Hello everyone! Here's a happy Christmas chapter for y'all. Hang onto this happiness, cause things are about to get real bad in the next chapters. I felt like I had to give them some good times, specially for Spike and Ally's relationship to start evolving.
Hope you enjoy this!
Lee out.


Ally's left arm had been in a sling ever since the night of the fight with Glory, but she was happier than she had been in the whole month. The Scoobies had welcomed her as one more after the showdown, so she could actually hang out with people during the day. And there she was, in the Magic Box, helping Dawn with her homework so that she had Christmas break free to do whatever she wanted. They were both thinking about movie night, given none of them were allowed to go out to patrol anytime soon.

Oh, yeah, Ally was not allowed. Spike, Giles and Buffy had strictly forbidden that she went anywhere near a graveyard except to visit Spike, and he had to escort her to the crypt; no walking alone at night for her.

It felt good to have people care about her again. She felt safe.

Dawn and her met almost every day, be it at the Magic Box or at the Summers house, where Joyce would try to stuff Ally as a way of thanking her for taking the hit for the teen. She lost count of how many times she'd said 'Don't worry, I've had worse', which, of course, sparked Giles' curiosity all over again.

She loved to chat with him, he was intellectually very stimulating, like Willow and Tara, and they often talked for hours about demons, weapons or, in the case of the witches, some spells or science-related issues.

Still, what had her dying to recover was the fact that Giles and Buffy wanted to see her fight; more specifically, they had invited her to train with Buffy once her shoulder was back to normal. Apparently, Buffy needed a harder training regime to challenge her, and they wanted to see her techniques and style, interested in how a girl with no special powers was capable of taking several vampires down by herself.

She couldn't tell them the truth about her training. She couldn't let them go after him, thinking he was a threat. Yeah, he could be, but he wasn't most of the time, he wasn't right then. At least, not when she had left. He was good, really good, yet people that didn't personally know him wouldn't hesitate, they would try to kill him.

She was brought out of her reverie by Dawn closing her notebook and letting a long breath out. "Finally. I'm free! I'll go help Will and Tara with their sparkly powders." She flashed a smile at Ally before jumping out of her seat and leaving the Potential reading a book about the Order of Dagon and writing the bits she considered most important on sticky notes.

"Hey, Alls." Buffy sat next to get, her hair up in a bun, probably because she had been training in the back room. "Whatcha doing?"

She raised the book, a heavy tome with darkened edges. She loved that kind of books, even if they were written to purposefully make the reader fall asleep. "Research on the Order of Dagon. Maybe they knew something about Glory's weaknesses or... any other useful thing. Nothing so far." She grimaced, the Slayer copying her. "Did you need anything?"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Mom asked me to invite you over for Christmas dinner at home. She's aching to try to stuff to you to death again." She joked, cracking a smile and looking over at Dawn's notebooks. "Come, Dawn will love to have you there. And I want it, too." Her grin softened and Ally just had to accept. She hadn't had a proper Christmas in years.

"I'd love to." She nodded, leaving the book to rest on the table.

"Oh, and you don't have to bring anything for the dinner..." Buffy started, standing from the chair to get back to Giles, surely to resume her training. She must have been in a break.

"Not even cookies?" She cut her off, smirking. "I make some mean chocolate chip ones."

This made the blonde stop and think, finally shooting her a wide grin. "Yeah, bring cookies."


Making cookies with only one useful hand was a bitch. Her stitches had been removed the previous day, but she was still told not to move it too much. Ally was sure half the time she had been doing the cookies was spent cursing. By the end of the afternoon, she had a huge batch of double dark chocolate chip cookies on her kitchen counter, waiting to be transferred to a box she would later take to the Summers house, along with her gifts for the ones attending the dinner and Spike. She had more gifts ready to give the rest of the Gang the following day, when they all met at the magic shop.

Not an hour later, she was showered and dressed, all ready to go out with a big bag hanging from her right arm –the 'good one', as she had taken to calling it. It had been a while since she had dressed up, never really having a reason to do so. Jeans and t-shirts were usually enough.

The lights of the living room were on when she knocked on the door of the house she had been visiting every other day for the last week. She could hear voices coming from the other side, and even the smell of... potatoes and garlic before Joyce opened the door. Buffy sneaked up behind her mom, looking at the bag Ally was carrying, licking her lips. "Cookies, cookies, cookies."

"For dessert." Her mom commanded, taking the bag from her and noticing her arm sling-free, but still tightly attached to her side. "How is your arm today?"

"Much better, Mrs. Summers." She smiled, but was immediately corrected by the woman, insisting that she called her Joyce. "Oh, there's..."

"Presents!" Unbeknownst to her, Dawn had also approached her mom, taking a peek inside the bag. "Can we open them now? We're all here!"

Joyce gave in, letting her daughters take the presents to the living room while she took the cookies to the kitchen. Giles was sitting on the couch, softly smiling at the new guest the moment she stepped inside. "Look, Giles, there's even one for you!" Buffy exclaimed, throwing his package at him.

The coffee table was covered by colourful gifts, which were soon torn by the unconventional family. And that's what Ally felt. She felt like she had a family again. She would make damn sure she cherished it.


Three knocks on his door startled the bleach blond vampire. What in the bloody hell? Wasn't Ally having dinner with Goldilocks, the Nibblet, Rupert and Mommy Summers?

He swung the door open, making the brunette jump a bit at the sudden movement.

"The bloody Slayer better be with you." He snarled looking around to find no one, only the Potential with a bag under her good arm, a thick black coat covering her from neck to right above her knees. "Thought we made damn clear that you couldn't walk around the cemetery alone. What were you thinking?"

"Oh, calm down, mom." She rolled her eyes and walked around him to get into the crypt. "It's Christmas and I didn't want to make Buffy leave, they were watching some movie, a tradition for the Summers girls or whatever. I told them the pain meds were making me sleepy, and I was going to call it a night. If it makes you feel better, I ran. Thank god I didn't wear heels." She glanced at her shoes, some flat almost knee high black boots.

Now that he looked at her well, he noticed a slight flush on her cheeks, breathing a bit faster than usual. Well, it did make him feel a bit better. He sighed at shut the door, getting back to his new couch. She spent quite a bit of time there and she was always perched on the arm of the seat, so he had been trying to find a bigger couch for some time already, specially after her injury.

He watched her leave her bag on the floor and start to unbutton the coat, taking it off with some difficulty. Oh, right, she wasn't wearing a sling anymore, but her shoulder was not back to a hundred percent either.

His eyes widened slightly when he saw the red dress she was wearing under the coat, a V neck letting him catch a glimpse of her cleavage and the material hugging her upper body before flowing once past her waist, complimenting her curves. He shook himself so she didn't catch him staring and averted his eyes.

"Why didn't you stay with them?"

"I wanted to give you your Christmas present." She smirked at his incredulous face, plopping down next to him and tucking her feet beneath her, getting a big silver wrapped box out of her bag. "Well, open it." She nudged his arm with hers, but he could only stare at the box. It took him a good five seconds to start tearing the gift-wrap off, only to discover a new VHS player in it. He looked up at Ally, raising one eyebrow. His eyes widened when she took a videotape out of her bag, showing him the cover. "So you don't start to bitch if you miss Passions again."

"I don't bitch." He complained, pouting, but didn't take his hands off his present.

"Sure." She laughed and shifted so she was a bit closer. "Merry Christmas, Spike." She planted a soft kiss in his cheek and then rested her head on his shoulder, happy.

It was the best Christmas she'd had in a very long time.