Jenny wakes to the sound of sobbing, and it doesn't take her long to figure it's coming from her big brother's room. She knocks on his door, and when she doesn't get a response she just walks in.
Ty is sobbing on the bed, and doesn't even look up at her entrance.
"I thought you were going to be at Eli's all weekend," she says softly.
"We broke up," Ty sobs.
"You can't break up. You're married," Jenny says, alarmed.
"Shut up!" Ty says, flinging a pillow at her.
Jenny knocks on her parent's door, and as soon as Jack gives her a muffled ok to enter, she runs in, "Ty and Eli broke up."
"What?" Sam says, sitting up, confused. "No, Ty was spending the holiday with them."
"He's in his bedroom sobbing about the break-up as we speak," Jenny says.
"Thanks for telling us, munchkin," Jack says, having completely failed to notice that his youngest daughter was now a teenager and wouldn't like to be called munchkin anymore.
Sam and Jack both go into their son's room. "Hey, Tyler," Sam whispers, "What happened?"
"He kicked me out," Ty says.
"Eli's dad?" Jack asks.
"No, Eli," Ty corrects.
"He just told you to leave their house for a while his parents cool down, right?" Sam asks hopefully. She knows that her son was planning on coming out to Eli's family this weekend, and hopes that it didn't go that badly.
"No, his dad told him that he couldn't live with a gay man. His dad doesn't even know that he's gay. He just doesn't want me to corrupt his son or whatever. Anyway, his dad was laying down the law, and I wasn't letting it bother me, because I figured it didn't matter. I figured that really, as soon as Eli and I were alone again, things would go back to the way that things were. But he was serious when he agreed with his dad. He actually wants me to move out."
"He's going to change his mind. He'll miss you," Sam says, rubbing his son's back like he's a little kid.
Ty rolls over, and looks at his parents, "Is it ok if I stay here?"
"Of course, this is your house. You never have to ask to spend the holidays with us. In fact, we were pretty disappointed when you first told us that you were going to spend Thanksgiving with Eli's family. I mean we understood, but we were still sad."
"I don't just mean the holidays. Can I live here for a while?" Ty asks.
"Of course, honey, but what about your job?" Sam asks softly.
"I'll find another one. I only moved there and took that job, because of Eli. I'll find another one closer to my family. I find a place too, it's just going to take a while."
"Ty, I don't can't switch jobs because you had a fight with your husband," Jack says with a sigh.
"Dad, this was a lot more than a fight," Eli says.
"I know that it feels like that now. Right now this probably feels like the biggest thing that has ever happened to you, but…"
"I'm not some teenage boy who just got shot down by his crush, Dad. I'm an adult who has had his heart broken by the only man he's ever loved," Ty says.
"Ok," Jack says quietly.
The Next Day
Olivia can't help but grin as she holds her tiniest niece in her arms. Anne was nearly a year old and loved nothing in the world quite so much as attention from adults.
"Are you going to hold that baby all day?" Blaze asks her.
"Probably, I've got to do something until I get one of my own," she grins at him. She's so certain that he's going to say yes. She's so certain that it's only a matter of time. She's so sure that any day now, she's going to wake up to her own pancake proposal.
Blaze suddenly knows that this isn't right. She would wait for him forever. No, that is a lie. She would wait an awfully long time, and then one day, she would stop waiting. But by then, she would have waited so long that her heart would shatter into a million pieces when she left.
He didn't want her heart to be in a million pieces.
"You really think you're ready for one of those?" he asks.
"Yeah, I think we are," she says brightly.
"No," he shakes his head, and looks away from her, "I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for one of those."
"What? You don't want kids? You said you wanted kids!" Olivia accuses.
"When did I say that?" Blaze asks, mentally searching through all conversations that took place while the TV was on for a likely culprit.
"On our first date. I asked you if you were going to have kids someday, and you said probably."
"Ok, well, first of all, that is a far cry from 'wanting' kids, and second of all, that was on a first date. People will say anything on a first date."
"There might not have been a second date if you didn't say it," Olivia says, trying to not raise her voice enough to attract the attention of her family, which is barely out of earshot during this whole conversation.
"Olivia, we are nowhere near the place where we could even think about having kids," Blaze says calmly.
"Let's not talk about ready or not, let's just talk about whether or not you want kids. Blaze?" Olivia looks at him with pleading eyes.
"Liv, I don't want to get married. I don't want to have kids. There are only so many hours in a week, and I don't want to spend them all on a family."
"Then what the hell have we been doing for the last five years?" Olivia asks.
"I don't think you're supposed to swear in front of those," Blaze says, pointing to the baby.
"What did you think we were doing?" Olivia repeats.
"I thought we were having fun. Enjoying one another."
"Why can't we do that forever?" she asks.
"Because at some point, it would stop being fun and start being work. Let's even forget about the idea of kids for a bit. The truth is, if you want to stay with the same person forever at some point you have to start working on the relationship. I don't intend to do that. When we start to crash and burn, I'm not going to put on a fireman's outfit and save us. I'm going to get out of the fire, and find somewhere safe."
"Well, consider this the fire alarm," Olivia says.
"Livy," he says, grabbing her arm as she starts to get up. She turns to him, fully expecting him to tell her that he was wrong about everything. She's expecting him to tell her that he loves her, and that he was just kidding about everything that he just said. There might even be a proposal tacked on at the end.
What he really says is, "You were the easiest relationship I've ever had."
"Go fuck yourself," Livy replies.
"Now I'm sure you're not supposed to say THAT in front of a baby," Blaze says as she walks away.
He slips out a few minutes later. He doesn't want to stick around for dinner. He doesn't want to see Olivia broken.
"I hope you find what you are looking for Livy-Lou," he says as he walks down the steps of her house.
Two Days Later
Black Friday was spent by Ty and Olivia moving all of their belongings back to their parents' houses. That Saturday involved family-sized bags of chips, gallons of ice cream, and a series of particularly painful romantic comedies.
"Look at all these people getting married!" Olivia sighs.
"I bet it doesn't work out, though. Have you ever thought about how so many romantic comedies involve someone about to marry someone, and then they change their mind and decide to marry someone else. What makes us think they are going to get a happily ever after? They're probably just going to spend the rest of their life bobbing from relationship to relationship."
"They shouldn't call the comedies. There is nothing funny about them!" Olivia says.
Ty offers her a tissue, and she grabs one from the box.
"I was ready to be a dad," Ty says softly.
"You'll be a dad someday," Olivia assures him.
"I don't think I ever will, I mean, it's not like I'm ever going to fall in love again."
"You'll find someone else," Olivia says, even though a hard rocks forms in her stomach at the new worry that she's never going to find someone to make her a mother.
"No, I'll never find someone to love like that. That's it, it's done for me," Ty sounds so certain that Olivia can't find a way to doubt his words.
"That doesn't mean that you are never going to get to be a father," she says, "If you never end up with someone you could still have a baby. I could still help you with that."
"I could help you, too, you know. If you ever decide to take a journey into single motherhood," Ty says.
And then Livy's brain, soaked in grief and a few too many movies with a happily-ever-after said, "Why should we wait?"
"What?" Ty asks.
"We're both single. We both want to have kids. Why don't we just have kids?" Olivia asks.
Ty blinks a few times before he says, "Why don't we?"
The Next Day
"Dad, I want to ask you a favor, a favor that involves your job as General."
"Ok," Jack says suspiciously.
"I want to go through the Stargate."
"Son, that is an extremely valuable piece of technology that is extremely expensive to run, and takes people to extremely dangerous places. It is not to be used for a joy ride."
"Of course not. I want to go to the planet that helped you conceive Hannah."
Jack's eyebrows shoot up, and he asks a question that he knows he knows the answer too, "And why would that be?"
"I want to have a baby."
"Tyler, you just broke up Eli a few days ago, are you sure this is really the time to be making life long huge decisions that you can't even understand the magnitude of now?"
"Dad, this isn't something that I just thought of. I've wanted to be a dad for a long time. Yes, until recently my plans of being a father included Eli, but he wasn't the most important part. I've known that I've wanted to be a father my whole life, and I'm tired of waiting for it."
"Son, you're still young. There is plenty of time for this fatherhood thing, still. I was a lot older than you when you came into the world. You could wait a few years, and then be with another guy, or be by yourself and have a baby. I just don't want you to have this kid and end up regretting it in the future."
"If I do end up with someone else, which frankly I don't think is going to happen, then having a baby isn't going to get in the way of that. If I'm with a guy that can't handle the fact that I have a kid, I don't want to be with him anyway."
Jack runs a hand across his face in distress, mostly because his son is kind of winning this argument, "Maybe the guy you're with is going to want this baby to be both of yours. Maybe he'll be sad that he missed on to the first part."
"Then we'll have another. Look Dad, I don't need your permission to have a kid. Eli's dad tried to act like he had the power to make Eli do whatever he wanted. Eli believed him. I don't. You might be able to deny my request to carry this baby, but one way or the other I'm going to have it."
Jack nods his head, "Son, you do realize that you are going to need some… female parts."
"I know that I am going to have to take medicine to make me grow a uterus."
Jack chokes on air, "Ok, true, but I actually meant you're going to need an… egg… you're going to have to find a donation for an egg."
"Olivia is willing. I'm going to be donating sperm to her, so it's kind of more of a trade than a donation but…"
Jack's eyes almost bug out of his head, "Olivia? You and Olivia are going to have babies together? You break up with people you were with for a long, long time, and now you are going to make babies together?"
"Dad it's not like that. We're just friends that are going to help each other have babies, physically, emotionally…."
"How is that different from making babies together?" Jack asks.
Ty shrugs, "I don't know, your way sounded all romantic."
"Ty, this is romantic; bringing a baby into the world is the most romantic thing in the world."
"Olivia and I are just friends."
"Ty, she was in love with you once, are you 100% sure that she isn't still?" Jack asks his son.
"I swear, dad, this is a friend thing. So are you going to help me or not? I mean, if you're not going to, then it's going to take a lot longer for Olivia and I both to have a kid. Plus we are going to miss out on the whole being pregnant together thing."
Jack sighs, "Son, you're an adult. A stupid adult, but an adult nonetheless. The fact that I'm not trying harder to stop you has more to do with the fact that I really don't want to be Eli's dad hurting my children by not accepting them than a sign that I actually think your actions will turn out well. Do you understand that?"
"Thank you, Daddy!" Ty says, wrapping his hands around his father.