TITLE: Gathered Round the Fire
SERIES: Ice and Fire (Part 11/12)
AUTHOR: Kerry Blackwell
DISCLAIMER: All things Buffy belong to Joss Whedon, UPN, the WB, FOX and Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. I own only my genius (yeah, right!)
FEEDBACK: Well, I'm certainly not going to complain! :-)

"Oouuf."

Wesley Giles tried desperately to draw air back into his lungs while his son chortled happily at his distress.

Daddy, lying on his back in front of the pretty fire, had been just too tempting a target to ignore. Jeremy had escaped from Mommy, who was too busy talking to Uncle Angel to notice him, and headed straight for Daddy. He'd started losing his balance towards the end of his run, but he stumbled-jumped at just the right moment and landed on Daddy's chest with a very satisfying thump.

"Dada," he warbled happily, thinking Daddy looked very interesting when his face was that nice blue colour.

"Gaah," Daddy said next.

"Gaah," Jeremy answered. That was his kind of word.

"You trying to kill me, my boy?"

That was a bit too complicated for Jeremy, but Daddy sounded happy, so he smiled toothily and tried bouncing up and down.

Wesley laughed, even if it did come out more like a gasp. "Jeremy, I'm a parent, not a trampoline." He managed to sit up and pulled his son onto his lap. "Love you, kiddo, but you're getting too heavy for my ribs."

"Then perhaps you'd better stop lying around on the floor looking like one," Dawn suggested.

"Aunt Dawn!" Wesley did his best to sound offended. "Are you saying I look like a trampoline?"

She looked down at him as if she had to think about it. "Maybe more of a child's toy than an actual trampoline," she said thoughtfully. "I see you as something along the line of a kid's - Mom!"

"A kid's _mom_?" Wesley repeated blankly, before he realised Dawn wasn't looking at him any more. She was staring over his head at the door, her face so pale it looked like she'd seen a ghost.

Keeping a firm hold on Jeremy, he twisted around so that he could see what she was seeing. And when he did, he felt his stomach do a sudden, gut-twisting back flip. He recognised the woman who was standing in the doorway beside his mother, but only because he'd seen her picture in old photograph albums.

She'd died several years before he and Brianna were born.

"Mom," Dawn whispered again.

The room slowly fell silent as more and more people caught sight of the two women standing by the door, silently waiting, and Dawn's small whisper could easily be heard above the crackling of the fire.

Standing side by side, Buffy could easily have been the mother and Joyce her daughter. That striking family resemblance remained, but Joyce looked the same as she had done the day she died. She had been younger then than Buffy was now.

It was ironic, Giles reflected as he stared at the ghost of Joyce Summers with a certain amount of disbelief. It was Buffy, who had been Called to be the Slayer, with all the risks and dangers that involved, who had been given the chance to live and grow old. Joyce, who should have been blessed with a long, ordinary life, was the one who had been cut down before her time.

Dawn's gaze never left her mother. "Buffy?" she asked in a small voice, sounding like the fourteen year old she had been when Buffy had been forced to take on mothering duties.

"I'm real," Joyce said softly, understanding every question Dawn had put into her sister's name.

"But you're dead," Dawn protested, almost reluctantly.

"I know," Joyce agreed with a gentle smile. "But it's still me."

Dawn continued to stare at her, frozen.

"Go on, Bit." Spike gave her a push from behind, not hard, just enough to break the paralysis. "Go say 'hi' to your mom."

Once Dawn started moving, it would have taken a lot more than wild horses to stop her again. It was only as she reached Joyce that she skidded to an ungainly halt, uncertainty back on her face. She lifted a hand hesitantly, reaching out to her mother without quite daring to touch her.

It was Joyce who closed the remaining gap between them, wrapping her daughter in a warm, loving embrace. "Mommy, I missed you," Dawn whispered into her mother's hair.

"I missed you too," Joyce whispered back.

Finally, reluctantly, she let Dawn go, pushing her a step or two away. "Let me look at you," she insisted. She held her daughter at arm's length, studying her. "You've got more grey hair than me," she said in amazement.

Dawn smiled, even if the expression was a touch twisted. "I'm older than you ever got to be," she pointed out. "It's not fair."

Joyce shook her head. "It's okay, pumpkin. It's all right."

Dawn laughed, her eyes filling at the same time. "No-one's called me that since you died."

"You're probably a little old for it, anyway," her mother admitted. "But I look at you and I still see my little girl." She gave her another one of those appraising looks. "But you're all grown up."

Her eyes searched the room suddenly, stopping at one, bleach-blond vampire. "Are you looking after her, Spike?"

"Ah..." Spike, possibly for the first time since Drusilla had turned him, was reduced to stuttering speechlessness.

Joyce laughed at him. "I'm not totally out of touch with what happens down here, you know. I'm trusting you to take care of my girl."

"Mom!" Dawn protested automatically, as if death and time had never separated them.

"I will," Spike promised without thought.

Joyce nodded, satisfied, and went looking for her son-in-law. She found him standing in the background, the way she remembered. The difference was that now, his little space of background automatically became part of the centre of the room, simply due to his presence.

"It was inevitable, wasn't it?" she said quietly. "Watcher and Slayer, friends and companions, husband and wife."

"Yes," he agreed simply. "With hindsight, yes."

She nodded. "I see that. I have a different perspective now." She chuckled. "But if I'd been around, I'd have made you work to earn her."

He smiled back, agreement in his expression. "I had to work pretty hard as it was."

"Good," Joyce said in satisfaction. "Being dead doesn't automatically make you perfect," she added. "Good."

"Mom!" This time the automatic, daughterly protest came from Buffy.

"No man is ever good enough for a woman's daughter," Joyce told her firmly. "Haven't you learned that yet?"

"Brianna chose Angel," Buffy replied. "I think she made a good choice. Although," she added, "I'm a bit worried about who Joy might bring home."

"Mom!" Joy protested, proving some things just get passed down the generations.

"You made a good choice, too," Joyce told Buffy.

Her gaze went back to Giles. "Thank you, for always loving my daughter." She grinned suddenly. "And having the sense to wait until she was an adult before doing anything about it."

"Huh," Buffy said dismissively. "I worked it out before he did."

"I don't..." Giles began, and then very wisely shut up.

"Exactly," Buffy said with satisfaction.

Giles shook his head at his wife and decided it might be best to change the subject. "How are you here?" he asked Joyce. "Does it have something to do with Alex's apparitions he was talking about earlier? You're solid. That's not the case with most ghostly apparitions."

"Still your Watcher," Joyce said quietly, and it was more a statement than a question.

Buffy nodded. "Sure is." She looked back at Giles. "That's what Wesley said," she agreed. "That an invitation was issued here one Christmas and it's still open."

"I said what?" Wesley asked. "I didn't say a thing. I haven't got a clue."

"Not you, Wesley," Buffy told him with a shake of her head. "Wesley, Wesley."

"Huh?" her son asked politely.

It was Angel who first made the connection. "Where's Fred?" he asked suddenly.

Buffy remembered the looks she had seen pass between Fred and her husband. There had been love there, of course. The deep, abiding love that is the only kind that survives the years. There had also been desire and the knowledge that this was all the time they were going to have until she went to join him.

"I left them alone," Buffy said firmly. "I'm sure they'll come down to see everyone when they're ready."

"Two Christmas ghosts," Giles said softly. He looked down at his son, a look of pride on his face. "Wesley, I think you're finally going to meet your namesake. I know he'll be proud to know you bear his name."

"Wesley came back, too?" Gunn had been watching the reunion, happy for those involved, but in all honesty, Joyce Summers really didn't mean all that much to him. The idea of seeing his old friend again, though - that was different. That was amazing.

Joyce nodded to him. "He's looking forward to seeing you all again."

Gunn nodded. "That's cool. He just needs to see Fred first, right?"

"Right," Joyce agreed.

Miri, who had been playing with her new teddy beside the fire, decided she'd had enough of this funny lady who made Gran and Aunty Dawn cry. She stood up, protected by Daddy, who was still sitting there with Jeremy on his lap, safely between her and the new lady.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "Shouldn't make Aunty Dawn sad."

Dawn smiled down at her. "It's okay, Miri. It's happy sad. This is your great-grandmother."

Miri looked confused, the concept a little more than she could handle.

Wesley snaked a hand out behind him and pulled her to his side. "You know your Gran is Daddy's mommy, right?"

Miri nodded seriously.

"This is _my_ Gran. She's your Gran's mommy."

Miri thought about that. Slowly, she nodded. "Daddy's mommy's mommy?"

"That's right," Wesley agreed, although he doubted she completely understood. It didn't matter. One day, when she was older and did understand the concept of grandparents and great grandparents, then she'd remember this Christmas and realise how lucky she had been to meet Daddy's mommy's mommy.

_And I know how lucky I am,_ he added to himself. _To meet the grandmother who died before Mom and Dad even got married. And later, the man I was named after._

He smiled at Joyce, who smiled back at him.

"Right," his grandmother said firmly to her eldest daughter. "Start introducing me to my grandchildren."

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