Happy September 13th! For those of you who don't know this is a very important day, it is the day of my birth. So I decided to give all of you a present, here is chapter 55, it's a little shorter, which I apologize for, but I've had it in mind since the very very beginning of this story. So please there is one thing I will ask all of you for as a birthday present, I want to here a review from all of you it doesn't even have to be about this chapter it can be about the story in general or a past chapter, your reviews really make my day. Of course the best birthday present would be to say I finally own the mentalist but alas I still don't.

I suppose it's hardly a surprise to say I was woken up to three kids jumping on the bed and a grinning Patrick.

"It's Christmas!"

"Come on, Come on, Santa came!"

"Santa came you guys must have been good this year after all." I couldn't help but smile as I rolled out of bed and throwing some sweatpants on to go with Patrick shirt.

"Of course they were good, they couldn't have been anything else." Patrick lifted the kids off the bed and we both watched them make a mad dash for the living room. "Come on Teresa we don't want to miss opening presents."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Look at all the presents!" Alyssa cheered as Patrick and I came down carrying Cass a couple minutes later. "This ones for me, and this one, and this one."

"Why don't the three of you pass out the presents then we can all unwrap them at the same time."

"Okay!" And with that Alyssa, Emily, and William had started a assembly line of passing out presents to each individual. Five minutes later the kids were tearing paper off of package after package with shrieks of excitement. Patrick and I helped Cass with her pile but she proved more than capable at tearing the paper, at least for the first couple packages until finding a toy she wanted to play with immediately.

Sooner than not all things were unwrapped and the kids were playing with new toys in a mass of scattered wrapping paper, until Alyssa found one last unopened present that had been tucked under the tree.

"Teresa it's for you." Alyssa ran through the clutter to the couch, "Open it open."

"I'm going to open it don't you worry." I laughed at her excitement about presents that weren't even hers. I was halfway done and I could see a beautiful jewelry box from some expensive store, when William interrupted.

"It won't work mommy Teresa it won't work." A toy truck was thrust into my lap.

"Let me see it." I assured him.

"Can you make it work?"

"Liam honey it needs batteries, can you find another toy to play with for a little while?"

"I wanted to play with the truck." He pouted.

"You can play with it later I promise, we need to go find batteries though and I don't know if we have any that size right now."

"Fine."

"You can play with it later I promise." He just frowned and took his truck back and walked over to his other presents. Now I had one present left where had it gone, it was in my hand and then the truck was tossed on my lap. I don't remember setting it down, it wasn't in my lap and it wasn't sitting on the couch next to me. That's when I looked at Patrick sitting next to me box unwrapped and open in his hand, the most perfect ring I could have asked for. "Patrick?"

"Teresa will you marry me?" He sat next to me smiling, with a nervous gleam in his eyes. Marriage? Last time I had been proposed to it didn't work so well, but I was young then I wasn't ready. Am I ready now? Everything has changed so quickly. "You don't have to say yes now Teresa, if you need time I understand." His smile hardly dropped, but I think it hurt him that I hadn't answered immediately. I looked down at the beautiful ring in his hands. His hands, his ring was gone, when had that happened? I thought back I didn't remember it this morning, or last night at dinner for that matter when we told the team.

"Patrick, I don't need any more time to think." I couldn't help but grin, "Yes of course I'll marry you." I waited patiently as he slid the ring onto my finger before wrapping my arms around his neck and falling into his kiss.

That was until Patrick got a tap on the arm, "Did it work did I do it right?" William whispered.

"You did it perfectly." Patrick laughed.

"Emily had to give me the right toy."

"Well you did a perfect job." He lifted the smiling boy onto his lap.

"You used William as a distraction?"

"Of course I did you had to unwrap the box but I wanted to be the one holding it to propose. All three of the big kids were in on it."

"So Alyssa found it, Emily directed her brother, and William was the distraction."

"You really must be a cop agent Lisbon with detective skills like that."

"I will smack you."

"Haven't been engaged for more than a minute and already threatening abuse." He just laughed, oh what had this man done to me, what was it about that smile that made me weak at the knees when he did things at work that made me so infuriated.