BIRTHDAY BOY

(Disclaimer: I have no business connection with JOAN OF ARCADIA. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it.

(Author's Note: This story is part of a series that takes place in the years after the show ended. A listing of the other stories is on my profile. As far as this story is concerned, the main events that have happened since May 2005 are:

Luke and Grace have been let into Joan's secret, and the pair have become lovers. Thanks to a divine favor, they can sometimes share dreams even though Luke is at Harvard and Grace is doing social work abroad. Luke has named his research project after his girlfriend, calling it "Grace's Nucleic Acid".

Joan has married Adam; Sister Lily has married Kevin; Glynis has married Friedman.

Helen is also in on Joan's secret.

Chapter 1 Birthday Guests

It was Luke's 18th birthday, and by a miracle he was able to finish his fall 2006 exams and head to Arcadia to celebrate the occasion – he wondered if a certain Somebody was responsible for the miracle.

One of his first acts on reaching home was to attach his laptop back on line. There was an Email from Grace, who was working for a famine-relief program overseas.

Dear Dork: I'm sorry I can't be there in person for the milestone birthday. But I'll be with you in my dreams – Grace.

Luke clicked reply.

Amazing Grace: I understand. I will dream about you too – the Dork.

To anybody who might attempt to pry into their Email (though there was no sign of that at the moment) it sounded innocuous and a little goopy, particularly for Grace. But in reality they were setting a "date" of sorts, in code. God had given them a special gift, an ability to get together in dreams even when separated by thousands of kilometers of ordinary space. For it to happen, Luke, Grace, and God all had to will it for the same night.

A few hours later, Luke got into bed, hoping that it would happen again. But when he woke up and found himself still in his room, he realized that the wish must have failed.

"Luke?"

"Grace? What are you doing in my room?" He squinted and put his glasses on, which were resting on his night table, right where he had left them in reality. He saw that Grace was standing near his bed.

"I don't think this is your room. I think this is a copy of your room in dreamland." She sat down on his bed, close to him.

They always found themselves in some sort of quarters of sorts appropriate for lovemaking, but God always varied the details. Once, after an encounter with Cowgirl God, they found themselves in a barn with a haystack. God seemed to think that was very funny.

"But why – oh I get it," said Luke. "This isn't just my birthday, it's also the anniversary of the day you visited me in here and said you were giving yourself to me as a birthday present."

"Good lord, what a corny joke that was. I don't 'give myself' to anybody. We're equals, and I work with them."

"So. You wanna get to work?" Luke grinned.

Grace returned the grin. "Love to." She leaped towards him and their lips met.

A few minutes later, Grace commented, "Luke, you seem a little distracted. Of course this is your big day, so I understand if you've got a lot on your mind--"

"It isn't that, Grace. I wish I knew how this operated. The whole dreamland business I mean."

"I don't care, as long as it keeps operating." She intimately traced a line between two of his freckles.

"Grace, it's not like you to just lie back and accept things. Um, pardon the double entendre." The woman in question giggled at the pun but let him continue his line of thought. "I mean, you tend to question things."

"I question things when I think somebody is trying to rip me off. And when I do, I question the why, not the how. But I trust God. And even if I didn't, if this is what I get, then I don't care about being ripped off. Seems like a good deal to me." She leaned up and kissed his neck, trying to get him to respond.

"In science it's crucial to be able to replicate a phenomenon, because that proves that you understand the cause and effect. I don't understand this."

Grace groaned. She placed her hands on either side of Luke's face and looked into his eyes. "Luke, do us both a favor and turn off your brain for a while, okay?"

Luke did, and woke up that morning with very pleasant memories. But when his brain came back on, he couldn't help but try and figure it out all over again. Did their souls leave their bodies and meet somewhere else in the universe? Or were they in a parallel world where distance didn't matter? Or was it all an illusion?

But today was his birthday, and he had plenty of distractions, none of them as entertaining as the night's.

Adam and Joan had come back to Arcadia for the event, and Adam had prepared what he called a theme party. When Luke went to the ballroom that his family had rented, he found it decorated all over with images of doors, gates, and arches. Mom had helped out with the art, and Joan with the purely practical side of the decorations. Luke appreciated the effort his brother-in-law and mother had put into it, but was puzzled as to what it meant.

"When midnight comes," directed Joan, "we want you to walk through that arch there. Make the transition from teenager to adult."

"Oh, I get it now," said Luke. "Entering a new phase of life. I'm not used to thinking about things symbolically."

"Symbols have their place," said Sister Lily, walking up with a bit of a waddle. "Dante, at the beginning of his Paradiso, said some mysteries couldn't be understood directly, but had to be presented in the form of symbols."

"No offense, Lily," said Luke, "but I always think of mysteries as something to be solved. Symbols are just a convenience, not a solution."

"If they can be solved," the pregnant ex-nun said cheerfully. "Do you think scientists will ever completely solve the mystery of THIS?" She patted her swelling belly. "Sure, they can join the egg and sperm in a test tube, and maybe they'll figure out cloning someday, but they're always starting with something that already exists. Can they create human life from scratch?"

"Maybe, in a million years."

"Doesn't that mean never?" asked Lily amiably. She clearly understood that this was a spirited intellectual discussion, not a bitter argument.

"No, because it took evolution billions of years to carry it off. Humans may do it a thousand times faster."

"Maybe we can help speed up the process," said another female voice. Glynis was walking toward them, followed by her husband Friedman. She held up a box, wrapped as a present, and clearly the size and shape of a CD. "We meant to give you this as a present, Luke, but it does fit into the conversation."

By rights Glynis and Friedmann should have made it to Harvard, or a comparable college, as Luke had. But the events of a wild afternoon some sixteen months had left Glynis in a delicate condition, and they had had to put their education lives on hold for a while to deal with marriage and childbirth.

"Glynie and I read your paper about 'Grace's Nucleic Acid'," said Friedmann, "and we wrote a computer simulation to speed up the research. Happy birthday, Luke."

"Wow, thanks!"

"Frankly, it was a way of keeping my hand in," admitted Glynis. "I'm too busy with the baby to attend classes until next year, but if it's just a matter of playing with the computer, I can multitask."

"I don't understand."

"I worked out a way to breastfeed the baby and do computer work at the same time."

Luke reflexively looked down toward Glynis's breasts, then turned red when he realized what he was doing.

"I TOLD you he'd be flustered," Friedman said triumphantly.

"No reason to get all silly! Breasts have a perfectly natural function," objected Glynis. "Of course I've heard the theory. Men admire breasts because it means the woman can nurse children. But we already know that in my case—"

Mom walked up and interrupted the awkward conversation, to Luke's relief. "Luke, I think a special friend has just arrived." She nodded toward the entrance, and Luke turned to look, glad to get away from the outspoken couple. His heart sped up as his mind imagined Grace walking through the door. It wasn't her though.

Cute Boy God had just walked in.

TO BE CONTINUED