Title: A Special Place
Author: Caera1996
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine.
W/C: 985
Note / Summary: One-shot within TBoPE series (no need to read anything else to get this). This is the result of animesiren's request: "Would love to see Joanna interact more with the Kirks. Like, have Joanna struggle a bit with the idea of whether she can call Sam "Uncle Sam" or something like that. Have her sort of ponder the relation that she has with the Kirks because she sees that Jim is a parent to her now. And of course she'd be excited to be able to consider Janie her cousin!"

I hope you like it!

"Why do you call my Uncle Jim uncle?" Janie asked. Joanna looked up from the baby doll she was dressing as she continued. "He's not youruncle. He's my uncle."

"I asked if I could call him that and he said yes," Joanna replied, unsure as to the reasoning, but certain of the permission. Uncle Jim seemed to fit the best. He was kinda like a parent, but he wasn't her dad, and it didn't feel right to call him Mr. Kirk. "Uncle" didn't always feel exactly right, but it was the closest thing she could think of.

"Then how come you don't call my daddy Uncle Sam?"

"I didn't ask if I can, and it's not the same as with Uncle Jim," Joanna said with a shrug. She didn't talk to Janie's dad very much. She talked to Miss Aurelan a lot, but not really to Mr. Kirk.

"You should ask, cause if my daddy is your uncle, then we can be cousins," Janie said excitedly. "Do you have any cousins?"

"They live in Georgia."

"My cousins live far away too…Mass…Masschu…."

"Massachusetts," Joanna filled in, turning her attention back to the doll. She didn't like talking about family stuff like this. Her family was different, and talking about it made it hard to pretend that everything was the same.

"Yeah. But if we were cousins, then I would have a cousin here and so would you," Janie said. "You'd have two cousins, because of Kimmie."

Joanna stayed quiet, but felt a warm happiness at that possibility. She missed her cousins, and Janie could be her family.

"Do you like that idea?" Janie asked.

"Yeah," Joanna replied absently.

"Let's go ask!" she said, jumping up.

"Ask what?"

"For you to be my cousin! Come with me!"

Janie pulled on her hand, and Joanna stood up reluctantly. "I don't want to ask," Joanna said.

Janie rolled her eyes and huffed a sigh. Joanna neverwanted to talk to anyone else.

"I'll ask," she said. "Come on."

The girls went downstairs in search of Janie's father. Her mom was running errands and took Kimmie, and her dad was doing some of his work on the kitchen table.

"Daddy!" Janie said, announcing her presence.

Sam looked up from the papers in front of him and smiled as his youngest skipped into the kitchen. Looking past her, he saw Joanna hanging back near the doorway. She was getting better, but she was still very shy around him. She was slightly more talkative around Aurelan, but she very rarely addressed him directly.

"Hey munchkin," he said. "What's up?"

"Can me and Joanna be cousins?"

"Uhh…well, you're not related, so you're not really cousins. But you can pretend."

"Just pretend? But Joanna calls Uncle Jim 'uncle', just like I do. So if she called you 'uncle' too, then can we be cousins? Can she call you uncle?"

Ah,Sam thought. It figured that the kiddos would hit him with a question like that when he was the only one around. Sam looked back at Joanna who was still by the doorway, her hand at her mouth, a blush coloring her cute face.

"Do you and Joanna want a snack?" he asked, stalling. And trying to draw Jo into the kitchen.

"Yeah! Can I have some Oreos?" Janie asked, sliding into a chair.

"Sure. Joanna, would you like a couple of Oreos?" Sam asked, standing. Silently, she nodded and moved to the table, taking a seat near Janie. Sam got up and pulled the cookies out, and poured the girls some milk while he thought about the way to handle this. He wasn't sure what Leonard would want, though from what he knew of him, he was usually pretty straightforward and truthful with her. Simple, for sure. But truthful.

"So can we?" Jaine asked, when he joined them back at the table. "Can we be cousins?"

"Here's the thing," Sam said, folding his hands in front of him and looking between the two girls as they pulled the cookies apart, munched, and dipped them in their milk, dripping and dropping cookie crumbs. "You two are better than cousins. Because real cousins haveto be cousins, because they're family. You two are 'best friend cousins', and you're cousins because you choose to be, not because you have to be. Does that make sense?"

"So we can be cousins even if you're not Joanna's uncle?" his daughter asked, trying to work out the relationships.

"That's right!" Sam said.

"But can Joanna call you uncle?" Janie persisted.

Sam looked speculatively over at Joanna, wondering whose idea that really was.

"Well, Joanna calls your Uncle Jim 'uncle' because he has a special place in their family."

"Do I have a special place in their family?" Janie asked.

"You're my best friend cousin!" Joanna piped up. "That's special." Sam smiled, happy that she got it, and very happy to hear her.

"That's right. That's your special place, Janie. Does that make sense?"

Janie nodded happily, in the process of dipping one of the chocolate wafers into her cup of milk, all the way to her fingertips. Looking back over at Jo, he smiled at her and she looked away.

"So what do you want to call me, Joanna?" he asked, curious how she would react at being put on the spot.

Flushing, Joanna shrugged.

"Well, you can call me Sam. You can call me Mr. Kirk. If you want," he added, just in case, "you can call me Uncle Sam. You choose, okay? Whatever you want."

"Okay," she said.

It didn't escape Sam that Jo didn't address him by name the rest of the afternoon, but he didn't mind that. She'd figure it out, and whatever she decided, however she wanted to reconcile Jim's title and Sam's role in her family, would be fine with him.

After all, she had a special place in their family, too.