Duh-duh-dun! If this was a movie, dramatic music would be playing right now! Sorry about some of the stiff dialogue, but writing between Jane and his mum is tricky . . . Still, I hope you're liking reading it! It's my first non-oneshot Mentalist so far! R&R's would be muchly appreciated, thank you!

Mommy, by Psychedelica

Chapter Three

Crab Cakes and Rosé Wine

In the restaurant, Jane sat awkwardly across the table from his mother. She ordered crab cakes and rosé wine; he ordered nothing. There was no way he was eating after this bit of news.

They made small talk throughout the meal. Eventually Scarlett convinced Jane to order some tea and a small salad, claiming to be worried about his health and wellbeing. He quietly went along, not sure if he had the strength to disagree.

"Why did you leave?" he asked suddenly, just after the waiter had handed him the bill. "All those years ago, why did you leave us?"

Scarlett paused, looking obviously pained. "You think it's my fault?" she whispered.

"If I remember correctly, you're the one that left."

She sighed, leaning back in her chair. "You think it was me that tore our family apart? No, Patrick, it wasn't. Your father and I . . . had our differences. He wanted one thing, I wanted another. We'd been drifting apart for months before I finally put my foot down. My sister had a house in Vermont; she had a couple of extra rooms. How old were you? You must have been seven, eight . . ."

"Three. I was three."

A brief look of surprise passed over her features, quickly replaced with a smile. "Ah, yes. I remember. But we gave you a choice, your father and I. We let you choose who to be with, and you decided to stay with your dad."

Jane dropped his eyes. Had he really decided to stay with his father? He seemed to remember loving his mom tons more than his dad. And besides, it didn't sound like his dad, giving him a choice. No doubt he had manipulated his three-year-old son into doing what he wanted, instead of what his son wanted.

Why can't I remember any of this?

Jane paid the bill and absently slipped the receipt into his jacket pocket.

He and Scarlett made some more small talk on their way to the hotel where she was staying. She said she had been living in Paris when she'd stumbled across his name online, saying that her son had solved dozens of crimes and murders. For some reason small talk was okay with him, because he could treat her like any other human being and not his mother.

It was about half four by the time he arrived back at the CBI. Lisbon noticed him wandering about and beckoned him into her office, where she was churning out paperwork.

"Jane, I gave you the day off," she reminded him. "That means the whole day, not just part of it." But her expression was light, her face open and happy. "How did it go?"

He swallowed and looked at her, and then closed her office door. He took a seat on the chair the opposite side of the desk to her, instead of his usual couch. "It was . . . strange."

"Strange?" she echoed, nose crinkling a little. "Strange how?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. It just . . . was."

Lisbon put the lid on her pen and leant back in her chair with a smile. "You don't talk about your mom much. At all, really. You really didn't recognize her, did you? Were your parents divorced?"

Jane sighed. "Not . . . really. They were separated, but they never got married in the first place." He leant his arms against her desk, unconsciously fingering the receipt from the restaurant. "She left us, me and my dad. When I was three. I don't . . . I don't remember her.

"I always thought she just packed up and left one day, and my dad always said she did. But she says . . . she says it was a mutual thing. They'd been . . . arguing, she said. I don't know; I don't remember. She says they had their differences, and that she left because she had to. But the thing is, she says they gave me a choice. They let me choose which parent to stay with. I chose my dad, and my mom left."

Lisbon was silent for a moment. "God, Jane, I'm sorry. But it's a good thing your mom's back, isn't it?"

"I guess so," he admitted reluctantly. "I've always wanted to get to know her."

"Precisely," Lisbon smiled. "So what's stressing you so much?"

He glanced down at the receipt in his hands and realized he was fiddling with it. With a frown, he slipped it back into his pocket and sighed. "I don't know. I think it's because . . . because . . ."

Because even at three years old, there's no way I'd pick Dad over Mom.

He left the sentence unspoken and shook his head to shake away the words. "Never mind," he muttered, and left her office.

That night, Jane had a bad dream, a dream that was unlike any of the nightmares he usually had. They involved his wife and his daughter, and that horrible day when he'd come in and found them there, lying in their own slightly congealed blood . . .

But this dream wasn't the usual. He wouldn't go as far as saying it was worse, but he woke up drenched in sweat and hyperventilating.

Once he had got his breathing in check, he rolled over to check the time. Not quite two a.m., but there was no way he was getting back to sleep after that dream.

After what dream? he asked himself. He couldn't for the life of him recall what he had been dreaming about.

After power-showering and dressing, Jane got in his car (which he'd gotten towed from the warehouse the day before) and drove to the CBI office, where he found Lisbon asleep in her chair, head on her desk amongst the paperwork.

Jane smiled to himself, the first genuine one he'd smiled for what seemed like forever. He slipped one arm around her back and the other under her knees, lifting her up honeymoon-style and marveling at how light she was. She is a pixie after all, he mused, placing her gently on the couch.

Brushing a strand of hair out of her face and feeling grateful she wasn't awake to glare at him, Jane removed his jacket and draped it over her. She smiled and mumbled something unintelligible, and he grinned. He would tease her like hell in the morning.

Wishing the morning was here already, Jane headed up to his attic (the possessive pronoun slipped off his tongue so easily) and wrote in his diary until the sun rose.

The minute Wednesday rolled around, he dumped his diary on the arm of his chair and ran downstairs to question Zachary Coolidge, the kid they'd picked up for speeding and stealing the day before. Anything to keep his mind off this whole mom crisis.

He interrogated Coolidge for a while, trying various techniques of persuasion, threats, confusion, hypnotism, friendliness, and trying to impress him, but by the end of the questioning, Jane had nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Slightly less calm then usual, Jane stormed out of the interrogation room and almost ran into Lisbon, who thrust his jacket at him with a half-angry, half-embarrassed glare. He grinned widely at her and expressed his thanks, earning him a double-glare.

Jane took the lift down to the ground floor, wondering whether he'd left his chop shop case file in his car, only to bump into Scarlett again.

She was in the entrance area, complaining loudly to the security guards because they wouldn't let her past that point. She spotted Jane and waved, and he tried his hardest not to flinch.

Moms were put on this earth to embarrass their kids, he reminded himself, and was unsure whether this thought made him happy, sad, angry, or even more confused than he'd been up until this point.

All the same, he took the guards aside and told them to let Scarlett in, even when he wasn't there. They looked doubtful but he managed to persuade them, putting on his charmer face.

Trying to act like less of a jerk than yesterday, Jane even let his mom take his arm as he led her upstairs for a cup of tea in the break room.

They chatted for even longer than the day before, partly due to the lack of stress from their first meeting. Lisbon came in for coffee at one point but quickly backed away when she saw that Jane and Scarlett were actually getting along.

In the end, Scarlett checked her watched and sighed. "I'm sorry, Patrick. I'm having a wonderful time – I really am – but I've got an important meeting in half an hour. I'm afraid I have to leave." She smiled sadly and touched his arm, just above his wrist. He glanced down at the hand, uncomfortable with her touch but also oddly content.

Taking this as a good sign, Scarlett pecked him on the cheek before leaving. Jane felt shocked, his hand over the spot she'd kissed. A new feeling spread throughout his insides. Love? No, he'd felt love before. Happiness? Again, he'd been happy before, even if he hadn't recently. Comfort? Maybe. The comfort that could only come from a motherly presence, a feeling he probably hadn't experienced since he was three years old, a feeling he probably wouldn't remember if he had experienced it before.

Interrupting his thoughts, Grace came into the break room and began pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"Who was that?" she asked curiously. "We've got a bet going on in the office. My money's on a really old girlfriend."

"She's not old," he snapped defensively, and hid his shock at his own retort. "And she's not my girlfriend. She's my mom."

Grace looked mildly surprised, but had no time to say anything more because Jane had already left, also feeling mildly surprised.