Author's Note: Well, this is the last chapter of this story for at least two weeks. I am on my way to Boston and then to New York City for vacation. Never been there before, and I am so excited I might just faint. Hoping I might run into some of our Third Watch friends, but I am almost sure that I am not that lucky. So, my friends, I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'll have more soon.

Mikey's Heart

That night when Mikey got home from his pool tournament he found Bosco and I in the livingroom at the computer transferring the pictures we had taken of Kath and the twins from our digital camera to our computer's family album. Davis was snugly in bed and we had the baby monitor plugged into the wall beside us in case he woke up. We sat side by side at the large oak desk that had come from the Boscorelli family generations back, and looked in awe and pride at our latest additions. The boys were truly wonderful.

We were so blessed to have Kath's forgiveness and her friendship. We had taken pictures of Davis and the twins sitting side by side on the couch. Since they were all six months old we could leave them sitting up by themselves for a short period of time. How sweet they were sitting there, our three angels; three brothers from different circumstances. It was hard to believe that our oldest son was only twenty six years old and he had three children.

What could have been an very uncomfortable day had turned out to be a renewal between Kath and us; a new beginning for our family. I didn't know how Mikey would feel about Bosco and I having a relationship with his twins or with Kath, but it didn't matter. We were going to see them whether or not he liked it. Kath had held Davis in her arms and hugged and kissed him. She thought he was one of the most beautiful babies she had ever seen.

At first I thought that it would be very difficult for her to see Davis, but I was wrong. She took to him, and he to her, as if they had always known one another. I watched her, as Bosco and I took our positions on the sectional couch with one twin in each of our laps, sitting in our rocking chair, singing a lullaby to him, her cheek pressed against his head, and wished that she and Mikey would have been able to work things out, for she would have been good to our Davis, and he needed a mother so badly. I sighed and leaned my head against Bosco's shoulder and he reached over and gave my hand a squeeze, I'm sure, wishing the same thing.

It had been Bosco's idea to get as many pictures as we could on our digital camera and then put them on the computer. That way we would always have them and we could send some to whom ever we wished. I thought that we should maybe print some off for Arthur so he could see them too, but I didn't bother asking Bosco just then. I would wait until the time was right and things were settled down a bit. The only thing I was worried about was what Mikey's reaction would be to Kath's visit.

Bosco and I had discussed what we would say to him when he saw the pictures, and how we would tell him that he not only had one other child, but two. The pictures would speak for themselves, we decided.

"What are we going to tell him?" I asked, as we had sat down to supper.

Bosco shrugged, as was his way for almost everything. "I dunno, Faith. What can we say?" He shook too much salt on his deep fried french fries as he spoke. "We can only tell him the truth. It's less complicated."

"Don't put so much salt on that. You know what Dr. Newman told you." I henpecked.

"I don't care." He admonished, shaking even more on the already saturated fries. "I'm only gonna live once and I happen to like salt."

"You won't live long if you keep this up. You can't eat like this at your age—" I continued, trying to grab it from him.

"Woman—" He warned me, annoyed. "Keep your hands to yourself."

I reached over and grabbed the salt from his hand and earned myself a withering glare. "Bos, don't you think he's going to be shocked when he finds out? I mean, what would you say?" I countered, lightly lacing my fries with the salt and setting it out of his reach.

He sighed and rolled his eyes at me. "I think I know how much salt to put on my own food, thanks." He said, grabbing for the pepper instead, as if that would add the much desired taste and shook it violently all over his food. "and, I think that he will handle it as well as to be expected. But to tell you the truth it doesn't matter what he thinks. He gave up his rights to see his off-spring with her."

By the time we were finished our supper, we decided that we would do up the pictures right around the time that Mikey would come home so that he would just come in and see us and notice the pictures on the screen and ask us about them. It was the easiest way to bring up the conversation.

And so, when our eldest son came strolling through the door and into the livingroom to see what we were up to, I felt so nervous, I could hardly keep myself in the chair.

"Hey, what's goin on?" He asked as he flopped down on the rocking chair and closed his eyes. He had been drinking and I could smell the stale smell of cigarettes as well as the alcohol. I didn't mind, though, because it was only once a week that he got to go out and do anything social. He never had too much, just enough to get a buzz on and one of his fellow officers would always drive him home and then pick him up for work again the next day.

I looked over at him and smiled nervously while biting down on my lower lip. He looked relaxed and happy. His posture wasn't tight and his boyish face was turned into a small smile as he rested his head on the back of the rocker.

"Hey Mike, how'd you guys do tonight?" Bosco asked without turning around. "Didja beet those jag-offs from the fifty-fourth?"

"Hell ya! Beat 'em every game accept for one. That puts us into the finals next month." He said happily. "So, how's my boy doin tonight? Is he sleepin?" He asked, opening his blue eyes and fixing them on me intently.

"Oh, he's been down for a while. He had a big day today." I revealed and then cleared my throat, trying to get Bosco to speak first. He didn't even notice what we were doing on the computer.

"Oh, ya? What didja's do today?" He asked, while yawning and stretching his long legs out in front of him. He wore a blue t-shirt that brought out the color of his brilliantly colored eyes and a pair of jeans and his black Doc Martin boots. He wore his NYPD ball cap on his head. He looked good, but not like he was trying too hard.

"Well, we had a visitor." Bosco said slowly, turning around to look at our son. "Actually, we had three visitors."

"Oh, who?" He asked, his interest minimal, closing his eyes again and scrubbing his face with his palms.

Bosco pushed back the computer chair and turned it around to face Mikey. "Well—It was Kath."

He dropped his hands from his face and his eyes opened immediately. We had his attention.

"What?" Mikey blinked a couple of times and stared back, his face blank, showing no emotion, but he did cross his arms over his sculpted chest. " She came here? To see you? Why? And who else?" He asked, in a slightly husky voice, and then cleared his throat. "Did she have the baby with her?" He asked, looking down at the floor, his ball cap hiding his eyes.

"Was it a boy?" He asked as an after-thought. "She wanted a boy." He murmured.

"Yes, she did. But there's something else that we have to tell you. Something that you don't know and we didn't know until today. It's big." He said. "Really big."

Mikey sat up straighter in the chair and looked at us. "What? Did she get married or something? She met some other guy? She brought another guy to our house?" He questioned, in a hard tone. "Is that the third person?"

If I hadn't known about his confession of being in love with Carly, I would have sworn that he was jealous. I shifted my chair around to face him and blocked the screen so he wouldn't see it yet. "Honey, it wasn't another guy." I said softly, brushing my hair behind my ears. "Don't worry."

He scoffed. "I wasn't worried." He said sharply. " I don't care even if it was. She's not my girl anymore. She didn't even want me to see the kid. Demanded that I give up my rights just because I said that it would be better for her to have an abortion. We were both too young to have a kid then. Why are you telling me all of this? I don't want to know what she's doin." He said angrily.

Oh, how his emotions could change in the blink of an eye. He was so much like his father it was uncanny. Bosco would have reacted the same way. He would have pretended that he didn't give a damn, but it was clear to me at that moment that my son wouldn't have been upset if he didn't care.

"Michael, you had a child with Carly at the same time. You weren't too young for that." I reminded him.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Mom! I know that—but things changed when I actually saw him. Kath's baby was just an—" He searched for the right word. "Just a thought. It wasn't a reality. And what does it matter now? I don't have any claim for him anyway—so why are you bringing up something that I can't control? I don't want to know about him." He said sternly, his face starting to get tight and a bit red. He flexed the muscles in his jaw as he clamped down hard on his teeth and gritted them.

I was shocked, to say the least. I hadn't known that he had even given Kath a second thought or the baby for that matter. But what I should have realized was that my son was so much like his father; and that he kept most of his thoughts to himself. The ones that really mattered belonged to him and he didn't share them.

"Why not? He's your son, Michael."

He jumped up from the rocker and held out his arms toward me, his eyes watery and shining. "Don't you think I know that? Do you honestly think that I just forgot about her? Every time I look at Davis I am reminded that I have another son out there that I'll never see. That I can't even inquire about because I hurt his mother so much. Do you really think I'm that big of an asshole?"

"No! Don't say that!" I said, sorry for making him upset. "We don't think that. I just want you to know him and see what he looks like. Kath came here to see us. She doesn't hold anything against you. We took pictures and she saw Davis and she thought he was beautiful—" I rambled on, wanting him to know the whole truth.

"Faith, just wait a second!" Bosco interrupted, putting his hand on my leg. "He doesn't even know the whole story yet."

"What?" Mikey huffed, exasperated. He sat down again on the rocker and rested his elbows on his knees. "What else is there?"

"I don't know how to tell you this, son." Bosco said gently. "But Kath had twins. You have two more sons, not one."

I don't know how to describe the look of shock and confusion that was written across my second son's face at that moment. He looked from one of us to the other with a kind of incredulous look of 'you must be crazy'. "What? Twins? Are you shitting me?" He asked in a very unsteady voice.

I broke out into a wide grin and put my hand over my chest. "Yes! And they are beautiful, Mikey! Just beautiful!"

"Mike, we took all kinds of pictures of them for you. Actually, we took tons of picture of the three of them." Bosco said, turning around and gesturing for Mikey to come and look. He waited a second and then turned back around when he didn't move. "Michael? Come see." He said again, looking over at me with a questioning look.

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" I asked. "You have to see them—she named them after you and your father! Aidan Michael and Owen Maurice". I said, loudly.

"I can't look at them."

"Why not? They're beautiful!"

"You said. I heard you." He said dryly, as he buried his face in his hands.

"But—don't you want to see what they look like?" I asked, shocked and starting to get a little bit angry. This was the old Mikey. The one who didn't give a damn; the one who just wanted to forget about these children because he was too selfish. I should have known that this change of heart wasn't totally for real. Yes, he was being a great father to Davis, but he needed to be a father to the twins too. Even though he had signed away his rights, he still could see them. Kath had said so. What was wrong with him?

He took his hands away from his face and gave Bosco and I a nasty stare. He shook his head and bit down on his lower lip and snarled at us. " You just can't leave it alone can you?"

"What? She came to see us." Bosco said, his temper starting to show.

"I gave up my rights to them, don't you get that? I can't see them. I can't have a relationship with them! So why are you trying to get me to look at two kids that I can't even call my own? Are you trying to make me feel bad for what I did?" He accused us brokenly. He stood up and pointed at us.

"Trust me—You can't make me feel any worse than I already do!" He yelled, and poked his chest with his forefinger.

"We're not trying to make you feel bad!" Bosco yelled, standing up and facing him. "We just want you to see your children! Is that so bad? Kath came here and she told us that she wanted things to be different, that she wished that you two had worked it out!" He yelled, desperately, searching our son's face to make him understand.

He reached out and clamped his hands over both of Mikey's arms and held him tight, forcing him to look into his eyes. "Son, she still loves you and she wants you to see your sons. Do the right thing, cause this kind of chance only happens once in a lifetime. You have a set of beautiful twins, named Aidan and Owen Boscorelli. That's right; she gave them your last name because she wanted them to have the family name. Michael, before it's too late, just look over at the computer screen and see your children." He implored, letting go of his arms. "Do it for Davis; do it for yourself, but most of all do it for those two little boys who don't have a father right now."

"Please, Michael." I begged, the tears now starting down my face. I held out my hand to him and he walked over and took it and sat down at the desk and started to click through all of the pictures. Bosco walked over behind him and put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed him, letting him know that we were still behind him one hundred and fifty percent.

I learned an important lesson in life that day; No matter what had happened in the past, no matter what was to come in the future; we always had to stick together and love each other to the best of our ability. Because all that really mattered was family.

TBC