Authors Note: Thanks for all the reviews and to Ebony10 for being my beta. The book Cho's reading, for those of you who didn't figure it out, was Twilight. I haven't actually read it, but my sister is in love with Edward. From the previews of the movie I've seen my sister could pull off Bella pretty well. Anyway, I wasn't planing on posting this today, but I hate holding back when I have parts written. Just think of it as a thank you to CBS fro showing an episode last night. Very happy surprise when I came home from work and found it on my DVR.
Disclaimer: If it was mine I wouldn't be forced to harass my ex for child support, I'd be abel to pay soemone to do it for me :)
Teresa Lisbon had been gone from the hospital for only two hours when she walked back through the doors. She felt guilty not knowing if there was someone from her team there to be with Jane. She walked past the front desk to the elevators and was surprised to see two very familiar faces waiting to go up.
"You guys ride in together?" She asked Van Pelt and Rigsby. Neither of them would look directly at her, but Van Pelt finally responded.
"Yeah, well, we shared a cab back to CBI last night, but got sidetracked by a bar and Rigsby ended up crashing on my sofa for the night. We decided to come see Jane before going to get our cars."
The elevator came at that point and the three of them rode up in silence. Lisbon was secretly grateful that neither of them had asked where she had gone last night. She wasn't ready to admit that she had spent all night at the hospital watching over Jane.
They got to the ICU and walked towards Jane's room. They heard a voice coming from inside and saw that Cho was sitting in the chair next to the bed reading his book out loud to Jane.
Lisbon stood in the door way while Rigsby and Van Pelt went into the room. Cho looked up, briefly acknowledging that he knew they were there, and kept reading until the end of the page.
"How's he doing?" Van Pelt asked.
"The doctor said that he's stabilized, but that they won't know how bad the damage is until they get a chance to run some tests later today." Cho was telling them the same information that she had gotten from Dr. Pike that morning so she went in such of the doctor to see if there was anything new.
She was stopped by a nurse at the nurses' station just after she left Jane's room. "Miss Lisbon, I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me." Lisbon was surprised. She didn't think there was anything she would know that the nurse wouldn't.
"You are Mr. Jane's boss, right?"
"Yes." May be they needed his insurance information. She supposed they had the same insurance, but wasn't sure.
"We were wondering if there was any way you could find out who his next of kin is. Maybe it's listed in his employment records?" The nurse looked hopefully up at her.
"Yeah, I can try to track that down for you. Let me go into the office and see what I can find." She couldn't believe none of them had thought about trying to contact his family. Did he even have a family? Maybe his wife's family would like to know what had happened to him.
She really wanted to go and see Jane, but this was important too. Besides, she didn't want to see him with the rest of the team. She was still having a hard time with this whole thing and didn't want the team to see her cry.
She walked back to the elevator and headed back to the lobby. She could have just called the office, but she needed something to do. She walked out to her car and headed to the CBI office, thinking the whole time of Jane and what would happen if he did die. It surprised her to no end when she pulled into the CBI parking lot as she had no memory of how she got there.
"Agent Lisbon, I didn't think you were going to be coming in today." Minelli stood in the door to Lisbon's office watching as she looked through her filing cabinet.
"I wasn't planning on coming in, but the hospital needed information on Jane's next of kin so I'm here looking up his personal file." She had reverted to anger—an emotion she knew well—to mask her worry and fear.
"You could have called. Someone here could have gotten that information." He seemed concerned with the fact that she was here and not at the hospital with the rest of the team.
"It's ok, boss. I'm just going to copy the relevant information and take it back to the hospital. Don't worry. We'll be back to work tomorrow as normal." She didn't say that it would never be normal until Jane was back on his sofa pretending to be a sleep.
Minelli shook his head and walked away. Lisbon waited until she was sure that he was gone before sinking into her chair. This was harder than she had thought it was going to be. Jane's file was in front of her, but she was having a hard time opening it. She sighed deeply and opened to the first page. She started mumbling under her breath as she read.
"Name, date of birth, address, telephone, cell phone…there it is. Next of kin." She looked at it and couldn't believe her eyes. She looked at the bottom of the page where it was signed and dated six months ago. She was listed as his next of kin. She flipped through the rest of the file quickly, but the older copy of the form was not in it.
Why would he have listed her as his emergency contact? It didn't make any sense. What about his family? He had to have someone outside of the CBI, didn't he?