freemage@hotmail.com wrote:

       Now, her darling baby boy had returned, all grown up.
       And she might have to kill him.

I tend to encourage authors to avoid the use of "now" whenever possible 
while writing in the past tense, bacause it can often create sentences 
that just plain have a lousy sound.  (For similar reasons, I discourage 
the use of "here" and "this" in third-person stories).  Unless the 
writer is very careful, these words muck with the perspective something 
awful.
   You could eliminate this part of the problem by identifying when 
"now" is, or just eliminating it entirely:

    That morning, her darling baby boy had returned, all grown up.

Perhaps I should clarify.  This is difficult for me, for while I seem to
have an intuitive grasp of grammar, I never studied it, save for Middle
School like everyone else.

The reason for the use of "Now" is to signify a change in the time-frame
for Washu's thoughts.  (Yes, this is a TENCHI story, the only story I've
been writing since '96...)  She had been going over the distant past in her
mind, recalling the way she had felt when her baby had been taken from her.
 To give a better sense of context, here are the preceeding paragraphs:

        She turned the keyboard off and slumped.  It was almost too much to
bear.  Having little Monshu taken away from her, almost twenty thousand
years ago, had been an experience so traumatic that she had regressed into
a child's body to cope.  By the time she met Tenchi, she felt she had put
the experience behind her.  Then she had met Taro, Tenchi's baby cousin,
and
the feelings had come flooding back.
        In the end, it had been a good thing.  It had allowed her to deal
with feelings she had suppressed for so long.  She had even considered
returning to her adult form to celebrate.
        Now, her darling baby boy had returned, all grown up.
        And she might have to kill him.

You see, "Now" indicates a shift to Washu's present.

Another case of word choice creating a grammatically correct, but 
awkward sounding sentence.  A different verb might help matters.  Try 
the following:

        And she might need to kill him.

        And she might be forced to kill him.

  A lot depends on what the situation is.  If the possibility of her 
killing her child comes from a personal need (for instance, his 
continued existence puts her current life at risk, or he himself is a 
threat to her and those she loves), then option one ("need") is better.
  If, OTOH, an outside party is coercing her (say, Nabiki has decided to 
foreclose on her house unless she silences her kid), then the passive 
voice in option two would be appropriate ("be forced").

Actually, "forced" is the better of two.  However, she's not being forced
by any outside party.  She's being forced by her son himself, whose actions
are threatening the lives of those she loves.

Thanks for your help.

------RM