3 Month Leave | the MENTALIST

MONTH 1 : pt IV

Short chapter, sorry guys.

"Masters."

Her clothes, ripped off. Arlov's inescapable hands grabbed at her. A sneer split his wrinkled face. She couldn't get away.

"Masters, wake up."

She couldn't get away. No matter how hard she thrashed and rolled, his hands gripped her arms and tore at her pants. He would have her again. She could feel it.

"Ronnie."

The hazy scene of the stall faded away and Cho's looming face, illuminated by flashes of light from the tv, took its place. Night air swept into her lungs like a hasty reassurance that she'd actually been rescued. It wasn't a paracosm, not that time. A few blinks later and she finally grasped the situation.

Cho, bedraggled and sleepy, leaning over her, his hands holding her sock-mitten wrists close to his chest. When he saw that she was awake, he breathed a deep sigh and sat back, letting her go.

Her hands fell to her chest without restraint. Another night ruined.

He ran a hand through his mussed hair and crawled back over to his side of the bed. "You okay?"

Ronnie blinked away tears of frustration. She still had socks on her hands but that didn't mean she hadn't accidentally punched him in the eye. "Did I hurt you?"

Cho's head hit his pillow like a rock. "You didn't hurt anyone. We're both fine." His voice was muffled by sleep and a mouthful of cotton, but he blindly reached one hand out and patted her shoulder comfortingly. "Try to go back to sleep."

She made herself focus on the cartoons that were still playing. "Thanks, Cho."

|the MENTALIST|

The exhaustion was out to get both of them. After a week of very little sleep, their energy was running miserably low. Ronnie leaned over the stove, most of her weight thrown against a counter, stirring a pot of oatmeal. The backs of her legs throbbed painfully.

Cho wandered in, cell phone in hand, and glanced over her progress with the oatmeal. "That was Lisbon," He announced. When he noticed the pale cast of her skin, he took the spoon from her and pushed her towards the kitchen chairs. "Minelli offered to order your bureau counseling as early as you want it, and Lisbon said that Agent Hotchner would like to speak to you as a witness on your mother's case."

Ronnie crumpled into the chair. "Thank God, things to do."

Cho turned on another burner and started frying some eggs. "The BAU will be back in town next week. They'll come around and talk to you here, since you're on leave. I didn't tell Lisbon anything about your counseling."

She nodded apprehensively, waving the subject away. "I'll call her this evening. I gotta figure out when I feel like biting that bullet." Nausea rolled up her throat. Ronnie leaned back from the counter and took a deep breath, silently begging her stomach not to heave. Her vision swam.

A minute later, her clarity returned, and she settled back with a relieved sigh. Her head still ached and her legs still throbbed, but at least she wouldn't puke all over the countertop.

Cho set down a bowl of oatmeal and a plate of eggs before her. "You okay?"

She picked up a spoon. "Not feeling so hot."

A few seconds passed in silence as he sat next to her with his own breakfast.

"Actually," Halfway through her meal, she had to give up. "Hot is all I'm feeling."

|the MENTALIST|

Her legs were infected.

Admitted to the hospital once again, Ronnie found herself plugged in and pin pricked and eating Jello out of plastic cups.

The nights of clawing open her cuts with her fingernails had not only exacerbated them, but had introduced a whole new round of bacteria that had settled in and taken up residence in her frayed muscles.

Hospital treatments were a lot more fun on Grey's Anatomy than in real life.

They sent her home on bedrest like a pregnant woman and told her to make sure to take extra steps to keep the wounds clean.

That's how she found herself laying in bed, watching a hospital soap, discreetly examining the way her forearms looked so much smaller than they had a month ago. Her legs looked smaller. Her arms were definitely smaller.

She was laying in bed, literally wasting away, and she wouldn't be the same when it was over. Her muscle mass was disappearing by the day.

Cho shuffled into the bedroom with a platter of pretzel chips and tuna salad and crawled into bed with her. "What's happening?"

Ronnie put her muscle atrophy out of her mind. "Forget everything I said about Derek. Mark Sloan is the absolute man."

"God you're such a chick." Her partner scoffed, tossing back a pretzel chip.

"Aw gee, thanks for noticing, bud."

|the MENTALIST|

Ronnie woke up in Cho's arms.

Her heart was pounding, flashes of nightmare still swarming behind her eyes, but the cold steel of chains was replaced by the warmth of Cho's chest behind her head.

His arms were banded around her, holding her wrists tightly.

"I'm up." She gasped, eyes watering. She felt his thighs under her elbows and knew she was laying across his lap. "I'm up."

Cho's grip loosened, but to his credit he didn't drop her. "We have to clean your stomach." He muttered. For a minute he was just holding her. For a minute, she wasn't a traumatized detective, bleeding and teetering on the brink of sanity. For a minute, he was a man holding his best friend.

He felt her hands grasp his arms, felt the blood smear on his skin.

He smoothed a hand over her forehead to push her hair out of her face and felt the perspiration dripping like a faucet.

"You scratched the burns open again." His voice was in her hair. "I'm sorry, Masters, I didn't wake up in time."

Ronnie sniffed, choking back tears. "I don't blame you. I slept through it too."

He didn't laugh. "You got the socks off. You're bleeding again, but I think I can clean you up."

She felt his fingers squeeze her arms. She couldn't help but enjoy the embrace. No, they weren't sleeping. Yes, both of them were running out of sanity. Yes, she was bleeding into her pajamas and being physically restrained from mutilating herself, but for just a moment, another human being was holding her to his chest.