"I try to spread my fingers wide enough to let you go."

I ride the public transit here in Seattle and they have something called poetry on buses. This line really struck me as beautiful. What follows is the result. I hope you enjoy it. And I posted immediately after writing so let me know if there are any mistakes, please. Thanks!

Clearly, I do not own The Mentalist nor the line of poetry that prompted this. Though I would *love* it if people wrote their own fic inspired by this line. Because I love the line so much that I would love to read others' interpretations of it.

ADD: I just added a second (and last!) chapter.

Butterfly, Flutter By

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Patrick Jane knew that he was broken. He knew it wasn't normal to be uncaring of your own welfare. Knew it wasn't normal to be fixated on a single man, a single thing. Knew it wasn't normal to sleep on a bare mattress under a grotesque grin painted in the blood of your dead family.

Knew it wasn't right to be so fascinated, so intrigued, with his boss. With Teresa Lisbon.

He should leave her be, keep his distance. After all, he was a man without a future.

But he couldn't seem to help it. Something about her called to him. She was a wonderful mix of contradiction—steel and silk. Strong, yet fragile. A stickler for rules, but willing to go to bat for the underdog against all odds. Willing to go to bat for her team, for him.

Jane knew that she cared too much for him. That he would hurt her. Maybe not physically, but mentally…emotionally…he knew that one day he would look up from the dead body of his nemesis and see disappointment in her eyes. Disappointment and hurt. He wondered why his chest felt tight when he thought of that moment.

Really, could a broken man feel?

He figured that was the precise reason that she drew him in. Something about her made him feel alive again. For a time, she could make him forget that he was in pieces, shattered. And even when he came back down to reality, she was there. Calmly and gently handling him before giving him a way to maneuver against the strong waves of darkness that threatened to consume him.

He sometimes wondered if she knew that she was the only thing that had kept him together these past few years. He doubted it. He sometimes wondered where he would be without her at this very moment.

In another locked, pristine room?

Dead?

A recluse in his home, locked in with terrible memories?

Mindlessly chasing after a ghost? Fruitlessly chasing a serial killer?

He knew that, though she may not agree with him and they didn't always see eye to eye, she was the perfect person to put on the Red John case. She was determined. She didn't let things get her down—at least, not for long.

She was the strongest person he knew. But, unlike most people, he knew that she was also fragile underneath. And that he would seriously hurt her. In a way that would make it so she was never the same again.

So he knew it wasn't right to be so fascinated with her. He knew he should leave her be.

He tried to spread his fingers wide enough to let her go.

But somehow, someway he just couldn't. It seemed that his incredibly strong willpower deserted him when it came to her. The same willpower that allowed him to abandon everything about his life before he lost his family. The same willpower that made it so he didn't care what he gave up as long as he got his revenge.

Somehow, it left him when he was with Teresa Lisbon.

And he wished he was a different person. One who was normal. One who could move forward. Who wouldn't hurt her.

But he knew he wasn't strong enough.

And so he started to wish that she would be like a butterfly, wild and free, rather than one that he felt he was caging.

He watched her at her desk, light spilling in the window and spinning a ethereal atmosphere about her, making her appear fragile.

Butterfly, flutter by.