It’s September 25, Melinda’s due date. She’s impatient, fickle, and testy with Jim, who’s being exceedingly patient and accommodating to her, even though he has med school.

She thinks they should head to the hospital (“just a feeling”), where Delia, Eli and Ned are in the waiting room for support. When Melinda’s hooked up to monitor, her doctor sees the baby’s heart rate decelerate quickly, and the next minute she’s in the OR getting a C-section.

Mid-surgery, Carl the Watcher arrives and she asks if the baby will be born that day, as it said in The Book of Changes. Carl says, “You made this happen,” and Melinda realizes that fate and free will work together. He says, “I’d really like to see your child live.”

The baby is born at 11:48 p.m. The baby isn’t breathing, and the staff has to work on him. It’s still 11:48; the clock isn’t moving. Melinda sees a woman’s feet and a bloody gown walk into the room. The time is still 11:48. And the baby breathes.

Melinda and Jim coo over the baby in their hospital room. Her OB comes in, and she divulges that the baby was in distress and before he took a breath, his color flooded back. She’d never seen anything like it.

Melinda names the boy Aiden Lucas, Jim’s father’s first name and Sam’s last name. They bring him home, and we flash forward five years, to Aiden’s fifth birthday. The family is ridiculously happy, which of course means trouble’s right around the corner.

An OR nurse ghost appears, unnerving Melinda, but she shrugs it off.

Aiden and Melinda visit Jim at the hospital, where he’s now a physician. He’s going to miss Aiden’s party with his friends, but they have a little celebration at work, and he promises they’ll have a guys’ day soon. Aiden looks over and sees a nurse ghost, then turns to his parents and talks about being able to see ghosts and having to keep it a secret. “There’s a lot of ghosts at your job,” says Aiden.

The birthday party’s in full swing. We learn that Ned is taking one class from Eli and Delia is dating extensively. Then they discuss Aiden’s “birthday curse” – apparently every year he or someone in the family suffers an illness or injury.

Ned and Eli pressure Melinda to discover what powers Aiden possesses. “They may serve a larger purpose,” says Eli.

While the party continues, Aiden picks up a goody bag and runs off to deliver it to a ghost, a young woman who sings “Happy Birthday” and asks, “Are you ready to come with me now?”

As Melinda sleeps, someone smears blood on her hand. She turns to see a young woman ghost, who asks, “Shouldn’t you check the baby?” Melinda runs to his room and finds Aiden in a kind of trance. At the hospital, Melinda insists the doctors won’t find anything if they run tests. Suddenly, at 11:48 p.m., Aiden comes out of his trance. He doesn’t remember a thing.

Jim says there has to be a medical explanation, but Melinda knows the cause of the trance was the ghost. Aiden tells her he saw the lady who sings “Happy Birthday.” She comes every year, he says, “she always remembers my birthday.”

Ned, Eli, and Melinda talk about Aiden, and Eli remarks that he’s not like other kids his age, not according to Watchers or The Book. Ned and Eli have been studying The Book and discovered that sometimes it changes; there’s a new entry on Melinda’s page. It says, in Latin, “When the leaves fall so will the innocent.” She tells them about the night Aiden was born, and she remembers that a patient was losing blood and probably died that night, at 11:48 p.m.

Eli and Melinda go to the records room at the hospital and agree that that hospital is particularly creepy, full of lost souls. They pull the file of a woman who died the night Aiden was born, and it’s the ghost Melinda saw. She was a 20-year-old named Amber who died in childbirth.

Melinda slips into the autopsy room and finds a body, then the ghost appears and says, “It’s already done.” Melinda rushes to Aiden, who’s asleep in bed, and on her forearm, written in blood, appear the words, “He’s mine.” The ghost reiterates the words to her and disappears.

The next day Melinda tells Jim her theory: The ghost thinks her baby’s spirit went into Aiden. If, when he was born, Aiden died for a split second, the other baby’s spirit could have entered him. She can’t help but wonder if he’d be better off without her as a mother. She’s worried that she can’t protect him.

Eli calls to tell Melinda he got all the medical records on the ghost. She died in the delivery room next to Melinda’s. The baby, however, didn’t die and is with adoptive parents.

Melinda returns to her delivery room and sees the day of Aiden’s birth. She calls out for Amber and finds her in the next room. Amber says Melinda’s trying to take her baby. Melinda wants to know what she’s so sure that Aiden’s her baby, and she explains that she was bleeding so badly that her baby was dying inside of her. Once they got him out, he was too weak to breathe. They wouldn’t let her see him, and she saw two nurses rush him away. Then she died.

She saw nurses talking, and assumed her son died, then she heard crying from Melinda’s room. “He may have taken another form, but my son was alive,” she says. Melinda springs the news that her baby didn’t die and is with an adoptive family.

Turns out that Amber had arranged for a closed adoption before the baby was born but she’d changed her mind. Melinda had seen Amber in labor arguing with the adoptive father, so something’s amiss here (in a closed adoption the birthmother doesn’t meet the adoptive parents).

Melinda starts digging, with Delia’s help, and they form a theory that Amber got pregnant from an affair with the adoptive father. Melinda tracks down the man she saw arguing with Amber and devises a ruse to see him and Tyler (presumably Amber’s son) at Tyler’s birthday party, which is being held at the same bowling alley where Jim and Aiden are belatedly celebrating his birthday. Amazing coincidence! Or is it?...

At the bowling alley, Jim and Aiden are right beside Tyler and his family. Amber appears before Tyler and asks if he knows who she is. He’s spooked, and runs off. Aiden, of course, sees the ghost too. He takes off after Tyler.

Amber, Tyler, and Aiden are together in the automated pinsetting area of the bowling alley. Amber tells Tyler she’s his mother, but of course he’s scared. Aiden tells her that Tyler doesn’t understand what’s happening. She’s enraged, and starts the pinsetting machinery going with her mind. Meanwhile, Melinda has alerted Jim to watch out for Tyler and his parents; when she shows up they discover both boys are missing.

The adults spread out, looking for the boys. The Watcher has appeared and tells her that Aiden isn’t in danger if he stays where he is, but Tyler needs help. Melinda communicates this to Tyler telepathically, and Aiden pulls Tyler to a safe spot.

Both families go to Melinda and Jim’s house, and Melinda communicates for Amber to the adoptive couple. The wife learned the night Tyler was born the truth of the situation. Amber realizes that Tyler is OK. The wife says that “we’ll tell him all about you” when he’s ready. Then Amber crosses over, at peace.

Melinda and the Watcher talk, and she learns that Aiden’s an empath and that he knew of his power to connect to her. Melinda and Jim agree not to tell Aiden of his gifts so he can live as normal a boy’s life as possible.