Title: The Beginning of a New Age
Author: Kristin Hulett
Summary: The extended Scooby Gang gets together for the holidays. When two unexpected guests arrive with a series of prophecies, the celebrations are somewhat unceremoniously halted.
Disclaimer: I don't claim to own any of the characters established on either Buffy or Angel. Those characters are all the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. However, all characters that are new to this story, the children of Buffy, Angel, Xander and Anya, Christopher Bishop, Gabriella, Victoria, Nicholas, and the representatives from the Watcher's Council, and the concept of this story are mine. In any case, nobody sue me, because it would be pointless. You wouldn't get much.
Time Period: 2020, about ten years after the end of "Immortal Miracles".
Prologue: The Characters
New Characters:
Megan Elizabeth Summers - Buffy and Angel's first child. She is 14 years old, with dark brown hair, about shoulder length in a blunt cut, and large green eyes. Some of her friends call her Cat because of her looks, which are very striking. She is petite, like her mother, and even as a freshman in high school, she is chased after by boys. However, she has what her parents call her "Cordelia complex" because of her tendency to not accept any of the offers. She doesn't know much about her parents' history, and her favorite adult is her "Aunt" Willow. She is defiant of authority and likes doing things her way except with her parents and the rest of the Scooby Gang.
Felicity Renée Summers - Buffy and Angel's second child. She most resembles her mother, with light brown hair and green eyes. Her personality is a little more subdued, like her father, even at six years old. She idolizes her big sister and tries to follow her everywhere. She is a favorite of her "Uncle" Xander. She is more athletic than her sister, and that makes her mother worry about the future. Felicity loves to swim and her father was forced to teach her how, so she wouldn't drown. Secretly, Angel likes her the best of all his kids.
James Alexander Summers - Buffy and Angel's one-year-old son. He is usually called Jamie, and is practically a miniature Angel. He has dark brown hair and dark eyes and broods, if you could say a one-year-old broods. Otherwise, he is your typical happy baby. He toddles around slowly and Buffy has to watch him carefully so he doesn't get hurt. Buffy always wished that Jamie could have met Giles because it is funny to see a mini-Angel running around. He is undoubtedly her favorite.
Michael Gregory Harris - Xander and Anya's 14-year-old son. He resembles his father, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He is friends with Megan (he is the only guy she will let get close to her), but hates going over to her house because of Felicity's pet rabbit. He seems to have inherited his mother's irrational fear of rabbits, but has never dressed up as one for Halloween, which he only likes for the candy. He has his father's laid-back but hyper personality, but doesn't put himself down as much as Xander did in school. He suspects that something weird happened in his best friend's parents' past, but his parents won't tell him anything.
Christopher Bishop - Cordelia's boyfriend of about five years. He is a fairly good movie director (not big-time - "yet" as Cordy likes to say). He has somewhat longish black wavy hair and light blue eyes, and he is 40 years old. At work, he wears khaki pants and a white T-shirt with an unbuttoned, solid-colored button-down shirt on top. When he is hanging out with Cordy, he wears a T-shirt, generally solid-colored, and faded well-fitting jeans. He is fairly muscular, and about 6'4" tall. He knows about demons and everything through Cordy and Angel Investigations, which she still helps run.
Gabriella Finn - Riley's wife. She is 41 years old but looks younger. She has really long brown hair with dark blond highlights, and dark brown eyes. She usually keeps her hair in a French braid. She is a lawyer (a good one), and helps Riley out occasionally with government work. Gaby is one of Buffy's friends but doesn't quite have Scooby Gang status. She lives with Riley in LA, and sometimes they help Angel Investigations out. A while back, she tried to get Wolfram and Hart closed down, but failed, so now she is one of their enemies.
Jacob Travers - Quentin Travers's son. He is 45 years old and in the Watcher's Council. He has light brown hair cut very short, and cold gray eyes. He is a lot like his father - very by-the-book methodical. He does not exactly appreciate having to work with Jeff Giles.
Jefferson Giles - Rupert Giles's son with Olivia. Obviously, he is part black. He has light brown skin, dark brown curly hair, and dark chocolate brown eyes. He never really got to know his father, since he was in England while Giles was in California. In fact, Giles never knew he had a son. Jeff is 20 years old, young to be in the Watcher's Council, but he is really smart. He went to Oxford at 16, and trained to be part of the Council like his father at the same time. He was told he was going to work with Jacob Travers this year. Jeff has an upbeat, unique way of looking at life; even with demons and everything, life is great.
Victoria Reynolds - the current Slayer. She is 16 years old. Vicky (as very few people call her: her Watcher, Buffy, and Angel) looks Irish. She has waist length red hair, slightly wavy, and bright green eyes. She is cynical, but probably no more so than any other 16-year-old forced to spend her nights killing evil in the 21st century. She is apparently from New York, due to her accent, but currently travels between LA and Sunnydale when evil pops up. She is actually a millionaire, because her parents were killed in a car accident shortly before she was called. Currently, she is under the guardianship of her Watcher, Nicholas Price, and he has control over her money. Most of her Slaying tactics she learned from Buffy after she moved to Sunnydale. She is enrolled at the high school, and is on the outer rim of Megan's group of friends.
Nicholas Price - Victoria's Watcher. He is 36 years old, with dark auburn hair and light brown eyes. He is no relation to Wesley. He is a Californian, who grew up in San Francisco and lived there until he joined the Council when he was 25. He is good friends with Buffy, Angel, and the rest of the Scooby Gang. He knows the history of the group, through reading Giles's Watcher's journals, which Buffy lent to him. He doesn't really know what to do with Victoria's money, because he came from a middle-class family, and the only money of hers he has spent was to buy an apartment for them close to Buffy and Angel's house. He is also friends with Jeff Giles.
Old Characters, New Situation:
Buffy Anne Summers - Buffy married Angel in 2003, right after graduating from UC Sunnydale. They eventually had three kids: Megan in 2006, Felicity in 2014, and James, or Jamie, in 2019. They continued to live in Sunnydale. When Buffy turned 25, the Watcher's Council let her officially retire. She was pregnant at the time. After Megan was born, Buffy took a job as an assistant principal at the newly built high school near the ruins of the old high school. By the time she was pregnant with Felicity, she was promoted to principal. She became determined to erase the memory of Principal Snyder, the Nazi. When Felicity was born, the family had to move to a larger house, so they moved into the so-called better part of town. She also continued to help the current Slayer and Watcher. She grew her hair out and let it go back to its original light brown color.
Angel - Angel married Buffy in 2003, three years after he became human. He took her last name officially, but hardly anyone calls him by it, except for official government-type suits. He continued to go to LA to oversee Angel Investigations every two months until Megan was born. Afterward, he opened an antique book store, since he knew a lot about them. He also became a tutor for several different foreign languages. He got called to be an interpreter almost every time a person from a foreign country visited. He earned a lot of money doing these jobs, and, along with the money he accumulated as a vampire, his family is very well off. He remains on call with Cordelia at Angel Investigations, but only goes to LA for major emergencies.
Special note: Buffy and Angel's house is not a mansion, exactly, but it has eight bedrooms. Each kid has their own room, so they have four guest bedrooms; one of which comes in useful when Cordelia comes to visit. They don't have servants, either.
Willow Rosenberg - Willow has remained a practicing witch. She is also still together with Tara. They officially live in San Francisco, since 2007. Willow is proprietor of a small shop dedicated to the occult up there. However, in 2010, after her parents' death, she inherited the house back in Sunnydale. She has kept her hair short, not past shoulder-length, and otherwise has not changed much since college. She frequently visits the gang in Sunnydale, and also has become friends with Oz again.
Tara - Tara is still with Willow. She acts as Willow's assistant at their shop in San Francisco, when they're there, and she is in charge of finding people to take care of the shop when they go to Sunnydale. She still doesn't exactly feel like part of the Scooby Gang, even though they all have accepted her.
Alexander (Xander) LaVelle Harris - Xander has matured a lot over the years. His appearance hasn't changed much; his hair is still slightly long, and otherwise, he has aged very little. He became less hyper after his marriage, and it seemed to disappear altogether after the birth of his son. He still lives in Sunnydale with Anya, but his circumstances have changed. He was so good at his job doing construction work that he kept getting promoted. His raises enabled him to buy an apartment in the same building as Victoria and Nicholas. Also, in 2009, he bought the Bronze, so now he is the proprietor of the popular club. Occasionally, during the week, he will work as the bartender, but most of the time, he is there with Anya, Buffy and Angel. He only lets Michael go if he is going to be there. He has started a new friendship with Cordelia, and likes her boyfriend.
Anya Emerson Harris - Anya married Xander in 2005. A year later, she gave birth to their son, Michael. She has gradually stopped making comments without thinking, but occasionally she blurts something out. She has seemed to assimilate to being a human, and has stopped wishing she has powers. However, she does enjoy that Xander owns the Bronze, and she can handle all the money. She doesn't officially have a job, but she helps Xander with the Bronze if necessary.
Riley Finn - After Riley broke up with Buffy in 2000, he ended up getting involved with the government again. A few years later, he met Gabriella, who was just starting out as a lawyer. He married her in 2006, two years later. They moved to LA because of her profession, and Riley got involved in the supernatural element of government work there. Occasionally he would end up working with Angel Investigations. He also has continued a friendship with Buffy and Angel.
Daniel Osbourne (Oz) - Oz couldn't come to Buffy and Angel's wedding, because nobody knew where he was. He found out about it eventually from someone connected to the Council who knew he was once part of the group. He continues to move around, doing odd jobs in various places for money, but he never stayed in one place long enough to get involved with anyone. He has started keeping in touch with Buffy, Angel, and Willow, through postcards. He has learned about the births of Megan, Felicity, Jamie, and Michael in this way.
Cordelia Chase - Cordelia has gotten a lot more down-to-earth since Angel essentially left LA and she was put in charge of Angel Investigations. She has continued doing the secretarial work there, while taking time off for auditions. It was at an audition for a commercial in 2014 that she met Christopher Bishop, who was visiting the audition to see if he could find anyone for a new movie. He ended up asking Cordy to take a role. He basically catapulted Cordy to, somewhat, stardom. She has never been in a big-name movie (just independent). A year later, they started dating. The last time the gang in Sunnydale saw Cordy (she had become friends again with Xander in 2005 before he married Anya), she had cut her hair chin-length for a movie, but otherwise she still had the same dark hair and hazel eyes.
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce - Wesley has remained the slightly nerdy, British demon hunter. He is still helping out with Angel Investigations, mostly in the research, scientific aspect, especially since he has grown older. He has never found anyone to date, mostly because he was too introverted to go out much. He remains in contact with Angel and has developed emotionally enough to be willing to die for any of his friends without second thoughts.
Charles Gunn - Gunn always remembered Angel helping him out. When he found out that Angel had left town, he figured out how to contact him and, through Angel, got involved majorly with Angel Investigations by being employed there. He has never forgotten his sister, and eventually found all the vamps responsible for her death, and got his revenge. However, he was also too busy with working with Angel Investigations and pursuing his vendetta that he never found a girlfriend.
Spike (William the Bloody) - Spike took a few years to get used to the chip in his head. Finally, he officially decided to join the fight against evil. He got beaten up a few times, by demons calling him a traitor, but he showed remarkable strength. He continued defending good. Even after he joined the "good" side, it took a while for the gang to accept him. After they finally accepted him as a helper, he then had to deal with the new Watcher and Slayer. He eventually proved himself an asset to the team. He continues to live in his crypt, and has a strange attachment to "supernatural" soap operas.