Hi people! I am so sorry I haven't updated in months; I just honestly have not been feeling it, until yesterday when I was suddenly hit by the urge. So I wrote sixteen pages, which then had to be split in to two chapters. So, as soon as this is posted I am going to edit the second part and it will be up very shortly, some point today. I borrowed a lot from Season 1 episode 11 and season 2 episode 10 here and in the next chapter, so some dialogue is my own and some is from the episodes. I hope that doesn't bore you, I promise I can be more creative then just using someone else's words and will do so in future. Please enjoy and then let me know. ;)

So this day had not gone at all as he had hoped; not that it had looked particularly bright when the first thing he'd had to do was call a cleaning crew to, well, clean up his "mess". He'd known Joss would be angry at his blatant disregard for her rules and feelings, but some part of him had thought he'd be able to deal with it. That he'd calmly explain to her what happened and why, even though he knew she would be anything but calm, he'd thought she would listen. But the look on her face, the pure anger and disgust and hurt had taken him aback. And then she had seemed to deflate right in front of him before some steely resolve he had never seen before in her had taken over and she'd calmly told him that she was done and it was too late, before just as calmly walking away. He'd felt a real anguish at that, but also somewhat pissed off if he was being honest; his moods really did seem to swing erratically of late. Who was she to judge him? What did she mean it was too late? Too late for what? He'd messed up, but it wasn't like he had a choice or so he had told himself at the time. It wasn't like Joss never messed up, just look at the mess she'd gotten herself into with Nate, changing him and making him a monster just like her. Like him. Definitely not her shining moment. Part of him wanted to feel vindicated that he'd been right about that not ending well, but when he was in his clearer moments he knew that was petty. Still, it didn't mean he was going to express any genuine sympathy for the guy who if you really thought about it brought it on himself through his actions that night in the hospital. The point was though that Joss was far from perfect so how could she judge him in his weak moment?

He'd wanted to ask her, demand answers, because even if she thought they were done with the conversation they were definitely not. It was not too late. Of course his intentions had amounted to nothing after they'd entered the house and found a demonic Sally ripping apart another ghost. So now here they were, on the stairs, iron implements in hand as Sally screamed at them and beat against the walls of her sea salt prison. No, today was definitely not going his way.

Suddenly Sally stopped screaming and her eyes rolled back in her head before they fluttered shut. Aidan stared down at her, unwilling to believe that the deafening racket was done.

"What just happened?" Joss asked from beside him. He didn't answer right away; instead he stood and made his way down the stairs and carefully around his unconscious friend to stand at the bottom of the steps at the banister, where he could get a closer look at her.

"I don't know," he murmured, clutching the fire poker more firmly incase he needed it.

"Sally," Joss called softly as if she was afraid to wake her. When that didn't work she tried again, her voice gaining strength and volume. "Sally. Sally!"

Aidan rolled his eyes, and said somewhat petulantly "Yeah. Not helping."

Joss ignored his tone. "What's the non corporeal equivalent to cold water in the face?" She was beginning to sound a little frantic and he felt bad for snapping at her; she was only worried about their friend.

" I don't know. She's out cold."

Joss shot him a look of disbelief. "You've been around five hundred years and you've never dealt with a catatonic ghost?!" Her tone was somewhat caustic.

"I am not that old!" he denied immediately and somewhat defensively; after all who wanted to be called older than they actually were or reminded that they were in fact old in the first place. "Look, I'm a vampire. I'm not a ghost whisperer; I've never seen anything like this." He leaned down closer to where Sally lay, peering closely at her.

"Where do you think she is right now?" Joss sounded defeated.

"I don't know." He was getting tired of saying that; there wasn't often times when he didn't know what to do and it was uncomfortable to be in that situation.

Joss stood slowly and made her way down the stairs as he moved back away from Sally and sat in their living room chair, turning it to face the stairs before doing so.

" How do we fix this?" she asked with determination as she took her turn to peer closely at their friend.

"I don't know," he intoned tiredly from his chair, one hand on his forehead. If he was able to get actual normal headaches he knew he'd have a massive one right about now. As it was the look Joss gave him as she turned towards him did nothing for his mood.

"So are we going to brain storm here or are we just giving up on her?"

"No, that's not what I meant."

"No, I get it," she interrupted him, "In a pinch you do what you gotta do right?" She glanced back at Sally and then back at him, her lips pressed together in a thin angry line. "We should snap her neck, call in the cleaners. What do you think?" Her sarcasm was not lost on him and he was so not letting her get away with it.

"Or we could just drag her out to the woods, tie her to a tree. Or better yet, take her to some alley, break her arms." He didn't know where that came from, although he knew it had to do with her time with Ray, especially the alley bit, but more so with the plain fact that werewolves tended to do stuff like that, and she hated being reminded of that, but it did the trick.

"Yeah, we're going there?"

"Yeah."

"Good, good." She nodded in fake acceptance. "Well I can understand all the hostility. I've got all this skin on my face after all." She gestured to her face dramatically. "It must be hard for you to talk to somebody with all this skin on their face!"

As he stared at her, suddenly the absurdity of what was happening hit him. Were they really letting past actions get in the way of figuring out what to do to help their friend? They were better than that and Sally deserved their full attention and for them to be united on helping her, not squabbling like children throwing mistakes in each other's faces.

"Hold on," he raised his hands; placating. "Hold on, what are we doing?"

All the emotion seemed to dissipate out of her then and she sighed. " I don't know," she ran her hands over her face tiredly and sat in the chair beside him. "I'm just...extra testy right now."

He watched as she absently covered her mouth with her hand, almost as if she was stopping herself from being sick. She did look more worn out than usual, but he had just been putting that down to her anger at him. It hit him then. Idiot, he cursed himself, well this just gets better and better.

"Its the full moon tonight."

She nodded, "Yeah. That's not the only reason I'm pissed off," She said with some vehemence, as if daring him to make some remark about it being that time of the month.

"Yeah, I know. I know." he stood and leaned against the wall, messaging his temples. "It's been over 24 hours since I last drank live." He hadn't wanted to admit it to her, but he figured that by this point she had already guessed that he wasn't sticking to his usual diet.

"And live, that's worse or better..."

"Its pretty serious withdrawal, yeah."

She hesitated, but then seemed to push forward, "Do you need to go find someone... or?"

"I'm not going to do that!" again, he found himself snapping at her.

His gaze was focused on Sally, but he could hear Joss behind him, sighing and he didn't have to look at her to know that she had her eyes closed as if she was silently praying for deliverance. "This is so not what I needed today," she muttered.

"Yeah, well its not exactly like this is a bed of roses for me either Joss."

"I'm sorry. It's just...the past two days have not been the greatest, for any of us, obviously, if Sally is any indication. Look Aidan," she seemed to be steeling herself and then she took a deep breath and said nothing, which was unusual for Joss because she had a habit of just blurting things out.

"Are you alright?" he found himself asking. They needed to focus on Sally of course, but something was definitely wrong and he had a feeling that until it was out there they wouldn't be able to find a solution for their friend.

"I'm just concerned, about Sally," she demurred.

He turned and looked at her, noting that she was staring down at her feet. She must have felt his gaze on her, because she looked up and their eyes locked. "Really," she tried to assure him. He raised a brow and she looked away briefly, before looking back. "No, I'm not alright. Its not just Sally...I mean I am worried of course."

He waited.

"I'm pregnant."

He stared at her in disbelief; was sure his eyes were bugging out of his head at this point. He had not seen this one coming. At all. "Wait, with Nate's...?"

She nodded quickly, "Yeah. And um, when I told him it uh didn't exactly go well, at first. I mean its good now, he seems fine, but uh I'm sure you already know this, being a man who has been around the block a time or a hundred, that thing you never say to a woman when she says she's pregnant..."

"He didn't." He was going to go rip the man's arms off after this.

"Well yeah, but to be fair I did keep it from him for a good while. Pretty much avoided him like the plague. I'm sure my mind would have gone there briefly as well...if I were a man. I didn't think this could happen; I didn't think that someone like me could have a kid."

"Yeah, well me neither," he agreed. "Huh. Well wow."

"Yeah."

They just looked at each other then, and he could see that she was scared, petrified even.

"What do you think?' she asked hesitantly. It said a lot, he thought, that after all the crap that had been going on, especially that day, that his opinion was still important to her. And so he lied, because he didn't want to upset her more than she was. "Congratulations."

"What?" she shook her head as if to clear her ears and he smiled slightly.

"Congratulations. Joss, I know your freaking out but this is good. Hell, this is better than good, this is normal."

She bit her lip and shook her head, "It doesn't feel normal. If it were normal I would be running around telling friends, family, people in line at Starbucks. Not sitting here, even while we try and figure out how to help exorcist over there," she gestured at Sally and he rolled his eyes, " trying to figure out a way to tactfully bring up abortion."

He was in front of her in an instant, crouching down, gripping her arms tightly, an almost anguished look on his face. " You didn't actually have that conversation did you?" If they had and Nate had even considered agreeing, he really was going to go rip his arms off. No, he'd tie him to a tree first, and then he'd rip his arms off and leave him for the real wolves.

"No. I didn't think it would be a very good segue in the conversation." Her tone was sarcastic, but he was relieved nonetheless.

"It just feels wrong." she admitted quietly as his grip loosened and he could tell that this was something she was only admitting now, to him and to her self, that she hadn't dared say it to Nate. "What if its like me? And Nate? What if it's just like us? We talked about that, last night, but I don't think that it's really sunk in for him yet. He's so new to all this, but this has been my life for years."

"I don't know," he admitted, even though he wanted to reassure her. "But before you talk about doing anything drastic, think about this: you and me," he stared her right in the eyes and gestured between them, "we agreed to make a go at having a real life. Right?"

"Yeah," she sighed, "I know we did."

"It looks like one of us is going to get a shot."

She closed her eyes, her hand moving to rest on his, where they had settled on her knees. "It feels so wrong Aidan. In so many ways. I love Nate, I do. But its...I don't think I can do this."

"You can Joss. It will be okay." He wondered how he could reassure her, when his words weren't even reassuring to himself. He felt like someone had ripped his heart right out of his chest. "What do you say we figure out how to help Sally now?"

"Yeah." She nodded and he stood stepping back from her, "There has got to be something."

They both moved to the stairs all business now, and he had to fight to keep his emotions in check. He might have convinced Joss he was happy for her, but it was only partially true. Think about that later, he warned himself, focus on Sally now.

"We need help," he admitted as they stared down at the ghost. It seemed to hit them both at the same moment then, as they turned to each other with dawning realization. It was Joss who spoke though.

"Zoe. She's the only ghost...wrangler I can think of." It was an apt title; Sally's nurse friend certainly knew how to deal with the undead with a firm hand that was for sure. She winced, "And Sally just shredded her boyfriend."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that," he agreed dryly.

"Maybe leave that part out, when you're making a plea to save Sally. Just don't admit that."

He left then to get the ghost wrangler, as Joss so eloquently dubbed her. It gave him time to think too, as he made his way to the hospital. He really was happy that Joss was going to get a stab at normalcy; what could be more normal than having a baby? He knew that despite her fears she would be a great mother and that she would meet any complications that arose, like the child being a wolf as well, with nothing less than bravery. It was the fact that she seemed to be moving on, while he was so irrevocably stuck, that chafed and made any happiness he felt on her part bittersweet. He didn't like feeling as if he was left behind, nor the idea that this meant that he could be loosing her from his life. Who would want their child around a vampire? He knew already that Nate, for certain, would not want him around for fear of what could happen. And Joss…well he knew now what she meant by saying it was too late.

He couldn't get her insistence that it felt wrong out of his thoughts either and he hoped that she would change her mind; he knew that if she went through with the course her thoughts had taken and terminated her pregnancy, she would regret it for the rest of her life. He would try to talk to her again about it, later after they had helped Sally. This was definitely shaping up to be a banner day and it didn't look like it was going to get any better.