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Disclaimer: They're not mine, unfortunately. They belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant Enemy, and a bunch of other lucky people.
Author's Notes: This is my very very first ever fic! So be kind!
Cara stood at the edge of the hill, looking down at Sunnydale.
It had snowed once here, in California of all places. Her mother and father did not talk much about it. That time had been a very difficult period in their lives. In fact, Cara referred to it as her parents' puzzle. So very many pieces to discover and put in place before Cara would know anything about who she came from.
But Cara’s mother, Buffy, once said that the snow had been a miracle.
Cara had only been five when Buffy mentioned the miracle. Cara had had no idea what the word meant when she was that young. So she coaxed her father into looking it up in the dictionary for her. Then Cara had read the definition aloud.
Miracle: any amazing or wonderful occurrence; a marvellous event manifesting a supernatural act of God.
Cara had thought about it. She thought about it for a long time. Then she closed the dictionary quietly. Whatever had happened on that snowy night when her mother was seventeen, it must have been life-changing.
Christmas was a wonderful time of the year, as always. Decorating the tree with her family, helping her grandmother cook a turkey, shopping with her mother. Cara usually hated standing in lines for hours, but it was something about that Christmas spirit.
Or Hanukkah spirit, as Willow called it.
Cara stood on the hill, still, breathing in the warm California air, thinking about her family. She wished it would snow. She had never seen snow. She wanted a miracle, too.
“Cara,” said a voice behind her. “Cara!”
The girl in question turned. It was her mother and father, looking quite surprised to see their daughter at the hill.
“What are you doing here, sweetheart?” asked her mother.
Angel stood beside his daughter and slipped an arm around her shoulders lovingly. Cara smiled up at him before looking down at Sunnydale once again.
“Oh, I was just thinking,” Cara said non-chalantly.
“You and your father, you both think too much,” joked Buffy, but Cara could tell her mother was thinking, too.
“I was just thinking about what you told me once.” Cara’s voice sounded very thin in the silence. “About...snow? And a miracle?”
Buffy smiled knowingly at Angel and went to stand beside her husband and daughter, but did not say anything. It was Angel who did the talking.
“You’re right...it was a miracle, Cara. I--” he swallowed with difficulty. “I came up here to kill myself.”
Cara looked up at her father in shock. Angel continued.
“Your mother saved me, Cara. With her love and her support and her devotion. I wanted to die and I thought that nothing would help me. Then Buffy found me and talked to me. We fought, and raged at each other, and I realized how much I needed to be in this world.”
Cara glanced over at her mother. Buffy was standing absolutely still and silent, but Cara noticed a very small smile was on her face.
“Then it started snowing...” Angel’s smile matched Buffy’s. “It was something I had never seen before. The sun didn’t come up that morning. It just snowed, and it saved me.”
This was a long speech for Angel. He was quiet before he walked to Buffy and took her hand. Buffy and Angel started walking back to the mansion.
“Are you coming?” called Buffy to her daughter. Cara nodded, and then her parents left.
Cara was reeling a little. She had never known this. Not even Willow, who giggled and gossiped with Cara, told her. She briefly thought if she would ever have a love like her parents’ love.
She stood on the hill overlooking a town that had once known a miracle, and she was filled with a sense of completement. It was like another piece of the puzzle in her parents’ past that Cara had yet to find about. There were many, many more pieces for Cara to find and fit in, but for now the need to know had passed.
All that was left was wonder and love.