Disclaimer: seriosuly, do we really have to do it? Because, Jeez, if I'd own them, we weren't discussing it, but living the wonderful world of Jisbon in the real world...Tv, I mean... anyway, since I have to do it.... No, I still don't own the Mentalist.

As she sits all alone and on her own in her office, long past midnight, just one word is passing through Lisbon's mind: Stupid (and, for once, it isn't referred to her annoying consultant) – and all the reasons why she thinks of herself as one.

Yes, the whole time, she has been a stupid, seeing things that weren't there, and allowing herself to believe to lies that she was the first one to tell, lies that she only keeps for herself, that, somehow, help her to take a bit rest during the night, allowing her mind to wonder in places where the only thing she does is looking at a certain face(and, yes, at a certain body as well) that she shouldn't think about in the first place (even if CBI does allow relationship between agents and consultants – yes, she checked, but just out of curiosity. It's not like she wanted to know if she was allowed to think about him in that way just one week after she had met him, right?)

Ok, maybe, just maybe, right at the beginning she hasn't been exactly stupid -or maybe she has, and everything she has done, every action she has made, every word she has spoke has only been part of a façade so good that she is been the first one to believe to this so well-build lie.

Or maybe she is just one of the two people to believe to this damn lie, because, damn, people keeps questioning her and her judgment about him, saying that if she acts as she does, like she had never done before, is because there is something between them…

Oh, Lord, what if he knows? No, impossible. She is sure that he is dense, totally and incredibly dense about her… thoughts (she'll never admit to have… feelings… for him, not in a million of years, no, absolutely not, never. She so doesn't have feelings for him). Yes, he is the best actor she has ever seen, and his mask is incredibly well done, but she'd understand if he knew. No, he can't lie about it. He doesn't know. He has to not know it, because if he does and he acts like he didn't know, then he is just a bastard and he doesn't care about her at all.

Not that he actually cares about her that much. Even without counting every time he has damaged her like a professional, all his stunts, tricks, games and every damn thing he has done in the years they've worked together, there's always the little, insignificant fact that he seems to not care at all about Teresa. Oh, sure, he keeps saying that he'll always save her, but then, what does he do? Does he put aside his thirst for blood? Does he stop her from having f… thoughts about him? Does he allow himself to have a life? Damn, she doesn't even want to have it with him? (ok, maybe, just a little, but it's not important, and maybe, maybe, if she keeps saying it, it will become true…).

In that long years spent together, working, spent just working together, what's the only thing he has always told her? He has always told her how he was going to slay Red John in the same way the killer had murdered his family- no thoughts applied to the aftermath of red John's departure, like his life could mean nothing without the killer. And what has she always told him? That she wasn't going to allow him to. Did it help to change his mind? No, of course! And that's the reason she is, and has always been, a stupid: she has thought that she could change him, that she could… make him a better man, or… just give him again a purpose to live for.

But, apparently, she hasn't been that good, or worth him, and for many reasons… She still remembers the day they found who Red John was and where he was hiding; she remembers the panic, knowing that Jane had it figured out before them, she remembers fighting back the tears, the agony, knowing that there either Jane was dead or he was going to end his life in jail for murder. She remembers how she felt when she saw him with the knife in his hands, ready to hit his hatred enemy. She remembers the look on his face when he realized that Red John was lying on the soil, dead, killed by a bullet fired by Cho, that the revenge has been taken away from his hands. She remembers how he looked defeated, without a purpose. She remembers how he walked away, without turning back, without saying a sole world, without coming back to them… she still remembers it like it happened yesterday, even if it happened two weeks before.

As a knock at her door finally awakes her, Lisbon is so frustrated with herself that she snaps immediately, angrily, almost shouting, even before to see who could actually be. "What now?"

"Lisbon?"

Du du du! Yeah, kind of short, I know, but I couldn't resist the temtation to pu a small cliffhanger !