It was when she got home... got back to the dorm... that she first began to really understand. When she pushed the door open and walked in, shaky and sick inside, and there was Tara, sitting at her computer, waiting up for her to get back from her alleged trip to the chem lab, and smiling, and so completely unaware.
So different from the girl that had been sobbing only a few hours before.
The feeling was so strong, Willow couldn’t move away from the door, couldn’t even pull her key out of the lock. The *wrongness* of it. Of Tara being so oblivious.
All the feelings she’d been having that night, all directed at Giles: the anger, the fear... suddenly turned around, surged inside herself, about herself. She’d done this. And he was right. Of course he was.
“Willow? What’s wrong?”
Strange, because she knew she could leave it this way, no one but him the wiser. She could stay with Tara and Tara would never know.
But she could hear his voice, still, and see the... the betrayal on his face. And she knew, that really... she couldn’t.
Tara was reaching for her, so she caught her hand, held it in her own. Felt, for what she knew was the last time, the slender bones, soft skin.
Tears welled in her eyes as she said, “Tara... I did something really bad tonight.”
“Oh?” Tara’s voice was small, but gentle, “Ok. Here, let’s... let’s sit down, ok?”
Willow let herself be led over to the bed, and sat down on it, beside Tara, her hand still wrapped around hers.
She looked down, and confessed.
“You know, how you asked me, the other day, if something was wrong?”
Tara nodded.
“Well... something... something kinda is. Kinda... was. Is. Whatever.” She paused, reached for breath, and continued. “I-- I’ve been... having an... I’ve... been with... someone else.”
She could *feel* Tara’s reaction. Could feel her stiffening, feel her freezing over.
“What?”
“It’s... it’s Giles,” she said, staring down at her hands, feeling a teardrop well and fall over her eyelashes.
Now Tara was standing, was pulling away.
“Oh god... I-- You-- I thought you were spending... just too much time with him... but... oh god.”
Tears falling freely now, but her voice was steady.
“I’m so sorry, Tara. So sorry. I should have told you, right away. But I... I didn’t know. Anything.”
“How... how could... I thought...”
“I did, Tara. I love you. I loved you. But... he’s... I’ve loved him for a long time. And... and I wish there was an easy way to say this, but... there’s not. There’s just not.”
“Oh god,” Tara said again, and she could hear her sitting down suddenly, in the chair at Willow’s desk.
“There’s... more...”
“More? How could there be more? What, are you married? Pregnant?”
“No... no... it’s... Tara, earlier tonight, you... you caught us.”
“What?”
“You came to Giles’s apartment. He opened the door ‘cause he thought it was the Chinese delivery guy. But it wasn’t. It was you. And we were all... not entirely dressed.”
“Willow, what are you talking about? I never--”
“You did. You did.”
“No, I didn’t, I’d remember-- oh. Oh no.”
Willow stood up. She felt empty inside as she murmured the words to end the spell. Then she said, “I’ll get my stuff. I can move back home for awhile.”
***
And so he was alone. Again.
Day three without Willow, and here he was, in his empty apartment. The first few days without Willow had been made--almost--easier by the arrival of Quentin Travers and the Watcher’s Council. Seeing Buffy put them firmly in their place had even drawn an actual smile from him... and having an official job as Watcher again truly warmed him more than he’d expected it would.
Not to mention that with the... with his current condition, an extra source of income was nothing to be scoffed at.
He had to laugh, though, at the thought of what the Council would make of all of that. And especially of his decision to actually--
To actually have this baby.
Baby.
He furrowed his brow and concentrated, rolling the word over in his mind. Imagining the babies he’d known. His first nephew, just born, tiny and red and scrunched and just about the ugliest thing he’d ever seen. And yet, strangely alluring.
He remembered the first time they’d placed the baby in his arms, how he’d grinned down at it and bestowed the benediction, “may you grow up to be nothing like your father,” and how his brother had glared and his sister and sister-in-law had laughed.
Babies.
Such tiny little things. So fragile.
He moved, suddenly, leaning forward and grabbing the edge of the laptop that had been lying dormant on his coffee table ever since that night. He opened it, and touched the power button with a cautious finger.
The machine obediently purred to life. He watched with a kind of nervous fascination as it ran through its start-up routines.
He managed to get online on his first try, and typing in “pregnancy.com” got him immediately to a bright, text-heavy website.
It was an utterly and completely overwhelming excess of information.
He closed the window, and stared for a few minutes at the plain blue wallpaper of the computer’s desktop.
Then he took a deep breath and tried again.
This time, he read a bit of the text. The first link that drew his eye was one titled “is it safe?” Since that was the big question in his mind, he clicked it.
Only to find that this page, too, was a sea of too-much-information. Questions that had never occurred to him at all were present here, such as “Is it safe to get a manicure while pregnant?” and “Is it safe to eat soft cheese while pregnant?”
His mind was spinning, and he found himself hoping, desperately, that the answers to these bizarre questions were yeses. Otherwise, this whole pregnancy thing truly was far too dangerous. It would be a miracle that anyone was born normal.
He retreated from that section and tried the pregnancy calendar, instead.
After he’d entered the date of conception and assumed that, were he a woman, he’d have a normal cycle of 28 days, the website cheerfully informed him that he was on week 19 of his adventure. One week shy of halfway.
The baby, the site said, was six inches long now, and 8 and a half ounces. It was working on developing sensory areas in the brain.
He was captivated.
Especially by the next line: “If your baby is a girl...”
He reached out and actually touched the screen, trailing his fingers over those words. A girl. It could be a girl, he didn’t know.
He let himself think about it. A baby. His baby. His child.
He touched his stomach, and for the first time, it was with a sense of wonder rather than terror. True, the fear was still there, lurking just below the surface, surging now and then. But for the moment, it was different. For the moment, he could close his eyes, and think what it might feel like to hold this child in his arms.
For a moment, he actually felt excited.
He hadn’t thought he’d ever have children. He wasn’t adverse to the idea, if the right woman had come along, but he’d just never thought it very probable.
He smiled, rubbed his hand back and forth, and then held still, waiting, until he felt one of the telltale shifts inside of him.
Even as he felt a certain warmth in his heart, and as he forced himself to think about it, to make it true in his mind... it wasn’t entirely real. It still seemed rather like an exceedingly odd dream, or like a misread passage of a text. Like when you hear a song, and are half-convinced the lyric was “pickles in my head,” although you know, deep down, that of course that wasn’t truly what it was.
So he thought: it needs a name.
Or possibly *she* needs a name.
His only niece was named Brianna, although she preferred to go by “Bri” like the cheese, a preference which he’d never entirely understood. His sister’s name was Maureen and his mother’s was Margaret. Much as he loved the people, neither name really appealed to him.
Oddly, or possibly not so oddly, the first name to follow on the heels of those was Buffy. And honestly, that was not a name he’d inflict on a child, either. Elizabeth, though, had its charm. But then, he also wasn’t quite sure how Buffy would react to having a child of his named after her. She’d probably find it odd. Or possibly even morbid.
He set aside that line of reasoning.
Willow’s mother’s name was Sheila.
That really didn’t have any bearing on anything.
And then, he thought:
Jennifer.
His breath caught for a moment, and he found himself shutting his eyes. No. Could no more name a child Jenny than he could name a child Randall. An innocent baby didn’t need such dark connotations.
So he changed tactics, moved away from names he knew.
Catherine, perhaps. A good name, with inoffensive nicknames: Kate or Katie or Cathy.
Or Linda.
Or Ellen.
Amanda, maybe, which, for some reason he couldn’t begin to comprehend, he could imagine quite clearly stitched in script on a pastel baby blanket.
Hmm. A blanket. He supposed she, it, would need one of those. And clothing. And a crib. And... a rocking chair?
And...
Then it stuck him.
Where on earth was he going to put all of that?
He suddenly had that feeling, that kind that feels like ice water sinking through your insides, that kind the dims the lights in the room, and suddenly focuses your mind on one thought and one thought alone, like a single spotlight on a dark stage.
This apartment was not big enough for a baby.
Then his door burst open and Xander and Buffy blasted in.
In a panic, he lunged for the button to close the browser window, but at the last minute, he stopped himself. No reason to hide it, he supposed.
Xander apparently hadn’t missed his startled jolt, though, and made a point of leaning in towards the computer.
“Surfing the web for internet porn again, Giles? For shame.”
And then:
“Wait a minute. That’s not demons. That’s babies.”
Buffy, who had already made herself at home on the other couch, now sat up to look at them.
“Baby demons?”
“Baby humans,” Xander said.
“What?” Buffy said.
This time, Giles really did close the window, and turned towards Buffy, and shooed Xander back a bit.
“Yes. Um. There’s... something I should tell you both.”
They both just looked at him, with almost matching expressions of “I’m all ears” on their faces.
“I’ve... er... I’ve decided to. Um.”
He found the words were harder to say than he’d anticipated, especially with Buffy’s attention so riveted upon him. After a scant moment of silence, Xander began tossing out suggestions.
“What? Move to Tahiti? Sell the Magic Box and run away with a tramp half your age?”
Giles’s brow furrowed, but no more, he hoped, than it ordinarily would in response to Xander’s idiocy. However, in Xander’s favor, the annoyance did make it easier to get the words out.
“Keep the baby.”
Silence fell over the room.
Then, Buffy squealed.
“Giles! That’s awesome! What are you gonna name it? When’s it gonna be born? Huh? Details!”
He couldn’t even explain, though, that he had no real details, as she’d bounded over to him and was currently squeezing the breath out of him, and possibly breaking his ribs.
“Buffy,” he gasped, and she let go, looking contrite.
“Oh. Sorry. It’s just... this is so cool! A baby! A little baby Giles! It’s gonna be so cute!”
He looked over to Xander and found the boy simply staring at him, mouth slightly open, and an obvious vacancy behind his eyes.
“Xander?”
“Wait. You. Uh. But.”
“Yes. I... realize it’s a bit much to, um, wrap one’s head around. I myself haven’t entirely, well, managed it yet...”
“But you’re a guy!” Xander yelped, coming back online with a snap. “Guys don’t... Guys can’t... It’s just... It’s against all known laws of nature! It shouldn’t be allowed!”
“Actually, yeah, Xander kinda has a point.”
“What?” he looked back to Buffy, who was now looking concerned.
“I mean, can you? Won’t it, like, screw you up or something?”
“Oh. Well, no. Not physically, in any case. The spell is designed to... completely provide all of the necessary... organs and, um. Hormones. For a normal pregnancy.”
“Uh. All?” Buffy looked suddenly extremely grossed out.
“Well,” he amended quickly, “All, um. Internal. Organs.”
“Oh.”
She still looked... unsettled. But then she brightened.
“So! You know what this means?”
He dreaded her next statement, but it came, nonetheless.
“This means shopping!
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