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*****
Willow, Xander, and Joyce Summers sat in the kitchen
of Joyce's house while Melissa
went upstairs to pester her aunts. "How are they doing?" Willow
asked, concern in her voice.
She had spoken to Melissa and Buffy on the phone, and both complained
of not feeling well.
She knew that they were worried about their Slayer bodies betraying
them and shutting down
before they were ready.
"They've been sluggish the past few days and they
don't feel well. I don't know how to
explain it," Joyce answered, clearly concerned for her daughter and
her friend.
"We're okay Mom," Buffy said entering the kitchen
with the two Melissas behind her, the
older one carrying the younger one. She wasn't entirely sure
that was true, but she didn't
want her mother worrying about her. "We just haven't been feeling
well."
"I have a question," Melissa Harris asked, her voice
indicating that the adults had better not
make fun of her.
"Okay, Melly," Melissa Baldwin answered her.
"What's your question?"
"Did Mommy really save the world a year ago today?"
"She sure did," Buffy responded. "She eliminated
all the demons in the whole world.
There's no more evil in the world thanks to her. Pretty cool,
huh?" she smiled at her "niece".
"Yeah, but umm..." she trailed off, afraid of the
answer her next question might receive.
Then she decided to forge ahead. "Where's Uncle Angel?" she asked
in a small voice. "And
Uncle Spike...I mean, William?" she corrected, seeing the look on Melissa's
face. "Did they
die?"
"Oh, maybe we should have been a little more clear
about what happened," Xander said,
taking his daughter in his arms and sitting down in a chair.
"They didn't die. Just the demons
died. The people got to live." He still wasn't sure why
they got to live; he just knew that they
did.
"Then where are they?" Melly asked.
"They went for a walk, sweetheart," Buffy said,
hugging her.
"But the sun will be rising soon," Melly cried in
alarm.
"I know," Buffy smiled.
"You mean, they can go out in the sun now?"
When Buffy nodded, Melly continued, "Did
Aunt Dru go with them?"
"I don't know, maybe you should go up to her room
and see. While you're up there, wake
up Uncle Giles," Buffy called as Melissa headed up the stairs.
"You know that she won't knock, don't you?" Willow
asked Buffy. When her friend smiled
wickedly, she added, "If my daughter sees anything carnal in their
room, you are explaining
sex to her."
"Oh, it's worth it for somebody to catch the two
of them. You know as well as I do that those
two repressed Brits do things that we wouldn't dream of. It's
just that nobody's caught them
yet," Buffy laughed.
"Please, I cannot imagine Giles doing anything with
anybody. Especially not this early in
the morning," Willow groaned.
Melly returned to the kitchen with Giles trailing
behind her. "Was Aunt Dru there?" Melissa
asked mischievously. She agreed with Buffy. They needed
to get caught.
"No," Melly answered regretfully. "She must've
gone with Uncle Angel and Uncle William."
"Darn," Melissa and Buffy both said, laughing.
*****
Drusilla sat down heavily on a bench, turning her
face up to the rising sun. She loved the
feeling of the sun on her skin, and she would have continued walking,
but she suddenly felt
sick and had to sit down. She hadn't been feeling well the past
few weeks, and she was
starting to get worried. She didn't want to tell Giles, though.
"My beautiful Rupert," she
thought, smiling. In the years following Willow's emergence as
the True Slayer, Giles had
been busy researching. He had needed a great deal of help, and
Drusilla, as the only
uncoupled person in their little group, had taken to helping him.
They had found that they had
a great deal in common once she stopped pretending to be insane, and
they had eventually
fallen in love. They had married in a simple ceremony, similar
to the ones that Melissa and
Spike and Buffy and Angel had had, and Drusilla couldn't imagine hurting
him for the world.
That's why she prayed she wasn't going to die now. She glanced
over at Angel who seemed
lost in thought. He didn't look ill, though. Then she looked
at Spike who was also thinking.
He didn't look sick, either. "It must just be me," she decided.
The nausea passed and she
rose carefully. "We should head back," she told her two friends.
They both grunted
incoherently but began to follow her back to the Summers' house.
Angel and Spike were both thinking about their wives.
They were worried about them.
Neither one of them had felt well for the past few weeks, and they
had no explanation as to
why. Angel looked up at the sky and stopped thinking about Buffy
for a moment. He loved
the morning sun as well as the morning sounds. They were much
different from night
sounds, the only sounds he'd heard for the past two-hundred years.
He wasn't sure how he,
Spike, and Drusilla had managed to stay alive when the rest of the
demons, even those with
souls, had perished the year before when Willow had exterminated the
evil and closed the
Hellmouths. He had a sneaking suspicion that a deal had been
struck, though, he thought as
they re-entered the house.
A deal had been struck, of course, the terms of
which only Willow knew. By all rights,
Spike, Angel, and Drusilla should have died, but Willow had been granted
three wishes after
closing the Hellmouths. She had used one of them to keep them
alive, one to keep her
daughter from becoming the next Slayer, and one to ensure that the
Slayers' bodies would
function for full lifetimes. There were more components of the
deal, but those were all part of
the first wish. Willow had wanted to tell her friends, but she
had a surprise for them and she
wanted to wait until the time was right to give it to them. Willow
smiled at Buffy and Melissa,
watching them play with her daughter. Then she glanced up and
saw that Spike and Angel
were likewise watching their wives happily playing patty-cake with
the little girl. They smiled,
then their eyes became wistful, wishing that they could give Buffy
and Melissa children of their
own to play with.
"Breakfast is ready!" Joyce Summers interrupted
Willow's reverie by plopping a heaping
plate of bacon on the table. Seeing and smelling the bacon, Buffy,
Melissa, and Drusilla
turned green and bolted for the bathroom. That was all Willow
needed to confirm what she
had suspected. She took three wrapped boxes out of one of the
bags of gifts as Angel called
to Buffy, Spike called to Melissa, and Giles called to Drusilla.
After a few minutes, the three
women returned, smiling tiredly at their worried husbands.
"Are you okay?" the three men asked at once, causing
their wives to laugh quietly.
"I think so," Buffy answered for them, then glanced
down as Willow handed her a box.
"What's this?" she asked as Willow handed the other two boxes to Melissa
and Drusilla.
"Open it and see, silly," Willow smiled, cryptically.
Buffy unwrapped her box and stared at it.
Then she glanced over to see if Dru and Mel
had gotten the same thing. They had. "What's this for?"
she asked Willow.
"Well, see, it's a stupid-meter. You spit
on this end and if a plus sign comes up you're
stupid and if a minus sign comes up you're not," Willow joked.
"What do you think it's for?"
"Are you saying...?" Buffy couldn't allow herself
to complete the question. If she got her
hopes up and she was wrong it would devastate her.
"Go see for yourself," Willow answered, which was
enough for Melissa and Buffy. They
sprang to their feet and bolted for the bathrooms again, then turned
when they realized
Drusilla wasn't following.
"Dru?" Buffy asked, motioning for her friend to
follow.
"I'm confused," Drusilla admitted.
"I know," Buffy answered. "Come on, and we'll
explain."
Willow listened carefully for the sound of the three
toilet flushes. When she heard them, she
started watching the time. She watched for one minute, counting
down at the end.
"5...4...3...2...1," she said, and then three simultaneous screams
travelled through the house.
Buffy, Melissa, and Drusilla ran into the kitchen, each of them hurtling
first into Willow's arms
and then into their respective husbands' arms.
"What's going on?" Angel asked, only somewhat annoyed
that Xander seemed to know
what was happening while he was completely clueless.
"I'm pregnant!" Buffy exclaimed, hugging her husband
again.
"So am I!" Melissa laughed.
"I am, too," Drusilla said, smiling shyly at Giles.
"I'm going to be a father?" Angel, Spike, and Giles
asked at the same time. They were
getting pretty good at that.
"Merry Christmas," Willow smiled at her friends.
Now, what better Christmas present was
there than that?
"You knew about this?" Melissa asked Willow, her
eyes narrowing. "How long have you
known about this?"
"A year," Willow answered. "And don't look
at me like that. If it weren't for me, this wouldn't
be happening. I insisted that they be able to have children.
The angels just wanted to let them
live but still be infertile. I was adamant, though."
"Okay, well thank you," Mel said, a tear slipping
down her cheek. "I can't imagine a better
Christmas present."
"Well, I can think of one," Willow said, pulling
her daughter onto her lap. "I got it for
Christmas six years ago," she added, smiling.
"Yeah, I guess that one's a pretty darn good present,"
Buffy answered.
"Merry Christmas, sweetie," Willow said to her daughter.
"And Happy Birthday," Xander added, handing her
a wrapped box. "Time to start opening
presents." Melissa smiled, ecstatic that her parents remembered
after all, and eagerly
accepted the gift.
They all laughed as Melly eagerly ripped into the
wrapping paper, the expectant parents
joyful that they would someday be able to see their own children do
the same. Willow looked
around at her friends as they all headed into the living room for some
serious present
unwrapping. She smiled contentedly and rested her head on Xander's
shoulder when they
sat down in a chair together. Her friends were together, happy,
and healthy (some of them
may have been pregnant, but they were healthy). All was right
with the world.
Et finis!
Feedback please! E-mail me at mhluvxfile@thegrid.net .
Okay, I'm thinking of this story establishing my own Buffy-verse
so to speak
and writing other stories in the same universe.
Kind of like a series, but not
linear. They would fill in some of the blanks, some involving
the new babies, some
about what happened in the fifteen years in between.
Stuff like that. Let me
know if you would like to see me do this.
I would also like to say that I borrowed the idea of angels being
accountable for
what they make the Slayers
do from Melinda Dawney and her story
"Friendship". I thought it was a cool idea, and I just
wanted to give her credit
for coming up with it before I did.
Feedback
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