"It'll be all right." Alex insisted again as she squeezed his hand in the waiting room. "We didn't go to your regular doctor, so you won't have to fool her. This Dr. Robinson is very sweet, and highly recommended. I think you'll really like him."

Gregory closed his eyes against the harsh light of the hospital waiting room. He shouldn't have let Olivia keep him up so late. Of course it was nearly impossible to say no once she touched him, but he still felt better blaming her. "What are they going to do?"

Alex thought for a moment as she released his hand to dig up a parenting magazine from the stack on the table. "It's been awhile since I had Casey, but I'd imagine they'll take a blood test and do a pelvic exam to make sure everything's all right."

He'd known her too long not to know that look. "A pelvic exam?"

"I'm sorry." Alex dropped her magazine sympathetically. "I know you've never had one before, just-" She paused thoughtfully, having never had a daughter, she lacked experience with the explanation. "Relax. It's uncomfortable, but it's over with soon enough."

"I don't think I've been relaxed since we switched." Gregory admitted bitterly. "Everything's different for her. I have so many more things to worry about. And everyone looks at me differently." He shrunk closer to Alex and directed her gaze towards a man at the other side of the room. "Like him."

Alex looked him over from the guise of reading her magazine. An amused smile erupted on her face and she put the glossy pages away. Gregory needed all of her attention. "He's been checking you out for awhile now. Pale and mysterious must be his type."

Stunned, Gregory looked to her, and then uncomfortably at the floor instead of at the other man. "How can he look at me like that? I'm not his-"

"And you've never looked at another woman who's not Olivia." Alex teased with deep amusement. "Because you only have eyes for her?"

"No, no Alex-" Gregory stared pointedly at the floor. "Don't I look awful? I feel-" Swallowing again only made him more nervous and he wasn't sure if he was nervous because he was nauseated or the other way around.

""Awful." Alex caught the nod from the nurse and stood up. "You look fine." Studying his face carefully she sighed and amended herself. "A little pale for a woman who lives in California-"

Gregory folded his hands nervously across his chest. Alex couldn't help smiling when she caught the pout in his lips. "My skin's British."

"I know, but even for that, you're a little peaked." She opened the door to Dr. Robinson's office for him. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Gregory closed his eyes while he tried to convince himself it was all some kind of horrible dream. "If by all right you mean I'm not going to throw up right at this very moment, then yes."

Alex put her arm around his lower back. "Trust me okay? You're going to be fine. Really."

Olivia clipped the tip off a cigar and settled into the chair in her study. Bette watched her put her feet up on the desk and burst into laughter. "You're really buying into this man of the house thing aren't you?"

""Cigars are growing on me." Olivia lit the edge and took a puff. "I like his car, and I love the way his secretary comes running at the office. Anything I want and-" She snapped her fingers and grinned around the cigar. "There she is." Leaning confidentially over the desk she grinned evilly. "I think she has the hots for me."

"Who wouldn't?" Bette reached for the cigar box and grabbed one of her own. "You are now, one of the most attractive, intense, craziest, richest men in Sunset Beach."

"But I don't want her." Olivia tapped the ash off and watched the smoke head up towards the ceiling. "This might sound crazy, but I can't stop thinking about me." She chuckled dryly. "Gregory I mean. He's in my thoughts nearly every moment. I can't-" She took another puff and sighed with deep seated contentment. "Focus on what I'm doing. My body-" She glanced down at her lap. "Has it's own ideas."

Bette snorted. "You've only been a man a few days and already, you think like one. Where is the good little wife at the moment?"

Olivia rolled her shoulders lazily and her desk chair creaked as she got comfortable. "Somewhere with Alex. Shopping maybe?"

"Oh that's it." Bette agreed warmly as she took a glass of iced tea from the little counter in the corner. "I remember him mentioning that. Is the poor guy feeling any better?" Bette poured another glass for Olivia and set it on the desk in front of her.

"No actually." Olivia pulled her feet off of Gregory's desk and titled her head thoughtfully. "This bout of the flu hit him pretty hard. I'm not sure if I should be grateful or guilty that it's not me."

"Grateful!" Bette raised her glass and clinked it against her friends. "It's about time he had some idea what women go through. Even if it's just a case of the flu. How's Greggie's body treating you?"

"Oh it's wonderful." Olivia flexed her fingers and them looked at her hands in amazement., "He's so- I'm so powerful. I ask for something and it happens."

"Don't let it go to your head. It'll probably end up to be a dream like that year of Dallas or something-" Bette caught Olivia's confused expressions and shrugged. "I keep telling you to watch more television."

"How can I watch television when I have so many better things to do?" Olivia's gaze drifted to a picture of her new body and her old. After so many years of looking at herself in the mirror, Olivia had never expected to feel the twinge in her stomach when she looked at her cleavage in her neat black suit. She had been such an attractive woman. So lovely and so deceptively fragile-

Bette snapped her fingers. "Get your handsome head out of the gutter. I saw the way you licked your lips-"

Olivia grinned but she didn't bother to apologize. "When do you think they'll be back?"

Bette looked scandalized. "I don't keep track of such things. And especially not so you can do whatever it is you want to do to the poor woman!"

Gregory gasped as Dr. Robinson began the ultrasound. The sensation of the hard plastic probe slipping inside his body was not something he could have properly prepared himself for. His fingers tightened on Alex's hand.

She just smiled down at him angelically from his side. "It's all right. The picture's starting to show up now, if you look at that you won't feel a thing."

Dr. Robinson added his brilliant white smile. "Here we go. We're starting to get a picture now."

Naked fear flashed through Gregory's bright blue eyes, and Alex's heart melted in sympathy. How was he supposed to know? He'd seen scratchy ultrasound pictures of Caitlin, and the slightly improved pictures of when Sean came along a few years later. That had been late in Olivia's pregnancies. He'd already felt them move inside of her. It was already real to him.

More importantly, it wasn't inside his body. The hard plastic wand wasn't inside of him. The tiny beating heart that formed a black spot on the screen wasn't counting on him to be protected and nourished. A pang of guilt ran through him. He'd skipped breakfast, lied to Olivia and said he was going shopping with Alex. He didn't eat anything because the mere idea of it made him nauseous. The smell of Olivia's coffee from across the table turned his stomach.

"There we are." Dr. Robinson called his attention to the screen. Alex ran her hand over his forehead.

"See that sweetheart?"

Gregory swallowed, no one ever called him sweetheart. Why were his eyes stinging? It wasn't painful enough to get to his eyes.

Then without warning, the picture cleared. The gray faded from the mess of his internal organs to a tiny black cave. Inside that black space was a little gray creature. A creature with a huge head, tiny legs and arms that was utterly dependent on him for its life.

His throat got tight. Why couldn't he breathe normally? It was just a picture on a screen. It didn't mean-

Alex and the doctor were talking. He was saying something about eleven or twelve weeks. Eleven or twelve weeks? Gregory mouthed the words to himself. That was nearly three months. Three months and he was only finding out now? Didn't Olivia suspect something?

He tried to run through the last few months in a hurry, trying to catch anything that was missing. She'd been under so much stress lately. Sean was hurt. Caitlin ran off with that no-good jewel thief. Olivia was delicate and things got to her physically. She'd been sick because of everything that was going on outside, not within her-

His hand fled Alex's grasp to settle over his stomach. How could he expect to do this? How could he protect someone who needed him every moment of the day? Someone his heart beat for. Someone he had to breathe for- Gregory was nauseous again. His empty stomach was turning inside of him.

"Mrs-" The doctor was waiting for him. What did he want? What could possibly be important enough to drag his attention away that picture on the screen?

"Mitchum." Alex offered with one of her most dazzling smiles. "Olivia Mitchum. You'll have to forgive her, she's a little-" She winked. "Taken aback. Few women approach middle age and worry about getting pregnant It's a bit of a shock to have a baby on the way and one in college."

Dr. Robinson returned her smile. "I'll give the two of you a moment. I'll gather my paperwork and let you get dressed. I'll make sure you get a printout and a copy of the video. Then we can discuss a few things I think need to be mentioned, diet, your stress level and your blood pressure."

"Of course doctor. That would be great. We just need a-" Alex picked up his pants from the chair and shared a look with the doctor. "Minute."

"Sure."

Alex stood there, holding his pants and waiting for him. The screen was off, but he still couldn't look away. Gregory wasn't even sure if he could speak.

"He said everything is all right with your baby." Alex reminded him as she straightened out the summary of the conversation Gregory had so obviously missed every word of. "The fetus is completely healthy. He's a little worried about you-"

"Oh god-" Gregory finally managed to slip the knot in his throat for a moment. "Alex-"

"Oh honey." Alex left his pants at his side on the table and wrapped her arms around his back. "It's all right. You'll have a lovely video to show Olivia."

That broke the rest of his control.

"Olivia-" God he had to tell Olivia. What was he going to say?

"Darling- you'll never guess what I found out today?"

Alex rubbed his tears away, but fresh ones took their place as soon as her hands were down.

"Liv- remember when we talked about having another baby and I nearly took your head off? Remember when I wanted to close that door so tightly that neither of us would even think about a baby? Remember when I told you I'd die before I let you risk yourself again by trying to have another baby?"

He caught Alex's hands desperately as he teetered on the edge of hysteria. "Well, it seems I was wrong. I'm pregnant. Pass the front page of the newspaper-"

"Shhh-" Alex's whisper promised that he could be all right. "Honey, it's not like that. You'll find the perfect way to tell her."

He shook his head and dark wisps of hair stuck to the tears on his cheeks. "How can I? I don't believe it. This isn't real. None of this-" He started to slide off the examining table, but Alex caught his knee through the sheet.

"Put on your pants." Alex ordered with a little wink. "Pants first, then you can pace and rant about how cruelly and unusually you're being punished."

Gregory looked down at his naked lower half beneath the white hospital sheet. "The doctor made me take off my pants." He grabbed them nervously from her hands. "I'm going to have to do that again. I have to have more exams and go to prenatal classes and wear different clothes and watch what I eat and take naps and let Olivia do all of the driving and watch my stomach expand and have my ankles hurt-"

"Pants-" Alex reminded him firmly as she pressed them into his hands. "Put on your pants first."

"Alex-"

She tapped his cheek lightly to call his attention back. "Remember our chemistry lab? Freshman year when we had to work with all of those chemicals and the directions were awful and you just wanted to go read your law books?"

Gregory nodded slowly, still pouting like a frightened little girl, but at least he was listening to her now.

"I told you to trust me. I'd been working with chemicals ever since I built my first darkroom in the bathtub. I knew what I was doing because I'd done it before."

Nodding again more calmly, Gregory slipped one bare foot into his black pants.

"I had a baby. I lived to tell the tale and I couldn't be prouder of my Casey." Alex retrieved her shoes from the corner of the room. "Again, this time, you're just going to have to trust me. I've done this before."

"In the bathtub-" Gregory repeated a the old story drew a tiny smile.

"Technically-"

Gregory threw up his hand to stop her. "I don't want to hear about the ferry from Cairo or the way the Masai tribesman had to deliver your baby. I don't even know if I'll be able to leave my house."

"Well good." Alex helped him with the buttons of his blouse. "Terror should keep you quiet for the good doctor's lecture."