Hey there! As it says in the summary, this is a series of Jisbon oneshots based on quotes that aren't specifically from the show, but from anywhere. I'm thinking maybe 10 or 15 chapters, if all goes well...thank you very much to Jisbon4Ever, who provided the first quote which is in italics at the beginning. I'm sorry it's so angsty, I couldn't think of a happier way to write it.

I think it's pretty clear that none of us own the Mentalist.

Chapter One

Some people, they can't just ask for help. They don't know how. -Dr Ray Langston, CSI

Mommy is sad today.

There is a picture next to her bed that she brings downstairs every morning. It's of her and Daddy and she puts it on the table while she eats her breakfast, but she never tells me why it's there. It's always back in her bedroom when she brings me home from daycare. I know, I've checked. I like looking at it. There are no other pictures at home where her smile is this big.

Today, she doesn't even eat breakfast, she just holds the picture in her hands and sniffs. I think she has a cold. I'm going to make her a Get Well card.

'Mommy, what time is daycare?'

'You're not going today, honey,' she says. 'You're coming to work with me.' I don't like that idea because today we're supposed to be doing fingerpainting, and I'm the best at that. But I think I need to be with Mommy today, because I'm the only one who can take care of her properly. She told me that.

I love elevators. You can pretend you're in a movie and any second the doors will open and the bad guy will shoot at you from behind a desk. Mommy is the witness I have to protect. When the doors open I leap out with my gun pointed, but there is nobody there and Mommy takes my hand.

'You have to be good today, okay?'

'Okay,' I say.

We walk together into where Mommy works. There are lots of people and computers and everyone is being quiet. Auntie Grace smiles at me and Uncle Wayne ruffles my hair, and I wish that they'd brought Finn to work too because then we can play games. Most of the time we are Special Agents with guns and badges, leading our units into burning houses to rescue the good guys and send the bad guys to jail. Once, I was a bad guy and Finn sent me to jail but I escaped by tricking the guards. Mommy was walking past and told me not to do that again.

I follow Mommy into her office and jump onto the couch. It's not very comfy to sit on, but it smells like home. Mommy takes some paper and crayons from the top drawer of her desk, and I draw pictures while she looks at her computer. The red crayon is my favourite and I usually draw cars but today I want to cheer Mommy up, so I draw us at the park. In the sky I draw a big smiley face to show that we are happy.

'Do you want to see my drawing?'

'Of course, honey.'

I hold it up and wait for Mommy to say that it's wonderful, like always. But she never does. Her smile goes away and she looks down at her hands. My picture falls to the floor.

'Mommy, what's wrong?'

'Nothing's wrong, honey,' she says after a bit but I don't believe her. 'Why don't you go see what Uncle Cho's doing.' I do what she says, but on the way out I look back and she has her face in her hands. I don't know what I've done.

Uncle Cho isn't at his desk, but his toy helicopter is and for a little while I am the policeman in it, saving the hostage and then jumping out just as the bomb goes off. When the story gets boring I put the toy back and suddenly I see a brown couch in the corner. When I sit on it, I almost sink into the cushions and I wonder why Mommy doesn't have this couch in her office instead. It's soft and squishy, and it smells nice. It smells like the tea Mommy drinks with her breakfast every day.

I lie down and almost go to sleep but suddenly Mommy is gently shaking me awake. Her eyes are red and puffy but her smile is back.

'We're going to be late,' she says.

We stop at a shop on the way so Mommy can buy some flowers. I get to hold them while she drives, and I try to count all the colours but I can't count that high. When the car stops we get out and she takes my hand again. There are trees and grass and so many strange grey blocks in the ground, and I try to read what's on them but we're walking too fast. Eventually Mommy slows down and we stop in front of one of the blocks. I don't have to read this one to know what it says. I've read it before.

'Hello Daddy.'

I wait for Mommy to say something too but she's looking at her watch. I think she looks silly, but she won't take her eyes off it and we stand there for a long time, waiting for something. Maybe, when it's the right time, Daddy will come back to life and Mommy will be happy again, like she is in her picture. But that doesn't happen, because when the time comes Mommy just lowers her arm.

'Sit down, honey,' she says, but her voice is all wrong. It sounds like it has pieces missing. The grass is wet but I don't care, and I don't think Mommy does either because she puts the flowers on the block and sits down with me. We both say nothing and the birds above us say lots of things. I wish I knew what they were saying. They might be telling jokes or stories, might be singing or fighting or playing games. I want to tell Mommy but when I look at her she is shaking quietly, and there are tears all over her face. I crawl over and sit on her lap, and she hugs me from behind. She is big and warm and all around me and we sit for a while without saying anything. Above us, the birds stop talking. We are in an ocean of green grass and blue sky, and Daddy's tombstone is the only thing keeping us above the water.

'Patrick?'

'Yes, Mommy.'

'I want you to always ask for help when you need it, okay? No matter what. Even if you're embarrassed, or if you're scared. Especially if you're scared. Will you do that for me?'

'Okay.'

'Good.' Mommy kisses the back of my head, and suddenly I see something in the corner of my eye. When I look up someone is sitting on Daddy's tombstone, and he looks just like the man in Mommy's picture.

Teresa, you are sad today.

You surround your son like a blanket, your hair longer, your once beloved mask lost in translation from cop to parent. Motherhood has given you back the softness that childhood deprived you of, and it's made you even more beautiful. Tender and strong all mixed together in a delicate compilation of life. It makes me slightly happier to know that there is light in your face, even though there is none in mine, and I wonder if that's where you got it. If maybe, as we lay there four years ago in a bloody fountain of red smiles and regret, some of the life that eluded me found you. Maybe, in the right light, your eyes are blue.

Sweet, loving little Patrick may have my name and my DNA but I am not his father, not really. A real father chooses happiness over revenge. A real father stays. You never told me you were pregnant, but I knew, of course I knew. Tuned in for almost a decade to your thoughts and your secrets, acting out my part in what both of us assumed to be a strange, eratic understanding but what turned out in the end to be love. Reaching its unveiling after a case that hit home, stammering for reason in your apartment but no reason seemed important enough. What you never knew was that all the logic in the world would not have been enough to send me home. One short night of you in my arms, a few weeks of denial and two months later I was dead.

You sit here with Patrick on the wet grass and though he looks a little older than he did last year, nothing has changed. The image of your numb stare, our last conversation, still haunts me more vividly than a red smiley face ever did. All I want to do is hold you and Patrick, feel your wonderfully human warmth and tell you I'm sorry. For trying to be a hero, for trying to handle it all on my own. For thinking that I didn't need help. I'm sorry that your son reminds you of me every time he speaks, and that one side of your bed is cold at night. I'm sorry that I never caught Red John, that I never let you in or kissed you at work and I'm sorry that I never told you I was sorry.

I'm too far away to hear your murmurings into Patrick's ear, but suddenly you pull yourself to your feet and fierce panic tears through me, blind and painful. I want to take you by the shoulders and beg you to stay, please let me watch you live for just one moment more. One more fragment that will sustain me until next year. But I can't, because all you see is air and all you hear are the birds. In your world of distinction, I do not exist. I am only a memory of sorts, trapped by my own grave, sitting on my own tombstone, voiceless, lifeless.

Don't go.

Don't go.

I don't know what it is that makes me slow down, but I don't fight it.

'Mommy,' I say, 'can we stay for a few more minutes?' Mommy turns to look at me, surprised, and nods after a little bit.

'Sure, honey.'

We turn back around, and Daddy smiles at me through his tears.

Thanks for reading, please review! If you've got any good quotes, it'd be much appreciated. I can't write these without quotes...

TAJ :)