Take her please.

Chapter 3

Faith had a baby. Faith had a baby. The thought kept going through my head. Over and over again. Faith had a baby. Faith and Robin. I mean that was obvious by looking at her. And she was how old? How old did she look? And how was I supposed to know? Three months maybe? I did the math in my head. She was pregnant. Good god, that’s why she left.

I think the next thing that went through my mind was pretty much, what the holy fuck? Which I voiced to Giles.

“Um excuse me here, but what the holy fuck is going on?” Giles just sort of stared at me. He looked tired. Like I fucking cared. “Faith… what… how did you? I am so confused. And close to having a mental meltdown here.”

I looked at the baby. Elizabeth. She named her… good god Faith, what the fuck were you thinking?

He took a deep breath, “I got the phone call night before last. That one of my slayers needed help. I knew it was Boston, and I sort of expected it was Faith. But when I got there, this woman… she met me at the airport. She said Faith wanted me, wanted us, to have something. I had no idea who the woman was or what Faith had for us. Then she brought me…” he gestured to the baby, “her. Told me her name. Gave me her birth certificate, and said thank you. And she walked off. Leaving me standing there like an utter fool.”

“Who was this so-called woman?”

Xander rolled his eyes, “Focus Buffy. So what did you do?” He asked Giles.

“Well I was going to go look for her. But I couldn’t obviously do that, now could I? So I bought a ticket back, and flew back here. I’m tired and I have no idea how to change a bloody nappy.”

Nappy? “Nappy?” I asked.

Kennedy rolled her eyes at me. Jesus what was with the eye rolling? “Diaper, dingbat.”

“Whatever. We have to go find her, like now. We can’t take care of a baby. They do things. Lots of things. They eat stuff. And they poop stuff. And they cry.”

Giles cleaned his glasses again. For god’s sake they’re freaking clean! “Well I had the stewardess give her a bottle. I had the stewardess change her… um diaper. And she has yet to do anything more than smile and coo at me. She seems very well adjusted. For a baby, I mean.”

“Oh wow, yeah, adjusted. Dumped on a house full of total retards in the baby knowledge department,” I felt close to losing it. Again I ask, what the hell was Faith thinking?

Have you ever had one of those times, where you really feel like your world is spinning, spinning, spinning out of control? Like you know that you are not in a dream, and yet you feel like if you could wake up, everything would be a heck of a lot better? Well that was how I felt at that exact moment.

Giles put his hand on my shoulder. “Buffy. I know this is difficult. And odd. It’s quite a lot for you to digest.”

Quite a lot for me to digest? Is he kidding? For all of those days that I spend wondering what Faith was doing, I never for one moment thought that she was… that she had… Jesus, I can’t even think it.

The baby chose that moment to wake up. We all turned to look at her. She wasn’t crying, just making these noises. Like, I don’t know… baby noises and stuff.

Kennedy smiled, “Wow she is so cute. She looks just like Faith.”

Everything in me told me to walk away. To not bend over and look at this – this baby. But I couldn’t help it. And Kennedy was right. On both counts.

She picked the baby up. Fuck, it’s going to start crying or something, I thought. But no, still cooing.

I looked to Giles, “How are we supposed to take care of a baby? None of us have ever been around a baby for more than like an hour or something.”

Giles nodded, “I’ve wondered the same thing myself. I don’t really know what to do. I almost called the authorities… but I don’t know. I mean, she may be special, different somehow. And I just couldn’t bear to leave her with strangers.”

Xander and Kennedy nodded.

Had everyone gone fucking crazy? “Strangers? What are we if not strangers? How do you change a diaper, Xand?” He shrugged his shoulders. I looked to Kennedy, “fix a bottle? Feed the baby a bottle?” She and Giles shook their heads. “We have no idea… no idea how to take care of this thing.”

Kennedy bristled, “She’s not a thing, Buffy.”

I walked upstairs, leaving them standing there.

“Where are you going?” Giles called after me.

“To pack my stuff. I think there is someone in Boston who needs to be paid a visit.”

I stayed in my room for a while. I could hear the baby cooing downstairs. Heard Willow come in. More retarded baby talk all around.

And then, someone knocked on my door. “Buffy can I come in?”

“Whatever Wills,” I called back.

My best friend, well… she’s my best friend, you know? I was awfully glad to see her as she had the most level head of all of us.

“What the hell are we going to do with a baby?” She asked. – Okay maybe not.

I shrugged my shoulders, “How am I supposed to know. This is just like Faith. Dumping her freaking problems on me, after she can’t handle them. This could have been done a lot easier, if she’d just …” I trailed off.

Willow cocked an eyebrow at me, “Just stayed? I agree Buffy, but she didn’t. And like it or not, we do sort of have to deal with this.”

“Baddies I can do. Give me a vampire and I’ll give you dust. But come on. We know next to nothing about babies.”

Willow looked taken aback, “Hey I used to baby-sit.”

“Watching your two snot-nosed cousins for thirty minutes at a time does not an expert make.”

“I know,” she said. “But what choice do we have.”

I didn’t know what to say. I mean, we were sort of stuck. There was no way we could give her to anyone else. And if Faith didn’t want, her (which she obviously didn’t, i.e. the giving her away and all) than we would have to figure out something.

“I guess we don’t have a choice, do we?”

Willow gave me a half-hearted smile. “You going somewhere?” She asked, noticing my suitcase.

“Well I was planning on going to Boston and kicking a little brunette’s slayer ass.”

Willow shook her head, “Bad idea Buffy. We should really all sit down and discuss this. I’m thinking if Faith wanted to give her baby…uh Elizabeth away… she doesn’t really deserve to get her back.”

I nodded. “So what do we do?”

“I guess we go get acquainted with a baby.”



Okay, I had one more chapter tonight – that’s if for a few days. Be patient, it’s going somewhere. And Faith will show up soon.