William wasn't sure if Anya was on the level or being sarcastic. He looked to Buffy for clarification, but she darted his gaze. His eyes swept around the the table where the young women were gathered around the shop keeper. They were all engaged in their own lively conversations and the shop keeper beamed at them all with fatherly pride. He looked back to Anya and she was smiling at him.
"What? You doubted me?" she asked.
Something told William that Anya wasn't just your run-of-the-mill pregnant woman. There was something in her eyes that sparkled a little too brightly. There were things that she'd known that shouldn't have seemed so obvious.
"What are you?" he whispered, his eyes boring curiously into hers.
Anya left the circle and crossed the room to William.
"I'm exactly what you can be if you play this out the way it's intended," she told him. "And maybe, just maybe, if you do this right… you'll even remember when it's all over and done."
Anya flashed him a secret smile and then returned to her seat beside Giles. William couldn't help but watch the way she interacted with the group. Clearly, she was at ease with the bunch of them. She'd been a part of their lives for many years. But she had an odd preoccupation with Buffy. She stole glances at her that were laden with pride, sentimentality and something he couldn't yet name. Perhaps it was their association with Giles. Perhaps Anya couldn't help but look at her differently knowing that she was to become, for all practical purposes, the girl's stepmother.
William's eyes widened and he began watching the interaction between the women and the man with even greater interest. No… it couldn't be…
Anya looked over to him and nodded almost imperceptibly. Her smile and raised eyebrow answered his implicit question before she turned her attention back to her fiancé and her friends.
The jangle of the bell above the shop door brought him out of his daze. A young woman came bustling in, her arms loaded down with shopping bags. She dropped them just inside the doorway and stopped to admire the setting before her.
"This certainly isn't what I was expecting," she grinned.
Buffy stood and went to her, taking her into a heartfelt embrace. Everyone was talking at once, the young woman was chattering on excitedly about the wedding and the baby and the others were asking how she, of all people, could have kept this secret for so long.
"Because Giles and Anya asked me not to say anything," she shrugged, heading to the table, hand in hand with Buffy.
"I see you're more involved than Giles let on," Buffy said with a small smile.
"One of us had to be," the young woman answered without contempt, but pointedly. "You had too much going on, Buffy. Giles and Anya needed me. And they need you, too. We just all wanted to give you some time. How did you find out? Did Giles call you? Did you run into Anya somewhere? We were all so afraid of that… you know how she can't keep a secret about anything."
"Hey!" Anya interjected. "I can, too, Dawn! I haven't said a thing about Buffy's little friend yet!"
Buffy's head went to her hands and she shook it at Anya's outburst. She'd meant to break this to Dawn slowly instead of having it thrust upon her.
"What little friend?" Dawn wanted to know. "Are you seeing someone?"
Buffy couldn't mistake the glimmer of hope in her sister's eyes for anything else.
"You could say that," she said quietly.
"That's wonderful!" Dawn gushed. "Oh, Buffy! I know it's been so hard for you since mom and then Angel…"
William watched Anya's expression as Dawn referred to her mother. She was playing with the girl's hair and smiling slyly.
"No offense, Anya," she quickly retreated.
"Dawn," Anya said, her face turning very serious. "Don't ever apologize for acknowledging your mother. Without her, you and Buffy wouldn't be the wonderful young women you are today. And Rupert… he wouldn't be who he is either. Your mother helped shape that."
Buffy turned to Anya with a look on her face that clearly said: who are you and what have you done with the Anya I once knew?
Dawn was beaming. Something told William that she and Anya were a lot closer than either had let on to the rest of the gang.
"In fact," Anya smiled, her eyes searching Giles' for permission. "There is something that Rupert and I wanted to ask you both, now that we're all together and I hope you will take this in the spirit that it us intended."
Buffy waited, trying not to hold her breath, for whatever this ominous question was. Then, Anya did something that surprised her. She knelt in front of her chair, the way her mother had done when she was a child, and tipped up her chin with her hand.
"Buffy," Anya said softly. "We want you to be alright with this, but we understand if you aren't."
A sense of peace Buffy hadn't felt in a long time washed over her at the fleeting touch of Anya's hand. It wasn't something she could explain, but it was something utterly familiar.
"Rupert and I would like to name the baby Joyce, if she is, indeed, a girl," Anya smiled.
"And Liam, if he's a boy," Giles continued for his fiancée.
Buffy's eyes went glassy and she felt Willow's hand on her shoulder, intended for moral support.
"You don't have to make a decision now," Anya continued. "We just wanted to put that out there."
Buffy looked over to her sister. Dawn was standing next to Giles expectantly watching her sister's face.
Buffy nodded.
"I would…" She had to clear her voice and start again. "I would like that a lot. That's… very kind of you, Anya. Of both of you."
"Buffy," Anya told her friend. "I meant it when I said that your mother helped shape you girls and Rupert. Your mother is why we're all here today, Buffy. It was her selflessness and her love and the sense of family she instilled in all of us. She affected me, perhaps, more than I was aware until now."
William stared down at Anya as two forms blurred into her one. The one, the solid one, was the Anya he had seen since she'd walked into the shop. The other, was an older woman with a soft, familiar smile and kind eyes. The ghostly form began slipping away from Anya at Buffy's acceptance of the baby being named for her mother or her husband. When she was wholly separate from Anya's being, she glided to William.
"My work here is done," she smiled at the young man, taking him in as if she wanted to remember every detail that was William. "The rest is up to you."
He looked at her, realizing who she was.
"Where will you go, Joyce?" he asked quietly, hoping Buffy wouldn't hear him.
Joyce smiled and looked at Anya's still-flat stomach.
"Can you keep a secret?" she asked him.
He nodded that he could.
She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "The baby's a girl."
