"Cath, remember how I told you I had a brother." Sam said as carefully as possible. And he was definitely going to have a few words with his brother for not sticking around to help him explain this.

"You said your brother was dead." Catherine said slowly. "You said that he died when he was a teenager. And you never said that he was your identical twin brother." As she spoke, she could feel anger being replaced by hurt. "You lied to me."

"Cath…." Sam could hear the sudden hurt in her voice and felt pain stabbing through him almost as bad as what he had felt earlier, when he thought he was about to lose Noah. Hurting Catherine was the last thing he had ever wanted to do, even though it seemed sadly it was something that he was a bit of an expert at. And maybe it was more than a bit risky, but before he could debate it, he was moving and pulling her into his arms, holding her tight against him. "I didn't lie to you, I swear. I didn't tell you that we were twins, but everything else I told you about Kevin was the truth."

"You said your brother was dead." Catherine wanted to push him away, half-heartedly raised her hands to do just that, before deciding she didn't have the energy. It was taking all she had to keep from crying at the realization that Sam, someone she had trusted more than anything until a few moments before, had lied to her. And why had he lied? She knew her family would claim it was just to get her to sleep with him but he hadn't mentioned his brother until well after they were lovers. Why had he lied and…. The anger was bubbling back and some part of her welcomed it. She could handle anger at Sam much better than pain. "Who else knows?" She demanded.

"Who…." Sam said before he realized what Catherine was thinking. "Cath, I swear to you, no one else on the team even knows I have a brother. You're the only one I've ever talked to about Kevin, I swear. I know this entire situation seems crazy, but will you please let me try to explain?"

"You told me your brother was dead." Catherine whispered. "He obviously isn't."

"But I didn't know that." Sam said. "Until I saw him in that nursing home, I was sure that Kevin had died when we were eighteen. I half thought he was a ghost then, coming to take Noah. Catherine, I wouldn't lie to you about something like that, I wouldn't lie to you, I promise. If you want to fire me, you can, but can you please let me explain first?" He stole a look over at Noah as he talked, but thankfully it looked like he was still sleeping. That was the last thing he wanted, for their son to wake up to find that he had managed to have his mama on the verge of tears.

"Explain". Catherine said after a moment. This wasn't what she had expected and part of her thought she should just to be grateful to have Noah looking perfectly fine and to not have to face a heart broken Sam but the idea that he had lied to her…. "I ought to have put the place where we got that chicken suit on speed dial". She muttered under her breath.

Mad. Part of her was mad at him. That was a good thing. A mad Catherine, he could work much better with that than he could with a hurt Catherine.

"Okay." Where to start? "You've heard about twins that have some sort of connection, right?" When Catherine slowly nodded in response, he continued. "Kevin and I had something like that. We could always tell what the other was feeling, almost what the other was thinking sometimes. I can't even remember a time when we couldn't do that."

"A link? That must have been a little awkward for teenagers." Catherine said.

"Probably more for Kevin than for me at eighteen." Sam told her with a slight laugh. And thinking about that link, he really had to have a talk with his twin about that and privacy that really hadn't been a big issue back when they were kids. "The link was always there, though. I always knew that my brother was there, no matter how far apart we were. But then one day, we were eighteen, our mom had died a few months before, Kevin was staying with our father for a few months." He closed his eyes for a moment, really not wanting to remember, but at the same time knowing that Catherine deserved to know. "It was the middle of the night. I was fast asleep and then I was wide awake and it was like a part of me had been ripped out. The link was gone."

"Sam…." Catherine whispered, hearing the sudden pain in his voice.

"I had no clue what happened to him. I did some poking when I joined the marshals' service trying to find details but there was never very much there beyond a missing person's report our father filed at some point. But the link, the link that had always been there was gone. I was sure, absolutely sure, that it meant Kevin was dead, that what I felt that night was him dying. Our mother was dead, I never got along with our father. Without Kevin there…. My family was gone. And then one day there you were and then the baby and it was a second chance. I should have told you everything about Kevin. You didn't do anything that made me decide not to tell you. It just hurt every time I thought of what happened to him. You and the baby were something good. We were happy. I didn't want that pain touching either of you."

Sam trying to protect her. That actually made perfect sense and Catherine felt her hurt easing. "So, what did really happen to your brother since he's obviously not dead?"

"I'm honestly not sure. I've got to ask him some questions about that when we have the chance but with everything that happened, we haven't really had the time to catch up on the last thirty something years. From what he's said, this is some sort of group that monitors and polices aliens on Earth."

"So your brother's who I can blame for Cosmo, I can assume then?" Catherine said. "And are we at war with whatever planet inflicted him on us?"

"Or they have good taste and kicked him off their planet, maybe." Sam said with a shake of his head. "I really hope they don't have shopping here.. He's going to try to replace that lost luggage for sure if he can."

"So your team's accounted for and I'm guessing Sheridan is too, since they collected his girlfriend when they picked me up." Catherine said. "Sam, what happened? Royce was claiming that Sheridan shot Noah, but…." Something had obviously happened to Noah. He was attached to enough equipment that she could tell that, but not as much as she would have expected for what Royce was claiming had happened. "Royce did something?"

"He shot him twice in the chest." Sam told her.

"Twice in the…." Catherine's eyes went wide, looking from Noah to Sam.

"For some reason some of Kevin's people were there, luckily one of them with medical training. She was able to stabilize Noah somehow until they could get him back here to be patched up." Sam shock his head as he thought of Zara. "You're going to like meeting her. She told me off for running around with the rib problem and the dip in the river."

"Someone who agrees that you shouldn't have done that and is willing to say it. I definitely will." Catherine said. This situation had been a disaster from the beginning, and she sorely wished she had thought of a different punishment for Sam than that plane trip. "So, Noah's fine?"

Sam nodded. "A little sore but he was awake for a little while. I think he was more worried that I was going to go after Sheridan than anything else before he could tell me what happened. The doctor says let him rest for a while, let the rest of the blood get replaced and he'll be fine. Won't even have scars."

"Good. That's good. I'm really glad he's alright, Sam. When Royce said he was shot…." Catherine knew what it would have done to Sam if anything had happened to that boy, especially if anything had happened during a case he probably should have pulled back from.

"He's going to be fine." Sam paused, not really sure how to tell Catherine the news about who Noah really was but knowing he had to somehow. "When they were replacing the blood he lost, according to my brother, they do it by cloning blood cells. You know, maybe you should sit down."

"Sam, the last time you suggested I sit for something, I ended up getting three hours of phone calls from four different police departments, the fire department and the water works department." Catherine told him. "If you were trying to calm me down, you should remember that suggesting sitting doesn't work."

"It's nothing like that." Suggesting Catherine sit, probably not a good idea, he realized, but…."It's nothing like that, and Noah's going to be fine, I promise."

"Sam, what is going on?" Why was he looking like he couldn't figure out how to tell her something suddenly.

"They replace the blood by cloning the cells. Did you know Noah has your blood type?" And there was another thing to be furious at the doctor who had delivered their son about, with his hinting that some sort of blood incompatibility could have played a roll in what happened.

"If he needs more….."

"That's not it. When they were running the blood sample from Noah though their systems, they got a DNA match for him with my brother." Sam told her.

"DNA? With your…."

"Identical twins, identical DNA, and Kevin says he wasn't doing anything back then that could have resulted in a kid. But you and I, we most definitely were."

"Sam…." Catherine looked from Noah to Sam, her eyes wide with confusion and a sudden wild hope. Was Sam saying….

"Kevin had some of his people get access to Noah's adoption records and the hospital records from when Patrick was born. They lied to you, they lied to both of us. Our baby didn't die like they said. Noah's our son."

"Noah's…". Catherine looked from Sam to Noah and back again. "Our baby?" Memories flashed through her mind as she whispered the words, of a tiny blanket wrapped bundle, of crying that she had been sure she had heard but had been told she had imagined, of pain and a mask being forced over her face.

"Cath?" Hyperventilating. Not good. "Catherine? Catherine, look at me, okay?" It had been years since he had seen this, and it was still as terrifying now as it was then. "Cath, it's alright, I swear to you. Just look at me. Our son's here. Our boy's fine. It's okay. Catherine, look at me, alright?" Sam glanced for a moment over at Noah, hoping that between whatever the doctor had given him and what his brother had done would keep him asleep for awhile so he wouldn't have to see his mama like this. "Cath, look at me."

Sam. Catherine could hear him talking to her and saying her name, telling her to look at him, and her mind wanted to obey but her body wouldn't cooperate. Her head was swimming and suddenly her vision was blurred for a moment before blackness washed over her once more,