"Jesus loves the little children..."

A song floats through XellAn Metallium's head, dragging her away from blissful slumber. Her amber eyes snap open and blaze through the darkness. Why now? Why was it then that that stupid song had to come back and haunt her? It's been ten years since she'd heard any one sing it and it had come back at the time she wants it least. The demon-child growing inside of her stirs and she sighs. Love, she thinks scornfully. Love is nothing but lies. Love is the reason I'm in this position in the first place...but yes, I suppose it is the reason Xellos is here too...

She peers through the darkness at the form sleeping beside her. Xellos Metallium, her teacher, her master, her lover. The father of her child. She loves him so, yet he shows nothing in return. What he displays is lust, a desire, a want. He is too far from being human to know love, too far to mean it when he says he loves her. Or is he? There are so many jumbled thoughts in her mind, so many ideas trying to present themselves all at once. He is a monster, a demon. He cannot love...yet she is the same as him, devoid of any feeling. Or she is suposed to be, at least, but she is still human in some ways, after only nine years. How will he love our child, she asks herself, if he does not love me? She thinks back to when she'd told him. "Who'da thunk it? After all the woman I've been with, you're the first one to acuse me of fathering a child. I mean, I've been around and-" He'd stopped at the look on her face. He was well aware that she loved him, or at least loved him as much as a Mazoku could, and he did have some strange feelings towards her, feelings he hadn't had in a long time. He'd hugged her to him, kissed her forehead. "Do not worry, XellAn- Chan. I've stopped playing the field. I'll never disappear on you like I did to all of them. They meant nothing to me." What he'd said is true, she thinks, he hasn't been out and about in over a year. But that doesn't mean he cares...Why go out when he can get it at home?

Confused, she thinks instead about her Lord, the Beastmaster, Zelas Metallium. The Demon Lord had been going around like a proud grandma since she'd discovered her priest and her "pet" had created a child. Juuou-Sama is pleased at least, she tells herself. The Beastmaster tells her every day that a new generation of Mazoku is one of the best things that could ever happen. There hasn't been a demon-child for years, she is well aware, save for her own conversion. And Zelas has rights to be proud. Although Xellos and XellAn are not her off-spring, they do contain her power and her chaotic evil nature, for it is she who made them what they are, she who destroyed their human lives and she whom they belong to.

She thinks back to her own discovery that she was to have a baby. She hadn't expected it; it'd been over two years since Xellos first requested that she lose her innocence (if you could call it that) to him and she'd never thought they could conceive a child. How could two beings not really living create life? Could it even be called "creating life?" Yet, something about the way they moved together, something about him being with her, made her feel almost human again, as if they were just another couple, and not servants to the Beastmaster. Could he possibly feel that way too? Was that why he stayed with her, claimed he loved her? Did he love her?!

She sighs. The child is moving furiously within her and it won't be much longer until both their lives are changed forever. We've created this, she tells herself, it's no fault but our own. It's our problem now, our mistake. So why won't Xellos acknowledge the fact that he had a part in it too? He'd barely said two words to her in the past few weeks as he watched her grow. He hardly even looked at her any more. It's because, she thinks, I'm ugly now. I am no longer his pretty angel, destined to be eighteen forever. I am somebody's mother and that is a turn-off. It's because he cannot come home and get what he wants any longer...I'm always too tired, I'm fat and I'm ugly....Silent tears streak down her cheeks. She wishes they had never done it, wishes his child wasn't inside her, wishes that he'd love her. All she ever wanted in her life was to be loved.

Suddenly, his arms are around her. "XellAn-Chan, My Dear, what's wrong? Are you crying?" His voice is a whisper in her ear. "I hate you." She sobs, "I hate you so much..." He holds her close. "Why would you say a thing like that?" She sniffles "You don't care about me...you don't spend any time with me, you don't talk to me, you don't even look at me...." He is silent for a long time. "I worry about you. I worry about our child. I love both of you and I don't know how to take care of you." He finally admits quietly. "I...I want to believe you...but..." He kisses her, "But nothing. I don't lie to you, XA-Chan." He calls her by her childhood name, the name he'd called her when he was being very serious, and she knows it is the truth. "I believe you...I love you..." She is crying in his arms, "...I wish it were different..." He kisses her. "Oh, but it is. It's a new begining. It's life sprung from shadows. It is love."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author's note: i dunno if i really like the end of this or not...i may go back and change it. i hope it wasn't too queer and that no Xel-Chan and Filia-Sama fans kill me for making up a character...but XellAn is part of a series and i don't like X/F!!!! SO THERE!!!! if you wanna know more about XellAn, read my other fics. "Alone" is the first one. ^_^