"Fer sure, Mamma Kat! I'm about ready to dump this whole mess right back into their laps too!" The nurse shook her head and pushed the offending pile of records back. "Did you come to swap howdies with someone?" she asked, looking at Katherine.

"Kinda. I need to talk to Giles. I believe he is expecting me", she said quietly, not meeting her friends eye. Sarah Jo raised an eyebrow inquisitively but did not push for any further details as she got up and escorted Katherine to Giles' private office.

She had never seen Katherine look so nervous about anything in all the years she had know her, and she was starting to get a little concerned. "I'll be right outside. If you need me for anything just hollar", Sarah Jo said as she opened the door and let Katherine in.

Once the door closed behind her, Katherine looked up and smiled at Giles. Walking up to him, she put her arms around him, hugging him tightly for a moment while she tried to get her composure back. Taking a deep breath she stepped back and smiled at him again. "Hi, darling. Thanks for seeing me", she said quietly, ducking her head nervously.

"Sure. I must say you have my curiosity up," Giles said as he looked at her, wondering what she was so concerned about. Kat reached out and took Giles by the hand and led him to the couch.

"I think you better be sitting down for this", she said with a weak chuckle. "Don't tell me you think you're dying?" Giles quipped, trying to lighten up the mood.

Katherine broke out in giggles at that remark. "Oh good heavens, no!" she said in a brighter tone of voice as she pulled him down to sit beside her on the couch. Moving into his arms, she snuggled up to him.

"Oh, good. Lessee, you can't want to leave Connor . . .I give up", he said as he embraced her gently.

"Giles", she said quietly, "I might be getting pregnant in the near future." Katherine looked up and studied Giles face, looking for his reaction. He shook his head in confusion. "P-preg . . . but I didn't think you could?"

"I can't. At least not the way I am now." Taking another deep breath she then started to explain about the offer Rayden had made and all that it entailed. Giles sat attentively, listening carefully to every word. After she finished, she folded her hands on her lap and waited for his response. His eyes clouded, and suddenly he was Dr Giles, not her lover. "Risky. Too risky."

Katherine cringed at the sudden change in his demeanor. Head down she said in almost a whisper. "Connor thinks so, too."

"You'll be unprotected while you're carrying it." He shook his head. "Of course, it is your decision, but anyone who cares about you is going to have a hard time seeing you do it."

"Don't you think I know that!" she cried out. "Giles, if there is one regret I have about my life, it is that I never was able to have a child. Can't you see how much this means to me? Can't anyone see?" With that she covered her face with her hands, her heart breaking inside her, and started to cry softly. This was the opportunity to fulfill her deepest, and up to now, totally impossible need and no one seemed willing to support her doing it.

He looked at her nervously, then put an arm around her shoulder to comfort her. "Okay, Kat, but we have a few things to get clear first." Still holding her loosely, he said, "I have no problem seeing patients once I've been . . . intimate . . . with them, but if it's an on-going thing, I find it better not to have a professional and personal relationship." Katherine looked up at him in surprise, feeling the distance he was putting between them. This was one thing she had not expected. Fighting back more tears, she nodded her head sadly in understanding.

Then she sighed deeply and she said, "Connor wanted me to come here and see one of you. Before he agrees to this, he wants to know for sure that I can carry a child safely." She studied the floor for a moment before continuing. "I've delivered enough babies to know I might have problems because of my build", she admitted with a whisper.

"That means a pelvic exam," he said slowly.

Katherine cringed and then nodded. "Oh well, I imagine it will be but the first of many if I go through with this." She looked up at him with a wry smile. "You aren't going to believe this, but I have gone my entire life without ever having one."

"I believe it. And even if you had had one, 400 years ago, I don't suppose it would be the same as our modern methods. My mother told me once it was quite different in *her* day, and that wasn't so long ago now." He smiled. "Oh," he added after a moment, "There is one more thing. I will not examine a woman that way without a female nurse in the room. Sarah Jo will have to be there."

Katherine shrugged. "That's ok. Doesn't bother me. But she doesn't know anything about what I just told you. I'm not telling anyone else till after Connor makes his final decision about it. And then only if he agrees to it...," she said with a deep sigh.

"Won't she wonder why you're having a pelvic?" Giles asked with a slight smile.

"Probably," Katherine grinned. "It will drive her absolutely crazy, but she won't ask any questions. At least not until she gets me alone."

Giles chuckled. "All right, but it won't be easy for me, either."

Katherine stood up, grinning at him with a little twinkle returning to her eyes as she punched him lightly in the ribs. "Oh stop complaining! I'm going to be the one flat on my back with my feet up in the stirrups!"

He grinned back at her and opened the door. "Sarah Jo! Get room one ready for a pelvic!"

"Why sure thing Doc!" came Sarah Jo's sweet drawl from outside the room. The door opened and Sarah Jo stuck her freckled face in, looking at them both with undisguised curiosity. "For one of your ladies, Mamma Kat?" she asked, thinking it might be one of Katherine's clientele.

The little immortal just shook her head and smiled. "No, silly. For me." The shocked look on Sarah Jo's face was priceless, but she recovered quickly and took refuge in her nurse's demeanor.

"Ok then", she said as she reached out to take Katherine by the hand. "Lets go get you ready," She shot a questioning look at Giles as they left the room, but did not ask any of the questions that were obviously running full tilt in her head. Giles chuckled as he watched the two of them leave, but as he stroked his clean-shaven face, he began to worry.

Sarah Jo led Katherine to the examining room, still acting the completely professional nurse. She knew from the quiet stubborn look on her friend's face she would get no answers from her till she was good and ready to tell her. Giving her a gown and a drape, she told Katherine to take everything off and to put the gown on with the ties in front and then to sit on the table with the drape over her lap. She then pulled the privacy curtain and busied herself preparing the room for the doctor while Katherine changed. Once Katherine was ready, Sarah Jo pulled back the curtain and gave her an encouraging smile and a quick hug. Sitting on the end of the table in the hospital gown, she looked more like a lost and frightened little girl that the feisty little woman she really was. Sarah stuck her head out the door and called for the doctor, telling him his patient was ready.

Giles sauntered in, his *game face* on. He couldn't even joke about having made love to this woman: it was serious. She would be literally risking her life if she did this.

Giles put on a pair of gloves, then turned to Sarah Jo. "I won't need to take a culture. Just an exam." "Yes Sir," Sarah Jo said, and then turned back to Katherine to help her get into position. She had been sitting on the exam table looking at them both nervously as she watched Giles prepare himself, and all the color had drained out of her face. Sarah Jo had her lay down and told her to scoot her bottom to the end of the table. She then helped her put her feet up in the stirrups then and adjusted the drape over her carefully. Stepping around to Katherine's side, she reached out, smiled reassuringly, and took Katherine's small hand in hers. Katherine gave the nurse a grateful look and as she clung to her friend hand like it was a lifeline.

"Uh, I'm *told* by a very good source that this is demeaning and you're going to feel like a turkey being stuffed, but I will promise not to hurt you if I can manage it. That said, I want you to relax as much as possible, and think good thoughts." And then he began the exam.

Katherine closed her eyes, tensing up as he entered her. She flinched and moaned softly as a sharp stab of pain went through her as he pressed down on her lower abdomen firmly, trying to get a feel for how much room she had internally. Sarah Jo squeezed her hand and told her to try to relax and breath, but Katherine wasn't listening to her. She looked down in concern at the lady who had raised her, and she could not help but think how young and vulnerable she looked.

Giles murmured under his breath, then looked up and caught Sarah Jo's eye. Biting a lip, he squinted and explored further with his rubber covered fingers. Finally he sighed, sitting back. Rubbing his long bangs out of his eyes with the back of his hand, he frowned, then stripped off the gloves. "Get dressed, please, Miss Dixon. That will be all, Sarah Jo." His tone was soft, but professional.

"Thanks Giles," Katherine said quietly as Sarah Jo helped her sit up. The experience had not been pleasant and she was shaking slightly from the stress of it. Even with him trying to be as gentle as he could be, it still had been extremely uncomfortable for her, even painful. As he left the room she slid off the table and started to get dressed, not looking at or saying a word to Sarah Jo. After she was done, the now very concerned nurse took her friend back to Giles' office .

He was seated behind his desk, slouched in an almost Methosian sprawl. When she came in he jumped up and helped her to the sofa. "Not much fun, eh?"

"No it wasn't" she said quietly. Looking up at him imploringly, she added, her chin quivering slightly, "I sure could use a hug right now" she said.

He smiled and did as she asked. "It's worse than I thought," he said into her hair. "But you knew that, didn't you?" He could feel her tremble in his arms as she mumbled a yes to his question.

Then, stepping back, she wiped the tears from her eyes and said broken heartedly. "Giles, I have only lost one lady in all my years of being a midwife. Her name was Mary and it was back in the early 1700's. She was only sixteen, and she was almost exactly my size and build, maybe even a little bit bigger. The baby was huge. Towards the end she was out of head with the pain. And there was nothing I could do! She died in agony." With that she broke down and started to cry again, reliving for a moment that horrible day.

"Well, we have ways of preventing that now," he assured her. Letting her loose, he made her sit beside him on the sofa and explained: "I didn't think I'd see a woman who was smaller than Crystal, who is built very tiny. But she has hips. You don't," he noted, looking down his nose. "We'd have to watch the baby's growth very carefully. If it gets very big we'll have to take it C-section."

Katherine's face brightened up. "You mean I can do it?"

"If we're careful. But it's a risk. Not to your life . . . at least the baby won't be. Living as a mortal will be, but hell, we do it, you should be able to last a year, right?" He smiled, teasing her. "But the baby? No. I've seen women nearly bleed to death, but in a hospital, with the proper care . . ."

Katherine sighed and smiled wryly again, "Guess a home delivery would be out of the question in my case then." Then she said up straight with a quiet, determined look on her delicate face. "Oh well, I can put up with anything for a chance to have a baby. Giles, I really have to try this, do you understand?"

"Good. I know you can be stubborn," he said sternly, lowing his eyebrows, "But I'm telling you right now, it's in the hospital, or not at all. Too much of a risk of C-section."

"Ok, I can deal with that. But you will let me try a trial labor, won't you?" she asked, a firm note in her voice as well, giving him a taste of future conflicts to come. "If it all possible I want to do it the natural way. If I can't handle it then you can do the operation."

"A trial labor? It depends. I may have you have it C early just in case. Controlled situation, you see." He could already tell that she was not going to be the easiest patient in the world. Katherine was way too stubborn for her own good.

Katherine laughed but she had no intention of backing down. "I can see why you want it that way. We will just have to see how it goes then. Now, I guess I had better go see about doing something that would get me in *the family way*, shouldn't I?" Then, with another hug, she thanked Giles again for his time and left his office, humming softly to herself.