"It's your birthday?" Doug asked incredulously, and gave a wide smile. "Happy birthday!" People had always tended to forget his birthday. Well, except for his mom, of course. But he always made a point to at least say 'happy birthday' to anyone whose birthday it did happen to be.

But at the mention of Doctor Cox, all of the color... well, what little color he did have in his face quickly drained out, and his smile disappeared into an abruptly paranoid look. "Doctor Cox is here?" he asked slowly, in a halfway squeaky voice.