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Chapter One: Arrivals
Present Time
The Summers Residence

“Welcome, Rupert,” Joyce greeted him coldly. There had been a tension between them since the fight they’d had the week before, and they were both sick of the distance it had put between them, but Joyce was still holding out for an apology while Giles was still clinging to the belief that he had done nothing wrong and that is was simply a misunderstanding. Pfft, he had practically called her fat; there was no way he was getting away with that one without some groveling.

Joyce took the bag full of presents that he’d been carrying with him and moved into the living room to put them under the tree, leaving Giles at the front door.

“Jeez Giles, I know it’s California but that’s still no reason to leave the door open,” Dawn complained while rushing into the living room after catching sight of the new bag of presents sitting by the tree. Ever since she was a little girl she loved to shake the boxes to see if she could tell what was inside, another fake memory given to her by the monks, but it was Christmas, her favorite holiday, not just because of the presents she received but because of the time she got to spend with her family, and no matter what they were her family. So she wasn’t going to dwell on the less than spectacular things in life, she was just gonna be happy.

One Hour Later
The next members of the Scooby Gang to arrive were Willow and Tara, who were more cheerful than usual. Buffy assumed it was the holiday cheer, even though Willow was Jewish, she still got caught up in it. After directing the two wiccans to living room – away from the kitchen where her mother and Giles were glaring at each other, effectively vaporizing any holiday cheer to come their way – she put in one of her favorite Christmas movies.

Normally she would have waited for Xander and Anya, but last year her Christmas movie watching tradition was delayed nearly four hours because Anya wanted to have as much sex as possible before locking themselves in the Summer’s household for three days, not that that stopped them from having sex all hours of the night anyway. She was hoping that her mother and Giles being in the house would stop them this year. Last year they had stayed at Giles while he was out of town and headed to her mom’s house for the exchanging of presents. So Buffy was confident that there would be no hanky-panky of any kind, after all, it wasn’t fair that they could have wild monkey sex while she was forced to remain celibate for the time being, through no one’s fault but her own.

If she’d could have just gotten up the nerve to tell her friends about her and Spike last week than she could be sitting on his lap with a cup of hot chocolate watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. But everything would be fixed after Christmas when she’d tell her friends about the two of them and they would be able to do coupley things, like holding hands instead of playing footsie under the table, but due to the fact that that almost always ended with her up against the alley wall outside the shop, maybe they could continue to do that. Again she metaphorically kicked herself for being a scardy-cat and chickening out of telling her friends the truth about her dating life.

Two Hours Later
“Knock, knock,” Xander announced his presence without actually knocking when he stepped through the front door with Anya following after him. “I come baring gifts!”

Dawn squealed and immediately ran to greet the newcomers in the foyer. Buffy nearly laughed at the expression on Xander’s face when Dawn sidestepped his hug and went straight for the bag of presents Anya was practically dragging.

“I don’t understand this whole gifting-giving thing,” Anya complained. “Why must we spend all our hard earned cash to buy things for other people? Have you seen the economy? I predict we’ll all be living on the streets this time next year. Didn’t we just celebrate birthdays, now people want presents for Christmas too?”

Buffy rolled her eyes as Anya continued explaining why this was a waste of money and the real reason Christmas was celebrated which eventually led to her asking why Willow’s presence was required. Thankfully, before anyone came to blows, her mother invited Anya into the kitchen for some hot chocolate with Giles trailing after her. If she didn’t know better, she’d think something was going on with them, but Buffy remembered after the Band Candy incident when Giles had sworn on all of his books that it would never happen again. Surely Giles wouldn’t go against his word, and it wasn’t that she didn’t want her mother to be happy; it just couldn’t be with Giles. Once things ended – and they would end; that’s what relationships did after all – Giles would surely leave town which meant leaving her. Yeah, it was selfish, but Giles was like a father figure to her and she didn’t know what she would do if she lost him too.

Buffy shook herself from her thoughts when Xander pulled her aside from the others.

“So, Buff,” he started. “I hope you don’t mind, but Anya and I invited a friend. His family was out of town so…”

“Oh, sure,” Buffy smiled. “A friend of yours is a friend of mine. The more the merrier.”

“Um, actually,” Xander laid a hand on her arm, stopping her from leaving. “See, we invited him on the pretense of… maybe more than a friend status.”

“Xander, are you trying say you invited a guy here as a blind date, on Christmas?”

“Um, well,” he stuttered.

“I assume this was an act of kindness? That’ll help with the not throttling.”

As Xander made his excuse and left the room, Buffy glared after him. Even if she didn’t have this thing with Spike going on, there’s no way she would ever go on a blind date, especially on the day before Christmas Eve. What was he thinking? At least Spike wouldn’t be here, she really didn’t have time for jealous vampire crap. He’d never know, because there was nothing to be known.
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An hour later Buffy found herself in the bathroom, doing nothing but pacing and plotting ways to hide from Richard. Sure, he was nice, and maybe she would have gone for him once upon a time, but he kept following her around like a lost puppy when she was clearly not interested. God, he was than Spike.

“Buffy!”

“Just a second Anya,” Buffy yelled once again through the bathroom door. Jeez, couldn’t Anya tell she was busy. Buffy immediately felt bad for keeping the ex-demon out of the bathroom, after all Anya probably had to actually use the bathroom.

“Buffy,” Anya screamed while readjusting her purse on her shoulder. “I know you’re not using the bathroom. I can see your shadow moving at the bottom of the door.”

Buffy rolled her eyes but opened the door nonetheless. She glared at the ex-demon who ignored her and shoved her way and into the bathroom with ‘thanks’ that Buffy doubted she meant. Before the slayer could leave the hallway in case Richard spotted her, Anya poked her head outside the door.

“Oh, and Richard’s looking for you,” she said before slamming the door closed again.

“Of course he is,” Buffy grumbled.

Three Hours Later
After busting out a few board games – which Anya managed to win continually, especially ‘Life’, which didn’t surprise Buffy at all – everyone gathered in living room to watch another Christmas movie. Xander and Anya sat in the recliner covered by and a blanket. Buffy was sure she had heard a strangled moan from their direction at least once and was now avoiding looking in their direction. Giles and Joyce were drinking some scotch which Buffy wanted desperately to get a hold of, especially when Willow and Tara decided to sit on the floor and leave her on couch with Richard and Dawn. She loved her sister, but her snoring could wake the dead, and sitting next to Richard wouldn’t have been too bad if he’d quit talking for five seconds, and the fake stretching that somehow ended with his arm resting behind her on the back of the couch. Please! She’d nearly strangled Willow when the red-head had flashed a big grin and thumbs up her way.

The doorbell ringing came as a welcome distraction and she immediately jumped at the opportunity to leave the room. Though who was on the other side of the door may have been worse than the predicament she’d been in in the living room.

“Spike, what are you doing here?”

“Your mum invited me, luv.”

And with a quick peck on the lips, the vampire made his way into the house. Buffy sighed, this was gonna be a long holiday.





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