Bittersweet Memories Mentalist Fanfiction

A/N: Here is the last chapter :'( Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and added this story to their alert list. Since I dedicated the last chapter to my friend Caleb, I thought I would name Jane and Lisbon's son after him, because I really couldn't think of a name! At first I thought I would name him after Lisbon's brother, Tommy, but that didn't really work. So Caleb it is! Obviously this chapter is dedicated to him :) Anyway, back to the story...

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or the show… sadly

Detour

Patrick Jane sat on the beach watching his beautiful family play in the water. Destiny was splashing in the water, while Lisbon held their son, Caleb, in her arms.

Jane was thinking how lucky he was and how easily none of this could have happened at all.

If he hadn't realized that he was in love with Lisbon and taken a detour on his path to catch Red John, he could have been sitting in prison right now, or worse.

This detour was the best one he could ever have taken. If he hadn't, Lisbon might be with another man and those two beautiful children in the water wouldn't be his, but someone else's.

Jane breathed in deeply and closed his eyes as he thought about these things. This was the reason he didn't see Lisbon, Destiny, and Caleb coming over with a big clump of dripping, wet seaweed.

Destiny threw the green plant at her father and he jumped as he felt the cold, wet thing on his skin.

Destiny, Lisbon, and Caleb were laughing uncontrollably as they watched Jane stand from his beach chair and start to remove the seaweed.

"Oh, so you guys think this is funny?" Jane asked with a mischievous grin.

"Hilarious!" Lisbon declared as she wiped tears of laughter from her eyes.

"Well then," Jane began as he grabbed most of the seaweed. "Let's see what you say when you're the ones covered in seaweed!"

Jane started to run after a squealing Destiny with the green plant and she ran as fast as she could. Lisbon just stood by and watched as the two 'children' ran around with the seaweed.

Eventually Jane was out of breath and called it a truce. Jane walked over to Lisbon, who was sitting with a sleeping Caleb all swaddled up in towels, and pecked her on the cheek as he sat down.

"Did you have fun?" Lisbon asked with a smile.

"Of course," Jane replied as he kissed Lisbon on the lips.

"Mm," Lisbon said as she pulled away. "Where's Destiny?"

Jane brushed a stray piece of hair out of Lisbon's eyes and replied, "Looking at a little tide pool we found."

"Let me go and see what little critters are in that pool." Lisbon said as she pecked Jane and stood up.

Jane grabbed Lisbon's hand just as she was about to start walking in the direction of the tide pool.

When Lisbon turned to look at him with a questioning look he said, "Teresa, thank you for being my detour."

"What?" Lisbon asked with a slight giggle.

"I'll tell you later." Jane replied with his megawatt smile.

Jane watched Lisbon walk away and couldn't help but smile at what he thought Lisbon would say when she saw the little crab that Destiny had found.

That's going to be a sight I have to see. Jane thought to himself as he looked over at Caleb who was sleeping peacefully. Maybe next time though.

How about a review for this last chapter? Lara :)