I'm worried about Patrick.

He had a dream about Charlotte last night and he doesn't want to talk about it. So I'm not prodding him.

Getting married was not a mistake. We needed to affirm our love in front of our friends. But loving each other isn't enough. We have to be fearless, brave enough to confront our fears and insecurities. We both have them. He still thinks he's broken beyond repair. I still think that I can be the same independent person I was before he declared his love for me. We're afraid we can't make each other happy. Is this any way to begin a marriage?

Maybe we should have waited. We should have talked about Charlotte and Angela. I should have made it clear that although I would love to have a child with him I would understand if he's not ready for that. Or if he's never ready. For all we know, I might not even be able to get pregnant. I'm not even sure about having a kid with my job. What if something happened to me?

What I can't talk to him about is how I'm afraid I'll always be second to Angela and Charlotte.

Maybe I should just accept that. I'm the one who's alive, the one he actually gets to have experiences with.

But if he's always going to feel guilty for their deaths, then how can he enjoy life with me?

If only I didn't feel so powerless to help him.

It's not like I want him to forget them. But I need him to see that I have to be first. I gave him twelve years of my life. I allowed him to destroy any chance I had at career advancement. And yeah, I knew what I was signing up for. I knew that it would be worth it because he closed cases like nothing I had ever seen. But I never thought I'd be sacrificing a part of myself. Never thought I would fall in love with a man who was still in love with his dead wife and obsessed with revenge. A man who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, even if it meant having sex with the mistress of his wife's killer in order to gain her confidence so she'd tell him where he was. The horror of this made me sick. I had to force myself to remember that he shot a man to save my life, a man who could have led him to Red John. So he valued me more than his revenge, even though at the end, it didn't seem that way.

I begged him to let me help him kill Red John. I could have killed Red John with impunity, being an officer of the law. Then Patrick wouldn't have had to flee to South America. We might have been together afterwards. But he insisted on keeping me out of it. According to him, it wasn't even my case anymore. It had to be his kill. His revenge. And he couldn't take the smallest chance on me being killed. So he created a cruel ruse, lured me to the beach, acted like he was going to tell me he loved me, and I was an idiot and let him trick me. Sneaked off and took my car. Stranded me so I had to flag down some poor guy and commandeer his car. I still get furious even now when I think of it-I don't know if I can ever forgive him for that.

Once I got to his place in Malibu, I was too late. I was lucky that the explosion didn't kill me. But I was frantic. I was sure Patrick was dead. When I heard he was in the hospital, I rushed to his bedside and refused to leave even when Bertram ordered me to. (That evil bastard. My boss was a criminal. I'm not sorry he's dead.)

The nightmare was far from over. It wasn't even over when I got the phone call from Patrick saying that it was over and he was OK. I knew he wasn't OK. After that, I didn't see him again for two years. I didn't hear from him for a year, and then I began getting letters from him. I'll never forget how I nearly fainted at the sight of the first letter. He apologized for abandoning me at the beach, and said it was strange and sad being without me. More letters followed, and he sent me a seashell which I kept on my desk while I worked at that wretched sheriff's job. But he never wrote that he loved me. Maybe he was still protecting me. Maybe he didn't want me to know because we might never see each other again.

I pretended to be happy at work and with my friends, but alone in my house at night, I read and re-read his letters over and over, and cried. I never dated anyone. I decided to pull a curtain over the part of my life with him in it. But I wasn't really living.

His return to the U.S. indentured to the FBI was a shock and a relief to me. But when I found out that I was the first of his non-negotiable demands, I was outraged that he felt he could just take over my life like that after two years. I was further enraged by the presumption that the FBI would hire me only to keep him happy, as though I were a pet or an inanimate object. I didn't even undergo FBI training. I let him have it on the plane to New York where I'd reluctantly agreed to help with a case. I told him I just wanted to go home. I wasn't going to work with him again. Not if he had so little respect for me.

But then they put him in detention for three months. For refusing to give up his demands. In the end, he won the battle and they gave in to all of his demands because he successfully conned Abbott into thinking he had knowledge of people in high places in the Blake Association. As annoyed as I still was at Patrick, I had to admire his cleverness. And I told myself that I was making the decision to accept the FBI job, that it wasn't so I could be with him, but because it was a job in which I could use my skills instead of authorizing the purchase of office supplies.

But once again I was lying to myself. I loved Patrick Jane, and wanted to be with him, in spite of everything. Humiliating me. Breaking my heart. Making me hate him. That was the real reason I took a job which made me the subject of office gossip. Everyone knew I'd been hired to placate Jane, not for my qualifications. I knew they were contemptuous of me. And condescending! Agent Fischer was particularly hard to take. I wanted to strangle her when she came to my office in Cannon River, asking me to "help" manage Jane. As if that should be my job. I was offended by everyone. Worst of all, I would have to prove myself to a bunch of agents who weren't anywhere near as good as I am. After a long career as a team leader at the CBI. I was bitter, but it was a chance at a new start for me.

I'm proud to say that I earned the respect of my superiors and colleagues. Abbott, who had so coldly dismantled the CBI and considered me a suspect as an accessory to McAllister's murder-Abbott now knows that I am valuable to the organization. Kim Fischer handed me my badge. She still hasn't apologized for asking a bunch of impertinent questions about my relationship with Patrick, or for putting him in a detention cell. But she respects me, as she should. They can't say that I'm there to babysit Patrick anymore.

And then there was that whole crazy long episode with Patrick and me barely speaking and misunderstanding each other when we did speak. I wondered endlessly what he was waiting for, he'd made me his primary demand, didn't that mean he loved me, and if so, why didn't he tell me? I became more and more frustrated and exasperated, pissed off by his antics when he involved me in undercover operations and tricked me into testifying at a fake grand jury. Then he'd charm me by making me his partner in a magic act. I knew I couldn't take this much longer, so when I met Marcus and he obviously wanted me, I welcomed the attention and was pleased to see that it came without games. I wanted so badly to fall in love with someone other than Patrick that I was sure Marcus was the one and I would finally be free of the torment I'd suffered for so long. Even so, I hoped to make Patrick jealous and goad him into declaring his love for me. But he persisted in saying he wanted me to be happy in that maddening way.

And the rest is history…do I really need to keep going over this in my head? Any more of this and I'll be sorry I married him.

What really needs to happen is me talking to him about all of this. Sometime when I'm not feeling sorry for him because he has dreams about his dead daughter and wakes up crying.