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willow_25By: willow_25
Thanks again to maryperk for the inspiration. More christmas fic ahead!
By the time noon rolled around, Buffy was seriously contemplating moving to another room; possibly another building. Merry had evidently told everyone she’d seen since leaving the office about the snow-woman, and then every one of them wanted to see the figure. She’d barely gotten a damn thing done, and two people had knocked on the door during her counseling session, ignoring the sign warning them not to. She sighed, and sat back with a shiver. The last workday before Christmas, and it promised to be the longest day of the week. Well, at least with the AC on high, it felt like Christmas in her office.
In frustration, she decided to grab some hot chocolate, hoping the sugar would jump-start her ambition to finish the paperwork. The caf wasn’t nearly as busy as usual with so many people gone for the holidays, so Buffy decided to sit in there for a while. Maybe a change of scenery would help her get back on track. She tried to call Spike again, but the idiot was still not answering his phone. In the warmer environment, without all the interruptions her office had invited earlier and a belly full of warm cocoa, she soon became sleepy, and started to doze off.
After several minutes, Buffy was startled to attention by a clatter across the table, and was surprised to find herself face to face with yet another snowman. She looked around frantically for someone she could point to as the delivery person, but no one was acting suspicious, or walking away from her, and the nearest person was several tables away and engrossed in what looked like scrolls. She frowned. This was really weird, even for her life.
The third snowman was a little over a foot tall, and rested on a Christmas dinner plate she didn’t recognize. Being too small for a scarf, or a carrot nose, the little guy sported stone eyes, nose, mouth, and a tie made from stones embedded in his neck and chest. Buffy was impressed; this one had obviously taken a lot of work to put together. She had no idea why, but obviously this snowperson thing was important to Spike…Or whoever was doing it. Since he was still gone, she didn’t see how her boyfriend could have given her this one…Unless he had an accomplice.
His usual partners in crime seemed clueless about what was going on; Dawn could have been lying, but these days her sister found it nearly impossible to keep anything from Connor, and he did not have what you’d call a poker face. Buffy smiled at the memory of the boy’s obvious excitement. They hadn’t been involved, she was pretty sure. And Merry had been genuinely hurt that she wasn’t asked to be involved; she took her friendship with Spike seriously, and got upset when he neglected to tell her things. She was going to be bummed that Dawn was the first person they’d told about the baby.
Remembering her earlier conversation, Buffy tried to call Clem to ask about the snow, but evidently he and Harmony were both off today, and no one who was working would tell her if anything had been shipped to the Hyperion recently. Frustrated, she tried to figure out where the stones could have come from, and who would have had access to them. That might help, maybe.
Her musings were interrupted by a small plinking noise, and Buffy startled back to attention to find that a stone had fallen out of the snowman’s tie and hit the table. It was starting to melt already in the warm cafeteria. Buffy sighed, and picked up the little snowman, heading back to her office. As cute as the whole snowman thing was, it was starting to get on her nerves that she couldn’t quite pin it on anyone.
Unlocking her door, Buffy went to stand the little guy on the plate next to the larger figure, only to discover that the snow-woman had been removed while she was gone. The metal pan was still there, dry and empty, and she placed the plate carefully inside it. This day just got weirder and weirder.
Buffy felt reinvigorated after her break, and went back to her work with a vengeance. By the time Jezzie knocked on her door a little after 1:00, she was almost done. “Hey, could you come back in 15 minutes, by any chance?” She asked the headmistress, “I got a little behind schedule today, but I’m almost done.”
“You done with the grades?” The older woman asked, dropping into a seat across the desk from the senior Slayer and draping the sweater Buffy had left for guests across her legs.
“Yeah, I’ve just got two transfer recommendations left to do.”
“If you want, you can turn those in after the New Year.” Jezebel said. “I spoke to Shaun today, and he said they’re so far behind in processing paperwork that they probably won’t be ready to take transfers in front of the committee until February.”
“It’s okay, I’m kind of on a roll now. Besides, I’m supposed to be setting a good example, you know?”
“Yeah, I get that. Welcome to my world.” The older Slayer rolled her eyes. “Just be thankful that you don’t have kids; then there’s no escaping it. You have to think about everything you do and say every second of your life, after that.”
Buffy nodded, keeping a firm mental grip on her tongue. “Well, I’ll see you in a little while, yeah?”
“Let me take the grades now, and you can just e-mail me the reports. No sense in you having to wait on me, or me on you.” Jezzie leaned forward, and Buffy handed her the larger stack of papers. “I’ll see you at Christmas Carols tonight, then?”
“Yup, I’ll be there. Hopefully Spike will be back in time.”
“I’m sure they’ll make it.” Jezzie turned to leave, but stopped to examine the snowman. “I thought Merry said it was a snow-woman?”
“That was the last one; this is the third.” Buffy frowned. “Now that you mention it, the second one disappeared while I was in the cafeteria…I wonder who could have taken it?”
Jezebel frowned. “Sounds like we have to get your lock changed. I’ll call next week.” And with that, she headed out the door.
Buffy was as good as her word, finishing her reports in under an hour and sending them off to Jezebel by e-mail, then calling Dawn to say she was ready to leave. Before she headed to meet her sister in the lobby, Buffy tried Spike’s phone again, but there was still no answer. She was starting to worry a little bit; he’d been so over-protective these last two weeks, ever since they’d found out that she was pregnant; and now he wasn’t picking up his cell phone. It was odd, even for him.
Buffy’s worry lasted until she reached the Hyperion lobby, where she found a group of students and teachers decorating the huge tree. It had been sitting there lit for several weeks, but the ornaments weren’t going up until today, as part of the Christmas Eve festivities.
Willow and Xander were right there in the thick of it; Xander was up on a ladder hanging things on the tree, while Willow helped unpack ornaments. “Hey! How are you guys doing?” Buffy was a little ashamed that she hadn’t seen much of them in the past few days, especially since she’d convinced them to come to LA.
“Doin’ good, Buffster.” Xander called down. “You here to help?”
“No, I’m meeting Dawn for some last-minute Christmas shopping.”
“On Christmas Eve?” Willow frowned at her. “You don’t usually wait until the last minute like that. Is something wrong?”
Buffy smiled. “Nothing wrong, just a little busy this year. I mean, I’m almost done; I’m really just going to pick up odds and ends, and keep Dawn company. She’s the gift-slacker around here.”
“I am not a slacker, I just haven’t had time to finish yet.” Dawn proclaimed, walking up to join them. “Between school and patrol and everything else, shopping has become a surprisingly low priority. Oh, Buffy, Merry came by to borrow Christmas movies. That’s okay, right?”
“Yeah, I told her she should go see you. I guess she got it into her head last minute to hold a movie fest, and then she needed more movies.”
“Oh, she’s doing a movie fest? Did she say where?” Willow perked up, and Buffy couldn’t help but smile. She was excited to see Willow getting back on the horse, in a manner of speaking. And she really liked Merry, so that was a bonus.
“They’re in the student lounge. Actually, they should be starting the movies right about now, if you want to chill out for a while.”
“But, the tree…” Xander interjected, coming down from the ladder.
“It’s a big tree.” Dawn offered. “It’ll probably take the rest of the night to finish it.”
“I don’t understand why we waited until tonight to decorate it, anyway.” Buffy said. “I mean, it’s Christmas Eve, it’ll just be coming down in a few days, anyway.”
“I think the idea was to do a traditional 12 days of Christmas.” Willow offered, “You know, December 24 to January 6, and take everything down then. It’s kind of the European way.”
Buffy shrugged. “Well, whatever makes Jezzie happy; it’s her show, anyway.”
“By the way, what’s up with that? I thought Shaun said she was going to New York for the holidays.” Xander asked.
“I think she freaked when we told her Giles was coming, and decided it would look bad if she left while he was here.” Dawn said.
“I think she might be crushing on Giles a little.” Buffy whispered, looking over her shoulder to make sure none of the students was listening.
“Really?” Xander frowned. “But she’s like…”
“Hot? Half his age? You don’t need to tell me any of these things, I’m squicked enough.” Buffy replied. “All I’m saying is that she was planning to glut herself on winter in New York; skating in Rockefeller Center, caroling in the freeing cold, the whole nine yards. Then she heard Giles would be here, and all of the sudden she’d stopped complaining about the heat wave and how it didn’t feel like Christmas and started planning stuff at the Hyperion.”
“That does sound suspiciously like she’s crushing.” Willow agreed.
“I like my theory better,” Dawn declared, “It’s far less wig-inducing.”
“I’m with Dawn on this one.” Xander declared. “And, now I feel the need to make my brain think other thoughts. How about those Christmas movies?”
“Sounds good,” Willow agreed. “You guys coming?”
“Shopping, Wills, remember?”
Willow grimaced. “Actually, not so much until you reminded me. We’ll see you later, then?”
“Yeah, later. We’ll stop by the lounge when we get back.” Buffy agreed, and she and Dawn turned to go.
It wasn’t until they reached the car that Buffy realized her old friends might very well be the snowman creators. She was ashamed to say she hadn’t considered them until now. When she mentioned this to Dawn, her sister wasn’t surprised. “Well, we’ve gotten used to them not really being around, and it’s not like they have connections in LA to get something like that done.”
“Yeah, but they know Clem. And, it would be pretty easy for them to get access to stuff from Jezzie…”
“True, but come on, this is Willow and Xander; you really think they’d go to all this trouble and not try to get some credit for it?”
“Good point.” Buffy conceded.
“If it makes you feel better, you can grill them at Scoobie Christmas tonight.” Dawn offered. “By the way, thank you for inviting Angel…Liam. Whatever. I didn’t want to have to tell Connor he couldn’t come.”
“Well, Xander’s still not thrilled with the idea, but he did concede that Angel was a part of the group at one point, and since we were missing so many old friends, it would be nice to fill some empty slots.”
“I still don’t believe that after we finally managed to track Oz down he didn’t want to come for Christmas.” Dawn shook her head. “I mean, everyone else who isn’t going to be here has a good excuse; they’re all dead. Oz just doesn’t want to see us.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with not wanting to see us. I think he just has other things going on in his life, and he and Willow never really resolved things between them, and he didn’t want to leave home only to deal with the massive awkwardness.” Buffy felt the need to defend Oz; after all, he’d been really good about taking on some of the older Slayers in a pseudo-Watcher capacity; and she just didn’t have the heart to tell Willow or anyone who might let it slip to her best friend that Oz and his girlfriend had a little boy who would be celebrating his first Christmas this year.
“Whatever. However you gloss it up, it still boils down to not wanting to come hang.”
“Maybe next year, after he and Willow mend some fences. Now, come on, these presents aren’t going to buy themselves.”
Considering that it was Christmas Eve, and the weather was the type that usually encouraged the citizens of Los Angeles to be out and about, the traffic on the way to the mall was light. Buffy and Dawn were pleased to find that their last-minute shopping wouldn’t include fighting their way through an angry mob; the stores were almost as deserted as they would have been on a workday in March.
Finishing their lists with the greatest speed they could manage, the Summers sisters piled back into the car, and spent the ride home singing Christmas carols along with the radio at the tops of their lungs.
They made it back to the Hyperion in less than three hours, and both were pleased to find that Spike was one of the first people they saw upon entering the lobby. He and Andrew and Gunn were evidently doing a shift working on the tree with some younger Slayers.
“Hallo.” Spike’s eyes lit up when he saw them, and he rushed forward to give hugs and kisses. “How are my two favorite girls, then?” He didn’t give Buffy much opportunity to answer; the second he got his hands on her he pulled her into a lip lock that had her dropping her shopping bags to clutch at him for balance.
“We’re finally done shopping, and just in the nick of time!” Dawn declared to the room at large. “Not like you actually care about the answer, and you’re too busy sticking your tongue down my sister’s throat to listen anyway…”
Gunn chuckled. “Give the guy a break; his phone’s been dead all day, and he was freaked that something would happen and no one would be able to get hold of him. I tried to tell him that if there was a real emergency you’d call me or the shelter after he didn’t answer, but we still ended up leaving before all the work was done.”
When they finally came up for air, and had reassured one another that they were still safe in one piece, Spike turned his attention to the others. “Sorry ‘bout that, Bit. Just got a little out of sorts when I realized you lot wouldn’t be able to call me if you needed to. Enjoy your shopping, then?”
Dawn smiled indulgently. “It’s okay, I guess. You’re at least forgiven because you actually paid attention to me long enough to hear the shopping thing.”
“Want me to make it up to you? Could carry your things upstairs.” He reached out to take a handful of bags from Dawn, only to have her jump out of the way.
“No, that’s okay. Thanks, though. I’d better go wrap this stuff.” Dawn took off at lightening speed, leaving the rest of the group staring after her.
“She got something for you; she must have been worried that you’d peek.” Buffy offered, leaning against his shoulder and patting his back soothingly. “Don’t worry, I’m sure she doesn’t think you have cooties or anything.”
“Ah, well, that’s good. I was worried for a mo’.”
“Me, too,” Andrew piped up, “I haven’t had my cootie shot updated recently.”
Buffy groaned.
“Lame, And, very lame.” Gunn told him, shaking his head.
Andrew shrugged. “Hey, it’s Christmas, you all have to be nice to me.”
“Last time I checked, there was nothing in the Christmas handbook about kindness to elves.” Buffy snarked, drawing chuckles from the other men and a stuck-out tongue from Andrew.
“Alright, I think I’m gonna leave you blokes to it, take my girl upstairs,” Spike declared. “Be back in a bit.”
“No worries,” Gunn declared with a wave. “See you at dinner, if not before, man.”
“Ahh, our intrepid do-gooders ride off into the sunset together. It’s poetic, no?”
“Ahh, not so much, dude. They’re taking an elevator upstairs, not riding off bareback on a couple of white horses.”
As Buffy and Spike collected her shopping bags and headed off towards the elevator that would take them to their apartment, the snarking continued in the background. “If I’d been asked in June to pick the two people I knew who were least likely to strike up a friendship, I probably would have picked those two…And look at them now.” Buffy shook her head.
“Tell me about it. I had no idea Charlie-boy invited Andrew to come with us today, then there he was, under foot the whole time.” Spike shook his head, “Was enough to make a man barmy, and that was before I realized you wouldn’t be able to get hold of me.”
“Well, you totally needn’t have worried.” Buffy smiled, “I’ve been really good today. I wasn’t sick at all this morning, and even with the snowmen distracting me I managed to get all my work done.”
“Snowmen? In this weather?”
Buffy blinked up at her boyfriend, trying to gauge the expression on his face. “Yeah, it’s been weird. I woke up this morning, and there was one right outside our bedroom window. Then I went down to the office, and there was one on my desk. I took a hot cocoa break in the caf and one appeared on a plate on my table…See, odd. I kind of thought it was you putting them together, you know?”
“And how did you come to that conclusion, if I may ask?”
“Well, you have Clem who works at a ski resort to send you snow, you have keys to my office, you were up before me this morning…I don’t know. It seemed like the kind of thing you would do, to annoy and amuse me at the same time.”
Spike chuckled, “Well, are you at least enjoying them?”
“Wait, you just totally avoided the question! It is you!”
“I admit nothing.” He declared, grinning. By that time they’d arrived at the apartment, and Spike rushed to open the door for her.
Buffy smiled and stepped past him, happy to have finally solved the mystery. Until she turned and discovered another snowman, sitting in the middle of the coffee table. This one was only slightly smaller than the previous figure, and it was female again; it was wearing a skirt that might have been designed for a Barbie doll, with blue sequin eyes and a red sequin mouth.
“Hey!” Buffy shouted, turning to wag a finger at her boyfriend, “Stop doing that!”
“Well, fine. See if I ever open a door for you again, you ungrateful bint.”
“So not what I meant, and you know it.” Buffy shook her head and went to get a closer look at the little snow-woman.
“Gonna throw your bags in the bedroom, alright, luv?”
“That’s fine. Then you can come back here and explain this whole snowman thing to me.”
Spike didn’t respond; Buffy got the distinct feeling he was ignoring her. The feeling became more pronounced after a few minutes, when he still had not returned. Buffy finally got tired of waiting and went hunting for him, locating him on the floor of Dawn’s room, where he was deeply engrossed in conversation with Connor.
Shaking her head in wonder at the obvious avoidance, Buffy turned her attention to her sister, who was frantically wrapping presents. “So, do you happen to know where the wrapping paper went? The last place I saw it was on the coffee table.”
“It’s in your room. I ran in and grabbed a couple of rolls, the rest is all you.” Dawn didn’t bother to look up from her wrapping, it seemed like she was in a pretty big hurry. Which made sense if she was going to be done in time for Scoobie Christmas that night, but Buffy didn’t quite believe that her sister’s haste was on the up and up. Still, she had things to do, and if Spike was going to ignore her she could ignore him right back. After all, Christmas movies were calling.
Turning on her heel, Buffy headed for her bedroom and her own last-minute wrapping. Since she hadn’t gotten much, it didn’t take long to finish, and once the packages were placed under the tree Buffy headed out without a word to anyone.
The senior Slayer found herself entering the student lounge just as George Bailey discovered that the whole town had turned out to help him. She hung back through the end of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, then darted over to steal a seat near Willow and Xander, which had been vacated by a younger Slayer who stood up to stretch between movies. Graciously, the girl decided to find a new place to sit rather than argue with Buffy.
Just as Merry was announcing that everyone should take their seats for ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’, Spike strolled into the room. Buffy started to tell him to find his own damn seat, that she was hanging out with her friends, but the pleasure on his face when he spotted her made her feel all warm and fuzzy, and she shut her mouth. Spike sauntered over and took Buffy’s hands to haul her to her feet, then dropped into her place and pulled her onto his lap to cuddle her close. She simply sighed and relaxed into him. Thankfully, her new seating situation didn’t allow her to get a good look at Xander; she’d rather not see him being all bad mood-y if she could help it.
The Grinch was followed by ‘Miracle on 34th Street’, and then Merry called a break in the movies so they could go participate in Carols and tree decorating, and eat dinner. Willow grumbled about having to miss ‘The Cricket on The Hearth’ and ‘The Bishop’s Wife’, which were planned for after the break, due to Scoobie Christmas, but Xander and Merry reassured her that ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ would be saved for later in the evening, so she and Xander could be there.
The rest of the evening passed quickly; some people sang carols around the piano while others decorated the tree, until it was finally finished. Then a huge dinner was served; mostly vegetarian and seafood, in a nod to tradition and dietary restrictions. And after dinner, Buffy gathered what was left of the old Sunnydale group and herded them upstairs to the apartment she shared with Spike and Dawn.
Crowded into the elevator with Angel, Xander, Willow, Giles, Andrew, Connor, Dawn and Spike; Buffy leaned against her boyfriend’s shoulder. “I don’t suppose you’re ready to admit that you’re responsible for the snowmen, yet?”
“Nah. What would be the fun in giving up now? Besides, say it’s not me; won’t you feel pretty upset if I admit it was all my doing, and then you earn the truth?”
Buffy snorted, “And you say you’re not evil anymore.” Spike just chuckled.
When the elevator arrived at their floor, Spike rushed to get the door for the group. To Buffy’s surprise, the key stuck, belying the ease with which he’d opened it that afternoon. Buffy had hung back to talk to Willow, but stepped to the front of the group to lend a hand; just as she reached Spike’s side, the door opened, and she found herself face to face with Oz and his family, Clem, and Harmony.
“Surprise!” Harmony squealed. “Merry Christmas, or Hanukah, or whatever!”
“Hey.” Oz waved.
“Oh my God! You guys! I thought you weren’t coming!” Buffy rushed forward to give Clem and Oz hugs, and was introduced to Oz’s girlfriend Melanie and their son Bean.
Harmony shocked the Slayer by grabbing her in a friendly hug. When she noticed the look on Buffy’s face, Harmony shrugged. “Look, you’re good and I’m evil, and I didn’t really like you even before I was evil; but we’re dating guys who are best friends, so we can be civil to one another at holidays, okay?”
“Sounds good to me. Merry Christmas, Harmony.” Buffy shook her head. She was never going to understand how a guy who was as nice and relatively unattractive as Clem had ended up dating a shallow bimbo like Harmony. But, the vampiress made him happy, and at least she wasn’t sniffing around Spike anymore, so it was all good for now.
Buffy looked around the room to find Willow and Dawn cooing over Bean, Xander and Oz in conversation with Connor and Andrew, Angel chatting with Clem and Harmony, and Giles introducing himself to Melanie. She felt Spike’s arms wrap around her waist, and smiled. The people she loved most in the world were all in this room tonight, and with them also were the memories of everyone who couldn’t be here. Although their losses were sad, the things that came to Buffy’s mind now were happy, and she was proud to say that she’d survived so much and held on to so many good people.
“Fancy a drink, luv? I got you some sparkling cider, so we could all toast. Figured you could say it was for the youngins.” Spike whispered in her ear.
“That sounds like a great idea, I think we need a toast tonight.” Buffy turned to give her boyfriend a hug and a soft kiss. “Where’s the bubbly?”
“Stuck it in the freezer so it’d cool off quick. You wanna do the honors, and I’ll round up the glasses?”
“I do like the way you think.” With another soft kiss, Buffy drew away and headed towards the kitchen. When she opened the freezer door, Buffy was not entirely surprised to find another snowman. She was, however, surprised by what he looked like.
The eight-inch figure was dressed in a tiny tuxedo; in one little pipe-cleaner hand he held an open box containing a stunning diamond solitaire. In the other tiny hand he held a sign, which read ‘Marry Me?’.
Buffy staggered back from the freezer in shock, only to nearly trip over her boyfriend, who was down on one knee at her feet. “Well,” Spike asked nervously, “You’re letting the little guy melt, least you could do would be to answer the question.”
The Slayer gasped for a second, staring at the former vampire kneeling in their kitchen and looking almost as pale as he had before he’d become photo-friendly. She knew what she wanted to say; the days of denying what she felt for him were long past. If she could only make her voice work…
Buffy was startled out of her shock by several camera flashes; either the group had been warned that this would happen, or they’d planned to take lots of pictures of the opening of presents. Half-blinded by the lights, Buffy knelt down next to Spike and wrapped her arms around him. “Please tell me you aren’t doing this because you knocked me up,” She whispered.
“’Course not. Been planning this for months; just didn’t seem right to pop the question without the Scoobs here to celebrate with you, and this is the first time we’ve gotten them all here. Although, I still would’ve done it tonight if the whelp’d blown us off.”
“Good answer.” Buffy kissed his cheek, and drew back so the room at large could hear her response.
“Oh, Spike, of course it’s yes!”
A/N: Yeah, I warned you about the fluff, right? You really can’t tell me you’re surprised. Merry Christmas, everyone!
