I know better. I really do. I'm sensible, tough, down-to-earth. I'm a cop with glock 19 and a no-nonsense attitude. I have no business with tragic hopeless romance.

He fascinated me from the first time I met him, of course. He fascinates everyone. Like a car crash, sometimes, when he is on one of his capers; people simply can't look away. It wasn't the golden curls that first caught my attention, or the infectious smile. It was the fragility, somewhere in his eyes. Saint Teresa. That's me. I can't help but try to fix something – someone – who is broken.

He drove me crazy at first. The whole CBI knows that. Hell, the whole state of California probably knows that. He was everything I despised. Untrustworthy, untruthful, lazy. Selfish. But, later... there were moments. The trust fall, during the Carnelian case. He seemed so genuinely hurt when I told him that I didn't trust him. He nearly let me fall. I was barely inches from the ground when he caught me. I'd thought that it was too late, that he had let me fall, and then he caught me. That's Patrick. He comes through for you when you least expect it.

The battle for Patrick's sanity is ongoing. The dark things that he says, while we drive together late at night, make me fear that he is lost. That this vendetta against Red John will be the end of him, one way or another. It makes me fear that there is not enough of Patrick left to survive whatever confrontation is coming between the CBI and Red John.

I have hope. Patrick's words state one thing, his actions another. Sometimes he lets the vendetta slip a little. He killed for me. We had Red John within reach, and he killed the man who could lead him to Red John, to save me.

I began to slip, in small ways at first. Little touches, just a little more often than really necessary. Hugs here and there, not unusual or inappropriate between colleagues who are also close friends. It took me too long to notice that he tolerated physical contact only from me, how he hated it from other people.

The case at the high-school reunion, with the slow dance to an old favorite song by Extreme. It was just one more step for me, one more little thing that made me fall even deeper. One more crack in my armor, but it was memorable. It was the first time I held him for pleasure's sake, and the feel of his breath in my hair made me weak at the knees.

I don't regret taking him into my bed. I've never had a lover like him. His sensitivity, his ability to read people, his need to get a reaction... who can blame me for going back for more?

And now... this thing that has happened, this changes everything. It was an accident, of course. I would not choose this, not in this relationship that we hide from the team, not with a man I might loose to a killer. However, it has happened, and I must bear the consequences. As I lie here, one hand on my still-flat belly, I think of how Red John would love to use this against Patrick; how he would love to torture him with the bodies of this child and I. Resolve creeps through me. Red John will not take this child from me, and he will not take the man who fathered it. I will not allow it.