“I still don’t see what’s wrong with Alexander,” Xander said. “It’s a good name!”
“Aw, come off it already, you little ponce. Don’t see me going around telling him to call it William, huh?”
“Actually, you know, unsavory associations aside, I kinda like William,” Buffy put in.
Giles was feeling mellow from the slight overindulgence on cake and ice cream, so he was simply watching all of this with a slight smile. Buffy, Dawn, Xander and Anya were squeezed onto the couch, he was sitting in the armchair by the door, Joyce across the room from him in the other. Spike sat on the hearth of the fireplace.
He wasn’t quite sure why the vampire was here, but, to his surprise, Spike was being, relatively speaking, perfectly cordial. Almost likable.
And then there was Willow, of course, sitting at the desk. Her earlier tension had faded as the sugar kicked in, and for the first time in a month, she really seemed herself again, smiling and watching the conversation bounce around the group.
“If you’d been a boy, you would have been named William,” Joyce said, and Buffy stared.
Then said, “How’d you get from William to Buffy, anyway?”
Joyce shrugged.
“You were born and... it was just you.”
“What were you gonna--” Dawn began, then stopped suddenly, her face clouding. “Never mind.”
Joyce answered anyway.
“You were always Dawn. From the moment I... realized I was... I knew.”
Dawn’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, but before the silence could grow too deep, Willow said, “I was gonna be Jethro.”
The room universally “ewwed.”
“Where’d they come up with that?” Buffy asked.
“I didn’t want to know...”
Giles was still hearing Joyce’s words about knowing. He’d thought he’d known. To be honest, he’d mourned a little. The little girl who’d been living in his head for a few days was not the child that grew inside him, and it did hurt to let go of her. He didn’t know why he’d been so convinced that his child was a daughter. In the end, he knew that all it really had been was hope.
Not that he was devastated. A son was as much a miracle, but it had simply been harder at first, to connect with the idea.
“So, come on, Giles,” Buffy’s voice shook him from his reverie. “You must have, like, some ideas.”
Name ideas... After he’d learned it was a boy he had gone through the same ritual as before, naming relatives and friends, and discarding each name one by one, but deciding to use his father’s name as a middle name. Then he’d started going by ear, names that he simply liked the sound of. None seemed right.
“I really don’t know.”
He really didn’t.
“Ok, then. We agreed to forgo the humiliating and occasionally downright disturbing baby shower party games, so the least we can do is get this baby a name,” Xander said. He snagged the little baby name book off the table, and opened to a random page, and, before anyone could begin to protest, began reading off names.
“Ok, Enrique, please god no. Ephraim, what? Epifanio? Ok... Eric. There, that’s a normal one. And then, Ermin, back into the land of names to give a child you hate...”
But Giles wasn’t really listening anymore. Xander’s voice had fallen to a distant mocking cadence.
It meant powerful ruler. And if there was anything that this child was, powerful was it. And it was simple and smooth, and it just...
It just clicked.
“Uh, hey, Earth to Giles? I mean, I know ‘Erv’ is pretty awful, but is it really checking-out-of-reality material?”
Oh. Right. Xander.
“Hmm? Oh. Sorry. I-- Eric.”
“Huh? No... Xander,” Xander said, carefully.
“No, I mean. Eric. I... I like it.”
“You do?” Buffy said, instantly abandoning the war of sarcasm she’d been having with Spike instead of listening to names.
“You do?” Willow echoed.
“Like, you like it in that ‘now the baby’s got a name’ sort of way?” Dawn said.
Every moment it seemed a little more right.
“I... I believe so.”
An awed silence fell over the room.
Until Dawn said, “Woohoo! This calls for presents.”
Giles was still quietly marveling when a wrapped box landed in his lap.
“Open mine first!”
Eric. Eric Edwin Giles.
And so long as he never spoke his middle name aloud, well, it wasn’t even the sort of name that would get one’s lunch money stolen. He tore away the wrapping paper distractedly, and opened the box within.
The contents only grabbed a little more of his attention, but he did manage an appropriate response apparently, because Dawn immediately began babbling on about the cuteness of the little baby shirts and little baby shoes. In all honesty, he was still rather baffled by the entire notion of going “gooey” over baby clothing, as Buffy put it. But he did have to admit that the tiny little things did have a certain charm.
The next gift plopped down as soon as the first was off his lap. Buffy’s this time, and she was smiling as he opened it.
His fingers met soft fabric as he reached in. Warm sea green, like Caribbean waters. He pulled the blanket out and it fell around his arm and brushed his skin, like feathers.
“I looked, like, everywhere for that. It’s pretty much exactly like the one I had. Only, mine was pink. And is now not in nearly such good shape. I dragged that thing around until I was five.”
He was smiling and rubbing his thumb over it.
“It’s wonderful.”
“Thanks.”
He would have said more, but suddenly, Anya appeared between him and Buffy.
“Ok. Gratitude has been given and acknowledged. Time for my gift.”
He had to get up to get to her present, which was bulkier than Buffy’s or Dawn’s. Getting out of the chair was, as it had been lately, rather distressingly more difficult than it should have been.
Once unwrapped, the gift revealed itself to be a car seat.
“I researched thoroughly and found this is the seat rated most safe by several surveys. Which is good, as it would be quite distressing to go through all of this emotional turmoil and physical discomfort only to have your offspring flung through the windshield in a minor fender bender.”
“Good lord,” he said, as the rest of the room was silent in horror. But. Well, she did have an excellent point, if he thought about it. “That is, er, thank you. I truly appreciate the effort.”
And he did. Researching car seats had been one of the larger baby-related headaches he’d been trying to avoid. Although, seeing the thing in front of him now did bring up a small twinge of oh-god-my-poor-leather-seats. Ah, well. Parenthood was about sacrifice.
“Me next,” said a surprising voice.
“Spike? You brought a gift?”
Spike tried to look wounded.
“Course I did. Kind of the point of this whole deal, innit?”
There was a pause, and the Giles said, “Well?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Spike reached into his jacket and pulled out... a bottle of Scotch. He plunked it down on the table.
“Scotch?” Giles said.
“Well, yeah. Supposed to buy you stuff you’ll need when the baby comes. Don’t kid yourself, mate. That there’s what you’re gonna need.”
It was even his favored brand.
“Thank me later, Rupes. When you really mean it.”
Spike sat back down and Joyce was up next. Her gift was an assortment of baby stuff: powder, formula, infant tylenol, a small package of diapers.
“It’s all the brands I used with Buffy and Dawn.”
His thanks to her was easy and heartfelt, and with it came a rush of relief that at least someone he knew here had actually been through all of this before.
“It’s an adventure,” she said, “but it more than pays off.”
And then everyone, lead by Xander, was getting up.
“Gotta take a little field trip for mine,” Xander said.
“Well,” he added as they trailed the group up the stairs, “Not just mine. Everyone kinda chipped in on this one. But I.... well, you’ll see.”
Everyone was gathered around Buffy’s bedroom, and he felt a rush of nerves. What could they have gotten him that was--
He nearly gasped when he stepped through the door.
“Xander...”
It was a crib, made of dark wood, polished to a shine. When he touched it, it was solid under his hand.
“It’s beautiful. You--”
“Yup. One hundred percent Xander-made.”
He slid his hand back and forth over the rail. No rough spots, no splinters.
“Thank you.”
Xander could only hold his gaze for a fraction of a second, before ducking his head and saying, “Well, you know, nothing but the best for our favorite man who is with child.”
As was the intent, the mood was broken and they all headed back downstairs.
A little while later, the party wound down. Spike left, and Anya dragged Xander out the door, and Buffy and Dawn made Giles stay in the living room as they went to clean the kitchen.
And he was left alone. With Willow.
She got up suddenly, silently, and came over to half-perch on the end of the couch beside him, not quite meeting his eyes.
“I-- I couldn’t think of what to get you.”
As it did, his body tingled to life at her nearness. He could feel her heat, her aura across the intervening space. She was so far away, though, even as she was near him, drawn so deep inside herself.
“It’s all right,” he said.
“No... I should have... but...”
His hand literally itched with the urge to touch her, soothe her.
“Willow, this... this charm... it’s invaluable. If you owed me anything, which you don’t, this would more than compensate.”
She looked at him, a little, from behind her hair.
“Hey, Giles?”
“Hmm?”
“Who’s E. R. G.?”
So she had gotten the note.
“My father,” he said, and saw a small smile.
“I thought so, maybe.”
Then things were quiet between them. Uncomfortably so. He didn’t know quite what to say to her. What she wanted. What he could have.
She spoke, suddenly, with a tinge of desperation in her voice that was intimately familiar to him.
“Giles, I... I know that I messed up. Really bad. But... I’ve... I’ve been trying. I understand now, what I did wrong, and, and I’m so sorry. For all of it.”
“Willow--”
“I know. I know it was wrong to do that spell, I do. And I know that you can’t just forgive me for the way I acted with Tara. But... but... couldn’t we at least... maybe... someday, be friends again?”
“I--” But still, he wasn’t quite sure what to say.
All he knew was his heart was breaking all over again.
“Willow, I-- I don’t know... if I can trust you. I want to. I do. And you have been making a great deal of effort, I can see that--”
He heard himself talking down to her, saw her turning her head away to hide tears and stopped himself.
“There’s a lot that I... need to think about. My child... *Eric.* He’s my priority. I need to be sure I’m... doing what’s best for him.”
“Yeah. Yeah, ok. I get that.”
She stood up, started to walk away. That wouldn’t do. Not like that. He grabbed her hand.
It was like being kicked in the gut.
Her skin against his, after so long apart. She felt it too, her spine suddenly pulling straighter. They let go of each other, but he could still feel her.
He opened his mouth to say “I miss you,” but at that moment, Dawn burst into the living room, armed with a garbage bag, and began to gather up cups. Willow slipped out of the room and out of the house.
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