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She was going to die.
Never had it been clearer to Jenny than in that moment: Angelus’s eyes locked on her, bright, malicious, amused, the cat to her mouse. She was going to die. Not soon, but still too soon. In seconds, or maybe minutes. Enough time to give him something fun to do with his Tuesday night. She straightened herself up against the wall and felt for the doorknob, barely processing what Angelus was saying. Why was it taking so long for him to fucking kill her?
“You know, I’m almost impressed,” Angelus informed her, straightening up from the ruins of what had been her desktop computer. “The things you’re willing to risk for that librarian of yours, huh? You must really want him to forgive you if you’re out here on your lonesome while you’re in the family way.”
Jenny froze. It was more out of bemusement than anything. Angelus had delivered this pronouncement with the satisfied air of someone expecting to land a blow, but she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. In the family way? Why would he think—
Her blood ran cold.
Misinterpreting her horror, Angelus smiled, slow and smug. “You thought I wouldn’t notice,” he said. “How far along are you, two months? Three? Looks like the Watcher’s not as impotent as he seems, huh?”
“I’m not pregnant,” said Jenny, her voice shaking.
“It’s cute how you’re still trying to hide it.” Angelus took a step forward. “You’ve been pretty good at that, though, huh? Hiding it. The kids don’t know, and your sweetheart would never have left you here after hours if he’d had any idea.” He took another step towards her. “Always struck me as the protective type, that one. Struck me as the careful type, too, but I guess that happy little accident of yours suggests otherwise.”
He was smiling, still, like this was some kind of fucking joke. Jenny’s breath was coming in rapid gasps, one hand pressed against her stomach. Angelus never lies, Enyos had told her, when she was still young enough to half-believe that a sacred duty could be anything but a burden. He uses the truth as a weapon. He wants to see his victims try in vain to wriggle away from something too horrible to believe.
Angelus wouldn’t lie about her being pregnant. He’d come here to kill her, not to toss out an implausible fabrication to confuse her before she died. But if she was pregnant—Jenny swallowed, mouth dry—if she was pregnant, and if he thought that she knew, if he thought that she had been trying to hide it, letting her know that he knew would be a truth too seductive to resist. One last humiliation before her murder.
Vampires could smell the differences in blood. Angel had mentioned that once, obliquely and somewhat uncomfortably, and Jenny had done extensive reading on vampires’ lesser-known abilities in her research after Angelus’s transformation. She hadn’t wanted to be caught by surprise. Caught like she was now.
Oh, God, Rupert was going to find out. She was going to die, here, now, and he was going to find out that she was pregnant, and she—she couldn’t. She couldn’t do that to him. She hadn’t wanted to die, but the conviction that she would had given way in an instant at the thought of Rupert, alone in that shitty, too-big morgue, receiving the news that Jenny had been expecting a baby. She was not going to let that happen. She absolutely could not let that happen.
Angelus’s smug expression was giving way as he took in the look on Jenny’s face. “You didn’t know,” he realized aloud. For the first time, there was a look of unease on his face—he hadn’t been expecting this. “Ms. Calendar—”
Jenny lunged. In one smooth movement, she’d grabbed what she needed from atop her desk, taken two running steps towards Angelus, and stabbed him directly in the face, the number-two pencil skewering his cheek. He screamed, falling back in what seemed to be more shock than anything, and she took off, sprinting for the door on the other side of the classroom. He had locked it from the inside. She fumbled with the lock—he was stumbling towards her—she opened the door, slammed it shut, locked it behind her with her ring of keys, and sprinted into the hallway.
Angelus was still hammering against the classroom doors. Jenny gritted her teeth, running towards the nearest doors that led outside. When they wouldn’t open, she turned on her heel, running instead towards the library. Her terror in the face of death had given way to dizzying fury. She kept on thinking about Rupert. About their baby.
Something in her tore open at the thought of never getting to hold her baby. There was just no way that she could allow that. Jenny unlocked the library doors—pulled them open—slammed them shut, locking them behind her. She had time to piece this together.
She could hear Angelus running down the halls, feet falling loud and furious. His footsteps passed the library and faded into the distance. She didn’t know why he hadn’t thought to look for her here, but suspected that it was the same rationale that had had him decide to tell her about the baby. He thought he knew her. He thought he understood what would frighten her past the point of sensibility. He hadn’t intended to give her the single spark of determination she needed for a clear head.
Jenny fell quietly back against the wall, biting her lip to keep herself from breathing too loudly. Her head was starting to spin. I don’t even know if I really am pregnant, she thought. He could be wrong. But if he wasn’t—
No time for that now. She wasn’t out of the woods yet.
Think, Janna. Angelus knew about the boarded-up cellar behind the stacks. He might know to look for her there. He might know to look for her outside. He might stay prowling the school until he found her. She couldn’t depend on outside help, and even if she did reach out, there was no guarantee that they’d get there in time.
Jenny closed her eyes for just a moment. It isn’t just me, she thought. And Rupert would never forgive me if I let his child die like this. Never.
Opening her eyes, she moved forward, towards the weapons cabinet. Picked up the crossbow. Rupert would have something to say about that, she was sure. She loaded it clumsily, and every wrong move felt too loud, like it would get her killed, but there was no time to think about that. Hefting the crossbow over one shoulder, Jenny moved to the half-circle window, shooting a bolt directly through the windowpanes.
The sound of shattering glass spurred her into action. She didn’t know how far off Angelus was, and the noise was pretty much the equivalent of sending up a red flare for vampires. Jenny dropped the crossbow, sprinting forward, and scrambled up the bookshelf, squeezing herself through the glass and completely ignoring the places where it tore—baby, she remembered belatedly, and did her best to protect her stomach. God, she was a terrible mom already, and this kid of hers was only a theoretical notion introduced by a homicidal vampire. She’d probably be even worse with an actual child.
She was almost all of the way out the window when she registered the drop. She didn’t have the kind of magic that could stop her from plummeting, but she might have the kind of magic that could soften her fall. She hadn’t tried this in years, but—
Reaching for what had always been limited reserves of magical ability, Jenny was stunned to find what felt like an endless well of power. The spell that had been intended to soften her fall froze her exactly where she was—three-quarters of the way out of the window, just about to lose her balance and fall entirely. It took barely any concentration to carefully remove herself from the window, murmuring a quick incantation to shield her from the rest of the broken glass, and she floated down to land neatly on her feet in the parking lot without feeling even the slightest drain on her usual abilities. Something was different.
Heart pounding, Jenny pressed a palm to her stomach, fingers splayed. Rupert’s child, she realized. Magical ability was hereditary, and his family was a Watcher family, not to mention his own youthful proclivity for advanced demon-raisings. Her own family was nothing to sneeze at either, even if she herself didn’t have the same kind of power as her relatives—and the combination of two magical parents of old families tended to lead to particularly gifted children. Particularly considering that this was a child conceived on a Hellmouth.
She heard a snarl from somewhere. She couldn’t find it in herself to be afraid. Jenny sprinted forward and towards her car—thank fucking god she always parked near the library, even now—throwing herself into the driver’s seat and slamming on the gas. The school was in her rearview mirror in record time.
The moment that Jenny got home, she collapsed, boneless, to the floor, both hands cradling her stomach as she struggled to sort through a myriad of terrified thoughts. Rupert. The baby. Angelus. The curse. Buffy. The baby. Rupert. The baby. Magic. The baby. The baby. The baby.
She’d have to research whether pregnant mothers could draw on their child’s innate magical energy without harming the baby in question. She should do that now. No, she had to tell Rupert. No, she couldn’t tell Rupert, he’d be heading over here in a heartbeat if he found out she was pregnant, and Angelus was going to be gunning for them both more than ever now. Rupert out on the streets tonight could mean Rupert dead on her doorstep tomorrow.
Start simple. The curse. She had to tell him about that. Angelus had damaged the computer and the printout, but as far as she knew, the floppy disk was still there. She could call Rupert, tell him—
Tell him what, exactly?
The full gravity of her situation was finally beginning to hit Jenny. She was pregnant, and she had just royally pissed off a homicidal vampire. There was absolutely no way that she could stay in this town while Angelus was roaming free. He wouldn’t come for her tonight—he would need to lick his wounds—but she needed to be out of here at dawn if she wanted any chance at keeping her baby safe. Killing her had just become a thousand times more seductive for him: she was carrying Rupert’s baby. Her death—
Oh, God, she could hardly finish that sentence, even just in her head. Rupert would be able to handle her death, she was certain of that, but her death and the death of his child? He might very well be out of commission long enough for Angelus to kill him too. Might even welcome it, at that point.
Jenny squeezed her eyes tightly shut, breathing in rapid, sobbing gasps. She couldn’t stay here. Not if it meant that her baby might die. Her baby with Rupert. Maybe it would have been different if it was someone else’s, someone who wasn’t important, but—
But things with Rupert were falling apart faster than she could put them back together. There was no guarantee that she would ever have the chance to plan a child with him, no matter—her breath caught—no matter how badly she now knew that she wanted them to start a family of their own. She wanted to have his baby. She couldn’t imagine giving that up, no matter how it had come about.
She couldn’t tell him.
Jenny felt sick to her stomach. The thought of keeping this from him—
Except he was never going to be able to always choose to be there for their child. She could walk away—Enyos was dead, their mission failed—but Rupert would never have that kind of freedom. He would always be Buffy’s Watcher, and a world in which he wasn’t would devastate him in a way that would make it ever more difficult for him to be a loving, functioning father. It was clear that he had already felt his loyalties divided enough with the conflict between Jenny and Buffy, but from Jenny’s perspective, his decision to pick Buffy had always been a no-brainer. He was a father figure to Buffy, even if he himself shied away from the notion. Buffy needed him more than Jenny did.
But did she need him more than Jenny’s baby did?
Jenny didn’t want Rupert to have to even think about answering that question. She didn’t want Buffy to feel like she was losing the only stable adult that she really had, especially to someone she resented. She didn’t want her baby, her baby who had saved her, her baby who some small part of her was already starting to love, to grow up like she had. To have a father for half a second before losing him entirely. She wanted her child to grow up without ever once being forced to question the love that surrounded them.
If she told Rupert, he would immediately step up to the plate and be a dad. He was possibly the first and only guy she’d slept with where she knew that in her bones. She would sit him down, tell him that she was pregnant—and oh, her chest hurt, thinking about the way he’d smile like the sun rising—but she would sit him down and tell him that she was pregnant, and he would take on the responsibility with the same gentle, stoic grace that he bore every single one of his burdens. He would try to find a way to be a Watcher and a father in the same breath, and he would stretch himself impossibly thin in the process. He wouldn’t be as present in Buffy’s life as he had been before, and he would never be able to be fully present in his child’s life from the very beginning. They would be tethered together by a baby he’d never asked for. She knew that he cared about her, but the thought of him loving her enough to want her forever…
No one wanted that. No one ever had. Rupert was not the special exception. He’d flinched away from her as soon as he saw the reality of what she was. For all she knew, his invitation tonight was from a place of pity. For all she knew, he’d never loved her. She was making it easier for him. She was an obligation. She was a burden. She—
Jenny buried her face in her hands, biting her lip so hard she tasted blood. Absolutely none of her attempts to obfuscate the truth were managing to stick. Rupert would love the hell out of this baby. Rupert loved her. Leaving would break his heart.
Leaving had to happen. Angelus was going to kill her if she stayed. But Angelus was going to kill everyone if he didn’t get his soul back. This was why Jenny was having so much trouble figuring out what the hell was supposed to happen next: there were too many goddamn moving pieces. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she focused in on the most immediate problem: there was a homicidal vampire after her, and he wasn’t going to stop until she was dead or he had his soul.
After a very long moment, Jenny picked up the phone and dialed Rupert’s number.
“Hello?”
A small smile danced across Giles’s face at the familiar voice. It wobbled as soon as he registered its cadence.
“God. Um. Okay. Voicemail.” A sniffle. “So, um, Rupert, I—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t be with you. I—” A sobbing breath. “Fuck. I was attacked by Angelus at the school tonight. I—”
Giles felt a wave of nausea, followed closely by a wave of white-hot fury. His fingers tightened around the phone receiver. Keep listening, Rupert.
“It was my fault.”
Tears sprung to Giles’s eyes. Jenny.
“I, I was working on—I wanted to, to tell you—” She was crying. Really crying. Not once had he ever heard Jenny cry. “I was gonna, um, come over tonight, tell you that I, I restored th-the magics, the ones that can—I can bring back Angel’s soul. Or I could. I could have. He’s—he’s coming after me, and I—I can’t stay here. I’m so sorry, I—” A shaky exhalation. “I’m just, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you so much. I’m so sorry. I wish I could—I want so badly to stay with you. I know you don’t—I mean, god, I know we haven’t even had this conversation. For all I know, it was gonna just be drinks and—oh, God, not drinks now, but—”
Fury was giving way to…something else. Giles wasn’t sure what it was. It felt as though some vital part of his chest had been neatly carved out, leaving a vast, cavernous emptiness in its place.
“I have to leave town.” Another sob. “I, I just, I needed to call you, I needed to—I’m so glad you didn’t pick up, Rupert, because you—you would have talked me into staying, and I can’t. I love you so much. I just want you to hold me.”
Never had Jenny said anything so vulnerable. Whatever state she was in right now, she had never needed him more. “Jenny,” Giles whispered, remembering only belatedly that she couldn’t actually hear him. Christ, why had he stopped by Buffy’s for the damned book? He’d rather have had his throat slit by Angelus than miss this call. Jenny was in pieces somewhere, might have even left town—
“God. I’m so sorry. This is not—” A slow, indrawn breath. With marginally more steadiness, Jenny said, “Shop talk. There is a yellow floppy disk in the computer lab. I don’t know if Angelus got to it. I don’t think he knows about it. Have Willow email me if she finds it. If she doesn’t, have her email me anyway. It’s got the Ritual of Restoration saved on it.”
Giles could not care less about Angelus’s fucking soul. Angelus had done this to Jenny. Angelus could rot in hell.
“And Rupert, I—you can’t follow me.”
Giles’s stomach dropped.
“He’s after me. He wants to—” Another pause. “I need you to give him back his soul. I need that to be what you do. I know—I know you feel badly about—I’m sure you’re gonna get this and think that I’m—but I’m fine, okay? I’m fine. I can take care of myself.” The last word was more a broken sob than anything. “I promise I’ll be fine. But I need you to not come find me. He’s going to come after you to try and get to me. I humiliated him at the school; you more than anyone should know he doesn’t take that lightly. He knows how much I love you. You are in so much danger right now. I need you to find that floppy disk, and if you don’t, I need you to tell me immediately so I can start working out how to rework the translation program. Okay?”
It had occurred to Giles that Angel, if given back his soul, would no longer have any motivation to hunt down and kill Jenny. This was unfortunately a fairly strong argument when it came to the notion of giving Angel back his soul.
“Rupert, if you—if you love me.” Giles’s knuckles were white around the receiver. “If you love me, please don’t follow me. Please. Don’t—don’t call me, don’t say goodbye, don’t do anything that will get me to change my mind about this. I can’t. I can’t do this. It’s not just me I’m thinking about right now.”
The way that she said that caught Giles’s attention. He was just about to mull over it further when—
“I can’t handle the thought of living like this anymore.”
Giles froze.
“I can’t put this on you and Buffy. You both have too much pressure, you—I can’t possibly add more to that.”
He had done this. He had made her think that she—that she was—
“I’m leaving town. If you love me—if you have ever loved me—please just let me go.”
What else could he possibly do?
Jenny hung up the phone with shaking hands. She kept on thinking about his soft smile at the school, the way his eyes had lingered, the utter adoration in his voice as he’d said you can stop by my house. There was a world where she’d told him, called him over to her house and sat him down on the couch and told him, saw the shocked happiness in his eyes, watched his sunrise smile, his hand moving to her belly, to their baby—
Her knees gave out from under her as she collapsed to the floor, crying so hard that she could barely breathe. She curled inwards, feeling the dull ache in her knees from the tumble to the floor, the cuts on her arms and hands from the glass of the broken window—felt the warm magic in her stomach that she was only now starting to notice. Their baby was going to be nothing short of incredible. She knew that. But the thought of Rupert never getting the chance to hold their child in his arms—
A baby, he’d say, with that expression on his face that he got when she’d knocked him sideways in the best possible way. Our baby?
No, I cheated on you with the guy who pumps your gas, Jenny would say dryly. Or—no, that wasn’t true. She knew that. What she would say was our baby, and she would press her forehead against his, and then whisper I missed you so, so much, Rupert, and he’d say I think I missed you more, Jenny, and they would kiss and he would hold her and they would lie tangled up on her bed, him with his hand on her stomach, talking in sweetly pinwheeling sentences about baby names and baby clothes and whose apartment they’d move into and where they’d put the cradle. And the children would come around eventually with hand-me-down gifts and silly suggestions for baby names, and Buffy would forgive her, and Willow would be so happy, they’d all be, they’d all be happy—
Jenny had run out of tears. Just dry sobs on the cold floor.