#1 in MENTALIST
[Cho x OC]
[COMPLETED]
It's The Mentalist but slightly to the left; shifting the spotlight to Kimball Cho and original character Ronnie Masters. Starts from S1E1, includes all casted characters with the addition of one OC. SLOWWW BU...
So, Cho isn't in very much of the next episode so I'll be skipping it for this story. There were a couple scenes that deserved attention though so I made some gifs for you guys. Anyway, enjoy this bonus chapter! ——————————————————————————
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Light tapping woke Ronnie from an uncomfortable sleep. Scrunched up in the tiny back seat of her Honda Civic, it took a couple seconds to blink away her confusion and find that the tapping was happening at one of the windows.
Above her head, Cho stood outside the car, tapping one fingernail against her backseat window.
Rubbing her face, Ronnie checked her watch. Almost midnight. She'd slept on that terrible seat for seven hours.
Despite the strange angle her neck was stuck at, it was the best sleep she'd had in weeks.
Cho knocked again, that time harder.
Irritated, the young woman sat up and unlocked the door, yawning and rebraiding her hair.
The door popped open softly and Cho slipped into the back seat with her, quietly clicking the door shut after himself.
Ronnie took a moment to internally laugh at the appearance of the situation. To the CBI garage cameras, they probably looked to be engaging in a romantic rendezvous.
By her reckoning, Cho's intrusion in her car was the farthest thing from romantic.
Ronnie fully sat up wearily, blinking against the persistent sleep in her eyes. "How did it go?"
They both stared straight ahead, scrunched into the back of her car so tightly that their shoulders were pressed together.
There was more room.
Cho could have moved over into the empty space.
He didn't.
"It was Tommy Olds."
"The real estate caretaker?"
"Actually, he was guarding a secret aquifer."
Secret natural water. That would do it. "Huh."
"Yep."
They still hadn't looked at each other.
"Minnelli said you'd gone home hours ago." Cho glanced down at the way her fingers were twisting in the hem of her tank top.
"I can't sleep at home." She explained softly, stifling a yawn.
Cho took that in for a second. "Right."
"I miss anything else?"
A moment passed. "Rigsby and I almost let Jane get killed."
She noticed suddenly how much he smelled like smoke. "Bummer."
"Yeah."
A beat.
Cho shifted, extending one leg as far as he could in the limited space. He was exhausted and her car was cramped. "I called you tactically incompetent."
Ronnie gave a dead-eyed nod. "Yep."
They still couldn't face each other.
Cho loosened his tie. "I'm sorry, Ronnie." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her breathing slow.
She was listening hard, straining to catch every word.
"I got frustrated when you ran into that fire."
Her bandaged hand rested on her thigh.
"I just need you to be more careful." Cho shut up after that, waiting. She'd scared him so bad when she'd run into that house.
He'd instantly begun envisioning her burned body, her blonde hair peeking out from under a sheet.
A hundred bodies in his career and the thought of hers had knocked the breath out of his lungs.
Ronnie stretched suddenly, uttered a deep sigh, and rested her head on his shoulder. She didn't say anything.
The tension ebbed out of his wired shoulders. He'd wished she'd finished the case with them. She wouldn't have let him and Rigsby abandon their post like a couple of knuckleheads to go on a ghost hunt.
She would have made sure Jane was never in danger.
Cho leaned into her backseat, closing his eyes.
In her next breath, Ronnie was fast asleep.
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