Taking the Initiative
by Rainne
Chapter 9
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"So, what exactly are we supposed to do with this kid?" Buffy asked Giles as they stood in the airport waiting for Nicki's plane to arrive.
"Hopefully, settle her down a little bit; impress upon her the seriousness of the vocation she's chosen."
"Hmm." Buffy was silent for a long time. She turned to Giles. "Do you like kids, Giles?"
He blinked. "Kids? I like you all just fine," he said slowly, wondering where this conversation was going.
"I know you like us, Giles, otherwise you'd be in Bath or at the Academy or something. I mean kids. Like, babies and little kids."
He thought about it. "I... honestly, Buffy, I've never really been around many small children. Not, at least, since I was one. I've always found them to be rather noisy and generally uncontrolled."
The look on her face told him that wasn't the answer she'd wanted, but no matter how he probed, she would say no more on the subject. He finally asked one too many times and she stood and walked away, saying she needed to use the restroom. When she came out a few moments later, her eyes were slightly red, as though she'd been crying, but he knew better than to ask anything else and pretended not to notice, focusing instead on discussing the girl whose plane could now be seen taxiing to the gate.
A few minutes later, the passengers of the plane began to disembark, and young Nicki Roland came out of the doorway, dressed still in her Academy uniform of khaki pants and blue Oxford shirt. Buffy waved at her. "Nicki!"
The girl turned and grinned at the Slayer and the Watcher who were waiting for her. She began dodging people and made it over to them as quickly as she could, slinging her carryon duffel over her shoulder as she came. "Hey! I'm here! Oh, my God, that was such a long flight! I'm so tired! But I'm so excited about being here! Hi, Miss Buffy! Hi, Mr. Giles!"
Buffy grinned at the girl's enthusiasm. "Just Buffy, Nicki, please."
"Oh, okay. I gotta get my bags. Do you know where the baggage claim is?"
They led her downstairs to the baggage claim and retrieved her suitcases, carrying them outside into the California sunshine and loading them into the trunk of Giles's little red tramp. "Am I staying with you, Buffy?" Nicki asked as they climbed into the car.
Buffy shook her head. "No. You're staying with Giles. The polite fiction we've established is that he's your uncle. You'll go to school here at Sunnydale Junior High and you'll work with one of us after school."
"Okay." She nodded. "Will... um... I know you have a whole gang... Miss Dakota calls it the Scooby Gang. Will I get to meet any of them?"
Buffy grinned and Giles nodded. "They're very anxious to meet you, as a matter of fact," he told her. "You'll work with almost all of them at some point."
"We need to lay some ground rules first off," Buffy said, looking to Giles for approval. At his slight nod, she continued. "First of all, the books are off limits to you. Period. Unless someone specifically hands you a book and tells you to either use or study it, the magic texts are absolutely off limits. Second, the thing you need to understand is that this is not the safe place that the Academy is where you can goof around without really having to worry about consequences. This is a Hellmouth. It's a war zone, and we're fighting on the front lines of that war. Screwing around in Sunnydale can get you killed quick. Never leave the house without a stake, a cross and a bottle of holy water. Ever."
Giles nodded. "And keep in mind that just because something looks human, it doesn't follow that it is human. Never verbally invite anyone in; open the door and step back."
"Oh, and don't say 'I wish' about anything. We tend to get vengeance demons around here. They thrive on that kind of thing," Buffy admonished.
Nicki's head was spinning. "Wow, there's a lot of stuff to remember!"
Buffy grinned. "Don't worry. If you forget, one of us will yell at you, or Giles will glare."
"I can deal with that," Nicki said, grinning.
---
"So we got her settled in and she'll start school on Monday," Buffy finished telling Willow as they dried the dinner dishes.
"Okay. So what aren't you telling me?"
Buffy blinked and tried to look innocent. "What are you talking about?"
Willow gave her the Look of Shame. "Do you really think you can hide it from me? You're about to cry about something. What happened?"
"Well, I asked Giles what he thought about... about kids... and... he... he doesn't like kids."
Willow sighed. "Oh, sweetie. Did you specifically ask him, or...?"
Buffy shook her head. "I asked him if he liked kids. He said they were noisy and uncontrolled."
Willow sighed. "Honey... just... don't worry about it right now, okay?" She pulled Buffy to her and hugged the tiny Slayer. "Look, it doesn't have to be him, you know?"
"I know," Buffy replied miserably.
"But you really want it to be. And that's okay. We'll talk to him about it. We'll be specific. And we'll see what he says. Okay?"
"Okay." Buffy nodded.
"Good. Let's go to bed."
---
The gang convened in the Magic Box on Monday afternoon, discussing Nicki before she arrived. Buffy and Giles filled them in on the troubles Dakota and Faith had related to them and laid out the ground rules. "As much as possible I want her to be a normal girl and have a normal life," Giles said with a sidelong glance of amusement at his Slayer. "However, she's training to be a Partner and that training is far more important than most of the things she'll likely want to do. She'll work here in the shop in the afternoons after school, studying or training, and she'll patrol a few times a week with Buffy. Willow, Tara and I will be keeping up her magick training. Anya, she's not to have access to anything over a beginner's level magick book unless it's specifically assigned to her. I'll trust you to choose appropriate books for her to study if she needs material, but most of the time I'll try to have something specific assigned for her. Xander, I'll ask you to help me train her in research. You know the books almost as well as I do and your help will be invaluable."
The bell above the door jangled and Nicki came into the shop. This was the first time any of them had seen her out of her Academy uniform and they were surprised at how much younger she seemed in jeans and a tee-shirt. She walked in, smiling, and gave a sort of half-wave. "Hi," she said tentatively. "I'm Nicki."
The Scoobies went around the table greeting her and introducing themselves, and then the meeting began to break up. Anya went to help a customer, Xander needed to get back to the construction site, Tara had schoolwork to do. Giles suggested to Buffy that a spot of training might be just the thing for a Monday afternoon and she grinned, going to change into her workout clothes.
Willow turned to Nicki. "Remember me?" she asked. "Evil, dark, veiny, scary witch?"
Nicki blinked and nodded, swallowing nervously.
"Good," Willow said. "You need to remember. Because if you forget and start messing around again, you might turn into me. And I don't think you'd want that."
Nicki nodded. Giles stood as Buffy emerged from the restroom in her workout gear. "Shall we retire to the training room?" He nodded at Willow and Nicki to follow.
Nicki sat on the couch with Willow and watched as Buffy did her stretches and a quick gymnastic routine on some of the equipment. She blinked when Giles walked to the display of knives on the wall and began taking them down. Her jaw dropped when he spun suddenly and hurled one at the Slayer. She nearly fell off the couch when Buffy caught it. "Holy crap!" she breathed.
Willow heard the exclamation and grinned. "It gets better."
They sat through the knife-tossing exercise and sparring with quarterstaves, and then Giles moved to the side of the room behind Buffy and Willow stood. Giles said a few words in what sounded to Nicki's half-trained ear like Sumerian, and Willow responded with a few more. Buffy watched the redhead warily, and Nicki nearly came out of her skin when Willow conjured a ball of blue fire and hurled it at Buffy.
The sight of Buffy dodging those balls of fire was almost like moving poetry, Nicki decided later. She used everything around her to her advantage, whether it meant jumping on top of a piece of equipment or vaulting over one, and managed to avoid almost all the fireballs. They had been flying at her for what seemed like forever but was probably only around eight minutes when Buffy fell for a feint and took a fireball to the stomach.
She hit the mat hard and lay there, dazed, for a long moment. Giles dropped the maigckal barrier he'd erected to absorb the fireballs and he and Willow went to kneel next to Buffy. "Are you all right?" he asked her quietly.
"Yeah," she wheezed. "I'm good. Peachy, even, with a side of keen."
He gave her a half-smile. "When you make silly statements I know you're fine," he teased gently as he and Willow helped her up off the floor. He turned and looked at Nicki. "Go and do your schoolwork at the big table," he instructed her. "When you've finished, ask Anya for Volume One of the Black Chronicles, and study that until I come and get you."
She nodded and left the room.
Witch and Watcher helped the Slayer over to the couch. Willow lifted Buffy's tank top to examine the spot where she'd taken the fireball to the gut. It was coming up a livid purple. "Ouch," Willow hissed in sympathy.
Buffy nodded, finally catching her breath again. "Hurts like a bitch," she agreed. "Like a brick. Pretty, though," she added with a grin.
"More for effect," Willow responded cheekily. "Made an impression on our little scamp."
"And on my stomach," Buffy jibed. She laid her head on Willow's shoulder. "Ouch."
Giles went to the mini-fridge and came back with a bottle of water, which Buffy accepted gratefully. "You are a god."
He laughed. "Hardly," he replied.
Willow looked at Buffy and quirked an eyebrow in silent question. Buffy looked from her lover to her Watcher and back again, shrugging. Willow took a deep breath and looked up at the Englishman. "Giles?"
"Hmm?"
"Sit down? We... we want to ask you something." She took a deep breath. I will not babble. I will not babble. "We... we've been thinking about something. And, you know, we've been together for a couple of years and stuff, and how we're practically married except that we can't, really, and you know sometimes when people get married, they have stuff happen and it's really a good thing, but we can't necessarily do certain things without help, and —"
Buffy laid a finger across Willow's lips, silencing the babble. "We're thinking about having kids," she said softly, without looking at Giles.
"Ah," he said softly. "So this is what Friday was about."
She nodded, looking at the floor. "We... we really want to, Giles, but, um... there's kind of a little obstacle." He raised an eyebrow, not following, and she gave him a look of disgust. "It's that whole lack of sperm thing," she said dryly.
He blinked and removed his glasses to clean them. "Of... of course," he stammered. "That could certainly pose difficulty. Ah..." he paused, uncertain. "What, exactly, do you..." He stopped when Buffy's eyes came up to his face, his own eyes widening. "Oh. Oh, my."
Buffy nodded. "We want you to be the father. If... if you'd be... willing?"
He looked at Willow, who nodded enthusiastically in agreement. "Really, we do," she said. "We'd really like you to do this for us."
His eyes filled with tears and he leaned forward to embrace his Slayer and her lover. "I... I don't know what to say," he finally choked out. "I would be... honored."
Buffy clutched at him, hugging him tightly. "I love you, Giles," she whispered to him. "You're the best Watcher I could have ever asked for... and an even better friend."
--THE END--