Author Notes — Great thanks to the fantastic ArjetLuna for beta-ing this for me!
Story Notes — This story is set in an alternate reality in which Anya and Xander actually got married in "Hell's Bells". Everything else is the same, though.
Disclaimer — Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, and The WB/UPN. I own nothing and make no profit from this exercise in creativity.
For the most part, Anya doesn't mind being pregnant. She dislikes feeling fat and tired and achy, of course, but then the baby kicks and she gets caught up in how amazing the whole thing is. Once, they were just Xander and Anya, loving each other, and now there's a baby — their baby — growing inside of her. Every time the baby moves, she remembers just how much Xander loves her, and it makes her feel so warm inside, makes her skin hum with anticipation. She feels connected to everything, as if she truly has a place in the world now.
But sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night because the baby wants her to lie on her back, while she'd rather lie on her side, and she feels claustrophobic, trapped. It's like when she first became human again and she felt like she was suffocating because she was stuck in this one fragile body in this one awful dimension. Panic grips her lungs, leaving her gasping for breath.
She's tried to talk to Xander, but he never understands; he just kisses her forehead softly and tells her that it's just the hormones, that she should rest. She thinks that she might actually feel better if she could do something other than rest, other than finishing the baby's room with only her own thoughts for company, but she doesn't have anything else. The Magic Box is gone, reduced to rubble by Willow's rampage, and Xander doesn't want her helping Buffy anymore. She practically begs him to take her with him to the Scooby meetings, but he is adamant. "Just stay here and worry about having a healthy, safe pregnancy," he says. "I'll take care of everything else, I promise."
She hates how he treats her like she's made of glass. The first time she was human, so many centuries ago, women had kept busy tending to their gardens and livestock right up until the day they delivered. Sure, with her current cumbersome form she'd certainly be no good in a fight, but she can still research demons well enough. It's like when she's feeling ugly and Xander tries to cheer her up by telling her that she's never looked more beautiful; he's finding beauty in something inside of her, not in Anya herself. It's a nice enough sentiment, she thinks, but she wishes that he wouldn't confuse the two.
It's not just Xander, though; she feels like that they all look at her differently now. Buffy only ever talks to her about cute little baby outfits she's seen at the mall, and Willow keeps giving her strange, disapproving looks every time she puts something in her mouth that isn't leafy and green. Dawn, meanwhile, is always trying to touch her stomach and feel the baby kick, which Anya finds rather off-putting and creepy.
Sometimes, she has the strangest sensation that she doesn't exist, that she's merely a vessel for this tiny unborn human inside of her. She realizes with a start that Anya is disappearing, as surely as Aud and Anyanka once did, and is being replaced with this new, completely foreign entity called Mom. This sudden insight terrifies her even more than the realization that her powers were gone once did. She feels the baby stretching its little limbs, crowding her internal organs, and Anya can feel the child slowly wresting control of her life.
She feels horribly guilty for even thinking such things, because she loves this baby with all of her heart and soul, even when it's kicking her in the ribs and elbowing her bladder. She's bought practically every pregnancy book there is, but none of them mention anything like this. Anya wishes more than ever that she had someone to talk to, but there's no one — Joyce was the only mother that she really knew, and she's been gone more than a year now.
Xander will never understand, she knows. He's going to be a parent, too, but at the end of the day he's more than just Dad: he's a construction worker, a carpenter, a Scooby, and a friend. Anya's already traded her lame-ass made-up maiden name for his surname; she's not sure what else she has left. Sometimes, these feelings leave her so desperate that she considers confiding in Buffy or Willow, solely for that female connection. Something stops her, though; they look at her at times, and Anya thinks that she sees envy in their eyes. Neither woman, she realizes, will ever be able to make a baby with the person she loves, like Anya has.
So Anya is alone, only now she's never alone. The baby kicks, making its presence known, and she thinks about how much Xander loves her, and how lucky she is; so few people get the home and the husband and the baby. She wonders if she's just being selfish, or crazy. Maybe, she thinks, this is just another part of being human at which she just fails miserably, like being patient with customers or keeping her and Xander's sex life private.
With great effort she clears her mind and forces herself to breathe evenly. She rolls over onto her back, even though the baby's weight cuts off the circulation to her legs, and tenderly rubs her stomach while humming "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" under her breath until the baby is lulled to sleep. Even with the panic chased away, she still lies awake for hours, staring at the ceiling with wet eyes. She chokes on a sob and tells herself that things will be better once the baby's born.