AN: After much internal discussion with my muse, who normally refuses to write fanfiction, I'm posting this. Because if I were Grace, I would have kept the necklace…

Disclaimer: Mistakes are mine but nothing else.

Heavy heart

It was with a heavy heart – really heavy – that she saw him put away that perfectly beautiful collier. The earrings didn't have her heart, she didn't mourn their loss.

But the necklace.

The necklace.

While she was wearing it, she thought of showing it off on several occasions. She saw herself at her wedding day, her dress as white as snow with a dark red silk band tied around her middle and the wonderful rubies in her necklace would match that just perfect. The sun would reflect on them and she would smile the happiest of all smiles as she looked into the ocean blue eyes of her husband to be.

Or even earlier. She dreamed of wearing it at their first date under her sweater. They tried to get past the embarrassment of him worshipping the ground she walks on and her working in the same unit with him, breaking – no, bending – the rules. Wayne will ask her to dance and she takes the sweater off for better movement, he'll see the expensive jewelry, smiles and just kisses her.

She had followed her boss outside and watched her now drive to their hotel in her car. The right thing to do would be getting into her Jeep and head straight to her room. But she thought about all the opportunities.

Years from now she could give it to her daughter to wear it to her prom.

One deep breath later found Junior Agent Grace Van Pelt back inside. She strode towards one annoying consultant, insecure but her mind set. She needn't have worried. Patrick Jane just smiled knowingly and held the collier out to her.

„I won't tell Lisbon, but promise me you'll wear it on your honeymoon, Rigsby'll drop dead. "

Still with the grinning. She wondered shortly where the boys went to, but was grateful that they weren't anywhere in sight. That he wasn't in sight, watching her every move.

As she smiled patiently at Jane and rolled her eyes because of another remark directed at her and Rigsby's relationship, she saw a spark in his eyes when he looked the way their boss had gone only minutes before.

And Grace Van Pelt knew.

She knew that Patrick Jane would somehow get that other collier into Lisbon's bag. And she would find it and wonder how it got there, but she would certainly keep it. Hide it maybe, but keep it.

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Every time I even attempted to write fanfiction the muse just vanished with a puff or put her fingers in her ears, but then came The Mentalist. Now my muse is as much of a Mentalist freak as I am. She's standing beside me bouncing, poking me in the arm rattling off ideas after ideas…. That's just creepy. And my short stories feel neglected. Rightly so, but the muse is like Lisbon. She's the boss. Meh.