Title: Let that be a Lesson to you…part 3/11
Author: Sweetdoggie
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and is intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.
She was back from the shower in fifteen minutes dressed in a translucent gown of the softest cotton. He was surprised somehow. He had thought she would dress for bed in silk or perhaps satin. Something that would slide around her glorious body like his hands wanted to do. This cotton garment was even more appealing in its own way. She was so sweet, so wholesome and beautiful that he just wanted to hold her.
She slipped into bed and under the covers. He watched her.
“Is there a problem, Giles?” she asked. “Did you want this side after all?”
“No. Um, just thinking about the situation. I believe I shall go have my shower now.” He turned and walked away shaking with the close call he had just had.
Buffy eyed him speculatively. He would make a good husband and a great father, she thought. He was patient, kind and gentle and pretty darned handsome if she let herself think about it. Why hadn’t she noticed this before? Well, that wasn’t exactly it, was it? She had noticed but had labeled him as too old, too tweedy, too much a Watcher to be a real man, but it was rapidly becoming obvious that her earlier views would have to change. She smiled to herself. Maybe sleeping with him wouldn’t be so bad.
Giles took a very, very cool shower. It helped his immediate problem, but didn’t do much for what had caused it. He was going to sleep in the same bed as his Slayer, his beautiful, nubile, Slayer whom he had been in love with for a very long time. Damn, his ‘problem’ was coming back! He began reciting German verbs, then Russian, and finally Sumerian. Ah, that was better. Nothing like a good dose of Sumerian verb tenses to drive more warm-blooded thoughts from a man’s mind.
He dressed in conservative flannel pajamas with the jacket buttoned all the way to the top. Wrapping his robe around him like armor, he strode back into the bedroom. Thinking Buffy was already deeply asleep; he grabbed one of his books, divested himself of the robe and crawled into bed.
Buffy smiled into her pillow. He was so damn cute; she knew she was in trouble. He was dressed as if he expected a blizzard at any moment, but he still looked like her Giles. She allowed herself to drift off content in the knowledge that all she had to do was reach out to touch him.
Giles read for three more hours before he finally conceded defeat for the night. His eyes were burning and he was exhausted. He closed the book and turned off the light. He slid down under the covers and turned on his side so that he faced Buffy. She was so beautiful and asleep she looked so heartbreakingly young that he felt like a sick old pervert. He had no right to be thinking of her like he did, but he couldn’t convince his heart. He heard her sigh and then she rolled right up to him and slipped her arm around his waist. Her face was buried in his chest and he could feel her warm breath through the flannel. He indulged himself. His arms slipped around her and pulled her closer to him. As he drifted into sleep, he didn’t know he sported a soft smile.
The baby’s cries awakened them the next morning. Buffy rolled out of bed in a daze and picked up her friend. “Shhh. Shhh. Mommy’s here, puddin’.”
Giles opened his eyes and saw Buffy cradling the infant and felt his stomach wobble. She should be a mother, he thought. She was a born nurturer, not a hardened killer as her destiny demanded. He allowed his mind to drift on thoughts of her pregnant with his babe. He would take care of her and wait on her and rub her tired feet, he thought. He would run his hands over her belly and feel the child kick against him. It would be beautiful and perfect. He sighed. As a fantasy, it was lovely, but his common sense told him it could never be.
Hearing him sigh, Buffy looked over. “Would you mind going to check on the others?”
He threw back the blankets and got up forgetting his robe. Buffy smiled to see his rumpled jammies. She laid damp Willow on the bed and began the task of changing her diapers. Giles returned and leaned against the doorjamb. He grimaced as he watched Buffy clean up her friend.
“You’re very good at this baby business,” he commented.
“I babysat but it’s been years.” She grabbed her own talcum powder and dusted the kicking baby. Bending down, she blew a raspberry on Willow’s bare tummy. The baby gurgled and laughed. “What were the other’s doing?”
“They were still asleep.” He yawned. “A state I would not mind returning to myself.”
She chuckled. “Better get over it. They’ll be up soon enough. I made up that list of extra stuff we’re going to need. If you go to that kid’s store and just give it to the woman, she’ll help you.”
“Me? Why am I deputized to go? Surely you know more about this sort of thing?”
“Well, I thought I’d watch the kids, but if you want too, I won’t be gone more than a couple of hours.”
He blanched at the thought of being alone with the children for that long, unsupervised. “Ah, no. I quite see your point. I shall depart as soon as we have finished breakfast.”
Buffy groaned. “I’d better get down there and start fixing something. The kids will be up soon and they’re gonna want to eat.”
He nodded. “I shall go shave and get dressed.”
“OK, keep an ear out for the kids, would you?”
“Of course.”
She put Willow back in her crate and carried her downstairs. ‘First things first,’ she thought. “Baby formula.”
After reading the directions for mixing the stuff up, she heated a bottle on the stove. Testing it on her wrist, she picked up Willow and tried to get her interested in the tan colored liquid. The baby fussed and jerked her head away and looked very sorry for herself. Buffy cooed at her and rubbed her tummy and eventually the tiny wicca settled down with the bottle. Throwing a dish cloth over her shoulder, she burped the baby and set her back in the crate.
Looking through her cupboards, she settled on pancakes. She had just finished whipping up the batter when she heard squeals and laughter coming from upstairs. She grinned at the sound of the happy voices. In a few minutes, Giles appeared in the kitchen doorway with Xander seated on his shoulders and Anya and Tara in his arms.
Buffy smiled at them and they all squealed and begged to be let down. They ran to her calling her ‘momma’ and grabbing her robe in their tiny hands. She knelt down on the floor and gathered them all up for good morning hugs and kisses. “Did you sleep good?” she asked them.
“Bad dreams,” Xander’s baby voice quavered.
“Oh, baby! Tell momma all about it.” Buffy swept him into her arms.
“Big dog,” he told her.
“Well, I won’t let any big dog get my boy.” She hugged him. He planted a wet kiss on her forehead. “Now, how do you feel about pancakes?”
“Yummmy.”
She laughed and set him down. “Anya, Tara could you girls help daddy set the table?”
They looked excited and Giles got down some plastic plates and allowed them to set them on the table. He started to get down glasses, but Buffy told him cups for the kids. He found some plastic mugs and filled them each half full of milk. Buffy cooked the pancakes and placed one on each of the children’s plates and four each on hers and Giles’. Each girl wanted another pancake, but Xander was full with just one.
Buffy looked up at Giles. “Watch them while I go get dressed?”
“Of course.” He turned to the girls. “How would you girls like to help me clean up the kitchen?”
There were excited squeals. He picked up the dirty dishes and ran water in the sink. As he washed and rinsed, he gave each girl a dishtowel and showed them how to dry the plastic plates. It took them ten minutes each dish, but they were quiet and happy and that was what mattered.
Buffy took a quick shower and got dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. She wasn’t going to bother with fancy clothes when she had four small children to ride herd on. She sat their new clothes out on the bed and prepared for the battle to come.
The baby was easy. She wriggled like a fish on a hook, but ultimately didn’t put up much of a struggle when Buffy pulled the romper suit on her. Xander didn’t want to put on the new shorts, but Buffy distracted him with tickling till he was dressed. Anya and Tara not only wanted to dress, they wanted to dress in every outfit she had purchased for them. The struggle was in getting them to pick one outfit.
Handing Giles her list, she held the girl’s hands as he made his escape out the door. The three children and Buffy stood on the doorstep and waved bye-bye as he pulled out of the driveway. They returned to the house and Buffy gave them the toys she had purchased. In very short order she found out why it is always a bad idea to give a kid a toy that makes noise. She was fairly sure that if she had to hear what the Farmer said one more time she might have to Slay something. She sat on the floor and played blocks with Xander and let the two girls play with the stuffed animals.
After an hour of that roaring excitement, she finally gave in and turned the TV on. The children were instantly enraptured and she realized what a marvelous device the television really was. She found cartoons on a cable channel and thanked the heavens for it.
After another hour, Buffy wondered how real mothers coped. It wasn’t so much that the kids were active, she could deal with that; it was the fact that they had to be watched every minute. Prior to this experience, she hadn’t realized how dangerous a typical household was. The place was a minefield of potentially lethal accidents. She considered herself lucky that in two hours the only casualties were two vases, and the TV Guide. Xander threw the remote into the toilet, but she was able to save it. Tara found a pair of scissors and was going to cut her hair when Buffy caught her. Anya wet her pants because she was having too much fun watching TV to let Buffy know she needed to go. All in all, it was probably a typical day in the life of a mother of young children, but what really got to Buffy was the fact that all of that happened in only a couple of hours.
Giles finally came home with the supplies Buffy had requested. “Did you have a pleasant morning off?” he asked her.
“Morning off!” she just shook her head and rescued Xander from trying to dive off the porch head first.
The children clamored around Giles’ legs and begged to be picked up. He swung Xander up to his back and got the two girls under his arms and walked back into the house with them. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind unloading the car. I’ve had a rather stressful morning. I apparently loathe shopping.”
Buffy looked at him and the kids. “No, I’d be glad to unload the car.”
He had found four car seats so at least they wouldn’t be captives of the house any longer. She didn’t bring them in but spent the next twenty minutes securing them into his back seat. They seemed to have extra straps that apparently went nowhere or connected with nothing. When they were all finally secured in place, she tugged experimentally on them and they seemed secure.
Next, she got out the pieces of the crib he had found complete with mattress. She carried the pieces upstairs. They could put it together later.
The potty seat he had purchased looked like a miniature toilet. She showed the kids where it was and told them to use it when they needed to. After a few minutes thought, she put newspapers under it and a roll of toilet paper next to it.
He had gotten four more outfits for each child, she noted with relief. At the rate they were going through clothes, they were going to need just that many for the rest of the day. She pulled a bag off the floor of the car and found it contained library books. Cripes! No wonder he had been gone so long. He had probably spent twenty minutes shopping and the rest of the time browsing for books, she thought with some resentment. Well, he could spend the time reading to the babies. Let him see how they were wound up like miniature tornadoes. An evil smile passed across her lips at the thought of him trying to cope with the toddlers and the baby while she was on patrol.