A Second Chance

Christmas

Juggling two large boxes of presents in the moonlight, Alex finally gave up on trying to open the front door of Giles’ house and kicked at the door to try to get someone’s attention. Spike was driving around looking for a place to park since at least six, maybe seven cars were already parked along the street in front of the house and in the driveway, so his sire wasn’t much help.

When the door abruptly opened, the boxes almost crashed to the ground since he had been leaning them up against it, but Willow’s quick reflexes caught them before they fell. After setting them on the ground, his mother leaped at him and wrapped her arms around him, clinging tightly.

Laughing, he held her against him and breathed her in, the smell of magic and cookies too strong to be hidden by her newer vampire smell. No matter what, she would always smell like home to him.

“Hey mom! It’s only been a month, you act like you haven’t seen me all year,” he finally gasped out teasingly when she wouldn’t let go.

“I know, I know. But you know how I get when I don’t see you for so long. Did you really have to go to Europe, of all places? I miss having you right down the street,” she sniffled, stepping back so that she could inspect him, smiling at his pale blue and white patterned sweater with the snowflakes (which Spike loathed), her fingers brushing at his shaggy hair.

He smiled and glanced over her while she was distracted. They had all been a little afraid that after she got turned, she would break out the leather and chains like her alter-ego had from the other dimension, but her soul was locked on tight and she seemed her usual self still. Clad in a cheery blue Christmas shirt and grey skirt, she still looked like his mother.

“Yeah, but we just had to get away for a little while. You heard G-Man when he found out Spike helped Ethan with that Halloween spell, I thought he was gonna turn him into a tree frog or something.”

“Oi! Wanker left out the part about all of us turnin’ into bloody eight year olds for the night, he just told me he wanted to loosen up ol’ Rupert and Peaches,” Spike complained, coming up behind him to wrap strong arms around Alex’s waist. He smiled and leaned back against his lover, soaking up the warm fuzzy feeling he always got around the older vampire. The Santa hat perched jauntily on the blonde’s head was the only festive thing Alex had been able to get the Scrooge to wear, but it was more than he’d worn last year.

“You woulda done it anyway, if he had told you,” Alex countered and Spike nodded, slapping his ass lightly as he let go and moved to hug Willow. “Bloody right, I would have. Was fun, too.”

His mom squealed as Spike squeezed her tight and spun her around as Giles yelled from somewhere inside the house, “It was not fun and I’ll greatly appreciate it if you would not encourage his childish antics, Spike.”

“I think I resent that!” Ethan called out from behind Willow as he came to lean against the doorjamb and smirk at them. The chaos mage-turned-vampire and Spike shared a look before turning identical grins on Alex and he just shook his head in resignation, knowing that before the visit was over, there would be some new mischief for Giles to gripe over.

“Disrespectful childe!” the blonde vampire yelled back at Giles, receiving a snort from the ex-Watcher and a choked laugh from Angel. “Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, William?” Alex’s grandsire teased from the kitchen.

“Piss off, you nonce,” Spike snapped, earning him a smack on the shoulder from Willow and a shriek from Dawn in the living room. “Spike! Kid’s ears!”

“Sorry, bit, forgot there,” he called out, shame-faced, and Alex grinned at how easily the small brunette werewolf still cowed the big bad.

“Okay, you guys! Could you get your slow butts in here already and close the door? Some of us are still human, here, and it’s cold out there,” yelled a new voice and Alex’s eyes went wide.

“Cordy!” he yelped out, wiggling past Ethan and his mother to run into the kitchen. He never got to see her as much as he liked to, the still beautiful woman who had been the first love of his life the first time around and one of his favorite aunts for the second life.

Her and Wes still ran Angel Investigations in LA, had ever since Alex had been a boy. Angel had decided that he already had his redemption since he had Buffy and didn’t want to be mortal anyway with everyone he loved being vampires, so they left to go travel the world, coming back for a few months and going again. Cordelia’s visions had disappeared with Angel resigning, so it was mostly normal investigative work that AI did now.

In the kitchen making gingerbread cookies was so not where Xander would have ever expected to find the former cheerleader back when they’d gone to high school together, but Alex had grown up knowing that Aunt Cordy made the best gingerbread of all his female parental units. So many Christmases, he had devoured her baking, crawling up in her lap and telling her about his year, not knowing why she had so much pain in her eyes when she looked at him. He knew now and it just made him love her all the more.

Both Cordy and Fred, one of the only people he didn’t have to assimilate two sets of memories with since Xander hadn’t ever met her or her husband Gunn, were up to their elbows in cookie dough when he burst through the door. Cordy’s eight year old daughter was giggling and licking a spoon full of the dough, sitting on Angel’s lap as the older vampire and Giles used cookie cutters to cut out gingerbread men. Her hair was half up and half down, a smear of flour across her chubby pink cheek and when she looked up and saw Alex, she grinned brightly, showing off her two missing front teeth.

She was the spitting image of her mother, except for the bright blue eyes that were from Wesley, and Alex adored her as if she were his baby sister. “Francie!” he laughed out when she jumped off of Angel’s lap to hug him tightly around the waist, smearing flour and gingerbread dough all over him.

“Francis Marie Price! You’re making a mess of Xander’s shirt,” her mother admonished, wiping her hands off on a dishtowel and reaching for Alex herself.

“Aw, mean he has to lose that bleedin’ ugly thing?” Spike taunted as he walked into the kitchen behind Ethan. The chaos mage glided over to stand behind Giles’ chair, long fingers kneading lightly at the ex-Watcher’s shoulders as Spike bent down to pick up Francis while Alex was wrapped in Cordelia’s arms.

Giles reached up to grasp one of those fine-boned hands, bringing it to his lips for a soft kiss, before sneakily slipping a cut-out gingerbread cookie into it. “I saw that, Mister!” Cordelia mumbled, her voice muffled from where she had her face buried against Alex’s chest. Ethan just grinned and leaned down to capture his lover’s lips in a short but intense kiss before straightening and rolling the dough into a ball, popping it into his mouth.

Settling Francis back onto Angel’s lap, Spike waited until Cordelia finally let go of Alex before reaching out and grabbing a handful of his sweater, reeling him backwards until he was leaning back against him. Alex smiled slightly and held his arms up when he felt his sire start to tug the sweater up, allowing him to pull it over his head. His hands went to smooth his hair back as Spike dropped it to the floor, biting back a grin when he heard the blonde’s disgusted muttering when he realized Alex had on a gaudy and bright reindeer t-shirt on under the sweater he hated so bad.

“Did you have to regain your atrocious taste in clothes along with everything else?” his sire mock-complained in his ear, knowing full well that Alex spent days searching out the ugliest holiday shirts he could find just to needle him.

Smirking, Alex dropped his head back on Spike’s shoulder as the blonde wrapped his arms around his waist, leaning back to kiss his sire on the cheek. Silently, they watched their family laugh and cut out cookies, basking in their happy glow.

Later, after dinner, they all exchanged gifts in the living room, Cordy and Wes’ ten year old son, Doyle, sitting with his sister as they played with the 4 year old werewolf triplets on the floor, the adults spread out among the many couches and chairs that had been added throughout the years.

Angel and Buffy were sitting on one of the leather recliners, Buffy sitting on his lap curled up and sleepy. They still patrolled every night, couldn’t take the Slayer out of her or the hero out of him, and had just came back in about half an hour before. In January, the two were planning a trip around Asia and had invited Spike and Alex to join them, and they had readily agreed.

On the couch closest to them were Dawn and Oz, still looking much the same as they had when they were both around nineteen or twenty, werewolves being extremely slow to age. Dawn was curled up against the arm of the couch, her husband’s arm around her shoulders and his hand gently rubbing her belly.

She was five months pregnant again and already huge, making everyone suspect at least twins and maybe more. She had joked at dinner that she hadn’t realized before that part of being a werewolf was raising litters. Oz had just smiled slowly and dropped another helping of roast onto her plate.

The other side of that couch was occupied with Fred and Gunn, since the girls had been sharing pregnancy woes. Fred’s slight form was only carrying one child, though, so her belly was significantly smaller, but Gunn wore a grin no less proud than Oz’s when the women weren’t looking.

It was their first child and though it was coming right before their forties, as far as the doctors could tell, it was perfectly healthy. Everyone had rejoiced at the news of the upcoming birth because they had tried for so long to conceive, finally giving up a few years before. The usually stoic black man was soothingly rubbing her feet, smiling at her every time she giggled at the tickling of it, the pair of them so obviously ecstatic that it almost hurt to watch.

They had split from AI soon after Angel had, though they still lived within a block or two of Cordelia and Wesley, often getting together with them for dinner. Fred had went to college and gotten her teaching degree and taught high school chemistry while Gunn became a cop.

Alex’s eyes drifted to the next chair, Giles sitting calmly back, drinking a scotch, Ethan sitting on the floor between his legs. An elbow was propped up on one of the ex-Watcher’s thighs and the chaos mage rested his head on it as he watched the children in the middle of the floor as Giles’ other hand stroked the back of his nape. The two of them were near inseparable and always had to be touching, the years of tension and distance between them leaving them both uneasy without the steadying presence of the other.

While they might bicker and have their fights, they always made up minutes later as if afraid the other might take off and leave. He knew the worry would ease up with time, but Alex hoped they never lost that closeness and need for each other. His ‘grandfather’ had been happy as he was growing up, but until Ethan had strolled back into their lives, he hadn’t realized that the other man wasn’t complete.

Cordelia and Wesley were sitting next to Spike and Alex on the second couch, proudly watching their children act like little parents to the babies on the floor. Their hands were entwined and every so often, she would glance up at him and smile softly, a very un-Cordy like look that she reserved for only a few select people. Alex could see the look in the man’s eyes as he stared down at his wife at those moments and though he wouldn’t have picked the clumsy Watcher Xander had met in high school for his homecoming queen of an ex, this new, older Wesley seemed perfect for her. It was obvious that she was his world, which was exactly what his Cordy deserved.

Closing his eyes, Alex sighed softly, happily, as Spike nibbled on his neck. He was half sitting, half lying on his sire, their long legs sprawled out and entwined. As happy and content as the rest of his family was, he knew there was no comparison to the love he and Spike shared. Their love had come with many prices, many obstacles and agonies, but it had just made them stronger. Strong enough to last through death, rebirth and the continents between them, strong enough to call Spike home and have Xander fall in love with the vampire twice over.

As he saw the wrinkles around Gunn’s eyes and the beginnings of grey in Wesley’s hair, he ached inside knowing that while the ones closest to him were safe from the trials of humanity and aging, that all of his family were not. One day they would lose the humans in their group and they would grieve, only to watch over the children of those friends and grieve again when they grew old. But the two couples rejoiced in their humanity, their children, and even Cordelia said she didn’t mind growing old. It was a decision that the vampires and werewolves had to accept.

But that was decades away and, for now, Alex tried to ignore the grief he knew would come and celebrate the family that surrounded him. Growing up the first time, he had never expected a life so filled with joy and passion as the one he had. He was extremely grateful for every moment he had with them all.

His mother and Tara walked in, bringing dessert, and Alex got up to help them, kissing Tara on the cheek as he took the plate of gingerbread men cookies from her. “Thanks, mom,” he murmured into her ear and she smiled softly at him with the sheen of tears that always appeared when he called her that.

Spike vacated their seat and motioned for his mothers to sit there and Alex caught the older vampire’s eye and grinned at him. His sire had a great big soft spot for the blonde witch and his mother, but then, they all did. The happiness surrounding the two witches-turned-vampires was like a bubble that sucked everyone in and brought contentment to the hearts of anyone near them.

He felt Spike come up behind him and grasp his hand, entwining their fingers, and looked back to see his sire focused on Ethan and Giles. The mage had just handed one of the cookies to his lover and Giles didn’t seem to notice that Ethan had backed slightly away. Biting off the head of the cookie, he jumped, and so did everyone in the room besides Ethan and Spike, when the cookie made a shrieking noise and jumped from his hands to run around in circles on the floor.

Eyes huge, the triplets surrounded the bewildered and headless cookie, before putting it promptly out of its misery. Everyone cringed at the sudden silence when baby William slammed a chubby hand down on the cookie and giggled, licking the mush of crumbs off his palm.

Giles turned to glare at his lover and Spike, but noticed everyone staring at him in shock, their lips twitching uncontrollably. When baby Joyce looked up from the mess of the cookie and shrieked out, “Santa!” before reaching for him with both hands, the ex-Watcher groaned and reached towards his face, finally feeling the white beard that had started growing while he was distracted by the cookie.

“Ethan!”

Alex bent over double laughing as Giles leaped out of the chair in hot pursuit of his lover, tears flowing down his face. When he was able to catch his breath, he was startled to see he was near the front door with Spike pulling him out it.

“What are you doing?”

His sire looked behind his shoulder at him, smirking evilly. “Getting’ us out of the bloody house before Rupert realizes that white hair and a beard isn’t the only part of Santa he’s getting.”

At the bellow of rage coming from up the stairs, Alex’s eyes widened and he hurriedly followed his sire out the door. Pouting slightly, he looked up at Spike and grinned. “You owe me. I so want to see Giles with a belly that jiggles like a bowl full of jelly. Don’t wanna know what he would do to you for this, though.”

Spike shuddered and laughed, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. “I wanna see it, too, pet, but Ethan did promise to take a picture before the nights over. Guess its back to Europe till we have to meet Peaches and the Slayer in Hong Kong.”

Snickering, Alex walked hand in hand with him to the car, before saying slowly, “You do realize that my mother is going to be so pissed at you for making us have to leave so soon, right?”

“Oh bloody hell.”