Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter 20)

Rating: M for graphic violence and language

Fandom: The Mentalist

Summary: Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

Author's note: The reviews are amazing, and do wonders for my ego. Thank you. My sister made a Charlotte's Web music video, you might want to check it out. It's on youtube, here (ffdotnet doesn't let me insert urls so you'll have to tag this on the end of the www dot / url watch?v=PGJ6S95IzIE&list=UUGhxxBCMFcv2UIGz3jgCWPQ) I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to make the RJ reveal interesting and exciting. Part of what makes RJ so frightening on the show is that we never knew who he was, so he was always this shadowy character, and the unknown is inherently frightening. Once you shine a light on something, you take away a lot of its power (this is also why silence is so powerful, similar idea). So on the show, when they did the big reveal, I think people felt cheated, because it was anti-climactic. In order to reveal who RJ is and not have it fall flat, I think you need RJ to be someone so amazingly creepy that the fact that you know who he is adds to the creepiness and doesn't take away from his mystery. So I am trying very hard to craft this story in such a way, so that all the pieces come together like a giant puzzle. I've only really seen a handful of TM episodes, but I will study clips of Jane's and Lisbon's interactions, the RJ scenes, etc. I'm a bit worried I will botch the big RJ reveal, but hopefully not. If I do, you can console yourselves with this simple little truth: this is only fanfiction. ;) As long as my RJ is more satisfying than the show's big reveal, I think I'll be (more or less) happy.

Oh, one last thing, if anybody would like to see a photo of Jane as a kid, go here (fix the url where appropriate): dot com/736x/3e/e5/a3/3ee5a3c67237c349866a2f65678c63a7 dot jpg and here

dot com/736x/67/6a/3d/676a3de1eb1cdd1653be052a28488e4e dot jpg You're welcome (it might give you an idea of what little Jane in the photos in the previous chapter looked like)

If you'd like an idea of how I was imagining Charlotte at around 4 or 5, something like this (and yes, this is actually Simon Baker as a little boy, but Charlotte would still look something like this, but more... girly):

dot com/736x/67/6a/3d/676a3de1eb1cdd1653be052a28488e4e dot jpg

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie." - Stephen King

"It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it." - Anais Nin

"The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation." - Hermann Hesse

Monday, July 3rd, 1978

Patrick Jane, ten, got up at 6:05 am. He rubbed a hand over his face, yawned, pulled himself out of bed. He was wearing his favourite pajamas (blue cotton with red elasticized cuffs and collar and trains and planes repeating). He slumped his way into the bathroom in the trailer he shared with his father, squirted Colgate on his toothbrush, stuck it in his mouth and brushed furiously, eyes still sleep-buggy. They were getting a guest today, the kid his Dad had been talking about for a few weeks. A boy named Peter.

Patrick had always loved his bedroom. It was his own little place in the circus, a place where privacy was sometimes scarce. He had an oak trundle bed with puffy Flintstones and Garfield stickers on the headboard. An oak dresser with his clothes (this was covered with KISS stickers and Star Wars puffy stickers). Movie posters taped to the walls: Star Wars, The Hills Have Eyes, Black Sunday, Suspiria, Autopsy. A Fleetwood Mac poster, a Pink Floyd poster. A few KISS posters. He wasn't big into KISS, but everyone else was, and his Dad liked it when he seemed less weird. How was he weird? He wasn't sure exactly, he just knew he was. Or so he'd been repeatedly told.

He had a shelf bolted to the wall above his head, a small red clip-lamp on it for reading, a collection of Star Wars action figures lined up like murder suspects. On top of his dresser, an ant farm (ants long since dead, ooops, apparently you had to feed them more than once a month) and a werewolf mask on a styrofoam head. The mask was expensive and neato. You pressed a button on the side and the eyes lit up red and blinked. There was a screen mesh under them for the person wearing the mask to see out of (sort of).

String lights with ghosts on them hanging across his room in a zigzag pattern, dirty socks on the floor, boxer shorts, random pieces from some old magic set and errant chess pieces, AWOL checkers, the old box from Mouse Trap Game (the game itself was behind his bed, and he played with the contraptions but never with other people the way it was meant to be played- he'd found the entire set at a garage sale for 10 cents). Patrick- toothbrush still cocked in his mouth- wandered back into his bedroom and picked the socks and undies up, carried them back into the bathroom and stuffed them in the rubbermaid hamper. He spit, washed his mouth out, went back into his bedroom and made his bed. Come tonight, their guest would be sharing his room, and it would no longer be "just his". And that flat out sucked. He liked his room, and most of all, because it was just his. Because nobody else shared this space.

He dressed quickly. He wasn't "on" today, no act. Mondays were typically his Saturdays. The circus in the summer was biggest hit by visitors on the weekend, and Mondays were slow days, unless there was a long weekend or something. He always got up early on Mondays, to stretch the day out as long as he possibly could. Tuesdays he did his correspondence school work. He hadn't done it for a few years and a social worker had popped her nosey parker face up a few months back, demanded he start mailing in his assignments or they'd have to look at foster care for young Patrick. Education was a right afforded to every child in the great old US of A, apparently, and Patrick was a child, now, wasn't he? Ergo, he did his school work on Tuesdays, at a feverish pace. The rest of the week he worked the carnie circuit until his eyes grew hot and wide in his head, and he drank endless Dr. Peppers and sneaked cigarettes with some of the guys. He was Patrick Jane, the amazing wunderkind, the boy genius, the boy prophet. Amazing Patrick could ask you a handful of questions and read your future. He could read your palm lines and tell you what your health had been like in the past year. He smiled and he winked and he bobbed his head like the most charming of circus folk, and he drew stares and smiles from the senior guests, who all seemed to wish their own grandchildren were as polite and as sparkly and as cute.

One day he'd been wrong about an old man's health. The old man was dying, and Patty-boy had thought he was fine. Old man had snarked this fact at him, spittle flying onto Patty's cheek and his father- Patrick's father- had been watching, had winced with embarrassment at his son's sudden lack of psychic ability. "The boy gets tired sometimes, folks, psychic abilities are like any other ability... they can get drained!" His father had yelled this amicably at the crowd and tugged Patty away for his "talking to". That evening, breath smelling of Colt .45 malt liquor, his father had beat him with a stick (but not on the face, never on the face, his face had to always be spotless and being beaten around the head could cause brain damage, in which case Patty's money-earning abilities were sure as Hell shot) until he screamed bloody murder, then he'd been shoved into his bedroom in a rush. Get to sleep, little son of a bitch. The words clanging around in his head like cymbals. He'd changed out of his clothes (a 3 piece suit) and rubbed furiously at his eyes, ignoring the darkening bruises on his neck, the tenderness in his legs and backside. His father never came in his bedroom. His old man had some hang-up about perverts, had for as long as Patrick could remember, and for this reason, his room was a safe zone. His old man never came in, never stepped across that threshold. It was like magic. Another reason he loved his bedroom so damned much.

And come this afternoon, he'd have to share it with this Peter kid. And that would suck. That would suck big time. It was a cool room, but it was tiny. It was a trailer-room. Barely bigger than a closet.

Patrick pulled his watch off the top of his dresser, put it on. A Mickey Mouse watch with a wind-up dial on the side. He changed into clean boxers, sports socks, then into jeans and a t-shirt (brown with yellow horizontal stripes and a pocket on the right breast). He opened the little bottle of aftershave on his dresser, Old Spice, and smelled it. He was a good half decade or more from shaving, of course, but he still liked to smell the aftershave. It was a quirk that enraged his father, the one time his father had seen him do it. His old man had screamed at him that he was a faggot, and Patty, who'd only been about 8 then, had shrugged his shoulders amiably and said "So?" in the smart alec voice his father hated almost worse than anything. Worse than talking back was the lack of interest in the taunt that was the word 'faggot'. So?

Alexander Jane had gone red as a beet, and that night he had broken his own rule about blows-to-the-face and struck the boy in the mouth with a closed fist; it had been a full two weeks before his lip looked normal again. But Patrick still smelled the aftershave (and would every morning for the next four years) because it reminded him that he would- one day- become a man, and then he could up and leave the damned circus life behind. He wanted to be an explorer and tramp around in the jungles of South America and make notes in notebooks about old symbols found in ruins, and when he got old- like 50- he'd be a professor and tell people about his days tramping around in said jungles. Or maybe a monster movie director, like Romero. Maybe- if those two careers turned out to suck- maybe an astronaut. Maybe. NASA had a lot of entrants, that was for darn sure. And the space shit didn't really thrill him like it had when he'd been little, not anymore.

Patty checked his watch. 6:12 am. The day was wasting. He struck his Top Cat bobblehead and moved in front of the ghoul on his wall. It was a Halloween decoration with a motion censor, and it "saw" him and began to laugh and clap its hands, eyes blinking green. He shuffled to the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out the eggs, the bacon. He pulled the wonder bread out of the freezer and made his father breakfast. It would be cold by the time the old man woke up, of course, but the old man could nuke it in the microwave just fine, and better it go in the trash than not be made at all. Patty had learned that lesson the hard way. Patrick pulled the Crazy Cow (strawberry, of course) cereal out of the cabinet, poured it in his plastic Scooby Doo bowl and sat at the arborite table. His father's ashtray sat in the middle, over-flowing, but Patty knew better than to dump the butts out. His father was weird about him smoking, he didn't want Pat touching even the ashtrays, so Pat left them alone.

He put the Crazy Cow box in front of the ashtray so he didn't have to look at the mess, wolfed down his cereal, stuck the frying pan in the sink with the hot, soapy dish water, dumped coffee grounds into the machine and turned it on, sprayed Glade through the air, grabbed a Nature Valley granola bar out of the cabinet and a bottle of Yoohoo out of the fridge and snatched his alpenlite backpack off the back of the wooden chair in front of the little table he used as a desk. He dumped his food into the pack, ran the day through his head and retreated quickly to his bedroom. He dumped his ceramic pig upside down and fished out a dollar in quarters, came back with the money, slipped his pack on over his narrow, skinny shoulders. He pulled his key on its shoelace from the hook on the wall (near the ceramic mallard duck plaques) and stepped out into the early morning sunlight. It was summer (not that that really mattered for a carnie kid) and he was 10 and healthy and it was going to be a good day. He'd come home later, when his old man was out, and he'd watch Flintstones in the living room with a TV dinner and drink Dr. Pepper. And go back out again. Lots to see in the circus, and it was always much cooler to see it on the days when he wasn't forced to be a part of it.

It was 6:35 am and the day was his.

"Tricky, hey," said old Mike. Old Mike was 60-ish, a nose pelted with blackheads, old pockmarks on his cheeks, lazy eyes with bags underneath, and salt and pepper hair that was mostly gone on the top of his head. Patty's father had told Patrick to stay away, because apparently, old Mike looked like a pervert. Patrick didn't listen, because if Patrick Jane listened to everything his father said about other people, he'd never talk to anybody. And he lived in a perpetual circus, where not-talking to people wasn't an option.

"I got a new animal," Old Mike said brightly.

"Oh?" Patrick said. Old Mike called him "Tricky", the second syllable of his name with a 'y' tacked on the end, because Patrick was so good at figuring out people, and at picking pockets and at doing magic tricks. Old Mike had caught him picking a civilian's wallet one time, had seen but hadn't said anything. Patrick was endlessly grateful to him.

"Yeah, a real cutie pie. His name is Dewey," old Mike said again. He was standing out on the porch of his trailer with either a late breakfast or an early lunch (scrambled eggs, sausages and pork-and-beans, toast with butter and stewed tomatoes), a cigarette burning away in the ashtray. Wind chimes tinkled lazily. "Want a smoke, Tricky?"

Patrick nodded, reached forward and took the marlboro. Smiled his gratitude. Old Mike reached forward and lit the end of it for the boy, cupping his hands around the new flame.

"What kind of animal?" Patrick asked, sucking in the smoke, holding it for a second, blowing it out all cool like he'd seen older boys do.

"Hmmm," old Mike shifted his eyes around, as if he was making sure nobody else was watching or listening. Patrick knew it was an act, designed to make the big new animal reveal seem all the more amazing. He grinned in anticipation, anyway. Patrick was a happy-go-lucky kid, and he liked surprises, even if they weren't really surprises, or really all that great. Effort counted in this life. Sometimes, just watching somebody try to be exciting and build interest in something was better than the actual trick. So Patrick always smiled, always tried to show encouragement, because he knew that people didn't have to try at all. People could be- and often were- lazy and weak and mean-spirited. So when they tried to be nice and exciting and artistic and good, he always, always smiled. And clapped. And grinned. And laughed when he thought they wanted him to laugh. It was his way of thanking them for trying to be good humans, his way of congratulating them for their effort.

"What kind of animal?" Patrick repeated again, taking another puff of his cigarette, eyes squinting in a smile.

"Baby chimpanzee," old Mike said proudly, staring the boy right in the eyes. "Baby chimpanzee with the heart of a small boy." Was that last bit meant to be literal? Or symbolic? No matter. Patty knew the routine.

"Bullshit," Patrick said. Not because chimps weren't in the circus. There were a good half dozen of them already on the grounds. But because old Mike was perpetually broke and chimps cost money. A lot of money. So he had to say bullshit, now, and feign disbelief (but not feign it too well), so Old Mike could tell him where the mysterious baby chimpanzee had come from.

"I'm serious, Tricky. Baby chimpanzee."

"How could you afford a baby chimpanzee?" Patrick said, scoffing, lips upturned in a smirk. "I bet you just took one of the midgets and dressed him up, or something like that..."

"Hell no. Shhh. A real chimpanzee. Like... from the wilds of Borneo." Old Mike's eyes looked misty.

"I don't think chimpanzees even come from Borneo," Patrick said, still grinning. "I think they come from Africa."

"Smart-ass," old Mike said in a gust, but he wasn't really angry. "You want to see Dewey or not?"

"Where did you get him from? This particular chimp?" Tricky was curious. Tricky was always curious. A curious little scamp. Tricky always wanted to see the clowns and the freaks and the performers, he was never bored by a trick he'd seen twenty times before (never outwardly bored, anyway), he always had a kind, encouraging word and a smile for a struggling performer, for a pariah or someone on the down-and-out. For this genuine kindness, everyone in the circus loved the kid. The Amazing Patrick.

"Some lab, he came from some lab, Mr. Nosey Parker," Old Mike waved a hand in the air. Some lab. As if it didn't matter.

"Dewey was a lab animal?" Patrick said sharply. Even at ten, he knew that animals from labs could be infected with all sorts of crap. "Is he... could he be sick with something? A disease or a virus or-"

"He ain't sick, Tricky! They was torturing him, is all. Electroshock and sleep deprivation. So this group busted him out. Him and a bunch of others. Had to get rid of him real fast, so they gave him to me. I saved his furry little butt. Thank the Lord Jesus for the Animal Liberation Front."

Patrick thought of the studying he had done on chimps. Chimps, who, when fully-grown, could be as strong as ten men. Chimps who could rip a face off and eat it like a slice of bologna and not think twice. But Dewey would be okay, most likely. Because Dewey was a baby. A tortured baby. A scared little baby.

"Tricky, you wanna see him or not?" Old Mike said impatiently, as if Patrick wasn't a good half century younger than him, as if they were two kids on the playground at recess and old Mike had something really cool to show his little buddy before the teacher's aide came sniffing around. Patrick nodded energetically. Hell, yeah, he wanted to see a baby chimpanzee! Old Mike beckoned him up onto the porch, then opened the screen door to his trailer.

"He's inside-" Old Mike said and Patrick felt a stirring of unease in his bowels. All his Dad's talk about perverts, no doubt. But he went in anyway. Old Mike's trailer smelled of cigarettes and sweat and the musty odor of not-done laundry. The shades were drawn. Old Mike went into the living room, where- sure enough- a young chimpanzee was sitting huddled on the yellow sofa in a diaper, looking at the approaching humans with fear-glazed eyes.

"Holy shit!" Patrick murmured, and then, immediately, smiled widely in what he hoped was a reassuring look. Because... Hell! He was looking at a baby chimpanzee! And that was pretty damned cool!

"Dewey, meet Tricky," Old Mike said tolerantly, the cool kid introducing the two social rejects. The chimp made a low shriek noise and Patrick put up his hands in a "I'm harmless" gesture. Moved towards the ape slowly. The ape watched the boy, studied him. Intelligent jungle eyes dark and haunted in the trailer's gloom.

"Hey, Dewey, baby," Patrick said slowly. The chimp was watching him with uneasy eyes. But Patrick was short and small and a child and didn't appear to be much of a threat, so Dewey let him sit on the sofa. Patrick beamed with pride.

"He seems to like you, he does!" Old Mike said, and grinned. He had brought his cigarette back into the trailer. So had Patrick. Old Mike went off somewhere and came back with an ashtray and put it on the low coffee table in front of the sofa for Patrick to put his ashes in. Patrick tapped his ashes off and took a drag on his cigarette, and then baby Dewey did something unexpected. He held out his furry ape hand for the cigarette. Patrick carefully passed him the cigarette and Dewey took it and took a fast, greedy drag of the marlboro before breathing out the gray-blue smoke.

"Well, I'll be," Old Mike said, and laughed. "He smokes like an old circus chimp. He'll fit in here just fine."

Dewey was looking at the cigarette, blowing smoke out in little puffs now.

"Okay, now," Patrick said, and held out his hand. "Give it back, now, Dewey-baby."

Of course Dewey ignored him. Old Mike giggled and pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, fished out three smokes. "One for you now, and another one for each of you kids, later." Kids. Like the chimp was suddenly now a human, because it could smoke. Ah, how fast evolution took place in the circus.

"Later?" Patrick asked, taking the smokes. He put two of them in his front shirt pocket. He picked up the match book on the coffee table and lit the third cigarette, flapping the fire out of the match, dropping the match black and smoking into the ashtray (olive green glass, scalloped sides).

"Well, here is what I am thinking, Tricky," Old Mike started. "Dewey feels safe with you. Just look at him."

Patrick looked over at Dewey. The chimp's legs were splayed open, relaxed, and he was playing with the cigarette, amused. His body language was no longer tight and scared.

"Okay. I see," Patrick allowed slowly. "He seems better."

"Yeah, and he doesn't trust me. Not too much, I mean. Maybe because I am a grown-up, and maybe I look like one of the doctors who, you know..." Old Mike trailed, made a sound like high voltage, bulged his eyes out for effect. Patrick nodded. He got the picture.

"Okay," Patrick said again. He had an idea of where this was going.

"So here is what I am thinking. You spend time with Dewey. He still lives with me, but you come and see him. Maybe you can bring him one of your t-shirts, that smells like you? For him to wear? You have any stuffed animals for him, maybe? For him to cuddle? I caught him cuddling a couch cushion."

Patrick didn't have any stuffed animals, but he knew plenty of places to win stuffed animals. Crocodiles with felt teeth and plastic cartoon eyes, bees in all different colours, Looney Toons characters, Flintstones characters made in Mexico. He'd pick Dewey up something. He sure as Hell would.

"I can get him a stuffed animal," Patrick said, not too excited now. Because the other side of this chimp-business was becoming obvious now. The Tricky-doing-work for little or no pay side.

"Okay, good, and maybe one of your T-shirts? Somethin' that smells like you, to calm him down? You have any toys he can play with?"

"Mike!" Patrick said, starting to get annoyed. "Didn't you get anything for this chimp before he came here?"

"He sort of came here fast," Mike said, not explaining any more than that. "And, I mean... look at him, Tricky. I didn't take him in, and where would he have gone? Back to the lab? Put down by the government? Shot like a monster? You know I couldn't let that happen. But now... now'n he's scared of me, on account of he don't know me too good yet, and cause those evil doctor fucks, they fucked with his head and made him fearful. So, I'm in a pickle, Tricky. Surely you can see that?"

Patrick noticed that Old Mike's grammar had suddenly taken a nose-dive. He tried not to laugh. Old Mike always did that when he wanted something. Look at me, Boy-o, poor Old Mike with the no book learnin' and the holes in me shoes...

"I'll get him a T-shirt and a stuffed animal," Patrick said. He tried to force the irritation out of his words. If someone was going to try and manipulate him, at the very least they could do a good job of it. Dewey was watching the two humans with fear-wary eyes again.

"And you'll come and visit him, maybe? Cheer him up? He needs a friend, Tricky, and you guys look about the same age. Sort of."

Patrick rolled his eyes. Old Mike was bad at conning people. He was too obvious.

"I got him all his favourite foods. They're in the crisper. Bananas, papayas, apples. Maybe you can try feeding him? I bet he'd like that. Do you like mandarin oranges? Maybe I can pick you up some mandarin oranges. Maybe he'll eat them."

"You do realize this chimpanzee is not my responsibility?" Patrick said, irritated but also amused. He got up and went into Mike's little avocado-green kitchen, opened the fridge, dug around in the vegetable crisper. Two soft apples and one banana. Way to go, Mike. Patrick grabbed the banana and came back into the living room. He sat back down next to the chimp and began to peel the banana. Dewey took a final suck on his cigarette and then put the cigarette (good boy!) in the ash tray. He looked at Patrick with hungry, yearning eyes. Patrick smiled at the animal, broke off a piece of the banana and held it out to the ape. Dewey took the banana piece gently, slowly, eyes flickering between the food and the young boy who was feeding him.

"It's okay, Dewey. You can take it. There you go..." Patrick murmured carefully. Dewey sniffed the banana, stuck it in his mouth, began to chew loudly.

"Aww, good, I am glad he is eating. Thought maybe he was sick or somethin'," Old Mike said, and he clearly looked relieved.

"How long have you had him, anyway, Mike?" Patrick said, feeding the ape another piece of banana.

"A few days now," Old Mike mumbled.

"And in those two days, has he eaten or drunk anything?" Patrick asked softly, making his eyes go big and soft for the chimp, in case the animal was looking at his face (which he was, between glances around the room), looking at his facial cues.

"He had a can of Dr. Pepper," Old Mike said with a shrug of the shoulders. "And some of my coffee."

"Have you changed his diaper?" Patrick said tiredly.

"I don't think he's shit himself," Old Mike said immediately. "I would have smelled it."

"Yeah, but... he must have peed, right?" Patrick said patiently.

"Yeah, I guess so. I don't think he likes me too much."

"Do you even have diapers for him?" Patrick said, distracted now. He handed the last piece of the banana to the chimpanzee, which Dewey took eagerly now, with less trepidation than the first two times.

"Yeah, a whole stack of them in the crapper. Listen, Tricky, you're a lifesaver. You help me with him, and I cut you in with the profits. 60/40, what do you say?"

"I make 60% or 40%?"

"40%. You're a kid and he's my chimp. But that's 40%, under the table, no Uncle Sam with his fingers in your piece of the pie..." Old Mike bargained. Patrick sighed.

"I want 50% if I am going to be changing his diapers and feeding him and shit," He sounded at least double his age. The circus did that. Kids grew up fast in the circus. They also grew up fast when their Moms were gone and their Dads were mercurial drunks.

"I can maybe do 50%," Old Mike allowed slowly.

"And you know I have to work, anyways, right? Wednesday to Sunday, I am working in the afternoons. In Tent C. Tuesdays I do school work," Patrick said all of this tiredly. He didn't really want to be taking care of a baby chimp. But he could make a few bucks, and he'd need a few bucks if he ever wanted to get the hell out of this place. And what would happen to the animal if he didn't at least help out a little bit? Dewey was a cute little guy. Wasn't his fault that people had stolen him from the wild (probably killed his mother to do it, too) and fucked with his head, just because they could. No, wasn't Dewey's fault one little bit.

"Okay, that still leaves the mornings and the nights? And maybe on Tuesdays, you bring your school books here, and do your work around Dewey? I am sure he wouldn't mind. And Mondays, those are your fun days?"

Patrick sighed tiredly. "You might want to turn a few lamps on in here. It's too dark."

Old Mike nodded his head, buzzed around the room and turned on the table lamps just as Tricky had suggested. He had a set of terracotta bases and funky spaghetti shades, spun green lucite. Probably got all four of them for a steal at a yard sale somewhere. At least the place was sort of illuminated now, soft orange glows in pockets with gloom around the pockets of light. Dewey seemed alarmed at first at the change, but quickly adjusted.

"Okay. I will go and get him one of my shirts," Patrick eyed the chimp. Dewey had a red leather collar around his neck with a clip for the leash.

"You have his leash, Mike?" Patrick said, eyes on the chimp. Old Mike nodded and went away, came back with it, black, like a whip. Patrick clipped the leash onto the collar, making soft shushing noises to calm the ape, and led him to Old Mike's crapper to change his piss-stained diaper. It took less than five minutes until Patrick returned the chimp to his spot on the sofa. He handed the chimp a cushion and, sure enough, Dewey cradled it to his chest. Patrick petted the animal on his furry hand and smiled at him.

"Good boy. Good Dewey," he said and the chimp's eyes were on his young, intelligent boy-face. Old Mike smiled.

"You two were made for each other, is what I think..."

"Okay, then. I am going to run home. Pick up some Yoohoos and a t-shirt and some junk I think he might like. I can pick him up a stuffed animal at Rodney's booth, he owes me one. I'll be back in fifteen minutes, give or take a few minutes. Okay?"

"You sure you're going to come back?" Old Mike pressed. "Dewey likes you. I think he needs you."

"I'm coming back, don't worry," Patrick said. And he knew he would. A baby chimp was relying on him. And anyway, that new kid, Peter, was arriving today and his room wouldn't be his anymore, not totally, and this was a good distraction...

Patrick ran home, grabbed his largest t-shirt out of the dresser, stuffed the Mouse Trap Game into his alpenlite, dumped a few more Yoohoos in the backpack and a few more granola bars. Back out the door. At Rodney's booth he put his fingers in his mouth, whistled loudly. The 17-year-old named Rodney turned, grinned.

"Patty, what's up?"

"Listen, can I have a stuffed animal? I need one. No questions asked?" Patrick grinned his cute little boy grin, the one that made almost everybody melt.

"Sure. You got a girlfriend?" Rodney said this with an amused little grin on his face. Patrick screwed up his face in disgust.

"A girlfriend? Barf. No. Why would I have a girlfriend?!" Patrick's face was still screwed up at the thought of it. Girls. Yuck.

"Just wondering. Which stuffie do you want, Pat?" Rodney waved his hand below the line up of stuffies, each hanging by clips like plush gallows' victims.

"That gorilla, there, I guess." Patrick pointed at a black, furry ape with plastic eyes and a leather nose. Rodney fished it off the hook, handed it to the boy.

"So, how you been, aside from your lack of a girlfriend?" The teenager asked this with a smirk. He was obviously bored as Hell, nearing a coma, a 7-11 Big Gulp on the counter behind him.

"I'd love to chat, now, Rodney, but I have to run. Really busy today..." Patrick stuck the plush ape under his arm and moved away from the duck-shoot booth. The teenager rolled his eyes.

"Don't let them take you alive, Patty," Rodney quipped, and made pistols with his fingers. "Pow, pow, pow!"

Patrick stopped and stared, bemused. "Pardon me?"

"Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot. The Amazing Patrick doesn't play. Play is for kids, right? So, what are you busy with, anyways?" The teen's eyes were hazy with fatigue and boredom.

"If I wasn't so busy, I could tell you, but I am busy, so I can't." And with that the ten-year-old Patrick Jane began to run back towards Old Mike's trailer, and Dewey the tortured baby chimp. He was smiling as he ran, excited by the thought of the chimp and the chimp's bright, intelligent eyes.

He spent the rest of the day in Old Mike's trailer. He put the Mouse Trap game together, and Dewey checked it out with nimble ape fingers. He shared a Yoohoo with the ape, grinning as the animal guzzled the drink and dropped the glass bottle on the sofa. He gave Dewey a granola bar. Old Mike sat in his E-Z chair in front of the old black and white console TV, chain-smoking his marlboros and grinning.

"See? You two are like best buddies, already." Old Mike said this, then began to hack, a serious smoker's cough. Patrick wrinkled his nose, turned back to the chimp, grinning. Stroked the fur on his arm. Amazing. A real life chimp, and he was the chimp's teacher. Amazing.

It was half past 6 by the time he realized he had to be getting home. Like an alarm going off in his head, he realized he had been out too late. His old man expected dinner promptly at six. Shit.

"I got to be getting home, now, Mike," Patrick said, feeling a lump in his throat. "I was supposed to be home an hour ago. Time got away from me."

"You'll come back tomorrow?" Old Mike said lazily from his chair. Mike was watching Barney Miller, his favourite show.

"I'll come back if I can," Patrick said tersely. "Some new kid is coming to stay with us today. So I don't really know."

"New kid?" Old Mike said, and tapped his ash into an old beer can. "What new kid?"

Patrick shrugged. "My Dad didn't really say. Told me it wasn't none of my beeswax, but the kid is going to be sharing my room, so..."

"So it kind of is your beeswax," Old Mike said paternally, good-naturedly. "That's a real shame, Tricky. Nothing like having to share a room when you're used to having your own space."

"Thanks a lot," Patrick groused. He felt exactly the same. Didn't need it rubbed in.

"But I'm sure it'll be fine," Old Mike said immediately. "Besides. You can come and hang out here with me and Dewey whenever you want. Right?"

"He better keep his hands off my stuff," Patrick muttered, slipping his alpenlite over his shoulders. "I can't stand people who can't keep their hands off other people's things."

Old Mike was quiet a minute, then chuckled. "Isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, mister sticky-fingers?" Old Mike took a sip out of his beer bottle, eyes flickering back to the television as a burst of canned laughter drew his attention.

"Thanks about that," Patrick said quietly, almost shyly. "Thanks. My old man would've..."

Old Mike laughed. "Yeah. I had an old man like that, too. They keep you on your toes, don't they?" Old Mike was getting his drunk on. His eyes shifted back to the TV screen.

"Yes," Patrick said softly. "So thanks. That could have been really bad for me."

"Remember what I told you, Tricky, though... I catch you lifting wallets again, and next time I do tell your old man. We circus folk already have a shady reputation. We don't need no little boys messing it up any more than it's already been messed."

"Okay," Patrick said dully, perfunctorily.

"You want to make a buck, you make it in a semi-legal fashion, you hear me? You do a show with Dewey, or you pull weeds or you wash dishes or you scam somebody out of a dollar with that big brain of your's. Make a grown man look like a fool and he'll be too embarrassed to demand his dollar back, and it'll be your's fair and square. Sort of. Sort of fair and square. Because I can tell you right now, Kid, you get caught with a stolen wallet on your person, and you're not going to be able to talk yourself out of it. Even with that big brain of yours. You'll be grade A fucked, Tricky. And juvie isn't kind to cute little blond boys, if you get my drift."

Patrick didn't completely get Old Mike's drift, but he got the general vibe, and the general vibe was dirty and gross and made his skin crawl. His old man had told him about juvie before, and foster homes, when the damned CPS kiddie social workers had come sniffing their nosey-parker noses around. The circus might not be perfect, but there were plenty of worse places for a little guy to find himself in this world. Of that, Patrick Jane was damn near certain.

"Thanks, anyway. And remember, you got to make sure he drinks water. He likes bananas, so maybe go buy some more?" Patrick said this as he pushed open the screen door into the early July night. Old Mike raised a hand in acknowledgment and muttered something. Mosquitoes were buzzing around, hitting the bug-zapper Old Mike had strung up, popping like corn kernels. Pock-smack! Patrick began to run home.

The Janes were one of the few "families" in the park that had their own car, in addition to a trailer. An aqua-marine 1966 Ford Mustang GT convertible. Patrick didn't really know cars (much to his father's disappointment) and didn't really care about cars, but he knew his father's car. It was his father's pride and joy.

The car was in their parking space, outside the trailer, the top down. Patrick slowed his pace, checked out the car. A detective looking for clues. There was a Dairy Queen bag, crumpled, in the passenger seat. Dairy Queen?! No fair!

Patrick ran up the steps to the trailer's porch, clicked the screen door open, pushed the solid wood door open, and entered his home. He could hear the TV on in the living room (mindless bullshit), could smell his old man's cigarettes. He entered slowly, scratching at a skeeter bite on his arm. It was puffed up, already, like a white little welt, a tiny speck of red in the middle where the mosquito had fed.

"Close the front door! I'm not paying money so you can let out all the air-conditioning!" Alexander Jane's voice was flat, annoyed. The voice of a parent that has told a kid to do something over and over and over, and still, said kid doesn't learn. Said kid doesn't listen, that's why. Patrick retraced his steps and pushed the door shut with a loud sigh, pulled the chain across and came back down the hall on loud, elephant feet. Can you hear me stomping around, Dad?! Good! Because I am annoyed! That's why I am a-stompin'!

The boy on the couch was taller than him, but only a little. A little plumper, but very similar in the face. He was wearing a gray long-sleeved sweatshirt with Mickey Mouse on the front and brown corduroy pants with patches on the knees. One patch had a lime green peace sign on it, like something a girl might wear. There was a red suitcase by his feet, plastered with stickers: We have the technology! Hey, Ho... Let's Go! Have a Happy Day! with a smiley face... Peter scratched his cheek absent-mindedly and Patrick's eyes flickered back to his face. It was like looking into a slightly warped funhouse mirror. His mirror image, if a bit thinner in the face and a bit plumper in the belly. Eyes not quite so large, a bit thinner in the eyes, eyes a bit closer together; he was thinner in the lips, too. Patrick had freckles over his nose, quite a few. Peter had no freckles, not a single one, but he had a small, black mole on his neck, like a drop of blood left from a vampire's kiss. But beyond those minor differences... pretty similar. Pretty fucking close. Patrick drew in a confused breath. What the fuck was going on, here?!

"Patty? You home? Finally. Good. This here is Peter," Patrick's father drawled this easily, like he was talking about something that really wasn't that big of a deal. Peter was eating a chocolate dipped cone, expression somewhere between boredom and fatigue. Alex was nursing a beer, eyes half on his kids, half on the television. Patrick was breathing funny. Peter's smiley-face eyes flickered up as his brother cleared the front hallway, blue on blue. Lightning flashes in a white trash trailer. Hello, brother. The strange boy grinned at Patrick, nodded his head. Just a bit. Not too excited, Patrick could see that immediately; that he was bored, even now. Impossibly bored. Somehow. This Peter kid was bored, but his own heart was fluttering like a bird in his chest, wanting to get the fuck out. Patrick looked at his father with wounded, uneasy, betrayed eyes. Why didn't you ever tell me?!

"Don't look at me like that, boy. I got you a cone, too. Put it in the freezer. And there are burgers on the table," Alexander said this mildly. Patrick nodded, stiff, not really feeling his feet. He drifted into the kitchen, pulled his cone (not dipped, he didn't like dipped cones) out of the freezer and licked at it without tasting it.

"Come on in here, Patty, and get reacquainted with your twin," Alex yelled at the kid. Instead of getting reacquainted with his "twin", Patrick Jane (aka Tricky aka "The Amazing Patrick") turned on his heel and marched to his bedroom. He slammed the door shut as hard as he possibly could and sat on his bed, eyes blurring with angry, confused tears. From the living room he heard the TV (were his father and...and... brother... watching that fucking Barney Miller show, too?!), fingers rubbing at his temples. He looked around his bedroom, his tear-blurry bedroom with the KISS stickers and the movie posters and the werewolf mask, and he licked sulkily at his Dairy Queen cone and tried to get his breathing to slow down and sound right. He wanted to yell, or kick things or cry. But that wouldn't work. Not in this family. At best it would accomplish nothing but a mild taunt, and at worst, maybe... maybe a beating. Probably not tonight. His Dad was being extra nice. Because of the surprise.

Because of the twin.

From the living room he heard a young voice. Peter's. Mild and detached.

"He's not one for surprises, is he?" The voice was his and not-his. More amused, deeper. Richer, somehow. Older. Impossibly... much older.

More canned laughter from the TV. Patrick ate his cone and stared at his bedroom with fuzzy not-there eyes and knew that something was very, very wrong with this picture.