When Cho comes back from lunch, other than the crunch of poorly-thrown popcorn under his heels, it's quiet in the CBI bullpen.
Too quiet.
Rigsby, he knows, is off running a lead, since Lisbon had caught him at his sea lion snack time routine and reamed him out into guilty flight; Cho can only assume Van Pelt is with him, since she rarely leaves the office otherwise. He only feels a little bad for counting their absence as a blessing; so rarely does he get to have the office all to himself, without having to navigate the precarious emotional ledge that is a broken-up couple casting longing glances at each other over his shoulder. Plus, Van Pelt deserves more field time: she's a good agent with a keen eye, and redirecting her budding anger issues towards people who actually should be taken down a few pegs is far from a bad thing.
The problem, and the source of the very loud silence, is that the couch in the corner of the bullpen is suspiciously vacant.
His first thought is that Jane must have finally passed out from exhaustion in the attic. Then he's forced to consider the possibility that Jane is awake, and he's simply not here. Which is a lot worse, because only God and Jane know what the hell he's up to when he's not here.
The good news there is that Lisbon is still in her office, which means that in terms of seniority, Cho isn't the one currently responsible for Jane's whereabouts, and therefore for Jane's shenanigans. The bad news is that if Lisbon's in the office and Jane's getting up to something without her, it's going to be something grandly and profoundly ridiculous, possibly lawsuit-provoking.
Maybe he should check the attic. Just for peace of mind.
Cho's not a worrier by nature. His teammates are adults and well-trained, they can handle themselves in the field; all he has to do is watch their backs, stay on guard for the worst-case scenario, because Murphy's Law is a bitch and can't ever be repealed. For years now, the maximum threshold of his concern has been Rigsby's hot-headed streak, and that can be easily quelled through some inane form of office competition, like seeing how many M&Ms he can catch in his mouth before he chokes.
But then there's Patrick Jane, who, before they'd even worked three cases together, had managed to shot-put himself over Cho's worry threshold and into orbit.
Jane makes him a worrier. Jane stumbles into danger like a foal trying to walk for the first time, pokes at suspects with all the delicacy of a cattle prod, and takes a punch like wet newspaper. Jane will haul them into harebrained schemes without a single warning of the risks involved, and expects them to be happy with the results no matter how they came about. Jane is careless, thoughtless, and in every sense of the word, a liability.
The others are more lenient with him, not unaware of the danger he poses but respectful of his instincts, pitying the situation that brought him to them. The others forgive him fast, even when they're exasperated, even when he almost costs them their jobs. Cho refuses to cut him that kind of a break. Tragic figure or cunning con man, Jane is an adult just like the rest of them, more than capable of learning about the parts of their world that he was never built for, and Jane needs to get his shit together.
If he doesn't, Jane might get one of them killed someday. Cho can't abide by that.
(Jane also sleeps very little, and rarely restfully. Jane has exactly one pair of shoes that Cho has ever seen, and wrinkles in his suit jackets that match the ones around his eyes. Jane flinches from cameras and doesn't watch cable talk shows, avoids victims' families before they can thank him for bringing them justice. Jane has no life outside the CBI, no home any closer than Malibu, no regard for his own life, no goals outside of raining hell down on Red John with his own two hands.
Jane might get himself killed someday. Jane is going to get himself killed someday.
Cho can't abide by that, either.)
For at least partial credit, Jane has learned, over the years; learned what lines to toe instead of cross, learned how much he can safely meddle before he puts them in harm's way or costs them their jobs, learned there are some things that the team just doesn't talk about and that are better left alone, like Lisbon's childhood and Cho's gang time and Rigsby's father and Van Pelt's faith.
But he's also learned how to manipulate them better, how to argue his case and coax them into unscrupulous tactics that, if he weren't so damn smart, would get their cases thrown out of court in a second. Worse still, he's learned how to work around them, spinning webs in places they'll never see until after he's caught his prey.
Meanwhile Cho's learned, for his part, that there's very little point in trying to change Jane's mind, as he's watched Lisbon attempt over and over and over again; the most a logical argument does is delay him, the most a physical restraint does is speed up his timetable. Jane is relentless when he tracks a killer, unswayed by things like politeness and legality — when Red John's involved, it's worse.
Everyone in the CBI knows that Jane is a fixed point beneath a moral pendulum, with the blade up against his neck. Everybody knows that worrying about someone who will never change their ways is a waste of energy and time.
But giving up has never been Cho's strong suit.
So he just tries to stay present, as much as Jane will allow — close enough to watch the magician's hands. He establishes himself as one of Jane's go-to guinea pigs, never questioning his complicated plans, because the more he's involved, the less he has to worry about. He rephrases irksome commentary into more constructive forms of questioning. He shepherds Jane's flights of fancy and shows up with his service weapon when Jane's in over his head.
Sometimes he goes outside the lines and gets his hands dirty, because he's not someone naive enough to think that the legal system's perfect enough to hold people like Red John, people like Jane. He's learned that if he gets them dirty enough, it'll force Jane to reach up and stop the pendulum, to be the better person for a change, because the only thing Jane cares about more than his quest for revenge is the team.
For the most part, it feels like he's doing something to keep Jane in check, even if in the next day or week or month he'll go spinning off again.
Still, the fact remains that since Cho's not (currently) involved, whatever Jane may or may not be up to is not his problem right now.
His problem, right now, is that his back is killing him, a deep throbbing ache that's hooked itself down low around the base of his spine like tangled fishing line. No matter how he shifts, there's no escaping it. He should be relieved that today's a paperwork day, no running and chasing to be done that could make it worse, but at least the exercise would be a distraction. Better than having to sit here and take it.
Inevitably, his eyes stray to the front drawer of his desk. The prescription bottle there is empty, has been since he fell asleep on the job in a painkiller-haze, but the temptation never wanes.
He could call the number and get a refill whenever he wanted. He could do it today, even, be rid of the strain by the time he goes to sleep.
He opens the drawer and picks up the bottle. He turns it over in his hand, slowly, stares hard at the label until the words on it stop making sense.
And tomorrow, someone could get shot because he was too slow, not present, complacent. A single lapse, no matter how small, means he could get someone killed.
His back spasms painfully. He snaps his gaze away, frustrated.
It lands on the empty couch. The oh-so-comfortable, oh-so-inviting, oh-so-empty couch.
Screw it.
He shoves the empty pill bottle into his pocket, stands stiffly — ignoring the immediate twinge in his spine — and walks decisively into Jane's corner of the bullpen.
When he'd first joined them, it had taken some time for Jane to catch up to the office worker's tradition of decorating his space. As time and successfully closed cases had sanded down some of his more jagged edges, he'd first grown into it, then expanded like a mushroom cloud, until the signs of his perpetual existence — sudoku books, origami creatures, newspaper clippings — were tucked away like scavenger hunt clues on everybody else's desks. His own desk is still all but barren, and the walls noticeably lack any personal touches like photographs and framed degrees, but when Jane is seated on the couch with a cup of tea and one leg casually crossed over the other, it still felt like stepping into an office, into a whole other world.
'The Jane Effect', Rigsby called it, sometimes in awe and sometimes bitter; the barest minimum of set dressing, and the man could make the rest of the room disappear.
The leather couch has started to sag on the right-hand side where Jane usually sits, a miniature nuclear shadow. Cho tugs one of the back cushions out of place and props it up against the armrest, patting it down into a firmer, less-dented shape before lowering himself down and leaning back.
The angle is incredible. He rolls his shoulders, feeling something click and loosen in his lower back, and instantly tension dissipates up his spine, relieving the gathering storm of a headache that had begun to accumulate at the base of his skull; he groans softly, gratefully, letting his eyes slide closed as he sinks into the feeling of full-body relief.
He should see another doctor. Maybe a chiropractor. It can't be normal that jumping on a suspect makes him walk funny for a full day afterwards. It can't be normal that it's been this long since he got hit by that car and he still needs the pain pills as often as he does.
But hell, he doesn't have to think that hard about it right now. It's a paperwork day. Jane's not here.
He has some time to enjoy this.
The feeling of being watched draws him out of a light doze. So does the scent of chamomile.
"Where have you been?" he says without opening his eyes.
"Kimball Cho, right out the gate with the third degree," comes the amused response. "You're like a parent staying up on prom night. Was there a curfew I didn't know about?"
"For you, there should be."
"Hm." There's a clink of ceramic, then a contemplative sigh. "Well, I'd kick up my feet and tell you where I was, only you're in my seat."
Cho doesn't budge. "Pull up a chair. Mine's free."
There's a pause. It's always funny when Jane doesn't get his way, because he's so unused to it. "I prefer the couch."
Cho opens his eyes and raises an eyebrow. "Your preference is noted. If you're so desperate for one, you have Lisbon's couch."
"Ah, no, Lisbon has Lisbon's couch, right now. You know she gets about as little sleep as I do?" Jane fakes a yawn for emphasis. It's exaggerated, shows all the way to the back teeth. It's loud.
"She loses sleep wondering when the next call from or about you is going to come," Cho shoots back. "Your fault, your problem."
There's an indignant little huff, but Jane doesn't have much of a comeback for that. "You know, I could just sit on you."
Cho looks at him.
"…Kidding. Okay, I'll just wait here, then." Jane bounces on his toes to demonstrate, smiling indulgently. Like a parent counting to three, one who knows their kid will give in by two. "In your own time, Cho, in your own time."
Cho stares at him a second longer, then turns his face to the ceiling and closes his eyes.
The sound of someone obnoxiously slurping their tea begins.
It would be so easy to ignore him. Not really, because Jane is clearly planning to make himself impossible to ignore — easy enough, considering his default setting is supremely annoying — but Cho's had plenty of practice pretending not to hear or care.
Unfortunately, all that time he's had to practice means he knows that Jane will stand there for as long as he has to to prove his point. All day, if he has to. Probably until he passes out.
Filling out an incident report because Jane hit his head on his desk playing chicken over a couch would be a hassle he doesn't need right now.
Plus, there's something genuinely, intangibly off-putting about Jane hovering over him, and not just because it fills him with the same paranoia as a kid trying not to fall asleep first at a sleepover. Jane's not supposed to hover, he's supposed to look at home, at ease, an element of certainty in every situation. Knowing he's just standing there right now reminds Cho of the morning after Minnelli had cleared him to get the Red John files: Jane in his rumpled-looking suit and untucked shirt, trying his best to stay out of people's ways and bumping into everyone else instead; looking lost, like someone had set him down for a minute and forgot to pick him back up again.
He really tries not to be soft on Jane the way the rest of the team are. Somebody needs to make sure Jane feels the consequences of his actions, not just knows or understands, because Jane is capable of knowing a lot of things and never caring a whit about any of them. But the Jane who can only really sleep on the couch or in the car, who has damn good reasons for never lowering his guard anywhere else, does have his sympathy.
Besides, the longer that stack of paperwork sits on his desk, the bigger it'll get. It's magic that way.
So, with a silent, long-suffering sigh, Cho swings his legs over and pushes up to get off the couch.
His back seizes.
It's a hot, sharp stab like a rattlesnake bite, and just as paralyzing — all at once he's frozen in his half-up half-down position, struggling against invisible iron bands holding his muscles in place like tight coils of cable.
Dimly he's aware of Jane getting much closer, saying something, a hand at his elbow and the other between his shoulder blades, easing him upright until the snarled-up mass at the small of his back has loosened and he can suck in air again, bracing his hands against his knees and breathing through the pain.
Jane's crouched in front of him by the time his swimming vision clears, looking up into his face with concern written in the lines around his eyes. The hand at his elbow squeezes firmly, not tightly, brief pulses in an odd, gentle rhythm. "Steady now. Come on back."
"I'm fine," Cho says automatically, breathlessly.
Jane breaks out in a smile, tilting his head. "When you're fine, you're a much better liar than that."
There's no reason to reply to that, so Cho doesn't bother.
Jane doesn't push, just continues to look at him; in a way, that's worse, because Cho has never been completely convinced that Jane can't actually read minds. Eventually, Jane clicks his tongue against his teeth and nods to himself, which does nothing to lessen Cho's irrational belief. "Your back's still bothering you. You're worried that if you let on, Lisbon will bench you."
"You're making things up," Cho says, pointlessly.
Jane shrugs, unfazed. "You're right, of course, she'd read you the riot act if she found out you've been keeping it from her all this time. But come on, what would be the harm in a few days off?"
"I don't need a few days off. Criminals don't take a few days off."
Jane raises a finger. "They do if they're economical with their time."
Cho takes a deep breath to reply, only to let it out in a hiss when another crackle of pain courses up his spine. The smug look on Jane's face fades back into concern – more like sympathy at this point – and Cho feels distant discomfort at the prospect of being babied that prompts him to say, "It's nothing. I can handle it."
"Well, sure, you can handle it," Jane replies, sounding bewildered. "But you don't have to. More importantly, you don't have to handle it while you run around tackling bad guys. I can't imagine that's great for long-term recovery."
Like you're one to talk. Cho holds that one back, slips it under his tongue to dissolve like the bitter pill it is. The thought reminds him of his usual solution to pain management, though, and he's reaching for the bottle in his pocket before he's thought it all the way through, before he even remembers that it's empty –
– and it's not there.
The flash of panic makes him feel guilty, then angry. He pats both pockets to be sure, then the couch cushions: no dice. It must have fallen out when he lay down, maybe rolled across the floor; a cursory glance around tells him it didn't end up anywhere obvious, which is both a blessing and a curse. Under the couch, then, or under a desk…
"What are you looking for?"
…or in Jane's hand, the late afternoon sunlight glinting off of orange plastic.
"I saw one in your car a while back, but I didn't think you still needed them," Jane continues, turning the bottle to squint at the label. His eyes go wide at the dosage and he whistles, impressed. "Phew, and you're still in pain? You know, you can build up a hell of a tolerance to these things, you should talk to your doctor about switching up your treatment if it's not helping you anymore."
Cho bites his tongue and makes a swipe for the bottle. Jane's quick as a cat, and swings his hand out of reach.
He doesn't mean anything by it, the rational little voice inside his head reminds him. He's just being Jane, he's curious and he thinks it's funny. If he wanted to mess with you, he'd be looking for your reaction, not reading the label.
He has no idea what he's talking about, the less rational little voice inside his head whispers back. This shouldn't be a surprise to him, he'd have noticed you were still in pain weeks ago if he ever looked further than his own damn nose.
He's being an ass, both voices agree.
"Normally, I'd offer to hypnotize the pain away if modern medicine isn't doing anything for you, but the way you keep getting hit by cars and throwing people around, I fear you'd wind up quite happily paralyzed in under a year." Jane dangles the pill bottle between two fingers, absently swinging it back and forth like a pendulum. "I give a mean deep tissue massage, though, if you're interested. Sure beats falling asleep on the job, I mean, these things always spin me around like a prize fighter in the ring when I take them –"
"Stop talking," Cho snaps, and immediately recognizes his mistake when Jane's eyes flick up to his and hold there, unwavering. Emotions flicker through them like skipping TV channels: surprise, hurt, reproach. Wariness.
Understanding.
He does know what he's talking about. He's giving you the chance to tell him. He's giving you an out.
He takes a deep breath to compose himself before reaching for the painkillers again, slowly this time. Jane lets him take them. He doesn't say a word.
Cho stuffs the bottle back into his pocket, feeling absurdly exposed. He should throw it away, just to prove to Jane that he can. Hell, he could just peel the label off. But for some reason, he can't quite bring himself to do it. There's nothing wrong with the medication, just with the way he's been using it. His back could get worse at any time. It's smarter to hang onto it.
For some reason, he can't voice any of these excuses to Jane. Instead, he says, "Hypnosis is an easy way out. I don't want to not know it's there, I want it to heal. This is an active job. If I'm not active while it's healing, the muscles will never get used to the levels of activity I need them to function at. Besides, it's not that bad. I can still work effectively."
"That's a lot of sheep dip for 'this team would fall apart without me'," Jane replies, and his tone is playful but careful, evaluating. It sounds like he's trying to make sure he says the right thing, which Cho's pretty sure Jane has never cared about before in his life. "The world doesn't stop turning just because Kimball Cho takes a break."
It doesn't, but that's the problem. Bullets won't stop coming for Rigsby, for the Boss, for Van Pelt, for you. I have to be here to watch your backs. It's what I'm good at.
"If I go home, the most I can do is lie around or do the exercises I'd be doing on a case anyway," Cho replies. He slowly twists to the left, grimacing at the tug of sore muscles, then twists the other way. A little improvement. Not a lot. "I'm of more use here."
"Mm," Jane hums. He sounds thoughtful, drumming his fingers absently against his thigh. Then, abruptly, he pushes himself to his feet, clapping his hands together. "Well, in that case, the couch is yours! Whenever you want it. Enjoy."
Cho stares at him, waiting for the 'gotcha'. Jane willingly giving up his couch is one of Rigsby's fifteen signs of the apocalypse. Maybe Jane misunderstood and thinks he's dying or something. "You're serious."
"Yup. So long as I'm not already sitting on it." Jane pats the cushion Cho had been using as a pillow, making a show of plumping it up. "Can't be comfortable doing paperwork with your back like that, and if this department doesn't have the budget for a more expensive coffee machine – as Lisbon has repeatedly assured me we do not – then there's no way that anyone's brought up the issue of more comfortable seating in the last decade. All yours."
There's an odd, frenetic determination clinging to Jane as he says this, like the smell of ozone in an electrical storm. In a suspect, Cho would call it nervousness, or barely repressed guilt: someone eager to please starting to buckle under the pressure of professional disapproval. What in the world Jane could be guilty about, though, especially regarding their conversation, he can't figure. "What's the catch?"
Jane looks at him, expression unreadable. Then he says, with painful earnesty, "You've seemed tired, recently, and I haven't said anything. Irritable, snappish, distracted. You've been running yourself ragged looking after everyone, not asking anything in return, all on a bad back, and then I tell you to take a nap on my couch and your first instinct is to sniff out a trap. Not that I blame you, I'm not exactly the most forthcoming of people –"
"You're not even in the top ten," Cho deadpans.
"– but even I can recognize when I've sorely overlooked something important," Jane continues without missing a beat, almost rushing to bypass the opportunity for banter. "To be fair, you've been doing an excellent job at hiding it from everyone, but I'm not everyone. I've done you a great disservice by continuing to ask for your help without any regard for your health and wellbeing, and for that, I'm sorry."
The apology tilts Cho's world askew, disorienting in its sincerity. He's never thought it was that big a deal; Jane's little game of noticing things about people, of being able to point out when new relationships started or old nightmares reared their heads, had been something he indulged in less and less often over the last few years, as their run-ins with Red John and his work had grown more and more harrowing. After shooting Timothy Carter – which he learned about in a call from Rigsby that Cho would never forget – it had stopped almost completely, as Jane spiraled further and further into obsession and lost sight of the rest of the team, lost sight of anything and anyone but his ultimate goal.
Part of Cho thinks that killing someone – not in self-defense, but with intention and planning and real, real conviction – has changed Jane fundamentally, in a way he can't talk his way back out of. Part of Cho kicks himself when he thinks about that day in the shopping mall, about the fact that he'd left Jane there. Left him to kill a man.
So Jane pulling away, becoming more self-absorbed, becoming less attentive to the rest of the team, Cho took that in stride. The death of Timothy Carter was his fault, Jane was smart enough to put the pieces together and see that for himself. Naturally, he wouldn't trust the team as much anymore, especially not with a mission as delicate and grave as the hunt for Red John: the rest of the team all trust Cho, and Cho proved himself unreliable.
It never occurred to him that Jane might not feel that way at all. He never thought that Jane might actually, genuinely want that connection that they all have, might regret having let it slip away. That he might value them just as much as they value him.
He'll still use you in a heartbeat, that rational voice tells him. In a second, if it meant getting closer to Red John. He's using all of you.
But he uses us carefully, the irrational voice whispers back. He places us on the board in places where we can't get hurt unless we move ourselves to defend him.
But he knows you'll always defend him, and so will always get hurt.
Then to die as a loved pawn is better than living as a lonely king.
"C'mon." Jane doesn't wait for Cho to acknowledge his apology, once again patting the couch cushions. "Catch some Z's. I hear they're on the FBI's Most Wanted List."
Cho reluctantly gives in, and with the assistance of Jane's careful, steady hands, leans back once more against the arm of the couch. "Only if you wake me up when Rigsby comes back from interviewing our victim's tutor."
"Sure, sure," Jane agrees cheerfully, the way he tells Lisbon he'll get those incident reports sorted right away. "I wasn't kidding about the deep tissue massage, by the way. Magic hands, here." He wiggles his fingers and winks as he backs away, reaching for his abandoned cup of tea as he goes.
"Jane," Cho calls, before he loses the nerve. The man turns back with a questioning hum.
There's a lot he wants to say, all of a sudden, with no one else around but the two of them: the pills were becoming a problem. You're a careless ass. You won't survive Red John without us, and we won't survive him without you, so you need to get your shit together, because we can't keep protecting you this way.
What he settles on is, "Thanks for the couch."
Jane smiles, and the crow's feet around his eyes turn them into crescent moons. "Take it easy," is all he says, and retreats to the kitchenette.
Cho watches him until he's out of sight, a dull grey blur in his peripheral.
When he wakes up, back stiff but feeling blissfully rested, it's dark outside. He's not surprised that Jane broke his promise, but he is surprised that the others let him. They were working a case, after all.
There are still lights on in the bullpen, but only a few of them, desk lamps and hall lights. Rigsby and Van Pelt are in the kitchenette, talking in low voices by the coffee pot. Lisbon's office door is open, but she's nowhere to be seen.
When Cho sits up, slowly and carefully, he's surprised to see a steaming cup of tea on the end table. An elaborate origami crane perches on the saucer, with "CHO" written in slapdash capital letters down one wing. It smells of chamomile, and warms him to his core.
It doesn't take him long to find Jane; after all, Cho had offered up his desk chair. Jane's pushed it up against the wall beneath the window, snug between a filing cabinet and the office whiteboard; his head lolls against the glass pane, eyes serenely closed, his suit jacket draped over his chest. His legs, crossed at the ankles, are propped up on the corner of Cho's desk, on top of what looks suspiciously like a fully filled out request for paid time off, complete with forged signature.
Cho tries his best not to be soft on Jane like the rest of the team can be. He really does. Jane is careless, and thoughtless, and bound to get one or all of them killed someday. Jane needs to understand that his actions have consequences, and Cho has to be the one to show him that.
But Cho doesn't mind being the one to forgive him every so often, too.
Besides, Jane was right: CBI chairs aren't comfortable. He'll come to understand Cho's back pain all too well when the morning comes. Actions, and consequences.