Max Coleman, born Maximilian Anders Kohlmaan in Copenhagen, walked down the narrow stony steps to the rocky beach where his granddaughter stood with the stone in her hand. He was a tall man, with piercing blue eyes - the same as Meredeth's - and a mane of silvery-blonde hair that fell to his shoulders; dressed in khaki shorts and a polo shirt, he looked every inch a man of leisure.

'You and I have things to discuss, madam,' he told her, walking onto the small dock that overhung the water and sitting down where he took off his shoes, dipped his feet in the calm water. 'For starters, why haven't I heard anything about this young man you married or the babies you made together?'

'I...his name is Javier, I call him Javi. He's a cop.'

'Remember what your grandmother said?'

'Right, you know what I know. But then why...' Meredeth walked over to the dock, hoisted herself up on it only to take a seat beside him. 'Nevermind, that question will just make my head hurt too much.'

'I know, honey,' Max chuckled as he moved his legs back and forth. 'Your grandmother, my Connie, she always made my head hurt like that. It was just better for everyone if I said 'yes dear' and moved things along.'

'You...I didn't expect to see you here.'

'Neither did I but then, I also didn't expect to see Connie again so soon either.' He looked up at the sky, squinting. 'What the devil is that noise?'

Meredeth listened, ears straining, then chuckled. Her husband had picked out a particular song and had it on repeat for her, apparently. 'That would be Raul de los Palmas' song Sex is the Word.'

'Sounds like it belongs in a porno.'

'How would you know what that sounds like?' she giggled, and Max sent her a dry look.

'I was a young man in my mid forties when that whole porn-at-the-arthouse craze was on, I remember things.'

'Okay then. Soundtracks to dirty movies aside, why did you come to me?'

Max reached to his side, produced a bucket of rocks. He picked one up, chucked it high and wide at the water. 'I came to you because I thought Constance was going to throw up if you ate anymore Gobstoppers.'

'Morfa-'

'Actually that's only part of the reason. I came to you because Constance taught you many things, but I taught you to be a fighter.'

'I thought that was Mom?'

'I'm not talking about just throwing a punch. Though your mother had thrown her fair share,' Max recalled. 'No, I mean the fight for your mind. You and my grandson have done splendidly so far but there are a couple of moments coming ahead where you will need that agile and limber mind of yours, Meredeth. It is your best asset, right along with that huge and compassionate heart, although you've got a few others your husband loves.'

Meredeth laughed, then winced when the colours began to turn to black and white and neon. 'Morfa, am I going to make it?'

'Of course, you've got to give your tots their baby brother.'

'Brother?'

'Look again.'

Meredeth looked down at her body and she could suddenly see into her own very large and pregnant belly like it was a fish bowl, a beautiful baby boy with her eyes and Javi's cheeks, just like Tessi had. 'Oh wow. I'm growing a penis inside me again. That feels very sci-fi. And very weird I can say 'again' in that sentence.'

There was another sharp wince, and this time the colours - and Max - faded away and Meredeth was spinning, around and around until she was surrounded by darkness. Then she was eleven years old again, or at least it felt like it, when she saw Colby, the bane of her grieving existence, sitting on a Prince-of-Darkness style throne with an oversized version of Baby, his precious Costa-Rican zebra tarantula wrapping its front legs around Colby's shoulders.

'All this time and you're still scared of spiders,' he sneered at her.

'The hell I am.'

Meredeth looked down at her hands, saw she had an aerosol spray can of bug repellent and a barbecue torch in the other. She held them up. 'You will not win this time, mother-fucker,' she growled, and using them together, MacGyvered herself a flamethrower which sent both Baby and Colby squealing into the abyss.

Triumphant, she tossed them down, then heard another voice.

'Fat, fat, fat. How the hell did a tub like you ever get a man like him?'

This time the tormentor was Callie Kincaid, head cheerleader and general pain-in-the-ass from Meredeth's high-school. She'd made her life miserable by telling anyone who would listen that Meredeth was crazy, and she had the shrink and psych meds to prove it. No one had really listened to her, but there were a few and they'd latched on like gossip-hungry leeches, told her she'd have a better time getting a prom date at the zoo in the manatee tank than polling the football team.

'Callie,' Meredeth told her in a sickly sweet voice. 'Remember how you couldn't figure it out who told Principal Nielsen that you'd cheated on your literature and history finals and you were convinced it was me but all your friends said it wasn't? It really was me.'

'Oh!' Callie let out a haughty gasp.

'Yeah, and the pictures of the girl Patrick Hughes kept in his dirty-magazines? The ones that showed nothing but a bikini-wearing body from the neck down? That was me too. How does it feel knowing your boyfriend was spanking off to pictures of me every night?'

Meredeth watched with vicious delight as Callie burst into embarrassed tears even as she doubled over, clutched at her belly. It felt flat, or nearly flat, to her, yet looking down, she could still her son inside her. Massaging her right side, she felt marginally better but only for a few seconds as the pain came back and she was faced with yet another demon from her past, this one in the form of Astrid Henkel, one of the writers for Critical Condition who'd started shortly before her and had decided that Meredeth was just too uppity for her own good so she made it her mission to rub in all the juicy assignments she got to cover.

'Oh you think you matter because you got a few tweets from Milo Ventimiglia? I've met him and I got a tour of the Heroes set,' Astrid sneered viciously. 'You're nothing and no-one to him, and you will never ever matter to those stars like I do.'

Meredeth whipped out her hand and slapped her across the face. 'I'm a star in my own right, I have my own fans and I used my brain and my hard work to get me there, not riding on the coat-tails of famous people because I run a fan-site. You talk to me like that again and I will punish you with more than a slap in the face.'

There was an angry red mark on Astrid's face but her eyes burned bright while she laughed. 'You bitch, like you can touch me. I'll just tell everyone you're crazy and not to bother with you. And since I'm prettier, and more popular with the stars than you are, I'll be sure to tell them you are a psycho in need of their validation just to get out of bed.'

'The hell you will.' Meredeth slapped her again, and when Astrid got in her own physical slap this time, Meredeth responded with a punch into her smug, smirking face. 'Now no-one will touch you.'

She could hear the jumble of their voices, telling her how she was a child, she was gross, she was insignificant, until finally she oculdn't take any more. Breathing deeply, she felt a katana sword in her hand, heard the whistle of incoming projectiles in her direction. She spun, lashing out with her sword.

'All of you, shut up!' she roared, and heard the soft splat splat splats along with something in a shell. Stepping over, Meredeth saw it was fruit; she'd killed a watermelon, three bananas, two kiwi and bisected a coconut in a single furious swipe. The sword slipped from her hand to the ground with a clatter and she followed it, sinking to her knees.

'I win,' she whispered, then said it again and again, each time a little louder until she was all but screaming it. 'I win!'

'I'd say you do.'

Meredeth looked up, saw her grandfather there once more, only he'd changed into stately all-black and for a moment he reminded her of Liam Neeson. 'What is all that about?'

'Your body leading a revolt against you? Or the part where it was your worst enemies in your history cropping up as your body fights the pain of saving your son from a miscarriage?'

'But if I was seeing all my worst enemies, wouldn't...'

She trailed off, heard the click of high heels that could only belong to one person. Moving slowly, deliberately, Meredeth turned around and faced Valencia Morales. She was still beautiful and still bat-shit kooky-bananas insane as she picked up her own katana and sneered.

'I've wanted this for a long time, Meredeth. You're going to give me that baby.'

'Fuck you, Val.'

On a bloodcurdling scream, Valencia lifted her sword and charged at Meredeth; behind her she could hear Max giving her little tips and hints, but blocking all of Valencia's attacks came as naturally as breathing to her. With very little effort at all, she had the woman on the ropes.

'Why are you here?' she asked smoothly.

'To remind you of something. All that you have, you don't deserve and you know it. I'm the kind of woman Javier Esposito prefers.'

'The kind that tells him he has a small dick and thinks he'll be fine with it when you sleep with someone? He's a big boy, and fills me up just right. I have an orgasm every time we're together.'

'But he's thinking of someone else. If not me, then Lanie I bet. She's much better suited to him than you.'

Meredeth only growled, a gladiator on the charge, and gave Valencia a spinning slice that turned her to mist. 'No one is better for my man than me. We're having a son, so you can kiss my pretty white Danish ass. Or better yet, I'll get Javi to do that.'

Then she was falling, falling down once more until she landed with a thud in the middle of a cartoonishly-bright meadow. Or maybe a forest, Meredeth mused, then saw the little mushroom huts, three of them - one with a red roof-top, the other two with green. The doors opened simultaeneously and all three of Meredeth's children popped their heads around the corner.

'Hi Mami!' they chorused, and Meredeth had to blink: her children had turned into Smurfs, blue skin and white hats and all.

'You...wh...huh?'

'Come and sing a happy song!' Trini and Leo trilled, bounding over and taking her hands. 'La-la-lala-la-la!'

'No, I have to...I have to...'

She could feel herself slipping away as the twins dragged her towards the mushroom-huts and tried to fight it, but she was floating, drifting away on a cloud as she heard the single most important song in her life floating on the breeze with her - her wedding song.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling with its fluorescent lights and a dark shape. When her eyes finally focused, she saw it was her husband's worried face even as he smiled at her.

'Hey, there gorgeous,' he said softly, picking up her hand.

'They turned into Smurfs,' she croaked.

'What?'

'The kids, they turned into Smurfs.'

Esposito only looked at her with baffled love, then laid his forehead against her breast and wept.