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She was fuming!
Well, maybe "fuming" was a bit of an overstatement, there was some concern too, amidst the emotional turmoil known as Patrick Jane.
Because, even though nothing had happened yet, Lisbon knew that something was about to. And she was not ready.
Just by entering the bullpen, she knew something was up.
Rigsby was avoiding her eyes, Van Pelt was pretending to type something on her keyboard, and Cho was being the I'm-stoic-because-of-a-Jane-situation stoic.
"Okay, where is Jane?"
Van Pelt and Rigsby pretended not to hear her.
Cho looked up.
"He said he cleared it with you." He just shrugged.
"How long have we worked together? And when has Jane ever cleared something with me?" Lisbon huffed in annoyance. Turning around to go and find Jane, trying to salvage whatever was going on.
She didn't even have the time to get to the elevator, before the phone rang.
"Jane, I swear if..."
"Don't come, trust me, you will be happy. You and the team. It's a surprise!"
A surprise? Right in the middle of an investigation?
Lisbon hated surprises, and Jane knew it.
"Jane, if you don't tell me what's going on-"
"Just wait for a bit! I promise it's a nice surprise."
Rolling her eyes while wondering why she didn't tie him to his couch, Lisbon hung up without even a goodbye.
Lisbon was not straightening her desk. It was worse. She was clearing the file cabinet. In the bullpen. Making everyone work. Well everyone except Jane. Because he had gone AWOL after the phone call.
And, from the bullpen, the three agents were trying to figure out what was going on.
“Did we do any damage?” Van Pelt asked.
“No, he probably just went to buy something for the trip,” Rigsby replied.
“But the crime scene is only a ten-minute drive away.”
After an excruciating waiting time, the elevator opened on blond curls. But the Jane who walked into the bullpen was out of breath from running and followed by J.J. Laroche and Hightower. And neither of them looked happy.
"Sur- Surprise!" said Jane with a weak smile.
The file in Lisbon's hand fell to the floor with a loud thud. Cho looked up from his desk, while Rigsby and Van Pelt just stared without hiding their confusion.
"We need to talk about your definition of 'surprise.'" Lisbon muttered, ignoring the file and instead greeted her superiors, as if she was in control of the situation.
Yes, definitely, she should have tied him to the couch. Very tightly, so he couldn't move at all. If there had been a way to keep him from even thinking about his crazy ideas, that would have been even better.
"Well, things didn't go as planned," he said.
Hightower raised an eyebrow and gave him a flat look.
"Oh, because what was your plan, exactly? Should I ask your 'surprised' friends to come and see for themselves?"
Laroche narrowed his eyes.
"Actually, they should."
"I don't think that's necessary." Jane winced. Hightower was one of the very few people who could make him feel embarrassed.
"We want to see the surprise." Rigsby chimed in and Lisbon's head spun around. He lowered his head just like Jane.
"Great idea." Cho agreed and got up. So they could get back to the elevator.
“Well...” Jane began, sounding far from convinced. “I thought, since we already know who the killer is and all we need is evidence, maybe we could try to push things along a little...”
“Push things along?” Lisbon asked.
“He went to the attorney general!” Hightower said, cutting her off.
“Yeah, but I was going to bring the pizza afterward,” Jane concluded. “That was the surprise.”
Lisbon looked between Hightower, Laroche and Jane.
"Why do I feel like there's more to it..."
Hightower and Laroche sighed in sync. "He brought the attorney general a giant teacup cake..." Laroche began.
"Just to be clear, there's no pizza, so no surprise?" Rigsby meant to whisper it to Cho, but Hightower heated him.
"Very well concluded, Agent. But there is, however, an AG with a nut allergy on his way to the hospital, because of the peanut butter filling from a cake. Which was-"
"You poisoned the AG?" Lisbon forgot about formality and called Jane out in front of everyone.
"Jane, dammit!" She was almost crying.
"I didn't know!" he tried to beg for her forgiveness with his eyes.
"Aren't you supposed to know everything? Aren't you the amazing mentalist?" she rolled her eyes so hard you could hear them.
Van Pelt tried to ease the tension.
"At least it was a good intention."
Hightower looked like she was giving up raising Jane as a lawful consultant.
"That's the point... Inside the cake was your culprit."
"Really, Jane?" Lisbon raked a hand through her hair, making sure she didn't pull some out of tension.
"It was supposed to be a lesson for both of them. Well, one, because he is a bad guy and the other because he made fun of my teacup!" Jane justified himself helplessly.
"I will handle him" Lisbon finally said, hoping that all the people would leave. And when they did, she slammed the door, turned to Jane and burst out, "I should put YOU into a cake. And send you far, far away."
Jane tried to give her a sheepish smile, but all he really wanted was to laugh at how cute Lisbon got when she was mad at him.
"The AG will get better... you should have seen the cake, a piece of art!"
"You want to see a piece of art?" she was fuming, but tried to contain her rage.
"Not when you say it like this. I'm happy to go to the museum with you, tho." He answered cheekily, trying to smoothen the situation.
"No. Absolutely not. Tell me, why are your surprises always more work for me? Why can't it be tickets to a baseball game?" She asked in frustration, trying to keep calm. Knowing the team was trying to listen in.
“Next time I can bring you some baseball tickets,” Jane nodded, trying to calm her down. “But if you want to put me in a cake first, make it a strawberry cake—that way we'll both like it.” He smirked.