Title: Long Way From Home
Series: Magic Season (1/12)
Author: Kerry Blackwell-Dustin (which is too long for everyday use, but
links this story to the earlier ones)
Email: magicbox@whitehats.co.nz
Pairing: B/G, W/T, S/Dawn
Further disclaimers etc in part 0
Long Way from Home
"Is it bad taste to grumble on Christmas Eve?" Buffy asked her husband seriously.
"Yes," he answered briefly, more of his attention devoted to stopping his wine sloshing out of his glass and onto his pants as the plane encountered another patch of turbulence, than to his wife.
"Oh." She sighed as she automatically took the glass from him and set it on the tray table. "Can I grumble anyway?"
Safely rescued from the combined danger of red wine and high altitude, Rupert Giles looked over at her. Her face was sad, her brows drawn together to form an unfamiliar crease across her forehead. Her blonde hair had never turned grey the way his own had; instead it had elegantly shaded to silver, making her look like someone ageless and wise, instead of the fifty-six year old mother and grandmother she really was. His lips twitched involuntarily into a small smile. _A mother and grandmother maybe, but she can still laugh like a teenager and love like..._ His smile grew, softening at the thought. _Like only
my Buffy ever could._
Being neither telepathic nor perfect, Buffy moved from sighing to glaring as she saw her husband smile. She reached over and punched him lightly on the arm. "Don't you dare laugh at me, mister."
Unfortunately, the cross look on her face only made him laugh out loud. _And pout like a teenager too._
She opened her mouth to say something further and he hastily covered it with one hand before she could say something she was sure to regret later. The first time he'd done it, totally instinctively and over thirty years earlier, she'd bitten him and gone on with her tirade while
he nursed a bleeding palm. An hour later, when she had calmed down and he had finally had a chance to explain what he _really_ meant, he had then had a major job on his hands comforting a tearful and overly apologetic Buffy. The making up was always good, but he truly _hated_ the falling out part that had to come first.
These days, she would at least wait and see what he had to say before flying into a snit with him. And the last time she had _seriously_ done
that had been...
...a year ago.
Giles knew what the problem was, even if he also knew - and Buffy knew as well, although she would refuse to admit it - that she was just going to have to make the best of things.
"You'd rather have Christmas at home," he said gently.
Her pout wobbled just a little. "This is the second year _in a row_ we've gone away for Christmas." She looked up at him with old, little girl's eyes. "I want to stay at home."
"We promised Dawn," he reminded her. "She and Spike have only been in the new house for three months and they want to show it off."
Buffy sighed. "I know. But it's not _home_, you know?"
"I know," Giles agreed, thinking of the Christmas ornament he'd given her last year that was still to hang on the big pine tree they always put up in their Sunnydale living room each year Christmas was celebrated there. There was a new one, this year's one, tucked safely away in tissue paper and Christmas wrapping at the bottom of his suitcase. Buffy always got her Christmas tree decoration, but he wished the little snowflake of silver filigree, tipped with glittering crystals would first hang on _their_ tree and not Dawn's. He understood exactly how she felt.
"Besides," he added, trying to add a sensible and practical note to what was turning into a rather maudlin conversation, "we have to be there to be part of the 'big plan', don't forget that."
"I really don't like Dawn's big plan," Buffy said darkly. "If you ask me, it has 'Spike' written all over it in big neon letters. And Spike-plans
_never_ go well," she finished ominously. Giles hesitated before his next statement. It could go down one of two ways; very well or very, very badly.
"It's not exactly a Spike-plan," he said slowly. "More like a Spike- Xander-Angel-Rupert plan."
Buffy looked up at him, her expression carefully neutral. He would have taken a sip of wine for fortitude, there being nothing stronger near at hand, but she took the glass from the plastic table and swallowed the remaining alcohol in one gulp. Her face twisted for a moment as the alcohol hit the back of her throat, then smoothed out again into that same deliberately bland expression. "Do go on," she suggested in a dangerous voice.
"We're well aware Spike-plans don't go well," he agreed. "So the rest of us decided to pitch in and help. We all love Hazel and we don't want anything to happen to her." He shrugged. "So we helped."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Now, Giles knew he had to tread very carefully. "I didn't tell you because the success of the plan depends on Hazel not knowing about it."
Sure enough, Buffy's eyes shot sparks. "Are you saying I can't keep a secret?" she demanded angrily. "That you don't trust me?" Her voice had risen, and Giles could see the air hostess watching them nervously.
"Of course not," he assured her quickly. He shook his head, obscurely hurt that she could think such a thing after all they had been through together, from vampires and demons to parenthood. "No. Buffy, love, of course I'm not saying that."
She was calming down already, even looking vaguely embarrassed as if she herself knew that such an accusation was unfounded. Rupert had trusted her with his life and soul on more occasions that she could count. Whatever his reason had been, trust hadn't been an issue.
"Why didn't you tell me," she asked again, sounding forlorn rather than angry.
Giles wanted to take her in his arms and assure her everything was all right, but he knew from past experience that airline seats weren't exactly built for such actions.
"Because you talk to your family," he said gently.
"I wouldn't have said anything to _Hazel_," Buffy protested indignantly. "Only Dawn. Or maybe Willow, but that's all. Oh..." she finished suddenly she understood. "I tell Willow everything and..."
"...Willow is very bad at keeping secrets," Giles finished in agreement.
"It's not like she intends to tell," Buffy defended her best friend.
"I know," Giles agreed. "She just lies so badly that Hazel would have worked out something was going on."
Buffy grinned broadly at him, her mood changing in the abrupt, mercurial way she had. She leaned up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I love the way you think of everything."
She settled back in her seat, looking thoughtful. "So why were you smiling at me before?"
It seemed such a long time ago that Giles had trouble remembering what it was she was talking about. "Oh that," he said finally as the memory surfaced after a moment. He tried to make his voice light and non-consequential, as if the subject was of no importance. "I was just thinking about how much I love you."
Buffy stuck her tongue out at him.
*****
Buffy and Giles walked through the arrival gate at O'Hare a little over thirty minutes late, due to being forced to detour around a thunderstorm over Kansas.
The delay did not appear to have dampened the enthusiasm of their family, waiting to greet them. As soon as they came into view, Joy started jumping up and down like a demented jumping jack, while Dawn restrained herself to waving wildly.
As they neared, Joy abandoned any attempt at restrain, sprinted across the remaining distance between them and hurled herself into her mother's arms. Buffy just had time to drop her bag before she was engulfed. Size-wise, Joy took more after her father than her mother which meant Buffy pretty much disappeared inside the hug.
Giles picked up her travel bag and walked over to Dawn, leaving mother and daughter to catch up when they managed to untangle themselves. He gave his sister-in-law a light kiss on the cheek and she laughed and gave him a hug of his own. They were joined moments later by Buffy and Joy. Buffy pounced on Dawn from behind, catching her sister in a swinging hug that pulled Dawn momentarily off her fet.
"Ooooouf," Buffy grumbled as they gave each other a more decorus, ground-bound hug. "I'm getting too old for those kind of antics."
"So stop," Giles suggested helpfully. He doubted his back would have let him even consider picking up Dawn, or pretty much anyone else either, these days and he was forced to admit to a certain malicious satisfaction that Buffy couldn't do it easily any more either.
She smiled up at him, his eyes laughing, and he immediately regretted the uncharitable thought. "I forget," she admitted. "I haven't been the Slayer for like twenty-five years, but I still forget I shouldn't do that kind of stuff any more."
"You did keep a lot of the agility," Dawn reminded her. "I've been jealous for years."
"You have?" Buffy looked suddenly guilty and Dawn laughed.
"Only in a nice way," she promised. She hefted on of the suitcases onto the luggage trolley she had collected as she and Joy entered the terminal. "Come on, let's get moving. We're parked in the short-term parking and I don't want to get a ticket."
"Has everyone else arrived yet?" Giles asked as they set a swift pace across the tarmac towards Dawn's car.
"Almost," Joy answered. "Wes and Susan hope to get here by late tonight. My favourite big brother said that if they have to stop overnight for the kids, then they'll be here first thing in the morning to make sure they have all of Christmas Day with the family. He called about an hour ago."
"Wesley's your only brother, big or small," Giles pointed out.
Joy nodded cheerfully. "That's why he's my favourite. Auntie Willow and Auntie Tara are here already..."
"And Hazel?" Buffy asked, remembering her conversation with Giles on the plane.
The grin on Joy's face showed she was in on the Hazel-plan. "She's here," she assured her mother. "Everything's under control."
They had reached the car and Dawn unlocked the trunk as Joy finished the roll call for this Christmas.
"Spike's back at the house; it might be cold but it's too sunny for him.
You know Uncle Xander and Aunt Anya can't make it this year, don't you, Dad?"
Giles nodded as he loaded the suitcases into the car. "I spoke to Xander yesterday. He was very disappointed."
Buffy chuckled. "So your father told him that if he was so stupid as to
travel around the country three days after having major surgery, he'll be needing both his knees replaced as well, not just his gammy hip."
Dawn pushed the trunk closed with a chuckle of her own. "And that worked?"
"Very well," Giles said. "Even after all this years he still seems to hold me in some degree of awe. I can't imagine why, but that doesn't stop me taking advantage of it."
Joy gave her father a disgusted look. "Well, duh, Dad! It's cause you're the..." She hesitated, looking for the right words to explain something so obvious. "Um... the Scooby patriarch. Like Mom's the matriarch. It gives you authority."
"I see." Buffy paused with her hand on the door handle to look back at her daughter. "So that's why you never broke curfew or anything like that."
Joy had the grace to blush. "That's different," she insisted as she hurriedly climbed into the back seat and make an obvious show of doing up her seat-belt.
Giles laughed and sat beside her. "What about Brianna and Angel?" he asked. "Have they arrived yet?"
"They hadn't when we left," Dawn answered as she switched on the ignition and put the vehicle into reverse. "But we're expecting them shortly. They're driving down from Madison."
"What are they doing _there_?" Buffy asked curiously.
It was Joy who shrugged. "Bree said something about a case when I talked to her, but they took Sionell with them, so it can't have been anything particularly serious."
They paid for the parking and were soon on the highway, heading for Dawn and Spike's home. The sky was overcast, threatening heavy snow later in the day although there was on a light dusting on the ground at present. A wind swirled the tree tops and made the Christmas flags decorating the roadside flutter wildly.
Dawn smiled and flicked a quick glance over at her sister.
"Merry Christmas, Buffy. And welcome to Chicago."