Jack Carter wakes up screaming in his bedroom, the lights turning up automatically as the figure next to him in the bed startles awake.

“Jack?” an arm reaches around him. He nearly jumps off the bed, staring in shock as Dr. Nathan Stark blinks against the light. The sheet is pooled around his waist, glinting off the broad muscles off his chest. It's obvious that he's naked under the sheet and Jack blinks when he realizes he's naked as well. That's quickly forgotten as he backs up against the wall, staring at the room around him.

“Jack, what's the matter?” Nathan asks again. He doesn't know what crawled up Carter's ass and died, but, he looks at the clock and moans. “Carter, it's been a long night. Fargo nearly blew the both of us as well as Global Dynamics up with his latest fiasco, you have a stack of paperwork as tall as the kids to work on tomorrow, and no you can't get Jo in to do it, maternity leave means maternity leave, besides she hates paperwork nearly as much as you do, I have a pile equally as tall, and it's only been an hour since we got to sleep. Now what the Hell is your problem?”

“You're dead!” Carter says in a shocked, stunned voice.

Stark had reached over to take a drink of the pitcher of ice water S.A.R.A.H had left on his nightstand and chokes, spluttering.

“Excuse me, I'm what?” he stares at him, wiping the water off his chest with the sheet. “Are you sure you didn't get hit in the head?” His mood swings again, from annoyance back to concern. It would be just like the other man to be injured and not have said anything. He quickly gets out of the bed, walking over to where his lover is crouched against the wall, grabs his head between his hands and looks in his eyes for the signs of a concussion.

Carter stares at the apparition bending over him, hesitantly reaching up to touch him. Instead of the other man vanishing like he'd expected, he encounters warm flesh. Stark soon gets him settled back in the bed, sitting on the edge beside him. He'd put on a robe in case one of the kids came running woke by Carter's shouts but if they could sleep through their lovemaking a little nightmare shouldn't have woke them. But to be sure. . .

“S.A.R.A.H, are the kids awake?”

“No Dr. Stark, Sheriff Carter's shouts didn't wake them.”

“Thank you S.A.R.A.H.” Nathan says

“Kids?” Carter asks. This has got to be the strangest dream he's ever had.

“My son Daniel, your daughter Zoe the twins Kendra and Faith?” Stark asks him.

“Why aren't you with Allison?” Carter asks.

“Why would I be with Allison? She's my ex, I'm with you now.”

“Umm, you were engaged? You died on your wedding day? She's pregnant with your baby?” Carter asks.

“Excuse me, we're what?” It's Nathan's turn to shout. “Oh hell,” he moans as a baby starts crying. He doesn't need S.A.R.A.H's report to tell him that he woke the babies. He gets up and heads down the hall, Zoe's door opening and his stepdaughter standing in the doorway as he goes by.

“Go back to sleep Zoe, I'm sorry for waking you.” he says, opening the door to the nursery. Carter comes down the hallway, tying the sash on his robe as the lights come up in the room. He blinks when he first sees the twins, one's black and the other's white. The white baby is the one crying and Nathan reaches down to pick her up, lying her on his shoulder and rubbing her back gently as the other baby looks up at the ceiling, a 'what is your problem' look on her face that Carter recognizes from long association with his ex-wife, Allison, and Stark. Automatically, he reaches down and picks her up, the baby snuffling against his shoulder as she goes back to sleep.

“It's okay Daniel, we have them. Go back to sleep.” Stark says and Carter turns around to see a teenage boy, who can't be any older than Zoe, leaning against the doorframe. He blinks at the purple tipped hair standing straight up, Nathan must have had a fit about that but that's the least thing he has time to worry about.

“Cool.” Daniel Stark says, turning around and walking back down the hall to his room. “Night.” he calls over his shoulder to his parents. He checks in on Zoe as he passes her room, she's already asleep.