Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of The Mentalist.

Author's Note: This is my first foray into Mentalist fanfiction. Russet Potatoes inspired a lot of people to write, and I am no exception. This short scene takes place immediately after that episode.

You Knew

Grace Van Pelt ambushed Patrick Jane as he left the break room. She took him by the arm and pulled him aside, looking over her shoulder to make sure that Wayne Rigsby was still sitting in there. When she saw that he was, she turned to Jane.

"You knew," she accused in a harsh whisper.

"Knew what?" Jane responded with that supremely innocent look that Grace had long ago learned to recognize was completely fabricated.

"You know what! You knew Rigsby was going to kiss me."

"I knew no such thing," Jane protested, holding up a finger and assuming an almost professorial demeanor. "The human mind is a delicate and complex thing, and you'll remember that I kept my suggestion to him very vague. I knew it was a possibility, yes, but it was by no means a certainty. What I think is more important here is that you knew he would do it."

"What?" Grace was taken aback. As he did so often, Jane had managed to turn the topic of conversation from him to someone else – in this case, her. "What are you talking about?"

"You started to walk away, which means that you'd already decided what Rigsby most wanted to do at that moment."

"That's not why I was leaving," she told him, looking away.

"Oh? Then why?"

Grace hesitated before answering. Everyone else on the team had been absorbed in Jane's demonstration. She supposed it was only natural for someone to wonder why she hadn't been.

"You were using him, playing with him," she bit out finally. "I couldn't watch that any longer." Of course, it was really that woman who had used him and whom Grace was mad at, but she wasn't right in front of her now, and Jane was.

"I had to prove that he was really hypnotized," Jane explained bluntly. "So you do care." Grace silently cursed herself for reacting, for letting him force her to drop her carefully constructed mask of indifference.

"Of course I care!" she retorted, trying to salvage the situation. "He's a member of my team. He's also a human being, not some thing to amuse you."

"You didn't seem very surprised when he kissed you," Jane observed. "If I'm not mistaken, you even kissed him back. Look, it's none of my business—"

"You're right, it's not," she interrupted. Sometimes that worked for Lisbon. But it didn't work now. First, Jane flashed her the knowing grin that told her he was going to continue whether she liked it or not. Then, he sobered, the intense grief he usually buried coming to the forefront and settling in the fine lines of his face.

"I lost everything in the blink of an eye," he reminded her. "But at least I had it, for a little while. You're in a dangerous profession. Something could happen to either one of you any day."

"I know that!" she snapped. Who was Jane to be telling Grace this? She had seen Rigsby – Wayne – wounded a number of times. Maybe that was the problem. She was afraid of getting too close. She sighed, deciding to tell the truth. "I'm just not ready."

"Just don't take too long," Jane advised after a pause. He stepped back as though to indicate that the conversation was over, acting for all the world like he'd been the one to start it instead of her. "Time has a way of getting away from you. Don't let love die before it even has a chance to begin."

Grace stared at him for a long moment. As irritating as Jane could be when he was joking, he was devastating when he was sincere. Finally, she nodded, and he took that as his signal to leave her. Then, she collected her things to head home. It had been a long two days.