon spun on her subordinate and glared at him for not having mentioned it sooner.
"Yeah, where is Van Pelt?" Rigsby parroted before Lisbon elbowed him in the stomach. "What do you mean I don't have a brain?" Rigsby looked even more confused than normal.
Before anyone else could reply, they heard a rustling in close proximity. Whatever it was, it sounded big as it sped passed them. The three of them looked in opposite directions hoping to see whatever it was. They still hadn't located it yet when it whooshed by them again from the opposite direction.
"Oh my!" Rigsby gulped and backed away from whatever it was. He was a few feet away from the others when suddenly he disappeared like a bad shark movie.
"Dammit, I so do not need this right now. Where's my gun when I need it?" She cursed as she and Cho charged forward. Out of nowhere, Cho pulled a gun and aimed it down at the ground where Rigsby lay sprawled on his back.
Lisbon knew her mouth was open; if ever she understood the meaning of slack-jawed, it was now. Sitting on top of Rigsby's chest, looking a bit more Tigger who'd pounced on Winnie the Pooh than her go-getter junior agent, was Grace Van Pelt, complete with cat suit and… did her tail just wag?
"Hi, Lover, did you miss me?" Grace gave Rigsby a Cheshire cat-like grin as she purred at him.
"Oh hi, Grace, we were just talking about you," Rigsby smiled up at his girlfriend.
"Hi, Boss, don't mind us," Grace waved at Lisbon without looking up.
"Van Pelt, get off of him," Lisbon ordered.
Grace pouted for half a second before her new Tigger persona returned.
"Were you scared? Did you figure out it was me? I scared ya, didn't I?" Grace leapt off Rigby's chest and popped up behind first Lisbon's back, then Cho's, before returning to Lisbon.
"I wasn't scared," Rigsby said as Cho helped him to his feet.
"Neither was I," Cho dusted off his friend. "You're the one who's supposed to be afraid of her own shadow."
"I am not!" Grace declared, although she grabbed her flicking tail, pulled it a little tighter to her chest, and looked nervously over Lisbon's shoulder. "Why am I the cowardly lion again?"
"You're the only one who looked good in the cat-suit and it was the only costume the Wizard had left," Cho stated.
Lisbon choked back the chortle that escaped her throat before she could completely catch it.
"I think it's sexy," Rigsby stated.
Grace purred again and temporarily forgot her fears to cuddle up to her boyfriend.
"I so need to wake up now!" Lisbon groaned as she watched the sickeningly gushy couple.
"Can I shoot them?" Cho asked.
Lisbon glared at the couple, but shook her head.
"Tch," he complained and reholstered his weapon.
"Three out of four isn't bad. Now, we just have to locate Jane and find the way out of here," She said to no one in particular. "Okay," she told her team, feeling better now that they had her back once more, "Let's move out."
"Are we going somewhere?" Grace wanted to know.
"Central City," Cho stated as he followed Lisbon.
"Yay! We're off to see the Wizard," Grace bounced happily at Rigsby's side.
Lisbon stopped suddenly, making the other three run into each other's backs like a bad comedy skit.
"If anyone starts singing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' I will shoot them!" Lisbon cast a threatening glare over her shoulder. Three innocent pairs of eyes stared back at her so she nodded and headed back towards the road. So far, no one had broken out into song and she wanted to keep it that way.
Cho walked behind Lisbon while Rigsby walked hand-in-hand with Grace who skipped happily along beside him. Lisbon wasn't certain how much longer it would be before they reached the fields of the Papay, but the smell of flowers and fruit in the air told her they were close. Allowing them a brief respite, she repeated DG's warning and picked some of the fruit for herself. She wasn't sure what the Papay were exactly, but DG's advice held an ominous note and Lisbon didn't want to stay there any longer than necessary.
"This is even better than corn and I didn't have to light a fire to eat it," Rigsby said picking another piece from a nearby tree.
"Dammit, Rigsby, I told you not to eat so much," Lisbon barked at him.
"But they're so small," Rigsby complained.
Attracted either by the noise or by the fact that Rigsby was the glutton that he ever was, things that originally looked like shrubs slowly stalked towards the group of humans.
"Okay, I think that's our signal to leave," Lisbon stood and slowly backed away from the approaching creatures that looked as though they were made out of twisted driftwood.
Her team followed suit and they slowly made their escape, unwilling to risk turning their backs on the enemy. Cho reached for his weapon, but Lisbon held her hand out to stop him.
"Don't antagonize them any further. DG made them sound peaceful enough. I just think we overstayed our welcome," Lisbon cautioned.
"Uh, Boss…," Rigsby called.
Sighing in frustration, Lisbon cast a glance over her shoulder. As if things couldn't get any worse, she saw that they'd backed themselves right up to the edge of a cliff.
"I ever mention I really don't like heights?" Rigsby wondered.
"I don't think now is the time to press our luck by asking the stick monsters if they'll let us go around," Lisbon stated. "It's not my first choice either, but it looks like jumping is our only option."
"Come on, Rigsby, its fun," Grace was the first to take the plunge.
"I thought cats were normally afraid of water," Cho stated.
"Since when has Van Pelt ever done normal?" Lisbon commented, "Okay on the count of three. One…"
"Two…"
"Three…," Rigsby counted off and the three of them jumped in after Van Pelt.
Hitting the water from such a great height forced the air out of Lisbon's lungs. She fought back the typical disorientation brought on by panic. Forcing her mind to clear, Lisbon righted herself and clawed her way to the surface. Gasping for air the moment her head broke through the water, Lisbon sucked cool air into her burning lungs.
As the panic subsided, Lisbon looked around for the other members of her team. Cho and Van Pelt were already on land helping Rigsby out of the water. Lisbon took a deep breath and swam over to the shore. When she reached the edge of the waterfall-carved pool, Cho pulled her onto dry ground.
After a brief rest, they began searching for any sign of yellow brick, hoping to spot the trail once more. If they couldn't find it soon, Lisbon feared that her secret would get out. Since the advent of GPS, she never had to worry, as long as her cell phone had service. Not only was there no service in this place, her phone was now water logged.
"Over here, I found it!" Rigsby's voice echoed through the forest that ran along the water's edge.
Lisbon used sounds of voices to locate her team. Luckily, in her current position, she had been able to bluff her way through without anyone being the wiser. She had a suspicion that Jane knew, but she would never admit the truth, especially not to him. When she rounded a tree that was as big around as her SUV, she discovered that Cho and Van Pelt had already joined Rigsby.
"How do we know where to go?" Rigsby wondered.
"DG told us to follow the 'old road' to Central City," Lisbon repeated the instructions she'd been given.
"River's back there," Cho pointed over his shoulder in the direction from which they'd already come.
"Then we head that way," Lisbon pointed in the opposite direction. Cho was a veritable walking compass, so he never got lost. She relied on his senses more than anyone else's.
God willing, there would be no further holdups as they headed towards Central City. She tried in vain to ignore the strange twist of fate that turned her team into characters from a storybook. Suddenly, Lisbon realized that made her Dorothy and she wondered if her life could get any worse.
"I'm tired," Grace complained.
"I'm hungry," Rigsby added his complaint as well.
"We don't have time for this," Lisbon sighed in frustration.
"Look," Cho pointed to a sign indicating a small path off the main thoroughfare.
"Milltown, that's a nice normal sounding name," Van Pelt stated.
"From what I've witnessed so far, the O. Z. is far from normal," Lisbon sighed and shook her head again.
She didn't want to get off track, but her feet were killing her and she knew they could all use a rest. Looking around for a landmark, Lisbon couldn't find anything except the road sign. She bent down to gather some rocks and found two large sticks. Since Cho hadn't moved since the four of them stopped, she used him as an anchor point.
To the side of the road, so they wouldn't get disturbed, she laid the rocks out in a row. Placing the sticks in the opposite direction of where Cho's stood, she made an arrow pointing towards Central City.
As she stood and looked down at her handiwork, something still seemed missing. She grabbed the hat off Rigsby's head and stuck it on the stone monument that doubled as a road sign. To keep it from blowing away, she placed a flat, heavy stone on top.
"All right, let's see if we can find the town. We could all use something to eat and drink, but if we don't find it in a few miles, we'll head back and continue on towards Central City," Lisbon acquiesced. Despite their odd costumes, everyone acted as though they were back in the bullpen as normal.
It was another hour or so before they reached the town. Every foot that took them farther from the road, made Lisbon want to turn back. As she was about to do just that, she saw a billboard in the least likely of places.
"Everything's better in Milltown!" Declared the sign that looked straight out of the 1950s. Unlike the sign, the town looked like something out of a TV Western. A new coat of paint, flowers blooming in window boxes, and fresh calico curtains made the town look recently revitalized.
"This time, don't do anything to provoke the locals," Lisbon commanded as the four of them made their way toward the center of town. Before they passed the first row of buildings, doors on both sides of the street opened simultaneously and the townspeople poured out into the open.
"Welcome Travelers of the Realm!" Cheered a man who looked more like a floating electric screwdriver.
"They're robots," Rigsby whispered behind her.
Placing a hand on Cho's arm so he couldn't draw his weapon, Lisbon asked the apparent leader, "You know about us?"
"Of course," said a man Lisbon recognized as DG's foster father. "Baby Girl called to say you might stop by and she asked us to give you all the help you needed."
"We could use a rest and something to eat and drink, if you have it," Lisbon sized up the crowd.
"Of course, come on in. Make yourselves at home," DG's foster father motioned towards the building from which he'd exited.
Lisbon recognized DG's foster mother as the one who'd sold lemonade during their investigation on the 'other side'. The woman who'd sold sandwiches was also there. Lisbon held up a hand to their eager hosts.
Turning back to her team, she drew them into a huddle. "Okay, listen up. I don't want anyone going anywhere on their own. I don't trust these people as far as I can throw them. We need to stay together, but if something does happen and we are separated, we should meet back at the road. If an hour passes, and no one's shown up yet, head to Central City and find the Wizard. We'll all meet at his place, got it?"
"Got it, Boss," Cho nodded his head.
"You got it, Boss," Grace confirmed. The three of them turned to look at Rigsby.
"Why would you want to throw these people?" Rigsby frowned.
Lisbon glared at him.
"Right, got it, Boss, old road, Wizard," Rigsby nodded in understanding.
"Good," Lisbon nodded; happy they were all on the same page. She then turned back towards DG's foster parents and followed them inside.