"This," Faith said, standing defiantly, feet spread, one finger pointing unerringly at Buffy, "is not my fault."

"Um?" Giles said. He blinked. Both girls were only pale blurs against the glare of his porch light, and he blinked again. It was three in the morning, there had been rather a lot of Scotch at dinner the night before, and where the hell were his glasses? "Um?"

"Giles, you have to do something," Buffy said, and there was more panic than whine in her voice. "I'm not ready for this! It's too much responsibility! I don't have room! I don't have those little walkie-talkies! I don't have--a college degree!"

"You'd need one, to figure out how this happened," Faith said. "Because it wasn't me."

"Er," Giles said, Faith shook her head and pushed past him into his flat. Buffy followed after her, and was perhaps not walking quite as he was used to seeing her--in fact, she was waddling, and her silhouette wasn't quite right, either; 'svelte' wasn't really a term that would leap to mind, and--

"Ulp," he said. "Urg."

"Oh, so this is my fault?" Buffy was saying, as Giles caught hold of the door frame and tried to remember how breathing worked. "What do you think, I cheated on you eight months ago and it took you til now to notice? You're not exactly rolling in IQ points, but I think you might've seen this coming sooner than five hours ago."

"Are you calling me stupid...?"

Buffy pouted--or so Giles imagined. He hadn't figured out where his glasses were yet, and now he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. "I'm sorry, Faith. It--It's the hormones."

"Hormones? Oh, God." Faith threw up her arms. "Giles, point me at the demon that did this, or I swear to fucking Jesus and all the saints, I won't be responsible for my actions. I mean, she's gonna want footrubs."

"And ice cream," Buffy put in hopefully.

"Urk," Giles said. "Ah..."

"I mean, okay, I like kids, I want kids, but I don't want little spell-gone-wacky uterus-invading dragon-unicorn hybrids or whatever the hell is happening here--"

"Wait," Buffy said. "You want kids?"

"Well--" Faith stopped pacing, and turned back to Buffy. "...yeah. I mean--"

Buffy put her hands to her stomach--her really too-large-to-be-comfortable stomach, Giles thought, the one that had definitely been flat and shapely when she'd trained with him yesterday--and said, "Me too."

Faith went to her and put her arms around her. "But what if it's--"

"Unnatural?" Buffy said. "Then we'll kill it."

They kissed, Buffy cupping Faith's face in her hands, Faith bending over the bulge of Buffy's abdomen.

"Uh--" Giles said. "Erm--"

"All right, it's the middle of the night, we get it," Faith snapped, and led Buffy to the door. "So fucking sorry to bother you with our amazing miraculous news and all. Jesus."

And they left.

Giles didn't say anything at all.

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December 6, 2005