Disclaimer: The usual applies - I own nothing of the Mentalist but the idea for this story.

Teresa Lisbon is sitting on the rim of the bathtub in the - even though scarcely decorated, yet still very homey - bathroom of her rented three-room apartment. She loves this room, sometimes even better than her cozy living room. With its stained-glass window, lit up beautifully by the last rays of the setting sun, it provides the perfect atmosphere for relaxation during a bubble bath after a long, hard day of work.

Tonight though, Teresa is oblivious of the sunlight and the patterns it paints on the wall next to her. She is waiting, all the while stopping herself from glancing at her watch every 5 seconds. She set an alarm, she will know when time is up. She could do something else instead of just waiting. Reading. Or maybe watching TV. But she chooses to just sit there, staring at the wall and trying not to think about what she is waiting for, about the consequences she might have to deal with when those five minutes are over.

Finally the alarm ends her misery. Or maybe it just rings it in, she thinks, as she slowly rises to her feet to pick up the small, white device she placed on the washing machine earlier. What she sees isn't all that surprising. Two red lines. Which have the same meaning as the one blue cross she got this morning or the one violet line she got yesterday. Or of course, the infamous digital indication that she got today during lunch break, spelling out in big fat letters to her that she is indeed "pregnant".

She isn't really prepared for this result any more than two weeks ago, when she first noticed that her period was late. At first she strictly dismissed the idea of being pregnant. She works too hard, she eats irregularly - it was certainly her erratic lifestyle that confused her body. Even though her body never seemed to have a problem with it before. Day after day passed and she eventually had to admit to herself, that a pregnancy wasn't only possible, but also very likely. When she finally took the first test, she was still shocked by the result. So she took another test, and then another.

Walking to her bedroom, her hand instinctively wanders to her still flat stomach, tentatively establishing a first contact to the human being growing inside of her. Is she ready for this? A baby? Raising a kid alone? In her mind she takes stock of her current life situation.

She isn't in a relationship. Nor will be in the foreseeable future, seeing that she has a baby on the way. She wasn't even really in a relationship when that baby was conceived. They slept with each other exactly three times before ending whatever relationship it was they were having, neither of them willing to really commit. Each of those three times they used protection. She wonders how small the chance to get pregnant was. One in a million? Maybe it is fate. Maybe this baby is so keen on becoming a part of her life that it found a way into it against all odds. She knows that she is being silly, but at least she can now blame it on hormonal changes.

Her job is hardly made for a single mother. Staying the leader of her own team is out of the question if she ever wants to spend time with her kid. But she supposes that she can do her current work for most of the pregnancy, providing that her state of health will allow it. Toward the end she could retreat to mainly desk work, training her replacement so she'd know she leaves the team in good hands. She could take some time off after the baby's birth, and then start to work again after a while, with less hours and in a less responsible position. It will be a setback for her career, but she surprises herself by not feeling too saddened by that prospect.

She'd need to find a reliable daycare center or a nanny for when she will be working, but that should be achievable.

Her apartment has space enough, so she wouldn't need to move. The room, where her computer and books and work stuff is located now, would make a nice place for the baby. For a while already she planned to clean the stuff in this room out, but she never had time to do it.

She loves kids and she always knew that she wanted to have kids of her own one day. Then, as the years went by and she failed to have a relationship that lasted longer than 18 and a half months, she began to convince herself that she was living for her job and kids would only be hindering on her way to the top. Only sometimes she allowed herself to dream, always picturing one certain man in her life. Of course things didn't work out that way.

In her late teens she had fantasized about raising a kid alone. She hadn't pictured it quite this way, rather as being in a relationship when the baby was born and then later breaking up with the father for whatever reason. It hadn't seemed difficult, rather nice, to be responsible for a kid alone. Nobody to tell her how to raise her kid, nobody to share the kid's love with. But now, so many years later, the idea of being the only one responsible for a kid's destiny is very frightening. What if she would ruin his or her whole life? But what if not? She is aware that she's not exactly in her twenties anymore. Maybe this child is her last chance.

Her one in a million.

She realizes, absentmindedly stroking her stomach, that she knew all along that she wants to have this baby. Making mental pro and con lists is a mere formality to confirm her preconceived opinion. Even though she is absolutely terrified, she believes that everything will fall into place once the baby is born. Scratch that, she is already now becoming infatuated with her baby, wondering what it will look like and picturing how she will decorate its room.

Suddenly she jerks up. Oh God, she will have to tell the team. And, more importantly, she has to tell the father. She isn't sure which confession she is dreading more. Sure, she can postpone it a while longer. Gaining some weight can be easily explained by too much closed-case pizza and too little workout. But eventually she will have to announce her pregnancy.

The team will treat her differently once they know. They will try not to, but they are all caring persons and will try to make life comfortable for a pregnant woman and shield her from evil and in the process undermine her authority as their boss. And they will surely wonder who the father of her kid is, although she doubts they will dare to ask.

The father's reaction on the other hand is totally unpredictable. The way she sees it, he will either run and never look back or become as overprotective as the others. She isn't sure which possibility she prefers. Although, the longer she thinks about it, she wouldn't mind if her kid had a father in its life.

Still contemplating the best method to spring the news to the father - simply telling? sending him a Father's Day card? - she finally drifts off to sleep and enters a very vivid dream. A dream, or maybe rather a nightmare, where she walks into the office the next day and a certain blond-haired consultant announces - after one quick look at her across the room - that she's pregnant since her boobs are bigger than the day before.

Yes, there will be Jisbon in following chapters. Plenty of them, I promise. I just had to set the scene for future Jisbon-ness with this chapter.

Credit for the irresistable urge to get Lisbon pregnant in a story goes to Ebony10's "Childish Capers". While writing, my twisted mind unfortunately demanded that Lisbon doesn't get pregnant while being in a loving relationship with Jane. Oops. I'm a sucker for happy endings myself though, so there's still hope. ;)