Smile
"So you two actually survived the night in darkness without killing
each other?" Rigsby asked almost too excitedly.
Mika suspected they had fun time last night.
It was finally next day, afternoon to be exact, and Mikaela managed to
drive them to their final destination. Patrick, as much as it seemed a
pure miracle, had fallen asleep. Not in his usual slumber but real
sleep. He never slept for real, so this must be some miracle.
Luckily the team's rookie had made it to their reserved holiday camp
house in their original pieces.
And they could finally get proper meal.
"As a matter of fact we did." was her diplomatic answer to his
question.
Sometimes they could get really childish.
"So you actually survived his way of fighting boredom. That must be a
miracle." Cho piped in, not tearing his eyes off the book.
"FYI, I actually did. And as you all have so kindly noted I'm the only
one capable of doing it and not suffering any damage." Mikaela
defended.
She noticed how Lisbon tried not to burst out in laughter. It was
obviously funny for her.
"It's okay Mika, you don't have to tell anything. We understand." Van
Pelt suddenly said, her cheeks showing faint pinkish hue.
Mika had to frown. It was glaring obvious they had some agenda and she
prayed for Jane to finally show up.
"I don't understand." playing dumb usually paid back.
"Oh, don't worry. We understand, it's alright." Rigsby teased.
Oh great, she thought, only idea they could get and decided to play
along. Oh why she had to send those stupid texts...
"Missed me?" Patrick's cheerfully bright tone echoed from the doorway.
"Oh great, Jane. Just the man we all wanted to see today." Cho mumbled
from his coffee. Mika smirked into her own. This is going to be fun.
"Ah yes, Patty. Missed you so much, darling." she replied to blonde man
equally brightly.
"Good to hear. I come bearing gifts." he said dropping bags down on the
table.
Everybody looked up from their plates.
"What?" he asked raising an eyebrow, "Did I miss something?"
At his innocent face Mika nearly spat out her salad. So good.
"It's either you two have some secret from last night or we're really
missing something." Rigsby told. His face was so overly serious it
looked faked.
Right, they also had decided to play pranks.
"Honey, why don't you come to table and join us for a meal and we
unpack gifts later?" Mikaela suggested and winked at Patrick.
"Sure, my darling, I'm coming." his voice still sounded bright.
The looks everyone gave the duo were just priceless. Rigsby's hanging
jaw, his mouth full of whatever food he'd stucked in; Van Pelt's wide
eyes and slight frown; Cho's deadpan expression ever so slightly
shifted showing some amusement; and finally Lisbon's raised eyebrows.
They all seemed generally shocked.
Exactly what they planned on. And Jane also noticed, giving
unnoticeable gesture to Mikaela.
"So, how about that idea you had, sweetie?" he asked, starting on
salad, with such carefree it seemed too believable.
"Oh right, almost forgot." Mika gave small laugh. "Yeah, just been
wondering about that offer. I think I'm agreeing." she gave him her
most charming flirt smile. She even thought she heard multitude of
gasps. It took much to suppress huge laughing fit.
"Can I ask a question?" Lisbon seemed first to recover.
"Sing it out my dear." Jane beat Mikaela to reply.
She smirked.
"What's going on here? I mean between you two." their boss asked
obviously curious about the strange situation.
"Absolutely nothing." Mika shrugged innocently. "What?" she exclaimed
playing dumb.
"Oh nothing. No, maybe it's just that you two look like pair of cats
after eating some canaries during night." Cho, as ever direct, stated
simply. "Oh, and Jane is glowing." he added, getting further with his
sandwich.
Mika could almost hear Patrick's jaw hitting floor as the man turned
his blue eyes towards her differentiating coloured. This was
momentarily but enough for her to notice.
"Well, maybe that's good. Quite handy during dark nights." she
murmured, making herself blush a little.
"What do you mean?" Lisbon asked.
"Oh, did I forget to mention?" Mikaela widened her eyes in mock horror.
"Meh. Probably just were bit distracted to notice such thing, my dear."
Patrick flashed his cheeky grin before speaking further. "Our motel had
power cut last night so we had a dark night." the simplicity of his
words almost send her into another laughing fit.
"Oh, then that's why you were so delicate about any details last
night." Rigsby said in a tone that made Mikaela choke on her salad a
bit.
"Maybe she was just too busy to let you annoy her." Cho told, not
looking up from his plate. He clearly tried not to burst out laughing.
"And you, Jane? What's your word?" Rigsby kept pushing.
If she wasn't trying to cough up a lung she'd said something sharp.
"Oh, me? What?" Patrick too played dumb. Their strategy.
"Jane?" it was Lisbon again.
"Yes, Lisbon." he replied with a grin. Mika hid behind her cup in a
vain attempt to stop laughing. A snort came out nearly making her cough
again.
"Did you sleep together?" Cho beat Lisbon by rather blunt question.
This time it was Rigsby who choked on his food. Van Pelt showed rather
shocked expression at her colleague's words. Lisbon just stared with
her jaw dropped.
Mikaela risked a glance at Patrick which he returned by nudging her
side. This didn't go unnoticed by Cho whose expression, as usual, was
unreadable.
"See, boss, I told ya." he stated rather matter-of-factly.
"I'll be right back." Mika mumbled, dropping her fork and rushing out.
"Excuse me." Jane followed her suit, disappearing from the room.
"Geez! Are you nuts?"
"Jane, it's fun."
"You call it fun? I thought you were kidding."
Raven haired rebellion just glared at Patrick. "Come on, Boy Wonder, we
gotta finish this so I can get your hundred. Besides you're great. It's
gonna be best holidays." her enthusiasm was flowing over, literally.
Jane let out laugh. "You're crazy. More than I thought. They'll take
revenge for this." he said trying not to sound worried. Not that
Patrick Jane ever feared to pull some prank. He just didn't want
revenge he suspected their friends will get once the game will be
finished. With Mikaela Ranger around there always were risks of being
pranked into most cheesy things.
"Don't tell the almighty Jane is afraid of bit fun." she teased. Of
course, he was just playing... Or was he?
"Let's go old man, we gotta finish this." she urged the blonde.
They crept back to dining room and Mika stopped them before doorway.
Others were talking.
"I don't know, boss. Sounds weird."
"Come on, Grace, they looked truly.. uh.. embarrassed. To me it looked
for real."
"Just because they act like five year olds most of time doesn't mean
it's something beyond that."
"But Cho, come on man, they blushed. Both. And Jane's usually more
vocal. I'm telling ya, something happened in that motel room last
night."
"Well, maybe they just talked. Jane probably annoyed the hell out of
her and that's it. Stop acting like bunch of teenage girls."
"Lisbon, but why not? What if they really..."
"Rigsby! Enough." three voice chorus echoed through the door. Mikaela
smirked.
"See? They fell for it."
"You owe me big time, Ranger." Patrick poked her in side.
"Fine." she grumbled.
They waited until Cho placed a bet and Rigsby agreed. The ladies
weren't all so sure it wasn't a game of Jane's, Lisbon most likely. She
was the one who kept telling it wasn't Jane's style. Grace at first
suggested it's Mikaela and Jane's business but then gave in. Mika knew
she wall all romantic and the imaginery of them cuddled up in dark
room, talking and maybe sipping wine won over the other option.
Jane barely kept his laugh inside. Them and possibly doing something
like that! Impossible.
And so, with bunch of funny thoughts in her head and some more in
Jane's, they entered the room like nothing ever happened. Their faces
blank and attitude nonchalant.
"So, had some fresh air?" Rigsby asked before Van Pelt managed to kick
his leg.
"Sorry, guys, he's just teasing." she quickly put in before anyone
managed to even open their mouths.
"Oh, that's interesting. Did we missed something?" Jane said,
pretending to fix some crease on his shirt and placing his curls in
order like they had been wrongly placed. His smile never wavering.
"Oh no, nothing. Just Rigsby finishing off that burger." Cho stated,
suddenly glued to book again.
"That's wonderful. Shall we start desert?" Mikaela smiled unnaturally
brightly. She too pretended to fix her clothes.
"Okay then, I'll take care of it." Lisbon said and got up, taking empty
plates away.
"I'll go help." Grace offered, rushing off.
For a while there was complete silence. Cho kept 'reading' his book and
Rigsby started to play some game on his phone.
Mika pulled out her phone and quickly typed a text she sent to Jane. He
read it and sent back reply with a smile on his face.
They kept the little game on for a while until ladies returned with
desert. There were waffles, home-made cookies and cake, that smelled so
good Mikaela's mouth started watering, and pot of freshly brewed
coffee.
Van Pelt put on some Christmas themed music on her phone and they
jumped on goodies. For a while there was some small talk-chit chat.
Mika and Patrick played their game in between, aware of secret glances
from others. It was dark already when they finished and all the dishes
were taken care of. The supposed 'lovers' volunteered to wash up and so
had their 'time alone'. However both had noticed someone left their
camera on top shelf conveniently towards the sink and forgot to switch
it off. Also they both spotted how silent it was so Mika volunteered to
put on some music she had on her phone. Conveniently she placed it near
the camera and innocently cranked up the volume so their voices
wouldn't be heard.
During the whole 'dish washing' act they kept their little game on.
Mikaela being Mikaela with all her kinky ideas suggested to put up one
rather lovely flirt-scene and despite Jane's stiffness at first in the
end it turned out slightly more than just innocent display.
And, upon the arrival of morning the next day, it turned out a
successful operation. Everybody seemed hanging on that proverbial hook
mischievous pair had thrown out for the naive fishes to swallow.
It appeared that whole group had agreed on something as soon as the
'lovers' comes out of their hiding place.
Little did they know that actually the pair had spent most of night
playing cards and chess. They even had snuck out after midnight, not
without the all-seeing eye though, to make their performance more
believable. Mika had used the moment to have some smoke and longed beer
as they played tic-tac-toe on the snow. They were glad to find out it
had heavily snowed afterwards so all the evidence would be covered with
a fresh layer of show.
So when the pair, fairly innocently, arrived for breakfast their
friends sent some mischievous stares towards them but didn't say
anything.
Albeit Mika had expected some reaction, this was somewhat concerning.
They didn't talk much during eating but just when Mikaela was about to
sneak out to catch up on her cigarette raid Lisbon spoke, stopping her
timely.
"Mikaela stay. Jane, don't move."
They both shared rather guilty glances.
"Yes, Lisbon?" they spoke simultaneously.
"We've all been quite curious about few suspicious things between you
two. I think it's time for a talk."
"Sure, boss." Mika choked out.
"So?" Cho yet again went on blunt lines.
"What?" Patrick still played dumb.
"Are you two... uh.. well..." Rigsby somehow couldn't finish.
"He wanted to ask if you two have an affair." Cho yet again saved his
friend.
For a second everyone's eyes were glued to both 'suspects'. They stared
back with some mixed expressions before simultaneously bursting out in
hysterical laughter. Mikaela slid off her chair and expressively rolled
on the floor while Patrick doubled over with his body under the table.
They missed several confused mixed expressions that crossed their
friends faces.
It took a while for both get back their breaths and put themselved on
their chairs. They both wiped off tears that had slipped during
laughing fit.
"Don't say it Ranger. Just don't." Jane said warningly.
"What? Not to say 'told ya so'? Why? That's the highlight of this whole
ordeal." Mikaela replied triumphantly.
"Hey, you promised!"
"You owe me. Now, gimme my deal." she held out her hand. Jane complied
and with an annoyed expression took out hundred bucks bill.
"Use it wise." he joked.
"Thanks pal." she grinned. "So folks, thank you for fun show. I really
didn't know you could believe this little play."
"What? This was all fake?" Rigsby whined, obviously devastated. Grace
only glared at them.
"Yep. Only a fancy show. You know how bets are motivating people."
"Jane, you played us. And you.." Grace pointed at Mika, "you fooled
us." she really looked angry.
"Sorry. Guys it was only a stupid bet." Mikaela tried to soften the
anger.
"Well, in that case... Rigsby, Grace." Cho said holding his hand out.
Both took out their bills.
"I'm sorry guys." Lisbon put out her hand winking at Mikaela.
Cho gave over freshly received bills and adding his own.
"So. Time to celebrate." Lisbon looked at Mikaela.
Woman smirked. "Oh wait, boss, not so fast. Remember?"
"Oh damn. Yeah, right." she complied and gave over all money plus her
own bet to the thriving Mikaela. She was grinning so intense that
Patrick considered possibility of her to start glowing.
"Thank you." ultimate winner of all bets beamed.
"Guess it's time for you to call."
"Seems so." They both stood up.
"Welcome to our team Junior Agent Mikaela Ranger, enjoy your stay."
Lisbon said and held out her hand.
"Thank you very much, Special Agent Teresa Lisbon. I'm sure will be
enjoying." she replied, gripping boss' hand and giving firm handshake.
"So you..."
"Yep."
And suddenly all group burst out laughing and hugging. The huge, bright
smile didn't disappear from Jane's face as they hugged.
"I'm glad you decided to stay with us." he mumbled in her ear.
"And I'm glad I did, too." Mikaela said back, stil smiling.
The End