3 Month Leave | the MENTALIST

MONTH 1 : pt I

Note: trust me, read the whole thing.

The nurse who pushed Cho's wheelchair into Ronnie's room had a face flushed with anger. It was the usual response given to the man who detested hospitals and hospital staff more than he hated the injuries that got him there.

Kimball Cho hated doctors. He hated nurses even more. He hated being infantilized by wheelchair policies and patronized by jello cups. He was admitted by force and required to undergo treatment out of necessity, and yet all of the doctors treated him like he was accountable to them.

How dare he get himself punched in the face? Didn't he know that was bad for his health?

He had a mind to take a few swings at the medical professionals himself, which was, he assumed, why Rigsby had been ordered to accompany him any time a doctor or nurse entered his room.

Because why not add one more babysitter to the pile?

Cho's jaw clenched harder as the sullen nurse rolled him over the threshold, his grip on his IV hanger tightening to account for the rattle of wheels over the rubber strip on the floor.

"Good morning, everybody," the nurse nodded mildly to the cluster of agents standing around Ronnie, and brought Cho up to the bed on the other side of the curtain partition.

The evident next step was to transfer the surly detective from the chair to the bed, but Cho had no intention of complying. He'd barely complied to the wheelchair policy. Penelope Garcia's urging to have him moved while Ronnie was still awake had been his only motivation to allow the flagrant dismissal of his fully functioning legs.

When he just looked at her, the nurse gestured to the bed. "Are you able to move into the bed, Agent Cho?"

"I'm not getting into the bed." Cho returned flatly. His partner was on the other side of the room, awake for the first time in almost thirty-six hours, and he'd be damned if he was going to crawl into a hospital bed and be satisfied with merely sharing a room.

His twenty-five-year-old partner was laying, torn to pieces, just feet away from him, and the nurse was wasting his time.

"Oh boy," the voice came from the doorway, where Penelope stood, wringing her bejeweled hands. "What is it with male agents being difficult patients?"

Cho ignored her, craning his neck to look at Patrick Jane despite the painful torquing of his spine. Jane cared about Ronnie as much as he did, dubious though his affections sometimes appeared. He would understand.

The older blonde man straightened, knowing exactly what Cho wanted. He leaned away from Ronnie for a moment to speak to the nurse. "Actually, Agent Cho hasn't seen his partner since they were both rescued from captivity, and he won't be taking anything easy until he sees her for himself."

The nurse glanced at Ronnie, then at Agents Hotchner and Lisbon, and then back to Cho. "Sir, we really want you to rest today as much as possible—" when he gave no indication of responding, and his piercing stare turned even sharper, the nurse's shoulders dropped. "You're not getting in the bed, are you?"

"We'll help him into the bed when he's ready." Lisbon spoke up gently. "You won't get anywhere going head to head with him." Her bemused expression was aimed at Cho, which he ignored completely.

"I told you, I'm fine. I don't need any of this." He grumbled at the nurse. His legs worked perfectly fine, his arms were uninjured, and he had barely needed surgery to set the fractures he'd gotten.

With a frustrated sigh and an intimidated slump of her shoulders, the nurse hurried to the door and slipped past Penelope, disappearing into the hallway.