Odd.

I never feel like a fraud, not about writing. About other things, yes; at the moment, for instance, fraud-parenting looms large.

Not about writing, though. If a piece sucks, it sucks; so what? Write another.

To me, a fraud indicates dishonesty.

You'll never match what you did before

This. I know this well.

Glances at desk drawer of partially written stories....

The biggest thing that keeps me going is the knowledge of all those kick-ass stories out there on the net that never got finished for some reason or the other. I'm not going to join them. I don't want people thinking "Yeah, Two Ladies of Quality, nice stuff, though I wish she'd finished that one piece. I wonder what happened to her?"

it's progressing slowly, but it's progressing

Friday night, date night. Xander walked down the hallway to Anya's apartment with a bouquet of chocolate roses. She agreed that flowers were pretty, but she had an odd quirk about having what she called plant corpses around the house. Which made odd, Anya sense.

He paused at her front door to listen for signs of her presence. They'd been trying all summer to recreate something resembling a relationship, but between the shop and the demon biz, free time was something Anya didn't have a lot of. She had been practically living with him before the trip to the convent, but after getting her old job back they'd decided some reorganization time was in order. Which was just as well: when Anya got the call that a scorned woman was looking for some payback, she headed out immediately. Xander found it less upsetting to stop by her place to find a note saying, "Off to Vladivostok, love you," then to have her teleporting out of his place on her missions of unmercy.

The stereo inside was playing something upbeat, so she was home. He knocked on the door.

"Come in if you're Xander!" came the answering call.

He paused to savor the sound of her voice. Even a whole summer later, Xander still had trouble replacing the image of Anya dying in his arms with the ongoing pictures of the perky woman bustling through her world. Perky demon. He shook his head firmly and went in.

For a couple of hours they pretended they were nothing but a devoted couple catching up on the day's news over dinner. They traded stories of the shop and of the construction site over some surprisingly good lasagna. Dessert was apple pie a la mode--Xander suspected supermarket pie meets a few seconds in the microwave for warmth, but he didn't care because it was good--and they took their plates over to the couch to catch some sitcoms on TV while they ate and leaned against each other.

The evening was about to progress to the "kissing leading to sex" part of the schedule when a puff of air moved through the room, followed by a woman's voice saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry to interrupt, Anyanka! I didn't know you had a guest."

Anya sighed and straightened up from her very comfy spot on Xander's shoulder. "This isn't a guest, Halfrek, this is Xander."

The woman standing in the middle of the entryway--where she hadn't been two seconds before-- was the fluffy, pretty sort. She blinked at Xander in eager curiosity. "Oh, so *this* is Xander. He's pretty."

"Thanks," Xander said with a frown. He raised an eyebrow at Anya, who sighed.

"Halfrek, Xander Harris. Xander, Halfrek. She's a friend from work."

He grimaced. "I'm thinking you don't mean the Magic Box."

Halfrek bounced over to the couch. "No, I'm a vengeance demon, too. Hi." She held out her hand.

Xander shook her hand gently. "So, vengeance demon. Who do you venge for?"

Her smile slipped a few points. "Children. I work with kids."

He blinked in surprise. "Then how come none of my wishes as a kid came true?"

"It's--complicated." Halfrek turned back to Anya. "So, sweetie."

Anya shook her head. "I have tonight off. It's down on the schedule. D'Hoffryn himself initialed it."

"Well, that was before this guy in Paris cleaned out the bank accounts, ran off with his secretary, and left his wife and four kids homeless and bankrupt. It's a two-for-one deal. Plus--Paris!"

Anya started to look intrigued, then shook her head again very firmly. "Night off. Night off with Xander. Paris is . . ." She tossed her head. "I've seen Paris. I haven't seen Xander all week." She leaned back against his shoulder.

Halfrek sighed. "Anya, Mme. DuCharles is whipping up potions and firing up the hand of glory as we speak. The kids are holding candles at the edge of the circle and chanting. We're up, honey."

"No. Get somebody else." But the smile she gave Xander was uncertain.

Xander sighed. "Honey, if you've got to go--"

"No. It's on the schedule. If we start ignoring the schedule, then chaos has won and the bunnies are members of the board." She shuddered and dropped her head firmly onto Xander's shoulder.

Halfrek looked to the ceiling for guidance. "Look, if it's such a big deal, why don't you just bring him with us?"

Anya started to answer, paused, then looked at Xander. "Have you ever been to Paris?"

"I've been to Oxnard."

"Oxnard isn't Paris."

"No, it isn't. But Oxnard is where I've been."

"You'd like Paris," she grinned. "It's very pretty and old, and if you ignore the Frenchpeople, it's a very nice place. We could stroll along the river and listen to the music."

Xander blinked and thought about it. He'd only ever been out of the state of California once, and he hadn't quite given up his dream of traveling and seeing something of the world. The idea of strolling along a river in a romantic city hand in hand with Anya was actually pretty appealing.

Halfrek nodded at the look on his face. "Xander, yes, come along and wait in some nice little Left Bank cafe while we finish with Mme. DuCharles' wish, then you and Anya can have a wonderful time."

Anya sighed. "Yes, we should get that out of the way first. Then I wouldn't be distracted."

"So," Xander said slowly, "we'd have our romantic tour of Paris after . . ."

Anya shrugged sadly. "Can't be helped. Work before pleasure."

"And I'd wait in a cafe someplace while you and Halfrek here . . ."

"Oh, we can talk Mme. DuCharles into something quick for her husband, then we'd have most of the weekend for ourselves."

Somehow Xander didn't see himself sitting in some restaurant, calmly waiting for Anya to finish eviscerating some poor schmoe so they could have a nice little vacation.

Several months went by, and their mother was busier than she could ever remember. Uno and Dos were two very active toddlers, and strong for their age. They climbed up on the roof at least once a day, played catch with the good china, and every morning was a surprise, as she could never be sure that the furniture would be where it had been the night before. Poor Roja and Blanca now spent most of their time in hiding.

Tres and Quatro still needed constant attention, so it was good that her husband was able to help with the older boys. They would grab onto his arms and they would all three laugh with delight as he hoisted them into the air and swung them back and forth.

"These boys will be fine luchadores one day!" he proclaimed. "Just imagine what a show it will be when they are in the ring with their brothers. Everyone will say that they have never seen anything like it before!"

Their mother started to protest. After all, a boy who was as wise and attuned to the spirit world as her Uno would make a fine priest. Clever Dos could be a professor some day, or perhaps even a doctor. Why would they want to be luchadores? Such a silly, pointless thing...

She was about to say just that, but something stopped the words before they could leave her mouth. Maybe it was the look Roja gave her from beneath the couch, or maybe it was the shock of feeling a baby moving within her womb.

"You know something? I think you may be right," she said, and left the room to finish her preparations for the Dia de los Muertos. "Yes, now that I think about it, I am *sure* you are right.

Fortunately, her husband had just enough presence of mind to move Uno and Dos out of harm's way before he fainted in shock.

Beneath the couch, Roja and Blanca nodded in satisfaction. Things were indeed progressing well.

As you well know, amazing things had happened to her during her other three pregnancies, so she should not be faulted for wondering what strange and wondrous gifts would make themselves known as her fifth child grew within her womb.

She thought about these things as she worked in the bread lines, feeding hungry men whose jobs had disappeared after the great stock market crash. These were long days for her, as she tried to give these men hope along with far too little food.

At home, she told her husband that she was proud of him for looking for work even when it seemed that no work was to be found. She told him that she was proud of the way he did not turn back to the bottle to numb the pain and boredom of those days.

When he was not looking for work, her husband begged and traded for enough lumber and canvas to make her a little pushcart with a red and white striped canopy. He even got Padre Dominguez's permission let her set up shop in front of the cemetery, so she could better sell her charms and potions. He would stay home and do the laundry, for even people who were out of work needed clean clothes. When she learned he had done for her, she kissed him like he had never been kissed before, right there in front of the church for everyone to see.

As the lack of jobs got worse, some rather unsavory young men came in from the south end of town, and went around demanding protection money from shopkeepers. When their leader stopped by her pretty little cart, and smiled at her like a shark, she feared for herself and for her children, but she did not give him any money.

He said he would be back the next day, and the nausea she felt when he left had nothing to do with her pregnancy.

True to his word, the young man with the shark's grin came back the next day, along with his compadres. Much to their surprise, they did not just find one pregnant woman with her pushcart. All the men from the breadline--out of work welders, and bricklayers, and porters, all with muscles and tempers like bulls--were there. So were many women of the neighborhood, women who had come to her over the years for charms and advice, and who took heart from the courage she had always displayed. These women were as strong as their men, after years of doing laundry, scrubbing floors, and toting children on their hips.

Here and there in the welcoming crowd were many children--small and large--with eyes lit with excitement, and pockets full of good sharp rocks for throwing.

After an all-too-short battle and a good, long victory party, she went to bed tired, yet satisfied with the way the day's events had gone.

As she waited to fall asleep, she rested her hand on her belly and marveled at how her husband had become a better, braver man than she had ever dreamed he would be, and how she had come over the years to love and care for the people of her neighborhood as if they were her own family. She felt pride at the way they had so easily taken courage from her to face down those ruffians.

"Some day," she said to her unborn child, "you and your brothers will stand together with that kind of bravery and courage, even though you will face some very hard times. That is why your brothers will need you, and rely on you, even though you are the youngest. You will be their heart--el corazon--mi hijo, for you will be able to give them hope and courage and the ability to stand firm even when things are at their darkest."

Not a single person in all of East Los Angeles was surprised when the boy was named Cinco. Well, it seems that the bishop was surprised, for he stormed all the way from the cathedral to the little neighborhood church to ask Padre Dominguez why a good Catholic child would be given such a name--and not even a name, but a number! And he had done the same thing for the child's four brothers! What had the priest been thinking?

Padre Dominguez quite calmly pointed out that Cinco was a good, Biblical name, as were Uno, Dos, Tres, and Quatro. After all, were not numbers used all throughout the Bible, to mark out chapters and verses?

The bishop did not like this answer, so Padre Dominguez--who had something of a mean streak for a man of the cloth--sent the bishop to discuss the matter with Cinco's mother. The good Padre never did find out what happened, exactly, but he did know that the bishop never bothered him again.

When she took Cinco home after his baptism, his mother was surprised at the strange quiet that attended her on her walk home. No omens, no premonitions, no strange patterns of smoke, no sudden storms on a cloudless day, nothing. Later that night, she looked down at her youngest son--her last son--as he suckled at her breast, and wondered how one went about training one's children to be luchadores.

You see, even though she was give no sign telling her what to expect next, she knew now that she had been blessed. She had been chosen to be the mother of heroes, and that was no small thing. Their gifts were her gifts, too, so that she could be wise enough, strong enough, clever enough, and courageous enough to raise them to be the kind of men they would one day need to be.

Imagine her great surprise, then, when she found herself with child one last time.

Padre Dominguez quite calmly pointed out that Cinco was a good, Biblical name, as were Uno, Dos, Tres, and Quatro. After all, were not numbers used all throughout the Bible, to mark out chapters and verses?

Love this.

Imagine her great surprise, then, when she found herself with child one last time.

t gasps in surprise

Plot twist!!! Wheee!

Yes! The unexpected Seis or will it be Una?

Wow. Connie, Anne, all of a sudden, feeling Not Worthy. Connie, my favorite was "So how come my wishes never came true?"
"It's complicated," Anne, you've got me wondering who/what she'll give birth to. Munch gets some unexpected help here. [link]