•••

“How was work?” Gunn asked as Cordelia staggered through the front door. Wesley propped her up, catching the screen before it could hit her in the head.

“Work sucked seven ways from Sunday,” She muttered. “Headache, bitchy boss, and—get this—a surprise fifty percent off sale! I hate the mall.” The seer grimaced as her head pounded harder and gratefully accepted Gunn’s assistance when he moved to help hold her up.

“Sign number 143 of an impending apocalypse. Cordelia Chase says ‘I hate the mall,” Xander chirped. His smirk disappeared when he saw how pale she was. “You did eat lunch, right? I’ll go get you something.” He ran off towards the kitchen to get the seer a glass of water. She hadn’t looked like that in years—like she’d had a hard vision or something.

Cordelia let Wesley and Gunn lower her onto the couch. “Maybe I caught a bug. I’ve had this headache all day, and I’m just dead tired.” As if to drive home her point, she started sneezing uncontrollably.

“Did you eat?” Gunn inquired. “Cause you’d better say you did.”

“I did,” She confirmed, once she’d recovered. “A cheese sandwich and a coke. Oh, and some carrots. And a jicama.”

Gunn grimaced. Jicama? He didn’t think she liked the vegetable. Wesley clucked his tongue and pulled a blanket off the back of the couch, wrapping her in it.

“Try this,” Xander said, thrusting a glass into her hands. She peered doubtfully at the juice, but took a sip. Then she jerked back in surprise. “What is this?”

Xander shrugged. “Tomato, carrot, a touch of Tabasco and teriyaki.” He’d not really looked at what he was doing—he’d meant to use Worchester sauce.. Oh well.

“That sounds quite unpalatable,” Wesley stated.

“Actually, it’s not so bad… sort of like a sweet Virgin Mary,” Cordelia replied. She finished off the stuff and stood up. “Thanks for all the fawning attention—no pun intended, Wes—but I’m gonna get comfy in bed for a while. I’m tired.”

Xander and Wesley watched as Gunn led Cordelia off to bed. “She never gets sick,” Xander murmured. “Even when the rest of the pack, you and I all got that cold last year. She and the vamps sat there covered in snot from us and just laughed. She doesn’t get sick.”

Wesley nodded. “No, she doesn’t.” He suspected, however, that Cordelia wasn’t precisely ill. No, his guess would be that she was pregnant. Unfortunately, Oz and Fred chose that moment to come racing through the house via the kitchen, in full wolf-mode. They nearly toppled an end table before coming to a rest in the living room. Wesley and Xander waited until they’d shifted back before questioning them.

“What gives?” Xander asked the wolves. “’Cause you two are usually more careful.”

“Rednecks with guns,” Fred panted. “They thought we were wolves.”

“Where?” Wesley asked. “I thought you were staying on the property today.”

“We were,” Oz replied. “They’re trespassing.”

“I’ll call the sheriff. Again,” Xander muttered, already reaching for the phone. This wasn’t the first time they’d run into hunters on their rental property. Each time they had to call the law and have the sheriff get a hold of whichever of his relatives was trespassing on their land. “Sheriff Johnson?” Xander asked over the phone.

“Yeah, Johnson here,” The gruff man replied.

“This is Harris, over on Shinbone Road. There’s a couple of hunters out here.”

A long sigh came over the line. “Know what they looked like?”

Xander glanced at the two werewolves. They shook their heads. “Not really. Hunter types. You know, men with long guns and hats.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” The sheriff said reluctantly.

“It’s not that we mind the hunting,” Xander said quickly. “We don’t. It’s just that we’re out hiking in the woods a lot, and when we don’t know the hunters are out there…”

“Yeah, I getcha,” The Sheriff assured him. “I’ll send some guys out looking.” Translated, that was, “I’ll go call my sister and have her get her deadbeat brother off the California guy’s land before he calls the paper.”

“Thanks, Sheriff.” Xander hung up the phone. “So I take it there’s no way one of us could’ve conveniently spotted those assholes?”

“They’re very well camouflaged,” Fred replied.

“Cordelia’s sick,” Xander said, changing the subject. “She looks like hell.” Oz stood quickly and headed for the stairs. “You might want to put some clothes on first!” Xander added as his lover disappeared.

Oz peeked into Cordelia and Gunn’s bedroom. The werewolves were together on the bed, Gunn cradling an obviously-ill Cordelia. Oz waited for Gunn to acknowledge him before walking in. “Cordy?” Oz whispered. She looked at him and smiled.

“Sorry, alpha. I hurt,” She murmured.

Oz reached down to stroke her head. Pain often made werewolves fall back on pack dynamics. It told Oz a lot about how she felt. “Shh, it’s ok. Sleep.” She closed her eyes and he bent down, examining her carefully. Her skin was pale, but not sallow or jaundiced. The circles under her eyes were new, though, and her hair hadn’t lost it’s glossy sheen. She wasn’t seriously ill at the moment. Still, he tested her scent and tasted her skin, to see if he could learn anything. A few minutes later, he left, returning to the living room downstairs.

In the front room he found Wesley standing by the couch, staring at the wall. Xander had accompanied Fred to retrieve her and Oz’s clothing. He waited patiently for the faun to look over at him. “She is, isn’t she?” Wesley inquired.

Oz nodded. “How long have you known?” He was surprised Wesley hadn’t mentioned it.

“I thought about it in the mountains. Until now, though, I hadn’t really given it much more consideration. But the symptoms are there. At least partly there. I am not familiar with werewolf physiology,” Wesley admitted.

“Not that different from human, at this point,” Oz said. “Later, though, it’ll change.”

“As will a great many things,” Wesley murmured. “In terms of timing…”

“Not much worse,” Oz confirmed. “It’ll be hard.”

“For everyone,” Wesley added. “For all her maternal urges, she is young.”

“Gunn’s not ready,” Oz commented. “The pack isn’t ready for this.”

“Angel and Wil?” Wesley asked. “Will they ever be ready for a young one?”

“What about Fred?” Oz countered. “She’s…”

“We’ve discussed that,” Wesley said coldly. “Several times.”

“And?” Oz pressed. He knew he was treading on Wes’s cherished privacy, but this was his omega.

“If the time comes, we will ask one of the pack to assist,” Wesley said in a stilted voice. It was difficult for him to admit that any child he had with Fred would be fathered by another man.

Oz nodded. “Xander’s gonna go nuts.” The Raphe would fall in love with the pup before it was born and spoil it rotten once it arrived.

“So what do we do?” Wesley inquired.

“First we tell Cordelia.”

•••

As it happened, a few hours’ sleep did wonders for Cordelia’s health. She bounded down the stairs, full of energy, just in time to greet Wil and Angel as they heated up their first meal of the evening. “You working tonight, or did you trade with that other guy?” She asked Angel. He polished off his supper before answering.

“No, I’m in for the evening,” He replied. “Figured I’d finish the Baltimore project tonight, if Wes wants to.” He was almost finished with a huge part of their current focus, which was to end the partnership between Wolfram & Hart and one of Baltimore’s professional sports teams. They were very close.

“I’m sure he does,” She said. “Is Fred around?”

“She left about half an hour ago,” Wil confirmed. “To pay the bills. She’ll be back in a few minutes”

“Hmm. Guess I’ll start dinner then. Where’s everybody else?”

“Gunn, Wes and Oz are in the computer room. Xander went out to see if the hunters left,” Angel told her. “We had a couple wander across the property line today.

Cordelia grimaced. “Ugh. I hate them. No sport in shooting the animals, you know? Better to run them down.” Angel and Wil grinned at each other, wondering if Cordelia ever noticed that she was a bit more…savage now than she used to be.

“Ah, Cordelia,” Wesley murmured as he walked into the kitchen. “Gunn said you were sleeping.”

“I woke up. Feel better, too. Do you want spaghetti or… I think it’s chicken, for dinner?” She asked, holding up a package of ground beef in one hand and a whole chicken in the other.

“Both,” Oz said from the doorway. “Make lots of food.”

Cordelia cocked one eyebrow. “Do we have company coming?”

“No,” Oz replied. “Just hungry.”

He helped her cook, adding in spices and vegetables over her protestations. She got mad after the fifth time he and Wesley shared a pointed glance, threatening to throw her alpha out the window if he didn’t start behaving. “And I’m not above locking you in a closet with a continuous broadcast of Lawrence Welk, either!”

“Man, she pulled the Welk on you,” Gunn muttered as he and Xander came in for dinner. “Must be bad.”

“Bay leaves,” Oz said, walking over to Xander. “She doesn’t like bay leaves.”

Xander frowned. “You used to, Cordy. Hells, you used to buy the store out. That’s why we have so many.”

“Well, I don’t like them now,” She spat. “And could you grab some of that guava nectar from the pantry?”

Xander obediently went to fetch the beverage. “I thought you hated guava nectar,” He commented as he handed her the large can. She grabbed it in one hand, a church key in the other. The men of the house sort of stared as she chugged the room-temperature drink.

“Nah, it’s great,” She said, setting the can down with a thump. Having slaked her thirst, she returned to cooking. “I thought we had more turmeric than this. It’s just not enough for the spaghetti!”

Gunn looked at Xander and mouthed, ‘turmeric?’ He thought back to the jicama she’d mentioned earlier.

“Uh, Cordy?” Xander began. “You…ah…aren’t forgetting to tell us anything, are you? Guava nectar? Bay leaves? Turmeric? I mean, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were pregnant. Weird food cravings and all…”

She laughed and glared at the same time. “Hah hah, Xander. Just because I didn’t bash your tomato mistake earlier doesn’t mean I won’t do it now.”

Wil and Angel continued to watch from the sidelines. They didn’t always participate in suppertime activities, but then again sometimes they did. By mutual, silent agreement, they decided to pass on whatever disaster Cordelia was making tonight.

Wesley glanced at Oz again. Cordelia caught the motion in the corner of her eye. “That’s it!” She screamed, slamming the tomato sauce’s spoon on the counter. Red dots appeared all over the kitchen. “You tell me right now what’s going on or I’m gonna kick your skinny, hairy ass, cut it up into little bitty pieces, and serve it on Wheat Thins with Easy Cheese!” What she’d said had been funny, but her tone was one hundred percent serious. Deadly serious. Wes’s ass was in definite danger of becoming canapés.

Wesley jumped back.

Oz growled.

Wil and Angel stood up.

Xander blinked.

Gunn’s jaw dropped.

Fred opened the kitchen door. “Hi, guys! Bananas were on sale at the Weigel’s. I got five pounds along with the milk.” She brandished a heaping bag of fruit with one hand. The other was balancing three gallons of milk. “Could someone help me?” No one moved, not even to acknowledge her arrival.

Cordelia glared hard at the men and reached for the bananas. Fred gratefully released them and went to store the milk. “What’s going on?” She asked, noting the rather unusual behavior of her housemates. “And why is Cordelia slicing a banana into a pot of spaghetti sauce?”

“It balances out the acidity of the tomato,” Cordelia stated tightly. “And I recommend that if you want to eat tonight or in the near future, you refrain from commenting.” She punctuated her tirade by slamming the tomato sauce pot on the stove, sending more liquid splashing around.

“Angel?” Wesley said quietly. “Could you remove Cordelia from the stove, and away from the knives?” Angel stared in confusion at Wesley until Oz nodded his approval. The vampire went over to Cordelia, who was by now brandishing a wooden spoon in a threatening way.

“Hey!” Gunn shouted angrily. He took a step towards Cordelia. A warning growl from Oz stopped him.

“Hands off,” She spat. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you guys, but I’m not afraid to use this.” Angel simply shot his hand out and grabbed the spoon, throwing it over his shoulder. Then he wrapped his arms around the werewolf and dragged her across the room to the table. It wasn’t an easy job. She kicked and bit and clawed at him, doing her best to take him apart with her bare hands. “Wes?” Angel grated out. “Now what?” He was struggling to keep the young woman under his control. She got in a good hard jab to his midsection. Fortunately he didn’t have any breath to lose.

“You’d better start talking,” Gunn growled. “’Cause I’m not liking this one bit.”

“I’m confused,” Xander said quietly.

“As am I,” Wil added. He leaned over to look at Cordelia. She snapped at him. He gasped and sat back quickly. His face screwed up in a fierce frown. After a second, though, it lightened. “Oh. I see.”

Angel glanced at Wil. “See what?”

“Breathe,” Wil ordered. Angel looked at him funny, but did as he was told. Then he smiled. “Ah. Oz?”

“What the hell is going on?” Cordelia screamed. “Why are people sniffing me? Why are you all staring at me?”

“Gunn.” Oz said firmly. “Come here.”

The werewolf stepped over to his alpha, albeit reluctantly. He wanted to rip Cordelia away from Angel. “What?”

“Sit down.” Oz pointed at a chair. “Now.” Oz wasn’t asking. Gunn obeyed.

The currently purple-haired werewolf walked over to crouch next to Cordelia. “Cordy, I’m gonna ask you two questions, ok?”

“Go fuck yourself!” She screamed, kicking out. Oz ducked the kick and Angel wrapped a leg around her to keep her from doing it again. Oz took a deep breath and continued.

“First, when we were up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, did you take any protection with you?” Gunn squeaked. Everyone in the room save Cordelia and Oz stared at the man. Gunn didn’t squeak. Ever.

“Second, when was the last time you were in season?”

Then all hell broke loose.