君の笑顔が

Will tried not to stare at the creature and mostly failed.

"What do I do with it?" He asked. He experimentally poked it with one finger. It made a gurgling sound.

"You're an omega, Will, you're biologically predisposed to know what to do with babies," said Alana, simultaneously proving that she was neither his friend nor educated in basic gender bias. Even if she was obviously joking.

Will transferred his blank stare to Alana's left ear. "What if it poops on me?"

"Yeah, like that's never happened to you before," said Alana, gesturing around at Will's mass of dogs. "Seriously, Will, if you can nurse an injured puppy, you can handle watching my healthy 18-month old for two hours while Margot and I go on a date."

Puppies' necks don't break if you hold them wrong, Will wanted to argue. At least, not by the time he got them, anyway.

Will and the baby sat and stared at one another as Alana let herself out. The dogs panted and wagged their tails from the floor. Were dogs good with babies? Maybe Will should have asked.

"Paaaaaganoomaa," said the baby.

"Goo goo gah gah," replied Will solemnly. "Don't poop on me."

So far so good. Only... One hour and fifty-five minutes to go. Will could do this.

And then Jack called.

--

"Don't be angry," said Will into his phone. He angled the receiver away from his mouth to snap, "No, no, that's the wrong angle, you're going to skew the pattern of the blood splatter."

"I know how to do my job," muttered the photographer, but he adjusted the angle of his shot obediently.

"Will," said Alana, voice supernaturally calm. "Tell me you are not at a crime scene with my eighteen months old baby."

"Um," said Will. He juggled the baby a little in his arm, and the baby giggled happily. "I mean, he seems fine with it. I think he likes all the excitement."

"Don't leave. We'll be right there."

Will winced. Still. "That could have gone way worse," he told the baby, who slapped him in the face with a wayward flailing arm. Will took it to mean that he agreed.

--

"You know," Will told Beverly the next week, "I did pretty good with Alana's baby. Maybe I should have a baby, too."

Beverly contemplated this for a moment. "Are you seeing anyone right now?"

"No. I was thinking of hitting up a sperm bank."

"Hmm." Beverly stood back from the lab table and snapped off her surgical gloves. "Maybe you should try to get through an entire baby sitting session without exposing the kid to a dismembered human body, first."

This seemed like sound advice. Better than Alana's, which had simply been to sink her head into her hands and shake her head on despair. Margot had patted Alana on the shoulder in a show of commiseration, but when she looked at Will, she flashed a covert thumbs up sign. Margot was somewhat baffled by Alana's horror at the whole situation.

"But what do I know," said Beverly. "First time I babysat my nephews, I showed them around Jack's evil minds murder museum. Apparently that's weird, I don't know."

Was it? Will shuffled around guiltily. He'd been planning on that for babysitting: take two. "I thought museums were supposed to be good for kids?"

"Don't ask me," said Beverly. "I'm just the aunt."

--

The next time Will babysat, there were fewer crime scenes but also more poop.

"I thought we had an agreement about this," said Will, wrinkliing his nose.

The baby's face was screwed up and red. More poop, then. How could such a small body produce so much poop?

"I changed my mind about the baby," said Will to Dr. Lecter, who was the only person to have picked up the phone.

"The baby?" asked Dr. Lecter.

"Yes," said Will. "I'm not going to have one. They're smelly and they poop and you can't take them to crime scenes. So we don't need to talk about this during our meeting this week after all."

"I see," said Dr. Lecter. "I'm glad you were able to come to a conclusion that was satisfactory to you. If you do decide to talk about it, of course, you are welcome to do so."

"I want to talk about it," said Will.

"Then I would be happy to listen."