A few days later, he had an appointment with Ben.
They’d agreed to meet in the waiting room of the ER, because he figured that a single man in the waiting room of the OB/GYN ward might be a little odder than he would like to appear. He was early. He’d spent the better part of the morning wandering aimlessly about his apartment, and finally decided he might as well just come in. He’d been here for about a half-hour now, perusing the local real estate listings.
He noted that, in spite of all their efforts over the years, houses in Sunnydale were still disturbingly affordable.
Well, at least that worked out in his favor.
He’d just circled another possibility when Ben appeared through the typical Sunnydale ER crowd.
“Ah, Mr. Giles. Hi. Come on back.”
So they made their way back through the ER into the hospital proper and on into the OB/GYN ward, exchanging the usual pleasantries, comments about the weather, about the health of Buffy’s mother.
The closer they got, the more agitated the flock of butterflies in his stomach became. He felt like he was going to meet his child for the first time, and he wasn’t quite sure if he was ready, if he could face up to that level of reality, yet. Actually “seeing” the baby, actually receiving the pamphlets and the lectures and the... gender.
“You doing all right there?” Ben asked.
Giles sighed inwardly. Honestly, he was a trained Watcher. This propensity for panic he’d picked up lately was highly uncharacteristic and rather humiliating.
“Fine,” he said, shortly, then immediately regretted his harsh tone. “Sorry. This is all still... rather odd.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. Having someone else in your body. It’s... I mean, I’m sure it must be a little unsettling.”
He managed a tight smile as they walked into the exam room, and he changed into a gown and sat down on the table while Ben left for a few moments to go and get some files. When Ben came back, they went through a quick physical which involved bloodletting and uncomfortable abdominal palpation.
When that was over, Ben gave Giles a moment to change back into his own clothes, and then started in on the lecture portion of the event. Sure enough, there were handouts and charts and a list of suggested reading (most of which were books Giles had already purchased).
Giles had spent most of his life learning how to best find and internalize information, so listening and absorbing everything was actually easy, and even comforting in its familiarity. Having the knowledge was also a vast improvement over facing the unknown.
And then, Ben picked up the last manilla envelope.
“So, basically, everything looks good. You seem to be in remarkably good shape, and the symptoms you’re telling me about sound perfectly normal. If we could meet about every two weeks or so, that would be great, just to keep tabs on everything. The baby looked healthy when we did the ultrasound. So... you wanna see the pictures?”
The nervous butterflies were back, battering their little bodies against his insides.
“Yes-- er. Yes. Please.”
Ben tugged the film out of the envelope and leaned in, so they could both see. Giles had to look at the first picture for a moment, not seeing anything, but then Ben pulled out a pen and waved it over a part of the image.
“Here, we’ve got a hand. You see it? The bone structure?”
Oh. My.
He did. A hand. How incredible.
The next image showed a curl of backbone, and the next, two feet. He’d seen this before, of course, but he’d been trying hard not to at the time. Trying not to acknowledge any of it, just desperately wanting it all to go away.
But now, he couldn’t look away.
A profile shot showed a clear outline of a face, with a nose and lips and a chin and a forehead. He traced the line lightly with his index finger.
“Amazing,” he said.
Ben smiled.
“Yeah. It always is. Even when it’s not quite as... extraordinary.”
Giles smiled back. Ben flipped to the next slide, and then swiftly pulled them out of Giles’s line of sight.
“Now you gotta make a choice,” he said, “You want to know the gender?”
He didn’t even hesitate.
“Yes.”
Ben laid the slides down again, and pointed to a seemingly random area of gray and white and black.
“This one may be a little hard for you to see, but... if you look right around here you can see.”
Giles looked, but couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“Congratulations,” Ben said, “You’ve got yourself a little boy.”
***
It had been two and a half weeks since she’d lost Giles. And Tara. She hadn’t spoken to either of them beyond a few short words in passing since, but she had been watching him. The Wicca stuff had, as she’d expected, seriously freaked out her roomie, so she’d finally just given in and gone back to studying at the Magic Box. It was a comfort, being near him, even if they didn’t speak.
He wore her charm, she saw, and a good thing, too, probably, because it seemed like his stomach grew a little more everyday. You could still look at him now, maybe, and not guess, but in a little while, she was thinking it was gonna be pretty obvious.
She ached inside, though, watching him. He talked to Buffy, with a certain spark in his eyes that just hadn’t been there before. He spent every spare moment reading books ranging from What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Grey’s Anatomy (which even Willow thought was a bit towards the overkill side). A small ultrasound photo appeared, subtly tacked up on the corkboard over the coffee maker. She had to make excuses to Buffy about why she couldn’t go with them as he house-hunted.
She got her Giles news from Buffy, in conversations where she pretended to know more than she did, where she let her believe they still spoke to each other. From Buffy, she learned that the baby was a boy, learned that Giles still didn’t have a name for him. She learned that there was a house in Buffy’s neighborhood Giles was eyeing, and that he was trying to figure out exactly how to explain this all to his family.
She watched as Xander reeled in denial for about a week, and then suddenly, as he was wont to do, got over it and started discussing plans for a baby shower.
Which would be in one week.
So, here she was, at the mall, clutching the list that Giles had made of stuff he needed to buy. Buffy had absconded with the list, made copies, and handed them out to Xander, Willow, Anya, Joyce, and even Spike, oddly enough, saying something about how Giles seemed to like the guy or something. Xander had already claimed responsibility for his gift, as had Buffy.
The mall boasted a small rare books store, which catered mostly to the occult crowd. She’d seen Giles here often, and came by a lot herself. It was run by a little demon named Nej’k who looked human most of the time, except when he was revved up about something, and then he tended to revert to his true form, which looked something like a cross between a fetal pig and a fledgling eaglet. He deeply resented all jokes revolving around when pigs flew.
She stopped there first. Not for baby stuff, though. Nej’k had called her earlier, saying he’d gotten in a couple of volumes of the diaries of Jacob Hills, who had been referenced in one of the ethics texts as a classic example of a sorcerer falling from grace. She’d read an excerpt of his writings in that book, and the words had oozed regret like blood, talking of the loss of family, friends. The needless death and suffering of those he loved.
Reading these things, she’d found, was like watching the videos in driver’s ed. Blood and pain and shattered glass and twisted metal. All of it horrifying, heart-wrenching, and yet, so necessary.
Driving was power, magic was power. Both could be misused, both could backfire.
She was beginning to understand Giles’s reactions to her magic use. What she’d thought of as condescension or jealousy, she now was beginning to suspect was more like fear.
The more she read, the more she wanted to ask him about Eyghon.
She chatted with Nej’k for a little while, then paid and left the shop.
And then, the whole mall sprawled before her, and she knew that somewhere in here, or possibly across the street at that baby place, was the perfect thing for Giles and the baby. She looked around at all the stores and despaired of ever finding it.
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