Giles walked up to her where she sat at the table in the Magic Box with an uncharacteristic caution.
“Anya?”
“Yes?”
“Just... um, speaking... hypothetically... when you were a vengeance demon... did you ever, um, well... That is, did a woman ever wish...”
“Obviously this has something to do with sex, so just say it already, really, you’re not going to shock me.”
“It’s not about... well, I suppose it sort of is about...” He brought himself up short, girding his loins, and said, “Did you ever make a man, um, pregnant?”
“Oh sure. Heck, I thought you were actually going to say something weird. That was the number one wish among spurned pregnant women.”
Giles paled a few more degrees. Anya tossed her magazine aside and stood up, since this seemed to be one of those conversations better had standing.
“And given that you said hypothetically, that must mean that you think you are. Pregnant.”
“Oh, good lord,” Giles said, swayed, and then plopped down into the chair Anya had just vacated. Ok, so maybe this was a sitting-down conversation after all. She sat, in one of the other chairs, and squirmed uncomfortably for a moment. No fair, why did he get her chair? This one was cold.
Oh, he was distressed, right, cleaning his glasses with vigor. Anya reluctantly shifted into comforting-friend mode, wanting to get back to her reading, and patted his knee awkwardly.
“There, there.”
Giles leveled a deep, glowery glare over the tops of his newly-reseated glasses.
“I hardly think ‘there, there’ covers it, Anya.”
Anya sighed. So, comforting wasn’t the correct option after all. She would just never understand all this nonsense. She grabbed her magazine and pointedly began reading again.
After a few minutes, Giles cleared his throat softly, and Anya looked up again. The thunder was completely gone from his face... in fact, he now looked... well, sort of... fluffy, in point of fact, holding his glasses in one curled hand that rested lightly against his lips and sort of peering up at her from behind his lashes.
“These, er, men... what... what exactly... well, became of them?”
Resigned, she set aside her magazine again.
“Well, mostly they died. You know, male bodies not really being designed to, you know, grow infants.”
His eyebrows crawled up a notch or two and he said, “Hmph,” softly.
“It really depends on the spell, of course,” she continued quickly, “I mean, if you are pregnant, well, something magical had to have caused it, so it really all depends on what it was and what the caster intended. I, of course, never really intended those back-stabbing liars to survive. I mean, a painful death was pretty much the point, but, you know, if someone *did* want you to live, well, it’s entirely possible, I suppose. Although, probably not at all comfortable... So, who do you think knocked you up?”
It just never ceased to amaze her how quickly that man could go from looking as shy and contrite as a lost puppy to murderous.
“Well,” she commented mildly, “You’re certainly getting the mood swings.”
And just as he opened his mouth to protest, the bell over the Magic Shop door jingled and Buffy bounced in with a cheerful, “Hi guys!” and then saw them and immediately transitioned to cautious alarm, “Uh oh, badness, what’s up?”
Before Giles could waste half their too-short mortal lives stammering, Anya said, “Giles thinks he’s pregnant.”
Beside her, Giles dropped his glasses on the table and buried his face in his hands. Buffy just stared, mouth open, for a long time, before she suddenly snapped it shut, then turned to Giles and yelled, “You WHAT?”
“Buffy...”
“Oh, nonono, Watcher-mine, don’t ‘Buffy’ me. I *said,* ‘you what?’”
“This is all purely... baseless... speculation at this point,” Giles said, briefly going back to Ripper-mode to directing a poisonous glare Anya’s way, “But... um... well... I’ve... been experiencing certain... symptoms...”
“Symptoms?”
Buffy tossed her bag under the table and sat down in the chair on the other side of Giles, leaning towards him intently.
“Uh... yes...”
“Such as?”
“Well, um... morning nausea, strange cravings... um, mood swings...” he glared at Anya again, clearly daring her to comment. So she did.
“Oh, yes, he’s definitely having mood swings.”
“But, Giles, that hardly qualifies as enough to jump straight to... um... you know... I mean, hey, I’m even a *girl* and that wouldn’t--”
“I can feel it,” he said, suddenly. “It’s nothing... physical, exactly, I just... well, and there’s...”
He paused for a long time, looking off in to the middle distance thoughtfully. Then, he drew something out of his pocket and laid it on the table.
“... this.”
A home pregnancy test. It was positive.
After a protracted pause, during which Anya resumed reading her magazine, Buffy stared, and Giles pretended not to exist, Buffy finally spoke again.
“Oh. Um. Hey. Congratulations?”
***
“Ok. Ok, putting aside all the sense this *doesn’t* make... would that test thingy even work on a- a- pregnant guy? And also... No, there’s too much also. I can’t even cover all the alsos. I’m lost. I give up. Willow’s checking out for a little while.”
And she did, thumping down into a chair at the table and getting a spaced-out look in her eyes. Tara patted her hand gently, and shot a sympathetic look over at Giles.
“I-I guess this must be, p-pretty shocking for you, too, huh, Mr. Giles?”
Giles’s head lifted just a bit, but he didn’t really look at her.
“Hmm?” he said, mildly.
Buffy rolled her eyes and threw up her hands.
“Hello? Is anyone at this table actually coherent?”
Anya gestured in the affirmative with a twitch of her magazine, and Tara shyly raised her hand. Xander stared at Giles. He looked vaguely like something in his brain might have broken.
Buffy rolled her eyes again, and tossed in a heavy sigh for good measure.
“I’m coherent!” Willow said, after an extended pause.
“Uh huh.”
“No, no. I am,” she said. “Really. Back with the program. Ok. Thinking now.”
“Thank god,” Buffy said, and sat down at the table. Thinking was not her strong suit. At least, not this kind of non-tactical thinking, and she was beginning to fear she may have had to do some.
But it was ok now, because Willow was thinking. Leaning forward, with her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her hands.
“Oh. Oh, of course. Demon! It must be a demon, right?”
“Well,” Buffy said, “Yeah. I mean. Of course. Duh. Why didn’t anyone think of this before now? I mean, I just kind of assumed we’d already rejected that hypothesis. Giles?”
“Hmm?” Giles said.
Buffy looked at him.
“On second thought, I think maybe hypothesis has about three too many syllables for Giles right now. Geez, Giles, if you’re going to be like this for the next nine months, I’m gonna have to hire a new Watcher.”
“What?” he said.
“Never mind,” she said, and patted his shoulder sympathetically.
“So, ok,” Willow said, looking more non-shocky by the moment, “The demon idea. Not previously explored then?”
“I’d guess no.”
“Ok! I’m on it!” Willow said, and dragged over a book.
***
Five hours and a pizza (ordered by Buffy since Xander still hadn’t quite regained his wits) later, they had their suspects all line up. Willow looked with satisfaction over the list and nodded to herself. Ok. So, chances were good this was a demon thing. Now, if she could just get poor Giles coherent enough too see if any of these guy’s modus operandi’s checked out, they’d be in business. Most of these demons came with a relatively simple exorcism ritual. No fuss, no muss.
She knocked gently on the training room door and then slipped through it, shutting it behind her. It was dark. Giles was sitting on on of the mats in the far corner, leaning back against the wall, with one knee drawn up, and his arm resting on it, a glass of something dangling from his hand.
“Hey!” she said, brightly but cautiously, “Uh, so, we, uh, did the research thing. How... how are you doing?”
She dropped down to sit cross-legged facing him. He raised his head, looked at her for a moment, and then dropped it back down.
“Not good, huh?” she said. “Hey, it’s ok. Look, you think you’re up to looking over this list? Seeing if any of these sound like. Well. You know, your... guy? Or- or possibly girl! Several of them are actually-”
“Ethan,” he said.
“Uh. Ethan? What about-”
He set aside his drink, and rubbed both hands over his face, and then left them there, as though he couldn’t face her as he spoke.
“I- A few weeks ago, I- I...” he dropped his hands to his sides, and said, “slept with Ethan.”
Ho-kay. Apparently she was not the only one around here who was Gay Now. Or... Gay Already, as the case may be.
“Uh...” she said, “But, isn’t he in prison?”
Giles huffed a soft laugh.
“No prison in the world could hold Ethan. Chaos loves him far too much.”
“Um, but... well, it might not have been... him. I mean, a lot of these guys have, have the succubus thing going on. Shapeshifting-”
“It was Ethan. I’ve seen succubi. They aren’t that convincing. Not to anyone who knows anything.”
“Ok, why are you going and having, having... sex with... he’s a bad guy!” she said, with righteous indignation.
“The day there’s a label for Ethan, is the day labels really do lose all meaning.”
“But... But, he’s a guy!” she said, trying again, with not-so-righteous indignation.
“And? Do you think you hold the copyright?”
There was something not quite right about his eyes.
“Giles! Are you drunk?”
He blinked at her.
“Um. Perhaps a bit.”
She was shocked.
“Giles! Shame on you! Alcohol! Bad for the baby!”
He stared.
“Baby...” she continued, “which is... probably a demon, ok. But still!”
He sighed.
“Give me the list.”
She did, and he scanned it for awhile. Finally, he handed it back, shaking his head.
“Nothing.”
He leaned back against the wall and hugged himself, a perfect picture of traumatized dejection. She reached out and laid her hand on his knee in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.
“Ok, then. So, maybe it’s just a really, really good illusion. Or... even a demon we haven’t found yet. I mean, it’s... it’s probably not a real baby. That... that just seems... unlikely. And why on earth would Ethan want to... you know? I mean, generally, one tries to... avoid that kind of thing.”
“Well. Ethan always did have a... rather twisted sense of... whimsy.”
He fell silent, staring down at his feet and looking quietly desperate. For a long time, Willow didn’t really know what to say. But she really felt like she should say something. In fact, she knew what she needed to say. But she wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it. But then, she never really thought before speaking, anyway, and generally, she did manage to get her point across. So, what the heck.
“Giles... I... I’m sure this is something Hellmouthy. I mean, it *is* something Hellmouthy, obviously. But... I mean, *and*... and I’m sure we’ll fix this, ok?” She took a deep breath, “But if... if we can’t... or, or if this, like... IS a... a real baby... which, which it probably isn’t! But... if it is... you know we’re all here for you, right?”
Ok, and now came the breathless waiting, hoping against hope that whatever she’d said would make some form of sense. And then, Giles’s hand, the one that was braced on the mat beside her, slipped a fraction of an inch closer to her and turned over, held towards her, invitingly palm up.
Silently, she laid her own hand in his, and squeezed gently.
“Thank you,” he said, softly.
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Table of Contents
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Table of Contents
Story Notes:
Length: 57,236 words
Primary Pairing: Willow/Giles
Secondary Pairings: Willow/Tara, Giles/Ethan, Xander/Anya, Buffy/Spike
Spoilers: Through "The Gift"