Authors Note: Thanks to Ebony 10 for being my beta, and for all of the reviews. Bonus point if you can guess what book Cho's reading at the end.
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, and I don't own them, even if I wish did.
She woke up with a crick in her neck. There was a nurse checking tubes and wires, carefully filling out paperwork on a clipboard with information from various machines. "Did you sleep well last night?" The nurse asked her.
"Um, yeah, thanks for letting me sleep here." The nurses had tried to get her to leave at 10:00—visiting hours had been officially over at 8:00—but she had pulled her badge and had been allowed to stay. She hadn't planned on falling asleep. She figured it had probably happened about 2:00 a.m. She glanced down at her watch and noticed that it was just past 7:00 now. She would have to go home to shower and change at some point.
"Do you know when the doctor will be in?" She asked, standing and stretching.
"Yes, the doctor started his rounds a few minutes ago. He should be in here in a minute." The nurse smiled at her slightly. Lisbon only had to wait a few more minutes before the doctor came in.
"Well, hello, I see Mr. Jane has a very early morning visitor." The doctor said as he walked in the room and say Lisbon. "I'm Dr. Pike." He put his hand out for Lisbon to shake.
"I'm Teresa Lisbon." She shook his hand and then got right to the point. "The doctor yesterday said that if he made it through the night that his chances of survival would double. Is that true?"
Dr. Pike smiled at her. "That is true. The first night is always the toughest. Let me take a look at his chart and at him and I'll let you know." Lisbon sat impatiently in her chair waiting for the doctor to finish what he was doing. When he finished, she looked at him expectantly.
"Well, how is he?" she asked.
"He's still in the coma. His vitals have stabilized. We'll run a few more tests today now that he's stabilized and see how much damage there is. We'll know more then."
Lisbon just nodded. That was not what she wanted to hear. She wanted to know right now if he was going to be ok. Teresa looked at her watch again. It was after 8:00 now. She stood up and pulled out one of her business cards. "I have to go home for a little bit. Can you call me if you have any news? My cell phone number is on the back."
"I can definitely do that, Teresa." He shook her hand and she walked out of the room. She waited until she got to the elevator before she felt the tears streaming down her face. She thought she had cried out all of her tears the night before, but apparently she hadn't.
When she got to the lobby, she realized that they had all driven together to the hospital and that her car was still at the CBI office. She sighed and asked the docent if she could call a cab. She then went outside to wait. She had managed to stop crying by the time the cab got there, but still didn't trust herself to say more than a few words. All she gave the cab driver was the address of the CBI office and they rode the rest of the way in silence.
Cho rode up the elevator. He had waited until he knew visiting time began before coming to the hospital. He figured that he could probably get in earlier by flashing his badge, but he didn't want to do that unless it was absolutely necessary.
Cho stepped out of the elevator and saw the doctor leaving Jane's room. He quickly stepped up to him and stopped him. "I'm Kimball Cho. I work with Patrick Jane. How is he?"
Dr. Pike looked at him in surprise. "I'm Dr. Pike. Mr. Jane sure is a popular guy. You just missed his girlfriend. She just left."
"His girlfriend?" Cho didn't know he had a girlfriend. He wondered if Lisbon had known. Jane didn't seem the type, but you never know.
"Yes," Dr. Pike looked down at the business card that was clipped to Jane's chart, "Teresa Lisbon."
"Lisbon's not his girlfriend." Cho said in a matter of fact tone. "She's our boss."
"That's some boss. She spent the night sleeping in that chair." He pointed to the chair still pulled up close to the bed. "Your friend survived the night. We won't know if there was any brain damage until we run some more tests. If you'd like, you can go in and sit with him. He's scheduled for an MRI and a CAT scan in a couple of hours. The nurse will let you know."
Cho nodded to the doctor and walked into the room. He looked at Jane again and noticed that he looked the same as he had the night before. He was waiting for him to open his eyes and laugh, making a big joke about he managed to convince them all that he was dying and that he should have seen the look on Lisbon's face when she found out. He didn't, though, so he went and sat be his bed.
"Hey, Jane." Cho paused for a minute, not sure how to go on. "You know if this turns out to be a big joke Lisbon's going to kill you." He was silent for a few more minutes. "So I brought a book. My niece is really into the series. They just made a movie out of the first one and the second one is in the works. I've never actually read them, but I figured we could read them together."
He pulled a book out of the bag he had brought with him and started to read. He could understand why his niece loved them so much. She was barely twelve. He got into the rhythm of reading and didn't even notice the time as it slowly slipped away.