AUTHOR'S NOTE Okay. So I am a HUGE Theresa fan and she should be with Ethan…I don't care if she's done some questionable stuff in the past – Gwen is no angel either, regardless of what anyone says. Ethan should be with Theresa.

Now that my rant is out of the way, I just want to mention that the whole drunk Santa thing with Theresa taking his place to see Little Ethan did happen in canon.

DISCLAIMER Don't own them…sigh

…

Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald patted the drunk ex-Santa on the head. "Now you rest now, okay?" she said. He nodded and smiled as he leaned against the warm wall of the small snack building wrapped in a coat. Theresa smiled. "Good."

She adjusted the white Santa Claus beard and took a deep breath before walking out toward Santa's chair. Just as she turned the corner, a small blonde woman walking with a redhead bumped into her. "Oh, I'm sorry!" the blonde replied.

"It's okay," Theresa replied automatically. When she realized that she'd given herself away already, she quickly excused herself and rushed for the chair. The blonde and the redhead watched her go, confused, before continuing toward the building.

Heaving a deep breath, Theresa was only able to relax for a moment before she saw Ethan and Gwen lead her son into the park. Her heart sped up as they pushed Little Ethan toward her and he happily climbed into her lap.

Her son really was a handsome little boy. Theresa fell more in love with him every time she looked at him. When he was born, she felt that she couldn't love him any more than she did. But every day kept surprising her as she learned more and more the love of a mother for her child.

Across the pond, Buffy and Willow had gotten their skates and had sat down to put them on when Xander reached them. "Have you found the Wheelers yet, Will?"

"No," she replied. "But this town is not quite right. They have a female Santa Claus over there. Now I might not celebrate Christmas, but even I know that Santa is a guy."

Xander looked to where Willow pointed and saw a quite attractive Santa with a little boy on her lap. "Huh," he mused. "You're right. That's interesting. I wonder what's up with that?"

Willow and Buffy shrugged. "You want to skate?" Buffy asked.

"Nah." Xander's attention remained on Santa. "I think I'm going to go find out what's up with that." The girls just smirked and were off on the ice.

Ethan watched his adopted son sitting on "Santa's" lap fondly. He sent Gwen on her way to get hot chocolate to avoid her discovering Theresa's disguise. He didn't see the young man approaching him. "Hey," he said.

Ethan turned his attention to the strange-looking man with a black eye patch. "Can I help you?"

"I was just wondering why you have a girl playing Santa," he said. "Seems a little strange."

"Be quiet!" Ethan hissed, as he grabbed the man's arm and pulled him to the side. "Do you want everyone to hear you?"

The man looked around. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was a federal secret," he replied sarcastically.

Ethan let go of the man's arm, rubbed his temples, and sighed. "No, I'm sorry. It's just that, well, you stumbled into a pretty complicated situation."

He laughed. "I see. I guarantee that I've seen worse."

Ethan looked back at him. "You wanna bet?"

The man held out his hand. "Xander Harris. I'm not really a betting man."

Ethan grinned and held out his own hand. "Ethan Winthrop."

Xander shook his hand. "Nice to meet you. About your complicated situation, you don't look too stressed about it."

Laughing ruefully, Ethan shook his head. "I'm trying not to think about it. But to answer your question, Theresa's playing Santa because she's trying to see her son."

"Huh." Xander looked back at Theresa/Santa. "She's dressing up as Santa so that she can see her son? Who's her son?"

"That little boy on her lap."

Looking back at Ethan, Xander asked, "But I thought he came in with you and your…"

"Wife," Ethan supplied. "Yeah, he's our son."

"But you just said that he was Theresa's son."

"He is."

Xander blinked and cocked his head. "Huh?"

Ethan sighed. "Little Ethan is Theresa's son. He was taken away from her and Gwen and I adopted him. Gwen won't let Theresa see him, so she has to sneak around in order to spend time with him."

"That's horrible!" Xander said. "Why not let the woman see her own son?"

Ethan paused, considering his words before answering. "Gwen and Theresa, uh, don't really get along very well."

"Oh." Xander did not ask anything else. He watched Ethan watch Theresa and Little Ethan affectionately. "Uh, if your wife doesn't want Theresa to see her son, why aren't you putting a stop to this?"

Ethan looked sharply at him. With another look back at Theresa, he just said, "That's the complicated part."

"Oh," Xander said knowingly. "I see."

Ethan bristled slightly. "It's not like I don't love Gwen, okay? I know what you're thinking. I do not have any feelings for Theresa anymore. That's over. I love Gwen. And when the DNA results come back, we can take our daughter home and Gwen can have the baby that she's always wanted. And we'll be the family that she's always wanted."

Xander listened to Ethan's rant silently. He suppressed the smile that had been playing on his lips when Ethan finally realized what he was saying and looked at Xander a little guiltily. Xander stayed silent, just put up his hands and turned to leave. "I'll see you around," he called.

Ethan hung his head, thoroughly embarrassed. He couldn't believe that he had just spilled all of that to a total stranger. And one wearing an eye patch no less!

His self-scolding was cut short when Little Ethan ran up to him. "Dad!" he called.

"Hey there!" Ethan said, picking his son up. "Did you talk to Santa?"

"Uh-huh."

"Did you tell him what you want for Christmas?" Little Ethan nodded. "Good. Let's go find your mom and go home, okay?"

The child nodded, but turned back to glance at Theresa one last time before they left. Ethan noticed and caught Theresa's loving look of goodbye to her son. His heart twisted as it did every time that he saw how much Theresa missed her son. He would give Little Ethan back in a second if it meant Theresa and the child would be happy and Gwen would allow it.

Speaking of Gwen, he had to find her. She'd be missing her son too. Somehow, that didn't feel nearly as urgent.

…

Sneak Peek at the Next Chapter

Buffy was so deep in her thoughts that she didn't realize that she was about to skate right into Detective Lopez-Fitzgerald.