Baby finished making his notes from the meeting and closed the padfolio, tucking it under his arm for safe keeping as he walked. He fell into pace with one of the other secretaries who was walking past and talking about her new pregnancy.

"I'm only three weeks and they said I won't start feeling movement until I was around two months. I can't wait!"

The other secretary, a tall woman with dark hair and eyes stared down at Baby as he joined them. "Hey, sugar, finished in the meeting?"

"I am," Baby chirped, grinning at the short, full blonde. "You're having a baby?"

"Yea, just found out today. It's exciting."

"It sounds like it!"

The tallest of the group stopped for a cup of water, brushing past a man in a lab coat. "I'm so happy for you."

"Yea. You know, I've always wished I could have a baby. Unfortunately boys can't have babies. But I'd love to be a mommy! All big and round and fat and pregnant! And then I'd have a baby! And it would be all small and cute and cry! And then I'd have to change diapers and give it bottles and..." He stopped, sighing. "Guess it just wasn't meant to be!"

The greasy looking man looked up from the pad he was scribbling on, and snorted under his breathe, "Bah! Male pregnancy is easy."

Baby blinked. "You're... you're a scientist and not a doctor, so I'll tell you that boys don't have a uterus."

Professional pride pricked, "I am both and it's easy. All it requires is hormone treatments and a little device. If you've got a donor egg. Now making an egg. That's a challenge."

"Well where would I get an egg from??" Baby's brow furrowed and he cocked one of his hips, a balled fist resting against it.

"Oh, any fertile woman will do," he answered peevishly, adjusting his glasses and looking back down at his chart.

"Well I don't [iwant[/i a woman's ANYTHING inside my body," he huffed, pert nose lifting an inch or so higher as he walked past. "Congrats, Cindy. Good luck."

"Then have on made from your genetic material," he snapped.

Baby whipped over his shoulder, turning to face the old man. "Need I remind you that, in fact[imen[/i do not have [iuteruses[/i." He paused, considering his usage. "Uteri? Uterusi? Is there a good plural for that?"

"There isn't a good plural and I just told you that male pregnancy is easy." He shook his pencil at him. "You don't [ilisten[/i do you?"

"One would say it's hardly commonplace for men to have babies." He was hooked, his face changing slightly in expression from reserved and distant to playful and almost innocently seductive.

"No. It's never actually been done in humans. I invented the techniques year ago for a paper before I moved on to more advanced science." His jaw moved like he was chewing something. "It's easy," he repeated.

"What would one do in place of a uterus? Isn't that necessary for the development of a child? Doesn't it have the nutrients and protection a child would need?"

"Hormone treatments prevent the child -- implanted into the lining of the abdomen -- from being destroyed by the host body. A device, implanted at the same time as the embryo functions as an artificial womb. It doesn't even need to be implanted in anyone anymore now that I've perfected it following the un--" He stopped his train of thought.

Baby's head canted and he bounced up on his toes. "Perfected it following the...?"

"Following complications of another experiment. Nothing that would come up with a normal embryo." He looked back down and began taking notes, a new idea coming to him. Baby was forgotten. "Separate... X-chromosome from sperm..." he muttered, finally falling completely silent.

Baby stood for a moment, blinking and waiting for him to continue and when he didn't, the boy turned and headed off to lunch.

When he returned from lunch, there was a message left on his desk. Once Baby got past the science babble, it basically stated there was an experiment that the head of the Science Department would like him to participate in. There was a phone number scrawled at the bottom.

Baby blinked at it for a few moments before picking up his phone and dialing the number.

"Hojo," answered a familiar voice.

"I received a notice on my desk and was inquiring as to the service required."

"Oh! You. Do you have a father picked out for your baby?"

"Father? Wait, you're serious?" His mind raced. Would Maki actually go for something like this? "So... if he's sterile... would that... could you still do it?"

"Perhaps. It depends on what rendered him sterile and his health conditions. I'm not going to do this if he's genetically flawed."

"Genetically flawed!" Baby snorted, indignant.

"Well, he's sterile so something is wrong with him. Find out why he's sterile or pick another father."

"Can't [iyou[/i find out why he's sterile?? It never occurred to me that he was you know... that there could be... I'll call you back." He hung up the phone and dialed Maki.

"Yes, loverboy," the dark haired man answered, a deep purr in his voice he reserved only for his boyfriend.

"Cute." Baby was instantly placated, twirling the cord to the phone around his index finger. "So... I have something to talk to you about. Can you meet me for lunch?"

"Baby, I always meet you for lunch."

"Yes, but somewhere... a little more private. Like that little diner where we used to go."

"What, the one from our first date?"

"Yea. That one."

"Yea. Give me half an hour."

"Great. See you there."

Baby always looked fabulous, but took special care in his appearance for the meeting with his lover. This wasn't a conversation he'd ever thought he'd have with anyone and he thought adding that extra special touch might add the extra oomph he'd need to convince him to make a baby.

Maki arrived a few minutes earlier than Baby had intended, but he'd already gotten them seated at their table and had dinner ordered. Maki always got the same thing and Baby knew what he wanted. The tall, lithe man sat at the table with a smile. "Hey, so what's the occasion?" He gestured at the restaurant around them.

"Maki, I have a question to ask you. Well, two of them, but the first one is important. I've never asked before, but... What made you sterile?"

"I'm not sure. I've never asked. I've just always been that way. Why?"

"Just... curious. So... so could you still have babies?"

"Baby, I'm sterile. Of course I can't have children."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean you can't still HAVE children."

"Um, honey? Yes, it does."

"Well, damn!" he huffed, jamming his fist against his cheek and pouted. "That's no help at all."

"Baby, what's going through that think tank of yours?"

"Maki, I wanna have a baby."

He looked like a wild stallion staring at a man holding a rope. "Uh, okay..."

"And I want you to be the daddy, but you can't if you're sterile because there's something wrong with you!"

Maki blinked. "Uh... o-okay..."

"And then that ruins my chance at ever being a mommy!" He was getting more and more distressed as he talked.

So was Maki. "Um... oh. Okay. So. So what are you saying to me?"

"I'm saying that you're broken and now we can't have a baby!" he wailed, jamming the other fist into the opposite cheek.

Maki blinked hard, eyes wide with shock. "Baby, boys can't have babies."

"Professor Hojo says I can!"

"Yes, honey, and Professor Hojo is a crazy man," he soothed, patting Baby's arm. "Sweetheart, if you want a baby that bad, maybe we can adopt."

"But it won't be OUR baby, it'll be someone [ielse's[/i baby we own. That's not the same! I won't get all big and fat and pregnant."

"Yea, and I won't have to go through childbirth again. I do NOT want to hold someone's hand while they're delivering, Baby, they go psycho."

"I won't go psycho!"

"Um, but you're kinda going psycho [inow[/i."

"I am not psycho!" Baby cried, slapping his hand against the table. "I want a baby and I want you to be the father!"

Maki's eyes closed and his lips thinned as he tried to regain control of this conversation. He could feel the eyes of those around them in the resturant staring at them and whispering. "Alright, how about if I go and talk to Professor Hojo with you tomorrow about all of this and--"

"Today. After lunch."

"Uh...

Baby? We might wanna wait on that."

The blue eyed boy simply leveled a glare at his boyfriend that clearly said "my way, or else".

Maki nodded. "Alright. After lunch."

Hojo was eating his lunch in his tiny office, doors open so he could listen to the sounds of the lab outside. His assistants had all been sent home or to dinner.

The chatter began down the hall and continued, getting louder as he neared the office door. A small fist appeared and rapped on the door, still chattering away about babies and nurseries and clothes and names.

He looked up from his sandwich. "What? Oh. You. Did you bring it?"

"It? What 'it'?"

"The father."

"Yes, and his name is Maki."

"Hn." He sat his sandwich aside and stepped out of the office, blinking when he had to look up at Maki. "This way." He led him into the lab and came back with a specimen cup. He handed it to Maki and pointed, "There's a room with a sink over there."

The look on his face was priceless. "You're joking, right?"

He blinked. "How else am I going to find out what your sperm count is like?"

"Man, I thought I got out of the 'experiment on the tall boy' shit when I got away from my father." He walked into the bathroom and slammed the door closed behind him. Baby stood still for all of two minutes before he went off after him and slipped into the bathroom.

Hojo waited impatiently. How long did it really take to produce a specimen, anyway?"

They returned a short time later, Baby thrusting the cup into Hojo's hands. "How long until we know?"

"Oh, to see motility, about thirty seconds. For a full count, maybe ten minutes." He got to work, slid samples of it into various machines and put a slide on a microscope, barely glanced into it, then pulled up a video clip on a computer. "This is healthy sperm as it should look under a microscope. Baby, take a look under the microscope."

He put his eye down to the eyepiece and looked for a moment. "This is different. What's wrong?"

"I'll need to run some blood tests but there are a number of reasons the motility and number of healthy sperm are so low. Still, it's fairly easy to overcome with a small incision and direct introduction of the sperm to the egg. Egg! That's right." He handed Baby a cup. "If you please?"

"Well why didn't you... damnit. If I would have known." He went back into the bathroom and shut the door quietly. Maki tried to leave and was pulled back inside.

This time he waited patiently because he was running tests.

Baby came out quite a good time later and set the cup beside him. "I wish I would have known earlier."

"Known what earlier?" He was busily fiddling with machines. He picked up the cup and got to work, most of it frozen right away. He looked in the microscope. "Ah, excellent. Many and healthy. Almost spastically mobile, though. I'm going to need blood from you both, and then you can go."

Baby didn't bother answering and, instead, rolled up his sleeve. "Okay."

Hojo took blood from him, several tubes worth, and refrigerated them. He took from Maki next, and then looked blandly at the both of them. "You can go now. I'll call you when I'm ready for you."

"Okay!" Baby chirped, wrapping an arm through Maki's and leading him out of the labs, babbling once again about pregnancy and babies and clothing. Maki cast a look over his shoulder almost forlornly.