A/N: Damn, I could fill up a whole book with just wacky family moments. Oh, well...at least they're funny (I think)!

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The inside of the Eames house seemed to Bobby to have the air of a carnival, with people sprawled on every surface and strange shrieks and groans coming from various corners. As he followed Alex through the foyer into a large living room, he watched a child shoot up into the air as if tossed, then fall back down with a joyful scream. To his other side, three women, one of them obviously pregnant, sat together on a couch looking gossipy.

"Bobby?" Alex said, drawing his attention back to her. "You ok over there?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah."

"Scary, aren't they?" she asked with a grin. "But they don't bite. Except maybe for Ashley - Rob's youngest. She's three and just discovering that biting people tends to get them to do what she wants. Ummm . . ." she added, looking around at the sea of faces, "there, that's her," she said, pointing to an angelic-looking little girl with cornsilk-blonde hair. "Don't let her innocent face fool you."

"She bites?"

"Only sometimes. Come on," she urged, taking his arm and pulling him toward the kitchen, where they found two of the women he'd seen on the couch a few seconds ago seated at the kitchen table, while Alex's mother stood by the stove with an older man who Bobby was pretty sure he recognized as her father.

"Alex!" her father cried when he caught sight of her, oblivious to the fact that he had just elbowed aside his wife to get to his daughter. "What the hell are you wearing?" he said as he pulled her into a hug.

She grinned. "Can't wear anything tight with my ribs, Dad. Now if you'll let me . . . oof . . . go for a second, I'll introduce you to Bobby."

"I know who he is." He released Alex and turned to Bobby, giving his hand an enthusiastic shake. "Johnny Eames. I don't think I ever got a chance to thank you for saving my little girl."

Bobby could only stand there dumbly, knowing he looked ridiculous yet unable to think of a more appropriate response. "Uh . . ."

"Dad!" Alex groaned, putting her face in her hands. "Don't embarrass him!"

"Yeah, Dad," echoed one of the women at the table. "We've been telling you for years you have no tact."

"Katherine," Johnny said huffily, "I'll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself when it comes to how I react to your sister almost getting killed."

"I'm with Kate," Alex said with a smirk, moving to stand next to where her sister sat and pulling Bobby with her. "Sometimes I really wish the men in our family were the strong, silent type."

"Never gonna happen," snorted a pixie-faced girl sitting at the table. "This mob is incapable of doing anythingquietly." She pushed her long reddish-brown hair behind her ears and leaned back in her chair to observe with interest everyone's reactions to her statement.

"Says the girl who spends more time on the phone every day than sleeping," teased Kate, pointing to the cell phone which lay on the table in front of her daughter.

"I'm sixteen, Ma! That's what I'm supposed to do! I'm talking about all you old people."

"You're gonna be old one day, too, Sam," Alex pointed out. "Then what are you going to do?"

"I've got time," the girl said philosophically. "So this is the guy who saved you, Aunt Alex?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Yes, I guess he is. But I wish you'd all stop talking like I was some damsel in distress."

"Well, weren't you?" asked a man in his late twenties from the doorway as he hooked his fingers into the molding on the top edge and leaned forward, stretching his lithe frame. After a few seconds, he dropped his arms and moved further into the room, slipping agilely past Molly to tear off a piece of the loaf of soda bread that sat on the counter, adding as he went, "They way I hear it, you'd be dead if it wasn't for him."

Bobby, who had been watching the discussion with terrified fascination, tried to place this new face. The man's dark, almost black, hair, green eyes, and above-average height didn't much resemble the members of the Eames clan Bobby had met so far, but . . . well, he had to be related somehow. Bobby just couldn't place him. Realizing he'd been staring, he found his voice and told the younger man, "I didn't really save her. I just . . ."

Alex copied her brother's actions and snitched a piece of bread for herself, tearing it in half and popping one part into her mouth. "You did too," she mumbled through the mouthful. "I just don't like admitting that I needed someone to do the saving."

"Well -"

Without warning, she reached up and stuffed the other half of her bread into his mouth, admonishing, "Stop being stupid, Bobby. You know how much worse things could have gone if you weren't there."

He stared down at her in silent surprise as he chewed the bread.

"Ah, yes," the younger man said, his eyes gleaming as he threw an arm around his sister's shoulders. "Alex strikes again with the aggressive feeding. Usually she only does it to me and Beth," he explained to Bobby. "Something about 'older sister habit'. Which leads me to ask, is she older than you?"

"Sean!" Alex and Molly chorused.

He grinned irreverently. "Sorry, sorry. Just curious whether you make him eat, too."

"Lately, it's been him trying to make me eat," Alex told him with a half-hearted scowl. "Believe me when I say that Vicodin does not enhance the appetite. And no, I'm not older than him, thank you very much."

"Aunt Alex?" Samantha spoke up from the table.

"Hmm?" she responded, releasing Sean from her death glare and turning to her niece.

"I think we're scaring . . . I'm sorry," she broke off, looking at Bobby, "what was your name, again?"

"Bobby."

"Right, right. I think we're scaring Bobby already, Aunt Alex, and you've only been here five minutes."

Alex glanced up at Bobby's face, noting that, while he didn't look unhappy, he did look both confused and wary. "Damn, I'm sorry," she told him. "You probably don't remember anyone, do you?"

"Uh, well . . . I think I've got your parents pegged," he replied weakly, gesturing toward where Molly and Johnny stood. "But the rest of them . . ."

"Geez, Al," Sean teased. "And you're always harping on me about manners! I'm Sean," he said, nodding at Bobby. "Alex's youngest brother."

"One brother out of entirely too many," Kate said with a grin, making the words sound slightly ominous. "Whereas I'm one of Alex's only two sisters. Kate Pritchard," she informed Bobby. Tilting her head to indicate the the girl sitting next to her, she added, "And this is my daughter, Sam."

Sam gave him a little wave, acknowledging her mother's introduction. "They get over-excited," she told Bobby apologetically, looking at the family members scattered around the room. "And speaking of over-excited, just a quick warning: I'd stay away from the kids and the dogs, if I were you."

He blinked. "Should I ask why that is?"

"The kids'll puke on you, and the dogs'll steal your dinner," Alex filled in with a laugh. "But we usually don't warn visitors beforehand."

"Hey," Sam said with a shrug, "he looks like he can use all the information he can get before we throw him to the wolves."

"Sam!" Kate exclaimed, glaring at her daughter. "Go . . . paint your nails, or play with the kids, or something. Leave the adults alone for a while."

"Adults," Sam snorted. "You know, I don't enjoy baby puke any more than the rest of you," she said archly, even as she obediently stood up. "Where's Adam? He's probably found a good hiding spot by now."

"The last I saw of him, he was huddled in the basement with his laptop and your father," Johnny told her. "Something about Java coding."

"Well, the basement usually works for keeping ourselves hidden, at least until dinner is served," Sam said with a sigh. "If you need me - for something that doesn't involve babies, that is - that's where I'll be. Oh, and Aunt Alex," she added, stepping forward to give her aunt a cautious hug, "I'm really glad you're ok." With that, she was gone, leaving the room's other six occupants staring after her bemusedly.

"You guys all have weird kids, you know that?" Alex told the room at large. Turning to Bobby, she said, "Sam's an outspoken opponent of gender segregation at family get-togethers."

"She just hates having to make nice with five thousand people at once," Sean said with a shrug. "Can you blame the girl?"

"You're a bad influence on her," Kate informed him, tossing a handy packet of sugar at his head. "I swear, she was all sweetness and light until she met you."

"Which would have given her . . . what? Four days of not being a smartass before you brought her home from the hospital?" Alex said, dropping into the chair Samantha had vacated.

"Something like that," Kate admitted sheepishly. "Hey, Bobby, there's plenty of chairs," she said, noticing that he was standing awkwardly behind Alex's chair. Pulling out the empty chair between her and her sister, she added, "Have a seat."

"Uh, thank you." He sat, taking the opportunity to look around the room at what still seemed to him to be entirely too many people to be in a room that wasn't a crime scene.

"You're studying them, Bobby. Go ahead," Alex told him, noticing his scrutiny and deciding to play with him a little. "Tell me who's who."

Bobby swallowed. "Do I have to?"

"Yes. You don't get to hide behind the 'I'm too worried about you to remember names, Alex' excuse anymore."

Stung by the fact that she'd thrown back at him the dead serious explanation he'd given her earlier in the day, he sighed and looked away from her. "Kate - Katherine," he began tentatively, pointing to the woman next to him. "Samantha's yours?"

"Yep, and her brother Adam. My husband's apparently gone into hiding with the kids, but his name's Cort if you come across him."

"And you're Sean," he went on, looking over his shoulder at the young man who Kate had labeled a 'bad influence.'

"Very good," the man replied with an approving nod. "The ladies do tell me I'm hard to forget," he added, pretending to preen.

"And 'the ladies' will also tell you," Alex spoke up, rolling her eyes, "why he hasn't managed to get his girlfriend to marry him yet."

"Hey, leave Jo out of this."

"Did I hear my name?" asked a pretty young woman as she entered the room and walked over to put her arm around Sean's waist.

Bobby stifled a groan. Not another one! How many more people are crammed into this house?

"Hon," Sean said to the girl, pouting comically, "Alex brought her partner with her, and instead of introducing the poor guy around, she was going on about how I can't talk you into getting married."

"Oh," the woman said impassively, turning her head to look at the pair sitting at the table. She was obviously used to the non sequiturs the family frequently threw out. "You must be Bobby, then," she added, giving Goren a smile. "I'm Joanna. Nice to meet you."

"Jo's a little too normal compared to the rest of us," Kate said with a smirk, "but we like her better than Sean, anyway, so we let her hang around."

"Kate!" Molly reprimanded over the laughter that followed Kate's comment.

"Hold on a sec," Alex broke in. "Bobby didn't finish naming everyone." She turned to look at her partner expectantly, perfectly aware that he had been hoping she'd forget. "Go on," she ordered.

He sighed and pointed to her parents, who had spent the past few minutes simply observing the conversation with pained looks on their faces. "Mr. and Mrs. Eames. Your parents."

"Good," Alex said approvingly. "Now, give me a hand up, would you?" she added, extending her hand to show that she wanted him to help her stand up.

"Alex, you just sat down!" Molly exclaimed. "Relax for a while, for god's sake!"

"In a minute, Mom. Bobby?"

Glancing at her mother's worried face, Bobby reluctantly stood and helped Alex up. "We don't have to -"

"Come on," she interrupted impatiently, taking his hand and beginning to pull him toward the doorway. "We'll be back in a little while," she told her parents over her shoulder. "Try not to have a panic attack while I'm gone, any of you."

"Where are we going?" Bobby asked quietly as she led him out of the room. "I didn't mind . . . we could have . . ."

"I know," she said, giving his hand a squeeze. "You're doing great. I just figured I'd give you a little time to decompress before you meet the rest of the family."

"Uh . . . how many more are there?"

"That you haven't met? Or that weren't in the kitchen?" She turned right into a hallway that led deeper into the house.

"That weren't in the kitchen."

"Let's see . . . Cort and Adam, Kate told you about them . . . John and Laura and their twins, but you already met them . . . Rob and Jen, who have Ashley - the biter - Conner, and one on the way . . . and Beth, Mark, and Nathan." Her voice softened on the last name.

Catching the change in her tone, he looked down at her as she pulled him into a darkened room. "Nathan is . . .?"

"Yeah. He's starting to really talk now," she said with wistful pride.

He smiled with real warmth. "I'm looking forward to meeting him. Now, why exactly did you drag me back here to . . ." He took a moment to survey his surroundings and guessed, ". . . your old bedroom?"

She shrugged. "Habit. Where else would I take you, the bathroom? I wanted to get you out of the chaos for a minute and check in to make sure you're not hating it too much here."

He looked at her in mild surprise. "I don't hate it at all. I'm . . . not good at it, and I don't know how to respond to a lot of the stuff people are saying . . . but in between those moments, it's actually kind of . . . comfortable."

Alex let out the breath she felt like she'd been holding since they entered the house. "Good. I happen to think you're handling everyone really well, by the way. The trick is, if you don't know what to say, don't say anything. Within two seconds, someone else will start yammering and you'll be forgotten."

"Ok. How are your ribs feeling?' he asked, uncomfortable with trying to explain his thoughts about her family, before she could ask him another question.

"They hurt, but not too bad. I'm still a little goofy from the Vicodin I took before you picked me up, though, so grab me if I start to walk into a wall or something. But hey, you just reminded me of something Rob suggested earlier - if you decide you want to get out of here, at any point tonight - it gets too weird, or you're tired, or whatever - just tell me and I'll announce that I'm exhausted and you have to bring me home."

"I wouldn't make you leave your family," he said, offended at her suggestion that he would.

"Just keep it in mind, ok?"

"I guess. But I'm not going to -"

"Bobby?"

He paused mid-sentence and looked at her, wary at the sudden change in her tone of voice. ". . . Yeah?"

"Thank you for coming." She slid her arms around his waist and gave him as hard a hug as she could manage without hurting herself.

Caught by surprise, he could only stare down at her head where it nestled against his chest. When she didn't let go after a long second, he moved one hand up to pry her head away from him so he could see her face. "You're welcome, but it's just a dinner . . ."

"Oh, bull. When was the last time you voluntarily subjected yourself to a mob of excitable Irish relatives? Yeah," she said, nodding, when he looked doubtful, "that's what I thought. It does matter, what you're doing."

He considered her words but didn't say anything, and when she looked at him expectantly a few seconds later, he shrugged and told her, "I'm waiting for someone else to start talking like you said they would."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, bite me. Could you be any moreoverly-literal?"

"Well," he said slowly, almost sensing the invisible devil landing on his shoulder and starting to whisper in his ear, "yes, actually." Before she could ask what he meant, he lowered his head and nipped her ear. "See?" he whispered into it a moment later.

She shivered and stared up at him as he raised his head away from hers. "Bobby!"

"Sorry." He was glad the room was in shadow, so she couldn't see the blush that rose on his face when he realized what he'd just done. "I, uh . . ."

Raising a hand to rub her ear where his teeth had just been, she frowned at him. "Come here," she ordered, crooking the index finger of her free hand. "Down," she clarified when he looked at her confusedly, adding, "No, more," when he bent over a mere inch.

"Um . . ." He guardedly did as she asked, not sure what she was planning on doing to get back at him, but pretty sure he wasn't going to like it.

"There," she said, putting a hand on his chest to stop him when his face was within an inch of hers. "Good." Now that his head was at a convenient level for her, she could gain her revenge. Laying a hand on his cheek, she smiled slightly. "Scared of what I'm going to do to you?"

"Yeah."

"Well," she teased softly, "I'd say 'I don't bite,' but . . ." While he waited for her to continue her sentence, she caught him off guard by kissing him lightly.

"Ale-" he tried to mumble as she used the hand on his cheek to force him to stay still.

She removed her hand and, at the same time, bit down on his lower lip, not enough to draw blood but enough that he felt a jolt of pain.

"Ow!" He jerked away from her, putting a hand to his mouth. "That wasn't -"

"Daddy!" a high-pitched voice suddenly screeched from the doorway. "I saw Aunt Alex bite her friend on the mouth!"

They both flinched, pulling apart and turning toward the door, where a tiny girl with pale blonde hair stood, grinning widely.

"Hello, Ashley," Alex said with a sigh.