Disclaimer: I don't own the Time Quartet or any of these characters.

Set between A Swiftly Tilting Planet and The Arm of the Starfish, after Meg and Calvin are on Gaea and have five of their seven kids, though one is a newborn.

It was a clear and tranquil night.

Margaret O'Keefe was staring at the breezeway that led to the door because she had the strangest feeling someone was going to come through it. It was ridiculous of course. It was nearly eleven at night on their almost deserted corner of the island. Most of the islanders on the other side would be long asleep by now and there was no one else on the island though Joshua had told them recently that there was talk a hotel might be built if funding could be found for it. Meg tried to be sorry about it but sometimes she was almost hopeful it would be built and they would have to move closer to home again. She wanted to see her family again; Sandy and Rhea she saw about twice a year but she had only seen Charles Wallace once and the rest of her family not at all since she, Calvin, and the kids had left two years ago.

The house was mostly silent except for Peggy's light noises as Meg patted her back, trying to get her to burp. The rest of the children were already asleep but Peggy was less than a month old and had woken up hungry not long ago. Calvin was in the lab. He'd gotten rather behind since Peggy had arrived, turning the house into a jumble the way only a new baby could manage. Meg tried to strain her ears towards the door to hear anything unusual but she heard nothing besides the rush of the ocean. She got up from the couch and walked towards the lab with Peggy in her arms but she didn't get very far before nearly running into her husband as he came towards the living room. He smiled.

"I thought maybe you were up," he said softly. "You can go back to bed if you'd like," he suggested, reaching out his arms for Peggy. Meg was moving the baby when she heard a bang on the nearest door and she instinctively clutched the infant to her chest again, as if somehow that simple protection would be enough if whatever was on the other side of the door was sinister. Calvin's eyes moved towards the door nervously. "I've had a strange feeling someone was going to show up all night," he said quietly.

"Me too," Meg agreed. Peggy burped and Meg felt a small smile on her face. It was such a normal thing despite the fact that both she and Calvin had grown quite jumpy. There was a bang on the door again. Calvin slipped away and Meg followed behind, despite the look he threw her that he would go alone. Slowly he opened it and Meg, a couple steps behind, held the baby close in her arms.

"Well there you are. Couldn't stay in place could you? Good of Charles to let me know where you were. You've changed nearly as much as he has," the woman said coming in the door as if she had been there many times before.

"Mrs. Whatsit?" Calvin stumbled.

"Of course it is, silly boy," she replied. "And Meg too. I forget how quickly you have to change on this planet," she said, catching a look at Meg. "And another already. You do seem much too young but then I suppose you only have about a hundred years, don't you?"

"Yes," Calvin replied, still seeming completely bewildered.

"Would you like to come in further?" Meg asked, trying not to betray how odd she found this. The details of her adventure when she was fourteen and her father had come back were all a little hazy, a jumbled mass of what she found hard to sort into fact and fiction. Mrs. Whatsit had long ago faded to an obscure character from her past.

"Oh for a minute. I must be along shortly. I wouldn't have stopped by again so soon if I hadn't remembered you all have such short times and I might not have another chance," she said casually. Meg felt her stomach churn. She didn't like having her impending death spoken about so lightly. Sure she knew by human standards she had a good many years to go. She was barely in her thirties. But Mrs. Whatsit was making her feel doomed to an early death and she didn't like the thought of what that would mean to her five children.

"I had rather hoped the three of you would still be near each other but I suppose that was rather too much to hope," Mrs. Whatsit continued as Meg led the way into the living room. She wanted Calvin's hand, not for comfort or to give it but just to have a double reassurance that he found this as strange as she did. "Who's this?" she asked, looking at Peggy.

"One of our daughters," Calvin answered. "Our youngest."

"Ah, I had quite forgotten. You do have to start quite young on your planet don't you?" Mrs. Whatsit asked as she took a seat on one of the couches. Meg sat down across from her, cradling Peggy in her arms. Calvin sat against the arm, right by Meg, looking at their guest carefully. He rested a hand against Meg's arm, one leg brushing up against hers. "Well, I did only come to say good-bye my dears. We hardly had a moment back when we left and I came back as soon as possible to be sure we'd get a chance. Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which will be glad to know I caught all of you. I found Charles Wallace first you know," she said. "He told me where I might find you. Rather far without the ability to tesser, isn't it?" she asked. Meg nodded fully.

"Very far," she replied faintly. Calvin's hand moved to her knee. He knew the past few weeks had been harder on her than him. She wanted her mother and her family. Den had been born in Portugal but she had been pregnant with him before she left and her brother Sandy had shown up with Rhea two days after Den was born and stayed for about a week to help with moving rooms and everything else. This time they had been on their own.

"I wouldn't say that, especially when you've been farther than most of the people here," Mrs. Whatsit said. "You've been galaxies away."

"With your help," Calvin said, "and what feels like a very long time ago to us. We aren't so adept at moving yet, we as a race, a planet. Across seas is still a pretty far way for us." Mrs. Whatsit looked over the two of them.

"You do grow so fast here," she said after a moment.

"Is someone here?" a small voice asked. Meg turned as Calvin slid off the couch arm and picked up Charles who had apparently gotten out of bed. "I thought I heard someone," he continued.

"So fast indeed," Mrs. Whatsit murmured. Meg nodded at that. Yesterday, she swore, Charles had been as small as Peggy and Poly had been scowling at the new baby because she didn't understand why she had to sleep in a big-girl bed so Charles could have her crib. For that matter, yesterday Meg had been curled up on the floor of she and Calvin's first apartment, surrounded by books with only a slight bump about her waist that would later grow into Poly. "He's the same age Charles Wallace was, isn't he?" Meg froze at the thought, thinking of Charles, her baby boy, doing all that Charles Wallace had done at the same age. She didn't like the idea at all. A huge amount of sympathy for her own mother flooded through Meg.

"Hello," Charles greeted, looking over at Mrs. Whatsit. "Are you from the Embassy like Joshua?"

"You need to go back to bed," Calvin told him.

"I heard someone talking," he argued back. "I thought maybe it was Canon Tallis or Joshua."

"Even if it was, that doesn't mean it's time for you to get out of bed," Calvin told him. "Back to bed," he commanded, putting the little boy back on the ground. Slowly, obviously stalling, he walked away.

"I'd best be going as well. Things to do. I won't be seeing you again, at least not that I can imagine," Mrs. Whatsit told them. "Good-bye my dears," she said, heading for the door. Meg got up and followed after her and Calvin opened the door for the woman from their far past. She slipped off easily into the night and Meg stood there blinking as Calvin shut the door.

"It almost feels like a dream," he said, shaking his head as if to clear it. "It's so unbelievable and it feels like a lifetime ago."

"I know. Fewmets to it all?" she suggested, smiling at him. He grinned back, a chuckle low in his throat and then reached out his hands for Peggy.

"I'll put her to bed. I've got a bit more to do yet," he said. Meg handed over the baby who went easily into Calvin's arms, half asleep now that she was full and content.

"Don't stay up too late."

"I won't," he answered before leaning down and kissing her gently. She smiled as he broke apart.

"You know you've gotten much better at that since the last time we saw Mrs. Whatsit," Meg told him seriously, fighting to keep from smiling. He grinned at her, adjusting Peggy in his arms.

"I've had some practice."

-End-

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