Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters.
In the six months since he'd come to them, Charlie had settled in and become a bright, happy boy. He'd kept getting the nightmares for a while, but Carina had had a Eureka moment and set up a sound system in his room to continuously play the recordings of Chuck singing at night, and his nightmares immediately started dropping off. Chuck's music was soothing for everyone, but Charlie's reaction seemed to show that Carina's intuition had been right, and hearing his father's voice did wonders to relax him and make him feel safe. No-one could think of a way to tell him that his mother was dead without upsetting him, so they agreed to wait until he asked about her, and then try to find the best way to tell him. It did cross Carina's mind to tell him that Bryce couldn't hurt him any more, in hope that he wouldn't have more nightmares about him, but decided that mentioning Bryce would probably just make things worse, and telling him what happened was totally inappropriate for an eight year old boy, he was far more mature than he should have had to be at his age, but they were trying to give him a better life where he could be the little boy that he was, so he was better off not knowing about any of that.
Carina spent a lot of time talking to Sarah and Chuck, Ellie, Kathleen, and Mary to get advice about how to be a better mother for Charlie. She was surprised when Mary said not to use her as a role model because she was a terrible mother, but she did tell her a lot of things about when Chuck was little which were helpful (and which she shared with Sarah when she had a chance, as that sort of history about Chuck was gold to Sarah). Carina was trying to find her feet and look after Charlie as best she could, and Jeff supported her as well as he could, neither of them had expected this or knew what to do, but they wanted to give him the best life that they could.
Things had settled down as well as could be expected once the incidents in regard to Jill and Bryce were done with. Chuck hadn't forgiven the General for making the traditional choice in regard to dealing with Jill, and in particular for lying to them about what she did, but while cool, their relationship was workable, so she and Roan were still coming for Jaqui and Piotr's fourth birthday party. Sarah was still hurt by the way that Chuck had shut her out over Bryce, and that he'd risked himself the way that he did, but she could understand his position.
Sarah did get a laugh a few weeks after Chuck brought the second Odyssey home. She'd started using the Odyssey whenever she was transporting the kids, as well as most other times, and when she got to the garage to one morning to take Yvonne and Zack to school she found that the license plates had been changed on both Odysseys, to "HIS" and "HERS". They hadn't discussed the matter after what happened with Bryce, but it was obvious how much it still affected Chuck, so it was a relief when she saw the plates, as it showed that at least Chuck's sense of humour was still in place after all that had happened.
For all the upheaval of the events of the previous six months or so, Carmichael Industries still had work commitments to honour, and a solid workload, so they were pretty much flat out most of the time. In a way that was good as it didn't leave much time for contemplation which would probably take them down the rabbit hole, but it also meant that they had limited free time to relax with the kids. Because of that, Chuck and Sarah were determined to make the Jaqui and Piotr's fourth birthday party a fun filled weekend for all of them. As usual, Diane and Roan flew in Friday night, the main indication that tensions were still high being that they stayed with Casey, Kathleen and Alex, rather than Chuck and Sarah as they normally did.
Over the weekend, everyone was managing to put the conflicts behind them and have a good time with the kids, until Saturday night when Sarah went to get something from the fridge in Casey's place, and found Roan and Josie in each other's arms. Sarah just stared at the two of them in what appeared to be a very intimate embrace, then snapped and lunged forward to pull him around by the shoulder and drive her knee into his groin with enough force to lift him off his feet. She stood over him as he writhed in pain on the floor and swore at him for being a disgusting pig who'd fooled her into thinking that he was different from the other sick bastards out there, until she had to break off and defend herself when Josie attacked her. She and Josie circled each other and she quietly informed Josie that they'd be terminating her services immediately, as they didn't want her type around their families, until Roan managed to get his breath back enough squeeze out "Stop, stop, please stop", at which Josie immediately disengaged and stood back, looking down at him with concern. They separated enough to forestall any sudden attacks as they waited for Roan to recover enough to speak, but what he said when he did recover wasn't something that Sarah ever expected to hear.
Roan gingerly sat up and looked from one to the other, wincing from the pain of having to move, and then said "This isn't what you think Sarah, and I'm sorry, we should have told you this a long time ago, but please meet my daughter, Josephine." Sarah stared at him for about 20 seconds and then looked at Josie, saying "Daughter?" She shook her head as she looked back down at Roan, asking whether Diane knew about her? When Josie snorted and said "Yeah, I think Mom knows about me." she whipped her head back, mouthing "Mom?" Josie nodded with a grin that showed quite clearly she WAS Roan's daughter, then Sarah looked back at Roan who at least had the decency to look guilty as he nodded and said "Yes, Diane is Josephine's mother."
They helped him up and sat him in a chair at the table, then Josie found a bag of frozen peas in the freezer while Sarah texted Chuck "Casey's kitchen, now!". When Chuck got there, he found Roan sitting at the table gingerly holding a bag of frozen peas to his groin with Josie hovering over him, and Sarah standing a ways off, looking furious. Chuck looked from the pair at the table, to Sarah, and Sarah growled that some introductions were in order. When Roan nodded, at least Chuck knew who to look at as he went to Sarah to hold her hand. Roan gave them a strained smiled and said "Forgive me for not getting up, Charles, but I am a little indisposed at the moment, if you please, I would like to introduce you to my daughter, Josephine." Chuck looked at Sarah, stunned, and she gave him a tight lipped smile as she told him "It gets better ."
The next voice came from the living room, as Diane stepped into the conversation, saying "Yes, I'm afraid that we've been keeping the information about our daughter from you, but in our defence we've kept her identity secret from the entire intelligence community and the rest of the world until now and it was a very hard habit to break." Diane looked at Roan holding the frozen peas to his groin with a raised eyebrow, to which Roan explained that Sarah had found them in what she believed to be a compromising position and showed her outrage that he would play around behind his partner's back (inclining his head to Diane). Diane gave a wry grin as she turned to Sarah and thanked her for looking out for her.
Sensing that this would be an interesting discussion, Chuck went to the cupboard where he knew Casey stashed his bottle of Johnny Walker Black and brought it to the table as Sarah collected six tumblers (as she expected that Casey would have cottoned onto the fact that something was up by now and would be turning up soon). Chuck apologised to Roan for the fact that there wasn't any gin and Roan waved off his apology with a smile, by which time the person they were waiting for turned up to ask what was going on. To avoid dragging things out any more, Sarah told him that they'd just found out that Josie was Roan and Diane's daughter, and that they were about to explain it to them. Casey nodded and looked at Roan holding the peas to his groin, to which Roan sighed and said "It was a minor misunderstanding." With that, they all sat down at the table to hear the story, Sarah looked at Josie as she sat down, ad Josie said that they'd never told her, either, so she was going to hear this.
Roan, as the natural story teller, launched into the tale, first turning to Chuck and asking if he remembered what he'd told him about Berlin? Chuck nodded and Roan said that that was where it began. Soon after that Diane found out that she was pregnant, but as they'd discussed, they thought that they were going to change the world and neither of them wanted to give up their careers at that point, so some family friends arranged for her to have the equivalent of a "posting to Siberia" for the next 6-12 months to keep her off the radar, it was easily explained away as her being reprimanded for getting involved with a disreputable agent in Berlin (Diane smiled and squeezed his hand). It was easier in those days, as there was no video conferencing or anything like that, so as long as she wasn't being seen by anyone outside of the inner circle, the secret (our wonderful secret, he added, as he reached over to squeeze his daughter's hand) was safe from getting out. Diane had a close cousin on her mother's side who had found out after she was married that, much to her distress, she couldn't have children. She and her husband are wonderful people, and agreed to raise Josephine as their own. (The next part was directed at Josie, as he explained that her mother never wanted to give her up, but they were caught up in the idea that they would be saving the world, and what they were doing meant that being with them was no safe place to be for a baby.)
There was a slight pause as they thought about the impact of their decision and then he went on. When Josephine was born, she went to Diane's cousin, and Diane's family made sure that any and all records that showed that she may have been pregnant were permanently erased. Diane's "exile" was revoked and she came back to D.C. to re-start her career, but she never took long term postings away from where Josephine was, so she could go and see her as much as possible, and I went with her whenever I was in town. When she was in her mid-teens Josephine had a rather bad accident, as she was always a bit of a daredevil (Diane interjected with "I wonder where she got that from?" in a dry tone), and questions were raised when neither of her "parents" had a compatible blood type. Josephine presumed that she was adopted and was getting upset, so her "parents" told her the truth, that "Aunty Diane" and "Uncle Roan" were actually her mother and father, but they worked for the government and didn't think it was safe for her to be around them. (Sarah looked at Diane as she realised that that was why Yvonne and Zack calling her Aunty Diane always affected her the way it did, it reminded her of when Josie was little, Diane caught her eye and nodded.)
After the tears and recriminations were finished, they managed to become a family of sorts, Josephine still lived with the parents that raised her (and did a wonderful job of it), but they could build a relationship with her as her mother and father from that point on. Of course, once she learned what her parents really did she decided to follow in their footsteps and become an agent, and as she got a stubborn streak from somewhere (looking at her mother), that was exactly what she did. (At that point Diane turned to Chuck and said that that was she'd been so grateful for what he'd done, as she'd been afraid for Josie. Josie started to ask what she was talking about but shut up when her mother turned to her with a closed expression that brooked no discussion.)
Once Josie was in "the game", Diane indirectly used her influence to try and keep her away from the worst or most dangerous roles, and then when Carmichael Industries took off and they were taking on extra staff to cover the needs of the business, she made sure that Josie was one of the candidates. Sarah smiled at that point and said that they could thank Chuck for recusing himself from the selection process, otherwise Josie may not have gotten the job. Diane looked confused for a second and then looked at Josie, suddenly realising what she was talking about and grinned, saying, "Ah, yes." Both Roan and Josie were looking confused at that point, but all Diane said was that Chuck had a "type" at one point, and it led to issues sometimes. That didn't clarify the issue much, but Josie remembered something else and turned to Sarah to ask whether she was still fired. Everyone else looked at Sarah then and she went red, saying that she didn't need to worry about that, now that the misunderstanding had been cleared up. As no-one looked any the wiser Josie grinned and said that Dad got damaged for playing up, and she got fired, turning to Casey to explain that Sarah had walked in to find her and her father hugging and misinterpreted what she saw.
After everyone there was caught up on Josie's story, there was a bit of discussion about who else could know. It was a given that everyone who lived within Castle Carmichael (the adults) would need to know as it was feasible that someone would let it slip at some point, but the question about telling Bella was more difficult. She was part of the team, but not quite part of the "family". The question was left to Josie and she ended up saying that the issue had never come up with Bella and she was happy to keep it that Bella just regarded her parents as her only family. As they started to head back to the party, Sarah got Josie to stay until the others had left, so she could explain what her mother had brought up. For everyone's sake she didn't go into detail, just saying that she and others had received specialised seduction training that was unpleasant, and when Chuck found out he tracked the people responsible with her father's help, and dealt with them to ensure that the practice was not continued. Josie had heard enough stories when she was in training to know what she was talking about and just threw her arms around her. After that, they went back to the party with the others.
A/N: OK, I know that this is fluff in a story which was expected to be all angst, but I've always felt that I was logical for those two to have a love child hidden away somewhere, they'd been an item for decades.