Listen to Me

by EGB Fan

A somewhat farcical romance set in 2027/28, following on from previous stories.

Disclaimer: Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters © Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Fil Barlow. John and Eden Spengler are creations of Fritz Baugh. All other original characters in this story are creations of the author.

Note: The appearance of canonical characters in this story is minimal.

Extreme Ghostbusters: Listen to Me

December 2027

When Oscar Venkman had left Conchita Rivera in New York the previous July she was newly pregnant, separated from her cheating scum boyfriend and living with her parents. When he met up with her again in December, it was complete chance; they both happened to be Christmas shopping in the same toy store. They hugged enthusiastically, paid for their purchases and then went to Conchita's parents' apartment. Apparently her circumstances hadn't changed much.

"Come in, take your coat off, sit down," she said brightly, as she led him through the front door. "White coffee, no sugar, right?"

"Would you be offended if I offered to make it myself?" asked Oscar.

"Of course I would," said Conchita. She shrugged off her coat as she talked, and Oscar saw that even though she wasn't huge yet, it was fairly obvious she was pregnant. "You know what I like best about this pregnancy? No one treats me like a sick person. Sian is amazing - I'm so grateful to your sister for recommending her."

Sian was a midwife specialising in home births, and she had delivered Oscar's second nephew. Having made this remark, Conchita disappeared into the kitchen without giving Oscar time to answer. He sat on the couch and had a look through the Christmas presents he'd bought for his nephews, wondering if maybe he'd overdone it a little bit this year.

"Where is everyone?" he asked, when Conchita came and joined him with drinks.

"Charlotte's out shopping with Dad," she said, "and Mom's out shopping with Rose."

"Aww - and you were out shopping all by yourself."

"Well, not quite," Conchita said, looking down at her bump and smiling.

"How are you feeling?"

"I feel fine. After you left I was having some morning sickness, and I even had a couple of dizzy spells, but that's all passed now."

"Good, good," said Oscar. "And, um… how are you feeling emotionally?"

"Oh, well… all right. More confident than I was the last time you saw me. I'm making more money now - I've got a second job. I translate stuff from Spanish. It's not usually anything very interesting - just business manuals and stupid stuff like that - but it's really convenient. The publisher sends me the hard copies, and I work when I get time and then e-mail it all back to them."

"That does sound convenient," said Oscar. "And when do you sleep?"

"Hardly ever."

"Is that good for the baby?"

"The baby's fine. Anyway, it's not that much work. Rose helps me. It's no good asking Dad, because his written English is terrible, but she helps me out and she won't take any money - I did offer - so in return I pose for her. It's a really good arrangement for both of us. She jumped at the chance to draw a pregnant woman with her clothes off."

"You pose naked, huh? I imagine that takes guts."

"Not really. She's my sister, she's seen it before. And you know what her art's like - I won't be recognisable in the final product. It's a good steady job, actually, because my body keeps changing and she wants to draw it, like, all the time."

"Well," said Oscar, "I'm not sure the tax man would like all of this."

"I don't tell him," said Conchita. "Obviously. But I might have to let him know that I've heard from Nick, once the child support starts rolling in."

Oscar raised his eyebrows. "You've heard from Nick, huh? And you're only, what - about halfway through the pregnancy? No, wait - more than."

"Yeah, well. He's gotten really enthusiastic all of a sudden - says he wants to be 'involved'. I'll bet he wishes he hadn't cheated on me now."

"There's no chance of you taking him back, then?"

Conchita shook her head. "I don't think so. If I loved him enough, then maybe, but I don't. He was never really very good for me, if you wanna know the truth. He was just this incredibly sexy guy who showed up when I was having problems with Dennis, and he provided a roof over my daughter's head. And mine. And we had so much fun. But the problem is that he likes… you know… having sex with all different women."

"Let me ask you something which is none of my business," said Oscar. "If Nick hadn't shown up, do you think you might have worked things out with Dennis?"

"Ahh… I don't know. I want to say probably not. He was suffocating me, and asking him not to didn't seem to do any good. He asked me back, you know, right after I found out I was pregnant with this one. He didn't know I was pregnant, and then when I told him he was like, 'Oh-kay, gotta go!' He hasn't changed."

"He still could."

"Maybe, but it's too late for me to go back to him now. Even if he could prove to me that he wasn't gonna go nuts every time I talked to somebody who was - you know - a man, he'd also have to accept Nick's child in some capacity. I can't see him doing that."

"You've obviously thought about it."

"I did think about it," said Conchita, "after he said he wanted me back. But I don't think about it anymore. I'm five and a half months pregnant and I have an eighteen-month-old daughter. Men are the last thing on my mind right now."

"I'm worried you're not happy," said Oscar.

"Well I am happy. I don't need a man to complete my life. Well… I suppose I needed them to get me pregnant, but I don't need them anymore. Wow, that's terrible."

"No it's not. Not unless you ditched them for no good reason."

"Anyway, this isn't the nineteenth century," said Conchita. "Me and my kids are enough for me. The happy ending doesn't have to be me walking off hand-in-hand with some guy. As far as I'm concerned, being single does not constitute unhappiness or failure."

"All right, fair enough," said Oscar. "But if you did happen to fall in love with someone, that would be okay too, wouldn't it? It doesn't have to be the happy ending, but that doesn't mean it can't be."

"I guess. But why speculate? I'm obviously no good at that kind of thing."

"Chita!"

"What?"

"You used to fantasise about living happily ever after with the man of your dreams."

"I was just a kid then - I was into Disney. And besides, it seemed like the most sensible situation to be in to have babies. That is now a moot point."

"This is terrible," said Oscar. "You're all, like, jaded and stuff because of a few bad experiences. There are good men out there, you know, and you deserve one."

"Why?" said Conchita. "Aren't I enough on my own?"

"You sound like my sister."

"Well, her philosophy has some good points. I'm not half a person."

"Yeah, well… she's married," said Oscar.

"That's because she fell in love," said Conchita.

"Yeah, and so could you. I know you can't plan it, but I really don't see what's wrong with hoping. I'm not saying you're half a person, but you… have a lot of love to give."

At this, she burst out laughing. "What a polite way of saying you don't think I function well on my own."

"That's not what I think."

"Oscar, can I be honest?"

"You always are."

"I know I'm a joke."

"You're - "

"Let me finish. I know what… well, what some people think. I'm the woman who gets engaged to the police officer who dealt with her assault charge, and then gets pregnant by him and leaves him. Then I get pregnant again by a complete rat who ends up cheating on me, and both times I have to go live with my parents because I'm also the crazy giant uterus who wants to have babies but doesn't have enough money to look after them."

"You can't know whether people think that or not," said Oscar. "I can't believe anyone has actually said that to you."

"Of course they haven't," said Conchita. "I don't know, maybe it's just me that thinks it. Whatever - I just want to prove that theory wrong. I need to make it on my own."

"Y'know," said Oscar, "I wish I had my stepmom's Best of the Hollies CD. There's this song I'd like to play you."

"Why? Will it make me change my mind about proving I can be independent?"

"No, no… but hopefully it would reaffirm your belief in true love. Being in a romantic relationship isn't about making up what you feel you lack."

"Oscar, once you have kids - "

"Oh, stop right there. You know what? I'm a professional musician - I'm just gonna sing it to you. Tell you what, get me a hairbrush - you used to love me doing this for you when you were a little girl."

"Maybe I was humouring you," she said, going off to find him a hairbrush to sing into.

"Mmm - like now, huh?"

The song he sang was like nothing Conchita was ever into - she wasn't particularly aware it was from the nineteen sixties, long before her time - but it had a catchy chorus:

Listen to me, I'll sing a song

To change your mind,

Your ears are deaf,

Your mouth is dumb,

Your eyes are blind.

Listen to me and very soon

I think you'll find,

Somebody wants to help you,

Somebody seems to care,

And very soon you've forgotten

That you didn't care about love.

Soon after Oscar had finished, Conchita's father and daughter came home loaded with shopping bags and found the two of them collapsed in laughter. When Conchita heard the door opening she leapt to her feet, crossed the room in two strides, took her daughter Charlotte into her arms and said, "Hello, baby! Did you have loads of fun? Did you get Mommy a nice big present?"

"Are you all right?" her father, Eduardo, asked amusedly.

"Of course."

"If I didn't know better I'd say you'd been drinking. Hi, Oscar."

"Hey."

"I haven't been drinking, Dad - I'm pregnant," said Conchita, still giggling.

"Mmm, I know."

"She's drunk on atmosphere," said Oscar. "I kinda sang her a song."

"Why?" Eduardo asked.

"Cheer her up."

"I wasn't unhappy!" Conchita was adamant.

"You can't fool me," said Oscar. "I'd be feeling a little bit conflicted if I was in your situation, and I'd suddenly heard from - "

"Um, Dad, there's something I've been meaning to tell you," said Conchita.

"What's that?" Eduardo asked suspiciously.

"Nick called."

"Nick called? When?"

"About two, um… days ago."

"What does he want?"

"Access," said Conchita.

"To what?" Eduardo said dryly, almost as though he didn't already know the answer.

"The baby." She paused. "After it's born."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because," said Conchita, "you always overreact to everything."

"No I don't." He paused. "I hope you told him where to go."

"Of course I didn't. Whatever he's done, he's still the baby's father."

"Hardly," said Eduardo. "He threw that out the window when he cheated on you."

"Well." Conchita sat down on an armchair, still holding Charlotte, and rhythmically stroking her hair. "What if he'd been faithful and I was the one who cheated? Would it have been okay for him to take away the baby after I had it, and deny me access?"

Eduardo, still standing, stared at her for a moment. Then he said, "Conchita, why are you so compassionate? I'm sure I didn't bring you up like that."

"It was Beth," said Conchita, referring to her aunt by marriage: Eduardo's sister-in-law.

"Beth, huh? I'll have a word with her about that."

"Look," said Conchita, "Nick getting in touch is actually good news. If he wants to be involved with his kid, then he has to pay me child support, and that means I can afford to rent an apartment - and I know you love having us here, Dad, but me, Charlotte and the baby can't live in that one bedroom indefinitely."

"The baby's not due until the end of March," said Eduardo. "There's no hurry."

"Sure there is. These things take time, and I want to be settled in a new place when I have the baby. I can't have it here, Dad - you and Mom don't want me wandering round the place screaming for eight hours or whatever."

"I don't mind."

"Well I do. You don't want your dad around while you're giving birth."

"I watched this documentary about home births once," said Oscar. "This woman had her husband and her sister and all their parents with her, and her father-in-law filmed the baby as it was coming out."

Conchita looked at him for a moment. Then she said, "Well, I'd rather it was just me and Sian and Nick and no cameras."

"Nick's going to be at the birth, is he?" Eduardo asked distastefully.

"Of course Nick's going to be at the birth."

"It almost sounds like you've forgiven him."

"Yeah, well, maybe I have."

"You're not gonna take him back, are you?"

"Isn't that my decision?"

There was an edge to her voice that was uncharacteristic in her, and Eduardo looked like he was ready for a big argument if necessary. Before one could develop, Oscar jumped in with, "So… the baby's due at the end of March? Will you be able to come to my birthday party, Chita? It's on the eighteenth"

"Well," said Conchita, "that's about a week before my due date. I can come if I haven't had the baby yet, but I might go into labour while I'm there."

"Oscar, I think you're nuts," said Eduardo. "No one ever admits to turning forty."

"That's okay, I've started counting backwards," said Oscar. "I'll be thirty-eight."

.-.-.-.

Christmas Day

Over the Christmas period, Oscar was staying with his parents. All four of them. Kate and Andre Wallance - his biological father and his wife - were staying in Peter and Dana Venkman's spare bedroom. Bizarrely their son Hayden was married to Jessica Venkman, which was why they were spending Christmas with that family in the first place - but their spare room was being occupied by Hayden's brother Lars, and Nathan, whose relationship to Lars was now officially "civil partner". (Hayden's sister and her husband were unable to make it over from England, because they had a three-month-old daughter.)

Oscar and Jessica, in the kitchen making drinks ranging from white wine to weak orange squash, had gone from discussing the weirdness of having a mutual niece - he by blood and she by marriage - to discussing Conchita's situation.

"If you ask me," said Jessica, "the woman's insane. She'll be like a month or two off twenty-seven when she has her second baby. If I had her figure, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant until I was well into my thirties."

"But when did you start wanting to have kids?" asked Oscar.

"Um…" She pushed a tray of drinks into his hands. "About ten minutes after I found out I was pregnant with Tom. But so what if she desperately wants kids? She's got years - why not save her looks and have a little fun first?"

"I saw her a few days ago," said Oscar, following his sister as she began to make her way through to the living room. "She looks gorgeous."

Jessica threw him a cross-eyed look over her shoulder, and said, "Of course she does. Funny thing - I've never been pregnant at Christmas."

They entered the living room as she said this. Everyone was making a fuss of Jessica's four- and two-year-old sons, Tom and Robbie, with Nathan and Lars sitting feet apart. When there were kids around you wouldn't even know they were friends, never mind lovers. Lars was really betraying his suppressive, homophobic roots, Oscar thought.

"I've been pregnant at Christmas twice," said Dana, Oscar and Jessica's mother.

"I've been pregnant at Christmas three times," said Kate, Oscar's stepmother and Jessica's mother-in-law.

"All right, you win," said Jessica, just as the phone started ringing. "Get that, Hayd - it's probably your sister."

Hayden went, and then moments later called Oscar to the phone to talk to his best friend of twenty-six years, Danny Hart..

"I'm sorry," said Danny.

"Why?" asked Oscar. He could hear screaming kids in the background; Danny was also spending his Christmas with nephews, and a couple of nieces too.

"Well, see… Jimmy's really upset. Well, he's not so much upset as… really, really depressed. Donna left him yesterday."

"She left him on Christmas Eve? Ouch."

Jimmy Hart was Danny's significantly younger half-brother. He had two from his father's second marriage (still going strong), as well as an older brother from the first.

"Yeah, I know," said Danny, "but it's been building up for a while now, as well you know. But Jimmy's just… inconsolable, and the kids hate him for it, so I've been trying to cheer him up and I've kind of said he can go to your birthday party."

"Won't he have cheered up by then?" asked Oscar.

"By March? Oscar, I don't think so."

­.-.-.-.

Saturday, March 18th 2028

Oscar had a really big house in Los Angeles, but his immediate family and all of his best friends lived in New York. He was being allowed to have his party in the firehouse that had served as the Ghostbusters' headquarters since their founding, now well over forty years ago. He'd had to discriminate with his guest list, as he knew so many people, which meant that Conchita had made it but the rest of her family hadn't. She was the only one of them to fall under the category of family and close friends. She had spent a lot of the evening talking to Jessica Venkman, now that she was only about a week off having her baby and was feeling renewed doubts about giving birth at home (she was now renting a fairly cheap but nice enough apartment, which meant she was one worry down).

"You couldn't be as nervous as Nick," said Jessica, who had been hiring Nick Chapman on all of her profit-making building projects for about a year and a half. "He's never really wanted to talk about his personal life at work before, but now that he's shortly going to witness the birth of his child, he won't fucking shut up about it."

"What if something goes wrong?" asked Conchita.

"Then Sian will do as much as she can while Nick calls an ambulance. Don't worry, it'll be fine. God, I hated it when I was pregnant and people said that to me. Let's take your mind off it. Ooh, I know - come and meet Kimmy Delaney."

"What? No, I can't," said Conchita. "She's a model - they're intimidating."

"Don't be stupid, she's great," said Jessica. "And it's not like you aren't as pretty as her."

"I am not as pretty as Kimmy Delaney!"

"Yeah you are, you're prettier. Look, there she is. Hmm… looks like the Spenglers have gotten to her. Who's looking after her kids, anyway?"

"Who's looking after your kids?"

"Max."

"Max?" Conchita wrinkled her nose, trying to imagine her friend Max Miller in sole charge of two young children. "I love Max, but I wouldn't trust him with Charlotte."

"Well, he's living with that annoying girlfriend of his now, isn't he?"

"What, Maria? She's completely irresponsible."

"Oh," said Jessica. "Well, there's no point in worrying - it's too late now. So who's with Charlotte, anyway - your mom and dad?"

"No, she's spending the night with Dennis."

"Oh. If you ask me, it was a smart move splitting up with him. And Nick. Your mom told me that if you have kids first, everyone asks you when you're gonna get married, but I happen to know that if you get married first, everyone asks you when you're gonna have a baby - like it's any of their goddamn business. So you get pregnant and then split up - ideal solution. Anyway, come on, help me rescue Kimmy."

Kimmy Delaney was married to Mood Slime guitarist Tim Price, who of course was there too. They had four children, the youngest of whom was still a baby, and since Jessica had mentioned it Conchita couldn't help being curious as to who was actually looking after them. Kimmy was at that moment talking to John and Eden Spengler, the twin son and daughter of Egon and Janine Spengler, founding member and former secretary of the Ghostbusters. Apparently Oscar considered them close friends.

"Okay, look," Kimmy was saying. "I go on a lot of special diets, and I did happen to be on one while I was pregnant with Dylan. But I have never claimed to believe that the diet had anything to do with him being born a boy."

"Guys, come on, not this again," said Jessica.

"It's okay, I don't mind," said Kimmy. "Except… I told all of this to Oscar in the summer, and he said he was gonna pass it on."

"Oh, he did," said John. "But we thought maybe he was just trying to shut us up."

"That magazine article seemed very sure of itself," added Eden.

"They always do," said Jessica. "Kimmy may be a model, but she's not as dumb as all that. Kimmy, this is Conchita Rivera - she's a very good friend of Oscar's. She has issues with that other article from when you were pregnant with Dylan - you know, the one that says morning sickness is psychosomatic."

"Oh, well… I never actually said that either," Kimmy said awkwardly.

"Being famous really sucks," a new voice said, and when Conchita turned her head she found herself looking at a gorgeous pair of dark eyes in a very nice face. All she could think was, Shit, not again. "Everyone just prints lies about you all the time. It was a good decision you made not to get into the modelling business."

Conchita hadn't time to respond before Jessica said, "Jesus Christ, Jimmy, that is the worst pick-up line I have ever heard. Well… almost."

"You totally could have," he said, still looking at Conchita. "Jimmy Hart." He held out his right hand. "I'm Danny's little brother. You must know Danny if you know Oscar."

John and Eden seemed to have melted into the crowd, which meant that Jessica had only Kimmy's arm to grab onto as she said, "Shit, what do we do?"

"Calm down, it's not our fault," said Kimmy. "He introduced himself - it was nothing to do with us. Let's just… walk away."

They turned round and started to slink off. They were a good ten feet away when Danny suddenly materialised in front of them and said frantically, "What are you doing?"

"He just came over and introduced himself - it's not our fault," said Kimmy.

"Oh God, what am I gonna do?" said Danny.

"Danny, come on, it's not that bad," said Jessica.

"He's still not over Donna."

"Hey." Tim appeared at that point, with Oscar. He put his arm around Kimmy's shoulders and, jerking his head towards Danny, said, "What's eaten him?"

"Jimmy's hitting on that pregnant woman over there," said Kimmy.

"What?" said Oscar. "Is that why I invited him to my party - so he could hit on people?"

"Guys, this is really bad - we have to stop it!" wailed Danny.

"Shut up, Danny," said Jessica. "He's, what, twenty-nine? Old enough to make his own mistakes, anyway. Now, I know she's gorgeous whether she's pregnant or not, but this is ridiculous. I mean, wasn't she pregnant with Charlotte when Nick started hitting on her?"

"Yeah," said Oscar, "she was."

"Ooh, Hayd, c'mere," said Jessica, reaching out and grabbing Hayden's sleeve to catch his attention, as he happened to walk past a few yards away. "Babe, if you saw a pregnant woman, wouldn't you assume she already had a man?"

"Well," said Hayden, following the five people's collective gaze. "Not if it was her."

"But Jimmy doesn't know her," said Jessica. "I mean, as far as he's concerned…"

"It's all going to end in tears," said Danny. "Jesus, why is he so fucking stupid?"

Conchita, meanwhile, was enjoying talking to Jimmy Hart more than she wanted to. She had already told him that she had one other child, the two of them had different fathers and she was separated from both of them. He seemed delighted by it all.

"I'm separated myself," he said. "I'll tell you straight up that I'm married, but… there's no hope there. We'll probably get… divorced… very soon."

"Um… are you okay?" asked Conchita.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Better for talking to you. Connie, if I gave you my phone number, would you call me?"

"Well I'd like to, but… I don't think I'd have time. I'm on maternity leave from my day job, but I'm doing this other job, and my daughter's so young, and I'm having this next one any minute and… y'know."

"No time for fun, huh?"

"None at all. Tonight's a big exception."

"It sounds like you could use some support," said Jimmy. "Let me."

"I'm not helpless," said Conchita, a little waspishly.

"Of course not - that's not what I meant."

"Sorry. I shouldn't take it out on you. I'm just… so sick of everyone telling me what to do all the time, y'know? It comes with being a single mother, I guess. I'm a nice person, and normally I can take it, but just sometimes I wanna scream at someone."

"Hey, I know what you mean," said Jimmy. "I had that when I was going through my break-up with Donna. Some people were telling me I should work it out - like my once divorced dad, for example - and then Jess was saying I should ditch her…"

"Jess tells me I should ditch people too."

"No way. You can't not take my phone number - we've got too much in common."

"Mmm, so we have. In a few months' time, she'll be telling us to ditch each other."

"So, what - why bother getting started? Connie, please, you're being so negative. I really like you. Why can't we see if it goes somewhere?"

"Because of my kids," said Conchita. "I need to think about them. I've already been with one guy that I've had to put my daughter through losing."

"Wow, you really are negative," said Jimmy. "Look, I'm giving you my phone number. You don't have to use it, but… maybe this time it's for keeps, y'know?"

.-.-.-.

Conchita went to collect Charlotte from Dennis's apartment early the next morning. For quite a long time (relative to the two years since they'd split up), going there had always stirred up memories. She and Dennis had lived there together happily for two years, and spent a lot of time together there happily for another year before that. But as the months passed she had got over that, and now saw the place simply as Dennis's apartment.

"Good party?" he asked.

"Yeah, not bad," she said, as she passed him in the doorway. "Is Charlotte still asleep?"

"Yes," said Dennis. "You know I believe in sleeping in on Sundays."

"Oh, sorry, I could have come later."

"Um… that's not what I meant. Connie…?"

"Yeah?"

He hesitated, then asked, "Would you like a drink before we wake her?"

Conchita had never yet refused a gesture of friendship, so she followed Dennis through to the kitchen where an age ago she had been making breakfast when the calendar caught her eye, and she'd realised her period was late. Like most women, she'd been late before, but this time she just happened to be pregnant with Charlotte. She had asked Dennis to marry her a couple of hours later, but of course that had never come to anything.

They sat at opposite sides of the table, and she drank water. She was always reasonably careful to be healthy, but when she was pregnant, she knew she was like some kind of fitness freak. At the moment she was drinking five pints of water a day, and no caffeine.

"You can't be far off your due date now," said Dennis. He was looking at her pregnancy, prominent under a normally loose t-shirt that was now taught over her swollen abdomen.

"Just over a week," said Conchita. She smiled, and added, "I can't wait."

"You know what? I love how you never complain about being pregnant."

"Of course I don't complain. I love being pregnant."

"I guess that's why it suits you," said Dennis. "You're beautiful all the time, but when you're pregnant… well, you know the old 'glowing' cliché, but for you it's true."

"I'll have to be careful all this you're-beautiful stuff doesn't go to my head," said Conchita. "Last night a guy told me I could have been a model."

"You could have been."

She gulped down the sip of water she had just taken, and said hastily, "I wasn't fishing for you to say that."

"I know. So, um… what guy?"

Conchita stared at him for a moment. Then she said, "You almost sound jealous."

"Well," said Dennis, "maybe I am."

"Oh, Dennis…!"

"What? Of course I'm jealous, because he gets to be with you - maybe - and I don't. I thought it was when it was the other way around that we had a problem."

"Yeah, well." She looked down at her water. "We don't have that problem anymore."

"Connie," Dennis said patiently. "I'm saying I still love you."

She looked up again, her big childlike eyes not showing him even a hint of understanding.

"I never stopped loving you," said Dennis. "And I still want you back."

"Dennis, be sensible," said Conchita. "I'm about to have another man's baby."

"I don't care about that. No, wait, that's not what I meant - of course I care. What I mean to say is that it doesn't bother me."

She answered him with only a look of extreme cynicism.

"It's a baby," said Dennis. "It's innocent in all of this."

"Of course," Conchita said slowly, "I could be wrong, but I think you might just be saying that because you think it's what I want to hear."

Dennis shook his head. "No." Then he stood up, walked around the table and stooped down to kiss her.

But she leaned away from the kiss, and said, "Dennis. It's not Charlotte in there."

"Yeah, I know. She's asleep in her room."

"It's Nick's baby."

"Your baby!" He looked about to get angry, but then calmed down at once and said, "I love you. I can love your baby too."

"Oh, Dennis," she said, shaking her head sadly.

He backed away a little, looking hurt, and said, "Was I really so bad that you don't believe there's any way back for me?"

"You're assuming I'd want to come back, if I really believed what you're saying."

"No, not really. I'm hoping."

"I'm not afraid of being on my own."

"You're stronger than you look," said Dennis. "I know that now. But that's not what this is about. Okay, so you're pregnant. You're not dead. Nor am I. It's not too late for us."

"Dennis," said Conchita. "Please. You'll see this baby soon, and you don't know how you'll react when you do. At least wait until I've had it before you decide how you feel."

.-.-.-.

A dew days later, she called Jimmy Hart. It was at least partly because she didn't want to disappoint him, but also because she had liked him and was curious. Conchita had a romantic streak that she sometimes perceived as a weakness, especially at times like this, when she was trying to think of her children and be independent. But she liked going out on dates too much. It was like a drug, with highs and lows, and she'd been hooked ever since she was fifteen. It was feeling like the teenage heroine in a Sophie Dahl novel that she really liked - even now - and of course, that never lasted long. She was annoyed with herself for not being able to look past that, even now that she was a mother - and pregnant, for crying out loud - and yet here she was, out to dinner with Jimmy.

"So when's the baby due?" he asked.

"Tomorrow," she said.

"Right, okay, I'll be ready to rush you to the hospital."

"Don't worry about it," said Conchita. "I was almost a week overdue the last time - but actually, I'll tell you now that if I do go into labour, you'll have to take me home. That's where I'm having it."

"Really?" said Jimmy. "What if something goes wrong?"

"Well then I'll go to the hospital."

"Wouldn't you rather have all the equipment on hand?"

"I want it to be as natural as possible. I don't like 'equipment'."

"You might need it."

"The baby and I are both fine," said Conchita. "There's no reason why anything should go wrong. Now can we talk about something else, please?"

"Sorry," said Jimmy. "It's because I'm a doctor - I'll try not to."

She stared at him. "You're a doctor?"

"Yes."

"What kind of doctor?"

"Just your regular run of the mill family GP."

"Oh," said Conchita. "My dad hates those."

"Why?" asked Jimmy, looking extremely surprised. "People need doctors."

"Well, he doesn't mind people going to doctors if they're really sick. But he thinks that most of what you guys do is unnecessary, and that if you go to a GP they start giving you grief about things which are none of their business."

"Hmm… I guess that doesn't bode well for my relationship with him."

"It'll be fine," Conchita said dismissively. "I already had a baby with a cop, and he hates them more. I think. But if you are going to meet my dad, maybe you should worry more about when he asks you why you gave your phone number to his pregnant daughter."

"What's wrong with that?" asked Jimmy. "I made sure you were single first."

"Yes, I know, but it's not like we'd been getting to know each other for years and formed an emotional connection, or something like that - you actually picked me out of all the women in that room, just going by how I looked. Why?"

"Who wants to know - you or your dad?"

"Right now," said Conchita, "I do."

"Well," said Jimmy, "you must know how beautiful you are."

"I've heard about that before. But there were a lot of beautiful women there that night."

"Do you want me to launch into a big poetic speech about how you outshone all of them? Because I will if you want me to. You did."

"All right, if you say so. So… is it definitely over with your wife?"

"Yes, definitely. Is it definitely over with your baby's dad?"

"Absolutely," Conchita said firmly. "He cheated on me - I can't take him back."

"He cheated on you?" said Jimmy. "Why? What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know. He's just horny, I guess."

"Did he know you were pregnant?"

Conchita didn't say anything.

"Sorry," said Jimmy. "That's none of my business. Look, let's talk about something else. What's so very wrong with cops?"

After that, conversation came more easily, and Conchita felt herself starting to relax. Her unborn baby kicked her relentlessly, a constant reminder that this man had made an unusual choice in pursuing her, and in all likelihood he either pitied her or had some kind of fetish… but she decided not to worry about that just yet. If she and Jimmy had problems, they would soon come to light. Problems, she knew only too well, always did.

But it was a nice dinner, a nice trip home in Jimmy's nice car and a nice kiss outside her apartment. For a moment it really was like being sixteen again.

"Thank you so much, Oscar," she said, upon entering her apartment. "How was she?"

"If babysitting Tom and Robbie was like that," said Oscar, "you would never hear me complaining. I can't believe how well behaved she is."

"I know, she's amazing. I wonder if I can get that lucky twice."

"She talks well, doesn't she? She was asking me questions about Jimmy."

"Yikes. Like what?"

"Well, she asked me if he had any kids."

"Oh." Conchita furrowed her brow, and asked, "Does he have any kids?"

"No," said Oscar. "You found out all the important things about each other, then?"

"I'm not at all sure we did. I don't know - I feel almost sure I shouldn't pursue a relationship with him. But then why did I say I'd see him again?"

"Maybe because you like him?"

"I guess I do. It's because I'm such a sucker for eyes - his are beautiful. I don't think my family would like him, though. No guy ever won over my dad with a nice pair of eyes."

"Which is presumably why you're keeping him a secret from them, and I'm babysitting."

"I guess so," said Conchita. "I don't know - maybe I'll find out I actually can't stand him and then he won't be an issue anymore. First dates are always the best."

But as it turned out, the second date was good too, and so was the third. It was nice, but it was annoying. Conchita had never actually tried to steer clear of romantic relationships before, but now that she was trying, it was frustrating to find that she couldn't do it. As far as she was concerned, it said nothing good about her will to be independent.

.-.-.-.

April

"Thank you," said Oscar, "so much for letting me hide here."

"No problem," said Conchita. "It'll be great watching it with you - you can answer any questions right away."

"Yeah, that's exactly why I'm not watching it with my family. I kinda wish we'd never agreed to make the goddamn documentary in the first place."

"You'll feel better when it's over. Is there any particular reason why you're not in LA?"

"A few. Mom and Dad went from 'Just stay for Jessica's birthday' to, 'Just stay until we've seen this documentary' - they probably want to quiz me afterwards in person so I can't hang up on them. And I might need you to make me feel better when it's over and I realise how bad it was. And you're gonna have that baby any minute - I'd like to stick around long enough to meet him or her."

It was eight o'clock in the evening. Charlotte was asleep, and had been for about an hour.

"I've had Jimmy quizzing me about you," said Oscar, once he and Conchita were settled in front of the TV, though there was a good half-hour before they would need to turn it on. "Apparently you're reluctant to meet his parents. He asked me to put in a good word for them."

"I know you like his parents," said Conchita.

"Well, they're really nice people. Especially Jenny, his mom - she was so good to me when we moved here from LA and I was all depressed and stuff."

"I'm sure she was."

"So what's the problem?"

"Well, they're…"

"What?" asked Oscar. "Oh, wait - you're not one of those downstate snobs, are you?"

"Well," said Conchita, "not as a general rule, but when it comes to meeting Jimmy's parents… yes, I suppose I am. I know class prejudice isn't any more acceptable for being directed upwards - and I know your family, so I know it's not all true, but… I don't know. My dad once warned me never to get involved with people like that, and these things stay with you, don't they?"

" 'People like that'? Y'know, I really don't get you. Lars started to realise he was gay at fifteen, and he was in the closet for ten years after that. From what I hear, your sister told you guys she was gay about ten hours after she realised. Every time I introduced Andre to a black girlfriend, he didn't like it. You had a baby with an Asian guy, and no one batted an eye. But when it's a class difference, then you get jumpy."

"Yeah, well, think about what you just told me. I'm a mixed race single mother, pregnant with her second kid by the second guy, who's never been married. What would Andre think of that?"

"He'd be glad that Jessica got to his son before you did," said Oscar, "and he doesn't even like her. But Danny's parents aren't Andre. They'll like you for who you are."

"All right, I believe you," said Conchita. "But meeting his parents… it seems so final."

"What, more final than -?" He stopped short.

"What?"

"Um…"

"Ah. I take it he's told you we had sex last night."

"Yeah," Oscar said sheepishly. "Look, he didn't mean to. He was just a bit upset because you… and then you said you didn't want to meet his parents."

"Well, I at least want to have the baby first - I can't go into labour while I'm having dinner with my boyfriend's parents. I mean, they probably care about their carpet."

"Not all people of that class care about their carpets, Conchita."

"Sorry."

"Anyway, what's this about it being 'final'? It sounds to me like you're still not sure."

"Yeah, well… I'm not," Conchita said defensively. "I'm supposed to be proving I can be independent, aren't I? So what do I do? I hook up with the first guy that wants me, and he just happens to be a wealthy doctor!"

"That's okay. You are being independent - you're allowed a boyfriend too."

"I like him. I do. But what if that's mostly because he has money? I mean, I'm about to have my second child, and this is a two-bedroom apartment. If this one's a girl, I can make her share with Charlotte forever, but then I'll probably want to try again for a boy anyway and I'll need Jimmy for that, won't I?"

Oscar didn't say anything.

"Why does it have to be so serious so quickly, anyway? The guy's marriage only just broke up - and to be honest with you, I'm not even convinced he's over her."

"So why sleep with him?"

"Oh… because we both wanted to. Because I honestly do have feelings for him. Because I haven't had sex since right after I found out I was pregnant, and I haven't had good sex since just before that. And… maybe I was hoping it would kick-start my labour. It's due at the end of March my ass! But anyway, look - it's not like I pressured him into it, Oscar. Quite the opposite, he was like a - "

"I don't need details."

"He said it's been a long time for him too. He and Donna… didn't, much. To be honest, I might be more inclined to meet his parents if he told me why his marriage split up. I've got a horrible feeling it's something he and I should split up over, otherwise why wouldn't he tell me?" She paused. "I bet you know, but I'm not gonna ask you."

"Why not?" said Oscar. "Most people would."

"I don't want to put that kind of pressure on you. The chances are you heard it from Danny, and Jimmy doesn't even know you know."

"No comment."

Conchita smiled, and said, "So anyway, what about this documentary? Is it really as bad as all that?"

"I don't know, I haven't seen the final cut. None of us have."

She sucked in her breath. "Ooooh, was that clever?"

"No, it was completely stupid."

The imaginatively titled Mood Slime Uncovered started at eight thirty-five, and was scheduled to run for an hour and a half. Oscar knew that he had talked to the cameras for a good four or five hours, and his three friends would have taken their time as well. The first thing he said when he saw himself on screen was, "God, I look about sixty."

"No you don't, you look forty-five," said Conchita.

"Thanks, I was thirty-nine."

"Knowing what you did to your body, I think you were lucky to only lose six years. Danny looks forty-five as well. Ooh, look at Ella - she looks sixty."

Oscar nodded. "That'll be the smack."

It looked at first as though events were to be discussed chronologically, as the first few minutes of the show were dedicated to each of the four band members talking fondly of their memories of meeting at school and forming Mood Slime, full of the hopes and dreams of innocent, talented teenagers. But Oscar wasn't going to be lulled into a false sense of security - it was going to get much more controversial any minute. Then sure enough, when Danny came to describe their first song-writing session, he went into great detail about the overwhelming sexual attraction he had started to feel towards Oscar.

"Wow," said Conchita. "I never knew he wanted you that badly."

"He's been in love with me for years," said Oscar.

"What, really?"

"I've never really had that kind of… connection with anybody else," Danny told them. "I've had boyfriends, as I'm sure you know, but… nah."

Whatever he had said next was not aired, but rather the screen cut to the image of Oscar in his LA home, prompting the Oscar in Conchita's apartment to mutter, "Here we go."

"You're gonna hear about a lot more serious stuff that happened when we were older, but when you're thirteen moving across the country is a big deal, and it was a very confusing time for me altogether. Not that I'm making excuses - I don't know whether that contributed to what happened with Danny or not - but for a while he had me thinking that I really might be gay."

"Right after that I told them about how I realised I wasn't gay," said Oscar. "But look, it's cut to Tim - what did he have to say about this?"

"Danny and Oscar have always had a very close friendship," Tim said. "I'm completely confident that their relationship isn't sexual, but you really need to ask them."

That segment ended on an ambiguous note. Oscar had made the nature of his relationship with Danny very clear, and he was sure that Danny had as well, but whoever had edited this thing decided not to show that. It was a nice link into the whole why-didn't-Kimmy-Delaney-marry-Oscar thing, for which most of the screen time was dedicated to Tim (whom Oscar and Conchita agreed looked about the right age).

"There were a lot of magazine articles about this that I found rather upsetting," said Tim, looking as though he was no longer upset by the whole thing but actually found it quite funny. "Oscar has always been very much better looking than me, and a better musician. People seem to wonder why Kimmy married me rather than him, and there were even a few articles that quoted her as saying things didn't work out with Oscar because he was having a lot of personal issues. I very much doubt she would have said that, because as far as I know she never actually tried anything with Oscar."

"Kimmy Delaney never showed any romantic interest in me," Oscar was saying suddenly. "She liked Tim, and they fell in love and got married, and it's really that simple."

Tim was then shown talking about why it wasn't that simple. Apparently the press had done a lot of damage to his self-esteem at that time, and Kimmy selling exclusive rights to photograph their wedding to a particular publication had made him doubt her love for him. There came a point, he said, when it had all felt like nothing more than a huge publicity stunt. Then that segment ended with all four members of Mood Slime confirming that yes, Tim and Kimmy were genuinely in love, followed by thirty seconds of Tim gushing about the births of his four children over nine years.

"Okay," said Oscar, when he heard Ella describing the media pressure he himself was under to "be fucking gorgeous all the time", "this'll be the bulimia."

"Your family knows about that, right?" said Conchita.

"Yeah, of course. The gay thing is out of the way now - it's just the drugs to come."

He didn't remember being amusing about his eating disorder, but he saw now that he was describing it all with a ha-ha-stupid-me smile on his face, and very soon the Oscar on screen had Conchita in fits of giggles.

"I still maintain, and the others will back me up, that it has always always always been about the music. But. When you're up and coming, you'll do pretty much whatever it takes to sell records, and one of the things that we were told was selling records was me being photographed with… not all that much on. So what happened was that I became very insecure about my body, especially when I realised that pictures of my, um, semi-naked form had been digitally altered. That just… wasn't good. Somewhere there's a picture of me with some quite serious biceps going on." That particular photograph immediately appeared on the screen.

"My body has never looked like that. And then I, um… I went completely insane, really. I was seeing pictures of myself fully clothed, which were not digitally altered, looking like, I don't know, Audrey Hepburn or someone" - one such picture was shown - "and thinking, Oh my God, I'm so fat! And I became bulimic. There were about three weeks when I was making myself sick, and then one day I woke up with this killer sore throat, and I wasn't singing so well all of a sudden, and I thought, Shit! So I found this kind of eating disorder awareness website that was supposed to help people who had these conditions, and that actually gave me the idea of using laxatives instead of throwing up. So I did that, and… it wasn't very good, but my voice was fine, and that went on for quite a long time. I actually did some quite serious damage to my digestive system…"

At that point it cut to Danny, who was being very serious about how Oscar's bulimia came to light and how it was dealt with. Tim and Ella also had something to say about it, and then it cut back to Oscar talking about how he had eventually got over the problem.

"I'm sorry, it's not funny," Conchita said at that point.

"It's okay, it's funny now," said Oscar. "But it wasn't very funny at the time."

Then the drugs issue came up, and once again Oscar was nervous. Danny claimed never to have touched any illegal substances. Tim and Oscar both admitted to snorting coke on occasion, but said that it had never culminated in a serious addiction, and that they had always refused heroin. Then suddenly it was all about Ella. Oscar's most dramatic moment in this segment was recalling the time when he and Tim had found her nearly dead of an overdose in a hotel room in Barcelona. Oscar flinched to see how emotional he had got when describing the events of that terrifying day. He glanced at Conchita, feeling a little embarrassed, and she looked quite shocked.

"You never told me about that," she said.

"I think I did."

"You never told me how much it freaked you out."

"Yeah, well… I found my friend nearly dead, and it was scary. But it was all over by the time I told you."

When that was over, the show had only about a minute left to run. It ended on a few closing comments from all four of them, and Ella's was, "So I'm totally into God now. I never used to believe in any of that shit, but now I know that the moment I stop believing, I'll be back on the fucking smack again."

"Wow," said Oscar, while on the screen he made some sage comment about finally getting what he'd always wanted out of being in a famous rock band now that he was no longer young and naïve. "I actually came out of that better than I thought I would."

"You're lucky the focus at the end was all on Ella," said Conchita.

"I got into crack worse than they made it seem," said Oscar. "I think they overdid the whole thing with me and Danny having a 'special relationship', though. His dad's not gonna be happy with me now, knowing how much I helped him realise he was gay."

"You said he was a lovely person," said Conchita.

"Yeah, he is. He'll like you - you're a woman."

"So he's homophobic, is he? I'll have to be careful what I say about Rose."

"He's not homophobic per se," said Oscar. "Only where Danny's concerned."

"Right. So, um… how's your digestive system now?"

"It's not the best, but we get by."

Conchita then stood up suddenly and went for a little walk around the room, just as Oscar's cell phone started ringing. If it was a member of his family calling, he planned to ignore it, but he answered when the caller display told him that it was Danny.

"It almost sounded like there was hope for you and me," Danny said.

"What did you think of it?" asked Oscar, watching Conchita out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, I came out of it okay. The worst thing I've ever done is just be gay, and everyone already knows about that. You didn't come off too badly either."

"Yeah, better than I thought I would."

"Y'know, you shouldn't laugh at eating disorders."

"It was my eating disorder. But look, I've gotta go - I'm at someone's house."

"Some house," said Conchita, when Oscar had hung up.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Um." She was leaning on a surface in the kitchenette a few yards away from him. "I think I'm in labour."

"What? Since when?"

"Well, I first felt something about an hour ago, but I wasn't sure - my water hasn't broken yet or anything. But this definitely feels like labour now."

"I thought your water was supposed to break first."

"No, that can happen at any time during the labour. What time is it?"

"Ten past ten."

"Okay, thanks," said Conchita, moving away from the kitchenette and coming to join him on the couch. "I'm supposed to call Sian when the contractions are ten minutes apart."

"When are you gonna call Nick?" asked Oscar.

"Now," she said, reaching for the cordless phone, which happened to be within arm's length. She dialled, waited and then said, "Hi, you're home, good. Listen, I've just gone into labour."

Oscar listened as Conchita reassured Nick that everything was going to be fine, and he couldn't help thinking that it should be the other way around. Then finally she hung up and said, "He's on his way. Can you wait with me 'til he gets here?"

"Of course I can."

"Thanks. Oh, here comes another one - that's, what, fifteen minutes?"

"Fourteen," said Oscar, looking at the wall clock. "It's nice that you're smiling, anyway."

"Well, I'm not in real pain yet," said Conchita. "I'm so excited - I just love this. Well, I don't love the labour, obviously - but I didn't find it that hard to cope when I was having Charlotte. Every time I felt a contraction, I just got more and more excited because I was thinking, that's one less pain I have to go through before the baby arrives."

"Wow," said Oscar. "That's a really good attitude."

"Yeah, well, being in terrible pain is all part of bringing new life into the world. And afterward you get to feel really smug - I kinda feel sorry for the dads, not having that. To be honest with you, Oscar, I think I might even be a little bit insane. Even when I was screaming and pushing to get Charlotte out of me, and I was living with my parents because Dennis and I had split up, I knew I'd wanna keep having more babies. I should probably go to a doctor and get some hormone suppressants or something."

"I don't think that's necessary," said Oscar. "But what do I know? Ask Doctor Jimmy."

"Oh yeah, I'd better call and tell him," said Conchita. "And my mom and dad. I can ask them to let Rose and everyone else know."

While she made her calls, Oscar got out his cell phone and called Natalie Daniels, a young woman whom he slept with on a very casual basis. He asked her if he could turn up at her apartment at some point during the next hour or so, as he didn't want to face his parents or his sister just yet.

Not long after that, they timed ten minutes between contractions. Conchita called Sian, and then said to Oscar, "Wait and say hi to her if you want."

"All right," said Oscar. "It'll be interesting to see her again. When Jess was having Robbie, Tom was with my mom and dad. Are you gonna leave Charlotte where she is?"

"Well," said Conchita, "if it was daytime I might ask Dennis or my parents to take her, but she's asleep. I might have the baby before she wakes up, but if I don't Nick'll give her breakfast and stick her in front of the TV for the last couple of hours."

Nick arrived before Sian, and Conchita started telling him what to expect. Then, seeing that Oscar looked a little embarrassed by this, she asked him to go and check on Charlotte. He did, and predictably, he found her fast asleep. She was such a good sleeper, and always had been; they all knew she didn't really need checking on.

"Hey, Oscar," said Nick, when Oscar returned to the living room, "good documentary. So, are you and Danny gay for each other?"

"Danny's gay for me," said Oscar. "He's a good friend, but I'm not gay for him."

"It was made perfectly clear how they both feel, Nick," said Conchita, somewhat tightly.

Minutes later, Sian arrived. She was much as Oscar had remembered her: a nineteen seventies throwback with wild red hair, a lot of jewellery and a serene expression.

"All right, Connie, let's see how much you're dilated," she said.

"Right, well, I'll get out of your hair," Oscar said quickly.

"Oh, hello!" said Sian, noticing him apparently for the first time. "You're, um… Robbie Wallance's uncle, aren't you? How is he?"

"Well," said Oscar, "they don't call them the terrible twos for nothing."

He told Sian a little bit about Robbie, and she seemed interested, but she didn't want to chat for long. She started ordering Conchita out of anything she was wearing below the waist, at which point Oscar quietly slipped out and began making his way to Natalie.

.-.-.-.

At five thirty in the morning Sian had gone, and Conchita was calling her parents with the news that she had given birth to a little boy. Given the time of night, she had expected to leave a message, but Kylie had managed to wake up and get to the phone. She wanted to know the baby's name, but Conchita had to tell her they were still deciding, although she was quietly confident that she knew what her son was going to be called.

"Come over as soon as you're ready," she said. "Bring Rose, obviously. And Anna. Good thing it's a Saturday, isn't it?"

"Yes, that was very clever of you," said Kylie. "So, um… how's Nick?"

"Nick?" Conchita glanced over to where Nick stood cradling his newborn son in his arms. "Nick is absolutely smitten."

"You're a saint to let him be there, honey. I wouldn't have."

"I'll see you later, Mom."

Conchita was pretty sick of hearing that every woman she knew, and a lot of men as well, wouldn't have been so lenient towards Nick in her position. She usually shut them up by saying she needed his child support, which was true, but there was more to it than that. She honestly believed that, whatever Nick had done, he had his rights as a father.

"Matt," said Nick, as soon as Conchita had hung up.

"I don't think so. I have a cousin called Matt."

"Scott."

"No."

"Cameron."

"No! Do you want him to grow up to be a womanising piece of - don't answer that."

Nick was silent for a moment, and kept his gaze fixed firmly on the baby's face. Then he said, "Connie, there's something I've been meaning to tell you."

"What's that?" she asked invitingly.

"Um… do you wanna sit down?"

"No."

"Do you mind if I do?"

"Of course not," she said, holding her arms out for the baby. Nick handed him to her, and then took a seat on the couch.

"You, um… you remember I cheated on you?" he said.

"I do remember that, yes."

"Her name's Carrie-Ann. I never liked her as much as you, but I kept on seeing her after we split up and… now she's pregnant."

Conchita had been concentrating on her baby - the smell of him, the weight of him in her arms, his adorable little hands… - but that announcement was enough to make her look up and say, "Oh. How pregnant?"

"Sixteen weeks."

"Congratulations."

"I'm sorry it happened," said Nick. "I'm sorry I cheated on you in the first place, and I'm sorry I reacted so badly when you told me you were pregnant. I mean, he's just…"

"Yeah," said Conchita, her attention now back on the baby. "He is. Nick, why are you telling me all of this?"

"Because it's time I started being completely honest with you. I still love you."

At that she looked up again, convinced she couldn't have heard right.

"I want you back," he said.

Conchita shook her head firmly. "No."

"Can't you forgive me?"

"I have forgiven you. We can be friends, but… no more."

"Have you forgotten what it was like?" said Nick, standing up and taking a few cautious steps towards her. "We had a lot of fun, didn't we?"

"There should be more to it than just fun," said Conchita.

"There was. I love you. I'll do anything you want. I'll marry you - I want to."

She was still shaking her head. What a time to spring it on her! "No."

.-.-.-.

Nick was still there when Kylie, Eduardo, Rose and her lover, Anna Rodriguez, all turned up at around eight o'clock. Conchita, who was giving Charlotte her breakfast in the kitchenette, had the feeling that Anna wouldn't have minded a few more hours in bed, but she had come out of duty to Rose. It was a good thing too, because apparently Anna was the only one who could bear to get close enough to Nick to take the baby from his arms.

"So," said Kylie, as she was handed her brand new grandson, "does he have a name yet?"

"Josh," said Nick.

"Joshua," said Conchita.

"Joshua Rivera," said Nick, "sounds like a pussy."

"Yeah, well, Josh Chapman sounds like a lying cheating piece of scum."

"It just doesn't seem fair. Charlotte has Dennis's surname."

"Dennis never cheated on her," Rose said at once.

"And he supported her through her whole pregnancy," added Kylie.

"And," said Conchita, "I was completely out of it after I had Charlotte, so I let Dennis have his way. But this time I feel fine, and I don't see why I should let my family's name die with me. It's not like you're not gonna be making any more Chapmans, is it?"

"No, I guess not," Nick said sheepishly.

"But he is your son, of course. What about if we make his middle name Nicholas?"

Nick smiled coolly, and said, "Sounds like more than I deserve."

He left shortly after that, possibly because the atmosphere was not making him feel exactly wanted. Rose and Anna took their turn with Joshua, and then went to play with Charlotte - they had her making potato print pictures within minutes (Rose was convinced her little niece had artistic talent). It was when Kylie had joined them, and Eduardo was on his own with Joshua, that Conchita decided to try talking to him about what she considered to be delicate subject. She wrapped her arms around his waist and put her chin on his shoulder, much as she had done whenever she wanted something as a child, though she didn't quite reach his shoulder back then.

"How about that, huh?" she said. "The first boy in our family since Kevin."

"Mmm, well done," said Eduardo. "Carlos'll be happy to know that he's keeping the Rivera name alive."

"Yeah, well, I gave birth to him - he should have my name. Hey, you don't mind staying like that with him while I, um… go and call my boyfriend, do you?"

Eduardo looked at her, and she switched on her most angelic smile.

"What boyfriend?" he said.

"I've only been seeing him for a couple of weeks."

"Chita, why do you never tell me anything? Am I that bad?"

"Sometimes," she said. "This one's a little, kind of… upmarket. Actually it's Danny Hart's little brother, Jimmy. I met him at Oscar's party."

"You met him when you were eight and a half months pregnant?"

"Yes."

"Well," said Eduardo, "he's got to be better than Nick."

"What?" said Conchita. "You mean you don't mind?"

"I haven't even met him yet."

"You've changed your tune."

"Yeah, well, Danny was always a good kid."

"He's a doctor."

"He's what? Are you crazy?"

Conchita smiled indulgently, somewhat relieved by this reaction - it at least meant there was nothing wrong with him - and went to the phone. Her legs were a little tired, as she had managed not to sit down or even go to the toilet since first breast-feeding Joshua some hours ago, so she leant against the kitchen surface to talk to Jimmy. He was delighted with the news, and seemed eager to meet Joshua as soon as possible. Conchita, due to an unease she did not fully understand, persuaded him to postpone his visit until the next day when her parents hopefully wouldn't be there.

Almost as soon as she had hung up, the phone started ringing. She answered it to Dennis, who wanted to know if he could take Charlotte the following afternoon. She asked Charlotte if that was okay, passed on her affirmative response and then told him she'd had the baby.

"Oh," he said, his tone unreadable. "Congratulations. Tell me."

"It's a boy," said Conchita. "Joshua. Eight pounds seven ounces."

"Bigger than Charlotte was."

"Yeah, I had to have stitches."

"Are you still seeing that guy?"

"Yes. Oh, I have to go, Dennis, Joshua's crying. Come and pick her up any time, okay?"

Conchita hung up and went to take Joshua from her father, because he really was crying. She had to sit down again, which was extremely uncomfortable, but of course she was prepared to sacrifice her own comfort for his. He sucked for over half an hour as though he was half-starved, before eventually falling asleep with her nipple in his mouth.

It was ten o'clock, and Conchita had been awake for twenty-six hours. As soon as Joshua was asleep, she asked her parents if they'd look after Charlotte for a bit, and then went to her bedroom before they had time to answer. She took Joshua with her; he was to sleep in a cot at the foot of her bed indefinitely. When he was older, he could share a room with Charlotte until they started hating it, but Conchita couldn't think that far ahead. Right then, she could only think of snatching a few hours' sleep.

Joshua woke her two hours later. She fed him again, then carried him through to the living room where she found Eduardo playing with Charlotte while Kylie cobbled together some lunch for her. Conchita wanted to thank them, but was too tired to find her voice, and could only think of how much she didn't want them to leave. Being independent was one thing, but with a newborn baby and a child not yet two, it wasn't going to be easy. She quietly hoped that Jimmy would be as willing to help as he seemed.

Eduardo and Kylie stayed all day, allowing Conchita to sleep whenever Joshua did, and then finally left at nine o'clock in the evening long after Charlotte was in bed. That was when Conchita called Oscar. As she talked to him she paced up and down the living room, with the phone on one shoulder and Joshua hanging over the other.

"Hey," he said, "I was worried about you. Is everything okay?"

"Everything's great," said Conchita. "I had a little boy. He's so beautiful, and he's got this really adorable smell - I love that baby smell - and when he sneezes he gets this really funny look - you know, like a cat, it's so adorable. Nick wanted to call him a smooth guy name, like Matt or Scott or Cameron, but I absolutely insisted on Joshua. I always wanted a Joshua, ever since you and I played that game - do you remember?"

"Um… what game?" said Oscar.

"I must have been about six or seven. You were there, and I can't remember why, but we were talking about how so many girls' names ended in A, and then we made this list of at least one name for every letter of the alphabet - usually more."

"Oh yeah, I remember that. Wow, what a weird game."

"Yeah," said Conchita, "well, anyway, ever since then I've been trying to think of boys' names ending in A, and I've only ever been able to think of Joshua."

"Really?" said Oscar. "You've been thinking about it for twenty years?"

"Yes I have, and I've finally given up - I don't think there are any others. I made Nick agree that he'd have my surname."

"You go, girl."

"And then I said we'd stick Nicholas in the middle, just to make him feel better. That was nice of me, wasn't it? Dennis called earlier and asked if he could have Charlotte tomorrow afternoon. That'd be a good time for you to come and meet Joshua - can you?"

"Of course. He's the main reason I'm not in LA right now."

"And bring Hayden and Jessica, if you can - I want to tell them how amazing Sian was. I actually kind of enjoyed myself, despite the pain. I'll definitely use her for the next one."

"The next one? Whoa, slow down."

"I might just marry Jimmy for practical reasons," said Conchita. "Anyway, I think Joshua might be asleep, so I have to go now and try to get some sleep myself. But come tomorrow at around lunchtime, won't you, and bring Hayden and Jess. And if you can stay for a bit after they've gone, I'll tell you something funny."

.-.-.-.

At one thirty the following afternoon Oscar, Hayden, Jessica, Tom and Robbie were all flocking outside Conchita's front door. Oscar was about to knock, when the door opened and Nick sauntered out of it. He seemed to notice Tom and Robbie first, smiled at them and said, "Hey, guys. What's up?"

"Nick, when are you gonna finish my rear extension?" asked Jessica.

Jimmy appeared next, looking faintly subdued. Oscar immediately pulled him to one side, and said in a low voice, "Have you told her why your marriage broke up yet?"

Then came Dennis, together with Charlotte and one of her dolls. Hayden smiled politely at him and said, "Hi, Dennis. How are you?"

"Monday afternoon, no worries," Nick said easily.

"It's not important," said Jimmy.

"I think you'll find it is," said Oscar.

"I think you'll find it's none of your business!"

Jimmy said this loudly enough to attract the attention of everyone out in the hallway. He stood under their collective gaze for a few moments, and then sloped off towards the stairwell. Dennis and Charlotte followed his example, as did Nick, but first he said to Tom, "Kid, your mom's a slave driver. Tell someone if it gets too much, won't you?"

Then, at last, the Wallance/Venkmans were able to fulfil the purpose of their visit. They found Conchita on her feet, leaning against the back of the couch and breast-feeding Joshua. This was so new to Robbie that had to he stare, but Tom had seen it many times before with his brother, and with Charlotte and that very same breast. He was sufficiently unfazed by it to wander into the kitchenette and start looking in the low cupboards.

"Tom, stay out of there," said Jessica.

"I'm only looking."

"Well don't. How would you like it if everyone who came to see you ended up admiring the contents of the kitchen? Look at the baby - like your brother's doing."

"I'll find you guys something to play with," said Conchita, finally catching Tom's attention when she took the baby off her breast. "Can someone take him?"

Oscar did the honours, and Conchita disappeared into Charlotte's bedroom. She came back carrying a large plastic box, dumped it on the floor and said, "Here you go, guys - Charlotte's really into dinosaurs at the moment."

Unlike too many modern children, Tom and Robbie knew what to do with a few lumps of plastic and their imaginations. They fell on the offering and immediately began fighting over the biggest, toothiest dinosaurs in the box. Satisfied that the boys wouldn't be bored, Conchita then flung an arm each around Hayden and Jessica and said, "Thank you so much for putting me onto Sian - she was so amazing!"

"Well," said Jessica, "you know how I love to say I told you so."

"Oh, Hayden," said Conchita, "I'm asking you now: please don't make me laugh. I had to have stitches."

.-.-.-.

"I'm so sorry about Hayden," Oscar said, over an hour later, when Conchita had closed the front door on all but him, and Joshua was asleep. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said. "You wouldn't think you used your vagina to laugh, would you?"

"Um…"

"Oh God."

"What's wrong?"

"Well," said Conchita, "I just had a really bad thought. About Hayden. I'm going to tell you, because it's funny, but you mustn't worry - it's really no big deal. I was just kind of imagining that I was married to him, and we were living in Jessica's house, and we had Tom and Robbie - I have no idea where Jess was - and we had Charlotte and Joshua, obviously, and we had another one on the way. I thought maybe Hayden would like a daughter, you see - and Charlotte wouldn't want to be the only girl, would she?"

Oscar stared at her for a moment. "I don't know what to say."

"It's okay, it doesn't mean anything. I'm not, like, in love with Hayden or anything like that. He just… I don't know, he represents a lot of what I would like. I mean, he's a real saint to Jessica, he obviously loves her, he adores his kids, he'd probably help her make some more if she wanted him to… But it's really not about him - it's just I wouldn't mind having a guy like him around. And speaking of guys…"

"Is this the funny thing you wanted to tell me?"

"Yes," said Conchita. She still wasn't sitting down, Oscar noticed. "It's so weird - I don't know where to start. Well… Dennis says he still loves me and he wants me back."

"Oh, okay. And that makes… how many times?"

"Three. I don't know, he says he means it this time, and he's so sure he can change. He said it when I was still pregnant, and I just couldn't believe he wasn't pretending like it was Charlotte in there. Then this afternoon he kind of… hinted."

"Can't say too much with Jimmy around, huh?" said Oscar.

"I guess," said Conchita.

"How do you think he feels about Joshua? You've said so many times you can't see Dennis accepting another man's child. Do you think the same thing now?"

"I don't know, it's so hard to tell. I was too tired to pay much attention, to be honest."

"Right," said Oscar. "Well… is it even relevant? What about Jimmy?"

"He seems very keen," said Conchita "He says he loves me, but a lot of guys have said that. But now get this: Nick actually wants to marry me."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"When did he say that?"

"About half an hour after I had Joshua."

"Jesus Christ. What are you gonna do?"

"Nothing," said Conchita. "I guess I'll keep seeing Jimmy, just to keep my options open, but I still get the feeling there's something he's not telling me. I'll just have to get it out of him. If we're going to break up, now's the time to do it. I have to give all of my time to Charlotte and Joshua, and right now I can't ever imagine wanting to have sex again."

"Mmm, you can't even sit down," said Oscar. "But you will."

"Sit down, or want to have sex?"

He smiled. "I don't know, one or the other. Maybe even both."

"I can do without sex. I told that to Jessica once, and she laughed for twenty minutes, but it's true - I don't need it. I never even… you know… until I was twenty-two."

As Oscar knew that Conchita had been eighteen at the most when she lost her virginity, he could only assume she was referring to her first orgasm.

"That must have been with Dennis," he said. "You turned twenty-two just after you started seeing him - I know that because Jess was pregnant. That's right, isn't it?"

"Yeah, that's right. It was good with him while it lasted, but it's over now."

"Would you take Nick back?"

"Absolutely not. I didn't tell you, did I? The woman he cheated on me with is pregnant."

"Oh, now it's just getting silly."

"I know," said Conchita. At that point Joshua woke up and cried, so she walked over to him, already unhooking her bra. "Some people call this demand feeding. I call it: when he cries, stick a nipple in his mouth. I know what I'm gonna do: see what happens with Jimmy, and if it doesn't work out then stick with myself. I know I can cope."

"I'm sure you can," said Oscar.

.-.-.-.

May

It was a couple of days before her twenty-seventh birthday that Conchita felt like having sex again, and fortunately, the six-week ban was over. Jimmy was only too happy to oblige, so they made a start in her bed while Joshua slept on the other side of the door.

"Hey," said Conchita, pulling away from his kiss when they were both about ready to start in earnest. "There's condoms in the dresser. I don't want to get pregnant again yet."

Jimmy looked at her for a moment, and then leaned over to the dresser and quickly located the desired item. They then managed a couple of minutes before Joshua started crying, and Jimmy stopped what he was doing straightaway so that Conchita could go and deal with her son. She let him suck on her left nipple until he fell asleep, and then she went back to Jimmy. This time, they managed to finish.

It was the second time they'd had sex, and it was good for her, but it wasn't as good as it had been with Dennis or Nick. Jimmy hadn't asked her what she wanted, seeming so sure that he knew what to do that she had a feeling she'd been experiencing the kind of lovemaking his wife enjoyed. But she didn't like to ask him about that.

Afterwards, he sat staring at the used condom in his hand for what felt like a very long time. Long enough to make Conchita feel uneasy, at any rate. Then he said, "I'm sorry. It was really deceitful, agreeing to use this. I just kinda… didn't feel like stopping."

"Neither did I," said Conchita. "Um… what do you mean?"

"It's time I told you the reason my marriage broke up. I'm, er… firing blanks."

Then he started telling her a very long, very sad story. She quietly pulled a loose t-shirt over her body while he told her about marrying Donna, getting a cat, being blissfully happy, trying for a baby and finally taking the tests. He told her about the fertility treatment, the donor sperm, the stress and the tears, the mounting tension that finally came to a head in a blazing row, and Donna leaving him and taking the cat with her. And Conchita listened to all of it with tears in her eyes, and held him while he sobbed.

Then Joshua cried again, and Conchita walked him round the living room while Jimmy went to the bathroom to sort himself out. When he came back he found Conchita still rocking Joshua in her arms, trying to coax him to go to sleep. He went back into the bedroom and waited for her.

"I'm so sorry about that," said Jimmy, when Conchita finally returned. "I just can't believe how nice you are. Some women would have… I don't know."

"It obviously still hurts," said Conchita, sitting down next to him on the bed.

"I'm really sorry I lost it like that."

"It's okay. You really want to have kids, don't you? I guess that explains why you came to me at that party."

"I guess maybe it does," said Jimmy. "I know what you're thinking: I must have seen you and thought, great! Instant family! But I wasn't consciously thinking it - I want you to know that. I was just thinking how beautiful you were. And… I wasn't thinking this consciously either, but you were obviously so happy to be pregnant. You appreciate what you have - you know how special it is. I'm not an obstetrician, but I look after a lot of young families, and some of my patients come to me pregnant and just moan about it."

"Hey, be careful," said Conchita. "You've never been pregnant - you don't know what a bitch it can be."

"I know," said Jimmy. "I don't mean it like that. Pregnant women sometimes feel bad - I'm sure you did. But it was hard to think like that at the time. I found it upsetting because Donna would have given anything to be feeling what they were, y'know?"

"I'm so sorry," said Conchita, for want of something better to offer him.

"But it's not just because of your kids. You're amazing, Connie. Really. You are just the nicest person - I can't even put it into words. How could anyone fail to love you?"

"Well, we have had some really good times, and I love how you are with my kids. It's been great. But what if we really were that in love? It seems awfully unfair on Donna. If I'd met you first, Jimmy, we wouldn't have lasted. Children are all I've ever really wanted, and now I have them. If it worked out between you and me now, it would be like Donna was keeping you on ice for me while I had babies and she didn't."

"That's… not a very nice way of looking at it."

"I think you still love her."

Jimmy sighed heavily, and said, "Well, what if I do? She won't take me back now."

"Maybe," Conchita said carefully, "you'll meet someone you love just as much, or even more. And then you'll forget all about her. But you haven't yet, so obviously I'm not the person who's going to make you happy."

He looked at her for a moment, his beautiful brown eyes so sad that she was moved almost to tears. Then he said, "I wish you could be. I mean, you… you're perfect."

"Hardly."

"You're beautiful, and sexy, and loving, and compassionate, and you're even smart…"

"But I don't make you forget Donna."

"I'm so sorry, Connie," he said. "You deserve better than this."

"You will stay the rest of the night, won't you?" said Conchita. "I couldn't bear to let you go when you're this unhappy."

"One day," said Jimmy, "you are going to kill somebody with kindness."

.-.-.-.

July

It was a Sunday morning and, as far as Eduardo and Kylie knew, nothing had changed since Conchita broke up with Jimmy. They were watching a tennis final they weren't particularly interested in when a knock came at the door, and Kylie answered it to Conchita and Joshua.

"Can we come in?" asked Conchita.

"Of course," said Kylie, knowing at once that something wasn't right. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, well… Dennis has been stabbed."

Eduardo and Kylie reacted to this at once, both frantically voicing the same set of questions in a different order. Conchita silenced them by saying loudly, "He's still alive, he was dealing with a break-in at the Upper West Side last night, it was a kitchen knife in the stomach - or near it, I don't really know - he's in hospital, he was bleeding internally and they're working on him. Charlotte's there," she added.

"Is she okay?" Eduardo asked.

"Not really," said Conchita, finally looking like she might start to cry. "I didn't like to leave her, but I know they'll look after her, and I wasn't doing anygood. Michael was running around asking questions, and Karen was threatening to sue all the hospital staff" - Dennis's younger sister was a wet-behind-the-ears lawyer - "and Soo was weeping all over Charlotte and I was just sitting there feeding Joshua to keep him quiet. And Karen and Soo didn't want me there, did they? They hate me - now more than ever, probably."

Dennis's mother and sister had never forgiven Conchita for ending her relationship with him, and just before their daughter was born too. They had tried again for six weeks afterwards, but then Conchita had run off with Nick, or at least that was how Sooji and Karen Wu saw it. Michael, on the other hand, had always struck Conchita as a nicer person than his wife and daughter, and if he shared their animosity, he didn't show it.

"Michael was nice to me," she said. "He even made an effort to make me feel like I was welcome there, but I know I wasn't. I hope Charlotte'll be okay without me. I've said I'll go and get her in a couple of hours, but maybe I shouldn't have left her in the first place."

"Well," said Kylie, "if Soo and Karen really resented you being there, that wouldn't have done Charlotte any good at all. So, um… what…?"

"They couldn't tell us anything much," said Conchita, "or else they wouldn't. The last I heard he was in surgery, and the doctors were saying they 'couldn't make any promises'. Oh, Mom, what if he dies? He's twenty-nine! And Charlotte - oh, Dad, are you okay?"

Eduardo raised his eyes to her face, and said levelly, "I'm okay. None of this is about me, is it? Why don't you worry about yourself for a change?"

"Honey, you look exhausted," said Kylie. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

"Oh, plenty," said Conchita, a sudden yawn betraying her.

"Go and get a couple of hours now," said Kylie. "We'll look after him," and she held out her arms for Joshua.

"But Dennis - "

"I assume you told them you were coming here. We'll wake you if we hear anything."

Conchita yawned again, and finally handed Joshua to Kylie, too tired to argue anymore.

"Wake me the minute you hear something," she said.

"We will," said Kylie.

"And if you don't hear anything, wake me in an hour and a half to get Charlotte."

"We will."

At last Conchita turned and went to the bedroom she and Rose had shared as children, leaving Joshua to dribble happily on his grandmother's left shoulder.

Kylie looked at Eduardo, and said, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"My dad was shot, not stabbed," he said flippantly. "A long time ago. I'm more worried about her." He jerked his head in the direction Conchita had just gone. "See, this is just another reason why it's a bad idea to get involved with cops."

"She still loves him," said Kylie.

Eduardo started. "What? You can't possibly tell from that. She'd be the same way if it was Nick who'd been stabbed."

"I'm her mother, I can tell," said Kylie. "But I guess we'll find out soon anyhow, one way or the other, won't we?"

"If she still loves him," said Eduardo, "why did she never get back with him?"

"Oh," said Kylie, "because of Nick, because of Joshua, because of Jimmy - whatever the hell happened to him. I don't know if she was listening to her head or her heart or what, but let's face it - she's not exactly good at this kind of thing, is she?"

"But…"

"Yes?"

"What if he dies?"

.-.-.-.

Apparently, Dennis had woken up - or not - in Cliché Land: there was a lot of white light, and then suddenly he was face to face with his long dead maternal grandfather.

"Oh, shit - please tell me I'm not dead!" said Dennis.

"Dennis!" the old man admonished. "You watch your mouth!"

He had a very thick Chinese accent, and sometimes a habit of dropping words that made him sound like a dreadful stereotype, though he didn't seem to be doing that just yet.

"I… apologise, Grandfather," said Dennis, bowing awkwardly, unsure exactly what he was and wasn't supposed to say and do. All three of the grandparents he'd known had emigrated from China (he never knew his American maternal grandmother), but most aspects of Chinese culture in his life had died with them. "Please just… tell me."

"You are not dead," said the old man. "Not yet."

"Oh God!"

"Perhaps you will not die today. Do you remember that scene towards the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with Harry and Dumbledore?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," said Dennis, feeling suddenly reassured. "So… you and I are going to talk about whether or not it's worth me going back, or if I'd rather die?"

"Well… no, not exactly. If you did not want to live, probably you would not. But you do want to live, yes? In which case, it is in the hands of the doctors."

"Oh."

"But you have fighting spirit. It will help you to live, I think. While we wait, you and I talk about what you wish to go back to. You have great love for the Rivera girl, yes?"

"Grandpa, please, do you have to talk like that?"

"You listen to your grandfather," snapped the old man. "He is very wise. He see many things. Fate takes many twists and turns to bring the two of you together. Your mother and father meet in strange circumstances. He is undercover FBI agent who threatens me and my daughter with a bicycle chain. We think him bad. Then her mother and father come to help. They help bring your parents close so that they marry. Conchita's parents talk to your mother at wedding, as you grow in her belly. You are there, very secret."

"Right," said Dennis. "Then three years later Connie's born and we know nothing about it. Years after that my dad happens to bump into her mom buying groceries, they arrange a play date, Connie plays with my sister and I show her sister my guinea-pigs because I'm trying to be nice, but she hates them. They go home, we don't hear any more about them, I train as a cop and then one day Connie and her sister come to the police station when I happen to be on the desk because she's been assaulted by some guy. I know all this."

"Then much love grows between you and her. You make beautiful daughter, even though you are not married. She is not ashamed, and does not do as your mother did. Instead, she stops loving you. This is your fault, yes? You do many things to make her stop. You wish to own her, and you do not trust her."

"No," said Dennis. "I wasn't possessive - that's not it."

"Then it is just that you do not trust?"

"Yes, but it wasn't her I didn't trust. It was everyone else. You know, guys. She's a beautiful woman with a trusting nature - she's every lothario's dream. The reason she was assaulted in the first place was because she got into a car with a stranger, because she assumed he was a nice guy who wanted to be with her for who she was. Clearly she wasn't going to let someone like that take what he wanted by force, if she could help it, but there are other ways. Words. I mean, she fell in love with me so easily…"

"You doubt her love for you."

"Yeah, well, it had only been a couple of weeks, and - "

"Then you did not trust her. You thought her emotionally weak."

"Well… I guess I did. And to be honest, Gramps, I don't think I was completely wrong - not back then. I don't think she's like that anymore, but when she was younger… Look, she came to me that night with a fat lip and bruising on her arms - and she's got those big eyes, like Bambi, y'know? All I ever wanted to do was protect her from the bad guys."

"But you assume every guy is bad guy. Is that not correct?"

Dennis sighed heavily. "Yeah, that's correct. Look, I'm not trying to put it all on her - I know I did the wrong thing. I was too overprotective."

"And you did not believe she loved you - you tell me this. But why should she not?"

"I don't know. I… I guess there were some self-confidence issues too."

"She is beautiful woman," said she old man. "She can choose from many men, yes?"

"Exactly," said Dennis. "And that's not all she is. She's got the biggest heart of anyone I have ever known. A guy'd have to be crazy not to fall in love with her like I did, and at the end of the day, what makes me so special? I mean… Oscar, the rock star? He never wanted to hurt her, but he scared me because he's the guy who's got everything. Looks, money, talent… and he's a really nice guy too. Why wouldn't she want him?"

"Perhaps because love is not for looks and wealth. Love is for what is within. He have very big effect on her life - very positive. They are close. But that does not mean love."

"Yeah, well, I know I was wrong about that. She loves him as a friend, and that's all."

"And you try to convince her of it, before bad man stab you?"

"Of course."

"Then you do not do it well enough. Here, teetering on brink between life and death, you articulate your thoughts. You say it better if you live to try again. Then she love you."

Dennis gave a mirthless laugh. "You make it sound so easy."

"Why should it not be easy?"

"There's another complication now. Her son. Hers and Nick's. I'm assuming you know about Nick. She thinks I'd never be able to accept his kid in my life."

"Ah yes, I see. She fears that you look at his face, and it resemble face of handsome contract builder. You think of his seed inside her, and you think it should be your seed. You resent child because of this. Is that not so?"

"It's what she fears, yes," said Dennis.

"And you fear this also?"

He shook his head. "I… I shouldn't. Joshua's just a baby - he's innocent in all of this. And she's his mother. If I love her, I have to love him - I understand that."

"If you cannot accept her child," the old man said, "you do not love her enough."

"Ye-es," Dennis said slowly. "But I do love her enough - I know that much."

"If you love her, you can love the child. You tell her this. Then she love you very much. You believe she love you very much. You show trust, and you tell her you wished only to protect her, but know it was misguided. You treat her like china doll no longer. Yes?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, I can try. If I don't - "

Suddenly, the white light and the old man disappeared. There was no more conscious thought, but just a black, empty sleep.

.-.-.-.

It was Michael who called Conchita with the news. Charlotte looked panicked when she saw that her mother was crying, but Conchita managed to calm herself and give her daughter the news that Dennis should make a full recovery.

A little over an hour later, Conchita, Charlotte and Joshua arrived in Dennis's hospital room where his father, mother and sister were all gathered at his bedside. Before Conchita could stop her, Charlotte scrambled up onto the bed and threw her arms around Dennis's neck with such force that he cried out in pain.

"Oh, honey, be careful," he said, hugging her gingerly. "I had to have a lot of stitches."

Conchita stood by the door clutching Joshua close to her, and feeling awkward. She thought about leaving, but then Dennis caught her eye and said, smiling, "Hey, what are you doing over there? Come in."

She ventured forward, feeling the disapproval from Sooji and Karen. She could only imagine how much worse it would be if Dennis had died - maybe Michael would even have started hating her - and then she felt terrible for thinking of how his death would have affected what people thought of her.

"How are you feeling?" asked Dennis.

Conchita blinked. "How am I feeling?"

"Yeah. Stitches out yet?"

"Oh, well… they were those ones that, um, dissolve by themselves. They're gone now."

Dennis nodded approvingly. "Good. Mine'll be in for a little while, apparently."

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Conchita burst out suddenly, wanting to break down into yet more tears of relief, but not quite daring to in the present company.

Before Dennis had time to respond, the door burst open and a rather large, matronly nurse said angrily, "I said two visitors only!"

"Does that include the baby?" asked Dennis.

The nurse glared at him for a moment, and then said defiantly, "Yes."

"All right, that's it," said Karen, advancing angrily on the nurse. "I'm going to make a formal complaint about you - the quality of care you're giving my brother is appalling! Who's your superior?"

She frogmarched the nurse out of the room, leaving Dennis still with three visitors too many. He pushed Charlotte gently away from him, and said, "You know what, hon? The food in this place is terrible. While Karen's keeping that nurse busy, can you run down to the cafeteria with Grandma and Grandpa and see if you can get me anything good?"

"I been there when you were dying," said Charlotte. "There's cake."

"Oh, that's perfect. Could you bring me some?"

Sooji gave her son a disconcerting look as she lifted Charlotte off his lap, but left without argument. Michael, on the other hand, gave Dennis an encouraging smile as he left.

"Are you allowed to eat cake?" asked Conchita.

"Probably not," said Dennis. "There wasn't too much internal damage, but even so… I actually just want to talk to you alone. Hey, who told Charlotte I was dying?"

"Oh Dennis, it was horrible!" wailed Conchita. "We were all waiting for news, and your mom was weeping all over Charlotte, and then she asked if you were going to die, and we were all like - " and she finished the sentence with a comic look of dumb stupidity.

Dennis made a strangled noise, doubled over and said, "Don't make me laugh!"

"Sorry," said Conchita. "We couldn't tell her you were definitely going to be okay, because… what if you weren't?"

"She would have probably forgotten me before long."

"Oh, don't say that!" Finally, she burst into tears.

"But I am okay," said Dennis. "And now it's… it's kind of like on one of those comedy shows, where somebody has a near-death experience and then they say they're seeing everything clearly for the first time. It's meant to be funny, but it's, um… Connie…?"

"Yeah?"

"Come here."

He gestured for her to sit on the edge of the bed, and she did so, as she didn't want to refuse a delicate invalid. Then he leaned over, wincing slightly, but whatever the pain it didn't stop him from kissing her. He put one hand on Joshua's arm as a precaution against squashing him, and they kissed tenderly like they had never been apart.

When he finally pulled away, Conchita said the first thing that came into her head: "The doctors said I wasn't supposed to excite you."

Dennis doubled over again, his shoulders shaking, and said desperately, "I told you not to make me laugh!"

"Sorry, sorry…"

"Can I hold him?" He nodded towards Joshua.

"Um… sure."

Dennis took the baby, and looked solemnly at his sleeping face for a long, quiet moment. Then he said, "Please believe that he's beautiful to me, Connie, because he's yours, and I love you. Nick's his father, so I don't think you'd want me to be that, but it's not like it's a choice between that and hating him. I'll be whatever he needs me to be, I promise."

"We don't have to have this conversation now," said Conchita. "Just get better."

"You can help me with that," he said, and he raised his eyes to her face. "Come home."

.-.-.-.

October

Oscar couldn't help staring. Somehow Conchita was able to hold Joshua steady in her left arm and let him suck on her nipple while she made coffee with her right hand. He was a fair size now too, at a little over six months.

She caught him looking, smiled and said, "You learn to do everything one-handed."

"Aren't you worried about… you know… spilling?"

"Oh, don't say that, I'd never forgive myself!"

"Sorry," said Oscar. "So how's Dennis? I guess he's feeling better, as he's not here."

"Mmm, he's feeling so much better that he's gone to find out if he's fit for duty."

"Ooh, that must make you nervous."

"It does," said Conchita. "Part of me hopes he won't be, because what if he gets stabbed again or shot or something as soon as he's back on the streets? But on the other hand… you know… I haven't had sex with him since before Charlotte was born."

"Oh, right. You want to again, then. I said you would, didn't I?"

"Yes, you were absolutely right. Here you go," and she handed Oscar his coffee.

"Thanks," he said, following his hostess through to the living room. Charlotte was there, scribbling with wax crayons, and Conchita had to take a few minutes to admire her daughter's handiwork.

"Oscar," said Conchita, when she was finally able to sit with him on the couch, still breast-feeding Joshua, "can you tell me what happened with Jimmy in the end?"

"In the end?" echoed Oscar. "Have we had 'the end'?"

"Well… no, I guess not. I sort of feel like I've gotten to the end of something, because I can finally relax. I haven't really been settled since I split up with Nick, and that was over a year ago, but now… I guess I did walk off hand-in-hand with a man, didn't I?"

"Well, that's okay. You have a lot of love to give, just like I told you. Like we said back then, it doesn't have to be the happy ending, but that doesn't mean it can't be."

"Of course it doesn't," said Conchita. "I do feel a bit bad, though. I mean, Dennis was insanely jealous and he had to go through this whole transformation, and even a near-death experience, before it all came good in the end - and now he has to be stepfather to another man's child. Whereas I… well, I was this crazy hormone factory, and I got my much longed-for son and I haven't had to pay for anything. Part of me feels like I should apologise for that year with Nick, because things would have been simpler if I'd worked it out with Dennis without getting pregnant by somebody else first - but that's like apologising for having Joshua, and I'm not doing that. Does that seem fair to you?"

"Why are you always so negative when you talk about yourself?" said Oscar. "Chita, you are a really, quite ridiculously wonderful person. If more people were like you, the world would be a better place. Granted, it might be a little overpopulated…"

She laughed at that.

"Look," he went on, "this isn't like a movie or something where everyone has to get their comeuppance. Just accept that this is what's happened and try to enjoy it."

"All right, I guess that's good advice. So what happened to Jimmy?"

"Well… is that an engagement ring you're wearing?"

"Oh." Conchita glanced down at her left hand. "Yeah."

"It's pink."

"You don't miss a trick, do you? It's mother of pearl - I love it. It wouldn't have cost him a lot of money, even though it's way better than anything that comes out of the ground, because it's been in the ocean. It could have been anywhere in the world - I think that's amazing. And I'm assured Dennis chose it himself, which is nice."

"You didn't have an engagement ring the last time, did you?"

"No, we were a bit preoccupied with ultrasounds and antenatal classes and things. Hey… this is going to sound crazy, but I'm already thinking about having another baby. Way in the future, I mean - not soon. I just wonder what it's like to have a baby when you're in a loving relationship with its father. It must be nice."

"I guess so," said Oscar.

"But like I say, if we do decide to have one, it won't be for a few years yet. I'd like to at least wait until after we're married."

"After you're married? Really?"

"Well," said Conchita, laughing, "why not flout tradition?"

"When will you get married?"

"I don't know, but it probably won't be super fast. I don't know if you'd noticed, but I have Joshua on my boob quite a lot of the time at the moment, and I want to wait until I'm not sleep deprived to start planning the wedding. It's not going to be expensive or anything, but I do want it to be special, and I'm going to invite everyone."

"Will you invite Nick?" Oscar couldn't help asking.

"Sure. It'll be an extra opportunity for him to see Joshua - he is crazy about him, which is good, at any rate. So come on - tell me about Jimmy!"

"Okay, well, it's good news… I think. But you mustn't tell anyone. Promise me."

"I promise."

"Okay. Did Jimmy tell you he and Donna had a cat?"

"Um… yes."

"Well, sometimes the cat has to go to the vet."

"Of course."

"And," said Oscar, "it turns out that Donna has been sleeping with the vet for over a year. And now she's pregnant. By the vet."

At this, Conchita's eyes widened. "Wow. If only that had happened when they were trying donor sperm, huh?"

"Well… yeah, I guess. So at first Jimmy was all like, 'Oh no, that's the worst thing that could have happened! It kills me that the vet got her pregnant when I couldn't!' But that was a few weeks ago, and since then he's had time to calm down, and to realise that he actually loves Donna very much indeed, so he went back to their house, and he asked her if he could come back and they could pretend the fertility treatment worked and the baby's actually his. And she agreed, and they're back together and they're very happy, as far as I know. And the fact of the baby being the vet's is totally top secret, okay?"

"Of course, I won't tell anyone. I can't speak for Charlotte, though. Well… I'm glad things worked out for him, anyway. It just goes to show, doesn't it, that two people can be really seriously in love, but if they can't have children it drives them apart. If I'd found out I couldn't have kids… I don't know, but it would not have been good."

"I remember you telling me you'd never stay with a man who couldn't or wouldn't give you children, no matter how much you loved him," said Oscar. "It's weird. Some people - a lot of people - claim their love is so strong that nothing could drive them apart. But how many of them have had to face that test?"

"We could make a list of all the couples we know," said Conchita, "and then try to guess whether infertility would have split them up."

Oscar pulled a face, and said, "Sounds like a fun game."

"Well, we may have to save it for another time - Dennis is due back any minute."

"Oh, should I hide?"

"Don't you dare! He's over that whole being jealous thing now."

"You hope. Seeing me here can be, like, his final test or something."

"Shut up," Conchita said smilingly. "We had this really intense talk about our feelings when he came out of hospital - he's really not like that anymore."

"Ah, here we go," muttered Oscar, as the front door opened.

When Dennis entered, he looked as fresh as a daisy - you wouldn't know he had ever been stabbed. He even smiled at Oscar, and said pleasantly, "Hi, Oscar," before turning to Conchita and saying, "I collected the mail on the way up - it's all for you."

"Oh, thanks," said Conchita, taking the small collection of envelopes from Dennis's hand. "How ironic, seeing as this is your apartment. So how did it go?"

"Good," said Dennis, touching Joshua's head in a way that was encouraging to see. His change of attitude, Oscar thought, was extraordinary. "I've been declared fit for duty."

"Oh," said Conchita.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine."

"There's no way of knowing that."

Dennis didn't answer that. He crossed the room to Charlotte, kissed her and said, "Hey, princess. What are you doing?"

"He is loving having her here - it's adorable," Conchita told Oscar. "Ah, you've finally had enough, have you? Here, you can hold him now," she said, holding Joshua out to Oscar. He took the child into his arms and rose to his feet, knowing that babies liked altitude, and politely looked away while Conchita sorted out her breasts.

"So, Dennis," said Oscar. "I hear you're engaged again. Congratulations."

"Thanks," said Dennis, who was still admiring Charlotte's drawings. "This time we might even get married."

"Of course we will," Conchita said distractedly. She was looking through the mail, and seemed to have found something of interest. "Nick's had his baby. Looks like he got his Scott Chapman after all."

"Hey, you hear that, Joshua?" said Oscar. "You have a half-brother. Maybe he'll marry Charlotte when he grows up."

"If she gets involved with a boy named Scott Chapman," said Conchita, "I don't know what I'll - I don't believe it!"

"Everything all right?" asked Dennis.

"Um… I don't know. Well, I guess it's nothing for us to worry about. I have to make a phone call - excuse me."

She crossed the room to the telephone, handing Dennis what looked like a fridge magnet on the way. He looked at it, and read aloud the message: " 'April seventeenth, twenty twenty-nine. Please save this date for our wedding! Hope to see you there. Nick Chapman and Carrie-Ann West.' Wow."

"Are you crazy?" Conchita said into the phone. "A few months ago you wanted to marry me… No, of course I haven't changed my mind. I'm going to marry Dennis, actually… I don't know, I'll tell you nearer the time… Quite sure I won't change my mind… Right, so you're going to marry Carrie-Ann because I won't marry you?… All right, if that's what you want to do - congratulations. I'll see you at the wedding. Bye."

"I didn't know Nick wanted to marry you," said Dennis, once she'd hung up.

"He asked me on the night Joshua was born," said Conchita. "Right after he told me Carrie-Ann was pregnant."

Oscar, gripped with an overwhelming urge, started singing quietly to himself: "Heeey, Carrie A-Anne, What's your ga-ame now, Can aaanybody play?…"

"That must have been some night," said Dennis. "So now he's marrying this Carrie-Ann woman because he can't have you? That doesn't sound good."

"I know," said Conchita. "God, that poor woman."

"Isn't she the woman he cheated on you with?" asked Oscar.

"That doesn't mean I can't feel sorry for her. He wouldn't have told her he was with someone else when it happened, would he?"

Oscar raised his eyebrows. "You don't think maybe she wondered why they had to do it on the building site where he was working?"

"Well," said Conchita, "she's obviously not very bright. Still, I can't talk - I would have married him at one point, when I wanted him to get me pregnant."

"Lucky for me he didn't want to back then," said Dennis. "Why's he so eager now?"

"I don't know," said Conchita. "Because he wants to be around his kids as much as possible, maybe? Well - one of them, anyway. He can't have both - not unless he and Carrie-Ann and Scott move in with the four of us."

"There's no room," said Dennis.

"Oh well, maybe he'll learn to love her."

.-.-.-.

"Oh, there you are," said Oscar, climbing into his car an hour later.

"Did you miss me?" the orange demon asked eagerly.

"No, actually, I was getting really bored with you."

"Yeah, well - I thought you might like to sum up, like we sometimes do."

"You mean you wanna spell everything out for me?" said Oscar.

"Not at all," said the demon. "Why don't you tell me what you think?"

"No way. Whenever I tell you what I think, you tell me I'm wrong."

"I won't this time, I promise."

"Okay, well… I was right all along about Dennis, wasn't I?"

"Hardly. I mean yeah, you must have been right at some point, since you kept changing your mind about him."

"Hey," said Oscar, "you promised me."

"I didn't know you were going to start making stuff up about what you thought. If you really knew she loved Dennis all along, I'd have been able to talk to you about it."

"But we did talk about it."

"Yeah, not much."

"All right, all right, let's not bicker," said Oscar. "Nick and this Carrie-Ann person. That can't be right."

"Of course it isn't," said the demon. "They're a good little demonstration for you, though, Mr. I Believe In Soul Mates. Nick really loves Conchita, but not everybody gets the person they really want. So they settle for less."

"Poor Carrie-Ann."

"Maybe she's as bad as him."

"Yeah, maybe. So Nick really does love Chita, then? Well, there's no real reason to assume that's true, but if it is, and he'd realised it earlier… like when she told him she was pregnant… she would have married him."

"If," said the demon, "is a word never well used when talking about events that have already happened. He cheated on her. Dennis got another chance. That's all."

"But Dennis is the one she loves - it would have all gone horribly wrong with Nick."

"Not necessarily. She says she never really loved him now, but if you recall, there was a time when she was crazy about him and didn't think very highly of Dennis. She says she loved Dennis all along, but quite honestly, what does she know? It's what she feels now. What she felt before he got stabbed is just a memory, and memories are so unreliable."

"Ah-ha, so what are you telling me?"

"This whole thing," said the demon, "is proof that there is no meant to be and no soul mates, like I've been telling you all along. It could have gone either way, and if it had worked out with Nick, we don't know whether it would have lasted or not. We don't know that she's going to stick with Dennis either - maybe she'll change her mind again."

"Well I don't believe that for a moment," said Oscar. "He's changed his attitude now, and he's bought her that extra special mother of pearl engagement ring."

"But do rings really mean anything? Your sister doesn't have - "

"I know she doesn't, and that's because she doesn't like jewellery and isn't into symbols. Chita's just the opposite, and she's wearing a ring that demonstrates how well Dennis knows her and why he loves her. I would have never thought to get her a mother of pearl ring. I'd have got her some expensive diamond or something she'd have hated."

"I guess it's good that you're sticking to your guns this time," said the demon.

"One thing still bugs me, though."

"What's that?"

"Joshua. If he'd been born first, I could get my head around it. But Chita and Dennis already had Charlotte. That's… weird."

"Would it really have made a difference if he was born first?"

"Sure, it'd be like me and Jess. But now Chita's saying she wants another baby with Dennis, so he'll be between two other kids his mom had with the same guy. I mean… what does that make him?"

"He's just a little accident that happened," said the demon. "He'll cope."

"I hope so."

"I suppose you know how wrong it is to hold up the traditional nuclear family as the one ideal. There's all different kinds of family, Oscar. The ideal family is a happy family. There are people who have been crushed by their own misery in a nuclear - "

"Yeah, I know, but they are a nuclear family - or they will be - with Joshua in the middle of it, not fitting in. He'll know he was 'just a little accident that happened', and that's not a nice feeling, I can tell you."

"It bothers you, then, being a little accident that happened. Would it bother you more if your mother had had another child with Peter before you were born?"

"Yes," said Oscar, "definitely. But look, let's move on. What about Jimmy and Donna?"

"What about them?"

"Are they… okay?"

"For now," said the demon. "I'm confident at the moment that they'll go on together, happy to pretend to be a traditional nuclear family. I guess maybe it really is a class thing. Never mind how old she is, or whether she's a fit mother, or if she's with totally the wrong guy. It's okay for a woman to be pregnant, as long as she's married. As long as some guy's signed a piece of paper that says: You know what? I'll take her."

"Let's not get into a debate about that."

"Y'know, your mother would have been branded a complete whore if she hadn't been - "

"And Max Miller's still with that Maria Rodriguez, I suppose?"

"Have you heard any news to the contrary?"

"No," said Oscar. "Y'know, you should really start working harder on them."

THE END