Time moved quickly and we had a lot to occupy our minds with the holiday pushing down on us. We had missed Thanksgiving due to being in the hospital, so we did a makeup of it the first weekend in December and then daughter started freaking out about getting ready for Christmas. I was determined to start trying to get back into shape as soon as possible so I could reclaim my spot on the SWAT team, and due to rank having its privileges we were able to work out a schedule where one of us would be with Spence constantly and he wouldn't have to ever go to day care. I would be able to bring him to the office if I was so inclined due to the sheriff having a very family friendly work environment, and daughters schedule was going to allow her to help out in the afternoons if she was so inclined. I demanded that she keep a normal teenagers life though, and not be a built in babysitter at the cost of her social life. She loved her little brother and spent a lot of time showing him off and dressing him and even carried a picture of him on her phone, so I guess he was one lucky little boy to be surrounded by so much love, I was kinda fearful that Christmas was going to be totally insane, so in an attempt to stave off the worst of the over-indulgence, I called a family meeting and tried to set a one gift per person limit. You would have thought I had told them that Santa had crash landed in a volcano and I was rapidly voted down. The next thing I knew Christmas morning rolled around and you could hardly see the Charlie Brown tree for all the crap underneath it.

I found it kinda funny that the kid didn't even know what Christmas was, yet he had hit the lottery when it came to gifts and wouldn't need any toys for at least the next couple of years. He sat in is baby seat, sucking on a binky and pretty much ignoring everything except the musical ones or the ones that lit up and then he would bat at them in his uncoordinated baby way and coo, just being cute as all get out as the guys and daughter demonstrated how each thing worked or battled the toy out of its cage of death otherwise known as "Packaging", We had a great morning as the pile of his loot grew and everybody got what they either needed or wanted and he got waay too much of both. Dinner was cooking in the oven and we were all kicked back on the floor, laying around him as he napped on his favorite blankie, watching "A Christmas Story". It was an almost perfect Christmas, though as I looked at my small son laying on his blanket surrounded by those who loved him beyond all reason, I had to wonder about his father and what he was thinking and if he really just didn't want to be involved with such a perfect little being. In a way it pissed me off some that I had read him so damn wrong. He had seemed like a good enough hearted fella in spite of our unorthodox way of getting together, and I had figured that the Texan in him would at least force him to do the right thing and call me back no matter what he decided to do after that, but I guess I wasn't as good at reading folks as I had thought, and while I was glad to have such a wonderful baby out of the deal, I was annoyed at myself for how I got him.

The doorbell rang and I got up to see who it was and I was surprised to find a FedEx guy there with a huge assed package for me to sign for. I figured it was probably something loud and annoying from my crazy assed sister in Texas, but there was no return address on the box or on any of the paperwork, so I tossed the papers on the desk and brought the box into the living room to open. It was addressed to simply Spencer Thomas so I handed off to daughter to open while I went to the kitchen to check on the roast that was slow cooking in the oven. I had my head half in the oven trying to determine what the numbers on the damn meat thermometer read, when the Captain came up behind me and said, "You need to come take a look at this, and promise me you aren't going to freak the hell out." He put an arm around me and led me back into the living room where I found daughter with an ashen expression on her face as she held a large, striped sock monkey in her lap and a card in her hands. "Its from him, he knows."

My stomach turned a summersault of pretty epic proportions and I got a little wobbly in the knees as I walked over to the couch and took the card from her. It didn't say too much, just that he had just found out due to a lost cell phone signal and being out on the road and excuses that really, for him, made sense. He asked if he could come and meet him. He was in Portland, staying at a hotel in the downtown area and he had included a new cell phone number. I took a deep breath and read the card to the everyone and they all looked like they were in shock. I reached down and picked up my son and cuddled him to my chest. "What should I do, he's not officially named on anything and if I don't want to I don't have to give him anything, he would have to fight me to even get a test." The Captain stopped me before I got too wound up, 'Swan, at least give him a chance, he is a young guy, he said he just found out, maybe he is telling the truth, he is here now and he wants to try, why don't you give him at least the opportunity to screw up?" I stroked Spences head as I contemplated what he was saying, my daughter had grown up without a father and life had often been hard, even though she had positive male role models around her, and men that she knew cared about her deeply, it wasn't the same, and it would be especially tough on a little boy even with two surrogate fathers to step in and help. "Okay, hand me my phone, but you guys are going to be here too, right?" The promised they were going to stay and run interference if I got pissed off or anything, and I sent him a short text with the words, "Come meet your son."

I didn't know when he was going to show up, but we decided to carry on as we had planned with our festivities. The roast was pulled out to rest and I put the pie in to cook as the Captain and I finished up the rest of the traditional goodies that were to go along with it and J.D. and daughter played their new guitars in the living room and sang 'Merry Christmas From The Family" cracking us all up and easing some of the tension that had settled over my small family. We were so busy in the kitchen with the blender and all the other commotion, I didn't hear the knock at the door, and daughter get up to answer it, so he was standing in my kitchen with our son in his arms, before I even had time to get angry at him or do him any bodily injury. He didn't even have to speak to me, I knew what he was thinking just by looking at him. 'Yeah, you damn sure put your mark on him. It was probably a good thing he was born a month early by emergency c-section, because if he had stayed in any longer he probably would have come out with one of your tattoo's or something as well."

He started looking a little shaky and I told him, "If you pass out and drop that baby, when you come to you are gonna think that the other stuff I did to you was just foreplay, now sit your butt down!" I dragged a chair over to him and guided him into it, gently squeezing his shoulder, trying to reassure him that he was not going to be strung up or anything. Spence started to squirm and stretch and he opened his eyes and looked right at his dad, and it was like one of those moments that you just knew you were seeing a man that was born to be a father like few others. That baby owned him, heart and soul and I hoped that somehow, someway we could figure this out with as little blood shed as possible.

I mixed up a bottle for him and got a burp rag ready, and before Spence could get too fired up and insulted that nobody had read his mind and realized he was demanding sustenance, NOW!,I handed young Rock Star the bottle and showed him how to hold it just right as his son had his dinner. He looked genuinely enraptured and I think a bomb could have gone off around them and he wouldn't have heard a thing as he focused on every little grunt and gasp that baby made, and how he reached up and wrapped his fingers around his dads finger, staring up at him like he was trying to figure out the mysteries of the universe as he sucked down his bottle in near record time. I hated to interrupt the moment, but if he sucked too long on the bottle without a break, he was going to overload, and that would not be good for young Rock Star or the carpet, so I said, "You need to pull the bottle and sit him up and burp him, otherwise he is going to get gas and that really makes him unhappy and it plays hell with the carpet." I should have remembered I was dealing with an absolute rookie when it came to the baby end of things, because I might been able to prevent yet another time where the young Rock Star would find himself in my home without any pants on.

He sat Spence up in his lap and began tentatively tapping on his back, and before I could hand him a towel Spence decided to unload virtually the entire contents of his belly all over the young rock stars crotch and chest. It looked like a baby fountain had erupted all over him. Spence was soaked, rock star was soaked, and the smell was less than pleasant, and it looked as if young rock star was about to add to the mess, so I hollered, "Cowboy" and got some back up in the room, handed off Spence to him so he could strip him down and get him cleaned up and changed, and I took charge of getting young rock star cleaned up and changed. I led him down the hall to my room and had him strip, off his jeans, only to find that left him skin to wind, "What do you have against underwear?" I asked him as I hunted through my closet for the pair of sweats that he had worn the last time, but luckily J.D. knocked on my bedroom door and without a word handed in a pair of track pants he had gotten for Christmas as well as a t-shirt, so since they were close in size he was set for something to wear after he rinsed off the worst of the barf. I collected his clothes after he took out his wallet and crap and headed out to stain treat them and put them in a quick wash along with Spence's stuff, and I checked to make sure that everyone in the rest of the house was calm and reassured I wasn't ending his young life as he cleaned up. I went back in just as he was getting into the shower and I figures since he was a captive in the shower for at least a few, that was as good as any time to find out why he had vanished,

"So, why didn't you answer my text when I told you I was pregnant?" He sighed deeply and said, "Bella I swear to God I never got it. With the travel over seas and all the weirdness of Europe, it just must have gone into the ether. If I had known I would have come back right away." I wasn't going to let him off that easy, "So why didn't you ever contact me again, you were in Seattle a few months ago and you could have called or stopped by." " It had been months and months and I know how things tend to go with the whole long distance situation, you are a powerful woman with a life back here and I figured you had moved on, you said you didn't like entanglements and I figured you didn't want some kid hanging around you." "So when you got the picture of Spence , what did you think?" He shut the water off and pulled back the curtain reaching for the towel I was holding for him. His body was looking fantastic, and even in my post-operative, guts pulled out and discombobulated state he still made my girly bits twinge in all kinds of ways and I was flat staring at him as I looked at the new tattoos that adored his chest and arms. " I about hit the damn floor to tell you the truth. I had wondered about what had happened between the two of us, it was crazy, but I figured that since you were older, that maybe you were on something or had been …you know…fixed?" I laughed as I finally gave him the towel, "Well I am now, little too late, but I am now."

He wrapped the towel around himself and stepped out of the shower towards me, "May I?" he asked, looking at me like he was afraid I was going to drop him, " Sure, come here." And as he stepped towards me and wrapped me in his arms I felt all the worry and stress and love for his son in his hug, and I said to him, "Don't worry, I am not going to keep your son from you. We don't have to be together, but if you want to be his daddy, I will do whatever I can to help you." He slumped against me and we stayed that way for what seemed like the longest time as he absorbed the fact that his life had just taken on a dramatic change, and he was facing a different future than he had ever expected.

When he finally collected himself and got dressed, we went out to the living room and I introduced him to daughter who was beside herself. "I cannot believe my favorite rock star is the father of my brother, its just too damn much to process." she said as she shook his hand and then hugged him tightly. "Does this mean I get concert tickets for free?" He laughed and said, "I guess it does, but considering you are the sister to my son now, that means no flashing your pods at the band anymore, ok?" She blushed so red that it looked like her face was going to burn off, and she gasped out, 'Wha! I ..never!" We all laughed at her and the Captain and J.D. patted her on the back as she realized she had just been got.

Spence was snuggled down in his carrier, sucking on a binky, watching the goings on around him, and young rock star looked at me as if he was asking permission to pick him up. 'Hun, he is half your son, pick him up if you want to, cuddle him and love him, but the rule is that if he is poopy and you touch him, you change him." He reached over and picked him up, and right on time Spence was poopy and it was a bad one that went all the way up his back. I walked over to the stack and got him a diaper and wipes, as the Captain and J.D. started laughing and got him a towel and prepared to coach him though his first poopy diaper as I went to swap the laundry into the dryer. He was getting a real trial by fire in being a dad in his first encounter with his son, and I hoped it didn't scare him the hell off, for him and his sons sake.