Jackson Whittemore

“Yeah, but that one happens to work here.” She shrugged, a small laugh in the words. Honestly, it was nice. Gave her an excuse to check on their son and Miranda when she was in the building. “Hm. I don’t know, maybe.” Laura paused, pretending to think about it. “I’ll do the kidnapping, but you’re buying the dinner.”

“Ideally eventually there will be four in total, and maybe then I can retire,” that was the ideal at least. Once his kids were all practicing then he could step away from it all and focus on his marriage. “I never mind paying for dinner when my date is so hot,” Jackson stood up from his desk after logging out of the file and held his hand out for his wife.

Their family was growing, but this time of year was harder than usual. A lot of her free time had been spent at the gym, getting things finished up for the end of the year, but once it was over she sent Kaiden home and didn’t want to be on her own. “Well, you see, we did this really cool making a person thing, and he works down the hall.” Laura joked, leaning in the doorway of her husband’s office. True, she’d gone to see Jacob, but by the time she got there it had been too late. “You almost done?”

Jackson was grateful that both he and his wife were able to take time off together to enjoy some time together. With or without the kids. “Babe we made a lot more than just that one,” Jackson reminded her with a slow smile creeping across his face, “I’m actually done now if you know a gorgeous woman that would like to kidnap me for the evening.”

“Cora won’t know how to survive hearing about it all the time.” Laura joked, letting out a quiet laugh.

“I mean if she does have a complaint we could always go into details about our lives together but I’m pretty sure her and Isaac would just fire back with it.”

“I don’t see that as a bad thing, pops.”

“Are you sure about that? I could grab your uncle Scott.”

“I don’t know, he might not, just so none of their kids would have to suffer. Even if they all were allowed to live, eventually Hope would get bored.”

“That’s true we can’t allow for Hope to get bored, whoever would have to deal with that is a poor soul.”

“Oh no, what a horrible fate.” Laura gasped dramatically, rolling her eyes, “however will I survive that.”

“You’re going to be completely miserable,” Jackson leaned in to teasingly nip at her lips with a laugh.

“It’s got to do with Aunt Cora.” She shrugged with a laugh. “Or living with Derek. It was probably one of the two.”

“I think it’s more Cora. He would do anything for her after all. I think he’d even end the world if it made her happy”

“I haven’t gotten any complaints.” Laura laughed.

“You will never hear a single complaint from me at the very least. You’re stuck with me,”

He didn’t know what to say to that, again. It was all more overwhelming than he had expected. Then again he hadn’t really expected much. Darian cleared his throat, “what, uh– what are they like?” He didn’t know if they’d accept him but that wasn’t something he was ready to ask yet.

“Well you have more siblings than I care to actually admit to,” It was meant as a joke but even Jackson couldn’t bring himself to laugh. “You have six siblings, Adelia and Jacob are the first set of twins, and really the biggest trouble makers between you and me. And then we had you and Brylan who’s probably too smart for his own good. After that it was Talia and Kieran who to this day confuse me. And finally Reagan who’s the baby of the family.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing we very rarely have to worry about that.”

“No you’ve always made sure that I was kept on my toes.”

“I could take after Uncle Isaac, wouldn’t that kind of be worse?”

“Okay you might have a point there. Honestly how he’s survived in this family for so long is a mystery to me.”

“I mean, I obviously get it from somewhere.”

“I could have told you that you’re the most like me.”

“Most of the kids I was around in foster system were there because their parents gave ‘em up. After awhile, it was hard not to figure that too.” Darian admitted with a shrug. It was hard to say that, or to listen to this. Whatever he expected, this wasn’t that. He froze, swallowing the lump that formed in his throat. “S-So I was…alone for nothing?” Darian asked, his voice shaking. “They lied to you and just took me?”

“No I get it. I do. I understand why you’d think we choose to give you up but that...it was the farthest thing from the truth. We wanted you. Hell every year on your birthday we mourned the fact that you weren’t there to celebrate it with your twin. There was a literal missing part of our lives because you were no longer there.”

“Well, I…I did.” He cleared his throat, suddenly feeling very awkward. Whatever he had expected in searching for his parents, it wasn’t to be told that they thought he was dead. “I don’t know why they told you that. I always just assumed it was a choice you made to let me go.”

“A c-choice?” The word had come broken up as the emotions finally shown on his face, “If your mother could have done anything in the world to get you back she would have. I thought she was going to burn the Earth after we lost you, but we still had Brylan to worry about.”

“I usually do.”

“Okay smart ass way to have the same attitude that I do.”

“I was born with a hole in my heart. Made the whole…adoption thing not very appealing to people, I guess, but I don’t think I ever stopped breathing.” 

“W-we weren’t told you survived,” Jackson promised trying to put it together. All he had wanted was for Brylan’s twin, his son, to return to him but he thought it would never happen since he had believed everyday that he was dead