Zoo doesn't belong to me nor will it ever. No copyright infringement intended.
Jamie and Mitch hadn't expected to have twins just thirteen months after their grandson's birth but here they were, and they were all rolling with the weirdness as a result. Clem shifted her son, Logan, to her other side, and waited patiently to learn her sisters' names. "So, tell me," she pleaded.
"This is Cordelia," Jamie told her, indicating the baby in her arms.
Clem blinked. "As in Chase?"
Mitch scoffed. "As in the one from Shakespeare, not a TV character."
"Nah, I'm pretty sure you named her after Cordelia Chase." Clem pretended to look innocent when her father glared at her.
Jamie laughed. "And your father is holding Alice."
"And don't you dare say Wonderland," chimed in Mitch before Clem could say anything.
"I wasn't going to!" Clem lied.
Sam snorted next to her. "We all know you were going to say it, Clem."
"Shut up, Sam." Clem then looked at her son. "You like your aunts, Logan Samuel? You're going to play with them and be best friends," she told him. Logan looked unimpressed. "Well, I'm just happy to finally have the little sisters I've been asking for for years." She had been thrilled when Jamie announced her pregnancy. The fact that her own son was older than his aunts was unusual but they had all dealt with worse.
"Well, these are the only babies I'm having so accept it." Jamie had been exhausted and miserable throughout her entire pregnancy.
"I'm good with that." Mitch hadn't liked seeing his wife in so much pain and pregnancy had wreaked havoc on her.
Clem tapped her boyfriend's shoulder. "This'll be you in five months," she sing-songed to Sam.
Sam shuddered. "Don't remind me." To make the situation even weirder, Jackson and Tessa were expecting their first child together in a few months. Sam and Jackson's relationship was still rocky so this had created some more tension between them when they had finally started to bridge the gap between them. Jackson kept trying to assure his son that the baby wouldn't change their relationship but was having a hard time getting through to him.
"Eh, you'll rock being the oldest, just like I'm going to." She handed Logan over to him and held her arms out for one of her sisters. Mitch gently handled Alice over. "Wow, this is surreal." Alice opened her eyes for a few seconds before closing them again.
Clem couldn't wait until Cordelia and Alice developed personalities and hoped Logan got along well with them. Could they develop some form of sibling rivalry? She pondered the question, wondering if it was weird or part of their new normal.
Although Sam was hesitant to meet his newborn brother several months later, Clem and Jamie pushed him into going to Jackson and Tessa's house. "Nice to see you, Sam. It's better you're here now instead of in the hospital because that was a chaotic few days." Thrilled to see his now eldest son, he clapped him on the shoulder and grinned.
"Jasper wants you to hold him." Tessa smiled at her clearly hesitant (possible) future stepson and handed him the baby.
"I still can't believe you named him Jasper," grumbled Sam as he scooped up his brother.
"Hey, I picked his name." The look of mock offense on Jackson's face made them all laugh.
Logan watched his father hold the strange baby with a glare on his face. Both Tessa and Clem tried to hold in their laughter. Logan got along well with Alice and Cordelia but his relationship with Jasper could be different so they had to prepare themselves for it. "No!" he suddenly shouted.
"Okay, sorry, kiddo. Jasper, you're really cute and I'm going to teach you how to drive Jackson up the wall," Sam mock-whispered to his brother. He tried to quash the jealously that rose up within him when he watched Jackson interact with Jasper because it was irrational. He was a grown man with a kid of his own.
Jackson exchanged a concerned glance with Tessa. "Talk to him," Tessa muttered under her breath.
So Jackson pulled his son aside so they could have an honest conversation. "I know you're struggling with this, Sam."
"I'm not." There was no way Jackson was buying the lie but Sam still had to try.
"Sam," he warned.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Why do you want to talk about everything?"
"Because. Now tell me," Jackson pleaded.
Sam stood in silence for a few minutes, mostly out of spite, before he couldn't take it anymore. "He has chances I didn't have and it's stupid and irrational, and I fucking hate myself for feeling this way but I can't help it!" he rambled.
Jackson's heart broke for his son and he pulled him in for a hug. "Sam, I love you - nothing's ever going to change that. We missed out on twenty years together and we'll never get that time back but Jasper doesn't change our relationship as it stands now. And yeah, it was off to a rocky start at first but we've made some real progress, haven't we?"
Sam nodded. "We have," he conceded.
"The three of us can hang out together once Jasper gets older. And bring Logan along too if you want - we can make a day out of it. But there is nothing for you to be jealous about because I care about you both equally. Get that through your head, okay?"
"Fine." Sam still wasn't entirely convinced but Jackson had gotten through to him just a bit so he was well on his way to acceptance of the situation.
"Good. Now let's go see what everybody is up to."
Sam thought of that conversation three years later as the team celebrated the 4th of July, and Jasper wouldn't leave him alone. "Play with me!" the toddler demanded.
"Go get Logan, Cordelia, and Alice so we can play," he told his little brother, who ran off to do exactly that. Sam turned around and gaped when his gaze landed upon Jamie and Mitch, making out by a tree. "Seriously?" he asked.
The two of them jumped apart and they tried to look guilty but failed. "We're in love. Shut the fuck up and deal with it." Jamie grinned and then pulled her husband away to the food table so they could eat (she mostly wanted dessert).
"Leave my daughter alone!" Mitch called back when Clem finally came back outside (morning sickness sucked) after a trip inside that lasted half an hour.
"Too late! Sorry!" Sam just shrugged at the look of confusion on Clem's face.
"Hi! Tag!" Cordelia demanded of him when Logan finally returned with his aunts and uncle.
He laughed. "Let's go." And then the kids took off, darting in different directions.
Yeah, this situation was weird as fuck but their lives had been this way for over a decade at this point. They didn't know how to do normal anymore.