Disclaimer: Jane's hair is blonde,
Jane's eyes are blue.
He is not mine:
It's sad, but it's true.
Note: I totally can't believe it's been so long since I updated this, but I have an excuse, really! Work, work, and...yes, even some vacation! But things are getting back to normal, so I should be able to update more regularly. Oh. Did I mention that I adore reviews? ;)
4. Do You Have An Appointment?
JUNE 1ST, 7:15 AM
The mirror isn't loving me so much this morning, but Lisbon will...you'll see!
I have made a promise to myself that I will not, from this moment forward,
allow myself to be affected by what I witness between Lisbon and Mashburn.
Any distraction could jeopardize my mission, and I cannot fail.
You're on my side, right? Well, you would be if you knew the severity
of the situation. I'm doing this for the innocent people, Dr. Owen.
That means you. That means me. Think of the people. Think of the babies.
For Heaven's sake, think of the babies!
By the way, I realize it is Friday morning and I will be coming to visit
you this afternoon. Sorry I didn't record an entry last night, but I did
draw a fantastic map of Disneyland, from memory and in color,
where that entry should have been.
You're welcome.
-:-
"Alright, Cho. Show me what we've got."
"Shanna Murphy. Caucasian female, age twenty-three. Waitress at a mom-and-pop burger joint in downtown Los Angeles, didn't come home last Wednesday after closing up the restaurant, but the owner says she was definitely there at ten p.m. Boyfriend got nervous and called the police the next day; they found her car about a quarter mile from the route she would normally take home after work. Found the body in the trunk about an hour ago; no sign of the murder weapon. Coroner put the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, time of death in the early hours of last Thursday morning."
"Okay. Van Pelt, I want to know if Miss Murphy made any stops after she left work, for gas, cigarettes, anything."
"Yes, boss. I'll check with her credit card company and the traffic cams on her street."
"Great. Rigsby, you can finish that later. We have a refrigerator for a reason."
"Of course, boss."
"Cho, take Rigsby with you to the restaurant; talk to Murphy's coworkers, her employer, regular customers if you can. Jane, you're with...Jane? Damn it, has anybody seen Jane?"
The team looked around as if that mild effort would produce the consultant, but it was in vain. Lisbon narrowed her eyes, one brow cocked toward her hairline and her jaw firmly set. She looked from one member of her team to the next. Van Pelt looked genuinely bewildered, Cho was unreadable as always...but Rigsby, who had inhaled the other half of what appeared to be an entire cow, could not meet her gaze.
"Rigsby? Where is Jane?" she asked softly, but sounding very intimidating to poor Rigsby, she was certain.
"Um...well...I saw him this morning. He seemed pretty intense. I think he went up to the attic, and I haven't seen him since. But he told me Hightower recommended he see the office shrink every Friday." He sat back in his chair, more relaxed now, with a slight smile on his face. The smile of the unburdened and unsuspended. Lisbon rubbed her temples and groaned, then stood. No one bothered to ask where she was going.
Cho cast a sideways glance at the bigger man.
"Traitor."
"What was I supposed to do? She was going to find him eventually anyway."
"Following that logic, you should be on your way to Hightower's office right now. It's only a matter of time before she realizes what happened to her turkey and swiss yesterday."
Rigsby's eyes widened.
"You wouldn't."
Cho stood and collected his jacket from the back of his chair. Rigsby followed his every move with bated breath.
"Let's go. We need to beat the lunch crowd to that restaurant."
-:-
"Now, Patrick, I feel that I must interject at this point."
"Is there a problem, Dr. Owen? I'm simply telling you what I've learned about myself this week, as you asked."
"Judging from what I'm hearing, you have a shocking lack of the ability to discern right from wrong. Your manipulative tendencies are alarming, to say the least! And all this is going on right under the roof of a law enforcement office?"
"Why, Miss Amelia! Do I detect from your tone that you are intrigued more than upset by my behavior?"
"That is beside the point, Patrick."
"No, Doctor. That is the point, exactly. You'll see when the time comes for you to read my journal. Things are going to get much better, or worse, depending on how you look at it; I guarantee you. Now, if you will excuse me; I'm more than fairly certain this phone call is quite urgent. This is Jane," he said, flipping open his buzzing cell phone. Dr. Owen watched him in mute interest from across her desk.
"Funniest man in the whole world, you are, Jane. I just went by the church, and do you know what I found there? The reverend, standing in a finished prayer garden! Praying! And he just couldn't stop singing your praises, Jane!"
"My praises? Why would he do a thing like that?" Jane asked, toning down the sarcasm; a fallout with the groom was something he didn't need.
"Well, I asked if he'd finished it himself, so he knew I hadn't done it, and he therefore deduced that you must have been responsible. I thought the whole idea of this little project of yours was to get me in good with the church, not steal the spotlight for yourself!" And Mashburn sounded more than a little perturbed; he was downright pissed off, and Jane couldn't figure out why. He'd already been guaranteed that he had procured the church for his wedding. Lisbon was thrilled. And furthermore, he'd already taken credit for Jane's idea and both their sweat and labor. All things considered, Jane had gotten the short end of the stick.
"Mashy, maybe you should be a little more grateful and a little less dramatic. Take it from someone who knows show business. The spotlight isn't everything."
At that moment, Lisbon opened the door to Dr. Owen's office, looking as enraged as Mashburn sounded. Jane smiled mischievously.
"Darling, something has come up at the office. I'm very sorry to have upset you and will do my best to make it up to you. How about a romantic dinner tonight around eight o'clock? Love you, too!" The line went dead and Jane, still smiling, closed his phone and tucked it in his pocket.
Lisbon immediately pounced on him, ignoring the presence of the other woman in the room.
"Where the hell have you been?"
Jane looked to his left. Then he looked to his right. Then he looked at the good doctor.
"Is this a trick question?" he inquired, enjoying watching Lisbon shake with frustration.
"No it is not a trick question! And stop flirting with my fiance! Now come with me, we have a case!"
"I totally understand. He's way too in love with me. The chase is done; I'm bored."
"Jane! Now!" Lisbon demanded, thrusting a fist with an outstretched, shaky index finger toward the door.
"Are...you gonna stamp your foot and start pulling your hair? Because I know this wonderful shrink-"
"Do you have an appointment, my dear?"
At that point, Lisbon stalled, blushing an even deeper shade of red than she had been seconds before. It finally seemed to dawn on her that she had been exhibiting near explosive behavior in the presence of the office shrink, who may or may not decide that Lisbon was mentally unfit for excursions into the field.
Jane was gesturing to Dr. Amelia Owen, who sat, bemused, behind a large desk. Spots danced before Lisbon's eyes. She slowly straightened, barely hearing Jane as he babbled incessantly about the doctor.
"I'm so, so sorry, Ma'am," Lisbon said, cutting across Jane to reach for Dr. Owen's hand. "I don't believe we have been formally introduced; I'm Agent Teresa Lisbon." She smiled humbly. Dr. Owen grinned at Lisbon's obvious distress, and for some insane reason, Jane felt very close to the doctor at that moment.
"Dr. Amelia Owen," she said, standing to shake Lisbon's hand. "I've heard a good deal about you, Miss Lisbon."
"Good things, hopefully," Lisbon mumbled, eyeing Jane scathingly. He smirked in reply.
"Only the best. Would you like to have a seat? Or is this not a good time?"
"I-well...there is...I really need Jane to come with me at the present moment. We have a case, and we need his particular...skill set..."
"I understand that very well. But as you can see, you have interrupted a session between myself and a patient. You have a job to do, of course; but what kind of doctor would I be to just allow my patient, of whose solid mental state I am unconvinced, to go on potentially dangerous missions? Especially during a time when I am scheduled to be assessing him? No, no, it won't do. You'll just have to come back later." As she spoke, she moved around her desk, keeping her face straight. Lisbon struggled to do the same, but was unsuccessful; she openly gaped at the woman, and Jane had to look away lest he burst into very feminine bouts of giggles. Dr. Owen practically pushed Lisbon out of her office, and once the agent was across the threshold, she seemed to regain her wits.
"Excuse me, Ma'am, but just how long is this going to take? This is a murder investigation."
"Agent Lisbon, I can assure you that whomever it is that is dead now will still be quite dead five minutes from now. Now, if you'll let me finish my session with Patrick, perhaps I can help him to focus, so that you may catch the killer all the more quickly."
And with that, she politely closed the door in Teresa Lisbon's face.
Dr. Owen walked around Jane, who was positively glowing with admiration, and reclaimed her seat behind her desk, maintaining a professional smile. She looked up at her patient and raised one eyebrow.
"I really, really like you," Jane said genuinely. Dr. Owen grinned.
"That's wonderful, Patrick. Now if we can just get you to say it to the right person."
Jane's smile faltered minutely. "I'm afraid I don't understand quite what you mean."
The doctor's eyes seemed to sparkle as she scribbled a note to herself on a sheet of paper.
"That's all for today, Patrick. Same time next week, hmm?"
-:-
Five minutes after Lisbon had been ushered from the office, Jane had emerged, amused to find her still puzzling over how a woman no bigger than she and with less authority had effectively told her, "no."
"Don't worry, my dear Lisbon. It happens to the best of us." It was not the right thing to say, because Lisbon's bony knuckles collided with his arm.
"Let's go, Jane. And if you even suggest that I need to see a shrink..." she said menacingly, and that was all the warning Jane needed. He followed behind her, rubbing his arm and grumbling about harassment in the workplace.
The two of them stopped by Van Pelt's desk to ask if she had discovered anything, and so far, she hadn't; as they descended on the elevator to the parking lot and buckled their seat belts in the CBI's SUV, Lisbon explained the details of the case to a mildly interested Jane. Something occurred to him suddenly, and he realized he desperately needed to ask Lisbon about it.
"So...how did it go Monday?"
"What do you mean? How did what go?" she asked, temporarily sidetracked as they stopped at a red light.
"I overheard you reminding Mashy that he was meeting the notorious Lisbon brothers this past Monday." (And he knew the meeting had not taken place; after all, Mashburn had been with him all Monday afternoon at the church.)
"Oh. Well, that didn't work out." The light turned green, and Lisbon pulled through it.
"That's a shame," Jane said, "because I'm sure they all would have gotten along."
"How do you know? You've never met my brothers," Lisbon said without malice, but it still hurt Jane nonetheless.
"I realize that, Lisbon. And why is that, I wonder?" This, Jane realized, was the best time to ask her the questions to which he wanted the most honest answers. Lisbon was a famously careful driver, and she was distracted at every turn, every intersection, every stop sign. He saw his chance, and he risked taking it. "Why don't you want me to meet them?"
"They care a lot about me, to the point of being overprotective. It scares people away." Right turn.
"And you're not worried that they'll scare Mashburn away?" Yield for interstate traffic.
"No. Walter loves me. He only cancelled meeting my brothers so he could make a deal about our church." Accelerate to merge onto highway.
"But you think they'll frighten me off?" Insistent, and very close to alerting her to what he was doing.
"I guess." Prepare to take the next exit to downtown Los Angeles. Jane took a deep breath and asked the question he hadn't known had been gnawing at him.
"Are you...in love, Lisbon? Are you sure you're doing the right thing?" Silence for five hundred feet.
"Yes, I'm in love, Jane. And yes, I'm doing the right thing."
Jane brakes for a massive traffic accident that Lisbon cannot see. But he feels it, he feels it, and he wishes the airbag would deploy and just smother him, but it doesn't.
Red light. Green light. Go.
-:-
JUNE 1ST, 10:11 PM
I look like I've been involved in a horrible car accident.
You won't understand that, or why it's ironic, but there it is.
We have a case, and it's quite gruesome. My moral, decent side is
internally chastising me for not focusing on finding this innocent woman's
killer. But try as I might, there's only one thing on my mind,
and it isn't Shanna Murphy, poor thing.
My entire plan has fallen into shambles, as it depended on the notion
that Lisbon was marrying Mashburn for any reason other than
being in love with him. I've seen it; it happens all the time. Women are
tired of being alone, or they hear their biological clock ticking, or they
think the guy they're with is the best they'll ever find, or at least,
won't treat them horribly. What a fool I was to think that good,
respectable Lisbon would ever marry anyone for any reason other than
feeling real emotion for them. And now, I have no idea what to do.
A woman whose heart truly lies elsewhere is next to impossible to
win for oneself. Certainly, I could inform Lisbon that it was I who found
a way for her to have her wedding in the church of her dreams. I could lay
bare all of Mashburn's faults. I could express my opinion that the only
reason Mashburn had so willingly participated in my plan was so that he
wouldn't have to meet and win over Lisbon's brothers. He was able to trade
in one uncomfortable task for another, less unpleasant one and still hang on to Lisbon.
Yes, I could tell her my side of everything, and take all the credit,
but then I'd be like Mashburn, and I don't truly believe that Lisbon
would want him if she knew him for what he is.
I won't see Lisbon again for two days. He's probably with her right now.
At least she's not alone.