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He ends up in her bed more nights than not, now.
It started with inviting him to stay after the movies: moving from slumped together on her couch into bed together was easier than it should have been. Lisbon had surprised herself, had never thought she’d be able to share space with someone, not really. Jane had surprised himself, too. The idea of flopping into bed with his best friend, half naked and shaking-tired from hitting each other hard and long enough to ache...
Well, it just seemed too absurd to get worked up about, really.
And nothing has actually changed all that much. Some late nights at the office one of them decides the other needs feeding, and they end up at her condo with takeout or groceries or an idea for the remains of her fridge. They both have bad days, but they’ve just stopped staying at work until they pass out alone on one of the couches or in the attic. They gravitate towards each other instead, heading out early if they can. Occasionally there’s a movie they want to watch while they’re not exhausted, or they feel like a vicious poker game, or there’s a play on, and they do it just because they want to.
They still talk about everything they do at the gym, still set parameters when one or both of them need to fuck until they can’t feel, but they don’t talk about any of the rest of it.
They do talk about going for dinner with Pete and Sam the day after tomorrow, but they don’t talk about the strawberry rhubarb pie he sticks in her freezer or the copy of the first Harry Potter movie she leaves on the kitchen table. She does ask him if he wants her to pick up macaroni and cheese from the place that tastes like home or just skip dinner altogether tomorrow.
It gets her a wet laugh and the first smile she’s seen in a week. He pulls her into a tight hug and says they can figure it out after work.
The last thing anyone expected was a physical confrontation in the middle of the day.
Except... Except he always used a knife. It was always disgustingly intimate. But it was usually by surprise, too. Probably most of all, no one ever expected a bit of fooling around in a gym might make the slightest difference.
Not against Red John.
She’s worried when Cho calls her cellphone when he and Jane are supposed to be in the middle of routine interviews and they knows she’s going to be digging through paperwork all afternoon.
‘Cho?’
‘We’re fine.’
It’s not entirely reassuring. He sounds fine in the sense of not seriously injured or currently having his life threatened, but not bored or excited. No good reason to call unexpectedly.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Everything’s fine, but meet us at Sutter General?’
She can’t breathe.
‘What the fuck, Cho?’
‘Boss, he’s okay. I’ll meet you out front.’
She drives too fast but she shoves her fists in her pockets and slows down to walk to the front of the hospital. It doesn’t matter that he’s guessed, he guessed a long time ago. There are some things they really don’t need to talk about.
He’s hunched a little when she sees him, a bit scraped up when he lifts his head. His hands are clean but his cuffs are bloody and half-dry, with a bit more smeared on the front of his shirt.
‘Jesus, Cho,’ she reaches out for his arm, worried for all it doesn’t look like it’s his. His smile is stiff but it’s a smile of fine.
Finefinefine and not a fucking clue what’s happened.
‘C’mon,’ he leads the way, not stiff, not worried, and all she can do is follow.
They can hear him before they can see him, protesting loudly and belligerently that he’s fine, and she almost laughs out loud. Cho smiles softly and leads her to one of the rooms, leaning against the doorframe.
The thing his face does when he sees her would suggest she’s the one in the goddamn hospital, and he’s the one no one’s bothering to enlighten.
His face settles back into the disgruntled pout of a child getting a reprimand, for all she knows he only clasps his hands like that to hide their shaking. He’s got a bandage from his shoulder to his elbow, covering the whole of his outer arm, a bandage she knows from experience is probably covering stitches. He’s still wearing the intact half of his bloodied shirt and his crusted hair is hanging over a considerably swollen cheekbone.
Lisbon leans against the wall, just inside the door opposite Cho, and tries to regulate her breathing. He’s pale but he doesn’t seem dizzy or in shock, and the still damp blood on both of them suggests it’s still fairly recent. Too much damp blood for it to be all his given his condition.
‘Is someone gonna tell me what the fuck happened?’
Cho crosses his arms and looks at Jane. Jane rubs a bloody hand over his face.
‘I got distracted. It was a ploy. Cho swooped in and saved the day.’
Lisbon crosses her arms, swallowing hard at the omissions, whatever they are.
Cho sighed. ‘Red John drew him away, Jane made enough of a fuss that things got messy, and loud. By the time I got to them I had to shoot him.’
Jane doesn’t look satisfied, or resentful, or anything other than tired, really. Lisbon sighs.
‘Are you guys done answering questions?’ They both nod. ‘And cleared to leave the hospital?’ She frowns hard at Jane, who quirks a small smile.
‘Promise, Lisbon.’
‘Let’s go,’ she turns to Cho. ‘We’re off the case?’ He nods. ‘You’re getting a call when they confirm?’ He nods again. ‘Let me know?’
‘Of course.’
Jane’s suddenly next to her, wearing just his jacket and pants with his vest draped over his good arm, looking utterly ridiculous.
‘How-’
‘The jacket was in the car, Cho was gentleman enough to bring it in. The vest should be just fine with a good dry clean.’
‘Yeah? Well, you need a good shower.’
Jane smiles.
He’s clean and lumpy on her couch, sitting between her legs and leaning back to offer a warm and reassuring weight the whole length of her torso.
They had skipped dinner after all. She’d tossed the pie in the oven and he’d gotten straight in the shower, and they haven’t really stopped touching since he came back downstairs.
There’s only a couple of pieces of pie left and Harry’s being chased by keys.
He walks into her office two days after the last of the Red John paperwork clears.
The day before, he’d sat down to breakfast with her and told her he was taking a vacation day. She didn’t ask questions and he didn’t offer answers. He got back late in the evening, no indication of what he’d been doing or what may have changed.
He closes the door and sits down across from her, staring at his steadily moving hands.
‘Um, I know we haven’t talk about this,’ Lisbon is careful to breathe deeply and evenly, bracing herself, ‘but I was wondering if I might be able to get the change of address paperwork? I mean,’ he spoke quickly, ‘I know we need to talk about it plenty, and if it’s a unilateral no you certainly say so now, but ah,’ he laughs self-deprecatingly, ‘this seemed as good a way to bring it up as any.’
She stares at him. ‘Change of address paperwork?’ She echoes it helplessly, mind going eight ways at once. She thinks briefly about Malibu, about him changing his PO box, and, niggling insistently in a little place she can’t believe, about the possibility that he might mean-
‘If you’re not comfortable, Lisbon, please tell me. Although if it is an issue, we should really have a discussion about how all of my belongings currently reside in your condo.’
He does mean it.
‘No, no. That’s, that’s good,’ she blinks quickly, standing to open the filing cabinet. ‘We do need to talk about it though.’
He hums, letting her dig through the files and get her bearings.
She comes around in front of him when she’s found them, perching on the edge of her desk. He slides down a bit to knock his knee against hers, smiling softly.
‘You okay?’
‘Hush.’