3 Month Leave | the MENTALIST

MONTH 2 : pt II

Note: The poem used later in this chapter was written by Carolyn Cognan in 2017, which postdates this time frame by about 8 years, but it was too good to not use, so forgive the anachronism.

She explained it as well as she could remember, leaving out select details—like the lucky outfit and the occasional uncomfortable itch. It had been a morning that started the same as any other until a man came in dragging a body that he thought was potatoes.

Prentiss was taking diligent notes while Hotch watched Ronnie speak with a focused expression. She couldn't understand why telling them about the story would help her case, but his eyes were narrowed in consideration.

Ronnie hoped Cho wasn't planning on waking up soon. There was no way she could explain how her brain had come up with potato hypnotism.

She went on. After Jane determined that he had been hypnotized, the man with the potatoes/dead body was placed into custody and questioned by Cho immediately. Ronnie made no mention of her very concerning appraisal of her partner's sex appeal since it had no bearing on either Carla Masters' case or Arlov's. The potato man could not be convinced that he had brought in a body instead of vegetables and the interview had to be abandoned.

She remembered feeling the knife begin to cut again.

Ronnie heard rustling from the bedroom and tried to ignore it. It wasn't like she was planning on telling all to the FBI agents anyway. Cho was allowed to hear anything that she chose to tell them. He hadn't heard the potato story yet.

"Has this potato man appeared in any of your previous cases? Or any of these details thus far?" Prentiss interrupted quietly.

"No." Ronnie sipped from her coffee and felt an ache begin in her lower back. Her injuries were becoming fatigued by sitting up on the couch and she would need to take up a much more informal position in a minute or two.

Prentiss gestured for her to continue.

The next part of the story was when she had held Cho's hand and he'd checked her out so she skipped that part.

Once the team had identified the body, they'd gone back to ask the potato man more questions. He'd known the woman's name and appeared devastated when he found out that she was dead. He'd revealed that they were connected via the brainwashing clinic, or whatever it had been called, and that he'd had absolutely no motive to kill her.

"You constructed this story while you were undergoing torture, not during a rest period?" Prentiss questioned.

"That's right."

"Did you feel the things that were happening to you while you were inside the story?"

Ronnie's gaze jumped to Hotch, whose expression had turned to empathy. He watched her back, waiting.

They both seemed to be attempting to tip toe around the subject of her torture while simultaneously asking her direct questions about it.

"Yes."

Hitch's chin lifted. "How did that factor into the narrative?"

Ronnie could hear Cho shuffling around, going into the master bathroom. She definitely wasn't remembering all the instances of the word 'sexy' that she'd used in the paracosm to distract herself. "I told myself it was an itch and forced myself to focus on the case."

On the case. Sure.

Prentiss took note of her answer. "Did your lack of response seem to aggravate Arlov?"

It took Ronnie a second to parse through the details of her story and her memories of actual events. "No, I was responding." She heard the master bathroom door open again.