A/N: Sorry, but I keep having to put disclaimers on every story: I do not own the Mentalist or Smile by Nat King Cole.

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking

He hates pity. Pity is so patronizing. He's learned early on that when you're smiling, people don't worry about you. They smile themselves and pass you by.

It gets worse when he gets into the CBI. It's his fault his family's dead; pity becomes an insult. He desperately avoids it, and smiles all the time. He goes to bed for many nights with a cramp in his jaw, until he gets used to it.

Despite his best efforts, there's one person who knows why he smiles.

At least she would never dare pity him. So he lets it slide.

When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow

Fear is a weakness. He can't afford to show weakness.

He's noticed that people won't believe that you're scared if you're smiling. Also, the effort of hiding your feelings makes you forget, just a little bit, your problems. There are too many clouds in his life - he needs an outlet to cope.

So he smiles through hostage situations and kidnappings (not his own - he doesn't have a death wish - but when it happens to people around him). He smiles when he gets in trouble, and when he gets others in trouble.

And while everyone one around him curses him roudly (some mentally, some more forcefully) for his insensitivity, there's one person who understands.

And he fears the way she seems to look right through him. He really can't afford to show weakness. So he smiles a little wider.

Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

The new widow smiles up at them through her tears. She thanks them for their help, bravely says she'll feel better in the morning.

He doesn't understand how people can hope for tomorrow to be a better day. They're deluding themselves. There is no reason to believe that anything will change. And nine times out of ten nothing does. The one other time, things get worse.

Oddly enough, the fact that Lisbon subscribes to this philosophy doesn't lower his opinion of her. He won't tease her for it, either. This has been a bad case for her. It's not really that he's respecting a boundary. It's just that, even if he knows that tomorrow will be exactly the same, for some reason he wants her tomorrow to be slightly better than today.

He goes over and smiles at her, knowing he can cheer her up. He refuses to admit to himself how much he wants to see her smile tomorrow.

It's not that she makes him happy, oh no.

But sometimes it's a very good caricature of it.

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness

He can't help riling up anyone in a postion of authority. It's a compulsion.

He doesn't like to think of it that way, though. That would imply a reliance on something, like an addiction. So he smiles while he does it; he wants to prove that he enjoys this, that this is fully in his control.

He ignores the fact that there's one person who gets it, who tries to help him with this. She never says anything specific, but she has somehow managed to reign him in slightly.

He can't thank her for this. He can't even acknowledge it. He's supposed to be a white knight saving the memory of his wife. His armour may be tarnished, but it needs to be without a chink.

So he smiles through another dressing-down. Maybe, just maybe, he can make her think that he's happy about what he just said.

Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?

In the mental hospital, he cries a lot. It's a new experience for him. It's embarassing. He chalks it up to his mental breakdown.

One thing he learns, though, is that crying doesn't get you anywhere. You don't feel better, no one steps up and magically helps you, nothing has been accomplished. Nothing has improved.

But crying has become a part of him by now. He needs something to do, something to focus his mind on the task he has now set for himself.

Smiling is out of the question. He would feel like a hypocrite. His family is dead.

But talking with Sophie, he realizes that there is no middle ground for him. He cannot keep a neutral expression; he must be either crying or smiling. (Being mad just clouds his judgment. It's even worse than crying.)

So he picks the lesser of two evils. He starts smiling again, tentatively. Not often - just enough to keep the tears at bay. He gets better at it with practise.

A smile doesn't mean he's feeling cheerful. A smile is his game face.

There are only two people in the world who recognize this. And one of them is dead.

You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

She's mad at him again. He smiles. He truly can't help it. It's become to him the assurance that the sun will rise tomorrow, that rain will fall, that the moon won't tumble out of the sky.

It's the one constant in his life. He knows that when she gets mad, it's because she cares about him. And somehow, that makes life worthwhile.

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?

He hated this case. A young girl is now fatherless. Lisbon comes up beside him, clearly worried about him. He smiles at her, trying to throw her off the scent. No need to get her upset when he'll probably have forgotten about it tomorrow.

He's pretty sure he's fooled her. She wouldn't have said anything anyway. She knows as well as he does that everyone copes in their own way. And that how he copes is not something he intends to talk about. She also believes firmly that one's ways of coping with tragedy should never be made light of. He smiles a little brighter, turns away.

A thought comes into his head, brings him up short.

He's never heard her tease him for smiling so unremittingly. She's never even mentioned it.

You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

He's thrown his heart at her feet. He has no idea what she'll say. She's always known she held the key to his smiles - now she knows she's held the key to his heart for almost as long.

She smiles at him. "I feel the same way."

"Well that's lucky." It isn't until he starts to that he realizes it's been too long since he smiled like this. He's smiling, because he's happy. He can feel something cracking with the effort. It feels so good, like putting on shoes after walking across gravel barefoot.

His heart is singing. He's remembering something he forgot long ago, something he'd shut away somewhere along the long road that's brought him here.

He smiles when he's in love.