“Aliens don't have birthdays, Alex. They hatch at the most inconvenient time, and then they come to Earth to break everything in sight. They were sent here to destroy us and Planet Earth.”

“Do you want me to go out and tell them to turn down the music?” she asked helpfully with a broad grin. She could see that it really upset him. He loved his peaceful, orderly life, and he loved having everything beautiful and elegant around him. The songs they were listening to qualified as neither, and she felt sorry for him.

“That would be lovely,” he said gratefully, as she stepped into shorts and a T-shirt and slipped her feet into sandals. It was a beautiful spring day, and she promised to make breakfast as soon as she got back. He thanked her, and went to take a shower and shave before breakfast. He always looked impeccable, and he even looked handsome and in relatively good order when he woke up. Unlike Alex, who always woke up feeling as though she'd been dragged behind a horse on a rope all night. Her hair was all over the place, and with the hours she worked, she was always exhausted. But she had youth on her side, and she looked like a kid herself as she went out to the pool, to deliver his message to Mark.

When she got to the pool, she saw that Mark was there, and Jessica was at the hub of a flock of girls in bikinis and one-piece bathing suits, giggling and screaming. The boys were being “cool” and ignoring them, and Mark was trying to organize a game of Marco Polo from the pool.

“Hi, how've you been? I haven't seen you in a while,” he said pleasantly when he saw her. He'd been beginning to wonder if Coop had stopped seeing her. But Mark hadn't seen any other women there either. Things had been relatively quiet for weeks.

“I've been working. What's the occasion? Someone's birthday?”

“Jessie just wanted to get together with her old friends and celebrate being back here.” She was ecstatic to be living with her father, and for the moment she was refusing to speak to her mother, much to Mark's dismay. But so far at least, he hadn't been able to sway her. He kept telling Janet to give her time, but Jessica seemed to be relentlessly unforgiving. At least Jason was willing to talk to her, but he made no bones about the fact that he was thrilled to be living with his father.

“I hate to bug you about it, they look like they're having so much fun,” Alex said apologetically, “but Coop is having a little problem with the noise. Do you think they could turn the sound system down a little?” Mark looked startled, and then winced, realizing how bad it had gotten. He was so used to the chaos of having kids around, he hadn't noticed. And he realized he probably should have warned Coop of the gathering, but he was afraid now to even mention the kids to him.

“I'm sorry. Someone must have turned the volume up while I wasn't looking. You know how kids are.” She did, and she was happy to see that they were good, clean, wholesome kids. There wasn't a tattoo or a Mohawk in sight. Just a lot of earrings and the occasional nose pierce. Nothing scary. And none of them looked like delinquents or druggies, contrary to what Coop would have told her if he'd seen them. They were just ordinary “aliens,” in Alex's opinion.

Mark got out of the pool and went to turn the sound down on the stereo, and Alex stood smiling as she watched the kids for a minute. She saw that Jessica was a pretty girl, with long, straight blonde hair and a lovely figure, and she was giggling uncontrollably in the midst of her girlfriends, as several young boys eyed her with lust. She seemed to be oblivious to them. And then, Alex saw Jason approach with Jimmy. He was wearing a catcher's mitt and holding a baseball, and he was wearing a big grin as they talked earnestly about something. Jimmy had just taught him how to put a spin on the ball with unfailing precision. It was an art Jason had never previously mastered, but Jimmy made it easy for him.

“Hi,” Alex said pleasantly, as they stopped where she was standing. Jimmy looked awkward for a minute, and then introduced her to Jason. There was always something guarded about Jimmy's eyes, as though even looking at people now was painful. Alex could see the toll his loss had taken on him. He looked like someone who had suffered a trauma. He had that familiar shell-shocked look she saw in the eyes of parents who had just lost their babies. But when he was talking to Jason, he seemed more at ease than when he was in the midst of adults. “How've you been?” she asked casually. “Been to any good fires recently?” The last time she'd seen him was when Mark had nearly caused a forest fire with the barbecue, and they'd paged her to come back on duty. “That was quite an experience.” They both smiled at the memory. And she still had an unforgettable vision of Coop signing autographs for the firemen while the bushes were burning. It made her laugh to think of it.

“I got a very good dinner out of it,” Jimmy said with a shy smile. “I think we ate yours after you left. Too bad you had to go back to work. But if you hadn't, we wouldn't have gotten dinner,” he said sensibly, and then grinned at his own memory of the evening. “It was quite an evening. I haven't been that hungover since I was in college. I couldn't even go in to work until eleven o'clock the next morning. He serves some pretty exotic stuff, and a lot of it.”

“Sounds like I missed a good time,” she smiled at him, and then turned her attention to Jason and asked him what position he played. He said he was a shortstop.

“He throws a good ball,” Jimmy praised him, “and he's a hell of a hitter. We lost three balls this morning, over the fence. Definite home runs, right out of the park.”

“I'm impressed. I can't hit a ball to save my life,” she confessed.

“Neither could my wife,” he said, without thinking. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. And she could see in his eyes that they had hurt him. “Most women can't hit a ball, or throw one. They have other virtues,” he said, trying to bring the comment back to the world at large and get it away from Maggie.

“I'm not sure I have those virtues either,” Alex said easily, sensing that it had been an uncomfortable moment for him. “I can't cook to save my life. But I make a mean peanut butter sandwich, and I order a great pizza.”

“That'll do it. I'm a much better cook than my wife was.” Damn. He had done it again. She could see him retreat behind a wall after he made the comment, and he lapsed into a distracted silence as she chatted with Jason, and then the boy wandered off to see his sister and her friends.

“They're nice kids,” Alex said, hoping to put him at ease again. She could see what a hard time he was having, and she wanted to tell him she was sorry, but she didn't want to upset him more than he already was.

“Mark is out of his mind with joy to have them out here. He really missed them,” Jimmy said, trying to drag himself back from the precipice. He was constantly falling into an abyss of grief. Everything he said or did reminded him of Maggie. “How's our landlord handling it?”

“He's in deep therapy, and on mood-altering medication,” she said solemnly, and Jimmy burst into laughter. It was a wonderful sound, and in sharp contrast to what she suspected he was feeling most of the time.

“That bad, huh?”

“Actually, worse. Last week, he almost coded.” It was hospital-ese for a code blue, when all of a patient's systems failed, their heart stopped, and they stopped breathing. But Jimmy seemed to understand. “I think he might make it, but I had to brush up on my CPR training. We've got him on a respirator now, speaking of which, I'd better get back. I came out here to ask them to turn down the music.”

“What's it going to be?” Jimmy asked casually.

“It's been rap up to now, with some pretty juicy lyrics.” She grinned at him.

“No, breakfast, I mean. Peanut butter, or pizza?”

“Hmmm…now that's an interesting question. I hadn't thought about it. Personally, I'd opt for pizza, used, leftover. I live on it. With doughnuts for dessert, preferably stale. I think Coop has more mundane taste, maybe eggs and bacon.”

“Can you handle it?” Jimmy asked solicitously. He liked her, he got a sense of enormous warmth and compassion from her. He wasn't sure what she did, but he remembered it was something with babies. And he suspected she was good at it. She was obviously smart, and seemed like a very caring person. He hadn't figured out yet what she was doing with Cooper Winslow. It seemed like an odd match to him, but there was no accounting for people's choices of partners and playmates. They never seemed to follow the path you'd expect them to. Coop was old enough to be her father and then some. She didn't look like the kind of woman to be lured by celebrity or glamour. It made him wonder if there was more to Coop than he suspected, or maybe, bad news, less to Alex. In spite of the evening Jimmy had spent with him, he didn't think much of Cooper. Charming and handsome without a doubt, but not a lot of substance or depth.

“Can I call 911 to deliver breakfast?” Alex asked, continuing the banter. He was a sweet guy, and she felt sorry for him.

“Sure, just have Coop sign for it,” he said unkindly, and then was instantly apologetic. He had no reason to be nasty about the guy, and he knew it. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“It's okay, he has a great sense of humor, even about himself. It's one of the things I like about him.”

It made him want to ask her what else there was to like, other than his looks, but he didn't.

“Well, I'd better get back. I guess we won't be using the pool today. Coop definitely couldn't handle this scene. We'd have to restrain him.” They both laughed, and she waved at Mark and went back to the main wing, where she found Cooper looking petulant, and struggling with breakfast. He had burned muffins to a crisp, and had broken the yolks on all four of the eggs he was frying. The bacon was burned beyond recognition, and he had spilled orange juice all over the table.

“You can cook!” she said with amazement, and a broad smile as she took stock of the chaos. She couldn't have done much better. She was far more skilled in the ICU than in the kitchen. “I'm impressed.”

“Well, I'm not. Where the hell were you? I thought the aliens had taken you hostage.”

“They're nice kids, Coop. I don't think you need to worry. I was just chatting with Mark and Jimmy, and Mark's son, Jason. All the kids out at the pool look polite and wholesome and well-behaved.” He turned to stare at her then, with a spatula in his hand, as the eggs burned.

“Oh my God… it's the pod people… they've exchanged you…you're one of them…who are you really?” He had the wide-eyed look of horror you only saw in science fiction movies and she laughed at him.

“I'm still me, and they're fine. I just thought I'd tell you so you don't worry.”

“You were gone so long, I figured you'd run off with them, so I made my own breakfast… our breakfast,” he corrected, and then looked around him with dismay. “Do you want to go out to eat? I'm not sure any of this is edible.” He looked a little discouraged.

“I guess I should have ordered a pizza.”

“For breakfast?” He looked appalled, and rose to his full height with a look of indignation. “Alex, your eating habits are dreadful. Don't they teach you anything about nutrition in med school? Pizza is not an appropriate breakfast, even if you are a physician.”

“Sorry,” she said humbly, and put two more muffins in the toaster, and then cleaned up the spilled orange juice and poured two more glasses.

“This is women's work,” he said with a look of chauvinistic relief. “I think I'll leave you to it. Just give me orange juice and coffee.” But five minutes later, she produced scrambled eggs, bacon, muffins, juice, and coffee, and brought it to him on a tray on the terrace. She had used his best plates, Baccarat crystal for the orange juice, and folded paper towels in lieu of napkins.

“The delivery is excellent You need a little work on table service Linen is always a nice touch when you're using good china,” he teased her, but he smiled at her as he set down the newspaper.

“Just be grateful I didn't use toilet paper. We do that at the hospital when we run out of napkins. It works fine, so do paper plates and Styrofoam cups. I'll bring some for next time.”

“I'm enormously relieved to hear it,” he said grandly. She had a way of refusing to be pretentious no matter where she'd grown up, or what her last name was. When they finished the excellent eggs she had prepared for them, it led to a question he'd been meaning to ask her. “How do you suppose your family would feel about me, Alex? About us, I mean.” He looked worried, and it touched her. She had a growing feeling that he was serious about her, and she didn't really mind. So far at least, she liked everything about him, but it was early days yet. They had been going out for barely more than a month, and a lot of things could change, problems could come up, as they got to know each other better.