The bright morning sunlight has awakened me, but not my sleeping bride, from our first blessed unconsciousness after our wedding. We're in the honeymoon suite on the twenty-first floor of the L.A. Biltmore, in a bed that might as well be cushioned with angels' feathers and scented with divine ambrosia. There is the faint scent of white roses from the bouquets on the nightstands and the tables. I half expect to see an inch-deep layer of rose petals on the floor. I glance across the room and see her white gauze wedding gown hastily discarded on a white satin Louis XIV armchair, along with several articles of lacy white lingerie, her white high-heeled shoes leading a trail to the bed. So much white. Stands for purity. She's pure, of course, but what am I doing here?

My own clothes are in a dishevelled heap somewhere- I can't remember how or when I disrobed when we arrived in a semi-stuporous state from too much champagne at about 2 a.m., in a hurry to leap into bed and devour each other with renewed passion in our first night as a married couple. At some point we both passed out and drifted into an ecstatic, spent sleep, in which my love is still embraced, a stray lock of brilliant raven hair across her unconscious cheek. I look at her, an ageless beauty, tiny, almost childlike, deceptively delicate with skin freckled like a sparrow's breast, soft and unwrinkled. I know this woman to be capable of bringing down a man twice her size and weight, and it never fails to astonish me.

I don't want to wake her, and I don't want to get out of bed. I don't know what time it is and I don't care. I wonder if this is what happiness finally feels like. For a moment I wonder if I'm even awake at all. I feel her warmth next to me and if I listen I can hear her soft and regular breathing. An unknown amount of time passes and I seem to hear a voice drifting from far away. It's not her voice, but it's a female voice that I know.

Charlotte.

Now, I don't believe in the immortal soul or ghosts or the spirit world, and I have wished endlessly that I did. The closest I ever came to belief was when I entered a hallucinogenic trance engendered by drinking belladonna tea at a crime scene. I was sent down an Alice-like rabbit hole (complete with rabbit) and was greeted by my daughter, morphed into an impossibly beautiful blonde teenager, mischievous and mouthy as her father. She remained with me for what seemed like hours, helping me to solve a murder and in the process observing my interaction with Teresa. She teased me, asking "if we'd ever…?!" And she said, "I like her." I continued to address her when only Teresa and I were present, and I will always remember poor Teresa's look of concern and incomprehension until it dawned on her that I was speaking to an hallucination.

You don't have to be a psychiatrist to know that Charlotte was nothing more than my own mind, the thoughts I'd suppressed for years, my desires taking human form. Not only giving my daughter back to me, but also articulating the things I didn't dare admit to myself. Two moments were the most telling: when she said that she and her mother were sick of Red John and wished that I would abandon my quest for revenge so that I could live a normal life and be happy again, and when she asked if anyone knew who I really am. "Lisbon," I croaked, imagining myself straightjacketed in a hospital bed. Lisbon. Yes. The woman I finally married after years of suffering and causing her to suffer. Lisbon.

When "Charlotte" eventually disappeared as the drug wore off, I wanted her back so badly that I got some more belladonna tea to see if I could conjure her again, recklessly disregarding the danger of ingesting the poison. When the attempt failed, leaving me with nothing but a headache and insomnia, I wept, utterly wretched, and was only cheered by the sight of Teresa at the office the next day. I clung to my fondest fantasy that someday I would tell her how I felt…some day after Red John was dead and I no longer had to protect her from him.

Here I am now in a hotel bridal suite with that dream fulfilled, and for the first time since the day I saw Charlotte, I am hearing her voice again. A faintly mocking, teasing voice that doesn't quite conceal her love for her father. (The father who caused her death. And I can't accept her forgiveness.) The voice is getting closer, almost as though she were standing in the room right beside the bed. I don't see anything. But the voice is unmistakably hers.

"So you finally did it, Dad!" I imagine the laughing blue eyes.

"Charlotte?" I gasp. "Charlotte! Where are you? I can't see you. Let me see you. Please!"

She laughs in delight. "I knew you would do it. You two are so perfect."

"Please, Charlotte! Just let me see you once more!"

"Shhh…you'll wake her."

"Charlotte," I whisper, "don't go away this time. Stay. Don't ever leave me. I need to see you."

"Dad. I can't stay. The only way I could stay with you is if you died, and I want you to live. You're meant to live, for a long time, with her. I'm just visiting because I had to see the two of you in bed together. Not…doing it…of course-as if!" She laughs again. "I knew the first time I saw her that you needed her and she needed you. Anyone could tell."

I can no longer speak because I'm overcome with emotion.

"I'm also here to give you a message from Mom. She's just as happy as I am. All we've ever wanted is for you to move on and be happy. But you have to forgive yourself. Our deaths were not your fault. It was Red John, and Red John alone, who was responsible. We see now that it was necessary for you to kill him in order to feel reborn. But that rebirth was painful, wasn't it? It didn't feel all peaceful and happy after you did it. You had to run away from Teresa for a long time. And when you finally came back to her, she was angry. You had to win her over and almost lost her-she was about to marry someone else because she thought you didn't love her. You were so afraid. All those years you used Red John as an excuse not to tell her how you felt, when the real reason was that you were terrified. You realized that you didn't know how to behave like a decent human being-just like she said. You realized that you'd lied and cheated and tricked people your whole life and being honest was so scary that it was painful and you didn't know if you could do it. But when it came down to the wire and she was really leaving, you got desperate and told her. We saw all this happen, Dad, and we wished so much that we could help you. But we don't have that power. You had to discover it in yourself. And luckily for you, Teresa knows you so well. And she knew that deep down she was just lying to herself that she could love anyone else. But she needed to hear it from you. And even then, she could have walked away, but she didn't."

"Please stop reminding me of this. You say I should forgive myself, but all I see is a cowardly, weak man who came damn close to ruining his life because simple honesty was so difficult for him."

"Everyone is a coward. You can get rejected if you tell someone the truth. You're no different from anyone else. And as far as lying, cheating, and tricks are concerned: you forget that you made a good living that way, and you were able to provide a good life for Mom and me. Of course it was dishonest, but it was the only life you knew. You can blame your father for raising you to be a con artist."

"A person can't just learn to be honest after a lifetime of deception."

Charlotte made a disdainful sound. "Of course you can."

"See, it's like this: I'm afraid that I will go back to my old deceptive, controlling ways with Teresa, and she'll hate me, and our marriage will be over. Because if I make just one more mistake, she won't forgive me. A person can get only so many second chances."

"And how many has she given you? After a hundred second chances, you think she won't give you just one more?"

"I don't know. But I know that if I blow this, I won't have any reason to go on living."

"So much drama. Come on. She's stronger than you think, and you're stronger, too."

"I wish I could believe you."

"Wasn't I right about Teresa?"

"Yes, but…"

"Dad, Mom and I are always going to be watching you. We can't protect you, and you won't see us or hear us, but we'll be there. We want to see you happy with Teresa. And you can be. But you must forgive yourself, because no matter how many times she forgives you, if you don't forgive yourself, you'll always be miserable. What if Teresa had done all the things you've done that you're ashamed of? Wouldn't you forgive her?"

I can't deny the logic of her question. "Of course."

"So?"

"Charlotte…"

"Try, Dad. Just try it."

"Charlotte. I love you. Please don't go."

"I have to. But I love you too."

"Charlotte?"

Nothing but silence echoes through my head. My face is wet with tears. I don't know if I am awake or asleep and part of me just wants to be dead so I can follow her to wherever she is. I'm sobbing, shaking. Then I feel a soft touch on my shoulder, and a light pair of arms around my neck. "Charlotte?" I whisper. "No, sweetheart, it's me. You've had a bad dream."

I groan, humiliated that she's seen me in tears. "Patrick. It's OK. It's going to be OK. I know you're always going to miss Charlotte terribly, but I'm fine with it. You were a good father." She was about to say something else, but stopped.

"You were going to say, And you'll be a good father again. Don't deny it. I know you want children."

"Not if you aren't ready."

"I'll never be ready. It'll take me years just to learn how to be a normal, decent husband. I'm still broken, and you can't fix me. When you agreed to marry me, you agreed to accept damaged goods."

"No. You are not damaged goods. You only think you are."

I turn around on my side to face her and she never lets go of my neck. We gaze at each other for a long moment. Then she strokes my hair. She's trying not to cry. "We probably should have talked about this before getting married. But I want you to know: I didn't marry you to have children. I married you because I want to be with you always."

"I knew I should have let you go with Pike. He could have given you children. He could have been a good father."

"Patrick! How can you say that? You know I never loved him!"

"He would have protected his family."

"Oh, I see where this is going. So he never would have mouthed off about a serial killer? Even though he's honest and says what he thinks and you always know where he stands? You really think he could have saved his family from Red John?"

I sigh, extricate myself from her arms, and lie with my back against the opulent pillows.

"It's just that he's…he's the better man. He deserved you more than I do. He could make you happier."

She sits up, then straddles me. She's naked, and her pale skin is glowing in the sunlight. Her long, thick dark hair curls in tendrils over her shoulders. She had her hair cut for the wedding. Now she has long bangs which make her exquisite eyes look even larger. The raven black color is highlighted with red, making her look daring and exotic. Waves of desire begin to thrill me.

"He could never make me as happy as I am right now." She leans toward me and kisses me on the lips, lingering, and I linger, wanting this moment to last, to chase away Charlotte's ghost. I want Teresa to heal me, to take away the pain, even though I know she can't, that it's unfair to ask it of her.

"I knew from the first moment I met you that you were a good man. I have instincts about people, maybe it's my cop training, but I could see through your ragged and desperate appearance, that homeless look you had. I admit that I hoped you wouldn't come back the next day because I didn't know how to deal with you. Your story had already broken my heart, and I knew I was going to go against regulations and let you see the Red John files. When I agreed to work with you, I was going against my better judgment, I knew you would be trouble, as I've told you before. I admit I wanted to save you. I even thought that God had sent you to me for that reason. I prayed a lot about it. I saw the good in you that no one else saw and sometimes I questioned my sanity. I'm not saying I fell in love with you then, but the seed was planted. I don't remember when I first realized I loved you. I think it was when I watched you kiss Lorelei in the interrogation room. Something in me just snapped, and I felt this terrible pain. My way of dealing with it was getting so angry with you that I couldn't feel the love anymore. Yes, you did a lot of things that hurt me, but we've been through all this and I thought we came to this place where we understood each other. I hurt you, too. I wanted to make you jealous with Marcus. We've come all this way and finally got married and there's no going back now. We have to share the blame for miscommunicating so badly. But now we know. We know that we love each other enough, that we've shared enough life-changing experiences, that we can't ever be separated again. I am so grateful to God to be here with you right now." She says this seemingly all in one breath, and takes a deep breath after. Her cheeks are flushed a deep red.

I wish for the thousandth time that I believed in God so I could be grateful too. I still don't think I deserve this woman. But she has stood by me for over a decade, caring for me from the beginning, becoming my best and dearest friend, believing in me, forgiving me. Literally saving my life. I haven't told her that I nearly ended it all after killing Red John. I'm not going to tell her. I don't ever want to do another thing to make her unhappy. But it's inevitable that I will.

"I love you, Patrick Jane. And now I want to have breakfast in bed with you, so I'm ordering eggs from room service."

She's smiling now, and I can't help smiling back at her. Suddenly the tight strings binding me, strangling me, loosen and I feel relaxed. I am aware for the first time of the softness of the luxurious sheets, the comfort of the featherbed beneath us, the silence of the room except for the distant sound of hushed voices in the corridor.

She's on the phone ordering room service, and it's the first day of our honeymoon. * * *

I had this idea that season 7 will open with the morning after their wedding. (Or maybe we'll actually get to see the wedding first.) I wanted to explore Jane's continuing sense of unworthiness. His life-changing revelation to Lisbon on the plane, and the romantic kiss that followed, opened the door to the fulfillment of his dream. But his fears and insecurities can't just disappear overnight. He's still learning to be a "normal, decent human being." He has yet to discover that he has always been that person.

I don't know if this is just a one-shot or if I will develop it into chapters. I would like them to go to Paris and confront more issues between them, but I don't have a real plot yet. I'd like some adventure and suspense. This story marks the end (I hope) of a severe writer's block for me, because until I had more to go on as to what's going to happen in season 7 I felt I just couldn't write any more. I was shaken to the core over the last scenes of the finale, because it was so much more powerful and emotional than I had expected. And then Heller was quoted as saying that there would be an "encore" in season 7.

Then I saw a photo of Robin with a new hairstyle, which means there will be a time jump, though it could be as little as a week or as much as a year. Then the photos of the L.A. Biltmore gave me the idea of their wedding taking place there. Of course, it could just be the setting of another crime drama, or the setting of another Jane ruse to catch the criminal. But it's not beyond the scope of possibility that they get married either on or off camera and then go on a honeymoon. (Though I have to wonder if Abbott will really let his consultant turn off his phone for a few weeks when there are crimes to be solved!) The Mentalist has become a very different show now after the events of the finale, so there are more possibilities than ever.

I hope you enjoy this. I welcome any suggestions.