137

"Lorne, could I grab a minute of your time?" Angel flopped down into a chair, sure of the answer.

Lorne pushed a button on the intercom. "Hold my calls while the boss is in here, will ya doll?" He turned back to Angel expectantly. "What's on your mind, guy?"

"Remember when you did that reading on Spike just before the last time Rose was kidnapped?" Angel asked.

"I could hardly forget that one," Lorne replied. "It was the damnedest thing that ever happened to me."

"I remember you saying that there was something weird, but it wasn't bad," Angel commented. "We didn't really have time to go into it then, and things have been a little hectic around here since. I just now remembered and got curious."

"Yeah, well..," Lorne hesitated. "You're probably going to think this is pretty strange, even by our standards, either that or good ol' Lorne is ready for a long ride on the short bus, but I could have sworn I heard someone talking to me."

"Not Rose or Spike, I take it," Angel prompted.

"I think it was the little ones," Lorne blurted out. "They told me they know that Spike and Rose love them."

"Wait a minute," Angel protested. "That was about three weeks ago, and Rose was only about four and a half months pregnant. Children don't usually start talking till quite a while after they're born."

"Then you explain to me who said that," Lorne suggested. "C'mon fella, it's not like we don't already know that those kids are special, or at least, they're going to be."

"And maybe I just have trouble believing it because I'd like to get to see Rose have some nice, relatively normal kids to raise," Angel mused. He sighed. "I guess I ought to have known better." He started grinning. "How many times has Spike shown you those pictures?"

It was Lorne's turn to sigh. "I lost count the first day," he admitted.

&&&&&&&

Spike was wandering aimlessly down a hallway. Actually that wasn't entirely true. He was in search of a new victim to show the babies' pictures to. For some reason, people had been going out of their way to avoid him lately. Suddenly he found himself flanked by Fred and Harmony.

"We need to talk to you Spike," Fred said, looping her arm through one of his.

"We need to ask you a favor," Harmony corrected, claiming the other arm.

"What sort of favor?" Spike asked cautiously, a riot of wild images running rampant through his head.

"We want to borrow the keys to your place," Fred explained, then realized that the explanation didn't explain enough. "We want to have a baby shower for Rose, but we thought that maybe it might be best to have it at your place. Just in case."

"You'll let us do it, won't you, Spikey?" Harmony asked, turning on the charm, forgetting that it never worked all that well with Spike anyway. "If we don't have that shower soon, Rose is going to have the babies before we can get to it, and that would suck."

Spike allowed himself to relax a little. A baby shower. Harmless enough. Give Rose a little female companionship, which she didn't get much of. Give all the females a chance to do the baby-talk thing. "I already know the where," he remarked. "So I guess the question would be, when are you planning this? And am I right in thinking that's it's going to be an all girl occasion?"

"I've never seen a baby shower that wasn't." Fred answered the second question first. "As far as the time, do you have a problem with Friday evening? That way, Harmony and maybe someone else can slip out early and get the decorations up and the food ready, then we can all get there to surprise Rose. I was thinking of asking Wes to keep her in the office a few minutes late to give us all a chance to get there before her."

"I guess so," Spike mumbled. He then realized that he had no place to go on a Friday night. Certainly not the sort of spots he used to haunt of a weekend. "Bugger. What time will I be allowed to come back home?"

&&&&&&&&

Rose was just getting ready to leave the office Friday when Wesley waylaid her.

"Could I talk to you for a minute, Rose?" he asked. "It shouldn't take long, but I wanted to ask you a few questions about the way that you filled out those employee evaluations you did for me last month."

Rose sighed. It was Friday night, and she was longing to get out of the office for the weekend just like all the other humans. "It's taken you a whole month to realize that I did something wrong?" she asked.

"Oh, I didn't say that there was anything wrong, exactly," Wesley replied. "I just wanted to get your viewpoint on things, see why you said what you said."

"I didn't do them the way you would have so you want me to tell you why I did what I did?" Rose guessed.

"That sums it up fairly well," he answered. He started shuffling papers. "This won't take long," he repeated.

Rose stifled a groan.

&&&&&&&

"What's the deal, Spikester? Friday night and you're not hurrying up to your new love nest to spend the weekend with the light of your life?" Lorne was a little surprised. Usually, Spike and Rose were nearly inseparable.

"Can't," Spike mumbled. "Baby shower tonight. My presence is not welcome till later in the evening. Probably in time to give a hand with the clean-up."

"So, do you have plans, or are you at a loose end?" Lorne asked.

"Haven't got a sodding idea what I'm gonna do for the next few hours," Spike admitted. "I was even getting desperate enough to think about going to wind my poncey grandsire up out of sheer boredom."

"I was just about to go home and rinse the taste of Wolfram and Hart out of my mouth," Lorne said. "You're welcome if you want to come along and hoist a few."

Spike thought about it for a moment. He got along with the Pylean as well as some, and better than most. "Why not?" he replied. "Gimme something to do while the hen party goes on."

"That's the spirit." Lorne slapped him on the back. He paused a moment, taking a mental inventory. "You know, I might be a little low on supplies. Maybe we ought to stop at the liquor store first."

"Never been something that I've had a particular problem with," Spike replied. "Lead the way, Lorne."

&&&&&&&

Rose was surprised not to see Spike on her way up. Most days, they met at the elevator to their suite. Maybe he had something extra he had to do for work, she thought. Poor darling, he would probably be so tired when he got home. Maybe she should have a nice cup of blood ready for him when he got in. He'd probably be needing it.

She fumbled with her key in the lock. She wasn't used to the unusual mechanism yet, and found it to be troublesome. Maybe she should suggest to Spike that they get something more conventional and a little easier to deal with. She was in no way prepared when she stepped into the apartment and found herself standing in the middle of a flurry of confetti.

"Surprise!" Rose blinked her eyes, there was a piece of confetti stuck to one eyelash. What was going on? There was Fred, and Harmony and Stasia. Anna Monroe and Vicky Spears she recognized from her own department. And the other woman, who was she? Rose thought she was one of the staff witches, but she hadn't been introduced. "What's going on?"

Harmony came up and hugged her. "It's a baby shower, silly," she said. She leaned down and said, "Auntie Harmony loves you," to Rose's stomach. She seldom missed a chance to talk to the babies.

Rose's brow furrowed. "I thought you were supposed to bathe babies, not give them showers," she murmured in bewilderment. "And wouldn't that be a little awkward now?"

&&&&&&&&

"Here's to the ladies, god bless 'em." Lorne raised a glass with a noxious looking murky green liquid in it. "The world would be a much drearier place without 'em."

"To Rose." Spike took a swig from the bottle of whiskey he'd adopted. No matter what sort of toast Lorne proposed, that was Spike's answer. He looked at the clock, but couldn't tell the time. Silly thing was all blurry. "What time is it?" he asked.

"About five minutes since the last time you asked," Lorne replied. He decided to try to get Spike off the subject. "Have you two lovebirds discussed any names for the wee tikes yet?"

"Oh, there've been discussions," Spike muttered. "Agreements is what we seem to be short of. Rose is being incredibly stubborn."

&&&&&&&&&&&

"Spike is just being so stubborn about names," Rose said in reply to a question about the babies names. "He doesn't like anything that I come up with."

"Tell you what, sweetie." That was Anna from her department. Rose hadn't really gotten to know her too well. One thing she knew now was that she was a giggly, sly tabby. "Pick out whatever names you want. When you're at the hospital, they'll ask you what you want to name them. You can have whatever you want on the birth certificate before he realizes that you've pulled a fast one."

"But they're Spike's children too," Rose pointed out. Such an idea would never have occurred to her, even if she had been cognizant of hospital routine. "Surely he should have some say in what to name them?"

"You don't want to let him walk all over you, though," Harmony said. "You do let him get away with an awful lot, Rose. After all, you're the one that's pregnant. And you're the one that's probably going to be doing most of the dirty work when the babies are born. Spikey ought to show you a little more consideration."

"I think he showed a great deal of consideration, defying the rules and risking his life to go to another dimension to save her." That was her new acquaintance. Zelda, that was her name. Rose liked her. She was very nice.

"They've still got the better part of four months to come to an agreement," Stasia put in. "And if Spike wants to have some say in naming his children, maybe you ought to hear him out. There are a lot of men that won't even go to that much trouble. They think that once they've gotten a woman pregnant, all the rest is up to her."

"If your only choices are between despot and doormat," Vicky said. "Then despot is a lot easier, and you don't have people wiping their feet on you."

Rose looked to Fred to be the voice of sanity, but Fred was out in the kitchen attending to the refreshments. So much advice, and so much of it conflicting. What was she supposed to think?

&&&&&&&&&

Spike went to take another swig out of his bottle and was mildly surprised to find that it was empty. Surely he hadn't drunk that much, had he? If he had, he'd be drunk now. And he certainly wasn't drunk. He was going to ask Lorne his opinion and found that there were about three of him. Maybe he was a bit tanked.

A cell phone rang. Lorne fumbled in his pockets and pulled his out. "It's not mine," he remarked. "I didn't know you carried a cell phone, Spike."

"Don't," Spike mumbled. "It's Harm's. The ladies decided that we ought to have a way to keep in touch since I didn't know where I'd be tonight." He fumbled with the gadget. "Sodding hell," he swore. "How in bloody blue blazes do you work this thing?"

"Here, allow me." Lorne took the phone and activated it. He spent so much time on his own cell that he could go through the motions dead asleep. He handed it back to Spike. "You're on, guy," he prompted when Spike just sat there staring at it.

"Hello." Spike held the phone gingerly, as if it were a venomous snake about to bite him. "Yeah, Fred, what's happening? What?" His voice had gone up an octave. Lorne sat up and took notice. "Shit. I'll be right there."

"Wait a minute, oh peroxided one," Lorne pleaded. "You're in no condition to be driving."

"And are any of you?" Spike asked. "Doesn't matter. Rose needs me."

&&&&&&&

Fred met Spike at the door. "I'm sorry to have bothered you," she apologized. "But Rose got a little unstrung. Everyone is gone now except for Harmony and me."

"What exactly happened?" Spike, while not entirely sober, had had a lot of the effects of the alcohol wear off on the drive home. Nothing like being scared shitless to get over a drunk.

"Anna Monroe," Fred replied, with her little button nose in the air. "It's like she's one of those people who can't stand to see someone else happy, so she has to ruin things. When nothing else worked, she started telling Rose pregnancy and labor horror stories. Rose got a little upset."

Spike looked and saw Rose sitting on the sofa. Harmony was beside her with a protective arm around her. "Fred just threw her out," Harmony sniffed. "I wanted to beat her up." Of course, Harm's vampire ears had heard the whole thing. She turned back to Rose. "Hey, Rose," she cooed. "Blondie Bear is here to make things all better."

"I'm fine," Rose protested weakly. "Really I am." But the way her hands shook as she raised a cup to her lips suggested otherwise. Spike was shocked to see what was in it. They had decided to keep the whole thing a secret and here she was drinking blood in front of Harmony and Fred.

"You sure you're okay, pet?" he asked. "You look a little off color to me. And what are you doing with that?" He nodded towards what she was drinking.

"Harmony and Fred won't tell," Rose mumbled. "And after I got all upset, it seemed to be the only thing that would calm my nerves."

"I'm here to calm your nerves now," Spike said soothingly.

&&&&&&&&&

"Well, the cat is out of the bag with a vengeance," Lorne remarked. Angel had called a meeting first thing Monday morning.

Angel nodded. "We don't know why she feels the need for blood, but Spike seems to think that The Powers won't let anything go wrong."

"I can understand why you wanted to avoid office gossip," Wesley commented. "But why did you think that you had to keep it a secret from us?"

Lorne was looking speculative. "Sweetpea," he said to Rose. "When you first wanted that blood, was it just a feeling you had, or did they tell you?"

Rose looked shocked. "You heard them too?" she asked in amazement. "No one else has, not even Spike, and he listens all the time."

"Heard who too?" Spike queried. "You been keeping secrets from me, babe?"

"I was afraid that you'd think I was crazy," Rose confessed. "So, I didn't tell you."

"Who did you hear?" Spike still hadn't gotten an answer to that one, and it was seeming more important by the moment that he get one.

"Your kids, Spike," Lorne informed him. "They've already started talking. Precocious little nippers, aren't they?"