Jaspar Jax had always been among the child free, in that he had loved living the high life of a wealthy bachelor. He jetted around the world, charmed the most beautiful women, and was dedicated to his life and his parents and his brother. He had had one serious relationship that ended when the girl was caught between he and another man, and chose the other man.

Had she chosen him, he might have decided to settle down and have children, but to him it was all just a sign that fate had chosen him for the high life. From time to time he had considered that his best friend, V. Ardanowski, might make a good wife, but decided that they had too good a friendship to mess things up. V. was his touchstone and they were each other's back up dates. Now V. would need someone else for that, but if she needed it, Jax would certainly find someone. As it turned out, someone else had unexpectedly stepped in and found V. a date for Jax's wedding. Jax demanded to know who it was, and checked him out. He was a high school teacher at Port Charles High, and too young for V., so Jax thought, but for a wedding date he would do.

Jax had an unerring eye for a good deal or for a thing that his gut told him was going to work. He had met Oksana Kanishcheva at the wedding of his friend Alexis' nephew. He had started out trying to get her to help him in his business maneuverings against her ex-husband, Sergei Kanishchev, who was on the board of ELQ with Jax (having taken over the position of Sonny Corinthos, who happened to be the mobster Jax had lost his first love to).

The rest of the ELQ board was made up of members of the Quartermaine family, who were very happy to rid their corporate board of the organized crime lord.

Meanwhile Oksana had bought out a share of Deception, another company, getting rid of organized crime figures for that company also. For awhile Jax was concerned that this was due to Sonny being wiped out by other and worse, namely, Russian, organized crime. But Jax had it all checked out and the Kanishchevs were all right.

Jax attempted to take over Deception, but soon lost interest in that and gained interest in its co-owner. Eventually, his gut told him he had found that one woman who was meant for him. She was so unlike him in surface characteristics, but so like him in fundamentals. It didn't matter that she was seven years older and that her children were two grown young men – Zander had just gotten married and Peter was about to graduate from high school – and so he, Jax would remain childless. Besides, at the last minute, his brother Jerry had managed to create the next Jacks generation by having a child with Alexis Davis, his new wife. Jax was happy in the thought of becoming the doting uncle.

But in the meantime, all paternal instincts Jax had fell to where they naturally would go, under his circumstances, and that was to Zander and Peter.

Kara, Peter's girlfriend, had been the subject of a health scare earlier that year. She'd undergone surgery and chemotherapy for a benign brain tumor. She had just gotten out from under the chemo and her hair was just growing out. She was a bit sensitive about her appearance, and wanted to keep wearing a scarf until her hair could grow out some more. A friend had suggested that maybe with some styling, she could have decent looking short hair. Kara didn't seem to like that idea much. Apparently she just didn't feel very attractive with short hair. Peter couldn't get her to take the scarf off even for him. (This scarf had been her strategy for dealing with the hair loss, as it seemed she didn't like wigs, either).

Now she was in a quandary about going to her boyfriend's mother's wedding and/or her senior prom with a scarf on. She was willing to consider the short hairstyle.

Jax got all this out of Peter, talking to him one evening in the kitchen of Oksana's mansion, a room which everyone gravitated to for gathering purposes. Jax had some help from Rosa, but mainly it was his fatherly, kind-hearted questioning that got the whole story out.

Jax suggested that Oksana's company could step in and help Kara with hair, make-up, wardrobe, the whole shebang. Kara could feel like a million dollars by the time they were done. In fact, she would look great with all those pros having worked on every aspect of her appearance. This sounded logical to Peter, so he said he would pass the idea on to Kara.

Jax knew he was promising things of his future wife's company, but knew it would be OK for this particular purpose. Other than that, he planned to keep his nose out of Oksana's business, generally believing that she would stamp him down flat if he interfered.

Zander was a grown man but still, Jax checked up on him every once in awhile. Zander had a feeling what he was doing, but it only made him smile. Jasper Jacks was a bonus to all of their lives, so he didn't plan on giving him any attitude. Jax seemed to check out whether Zander was OK with his school - did he have all his books and the like. These were silly questions, but the way they showed that Jax cared about his new stepfather role more than made up for that.

Zander had never thought of either of his parents getting married again - their marriage had been so unsuccessful generally that it had looked as if neither of them was marriage material. But they had both settled down somewhat.

"Now what about your Dad?" Quinn said to him one day.

Zander laughed. "You think we can fix him up?"

"It'll be a challenge, but we can do it. But let's bask in the glory of this one first."

He went over to her and pulled her close.

"Yeah, getting Mom hitched is a major accomplishment," he said.

They looked at each other and laughed.