MISTLETOE AND WINE
Coals to Newcastle
By Sauscony

E-mail: sauscony@forty-two.co.nz
Rating: G
Pairings: Buffy/Giles and others
Summary: Reply to a 2000 Christmas Challenge
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel characters are copyrighted ©20th Century Fox, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN and the WB, and are used without permission. No copyright infringment is intended.

The tea was finished, the adults were relaxed, and the children were fidgety. Willow and Tara had cleared away the remains of their cookies and cakes. That meant it was time to start opening Christmas presents.

Jake gave Giles a pleading look that clearly said, "Can we open them now, Uncle Rupert?"

Giles was about to nod - traditionally his privilege as patriarch not only of the Giles family, but also of the entire Scooby Gang, from the very first day it had formed in the Sunnydale High School library, almost forty years earlier. Before he could say a word though, Anya beat him to it.

"Come on," she insisted. "Presents!" She leaped to her feet and went trawling through the pile under the tree until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out a flat package, perfectly wrapped with expensive paper, gold ribbon and an enormous bow. She thrust it in her husband's face and ordered, "Open it, Xander. Now!"

Startled, Xander only just managed to catch it before it tumbled to the floor. Acutely self-conscious of the fact everyone was starting at him, he started unwrapping the gift, careful not to tear the paper. Anya rolled her eyes - she always ripped it off with the gleeful delight of a three year old - but she said nothing, just gazed intently at her husband to see what he would think. She was sure she'd finally worked this one out. Xander would be pleased, the day would be good - and there would be lots of sex tonight after the children had gone to bed.

Xander finally got through the layers of wrapping to find a Christmas stocking, red and green with gold stitching and fur trim, a gold tassel hanging from the back seam. The was something small and round inside, tucked away down in the toe. He tipped it up, gave it a shake and a lump of black, shiny coal rolled out into the palm of his hand.

"Ooooh, someone's been bad," Kelly said with a chuckle.

"Dad, what have you been up to this year?" his sister Tricia added, laughing.

Anya stared at her children as if they were insane. "What are you talking about?"

"That's what the tradition means," Xander explained patiently, rather relieved that this seemed to be another Anya-misunderstanding, rather than an indication of how she was currently feeling about him. He preferred kissing under the mistletoe to being on the wrong side of a wife who was also an ex-Vengeance demon. Anya might have been human for thirty five years, but when you're over 1000 years old, that's really not a very long time. "If you put coal in someone's stocking, it means they've been bad this year," he finished and waited to see how she would react.

"Oh," she said finally. There was a moment's pause, then she added, "That's stupid."

"That's the tradition, Mom," Jennifer told her with a shrug. "Has Dad been bad?" she added wickedly.

Anya clearly had other things on her mind. "But Giles always gives Buffy coal," she protested. "I thought it was a good present." She looked totally devastated and Xander handed the disastrous gift off to the nearest person and stood up to give his wife a hug.

"It's a fine present, Anya," he said soothingly. "If you meant it to be a good present, then it is a good present. Come on." He pulled her down into the chair with him and she sat on his knee, a distressed expression still on her face. One that soon turned into an annoyed frown.

She glared at Giles. "So why do you always give Buffy coal? Is she always bad?"

"I'm never bad," Buffy assured her airily. "Never, never, never."

"What about burning down the gym and blowing up the library and demolishing the town hall?" Dawn asked her older sister with a nasty grin.

"Well, technically, I'm the one who blew up the library," Giles commented mildly.

"And you haven't given me my coal this year anyway," Buffy told him pointedly. For a instant, her assured expression faltered. "I have got some this year, haven't I?" she asked, and in her voice there was a smallest trace of the unsure adolescent she had been all those years before.

Without saying anything, Giles unhooked one of the stockings from the mantlepiece and handed it to her. "Of course you have, love."

Buffy tipped and shook, just as Xander had done, and when the chunk of carbon landed in her palm, her face broke into a brilliant, blinding smile. She rose to her feet and crossed the room to a small table, where a large glass jar was already three quarters full with a twenty year collection of lumps of coal. She turned back to the room, but she saw only her husband. "Love you too, Rupert," she said softly, and he smiled.

"I still don't get it," Anya announced. She gave Buffy a sharp look. "Explain, please."

"It's personal," Buffy answered. "You don't need to know."

"Come on, Mom," Brianna wheedled. "I've always wondered, too."

"And we've never had such a good lead in to asking than this," Wesley added. "Thanks, Aunt Anya."

Giles glanced at their youngest daughter. "You too, Joy?"

"Me too," she agreed. "Dad, why do you give Mom coal for Christmas? It's such a weird thing to do."

Brianna was nodding. "And I don't think I ever even realised it was weird until Aunt Anya pointed it out. Why?"

"Why, why, why, Delilah," Alison sang suddenly, clearly deciding she should be part of the conversation, and Ann giggled, mostly in support of her twin. The entire room dissolved into gales of laughter, and Alison grinned. She had no idea what she'd just done, but she must have been funny, so that was good.

When he finally managed to get his breath back, Giles turned to Anya. "The coal in the stocking thing isn't really a weird human custom, you know. It's a weird American custom. I thought I was so clever when I thought of it, and Buffy was even more shocked than Xander was just now when she found what was inside her stocking."

"I thought he was insulting me," Buffy agreed with a nod. "But he was telling me he loved me. That's why I have a jar of coal. It's a whole lot of "I love you"s."

"Huh?" Xander said blankly, and Buffy had to smile at the confused expressions around the room.

"I don't get it," Brianna said quietly to Angel, and he was about to nod agreement when he suddenly realised that he did.

There was so much love there; the bond between Buffy and Giles was something there were no words to describe. It went way beyond the soulmates he and Buffy had imagined they were so long ago. The were more than a part of each other, they were each other. Buffy was Giles, and Giles Buffy. They didn't need to tell each other they loved each other because they both knew it, absolutely, in their bones and their blood and the way their hearts beat in time whenever they were close. They did it anyway, but they didn't need to.

"Coals to Newcastle," he said softly.

Giles gave him a surprised look, then nodded. "Coals to Newcastle."

This time, the "huh"s were pretty much universal.

"It's a saying," Angel explained. "Carrying coals to Newcastle."

"Newcastle was a coal mining town in Northern England," Giles continued. "There's no need to take coal there - they have enough already. So it means doing something unnecessary."

"I know Rupert loves me," Buffy said quietly. "I know he always will. He doesn't have to tell me, but he does anyway."

Giles smiled at his wife. "So one year I gave her a piece of coal for Christmas. I've done it every year since."

"Oh," Tara sighed. "That's so sweet."

Willow nodded in agreement. She grinned at her best friend. "And one of the world's greatest mysteries has been explained."

Unable to help herself, Buffy began to laugh. "I don't know about that."

"Gran?" Miri asked into the silence that followed. "Can we open the presents now?"