A/N Okay, so welcome to Scarlet Snow, a new story made up of one-shots that centre on The Mentalist. So to explain how this works, basically my friend 'thetyger' and I have decided to start a series of prompt inspired one-shots. Each of us randomly chose 10 words, and then we put them together and started writing our stories. The idea is to see how different our ideas are from the same word. The word limit is 500, and we will be posting a story a day until the twenty prompts are up. Some will be sad and others funny, so there is variety for everyone. Hers are under the story name 'Red Letter' if you would like to read and compare! Enjoy... (and if you feel like it, reviews are welcome too!)

Disclaimer: Never have and never will own The Mentalist! (...except on DVD)

Break

It had been three days since he had passed, three days since she was told that his heart had finally given out on him. Three days since she had broken down in front of the entire team as the caller told her the news, and three days since she had dragged herself home to submerge herself in guilt. It had been three days since Grace realised that life would never be the same.

And in these three days she had realised something; while it was all very well to grieve over the loss of the closest man in the world to her, it was also incredibly selfish. She needed to remember him happily, the good memories of her childhood and adulthood that she had spent with him.

So it had been with a heavy heart that Grace had seated herself in her small attic (which she loved to retreat to) to write the speech for his funeral in a happy and enlightening manner. She refused to get up and speak to a hundred people, who barely knew the man he was, and make them cry with sappy stories and dedications. No, she wanted to make them laugh and fill them with images of a joyous and free-spirited man who will live forever through the impact he made in the world. She wanted what he would have wanted; happiness.

But happiness was so hard to locate and so easy to break.

And this rule held true as she opened the first box she saw; only to find a bear that he had given her when she was six. At such a tender age, it had meant the world to her, and brought her a happiness she could not explain.

But now, the memories associated with it broke her heart.

It had been three days since Grace had lost her father.