AUTHOR: Goddess Isa
EMAIL: goddessisa@aol.com
SUMMARY: Response to Christine Marchi felicity213@hotmail.com's challenge. (I'm just Challenge Girl lately, aren't I? Oh well, better than Roller Girl!) See the requirements at the bottom of the fic. As for the summary (I tried to get around it :::grins evil::::), well, Buffy and Angel are married and they celebrate Christmas. And there's no curse and no infertility on Angel's part. g
RATING: TV-14
SPOILERS: Amends, and it really stops there, well, no, it doesn't. See, there are minor spoilers for Something Blue in that Xander and Anya now have a *real relationship* and for City Of...'cause Doyle's here.
DISTRIBUTION: Knock yourselves out but send me the URL, k? I'm sick and tired of finding my work on pages I've never heard of before.
DISCLAIMER: Buffy, Angel and all their friends belong to Joss and David G. *I* own Chastity Faith and you can't take her from me. She's mine, dammit! 'Swallow The Moon (Jupiter)' is by Jewel. Pick up her CD, Spirit, it's amazing.
//Venus de Milo in her half-baked shell
Understood the nature of love very well
She said
"A good love is delicious,
You can't get enough to soon
It makes you so crazy, you wanna swallow the moon."\\
Angel groaned when he woke up around five p.m. on December 24th. Buffy had promised that even though everyone was coming over to the mansion, she wasn't going to go overboard for Christmas dinner.
"Just some simple things we eat every year," she'd said while batting her eyelashes at him. "You wouldn't want me to break tradition, would you?"
He didn't. Christmas was always very important to Buffy, and it was important to their relationship. It was the three year anniversary of Buffy saving his life, the second anniversary of their marriage and the one-month mark for their daughter Chastity. Angel hadn't been extremely willing to name his first-born Chastity Faith until Buffy told him that the only other option was Angel Faith.
"I'm the one that's pregnant," she'd said during her ten hour labor. "I'm the one with a tube in my bladder and a needle in my arm. I'm picking the name." He valued his life way too much to argue with her. As Giles once told him, "Never forget that her pregnancy would enhance her Slayer powers well before it would ever lessen them."
//Oh, oh Jupiter
Oh, oh be still my little heart
Oh, oh love is a flame
Neither timid nor tame\\
He came downstairs with even more smells flooding his nose. Turkey and stuffing, garlic bread, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and his personal favorite, apple pie. He entered the kitchen though the back entrance hoping to find Buffy alone.
No such luck. Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, Anya and Joyce were all present to witness his bedhead.
"Merry Christmas, Angel." Joyce said through clenched teeth as she mixed something in a bowl. She looked to Buffy. "Can I go back to being the Mother-In-Law-From-Hell now?"
"If you wish. You've fulfilled the Christmas obligation." Buffy went over to her husband and kissed his lips. "Did you happen to check on the baby? I've not heard a peep out of her in nearly an hour."
As if on cue, Chastity's cries came over the baby monitor.
"I'll go," Angel said. "You keep cooking."
"Oh, we're almost done." Buffy said. "We're eating in thirty minutes so why don't you dress the baby and bring her down? And say hello to the guys, they're in the living room trying to teach Giles how to watch football."
Angel groaned and went back up the way he came, tending to the baby first thing. He changed her and dressed her in a pretty red velvet gown Buffy and Willow had picked out before she was even born. Then he put her in her bassinet just long enough to have a quick shower and throw clean clothes on. She was playing with her feet when Angel returned and she gave him a toothless smile.
"How's Daddy's little angel?" he asked her.
She gurgled a reply as he carried her down into the living room.
"Merry Christmas," he greeted the men of their extended family.
Giles shook his hand.
Doyle gave him a hug and wished him a blessing in Gaelic.
Xander was too busy drooling over the cheerleaders on TV to do anything else.
Oz kept on being Oz.
Angel sat down next to the Watcher and Godfather of his baby girl and sighed. "Have they forced you to like sports yet?"
"It's not just a sport, it's football, man!" Doyle said. "How can anyone not be likin' this sport?"
"It's quite easy, actually." Giles remarked.
"Okay, everyone! Come and eat!" Buffy yelled.
"Finally!" Xander flew out of the living room so fast the others saw a streak pass by them instead of a person.
//Take these stars from my crown
Let the years fall down
Lay me out in firelight
Let my skin feel the night
Fasten me to your side
Say it will be soon
You make me so crazy, baby
Could swallow the moon\\
"You look tired," Buffy said when she closed the door behind her overbearing mother, the last of their guests to leave.
"I *am* tired."
"So you wanna go to bed?" she arched an eyebrow.
"I wish."
"I'm a Slayer," she grinned at him. "Doctors don't know the things I do."
She grinned at the way his expression changed and ran up the stairs with Angel chasing her, grabbing at her swinging scarf to try and catch her.
//My hands are travelers
They've crossed oceans and lands
Yet they are too small
On the continent of your skin
Wandering, wandering I could spend my life
Traveling the length of your body is each night\\
"Wow," Angel muttered when Buffy rolled off of him, resting her head beside his on the pillow.
"Told ya," she gently stroked his chest. "I'd missed that."
"Me too."
"I'm hungry."
He laughed.
"Well, I am. And I'm hot."
"There's a shock."
She rolled her eyes. "Let's go get the ice cream out of the freezer."
"That's Christmasy," he said sarcastically.
"It's mint chocolate chip. That's green, which equals Christmasy. Come on, we'll eat it while we patrol."
"It's Christmas Eve, Buffy!"
"And the vampires only take one holiday a year, and I remember spending it in the ER thinking I was in labor."
"It's also after midnight."
"Peak Slayer hours."
Angel pulled a robe on. "I'm not getting dressed."
"Good. You're sexier that way."
"WHAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Chastity's cries came over the monitor.
"You get her, I'll get the food."
"For you or for her?" he asked.
"Both."
//Oh, oh Jupiter
Oh, oh be still my little heart
Oh, oh love is a flame
Neither timid nor tame\\
"Is she sleeping?" Angel asked when Buffy came downstairs. He'd been watching infomercials with former boxing superstars for what felt like hours.
"Finally. I've got the monitor," she hooked it on her belt loop. "You wanna go?"
"Maybe we shouldn't leave her alone?"
"I can't patrol by myself!"
"I did," he said, just to torment her.
"You're a guy!"
Angel smirked and shook his head. "Let's go."
//Take these stars from my crown
Let the years fall down
Lay me out in firelight
Let my skin feel the night
Fasten me to your side
Say it will be soon
You make me so crazy, baby
Could swallow the moon\\
Angel was proud of his wife. She'd single-handedly killed three vamps and hadn't broken a sweat. Chastity was still sound asleep when they returned to the mansion so they stayed outside on the deck he'd built just for her, watching the stars in the sky.
"I think Chastity's first Christmas is going well." Buffy mused.
"She certainly did get spoiled, didn't she?"
Buffy thought of the pile of gifts from her family. "Yeah, she's very lucky to have so many people who care about her."
"I think I'm the lucky one."
"Oh, please don't get corny on me tonight."
"Okay, I won't."
Buffy picked up Angel's wrist and looked at his watch. "It's after three. Just two more hours 'till our anniversary."
"Let's stay out here until then." he tightened his arms around her.
"Fine with me, long as Chas doesn't wake up
//You make me so crazy, baby
Could swallow the moon
Swallow the moon
Swallow the moon\\
------
This is the challenge....
-The Jewel song "Jupiter (Swallow the Moon)".
-It must have B/A. No B/S, B/R, B/G, or anything like that.
-No smut
-Holiday time and the couples Anniversary of some sort. (No tear-jerkers. I need a rest and a change from that sad crossover.)