Written for the February Jello-Forever Challenge. Exams are coming up and there are so many things to do, but I loved the prompt and decided to write this in several parts. I think one fic a month is good enough for me. *dusts her hands off*

The name's Cho. Kimball Cho. I'm a Special Agent for the CBI, and up till last Saturday, I'd never been in love.

Don't worry; it's not a sensitive topic for me. Throughout my career, nearly everyone I've worked with has popped that question. So, do you have a Girlfriend, Cho? Can we see her? Will she be coming to so-and-so Party, or blah-blah-blah Social Event? I usually just tell them no, and on occasion force the corners of my mouth up a few centimeters. Then I make an excuse that I have to go to lunch, and then I get back to doing my job.

Sometimes I pretend I have a girlfriend, if I happen to be going out with some cute woman from the line at the 7-11 that night. It never turns out to be very interesting, though. Van Pelt and Wayne have their little canoodles after work, and Jane gets to flirt with the Boss all the time, even though she pretends she doesn't like it. Those two have great chemistry, by the way, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The point is, for me it usually ends up with the girl talking nonsense about me and then about herself, and in the end we just kiss and I make sure to 'accidentally' not pick up whenever she calls for the next two weeks. It goes without showing that I suck at dates.

So, up till last weekend, you could safely call me a Bachelor, or at least the male version of an Old Maid. I never thought I'd have it coming for me, but then again I'd never picked up a romance novel in my life and therefore never heard about romance clichés, either. That afternoon, Boss, Jane and I had been interviewing a witness for a case, and on the ride home Jane got yelled at for tapping on the guy's fish tank. Poor goldie had gone belly-up shortly after the tank tapping. We'd been thrown out of the house.

"He TOLD you not to touch it! He SPECIFICALLY told you that the fish was in the last stages of its life." Boss was slapping the dashboard with the flat of her right palm while distractedly pushing the steering wheel with the other.

"Come on, it's just a fish." Jane leaned over the side of Boss's chair to get a better shot at talking to her.

"It's not just a fish to him. You might as well have lost the one person who could tell us something about the case."

"No I didn't. We learned that he loves his fish, and that means that he'd do anything for them. Kill a man for their sake? Possibly, but I don't think so. No, he's got something to do with this, but we don't have anything to tie him down as the murderer just yet. You've really got to start paying attention to details, Teresa, otherwise you'll always be the woman who loses out." With that, Jane smiled and quickly retreated to the back, where he'd been banished fifteen minutes earlier.

Boss made a sort of growling sound, but continued to focus on her driving. Eventually we slowed down at a heavily traveled intersection, which was, at this point in the day, in the latter half of the rush hour. It wasn't a good time to bring up small talk, so for the most part, we just kept quiet. I let my eyes wander around, looking at the cars and the street signs outside. That was when I saw her. Petite Korean woman with large dark eyes, a cute Spice Girls bob and smooth ivory skin. About 5'3" from what I could see of her, driving a blue Saab, plate number 294-OIP. I even profile the ladies I plan to date.

Or at least, would have planned to date. "Finally!" Boss shouted, and we rolled forward. The traffic light had turned green a couple seconds ago, and now 294-OIP Blue Saab Lady was turning the corner, in the opposite direction. I turned my head back to the front, but not before I caught sight of Jane sneaking a peek at me through the rearview mirror. I kept my eyes focused on him, hoping it'd intimidate him, but it didn't. Once Jane's got something on you, you'll never be able to throw him off.

We got back to the bullpen a few minutes before the clock hit 6. Van Pelt and Rigsby were, thankfully, glued to their desks and either on their laptops or phones. We got together and discussed, or rather, argued, what we had on the case. The two women thought that Jane's fish lead was ridiculous; we guys backed him up. Eventually Van Pelt gave up, but Boss still had to be wheedled into it. And even then, she made us run extra hours.

"Well, from what we've got so far, and because of Jane's preoccupation with fish, I suppose we do need to search harder. Van Pelt, I need you to run phone records and credit card records for the victim as well as all the people we've been in contact with throughout the case. I'll take Rigsby and Cho to see if there's any evidence we can pull from the dead guy's house. Patrick, you go home."

Sometimes I can never understand why she makes us work overtime and lets Jane go free when he's the one who spouts all these crazy theories in the first place.

"We'll take a break. Go grab something to eat, takeout or sandwiches or whatever. Cho and Rigsby, we'll meet downstairs in thirty minutes." Our group loosely broke up, and we headed back to get our things ready. Jane was the only one left standing. He'd put on his sad puppy face, but although Boss was smirking at him, I knew she wasn't buying it this time."

"Don't worry, we'll use your services again tomorrow. The CBI can handle things for now,"-here she frowned, her nose flaring as she sniffed the air-"and when was the last time you took a bath?"

"This morning."

Rigsby grinned at me. I turned the corners of my mouth up in reply. Boss's eyes opened wide. "Don't tell me you went dumpster diving while I was in the restroom."

"Not like it hurt anyone," Jane said, looking pretty hurt himself. He grabbed his coat and headed off to the elevators without looking back. Personally I wished he'd stayed-the faster the job got finished, the faster we could go. I'd been looking forward to my weekend-there was a Criminal Minds marathon starting on Sunday at 8 in the morning, and you can't watch TV if you're sleeping when it starts.

I grabbed my wallet and headed to the stairs, planning to grab a footlong at Subway's and then get back to reply a few emails. On my way round the corner I passed someone in a light blue business dress, looking around as though they were new to the building. I was just about to open the stairway door when I stopped and looked back twice. There, a few inches taller than I'd estimated her to be, was Miss 294-OIP.

I stopped for another moment to swallow and pull my composure back from wherever it'd suddenly disappeared to, then walked up to her. "Looking for somebody?"

She turned and looked directly back at me, not even cracking a smile. Odd. Most females did, especially if they thought I was scary. "Teresa Lisbon's office?"

So she had business with the CBI. Probably a lawyer, or some government agent.

"Right down the hall, glass office to your right. I can show you the way."

"That won't be necessary," the woman cut in, but for some reason I'd already reached down grabbed her hand. It was too late to turn back now, so I quickly pulled her down the hall and shoved her towards the office. She wrangled her hand out of mine-obviously she didn't care much about manners-and headed to Boss's door. I watched her butt as she moved. For someone so curvy, it was interesting how her body didn't sway very much.

I yanked open the stairway door and walked right into-guess who?-Jane. "Ssh," he whispered, holding a finger to his lips. "Just trying to get back in."

"If you forgot something, you could have taken the elevator."

"No, I didn't forget anything. Cho, I need to get back into the victim's house. There's something there, I know it, and I need to be with you to find it."

I gave him my celebrated deadpan look. "Lisbon's busy, but I'm sure if you ask nicely she'll let you come along."

"Listen Kimball, it's important. I'll hide in the back, nobody will notice me, and believe me, by tomorrow evening, Teresa will not regret that I stowed along. Just do me a favor this time, ask to drive the van, get there 5 minutes earlier, and I'll huddle in the back and not make a peep."

"No."

Jane rolled his eyes. "Very well, fine." He edged past me into the hall. "I'll just have to go talk to Teresa myself and say that I need to come along…and tell what's-her-name that you've got a crush on her."

Now this was bad. "Crush on who?"

"That girl who you showed to Teresa's office. She's also the same one whose car you were ogling earlier."

I swallowed hard, looked him straight in the eye. "I don't have a crush on her."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't."

"You do. You can't hide these things from me, Cho." Jane smiled winningly back at me. It took all I had to control heat from radiating out of my body.

"Now I know why everyone calls you a manipulative little bastard."

"Perfect." Jane clapped his hands together and edged back into the stairwell. "I'll be waiting for you here. And don't worry," he called as I shoved past him and hurried down the stairs, "You'll learn something new too, when all of this is over."

Learn something? The last thing I had in mind was learning anything from Jane. There were a lot of things that went on in the world, some good, some bad. One thing I was sure of, though, was that I'd seen enough of them to know that there wasn't anything great to expect.