Hey guys, so someone asked about the "dirty mud water" Jane made. I didn't realize it was confusing until I re-read it again. I was talking about coffee- he calls Lisbon's coffee "dirty mud water" and far less tasteful than his warm tea. Just some Jisbon quarreling references.
If you have any more questions please ask! Thanks Kuhlama.
Van Pelt
If she could just act cool while grabbing the first aid kit, maybe Jane wouldn't say anything. Gosh, why did he have to be here so early? He's going to ask questions and figure out what's going on and Lisbon is going to be angry. Just act natural, just act natural…
"Hey Van Pelt, what's going on? You ok?" Jane asked. He had his signature curiosity face so happily plastered across his attractive face.
"Oh," Grace said as normally and coolly as possible, "nothing. Just a small cut. I don't really know actually, but we just need a band-aid."
Crap! He saw the lie…right? It wasn't really a lie. Details are truly not known, right? Whether he knew or not, he let it go.
Lisbon
Van Pelt came back a few minutes later and Lisbon had found her way over to the sink. She held a wet paper towel over a wide section of the under part of her arm. Thankfully no blood had seeped through. She made sure to keep her long dark hair over her face. The last thing she wanted now was for her agent to see her looking weak.
The supply box was placed on the counter, "Did you get a cut? You might need sti-"
"I'm fine," she snapped, "I just need a bandage or something. Thanks though."
Teresa bowed her head in gratitude when the young woman left without further question. Her slippery fingers struggled to open the kit and find butterfly band-aids. Removing the paper towels was easy. Pouring the disinfectant over the three vertical gashes was difficult. She knew that there was the threat of losing too much blood and passing out or even dying. Perhaps this is one of those emergency Time-off Requests that had been saved up from the past two years.
The phone rang from Lisbon's back pocket, "Hello?"
"Hey Lisbon!" a man's voice exclaimed. There was something dimensional about it though, like he was standing right there.
"Jane," if it was possible her stomach sank even lower, "where are you?"
She already knew he was standing right outside the door with Van Pelt, but she thought there was a slight chance she was wrong…she hoped there was a slight chance she was wrong.
"In the building-" The phone hung up but the man waltzed in and kept talking, "what happened?"
She had only seen his eyes so full of concern on only three times; when he joined the team right after losing his family, when a madman almost shot her three years ago, and when she cried.
Jane
There are four ways to explain the injury. But who would Patrick Jane be if he layed out his ideas one by one in an organized and easy-to-understand manner? He knows what could have happened and he knows what likely happened, he just wanted to figure out why.
Her embarrassed movements nearly pulled his attention away from her horribly broken face, "Jane, I'm fine." The words were slurred. She had either had a lot to drink recently, had a lot to drink recently with some pills on the side, or she just had a lot of pills with a small drink. Either way she consumed alcohol; it's awful stench was in her hair.
"Lisbon, I don't care about the law. I don't care about following the rules. I just want you to tell me what happened," she said nothing, "if you don't I will." Again, she said nothing, "Alright fine. You were at a bar (you really should wash off that stamp) to meet someone. Your brother? No. A guy friend?"
She flinched, "It's not like that."
"But you were at a bar to meet someone? If it wasn't about hooking up then what was it about? Business? Was he paying you were you paying him?" It hit a little too close to home and she snapped.
Her thumb pressed into one of the gashes and the oils from her skin burned in a wonderful way, "The shit I do for you! The shit I put myself through so that you won't get hurt! You don't even know and if you did you wouldn't even care." Her speech was laced with regret and wavy uncertianty. Patrick couldn't quite make out what she was complaining about at first. Then he couldn't quite put the pieces of the puzzle together.
