It was strange to go by Ashley Hammond again. She'd been Ashley Tyuseabe for more than four years, but she still hadn't gotten around to changing her name on Earth. Even California didn't recognize extraplanetary marriages, so the hassle of a legal change couldn't be expedited and she just kept putting it off.

It was even stranger to be back in her parents' house, with her entire family for the first time since... well, ever. This was the first time the four Tyuseabes and their two children had ever simultaneously occupied the Hammond household. Some of the potential awkwardness was overwhelmed by the sheer volume.

And the fact that her parents had decided to celebrate everyone's birthday at once. It wasn't any of the kids' birthday, but Ashley's dad insisted that if they were going to miss most of the major celebrations in the grandkids' lives then they should be able to invent their own when it was convenient. Her reminder that the Kerova system didn't celebrate birthdays carried no weight at all--especially after Andros told her parents that Kae and Hope got birthday presents every year anyway.

So Kae, Hope, Jenni, and Terra all got their own miniature birthday cakes, which meant that Shei had to have one too, and the cakes led to the first of many arguments over who was actually the oldest. Kae and Shei were both convinced the title should be theirs, and Shei might have won if Ashley's mom hadn't objected. Not to Shei's age. It was the twins she didn't believe when they both insisted they were eight years old.

"Five," Saryn said aloud, when Ashley's mom gave him and Cassie a bewildered look. "They would be five, on Earth. Our years are significantly shorter than yours."

"Hah," Kae declared, smirking at Shei. "You're not fourteen at all."

"I am," Shei insisted. "You're just mad 'cause I'm older than you are."

Ashley exchanged glances with Zhane, but he just grinned and helped himself to some of Hope's cake. "What you should really ask," he confided in a not-so-quiet undertone to Ashley's dad, "is how old that makes Saryn."

Kerone had put Zhane in charge of monitoring the so far civil rivalry between their son and Shei, so if he wasn't worried, Ashley was perfectly happy to ignore the age argument. She had to roll her eyes at his comment about Saryn, though. The Rangers had all found a way to tease Cassie about her husband's age back when the two of them were first married, but it was background noise now.

Except to Zhane, apparently. And probably to Ashley's parents, since apparently no one had ever told them about this particular quirk of Elisian life. Cassie was busy signing something to the twins--probably explaining why their dad was telling people they were five--so she wasn't even going to see it coming.

"Forty-six," Saryn said calmly. "As measured by the revolution of Elisia around our suns. Likewise, Shei is in fact fourteen. On Elisia."

"See?" Shei stuck her tongue out, but Kae was not deterred.

"If their Earth age is five eighths of their Elisian age," he informed Shei, "then you're eight in Earth years. I'm ten. I'm older."

"Forty-six?" Ashley's mom repeated.

"Thirty-one," Cassie countered, proving that she was paying more attention than it looked like she was. "He's thirty-one. Saryn, stop scaring my family."

Ashley felt her mom's gaze settle on her and she looked up to catch her eye and smile. Her mom smiled back, of course, but she couldn't help feeling a little smug. See? she wanted to say. My husband isn't the only strange one.

Her husband--well, husbands--came from another planet, but at least neither of them was forty-six. One of them was technically younger than she was, after two years of life lost in hypersleep. And her wife had always been younger... a difference that would only grow if turned out that Kerone couldn't actually die.

Her two husbands, and her immortal wife. Okay, maybe they were still a little stranger than Cassie and Saryn. She thought her parents were handling it all right, all things considered.

At least, she thought so until she went to help her mom in the kitchen and her mom casually asked how the kids were doing. School was going all right? They were making friends? Any hard questions about parents, or where they came from, or why their family was different from everyone else's?

Ashley couldn't help feeling defensive when her parents asked about how the kids were doing. Even when it was perfectly innocent, she wondered if they were secretly waiting for her family to fall apart. Or for the kids to grow up maladjusted, with huge social and relationship issues that would just prove that their parents had set a terrible example for them. But it wasn't the questions that made her realize that her parents weren't handling it "all right" after all.

It was the knock on the door in the middle of the questions that her dad went to answer, and the way her mom's expression changed when they heard his surprised voice greeting "mom." Ashley's mom gave her a look that managed to be simultaneously startled and apologetic when Ashley hissed, "Grandma's here?!"

"She said she was coming up next week," her mom whispered back. "She wanted to see the kids... it's been three years, and you know she hasn't even met Hope--"

"Andros," Ashley called, leaning around the corner. If she was lucky, they would have a few seconds before Grandma made it past her dad and into the kitchen and Ashley could pretend she hadn't heard the door. "Could you come here for a second?"

She caught Cassie's eye, and Cassie jerked her head toward the door. She mouthed something unintelligible. Ashley just nodded, because yeah, she knew. A nosy seventy-eight-year-old woman who talked too much was about to walk into a room with five alien children who thought everyone in the house knew who they were.

"I was going to tell you," her mom was saying quietly. "I'm sorry; I had no idea she would arrive so early."

"It's Grandma," Ashley said, putting a hand on her shoulder because her mom actually looked a little nervous. Maybe not as nervous as she should be, but worried nonetheless. "Who ever knows what she's going to do?"

"What can I do to help?" her mom asked, just as Andros ducked into the kitchen.

That was when Ashley realized that her parents weren't just "all right" with her unorthodox family. They were actually remarkably accepting and supportive. Not just compared with the rest of Ashley's relatives, who had been told a story that vaguely resembled part of the truth, but also in their willingness to help prep the kids' for "native" interaction at a moment's notice.

"Help Hope introduce herself," Ashley said, giving her mom a gentle nudge toward the door even as exclamations and greetings from the other room announced her grandma's arrival in the kitchen. "She's from Vancouver, British Columbia. She never remembers the BC part."

"Vancouver's on the coast?" Andros asked quietly, as her mom disappeared. "Big city? Lots of traffic?"

"West coast, lots of traffic, millions of people," she agreed. "It's basically the entire population of KO-35--"

"In one place," Andros finished for her. "I know. Don't worry, Ash."

She tried to relax. It was just her grandmother, after all. This was the woman who had had an entire conversation with the Yellow Astro Ranger, been called "Grandma" by said Ranger, and apparently never connected her with the granddaughter she had seen in exactly the same place minutes before.

"Do you think Cassie and Saryn are okay?" she asked, edging toward the doorway in an effort to overhear individual conversations through the rapidly rising noise level in the other room.

Andros looked amused at the question. "Saryn probably interrogated the twins about their background the whole way here. In both languages. I bet Shei has an entire script. They'll be fine."

"Okay," she said, just to say something. She took a deep breath, and she felt Andros' hand settle on the small of her back. Perfectly acceptable for a friendly neighbor. She gave him a grateful smile. He winked back at her, looking very much like his sister in that moment, and they walked out of the kitchen together.

"Ashley!" Her grandma interrupted every voice in the room to greet her. She had Hope standing up on her chair to give her a hug, and she gave the girl a final squeeze before hurrying around the table to meet Ashley halfway.

"Hi Grandma," Ashley said with a laugh, hugging the shorter woman carefully and taking a quick look around the table while she was distracted. Her mom was helping Hope sit down again while Cassie signed to the twins. Shei was watching as attentively as they were, and Ashley thought, not for the first time, that sign language was unbelievably useful in situations like this.

Zhane and Aoife were whispering to each other, and even as she watched, Zhane turned the other way to exchange soft words with Saryn. Ashley's dad was looking on from the other side of the room, a bemused expression on his face. That was pretty common when her grandma was around, though, so she didn't worry.

Kerone had switched her dessert plate with Andros' while they were gone and she was on her feet now, looking for all the world like a slightly nervous grandaughter-in-law. Sure enough, as soon as her grandma released her, patting Ashley's arm and making noises about being happy to see her, she looked around and beamed at Kerone. "And you too, dear," she declared happily. "Give your old grandma a hug!"

"Don't be silly," Kerone said, hugging her back with a smile. "You're not old, Grandma."

"Oh, you're very kind," was the reply, "but of course I'm old, compared to all you young things in here! I'm hundreds of times as old as my darling great-granddaughter!

"We've met, you know," she confided to Ashley, as though no one had seen her hugging Hope on her chair seconds before. "I had no idea she was so beautiful, but of course, she would be, being your daughter. Oh, she must have been the sweetest baby in the entire world!"

"She was," Ashley agreed. She knew better than to try to say more, and sure enough, her grandma barely paused for her reply. She was off and running again in an amount of time that would have had to be measured in decimal places.

"Not that a child born to you wouldn't also be beautiful, dear," her grandma was telling Kerone. "In fact, she looks so much like you, no one would know she wasn't your real daughter! Well, I mean, of course she's your real daughter, but your biological daughter, you know what I mean.

"And look at you!" Grandma got away with things like that, Ashley thought, because she didn't pause long enough for anyone else to say anything. Now she was holding out her arms to Kae, who was giving her a sort of nonplussed expression. "You've gotten so big! Oh, I can't believe how much you've changed! I was afraid two women wouldn't know how to feed a growing boy, but I can see I worried for nothing. Give us a hug!"

Kae pushed his chair back with obvious reluctance, getting to his feet and letting her wrap him in the same ridiculous hug that all old people felt it was their duty to bestow on young children. He mumbled something that might have been a hello, and Grandma patted his cheek and beamed at him. "Aren't you a charmer," she declared. "I bet you've got all sorts of girlfriends, haven't you! Or boyfriends, I suppose, with parents like yours. Well, whatever you fancy.

"Now," she said, stepping back and putting her hands on her hips as she surveyed the rest of the room. "Someone simply must introduce me to the rest of you! Ashley? Who are all your friends? They are your friends, aren't they? They look a little young to be your parents' guests, although what am I saying, I certainly don't have any room to talk."

Ashley's mom took advantage of the very brief pause to ask, "Can we get you some cake? Something to drink? Joe, maybe you could find another chair..."

"Oh, is this birthday cake you're eating?" Grandma exclaimed. "How wonderful! I do love a good birthday cake. Whose birthday is it?"

"It's everyone's birthday today, Grandma," Ashley told her. "We don't get down here very often, so we're celebrating all the kids' birthdays at once."

"That's a lovely idea! I'm so glad I brought presents for all of you, although maybe I should get the children some more if it's their birthday, because these are just regular presents, you know, not birthday presents--"

"Mom," Ashley's dad interrupted. "Breathe. They're here for a whole week. You don't have to have every conversation with them at once."

"Oh, yes, of course," her grandma agreed. "It's just that I, well, you understand. I'm just so excited to see all of you! I couldn't wait till Monday; I had to come over as soon as I was in town. I hope you don't mind."

Something made Ashley glance at Zhane, and she immediately wished she hadn't. He was giving her a bland look that only partly covered the incredulous sparkle in his eyes. Is she like this all the time? he demanded silently, and she would have sworn she could hear his amusement in her mind.

Behave, she warned him. Everything she learns about us will be broadcast to the rest of the world at the exact same rate of speed.

"So," Grandma was saying. She had sat down at the table with the kids, looking around at all of them with a sharp eye. "How old is everyone today? Hope? How old are you?"

"I'm three," Hope told her without hesitation. "I'm from Canada."

Ashley bit her lip, but her grandma paid no attention.

"Three whole years old?" Grandma repeated. "You're a big girl now! Thank goodness I got to meet you before you got any older--" And here she cast a reproving look over her shoulder at pretty much everyone else in the room. "You might have been driving a car before I knew my own great-granddaughter!"

Hope's eyes went very wide at this news. "I'm going to drive a car?" she squeaked.

"Of course you are, sweetheart," Grandma assured her. "When you're older you'll take a test and get a license and you'll be able to drive anywhere you want! Or maybe you won't, I don't know, is it different in Canada? That's a long way off, but maybe some kindly grandma will give you a present to keep you busy in the meantime.

"Who's next?" she added, glancing around the table. "Kae, how old are you?"

"Ten," he said. He was paying more attention to his cake than he was to her.

"Well, you're practically a young man! You must be a big help to your parents. I hope you set a good example for your sister, especially when you start driving. Don't get into any accidents, cars are very dangerous, you know--"

Kae, who had gotten his hover license the year before, just muttered something that might have been agreement and kept eating. In any other situation, Ashley might have wished for him to act a little more friendly, but right now she was pretty sure the less any of the kids said, the better. They really should have gone over basic Earth facts again before they left the hotel.

"And what about you girls?" Grandma was asking, just as Ashley's dad set a plate with a piece of cake and a fork down on the table in front of her. "Oh, thank you, dear," she said. "Could I trouble you for a glass of milk, too? I hate to eat cake without milk. It's just not the same."

"It'll be right out," Ashley's dad promised. "Can I get anyone else anything while I'm in the kitchen?"

"Can I have another piece of cake?" Zhane wanted to know. "These are really great, M--Mrs. Hammond. You'll have to show me how you made them."

"Straight from the box, I'm afraid." Her mom didn't bat an eye at his abrupt transition from "mom" to "Mrs. Hammond." Zhane was maybe the only one of them who would have remembered, and Ashley felt a little guilty for effectively casting him out of the family for the duration of her grandma's visit.

"And Zhane," her mom added, "you and Andros should really call me Molly. You're family as much as Ashley and Kerone, you know."

Ashley had looked away from the scene at the table long enough to listen and flash her mom a grateful smile. Unfortunately, that was enough time for her grandma to start an argument with Terra, which was amazing on all sorts of levels. One, it was a new record for her grandma, who usually didn't annoy people until they had caught up with what she had been saying three minutes ago. Two, Terra was normally the quiet twin, shy and kind and without a harsh word for anyone.

Three, Jenni was startling everyone by banging on the table and shouting while Terra ignored her. Ashley had never seen Terra ignore Jenni, but there she was, frowning at Grandma and saying something that Jenni drowned out with noise. Terra simply talked louder, yelling, "She already told you how old she is! She's the same age as me!"

"Well, I don't see why she can't tell me herself!" Grandma shouted back. "I'm not a scary old woman, and furthermore, there's obviously nothing wrong with her voice!"

"It isn't her voice!" Shei yelled, shoving her chair back and glaring across the table fiercely. "It's her ears! She can't hear you so Terra has to translate for her!"

"Oh." Anything else Grandma might have said was lost as her voice dropped below a yell and Jenni kept right on screaming. Cassie was already at the table, touching Jenni's shoulder to get her attention, but the younger twin closed her eyes and put her head down on the table immediately.

On the plus side, silence reigned.

On the minus side, Jenni wouldn't let anyone explain anything to her. Terra looked disgusted. Hope looked horrified, and she slid out of her chair without a word. Her cake was left behind at the table as she slunk over to the couch where Andros and Zhane were sitting. Zhane shifted, and she climbed up to sit between them.

Grandma looked ashamed of herself. Shei just went back to her cake like nothing had happened, apparently unconcerned, and Kae was pretending he had never looked up in the first place. Cassie was left with the awkward task of trying to appease everyone.

"Jenni can't hear," she told Grandma. "She uses a visual language instead of an auditory one. Terra was only trying to tell you what Jenni was saying."

"I'm so sorry," Grandma said in a small voice. "I really didn't mean to cause any trouble. I just wanted to talk to her, and I don't really understand what a visual language is--is that like reading? If I write something down, can she read it?"

"Jenni can't read yet," Terra said, in a voice that was as cold and mean as a little girl could manage. "Writing down words she can't hear doesn't help. How is she supposed to know what they mean?"

"Terra," Cassie said gently. "Grandma doesn't know what it's like to be deaf."

"I'm telling her," Terra protested. "It's easier for you to learn to sign than it is for her to learn to read," she added, this last clearly directed at Grandma.

"Oh?" Grandma perked up a little. "Can you teach me how you talk to her, then? I can't have a member of the family that I can't talk to, that's just not right."

This time it was Andros' voice in her head. Some members of the family might disagree.

Ashley managed to hide her smile, but she couldn't muster a suitable glare for his remark. Andros found her grandma infinitely more amusing from a distance. He was perfectly willing to watch her steamroll everyone in her path with her incessant chatter, as long as the person in her path wasn't him. He usually tried to ensure that it wasn't by the simple expedient of not talking to her.

"I have to ask Jenni," Terra was saying, after an uncertain glance at her mother. "Sometimes she doesn't want me to teach people."

"But I'm sure she'll be willing to teach you herself," Cassie said smoothly.

Ashley wasn't so sure, given that Jenni still had her head down on the table and was stubbornly refusing to lift it and look at anyone. But Grandma was nodding enthusiastically. "That would be lovely, I do hope she'll understand and let me apologize, and at my age, you know, you have to take every opportunity you get to learn something new. When you stop learning that's when you start forgetting and then they pack you off to the senior center and day care with bingo and tambourines.

"Not that there's anything wrong with bingo," she added as a sort of aside. "I do enjoy a good game every now and then. Especially when they play for money. I've won a lot of quarters at bingo, probably because I can keep track of so many sheets at once. Don't let anyone tell you that's not a skill."

Kae had finished his cake and was giving her a speculative look. "Quarters?" he repeated.

"Yes, well, I suppose it's technically gambling," her grandma told him, "but they let us old folks get away with it because it keeps us from bothering the younger generation for a few nights every week. Don't be afraid to get old, Kae, you'll get to do all sorts of things they don't let you do when you're young."

Kae looked very interested, and he wasn't the only one. Shei had paused in the middle of her cake. Even Terra looked like she might be willing to hear the rest of this story, which Ashley was starting to think might not be such a good idea.

Luckily, her father came back with a glass of milk and another plate just then, and he acted like the kitchen was in another dimension from which he couldn't possibly have heard people screaming and banging on furniture. "Here you are, Mom," he said. "Have you been introduced to everyone yet? I'm not sure you know Ashley and Kerone's neighbors."

"Oh, yes, of course," Grandma said, sliding out of her chair at the table and turning around. "I met Andros when I was trying to set my granddaughter up with her friend Carlos! I guess we all know why that didn't work out," she added, giving Kerone a hugely not-secretive-at-all smile.

Ashley rolled her eyes before she even realized what she was doing. Of course her mom caught her at it--the only one who noticed, as far as Ashley could tell--and gave her a warning look. But it really wasn't fair: the only straight member of their family, and all her relatives thought she was raising two children with her lesbian wife in Canada.

"Because Carlos was destined to meet an alien Power Ranger and run off to another planet to marry her?" Zhane suggested, giving her grandma his most charming look. Over his second piece of cake.

"Oh, yes, I heard all about that!" Her grandma clasped her hands together delightedly. "Isn't it just the most romantic thing? Imagine, going all the way to another planet to find true love... and with a Power Ranger, too!"

"Yes," Andros agreed, in that earnest way he had that completely disguised his intentional sarcasm. "It's a pretty unusual story."

"So you and Ashley are neighbors now?" Grandma said with a smile. "I always knew those were good friends you had, Ashley. Imagine, moving all the way to Canada together!"

"Actually," Ashley said quickly. "Andros and Zhane are both from Canada originally. Andros was just, um, doing a study abroad program when you met him."

"Well, he must have been." Grandma gave her an exasperated look. "If you became a Canadian citizen by marrying his sister, then she must be from Canada, and so why wouldn't Andros be? But you must have met her after you moved to Canada with him, isn't that right?

"Unless she came to visit him here and you met her then," she continued, "and if that's the case then I suppose you moved to Canada to be with her. Which is a good thing, really, since you couldn't have gotten married here, and I don't know why not because I think love is love but there are some people who don't seem to agree."

"Right," Ashley said, when she paused for breath. "That's what happened."

"So you're Zhane?" Grandma smiled sweetly at him, holding out her hand. And Zhane, ever the flirt, didn't even pretend to shake it.

Standing up, he took her hand and bowed over it, smiling back at her as he straightened. "I'm Zhane," he agreed. "Married Andros four years ago last month. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Oh!" She blushed and giggled at him like almost every other woman in the local group of galaxies. "Well! It's a pleasure to meet you too. You can call me Grandma; everyone else does. Did I hear you say you like to cook?"

"Indeed I do," Zhane agreed, deftly removing his cake plate from Hope's sneaky hands as he sat back down. "Someone has to, or we'd live on packaged food and restaurant cuisine for the rest of our lives."

Ashley cleared her throat guiltily, because that was probably true. More true than it sounded when Zhane implied it was only Andros who didn't cook. She and Kerone were just as lazy around the kitchen. Zhane was the one who made sure the children knew food didn't grow on plates.

"Well, they say the way to a man's heart is through his tummy," Grandma reminded them. "I guess gay men are no different. Congratulations, dear," she added, leaning forward to pat Andros on the shoulder. "I can't say I'm surprised, but you've done well for yourself.

"Cassie!" she called, turning in a circle and so completely missing the way Andros' eyes widened and Zhane tried to pretend he was just coughing on a bit of cake that had gone down the wrong way. "Who is the father of your beautiful girls?"

The answer was obvious, of course, and it wasn't as though her parents didn't keep the relatives informed. Well. Partly informed. Last Ashley had heard, Cassie was supposedly living in New Mexico with her native husband at some sort of kiva.

"This must be Saryn?" Grandma was saying. "I've heard your name so many times and somehow I've never met you; why is that?"

"I could not say," Saryn replied gravely.

"Well, you don't sound like an Indian," her grandma decided. Based on four words and her extensive knowledge of native accents, Ashley thought with a sigh.

Saryn didn't blink. "My father was not of the desert."

Ashley had no idea if that was true, let alone whether it explained anything about Saryn or not. Someday she really ought to learn something about Cassie's husband. Maybe it was just because she had so many spouses of her own that she had trouble keeping up.

"Oh, not of the desert, I like that," Grandma declared. "That's very romantic sounding. Now what do you do, young man? Because I understand there aren't many jobs out on those reservations these days, and I know Cassie is a stay-at-home mom, bless her heart, so I want to make sure you're supporting your family--"

"Grandma!" Ashley protested, just as her father jumped in.

"Mom, they're doing fine. You don't need to manage every aspect of their lives."

"I understand her concern," Saryn countered, apparently in all seriousness. "It is valid."

Then, before anyone could stop him, he inclined his head toward Ashley's grandma and told her, "I am afraid I can not give you details of my work. I am employed by the government, and I am not at liberty to discuss the responsibilities assigned to me. However, I assure you that Cassie and the twins will never lack for luxuries."

Grandma's eyes were wide, but she was nowhere near as speechless as Ashley felt. A quick glance at her parents confirmed that they had caught the vaguely sinister tone to Saryn's voice as well. It had been a while, Ashley realized, since she had heard Cassie's husband put in the position of defending someone or something he loved. She'd forgotten how frankly creepy he could sound when he tried.

"Well, of course, I didn't mean to imply they would because obviously you know what you're doing," Grandma was saying hastily. "So glad we've met, it puts my mind at ease, you have no idea. And who is this?"

Ashley caught Cassie's eye briefly as Grandma put her hands on her hips and stared down at Aoife, now sitting on the floor beside the Hammonds' cat with her dessert plate off to one side. Cassie rolled her eyes. Aoife patted the cat, smiling up at Ashley's grandma uncertainly. "I'm Aoife," she offered. "I watch Hope when the... um, Ashley and Kerone aren't home."

"Oh, you have a nanny!" Grandma exclaimed. "I'm so glad, I know you're modern women with your jobs and your family and all of that, but I do worry, you know. It's so good that you have help. And Aoife, you seem like a charming young woman--Aoife, that sounds Irish, is it?"

Aoife's glance slid past Grandma to Ashley. Ashley gave her a thumbs-up, nodding once, and Aoife smiled up at her grandma again. "Yes, it is," she agreed.

"Are your parents Irish, then?" Grandma persisted. "Well, no, I suppose they must be Canadian, if you're from Canada. Unless you're one of those overseas au pairs, you just never know what you're going to get with those programs... not that you're not lovely, dear, my granddaughter is lucky to have you.

"Okay dokey," she added, raising her voice without waiting for an answer, "now that I've met everyone it must be time for presents! Kae, will you help me carry them inside? Come along now, I left them all outside so they wouldn't get in the way!"

Kae, not surprisingly, was perfectly willing to help with the transportation of presents. Ashley took a quick inventory of the room, found Hope trying to make Zhane go get her cake from the table for her and Andros trying to convince him not to. Jenni had gotten up from the table and was sitting by the sliding glass doors with her back to the rest of the room. Terra had joined her, although she'd brought her dessert with her and neither of the twins seemed to be talking.

"She probably thinks you're with the mob," Cassie was saying quietly to Saryn. She seemed more amused by the attitude he'd given Ashley's grandma than worried about their sulking children. "They'll 'never lack for luxuries'?"

"And so you do not," Saryn returned, just as quietly. "She may interpret that however she wishes."

"I really hope Mom didn't buy out a toy store on her way here," Ashley dad remarked to the room at large. "You supposedly flew here from Canada. With enough luggage for a week. Does she think you're going to ship everything home?"

"Am I Irish now?" Aoife asked. "I feel like I should know where I come from."

"I'm from Canada," Hope said proudly.

"We're all from Canada," Ashley agreed. "Aoife, you can be of Irish descent. But we need to keep this easy enough for everyone to remember, and that means sticking as close to the truth as possible."

"Yeah, Ash, I notice that both your children call their gay neighbors 'Dad' and 'Pa,'" Cassie put in, grinning when Ashley stuck her tongue out at her. "I'm guessing Andros and Zhane babysit a lot?"

"Your husband works for the Indian mob," Ashley told her. "Don't talk to me about my gay neighbors."

"What's the mob?" Shei wanted to know. She had pushed all the plates still at the table into a pile, and before anyone could answer she added, "Hope, do you want your cake?"

"Yes!" Hope gave up on her pa and slid off of the couch on her own. "I want my cake!"

"Okay, well." Shei moved it a little away from the other plates again. "Here it is."

That was when Grandma returned with Kae, several large bags, and armfuls of stuff on top of that. Ashley opened her mouth, about to protest, since obviously her dad was right. Where did Grandma think they were going to put all this stuff?

A hand on her shoulder stopped her, though, and she looked around to see Kerone holding a plate and an untouched piece of cake. "You never did get to sit down and eat your cake," she murmured. "Let them open their presents and stop worrying for a few minutes."

"I'm not worrying," Ashley whispered back. As she said it, she realized her arms were folded and Kerone was giving her a knowing look.

"You're making them worry," Kerone said softly. "Your grandma is making up all her own stores about driving and bingo and Irish names. What could they possibly say to her that she would think was strange?"

She felt herself smiling at that, and she tried to relax. "Okay," she admitted under her breath. "You're probably right."

"Sit down," Kerone told her. "Eat your cake. Eat mine. Everyone's fine."

Everyone was fine, with the possible exception of Jenni and Terra, who were still pretending the rest of the room didn't exist. Jenni was more successful at it than Terra, who was perfectly aware that presents were being exchanged behind her and kept looking over her shoulder to see what was going on. Finally Shei brought their presents over to them and left them.

This proved to be the most successful strategy, although the fact that Terra could hear the other kids shouting with excitement as they realized that each of their ugly looking plastic toys was remote controlled probably didn't hurt. Shei had a car, and Ashley was surprised she'd left it alone long enough to remember the twins. She kept racing it in circles around Kae's dinosaur, which was a lot slower but surprisingly mobile. He was trying to make it pick up her car whenever it bumped into something and was forced to stop for a few seconds.

Hope had gotten a little robot monkey, which Ashley thought was weird until Terra opened her present and found a robot dog. Jenni's was a remote controlled robot cat. This immediately endeared Grandma to her again, and she seemed to forget all about the shouting and the sulking as she and Terra figured out how to work their control consoles.

Unfortunately, the twins were considerably better with the remotes than Hope, who was too easily frustrated to figure out which buttons made her monkey do what. Aoife tried to help her with it, which was above and beyond the call as far as Ashley was concerned--the presents were her grandma's idea, her grandma should be the one to deal with at least the initial chaos. But it was Shei who once again came to the rescue, trading her car remote for Hope's monkey, learning the monkey functions while Hope happily zipped the much easier car all over the room.

Once Shei got the monkey doing cute things, of course, Hope wanted it back. Shei didn't give it up right away, and Ashley tried not to think about the battle that might ensue. It turned out that Shei was smarter than Ashley had given her credit for, and the reverse psychology made Hope so possessive of the monkey that she wouldn't let anyone else play with it for the rest of the evening.

"Robot wars," Ashley whispered to Kerone at one point. "Epic battles will be fought over these creatures."

"As long as they're fought with these creatures," Kerone murmured back, "we're probably okay."

Of course the kids weren't the only ones who got presents. Grandma was a little better at picking toys than she was at choosing clothes, though, and somehow all of Ashley's generation ended up with another one of those ridiculous Hawaiian print shirts her grandma had brought last time. The disconcerting part came when Ashley realized that not only had her grandma known to get one for Aoife--maybe her parents had told her Ashley and Kerone were bringing someone with them?--but every last one of the shirts was color coordinated.

It wasn't surprising, maybe, that she'd split them up by couple: Ashley and Kerone had matching shirts, and so did Andros and Zhane. Even Cassie and Saryn. The strange part was that Ashley and Kerone's shirts featured a sunrise of yellow and purple on blue. Andros and Zhane's twilight pattern was silver and black on red. Cassie and Saryn got a red and pink flower print that was undeniably the worst in the room.

"Grandma," Ashley began, moving her foot out of the way as Shei's car came speeding past her chair again. "What made you pick these shirts, in particular?"

Her grandma blinked at her. "Why, don't you like them? I was thinking of you while I was on vacation and I wanted something bright and beautiful to remind you of how wonderful love is. They're all matching," she pointed out, in case they hadn't noticed, "so you can always find each other.

"I got you two," she added, frowning over at the sofa where Aoife was holding up a pillow for Hope's monkey to punch. Or maybe she was defending herself from the monkey's flailing, it was hard to tell. "Since no one saw fit to tell me whether you have a special someone back home, I just assumed you did and bought a shirt for him too. Or her. You know, whatever you like."

"Oh, thank you," Aoife managed, propping up a second pillow to fend off Hope's monkey attack. "It's very pretty."

Ashley had a sneaking suspicion that Aoife had gotten the best pattern in the room. Or at least, the quietest. Blue and green waves with sand and little orange seastars, which only led her back to her original question. "I'm just wondering how you decided on the colors, Grandma."

"Oh, that was easy," her grandma said with a laugh. "Those are the colors you always wear, aren't they? I'm not blind, you know, not blind or senile or anything like that. I know what my granddaughters' favorite colors are."

Ashley exchanged glances with Kerone. Her own yellow blouse and Kerone's lilac-colored t-shirt made that hard to argue, but still... Grandma had never even met Zhane or Saryn before tonight. Not that Cassie didn't wear a sort of disturbing combination of pink and red sometimes. And Andros wore a lot of grey. But how often did her grandma see either of them?

"And these are for you," the older woman was saying, handing a bag and a wrapped package to Ashley's mom. "For both of you, Joseph, so come over here and help her open them! You can't leave the women to do all the work!"

Ashley's mom handed him the bag while she carefully pulled apart the wrapping paper on the package. There was a photo album inside, and Ashley called for her to hold it up when she took one look and smiled. When it was lifted for her to see, she caught sight of Christmas decorations and beaches and at least one identifiable picture of Jeff.

"From when I visited your brother last year," Grandma told her. "Oh, and there's all sorts of other pictures in there, the whole family, and some people I met on vacation, and of course some pictures of me doing exciting and wonderful things. It's just a little reminder of what the things in the bag are for."

Ashley's dad pulled a disposable camera out of the bag and held it up. "Mom, there must be a dozen of these in here."

"Sixteen," Grandma corrected him. "Apparently you can't figure out how to work that fancy digital camera of yours, or I would have gotten pictures of my great-granddaughter at some point over the last three years--I do have e-mail, you know. But I also have a mailbox, so if you need something a little more old-fashioned, you'll just have to make copies of all of your pictures and send them to me priority mail. Preferably with one of those little receipts, just in case they get lost.

"Here, take one right now," she added, catching hold of Hope's overalls from behind and holding her firmly in place. "Smile for the camera, honey!"

"Mom, I don't even have them open yet," her dad protested.

"Grandma," Hope complained, squirming out of her grip. "I have to get my monkey!"

Her monkey was be carefully herded away from her by the combined forces of Robo-dog and Robo-cat, so that no matter which way she made it turn it couldn't move forward if it was headed in her direction. Jenni and Terra were paying no attention to their mom's reproach--Jenni because she was looking at the monkey and so honestly couldn't see Cassie's request for her to let the monkey go, and Terra, probably because she wasn't going to let her sister get away with something she couldn't. Hope got free before Cassie could stop the twins and ran over to scoop up her monkey.

"So," Grandma said, plopping herself down in between Ashley and Kerone. "While he's trying to figure out the wonders of modern technology packing, bring me up to speed. What are you girls doing with yourselves these days? Kerone, how is the military treating you with two children at home?"

Kerone glanced at Ashley in a way that somehow seemed to indicate she had just taken a sip of her water and couldn't talk for a few seconds. Despite the fact that her water glass was in Ashley's hand right now. She was getting a little too good at misdirection, Ashley decided.

Or maybe just good enough.

"She's not active anymore, Grandma," Ashley said. "She's in the reserve, but they haven't called her up for... I don't know, it must be more than a year, now?"

Kerone smiled, with an innocent look to rival her brother's, and agreed, "Yes, it's been a while. Now I mostly do civilian design work."

"Oh, is that true? What kind of design work? You know that my Ashley used to design clothes, don't you? She's very good at that sort of thing, she always knows the best colors and styles to match. She obviously didn't get it from my side of the family, but Joseph always did have good taste and he got a good one in Molly, that's for sure."

Kerone apparently decided that the best response to this was to ignore it. "I design public spaces," she said calmly. "Community buildings, city parks and gardens..."

"My, isn't that impressive!" Grandma exclaimed. "You're a very civic-minded family, I can see that. One of you a teacher, the other a community planner! Now, what about your brother and his friend? Are you boys still in the military?"

"Yes," Andros said, just as Zhane contradicted him.

"No," he said. When Andros raised his eyebrows at him, Zhane amended, "Andros is. I'm not. I'm a civilian consultant."

"Well, I've heard that's a very well-paid position," Grandma declared. "Good for you. Joseph, have you got that camera working yet? It's really very simple, you just peel it out of the plastic and turn the little wheel. Do I need to come over there and show you how to do it?"

She didn't need to, but of course she did anyway. Kerone leaned into Ashley and rested her head on her shoulder momentarily, and they watched her dad and Grandma fight over who should be the one taking the pictures. Kae wanted to know what the camera did, which might have been awkward except that Grandma thought he was too used to digital to know about disposables. Or even film.

In the end, everyone got a chance at the camera, and they went through all thirty-six exposures--plus a few extras--in less than half an hour. Grandma wasn't worried. "That's exactly as it should be," she announced. "You're here for a week and I expect you to use up every one of these cameras. In fact, maybe you should take some of them back to the hotel with you."

Ashley wasn't convinced there would be room for all the kids' toys in the rental cars, let alone cameras and all the cake that her mom wanted to send home with them. They were eventually allowed to leave the cake by promising to help eat it the next day when they brought the kids for their sleepover. Ashley's dad agreed to hold onto the cameras, too, saying that he would make sure they made it to the family rendezvous point at the park the next morning, but Ashley saw Grandma slip one into Kae's hand when she thought no one was looking.

There was no way to properly thank her parents for everything before they left, because Grandma was still there by the time they started bundling the kids out the door. Maybe she was planning to stay with them. Ashley didn't know, and by then, she was too tired to ask. Kerone was right: she had been worrying, pretty much nonstop since they'd arrived at her parents' house, let alone since her grandma had arrived. It was exhausting.

Luckily, Hope was worn out too, and when Aoife offered to put her to bed Ashley only hesitated a moment. They'd traded their neighbor the trip for childcare, but she didn't want Aoife to get stuck with the kids every second of the day. A trip to Earth was only as exciting as the free time she got to spend exploring it, after all.

"Really," Aoife assured her, "I'm too tired to do anything else tonight. As soon as Hope's asleep I'm going to join her, so send Kae in whenever he's ready for bed and we'll call it even."

"Deal," Ashley agreed. At least Kae could get into his pajamas and brush his teeth on his own. She kissed Hope good night, chased Kae into the parents' room, and closed the door behind her before going to find Cassie.

She ran into Shei and her remote controlled car in the hallway. "Is Kae still up?" Shei asked in a stage whisper. She had obviously been told to be quiet in the hall.

"Half an hour till bedtime," Ashley told her. "He's in 222."

The little car's motor revved up as Shei sent it whirring down the hall toward their room. "Thanks Aunt Ashley," she called over her shoulder, instantly forgetting to whisper.

Ashley tilted her head, smiling at the strangeness of it, and knocked softly on Cassie and Saryn's door. It was Saryn who answered, stepping back to let her in when he saw who it was. Their room was easily the quietest, despite the occasional yelps, nonsensical babble, and laughter from the twins as they signed over their robot toys.

"Hey," Ashley said, as Saryn followed her into the bedroom. "Am I Aunt Ashley now?"

Cassie looked up from the obviously alien technology she had set up on the desk, probably to check their messages, and she smiled a little. "Weren't you always?"

"I mean to Shei," Ashley said, putting her hands over Cassie's shoulders and hugging her from behind. "I saw her in the hallway on her way to harass Kae with her Robo-car, and she called me Aunt Ashley."

Cassie patted her hands before turning to hug her back. "She and Kae decided they were cousins," she said, getting up out of her chair once she'd let go of Ashley. "Because..." She trailed off, glancing at Saryn, and he shook his head.

"I have no idea why," Cassie finished.

Ashley laughed. "Well, there's always room for more in our family. We'll kick her out of the room and send her back to you in half an hour or so."

"That would be great," Cassie agreed with a sigh. "Can't we go to bed yet?"

"We can pretend." Ashley sat down on the bed and laid back, sideways across the mattress, and a moment later Cassie joined her. "See? It's like sleeping, only less relaxing."

"And more conscious," Saryn's voice remarked.

"Spoilsport," Ashley told the ceiling. "I bet I could be unconscious if I really tried."

"I bet I'd be unconscious if I stopped trying," Cassie replied.

Ashley poked her without looking. "Tell me what the plan is for tomorrow first."

"We're not getting up before the kids do," Cassie said. "Or before eight," she added, obviously doubtful. "Whichever comes first."

"Hope will be up long before that," Ashley murmured. "And she wakes up hungry; we'll have to get food into her right away."

"So we'll meet you at the park," Cassie suggested. "We can all get breakfast on our own and still be at the park by ten."

"For the start of the festivities." She couldn't help smiling. Angel Grove's annual "Power Rangers Day" had grown into an event of convention-like proportions, preceding--and now beginning to merge with--Independence Day celebrations. She suspected TJ and Tessa of planning their wedding for the following weekend on purpose, just so all of their offplanet friends would have an excuse to make the week into one long vacation.

Her family certainly had taken advantage of it. Even if they'd had to pull Kae and Hope out of school to do it. Some things were more important, and Zhane had made a convincing case for broadening their cultural horizons. Andros had pointed out that TJ and Tessa had come to their wedding, and there was no excuse for failing to reciprocate. Kerone had just shrugged, still not sold on the idea of weddings in general, but willing to go along with whatever the family decided.

Ashley was still mad that Carlos had banned them from his wedding three years ago, so she wasn't about to miss TJ's. She also didn't think it would hurt the kids to get out of their disturbingly intense school environment for a week or so, since Hope was already at or above second grade level in California and Kae knew things she was sure she hadn't even learned in high school. And the kids were all for it.

The only one they'd really had to win over was Kristet, their public relations coordinator, who warned against sending eighty percent of the Kerovan Ranger team offplanet and away from the Border at the same time.

Hopefully, Ashley thought, the days of immediate and unprecedented military threat were over. It would be nice if they could just enjoy their time off, with nothing more important to worry about than whether one of the kids would say something that got back to NASADA and made their parents look like a walking security risk. It wouldn't be such a high price to pay.

It wasn't exactly their norm, either. She supposed she should probably get DECA to contact whatever active teams Earth currently had and let them know that the former Astro Rangers were in town. Anything could happen now.