A/N : Another little ficlet, set in the future of the AU I created in my fic 'Always Remember - I Love You', but this will probably make sense even if you didn't read that. Same kinda fic as 'The Dreaded Question' [which is up for a Barefoot Award! - more info on my profile page :-)]. This is kinda Christmassy and hopefully cute and funny. Hope you like it and I hope you all review! :-)

Rating : G

Category : AU, humour, general, futurefic, Spuffy, kidfic

Disclaimer : Joss owns Spike and Buffy, but I own their little girl, Emily.

Her Father's Daughter

She didn't know if she'd done a bad thing, but Mommy seemed mad at her, and Emily wanted to know why. Usually it turned out it wasn't her fault that Mommy was crying or seemed not quite her normal self.

Daddy said it all had to do with her job, being the Slayer, and it wasn't totally clear to the little girl of six years precisely what that meant, but she was glad when it wasn't her fault, and she gave her mother and hug and told her it would be okay, and in a day or two it always was.

This was different. One moment everything was happy, as Emily and Buffy decorated the Christmas tree as a surprise for Spike. He had to work late and he'd been complaining about the impending doom of having to spend his weekend getting the decorations down from the attic and trying to get the house the way the girls wanted it for the festive season. Buffy had some free time so she'd got up in the roof herself and dragged down the boxes of tinsel and fairy lights, allowing Emily to help her decorate the tree so long as she was careful and she didn't touch anything that Mommy told her not to. She was being such a good girl that Buffy was proud to know Emily was her daughter, her's and Spikes, the perfect combination of the two of them, but she'd seen all too much of her father spill out later in the afternoon and he would pay for that.

"Daddy!" Emily yelled as soon as Spike came through the front door, throwing herself at his legs.

"Hey there, Sweet Bit" he grinned as he scooped up his daughter and swung her around before hugging her tight and placing her back on the ground. It was then he came face to face with the half decorated Christmas tree.

"Whats been going on today then?" he asked Emily as knelt down to her height.

"Mommy and me were doing a surprise for you" she explained, "but I think I did something wrong" she continued, her voice disappearing and her lip trembling, "She went into the kitchen and she says we can't finish decorating right now, but she won't tell me why"

Spike frowned, it was unlike Buffy to behave that way

"What exactly did you say baby?" he asked the little girl who stood before him, eyes level with his as he crouched on the carpet.

"She asked if I wanted the star or the angel on the top of the tree and I said the star..."

Spike winced having a nasty feeling that he knew what was coming.

"...cos Angel is a lame poofter" Emily said seriously, all blonde pigtails, wide eyes, and pure innocence.

'I'm gonna pay for that tonight' Spike sighed as he took the childs hand in his, stood up and went to find his wife, praying to God she might find it all at least a little bit funny, but he guiltily admitted to himself at least, that today might be his proudest moment as a father, so far.