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Story by Joanna C, no linking or archiving without permission and acknowledgement. Angel and Buffy characters belong to Fox, Joss Whedon etc. used without permission but for entertainment only (no profit). Feedback adored.

**

1: That Was Your Mother

It was a glorious day for a party.

Dawn Summers stood in her backyard, surveying the sunny sky and warm summer breeze. The grass was green. The leaves fluttered gracefully like in a movie. Dawn herself was contributing cute strappy sandals and an appropriately summer dress to the general festive atmosphere. And what was her sister doing? Using that super-power strength of hers to wrestle a large, rubbery, smothery sun-blocking tent into place on their lawn.

“Geez,” greeted Dawn. “Paranoid much?”

Buffy tapped a stake into the lawn with her foot, attaching the tent ring to it with an triumphant snap. “With our luck? I don’t think so. It could rain.”

Dawn nodded seriously. “Oh, of course. I should go tell Norman Rockwell that before he gets too comfortable in the idyllic fairy-tale sunshine.”

“Sun as in Sunnydale,” said Buffy. “As in Hellmouth. Things happen to us. I mean, we’re already tempting the fates just by even having lives good enough to celebrate. I have covered all the bases. I am taking no chances.”

“Right,” said Dawn. “Because the forces of evil could really be stopped by a crappy tent if they were hell-bent on wreaking…well, hell…”

“Don’t give them any ideas,” said Buffy sternly. Then she broke into a grin. “Giles!”

He slid beside them with a shy smile. “Covering all the bases, are we?”

“Well, forces of evil, you know how it is. Just making sure. Wow, you look yummy. Brown’s a really good colour on you.” She leaned in for a smooch.

“Hey!” said Dawn. “Standing right here, people! Can we please save that for times when I’m NOT standing right here?”

Buffy and Giles traded amused glances. “It’s my party,” she quipped. “And I’ll smooch if I want to.”

“And we should try to get SOME fun in before the forces of darkness conspire to ruin it,” added Giles, poker-faced.

“Ooooh, good point. Kiss me?”

Dawn scrunched shut her eyes, then opened them a moment later for just long enough to scuttle for the door with a pained “I should check on the food.”

When she was out of eyesight, Buffy drew Giles away from her and took him in with a delicious smile. “You really do look fab,” she told him.

“Well, it IS our anniversary,” he said. He gave her a shy smile. “I still can’t fully believe it. One year together. I still remember that day you came home from the apocalypse and decided to live again. To live…and to love…”

“Well, what’s life without THAT? Gotta go for the whole package, you know? And to think…you were sitting right in front of me all that time, and I never even knew how much you meant to my life until I didn’t have one…”

His eyes grew distant. “Yes. Right.”

She winced and did her best to backpedal. Talking about her life was one thing. Talking about her deaths was another thing altogether, and she knew how that topic upset him. “But hey, enough about that. I did come back, and I did grow up and I did move on…and there you were, when I was ready.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “There I was…”

“I told you how much I needed you. To be my Watcher…to be my friend…and you told me we should take it slowly. We should see where it goes…”

“Yes,” he said, his voice growing stronger again.

“And where it went was that night a year ago today…in the E.R. of all places…”

His mouth quirked into the beginnings of a smile. “What a sight we were. Me, covered in demon puss and half-concussed, and you, bloody but unbowed…dove in to save me…”

“I just went crazy,” she remembered fondly. “When I saw that Kantha demon knock you into that vortex thing, I didn’t know where he came from, but I did know I couldn’t lose you…that you couldn’t die…that I needed you. That you were…slowly but surely…not just a watcher, not just a friend, but…my life…”

He beamed full-out, face saggy and sentimental. “My girl…”

Behind them, they heard the sounds of exaggerated gagging. “Dawn,” sighed Buffy.

“And Xander and Anya and Willow,” her sister added cheerfully, making way for the others. “And…hey, who’s that?”

The stranger was lingering at the fringes of the yard, hugging a cloak around a pinched, awkward body and looking anxiously around her. Buffy tensed away from Giles, on full alert. “Told you it would rain,” she muttered. Then she approached the woman.

“Can I help you?”

The woman spun, bright pink hair whipping in sticky strands around her pale, drawn face as she looked past Buffy to the group of revelers.

“I’m looking for Giles,” she said. “Rupert Giles. I am told he’s living here? I…I need to see him. That is, I…”

She staggered a little as if suddenly dizzy, and lost her grip on the cloak. They saw it now: the woman was pregnant. Hugely, massively, obviously---and, it appeared, alarmingly uncomfortably pregnant.

The stranger’s breath came in anxious, hitching gasps. “It’s his,” she managed. Then she passed out.

**

Buffy backed away with slow, careful steps.

“What did she mean by that?” She faced the others with wide, panicked eyes. “What did she mean?”

Willow gulped awkwardly. “I think she meant…” She pointed to the woman’s stomach. “I think she meant that the…well, that it’s…”

“Should we check on her?” interrupted Dawn. She leaned forward for a closer look. “I mean, if she’s…we really shouldn’t leave her on the ground like that…”

But the woman was already rousing. “Oh gods. Is he here? Did I find him?”

He stepped forward. “I am here.”

“Praise the heavens, at last.” She propped herself up on her elbows and took him in with a sudden smile. “Damn. You look good!”

He ignored the low growl from Buffy, and knelt down beside her. “I wish I could say the same for you, Kalyn. Are you quite all right?”

“Long trip is all. Let me just rest a moment and get my bearings.”

Buffy had been watching the exchange with an odd expression. “So that’s her name, is it? Kalyn?”

Giles nodded. “Buffy, I…”

“So where’d you meet her? Where was I while your little…affair…was going on, huh? Where was I?”

“Buffy, I didn’t…that is to say, I’m as stunned as you are. I certainly wasn’t expecting…well, this sort of…visitor…”

The round, protruding stomach peeked up at them like a taunt.

“Yeah, well, I guess that’s what happens when you cheat on your girl with some cheap pink-haired hussy!” pounced Buffy, growing more worked up by the minute. “Giles, how could you?

“I didn’t,” he said.

“She’s pregnant, Giles.”

“It would appear so, yes.”

“And it’s yours?”

“So she claims.”

“Is it YOURS, Giles?”

He considered for a moment, than with sudden calm, he answered. “It is entirely likely.”

She sank to her knees with a choked “Oh god…”

“Although,” he continued smoothly. “Not entirely in the way you might be thinking.”

She looked up at him with wide, wounded eyes. “You cheated on me!”

“I did not.”

“We’ve been together for a year, Giles. A year today! It only takes nine months to make a baby.”

“Indeed it does,” he said. “For a human…”

It took a moment for the implication to sink in. “She’s a demon,” said Buffy. “You’re telling me she’s a demon?”

He locked eyes with Kalyn. “May I?” he said. She nodded, and he bent down beside her, gingerly lifting a corner of her bulging shirt. They could see now that her stomach was a pink to match her hair, and it was shiny---almost metallic---like an exoskeleton. In its centre was a large proboscis-like cavity that dripped with sticky mucous which had, in several places, crusted over in chapped little sores that, even on a demon, looked unhealthy.

“She doesn’t look so good,” Willow observed.

“I agree.” He pointed to the large black cavity in the centre of her stomach. “Her membrane looks infected. We need to take care of this.”

“So should we take her inside?”

“You dated a demon,” said Buffy. Her eyes were glassy and round, shock clearly setting in. “You had SEX with a demon!”

“A fact which is, right now, the least of our worries. It was a long time ago, Buffy.”

She flashed briefly back to alertness. “How long?”

He looked helplessly at Kalyn, then with slow deliberation took Buffy’s hands in his own. “I have not had ‘sex’ with Kalyn in 20 years,” he said. “I haven’t even seen her in 20 years.”

“You’re telling me she’s been pregnant for 20 years?”

“Not entirely. And she shan’t be pregnant for much longer if we leave her lying on the ground. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “We’ll take care of you,” he told Kalyn. “And we’ll take care of YOU,” he told Buffy. “We’ll get this all straightened out, somehow.”

**

With Xander’s help, they got the girl inside. The scoobies had warmed considerably to her once they realized that Giles had not been unfaithful to Buffy. But there were still a lot of questions.

“How has she been pregnant for 20 years?” asked Willow.

“How could you leave her like that?” asked Anya.

“How could you not know?” asked Dawn.

The couch pillows settled beneath her, and Kalyn yelped with discomfort. Giles rushed to her side. “We need to take care of this,” he said. “Willow, get some washcloths, and some warm water…you’ve had a long journey, haven’t you?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Two days on planes, one day on busses. I hadn’t planned…that is, I realized this would all come as a shock, and I suspected, an unwelcome one, but Rupert, I just couldn’t manage anymore and I had nowhere else to go…”

“Hush, Kalyn, it’s quite all right. That is…well, it IS a bit shocking, I admit. But the important thing right now is to make sure you and the baby are all right. Now, let’s meet everyone, shall we? This is Xander, and Anya, and Buffy and her sister Dawn…”

“It’s OUR house you’re in,” said Buffy. “And MY boyfriend that you’ve…well, whatever you’ve done.” She turned to Giles. “What has she done, exactly? I mean, 20 years?”

Willow arrived with the washcloth and a bowl of warm water. Giles gently lifted back Kalyn’s shirt and began to clean her with the warm water.

“Their reproductive cycle is somewhat different than ours,” he explained. “Well, for the women, anyway. During their sexual maturation, they have intercourse just like the rest of us. The man’s…well, his…”

“Sperm,” said Kalyn bluntly. “There’s no need to be delicate, Rupert, it’s a perfectly natural biological function. The man’s sperm is…”

“Right. Yes, well it’s…it’s stored. It’s…”

“Found it,” said Dawn. “Look…” She showed them the book she had been paging through. “The female procreative organ contains three sacs, each of which may hold the sperm of one male. The female may empty these sacs at will to clear them for further sexual partners, or to complete the reproductive process upon sexual maturation,” she read.

“Do I even want to know what’s involved in ‘completing’ the process?” asked Buffy.

“Rather simple, really,” said Kalyn. “When you reach maturation, an egg is released into your membrane, and then you empty your chosen sac to fertilize it. You only get the one pregnancy,” she explained. “Makes sense you’d want the best baby you could get. So you stockpile your strongest candidates, and you save them until they are needed.”

Buffy turned to Giles. “Did you know about this when you were seeing her?”

“Only in the most abstract sense. It was 20 years ago, Buffy. At the time, I was…”

“What, Giles?”

“Ripper,” Willow realized as she did the math. “With the magic and the badness and the not so forward-thinking with the consequences…”

He winced. “Indeed.”

Buffy turned to Kalyn. “But you knew,” she said. “You know exactly what you were doing, saving his…his…for 20 years? You think you can just waltz in here after all this time, and he’ll just…”

“Oh, is that how it is?” Kalyn snapped. “I should be punished just because my species has a longer gestation period than yours? I should be denied the aid and comfort of a partner, during this time of…”

“Aid, maybe,” fumed Buffy. “I don’t think we have a choice in the matter. Comfort, I’ll even give you that. But Partner? Are you serious?”

Kalyn glared at Buffy with incredulous fury. “You’re saying,” she said slowly. “That he should be absolved from his responsibility just because he left me and he happens to have a new life now?”

“It’s been 20 years!” said Buffy. “Of course he has new life!”

“Now, hold on,” said Giles. “Please, everyone, let’s just calm down! This is a shock for all of us, Buffy. Me as much as anyone. I certainly intend…that is to say…” He put down the washcloth with a sigh. “She does have a point, Buffy. It is immaterial when the deed was done. If the child is, in fact, mine---and believe me, I do plan to have that fully checked out,” he said to Kalyn. “Well…I do have a responsibility. On the other hand…”

“Yes?”

“On the other hand,” he continued, looking utterly exhausted, “It is you I love, and you who are my partner now. I should very much like for that to continue, baby or no baby. If you’ll have me.”

She looked briefly like she wanted to embrace him, then appeared to collect herself, and kept her distance. “We have a lot to talk about,” she said. “Me and you. Her and you. Her and me, probably. First things first, Giles.”

He nodded. “Buffy, I’m sorry.”

“I love you,” she said.

He nodded again.

“First things first,” she said.

**

She went to the kitchen to put the party food away for now, and Willow followed after her.

“Hey,” she said. “You holding up okay?”

Buffy secured the plastic wrap on a display of brownies, then impulsively lifted back the corner and snatched one off the plate. Between munches, she managed “Think so.”

Willow nodded in the direction of the living room. “How long do you think they’ll stay there for?”

Buffy swallowed another bite of brownie. “Dunno. I kinda felt like I should have them chaperoned or something, but I let them be.”

“That was very gracious of you.”

“I know. I should be rewarded for my maturity.” She put down the plate of brownies with a sigh. “I gotta tell you, Will, this really changes things. And I’m not sure I’m happy about that. We were getting into a rhythm, you know? Things were comfortable. And then this ghost from his past shows up…”

“We all have a past, Buffy. He can’t help it now.”

“I know. But most pasts don’t come back 20 years later to haunt you with time-delay results that impact the rest of your life.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Willow. “What if she had been human, and it had been a human kid involved? So he gets her pregnant, unknowingly, mind you, but then he leaves---and 20 years later an adult kid shows up and says hey, you’re my dad? At least this way he gets to be in on its life from day one.”

“And where does that leave me, Will? An adult kid, he could still have his life at least. But a baby? That means parenting, right? Custody. Contact. With it. With HER!”

“And? He didn’t seem like he had been pining away for her all these years or anything, Buffy. He didn’t seem like he had EVER been pining for her.”

“But they’ll have a kid now, Will. Doesn’t that change things? My parents were divorced. His parents were divorced. I know he doesn’t want to do that to a kid.”

“His parents were divorced? I never knew that.”

Buffy nodded. “He told me when we first started…you know, being intimate. About how he was always so shy with women because he still remembers hiding under his bed while his dad---but mostly his mom---would yell at each other. How going in with the Council was almost a relief because it gave him a legitimate reason to avoid emotional entanglements.”

“Awwww,” said Willow. “That’s so sad…”

“It took him so long to open up to me,” said Buffy. “All those years I knew him, but I didn’t really KNOW him ‘til after I…well, after I came back, when I…you know?”

“Uh huh.”

“And we worked so hard for what we have…suffered for so long before we got to be happy…and now SHE comes along…” Buffy winced. “I’m trying to picture them together---him all young and hot and adorable, and her dripping sticky stuff from that ‘membrane’ thing while they…ewwwww.”

“Don’t think about that, Buffy.”

“But she’s here now, and she’s very conspicuously wagging the deed in our faces. Willow, what do we do?”

“We do what we must,” said a quiet voice behind her. Giles stood in the doorway, so somber he looked ten years older. “She has an infection, and we have to get that looked at. And I’ll want to run some tests to verify that I am, in fact, the father…”

She nodded slowly. “And if you are?”

“Then I will do right by her and fulfill my obligations.” He looked warily at Willow. “And we can talk privately about just what those are as soon as you’re ready.”

“Got it,” said Willow. She grabbed a plate of sandwiches on her way out, and gave Buffy’s hand a reassuring squeeze on her way past them. “Go easy on him, okay?”

Buffy faced Giles with determined eyes. “All right,” she said. “Just what do you plan to do?”

**

He paused to pour himself a drink and join her at the table, then he began, as he had before, with “I’m sorry.”

She did not tell him he shouldn’t be.

“Not for what I’ve done,” he clarified. “That was quite a long time ago, and it certainly can’t be helped now. But even so…there are consequences, and they will affect you, and for that, I’m sorry.” He paused for breath. “I would like to think, however,” he said carefully. “That perhaps they won’t affect you for the worse, as you might be fearing.”

“Oh?”

“I know it has been a regret of yours,” he said. “That your being a slayer makes it exceptionally problematic for you to bear a child…”

“So this is my chance, is that what you’re saying? A half-demon kid we have to share with some random girl from your past?”

He bit back his hurt and faced her implacably. “Who says we have to share it?”

“WHAT?”

“Buffy, in her culture, it’s the father who is the primary parent, not the mother. The mother does her part just by giving birth. It is quite a bit more traumatic an experience for her species than for ours. She was rather emphatic in her view that merely creating the life was enough for her.”

“So she’s just gonna give you the kid?”

“If I am the father, yes. She will give US the child.”

“No joint custody? No visits on weekends?”

“Well, if she does happen to be in town from time to time, I suspect she’ll stop by to say hello, Buffy. She is the mother of my child…” He allowed himself to get briefly wistful. “My child…Buffy, I’m going to have a child. WE’RE going to have a child. That sounds…that sounds a little bit nice, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe it does,” she said. She looked at him sternly. “I still have some issues to work on, you understand?”

He nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

“But on the whole…we’re okay, Giles. We’ll be okay.”

They sat there for a moment. “Buffy?”

“Hmmm?”

“I feel very much like I need a hug right now.”

She flew into his arms, as glad as he was that the fight was over.

**

They came out into the living room half an hour later to find that their home had been transformed into a shockingly well-oiled maternity machine. Kalyn was sprawled on the couch like a queen, munching on party sandwiches and delicately sipping orange juice. Anya, avowed expert on all things demon, attended to the baby mound---rubbing an oil of some sort on the shiny patches of skin that encircled the ‘membrane,’ and pausing from time to time to wipe away the slimy mucous gathered in the folds.

Xander and Dawn had spread themselves out on the floor with numerous books and diagrams, which they were studying intently. Periodically, one of them would stop to offer instructions to Willow, who was practicing them on Mr. Gordo.

“What’s all this?” Buffy smiled, observing the activity.

Xander held up his book. “Demon research,” he said.

Dawn held up her book. “Baby research,” she said.

Giles laughed. “It’s not really that complicated, is it?”

“Ask Willow,” Xander said. “She’s only on fake diaper number six million…”

“He won’t hold still,” Willow complained. “All plush and floppy…”

“Just wait ‘til you have the real baby,” said Xander. “They actually move with, like, willpower and stuff.”

“I expect we’ll manage,” said Giles. He clapped briskly. “Now, then. How’s our mother-to-be?”

“Much better,” said Anya. “In spite of numerous unsightly biological processes. Xander was reading how this membrane thing, it’s actually their sweat glands. They don’t have them all over like we do---it’s all in one place. And the sticky demon-sweaty-mucous stuff was just…just accumulating, cause she got big too reach…”

Buffy grimaced. “Ewwwww.”

“And she’s in absolutely excruciating discomfort,” continued Anya brightly. “This scaly exoskeleton part? It has to all slough off before she can deliver the child. So it’s all cracking and stretching, and….”

“Ewwwwww,” said Buffy again.

“And it is extremely painful, not to mention kinda itchy…”

“Under control,” Xander reassured a rapidly paling Giles. “She’s clean, she’s fed, and Anya’s got that whole massage oil deal going for the sloughing thing…”

“Someone’ll have to be with her pretty much all the time though,” Dawn said. “If we don’t keep her membrane clean, the baby could get uncomfortable. And he…she…there aren’t more kinds than that, are there?”

Giles shot a briefly panicked look at Kalyn, who shook her head.

“Well,” continued Dawn. “It…that is to say, the baby…well, if it gets uncomfortable, it isn’t shy about showing it. And the quicker goes the creepy demony exfoliation, the quicker the baby gets born…”

Buffy frowned. “How long does this take, exactly?”

“The exoskeleton has been thinning for about 9 days now,” said Kalyn quietly.

“And it looks like we’re about halfway there,” said Anya. “Best guess, anyway. There could be a baby within the month. She’ll have to stay here ‘til then. She’s really let herself go, and I think the baby is mad at her.”

Kalyn squirmed. “I’ll say. I tried to tell it to calm down a little, but it’s still a little…kicky…” She winced uncomfortably. “I hurt all over. And I think I sort of need to use the bathroom.”

“Well, that’s one problem we actually can solve,” said Giles with a smile. “Do you need some help?”

She blushed fuchsia and meekly nodded.

“But not from you,” said Buffy, slapping his hand. “Anya, help the pregnant lady to the bathroom, will you?”

“Not sure why I get stuck with all the sticky work,” Anya complained.

“Because you are not a man, 16, dating the baby’s father, or the possessor of enough magic powers to kill me for spite,” said Buffy, pointing to Xander, Dawn, herself and Willow in turn.

“Fine, fine,” grumbled Anya, helping Kalyn to her feet. “I was speaking rhetorically.”

As they walked off, Buffy heard Anya saying “In my vengeance demon days, I was very popular with pregnant women. You know, ‘You got me into this mess, bucko, you’re going to suffer with me’ sort of thing…’”

Kalyn looked confused. “Why would I blame Rupert? Sperm is sperm---if it hadn’t been his, it would have been somebody else’s…”

“That,” Buffy told Giles. “Is a very healthy attitude to this whole thing.”

**

Buffy had been dreading her shift on Kalyn-watch, but she knew it was inevitable. Taking turns was only fair, she supposed. But she still hadn’t quite worked out her feelings on this whole thing. She wasn’t sure she was ready for four solid hours of quality time, with bonus mucous-cleaning and exoskeleton-greasing. But clearly, Kalyn had been coached on the issues and was doing her best to be sensitive.

“You’re doing a great job,” she had enthused to Buffy within mere seconds of the slayer’s sitting down beside her.

“Really?” Buffy smiled. “Haven’t done anything yet.”

“I mean, handling this,” Kalyn said. “Letting me stay here. Letting him…letting him be involved.”

“Well, it’s not like I could stop him,” Buffy said. “If it really is his baby, I don’t think anything could keep him away. And I’m not exactly going to throw a sickly demon pregnant woman out on the street, am I?”

“Still,” said Kalyn. “This can’t be easy for you. Having me show up like this…and a baby…”

“He’d rather have you show up like this then never tell him at all,” Buffy said. “At least this way he can be involved from day one…”

Kalyn looked suddenly impressed. “That’s a very healthy attitude.”

“Hey, we’ve been through a lot. It’s going to take more than a baby to get us off track…”

“Buffy?”

“Hmmm.”

“I’m really itchy. Back there, by the shoulder…”

Buffy leaned over and scratched the offending area.

“I know, I know, way to kill the moment,” Kalyn sighed. “I’m just so…you’ve never been pregnant, have you, Buffy?”

She shook her head.

“Well, I am very ready to be not,” Kalyn said. “It’s very uncomfortable, you know. And the baby doesn’t let me get away with anything!”

“You keep talking about it like it’s a person,” Buffy noticed. “Like it’s sentient. It isn’t even born yet!”

“So?”

“So I thought babies generally didn’t have minds of their own,” said Buffy. “Especially ones that aren’t even born.”

Kalyn smiled. “Maybe not where you come from…”

“Playing the demon card, are ya?”

Kalyn squirmed. “Need lotion,” she winced. “Stop scratching, do lotion…” She settled after a moment, then returned her attention to Buffy with a benevolent smile.

“Nothing wrong with being a demon. This baby---as it is right now, even at this relatively early stage of development---probably has an IQ higher than every single person in this house put together. And that’s if it’s a stupid baby for my kind.”

“So that’s why you’re so perceptive.” Buffy frowned. “Does it have any other special powers I should know about?”

“Nothing significant, aside from a few cosmetic differences.”

“Sticky membrane thing, right?”

Kalyn squirmed again. “Speaking of which…”

“Mucous patrol, coming up.”

“Actually, I’m feeling a little overheated. Can you ice it?”

Kalyn relaxed as Buffy gently rubbed her stomach. “Much better. Look, Buffy…you really are okay with this? With my…with my leaving the baby with Rupert and you?”

“Well, I don’t really have much choice, do I?”

“But…”

“Yes, I’m okay. Not sure I understand it. I mean, just…just giving your own child up like that? That’s not something WE would do.”

“I’m not like you, though.”

“Playing that demon card again? No, you aren’t like me. And this child, who I will be raising as mine---it won’t be like me either.”

“For the most part, it will.”

“For the most part. But I can’t deny having some misgivings. Will it look like you? With the membrane thing, and the scales up its side and the whole chronic sunburn look? ‘Cause I’m not saying I mind per se, but you know, other kids here don’t have that. How am I gonna explain that one at a sleepover? Or a pool party? And is this kid gonna grow up and abandon its own baby somewhere? ‘Cause, cultural thing or not, that’s gonna sting a little---for Giles and me, if not the kid…”

“The baby is half-human,” said Kalyn. “That will change things.”

“It will. And since the human half is Giles, I’m prepared to risk it. He is a much better man than he was, Kalyn.”

“I know that.”

“If he had known it would turn out this way…that you and he would have a child together…”

“Let’s not go there,” said Kalyn gently. “He was a man, even then. He is a better man now. And that is enough for me.”

**

She headed straight to bed when Xander relieved her at two in the morning, and she was not entirely surprised to find Giles waiting up for her.

“You should be sleeping,” she chastised. “Rest or no rest, you’re up in four hours for Kalyn-watch.”

He nodded. “How is she?”

“Too hot, too cold, too sticky and too itchy. But good…”

“That’s good to hear. And you?”

“Good.”

“And you and her together?”

She frowned. “That’s what this is about? You’re up past your bedtime worrying that your ex-girlfriend and I were having it out somehow? A catfight? A duel? Do we live in the sixteenth century?”

“Buffy…”

“She’s nice,” Buffy said. “Different, but nice. And with a very healthy attitude about this whole thing that I’m finding very refreshing.”

“Good,” he said, bobbing his head mechanically. “That’s…good…”

“And yet you still look worried. Giles, what’s wrong?”

“Just…people were so worried about what Kalyn wanted. What you wanted. Making me out to be the guilty party because I was intimate with the woman 20 years ago…and that means I don’t get a say?”

“A say in what?”

“In whether or not I want a baby. She says ‘oh, it’s yours’ and everyone says oh yes, very nice, Rupert and Buffy will raise the baby and everybody wins…Buffy what if I don’t want to? What if I can’t?”

She frowned. “Why couldn’t you?”

“I might be a terrible father, Buffy.”

She thought for a moment. Then she cupped her hands to her mouth and shrieked “Dawn!”

Her sister stumbled into their bedroom, still sleepy-eyed. “What’s wrong? Where’s the fire?”

“Is Giles a good father?” Buffy demanded.

“Huh?”

“He’s been living in this house for a year and a half. And in that time, he has acted toward you in a male head-of-household vaguely father way, has he not?”

Slowly, Dawn realized. “Oh. Well, yeah.”

“So how’s he doing? Is he any good?”

“Well, I suppose he is,” Dawn said. “Points for actual attendance, for one thing. You know, not running off to Spain with his secretary or anything. Bonus points for taking me out for ice cream after I got a D on my Spanish exam. Extra bonus points for arguing on my behalf---successfully---for the right to paint my room whatever colour I wanted. And although at the time I was pissed, extra points too for teaching me a lesson and making me live with the consequences when midnight blue turned out to be a little too much midnight and a little too little blue. Bonus points also for the secret thing we did the night that you were stuck in Los Angeles helping Angel avert another apocalypse, and Andrew Leary dumped me.”

“What secret thing? You never told me about that. Giles, what happened? What’d you do?”

“The right thing,” Dawn reassured her. “Let’s leave it at that, okay? Andrew Leary, still kind of a fresh wound, not sure I want to revisit it, you know?”

“You can go to bed now,” Buffy said. Then, to Giles, she said “See? We’ll be fine, Giles. You and me and her and it and us---we’ll be fine…”

**

Buffy woke up without Giles beside her. The sun streamed through the curtains in early morning brightness, and Buffy pulled on some sweats and headed downstairs in search of food and Giles. She found him relaxing over coffee and Krispy Kreme with Dawn and Willow.

“Morning,” she said.

He bit off the corner of a maple cruller. “Morning, love.”

“Thought you were still on shift with Kalyn.”

He swallowed a sticky sip of coffee. “Oh, that. She’s with the doctor right now. Looking over her infection, and running the…the test, you know. To see if I’m the father.”

“Where’d we get a demon baby doctor, again?”

“Oh, Anya knows people.” He looked at his watch. “They’ve been quite awhile in there. Perhaps I should check on them?”

He pushed his chair aside, and Buffy followed him into the living room. They had kept Kalyn on the couch for the night---it was closer to the kitchen, as she had requested, and, she claimed, more comfortable. They were still discovering subtle differences in her physiology---her back was all bone, and she found most beds too squishy.

She greeted Buffy and Giles with a mopey whimper. “Make him stop!”

The ‘him’ in question, a slight, bespeckled man who looked fully human except for purple skin. He turned toward them with an officious click of his pen.

“Hello, again,” he greeted Giles. “Well, she’s really coming along here.”

“I have to pee,” Kalyn complained. “He made me drink all this water, and now he won’t let me up to pee.”

“You need to be on bedrest, my dear,” the doctor said. “You really must take better care of yourself.”

Kalyn whimpered again and looked beseechingly at Giles.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” snapped Buffy. She marched over to the couch and hefted Kalyn to her feet. “Come with me. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”

Giles faced the doctor curiously. “Well?”

“Well, there is definitely human DNA in that child. Is it your DNA? I would need to run some other tests to know for sure, but she says you were her only human. In fact, she says you were her only partner. Probably explains why she got fertilized with a 20-year-old sample not even of her species. Her body had no other choices.”

Giles frowned. “Did she plan it that way, I wonder?”

The doctor squirmed uncomfortably under Giles’ pensive gaze. “It’s probably not my place to tell you this,” he said.

“Tell me what?”

“I shouldn’t say.”

“For god’s sake man, have at it already! We’re certainly paying you well enough for this little visit…”

“Well, I had some concerns,” the doctor said. “Inter-species pregnancies are especially tricky, and I just couldn’t understand why she would have willingly chosen one. She doesn’t seem to be enjoying the pregnancy much anyway. Why would she deliberately enter into a harder than usual one? So I questioned her…fairly thoroughly…about other options she might have had. And that’s when she told me that you were the only man she has been with.”

“Yes. And?”

“The only MAN she has been with, Mr. Giles.”

He blushed. “Oh.”

“Probably not my place to tell you,” the doctor shrugged. “But make of it what you will. As for the status of the baby…” He briefly consulted his notes. “The child seems fine, developing as it should. Did you…did you want to know the baby’s sex?”

“I’d rather be surprised, if that’s okay.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Well, anyway, I do have some concerns about that infection. She hasn’t been cleaning her membrane properly, and she’s developed some sores. I’d like to see those fully healed before she prepares to give birth.”

“You speak as if that might be difficult.”

The doctor nodded. “That baby seems very anxious to get born. You can see how rapidly she’s expanding---it’s why the sloughing has been so painful. That skin is hard and scaly, like a shell or crust---no give. You can see on her that it is cracked and brittle---it’s supposed to slough gradually, but the baby is busting its way through it.”

“So what do you suggest?” said Giles. “What can we do for her?”

“You absolutely must keep that membrane in as pristine condition as possible. Keep the inner areas clean and the outer exoskeleton moisturized. I’ll leave you some ointment for the sores. But that membrane needs constant attention until it’s in better shape, Mr. Giles. Constant.”

“I understand.”

“And I’d like to give her something to retard the onset of labour,” the doctor said. “Make sure that child stays in there until the mother is ready to birth it properly…”

Buffy and Kalyn returned just in time to overhear that part, and Kalyn greeted the news with a squeak of distress. “What? You want to keep me pregnant for longer?”

“My dear, you must heal,” the doctor said. “There can be absolutely no argument on that. And I understand you do have some resources at your disposal here…”

“I don’t want to be pregnant,” Kalyn whined. “You have no idea how awful it’s…”

“Hormones,” mouthed Buffy. She led Kalyn back to the couch. “Why don’t we just lie down for a few minutes, and…”

Kalyn burst into tears. “I’m really hungry,” she sobbed. “And it’s way too hot in here.”

Buffy hopped to her feet. “On it.”

“Thank you,” said Giles. “I wouldn’t mind a few minutes alone in here, Buffy.”

“Oh. Sure. Um, okay, I’ll just go…make her some grilled cheese or something that else that takes a long time?”

“That would be nice. Doctor, you’ll be back tomorrow to check on her?”

“Of course. Same time as today?”

Giles nodded, and within a few seconds, the room had cleared out. He faced the mother of his child with a smile fraught with emotion.

“Well,” he said.

“Well, what?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I can’t believe I didn’t catch it on my own! Kalyn, he told me…the doctor said…”

Her face hardened. “He shouldn’t have told you that. It is immaterial to our situation.”

“I don’t think it is. Is that why you waited so long to find me? Because you really thought that I would judge you for your sexual preference?”

She blushed. “It’s still a taboo in your culture. I know it is!”

“And you thought I, of all people, would have a problem with that? Kalyn, honestly…”

She sighed. “I’m sorry, Rupert.”

“I’m sorry too, Kalyn. That you were really too shy about this to ask for help although you clearly needed it…a part of me almost thinks your present discomfort serves you right!”

“Rupert…”

He stood. “I need a walk,” he said. “Clear my head a little, process my impending fatherhood some more…I’ll send Willow in to sit with you and help you with the ointment.”

“But I thought it was still your turn.”

“I think you might enjoy a chat with Willow right now.”

“Rupert, I really am very sorry…”

“I know,” he said. “Talk to Willow, please?”

She bit her lip. “You’ll be back for me later?”

“I’ll do my part,” he said. He left her, both of them restless. 

**

The gang reconvened at lunchtime.

“And how is our little science project?” teased Xander, strolling in with take-out bags.

Kalyn’s glare was furious.

“Looks like somebody had a good morning,” he observed.

“Don’t even ask,” said Anya. “No, seriously. Don’t even ask.”

“Ah.” He leaned close to Willow. “What happened?”

“Doctor visit,” said Willow. “And a teeny fight with Giles about something that I understand, yet regret on both their behalves. Is he back yet? I want to try and smooth things over for her.”

“Buffy? Dawn?”

“Hitting the library for some baby books. They’re really getting into this.”

He clapped his hands together. “Okay! We’ve got Anya, we’ve got me, and we’ve got bags and bags of Chinese food. What more does a pregnant lady need?”

“More wet towels,” said Anya. “For the pus, and the ooze, and the slime, and the…”

“Ugh, okay, besides that, what more does she need?”

“Um, nothing?”

“Got it in one. Willow?”

She nodded, and snuck away. A quick search turned up a pensive Giles sitting on the porch swing, staring broodily into space.

“Hey there, you with the crackerjack hiding place.” She flashed him a gentle smile, then sat down on the swing beside him. “You okay?”

He nodded distractedly. “Hmmm. Just thinking.”

“I think I know about what. What are you mad about, Giles? That she is what she is, or that she didn’t tell you?”

“I’m mad about a lot of things, I suspect. That she took advantage of a long-ago encounter to change my life without so much as a hello…”

“Biological imperative, Giles---she had no say. You were the only candidate she had, and her body did the process automatically.”

“Well, she didn’t tell me about it. And Willow, she wouldn’t have. She really was ready to let a prudish preconception of how she thought I might react get in the way…I know magic, Willow. I slept with a demon! And she really thought I would have a problem with her sexual orientation?”

“She can’t have known you wouldn’t. It’s not a taboo in her society the way it is in ours, Giles. And she was already scared enough about the baby thing…”

“But she really thought…” He shook his head. “I’m just trying to get my head around it, Willow. That fear left her helpless. That fear made her sick---literally. She could have lost the baby. She could have died! That she could let it go that far…I don’t understand it.”

“Sure you do. No different from being a Watcher, is it? You have a secret, and you know that lots of people aren’t going to be okay with it. You hope they will. You think they might. But you know that at the end of the day there are some people you’re going to lose if you let them see the truth about you. Of course you understand it, Giles. I’ve never seen you tell anyone that you were a Watcher unless they caught you red-handed and you absolutely had to. Jenny Calendar with the Moloch thing, Olivia when the Gentleman were here…and how did that one work out for you?”

He clenched his teeth. “This is a very inappropriate conversation.”

“It’s not, Giles. Kalyn is pregnant with your child, and she hadn’t even seen you in 20 years! She was scared. And I am not saying that excuses her, but you have to admit, she had reason to be. Maybe not of you yourself---but you could have been married to a woman who knows nothing about demons, about magic, about anything. You could have already had a kid! And what was she going to say? I’m pregnant with your husband’s child because I’m a lesbian demon he had a fling with 20 years ago? Like that would go over well! You know, I’ve actually met people who would be more upset about the lesbian part than the demon part.”

“It’s just that I get the feeling she would never have told me at all,” he said. “That she would have had the baby---MY baby---and I might never have known…”

“She would have calmed down a little,” Willow said. “Once the baby was born and she had the hormones and the pain and the trauma out of her system, she would have calmed down and approached you discreetly. After all, in her culture, it’s your job to raise the baby anyway. But she could have approached you with her pride and dignity intact. Can’t you see how much safer that would have been than showing up pregnant and in need on your doorstep, out of the blue?”

He was silent for a moment. “I suppose I can,” he finally admitted.

“Okay, so you did find out in time and it all did work out for the best. Can we go from there, maybe?”

He nodded slowly.

**

The next three weeks passed in a blur of bodily functions. The doctor visited daily to check on the mother-to-be, and Willow visited daily to check on the father-to-be. As the pregnancy neared completion, the slimy mucous Kalyn shed through her membrane became thicker and stickier. Dawn turned out to be the most enthusiastic slime cleaner of all---so thrilled with her impending aunt-hood that no task was too gross.

The entire household was awakened late one night by the sound of panicked screams, and for all the pain and discomfort of the pregnancy, the birth itself progressed at a rapid clip. Kalyn ended the ordeal unconscious, but stable, and the doctor left Giles and Buffy pacing the living room for nearly two hours while he thoroughly checked the baby out. Finally, he presented them with the tiny wrapped bundle.

“Awww,” said Buffy. She peeked down at the baby’s just slightly too pink, but very human face. “Giles, he’s adorable. He has your eyes.” She picked up a corner of swaddling and peeked under it. “And his mother’s stomach, it looks like.”

“I think he’s beautiful,” Giles said.

“Hey, no argument there. So, have you thought of names yet?”

“Perhaps Callum…Cal for short. For his mum, see.”

She looked down at the baby. “Callum,” she tried. “I like it.”

“Callum Summers Giles,” he said. “Three parents, three names.”

The others had to come find them to learn the news. They were too entranced by their baby to move.

**

One Year Later…

Buffy Summers tornadoed into her kitchen, shirtless and frazzled. “Willow? Help!”

Her friend briefly looked up from the tray of brownies she had been working on. “Buffy? Omigod, you aren’t even dressed yet! Kalyn’ll be here any minute!”

“Tell that to his Royal Highness, Mr. It-is-so-fun-to-blow-raspberries-with-my-membrane-slime-while-Mommy-is-getting-me-dressed. Will, I have nothing else to go with these pants. Can you find me something?”

She was about to answer when the Royal Highness himself toddled into the kitchen, a ring of smudgy brownish paste around his mouth and running down the collar of his tiny little dress shirt.

“Cal!” exclaimed Buffy. “What happened?”

He grinned a toothy smile. “Chocolate cookie,” he said.

“Oh! Who gave you a cookie?”

He held out his sticky palm for her inspection. His hands had been sweaty. The cookie crumbs had solidified into a gluey sludge that oozed thickly through his fingers.

“I think,” said Buffy. “That this looks like the work of somebody’s Uncle Xander. Okay, we can handle this. Willow?”

“Got it. Take him upstairs and change his clothes, find his daddy on the way and recruit him to find you a shirt while you go yell at Xander for making Cal all hyper and gross.”

The doorbell rang. “Damn!” muttered Buffy. She smiled sweetly at Cal. “Mommy didn’t say that.”

Willow wordlessly took off her own shirt and passed it to Buffy, who hastily wriggled into it. Willow had already vanished upstairs with Cal when Buffy opened the door.

“Kalyn! Flight okay?”

Kalyn edged her small, wiry frame past Buffy and into the house. “Oh, the usual, you know how it is. Long delays, smelly people…” She stretched with a delicious sigh. “It’s good to be here again. Three months is too long to go between visits.”

“We’re happy to have you,” said Buffy. “Especially for this. Our first Father’s Day…it means a lot to Giles that you could be here.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She took in the room around her with a frown. “Did you do some redecorating I don’t know about? That throw rug used to be cream.”

“Tell that to somebody’s Uncle Xander, who keeps giving somebody sticky chocolate things!”

Kalyn laughed. “Boys will be boys. Speaking of, where is the little guy?”

“Getting primped by his Aunt Willow after yet another chocolate disaster. And…oh, hey, there he is.” She held out her hand to him, and Cal worked his way carefully down the stairs, toddling toward her.

He stopped mid-step when he saw Kalyn. “Otherma!” he squealed. He stretched out his little arms to her, and she scooped him up with a kiss.

“I missed you,” she told him. To Buffy, she said “It always surprises me how much I miss him.”

“Our offer still stands, Kalyn. You want to move to Sunnydale, we can help you get set up.”

“I know,” she said. “And I appreciate that, Buffy, really, I do. But I have my life in England, and really, I suspect I wouldn’t miss him half as much if I were with him all the time.” She put her boy down and appraised him fondly. “He’s growing so fast.”

His muscle tone was a bit scrawny for a boy his age---an inheritance from his mother’s DNA. But her pink hair had thankfully been washed out by Giles’ darker brown, and although the blend could make his hair look a snot-like green in certain lights, he was handsome--- a wiry, wily boy, and a bundle of energy.

“So, where’s your daddy?” she asked him.

His eyes lit up at the thought. “Daddy!”

Buffy laughed. “And I thought I was your favourite. Honestly, Kalyn, when I’m with him, he couldn’t love me more. And when Giles is with him, that’s who he loves best. Get both of us together, and the poor kid doesn’t know where to go first.”

Cal tugged impatiently on her sleeve. “Get Daddy,” he said

On cue, Xander strolled in with Anya and Dawn, and the only thing that saved him from a talking-to from Cal’s sugar-opposed moms was Giles’ arrival a moment later. Cal immediately marched over to the table and picked up a brightly wrapped package, which he shoved into his daddy’s arms with a curt “Do now.”

Giles obediently found himself a chair and pulled his son onto his lap with him. “Did you make this for Daddy at your day care?”

Cal nodded.

“Careful,” Buffy said. “It’s fragile.”

Giles tore off the wrapper carefully. “It’s a plaster cast,” he commentated to the others, as he examined it. “Of his…his stomach?”

“Most kids do hands,” Willow told Kalyn. “Good thing we found a demon-friendly day care for him. Look, you can see the little bits of petrified mucous that got stuck in the cast when he was making it…”

Cal pointed to the imposing outline of his veins and scales. “I big,” he said.

Giles chuckled. “Of course you are. Kisses?”

While Giles was distracted with an unusually slobbery display of love, Kalyn pulled a package out of her suitcase. “I brought something too,” she said. “Happy Father’s Day, Rupert.”

He accepted the package with a shy smile. “Kalyn, you shouldn’t have.”

“What, and show up at a party like this empty-handed? I would never do that.”

“You crashed the last big party he had with a baby,” Buffy teased. “That’ll be hard to top.”

“I do my best. Open it, Rupert.”

He tore off the paper to reveal two boxes---in the first was a full-size wetsuit, and in the second was a teeny tiny baby one.

“You always complain you can’t take him to the beach,” she explained. “Having to keep his stomach covered up…well, now you can take him.”

Giles fingered the tiny sleeve. “I’m touched, Kalyn. It’s a lovely gift.” To Cal, he said “Daddy’s going to rent a sailboat, Cal. We can go see the ocean. Would you like that?”

Cal nodded slowly, seeming to sense the magnitude of the scenario.

“And Mommy’s going to buy you a book about sailboats,” Giles continued, drawing the boy closer. “We’ll read it to you together. And then we’ll pack ourselves a picnic and we’ll find the biggest boat there is…”

“Or,” said Buffy. “We can just go to the beach and sit there. Just sit there and veg. That sounds fun too. But you can still do the picnic thing.”

Cal pondered the options for a moment. “All,” he finally decided.

Kalyn laughed. “He’ll fit right in,” she said. “With the whole ozone layer thing, a lot of people have their kids wearing these anyway, demon or not.”

Cal stuck his hand into the box and pulled out a corner of the fabric. “Mine,” he said.

“Yours and Daddy’s,” Buffy corrected.

He reached in and grabbed for more with his other hand, but he couldn’t get a proper grip of the shiny, slippery material. His hand came away, and they saw that the wetsuit was smudged with a splotchy cookie-brown handprint.

“Okay,” Giles laughed. “Yours, all yours.”

He gave his boy another hug.

2: Monsters and Mistletoe

Monsters and Mistletoe

It was nearly Christmas in Sunnydale, California, and the Summers/Giles home was truly a sight to behold. There was a tree, decked liberally in tinsel and tiny cardboard circles decorated with crayon. There was a generous stack of presents underneath them, most of which were addressed to the youngest member of the family. 18-month-old Cal had attempted to supply his own gifts for his mommy and daddy and Aunt Dawn and many friends. But the only new fun things he regularly had the opportunity to come into contact with were salvaged items from his lunchbox, which was a detail they unfortunately did not discover until they found patches of drippy goop on the carpet from where the worst offenders had rotted and leaked and stained. There had been mistletoe, too, but that had been moved to the bedroom after a horrified Buffy had watched her baby son toddle beneath it one afternoon with Spike already standing there.

Buffy ducked beneath a string of hanging lights as she made her way in from patrol. Giles was waiting for her, propped up on the couch where she had left him, a giant book splayed open on his lap.

“Shoes off,” he loudly whispered without looking up. “Don’t want to wake his Royal Highness, do we?”

She gingerly eased her bag to the floor, sitting down beside him. “Why? Because he needs his sleep, or because you found some bad news in there, and you don’t want him to overhear when you tell me?”

“Can it be both?”

She sighed. “All right. What is it?”

“A prophecy. The demon Vorlon is due to rise about three nights from now. In Nevada.”

“I guess I have to go there, don’t I?”

He nodded.

Buffy frowned. “And Willow’s out of town for Hannukah with her family. I’ve got nobody magical to leave you with.”

“I can take care of myself, Buffy.”

“It isn’t just you I have to worry about.”

He blushed and moved the book off his lap, trying to get comfortable in spite of the awkward cast that covered his right leg from the edge of his thigh down to his toes.

“Spike?” he suggested.

“Unreliable. And uninvited.”

“Really? When did that happen?”

“After the thing with the mistletoe. And I don’t plan to invite him back in with Willow not around to do an uninvite again if things get messy. Giles, I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable leaving you guys alone with the hellmouth acting the way its been even if you were healthy, never mind practically immobile for five more weeks.”

“But surely, we can…”

“Really? Let’s roll call for a sec. Xander and Anya, still honeymooning in Bermuda. Willow gone AWOL for the next week and a half. Dawn in Whistler with some friends from school. And you can’t even get a glass of water by yourself, never mind fend off hordes of attacking hellbeasts. I can’t go. Unless…”

Giles groaned. “No….”

Buffy nodded grimly. “Yes.”

**

They spent the morning packing up the car, and arrived in Los Angeles by lunchtime. Angel had assembled a full welcoming party.

“You remember Wesley and Cordelia. And this is Fred, and Gunn, and Connor…”

Cordelia made a beeline for Cal. “Aren’t you just the sweetest little thing! Do you want some ice cream? Do you want Aunty Cordy to get you some ice cream?"

“Actually, we’re trying to get him OFF the sugar,” said Buffy. “It makes him mucousy. Well, moreso than he usually is.”

Angel gave the air a delicate sniffle. “I thought I smelled that. He’s demon, right?”

Connor lunged for the baby. Buffy barely needed one hand to restrain him. “He’s HALF demon,” she corrected sternly.

“And he’s here on personal invitation from me,” said Angel. “So play nice.”

Connor jutted a lip in defiant sulk, then stalked upstairs. Buffy studied his departing figure with a look of confusion. “The last time I saw him, wasn’t he a…”

“He spent some time in a hell dimension,” Angel said. “Time moves differently there.”

“Ah.

Angel turned his attention to Giles, who was marooned on the couch and using the ends of his crutches to try and corral his son, who had wiggled out of Cordelia’s grasp and was trying to explore.

“He get that cast from anything that might come after them again?”

“Standard issue patrol mishap. He slipped on a twig.”

A smile began on Angel’s lips.

“And he’s still really grouchy about it, so don’t push him. It was a bad break and he’s still in a lot of pain. You see why I couldn’t leave them alone like this, especially not with the hellmouth acting all rumbly.”

“It’s not a problem, Buffy. We’ve got plenty of room.”

“Good enough.” She plopped on the couch and took Giles’ hand in her own. “You have my cell number.”

He nodded.

She leaned closer and whispered something private in his ear, then drew him into an intimate, but brief embrace. Reluctantly, she pulled herself away. “My flight’s in less than two hours, and I still have to get to the airport. Cal, sweetie, kisses?”

He flew to her arms and planted a blubbery slobber on her face. “Mommy, don’t go!”

“Aww, sweetie! I have to. But just for a little while. You’ll have Daddy, and…”

“Daddy can’t play,” Cal complained.

Giles could not suppress a wince, and Buffy flinched in sympathy. “I’m sure you guys’ll have a great time. And you’ll have Uncle Angel, and all HIS friends…”

Cal looked dubious.

“And Mommy will bring you back a treat, how about that?”

He clapped his hands. “Candy!”

“No, NOT candy.”

“Something pointy sharp?”

“NO!”

He scrunched his eyes thoughtfully. “Big shiny rock?”

“That can be arranged,” she laughed. “And maybe another toy to put under the Christmas tree. Look, Uncle Angel has one too, over there.”

She pointed, and while he was distracted by the lights and tinsel, she made her escape, mouthing a final “I love you” to Giles on her way out.

**

The gang turned their attention to the visitors with too-bright smiles. “How about I get those bags yours upstairs,” volunteered Gunn. “While you guys get yourselves acclimated and what all…”

“I could make some tea,” said Fred. “You like tea, don’t you?”

Giles looked tired and overwhelmed. “Perhaps I could freshen up?”

Wesley reached for the crutches and helped Giles to his feet. “I’ll take you,” he said. “Not a problem. Right this way…”

The room had cleared out stunningly quickly, and as Connor wandered back in, Cal tugged insistently on Cordelia’s arm and demanded “Sandwich!” then plopped on the floor and started to cry.

Angel looked panicked. “What is it? Why’s he doing that?”

Cal looked up at him with huge teary eyes. “Mommy gone!”

“Oh, right! Yes. Well, she’s…she’s coming back, though,” Angel suggested. He turned to the others for confirmation. “Um…soon?”

But Cordelia had gone to make Cal his sandwich, and Connor was meticulously studying what appeared to be a small stuffed pig. When Cal followed Angel’s glance in that direction and saw what Connor was holding, his cries increased to a deafening wail. He could barely manage the breath between sobs to angrily shriek “That MINE!”

The crutches tapped madly on the carpet as Giles, roused by his son’s screams, did his best to hurry to the rescue. “What on earth…”

Cal, suddenly calming, hopped to his feet, marched over to Connor and snatched the toy from his arms. “I no like you!” he declared loudly.

Cordelia appeared in the doorway, carrying a plate and smiling brightly. “Sandwich!”

Fred appeared in the other doorway, carrying a cup and saucer and smiling even more brightly. “Tea!”

Giles fainted.

**

Giles awoke to a gaggle of concerned faces peering down at him, and a stubby pinkish finger poking at his nose and murmuring “Daddy okay?”

He hefted himself upright. “Daddy is fine, Cal.” To the others, he said simply “It’s been a long day.”

“It’s noon,” said Connor.

“Really, is it? Well, see how YOU do after you’ve spent the last six hours packing up a car, driving in a car, sending your loved one off to fight a demon and chasing after a toddler while in a cast down to your toes!” He caught his son bobbing his head agreeably at watching Connor squirm, and he stopped himself. “I’m sorry. I’m very tired. I’m still on medication for the…”

Wesley stepped delicately over tiny Cal and touched Giles on the shoulder. “Why don’t we get you upstairs? We’ve got lots of rooms…”

Cordelia kneeled down at Cal’s side. “And WE can take of the baby!” she chirped.

Connor frowned. “You said you’d train with me.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Fine, go train, Fred and I can manage.”

“You were supposed to train WITH me,” he repeated. “You said.”

“Well, I didn’t know there would be a baby when I said that. Honestly, Connor!”

Cal was standing at the bottom of the stairwell, waving. “Daddy, bye!”

Cordelia beamed. “Is that not the sweetest thing you have ever, ever seen?”

“No,” said Connor.

Cal turned back to them, and there was a moment of heady silence as the two boys faced off with the beginnings of alarmingly passionate hostility. They were saved from further escalation by Lorne’s entrance from the garden.

“Well, that was a bust,” he announced without preamble. “Two Clyanagh demons, three rounds of Row Row Row your Boat, and did I get anything on the Hellmouth rumours? No! All I got was a headache and a….” He suddenly noticed the visitor. “Oh. Hello.”

Cal clapped his hands together in delight. “Puppy!”

Lorne laughed. “Don’t think I’ve ever been called THAT before. Would you be Cal, by any chance?”

Cal nodded.

“Then I can tell you that I’m really not a puppy. I’m a demon.”

“Oh!” said Cal. “I too!” He lifted up the corner of his t-shirt. His stomach was a black ball of glands that oozed a clear, slime-like substance. Half a diaper, perkily trimmed to size with pinking shears, had been duct-taped like a maxi pad to the underside of his shirt.

Lorne laughed again. “I suppose you are,” he agreed. “And a very handsome one if I do say so myself.”

“No he isn’t,” said Connor. “His skin is too pink. He looks like he has a sunburn.”

Cal looked like he was ready to lynch Connor.

“And who’s this?” Lorne hastily distracted, giving an affectionate pat to the tattered stuffed pig the boy was clutching.

“That Mr. Gordo,” said Cal. With a pointed glance at Connor, he emphatically added “He mine!”

“Well, of course he is. Aren’t you a little sweetheart.” He rose to his feet again. “Auntie Cordy and Auntie Fred have some work to do since Uncle Lorne didn’t have much luck with his Clyanagh buddies. Do you want to come upstairs and watch Disney movies with Uncle Lorne?”

The girls both groaned. “More work?” whined Cordelia.

“Well, evil doesn’t exactly sleep just because we have houseguests. Hey, I’ll be fine with the little guy. I did spend all that time with Connor, when he was a---“ He trailed off. “What I mean to say is that I’ve just about hit my research quota for the day. You guys have at it.”

He held out his hand. Cal took it without hesitation.

**

Ten minutes later, Cordelia set down her book and glared at Connor. “You know,” she said. “It’s really hard to get any work done with you flouncing around and sulking like that!”

Connor paused his ceaseless pacing to grace her with a petulant scowl. “I am not flouncing.”

“Whatever. Look, what’s bothering you so much, anyway? I know we haven’t had that many visitors before, but it’s a big enough hotel and there’s plenty…”

“It’s not that.”

“Oh? What is it, then?”

Connor shrugged, and resumed his death march. Cordelia rose from her chair. “Fred, did you want to take a break?”

Fred took one look at their serious faces and took the hint. When they were alone again, Cordelia put a hand on Connor’s arm and guided him gently to the couch. “Now, what it is?” she said. “You can tell me.”

“There is nothing to tell.” He smiled creepily. “I am discovering new things about this world all the time. I guess today’s discovery is that I dislike children.”

“Now, that’s not true! I saw into your soul, remember? You’re a little confused, maybe, but you’re not evil.”

“I think HE is evil,” said Connor. “He’s demon!”

“Half demon. And we already talked about that.”

“Well he smells funny. And he talks funny. And he always wants attention.”

“Connor, he’s a baby. ALL babies are like that.”

Connor shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

“Don’t I?” She gently took his hand. “He’s about the same age you’d be,” she observed. “If you hadn’t gone to Quortoth?”

He shrugged.

“Is that what it is? You’re jealous of him?”

Connor shrugged out of her grip and flew to his feet. “Jealous? You think I am JEALOUS of that squealing, helpless BRAT? I’m not jealous, Cordelia! I’m repulsed! I’m disgusted! If I really HAD stayed here…”

He caught himself, and she leaned forward eagerly. “What, Connor? If you HAD stayed here, what?”

He sank to the couch again, ashamed. “I would be the same, wouldn’t I? Buffy is champion, like Angel is. Giles…is a watcher, like Wesley is. If I had stayed here…”

“You really would be just like Cal,” Cordelia realized. “That’s why he freaks you out so much?”

He straightened to full, brooding sulk. “I am better this way.”

“But Cal’s so sweet. So innocent. So carefree.”

“So puny,” he countered. “So helpless. So…so annoying. I am better like this.” He repeated it again, louder, with more confidence this time. “I am better like this.”

**

Cal bounced happily on Lorne’s bed, sucking on a candy cane. “But not here!” he was saying.

“Yes, even here,” said Lorne, smiling indulgently. “It doesn’t matter if you go away for Christmas, Santa can still find you, even here. He’ll come with his reindeer and he’ll leave you your presents under our tree instead.”

“He won’t,” Cal insisted.

“Sure he will,” said Lorne. “Awwww. Are you worried your mom might not be back in time or something?”

“No,” said Cal.

“Cause if she isn’t, you and your daddy can have Christmas here, and Santa will come and…”

“No,” repeated Cal. “He won’t come. Not without a ‘vatation!”

“A what, now?”

“A ‘vatation. Gots to have a ‘vatation to come inside. Mommy say.”

“Ah.”

“She say she stay up on Christmas and wait for Santa for me. She say when she see him she make sure he okay, then she give him the ‘vatation.”

“I see.”

“You gots to check the ‘vatation to make sure he no bring puppies with him. Puppies not allowed inside because they bite sometimes.”

Lorne was starting to realize that “puppy” did not seem to refer to fluffy baby dogs with this kid. “That’s true,” he said. “Some of them do.”

Cal looked briefly like he might cry again. “Mommy GOT to be back for Christmas! She got to check the ‘vatations!”

“I’m sure she will, little fella. Well? Beauty and the Beast or Little Mermaid?”

They both looked up at the sound of footsteps. “Daddy!” Cal beamed. He raced for Giles, who steadied himself against the doorway. “Easy. Let’s not knock Daddy down, love.”

Cal turned up his head for kisses. “I sticky!”

“I see that. No more sweets for you,” Giles said, looking pointedly at Lorne.

“No more,” Cal agreed.

“And I think someone is due for his nap, isn’t he? Thank Lorne for looking after you…”

Cal looked at Lorne. “Thank you!”

“Hey, no problem,” Lorne shrugged.

“Say night-night Cal,” the boy prompted.

“Night-Night Cal.” said Lorne.

“And say night-night Mr. Gordo.”

Giles tousled Cal’s hair with a fond smile. “Sharing Mr. Gordo, are we? Looks like somebody’s won you over.”

**

It was nearly dark when Cal wandered into the lobby of the Hyperion again. Only Connor was there. He hesitated only briefly before curiosity won him over and he approached the sulking teen.

“Where everybody go?”

“Angel and Gunn went patrolling. I think the girls went to get food. I don’t know where Lorne and Wesley are.” Connor looked up from his book with an odd smile. “You’re all alone with me.”

Cal backed up slowly and plopped his butt onto the floor. “Oh.” He looked around him, half-bored, half-curious. “Where my toy bag?”

“I think Wesley took all your things upstairs. Why don’t you go look?”

“Daddy sleeping.”

Connor nodded as if he had been expecting this. “He’s probably enjoying having a break from you.”

Cal frowned. “What that mean?”

“Well, your mom’s gone. He has to take care of you all by himself, and…”

“Mommy coming back, though,” said Cal.

Connor smiled. “Is she?

“Mommy say she coming back.”

Connor shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Mommy coming back because she LOVE me.”

“If you say so.”

“She love me LOTS!”

Connor gave Cal a condescending pat on the head. “If she loves you, she’ll come back then, won’t she?”

**

Cordelia and Fred returned with bags of Chinese food just as Giles, Wesley and Lorne were resurfacing.

“Figured we could order a pizza for the munchkin,” said Cordy.

Giles reached over, and peeked under a corner of Cal’s shirt. “He needs a bath anyway,” said Giles. “I can take care of that while you get the food taken care of.”

“Need a hand?” asked Wesley.

Giles looked briefly surprised, then smiled. “That would be lovely.”

They made their way to the suite of rooms where Giles had established himself. “Now, get undressed, love,” Giles said as Cal made his way to the toys. “Daddy will too…”

“You will?” Wesley frowned.

“Clearly, you have never bathed a toddler,” Giles grinned. “He’s messy.” He stripped down to boxers, then pulled a box of garbage bags and a roll of duct tape out of his suitcase. “Mind giving me a hand?”

Wesley looked from the duct tape to the cast. “Oh, right! Of course…”

“I know this must be awkward for you,” Giles said. “Bet you never thought we would work together again…”

“Certainly not this kind of work,” admitted Wesley, ripping off a piece of duct tape. “I must say, Giles, you are far more comfortable with this than I thought you would be.”

“With what? Fatherhood? Angel?”

“Actually, I was referring to this,” said Wesley, his hand on Giles’ thigh as they tightened the wrappings around his leg.

Giles looked down at his half-naked body with a shrug. “What, this? Trust me, Wesley, after you’ve toilet-trained a child---especially a boy, and a half-demon one at that---you get a lot less squeamish about bodily contact. And while we are on the subject, YOU are a lot more comfortable with this than I thought you would be.”

“With what? Bodily contact?”

“Actually, I was referring to me. To this, this whole…this whole set-up here. You wear authority well, Wesley. Sort of wonder how things might have gone if you had tried this on for size sooner.”

For the first time, Wesley looked uncomfortable. “Let’s not talk about that. Cal! Put down Mr. Gordo and climb into the bath, will you?”

**

They brought a much cleaner Cal back downstairs just as Angel was letting in two delivery men laden down with bags and boxes.

“Figured we would order extra,” said Angel, unpacking cans of soda from one of the bags. “That way he could have it for lunch tomorrow, and… and however long you’re here. Thanks, here you go.”

He tipped the two delivery men, then pulled out a stack of paper plates from behind the counter.

“Where is Cordelia?” Giles wondered. “And…”

“She wanted to eat with us,” Angel said. “But she had promised Connor she would train with him, and I guess he held her to it. Gunn’s on the phone but he should be here in a sec.” He passed plates to Lorne, Wesley and Fred.

“So do you guys have everything you need up there?” asked Angel when everyone was settled. “Sheets, towels…”

“Thank you, yes,” said Giles. “Angel, thank you. I mean…”

“Yeah,” said Angel, looking slightly uncomfortable. “You’d do the same for any of mine.”

Gunn came in, holding the cordless phone, out of breath from running. “Buffy,” he huffed. “For you…”

Cal clapped his hands. “Mommy!” He snatched the phone out of Gunn’s hand before Giles could even get a grip on his crutches.

“Mommy! Hi!”

On the other end of the phone, Buffy smiled. “Hey, munchkin. You okay?”

“I have pizza,” he said. “Mr. Gordo miss you!”

“Aww. You being a good boy.”

“Yup. Mommy miss me, right?”

“Lots and lots.”

“And…” he hesitated, just a little. “Mommy love me, right?”

“Aww, sweetheart, of course I do!” Then she sensed the worry in his voice, and her mom radar started twitching. “Cal, why did you ask Mommy that question?”

“Just…Connor say…”

“What, sweetheart?”

He pressed the phone to his mouth and whispered so only she could hear him. “Connor say maybe Mommy need a break. Maybe Mommy not come home at all.”

“Oh, sweetie!”

“He say that if Mommy love me, she come home. But Mommy not home yet…”

“So you thought that meant Mommy didn’t love you? Oh, sweetie! Mommy loves you lots and lots and she WILL come home very soon, do you understand?”

“Okay…”

“Connor was just playing a trick on you, Cal. He knows that I love you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” said Buffy, forcing herself to inject suitable cheer in her voice to hide her growing anger from him. “Can I talk to Daddy now, sweetpea?”

Cal climbed down from his chair and carried the phone to Giles.

“Buffy?”

Buffy wasted no time on pleasantries. “Do you know what that boy Connor said to him?” she demanded.

Giles blinked. “Well, hello. I miss you too, love.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Giles, Connor…”

“Buffy, calm down! How is Nevada? Did you locate the hatching site for the demon Vorlon?”

“Working on it. Giles, what happened there today?”

“What do you mean what happened? He watched some Disney tapes with Lorne, had his bath and now we’re eating pizza. Why? What did he tell you?”

“He told me Connor told him that I didn’t love him, that I went away because I didn’t LOVE him! Giles, that’s so not true!”

“Of course it isn’t! Buffy, Cal knows that you…”

“He did when I left him,” Buffy fumed. “Do you know what else he said? He said Cal would know whether I loved him or not if I came home. He implied that if I do NOT come home, that means I don’t love Cal. Giles, that is a terrible thing to say to the son of a vampire slayer! You know as well as I do that one day I really might not come home, and it will have nothing to do with how much I love my son. To try and undermine…”

“I’ll take care of it,” Giles said.

“Giles, he has to understand. You have to talk to him, so that he…”

“Cal knows you love him, Buffy.”

“I don’t mean Cal, I mean Connor. He has to understand that he can’t just say that kind of thing to an impressionable kid. He has to understand the severity…the…the significance…what if something DOES happen to me? What if I really DON’T come back? Giles, I can’t even imagine…”

His hands were clenched into fists so tight his knuckles were turning red. “I’ll take care of it, love. Look, perhaps you shouldn’t call again.”

“Giles!”

“Your job there will be hard enough, Buffy. The last thing you need to be doing is worrying about us. And the last thing I need to be doing is worrying about you worrying about us!”

She let the silence fall between them for a moment. “Take care of it,” she said. Then she hung up.

**

When Giles recovered his composure enough to rest the phone back on the table, he saw that the others had cleared out: he was alone in the kitchen area with Angel.

“Vampire hearing?” he guessed.

Angel nodded.

“So you heard all of that, then. Her end, too.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And I’ll talk to him,” Angel said. “There is no excuse for his behaving that way. But…”

“Oh, come on.”

“But he grew up in a hell dimension, Giles. He’s had a tough time. You have to cut the boy some slack.”

All trace of his earlier friendliness gone, Giles kept his face impassive. “As I expected, then,” he said with magnificent coldness. “You’ll watch out for your boy. I’ll watch out for mine.”

**

As the residents of the Hyperion settled in for the night, snug in their beds, nobody noticed the two shadowy figures lurking in the bushes.

“I didn’t think it would work, Lewis,” the fat one said. “I mean, pizza delivery guy, who falls for that?”

“Herman, you worry too much,” the skinny one said. “I told you it would. Oh yes, come right in,” he said in mocking falsetto. “Just set those down on the counter over there…invited us in, just like that!”

“And once you GET invited, you STAY invited,” Herman said. “How long should we give them?”

“We put enough sedative in the sodas to knock out even the vampire,” said Lewis, looking at his watch. Maybe an hour? Then we go in, we snatch the baby…”

“I can’t believe they had him out in plain site like that,” said Herman. “I mean, when he was born---miracle child of two vampires, every vampire cult in town after him---and they go to all those lengths to hide him away for so long, only to leave him toddling around where anyone can see…”

“Well, they probably thought the coast would be clear by now,” said Lewis. “They thought we had all forgotten. They thought nobody was watching them anymore, but they were wrong, Herman. They were wrong!”

“All those times the guys at the bar would laugh at us,” muttered Herman, shaking his head. “Tell us we were wasting our time, that they had hidden the miracle child away where nobody would ever find him…they dropped off one by one, but WE stayed the course, Lewis. WE stayed the course! And now…”

“Now, we’re the only ones who know he’s back,” said Lewis. He swatted Herman on the arm. “And to think that you were almost ready to throw in the towel too! ‘But Lewis, all the guys at the bar make fun of me. They call me Ahab. What does Ahab mean, Lewis?’ And what did I tell you?”

“You told me to give it just one more week. And if we saw no signs of the souled vampire’s baby, we would call it quits.”

“And what happened then?”

“We go our for ice cream one afternoon, and we come home and spy a baby toddling around the garden. Miracle baby-age. Miracle-baby size.”

“We’ll get him, Herman.” Lewis smiled, his vampire teeth glowing in the moonlight. “They will never laugh at us again.”

**

It was just past midnight when Cal woke them with a shriek. “Daddy!”

Giles snapped instantly awake. “Cal?”

“Daddy, I saw faces! At the window!”

Giles quickly pressed the panic alarm on the beeper that Angel had given him, then laboriously eased to his feet, hissing as the toe of his damaged foot hit the bedpost, and, struggling to stay upright, scooped Cal into his arms. “Where? What?”

There were frantic knocks at the door, then Angel and Wesley stormed in. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

“Cal says he saw something,” said Giles. “Hush, love, it’s alright…”

Angel turned to Cal. “What did you see?”

“Faces,” sniffled Cal.

“What kind of faces?” said Angel. “Humans? Demons?”

Cal shook his head, and buried his face in his daddy’s arms.

“Great,” complained Angel. “That’ll really help.”

“Angel, be patient, he’s frightened,” snapped Giles. “Do you want some cocoa?” he asked Cal.

Cal nodded, then shook his head, then started crying again. Giles gently rubbed his back. “Are you ready to tell Daddy what you saw?” he said after a moment.

“Puppies,” sniffled Cal.

Angel frowned. “What on earth…”

“That’s what he calls vampires,” said Giles. “And demons…anything non-human, really. Doesn’t narrow it down much, does it?” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Vamp out,” he commanded Angel.

“What?”

“Vamp out, just for a second. There. Cal, sweetheart, did the puppies you saw have teeth like that?”

Cal, completely rigid in Giles’ arms, nodded tearfully.

“And did they…did they have bumps, up there?” asked Giles, touching Cal on the forehead.

Cal nodded.

“Wesley, find Gunn, do a sweep,” said Angel. To Giles, he said “Maybe we should put him in my room for the night.”

Cal stiffened, and shrieked in protest. Angel sheepishly un-vamped. “It would be the safest place for him,” said Angel. “If the mystery vampires try and attack or something, could you really protect him?”

His toe was turning purple from where he had stubbed it. “I suppose not,” Giles reluctantly admitted.

“Hey, kiddo, you’ll be okay,” said Angel. “You want to come stay with me for a bit?”

Cal looked like he was going to cry again, but with an encouraging nod from his father, reluctantly agreed, firmly insisting, of course, that Mr. Gordo come too.

**

In the bushes, Herman and Lewis were confused. “That was our third hourly sweep,” said Herman. “Why aren’t they all sleeping by now?”

Lewis nervously paced the confines of their hiding space. “I don’t know! Maybe they didn’t drink the sodas? I told you we should have put it in the pizza!”

“Well, we have to be done before sunrise,” said Herman. “Any suggestions?”

“Well, we’ll just have to do this the hard way,” said Lewis. “Come on. We’re going in.”

**

“Bathroom,” said Cal.

Angel frowned. “Are you just stalling cause you don’t want to be alone with me?”

“Bathroom!”

“Cause I’m very safe, you know. That puppy thing was just a funny trick I do, and…”

“Bathroom, now!”

“Didn’t know kids got toilet trained this young,” muttered Angel. “Connor and I never got to this stage. All right, come here…”

He showed Cal into his bathroom, then sat outside the door and waited. He wouldn’t even have heard the scream if it weren’t for his vampire hearing. 

**

Herman and Lewis admired their sleeping bundle with undisguised glee. “We got him!” marveled Herman. “Wait til the boys at the bar see this!”

“I told you this would work!” gloated Lewis. “You were all ‘oh, we need to drug them with sleeping pills,’ and all along I knew that a broken window and a ragfull of chloroform was all we would need…” He poked the baby with the tip of his finger. “We didn’t give him too much, did we? I mean, he is only a baby after all…”

“A miracle baby with two vampire parents,” said Herman. “He’ll be fine.” His eyes were alight with excitement. “I wonder what kind of magic powers he has!”

“Same as us, dumbass, he’s a vampire, not a demon!” Lewis poked him again. His shirt rode up a little, and they could see a wet, gaping abyss where his stomach should be.

“Huh.” said Herman. “Guess he’s kind of demon too. Who knew that’s what you’d get when you cross two magic vampires, huh?”

Lewis looked suddenly worried. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said. He poked the baby again. “Hey. Hey fella.”

The baby jolted instantly awake, saw their pointy-toothed vampire faces, and screamed, clutching his stuffed animal with a howl of indignation. “Daddy!”

“Atta boy,” said Herman. “Look, Lewis, he’s awake.”

“Want Daddy NOW!” he screamed. “And Mommy! She get very mad when she find out you took me away!”

Lewis looked confused. “You don’t have a mommy, kid.”

“Do too! Two mommies, even!”

“No,” said Lewis, running the facts he knew through his head. “Your mom died having you. Them lawyer guys saw it. You’ve never seen your mom.”

“Did too! I see Mommy LOTS!”

“Maybe he means, like, in a dream,” suggested Herman. “Like, a ghost mommy.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Lewis.

“I see my mommy lots and LOTS,” the kid was saying. “And she read me stories and she make me lunch and she take me training, and she…”

“Training?” repeated Lewis. A funny feeling was growing inside him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.”

“I too little for patrol,” the kid said. Then he continued on, oblivious. “And I have another mommy too and she live in England and she send me presents and she come visit me…”

“Kid, be quiet,” snapped Lewis. “Herman, I think we might have a problem here. I think we have the wrong kid.”

“And MY mommy brave. And my mommy pretty…”

“Kid, shut up! What do you mean the wrong kid, Lewis?”

“…and my mommy strong and my mommy fast…and when my mommy find out you took me away, she come to get me, and she kick you and she fight you, and she…she poof you!”

Lewis froze. “Poof? What do you mean, poof?”

“She jump…like this!” The kid hopped to his feet and jumped. “Then she kick…BAM! And then she pull out her magic stick, and…” He clapped his hands together dramatically. “Poof! You go POOF!”

“Shit,” Lewis said. “As I was telling you, Herman, we got the wrong kid!”

Herman looked confused. “Well, whose kid is it?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, Herman. My cousin Willy, he lives in Sunnydale and he’s on the up with the slayer. And I remember him telling me the slayer’s got a demon kid!”

Herman frowned. “You telling me we kidnapped the slayer’s kid?”

“Yeah, Herman, I think we did. And she’s gonna come after us now, and she’s gonna…she’s gonna poof us with her magic stick, just like the kid said!”

They looked at their hard-won prize. “Well, shit,” Herman said.

**

Giles had not yet fully appreciated how difficult it was to pace with a cast on his leg.

“So he just…vanished,” he said. “Right from under your nose!”

“He went into the bathroom,” said Angel. “And I heard a squeak, and I ran in, and…”

“Oh, he’ll be much safer with me,” Giles mocked. “Well, what do you suggest we do now?”

The others had all assembled in the office with them. “Wes and I will do a patrol,” Gunn suggested. “Carrying a kid around, they can’t have gone far.”

“I can do some word on the streety scouting,” said Lorne. “Check in with some people…”

“And Cordy and I can work the magic end,” said Fred. “Maybe see if we can dig up a locator spell…”

Half an hour later, Cordy called Giles over with a triumphant “Aha!”

Giles limped over to her desk. “Locator spell?”

“Not exactly. More like a homing spell, actually.”

“But he’d need something of ours,” Giles said. “Homing spells activate astral energy and draw them back toward their owner. Like a beacon. Only way it would work is if he had something that had OUR astral energy on it.”

“But he did,” said Cordelia. “Mr. Gordo. He never puts it down. And you’re his daddy, right? With all the time you’ve spent with him, that pig’s probably crawling with…well, you. The homing spell will activate your astral energy like a magnet and draw you toward it. You’ll lead us right to him.”

Giles looked helplessly down at his injured leg. “But how will I…”

“Connor’s skateboard,” said Cordy with a smile. “We’ll prop up your leg on Connor’s skateboard! He’s been brooding this whole time about his lost babyhood. Kind of ironic that his teenage ways will save us now, isn’t it?”

**

Ten minutes later, they had their magnet ready. Giles, good foot planted firmly on Connor’s skateboard, bad foot dangling limply at his side, stood at the ready, one arm around Gunn’s shoulder and the other around Angel’s.

“Okay,” said Wesley. “On your word…”

Giles turned to Angel. “Angel, about what I said before…”

“Don’t even. This is what I do, Giles.”

“But I…”

“I’m happy to help. Connor is happy to help.”

From the couches, Connor shrugged. That was good enough for Giles. “Let’s find my boy.”

Wesley muttered the incantation. “He’s close,” said Giles, voice wobbling with excitement. “He’s VERY close. They didn’t get far at all!”

The door cluttered open, and Cal tumbled out of the arms of two vampires and into the Hyperion’s lobby.

“Well, that was easy,” Cordelia said.

The fat vampire lurched forward, trembling in fear. “We were bringing him back, I swear we were!”

Giles nodded frantically with his head, and Gunn and Angel obligingly rolled him forward. “Cal? Are you all right?”

“He’s fine!” the fat one squealed. “We didn’t hurt him! We were bringing him back, and…”

“They thought I Connor,” Cal giggled. “HE the one whose daddy have the puppy teeth!”

“We didn’t know he was the slayer’s kid, we swear we didn’t!” blubbered the fat one.

“Hey, honest mistake, could have happened to…wait, it was MY kid you were really after?” marveled Angel. “You people…well, vampires…have some nerve…”

“Please,” the fat one blubbered. “We’re sorry, we didn’t know…” He reached a hand beseechingly toward Angel, and as Angel deflected, he fell off balance and lost his grip on Giles. The skateboard flew out from under him, and he landed on the floor.

Cal took in the scene with horrified indignation. “You leave my daddy alone!” he shouted. He ran toward the growing melee, and in a fit of adrenaline, hauled up the skateboard off the floor, and flung it at the fat vampire. It crashed into the vampire’s chest on a sharp angle, its tail jutting like a point. The momentum of the throw toppled Cal just enough for the vampire dust to rain on his head instead of his shoe.

He looked up at his daddy, stunned. “Puppy go poof!”

“All right!” Connor grinned.

Giles nodded blankly, watching in sunned shock as the cohort escaped into the night, then turned to the others, still dazed. “Either I am having some sort of horrible twisted dream, or my baby son just staked a vampire.”

Angel nodded. “You’ve had a long night,” he said. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

Giles took Cal’s hand and allowed Angel to lead them away. “Buffy will be so sad she missed this,” he sighed, still a little spacey from the shock.

That was when Lorne burst in with the phone. “She WILL be home for Christmas after all,” he announced happily. “A happy ending!”

**

They spent the next morning packing up the car, and waiting for Buffy.

“Nice to see the boys playing so well together,” Giles said conversationally.

“Sure,” said Angel. “If by ‘well’ you mean Connor touching all of the toys one by one while Cal shrieks ‘That MINE!’ over and over again.”

“A little screaming’s good for him,” said Giles. “Exercises the lungs.”

“If you say so. Look, about what Connor said…”

“It’s hard for him,” Giles said. “He did grow up in a hell dimension.”

“That’s no excuse. Giles…”

“I’m sorry you missed it with him,” said Giles softly. “I mean, that, Angel. I know you and I have had our differences in the past, but what you went through…nobody deserves that. Not him. Not you.”

Angel looked for a second like he would argue that, then, eyes shining, nodded gratefully. “Thanks. It means a lot that you would say that to me.”

“And I know we’ll never be the best of friends, but it means a lot to ME that we can count on you. That we can know that if there ever is a crisis, an emergency, an apocalypse…that you’ll step up to the plate.”

“A fine job I did,” Angel complained. “Letting him get kidnapped…”

“Minor detail.”

They packed up the last of their boxes, then sat back and enjoyed the sounds of their friends and family around them.

“Wouldn’t mind keeping the skateboard,” said Giles after a moment. “If Connor can part with it…”

“Oh?”

“It really is the least he can do after the horrible way he’s conducted himself.”

“Probably,” Angel agreed.

“I should like to keep it as a sort of memento,” said Giles. “A good father keeps on top of things like that.”

“Last year, baby’s first Christmas, this year, baby’s first vampire?”

“Something like that. They grow up so fast, don’t they?”

“Some faster than others,” said Angel, sadness in his eyes.

“Yes. But…there’s more than one way that can happen, isn’t there? We all manage as best we can, Angel. For you, that means trying to build an adult relationship with a son whose childhood you missed. For me, that means pretending that it’s cute my infant son just killed a vampire.”

Angel nodded slowly. “So we really are in this together, then.”

“Could it ever be any other way? Merry Christmas, Angel.”

Angel smiled. “I’d almost forgotten about that. Look, mistletoe.”

“Don’t even think about,” Giles snapped. But in his head, he was smiling. His son at his feet, his lady on her way home from battle, and a vampire under the mistletoe. It was just like home.

the end