Anne Marie struggled not to jump Algie right there, if only because to her knowledge Samantha was still the only one who knew about them.  He was a quiet, dignified, graceful man...and<i>God</i>how she loved it when he took charge and put someone in their place like that! Instead she settled for a exchanging with him a sly smile with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.  His confident nonchalance was incredibly alluring.  Her eye was distracted, however, by Kieran moving toward the kitchen.  She cleared her throat and he glanced briefly over at her, but ignored the dowager.<br/><br/>"Hey."  Although it was a carefully planned gesture, Kieran's hand ghosted lightly over Colin's back and shoulders as if by habit.  It<i>had</i>been his habit, after all, and he couldn't be blamed if he still occasionally slipped.  Right?  It had only been four months, after all.  "Insane sort of Christmas, yeah?  Other worlds and all that.  Jackie's not changed much though...well, except for the part where she allowed a naked cock within half a mile of her, never mind having a baby.  That bit's weird."  He made an awkward attempt at a casual smile as he helped Colin make drinks.  "So how's London?"<br/><br/>~*~<br/><br/>"This is Miss Voss-Hall," Erik announced, leading the young woman into the drawing room where everyone was gathered.  "She's looking for someone and is a little...lost."  He gave his wife a significant look behind Mara's back, then raised his eyebrows mildly when she announced her purpose and something about timespace.  "And she speaks English, apparently."  He remembered hearing something about spacetime from Professor Swift when he was recounting a lecture he'd gone to a few years ago by a promising German Jewish physicist...but Erik himself was an engineer, not a physicist.  Not a<i>quantum</i>physicist, anyway.<br/><br/>"Timespace?" Jackie cocked an eyebrow.  "Galactic population?  The hell's that even mean?" She exchanged looks with her wife.  "It's been a crazy night, lady, but that's just a little<i>too</i>crazy."<br/><br/>"Now Miss Sparrow, I--" Erik made a noise of frustration when someone else knocked on the door.  When he opened it there was a rather large party--and one cat--standing on his doorstep.<br/><br/>"Guten Abend," one woman with curly red hair--perhaps Miss Voss-Hall's mother? though she looked too young for that--said with a tentative smile.  "Wir--"<br/><br/>"Yes, yes, come in," Erik said with exasperation, standing aside and gesturing widely.  "Always room for more, it's Christmas, all that.  Please do wipe your feet."  Secretly a superstitious part of him which he hated thought maybe a Jew celebrating Christmas was bad luck and a bunch of random gentiles showing up at his door was what he got for it.