Issue 1 Downtime

After her appointment with Dr. Crusher Sara aimlessly wanders around for a while until she makes her way into Xub 1. Ordering a water after fighting down the initial urge to buy a beer she slumps down at one of the tables.

Will smiles as he sees Sara sitting alone, and sneaks up behind her, before kissing the nape of her neck and then resting his head on her shoulder. "Good morning, beautiful."

Not noticing Will she lets out a loud whelp as he suddenly kisses her neck, twisting her head around she looks at Will, looking more confused and vulnerable than he has ever seen her. "Oh... hi Will..."

"Everything went OK?" he asked, tilting his head a bit, and scooting a chair up so he was up against her side.

She forces a smile for a moment. "Yeah... it went just fine. Apparently I'm in good health..."
Also, apparently I screwed up my life before even making it to two months of college, but aside from that everything's just peachy keen!

"Well, I could have told 'em that. You're in fantastic shape, and I should know with how often I check you out.

Me, they wanted to do all kinds of crazy things to. I finally allowed them to get a baseline of me like this, as Willow, and as clay just so they could get some idea of what's going on, you know, in case anything ever happens" he rambled.

"In that regard they mostly just wanted to check if there's any difference in the 'me' part of me and the things I absorb when I shift." Better be careful, you're shifting for two now. Har har...
She sighs and stays quiet for a good while, staring at her still half-filled glass before looking back up at Will. "Will... did they find anything about your shifting accidents? Like... aside from the obvious ones?"

"Hrm? Nah, they said that Cassiel was probably right, it was mental. My hypothesis," he said, lowering his voice, "is that I was thinking too much about the whole 'be subject to' thing, and it was my subconscious telling me I didn't want to be your master, so it decided that being your girl was safer. Not that I mind being your girl, and I think we should do it more often, but I don't have to be, do I. I can be your guy, too, and not have to control you," he smiled.

"Yeah. Yeah, you sure can..."

"Are you OK? You seem quiet," Will smiled, warmly.

"Will, I..." I'm pregnant. Just say it! "Did you ever have to tell someone something and had NO idea how to do it?"

Will smirked, and leaned in a little closer. "What, like 'I like it when you sleep with me as a girl'? Or maybe 'hey, why don't we try out page 32 of the book?'" he whispered, giving her a kiss.

She barely responds to the kiss at all, going back staring at her water. "No... there's... one tiny thing that came up in the physical..."

"Sara?" Will said, his voice filling with nervousness. "Did they do something to you? The vampires?" he asked, taking her hand.

"No, not the vampires... Will... a-are you sure you've always been entirely... 'in control' of your shifting when we slept together?"

"Hrm? I...Yeah, I mean, I tend to focus on it quite a bit, you know, for better...Why?" He said, furrowing his brow.

"I... Will I'm... I'm pregnant..."

Will's hand thudded onto the table, and he sat up rimrod straight.

"...run that by me again?"

Sara flinches at Will's hand slamming on the table. "I-I'm pregnant."

"...no, no, that...that's not right. How pregnant? You've been shifting and everything..."

"Over three weeks apparently... turns out that shifting that early isn't unusual..." she glances at Will.

"Three weeks...three weeks, so you were here...OK, that's...alright.

Pregnant. There's...there's no way...I've been, uh, 'shooting blanks'. They didn't get you mixed up with someone else, did they?"

She stays silent and instead reaches into her pocket to pull out an ultrasound image that doesn't really show much aside from an area circled with a pen. "I... I don't even know what to look for there, but that's what Dr. Crusher read out of the image..."

"So, that....that's our....that's our baby?" Will says, his hands trembling.

"How...wasn't I stuck as Willow 3 weeks ago?"

Another long pause.


"Yes... And I... I d-don't even bloody know anymore... was that three weeks ago?"

"I think...I'll check..."

Will wrapped an arm around Sara and pulled her close, still looking at the photo.

"OK. OK. OKOK. OK. OK OK OK. OK. OK OK OK.



OK.

OK.

The...OK. The 'how' is academic at the moment; now...what....what are we going to do about this," Will said, taking a deep breath. "How...how are we going to handle this. How d'you want...what..." he stammers off.

"I don't know... I just... I'm not sure I'm ready for this, Will... it's..."

"I know," Will said, wrapping her in a hug, without taking his eyes off the photo. "I'm not ready, either. I'm...OK. This is...I don't even....OK.

OK.

Ready or not...alright, short term. Are you alright? Is..is it alright?"

"It... what... what little there is seems to be doing just fine... Me, not so much... what do I DO now, Will!?"

"What do WE do now. I'm...I'm not letting you go through this alone. I'm here...no matter what we decide, I'm here...

Shit, how did this happen...

So, it's fine. And you're...you're OK, I mean, it's not...dangerous?"

"No, it's not dangerous... I... we... how do you decide something like that? I don't... I don't even know where to start, Will..."

"Well, if it's OK, and if you're OK, then...then we have time. We don't need to rush into a decision here. We've got time.

Oh my God, I am so sorry, Sara..."

"It's not your fault... okay, m-maybe a little, but it's my fault too... I d-don't even know... How!? It-it makes no sense..."

"It's my fault, it is. I mean, no one ELSE could be the father...right?

Three weeks ago...let's see, that'd be...September...20? 25? Somewhere around there..." he said, pulling out his phone.

"Of course you are! I must have happened before you got stuck in my head, that's the only thing thatd make even remotely sense..."

"Well, it couldn't have happened AFTER..yeah, 20th and 21st I was stuck in your head, week after I was Willow, and if it happened then, well, I'd like to know precisely how.

Funny, the dates would put it right in that week, though, or at the earliest when I was brain-born."

"As if the whole thing wasn't impossible enough already..."

"Right...

Sorry, that's a distraction. We....what.....what are our choices, here? What...what can we do?"

"Dr. Crusher said the school would offer help no matter which way we want to go... I mean... th-there only ARE three options, really..."

"Is that help 'use super-science to pause everything for four years'? 'Cause that would make this a whole lot easier...

Alright, what..three options?"