Angel was over the moon.

He absolutely adored each and every one of the babies. He changed them, fed them, played with them, and bathed them more often than Cordelia or Wesley could have ever imagined. They were both baffled by his behaviour, but over the two weeks that they'd had the babies, they'd learned to appreciate his attentiveness. This way they could still run the business, and all Angel had to do was go out and kill the baddie. That was when they took control of the kids. It was a welcome and convenient system as far as Cordelia was concerned. She enjoyed every little morsel of normalcy she could get her hands on, even if it was paying the bills or organizing the filing system to her liking, while Wesley whiled away the hours researching and doing Wesley-ish things.

Still, she knew that her life would never be the same now that she was a mom. Mom. Thinking about it still wigged her out, but she was slowly getting used to the idea. The rugrats were even growing on her. They'd started developing their own unique personalities, and on more than one occasion Cordelia had caught herself wondering what they'd be like as they grew up. It was neat to imagine one or two of them becoming famous actors in the future, seeing as her career had taken an unexpected hiatus. She even had an idea which would be the likeliest to follow in their mother's footsteps: Baby C, who just had to be the center of attention (when one of her siblings was getting attention, she started to cry until she got it too), and maybe Baby E, the charmer of the bunch.

The instant she realized that she'd automatically called her daughter and son 'Baby C-and-E, she decided enough was enough. They'd been casually suggesting names over the past couple of weeks, but none had stuck. It had gone on long enough, she thought. It was about damn time to give the kids actual names. The timing couldn't have been better either, because all of the kids were napping in the apartment downstairs.

Calling Angel out of his office and dragging Wes away from his books, Cordelia got down to business. "We are going to sit down right now and name these babies." The tone of her voice was one both men knew well. It meant that she would not take no for an answer -- not that they were about to argue. They both agreed that names were necessary.

Angel immediately pulled up a chair. "Good. I've been thinking about that lately, too."

"Any ideas?" She asked, pulling out a pad of paper, pen poised and ready to write.

"Um, Sean, Kieran, Eamon-"

"Eamon? I can't even spell that. And I dated a Sean once, so that's out. Kieran, maybe." She wrote the name on her pad under Boys. "You do know you can suggest some non-Irish ones, right?" She turned her attention to Wesley. "What about you? And don't give me any weird English names either," she cautioned before he could get started.

He just rolled his eyes and helped himself to one of the last donuts. "Fine. I like the names Jonathan-"

"Jonathan Chase," she tried it out, shook her head. "Sounds too pretentious."

"Anna-"

"Too old-fashioned."

"James-"

"Too common."

"Caleb-"

"Too.... actually, I like that one." She wrote it down on the list, along with a few of her choices.

"What was that?" Wesley demanded, annoyed with the way she'd shot his down. Angel leaned forward and tried to snatch the notepad from her hands, but she held it out of his reach. "Forget it, mister. If you must know what they are, I'll read them." She listed the names she'd added, and for each one, either Wes or Angel had a reason they didn't like it.

"Fine," she huffed. "I assume you have a better suggestion?"

They thought they did, but an hour later they had only agreed on two names, one of Wesley's picking, one of Angel's. Frustrated with the utter lack of progress, Cordelia came up with a compromise. "This is getting us nowhere. Why don't we just divide them up, each gets to name a girl and a boy? If we really, really hate the names then we'll negotiate, but otherwise we live with it. Deal?"

The guys took a second to think it over, but in the end they agreed. This time she had the foresight to realize that there would be much argument over who got what baby, so she wrote A-F on pieces of paper and balled them up, making the decision totally random. They all drew a piece from the boy and girl piles. Cordelia ended up with Baby D and Baby B, the first one of her children that she ever held. Angel got her two little actors to be, calling them Darren and Bridget, and Wesley chose Caleb and Libby -- named for his grandmother -- for his two.

But she couldn't just pull a couple of names out of the air like the guys. She needed to pick a name based on their personality. She didn't tell the boys why she needed time to think about it because she thought her reason might come off as silly, and Cordelia Chase was not silly.

It took her three days to make her decision, and in that time she watched her two more closely than she'd ever watched any of them. By doing it, she learned a great deal about her children. Baby D was probably the most unique of them all simply because she refused to do anything that her siblings did. When they all slept, she was wide awake. When they ate, she wouldn't open her mouth for anything. When they got cranky or playful, she was just the opposite. She was different and unique, so that was the type of name she needed. In the end, Cordelia decided on Ivy.

Baby B was pretty unique in his own right. He was the calmest of the bunch, the most curious. All he did all day was look around at things, studying them so hard Cordelia thought he was filling his diaper half the time. Then one day she heard the name Noah on TV and decided that it was perfect for him.

So there they were: Libby and Noah, Ivy and Darren, Bridget and Caleb. All with names, all with identities, and all with three barely competent parents.

All Cordelia knew was that it would take a miracle for the nine of them to last even just a month without any casualties.

And she knew from personal experience that miracles didn't exist.

.............................................................................................................................................................

Gidgetgirl: good call on the naming thing!

ReganX: that's a good idea, having them star in commercials. Thanks!