Summary: Life can be difficult when you are fifteen years old with a baby and few options. Fortunately Buffy Summers is a resourceful girl. Spuffy. All human AU in Four Parts. It's a high school fic with actual high school coming up in Parts Two thru Four. This is a very long saga and will be completed. NOTE : The ratings and warnings I am giving for this story do not represent the entire story - they allow for occasional forays into difficult subjects, but most chapters do not dwell there. It's not a fluffy story, but it is not unrelentingly grim. Like life, it flows among the highs and lows. IMPORTANT: Although Parts One and Two are rated R, beginning in Part Three the story will move into some NC-17 territory. ‘The Song Remains the Same’ consists of Parts One and Two. When we move into Part Three it will start a new posted ‘story’ so that I can reflect the new rating. Also, Parts One and Two are quite long enough on their own. / Winner of 'Judge's Pick' in Round 11 of Spuffy Awards and Winner of Best Fantasy Angst and Best Fantasy Author in Round 12 of the Spuffy Awards
Author's Note: Some questions and comments were raised in reviews that I want to respond to but it would take too much space in review so I'm answering them here.
First, yes the system of foster care and adoption in America is messed up, it's probably better now than it's been in, well, ever, but it's still very very not good. People seem to be appalled by the way Buffy's and Katie's cases are being handled, and that is very telling. Because their cases are textbook perfect from the system's point of view. In other words, their cases are going very well, the system is working as it should; they had a sympathetic judge, they both have honest devoted case workers, the police were understanding and helped them rather than hurt them, and Buffy's lawyer was excellent. And the foster homes provided to them are fantastic considering the average. Buffy's foster family has issues, but their issues are so mild compared to what other kids experience that they just don't blip on the radar. Seriously. I am not revealing what is going to be happening within the story, but just that in the two weeks they've been in the system, the system has been working excellently on their behalf. And I hate it, but it's true, and is one of the most tragic parts of this story (so far -- no giving the future away).
Because there are so many comments and questions, I decided to try to find some internet site that you could go to that would give you a good picture of what the foster system in California is like, without being dry and scholarly and difficult to understand. So this weekend I found that the Sacramento Bee (a major newspaper in California, based out of the state capitol, Sacramento) did a series on foster care in that county in 2001. It is an excellent read with interesting case stories included, and offers insight into how that county is handling foster care, or not handling it as the case may be. Buffy and Katie are pretty much in 2004 thru 2006, and in a different county on the central coast (fictional county where Sunnydale 'is') and so things are different in such things as how long before adoption and there are some other subtle differences as well. By the way, Sacramento County's determination to require only three to six months prior to forcing adoption in drug cases is very short and not the norm. The federal law requires twelve to eighteen months, so Sacramento is way beyond the norm on that aspect of their county rules. The state of Oregon, I've been told, will release children for adoption from drug-addicted parents almost immediately, so there are vast differences on this from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Such things in California are up to local determination, changing depending on the county involved.
I think that these articles give a good glimpse into one county's programs and problems, though, and also addresses the foster-adopt situation quite well. In one child's story -- which struck me as being similar to Buffy and Katie's -- the article really showed how the case workers were working against each other in their planning, and how the foster family who had been led to believe they were going to adopt got caught in the middle. And I am not revealing one little bit where I'm going with my story here, I am just offering this series to those who are interested or have more questions about the foster and adoption systems in the US and in California in particular. The article begins at this link (and if the link doesn't work for some reason, just copy and paste the address into your address bar and you'll be taken to the page):
Finally, some disclosure on my part. I am a trained social worker, with a minor in early childhood education, but haven't worked in the welfare and child protective services system for years now, so I did have to do the research and became frustrated with all the constant legal changes that made it difficult to pin things down. Like nailing jello to a tree, I'm telling you. My current field of expertise is more medical social work at this time. I'm not an attorney but I do have to read, understand, and interpret laws daily as part of my job and I do have the social welfare education and experience to wade through it all as well. And I do for the most part understand what is being done and why or why not as the case may be. So, that's me. :-)
Now, back to the story itself, which is the reason we're here in the first place.
Disclaimer: The characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Fox studios. This story is not meant to infringe upon anyone's rights, only to entertain.
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Christmas Tales, Part Three
The Giles home was festive and bright. Christmas dinner was scheduled for five o'clock, and the guests were arriving quickly, filling the living room with beautiful gifts and good conversation.
Among the guests was Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, an expatriate Briton who taught English at Sunnydale High School. He had settled in at the piano to play arrangements of traditional Christmas songs as a kind of background music for the group of friends, from time to time pausing to sip some eggnog and add his thoughts to the lively conversation. Younger than Giles by a good fifteen years, Wes was nevertheless much stodgier and proper than his older friend. He was a good man, though, and had a kind and generous spirit. Over the years he had been a frequent guest in their home.
Alan Doyle was another expatriate, but from Ireland rather than England. He managed a local pub called The Wild Boar, which was located among the strip of trendy restaurants and stores adjacent to the public beaches that lined the Sunnydale shore. The actual owner had based his establishment on an English pub, but as the manager, Doyle had slipped in some more Irish touches to the bar and menu. The resulting pub was therefore a fusion of both that was completely lost upon the American patrons. It was at The Wild Boar that Doyle met the Giles' one evening, and they struck up a friendship quite quickly.
As Jenny put the finishing touches on her dinner and Giles sat in the living room having a lively discussion with Doyle about the merits of the various football teams in Britain, their final guest arrived.
"Olivia! Wonderful to see you, Happy Christmas!" Giles welcomed his longtime friend into his home, taking the gifts she was juggling and ushering her into the living room. As he placed the gifts with the others under the tree, Wes and Doyle greeted the newest arrival.
"And how are the sad and dispirited this week, then, Liv?" Doyle teased her.
"Drinking a great deal less than you probably have done," Olivia threw back at him. The two had a good-natured running feud going over the merits of psychotherapy versus drowning one's sorrows in a pint of ale. Doyle took the latter position, naturally, alleging that truly God had intended us to sit and talk for hours about our problems, sure, but it was meant to be done over a pint and not in some frilly office at $130.00 per hour.
"I'll wager there's some drinking to be done when your bill arrives, though," Doyle smiled back.
"Ah, go back to your nog, you drunken old thing," Olivia shot back with a grin. "I'm just going to see if Jenny needs any help," she announced as she made her way to the kitchen.
"The aroma is wonderful in here, Jenny," Olivia pronounced upon entering the kitchen. "Absolutely delicious." She put an arm around her friend in greeting. "Happy Christmas."
"Olivia!" Jenny hugged her friend back and then returned to her task of ladling gravy into a gravy boat. "Merry Christmas! We're so glad you're joining us this year, although I know you'd rather have been able to go home instead."
"Well, it wasn't meant to be, this year, but there's always next, then, isn't there?" she motioned to the mashed potatoes and Jenny nodded for her to proceed with getting those into their serving dish. "And it is a hard time of year to leave my patients. As you know, they tend more to depression this time of year than any other."
"Speaking of patients," Jenny smiled as she finished with the gravy and started spooning peas into their serving dish. "I'm thinking Rupert could use some professional help at this point." She chuckled.
Olivia noted the humor in Jenny's voice, but was serious nevertheless. "Is there a problem?"
"No, not really," Jenny started in on the rolls. "But he's become completely preoccupied with this new girl that William is seeing. He just seems to have taken an instant dislike to her and is at his wit's end trying to come up with some way to prevent him from seeing her. It's not like him at all."
Olivia stopped and turned her full attention to Jenny. "Coming from a man who tolerated Drusilla, that sounds serious. Has he said what is wrong with this new girl that he's so against her?"
Jenny also stopped and gave her full attention to the conversation. "Not much, but he has mentioned that she has a baby, which I agree is of concern, but otherwise she seems to be quite nice -- from what I'm hearing -- and William is completely smitten with her. You should have seen the present she gave him. It was a Zippo lighter -- you can imagine Rupert wasn't thrilled with a gift that would make it easier for William to smoke, but it was a lovely lighter nonetheless -- and the wrapping was beautifully creative. Rupert has actually been assigned to integrate her into the high school come spring semester, and is having her tutored and testing her to get her assigned to the proper grade. He has said she seems quite intelligent and will probably place at grade level without much difficulty. But still, he just detests her. He acts as though he thought she were going to corrupt William, as ridiculous as that sounds. I'd be more worried for her with William than the other way 'round, given his dating history."
Olivia was struck dumb by Jenny's revelation. The girl had to be Buffy, there just were too many similarities. And somehow Giles was put off by her. But why? Olivia found the girl very likable and pretty and thought that she might even be a good match for Spike, if you put aside her many various problems for a moment. She didn't think Giles would simply take an instant dislike to the girl she'd met, so what was it? If it were simply the fact of the baby then she'd have thought he'd make that his point and Jenny would not be as confused by his attitude. No, there was some other reason. Perhaps something he'd seen himself, or been told by others?
It was frustrating but Olivia knew that she could not reveal that she even knew the girl much less was now treating her. That would be a violation of confidentiality and she couldn't breach that. She would like to hear what Giles thought of her, though, and if he'd been given information from some other quarter that was different than what she'd been told by either Tanya or Buffy herself.
It was a puzzle, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it, with her friendships intact and her patient's privacy maintained. She was clever, she thought, she'd come up with something that would suit the bill.
Looking around and realizing that all the food was ready for the table, she picked up the potatoes and gravy boat as Jenny grabbed the peas and rolls, and they went into the dining room to get this dinner started.
And where was Spike, anyway?
~~~~~~~
"Well, here I am."
"Yes, here you are," Spike turned to Buffy as they stopped on the sidewalk before her house. He took her coat lapels and gently pulled them closed against the chill of the day, leaving his hands on them as they said their goodbyes. "When can I see you again, luv?"
Buffy thought a moment. She hated taking the bus after dark right now, and it would still be early enough to go out together afterwards.
"I have a substance abuse meeting Monday afternoon, and it ends at six," she looked to see how he reacted to that piece of information.
"I could pick you up after, go out to have something to eat perhaps?" he offered.
"Okay, that sounds like a date," she couldn't help the smile that blossomed when he pulled her back into his arms. She wished she could stay in those arms forever.
"Then it's a date," he grinned back, leaning down to give her a gentle kiss goodbye. "You'd better get inside, before the family wonders where you've disappeared to and send out a search party."
"Yeah," she pouted. Given a choice between Spike and the Smith-Kendall clan, she'd have to vote for Spike every time.
"Yeah," he echoed softly.
They pulled reluctantly apart and Buffy started down her front walk, only getting a few yards when she suddenly turned and asked, with a furrowed brow, "Blondie bear?"
Spike turned back to face her, and just stood with his mouth gaping, astonished. "Wha?"
"Is your nickname Blondie Bear? Cuz, when she saw me opening your present today, Harmony got all screechy and called you Blondie Bear." Buffy explained as Spike's face turned suddenly pink with embarrassment. "Oh!" She suddenly put it all together, the sight of Spike's face pinking up providing the last piece of the puzzle. "Oh my God. Was she one of your girlfriends!?"
Spike sighed and turned away for a moment to collect his thoughts. What were the chances she'd meet Harmony so soon? He turned back around to face her, hands in pockets.
"Where did you hear that, pet?" he hesitated.
"Harmony is the younger sister of my foster mother, Rosemary. She's probably inside watching us right now."
"Bloody -- fuck ... She's in there now?"
"Yep."
He walked back up to Buffy, and placed his hands on her arms and looked deeply into her eyes. And there on the front walkway he owned up to his prior extremely brief 'relationship' with Harmony, wondering yet again how one Homecoming Dance date could come back to bite him in the ass in so many ways.
Buffy tried not to laugh as Spike told her about the stalking and the heart-shaped post-it notes, and was really loving the entire thing since it was so apparent that Harmony's affection was unrequited. Spike for his part was hugely relieved that she was taking it all so well. At least until ...
"Did you ... sleep with her?" she asked in a small voice, hoping desperately that he would say no.
"Yeah, luv, I did," he admitted. Once again he kicked himself mentally for putting himself in this situation with her. He regretted his dreadful behavior over the last six months, behavior that seemed so utterly guilt-free and liberating at the time. It was his own damn fault, that disappointed look in her eyes, and that hurt more than anything else.
Buffy was disappointed to hear that he had slept with the horrible girl, both jealous and frustrated that Harmony would forever be someone who had slept with her boyfriend. That she would forever be someone whom he had liked well enough to take to Homecoming and to have sex with was very disconcerting. She did now consider Spike to be her boyfriend, and once Harmony figured it out -- and sooner rather than later was the bet to make on that bit of news -- she thought the girl had the motivation and the ability to make Buffy suffer for it.
*Stupid Harmony.*
"What was that , luv?" Spike asked with a smirk.
"Did I say that out loud?" Buffy was alarmed.
"'Stupid Harmony'?" he chuckled. "'Fraid so."
"Well she is," Buffy decided she was unrepentant. Harmony was a complete idiot and a horrible person and it wasn't meanness or jealousy that caused Buffy to think that way. It was simply recognizing who she was and using good judgment. She was sure that's what it was. It wasn't actual jealousy at all. Nope. It wasn't.
He smiled warmly and leaned down to take her chin in his hands and raise her face to his. "Stupidest thing I ever did, and I'll always regret it, luv. The irritating bint has no hold on me, never had. Please don't waste a minute worrying about it, all right?"
She looked into his eyes, and saw nothing but sincerity there. If he said so, she would believe. "All right."
With one last soft kiss, they finally parted, and Buffy started up the walk again, leaving the heaven version of this Christmas day behind her on the sidewalk, and preparing herself to face the hell version that waited inside. She thought with a sigh that this was the worst Christmas, the longest Christmas, and the most wonderful Christmas she'd ever had, all on one day.
And she decided she'd try to concentrate on the wonderful, for as long as she could.
~~~~~~~
When Buffy entered the house, she expected to find it full of annoying people that she'd need to smile at and placate for several more hours. Instead, she found Ben. He'd gotten off work and had just recently arrived.
"Hi," Buffy greeted him as she walked into the kitchen, looking for pie. She'd missed the official dessert but was hoping there'd be some left for her now.
Ben pointed her to the assembled desserts as he fixed his own plate of dinner leftovers.
"Where is everybody?"
"Gone a little while ago. Mom, dad, and Harmony went home, and Glory went with them to take a look at a dress Harmony bought for a big New Year's party next week. The house is blissfully Glory-free." He smiled at his joke, and she managed a small smile at his attempt at humor. "John is upstairs with Rosemary, tending to her. She had another one of her headaches a little while ago, and probably won't be up to company for a couple of days."
Buffy nodded her understanding, and took her plate over to the sofa and clicked on the tv. She was so happy that she could have some 'alone' time without all the Smiths and Kendalls to please and placate, that she almost felt the stress physically leave her body and spirit. Some mindless television and pie were exactly what she wanted right now. A little breathing space.
Ben came over and sat down next to her, his plate perched upon his lap.
*Well, at least he's not as bad as the rest of them,* she sighed inwardly. "Something you wanted to watch in particular?" She asked, hoping he wasn't going to make her switch to football or anything.
"Nope. Just wanted to enjoy my Christmas dinner sitting next to a beautiful girl." He smiled down at her.
*Great,* she thought resentfully. She smiled back at him as though she thought he was being charming, and clicked until she found some TVLand reruns from the sixties and then settled back to vege and eat. She really hoped he'd just be quiet and leave her alone.
Ben could see that she wanted to be left alone for now, so he just sat there eating in companionable silence, leaving off conversation for the time being. He really wanted to get to know her better, perhaps strike up a relationship with her if he were lucky. She was almost seventeen, he'd learned from John today. She was almost old enough. Old enough for him, anyway. He just needed to play it right, and she'd be falling into his arms in no time.
~~~~~~~
Late that night, as Giles was settling into bed for the evening, Jenny brought up the subject of that girl.
"Rupert, I want you to be honest with me."
Already in bed leaning against the headboard with a book in his lap, Giles looked up in puzzlement from the passage he was reading. "Certainly."
"Why don't you like Buffy?" She slipped into bed beside him, settling on her side and propping her head on her hand.
"Jenny, I don't think --" he began to shake his head.
"No you don't! You don't get to dismiss my concern out of hand like that. Something is very wrong, and you're acting as though this was the worst thing that could have happened to William, dating this girl. What's the story here?"
Giles closed his book, sighed, and looked long at Jenny's upturned face. He supposed he should at least confide in her what Snyder had told him about the girl. She was, although not in actual fact, acting as William's stepmother, and had a right to know these things.
"Do you recall all the police activity two weeks ago? An international drug and identity theft organization was uncovered in this county, and the primary traffic for the illegal operations were taking place through strip clubs in San Martine?"
"Yes," she replied slowly, sitting up to face him more directly. "I remember. It was all over the news for a week."
"Well, Buffy was arrested in that operation."
"You cannot be serious," she scoffed.
"Oh yes, it's true," he assured her. "This girl seems like an innocent sweet thing, but she is" and he counted off his charges against her on his fingers. "a sixteen year old unwed mother, who was found stripping in a club in San Martine, and also was involved in the drug business in the club, and had actually stashed a large amount of hard drugs and a loaded gun among her baby's toys so that they would be less likely found in case they were robbed or searched. Now I ask you, does that sound like someone with whom you'd wish to encourage William to spend his time?"
Jenny sat there stunned for a moment, then started laughing. "Who told you these things?"
"I'm glad you find this all so amusing." He was becoming extremely irritated by her mockery.
"Who was it? No, wait, let me guess. It was a short troll-like bald man named Snyder. Am I right?" She pulled herself under control again while waiting for the confirmation she knew was coming. She could see that Giles wasn't seeing this in quite the same way that she was.
"As a matter of fact." He was not amused at all.
"Of course," she shook her head. "Honey, I'm surprised he didn't accuse her of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and knowing where they buried Jimmy Hoffa."
"That's not funny," he glared. "Do you actually believe that Snyder would create a lie of that magnitude? And for what possible reason?"
"Because he's a little toad who loves to mess with people's lives."
Giles shook his head decisively. "You didn't see him. He was bristling with the news that he was being ordered to accept her into the high school. He wasn't making this up."
"Ordered? By whom?"
"The superintendent ordered Snyder, and the superintendent was ordered by Judge Holtz himself." Giles pronounced. "Judge Holtz has taken an extreme interest in this girl, and we don't know why."
"Perhaps," she spoke slowly now, as to someone who would be unable to understand things clearly. "he realized she was an innocent girl caught up in a terrible life through no fault of her own, and he is trying to help her."
Giles' brow furrowed as he considered this possibility. "Why would he do that? He's known universally for being very hard on criminals, even juvenile criminals."
"Exactly," she reasoned. "Why would he help her, if he actually believed her to be guilty of those charges?"
Giles considered for a moment. He never really entertained the quid pro quo postulated by Snyder. He couldn't believe that of Holtz. Why indeed, then? "He wouldn't," he finally agreed, and then sighed in disgust. "I've been a bloody fool."
"A fool, perhaps," Jenny smiled benevolently at him, "but not a bloody fool." She leaned up and kissed him sweetly.
"There is something there, though, and she does have a child." Giles was thinking out loud now. "How do I learn what is truth and what are lies?"
"Ask her." Jenny said simply, as she turned out the lamp on her side of the bed and settled down to sleep.
Giles looked at his wife, snuggled into the pillows, and considered her advice.
*By the way, Miss Summers, were you ever a stripper?* No, that wasn't possible. He couldn't ask her questions such as these. He looked again at Jenny, who was already sound asleep beside him, and tried to think of someone who could.
~~~~~~~
Well there it is, the final Christmas chapter. Hope you enjoyed. Please leave a review if you can. Thanks.