Chapter 3

Jack whirled towards the door. How the hell was he supposed to explain this? More to the point, how did he keep Brick from hating him for keeping it from him?

"Jack?" Brick asked, the continuing silence making him nervous.

Jack sighed. He couldn't believe he'd never thought about how to explain things to his son. There was no point in putting it off; doing so would probably make the situation worse. "Sit down son."

Looking to the others Brick could see they were as lost as he was. Deciding the best way to find out what was going on would be to comply with his father's request, he sat.

"This is going to be a shock son, just please hear me out."

Only when he'd been comatose had Brick heard such a desperate tone in his father's voice. That alone would have told him whatever had happened was serious. "I'll listen," he slowly agreed.

"Thank you," Jack smiled in relief.

"We'll just leave you two alone," Leigh said. Taking Dale's hand she began to pull him towards the door.

"Actually you might as well stay," Jack said, stopping the two in their tracks. "I may need Dale's help and you should both know what's going on too." Jack stared down at the magazine again. How to begin, he wondered.

"This involve the magazine?" Brick asked in a near drawl. The beating he'd received a couple of years earlier from Emmons having left him with slower speaking patterns so that he nearly sounded as if he had a Texas drawl.

"I guess that's as good a start as any," Jack said. "Dale brought this out today, he thought you were playing a prank," he continued, sliding the magazine across the desk.

With a puzzled look, Brick reached for the magazine. Glancing down he was surprised to see his own face staring up at him from the middle of a group of men. "Who is he?" Brick asked.

"I'm not positive, yet, but I think," Jack licked his lip, "I think he's your twin."

Brick stared, his eyes slowly dropping back to the magazine before rising again to stare at his father's face. "I don't have a twin," he protested, the confusion written plainly upon his face.

"It's a long story."

"I'm listening."

Jack walked to the mantle, picking up one of the pictures there. It was a recently added picture, a collage his granddaughter had done, containing a baby picture of each of his children. Tracing a finger over the center one, he braced himself. Putting the picture back on the mantle he began to speak. "When we found out your mother was pregnant again it was one of the most wonderful days of our lives. Both of us had wanted more than one child and had hoped to give Guy a little brother or sister while he was still young. We wanted you to be playmates, not strangers," Jack explained. "The day the doctor told us that Elizabeth was carrying twins our joy only increased."

For several minutes nobody spoke. "What happened?" Brick finally asked, breaking the stunned silence.

"Did you ever wonder why you have such an odd name?" Jack asked. "Guy is unusual but you will find it in books of baby names, the same with Cassidy."

Realizing his father needed to tell the story in his own way, Brick bit down on his desire for answers. He shook his head. He guessed he should have but it had just been his name.

"You have Guy to thank for it," Jack told him, a wistful smile appearing on his face. "We had already decided on your name, or I suppose your brother's name when we found out there would be twins. We were discussing names that would go with the name we'd already chosen when Guy came into the room. He didn't know yet that he was going to have two brothers. Like I said we'd already decided on one name; Brock; when Guy came in. Hearing what we were discussing but being not quite four he didn't fully understand the name. He only wanted to know when mommy had decided to have a rock instead of a baby." Jack laughed, the memory though bittersweet could still tickle him. "That was when we realized what the perfect compliment to the name Brock would be. You have to remember a lot of parents, particularly in the past, give twins similar names."

"Why the secret?" Brick asked in a tight voice. He couldn't hide the hurt he felt, even if he'd wanted to. How could his parents keep something so important from him?

"It hurt too much," Jack admitted. "The day we were supposed to bring the two of you home, Brock disappeared from his hospital bassinet. The local police started looking as soon as we were sure he hadn't just been taken for a bath or something. When they didn't have any luck the state police were called in and they contacted the FBI. It was a black time for us, especially your mother. She loved you so much son and yet every time she looked at you her heart would break over the loss of your brother. "

Brick blinked back tears, imagining the pain his mother must have felt. "How long?"

"Did we look?" Jack asked.

Brick nodded.

"We looked for years. There was never any ransom note. The police and FBI had nothing to go on. Was he taken by a desperate woman wanting a child, some sicko wanting to hurt a child, a killer? We didn't know and the not knowing was slowly killing us both." Jack paused, scrubbing a hand wearily over his face.

"When you started school and there was still no sign of your brother I think we both began to accept the fact that he was gone forever. The only hope we could cling to was that whoever had taken him had done so out of love and the desire for a child." Glancing at the magazine Brick still held Jack went on; "Maybe the hope was fulfilled," he whispered. "The stress and fear took its toll on both of us. Then just as we were starting to really move on we were hit with more bad news. "

Jack paused, clearing his throat. "It was while she was pregnant with Cassidy that Elizabeth was diagnosed with cancer. The doctor told her that if she started treatment right away there was a good chance of survival. The treatment, however, would kill the baby and leave her unable to have more. Elizabeth refused. She said," Jack unashamedly swiped the tears away, "I've lost one child I won't lose another not even to save my own life. " The doctor tried to talk her out of it; I tried too at first until she asked me how I could ask her to kill our child. After that I accepted her decision, as much as it hurt I knew that either way I would lose her. It might have been selfish but I couldn't face the idea of saving her life only to lose her love and respect. She surprised the doctors, hanging on until just after Cassidy's first birthday. In the end she couldn't win though."

There wasn't a dry eye in the room by the time Jack had finished speaking. "Look again?" Brick finally asked, the stress of the moment costing him some of his words.

"I did son, I swear." Moving across the room he kneeled in front of Brick's chair. "Even though I was convinced Brock was lost to us forever I never gave up. I called the FBI every year but nothing ever came of it. I don't know why nobody noticed anything when he joined the ATF. I've sent them pictures of you through the years; I'm surprised the FBI computers didn't alert them when your face showed up in the federal system."

"His case might not have been put into the computers yet Jack," Dale said.

"I thought they all were," Jack said, still kneeling, he looked up.

Dale shook his head. "No sir. They're still working on transferring older files to computer. It's a slow process and the bigger the agency the more files making the job take even longer."

"I want to contact him, but I'm not sure if I could get through," Jack admitted. He didn't want to admit it but he was afraid the man, his son, wouldn't give him the chance to explain or wouldn't believe him if he did listen.

"It might be best to have somebody from the FBI contact him," Dale said after some thought. "They would have all the information, evidence they could show him. Don't be surprised if he wants a DNA test," he warned. "Being a fed he'll probably be a little more suspicious than most of a scam."

"I'll contact the FBI Monday morning," Jack said. Today being Saturday it would be hard to reach somebody who could help. Turning back to Brick, he gripped the younger man's knee. "You okay son?" he gently asked. The picture had been a shock to him but he at least had known of Brock's existence. For Brick the shocks had come from the blue, turning the world as he'd always known it on its head.

"Hurts," Brick admitted.

"I know son. I'm sorry I never told you about your twin. You had a right to know, I shouldn't have kept it from you." At the time it had seemed like the right decision and as the years passed it just became easier. Now he wondered if he had made a mistake.

"No," Brick shook his head. Yes it hurt that this had been kept from him but that was nothing compared to what Jack must feel. "Hurt for you," he ground out. Damn but he hated it when the aphasia came out like this. It couldn't be helped though; any situation too filled with stress could put him right back where he had started as far as the aphasia was concerned.

"You..." Jack could go no further, emotion choking the words before they could form. Pushing to his feet he pulled Brick up, wrapping his arms around him. "Thank you," he whispered. Neither man noticed when Leigh and Dale left the room, giving father and son their privacy.

TBC...

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A/N: I don't think the show ever specified what happened to Jack's wife. I would like to think if she had been living the kids would have mentioned her, at the very least. Since she was never mentioned I think an early death makes more sense.