A/N: Just a story that came to me while rewatching The Mentalist. Jane's denial has always intrigued me.

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"Do you have any children?" No question put Teresa Lisbon on edge quite like that one.

Not that she hadn't heard it a million times herself from people looking to judge her or perhaps even bond with her over motherhood. However, it always landed so much differently when the intended target of the question was Jane.

They both knew the answer. In fact, anyone with internet access could easily answer that question.

But he answered that question the same way he always did. Without missing a beat, he responded: "No, I don't."

Her name was Charlotte. In all of the pictures she had seen of her, she was blonde haired and blue eyed, taking that cue from her father. She had longish blonde hair that seemed to have a slight wave to it. In some pictures, it was wild. In others, it was laid down and pristine. Remembering a photo she must've taken at a zoo or park where she pointed at a rabbit with a wide smile, she seemed like a bubbly child. The last photograph to catalog her short little life was taken on her fifth birthday.

But Charlotte Jane, daughter of Patrick and Angela Jane, existed.

Why did he always deny her existence? Nearly ten years of working with Jane, and she'd never heard him acknowledge her beyond his search for Red John. She blinked, trying to stay focused on their current conversation.

With one more well placed barb from Jane to the witness, maybe a potential suspect, they were interviewing, they got back into her SUV to head back to their home office in Sacramento.

The ride back was much more quiet than the ride out here when he had a lot to say about Rigsby's reaction of the day to Craig O'Laughlin. She never had much to say on that angle. Rigsby and Van Pelt were her subordinates, and she had little to say about their love lives–even if Jane had guessed correctly on more than one occasion that she believed perhaps Rigsby had screwed the pooch on that one.

Jane mostly spent the ride home staring out of the passenger side window in an expressionless gaze. Without a doubt, the question nagged at him. He would not have been so rude to their witness after the fact if it had not. They were probably having similar thoughts about little Charlotte Jane. Indeed, that little blonde child was on her mind a lot lately. After all, she was still in charge of finding the man who murdered her.

After mulling it over for a few minutes, or more like an hour, she decided it was time.

She cleared her throat. "Why do you always answer that way?"

"Hmm?"

"Why do you always say no?"

He grinned. "I say no about a lot of things. So do you."

Immediate recognition flashed across his face–which he almost immediately tried to play off. That didn't go unnoticed.

"About your child."

"I don't know. Why is the sky blue? It's a fact. I don't have a child."

"You do."

"No, I had a child before Red John killed her."

"That doesn't make her not…"

"Of course, she's my daughter!" His voice was slightly raised. "You put our baby pictures side by side, and the only thing that would indicate the difference is the age of the photos. Everything about her…was me."

"I wasn't doubting…"

"I know you're not doubting anything, Lisbon. What is that you want to know?"

"I wonder why you always say no to that question. You do have a child."

He was quiet for a very long 10 minutes, long enough for her to prepare her apology for poking this specific bear. Maybe he just wasn't ready. What right did she have to push him on this?

She was stuck on exactly how she would say what she needed to say, and thinking of what type of tea might be a good makeup gift, when he spoke again. This time, his voice was just barely above a whisper.

"I used to tell her that she would always be my little girl. I never meant it to be literal, you know?"

"Of course, not. It's something that all parents say."

"It's something parents mean. No one can capture what it's like the first time you see that little human and the weight of the responsibilities that fall on top of your shoulders. They become your world."

And his world had been shattered.

"So, why not tell people that you have a child?"

"At five hours old, I promised Charlotte that she was safe and loved. That I would do everything to give her the best life, that I would give her everything in the world. Anything for my little girl."

"It's not your fault."

"Well, people ask me because they want to know if I can relate to them as a parent. I can't."

"Just because she's gone now doesn't mean you were never a parent. That you still aren't."

"Do you know why it took me five hours to make that promise?" She shook her head. "I was unreachable when she was born. I was out doing a private party for one of my wealthiest clients. At the moment my daughter was born, I was elbow deep conning wealthy retirees."

"I'm sure Angela…" She stopped abruptly. She'd actually never said her name aloud in Jane's presence. Out of the corner of her eye, she tried to gauge his reaction. He didn't seem to react negatively to it, but she realized the next words out of her mouth would be nothing but word salad to placate him. Angela what? She understood that he was too busy being a conman to attend their daughter's birth? That sounded bad even to her ears, and Jane would not go along with that foolishness.

Thankfully, he interjected. "About 3 weeks after Charlotte was born, that party put me into enough cash to get the house in Malibu. Our first home. You see, that kind of stuff was all that mattered."

"You cared for them, and they knew that."

"The day that I went on the talk show, Angela asked me not to go."

"Why?"

"We agreed that it would likely help raise my profile a bit, which meant more money, but Angela never cared much about money beyond us having a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs. I cared about the money, the prestige–all of it. Usually, she just left me to it. But that day was different. I forgot I wasn't supposed to book anything."

His voice was starting to sound heavy. Truthfully, this was the most they'd ever spoken of his family. He didn't speak about them much, especially given his focus on Red John. In some ways, it seemed hard for him to hold them and his quest to find Red John in his mind at the same time.

He exhaled loudly. "I forgot until Charlotte came down the stairs that morning and asked me, 'Daddy, after you take me to the school today, can we go get a backpack like Dora's?' She loved that show. It's a show about a little girl who goes exploring with her friends. Charlotte would watch for hours, pretending to be on her own little adventures. "

"My niece used to really like that show too."

"I had forgotten that we were supposed to enroll her in school that day. I promised her I would go with her and make sure the school was good enough for a princess. She smiled when I said that. Luckily, she didn't notice that I was wearing my good suit–but Angela did. We argued a bit, and I told her how important this gig was. She asked me to cancel, to keep my promise to Charlotte. I wouldn't, and eventually, I just left after…well, I yelled at her. It was the only time…but I yelled at her. I yelled: 'Can't you handle this?' And I took off because I knew if I lingered, Charlotte would cry and ask why I was breaking my promise. That would take time to deal with. I was so full of myself!"

"I'm sure you're not the first person to have done something like that."

"I broke my promise to Charlotte. If I had kept it…" He didn't finish that sentence, opting for a bit of a pause before continuing. "Do you see what I'm saying, Lisbon? If I had just kept my promise to my daughter, she would still be alive. They both would. I was such a shitty husband and father."

"You made bad choices, but…"

"Oh, please! If I had to guess, I had about 3, maybe 4, years before Angela threw in the towel. Loving someone who can't even be bothered to set aside a quick scam to see to your needs and the needs of your kid–she did it all! And do you know what the worst part is? I knew that then. Whenever we would argue, I would have two thoughts in the back of my mind: how much would I have to give her, and how often could I see Charlotte. That was it because as a man with new found status, that's what I could do. Then, we would make up."

"Couples argue."

"Yes, and Angela was great. But do you see how I was a shitty husband and father?"

For a split second, his voice gave him away. He wanted her condemnation, not her pity. If she told him how horrible he was, it would be confirmed. He would be justified.

"No, I don't see that."

He scoffed. "Well, even Saint Teresa should be able to see…"

She abruptly cut him off. "What I see is a man who admits what too many of us are scared to admit: no one is perfect in our relationships. We all have room for improvement, and sometimes, we make mistakes. But one, two, three, or even more incidents don't make you a shitty husband and father."

"Wow. I didn't realize you had so much patience in your relationships."

"Don't be a smartass." She answered a bit reflexively, but she could also see how he was going to try to wriggle his way out of this. Even if she wanted to give him what he wanted, she was not inclined to do so. "You're still a husband and a father. If you weren't, you wouldn't be in this car with me. You wouldn't still wear your ring. Your desire to bring justice to your family? That's you being a husband and a father."

"If I'd been better at that when they were alive…"

"You weren't perfect. But you left your entire life to seek justice for them."

"I would have to seek justice if I had done the right thing from the beginning. They deserved better. Charlotte deserved a better father."

"You were doing your best at the time. Now, you're still doing your best."

"I broke that promise to her. How long would it have taken for her to realize what a fraud I was?"

And there it was.

"You would have always been her father."

"Not when she realized…"

"No! You would have always been her father." Sometimes, daughters could have a real blindspot when it came to their fathers. She would know. "She would have loved you anyway, just like you still love her. That doesn't disappear."

"Emotions may never go anywhere, but that doesn't change the fact that I let him take her from me. What kind of father does that?"

"You made a series of mistakes not uncommon in many families."

"If I had kept my promise to her, I'd still have a daughter. Because I couldn't do that one thing, she's no longer here."

"Yet, you're still keeping your promises to her. Her memory is still with you, regardless if you believe you could have been better."

He nodded. "You're right. I'm going to keep this promise to her. Maybe if I can fulfill it, I can finally be her father again. But I have to earn that privilege."

"Maybe someday, you will find it in you to forgive yourself. I think they would want you to do that."

"There's no forgiveness for a man like me. There's no redemption. I died that day too."

That caused her to whip her head and look at Jane. For the first time, she started to wonder if he truly meant to die with Red John.

Maybe someday, he would understand that people loved in spite of people's flaws. Maybe someday, he would see that he could be loved in spite of his own.