Future fic. First time with the Mentalist characters. Obviously, I don't own them.
"We're going to win ! Quick, put this one there, quick. Kill the red one," yelled excitedly the 6-years-old boy.
"Don't tell your mother," Patrick Jane whispered to the blond boy next to him as he followed orders. Both were sitting cross-legged on the floor. In front of them, the little wood soldier were waging war against the plastic ones. "She won't understand."
"Understand what ?", the boy asked, still focused on the raging war in front of them. The wood lieutenant in his hand crushed an unknown green plastic soldier, which flew away.
"You and me against the world. You're the shadow of my pain, but I see you winning the war," he smiled. Jane took another wood soldier and advanced it towards the plastic general. Ignoring the answer he didn't understand, the boy took one of his own and together they made the toy fly across the room.
"Yeah ! We won !" The youngest shouted, turning towards his dad.
"You and me. I see us winning all the wars," Jane said. The son looked quizzically at his dad, sensing something was, no... not wrong.
"You're 'menancholic', dad," he noted, moving to hug his dad, who hugged him back with a smile.
"Not melancholic. I just... You're the success I wasn't expecting."
"It's you and me against the world, dad."
"Yeah, it is."
From the corridor, Lisbon watched her husband and their son lovingly. When the boy had approached Charlotte's age at the time of the Red John's muders, Jane had started to have anxiety issues. She was glad that instead a removing himself, he had chosen to fight alongside his son against the dark place in his heart.
The end.