Anthony stared at him incredulous. Daniel was smiling, obviously waiting for him to say something, but the deputy couldn’t see the humor in the situation.

“That’s not funny, Daniel…” he said, finally, unable to keep the ache out of his voice. Bad enough that he was hurting anyway, but to add some kind of sick joke into the mix wasn’t something he’d have expected from the archeologist.

Daniel lost his smile immediately when he realized Anthony thought he was playing some kind of trick on him. He shook his head.

“It’s not a joke, Anthony,” he replied, earnestly. “He’s your son.”

“I don’t have a son…” Anthony told him. Now the aching in his chest was more than just the pain of whatever was killing him. “Cathy and I tried… but-“

“He’s yours.”

“He can’t be. I just told you-“

“He was born after you were abducted, Anthony. The-“

“Cathy would have told me!”

The words were torn out of him, and the baby in Daniel’s arms gasped in shock at the angry shout.

Daniel shook his head, bouncing the little one a bit to keep him from crying.

“She might not have known… he was born eight months after you left. She would have only been pregnant for a month…”

Anthony hesitated, looking from the baby to Daniel and then back at the baby. Could it be true, he wondered… He stared at the baby, and realized that there had been a reason those eyes looked familiar. They were Cathy’s looking back at him, a living reminder of the wife he’d lost while he’d been aboard Ball’s ship.

“Are you sure…?” he asked, feeling a different kind of ache in his chest, now.

“Kira found him. We’d only looked into your records, but she went into your wife’s, as well, and found out about him. I-“

“Can I hold him?”

Daniel nodded, hesitating only a moment and only because he wasn’t sure Anthony was actually strong enough to hold the baby.

“Of course.”

He handed the youngster to his father and Anthony trembled only a little as he took him. His eyes locked on the baby’s, he realized the rest of the story that hadn’t been available to him. Cathy had known. She’d known he hadn’t left her of his own accord. There was no way she’d ever have named their son after him if she’d thought he’d abandoned them both like others had probably told her he had. She’d loved him and had been waiting for him right up to the end.

A sob wracked his body and he held his son close, his cheek pressed against the baby’s as he broke down and cried once more for the woman he’d lost forever. He’d never had a chance to say goodbye to her, but she’d left him the ultimate gift anyway. Proof of her love for him, and her faith in him.

Daniel quietly watched, wishing he had some kind of comfort to give the deputy but knowing there was nothing he could say. Instead he simply waited for the tears to stop, because there was no way Anthony was going to be able to sustain any kind of physical activity long – and that included crying.

Sure enough, less than ten minutes later the sobbing had faded almost completely, and Anthony was clearly trying to get himself under control – even though he didn’t pull his cheek away from the baby. When he finally did look up at Daniel his eyes were bright with tears and his face was dangerously – in Daniel’s opinion, anyway – flushed.

“Thank you…”

Daniel nodded, now feeling uncomfortable.

“You’re welcome. I wish I had come up with a better way to tell you… I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t.”

The baby had fallen asleep, not at all impressed by his first meeting with his father.

“Want me to take him?” Daniel asked, certain Anthony was being worn out by holding him.

The deputy shook his head.

“Can I hold him a while?”

“Of course. I’ll, um… leave you guys alone for a bit – give you a chance to get to know each other, so to speak.”

“Thanks.”

Anthony settled the baby – Agustin, he told himself with a pleased smile and another pang of loss when he thought of Cathy – on the bed beside him, rolling slightly onto his side to accommodate the little guy more easily. Agustin didn’t even wake up. With his father’s arm around him holding him, and a warm bed to sleep in, he was as comfortable as he could ever want to be and the world was a good place just then.

Only minutes after Daniel left them, Anthony had fallen asleep as well, his son tucked close to his side.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

Janet Fraiser was completely unaware of what was going on down in her infirmary just then. At the moment, she had other things on her mind. Like the dizzying array of equipment that Thor was allowing her and her staff access to. Even better, the Asgard was being very accommodating, and had showed each of them what they needed to know to be able to use it.

Far more advanced than anything she’d seen before, she still didn’t have time to be all that impressed. More like grateful. She put her staff to work, and then got to work herself, plowing through the samples that had been brought from the planet, comparing each of them to Anthony’s base samples and hoping to find a common denominator in them. The technology made it easier than it would have been, but it was still grueling and time-consuming, and the pressure to get a cure as quickly as possible before it was too late for Deputy Ruff was weighing down on her shoulders like the world must have weighed down Atlas.