2nd Floor Common Room [Friday, Evening]

[withasword]

Some people were cut out to be parents. They were patient, and calm, and loved the whole idea of raising progeny. Kate... was not one of these people. Dave had deposited her with their droid baby earlier, and she'd done as little parenting as possible since. In the name of giving it something to do that wasn't spread everything she owned all over

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[wesleynotponcy]

Wesley took two steps into the common room, caught sight of the droid baby, and briefly closed his eyes. "Oh, it's that week, is it?"

He should probably start bracing himself for a lot of shrieking. Since, you know, his roommate had one.

[withasword]

Oh, Kate's roommate had one too. This week was going to be hell on them. She got little enough sleep as it was, without bawling mechanical infants.

"Mmhm," she intoned, unenthusiastically. "You've done it?"

[wesleynotponcy]

"I've somehow managed to avoid that particular torment," Wesley replied. Not at aaaall smugly, nope. "Or -- discounting my overhearing all the crying, I suppose. Professor Skywalker seems to have devised the one assignment that can affect the entire student body rather than just his classes."

And they said he'd gotten over the whole 'evil' thing.

[withasword]

"Less about learning to raise a kid ethically, more about learning how to make it not drive everyone up a wall."

Kate sighed, and gave in to tossing the nearest pillow just near the grabby droid. "How about you play with that?" she suggested, with little hope it would pay attention.

[wesleynotponcy]

"Precisely," Wes agreed. "You're not particularly fond of children, then, I take it?"

Said the guy who was going to grow up and kidnap his boss' baby. But he probably wouldn't be taking this one off your hands anytime soon, Kate. Sorry?

[withasword]

"I don't hate them," Kate clarified. "But this is basically an alarm clock I have to remember feed." She couldn't even choose when it went off, which put it a rung lower than the alarm clock.

It kept trying to lick the television.

[wesleynotponcy]

Wesley watched the baby for a moment, then decided, "But slightly less intelligent." A pause. "No offense, of course."

Yes, Wesley, clearly she'd be hurt by the attack on her parenting strategy.

[withasword]

Kate shrugged, put her book down, and got up to wander over and pry it away from the technology.

"I like to think any kid that actually ended up with my genes would be smarter than an alarm clock." She hauled it over towards the couch and turned it away in the hope it would choose something else to break.

"I don't know how realistic this is."

[wesleynotponcy]

"If you think about it," Wesley said after a moment, "they're almost easier to manage than the children that the island supplies every so often, since it's not as though they've bits of your personality to, er, disturb you with."

[withasword]

Kate slanted a look across at him. "I was one at one point," she allowed. "That doesn't sound like what you're talking about."

No one had decided to inform her about the other kind of child-filled weekends.

[wesleynotponcy]

"Oh. No, it's, ah, it's a different sort of thing," Wesley explained. "When children show up claiming to be, well, our children." That 'our' sounded weird since he'd met her, like, twice, so he clarified, "The, ah, inhabitants of Fandom, that is."

[withasword]

"... And this happens often?" In the last six months, she'd apparently got lucky. Not that she expected any future offspring anyway.

[wesleynotponcy]

"I'm told it's frequent enough," he admitted. "I've only been here for it the once, though. It was... a tad alarming."

[withasword]

"Way to promote the 'safe sex' message," Kate remarked, herding It idly with her foot in the hopes of distracting him. "But I think just a one of these things to everyone would've done it."

[wesleynotponcy]

"Last year it was on Valentine's Day, if I recall," Wesley said wryly. "So..."

Yes, pretty much.