Title: The Beginning of a New Age

Author: Kristin Hulett

Summary:The extended Scooby Gang gets together for the holidays. When two unexpected guests arrive with a series of prophecies, the celebrations are somewhat unceremoniously halted.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to own any of the characters established on either Buffy or Angel. Those characters are all the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc. However, all characters that are new to this story, the children of Buffy, Angel, Xander and Anya, Christopher Bishop, Gabriella, Victoria, Nicholas, and the representatives from the Watcher's Council, and the concept of this story are mine. In any case, nobody sue me, because it would be pointless. You wouldn't get much.

Time Period: 2020, about ten years after the end of "Immortal Miracles".

Part Four

Willow gets to the door of Megan's room. "Hey, Megan! Can I come in?"

"Are you going to tell me why I was lied to?"

"I can tell you as much as I know, which I found out from your father."

"OK. Fine. You can come in, but only if you promise to tell me what he said."

"I promise."

Willow suddenly hears movement inside the room, and then the door opens a crack. She pushes the door, and when she meets no resistance, enters the room and politely closes the door behind her.

When she turns back around, she sees Megan curled up on her bed hugging a throw pillow, watching her. Megan indicates the desk chair and Willow sits down, pulling the chair a little way towards the bed.

"You said you'd tell me why they lied."

"Well, they never really lied. . ."

"They didn't tell me. In my opinion, that's like lying."

"They wanted to protect you."

"Protect me from what?"

Willow realizes she is not really getting through to the teenager. "OK. Let's try a different angle. When your mom was a teenager, especially when I knew her, the only thing she wanted was a normal life. But it was impossible for her to have one. She wanted you to have what she couldn't have."

"Why couldn't she have a normal life?"

Willow can now sense that Megan is softening her attitude. "Well, being the main defense for humankind, she had a hard time with school and dating; all the things a normal teen does."

"Dating?"

"The first guy to ask her out followed her when she had to cut their date short to slay a vampire. He ended up almost getting killed by an insane vampire. Your mom even had a hard time keeping your grandmother alive."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, as you probably know, your grandmother was divorced from your grandfather."

"Yeah. What does that have to do with anything?"

"One of the first guys your grandmother got involved with turned out to be a homicidal psycho robot. One of her friends she met while your mom was gone ended up getting killed by a crazed zombie mob, and then got possessed by some zombie demon mask thing and almost killed all of us."

"While my mom was gone?"

"Oh. Well, the only half ways normal teen relationship your mom had was with your dad, even though he was a 246-year-old vampire with a soul. After her seventeenth birthday, he lost that soul; no, I am not going to tell you how or why. Anyways, he tried to bring about the end of the world. People died, your mom got expelled, I was in a coma, and the end of that was your mom had to send him to hell. After Xander, Oz, Cordelia and I had found a way to restore his soul. Afterwards, she left town, and was gone for a whole summer."

"Oh, wow. That's sad."

"Your mom had to live with being different. She didn't want you to have to think you were different from anyone else."

"Is she really mad at me?"

"She's more upset because she thinks she failed in trying to protect you. She's had a lot of disappointments in life, but she never thought she would hurt you."

"Can you tell her I'm sorry?"

"Why can't you tell her yourself?"

"I don't want to see her disappointed in me. Tell her I'll come down to eat, too."

"OK. Sure. Do you feel better, or at least less angry?"

"Yeah. Oh! I have to tell you. Michael knows about this. I don't want anyone else to get in trouble. He didn't have anything to do with this. I found the book myself. I'm the one who showed it to him."

"I think Xander can handle that crisis control." Willow smiles and heads out of Megan's room.

When she gets back downstairs, and into the kitchen, Willow sees Buffy looking at her expectantly. "What happened?"

"I talked to her. She says she's sorry and that she'll come down to eat."

"Sorry for what?"

"For disappointing you. Oh, and she told me that Michael knows, but it's not his fault."

"Why does she think she disappointed me?"

"I explained why you hadn't told her about your past. Then she asked if you were mad at her."

Megan is on her way down the stairs and hears this last statement. She stops to listen to her mother's response.

"Why would I be mad at her?"

"I don't know. Since she snuck around and read Giles's journal?"

"We never locked that room. I couldn't get mad at her for being curious."

At this, Megan continues walking and enters the kitchen. Cordelia is the first to see her enter. "Hey, Megan!"

"Hi." Megan is still a little cautious at approaching Buffy.

Buffy gets up and hugs her daughter. "I'm sorry we kept things from you. I thought it would make life easier."

"I know. Aunt Willow told me."

"Well, do you want to sit down and eat something?"

"Sure." Megan sits down, slowly getting more comfortable after everything she just found out.

Five days later, that Saturday night, is Buffy's Christmas Eve dinner. Willow, Tara, Xander, Anya and Michael are the first to arrive. Willow, Tara and Anya go and join Buffy and Cordelia in the kitchen. Michael heads upstairs to his best friend's room to talk to her about what happened over the last week.

By the time Wesley, Riley and Gaby arrive at the Summers residence, dinner is ready. Everyone sits down and eats. Afterwards, they all go into the living room to hang out and give each other a few presents that were brought in from the family room. The first person to stand up and pick up a present is Angel.

He heads towards Willow. "I know, we said we wouldn't get you anything, since you don't actually celebrate Christmas, but I got this and now is the most logical time to give it to you. Look at it as a late Hanukkah present."

"Thank you. You really didn't have to."

Before she can open it, Buffy stands and retrieves some small presents for Tara, Riley, Gaby and Wesley. "I figured I might as well give you guys your presents now. Xander and his family practically live here half the time, so I don't need to rush and give them their gifts. Although this doesn't mean you can't all come over and hang out tomorrow afternoon."

Willow starts showing some uncharacteristic impatience. Buffy notices and quickly sits down. Willow opens the present given to her. It turns out to be an antique spell book that she had mentioned she wanted a while back. She looks up in surprise. "How? Where did you find this?"

Angel answers. "Through my book store."

"But you closed that a few months ago."

"I sent away for this before I closed the store. I had it sent directly here."

"Well, thanks, guys. I don't think I have anything I can repay you with."

Buffy argues with her. "It's a gift, Will. You don't have to repay us."

Cordelia looks at the time. "It's way past time for Felicity and Jamie to go to bed."

Buffy glances at the clock. "You're right."

Willow stands up. "I guess we'd better go."

Buffy speaks. "I meant it when I said you guys can come over tomorrow. I can't guarantee we'll have food for everyone, but you can still come."

"Yeah, sure, but we'll call before we show up."

"OK."

Everyone says their goodnights and they go to their cars to head home. Buffy and Angel watch everyone leave, while Cordelia goes to the playroom to get the younger kids. When everyone gets off safely, the two close the door and turn around. Buffy goes after Cordelia.

"I can take care of the kids. Why don't you tell the guys that they can turn in for the night. Once I get the kids put to bed, I'm going to."

Cordy turns towards the living room, where Chris, Oz, and Gunn are. "Sure. But are you sure you can take care of things?"

"Yes, Cord. I've only had three kids. I think I can handle getting them to sleep." Buffy is clearly being sarcastic. She goes into the playroom, gets Felicity and Jamie, and heads upstairs towards their rooms.

Half an hour later, everyone in the house is asleep.

The next morning, Buffy and Angel are woken by Felicity bouncing excitedly on their bed.

"Mommy! Daddy! It's Christmas! Wake up!"

Angel turns to look at the clock. "Felicity, sweetheart, it's 6:00 in the morning. Why don't you go back into your room until everyone else wakes up."

"Why? I want to open presents."

Buffy responds to this statement. "Lissy, the presents aren't going anywhere. It'll be more fun if you wait for everyone."

"How?"

"Then everyone else can open presents at the same time."

"But I like being special."

Angel warns his daughter. "Felicity. You're starting to make us angry. We want you to listen to us."

Felicity starts pouting. "Fine. I'll go wait."

Buffy tries to console her daughter. "Honey, you're still special to us. We're just tired. We'll get up soon."

Felicity gets up. "OK." She is definitely lacking some of the excitement she had a few minutes ago. She heads out of her parents' bedroom.

Buffy turns to look worriedly at Angel. "She's upset."

Angel responds to the tone of her voice. "'Shh. Don't worry. She'll get over it. I bet that when we get downstairs, she'll have forgotten about it."

An hour later, they hear Cordy and Chris get up and go downstairs. Buffy and Angel decide to go down. When they get down to the kitchen, they meet Cordelia. Cordy quietly speaks, obviously trying not to wake anyone. "I'm making some coffee."

Angel good-naturedly teases her. "Has it gotten any better in twenty years?"

Cordy forgets that she was trying to be quiet. "Hey!" She immediately gets embarrassed. She says, a little quieter, "Oops."

Chris and Buffy are both watching the exchange in amusement. Then Chris decides to try and defend his girlfriend. "Come on, Cor, you know your coffee's good. I like it."

Cordy gets some of her fire back. "Yeah. As if you're much of a judge."

Chris just grins and turns to Buffy and Angel. "She thinks I have no sense of what good food is. And yet she stays with me."

Cordy just leaves the room. Seconds later, Gunn and Oz walk in. Gunn makes a comment. "What's with Cordy?" Oz sits at the kitchen table, while Gunn heads straight for the coffee.

Angel answers the question. "Oh, we were just teasing her. She'll be fine; you should know that by now."

True to word, a minute later Cordelia comes back into the kitchen, followed by Megan and Felicity. Megan is carrying Jamie. Buffy gets up and relieves Megan. "Was he awake?"

"Yeah. I heard you guys downstairs, so when I woke up I decided to check on him. He wasn't upset or anything. He was just looking at me."

Cordy walks over to Buffy. "Can I hold him?"

"Yeah, sure. I can get him his bottle while you hold him."

While Buffy is getting Jamie's bottle, Xander and his family walk in the kitchen door. Buffy greets them. "Hey! I knew you were going to show up, although I didn't think it was going to be this early."

Anya fields that comment. "Xander was even more excited to get up than I think Michael ever was. He got up at 5 a.m. We had presents done by 7."

Buffy is surprised. "We weren't even up by then! I mean, Angel and I were awake, but that was because Felicity was up at six. We didn't actually get out of bed until seven."

An hour and a half later, everyone is dressed and gathered in the family room by the Christmas tree to open presents. A little while later, almost all the presents are unwrapped. Felicity and Jamie are in the playroom with their new toys. Angel gets up and retrieves three of the four small presents that were still under the tree. First, he gives one of them to Megan.

Megan looks up at her father in surprise. She can't remember anything she had wanted that was this small. She slowly unwraps it. Inside the paper is a small black jewelry box. Even more confused, she looks up at her parents again. Buffy indicates that she should open the box. She obeys, and looks inside the box. Inside is a familiar looking, simple silver cross on a chain.

Buffy can tell that her daughter doesn't understand the gift. "Your father gave that to me the first time we met. We decided to give it to you, since you had to deal with finding out our past suddenly. It's for protection."

Megan looks at her mother with tears in her eyes. "Thank you."

Angel turns to Buffy and gives her one of the two presents he is still holding. "Open this one first."

Buffy takes the present. "OK." She can tell by the size that both of the presents are jewelry boxes. She opens the one given to her. Inside is a delicate silver filigree cross necklace.

"I figured, since we passed the first one that I had given you on to Megan, I should replace it."

Buffy starts to thank her husband.

"Wait. I want you to open both first." Angel hands her the other gift. This box is a little smaller than the first one. Buffy opens it. The jewelry box is found to contain a Claddagh ring made out of silver, and the heart is made out of a garnet.

Angel explains. "I figured this was perfect for you. There is the one obvious reason why, but the garnet is also your birthstone."

Now Buffy is the one to start crying. She gives Angel a hug. "They're beautiful."

Not wanting to be outdone, Chris jumps up and gets the remaining gift under the tree, which was from him. He walks over and gives it to Cordelia, and then sits down again.

Cordy opens the present. "Oh my God." She looks at it again and then looks up at Chris. The box held a ring made of white gold, and set with three diamonds, two smaller ones surrounding a larger one. "Does this mean what I think it means?"

Chris just nods. Cordy screams, and then, after a few seconds to compose herself, nods back.

Buffy, Angel, and the rest of the people in the room watch the exchange. Buffy breaks out in a grin. "Congratulations."

After a few more minutes, Megan and Michael decide that they want to go upstairs. Megan walks over to Buffy. "Mom? Michael and I are going up to my room to listen to some CDs. OK?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll tell you when Willow and everyone else get here."

The two teens head upstairs. The adults settle down to talk until the rest of the gang shows up.

They talk for about ten minutes, and then, suddenly, there is a knock at the front door. Everyone stops talking, confused. Buffy stands up slowly, wondering who it is at the door. All their friends would know to just walk in.

Eventually, she gets to the front door, aware that Angel is standing in the doorway leading to the family room, as interested in who is at the front door as Buffy herself is. She quickly glances at him before she opens the door, noticing that, behind Angel, everyone else is also waiting expectantly. Finally, Buffy turns around again and opens the door.

Standing on the doorstep are two men, one shorter than the other, and obviously older. This man is the first to speak. "Hello, Mrs. Summers? My name is Jacob Travers, and this is my associate. We are from the Watcher's Council."