Whoohoo, next chapter is UP! I admit I have a harder time writing the less-hilarious scenes and getting inspiration for the next part of the immediate story, but, for you guys I get it done. Now the big reveal - what's the voice mean? I'm sure you were all DYING to know, terrible pun forgive me please!
Disclaimer: not mine.. YET!
As always, thanks to everyone for reading and especially reviewing, glad to hear there's folks really enjoying the story, I love hearing your thoughts so keep leaving them!
The second his dying sister's voice rang out in the cool room, trumpeting over the beeps of the machinery keeping her alive, Mick had shoved the blonde against the wall, somewhat accidentally, in his haste to turn and flung himself to his sister's side.
Gina stumbled as she tried to regain her footing, watching the scene before her, though it was a bit of a haze. Debatably, this was either Jenna's last moment alive or she had miraculously gotten better, and whichever, the American profiler wasn't supposed to be there for it. The British girl wouldn't even know she was there.
Boys Don't Cry briefly played through her head as she watched her partner begin to break down in tears, clutching his sister's hands as though holding onto them would hold onto her life. But that song wasn't true, because here was one of the most ruggedly handsome tough guys in her life letting the drops slide down his face. Maybe they only cried where they felt safe, which either meant he felt safe around her or had entirely forgotten she existed.
Tentatively, she fingered her ring, sliding it back and forth against the two digits on either side. His phone was still in her pocket, meaning she had something to do besides spy on the pair through the window. Gina began slowly backing up towards the door, ready to quietly make her exit and let the siblings talk in peace, but the brunette woman noticed her first, apparently quite curious about her white-walled surroundings.
"Mick, who'd you bring?" she softly asked, though the Brit didn't sound upset at the other woman being there. Rather, she was simply curious; and decidedly not dead. Perhaps the diagnosis had been wrong, and Jenna would make a full recovery after all. Her choppy brown hair was a mess from lying unwashed in the hospital bed and she looked half-starved without makeup on, eyes hollowed out, but the grasp she had on her brother's hands was almost stronger than his.
The male profiler didn't even turn around, perhaps he was still mad at the blonde, or he simply knew she would be there behind him, but Gina stepped forward regardless, and she saw the smirk on Jenna's face as she toyed with the gold band on Mick's left hand. He appeared to be blushing as his sister grinned, eyes darting to Gina's ring finger once she walked into view.
"Oh, this is just Gina, we work together…" Mick tried to explain, but his sister's unconvinced glare silenced him, so he blurted out, "Alright we pretended to be married to sit together on the plane over, I swear, Jen, we work together. We're not actually…"
"You'd lie to your own sister, dying on a hospital bed?" Jenna gasped mockingly, but her brother's eyes darkened as he told her that wasn't funny. The blonde could tell this was going downhill fast as he was still upset with her and the whole situation, so she quickly cut in.
"Hi Jenna, I'm Gina, your new sister-in-law. We do work together but more importantly, we're married. It was a recent thing but we're very happy together," she placed emphasis on the last bit, nudging Mick, hoping he'd get the memo to simply go along with it. Like pretty much everyone else, even a girl who'd just woken from a coma refused to believe they weren't together. He shot her a glare but the blonde's steely, narrowed eyes silenced his retort.
He looked ready to say something, probably along the lines of 'please go away now', but a doctor rushed in, followed by two nurses, their eyes wide with shock as they checked Jenna's vitals. They asked the pair to leave, but Mick insisted on staying. The doctor's stare moved from profiler to profiler and Gina quickly stepped back, passing through the doorway and standing against the opposite wall to give them room.
She pulled out the iPhone and returned to Angry Birds, allowing Mick more time with his sister while the nurses tried to figure out why exactly she was awake.
After several difficult levels, all three of which Mick had beaten long ago likely on his first effort, the British man finally walked out of the room, looking the happiest he'd been since they'd rescued an abducted little girl a week before he'd answered the mysterious call from London. The doctor had left a while before, speaking with one of the nurses, while the other had remained behind to assess how long before Jenna would be safe to leave. She exited with Mick, chatting him up, though he seemed oblivious to her flirtations.
In fact, he seemed oblivious to everything, walking right past Gina, who paused and exited the game when she noticed, before he realized she was standing there and turned around, beckoning her to follow. The nurse finally realized he wasn't interested in the slightest and shot off down another corridor.
"They want to keep her overnight, but they said she's going to be fine. They can't explain how she woke up or why she got better, just that she did and now she'll be alright. Isn't that wonderful?" he gleefully exclaimed, stopping in the middle of the hall to look at her, but the lack of 'love' at the end of his question didn't go unnoticed.
"Oh Mick, I'm so happy she'll be okay. You must be so relieved she'll recover. Look, I should have told you, I know, I wanted to, but how do you break that to someone? And you had to drive with a clear mind, so I'm sorry I didn't…"
"It's alright, I understand. Jenna's gonna be back in action tomorrow so you know what, love, it doesn't really matter what you did. No hard feelings. Now, how about that fancy dinner, eh? I think we've got something to celebrate."
He seemed to have completely forgotten their impromptu make out session, and she didn't overly want to bring it back up, so she went with it, "Shouldn't we wait for your sister?"
"Nah, she hates those ritzy, upscale joints. She quite gladly told me to go tonight, you know, just us," he smirked, eyebrows waggling. Perhaps it hadn't slipped his mind after all, so he was taking the next step; though his approach might have been a bit backwards – claiming to be married, buying rings, Facebook edits, rage kissing and then nice restaurant dates.
"It'd be quite rude of me to decline your offer, I suppose, so I'll have to take you up on it."
The Brit grinned and looped his arm through hers, escorting the blonde back out to their rental car, a previously-absent bounce in his step.
If this was life with happy-Mick, she could get used to it.
"And, so then, get this, she takes my test from my hands and rips it in two, shouting I must have slept with a nerd and had him take it for me, because there was no way I could ever get twice her score on an Advanced Physics final! My parents barely even scolded her so I was upset at the time but now, it's hilarious. I've never told anyone this because I know he'd be furious, but I overheard my dad telling my mom he was disappointed my sister wasn't smart enough to become a scientist, even though she was supposed to be the smart one!" Gina giggled as she finished detailing the story for the profiler sitting across from her, who was more concerned with the unfinished glass of wine on her side of the table.
She'd only had two, this being her third, but the blonde was abnormally bubbly and open. He gracefully swapped his water for the wine, which she barely even noticed, already onto another story. Normally he would have ordered a good, English beer with their meal, but the drive back to Jenna's flat was a considerable distance and he just knew something would go wrong if he risked it. Gina kept laughing, almost stuck in her head as she was retelling the events, and it occurred to him she might be having some sort of allergic reaction to the food.
Then she got quiet, as though whatever was impacting her wore off, and he found himself faced with a death glare.
"You aren't even listening to me anymore. Don't you care about your wife's childhood?" she scowled, reaching for the glass to take a sip, only to spit the water back into the glass when she realized it wasn't her wine. Which, of course, earned him another stony gaze.
The only explanation was something unpleasant on her Facebook. She had checked the site while they were in the car and her celebratory mood had vanished, only to return when she'd started in on the wine, and now she was flip-flopping between laughing at herself and yelling at him.
"Of course I care," he scoffed, considering how to get her talking about whatever was bothering her, "What self-respecting man wouldn't care about your life? I mean, here you are, beautiful, charming young blonde, in the prime of her adulthood, sitting across from a handsome, available young bloke in an elite dining establishment…"
"Available?"
"Eh, well, only for you, of course. After all, you are wearing my ring, which allows you a fair bit of exclusivity. It also means you should be telling me what's bothering you."
She sighed, looking ready to dart off to the lady's room, before admitting, "My sister messaged me. She called me a screw-up because of our 'rush wedding' and accused me of being pregnant. All my life I've been second to her and this is no different, she's going to find some rich boyfriend from a wealthy family and do everything exactly like my dad wants."
"I'm sure she will, and ten years down the road he'll be called into an FBI interrogation room to be questioned about his involvement with a high-end prostitute in an upscale call girl service. Five years after, he'll have gotten a vasectomy and a year later, your sister will wind up pregnant and they'll make a big lawsuit about the procedure not working to cover up the indiscretions of the both of them; likely including a trip to some black-market surgeon to get it reversed. But you? You'll be the stable one, none of that rubbish, so you'll be happier."
"You think? I mean, I don't disagree with you about her, but it's a lot harder to predict my own life."
"Well, stick with me, love, and you'll wind up just fine," he winked, and she suddenly noticed their hands were now clasped on the left side of the table. It wasn't so much a supportive hold as a romantic one, and Gina found she just couldn't let go, instead transfixed by his tender gaze. He'd said he didn't do these fancy, elaborate dates to seduce one night stands, but this certainly felt practiced. Maybe she brought it out in him, though that was a bit self-absorbed to think she was anything overly special to a woman-loving bachelor like him.
He seemed to be reading her thoughts, because he cut in, "Love, you are something special. I don't care what your father says, or your bloody idiot sister, they're obviously not going to marry you, much as they want to marry you off to some rich moron. It doesn't matter to me if you've always been called the pretty one, you are pretty, but to me, you're more than that. You're the smart one, the caring one, the strong one, the funny one, and most importantly, you're you."
"You're really sweet, you know that?" she sniffled, looking ready to start crying.
"Eh, every now and then my bleeding heart sympathy flares up. Usually only for gorgeous blondes," he shrugged, hoping to cheer her back up, and indeed, she giggled softly, returning her focus to her plate.
Who knows, he thought, she may well turn out to be THE one. And that was alright by Mick Rawson.
Far across the ocean, in a rural Nevada town, Beth Griffith threw her phone at Prophet.
"This backwater town must be miles from the nearest cell tower. I don't mind the tranquility but you would hope they might have moved on from Y2K and into the digital age," she scowled, swiveling in her chair at the dusty table they were seated around. The police station of the small village only had two rooms, besides the holding cell, which left them minimal space to work with.
"I think you're addicted to checking their Facebooks, this is becoming a serious problem, man," Prophet replied, shrugging his shoulders as he held her phone up to get the narrow band of service that ran through the town but seemed to stop at the shorter woman's level.
"Well if it wasn't so pathetically amusing to watch those two screw up over and over, posting this stupid crap and not even realizing what they're saying, I wouldn't be," the brunette huffed, letting out a sharp bark of laughter at how oblivious Mick could be at times.
"I'm pretty sure the 'sleeping together' line was a typo or something. Don't ask me for what but I doubt he would risk saying that, out in the open."
"Penelope will be so upset she's going to lose the bet."
"I said it was a typo, not that it wasn't happening, man. Oh, oh, score! She just posted a new status. 'Mick's sister woke up! She'll be fine now, glad we're out of the danger zone.' Well it's not to your sadistic sense of humor's liking, but it's good news."
"Really? They should be back when we're done with this case, if the senior citizen cops would bother to come back from their patrol. Those two should be in a retirement home, not questioning potential suspects."
Cooper entered, a cheerful expression on his face as he presented a series of old documents, likely evidence for the case. Before starting in on the discoveries, he commented, "Mick called about it, actually. He's going to stay until Jenna's back on her feet. Figured there's no point in sending Gina home early, we've got this case covered."
"We've got this on lock," Prophet agreed, tossing his hat into the air so it landed back on his head.
That was when the secretary for the small police department, one of the cops' granddaughters, ran in half-crazed, tears flooding down her face and bleeding her mascara clean off.
"Someone just shot my grandpa!"
"Cop killer. Joy," Beth frowned, cracking her knuckles. The case just got a bit trickier.
Yeah I don't do sad endings and tragic circumstances I'm too much of a sap for happily ever afters. Or am I? Something could still go wrong! Continue reading to find out. As always, thanks to my loyal readers and reviewers, and click the button below to let me know what you're thinking of the story. The big 'what the heck is happening' is still yet to come, so stay tuned for the continuing misadventures of our favorite profilers!