The first thing that Lisbon noticed in the morning was that the sun was shining. The bright rays burst through the thick glass windows to stab her sleepy eyes with their deadly brilliance. The next thing she realized was that the curtains were open, and that was why the sun was able to stab her eyes. The third thing that entered her groggled mind was that her rose was gone.
"My rose is gone!" she cried, aghast, staring at the empty spot that had once held a pretty, delicate white flower next to a red one. She leapt out of bed, which would have hurt except she had just been given a new dose of morphine. She swayed on the spot and had to sit back down. "My rose is gone!"
"Lisbon, it's good to see you on your feet."
Lisbon's head whipped around. She had been so distraught over the loss of the rose Jane gave her that she hadn't noticed that he was there. In the room. But he wasn't alone. Director Bertram was standing next to him, and Luther Wainwright next to him! Lisbon stared at the three of them. Her rose just happened to disappear when these two bosses (Bertram and Wainwright) showed up? They had always been jealous of her intelligence, and her special relationship with Jane (by special relationship, she meant that Jane didn't try to get her fired, and in fact went to great lengths to make sure he worked with her).
"Did you steal my rose?" She demanded. Wainwright seemed to shift guiltily at the mention of the roses. That was enough for Lisbon, who lunged at him. "That was my rose, you had no right to take it!"
Jane caught her. "Lis, nobody stole your rose."
Lisbon started to pull away from him, but decided that she was weak enough to lean into his arms. "But it was my rose."
"I'll get you a new one," Jane promised, grinning ear-to-ear. "Sit back down."
Lisbon allowed herself to sit. "All right. But Wainwright shifted nervously at the mention of my rose; he's being awfully suspicious, don't you think? How the heck did a kid so young end up being the boss, anyway? And you, Bertram! Why'd you hire him to be my boss, huh? What are you up to? What is your scheme?"
Wainwright shifted nervously at the mention of his age.
Bertram looked overly offended. "You're not in your right mind, so I'll overlook that."
Jane, his head steadying on Lisbon's shoulder, looked over at the two in-charge men. A cunning light lit in his eye. "It is a valid question."
Bertram's eyes flashed and Lisbon could see just how much the director hated Patrick Jane's cunning intellect. He opened his mouth, but Wainwright cut in before anybody else could start speaking, shifting nervously at the mention of questions. "I've been informed that you and agent Van Pelt are concerned for your safety and that you've been having members of your team stand guard over you at all times?"
Lisbon shrugged. "Cho didn't show up last night. But that's okay because we were just making it all up, anyway."
Bertram eyed Lisbon in a way she didn't like. Suspicious? Guilty? Nervous- no, Wainwright looked nervous, his hand shoved into his suit pockets and glancing around constantly.
"Why don't you tell us what-" Bertram started.
"She's injured and medicated," Jane interrupted. He stood protectively in front of Lisbon. "This isn't the time to be interrogating her."
"Thank you, Jane," Lisbon said, beaming up at him.
Wainwright shifted nervously at the mention of interrogation. "Um… actually, could you explain to me?"
"Not while he's here," Jane replied, pointing an accusatory finger at Bertram. "He stresses Lisbon and Van Pelt out, so that they don't heal properly." Bertram opened his mouth to protest, but Jane didn't let him. "I'm sorry director Bertram, I just call it how I see it and I see it that you should go talk with that blonde nurse who looks after them. She's been giving them too much morphine and I want you to find out why."
"I don't work for you!" Bertram replied angrily. Jane didn't respond. The consultant stood very still and just looked threateningly intelligent, and Bertram decided that if he was to avoid being made a fool of, he had best do what the consultant said. Straightening his suit jacket, he huffed, "I was going to do that anyway."
"What a drama queen!" Van Pelt sniffed haughtily. She got up from from her bed, checked to make sure her hospital gown was tied shut, and jumped up beside Lisbon, bouncing on her knees. "So you didn't see Cho last night either?"
Wainwright shifted nervously at the mention of Cho.
Lisbon shook her head sadly. "My rose is gone."
"So is mine," Van Pelt replied with a sigh, and then looked over at Wainwright. "So you want to know what was going on here? I'll tell you. I saw a mysterious dark-haired man loitering around and made up a half-baked story that he was here to kidnap Lisbon so that we could force Cho to hang around so that we could set her up with the blonde nurse, but that went completely wrong because they failed to hit it off and the blonde nurse has been throwing herself all over Jane instead and besides that Summer is a better match for Cho because she invokes some sort of emotion in him but it all doesn't matter because Cho didn't show up when he was supposed to and it's all for naught and this is a run-on sentence, isn't it?"
Wainwright shifted nervously at the mention of the mysterious dark-haired man.
"Van Pelt, Lisbon," Jane said gently, his hand falling from Lisbon's shoulder to gently press against her hand. "Are you sure you haven't seen Cho?"
Lisbon shook her head. "Nope. And that was a run-on sentence."
"I thought so," Van Pelt replied.
Wainwright cleared his throat, shifting nervously at the mention of run-on sentances. "I hate to tell you this, but Agent Cho is missing."
Lisbon stared at her young boss. "What?"
"He didn't come to work today. We haven't been able to get ahold of him," Jane responded. "Nobody knows where he is."
"Oh, no!" Van Pelt cried, her eyes widening in dismay. "This is awful! This is terrible! What are we going to do?"
Lisbon was equally distraught. "How are supposed to set up Cho and Summer now?"
"We're doing all we can-" Wainwright started shifting nervously when suddenly both women gasped and went pale. They slowly turned to the empty stand that once held their roses. Staring at the blank space for a moment, they looked back at each other, their fears confirmed. Grace pressed her trembling hands against her mouth and Lisbon closed her eyes in dismay.
"He took them."
"Cho stole your roses?" Jane asked, perplexed.
"No!" Lisbon's eyes flew open and she smacked Jane for not knowing what was happening. "He took them!"
Wainwright shifted nervously at the mention of 'he'.
"Who took what?" Jane asked.
"The mysterious dark-haired man," Van Pelt looked faint. She clutched at her heart. "The one that was always dressed in scrubs but never looked at the charts. He was stalking us, watching us, waiting for his chance! I knew it! He wants to take Lisbon away and force her to marry him!"
"No, he wants to take you away and force you to marry him!" Lisbon cried.
"So he's starting a harem?" Jane asked, giggling.
"Why would he take your roses?" Wainwright asked, his voice pitching. He shifted nervously at the mention of harems.
"I don't know, but he took them. He took them because Cho wasn't here to stop him!" Lisbon leaned against Jane for support. "What evil purposes are in his mind? And it can't be a coincidence! He did something to Cho. I just know it."
"Me too," Van Pelt agreed. "I wish Rigsby was here so I could lean against him for support. He's really good at reading in a Welsh accent, did you know that?"
"Really?" Lisbon asked. "That's cool."
"You know," Van Pelt said. "That mysterious dark-haired man… he looks exactly how I imagined Red John would look."
Lisbon nodded. "He does, doesn't he?"
Wainwright shifted nervously at the mention of Red John.
Jane looked away briefly, hurt and anger flitting across his face at the mention of the man who had murdered his wife and child. "Lisbon, I don't think that Red John would steal your roses. He'd have no reason to."
"Hasn't it been established that he's obsessed with you?" Lisbon replied. "Hasn't he been trying to separate you from the team, from me, for years?"
Jane's blue eyes filled with pain, gazing at Lisbon's drug-clouded grey-green ones. "Lisbon," he started gently.
Wainwright coughed nervously at the mention of Lisbon's name.
The blonde nurse came into the room, her pretty blonde face (can a face be blonde? Lisbon wondered) twisted in anger. She stood surveying the two female agents, and especially Lisbon, sitting close to Jane. She turned to Wainwright with a glower. "I suppose you think that I'm not doing my job properly, either?"
"Uh-"
"Never mind! I will not stand here and be insulted! I do my job the way it's supposed to be-"
"Liar!" Jane's eyes sparkled and he grinned. "You're a liar!"
The blonde nurse looked stunned. "I… I…"
"You've been giving them too much morphine. I know you have. Why don't you just come clean? You'll feel better." Jane slowly advanced on the blonde nurse, until he was standing right in front of her at the foot of Lisbon's bed. He peered intently into her eyes. "The question is, why?"
The blonde nurse stared back for a long moment, uncertainty written on her features. She looked at Wainwright, who was staring at her nervously. She looked at Van Pelt, who was staring at her with a tough, if somewhat drugged, expression. She looked at Lisbon, who was staring at Jane dreamily. The blonde nurse swallowed, and looked back to Jane. She didn't say a word, just seized him by that curly blonde head of his and pulled his face in. She kissed him soundly on the lips. His eyes widened in fear and he struggled to get away from her but she was far too strong.
When she finally released him, he backed away, wiping his mouth, the buttons of his black suit jacket torn off. "What was that?" he demanded.
"I love you!" the blonde nurse cried.
Lisbon was seized by jealousy and rage. A force beyond her control took over her body and she grabbed the nearest object, a juice box, and hurled it at the blonde nurse. Unfortunately, Lisbon's reaction time was slowed by the copious amounts of morphine swirling throughout her bloodstream, and so the blonde nurse saw it coming a mile away and easily sidestepped the juice box. Doubly unfortunate was the fact that at just that moment, Director Bertram stepped into the room. Triply unfortunate, he was in the line of fire.
The juice box exploded upon impact. A shower of purple flavored water spread out from Bertram's nose, splashing the blonde nurse who squealed with indignation and dodged away and Wainwright, who flinched nervously. The juice dripped down Bertram's nose onto his white shirt, spreading the stain like thin purple blood. The burst box fell limply to the floor, a crumpled mess.
Bertram looked at Lisbon, glaring for all he was worth as grape juice stained his eyebrows. "Agent Lisbon," he said, and his voice was that of a man pushed to his limits, a man who could take no more of insolence and resistance, a man who hated grape juice with a passion that burned in his heart and mind. "Agent Lisbon, you are on suspension."
Wainwright shifted nervously at the mention of suspension.
"Why do you keep doing that?" snapped Van Pelt. "At every mention of anything, you shift nervously!"
"I hate hospitals."