12) At exactly 1900 that evening, there was a knock at Jack's front door. He quickly checked the sauce for the spaghetti and wiped his hand on the dishtowel hanging from the stove's handle.
Jack didn't know what it was that Rick Stevens had wanted him to talk to Sean about, but dinner was always a good tension breaker, right? Until the young man had reported for duty, Jack had never met any of Karol's kids. In fact, on his trip home that night he had thought of what exactly he knew about Sean, which amounted to just about nil.
He knew Sean had a twin brother named Colin. He knew they were both married. He had found out from Karol that Sean and his wife had lost a child a few years back, Colin didn't have any children and he had recently found out from Sean that Rick wasn't their real father.
Unfortunately, it led him to the many things he didn't know about them. Karol had never told him how old they were, and because of the way he ran his training operations, he knew only the recruits' ranks. He preferred to see what they could do rather than who they were.
Shaking his head free of his thoughts, he opened the door to the couple that was waiting on his porch, nervously switching from foot to foot. Trying to lighten the mood, Jack spoke up. "Sean, right? I mean, you and Colin didn't switch to try and throw me off or anything, did you?" The smile on his face and the laughter in his eyes, relaxed the Lt. noticeably.
"No, Sir. Colin's still in Chicago, sir," Sean said, smiling slightly back. "This is my wife, Trish, sir."
"Please, come in." He motioned for the two to follow him. "And while you're here, it's Jack, no sir, or Colonel, or any of that." He led them into the dining room and took the thick folder he had just noticed Sean carrying, placing it on the counter for later.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think I can do that," Sean replied with a soft smile. Jack just shrugged at the response.
He sat them down to dinner, which took place amicably, idle chitchat taking precedence over anything else they may have had on their minds. When it was over, Jack set the dishes to soak, and made coffee for the group.
He brought it out to them and sat across the couch where they had seated themselves. Trish politely waved off her coffee and continued to sip the water Jack had gotten her during dinner.
"So," Jack started, not really sure what they were going to talk about. "What's in the folder?" He had noticed the younger man grab it quickly off the counter at the end of dinner and now held it tightly in his grasp.
"It's why my mother headed back to Chicago so quickly after getting here." Sean shifted in his seat until his wife placed a comforting hand on his knee. "It's, uh, why I need to talk to you."
"Oh?" Jack leaned back in his chair, staring over the rim of his mug.
"It contains all the information leading to my father, my real father. You know him, very well. I sorta… need to find a way to tell him." For the first time, Jack noticed fear in the young man's eyes. He'd never seen it there during the training that day, which fully backed up his feelings that this man could be their next team leader or possibly even the replacement for Sam.
"So, who is he?" Jack was curious by nature, it only figured.
"I'm not at liberty to say just yet." Sean's eyes still held that fear, like he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. "I just recently found out why my father never knew about us, and it's just a little frustrating. Can I tell you about my parents, without any interruptions? I might not get the nerve to finish if I don't."
Jack nodded for him to continue, and noticed the comforting squeeze Trish gave him.
"No matter what I say, no matter what discoveries you realize, I'm just going to keep on going."
Sean took a breath before continuing with the beginning of his story.
"My parents were best friends their entire lives, and because of that closeness, my mom always made sure we knew who our father was, even if he never knew us. My parents grew up together, had most of their first together, including, well, you know, which happened the night before my father's family moved out of town. They kept in touch for two weeks until my mother got ill. That was basically when the 'shit hit the fan.'" Sean watched Jack's eyes, searching for a hint of understanding.
"Gramma and Gramps took her to the doctor where they found out she was pregnant, not sick. Mom wanted to run home immediately and call Dad, let him know, but Gramma and Gramps wouldn't have any of it. Since she was only sixteen, they sent her away. All her letters, outgoing and incoming, were intercepted, and Dad was never allowed to know. Pape Matt and Nan were told immediately, but they made the decision not to tell Dad.
"Mom was so scared when she found out there were two of us. She cried for hours, wanting Dad there with her. Gramma felt a little guilty during one of her visits and told Mom that Dad didn't know, otherwise she was sure he'd be there for her, but that they weren't going to tell him. Mom was pretty pissed about that, especially since his parents had supplied her doctor with his medical records to see if there was anything they needed to watch out for during the pregnancy, but had decided that she was going to track him down the very day he turned eighteen.
"Rick was the only one of their friends who stuck by Mom through everything, and was there when Colin and I were born. He had overheard Mom and Dad talking about kids names once, back before Dad even had a clue he was moving, and told Mom she should pick out names that she and Dad had discussed.
"Rick was great for Mom. He helped her take care of us every chance he could. He'd stay at the house and watch us on the weekends so Mom, Gramma and Gramps could all sleep in, or he'd watch us at night so the three of them could go out for a little alone time. He'd even take Mom out by herself so she could relax every once in a while.
"When we were two, Mom tried tracking down Dad, but his parents told her he had joined the Air Force the day he turned eighteen and was currently unreachable. Rick was there for Mom while she searched for Dad. He helped her in every way he knew how. He knew my mom loved Dad more than life itself, but he had fallen in love with her and by the time we were four, they had decided to get married. Mom did fall in love with Rick, but I think the major part that made her was the fact that he understood her need to have her boys know their father.
"Rick never seemed bitter about the fact that Mom was so focused on Dad. In fact when we were six and a half, I tried to introduce him as my dad, but he jumped in to correct me so fast I thought my head would spin. The weird thing was, though, that I had at first thought he was mad that he wasn't our dad, but he sat me down and told me that he was there for us and our mom, but would never try to replace Dad. Rick always treated us like we were his own, but would tell us all about our dad if we asked.
"We were always surrounded by pictures of Dad. Pape Matt would send us current ones and what our father was up to when he could, but would never tell him about us. I thought it was so unfair. I got in a fight with Pape Matt when I was thirteen about it.
"When we were nine, Kyle was born. Even though Rick wasn't our Dad, Kyle was as much our brother as Colin and I were. We didn't treat him any different and we never put any emphasis on the fact that he was only our half brother.
"The years went by slowly. We would hear little snippets from Pape Matt every now and then about Dad, like when he got married, and when his son was born. Colin and I each got a picture of our brother.
"We graduated top of the class, and I joined the Air Force in Dad's footsteps, while Colin went on to college. Mom had begged Pape Matt to tell Dad about us so he could come see us graduate, but he wouldn't budge. Trish and I got married when we were nineteen and Colin and Steph got married when we were twenty.
"About that same time, Trish found out she was pregnant and when we told Mom, she was in a rush to find Dad. She didn't have his medical records anymore and we needed to make sure nothing would go wrong. Unfortunately, he'd just been transferred and Pape Matt didn't have his address or phone number yet. By the time Mom got the information, Dad was declared MIA. Four months later he was on the list of POW's that had been released from an Iraqi prison.
"Mom gave him another two months before trying to call him, but by that time there had been some complications and our son was born two and a half months early. Mom got so tied up with trying to help us that she just forgot about calling him again.
"Two months after he was born, our son was allowed to come home. We were scared to death to bring him home with us. We got to spend a month with him before he got bronchial pneumonia. We rushed him to the hospital, but it was too late. We lost him the same night. It turned out that the doctors had sent him home too early and we won a wrongful death suit against the hospital. It basically covered our hospital and funeral costs.
"The day after we lost our son, Mom went back home and found a message from Dad, asking her to call him back. She had completely forgotten that she'd done the same a month prior. She was originally going to tell him about us, but was too emotionally drained to. Then the right moment never came to bring it up.
"They stayed in constant contact after that, and two years later, when Dad lost his son, and consequently his wife, Mom flew down to be with him. Colin and I decided to visit our brother's grave and mourn for ourselves, without anyone knowing who we were. After that their contact seemed sporadic. It was a new assignment the Air Force had dragged him in for that had him out of the country constantly.
"Well, just recently I was transferred to the same facility Dad works in, Cheyenne Mountain, and Mom came down to help us get settled. The day after she arrived, Trish and I decided to tell her that Trish is pregnant again. Mom immediately picked up the phone and made flight reservations to go home and pick up the folder. She was going to take it to Dad, tell him all about us, and get his medical records before something happened to this baby, too. That was also the same flight that she was on when she died."
Unshed tears stung the back of Sean's eyes, while Trish openly wept. Jack didn't know what to do. He sat back, trying to understand all of what Sean had just told him. It didn't' make sense. He would know if he had had any children besides Charlie, wouldn't he? But Daniel's comment from earlier played over again in his mind.
He couldn't believe it. Why would his own parents lie to him? He couldn't deny, though, the startling accuracy with which Sean recounted the events. Pape Matt and Nan, that's what Charlie had always called them. Jack's eye's flashed with anger towards his parents. They had been in contact with their other grandsons and he had never even known they existed.
Sean saw the flash and for a moment thought it was directed at him, until the look softened and Jack spoke. "Can I see the folder?" he asked quietly.
Flipping through the files, he saw it was all there. The birth certificates, their blood types, even little hermetically sealed samples of their blood. He was startled to see that Karol had given the boys his last name. Among the formal papers he also noted that there were physical read-outs of their DNA for sample.
At the back of the folder, after the official forms and documents, was what looked like a homemade photo album. It was what had made the folder so thick in the first place. As he started flipping through it, Sean spoke up.
"At the end of every year, Mom would pick her four favorite photos and put them on a page for you."
The first picture was of Karol, sitting at a desk in a room Jack didn't recognize, writing.
When Sean saw what picture it was, he said, "That was the day Mom got settled into the place she was sent. Rick took it. He, uh, documented her pregnancy for you, and then our lives over the years."
The next few photos looked like they were each taken once a month to show her progress and how big she was getting. He got to the picture of Karol and the boys on the day they had been born and softly ran his fingers over it. He didn't cry, that wasn't like him, but he felt the emotions deep inside. The next two were the official first photos of Sean Michael and Colin James O'Neill.
The first coherent thought that ran through Jack's head was how much Charlie had looked like his brothers. The second he voiced quietly.
"I really am your father, aren't I?"
"Yeah," Sean said. "Now you see why I can't call you Jack? You've been Dad my whole life."
"Not that I doubt you, because I don't in the least, but we should really have everything checked out by the Doc in the morning."
Jack continued flipping through the folder until he saw both Sean and Colin's wedding photos. It hurt that he hadn't been there, but he couldn't change that. He'd learned long ago that it was futile to try to change the past. The next page was what seemed to be Sean and Trish, and very excited too. He figured that was when they'd found out about their son.
Just like with Karol, Rick had documented Trish's pregnancy as well. He saw how little she seemed to grow before the photo of the parents carefully cradling their son in the clean room. He was so incredibly tiny. Next to that was the official first photo of Charles Michael O'Neill.
"Tell me about him," Jack said softly. It'd just hit him, he'd had a grandson he'd never met and would never meet. It, like most everything else that was happening that evening, hurt more than he'd realized.
"Charlie was so small. I could fit him in the palm of my hand with his little legs hanging over my wrists. When he was first born, we sat with him twenty-four hours a day. The day he came home was the happiest and scariest day of our lives. I took a temporary leave of absence the day he was born and got to spend the entire month with Trish and Charlie. He had the most amazing smile. Rick managed to capture it on film a few times and we even got a few of them on tape. He was such a happy baby."
Sean wrapped an arm around his wife and brushed her tears away with his thumb. Jack had to smile at the simple gesture showing the love between the two.
"The night he got sick, we rushed him to the hospital. They put him into the NICU, but with his underdevelopment, it was too much for his little body. We found out he'd been released too soon."
Jack looked at the couple across from him, then down at the photos in his hands. He saw the smiling baby staring up at him.
"I wish I could have known him. He looks a lot like my Charlie." Jack's eyes turned wistful.
"That was part of why we named him Charlie, after the brother we never met, but had hoped to soon."
He finished looking through the photos. The last one had been taken the year before on what looked like a family vacation. Karol stood in the middle with Rick behind her and Kyle in front of her. Sean and Trish were on one side, Colin and Steph were on the other and next to Kyle stood another teenaged girl who looked to be about the same age as the young boy. They had all looked so happy.
Jack closed the folder and set it on the coffee table.
"I was sent a copy of the flight itinerary and where everybody was seated. Karol and Sara were next to each other."
The rest of the night was spent with mostly Jack filling them in on his life up to that point, except what was classified; he really didn't want to kill his new found son at all. At the end of the night, Jack felt like he'd never missed a moment of his son's life.
Jack walked them out to their car at around 2100. "Sean, we need to stop by the General's office in the morning. It isn't ethical for me to be your evaluating officer anymore. I'm scheduled to be at the base at 0730, we can stop by Doctor Fraiser's first, then head to the General."
"Sounds good, Dad." Jack stopped at Sean's words, taken aback slightly. "Yeah, that's still weird for you isn't it?"
"In a good way," he smiled at his son. "I'll see you tomorrow."
The couple got in their car and drove off, leaving Jack standing on his porch contemplating all he'd learned that day.
He headed inside deciding he needed to talk to somebody, and he had the perfect somebody in mind. Maybe tomorrow after he left the mountain.