Just a short chapter tonight but I hope you enjoy. Not to sound greedy, but reviews would be nice. I want to make sure people are still enjoying this story. And don't worry- I won't carry on too much longer with Jane in Pain. Thanks all - reviews are my calorie-free chocolates.

"Aaah. This is perfect Mary, thank you." He took another sip of tea. "You are a jewel among women!"

The plump little nursing assistant beamed at Patrick. "Oh you", she scolded. "You're a total rascal. Now drink your tea before the nurse gets here and I get in trouble."

"Don't worry", he leaned forward slightly and whispered. "If Nurse Ratchet comes I'll tell her I snuck out of bed and got it myself."

"Tsk", she shook her head. "As if she won't know that that's a lie. And you shouldn't call her that. She's not that bad", she said, shaking her head. "Now you be good!" With a gentle pat to his shoulder she left the room.

Jane settled back with a sigh and instantly his smile disappeared. He felt sick and he hated hospitals. Other than Mary and one or two of the floor staff who he'd managed to charm, most of the nurses treated him like a little boy who had to be monitored one moment and patronized the next.

He wanted out of here. He wanted to go home with Lisbon and curl up in their bed and feel her next to him. He wanted to have a cup of tea when he wanted it – or a steak or a piece of pizza or anything he wanted – without some battle-axe of a nurse telling him it wasn't good for him.

He was a grown man and he knew what he could handle. He took another sip of tea and refused to acknowledge that his stomach started to feel funny. It was the frustration of being stuck in here, not the caffeine that was bothering him.

He finished the cup just to prove a point and then fumbled to put it on the table beside him. He'd been moved into a regular ward room a couple of days prior but he was still weak and not yet able to get out of bed by himself.

Oh, they'd had him up and moving to the chair, but it had taken two nurses to help him do it. Besides being humiliating, it had damn well hurt. They'd reduced his pain medication to lessen the chance of him becoming dependent on narcotics, but the other stuff didn't work nearly as well.

Right now, not only was his chest hurting, it was also starting to itch like crazy. Having tried it once he knew it wasn't worth it to scratch. That episode had led to him losing his breakfast after practically ripping out some stiches.

He looked at his watch – at least he'd convinced Lisbon to bring that to him - and noticed it was almost 2 o'clock. He didn't know where she was and he was starting to worry. She'd been by first thing in the morning but had had to leave for a meeting. He hated when he was left alone.

"So, how are you feeling this afternoon Patrick?"

Jane's eyes moved to the nurse and he scowled. She looked like she starched her face at the same time she starched her uniform.

Nurse Jean Edmonds – or Nurse Ratchet as he called her to himself and his friends – was his least favorite attendant. She was arrogant and lacked both a sense of humor or any perceptible compassion, at least as far as he could tell. She was one of those people who was highly competent, but did what she did because she liked to control others, not because she truly cared about them.

"Well, I was just contemplating whether to go for a run or take up square dancing, but I haven't decided yet. And how are you feeling today Jean?"

He could tell, by the tightening around her eyes, that she liked him about as well as he liked her. Good – they were on the same page.

She smiled. "Well, aren't you a funny one." She advanced on him quietly – rather like a spider he thought – and reached out with her hand. "Hmm, what's this? It looks like one of the nursing staff has been disobeying orders and brought you some tea." She shook her head. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to do something about that. We can't have staff catering to patients whims now, can we?"

Jane smiled back. "Oh no, that would be terrible. What is the world coming to when nursing staff actually tries to make a patient feel better? Although I'm afraid you're wrong", he said regretfully.

"Wrong?" Her eyebrows lifted in pseudo-interest.

"Mmm hmm. It wasn't a nurse who brought me the tea."

"No? Then who was it?"

He leaned his head forward and gestured with his finger for her to come closer. Once she was standing right next to him he whispered – "it was a ghost."

She stood up quickly, a look of disgust on her face. "A ghost? Are we going to have to adjust your medication again Patrick? I'm afraid you're seeing things."

"Oh no", he shook his head. "It was a ghost. She even introduced herself to me."

"She did?" Nurse Edmonds looked at him with a mocking smile. "And what was her name?"

"Well – it was a little hard to hear – you know what ghosts are like – but I think she said her name was Saaaa – rah? No, no, it was Sadie, that's it."

The smile left Edmonds face and she froze. "What?" she hissed.

"Yes, Sadie. She said she was a nurse here, about fifteen years ago." Jane looked as if he suddenly noticed the woman standing by his bed. "Did you know her?"

"What are you doing?" the nurse breathed.

"Doing? Nothing. Just telling you what Sadie said. She told me that there was a patient here – a man by the name of – hmm, I think it was Edwards or Edgars – something like that. Anyway, she said that someone gave him the wrong medication and he died. She was blamed for it because her name was on the chart but she claimed it wasn't her, that she was framed, that she hadn't even been on the floor at the time. Still, the hospital administration was forced to fire her because the dead man's family was going to sue." Jane shook head. "It was very sad. Anyway, I think she must have been a good nurse because she brought me a cup of tea."

"You're lying", Ratchet/Edmonds growled. "You couldn't know anything about Sadie."

"Uh – if I don't know anything about her, how did I just tell you what the ghost said?"

"There was no ghost", she slammed her hand down on his hospital table. "I'm afraid I'm definitely going to have to reduce your medication", she said angrily, reaching for the IV. "You're hallucinating."

"I wouldn't touch that", he shook his head. "Remember I work with the FBI. We could do another investigation into Edgars' death. Who knows what we might find."

Edmonds took a deep breath and pulled her hand back from the IV and turned around and headed to the door. "How could you have seen her ghost", she said, not turning around. "Sadie isn't dead."

"Yes she is", he said softly. "She just died a couple of weeks ago. Cancer. She told me she came back here to get justice. I'm not sure what that means, but she was nice. I wished her luck."

Nurse Edmonds made a strange sound and left his room. Jane lay back down and let out a sigh. That had been exhausting, but worth it. Jean Edmonds was a hard woman and she deserved to suffer, thinking that the spirit of Sadie Thompson was about to haunt her.

It was almost 4 o'clock before Lisbon returned and by this time he was feeling totally and completely out of sorts. He felt like he'd been deserted, especially since he hadn't had even one visitor after Nurse Ratchet had left.

They still had the damned catheter in, even though he'd begged to have it removed. They told him that until everything checked out – whatever the hell that meant – they were going to keep it in. It meant he didn't have any real reason to call for a nurse, although he'd contemplated it a few times.

The problem was – he was bored. He couldn't do anything, he couldn't talk to anyone, couldn't work, couldn't even read. His head was still messed up from the pain medication and he grew tired after a few sentences.

He sighed again. He wanted to go home.

"Jane, I'm sorry", Teresa rushed into the room – at least as much as a very pregnant woman could rush. "I got held up. How are you doing?"

Jane gave her his full 'I'm doing fine, everything is okay in my world' smile. "Fine, I'm doing just fine."

"Really?" she gave him a penetrating look. "You're sure everything is okay?"

"It's fine Teresa", he told her. "I've just been lying here resting."

"Oh." She came over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then settled, with a sigh, into the chair by his bed. "I'm glad. I got held up at work. We have a new case and Abbott wanted to talk to me about it."

"What is it?" he asked, trying to push himself up a bit on the bed. Maybe a new case would give him something to do.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing." She gave him another smile. "The doctor said to rest and you shouldn't be worrying about cases right now." She frowned slightly. "Did he come by?"

He shrugged, suddenly feeling even more irritated. He was sick of everyone coddling him. He wanted something to do. "No." he answered shortly.

"Patrick, are you sure you're alright. You seem kind of -"

"Of what?" he asked. "I told you I'm fine Teresa."

"Okay", she said, sounding hesitant. "So the doctor didn't come by yet? Isn't that strange."

He shrugged again. "Who knows? I guess they figure I'm well enough now so they're not going to bother to check on me so often."

"Yes well, you're not okay yet – at least not completely. You only got out of the ICU two days ago."

"I'm a fast healer", he snapped.

She sighed. "Yes – but you're still sick." She glanced at his table and around the room. "Don't you have any water?"

"No – the nurse didn't bring any."

"Why didn't you ring for some?" When he didn't answer she asked another question. "Did you have lunch?"

"They brought something. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be edible or not."

"Okay – there is something wrong. What is it Patrick? Is it because I was late? If so, I'm sorry. We have an important case and I knew you were okay. I didn't want to leave you alone but Abbott asked me to stay."

"I told you Teresa -"

"Yes, I know. You're fine! Well, you're obviously in a bad mood so you're not fine."

"What do you want from me Teresa? I'm stuck in this damned hospital bed with nothing to do. I can't even get up to pee for heaven's sake. I can't read, there's no one to talk to and the TV isn't hooked up. So forgive me if I'm feeling a little frustrated."

"Why didn't you call a nurse?"

"To do what? Sit and have a chat with me? They're busy, or so they're always telling me. As far as I can tell all they do is go around and tell patients what they can't do or can't have."

"That's because you've made them all mad by being so damned rude to them", she snapped. "Maybe if you treated people decently you wouldn't be left here alone!"

"So this is my fault? You're saying that the nursing staff won't bring me water because I don't treat them decently?"

"No – well maybe." When he stared at her she shook her head. "I'm not getting into this with you right now. You know damned well that you can be rude and obnoxious to people and you anger them all the time. And you hate hospitals which makes your behavior even worse."

"Fine! If you find me so obnoxious why are you here? Why don't you just go home and work on the case some more, or - or go out with Vega or something?"

"Fine!" She repeated and pushed herself to her feet. "If you're going to be like this I will go home. At least there I can have some peace and quiet." She glanced down at Jane, noticing that he was wearing that look that said there was more to this than what he was saying. She felt guilty for a brief moment and then decided that no, she wasn't going to fall for that. Right now she didn't care what was bugging him. She was exhausted and couldn't deal with him right now. He needed to learn not to treat people like crap all the time.

"Call the nurse if you need something", she told him. "And have a good night." With that she headed out the door and home.

His head flopped back on the pillow and he cursed, at himself, not at Lisbon. He knew he was being a jerk but he was feeling miserable. He hurt, he was bored and he missed her. With a sigh he tried to close his eyes. Maybe this time he could sleep without the damn dreams coming to haunt him.