It was a glorious day for a party.

Dawn Summers stood in her backyard, surveying the sunny sky and warm summer breeze. The grass was green. The leaves fluttered gracefully like in a movie. Dawn herself was contributing cute strappy sandals and an appropriately summer dress to the general festive atmosphere. And what was her sister doing? Using that super-power strength of hers to wrestle a large, rubbery, smothery sun-blocking tent into place on their lawn.

"Geez," greeted Dawn. "Paranoid much?"

Buffy tapped a stake into the lawn with her foot, attaching the tent ring to it with an trimphant snap. "With our luck? I don't think so. It could rain."

Dawn nodded seriously. "Oh, of course. I should go tell Norman Rockwell that before he gets too comfortable in the idyllic fairy-tale sunshine."

"Sun as in Sunnydale," said Buffy. "As in Hellmouth. Things happen to us. I mean, we're already tempting the fates just by even having lives good enough to celebrate. I have covered all the bases. I am taking no chances."

"Right," said Dawn. "Because the forces of evil could really be stopped by a crappy tent if they were hell-bent on wreaking... well, hell."

"Don't give them any ideas," said Buffy sternly. Then she broke into a grin. "Giles!"

He slid beside them with a shy smile. "Covering all the bases, are we?"

"Well, forces of evil, you know how it is. Just making sure. Wow, you look yummy. Brown's a really good colour on you." She leaned in for a smooch.

"Hey!" said Dawn. "Standing right here, people! Can we please save that for times when I'm NOT standing right here?"

Buffy and Giles traded amused glances. "It's my party," she quipped. "And I'll smooch if I want to."

"And we should try to get SOME fun in before the forces of darkness conspire to ruin it," added Giles, poker-faced.

"Ooooh, good point. Kiss me?"

Dawn scrunched shut her eyes, then opened them a moment later for just long enough to scuttle for the door with a pained "I should check on the food."

When she was out of eyesight, Buffy drew Giles away from her and took him in with a delicious smile. "You really do look fab," she told him.

"Well, it IS our anniversary," he said. He gave her a shy smile. "I still can't fully believe it. One year together. I still remember that day you came home from the apocalypse and decided to live again. To live...and to love."

"Well, what's life without THAT? Gotta go for the whole package, you know? And to think... you were sitting right in front of me all that time, and I never even knew how much you meant to my life until I didn't have one."

His eyes grew distant. "Yes. Right."

She winced and did her best to backpedal. Talking about her life was one thing. Talking about her deaths was another thing altogether, and she knew how that topic upset him. "But hey, enough about that. I did come back, and I did grow up and I did move on... and there you were, when I was ready."

"Yes," he said slowly. "There I was."

"I told you how much I needed you. To be my Watcher... to be my friend... and you told me we should take it slowly. We should see where it goes."

"Yes," he said, his voice growing stronger again.

"And where it went was that night a year ago today... in the E.R. of all places."

His mouth quirked into the beginnings of a smile. "What a sight we were. Me, covered in demon puss and half-concussed, and you, bloody but unbowed... dove in to save me."

"I just went crazy," she remembered fondly. "When I saw that Kantha demon knock you into that vortex thing, I didn't know where he came from, but I did know I couldn't lose you... that you couldn't die... that I needed you. That you were... slowly but surely... not just a watcher, not just a friend, but... my life."

He beamed full-out, face saggy and sentimental. "My girl."

Behind them, they heard the sounds of exaggerated gagging. "Dawn," sighed Buffy.

"And Xander and Anya and Willow," her sister added cheerfully, making way for the others. "And... hey, who's that?"

The stranger was lingering at the fringes of the yard, hugging a cloak around a pinched, awkward body and looking anxiously around her. Buffy tensed away from Giles, on full alert. "Told you it would rain," she muttered. Then she approached the woman.

"Can I help you?"

The woman spun, bright pink hair whipping in sticky strands around her pale, drawn face as she looked past Buffy to the group of revelers.

"I'm looking for Giles," she said. "Rupert Giles. I am told he's living here? I... I need to see him. That is, I..."

She staggered a little as if suddenly dizzy, and lost her grip on the cloak. They saw it now: the woman was pregnant. Hugely, massively, obviously -- and it, it appeared, alarmingly uncomfortably pregnant.

The stranger's breath came in anxious, hitching gasps. "It's his," she managed. Then she passed out.

**

Buffy backed away with slow, careful steps.

"What did she mean by that?" She faced the others with wide, panicked eyes. "What did she mean?"

Willow gulped awkwardly. "I think she meant... " She pointed to the woman's stomach. "I think she meant that the... well, that it's..."

"Should we check on her?" interrupted Dawn. She leaned forward for a closer look. "I mean, if she's... we really shouldn't leave her on the ground like that."

But the woman was already rousing. "Oh gods. Is he here? Did I find him?"

He stepped forward. "I am here."

"Praise the heavens, at last." She propped herself up on her elbows and took him in with a sudden smile. "Damn. You look good!"

He ignored the low growl from Buffy, and knelt down beside her. "I wish I could say the same for you, Kalyn. Are you quite all right?"

"Long trip is all. Let me just rest a moment and get my bearings."

Buffy had been watching the exchange with an odd expression. "So that's her name, is it? Kalyn?"

Giles nodded. "Buffy, I..."

"So where'd you meet her? Where was I while your little... affair... was going on, huh? Where was I?"

"Buffy, I didn't... that is to say, I'm as stunned as you are. I certainly wasn't expecting... well, this sort of... visitor."

The round, protruding stomach peeked up at them like a taunt.

"Yeah, well, I guess that's what happens when you cheat on your girl with some cheap pink-haired hussy!" pounced Buffy, growing more worked up by the minute. "Giles, how could you?

"I didn't," he said.

"She's pregnant, Giles."

"It would appear so, yes."

"And it's yours?"

"So she claims."

"Is it YOURS, Giles?"

He considered for a moment, than with sudden calm, he answered. "It is entirely likely."

She sank to her knees with a choked "Oh god."

"Although," he continued smoothly. "Not entirely in the way you might be thinking."

She looked up at him with wide, wounded eyes. "You cheated on me!"

"I did not."

"We've been together for a year, Giles. A year today! It only takes nine months to make a baby."

"Indeed it does," he said. "For a human."

It took a moment for the implication to sink in. "She's a demon," said Buffy. "You're telling me she's a demon?"

He locked eyes with Kalyn. "May I?" he said. She nodded, and he bent down beside her, gingerly lifting a corner of her bulging shirt. They could see now that her stomach was a pink to match her hair, and it was shiny---almost metallic---like an exoskeleton. In its centre was a large proboscis-like cavity that dripped with sticky mucous which had, in several places, crusted over in chapped little sores that, even on a demon, looked unhealthy.

"She doesn't look so good," Willow observed.

"I agree." He pointed to the large black cavity in the centre of her stomach. "Her membrane looks infected. We need to take care of this."

"So should we take her inside?"

"You dated a demon," said Buffy. Her eyes were glassy and round, shock clearly setting in. "You had SEX with a demon!"

"A fact which is, right now, the least of our worries. It was a long time ago, Buffy."

She flashed briefly back to alertness. "How long?"

He looked helplessly at Kalyn, then with slow deliberation took Buffy's hands in his own. "I have not had 'sex' with Kalyn in 20 years," he said. "I haven't even seen her in 20 years."

"You're telling me she's been pregnant for 20 years?"

"Not entirely. And she shan't be pregnant for much longer if we leave her lying on the ground. "Let's go inside," he said. "We'll take care of you," he told Kalyn. "And we'll take care of YOU," he told Buffy. "We'll get this all straightened out, somehow."