Author's Note: Here's chapter six! I will warn you all now that this chapter is a little bit intense and sad. I don't think you'll sob uncontrollably or anything, but it's still a little sad. Now you have all been warned, so you can't say I didn't warn you.

Disclaimer: Mentalist is not owned by me.

It had felt much longer than a week since Melody's gymnastic competition, but in reality, it wasn't even a full week. The case they had caught on Monday seemed ordinary enough, but somehow had snowballed into some serious drama. It was Friday and the case was closed, but no one was even in the mood for case closed pizza. Well, except Melody who had been fortunate enough to not have been around for the case. She had insisted on visiting Friday, but things were much different than she had pictured them being. She sat on Jane's couch in the bullpen playing her video games. She frowned as her character accidentally ran into some spikes, using up her last life. Stupid game. She had said to go left, not right! Who needed stupid video games anyway? She could go play with Teresa, maybe cheer her up. Lisbon had picked Melody up from school by herself, which was odd. It was the first time ever that Jane hadn't accompanied her. Lisbon said that he was busy finishing up their case. Melody hadn't seen him all day, until she saw him walk into Lisbon's office a while ago. She looked up to see if she could join them, but the scene inside her aunt's office didn't seem very pleasant. Whatever Lisbon and Jane were talking about, they weren't happy. Melody pretended to be engrossed in her video game as Jane stormed out of Lisbon's office. Melody waited a moment to make sure he was really gone before she closed her game, tucking it in her backpack and hopping off the couch to talk to her aunt.

"Teresa?" Melody asked as she walked into Lisbon's office.

Lisbon looked over at her and smiled. "Yes? Do you need something?"

"No…" Melody shook her head. She glanced nervously out the window where the sun was approaching the horizon before looking back at her aunt, returning her smile. "I just…wanted a hug."

"I think I can manage that."

Melody hurried around Lisbon's desk for her hug.

Lisbon placed Melody on her lap and hugged her tightly.

"Is everything okay, Teresa?" Melody asked, holding on to her aunt tightly.

"Yes." Lisbon answered. "Everything is fine."

"Then why do you look sad?"

"I just have some things on my mind."

"Is that why you and Patrick are fighting?"

Lisbon wasn't sure what to say to that. She adjusted the little pink plastic headband that held back Melody's bangs. "You don't worry about stuff like that. Everything is going to be fine."

"But I don't want you to be sad."

"I appreciate your concern but, this isn't the end of the world. You don't have to worry about me."

"I promise to keep it a secret if you want."

"No." Lisbon smiled. "You don't have to do that. It's nothing you need to worry about."

"Okay." Melody agreed reluctantly, letting go of her aunt.

Lisbon put Melody down. "Do you want a snack or something?"

"I'm okay. But…I told Grace that I'd help her…with stuff."

"Okay. Well, you know where I am if you need anything."

"Yeah." Melody smiled and headed out of Lisbon's office, walking towards the bullpen. When she saw that Lisbon's attention wasn't on her, she quickly changed course and bolted towards the elevator, but headed up the stairs instead. She was breathing a bit heavier than normal when she reached the door of Jane's attic room and tried to open it, it didn't budge. Locked. She tried knocking. There was no reply. Not even a scuffling from behind the door to let her know someone was going to open the door. She tried knocking a bit louder in case he was asleep or something. When she still got no reply, she yelled through the door. "I know you're in there, Patrick. This door locks from the inside. I'm eight and I'm not stupid." This time there was a little bit of scuffling before the click of a lock and the door slid open a bit so Jane could poke his head out.

"You need something?" He seemed calm enough…on the outside.

"Yes."

"What do you need?"

"Someone to tell me what's going on that I can't know."

"Excuse me?" Before Jane could protest anything any further, Melody slipped through the door and shoved past him into the attic room. "Hey!"

Melody turned to face him. "Why are you and Teresa sad?" She demanded.

Jane cast a look at the door. It was at least an inch of metal and it had failed to keep out an eight year old. But, maybe that was more his fault…

"Why wasn't there any case closed pizza? There's always case closed pizza. But no one wants any today. And no one is happy. And no one will tell me anything. And everyone says it's okay, it's fine. It's not okay! It's not fine! You have to tell me. Teresa won't even tell me." Melody's eyes began to fill with tears. "You're not going to leave, are you? Teresa's not going to leave, right? I don't want you to go. I want you to stay. I want everyone to stay."

Jane knelt down so he could be at eye level with Melody. "What makes you think we'd go anywhere?"

"Mommy left. Because she was sad because she didn't want me. Sarah left because she was sad, too. At least she plays with Ben. I don't want everyone to be sad. I want everyone to be happy because people leave when they're sad so that they can be happy, but I want everyone to be happy here. I want you and Teresa to stay." Now she was just about sobbing.

Jane brushed a few stray hairs off Melody's forehead. "We're not going anywhere, Melody. Especially not without you. Come'ere." He hugged her tightly. "Teresa and I are just a little upset with each other right now. We just need to calm down. Like when you're upset and we let you calm down. You don't leave, you just take some time to be with yourself and calm down. That's what's happening. It has nothing to do with you, and we're certainly not going to leave you." He patted her head gently as she cried into his shoulder.

"What can I do if you all leave? Daddy's still sick. Is he going to get better, Patrick?"

"I don't know. I'm not a doctor."

"Uncle Tommy and Annabeth aren't even here."

"We're not leaving, Melody." Jane reminded her. "I promise. We're still going to be here tomorrow and the day after. And the day after that. The month after that and all the others after that."

"You're staying?"

"Yes."

"Both of you?"

"Yes."

"Good." Melody burrowed her face into his shoulder.

-Mentalist-

Eventually, Jane got Melody to calm down and she was able to go back downstairs, but unable to make him go down with her. She did, however, make him promise to talk to Lisbon. Before she left, she made a point to ask Lisbon to talk to Jane, which did surprise Lisbon. Melody was disappointed with the response of 'I'll think about it' but accepted it since it was better than a flat out no.

Jane waited until he knew that the rest of the team would be gone and the building would be basically empty before he went to see Lisbon. He was glad to see she was still in her office, since that eliminated the possibility of him having to look for her. Jane walked cautiously into her office, letting the door shut gently behind him. Except for the increased grip on her pen, Lisbon made no move to acknowledge his presence. He cleared his throat. She still ignored him.

"Teresa."

"Yes?" She said coldly, not even looking up from her papers.

"Can we talk?"

"No." She looked at him now, pen placed to the side. He could see she was angry and upset. "Quite frankly, I'm still mad at you. And the more I think about it, the less point I see in us 'talking'. You always lie to me anyway. Oh, no wait. That's right. You 'wouldn't call that lying', would you? No. You prefer to call them half truths and other things that might just slip your mind, even if they could be really important. Well, thanks. One of your little forgotten topics damn near killed me today, Jane. I really appreciated that. If you wanted me gone, you could have just gotten divorce papers like normal people. You could have just left. I can't stop you. But, whatever. If you wanted the place to yourself, congratulations, you got it. I'm not going home tonight because I'd rather get something done than be cramped in there with a man that thought it'd be fun to gamble with my life."

"Teresa-"

"No. If you say one wise crack about how I'm endangering myself all the time, I think I'll just punch you. I get to gamble with my own life if that's what I want because it's my life. You don't see me throwing your life around like it's worthless just because it's not me."

"You really think that's how I view things? You believe that I think your life is worthless, just because it's not mine? That hurts, Teresa. And I'm not kidding." Jane said very seriously.

"Who can tell with you?" Lisbon stood up abruptly and stormed over to him. "All you do is trick people and joke around. Did you hypnotize me, too? Make me do something stupider than what I already do because of you? Was that for fun too?"

"No." Jane growled. That was a very mean accusation for her to make. "I understand that you'd be angry with me for not telling you certain things. And I understand that you're upset because of what happened, but don't you ever accuse me of something like that. Ever. That has no basis. I wouldn't do that to you. I l-"

"Don't you dare tell me you love me. The best part about this entire situation, is that I could tell that you weren't telling me something and I didn't want to believe it because I wanted to believe that you'd tell me everything. So, I left it. And I nearly died. If Cho hadn't grabbed my vest and pulled me out of the way, that bullet would have been fatal. Why? Because, of course, Mr. Patrick Jane can't tell his wife the whole truth. That he had hatched his own stupid plan to lure the suspect out, which pissed the suspect off and almost killed me. I'm not even angry I got shot at. That's not why I have a problem. It's because you didn't tell me until later, after everything was done, and then said 'thank god you're okay'. Yeah. It have all been thanks to god, 'cause it sure as hell was no thanks to you." She wiped at the tears that were spilling down her cheeks.

Jane was now trying to curb the new anger and his own tears that the argument was causing. One of them had to at least seem calm and that definitely wasn't going to be Lisbon. Angry tension passed between them as they stared at each other in silence. "If I start to talk, can you please let me finish instead of interrupting me?"

"Whatever."

"I never wanted to put you in danger, that's why I made a plan for him to come to us. You all said you were going to the friend's house to follow up on some things. I didn't think you were going to go back to his place, too. I'm sorry that I put you in extra, unneeded danger. I never meant to. I never intentionally would, and I know doing it unintentionally isn't really better, but I still feel it's important that you know that I didn't want that to happen. I never have. I almost lost it when they told me you nearly died and I was angry at myself. I'm disappointed and truly hurt that you really think you're life means so little to me, and that I'd ever hypnotize you for my own fun. I don't want you gone. Nothing would be right if you were gone. I'd be devastated, Melody would be absolutely crushed, the team wouldn't ever recover, and I don't even want to think about the impact it would have on your brothers."

Lisbon sniffled, crossing her arms over her chest and looked away.

"Come on." Jane put his hands on Lisbon's shoulders and she tensed a bit. He stepped forward quickly and wrapped her in a tight hug.

"No." She tried to push back, but he wouldn't let go. Damn it. She wanted to be mad at him. He deserved it. He did.

"I'm not leaving this office unless it's with you. And you're not leaving unless it's with me." Jane whispered, burying his face in her hair.

"You have to stop lying to me." Lisbon rested her forehead on his shoulder. "You have to start telling me full truths. No more of this guessing."

"Okay." Jane agreed.

"Good." Lisbon pulled away and nodded.

"Lets go home, now. We can even stop by the grocery store and I'll pick you up that ice cream you love so much."

"The grocery store?" Lisbon wiped at her tears. "I look terrible. I don't want to go to the grocery store."

"You look wonderful."

"I have mascara smeared all over my face."

"And you still look beautiful." Jane kissed her head. "But I'll go in by myself, if that'll soothe your mind. Now lock up your office, and lets go."

Lisbon quickly grabbed her things and locked up her office.

Jane laced his fingers through hers as they walked to the elevator and waited once the button was pushed.

"Hey, Patrick?"

"Yeah?" Jane looked at her, glad she'd returned to using his first name. He preferred that.

"I'm sorry." She continued when his brow furrowed. "For when I was yelling at you. About the hypnotism thing and saying you don't care…I just…I'm sorry."

He smiled gently. "I forgive you. And, I love you." He leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.

"I love you, too." The elevator pinged its arrival and they got in. "I have to admit. I thought you would have left a long time ago and I wouldn't see you until tomorrow."

"No, my dear." Jane pushed the button for the ground level. "I'm staying. The only place I'm going is home with you."

Author's Note: Aw, cause they love each other. Please leave a review!