A-Wassailing
Jonathan hadn't needed their help to save Christmas, of course - especially Angel's team, who'd arrived from LA at the last minute and too late to do anything but watch the demonic Santa Claus be sucked into the jaws of hell.
Cynically, Giles wondered if they'd come to help or in the hope of wangling an invite to one of Jonathan's legendary parties. Either way, as they trudged out of the shell of the old high school, the invitation was duly extended.
"Oh, we couldn't possibly intru... ow!"
"What Wesley means to say," Cordelia said, clamping herself onto Jonathan's arm, "is that we'd love to come. Really, really love to. I mean, you'd have to be crazy and have a hankering for a three-inch heel through your foot to not want to go to the party, right, Angel?"
"Well, the limo's big enough for everyone." Jonathan stopped, looking around at the group with a benevolent smile. "That was great work tonight, gang. I couldn't have done it without you guys. You're the real heroes."
Barring Jonathan himself, they were all cold, wet and covered in the innards of something that probably hadn't been a real reindeer, but there was a perceptible lightening of the mood. Buffy beamed. Willow and Tara let out synchronous infatuated sighs. Even Angel stopped glaring at Riley long enough to look almost happy.
Giles thought of Jenny, and how he had never celebrated Christmas with her and never would, and slipped away while Jonathan posed for the newspapers.
Two channels were showing It's a Wonderful Life. Giles flipped between them, watching Bedford Falls change from black and white to colour and back again. The remake was vastly superior; Jonathan's fifth Oscar had surprised no one.
Well, this was better than last Christmas. It seemed silly now, but he'd almost expected the First Evil to show up again, even after its trouncing at Jonathan's hands. And the rest of it...
He supposed there was symmetry to it. Jonathan had sent Angel to hell in order to save the world, and then he'd saved his life when The First had almost talked him into introspection to the point of self-immolation.
It didn't mean he had to like it.
And the mystical snow had been a bit much.
Halfway through the film, he picked up the phone. It was four in the morning in Manchester. Olivia, as he'd expected, was at a party.
"Right, I'm in the coatroom. God, it's mental out there, can't hear yourself think. What were you saying?"
He smiled, stretching out more comfortably on the sofa. "Nothing important enough to drag you away from the musical stylings of Westlife."
"Could you hear that? Mad, isn't it? If I get near enough to the DJ I'll fucking chin him. Oh, you were on the news earlier. Well, Jonathan was. Looking great."
He didn't bother asking which one of them she was referring to. He'd introduced her to Jonathan on her first visit to Sunnydale, and the woman that he'd known more than twenty years, who'd once shared a joint with Roger Waters and kept her cool, had metamorphosed into a simpering schoolgirl.
The sex that night had been even better than usual.
He started to ask when she was coming to see him again, but someone knocked at the door. And kept knocking. Loudly.
"Olivia, hold on for a minute," he said. There was an axe behind the desk and he grabbed it, keeping it ready to swing as he cracked open the door.
Wesley blinked at him from behind slightly askew glasses. "Ah. Prepared for trouble. That's good. Dangerous creatures may be abroad."
Giles sighed and let the door off the chain.
Olivia's voice, tinny and distant, came out of the handset that he'd forgotten he was holding. "Ripper? What's going on, you all right?"
"False alarm," he said. "Just a drunken pillock."
"Plenty of those here, too. He grabbed your arse yet?"
"He's staggered into my flat and fallen onto my sofa. So, not yet, no."
"Tenner says he goes for your arse."
"Even assuming he doesn't pass out in the next twenty seconds, I think you're going to lose this one."
"I am not going to pass out," Wesley said, with as much self-dignity as was possible for someone face down on a cushion. "I may have underestimated the alcohol content of some of Jonathan's imported wines."
"What's he look like? Fit?"
"I'm hanging up on you."
"I'm coming over there for New Year's, you can give me the cash then," she said, and hung up on him first.
Some months ago, Jonathan had negotiated an end of hostilities between two warring demon clans. The Goran capo had been so impressed that he'd sent a crate of wine from his personal vineyard. He'd failed to specify that the wine wasn't normally consumed by humans. Giles had taken half a glass and spent the better part of a weekend hung over and wishing for death.
Ashen and with his head cradled in his hands, Wesley looked halfway there.
"It was a good party, though," he said. "Did you know Jonathan has William the Bloody chained up in one of his spare rooms?" Giles passed him another glass of water. It shook in his hands, but he drank it all. "Thank you. I think it's help..." He opened his eyes and promptly squeezed them shut again. "No. No, it isn't. Is there any paracetamol?"
"I'm sure there are painkillers at the mansion," he said pointedly. "Jonathan's been buying headache tablets in bulk since he started keeping Spike there."
"You weren't at the party," Wesley said, as if this had only just occurred to him. "Yes. You didn't come. And I had something to give you." He reached inside his coat. "Here."
The present was flat and a bit battered. The paper was deep red, covered with stylised gold JLs.
"Everybody got one," Wesley said. "I thought maybe yours would get lost."
To Rupert, the card read. Keep practising those opening gambits! -J.
He adjusted his glasses. "Well. That's very... very thoughtful." For the first time all night a warm contentment settled over him. He even felt quite fond of Wesley for thinking of him.
When he unwrapped it, the warmth was of a different kind.
"Very - useful," he said. His eyes were glued to the cover, where Jonathan was posing, one hand wrapped around a bare bicep, under the legend Swimsuit Edition! "I was just thinking that I needed a calendar."
Wesley had opened his eyes enough to ogle. "I'm sure Cordelia would appreciate one of these for the office."
If Olivia had still been on the phone, and she'd asked her question again - what Wesley looked like - Giles would have said 'he's not Jonathan, obviously, but he's not bad-looking. If he wasn't drunk...'
"Turn the page," Wesley said, sounding suddenly hoarse and stone-cold sober.
On the television, unnoticed, a Christmas tree bell rang, George Bailey counted his blessings, and Jonathan got his wings.
His hand none too steady, Giles turned to January.
A week later, Olivia got her money, with interest.