"I tried to exact vengeance on you with wishes… I couldn't."
"Yeah. Well, the whole sleeping with an evil vampire thing pretty much did the trick."
Anya stood in front of the counter in the Magic Box, her feather duster frozen in mid swipe as the conversation replayed itself across her memory, stomping on the still too-fresh wounds of her heart.
Why was she doing this? Staying in Sunnydale. It made no sense, not really. Her title role of patron saint of scorned women had been reclaimed, much to D'Hoffryn's pleasure. There was a back log of vengeance to be wrought on far too many unsuspecting males. But she couldn't bring herself to leave Sunnydale to do it.
Things had changed—drastically. Tara was dead. Willow was recovering from her romp through pure evil. Spike had disappeared without so much as a fare-thee-well. Dawn wouldn't look her in the eye the last time she'd seen her at the grocers. No one even remotely related to the Scoobies had darkened the shop's threshold since the night she and Spike had gotten drunk on Giles' leftover liquor.
Anya couldn't even bring herself to revert to her normal money-lust. Capitalism had lost its appeal since she couldn't share her wealth with Xander.
It had struck her like a physical blow when the double realization had dawned on her. She had done to Xander exactly the same thing Olaf had done to her. Of course, she hadn't left Olaf at the altar on their wedding day.
At first she had believed her nausea was a side effect of her grief about the whole Xander/Spike ordeal, but after some hasty calculations one afternoon and a trip to the pharmacy, the real truth emerged.
It was supposed to be a joyous event, the magazines and books all said so, and it would have been had a thousand and one things not gone wrong that preempted that happiness. She was sure there had been a time when Xander would have been overjoyed at the thought that she would bear his child. Anya's biggest concern was how he might react to that same bit of news now.
Not wanting to risk the baby's welfare, she had chosen to remain in Sunnydale rather than traverse demonic realms. Portals and spells couldn't be good for a developing child, no matter that the child in question was being nurtured within a demon.
She looked down and patted her slightly rounded stomach. She had to find a way to tell Xander soon, before it became impossible to hide the fact that she was carrying his child.
(possibly to be continued)