DocProf loomed over them in a way that Mirror had never even seen Ms. Taylor loom. Apparently he had a hidden talent for looming. He held Allison by the waist and another arm around her shoulders as they both stared at the man, Gawain with childish guilt and Allison with anger.

>>"He won't give my kid back to me!"

DocProf blinked.

"The kid? This is about the kid?" he glared over Allison's shoulder at Gawain "The hell if wrong with you son?!"

"Hey! I was just..."

For a few confused minutes, everyone was talking at once. Gawain felt like someone caught between Megashark and Giant Octopus. Allison kept struggling and demanding her kid.

"ENOUGH" DocProf boomed "Morris let the lady go before I make you."

Gawain reluctantly loosened his arms around her and stepped back, tense and still between her and the office. Distant wailing filled the hallway.

"Good. NOW. In the Infirmary, the both of you. Thank Sam for making me get equipment for DNA testing. We will settle this once and for all." he raised a hand before either of them could move "I will bring the kid."

And that was that.

Allison was not happy at all. Admittedly, the Doctor was being way more reasonable than the X man guy--to start with, he was actually considering that she might be telling the truth--and once he finished the tests, she'd have Alex back. Probably.

On the other hand, she didn't entirely trust the guy not to try to find some justification to keep Alex anyway, and in the meantime, she was stuck with the guy, waiting while she could hear Alex crying and she couldn't get through to do anything about it. It didn't take very much of that for Allison to curl up in a ball next to the door and start crying herself.

Really, she was surprised it took as long as it did. Although she certainly made up for it; she spent the rest of the wait either crying and trying to hide her face in her knees, or huddling in almost the same position wishing she was crying, since trying to stop at least distracted her from the emotional misery. Alex was right there, and she couldn't get to them! she was almost grateful the mirror shards had embedded themselves in her hand; she'd distracted herself at least half an hour digging them out, and for longer finding a safe place to put them--a garbage can did not count, where kids might be running around--and the pain was effective off and on for longer. So was the bleeding, and figuring out how she would replace this outfit and if she actually felt like doing so and trying to remember where she'd gotten it from anyway, at least for a while before everything she tried to think was drowned out by Alex Alex Alex! and she gave up and cried.

Well, that was incredibly awkward. Gawain leaned against the wall, trying to mop up the blood from his nose with a handful of paper towels, and stay out of the crazy woman's way. While DocProf was working his magic in his office, in the company of a very upset Baby X, Allison finally broke down crying, which made Gawain want to crawl out of his skin from sheer guilt. Everything was messed up, Evelyn hated his ass, Baby X might not even be his own kid, and now she had made a girl cry. Splendid.

DocProf finally emerged from his office with the baby basket in one hand and sheets of freshly printed papers in the other.

"Well, that's interesting" he said stoically, setting the basket down on the bed. Baby X made annoyed noises.

"Good news and bad news" he announced, leafing through the papers "Y'all get to decide which is which. News number one: The kid belongs to the lady, she's the mother."

Gawain let out a long hiss of a sigh. DocProf ignored it.

"News number two: Gawain here is not the father."

Not the father.

Gawain felt his knees go weak.

"News number three: Gawain here is related to the kid, but not directly."

"... wait what?!"

Gawain had been keeping up with logic up until this point. He was not the dad, and Allison was the mother. He had never met Allison before, so clearly he had nothing to do with the kid. But then... what?

DocProf dropped the papers on the table.

"The lady takes the kid. The rest is up to you. Now be so kind and get the **** out of my office."

"Finally." Allison didn't really care what other news the Doctor had; Alex was hers, and the guy wasn't stopping her from taking Alex and holding them. Finally. ...And she could definitely tell that Alex had not been with her recently; she wrinkled her nose at the soap smell. Well, it was soap, at least, so apart from reminding her that Alex had been kidnapped it wasn't bad. And Alex had hair now! Or more hair, anyway, which wasn't very much, but was still adorable. She smiled and brushed her fingers over it, since it really wasn't long enough to brush back yet.

And the Doctor was still talking. He had said good and bad news, hadn't he? Allison couldn't see what bad news the Doctor could have found with a genetic test, apart from maybe some sort of disease, but that hardly would have required deciding which was bad. Maybe he'd figured out more about Alex's mutation? Allison tuned back in.

And then immediately found herself staring at the guy, somewhere between annoyance and fury as she figured it out. And since the nurses weren't around.... "Gawain? Your name is Gawain? Who would ever name their kid Gawain, that hasn't been a name for centuries! I thought they made that name up because I wouldn't tell them!"

Allison's annoyed rant was cut off by an equally annoyed order. "Out!"

Allison's first inclination was to snap back, but the Doctor had helped her, so she shut her mouth and focused on calming Alex back down, thanked the Doctor--briefly and absently, but he probably appreciated that--and left.

>>"Gawain? Your name is Gawain? Who would ever name their kid Gawain, that hasn't been a name for centuries! I thought they made that name up because I wouldn't tell them!"

"Wha..." Gawain's jaw dropped at the sheer rudeness about his name as well as the intensity of what she was saying. Said who? Told who?

DocProf herded them out the door and Gawain ran to catch up with Allison and Baby X - who turned out to be called Alex, after all. Sam would be disappointed.

"Wait a minute!" he called "What's wrong with my name all of a sudden? And tell who? Did you hear what he just said? I'm related to... Alex. But how? Who's the father?..."

A master of tact and subtlety, he was not.

Allison did not appreciate being stopped for inane questions. She could hardly outrun the guy though; even if she wasn't carrying Alex, she was out of shape and exhausted from the last several weeks. Instead, she just glared and kept walking. "I highly doubt your name is sudden, but it's certainly ridiculous."

Hm. Allison was already glaring, and she didn't have the energy to think of much else to do. Be blunt, then, she supposed. "I don't particularly care if you're related, and I don't know or care." Last chance to drop the subject.

>>"I highly doubt your name is sudden, but it's certainly ridiculous."

Gawain swallowed and decided to ignore the childish stubbornness in her voice as she ridiculed his name. Wasn't the first time.

>>"I don't particularly care if you're related, and I don't know or care."

"No, you don't understand" Gawain hurried forward and turned to look at her "I have no family. It has always just been Mom and I, and she's gone missing five years ago. If the kid and I are related, that means that I have other family out there."

Suddenly, this was very important in a whole new way.

"Look, I'm sorry about the fight" he added "I didn't want to hurt you or the baby. I thought she was mine, and... well. Instinct. I'm sorry."

Allison was, in fact, the opposite. She'd always had plenty of family around; more than she ever wanted, in fact. Mostly because she just simply conflicted with them all, but still, she only lacked family now because she didn't want them. And she had Aura and Alex, so she did have family that she liked, even if most people didn't know Aura existed and Alex was recent.

She did, though, know enough people who wanted family to understand, or at least to have a good idea. Sanctuary tended to have plenty of examples of that, even if it was much more often from being kicked out, abused or running away than just because their family hadn't been there to begin with. Allison wondered which was worse.

On the other hand, she really wasn't feeling sympathetic right now. Or towards Gawain.

"First of all, their name is Alex. Not she, I'm not picking for them and I'm not teaching them that who they are changes every half hour according to what other people think." Looking at Alex kept her from glaring, but Allison was okay with that. She'd rather look at Alex, and of Gawain needed to be glared at she could later.

"Second, since I assume you have a father, you presumably have his family to look for, but I can't help you find them." And, since she was getting near the doors now, "are you just planning to follow me home or something?"

>>"First of all, their name is Alex. Not she, I'm not picking for them and I'm not teaching them that who they are changes every half hour according to what other people think."

Gawain blinked and missed a step, then caught up again. She was really intent on getting out of the Mansion fast, so his time to convince her was equally running out.
Also, what the heck?!

>>"Second, since I assume you have a father, you presumably have his family to look for, but I can't help you find them. Are you just planning to follow me home or something?"

"No! Yes?..." Gawain was confused now "Look, maybe we can both help each other." he was winging it but it was not a bad idea "I need to know what you know about the father or else I maybe won't ever have a chance to finding my family. And you" he glanced at Alex "You need to know how to raise a gender shifter. Well, I am one. I have been since I was born, just like... Alex. Believe me it's one hell of a trip either way, but I have been through it. I can help you."

Okay, Gawain needed to be glared at. Allison stopped and turned toward Gawain so she could do that. "I don't know your father. If I do, he's dead, and you're better off not meeting him anyway." Really, Gawain just had to be one of the people who had no clue who she was. Normally she appreciated that, but.... Taking a breath sort of helped. "I don't know who Alex's father is, I know who it might be and I don't want to know more. I have a girlfriend. How do you think I got pregnant?"

If that didn't give him a clue, Allison really had no idea what would. She started walking again. "And you're reminding me enough of them as it is."

>>"I don't know your father. If I do, he's dead, and you're better off not meeting him anyway. I don't know who Alex's father is, I know who it might be and I don't want to know more. I have a girlfriend. How do you think I got pregnant?"

That effectively stunned Gawain into silence. The young knight stopped dead in his tracks and now only his mind was trying to catch up to Allison, his body rooten in place. Was she...

>>"And you're reminding me enough of them as it is."

Them.

He stared after the girl as she walked out with Baby X in her basket. There was really nothing more to say to her.

Family issues just got to a whole new level of ***** up...