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Author's Chapter Notes:
hope you enjoyed the first chapter.
My thanks to Toni, Ariadne and Sotia for reviewing. enjoy
Buffy woke up safe in William’s arms as always. Even in his sleep he held onto her like she was the anchor to his world.

Their home was full of friends, even Tara and her girlfriend had made it for the holidays. William loved the softly spoken witch who had saved Buffy’s sanity very much. Fran was home from College, as was Harri. Dawn was coming with her boyfriend: she’d met Clem, Spike’s friend from the film set, and seen past all the scars to the gentle and kind man beneath them, and fallen head over heels in love. When Clem had pointed out his scars she laughed, and pointed out that she was pretty enough for the both of them, and anyway she’d seen Buffy and William argue over a mirror and was glad he wouldn’t hog it. They hadn’t been apart since.

Riley and Anya and their kids would be there, Lorne and Xander had flown in from New York where they’d been shopping, Fred and Wesley and all their children were here as well. The house was full of family. He’d gone from having no-one to having everything he could dream of.

Buffy could not believe how many would be sitting down for Christmas Dinner. She’d cheated and got the caterers in to help: with all the children it came to 23 for dinner. Far too many for her to cope with in her condition and anyway, setting fire to the house on Christmas day seemed like a bad idea. She could hear the laughter from downstairs. Time for them to get up and join in the craziness, there were presents to be opened.

She slipped on a dressing gown over her nightdress and kissed a sleeping William lightly on the cheek and hurried down to see the chaos. Anya was keeping everyone out of the big Rumpus room until they had all had breakfast and everyone was there. Dawn and Clem had arrived only five minutes before, Dawnie sporting a rather nice diamond on her finger, which she was flashing around to everyone. Fred was joining in the fun, whilst trying to set out breakfast in the dining room. Tara was following on with a tray loaded with hot chocolate and coffee. The years had been kind to the woman who had taken Buffy in, she still looked amazing although she was coming up to seventy now.

Tara smiled as Buffy made her way down the stairs. She looked radiant, and had three months left to go with the pregnancy, even with twins usually coming early, but so happy in her life.

‘There’s no presents for anyone,’ Anya was holding off the hoard, ‘at least not until we are all here!’

‘We are,’ Harri pointed out, ‘Dawn’s arrived.’

‘Yes but William isn’t up yet, so no getting in there until your father is downstairs.’

Fran and Harri gave each other an evil look and led all the children in a charge upstairs. Young May, Fred’s youngest, was swooped up in a strong pair of arms belonging to James, Anya’s second boy, and carried up so she could join in the fun. If William up and out of bed was what it needed to get to the presents then they were the team to do it!

The crowd of children led by Fran and Harri burst open Spike’s door and jumped onto the bed.

‘Dad’s awake now,’ Harri shouted down to his mother.

Fred and Anya were laughing so much they couldn’t stand properly. Wesley looked at his ‘boss’ and William growled, ‘you’re supposed to protect me, that’s what I pay you for isn’t it?’

‘Can’t you handle a few children, Mr Atherton?’ Wesley said very formally. ‘Should I set the dog on them?’

As ‘The Dog’ in question was a soppy Labrador that was more likely to drown you in slobber than bite, or beat you to death with his tail than attack, William didn’t think that was much of a threat and threw a pillow at Wes, which meant that the whole place descended into a pillow fight for about ten minutes.

‘Will you please get up Dad?’ Fran finally asked, then stopped silent. She’d called William Dad; she loved Doyle, he was her dad, not Spike.

‘Hey its OK piglet,’ he’d called her that since he’d met Mr Gordo, her mom’s stuffed pig that she carried around with her when she’d been little. ‘It’s OK. I’m delighted that you think of me that way, but Doyle was your real dad and he always will be and he loves you whereever you are and whereever he is. I’m just a stand-in, but we have a mixed up family here. You and Harri aren’t related but you are brother and sister, and little May sometimes calls your mom mom, but she loves Fred very much and knows who her real mother is. Don’t sweat it poppet. Now what was this in aid of?’ He pointed at all the people crowded onto his bed.

‘Mom says we can’t have the presents from under the tree until everyone is up and you’re the last one to get up,’ Harri explained.

‘Well OK: I can’t keep you lot from pressies, now can I?’ he said, tickling May and handing her back to Wesley. ‘Now out while I put some clothes on.’ He’d been glad he’d slipped into a pair of silk PJ’s when Buffy had left the bed. He knew just what would happen if he wasn’t up in time.

Laughing, all the children left the room, and left William Atherton, star of stage and screen, big and small, to get dressed by himself.

‘Dad’s on his way down!’ Harri shouted.

‘About time too,’ Anya groused. She wanted to find out what people had bought her. She’d spent her hard earned money on others and wanted to make sure they had bought her an equally expensive gift.

Riley just wanted another man downstairs. It was getting a little oestrogen heavy around the dining room.

Buffy looked around her house, her home. It looked amazing, beautiful, magical. William had gone all out to ensure they had a fantastic, fantasy rich Christmas, the outside had taken a team of decorators a week to sort but the inside was all family. The children had made chains and painted bells. There were popcorn strings and holly and ivy everywhere. It looked like something out of a Victorian tale.

She switched on the CD player that was wired through the house, and the electrifying sound of Spike Atherton’s voice started singing Christmas Carols. It had been a Christmas Eve gift for Buffy, all her favourites recorded in a very old fashioned style, the smooth tones of his famous voice echoed through the hall as he crooned out Hark the Herald Angels sing and Buffy thought back to hearing it in the garden the night before as the sky had been lit up by heavenly hosts and she smiled quietly to herself. William had been determined to make their first Christmas together as magical as possible. He had even been reading ‘A Christmas Carol’ every night to them all. It was enchanting to hear a trained actor read the story. Every nuance of the story was brought out. The children and adults had gathered round the fire in the rumpus room every night to hear the next part of Ebeneezer Scrooge and his adventures with the ghosts. Last night had been the final part and then he’d read ‘Twas the night before Christmas’ before tucking all the little ones in. There had been mince pies and sherry left for Santa, and carrots, water and hay left for the reindeer.

It all seemed, well, enchanting and magical to her. He’d tried so hard.

Lunch was to be at 2 then they were all going to play silly games in the afternoon. Buffy looked across at Dawn: she seemed so happy, showing off her ring. Clem seemed a little out of it though. He was painfully shy with new people. Not that there was anyone here who didn’t know him well, but it was a large crowd of very noisy children of all ages. She made her way over to him slowly.

‘Congratulations Clem. You’ve made Dawn so happy.’

‘It’s her that’s made me happy,’ he replied. ‘She makes me feel whole again.’

‘Well I’m delighted for the both of you,’ Buffy linked her arm into his and they made their way towards the Rumpus room, followed by the thundering herd as they came down the stairs.

William followed, his hair all messed up from the bed, but he’d slipped on her favourite red silk shirt and black jeans. At 42 she felt her knees go weak and her blood pressure go up at the sight of her husband. She loved him so much. She was just glad that she was holding on to Clem’s arm or she might have had to sit down. A ridiculous thing for a grown woman to do at the sight of her husband.

Clem looked at the blush in Buffy’s cheeks and followed her gaze to the stairs where his friend was just descending. He was delighted that Spike had found his Buffy, he deserved the happiness, and hey, he’d introduced him to Dawn, and for that Clem would always be grateful.





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