Chapter Text
Buffy got the call the next day, right after all the messiness with Angel had edged towards a cohesive resolution. It was lucky, too, that it was Christmas Day, because Willow and Xander were over—Xander no longer tied down by his family’s demands that he be present for Christmas Eve, and Willow disinterested in a Christmas celebration but amenable to a non-denominational holiday gathering—which meant that they were close enough to hear it when Giles said, over the phone, “Jenny’s had the baby.”
“…what,” said Buffy.
“Yes,” said Giles. He sounded a little like he was about to either start crying or pass out. “Seven pounds, two ounces, perfectly healthy and all that—”
“Did he say Ms. Calendar had a baby?” Willow demanded in a shrill whisper. “Like a magic baby?”
“—and if you will excuse me,” Giles concluded, “I think I am going to lie down and die now.”
“Since when was Ms. Calendar even pregnant?” asked a bewildered Xander.
“Yes, Xander, that is an extremely good question,” said Giles. “I have asked quite a lot of doctors and nurses that question in the last twelve hours, especially considering the line of work that we are in. I do not, however, remember the answer, as I am very tired and have been awake for either thirty-four hours or two thousand years. We are at Sunnydale General if you would like to bring gifts or name suggestions for my daughter.” There was then a click, followed by the sound of the dial tone.
Buffy decided to focus on the one part of the phone call that made sense. “He’s at Sunnydale General,” she said.
“We heard,” said Willow.
“Presumably with Ms. Calendar—”
“We heard,” said Xander.
“And he says we should bring gifts for the baby, so—”
“Did you miss the whole part where we heard?” said Willow, removing the phone from Buffy’s hand to firmly replace it on the hook. “We should probably ask your mom to drive us, though, ‘cause Sunnydale General is a twenty-minute walk, and at this time of year—”
“Do you three need to visit the hospital again?” said Mom reprovingly from the kitchen. “What on earth has happened now? It hasn’t even been a month since that affair with Cordelia—”
“MS. CALENDAR HAD A BABY,” Buffy shouted, cutting off the lecture before it could get any momentum.
“…what?” said Mom.
Giles was collapsed, boneless and snoring, in the waiting room, earning a lot of dirty looks from guys who Buffy could only assume were other expectant fathers. It only took a particularly vigorous shake from Buffy to rouse him, at which point he jerked up, alert, and stared at Buffy with this look like she’d run over his puppy or something. “Oh my god,” said Buffy. “You weren’t kidding about the whole no-sleep thing, were you?”
“There’s—baby,” said Giles, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of a nearby door, and tried to fall asleep again.
“And you’re not with Ms. Calendar why?”
That got Giles’s attention. “Jenny,” he said. “Yes.” Standing up, he swayed dangerously, then attempted to make his way towards the door. It only sort of worked, and only started really working when Willow patiently took his arm. “Wanted to make sure you knew where you were going,” he said, blinking a few times before awkwardly rubbing his eyes. “This hospital really is a bloody maze. Took me fifteen minutes to find my way here.”
“…Is that Ms. Calendar’s room?” said Willow in a strangled voice. “On our left? Two feet away from the waiting room?”
“Oh, isn’t that lovely,” said Giles, letting go of Willow’s arm and all but tumbling through the half-open door.
Ms. Calendar, looking only slightly more lucid than Giles, gave all of them a wry smile as her beau flopped down on the bed next to her. “He was pulling an all-nighter last night,” she said. “I told him it was a bad idea this close to Christmas, but he said that there was nothing in the world that could prevent him from catching up on sleep today, and then of course this happens and he refuses to take so much as a nap until he’s sure I’m fine—”
“BABY,” said Buffy through her teeth, gesturing to the bundle in Ms. Calendar’s arms.
“Oh! Right.” Ms. Calendar flushed, her smile trembling. “Yeah, this is…our baby? Apparently?”
“Apparently?” Xander repeated incredulously.
Abruptly, Mom said, “You know, our book club read something about a woman who didn’t even know she was pregnant—no bump at all.”
“Oh, uh, there was a little bit of a bump, I just thought—” Ms. Calendar’s blush was deepening. “I mean, I’m not exactly militant about the whole three-meals-a-day thing, and Rupert started making me breakfast, lunch, and dinner a few months back, so—”
“She’s very stupid,” said Giles, his voice muffled by the pillows.
Ms. Calendar whacked his shoulder. “You’re very stupid,” she said. “And it wasn’t a very big bump! And I’m on birth control—”
“Your menstrual cycle just stopped,” said Giles into the pillows, “and your response to that was to tell me that you thought your uterus had finished.”
“I have a history of infertility in my family, I told you about this—”
Seeing as this was shaping up to become a horrifying combination of the usual Calendar/Giles never-ending argument and the thankfully less usual Calendar/Giles unwitting overshare, Buffy very loudly cleared her throat, startling Giles so thoroughly that he fell off the bed. “Okay,” she said. “So we are certain that this is not some kind of weird demonic reality-bending attempt on somebody’s life? Because I really would not put it past this Hellmouth to—” She waved her hand awkwardly at the bundle in Ms. Calendar’s arms.
“Put a baby in Ms. Calendar?” Xander finished helpfully. Willow whacked his shoulder.
“Please never say that again,” said Giles from the floor.
“I figure we can run some tests when, uh,” Ms. Calendar glanced ruefully towards the floor, “Rupert’s a little less exhausted.”
“I’m fine, Jenny!” said Giles, tried to get up, and flopped back down onto the floor like a dying fish.
“He’s been run ragged by this whole thing,” said Ms. Calendar, a note of loving worry entering her voice. “I told him I was okay if he needed to go get some sleep while I had the baby—”
“I’m sorry,” said Buffy. “You were trying to get Giles to catch up on sleep while you were actively in labor?”
“You know, I really don’t think we apologized to you enough for treating you like a modern Benedict Arnold last year,” said Xander, a disbelieving laugh in his voice. “Clearly we should have just been treating you like you are seriously insane.”
“Thank you, Xander,” said Ms. Calendar primly. “Now would one of you please help my baby’s father off of the floor?”
“Are we sure that Giles is the father?” Off of the look on Ms. Calendar’s face, Willow coughed, color rising to her cheeks. “Scientifically speaking!” she squeaked. “Because—I mean, what if the Hellmouth did put a baby in you, you know? We can’t be certain right now that—”
“You wanna borrow a shovel to keep digging yourself that hole, Will?” Xander offered.
Later—after Giles had slept for seventeen hours, after Jenny and their as-of-yet unnamed Christmas baby had been discharged and sent home, after everyone had convened in Giles’s apartment with the required supplies—tests were run, magical and mundane, all revealing the same thing: this was a perfectly normal, perfectly healthy, perfectly Calendar-Giles baby girl. She had sea-green eyes like Giles’s, and dark, downy hair like Jenny’s, and she was the sweetest little girl he had ever seen.
His little girl. Something he had never even imagined possible, and it was with Jenny, who felt so often too good to be true.
“We’ll have to think of a name,” he said.
Jenny, encircled in his arms, squirmed drowsily and adjusted her grip on their daughter. The little girl was nestled solidly against her chest, one hand gripping the front of her t-shirt. “I have known you long enough to see where this is going,” she said flatly. “I swear to God, if you throw one Yuletide name my way—”
Indignantly, Giles said, “Jenny, she was born on Christmas. Are you truly expecting me to not suggest—Joy, o-or Hope, or—”
“I’m going to throw your daddy out the window,” Jenny cooed, gently bouncing their daughter in her arms. “Yes, I am! Can you say defenestration?”
“Holly,” Giles pressed on. “Ivy—”
“Rupert, I am warning you. The window is right there.”
“Carol.”
“Like a Christmas carol? You are not subjecting our daughter to that level of tacky mediocrity.”
“I’m not hearing any suggestions from you,” Giles countered, “and if you don’t come up with something soon, I shall name her Carol for lack of anything better to name her.”
Jenny’s exasperated expression faded into something a little more nervous. She bit her lip, looking down at the baby in her arms.
It abruptly occurred to Giles that their sleep-deprived mutual agreement to keep and raise their child wasn’t quite the conversation required for a life decision as monumental as this one. He had no idea how Jenny had felt about children before this—had assumed that they would have more time to thoroughly talk about it—and now they had a daughter that neither of them were particularly interested in giving up. “Jenny,” he tentatively began.
“Noel,” said Jenny.
Giles blinked. “Sorry?”
“Noel,” said Jenny. “And not with the extra L-E tacked on at the end, either. N-O-E-L, Noel.” She looked up at him, eyes soft. “For Christmas.”
Giles felt a terrifying rush of butterflies. “W-well,” he stammered, “that’s—that is, I wouldn’t want—I know you aren’t much for Christmas, but—”
“But you’re her dad,” said Jenny, and smiled, soft and shaky. “And I think this is a name that’s at least a little less tacky than Carol, as Christmas names go.” She adjusted their daughter—Noel, Giles thought, trying out the name—and then reached up to his face, thumb stroking his cheek. “I’m…really glad,” she said. “That this is with you.”
“Oh,” said Giles softly.
“And I—I want you to know that,” said Jenny. “Okay?”
She was newer at this than him. He forgot that, on occasion: that her heart, carefully guarded, had only ever been open to him. Tenderness was something Jenny stumbled at—two years, and she’d told him that she loved him enough times to count on one hand—but he had learned that she showed it in other ways, and it never failed to take his breath away when he did see it.
“You care for me so dearly,” said Giles, his voice shaking.
Jenny exhaled, smiling, and ducked her head, a curtain of hair falling to hide her face. Noel squirmed in her arms and made a little chirping noise.
“There’s—Felicity, you know, for a middle name,” said Giles a bit unsteadily. “If you’re amenable to continuing our rather literal naming trend.”
“Noel Felicity Giles,” said Jenny thoughtfully. “That’s a girl who’s gonna go places.”
“Noel Felicity—I’m sorry, Giles?” Giles repeated, his heart beginning to pound.
Jenny arched an eyebrow. “Do you seriously want me to give our daughter my fake last name?”
“N-no, I just thought—well, you have a real last name,” Giles floundered, “you could always—”
Cheeks coloring, Jenny said, “I like your name better than mine! Do we have to make a federal case out of that?”
“It just seems—rather antifeminist of you, don’t you think?”
“Do not. Do not start this argument with me right now, Rupert. I am barely out of the hospital after pushing out a baby I did not know I was going to have, and you are already trying to get on my nerves. You know that a tenet of feminism—”
“No, you’re right. This was a bad idea.”
“—a tenet of feminism is creating a world where women are free to make their own choices—oh, I am a little dizzy,” said Jenny abruptly, letting her head fall back against Giles’s chest.
“Yes,” said Giles, “that would be, as you so charmingly put it, the baby you just pushed out.”
“She’s a good little girl. Absolutely nothing is her fault.” Jenny cuddled Noel closer, pressing a fierce kiss to the top of her daughter’s head. “My favorite Christmas present.”