Now

The screaming and whimpering have started up again, and God, could somebody get it to stop?

Can light be a form of pain? Anya thinks so. It burns through her lids, makes her head pound.

There should be someplace dark and quiet for this.

She cant see Xander, but she feels his rough hand squeezing hers, hears his steady murmur: You can make it, baby. Just hang in; Im here.

Green-robed grotesques hover around her. They have no faces.

That cant be good.

She hears another moan, realizes its coming from her throat. And she comes unstuck in time.

Eight months before

He was so frightened when she told him what was coming.

When has Xander Harris ever been too scared to crack a joke? That's when her hope faded just that little bit, when she started to think maybe this was beyond them. He stammered about change, trying to act like this was something he could handle, but she noticed the skin around his eyes and mouth paling with the effort to seem okay.

Timing isn't the best, she gets that. Glory, apocalypse, baby. Right.

She wanted him to be happy, not to think this was just another thing to face.

One week before

Somehow she's become a babysitter for lunatics: first Tara and now Buffy.

Funny thing is, Anya doesn't mind this. She doesn't exactly prefer them to humans in their right minds, but they're easier to be around. Sane people erect so many barriers, put out such mixed signals. Anya spends all her time trying to figure out what things really mean, how people truly feel. It's exhausting. Crazy people don't have to be decoded. You might not know what they're raving about, but their feelings shimmer clear and bright around them.

It's almost soothing. Not like Xander and that black depression.

Eight months ago

One minute Tara's crazy, the next she's back.

Anya frets aloud about the baby -- which nobody but Xander knows about, but Tara's crazy and everyone else is off fighting Glory, which means it's still a secret. She thought maybe talk about babies would soothe Tara's agitation, but her distress has just seeped into Anya's thoughts. "I don't know, what kind of world is this, to bring a child into?"

"Oh, Anya, it's always a sad old world, and babies keep coming. It'll be fine."

Tara's sudden lucidity startles them both. Their eyes meet, wonder dawning. "Glory's gone. I feel it."

Six hours ago

Xander's perched on the end of her bed, rubbing her feet with the lavender oil Tara gave her before she left. He's been right on hand since labor started for real, ready with lollypops, hairbrush, warm socks, enough cds to deejay a wedding. His crutches, dug out of the closet, wait against the wall for when his legs tire in the delivery room.

First baby. It's likely to be a long labor.

He approaches it like the Scooby he is: fully equipped, stocked with jokes and encouraging words.

Give him something to do with his hands, and he'll face anything.

Three months ago

Men are so fragile.

Anya's always known this, made great use of it.

What they do is who they are, at least in their own minds. Take away the doing, and they lose themselves.

Anya watches Xander wasting away in bed, the flicker of the television washing over him.

She wants to cry for him. (He won't cry.) She wants to scream at him. (She's tried that.) She wants to leave him. (She never will.)

"Tara at least wanted to get better. I could see her struggling. You love your misery too much."

He lifts the remote, changes the channel.

Eight months ago

Another thing she knows from her former career:

Having your wish granted can still leave the world all broken.

Anya and Tara spend an hour in hopeful agony awaiting news after Tara's mind returns. Glory's been defeated, but that's all they know. Tara longs to see the light in her lover's eyes when Willow realizes she's truly herself again. And Anya can't wait for Xander's extravagant grin and his jokes, half swaggering, half self-deprecating.

Neither expects to see Dawn awash in tears. Worse, Giles gone all stoic.

Buffy lost. Xander broken.

The world is safe again.

Anya barely cares.

Two weeks ago

The bell tinkles. Not a customer, but Anya smiles anyway. "Oh, Willow just left."

"I know." Tara looks so sad. "I came to say goodbye. Willow's determined to do the retrieval spell, and I just -- I just can't --"

"I know," Anya echoes. "I'm furious with Xander about this. The baby's almost here, and to him it's not even a blip. All he sees is Buffy."

There's such compassion in Tara's eyes. Nobody else looks at her that way. Even Xander. "You were so kind to me when I was lost. I'll never forget that."

Anya wishes she dared to wish.

Three years ahead

Before Christina came, he worried. Afraid he didn't have the physical strength for fatherhood. That he was destined to be the image of his own father. "I hear him sometimes in the way I talk to you, and I hate myself."

Anya watches him now with their daughter on his lap, reading Olivia for the third time in a row. Sitting by the window in "Daddy's chair." So it's Aunt Buffy who swings Christina through the air -- her daddy has his rocker and infinite patience for stories and songs and chatter.

He expresses only joy about the baby that's coming.

Eight months ago

Anya stands by his hospital bed, smoothing damp hair back from his forehead. Xander's completely out of it, drugged for the pain. He mutters and cries out, and Anya tries to tell him he's all right now, but she can't follow to where he is.

He's not all right.

The doctors don't expect Xander to walk again.

It's brimstone that crushed him -- a huge, flaming chunk that flew out of the hell portal just as Buffy was swallowed up. Anya suspects if you weighed the debris, it would come to Buffy's exact weight.

It's how things work on the Hellmouth.

Now

The bright smell of blood.

She remembers this. Sitting at a formal table in St. Petersburg, laughing with Halfrek as they admired the crimson splashes across snow-white table linens. Hallie going on and on about the significance of this moment. She was always a little too enamored of the sexy trappings of the job. For Anya it was this that was important: the bloom of copper-smell, the screams of the dying.

Now it's red on hospital sheets (she cannot see, but she smells it blossom on the air), a small cut to ease the way for their baby.

Eight days ago

Buffy's crazy as a shithouse rat, though God forbid Anya should say anything to that effect. She's nowhere near as pleasant a lunatic as Tara, but Anya helps with her anyway.

Buffy seems to calm a little when she's around, and Willow's cast a ward spell to protect Anya and the baby from any sudden violence.

Angel believes Buffy's strong enough to come back, just as he did after his time in hell. Anya's less sure, but she talks soothingly about the baby. Tara liked that. "She's not much of a sleeper. She moves all the time."

Buffy rocks herself.

Ten years ahead

Christi curls up beside her on the bed, clutching bride Barbie and groom Ken, birthday presents. "Isn't she pretty?"

"Very. But she's cruising for a huge disappointment." First of many. "Ken has no penis."

"Oh, that." Ten, and so blase. "What about Daddy?"

Anya chokes.

"Was he this handsome?"

Oh. "Much handsomer." She smiles, thinking of Xander in his tux, rising from his wheelchair to stand beside her. Taking her in his arms after the vows, ungainly as she was at six months along, for their wedding dance. "He still is, don't you think?"

Christi rolls her eyes. "Oh, Mom..."

Six months ahead

Anya can see Buffy in the window as she steps out onto the curb. That's what she does these days, sit and stare. Still so haunted.

Xander's haunted too. He's stopped blaming himself for her slipping into hell with Glory. He just grieves for his friend.

Anya walks in, settling the baby in Buffy's arms.

Her gaze takes on focus. For the first time since her rescue, Buffy smiles.

Anya crouches beside them. "Her name's Christina."

"Xander." Buffy's spoken so little since she returned. Tears shimmer in his eyes to hear her say his name. She tells him, "Good job."

Three months ago

Willow sits, concentrating: ashen, blood trickling from her nose.

Anya can't stand this. She hears nothing from inside the bedroom -- the energy barrier Willow erected to keep Xander and Angel inside swallows all sound. She jerks to her feet. "This was a bad idea."

"It's the only thing we haven't tried," Tara says.

Shock therapy. Hate therapy. Anya can only imagine Xander's fury. She hesitates, sits. He needs something to fuel his recovery. If wanting to be a father to their baby isn't enough, she'll take this.

He has to pull himself out of this. Anya can't do it alone.

Twelve days ago

Anya unzips her suitcase, starts throwing garments inside. Begging, threats, dish throwing, shameless manipulation -- she's tried everything. Nothing sways Xander. Though he's just put away his cane, he's going with the others to reopen the portal.

If she has to raise this child alone, she is not sticking around to see them carry back his corpse.

A sharp contraction makes her suck in her breath. Braxton-Hicks, that's all. She sits on the edge of the bed, waits for it to pass.

She's still there when he comes back, too exhausted for swagger, but grinning and joking.

Her baby's father.

Now

Panting turns into a high-pitched keening.

"She's crowning--"

Xander lets go of her hand to grab the bed railing, pulling himself to his feet. One hand clutching the railing, he brushes back her damp hair. "You're doing great, Anya. Keep breathing." He huffs and pants to remind her of the rhythm. "That's my girl. You're my beautiful girl."

If beautiful means red-faced and squalling, maybe. Her laugh turns into a wail.

"Ohh, here she comes," says a nurse.

Then Xander is crying and the nurse hands her their daughter.

Who knew? Beautiful does mean red-faced and squalling.