Lisbon needn't have worried about Jane going after the poor mail guy, because it seemed instead, he'd developed a burning jealousy of Bosco, and vice versa.
She didn't understand it. Jane had said himself that he knew she didn't have those kinds of feelings for Bosco. And she still found the idea of Bosco harboring some kind of secret love for her strictly incredible. Still, the way his eyes flashed any time he saw her with Jane troubled her.
Jane was more agitated by it than she would have expected. She thought he'd just be amused by the opportunity to torment Bosco, but instead, when Bosco glared at him, Jane glared right back.
After the whole eavesdropping and Jane spending two nights in jail thing, Lisbon hauled Jane into her office to give him a dressing down for his behavior.
Jane sat on her couch and sulked. "You know, the least you could have done was lean on Bosco to let me out of jail."
Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Right. Because he's so in love with me, I can make him do whatever."
He gave her a look. "Yes."
"Lucky for you, Minelli asked him to drop the charges, so your freedom wasn't dependent on me batting my eyelashes at a friend and colleague I respect and admire," Lisbon said sarcastically.
Jane scowled and hunched down further on the cushions.
Lisbon looked at him, exasperated. "What's with you and him, anyway?"
Jane only scowled more deeply. "Let's just say hopeless pining is bad enough without finding someone's ahead of you in the pining queue," he said finally.
Lisbon stared at him. Pining?
"It makes the hopelessness that much more difficult to bear," Jane clarified. He smiled bitterly. "The one thing Sam Bosco and I have in common, as it turns out."
"But you—you and I—" Lisbon spluttered. He'd definitely never mentioned pining before. "Whatever you and I have—well, it's not exactly unrequited."
"Isn't it?" Jane said cryptically. "Besides, that's only half the problem."
Lisbon desperately wanted to know what he'd meant by that 'unrequited' remark, but she knew he was unlikely to provide any more satisfying answers, so she said instead, "What's the other half?"
Jane frowned. "Bosco is measured. Diligent, reliable, and professional. You value those things."
"So?'
He scowled again. "I'm not those things."
Lisbon couldn't even begin to process this. "You're…other things."
He nodded. "Right. Sam Bosco is not those other things. He knows it, and it makes him crazy."
Lisbon was developing a headache. She was silent for a moment. "I still don't understand. Can't you just—let it go?"
"No," he said sharply. "His jealousy is attracting attention to what may or may not be between you and me."
Ah. So this was, in a backhanded way, about Red John. She really should have known. "Your logic is flawed," she pointed out. "If you acted like you don't care what Bosco thinks, anybody who's watching would think there's nothing to see."
"I suppose you may have a point," Jane said, disgruntled.
"Good. So can you bury the hatchet with Bosco? The two of you are driving me crazy."
Jane straightened indignantly. "He started it!"
"Jane." She risked reaching out and briefly touched the back of his hand. "You have the upper hand here. Would it kill you to be the bigger person for once in your life?"
"It might," Jane grumbled. But he looked mollified.
Over the next several weeks, Lisbon could see that Jane was, in fact, making an effort. Bosco continued to snipe at him every chance he got, but Jane directly rebutted him when he disagreed rather than playing complicated pranks on him or slyly mocking him to his face the way only Jane knew how. For Jane, this was evidence of considerable restraint.
Unfortunately, it didn't improve the situation as much as Lisbon would have hoped. The cooler and more unaffected Jane behaved, the madder Bosco got.
It came to a head when Minelli assigned Bosco and Lisbon's teams to work together on a joint investigation after they stumbled into one another at a crime scene, guns drawn.
Bosco made no effort to hide his displeasure when Minelli handed down the assignment in his office the next day. "This man is an accident waiting to happen," he said, pointing to Jane.
"Sam, be fair," Lisbon admonished him. Bosco's behavior had started to wear on her.
"I know," Bosco cut her off. "He closes cases."
"I do," Jane piped up from behind them.
Bosco flexed his jaw. "In my opinion, this is a mistake." He didn't wait for a response, but walked out without another word, shoulders hunched with anger.
"So, we're all agreed, then," Minelli called after him.
Jane and Lisbon joined Bosco in the bullpen for the briefing, where matters didn't improve.
Bosco positioned himself close to the monitor and made a point of assuming charge of the briefing. If Lisbon had been leading the briefing, she would have made an effort to solicit Sam's insight on the case he knew better, and she certainly wouldn't have tolerated one of her people making snide remarks to his team the way Hicks did to Rigsby in the middle of the briefing. Still, there was nothing to be gained by pouring oil on the fire. Someone had to be the grown up here, and God knew it wasn't going to be Bosco or Jane, so she'd better suck it up and keep herself firmly in the role of peacemaker.
Bosco stood up at the end of the briefing, still grumpy. "I've got to get back to the Westlakes," he said, referring to the family of the kidnapping victim.
"I'd like to come with you, if that's all right," Lisbon said. Gracious, accommodating.
"Okay," Bosco muttered.
Lisbon issued instructions to her team as she and Jane stood to join Bosco on his way out.
"I'd like to leave Hicks here to work with your team," Bosco said stiffly. Belatedly, he added, "If that's all right with you."
"Okay," Lisbon said.
"Keep 'em honest," Bosco said, his gaze boring into hers.
"Hey!" Van Pelt said angrily as the whole team reeled back from the insult to their integrity.
Lisbon swallowed back her irritation. "Care to rephrase that, Sam?"
Bosco wasn't remotely conciliatory. "No. They're Jane's people. They need watching."
She managed a brittle smile to cover the hot fury that boiled in her stomach at this. Of all the misogynistic—this was her team, dammit. "I like to think of them as my people."
"Think what you like," Bosco said. "I can't have him trying to pull some cheap stunt behind my back."
"Well, we have a whole range of expensive stunts, if you don't like the cheap ones," Jane put in mildly.
Calm, gracious, Lisbon reminded herself. "I understand your issue, Agent Bosco. No problem." She turned to Bosco's second in command. "Welcome, Hicks."
"Boss," Van Pelt said in protest.
"We'll extend every courtesy," Lisbon said to her team, her tone brooking no argument. She turned back to Bosco. "Let's go."
Things at the Westlakes didn't go much better.
Jane was suspiciously quiet at first, then even more suspiciously, disappeared.
Lisbon found him outside, eating macadamia nuts. "What were you doing back there?"
"Oh, getting a snack. A little light refreshment."
"Why don't I believe you?"
Jane held out his palm, showing her the macadamia nuts. "Proof of my veracity."
"It's time to go."
"I'm going to stay."
Everything clicked into place. Jane's unusual tolerance towards Bosco, his unprecedented failure to immediately place himself center stage and hog the limelight.
"I know what this is about," Lisbon said. "Bosco has the Red John case. You think if you hang around long enough, you'll weasel your way into it."
"Weasel's a little strong," Jane protested.
"You're wasting your time. Bosco will never go for it."
Bosco came up behind them. "I'll never go for what?"
Jane jumped in. "I like the way you work. I want to work on your team. The kidnapping detail."
"Oh, you do, huh?"
"A live kidnapping victim is so much more my speed than a shriveled corpse."
"Like I care what your speed is," Bosco snapped. He turned to Lisbon. "Lisbon, you claim to have control over this whack job. Why don't you do me a favor and walk him away from me?"
Lisbon bristled. Like she was nothing more than Jane's minder. She opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind, but to her surprise, Jane beat her to the punch.
"Don't speak to her that way," he said sharply.
"Jane, I'll handle this," she said, annoyed.
"He's being rude and he's not treating you with respect," Jane said. "You've been bending over backwards to accommodate his ruffled ego, and he's been nothing but dismissive of your input and leadership."
"I know that," Lisbon snapped. "But that's for me to tell him, not you."
Jane addressed Bosco directly. "You needn't speak to her that way."
"Shut up, Jane," Lisbon said. She turned to Bosco. "Don't talk to me that way."
Seeing Jane about to jump in again, she growled, "Take a walk, Jane."
Jane got a look at her face and took two hasty steps back before collecting himself and strolling away with studied nonchalance.
She returned her attention to Bosco. "Do you have a problem with me?"
"Of course not," Bosco said, glaring after Jane. "I have a problem with him."
"Your behavior suggests you have a problem with me. You've insulted me and my team, and you're actively undermining Minelli's orders to foster inter-unit cooperation. So what's the deal, Sam? Is it so hard for you to accept that I'm not your subordinate anymore? To treat me with basic respect and courtesy as you would any other unit leader? I would never have pegged you as someone who has trouble accepting a woman in a position of authority. I gotta say, it's pretty disappointing."
"Jesus, no. It's not that," Bosco said, aghast. "It's him. He makes me crazy."
"Jane makes everyone crazy. That doesn't excuse your behavior to me."
Bosco grimaced. "You're right. I'm sorry, Teresa. I was out of line."
Lisbon gave a quick jerk of her head in acknowledgment. "Apology accepted. Can we work together now?"
"Yeah," Bosco muttered. He hesitated, then added grudgingly, "If you want Jane to tag along with me for a while, that's okay with me."
Lisbon hid her surprise and nodded. "Great. It's settled, then."
She left, hoping against hope that she wouldn't get a call later in the day that Bosco had drowned Jane in a shallow pool.
xxx
Jane stopped by her office when he and Bosco returned to the CBI.
"How'd it go?" Lisbon asked with a mix of curiosity and dread.
"Oh, fine," Jane said, sitting down across from her and crossing his legs. "Bosco gave me a lesson on how life is on the mean streets."
"What do you mean?" Lisbon asked, alarmed. Had Bosco beaten him up or something? She looked at him more closely. No visible marks, and his nose seemed okay.
Jane waved dismissively. "He pretended he needed me for back up so he could show off how tough and macho he is when he confronted some members of the Crazy Hill gang as a ruse to get information out of his C.I."
Lisbon frowned. "He shouldn't have taken you into a situation like that."
"Meh, it was fine. I assured him I was suitably impressed with how tough and macho he is, and he accused me of thinking slow, methodical work is beneath me."
"You do think slow, methodical work is beneath you," Lisbon pointed out.
"That's true," Jane agreed. "He also told me I was hurting your career."
Lisbon's mouth fell open in indignation. "That's so out of line!"
"Yes," Jane said. "I fear it may be true, however. Still, that is a problem for another day. In the meantime, he's still not interested in hearing about my plan to identify the kidnapper's man on the inside. I think we're making progress, though."
"I'll have a word—"
Her desk phone rang, interrupting her. She picked up. The blood drained from her face as she listened to Rigsby's panicked voice on the other end.
"What is it?" Jane said sharply. "What's the matter?"
"It's Van Pelt," Lisbon said, hanging up the phone and snatching up her jacket. "She's been shot."
xxx
Jane, surprisingly, told her he would catch a ride with Bosco, and she and Cho arrived a few minutes before them. When she arrived at the scene, she rushed to Van Pelt, who thankfully had taken the rounds in the vest. She had a couple of cracked ribs, which would be no picnic to recover from, but Lisbon was grateful it hadn't been worse. Still, any member of her team being on the receiving end of gunfire always left her shaken. She leaned in close to Van Pelt, looking unusually frail lying back on the gurney. She squeezed Van Pelt on the arm. "Don't ever do that to me again."
Van Pelt managed a weak smile. "No problem."
The paramedics loaded Van Pelt into the ambulance. Lisbon pretended not to notice when Rigsby surreptitiously climbed in after her a moment later. She was determined not to notice anything between those two if she could possibly help it. It wasn't like she could say anything to them anyway, given the situation with Jane.
Instead, she spoke to the first responders and sent Cho to gather any information he could from witnesses. Rigby appeared at her elbow a few minutes later, asking for a word. She listened impassively as he relayed the events that had led up to the shooting. She thanked him and sent him to help Cho, but she was still brooding over what he'd told her when Bosco and Jane pulled up and hurried over to ask about Van Pelt.
"She all right?" Jane asked anxiously.
"Yeah," she confirmed. "She took the hits in the vest. She's got a couple cracked ribs, but she'll be all right."
Bosco exhaled. "Thank God."
"Thank Kevlar, actually," Jane said, instantly reverting to his role as pest in chief the moment he learned Van Pelt wasn't in critical danger.
Lisbon had had enough. "Hush." She looked at Bosco. "This is our fault."
"What do you mean?" Bosco asked.
"Rigsby said he and Hicks were going at it when Van Pelt was shot. That kind of bad blood starts with us."
"She's right," Jane said.
"This isn't about bad blood, it's about professionalism," Bosco argued.
"There you go again," Lisbon said, losing her temper. "You won't admit any responsibility."
Cho came up to them then, and she bit back the lecture she'd been about to deliver, not wanting to make matters worse by letting her agents see her and Bosco openly arguing.
Cho reported that the identity of the shooter confirmed a connection between the murder of their victim and the kidnapping of Mia Westlake.
Jane turned to Bosco. "Now we know for sure they have someone planted in the Westlake house. That's the way they work."
Bosco looked deeply unhappy that Jane had been proven right. "We'll run background checks on everyone who's been in that house in the last six months."
"You're never going to find anyone with a background check, they've planned too carefully for that." Jane left the key phrase unspoken, but Lisbon felt the truth of it land nonetheless. They'd never find anyone through a background check in time. If they waited for the background checks to come through and still came up empty, they'd miss the deadline for the drop and they'd be too late to save Mia Westlake.
"And you do know how to catch him?" Bosco said sarcastically.
"Of course. I told you I do," Jane said.
Bosco shook his head. "Forget it."
Anger flashed through her, quick and hot. Good Lord, the man was being even more pig-headed than Jane. "You're not even going to hear him out?"
"No. He's got nothing to tell me."
"You know what?" Lisbon burst out. "Jane is not the problem here. You are. You're so stuck on the idea that he's not a cop that you can't see what he is. Do you know how many cases he's closed for us? You think he's given me bad habits. I think he's made me a better cop."
Jane preened. "Thank you, Lisbon. And may I just say—"
"Be quiet," Lisbon snapped. She kept her attention on Bosco. "If you're so sure you're right that you won't even listen to him, then you're not a person I know."
Bosco stared at her. "All right," he said at last. "Let's give it a try."