Hello!

So, I'm sure some of you will say, at least at one point of this one-shot, "Hey, this is supposed to be Jane/Lisbon!" It is supposed to be, and you'll see that at the end. Even though it's not too happy. But this is how I saw what would, or could, possibly happen at the end of the emotional roller coaster of an episode, "Devil's Cherry." Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist.

Delusion

The tea was hot and scalding against his tongue, its taste sweet. It was doubtful that he would be able to taste anything at all come tomorrow morning. Not that he cared, anyway.

Taking a sip and closing his eyes, Jane leaned back into his seat and waited. His heart sped up in his chest, at the prospect of seeing Charlotte again or because of the belladonna, he wasn't sure. Jane took a deep breath to try and calm his heartrate, which was growing erratic. He shifted in his seat and brought the teacup until it was almost pressed up against his chest.

"Patrick," a familiar and lovely voice spoke behind him.

Pausing in his breathing, Jane pulled the teacup away from his body and sat it down on the wooden desk before him. Slowly, he turned around to face the figure in the shadows, their face half hidden.

"Angela," he croaked, "you're here."

His love moved forward, the moonlight now kissing the contours of her face and body as she smiled at him. Angela looked the same as she did the last time he had seen her. Beautiful, elegant, and so uniquely here. She was also wearing her favourite lavender sundress. The one he had given her after their fifth wedding anniverseary.

Angela crossed her arms over her chest, resting them just beneath her breasts. "You know I'm not really here."

Jane's eyes shifted downward, but he nodded his head at his late wife. "Yeah, yeah I know. It's the belladonna."

Looking back up at Angela, Jane watched as her eyes moved to the steaming cup of tea on the table behind him. Her eyes were filled with much sadness when she looked away from the teacup and back at him.

"Why do you do this to yourself, Patrick? Why do you torture yourself? Don't you see that what you're doing won't solve anything?"

Brown met blue-green fiercly. "I do it for you, Ange."

Angela smiled grimly, her footing shifted. "I'm dead, you don't need to do anything for me."

Rolling his eyes and moving out of his seat, Jane stood and readjusted his waistcoat. "Fine, then I'm doing it for myself."

She cocked her head to the side and took a couple of steps closer to him. At her growing nearness, Jane paused.

When she stopped before him, Angela uncrossed her arms and reached out with one hand to trace the back of her knuckles against his cheek. At her touch, Jane inhaled deeply. Charlotte hadn't touched him when she had visited, and he was surprised to feel a slight tingle of warmth at his wife's touch.

"I love you, Patrick."

With a small degree of hesitation, Jane clasped his hand over Angela's and pulled it away from his cheek. He pulled it closer, pressing a soft kiss into her wrist as he watched her eyes drift shut.

Moving his mouth away from Angela's wrist, he moved to place her hand around his waist. Slowly, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, testing to see what would happen. There was a hitch in Angela's breathing as she turned her head so their lips could envelope another's.

At the connection, Jane's knees grew weak and he wrapped both of his arms around his wife. One hand tangling in her dark blonde hair, the other around her waist and pulling her smaller body closer to his. His heart started to beat frantically and it began to feel like it was going to burst out of his chest any second.

One of Angela's hands slide down the length of his chest, fingers caressing the buttons of his waistcoat. Slowly, she unfastened each button before she reached forward to push his jacket from his shoulders. The hand he had had in her hair comes to frame her face and to angle it in a different manner. His other hand skims the length of her side until it reaches her bottom, squeezing the soft flesh.

When Angela gasped, Jane moved his tongue against hers. Instinctively, she turned her head and wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling his body flush against hers and grinding her pelvis to his.

Jane moaned, feeling a sense of desire that he had not felt when he was with Lorelei that one night. No, this desire started low in his belly and slowly started to build. It started to overtake him, consume him like a hungry predator.

His waistcoat left him when he started to push Angela in the direction of his makeshift bed. It wasn't much, he knew, and he wish his mind could have hallucinated a more lavish bed to make love to his wife in, but he took what he could get.

Pressing her down onto the bed, he leaned over her and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. His hands took hold of the bottom of her dress and pulled it up quickly. Angela, much to his happiness, helped with elegant movements of her body.

Angela's bare body looked the same as it did the last time he had made love to her. With a smile, Jane leaned down and kissed behind her ear. She gasped and arched her body against his.

"You're so beautiful," he said, "I've missed you so much."

He felt her small hands tug his shirt out of his pants and proceed to unbutton the garment. Smiling at her, he brushed the back of his hand against the apple of her cheek as she started to pull the shirt away from his body. She smiled back at him and leaned forward to mate her lips with his.

When they part, Jane kicked his shoes from his feet and undid his pants. With a coy smile, Angela pushes them from him. When they leave his body, Jane pressed his mouth against hers. It was a hard, brusing sort of kiss. One that he had been dying for ages now. It elicted shivers from both parties, and when he moved away to nuzzle her neck, he inhaled.

She smelled of cleanliness and lavender.

Tears leaked at his eyes as he pulled her close. When he felt her heart against his chest, he began to sob. She shushed him as she ran her hands through his hair in a soothing manner.

"It's all right."

He shook his head against her. No, no it was not all right.

"You're dead."

"I don't feel dead. Not right now."

He looked up from her chest and saw her tearful face. His heart nearly stopped there, but with a shaky hand, he caressed her jawline and her neck. "I-I think about you every moment of every day."

She took his hand in hers. "I know."

"I love you. I-I love you s-so much."

Angela drew her lips into a thin line and nodded. Tears formed in her eyes and Jane reached up to brush them away. "I know," she spoke.

"I'm so sorry, Angela. I'm—."

Shushing him again, Angela's lips claim his once more. Her mouth moved against his in an almost ferocious way, almost as if she wanted him to forget everything that was happening. Like she wanted him to forget that this was not real.

His hands wandered down the length of her body once more, slipping between her legs as he pushed his body even closer to hers. Angela threw her head back, eyes closed. She gasped when he touched a particular sweet spot and her hands began to search out his hardness, but he stills her wandering hand. Pulling it away from that part of his body, he pressed a kiss to her fingertips and shifted his body over hers.

"Patrick…."

He shushed her by the abrupt joining of their bodies. Pleasure immediately overtook her features and her body arched into his. As they move with one another, her hands move to his back, her fingers pressing down until little crescent shapes were left indented in his flesh.

Hissing at the sweet pain, Jane shifted the angle of his hips and wrapped an arm around Angela's shoulders. He pulled her to his body, so they were both in a sitting position and pressed up against one another. It felt wonderful. It felt wonderful to be pressed up against her and inside her body as deeply as possible.

He knew she was nearing the end when her body began to arch even closer to his. Her head was thrown back when she began to quake. He felt his release slowly come to him when he buried his face against her neck, kissing and nuzzling her.

"I love you, Patrick," she spoke again, breathless. Her voice was small and kind of distant. But that didn't still his movements.

When he falls and spasms against her, Jane wraps his arms even tighter around her small body. She gasped against him, her head now pressed against his shoulder. Closing his eyes, Jane pressed his nose against her hair and inhaled her sweet scent. She smelled of sweat, soap, and cinnamon body wash.

"Angela…" he breathed against her.

There was a hitch in his wife's breathing and her hands slid away from his back. She began to pull away from him and he slackened his grip on her body. With a smile, he moved onto his side to gaze down at her, but when the moonlight hit her face, the smile faltered.

"Lisbon?"

There before him was not his wife, Angela, but Teresa Lisbon. Her dark brown hair was mused, her lips swollen, and her pupils dialated. She was also naked and smelled of sex.

"No, no, no. You were Angela."

Lisbon raised an eyebrow and tried to cover her body with her hands. His comment had, no doubt, hurt her. "Jane?" she asked softly.

"You were Angela!" he repeated.

She gave him an odd, hurt look and blinked as she began to move off of the makeshift bed. "It was me the whole time, Jane," Lisbon told him softly. "Not Angela. Me." Her voice cracked and some guilt started to grow in the pit of his stomach.

Jane turned away from her, refusing to speak. He chewed on his bottom lip and read the decaying words on the wall across the room. Closing his eyes and counting to ten, he turned around, ready to apologise to Lisbon. But when he opened his eyes and glanced in her previous direction, he saw no one. Just the little blue teacup filled with a cold belladonna concoction.

There was absolutely no trace that Lisbon or Angela had been in the attic recently. No smells and no scattered clothes. The pain of once again losing his grasp on a loved one hit him with a full force with a strength akin to when he had turned to see Charlotte gone. Jane felt tears run down his cheeks as a sob erupted from his throat. It hurt to think about his family.

His heart began to pound aggressively in his chest. Jane found it hard to breathe as he tried to maneuver himself into a prone position. Inhaling deeply and trying to regain control of his heart rate, Jane felt the darkness of sleep overtake him. The next morning Jane would awaken to one worried Teresa Lisbon, who would stand over him and fret about how horrible he looked and that he had taken another round of the belladonna tea. She would express that he could have died, but he didn't listen.

Because he saw his family that day.

Please tell me what you all thought!