Section 2 of 2 for length
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Joan shoved the door open with her back and then pulled on a new pair of surgical gloves with a rubber snap that insanely reminded Tara of that club she and Willow had accidentally wandered into in New York.
Oh, they could tell stories about that night. This one time, in New York…
“Tara!” Willow said, sounding both surprised and relieved. “Oh, it’s about damn time, baby!” She came over, ready to hug.
“I know, I know…”
It’d been a few days, but there was something else to think about than a hug? She didn’t refuse the comfort, but her mind was elsewhere – and Willow knew it. “How is she?” Tara asked.
“Close,” Willow replied, glancing back through the screen to where Toni lay, gravid, sweating and not exactly comfortable. “She keeps tossing me out to find you. I told her you were coming, getting closer, but she still wouldn’t give up.”
She and Willow had been sharing her progress through their connection whenever she’d had anything new to say. They hadn’t needed to phone each other a long time now. “Well, I’m here now – let’s go have a baby.” Then she paused, looking around. “Where’s Mal?”
Willow smiled. “Ah, he passed out a few hours ago and he’s been feeling faint ever since.”
“Be a love and go see where he is?” Tara asked. “He doesn’t want to miss this.”
Willow planted a kiss on her cheek and Tara noticed the nurse glance away, blushing. Some people, even today, found this unusual. Well, that was those people’s problem.
“Toni would’ve had me kill you if
you’d missed this,” Willow said.
“Go,” Tara said, patting her woman's butt…
When Willow had gone, she opened the door from the anteroom and into the place Toni was going to have her baby. Just as she had been with Ben, Kerry and Eve she was open to all her mystical senses as she came into the pregnant woman’s presence again.
Jenny’s aura had revealed a problem with Eve’s delivery before the doctors had even known about it. Explaining just
how she’d known had come later. Right then she’d been so certain she’d just made sure they believed her and checked Jenny over thoroughly. They'd detected the problem with the cord before it’d risked mother or daughter.
Knowing all that, it was natural that Toni wouldn’t have anyone else as her birthing partner. Not after a still grateful Jenny had told her the story a dozen times over the last few months.
But today everything seemed okay. Nothing felt
off.
The only problem seemed to be that Dad – Toni’s husband of three years since they’d hooked up again – had passed out.
Oh, and the birthing partner was
very late. Some might see that as a problem.
*Tara!* Toni managed the sign through a wave of still significant discomfort. How long had she been fighting the inevitable?
“I’m here, baby,” she promised and immediately her hand was crushed in Toni’s, silencing half of her methods of communication.
*Is everything okay?* Toni demanded. *I need to know, Tara.* Then another wave hit her. So close?
Tara bent, using her leg to snag a chair and sit by the bed in Toni’s eye line. They’d always known having a translator would be important now, and it wasn’t just for that reason she wanted Toni to be able to see her. She wanted her to
know.
“Everything’s fine,” she promised. “I can feel - ” She nearly revealed the sex of the baby. “I can feel the baby. Everything’s fine, sweetie. I promise.”
Two years ago she’d been the one who’d had to tell Toni she couldn’t feel the baby any more. A sad day when she’d also been the one who’d had to convince Toni that all that mattered was worrying about her health. That there was nothing anyone could do.
Blaming herself - no matter what anyone told her - when she’d gotten pregnant again Toni had given herself over entirely to everything believed to be good for baby. Nothing even suspected of being bad for him or her passed her lips.
Her or him? She, Willow and Faith were the only ones who knew the sex of the baby. No one else, Toni had declared she didn’t want to know so… they’d respected that wish. Though it’d been kind of difficult to avoid using the words that’d give it away.
Or buying gifts that did the same. Yellow had been the order of the last nine months, just to avoid giving it away. Or an equal balance of pink and blue.
“Come on,” she said. “Time to have your baby, love. It’s okay – I promise.”
Toni had been so afraid that she’d lose this one just like the last. So afraid that she and Mal had moved out here from California two months ago. Since then Tara had lived through practically every twinge as she was asked to check on baby several times a day.
All their lives had been on hold for this little one who already wanted to be the centre of attention. But then what did they expect from Toni’s baby?
So, of course, Toni had gone into labour early - while Tara had been away. She’d always been too fast for her own good.
“Are you going to stop fighting it now?” Joan asked as Tara translated.
*Oh God, yes!* Toni said.
“I got that one,” Joan reassured her without waiting for the translation.
Toni grimaced as another contraction hit her, riding it out and then – somehow – finding strength to look up at her and make a joke. *I always thought you wanted me with a woman between my legs.*
How long had she been waiting to tell that one?
Tara kissed her hand, looking at Joan at the foot of the bed. “Only for this, sweetie. Only for this.”
----------
Okay, she was a coward. She was happy to admit it to herself.
Toni’s pain, even dulled by the drugs, still ran through Willow like someone had scraping the Glove of Myneghon down a chalkboard. All the epidural had done for Toni was stop the pain from affecting her so much. It didn’t stop the pain itself, which was what had permeated the room.
The pain was there, Toni just didn’t feel all of it.
It was easier to be out of the room to avoid it, but Willow couldn’t stop herself from looking.
Pain just wasn’t her thing. She knew altogether too much about it, inflicting it and suffering it. She didn’t need to be hanging around it when she didn’t have to. Besides, they couldn’t fill the room with people.
Thank the Goddess Tara had arrived when she did.
Yes, Jenny probably would’ve sat in for Tara, but her woman would've felt like a complete shit for letting Toni down. This was rough. Honestly, she didn’t know how Jenny and now Toni had done it. Many times in their older friend’s case.
And every time someone gave birth, Willow wondered what’d ever drawn her to the idea of having their own children.
But then the kids showed her all over again.
She was sure that when this little one was in her arms she might feel a twinge of regret over their choices, but that’d be all. No more than a twinge.
Thirty-eight years old and no regrets. Oh, it wasn’t too late – not yet – but the days she’d have thought about it seriously had long since passed her by.
They’d come
this close about five years ago, when they’d decided it was the closing of the ‘perfect-timing' window. Neither of them had wanted to be retired when their daughter – and she had no doubt it would’ve been a daughter - graduated.
She could honestly say she didn’t have any regrets though.
Tara had been all ready to go for it, the one who was pushing the idea. Thinking through the practicalities. Which left her as the one that looked at it again and said, ‘You know what? No.’ They had more kids, and ‘grandchildren’ than they knew how to shop for already. One more in a little while.
Between Jenny’s four, Toni, other friends and those ex-students they remained very close to… it was enough. What was missing? Passing on their genetic material? Big whoop.
Yeah, it would be nice to have someone they could pass their magical knowledge on to, but there really wasn’t a guarantee that any daughter of theirs would be able to even light a candle without a match. And if she’d been able to, would she want to?
Faith didn’t.
Until their friend’s daughter had turned the magic down, Willow had just assumed that if someone could, they would. Faith had the talent, bags of it. Maybe more than anyone she’d met apart from Tara. But she’d chosen not to use it. Faith wasn't afraid of it, she just wasn't interested.
It bored her, actually.
As for someone to pass the farm on to… Was the Maclay line finally going to be broken? It looked like it, and that was sad in a way… but it wasn’t any reason to bring a child into the world.
Next academic year Tara was going to be Principal of the school. She’d be able to shape it as she thought she needed to, take it in new directions and embrace a new future. And that was the limit of Tara’s ambition. That was what she wanted.
Meanwhile, after a rocky patch in the recession a few years back, the business was doing great. She’d even managed a stock buyback. Apart from Tara, Jenny, Toni and Rupert, Rosenberg Associates was entirely hers again and exploiting the niche market in educational software for kids needing sensory support and the schools that taught them.
She might not even have had a business, let alone be a leader in an admittedly small market, if they’d decided to have a child when the economy hadn’t been looking so healthy. A business wasn’t a child, but RA was her baby – entirely hers.
And they had some good friends who worked for RA now – including a few graduates of the school. It’d been tougher making the transition from friend of the teacher to boss than it had been to set the business up in the first place. But if you chose the right people, it really didn’t have to be a problem.
“Are you ready for this?” she asked Mal, who was - fortunately - back on his feet.
“I – ah – I don’t think so,” he said.
“You’ve had long enough to
get ready.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “That time – where did it go?”
“So, are you going in?” Willow prompted.
“She doesn’t want me in there,” he said, looking at the door nervously.
“Of course she does!” How could he think that?
“Not if I’m going to faint again,” he pointed out.
Okay, she could see how that might be inconvenient at the wrong moment. There was only one person Toni could worry about right now.
“Besides,” he continued, “she can curse me plenty without my being there.”
“You know she doesn’t mean it,” Willow said.
He smiled. “I think I’d mean it, in her shoes. Right now, she
really does. But that’s okay.”
Willow thought about it. Yeah, she’d probably mean it too. “So basically you’re afraid?”
“Aren’t you?” he asked.
“Hell, yeah,” Willow said.
“Besides I have… happy memories of her - ”
“Her what?”
“Never mind.”
Willow laughed. “Mal! I think that’s the rudest thing I ever – almost – heard you say!” At that moment, while she was teasing him, there was something that just made her go both “Ohh” and weak at the knees.
The most scary/wonderful sensation hit her and she
knew it wasn’t Tara, though her partner was delighted at the same moment. No, this was the baby. Protesting the birth. Protesting loudly – at least emotionally loudly.
“There we go,” she said.
“Now?” Mal asked, sounding as petrified as he looked.
“Now,” Willow confirmed, barely able to resist the temptation to put her head around the door straight away. Daddy was supposed to get first dibs though.
The sensation hadn’t been anything magical – at least not on the baby’s part – when she felt the birth. It was more like… A camera flash. The aura of the baby burst into the world, and like anyone else moving from warm liquid comfort to a cold, air filled place via a very tight space…. Where was she going with this?
Oh, yeah. Every baby had burst onto the scene the same way. Ben, Kerry, Eve… all of them. If they’d been around when Faith was born, then maybe they would’ve felt the effect of a magical birth and known the difference – if any.
Faith, by all accounts, had barely murmured, even when the doctor had slapped her. She’d been there, taking it all in, even if she couldn’t really see anything. And when she’d been handed to Jenny she’d made straight for the breast.
Nothing changed there then, except whose breast she was latching on to nowadays.
Tara appeared at the door a few moments later, a tear in her eye but Willow knew it was happiness. Nothing was wrong. Not with the baby, not with Toni.
“Well done, love,” she said, kissing her woman.
“I didn’t do much,” Tara said.
“Well,” Willow was willing to admit Tara had been a latecomer, but she didn’t want to be underselling her contribution. “Toni refused to do what she did without you. So that makes you an enabler if nothing else.”
Tara smiled, kissed her again then turned to Mal. “Come on, Daddy.”
“Just a moment,” Mal was busying himself with nothing much. Not pushing it Tara let him off and gave Willow a significant look.
She knew what she had to do. “She wants you,” Willow prompted him as Tara went back into Toni’s room. “So what’s wrong?”
“I was just wondering if it’d change anything?” Mal asked. “What do you think?”
“Just
everything, I think,” Willow said. “I thought you might have noticed that by now.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ah,
that.They should’ve guessed when Toni got her college scholarship and went on to take a law degree. After her Olympic medal, sponsorship hadn’t been hard to come by. She was young, pretty and represented more than one minority group. Harvard Law had probably been just what her eventual employers had wanted to see on her resume.
They should’ve guessed back then, done something about it.
All that time she’d been maintaining her intention to work as a public prosecutor though. Okay, Toni had never really seemed like the defence attorney type. But none of them had ever figured that she’d
always intended to join Wolfram and Hart. The L.A Office too. Mentored by the then semi-retired Holland Manners.
But it should’ve been obvious to them. They should have seen it and done something sooner. Before it was too late to do anything at all.
There was something the law firm had that Toni wanted though – something no one else could give her.
Even fifteen years after his death she still wanted her Dad back. How did you deal with something like that? They’d had to let her ditch her athletics career after just one Olympics, one World and a few nationals. To go to work for the enemy. Her silver medal success had become no more than a stepping-stone to full scholarships and academic success.
Mal’s being back in her life - and by then he knew about both magic and nature of Wolfram and Hart – had seemed like a good thing, a safety net or even a way out for Toni. But he was plainly still worried about her. He was in their worry club.
“She said something once, or hinted I guess… I honestly think she wanted a baby so much in case something happened to her. At work, you know?” Mal said.
And he didn’t mean an accident in the workplace or carpal tunnel.
“She’ll be fine,” Willow reassured him. “She’s good at what she does.” And while that was true, she – they – worried too.
“But you know what she’s like,” he said. “What if she refuses to do something…?”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” Willow said. She was almost more worried about what would happen if Toni
didn’t refuse to do something. Where would that lead her?
And about the things she’d already agreed to that they didn’t know about.
“Maybe, with the baby she’ll stop wanting him…” Mal didn’t sound like he believed it either. “Maybe, if I asked now… she’d resign?”
“No!” Willow came right up to him, so close she forced him to take a step back up against the wall. She was shorter than he was, but she made him stay there. Made him listen. He needed to understand this.
They'd seen a copy of the contract Toni had signed. Called in a lot of favours to get it.
She looked around, but there was no one to hear her. Except him – and he had to listen. To understand. “No, Mal. Look… if she resigns, if you ask her to, you’ll spend your entire lives looking over your shoulder. If your lucky. We can’t protect you forever, and you have your daughter to think about now.”
The child gave Wolfram and Hart another way to ensure Toni stayed with them. Which was probably why they’d let her work out of Boston for the last few months and why there was a healthy bonus waiting for her now the baby had been born. A crèche at the office. All sorts of ‘family friendly’ policies.
They liked family because it gave them control. Assurances of loyalty.
“Daughter?” he asked, surprised. “How do you know?”
She just looked at him – what did he think Tara had been doing all these months?
“Oh yeah, I thought… we thought it was a boy?”
Willow laughed, genuinely amused. It broke the ice. How could he be so naïve? “Mal, sweetie, not in this family. No one’s coming to your aid. Not yours, not Rupert’s.”
Mal smiled, the news he had a daughter banishing his worries. At least for a moment.
“You know,” Willow said as he made for the door through to Toni and the baby. “We once wondered whether you were gay.”
Mal laughed. “No, I’m just a nice guy.”
Willow smiled. “Go see your little girl,” she said. “I’ll tell the others.” Tara had already let her know everything there was to know.
--------------
“Another girl?” Rupert asked, sighing. Just a little help, that was all he asked. Born now, of practical use in that regard in maybe ten years, as he entered his dotage.
Ben, his son, was a product of lots of female role models and three sisters – especially Faith whom he’d always idolised. When it came right down to it, Ben wasn’t reliable in the gender wars.
Mal had never been overly assertive when it came to such a conflict either. If he was to admit it to himself, Rupert knew Mal had suffered from the same influences as Ben over the past few years. And even if he hadn’t, he was usually on the other side of this continent the colonials called a ‘country.’
But a boy, raised with a mother, father and no sisters… He could’ve been a powerful force in the family politics. One day.
Still, never mind. Perhaps his grandchildren…
“What’s her name?” Eve asked from her position on his knee.
Their youngest daughter was perhaps the least likely to terrorise him into that dotage.
Faith had all but moved out – a fact that had already stopped no end of pointless mother/daughter clashes that Jenny wasn’t always the innocent party in.
Ben was now the bigger sibling influence in Eve’s life. Kerry, stuck in the middle, but still being young enough to resent her younger sister as a rival for their affections, was a lovely child. Apart from intermittently fighting with both her old brother and her younger sister.
Life certainly wasn’t dull just because Faith had left the nest.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Charlotte,” Ben said confidently. “That’s what Mal told me.”
“What Mal said doesn’t count,” Kerry said in a perfect imitation of her mother. Including sticking her tongue out at them.
There was a grain of truth in the assertion though. Who was it who’d claimed this was still a patriarchal society? From next summer until his retirement he’d have a woman as his boss – Tara to be precise. There’d been two female presidents in a row and it looked like happening again next year.
Oh, and there was the small matter of his family filling up with more and more girls. No problem there, it was only going to get tricky when they turned – as little girls did – into young women. All of whom knew exactly where the power lay.
The world – his world at least – couldn’t get much more matriarchal. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’ll be Sara,” Kerry said.
“I have it on good authority Toni was talking about ‘Ceri’,” Jenny said. “C-E-R-I,” she explained when the larger girl on her knee started to beam.
“What authority?” Willow asked.
“You have to ask?”
Willow shrugged. “Tara hasn’t said a word to me, but Mabel figured ‘Clare’ last time I spoke to her.”
Toni’s best friend, who Tara and Willow had once rescued, was well placed living out in L.A. But Willow’s information was probably based on conversations at least a month old.
No… Toni’s hunt for the perfect name had veered all over the spectrum, and not knowing the sex hadn’t helped them stay focused either.
All he was afraid of was that ridiculous habit the colonials had of naming their children after entirely the wrong things.
Girls, especially, shouldn’t be named after their grandfathers, boy band members, dogs or cars. Didn’t parents consider what their children would go through at school? They were – after all – such vicious little buggers to each other.
That was the main lesson he’d learned over the years of fatherhood and working in schools. The generic boy tended to be immature, aggressive and yes, sex obsessed once he reached a certain age.
The generic girl of a certain age had a natural talent for viciousness and was obsessed both with boys and their obsession with her.
As usual Faith was one of the exceptions that proved the rule. She'd never really done 'generic.' In anything.
She’d never been noticeably obsessed as such, nor terribly vicious. On the other hand – from a certain age - she’d always shown a healthy interest in
both boys and girls.
It’d never really been the sexuality or gender of those friendships that’d bothered Jenny – despite the unfortunate ‘don’t miss out on motherhood’ thing. Rather it had been the perceived
numbers of them.
Perhaps now Faith seemed more settled with Angela – and the young woman would soon join his daughter at college – mother/daughter relations would
finally settle down.
Or not.
It was a peculiar state of affairs. Faith had always been the most sensitive, self-assured of children – and she still was. But somehow her mother always knew how to rile her. And vice versa, of course.
It wasn’t even like they were 'enemies' and permanently at loggerheads. He genuinely believed there was real affection between them. But it was their inability to talk to each other for any length of time without Jenny criticising Faith that hurt them.
And Faith was far from blameless in it all. She provoked and drew the sort of comments she hated. And she bit back. Look at what she was making her mother believe about her at the moment.
Privately he thought both mother and daughter were stuck in a groove of behaviour towards each other that they couldn’t get out of. No matter what anyone said.
It was just as he’d been saying since Faith had been two years old. In looks, personality and too many other ways, they were too alike to get ever along easily.
Apart from her height – his one biological gift to his daughter – you could put a photo of Faith and her mother at the same ages side by side and not be able to tell the difference unless the clothes or hair gave it away. And that was the least of their similarities.
But just try and get either of them to admit it.
The main fault his wife found with Faith – or at least the one their inevitable arguments focused on – was her ‘friendships.’ There he was torn.
Yes, he’d be happier if Faith met the love of her life, say at thirty, and never did things he didn’t like to think about with anyone else. But Jenny was being a hypocrite about this. He knew, just as well as Faith did, that Jenny had been no different at the same age. Well, with the except of her gender preferences.
If anything, back when Jenny had been that age, it would’ve seemed ‘worse.’ Being a less permissive society than today.
He knew, because Faith had taken pains to ensure he did, that his daughter wasn’t the ‘slut’ – and he hated the word – she painted herself as to aggravate her mother.
Yes, there’d been a couple of years where boy and girlfriends had come and gone – and that was probably one of those unfortunate turns of phrase – with some regularity, but he tended to believe her when she said there’d been a real relationship with each of them.
That was who Faith had always been, and who she remained. She needed to
feel – not just to… feel.
Angela and Faith though… Those two shouldn’t have ever gotten along. Angela was the bigger surprise to him. With the exception of the open secret of her sexuality – and even he’d heard about that – he’d always thought of Angela as the very definition of a wallflower. Very private. Quiet. Introspective even.
Those traits were nothing to do with her sexuality, but no one could have expected that they’d lead Faith to liking her – and much more. Angela was so totally unlike anyone Faith had ever dated before that he just had to wonder what it was that drew them to each other?
But he supposed that if Jenny and Faith grated on each other because they were so similar, then maybe it was differences that pulled Angela and his daughter together. Perhaps opposites really did attract?
And thinking of the people he and his wife had been back when they’d met… Faith wasn’t exactly breaking new ground.
He rather hoped this relationship with Angela would last, not just for Faith, but also so that Jenny didn’t leap to the wrong conclusion when it failed.
If it failed.
The two girls had given themselves every chance though. They’d known each other long before romance had even entered their heads. And it was his considered opinion that they’d probably be good for each other – even as different as they were. That the couple they’d become would pick up the best qualities of both and reach a new balance.
And yes, it could quite possibly be good for his daughter’s relationship with her mother too. Which would make his life much, much simpler.
With the main bone of contention removed and with Faith settled, perhaps not wanting to alienate Angela… Maybe, just maybe things would settle down between them?
And maybe, just maybe, the torch of difficulty would pass to Ben or Kerry. There were a good few years of family drama to go yet, of that he was certain.
“We don’t want to rush her,” Jenny said, interposing herself between the family and the door to Toni’s room. “That’s what you all did to me last time.”
“Was that me?” Eve asked him.
“Yes, it was,” he confirmed, brushing her long hair back. “Sometimes you need to give Mummy a moment,” he said for the benefit of everyone else.
On the other hand Toni had been the main rusher on the occasion of each birth she’d been present for, so perhaps Karma was on the side of the impatient.
“Where’s Faith?” Willow suddenly asked, looking around at the group and finding the girl still missing.
He winced. Wrong question. Wrong time. He didn’t have to look at his wife to know she was on alert.
“She’s here? I’ll find her,” Jenny said, not waiting for an answer to the earlier question.
He gave Willow a look and she shrugged apologetically. He was caught though. He had a family to herd and the youngest of them on his knee.
*Sorry,* Willow signed across the room, but of course not one of the family missed it. They were all fluent.
“Oh, oh,” Ben said. “Mom’s going to kill her.”
“Well,” he said, prepared to be philosophical as he watched Jenny disappear on the hunt. “At least we’re here in the hospital. They’re used to mopping up blood.”
“Does Mom even know Angela’s here with her?” Ben asked, raising his eyebrows.
Oh dear.
---------------
“You’re not still thinking of nurses are you?” Angela asked with her hands wrapped in Faith’s long, dark hair.
All her girl could do was shake her head and moan a muffled “No.”
---------------
She knew her daughter. Faith wouldn’t have gone too far being as she had deigned to make an appearance here at all.
And if there was one thing still guaranteed to grab her attention it was going to be a new baby in the family. Not that she was allowed to say things like that anymore. Not after her much referred to, and maligned, statement.
It was just that she knew Faith would be such a great Mom, and she was as good with kids as Toni had been at her age. Better. She’d just be… great.
Instead of saying that though, everyone had her down as some kind of homophobe – at least when it came to whoever Faith was sleeping with. Her partner du jour.
Partner
s.The plural was where she really had a much bigger problem with Faith. And now they were saying a lot of what she thought she knew had been an exaggeration?
‘Exaggeration’ was a nice way of putting it, considering it was just another way to get at her.
Okay, Ben hadn’t actually said so, but she could still add up. If Faith
had been with Angela for the best part of a year and a half, then most of what she’d been so worried about was BS.
One thing she knew, even if Faith had been acting as wild as the rumours getting back to her had suggested, she’d never have been cheated. Especially not on someone like Angela. It’d hurt her so much that Faith wouldn’t ever take that chance.
So that told her it was all BS.
There weren’t many reasons Faith would let her think something like that. No, not just ‘let’ her –
make her think it. How many times had she associated Faith with the word ‘slut’? Just in her head?
And right now,
that was what was making her mad. Being lied to about something like that. What would make her do that? Did Faith hate her that much?
Then added to that, Faith had chosen
this moment to disappear?
They should be in there now, seeing the baby. But noooo.
Instead she was combing the corridors looking for a daughter who delighted in tormenting her. Who’d chosen to punish a mistake – and Jenny admitted it was a mistake – but by letting her believe all those things about her.
Eighteen months and Faith had never brought Angela home even once. Let alone said 'this is my girlfriend.'
She wouldn’t have said those things again – and she hadn’t needed Faith to teach her a lesson. As for Angela… little, quiet, Angela.
That girl had sat in her classroom and never said a word about Faith. Or what she was – presumably – doing with Faith.
She’d never said much - besides academic responses - period.
Nice girl, Jenny had to admit, not too many friends. Quiet. Well able, pretty smart actually, but she wasn’t one of those who begged to answer questions in order to prove it in class.
She wasn’t a ‘Willow.’ That was what they still called overachievers. Over the years it’d spread through the whole faculty lounge.
Angela and Faith? She just couldn’t see it.
Maybe there was a private side of Angela she’d never seen, though obviously Faith had.
Maybe the blind girl would blossom as much going to college, and with Faith, as she already had from being the gawky little girl who’d first come to the school with a seeing eye dog that looked much too big for her.
Or maybe she’d
already blossomed. There was certainly some kind of innuendo there if you reached far enough.
About the only non-academic thing she really knew about Angela was her dog was called Sukie. Oh, and the girl had been the first person in years to take advantage of the gay friendly atmosphere at the school to admit who she was while she was still there.
She was a girl who loved girls. Or, at the time, she’d wanted to.
Other than those memories, Jenny had trouble thinking of Angela as anything but sweet and virginal. Everyone did. Everyone but Faith, it seemed.
But she was sure her daughter had inside information.
There was some innuendo there too.
How could they keep this from her? Not just the relationship. How could they have told her such lies – or at least let her believe it…? They’d never actually
said anything.
And just how many of the extended family had known?
She could well imagine Faith had probably not ‘told’ anyone. But she’d have let it be known. That was what she always did.
Even Ben had known. And it sounded like Rupert had suspected – at the very least…
Tara and Willow? Why bother asking?
Well, someone - somehow - was going to pay.
Perhaps, looking back on it, her husband had been trying to tell her without ‘telling’ her? He’d never been too concerned about Faith’s apparent number of partners and he’d always counselled her not to fight with her daughter about it.
And she’d missed the signs. She'd just put it down to his traditional efforts to keep the peace.
She’d been fighting with Faith about one thing or another since her little girl had stopped being a little girl and started to blossom into being a young woman. Hadn’t their first fight stand-up fight been about needing a training bra?
Probably not, but that one stuck in her mind because it’d been out in the middle of the store.
She’d missed the signs about what was really going on because she’d been so used to fighting with Faith it'd become 'normal.' And it looked like Faith was happy to keep that pattern going. Or even make it worse.
Jenny wasn’t sure what she was madder about. Faith’s deceit, her own inability to believe anything but the worst about her daughter, or how far their relationship had fallen apart when – to everyone else – Faith was perfectly easy to get along with.
What was this though?
A seeing eye dog, all harnessed up and remarkably like Sukie, sitting looking intently up at a supply closet door?
This was one of these moments on the search you were supposed to go, 'Ahah!'
She eased the dog aside, receiving a wet snuffle in return. Then she tested the handle. It wasn't locked so she opened the door and was met by Angela’s unseeing eyes, wide in apparent ecstasy. She didn’t need – or want – to look down to know where Faith was.
Oh.
She could be diplomatic right? Even when she had every right to be mad as hell.
“Uhh-Who’s there?” Angela asked.
“Ah – um – Angela… It’s me. If you… see Faith, please tell her Toni had the baby. It's a girl.”
A muffled sound of shock emanated from below. But she wasn’t looking. No. No. No.
“Sorry,” she said at the same time as Angela.
Despite not once looking down she suddenly didn’t think she'd have any more trouble considering Angela something other than virginal. No, that image was gone forever.
“Bye,” she said, and shut the closet door on them.
There were things parents, and children, should not see. Prime amongst them was the other having sex – of whatever variety.
Well…
She looked down at the politely waiting Sukie. "You're supposed to be a smart dog, why didn't you warn me?"
Sukie just looked up at her then licked the back of her hand.
"Well… At least she’s good at it."
Mortified silence in the closet was followed by near hysterical giggling. Strangely, Jenny found she was pleased they could laugh together as well as connecting in other ways.
She walked away, they'd be down soon enough.
-------------
“Do you think we should go down there separately?” Angela asked, plainly nervous now they'd come out of the closet.
“I think we’ve gone down enough for it not to matter,” Faith said, squeezing her girl’s arm possessively, and she hoped reassuringly. “Or at least I did.”
“Stop it!” Angela protested. “It’s not funny. Your Mom walked in on us – on me – you - ”
“What?”
“You know,” Angela said.
“I
do know, but I want you to say it.”
“Why?”
“Because I promise you, we’ll never have to be ashamed with these people. They're my family,” she said.
“Exactly – yours.”
“You’d prefer it’d been
your Mom?” The grimace was all the answer she needed. “They can be your family too,” Faith said. “If you like.”
Angela stopped. “Faith, are you offering to actually introduce me to them?”
Faith could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks, fortunately Angela couldn’t see it. But the soft hand that was raised to rest there would feel the heat and know the difference. “They all know you anyway.” But that wasn’t the point. She’d kept Angela at arms length from them to avoid the ‘Mom-thing.’
“You know what I mean,” Angela said.
“Yes, yes I am offering. But only if you say it.”
“Say what?”
“What Mom caught you doing,” Faith said.
“Me? You were the one doing the doing, I was just being done.” Angela was trying to make it sound as if there was some real significance to the distinction. Perhaps she was also hoping that’d be enough to get her off the hook?
With no other reason for this beautiful girl to be here, Faith knew she’d have to introduce her as her girlfriend, but that didn’t mean she had to make it easier for the girl she loved now did it?
“Well, you’re beautiful when you’re being done,” Faith said.
“You always say stuff like that!” Angela protested.
Once upon a time she hadn’t even known whether 'fruity talk' was going to cause problems between them. If she’d had to watch her P’s and Q’s. But from a reaction that’d once been a little milder than horror they’d progressed to an amused exclamation.
Oh, and hearing it definitely did something for her girl. Whisper dirty little words in her ears in the throes of passion and wow, did Angela respond. More than anyone she’d ever known. Perhaps it was the increased importance of the other – non-visual – senses?
Perhaps she just liked spicy talk at the perfect moment.
“It’s always true,” Faith replied. “Now say it. You know how I like to hear you say it.” Angela wasn’t the only one who liked the spiciness.
“I know how much you love to
make me say it,” Angela complained.
“That too, now come on. Say it. As Tara always said to me, if you’re doing it – or being done – you ought to be able to say it. At least to me,” Faith said. “Please.”
They stopped in the corridor again and Angela looped her arms around her neck. There was a kiss between every word. “Your. Mom. Caught. You. Going. Down. On. Me. In. A. Hospital. Closet.”
“Oh no, baby,” Faith said. “That’s not it at all. My Mom caught you
coming in a hospital closet.”
“I didn’t quite get there,” Angela said, just a little shy.
“Don't worry, I’ll take you back,” Faith said. “I promise.”
“Not to the closet?”
“No, not there.”
“I love you,” Angela said, and those were the words Faith really loved to hear.
“You’re beautiful when you say that too,” she said.
“I love you,” Angela repeated, threatening to break into a giggle. “Even when you float…”
Okay, that’d been an unfortunate accident that’d scared the crap out of Angela and spoiled a moment that really shouldn’t have been spoiled. She was more careful now, even when her lover made her lose control to that extent. Somehow it hadn’t mattered to Angela so much once she’d understood just
why it’d happened.
“And I love you, but come on… we’re going to tell everyone what they already know,” she said, suddenly bolder.
“And see the baby?” Angela asked.
“That too,” Faith teased. “If we have chance.”
They walked on a little, hand in hand. “Do you think she’ll let me hold her?” Angela asked.
“If Toni lets anyone hold her, she’ll let you,” Faith said. The poor mite was in for a few days of pass the parcel. Holding the baby, having that sense of her, was important to Angela. Otherwise she really would be blind, listening to everyone else coo.
Plus it was a baby.
“Faith?” Angela asked after a few moments.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing.”
Faith smiled. “I know what you were going to ask, and the answer’s ‘yes.’”
“It is? You do? Wait – what was I going to ask?” Angela challenged.
“You were going to ask if one day I’d like kids,” Faith said. “And the answer is ‘yes.’”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Whether they’d be theirs or not, it was way too early to say. But she had a good feeling whenever she was with Angela, and there were always possibilities. She was pleased that saying ‘yes’ hadn’t aroused her girlfriend’s insecurities though. Angela also understood that there were possibilities.
Anything was possible. Anything. One way or another.
Leaving Sukie at the door, she led Angela into Toni’s room to find everyone clustered around the bed. Unlit cigars hung out of Mal and Rupert’s mouths while everyone else hugged, cried and blocked views the new arrival and her Mom.
“We’ll tell them later,” Angela whispered. “Okay?”
No.
“Come on, come on, make a hole,” Faith demanded pushing their way to the end of the bed.
“Faith!” Toni said, sounding brighter than she looked. Poor thing.
She got down by the bed, kissed her one time babysitter and ‘big sister’ on the cheek. Then she looked into the eyes of the newest member of the family, already clutching at Mommy. “Hey Toni, you did it.”
“Yeah,” Toni said. “I really did. How are you?”
“Oh,” Faith looked up at the people around the bed before turning back to Toni. “Mom just caught me and Angela getting… together in the closet – how’s your day been?”
“About the usual,” Toni joked. “Laundry, cleaning, my waters broke and I had a baby. Nothing special.”
Faith kissed her again. “You did it.”
“I really did – we really did.”
“So how’s my little niece?” Faith asked, inserting her little finger into the baby’s tiny fingers, pleased to feel them clutch around it.
“Beautiful,” Toni said.
Faith scoffed. “Well, obviously. All the
girls in this family are.” She stuck her tongue out at her brother when he did the same. “What’s her name then?”
Toni looked at Mal, who must’ve nodded, though Faith couldn’t take her eyes from the baby. “We like Charlotte.”
“Hmm,” Faith said. “Yeah, she looks like a Charlie. Yes, you do.”
“Charlotte.”
“That’s what I said, Charlie.”
“It’s Charlotte.”
“Toni,” Faith said, “I love you, and you know I’d do anything for you. But you have to know we’re all going to call her Charlie – you included.”
Everyone around the bed nodded.
“Yeah,” Toni sighed. “I know.”
“So, Charlie it is.”
------------------
She didn’t check in as often as she’d used to. She had better things to do than spend this existence being a voyeur. She’d always been into
doing rather than watching. Especially when it came to these people.
One of the advantages of being dead was that you didn’t get any older, just wiser. Or at least more experienced. True voyeurism when it came to the living people who’d been her friends wasn’t anything to write home about anyway.
The Giles’ were, lets face it, older than they’d already been when she’d known them. And everyone else who knew how to really enjoy themselves was enjoying their own gender. Something else that’d never really done anything for her.
She still had hopes for the kid who’d been named after her though. She looked good in leather and the cigar, she had to admit, was a nice touch. But even that Faith had found her Sapphic side.
Wiser see? Once she’d just have called the girl a 'dyke.' Now she knew words like 'Sapphic.'
Tara and Willow... nah.
Perhaps Ben. He was growing up cute, obviously because he’d inherited everything but his height from his Mom. She did like a tall man, unfortunately they were on the other side of the veil from each other, and she wasn’t going to wish him harm just to fix that.
Besides anyone that cute and buff was almost certain to grow up gay too. There were still a few years for him though. Whether he’d turn into a stud muffin worth keeping an eye on was still up for grabs.
Looking in on them, their enlarging family, she remembered that once she’d have felt a twinge of jealousy at not being a part of it. Not now, like all bad things it wasn’t part of her nature here in the ever-after. Here you just remembered those feelings; they weren’t a part of you.
It was one of her few regrets. Some of those feelings had been… motivational.
Her other regret was not having known what it’d been like to be a part of that family. When she’d been Tara’s friend that’d been all it was. Rupert and Jenny had been good to her, better than most of the Slayer’s hereabouts had known. But she’d never quite had that family thing they all had now.
“Spying again, Faith?”
She smiled to herself, at least used the mental commands that’d used to make her smile. Up here, with no meat body or brain, existence was simply the self-image she wanted to project. And dying at eighteen had the advantage of not needing to change much about that self-image.
She was still the hottest chick around – though that Helena had given her a run for her money.
The observation, as usual, was made by David. He’d been the first to greet her on arrival and he’d taken her under his wing. He’d been here longer than anyone else she’d ever met. Hooking up with him was always a pleasure. In every sense. Unlike most others, he knew how to make the lack meat bodies irrelevant.
Was he offering?
Probably – they were well suited and they had eternity in this reality to get bored of each other. No sign of that yet though.
“How do you feel?” he asked, peering at the same aerial view of her friends.
“You know how I feel,” she said.
“And you know that’s not what I meant.”
“Happy,” she said and linked her arm through his. “Wanna make me feel something else?”
“You only love me for my something else,” he said.
“Well, duh!” That and the size of his mental abilities.
She paused as he made to leave. One last look. “See you around T.”
“Coming?” David asked.
“I’d better,” she warned. But that was the other advantage of this reality. There was absolutely no such thing as bad sex.
She couldn't see herself getting tired of that anytime soon.
------------------
They stood outside, looking at the perfectly clear night sky. “Do you think there’s another star up there now?” Willow asked.
“I don’t think it works that way,” Faith called over.
“Shush you, smoke your cigar,” Tara said.
Faith, Mal and Rupert were a little way off, out of respect for the smoke. Cigars were traditional, but Mal had turned a little green when he’d lit up. Faith – on the other hand – hadn’t even coughed.
What did that say?
“Oh,” Willow said. “She’s such a baby dyke.”
“I heard that!” Faith called.
“You were supposed to,” Willow called back.
“I’m
not a baby dyke. I’m bi for a start.”
“Baby Bi doesn’t really work though,” Willow decided.
“I’m not a baby anything,” Faith insisted and puffed on the cigar for effect. “Hey, doesn’t this make you kind of like grandparents?” she asked, obviously with mischief in mind.
“No!” Tara, Willow and Rupert said together.
Not yet.
Willow turned to her girlfriend. “No regrets love?”
“Not a one. If we’d done a single thing differently, we wouldn’t be here – like this – now. And I like this, all of it,” Tara said.
“Life’s pretty good.”
“It’s what we made it.”
“Who’s next do you think?” Willow asked.
Tara gave Faith a significant look.
“Really?” Willow sounded doubtful.
“I think she’s in love, and I know Angela is,” Tara explained.
“She told you?”
“Just
look at them. I think they kinda look like we do,” Tara said.
“Fated?” Willow asked.
“Could be.”
Willow looked. While she wasn’t certain she’d go that far, it was obvious from Faith that Tara was at least partly right. “Let’s go say our goodbyes,” she said.
“Yeah, it is late.”
“It’s not that, you’ve been away for a few days and I want you to show me what fate’s really about.”
“Again?”
“And again.”
“Always.”
Tara looked up, frowned slightly and then smiled.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Tara said. “We’re five by five.”
THE END
****************
Author's Note from 2011 - Sidestep does actually continue in a new thread also available in completed fic archives 'Sidestep: Third Chronicle' though when the feedback came in for this posting that certainly wasn't going to happen