The tapping noise woke her on Christmas morning. Rolling over, she desperately wanted to ignore it. After a moment, she realized it was at the window, not the door; cautiously, she glanced over. A snow-white owl fluttered outside, a package tightly grasped in its talons.
She rose slowly, barely rustling her silk pajamas, and opened the window. The bird swooped in, deposited the package on the bed, and raced for home. She walked over and examined it. A small disc, two inches high, wrapped in brown paper and tied with yarn lay on her bed.
She unwrapped it, finding a familiar metal tin and an unsigned note written in a familiar scrawl.
You have no idea the depths of my missing you.
While the sadness settled into her stomach, Jess opened the tin and smelled apples and cinnamon.
"Merry Christmas, David," she whispered.
Grey heard the faint knocking at the door.
"Will?" He asked, testing if she was awake.
"Go 'way. No class. Sleepin'," she mumbled. He lightly kissed her temple and climbed out of bed. The clock told him it was 7 in the morning when he opened the door to find Giles standing in the hallway, looking tired and disheveled. Grey stepped out from the room to let Willow sleep.
"Tell me you've found something." Giles nodded.
"We found the Spring Rain spell. It should reverse the Plague of Hades," he said. He was too tired to say much more; he had barely slept since the Scoobies arrived. Grey sensed something beyond his words, though.
"What's the problem?"
"The spell ingredients are quite rare. One in particular requires further research. A device referred to as the Eye of the Golem. I have no idea what that might be. The spell itself will require the power of both Willow and Tara, and possibly Dumbledore as well; it will be quite difficult." There was more, but Giles decided Christmas morning would not be the best time to deliver such upsetting news.
"We'll figure it out." He clapped Giles on the shoulder, buoyed by the success into a rare burst of optimism. To Giles' astonishment, a broad grin lit up his face. "Now, I'm the one who owes you. You need some sleep, Watcher."
"Nonsense, Grey. For the debt, I mean. The sleep certainly sounds appealing."
The auror extended his hand, which Giles took.
"Thank you, Rupert." Grey forced back tears from his rising emotion.
"You're quite welcome. Merry Christmas, young man."
Harry rose first, shaking off the last dregs of sleep not long after Giles left Grey. He waited in bed, luxuriating in the fact that he had nowhere to go until Ron woke up. Harry couldn't wait to drop the surprise on his friend.
An hour later, the youngest male Weasley stretched and yawned. He looked over at Harry, said his good mornings, and then made the suggestion they were both waiting for.
"Presents?"
"Presents!"
They both jumped out of bed, giddy with excitement. Hermione and Dawn, finally hearing voices, entered to watch. Harry had a number of gifts piled in front of his bed; Ron found the annual lumpy package from his mother and nothing else.
"Huh? D'you know where…"
"Actually, Ron," Hermione said, interrupting him with great joy, "we had them put yours in the common room. Well, except this one." Blushing furiously, she kissed him in front of Dawn and Harry, who turned away.
"Huh?" Except for the kiss, which he enjoyed thoroughly, Ron's brain had gone completely haywire. Dawn caught Harry grinning behind Ron's back. Hermione had explained the surprise, of which Dawn heartily approved. "Come on," Harry said, taking one of his friend's arms. Hermione took the other and placed a hand over his eyes, and together they led him into the common room. "You see, none of us really knew what to get you this year, so we talked it over with everyone else."
"In the end," Harry said, "we decided that the one thing you really wanted, none of us could afford. So we chipped in." Hermione pulled her hand away.
Resting on one of the chairs was a long, thin package wrapped in brown paper.
"This is from us, your family, Grey, Willow, and Tara. I do hope you like it," Hermione said.
Even before he opened it, Ron knew what it was. Frozen in shock, he stared at the brown shape.
"Go on, open it." Harry gave him a playful shove towards it. The spell broken, Ron sprinted to the chair and tore the wrapping off.
"'Cor! A Nimbus 2002!" His eyes wide, Ron looked at them. He had no idea what to say. "Th-th-thanks…"
"Merry Christmas, Ron," Harry and Hermione said together.
Spike felt like the King Poof, walking around the campus brooding about Buffy. Seeing her after the time apart hurt like the devil. He longed to be with her all the time; Hogwarts, despite the necessity of his presence, bored the hell out of him. All he did, it seemed, was run around dumping weapons, cheering people up, or getting tortured. Not much of a life. At the same time, he knew accepting her offer and returning would have made him more miserable than he already was. Returning when she couldn't love him had never been an option.
Unfortunately, he knew what it would take for her to consider loving him: a soul.
Once he got past the frantic demon and his own macho posturing, he admitted to himself a basic fact of his existence. He was love's bitch. He knew he would be willing to get one for her. It was as simple as that, really, though forcing the demon to do it could be a bit messy, as could avoiding turning into a wimp like his sire. Finding a soul without a curse on it would also be a nearly impossible task; he had shelved the thought for later and gone looking for something to hit.
When he woke up on Christmas morning, Buffy sat on his armchair holding a small duffel bag. She had been watching him sleep for twenty minutes, disturbed and fascinated by his resemblance to a corpse. Hearing his voice again, filled with the roughness of sleep, made her stomach twinge the tiniest bit.
"What else can I do for you, luv?" He slipped on a pair of jeans and lit a cigarette to start his day.
"Brought you your present," she said, smiling. He still had a good body, she noticed as he climbed from bed.
"Did you, then. Is it in the bag?" She nodded, trying to refrain from the smile morphing into a smirk. "May I?"
"Go ahead." She handed him the bag. He opened it, gaping at the labeled set of videotapes inside. "You like? Dawn's idea, with a little Willow encouragement. I didn't know what to get for the guy who lives in a crypt and doesn't go out during the day."
"Every episode?"
"Since you left. Merry Christmas."
"Wow … umm …" He tried to say something suitably nasty, but his excitement overwhelmed his wit. "Thanks, pet."
"I feel weird, doing this on Christmas."
"Seemed a good enough time to me, since we missed Chanukah. I can't say I'm much of a religious guy, but then, you knew that. Should we skip it?"
"Heck, no!" The girlish glee in her voice suddenly made him very tempted to skip the presents and go back to bed. "I'm all for the opening."
"Okay. I wasn't sure what to get, exactly." They sat facing each other, cross-legged, on his bed. Grey pulled out two packages, one square and the other round. "This one," he said, holding up the round one, "I didn't mean to get at all. Open it first." Willow slowly untied the string and removed the brown paper, careful not to tear it. Her concentration entranced him; she focused totally on the task, her tongue peeking out of the right side of her mouth. Finally, it came open.
"You could just rip, you know."
"Shut up, Xander." They laughed, and he realized, not for the first time, how beautiful she was. He told her so, eliciting a massive blush.
Opening the tin, she found the popcorn. It was covered in brown powder; experimentally, she ate a piece.
"Oooh! Perfect!"
"What flavor is it?"
"Mocha … Wait, you didn't know?"
"I went to the popcorn store, to order the apple cinnamon for Jess." He watched closely for a cringe, but she just nodded. She had figured he would do that, after her request in the dream, and forced herself not to react. "Miss Agnes, who makes the popcorn, gave me this one. She said it was for the new lady in my life. I never opened it."
"How'd she know you had a new lady?"
"I smelled like cinnamon, not vanilla." Willow blushed again, and he kissed her lightly. "You ready for the next one?" She nodded.
Again carefully working the wrapping, she revealed a flat black box, covered in velvet. Inside, on a silver chain, rested a miniature carving of a Willow tree.
"Grey, it's so beautiful," she whispered in a hushed voice. Caressing it with a finger, she felt real wood.
"I had them enchant it with a protection spell. The wood won't rot or anything because of the magic. The enchantment enhances clear thought. I'm hoping it might help you when you call on your power."
Overwhelmed with joy, she launched herself across the bed and wrapped him up in her arms. Before he could even register the movement, they were kissing.
"Thank you," she said breathlessly, as she finally pulled back. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou…"
"Willow!"
"Umm … what?" Their faces were inches apart.
"You're welcome." He kissed her again. "Now let me up."
"Oh! Sorry. I just … excited and spell and so nice of you, then with the leaping and the kissing and …" He silenced her with another kiss.
"Like I said, you're welcome." She smiled broadly.
"Help me with it?"
He lifted it free from the box and slipped it around her neck. When he fastened the clasp, he brushed the spot where it rested lightly with his lips.
"Okay, what I got you is so not up to that standard."
"Well, then I guess you'll just have to make it up to me afterwards. We'll test your moral limits or something."
"Ha ha. Very funny, buster."
"Will, it's from you. That's all it needs to be fabulous."
"Before this gets way mushy again, let me give it to you." She pulled out a tiny square package, smaller than the one for her necklace. "You kind of pre-empted my idea. I had Xander help me with this." She handed it to him.
Under the wrapping and inside the tiny wooden box was a metal disc slightly larger than a quarter. A 'G' had been carved in relief. He looked up at her, not knowing what it was.
"Hand me your lightsaber," she said. He did, and she motioned for the disc, which snapped magically onto the bottom of the hilt. "It weighs almost nothing, and shouldn't change the balance."
"What is it?"
"It's carved from iron; Xander has a friend who does metal sculpting. I kind of borrowed your lightsaber the other night, and Tara and I did a spell. The next time you use it, you'll understand better, but basically, we turned up the juice on the enchantment. You should be faster than you were before."
"Whoa. Where did you find the magic for that?" He was astounded. The magic for making lightsabers had been destroyed with the blades themselves.
"Hermione and Giles helped us. So did Dumbledore. He's got most of the magic for making these, actually. I asked him about it and he got that twinkle, you know, in his eye? He said," adopting a Dumbledore voice, which she did very well, "Miss Rosenberg, I should hope by now you would understand that orders are sometimes best not followed."
"I don't know what to say. Thank you so much."
"Perhaps if you were to skip the words and move on to the testing instead?" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
"We better make it quick. Dinner's in an hour and a half."
"Merry Christmas," she said with a mischievous smile as she pulled him to her.