Remember Every Sunset
Disclaimer: I do not own the Mentalist, nor do I own Summer Paradise.
*A/N* This is, like, the only ending I would have still tolerated... but well, each to their own, eh?
My heart is sinking as I'm lifting up above the clouds away from you
And I can't believe I'm leaving, oh I don't know what I'm gonna do
But someday I will find my way back to where your name is written in the sand
'Cause I remember every sunset, I remember every word you said
We were never gonna say goodbye
Tell me how to get back to summer paradise with you
And I'll be there in a heartbeat
-from "Summer Paradise" by Simple Plan
The engines roared in a futile attempt of drowning the numb silence in his head. With an oddly detached feeling he watched Sacramento roll by slowly as they gathered speed, until the plane finally took off.
Taking Patrick Jane with it, or rather what was left of him. He didn't really leave, he would stay there with them, always. In the place where his wife and his beautiful daughter slept underground, the ghost of their blood and his tears still lingering on their skin, eyes closed forever.
And of course Teresa. The woman he had held on to for far too long, the one he'd shattered. And now he was leaving her to deal with the demons he'd lured into her world, leaving her even though he knew it was far too late for that now, that he'd ruined her already and she was way beyond repair. He'd made her share his living hell.
He was trying very hard to tell himself he would learn to live with it, the darkness in those green eyes and his family's blood on his hands.
Deep down he knew he never would.
But fact was, he couldn't stay. Because it would never be the same.
Sitting on the beach with her, her eyes shining brightly in the afternoon sun, the waves caressing his feet. The sound of her laughter, the wind in her hair, their childish jokes, even the ice cream wouldn't taste right anymore. Not even the smell of the ocean would be what it used to be.
Not because he'd killed a man, not because she'd let him kill him - it was the painful realization that he would never get those days back. Those precious days when a cone of vanilla ice cream and the screeching of the seabirds had been all it took them to forget for a while. He'd planned to abandon her in the beginning, but somewhere along the way that plan got lost and all he'd wanted to do was stay, but in the end, he just couldn't.
It had always haunted him, but now it was haunting her, too, and he couldn't live with this, couldn't live with seeing all that in her eyes.
So he ran.
Remembering everything, desperately holding on to these sunsets.
Wishing for a chance to turn back time.
He would stay there forever.
Their summer paradise.
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