Chapter 4

JJ smiled to herself as she released the mental connection to Jim. 24 hours before she had simply been an average reserve medical officer getting back in the swing of things after a reserve drill weekend. JJ didn't know if she would have rated herself as ordinary but certainly not extraordinary. JJ was anything but ordinary now and she knew it. She had just had a conversation in her mind with a man over five miles away. She had reached inside a patient today and fixed a torn liver, healed it, with her mind. She had gone way beyond ordinary and it excited her and it scared her.

JJ let her mind open and she connected with her daughters. Her smile turned into a grin. They were both in their bedroom, naked, sitting cross-legged on Kim's bed and talking about school. Both Kim and Blake, JJ's daughters were aware of JJ checking on them. JJ felt the surge of love and trust returned from her daughters but other than that they ignored her presence like any other teenagers the world over.

JJ's grin stayed on her face as she threw some tea bags into a pot of cold water to start some fresh tea for supper. She was grinning at her last comment to Jim. JJ told Jim that she got him first, before her daughter, because she was horny. Her grin turned into a chuckle as she tried to imagine the same comment 24 hours before. Her fantasies had included her daughters in the past but she had never dreamed those secret fantasies would become reality. But now, JJ had an alien residing in her mind. JJ had included her daughters in one of her fantasies and they each had a splinter of the same alien in their minds. JJ was thankful for the alien in all their minds. That flood of love and trust from her daughters was only a small part of her reasons for being thankful.

JJ's husband had been killed five years before and she had been so incredibly lonely since then. Her daughters were the only reason she had continued living through those years. JJ had to continue living for them but she was no longer alone. JJ had met this amazing man at an alien crash site. It wasn't just having a man in her life again that made a difference. JJ had gone out with men and a few were even fun to be with. None of them had made that bone deep ache that JJ felt every day since her husband's death go away. JJ had realized that Jim made that ache go away. She had only talked to him on the base when she examined him and later on the way home on the bus. JJ had considered Jim a patient and an assignment from General Branch on the ride home, but the ache went away while they talked.

JJ didn't think it was just because of the alien in Jim's mind. Something else was affecting her emotions on the ride home that made the ache recede. She knew enough about the capabilities and limitations of the alien now to know it couldn't have made a difference. JJ knew that she would have fallen in love with Jim Bronson even if an alien hadn't crashed on his camp site.

"Abby," JJ asked her resident alien. "Could Al, Jim's alien, have made me fall in love with him?"

"No JJ," Abby answered in her mind. "I would have a better chance to do something like that than Al and I doubt if I could."

JJ was startled by the answer and asked, "Why? Al is as old as the universe. You are almost 24 hours old. Why would you be able to before Al could?"