Joan laughed a little in embarassment herself, but she muffled it with the back of her hand; she didn't want to startle the baby.

"No, I'm sorry," she said. "I'm usually a lot smoother, but I've never, well, talked to anyone from another world who went through what you did, so I'm a little rusty myself." If there was one thing Joan didn't like to do it was make people feel ill at ease - well, unless they deserved it, of course. Frannie definitely didn't. "You're not leeching. I know leeches and you're definitely not one of them."