As Circumstances Have it 2/3 Sam/Jack
Summary: Jack’s life changes again. You have to read the first half of this story, but not the prequel (see below). This is a difficult story, the second in a series.
Warning: My stories are always full of Jack angst and whumping. But this one has some disturbing subject matter, i.e. cancer. I tried to treat it sensitively but if anyone has an objection to reading anything about it, please ignore this piece. I had to write it, it helped me get a little grief out of my system. There is also a mention of homosexuality and, although there is no sex mentioned, there are some people who have a problem with that. This is NOT slash.
This is the sequel. Start with Broken, then Circumstances
She stepped out of the car, so tired her limbs were trembling. If she were honest, Jon would say that it wasn’t exhaustion that had her hand shaking as she pressed the doorbell. But she was her father’s daughter, and she refused to accept that her emotions could impact her physical abilities. Moreover, she had just spent the last few weeks memorizing every file the SG teams had brought back with them over the past four years. As they were beginning their fifth, she was joining SG-2, and she had to be prepared to recognize both their enemies, and their allies. What she had seen was amazing, but at the same time frightening. The SGC was probably the most dangerous place to work and her heart was in her mouth when she read about her father. He was the leader of a first contact team, and some of what she had read regarding his experiences warned her that she could lose him any day.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
After waiting for a couple of minutes, Jon dug into her pockets for the key she had kept for the past few years. Muttering a prayer that Sara hadn’t changed the locks in the past five years, she twisted the key and pushed. The door slid open with a creak that took her back a few years. Suddenly, she was a young girl, only seven or eight, and she was crouching, looking between the banisters. As the door opened, she leaned forward, until she was sure the man in a military uniform was her father and not one of her parents’ friends. At that moment, knowing he was home, he was safe, she felt happier and more secure than she had ever felt before, than she would feel until the next time he came home.
And then it was as if someone stomped on her vision, destroying it so completely it could almost have never existed. Because this was her house, and yet it wasn’t. Although Sara had put Charlie’s bike away four years ago, as Jon had seen when she drove past the house, for some reason Jon thought the inside would be the same. But there were obvious signs of children living in the house, and this time Sara seemed content to let most of them lay around.
She walked up the stairs, and stepped into the room she knew would be easiest to see. This was clearly the room shared by a man and a woman, and the furniture was different from when Jon’s father had shared it with her stepmother. Strange that even now, after more than five years of separation, it takes an effort to remember the word “step” when I think of her. But then, she treated me like a daughter when she started dating Dad, and I was four years old. Even though I only called her Mom after they got married when I was six, I thought of her as a mother long before that. Still, it was five years ago, and we haven’t even spoken on the phone.
Looking at the clothes, Jon was tempted to laugh. There were a lot of suits, ties and dress shirts, which looked completely out of place in that room, in that house. “Well, Mom, I guess that’s what you get when you marry an accountant. Safe can be awfully boring after Dad.”
Then she walked into the fourth room. It had been a guest room, which was frequented by Charlie Kowalsky, Lou Ferreti and the Cromwell family, as well as members of Sara’s family. Now it was a room for one of Sara’s stepsons, but once Jon’s uncles Charlie, Lou and Frank, and her aunt Janie, who had all helped her father raise her until Sara came onto the scene, had all slept here. Now, it was occupied by one of the two boys who, Aunt Janie told her, made Sara’s life anything but peaceful. “From what I hear, she loves it,” the older woman had said during one of the weekly phone calls in which she told Jon how Sara and Jack were doing.
Next, she visited the room that had once been hers. Again, a young boy occupied it. There were posters on the wall, and instead of a double bed, twin beds with cartoon comforters brightened up the room. She lay down on one of the beds and looked at the ceiling, and remembered countless hours spent in the same position, daydreaming or worrying about the future. She remembered the months in which she wondered if she was a freak for not wanting to date boys, and then, when she realized what she was, she feared the consequences to both her life in school and in the military. Even then she was sure that she would one day be in the air force, like her father. But Jack, who could be brilliant when he chose, knew what she was suffering, and called Charlie K to speak to her. That day she found out for the first time that her uncle Charlie was gay, and that he hid it to protect his career. Moreover, she gained new respect for her father as she remembered both his acceptance and his strength. It was dangerous to be friends with a homosexual in the air force, and there were many people who would not help as much as Jack had. It would be a while before he would accept her bringing her dates home, but that was just because he had as much trouble accepting her in relationships with women as with men.
Her mouth trembled as she recalled that he hadn’t had much time to be accepting, before… And then she got up, and entered the one room she wanted to steer clear of: Charlie’s room.
Sara had finally cleaned the room, and now it was a guest room. Jon’s old bed was there, but now it was covered with a generic, flowery comforter. The only other furniture was an elegant bedside table and Jon’s bookcase. The shelves still held Jon’s favorite paperbacks from when she was a teenager and Sara even left the same frames on the table. She must have dusted them regularly since the faces of Jon’s family and old friends shone out at her. Jon opened the door to the small cubbyhole/loft area that had been Charlie’s play room, and was immediately assailed by memories.
There were some of her belongings like her stuffed animals and small decorations, but the space was otherwise cluttered with Charlie’s stuff. There were some important things missing, and Jon assumed that the small things were with her father while the big ones were probably stored somewhere in Jack’s or Sara’s houses. The less important stuff must have been sold in the garage sale Aunt Janie claimed her parents had had a few weeks ago when Jack bought the house from Sara. Hey, instead of leaving the house empty, I could live in it. Dad can afford to not get rent, and he doesn’t have to worry about my spoiling anything that has Charlie written all around it. It’ll still be in the family then.
Turning around for one last glance before she went downstairs to wait for Sara to come home, Jon’s eyes lighted on Charlie’s hockey jersey. She was thrown back into the past, and the last time she had seen it. And before that, the last conversation she'd had with Charlie over the phone.
“When are you coming back?”
“I’m supposed to get on the plane tomorrow. Hey, I’m in the Air Force now. You’ve had almost ten years with Dad; you know that means that there are no fixed schedules. And I’m still training, you know.”
“Yeah, but Dad is coming home this afternoon. We’re going to see the game. I wish you could come. But at least we’ll all be together tomorrow night some time. Do you want to go to the park and play baseball with the Cromwells? I know Dad won’t go if Uncle Frank goes, but I think Uncle Frank gets back about an hour or so after Dad, so Jamie and Frankie will have spent enough time with him by Saturday to go to the park with us. How about it?”
“It’s a date. Bye little bro, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Her mind flashed past the meeting with her superior, who said that after her excellent work on a training mission that had turned out to be a real mission after all, she could have an extra day or so of free time. In fact, she could take the next flight home. So she decided to surprise her family, and take a cab to her house. But at the airport, she met her uncle Frank and fellow Airman, Frankie Cromwell, who were also there on leave. Colonel Cromwell decided to get a ride with his 2IC, and Frankie offered to drive Jon home so that the childhood friends could catch up on the events of the past few months. Frankie was only a year older and they had grown up telling each other everything. The only exception to that rule was when Jon was deliberating over her sexuality, but once Frankie understood the situation, she was accepting. She gladly listened to Jon’s confidences about her girlfriends if Jon listened to her talk about her boyfriends. So the friendship was still strong, and their ride home was full of laughter. None of them knew that it was the last time they would laugh that long and loud together. Although they had met over the past few years, it seemed as if there were always new ghosts between them, and they were never as happy as before the end of that ride. But now we’ll both be together at the SGC and we can meet as friends again, all the time. And even though we were sad, we were still able to tell each other everything about how we felt.
It wasn’t until they reached the house that Jon realized something was wrong. The jeep was not parked in the drive, but her father should have been home. He was supposed to have left from the airport about an hour ago, and it was too early to go to the game. And then she saw something that made her heart jump into her throat… The front door was wide open.
She couldn’t remember getting out of the car, but somehow she knew Frankie was right behind her. As if she were far away, she could hear them screaming the names of her family. They ran into the house and searched it, room by room. Then, Jon stepped into her parents’ room, and smelt death. Next to her parents’ bed was a gun, and a puddle of blood. She knew then, that it was Charlie. Her father would not have come home and immediately started to play with his brother’s gun, which was usually kept safely unloaded. The only times he ever took it out was when he took it to the range to test it. It was there for Sara to use if the house was broken into during his absences, and she was the only one who knew where he hid the bullets. Ironically, this was one of the first times he had left it loaded, but Jon wouldn't know that for some time. It couldn’t have been Sara’s blood since she never touched the gun. That drawer was allowed to be messy since Sara wouldn’t clean it out of fear of the weapon. So it had to be Charlie.
From the amount of blood, Jon was sure that her brother was dead. Calling Uncle Charlie and Aunt Janie and asking them to hurry to the hospital couldn’t make her surer. Neither could seeing her father’s face as he brushed past her and ran out of the hospital, nor the sight of Sara kissing her son’s feet. She was able to break the news to her parents’ closest friends, especially Charlie’s godfather, without breaking down because she had accepted it in her parents’ bedroom. After realizing that it would be difficult for anyone to survive losing that much blood, she had looked around in a panic. And then she had seen that jersey, lying on the bed and perfectly clean. She could see Charlie opening the drawer and tossing the jersey aside as he reached for the gun. The jersey wouldn’t be kept there for folding; Charlie had worn it to every game since Jack gave it to him almost two years before for his eighth birthday. In his excitement at seeing the forbidden toy, he had thrown the jersey so far that no blood had splattered on it, but at the sight of it a part of Jon recognized her beloved brother’s death.
*
She slowly walked downstairs, lost in her thoughts.
“My God! Johnna? Oh baby, is that really you?”
Jon looked up into Sara’s tear-filled eyes. For an instant, they gazed at each other. Then the past few years of separation were put aside as both women moved towards each other simultaneously. Jon melted into the woman she had always thought of as her mother, and for a minute, the world was perfect. Sara’s arms tightened around the precious bundle she had been given by a woman she had never been able to like.
Then, they moved apart to look at each other. Sara’s eyes misted again as she saw Jack in Jon’s face. He had only been a year older when they had met, and there was an excitement in his eyes that his daughter shared. She was relieved to realize that, so far, nothing had happened to dampen that light in her little girl’s eyes. She looked a lot like Jack, with her puppy-brown eyes and light brown hair. But she most resembled him when she smiled. The smile was a trademark that Jack had passed on to both his children, but she hadn’t seen it for five years. Although she and Jack often met and he did smile at her, it wasn’t the same. There was always sadness in the smile and it wasn’t as wide as it had been before they lost their children.
At that thought, she straightened. “Where have you been?”
“Away. I couldn’t stay.”
“You left barely two days after your brother’s funeral. All your note said was that you weren’t coming back and that you… hated us. Hated us!”
“I was angry and I’m sorry.”
“Did you blame us for Charlie?”
“No! Oh God no! Don’t ever think that. I hated you guys for what you were doing to yourselves, and to each other.”
Sara busied herself at the kitchen counter. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh come on Mom. You and I both know that you and Dad were this close to killing yourselves then." She held two fingers an inch apart before continuing. "You were constantly doped up on some antidepressants and Dad was drunk, so maybe you didn’t see me looking at you. But I was, and I saw you with pills in your hand and Dad holding the gun to his forehead. I had to leave the day I realized I wanted you guys to get it over with.”
Sara slammed the pot she was holding onto the counter. “Don’t take that tone with me, and don’t even pretend to have any idea what we were going through. Your father and I were experiencing something that you can’t even understand. No one can, unless they know the wrenching sorrow and guilt that comes with something like this. You know, every parent suffers a little when her kids stub their toes or twist their ankles. But we didn’t just bury a son; we had to live with the fact that he died in our own home- the one place he is supposed to be safe. So I am sorry if we wondered for a few days whether it would be easier to be dead, but that is no excuse for what you did. Then we found out you changed your name back to the one you had before Jack adopted you, when your mother ditched you with him three weeks after your third birthday. So we realized you were truly gone. We had to help ourselves through this alone, and I’m sorry but our marriage didn’t survive. But something else did; we’re good, no great friends, and family. But we did it without you, and in some ways, we buried both our children that week. My God, you couldn’t have even waited seven days after Charlie’s funeral to walk out of our lives? And what makes you sure there’s a place for you here now?”
“Is there?”
And Sara’s anger dissipated as she gazed at the young woman in front of her. Jon’s long black hair, loosened from the ponytail she put it in for work, moved slightly in the breeze. It framed a beautiful face, and warm brown eyes, which right now were glistening with tears.
“Let me tell you something about family, baby. There is always a place, and always a room. But not here, not tonight. I want you to see your father. He’s living with his 2IC, in the hills. It’s a beautiful place, and more than big enough…”
“I know about the place, Aunt Janie kept me apprised on my parents’ lives. But why is his 2IC there? Shouldn’t a nurse be taking care of him?”
“Darling, his 2IC is a woman. And they’re in love, and so happy. Please don’t tell me you’re going to pull a jealous daughter thing on him. He has such little time left.”
Jon smiled. “No, I was just surprised, but I am happy for both of you. My life would be perfect if you guys were together, but it’s pretty sweet if you’re as good as you look. And I know Dad is dying. That’s why I took the offer to work with him. He doesn’t know yet. I’m going over there now, and then tomorrow at eight or so I have to get to the base. But I was wondering if I could take the house instead of you renting it to a stranger…”
“Your dad was leaving it to you anyway. Stay with your father until he… Then we’ll move into our place, his girlfriend Sam can have his house and you can have this one.”
“Perfect. Now tell me more about this Sam…”
Part 2b
Warning: My stories are always full of Jack angst and whumping. But this one has some disturbing subject matter, i.e. cancer. I tried to treat it sensitively but if anyone has an objection to reading anything about it, please ignore this piece. I had to write it, it helped me get a little grief out of my system. There is also a mention of homosexuality and, although there is no sex mentioned, there are some people who have a problem with that. This is NOT slash.
This is the sequel. Start with Broken, then Circumstances
She stepped out of the car, so tired her limbs were trembling. If she were honest, Jon would say that it wasn’t exhaustion that had her hand shaking as she pressed the doorbell. But she was her father’s daughter, and she refused to accept that her emotions could impact her physical abilities. Moreover, she had just spent the last few weeks memorizing every file the SG teams had brought back with them over the past four years. As they were beginning their fifth, she was joining SG-2, and she had to be prepared to recognize both their enemies, and their allies. What she had seen was amazing, but at the same time frightening. The SGC was probably the most dangerous place to work and her heart was in her mouth when she read about her father. He was the leader of a first contact team, and some of what she had read regarding his experiences warned her that she could lose him any day.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
After waiting for a couple of minutes, Jon dug into her pockets for the key she had kept for the past few years. Muttering a prayer that Sara hadn’t changed the locks in the past five years, she twisted the key and pushed. The door slid open with a creak that took her back a few years. Suddenly, she was a young girl, only seven or eight, and she was crouching, looking between the banisters. As the door opened, she leaned forward, until she was sure the man in a military uniform was her father and not one of her parents’ friends. At that moment, knowing he was home, he was safe, she felt happier and more secure than she had ever felt before, than she would feel until the next time he came home.
And then it was as if someone stomped on her vision, destroying it so completely it could almost have never existed. Because this was her house, and yet it wasn’t. Although Sara had put Charlie’s bike away four years ago, as Jon had seen when she drove past the house, for some reason Jon thought the inside would be the same. But there were obvious signs of children living in the house, and this time Sara seemed content to let most of them lay around.
She walked up the stairs, and stepped into the room she knew would be easiest to see. This was clearly the room shared by a man and a woman, and the furniture was different from when Jon’s father had shared it with her stepmother. Strange that even now, after more than five years of separation, it takes an effort to remember the word “step” when I think of her. But then, she treated me like a daughter when she started dating Dad, and I was four years old. Even though I only called her Mom after they got married when I was six, I thought of her as a mother long before that. Still, it was five years ago, and we haven’t even spoken on the phone.
Looking at the clothes, Jon was tempted to laugh. There were a lot of suits, ties and dress shirts, which looked completely out of place in that room, in that house. “Well, Mom, I guess that’s what you get when you marry an accountant. Safe can be awfully boring after Dad.”
Then she walked into the fourth room. It had been a guest room, which was frequented by Charlie Kowalsky, Lou Ferreti and the Cromwell family, as well as members of Sara’s family. Now it was a room for one of Sara’s stepsons, but once Jon’s uncles Charlie, Lou and Frank, and her aunt Janie, who had all helped her father raise her until Sara came onto the scene, had all slept here. Now, it was occupied by one of the two boys who, Aunt Janie told her, made Sara’s life anything but peaceful. “From what I hear, she loves it,” the older woman had said during one of the weekly phone calls in which she told Jon how Sara and Jack were doing.
Next, she visited the room that had once been hers. Again, a young boy occupied it. There were posters on the wall, and instead of a double bed, twin beds with cartoon comforters brightened up the room. She lay down on one of the beds and looked at the ceiling, and remembered countless hours spent in the same position, daydreaming or worrying about the future. She remembered the months in which she wondered if she was a freak for not wanting to date boys, and then, when she realized what she was, she feared the consequences to both her life in school and in the military. Even then she was sure that she would one day be in the air force, like her father. But Jack, who could be brilliant when he chose, knew what she was suffering, and called Charlie K to speak to her. That day she found out for the first time that her uncle Charlie was gay, and that he hid it to protect his career. Moreover, she gained new respect for her father as she remembered both his acceptance and his strength. It was dangerous to be friends with a homosexual in the air force, and there were many people who would not help as much as Jack had. It would be a while before he would accept her bringing her dates home, but that was just because he had as much trouble accepting her in relationships with women as with men.
Her mouth trembled as she recalled that he hadn’t had much time to be accepting, before… And then she got up, and entered the one room she wanted to steer clear of: Charlie’s room.
Sara had finally cleaned the room, and now it was a guest room. Jon’s old bed was there, but now it was covered with a generic, flowery comforter. The only other furniture was an elegant bedside table and Jon’s bookcase. The shelves still held Jon’s favorite paperbacks from when she was a teenager and Sara even left the same frames on the table. She must have dusted them regularly since the faces of Jon’s family and old friends shone out at her. Jon opened the door to the small cubbyhole/loft area that had been Charlie’s play room, and was immediately assailed by memories.
There were some of her belongings like her stuffed animals and small decorations, but the space was otherwise cluttered with Charlie’s stuff. There were some important things missing, and Jon assumed that the small things were with her father while the big ones were probably stored somewhere in Jack’s or Sara’s houses. The less important stuff must have been sold in the garage sale Aunt Janie claimed her parents had had a few weeks ago when Jack bought the house from Sara. Hey, instead of leaving the house empty, I could live in it. Dad can afford to not get rent, and he doesn’t have to worry about my spoiling anything that has Charlie written all around it. It’ll still be in the family then.
Turning around for one last glance before she went downstairs to wait for Sara to come home, Jon’s eyes lighted on Charlie’s hockey jersey. She was thrown back into the past, and the last time she had seen it. And before that, the last conversation she'd had with Charlie over the phone.
“When are you coming back?”
“I’m supposed to get on the plane tomorrow. Hey, I’m in the Air Force now. You’ve had almost ten years with Dad; you know that means that there are no fixed schedules. And I’m still training, you know.”
“Yeah, but Dad is coming home this afternoon. We’re going to see the game. I wish you could come. But at least we’ll all be together tomorrow night some time. Do you want to go to the park and play baseball with the Cromwells? I know Dad won’t go if Uncle Frank goes, but I think Uncle Frank gets back about an hour or so after Dad, so Jamie and Frankie will have spent enough time with him by Saturday to go to the park with us. How about it?”
“It’s a date. Bye little bro, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Her mind flashed past the meeting with her superior, who said that after her excellent work on a training mission that had turned out to be a real mission after all, she could have an extra day or so of free time. In fact, she could take the next flight home. So she decided to surprise her family, and take a cab to her house. But at the airport, she met her uncle Frank and fellow Airman, Frankie Cromwell, who were also there on leave. Colonel Cromwell decided to get a ride with his 2IC, and Frankie offered to drive Jon home so that the childhood friends could catch up on the events of the past few months. Frankie was only a year older and they had grown up telling each other everything. The only exception to that rule was when Jon was deliberating over her sexuality, but once Frankie understood the situation, she was accepting. She gladly listened to Jon’s confidences about her girlfriends if Jon listened to her talk about her boyfriends. So the friendship was still strong, and their ride home was full of laughter. None of them knew that it was the last time they would laugh that long and loud together. Although they had met over the past few years, it seemed as if there were always new ghosts between them, and they were never as happy as before the end of that ride. But now we’ll both be together at the SGC and we can meet as friends again, all the time. And even though we were sad, we were still able to tell each other everything about how we felt.
It wasn’t until they reached the house that Jon realized something was wrong. The jeep was not parked in the drive, but her father should have been home. He was supposed to have left from the airport about an hour ago, and it was too early to go to the game. And then she saw something that made her heart jump into her throat… The front door was wide open.
She couldn’t remember getting out of the car, but somehow she knew Frankie was right behind her. As if she were far away, she could hear them screaming the names of her family. They ran into the house and searched it, room by room. Then, Jon stepped into her parents’ room, and smelt death. Next to her parents’ bed was a gun, and a puddle of blood. She knew then, that it was Charlie. Her father would not have come home and immediately started to play with his brother’s gun, which was usually kept safely unloaded. The only times he ever took it out was when he took it to the range to test it. It was there for Sara to use if the house was broken into during his absences, and she was the only one who knew where he hid the bullets. Ironically, this was one of the first times he had left it loaded, but Jon wouldn't know that for some time. It couldn’t have been Sara’s blood since she never touched the gun. That drawer was allowed to be messy since Sara wouldn’t clean it out of fear of the weapon. So it had to be Charlie.
From the amount of blood, Jon was sure that her brother was dead. Calling Uncle Charlie and Aunt Janie and asking them to hurry to the hospital couldn’t make her surer. Neither could seeing her father’s face as he brushed past her and ran out of the hospital, nor the sight of Sara kissing her son’s feet. She was able to break the news to her parents’ closest friends, especially Charlie’s godfather, without breaking down because she had accepted it in her parents’ bedroom. After realizing that it would be difficult for anyone to survive losing that much blood, she had looked around in a panic. And then she had seen that jersey, lying on the bed and perfectly clean. She could see Charlie opening the drawer and tossing the jersey aside as he reached for the gun. The jersey wouldn’t be kept there for folding; Charlie had worn it to every game since Jack gave it to him almost two years before for his eighth birthday. In his excitement at seeing the forbidden toy, he had thrown the jersey so far that no blood had splattered on it, but at the sight of it a part of Jon recognized her beloved brother’s death.
*
She slowly walked downstairs, lost in her thoughts.
“My God! Johnna? Oh baby, is that really you?”
Jon looked up into Sara’s tear-filled eyes. For an instant, they gazed at each other. Then the past few years of separation were put aside as both women moved towards each other simultaneously. Jon melted into the woman she had always thought of as her mother, and for a minute, the world was perfect. Sara’s arms tightened around the precious bundle she had been given by a woman she had never been able to like.
Then, they moved apart to look at each other. Sara’s eyes misted again as she saw Jack in Jon’s face. He had only been a year older when they had met, and there was an excitement in his eyes that his daughter shared. She was relieved to realize that, so far, nothing had happened to dampen that light in her little girl’s eyes. She looked a lot like Jack, with her puppy-brown eyes and light brown hair. But she most resembled him when she smiled. The smile was a trademark that Jack had passed on to both his children, but she hadn’t seen it for five years. Although she and Jack often met and he did smile at her, it wasn’t the same. There was always sadness in the smile and it wasn’t as wide as it had been before they lost their children.
At that thought, she straightened. “Where have you been?”
“Away. I couldn’t stay.”
“You left barely two days after your brother’s funeral. All your note said was that you weren’t coming back and that you… hated us. Hated us!”
“I was angry and I’m sorry.”
“Did you blame us for Charlie?”
“No! Oh God no! Don’t ever think that. I hated you guys for what you were doing to yourselves, and to each other.”
Sara busied herself at the kitchen counter. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh come on Mom. You and I both know that you and Dad were this close to killing yourselves then." She held two fingers an inch apart before continuing. "You were constantly doped up on some antidepressants and Dad was drunk, so maybe you didn’t see me looking at you. But I was, and I saw you with pills in your hand and Dad holding the gun to his forehead. I had to leave the day I realized I wanted you guys to get it over with.”
Sara slammed the pot she was holding onto the counter. “Don’t take that tone with me, and don’t even pretend to have any idea what we were going through. Your father and I were experiencing something that you can’t even understand. No one can, unless they know the wrenching sorrow and guilt that comes with something like this. You know, every parent suffers a little when her kids stub their toes or twist their ankles. But we didn’t just bury a son; we had to live with the fact that he died in our own home- the one place he is supposed to be safe. So I am sorry if we wondered for a few days whether it would be easier to be dead, but that is no excuse for what you did. Then we found out you changed your name back to the one you had before Jack adopted you, when your mother ditched you with him three weeks after your third birthday. So we realized you were truly gone. We had to help ourselves through this alone, and I’m sorry but our marriage didn’t survive. But something else did; we’re good, no great friends, and family. But we did it without you, and in some ways, we buried both our children that week. My God, you couldn’t have even waited seven days after Charlie’s funeral to walk out of our lives? And what makes you sure there’s a place for you here now?”
“Is there?”
And Sara’s anger dissipated as she gazed at the young woman in front of her. Jon’s long black hair, loosened from the ponytail she put it in for work, moved slightly in the breeze. It framed a beautiful face, and warm brown eyes, which right now were glistening with tears.
“Let me tell you something about family, baby. There is always a place, and always a room. But not here, not tonight. I want you to see your father. He’s living with his 2IC, in the hills. It’s a beautiful place, and more than big enough…”
“I know about the place, Aunt Janie kept me apprised on my parents’ lives. But why is his 2IC there? Shouldn’t a nurse be taking care of him?”
“Darling, his 2IC is a woman. And they’re in love, and so happy. Please don’t tell me you’re going to pull a jealous daughter thing on him. He has such little time left.”
Jon smiled. “No, I was just surprised, but I am happy for both of you. My life would be perfect if you guys were together, but it’s pretty sweet if you’re as good as you look. And I know Dad is dying. That’s why I took the offer to work with him. He doesn’t know yet. I’m going over there now, and then tomorrow at eight or so I have to get to the base. But I was wondering if I could take the house instead of you renting it to a stranger…”
“Your dad was leaving it to you anyway. Stay with your father until he… Then we’ll move into our place, his girlfriend Sam can have his house and you can have this one.”
“Perfect. Now tell me more about this Sam…”
Part 2b