::sniffle::

My work here is done.

Well, not DONE done, of course ...

Connie, is the fic posted all together anywhere? I want to read it in toto.

Rebecca, thank you. I managed to swerve at the last minute away from the happy ending I SO did not want.

Not this section, not yet. I'm posting it as I write. I don't want to put it up on my website till it's all done.

I want to read it in toto.

In a DOG?!?! ;)

Herself, will e-mail feedback tonight, from home. Too much madness at work today.

In a DOG?!?! ;)

Drat it! It's too dark to read!

Herself, the Spike you write just rips my heart out. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.

Amber, thank you so much. I really do lurves him to an absurd extent.

In a DOG?!?! ;)

Hahahahahahaha. PMM is right, of course.

Question to the populace: should I put the finished parts of the current V!Giles on my web as a WIP since it's taking me so long?

Yes

Because it's taking me forever to finish anything, I'm gonna post part 1 of part 2 of that thing I posted earlier. So there.

He was lying when told himself he didn't think about her. The first week, he thought about her every time Tara was up all night fussing and crying, wishing she was there to feed her and rock her to sleep. Lord knew he wasn't having any luck with it. Sleep was limited to the five minutes in between the baby's screaming fits, if he was fortunate.

After a week, he remembered what Angel had said about the vacuum and was pleasantly surprised when it worked. Sleep measured in hours rather than minutes was something of an improvement, even when he took into account the images that occasionally found him waking drenched in sweat, the memory of blood under his nails and bruises under his fingers forcing its way to the surface. He was lying when told himself he didn't dream about her, if dreaming was really the right word.

There were other dreams that interrupted his sleep, and just as violently. Dreams of a creeping panic that paralyzed him, trapping him in a world of empty cribs and unnatural silences. After those, he would stand by Tara's crib and watch her until she woke up.

To keep himself sane, he started several journals, each one devoted to a different aspect of Tara's development. To keep them afloat financially, he started tutoring language students at the university while sending off applications for teaching positions at small community colleges. The identity he'd paid for had a skill set close to his own, a smattering of experience, and some decent-but-not-glowing references. When Tara was six months old, he accepted a position one state to the north, gave notice to his landlord, and moved them from one small, run-down house to another.

In time, he learned to answer to his new name, although he still couldn't think of himself by it. Tara, who at eleven months was showing signs of being just as chatty as her mother, called him by whatever collection of syllables she found fitting, depending on which language he'd been using with her that week. When it seemed like she was going to stick with one which, thanks to her baby slurring, could be misconstrued as something not suitable for polite company, he decided to start sticking to human languages exclusively.

He didn't have much interaction with adults outside of the campus, so he found himself increasingly fascinated by his child. He tracked her likes and dislikes, and peculiar eating habits; carrots, bananas, and squash were deemed acceptable for putting in her mouth--as were the telephone and remote control--while peas and almost anything green were seen as purely decorative, presuming one was decorating the floor. He made the rare attempt to go out on dates, but babysitters were expensive and Tara didn't seem to like any of the women when he had them over for coffee, so second dates were rarer than souled vampires, and third dates rarer than souled lawyers, although he did manage a few casual flings.

Tara didn't say anything about her motherless state until she was four. After a playdate, she came home and announced almost proudly that she was bad.

"Why are you bad?" He asked, wondering if he really wanted to know what mischief she'd gotten into.

"Jenny's daddy said if she was bad, her mommy would leave. Mine left, so that means I'm bad. Bad bad bad!" She ran off to terrorize her stuffed animals, and he made a mental note that any further playdates with Jenny would not take place at Jenny's house.

Following that, she occasionally asked about mothers and where hers had gone. When a simple "away" no longer sufficed, he found other ways around the queries, and she soon stopped asking. On her birthdays, she opened her two cards without question, thanking him for his and filing the other with the feathers and shells and other scraps of some importance she kept in her room.