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"How long are you going to pretend you're not dating?" Cho asks, absently, as he enters the break room, and Lisbon almost knocks over her coffee.
Jane raises his hands in apology. "I wanted to tell you."
Lisbon's eyebrows shoot up. "We're not dating," she says, at the same time, voice too high.
"We're not dating," Jane amends, immediately, taking a step away from Lisbon. She rolls her eyes, and he moves back behind her, with an easy grin.
"You're a terrible liar," Cho says to Lisbon, flicking on the coffee machine, and Jane nods his exaggerated agreement, from over her shoulder. "And you're just a liar," he adds, and Jane looks wounded.
Lisbon curls her hands around her mug. "It's not a secret," she says, warily.
"Obviously," Cho says, flatly, "Everyone already knows."
Lisbon gapes at him. "But -"
Cho raises his eyebrows. "You broke off your engagement, passed on the DC job, then both disappeared for two weeks."
"Meh," Jane shrugs, "I don't work well without her."
"Yes," Cho agrees.
"Wait, we didn't disappear," Lisbon tries to clarify.
"I'd rather not know what you were doing," Cho replies, and Lisbon hides her laugh in her mug.
"She's embarrassed by me," Jane stage-whispers.
"And rightly so," Cho says.
"Um, ouch," Jane says.
"She could do a lot better," Cho continues, unimpressed.
Lisbon glances over her shoulder at Jane, eyebrows raised, as if to say, Hear that? for a moment, before her smile softens, and she murmurs, to him, a little too flirtatiously for Cho, "I could do worse."
Cho pours himself a coffee, pausing to re-fill Lisbon's mug.
"Thanks," she says, softly, before shrugging. "It wasn't - I just wanted my private life to be private for a bit." She touches her tongue to the corner of her mouth as she thinks. "And I don't want to be known for-" she breaks off, tilts her head to the side for a moment, a little flustered.
He jerks his head in understanding - and because he's the only person who's known her, worked with her, longer than Patrick Jane, he does (falling in and out of bed with co-workers, he appreciates, isn't something she can afford to be known for).
"I think this brings us closer as a team," Jane says, earnestly, before the heaviness can settle. "Now that we've both kissed Lisbon-"
She slaps him lightly, with the back of her hand. "Jane!"
"Just to be clear," Cho says, ignoring him, "Not that it makes a difference to me, but - you are dating."
Lisbon hesitates, and Jane glances over at her, with surprising patience. "Yes," she says, softly, then - off Cho's grimace, a bit defensively, "What?"
He lets himself smile, just slightly, ruefully. "I just lost a lot of money to Rigsby."