Disclaimer: I still don't own the Mentalist. Shocking, right?
A/N: Since we didn't get a holiday-themed episode this year...
He misses them the most at Christmas time.
Only that's not true, of course. He misses them the most every time he misses them, every time he sees something that reminds him of them. Their loss is a gaping hole in his heart – in his life – that time has diminished slightly, though not healed.
But he will admit that holidays are especially difficult. Holidays – particularly Christmas – are designed for families, designed to remind people who don't have them exactly what they are missing.
(Angela, her smile warm, sipping a cup of hot cocoa – never tea – next to him on the sofa. Charlotte, eagerly shaking her presents in an attempt to figure out what they are.)
Every year hits him hard, of course, but this year is especially difficult. Perhaps this is because he so recently saw what Charlotte might have been like had she been able to grow up, what their lives might have been like had he not –
"Hey," Teresa says, gently nudging him with her arm.
Huh. He hadn't even realized that she'd joined him on his sofa.
"You want to talk about it?" she asks, eyes concerned.
"Not particularly, no," he replies.
"OK," she says.
But she stays there anyway, a silent, comforting presence.
And he feels slightly less alone.