When Johanna wakes, she has goose bumps over her shoulder and starting down her back. The coverlet is tight across her chest though, being pulled from the other side of the bed.

"That's why I wanted the extra-large comforter," she mumbles, extracting a hand from the warmth so she can grab a handful of fabric and reclaim it. They don't have work today and she wants to sleep in- in the warm. Jim Beckett is such a blanket hog. You'd think body heat would be enough – she can feel his arm a warm weight on her stomach.

She blearily opens one eye when the covering resists her efforts. Is he lying on it or something? She blinks when she sees the reason for it all. It isn't her husband stealing the covers or using her stomach. Spread eagled over her is precisely half a human being. A diminutive human being.

It takes a few seconds for the sight to evoke a response. She registers it and comprehends it but her eyes stay on the tiny body and that's as far as she can muddle through it. She starts to feel a dampness on her skin from under the small rosebud mouth and it coincides with a sudden flair of happiness which almost chokes her. She wants to grab up the girl and cuddle her but carefully she snakes her arm over the child and taps Jim on the shoulder. He starts to roll back towards her and she braces her shoulder and arm to stop him. He's going to crush their visitor.

"Jim!" she hisses.

One blue eye fights its way open before the other. "What? Whad' I-," she can see the moment he realises, his eyes going from doped to wide and his sudden roll back, away from the head of orange hair and taking the weight off her arm. "Did Christmas come early?"

"Looks like," she hums back, lightly brushing back the silky orange bangs from the forehead pillowed on her chest. She was so beautiful- Skype didn't do her justice.

"Come on now Jo, you've got to do it right," her husband whispers, already reaching for the tiny little feet.


The piercing scream pulls on the string of her spine – arching and dragging her face from where it was buried in a pillow. Some primeval switch has already been flipped and her heart's racing, pulsing uncomfortably. Another scream.

'No! Stop!'

Kate's scrambling from the bed, has to catch herself on her hands when she can't get her leg free of the covers before she tries to take off. Kate knows that voice. Alexis.

There's a frantic rustling from next door and she's through the door and in front of the next in a near PB. The door is open and there's a couple in the bed. The woman is holding Alexis tight to her and an older man, bare as far as she can see is sliding his fingers under Alexis' pyjama shirt.

"Don't touch her!" she yells, half hanging on the door frame to stop her skidding past the door.

Everyone freezes and Alexis stops screaming.

Her little blue eyes open and she waves. "Kate!" she giggles.

No one moves. The staring standoff is making her eyes burn but she doesn't know what else to do. She can hear a scuffing trail of footsteps coming down the hall and she can barely breathe through the heart pulsing uncomfortably in her throat. What was taking him so long? Oh god, what was he going to do when he got here? I thought he said this place was safe!

Ok, plan. Need a plan…Beckett could watch them while she called the cops. Was it safe to leave him with these people…she doesn't know.

"Which spot did you go for?" comes a sleepy voice behind her. "Sounds way better than my favourite spot." Richard Beckett is shuffling down the short hall in boxers and white undershirt, rubbing at the side of his face. He gives her an absent nod and slides past her into the bedroom.

What is going on…he knows these people? He must know them. Last night he…had a key? She thinks he had a key.

"He went for my toes, Daddy!" Alexis bounces up from the bed and throws her arms around his neck. "Then my tummy!"

"Ah, tickle torture," Richard yawns. He goes to stand, letting Alexis dangle from him like a scarf and her feet lift the covers on the bed. The woman hurriedly pulls them back down and Kate isn't sure if she's blushing as much as this older woman, or more.

Richard catches the move too and chuckles. "No wonder you didn't hear us come in last night," he grins. "Come on Lexi, let's get dressed." He blows in her ear making her shriek happily again while, with one foot, he hooks up a nightgown Kate hadn't noticed at the foot of the bed and discretely fires it off at the older woman. It hits the head board and lands in the gap between pillows.

"I want to stay with Grandma and Grandpa," she objects.

Kate feels her blush deepen. This was not happening.

"Ah," Richard says craftily. "But if you don't let Grandma out of bed, how are you going to get pancakes for breakfast?"

"Pancakes?" her eyes light up.

"Berry pancakes," Richard's mother adds. Richard's mother. Oh, she is going to kill him.

"Berry pancakes," she crows, squirming. "Let me go, Daddy! I have to get dressed!"

He laughs and sets her down. She's scampering away and past Kate the second his hands are free. Almost as an afterthought she calls back a 'Good Morning, Kate!'

Silence rules in the bedroom for only a second before Rick shakes himself and follows his daughter's path to the door. "You'd swear I never feed her. I guess I better go and supervise," he smirks. "And I'll leave you two to it. Katherine?"

She blinks. "Yes?"

"Meet my parents. Johanna, Jim, this is Katherine Rodgers."

"How do you do?" she offers weakly.

They nod, the rest of them below their neck frozen.

Rick puts a hand on her shoulder and gives a slight push, getting her feet moving. "Shall we? Wouldn't want you to get cold." The warmth of his palm makes her take stock of the lacy camisole and boxers and she almost clips her elbow on the doorframe as she crosses her arms over her chest.

He's not even looking.