A/N: This is a one-shot written while trying to overcome writer's block on a small Mentalist AU I am working on. That will be posted as soon as I find some inspiration for the second chapter. For now, I hope that you will enjoy this little story that seems to be verging on a Biology lesson.

Set after White Orchids, sometime during Lisbon's pregnancy.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist or its characters. I am making no profit from this work of fanfiction.

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Patrick Jane lay snuggled next to his wife as the clock ticked quietly over 2 AM. His fingers were resting protectively over her sternum, feeling her breathe.

Before she'd fallen pregnant, he could, with only a little effort, press his hand gently into her side and feel her ribs. Now – to his relief – with her extra pregnancy weight he could no longer do so.

She didn't find it such a relief though.

In the mornings he'd often find her staring despairingly at the mirror, a pile of clothes on the bed and her scowling the complaint that, "Every day I seem to get bigger," at which point he would go over to her and press a kiss to her cheek and tell her that she was still as beautiful to him as she was the day they met.

Then he would drop to his knees on the carpet, with his fingers spread over her pelvis, and kiss her growing abdomen. Sometimes her fingers would clench in his hair, eagerly pulling him back up to her, and they wouldn't make it out of the bedroom for quite a while. Other times she would stand stiffly, fingers unwilling to find their way to him, and then he would make her a plate of fruit for breakfast as a peace offering. His favourite reaction was when she would play with the hair at the base of his cranium and begin to smile. Then he'd know that his mission was accomplished.

A pregnant Teresa Lisbon was a force to be reckoned with, but he adored every moment of it. He had forgotten how happy this stage of life could make him. He'd forgotten how much joy the flutter of a baby's kick against his hand through the muscle and tissue of the woman he loved could bring him.

Every minute that he spent with Teresa and his unborn child reminded him that life triumphs over death. That even in the darkest times there is always something to hope for: a life, a future, a reason to keep holding on. His wife and their baby were constant tellers of this truth.

And suddenly, Teresa had to know that.

Jane shook her gently and she rolled over to face him, wrapping an arm around his neck and sandwiching his forehead against her clavicle. He whispered a muffled, "Teresa," against her chest and tried to push her away. She clung to him and mumbled something about still sleeping Jane. He sighed and abandoned the idea, deciding that it could wait till after sun rise.

Then, in the morning after she'd had a cup of herbal tea (no coffee for her anymore and had that been a struggle to get her to give up) he would tell her that she is more than the sum of her parts. She is more than a woman containing two hundred and six bones in her body and carrying a baby who will have two hundred and seventy when it is born.

She is more than all of that because she is carrying a life. And the value of that is incalculable.

Along with her love, it is the most precious and beautiful gift that she could ever have given him.

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