DISCLAIMER: All BtVS characters belong to the wonderfully talented
mind of Joss Whedon. However I do own Riley's daughters and Sam the
nanny.
RATING: PG
COUPLING: Buffy/Riley
SUMMARY: A/U - Riley has left Buffy, and this is 10 years into the
future.
FEEDBACK: Pretty pretty please! I really hate to beg, but will .
SPOILERS: All of Season 5, and my own little universe.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I took my neice and nephew to the Santa Claus
Parade here in Toronto yesterday, way too cold!! Anyway Riley's
daughter's question about Santa was what my 3 year old nephew asked
me. Anyone wanna try and answer it for me.
Riley sat in Macdonald's watching the girls play in the jungle gym
room. He'd planned on making them pancakes at home, but he was too
keyed up to manage it. It was 9:00 in the morning, Buffy and his son
would be arriving in four hours. He just had to stay busy, and keep
his mind off of them. He felt like he was going to jump out of his
skin. Taking a sip of the large coffee in front of him he watched as
Tristan came down the slide waving at him, smiling he waved back at
his youngest daughter. Hope was playing in the bouncing balls part,
and seemed to be having a ball.
Yawning, Riley shook his head trying to keep his eyes focused on
them. He hadn't slept at all the night before. There had been so
much going on in his head, he couldn't turn it off. He'd spent the
night wandering around his huge home. He sat for the longest time in
the family room, which was lit by the Christmas tree he'd decorated
with the girls and Sam last weekend. This was the family tree, there
was also a huge one in the front room that they'd had professionally
decorated, but this tree was his favourite. Each ornament had a
special story attached to them. The first ornaments that Claire had
bought for their first Christmas together. Each of the girl had
their own "My First Christmas" ornament with their name and the year
printed on it. There was also an ornament for Clancy their Irish
setter. Riley wondered if his son had his own ornament on a tree at
home. Feeling suddenly depressed, at the thought of all the
Christmases he'd missed with Evan, he left the room to wander the
house again.
He stopped in the hallway looking at the photo gallery he'd started
when Jordan had first been born. Each of the girls' baby pictures
adorned the wall, followed by other pictures. There were pictures
taken with Santa Claus, school pictures, and shots of the girls in
different vacation spots. Standing in the hallway he looked at each
of them, trying to remember the moment he'd taken the picture. His
eyes finally fell on the last picture of them as a family, it had
been taken at Christmas a couple of years ago. He looked at the
picture trying to remember how happy they'd all been. Jordan and
Hope were both sitting on one of his knees, and Tristan was in
Claire's lap. The family in this picture looked so happy, but that
would change 3 weeks later when Claire was killed in a car accident.
He continued to wander through the house, stopping to check on the
girls. Standing in the doorway of their room he marvelled at how
innocent they looked when they were asleep. Somewhere after he'd
turned off the light and closed the door, Tristan had climbed into
bed with her older sister. When they'd moved into the six bedroom
house each of the girls could have had their own room, but Hope and
Tristan had demanded to share a room. Both girls were extremely
close, if one cried, so did the other. He wondered if Evan had any
other brothers or sisters to share his secrets with.
Around 1:00 in the morning he found himself in the basement going
through an old trunk full of his college memories. When he'd left
Sunnydale, he'd wanted to burn it all, but Graham wouldn't let him.
He'd encouraged him to put the trunk into storage, until the time
came when Riley would be able to look at it. And today seemed to be
that day.
So sitting on the basement floor he poured over the trunk's contents.
Pictures, videos, momentous of his time at UC Sunnydale. He laughed
at pictures of his frat brothers from Lowell, trying to remember
names. Pictures that brought back memories of parties, pranks, and
patrols. He found a whole stack pictures of him, Forrest and Graham.
Looking at them he remember their rein on campus, they'd ruled! The
girls would flock to them wherever they were, but during his grad
year there he'd met Buffy. Meeting Buffy seemed to be the beginning
of the end, when it came to his relationship with Forrest.
"Why couldn't you just accept her Forrest?" he raged to the ceiling,
hoping an answer would fall into his lap.
The picture he held in his hand showed the three of them with their
arms thrown around each other, smiling crazily at the camera. They
thought they were invincible. Ha! Every night they went out on
patrol they felt that they were laughing in the face of the fates,
daring them. Riley ran his finger over Forrest's face and smiled,
maybe they'd tempted them once to many. Placing the picture aside
he'd decided it was time for Forrest to come out of the trunk and
into the light of day again. It was time to try and remember his
friend as he was.
Continuing through the trunk his hand found what he'd been looking
for in the first place. He pulled the picture frame out and turned
it over, frowning at the damage. Looking back at him through the
cracked glass was Buffy. She looked directly into the camera smiling
slightly, it had been his favourite picture of her. Her hazel eyes
seemed so green, her checks were flushed and her hair was spread out
over his pillow. He'd taken to picture to show her how beautiful she
looked after they'd made love. It was the way he always loved to
remember her. Running his hand over her jaw line, he wondered if
that was the night, that Evan had been conceived.
He frowned again as he looked at the condition of the frame, proof of
his temper. After they'd broken up, he'd thrown the frame and all of
her other pictures into the garbage can. Hearing her calling his
name, begging for him to look at her tore him apart. When he'd
gotten back to his apartment, after stopping to drown his sorrows,
he'd thrown out all signs of her existence in his life, and then
curled up on his bed and cried. An hour later he'd dug the broken
frame out of the garbage, deciding that keeping just this one picture
wouldn't hurt anyone.
"Daddy" Hope said pulling on his sleeve.
"Yeah sweetheart?" he said pulling back his chair so she could climb
up on his lap. Riley had always loved the affectionate nature of his
relationship with his daughters. They were always climbing onto his
lap or hanging off of him, and it seemed that since Claire's death
this contact had become important to them.
"You okay?" she asked looking at him from under her lowered eyelids.
"Sure am pumpkin. Daddy just didn't sleep too great last night,
that's all."
She looked at him for a second, as if she'd been trying to make up
her mind if he'd been telling her the truth. He was lucky it was
Hope check him out, not Jordan, who it seemed had the ability to read
his mind.
"We should go soon, we have to pick Jordy up at Amanda's. Look what
time it is." She held up her little arm to show him her Mickey Mouse
watch. He smiled at the serious look on her face, she was trying to
be so grown up. Riley would have placed odds on the fact that Sam
had asked Hoped to make sure that he wasn't late getting Jordan to
her dance class. Jordan hated being late for anything, she must have
inherited that from him, because Claire had been notoriously late for
everything.
"Your right. Go round up your sister, and don't use your bossy
voice. Understood missy."
Hope just looked up at him with her big green eyes and shook her head
full of auburn curls. She looked so much like Claire it was hard
sometimes to watch her. Not only did she look like Claire, but she
had her mannerisms down as well. Watching her was like watching a
mini version of Claire. Instead of going to get her sister, she just
sat still on his lap not moving just holding his hand in her little
one.
"Anything you want to tell me about?" he asked realising something
was on her mind.
"If Jordy's going to dance class, and Tristan's going to party, what
can I do?" She asked twisting his wedding band around on his finger.
It was a weird habit that she had started as a toddler. Whenever
she was upset or scared Hope would twist on Riley's wedding ring.
"What! You don't' want to spend time with me?" he asked pretending
to be shocked at the idea. His daughter turned her big green eyes on
him and shook her head no.
"Just you and me!" she stopped twisting Riley's ring and looked up
into his eyes.
"Yup, just you and me kiddeo. I thought we'd go to Quincy Market, I
knew how much you like that. What do you think?"
"Cool!" And with that she jumped down off his lap and ran to get her
younger sister.
Riley would pick Jordan up at the Carmichael's, and drop her off at
her dance class for 10:00. God, he hoped that dark haired dance
teacher wasn't there. She kept hitting on him and it was getting
hard to keep putting her off. Maybe he should give her Gray's
number. Then he would drive Tristan to the Weston's for 10:30.
Seems the Westons' were taking the girls to see the Ice Capades.
Jordan's dance class would be over at 12:00, so that would give him
an hour and a half to spend with Hope alone. He'd decide they'd drive
to Quincy Market and do some shopping. He knew how much Hope would
love the Christmas hustle and bustle of the market place, and he
could stock up for the weekend. Also he had to speak with Tom about
ordering the lobster for the staff Christmas party next week. He
needed to stop at the bakery and pick up Jordan's favourite blueberry
bagels. He wondered what his son loved to eat. As long as they
were home by 12:30 to meet Graham, they'd be fine. He was glad his
day was busy, it would keep his mind off Evan and Buffy's pending
visit.
"Come here Tristan and get your coat on, where leaving." Riley held
the coat out for his daughter to slip her arms into.
"Do reindeers skate daddy?"
"Why?" he asked bending over to zip the coat up.
"Just wondering."
Riley watched her face, and he could see the wheels turning in her
little mind. Tristan was definitely the devil child. All those
times his mother had wished a devil child on him, had come back to
haunt him every time he saw that look in her eyes. Tristan wasn't
bad, just curious.
"You excited about the party?"
"Yes, I am. Don't tie my hood up to tight daddy, you'll mess my
hair." Riley threw back his head and laughed, already at 4 years old
she was worrying about her hair.
"You know what I told you about using your manners and listening to
Mr. and Mrs. Weston. Right? Remember Santa Claus is watching."
"I know." Riley had bent over to tie her bootlace up, and he could
feel her ideally playing with his hair.
"Daddy? Can Santa watch us in the bathroom? Because I don't think
I'd like him watching me." Riley just shook his head, wondering
where she came up with her questions.
"Lets go girls, out to the car."
"Do up your coat daddy."
"Yes Hope."
"Daddy?" As Riley heard Tristan say his name he knew she was up to
something.
"Yes Trist?"
"Are we still going to see Santa tomorrow?"
"We'll see why?" He hoped she wasn't going to ask Santa about the,
whole seeing you when you go to the bathroom thing.
"I want to tell him what I want for Christmas." She said as swung
his hand back and forth.
"I thought you told him in the letter you wrote to Santa with Sam."
"I did, but I forgot to add something."
"And what was that."
"I want a brother." Riley was startled by her request, and he
stopped to look down into her earnst face.
"You sure?"
"Yup." And he held the door open to ushered his daughters out to the
family Land Rover. Wandering how he'd been so lucky to have these
creatures in his life.