Chapter Text
It was a week before Christmas when they returned from their trip away to the beach.
On the last day there, the burst of warm weather ended and the cold Christmas-typical weather was back in full force. While on the way back, they had had to stop in at a Target to get the boys each a puffer jacket or similar as they had left the heatwave behind and the weather was back to freezing again.
When Tom pulled the car to a stop inside the garage, there was a dusting of snow on the surrounding landscape, on pavement, bichermen and even on the bushes.
Christmas was a week away and they had yet to put up the tree. Or even get one, for that matter.
So the day after their return from their vacation, all four of them pile into the car again and drive out to a Christmas tree farm just over an hour away from Green Hills.
While on the way there, Maddie and Tom had tried to explain to the boys why they were driving out to get a tree and also what Christmas was.
Neither of the agents are overly religious and neither Sonic nor Tails had really ever been exposed to the concept of human religion.
That being said, both of them seemed to be rather excited at the idea of decorating the Christmas tree and the other Christmas-adjacent activities.
A handful of hours later, they are back home and the tree has taken its place in the corner of the living room. Sonic and Tom were waiting for Tails and Maddie to return with the boxes of decorations that the two had gone to dig out of storage.
Both humans had been surprised when Tails had been willing to go with Maddie, without Sonic, to get the decorations, and that Sonic hadn’t protested the fox doing so. Had the veterinarian tried to do something similar mere months ago, it wouldn’t have gone so smoothly and would have had a lot of tense emotions for all of them.
But now, in December, there was minimal to no world-shaking incident and the pair returned with the two boxes of decorations in tow. Tails had even flown over the sofa.
The sun was starting to set as the two humans began to explain to the boys what they were supposed to do with the different kinds of decorations and the string of little star-shaped lights.
There was a weird vaguely egg-shaped ornament that Tom slipped into his pocket to take to throw away as soon as he saw it. That egg bastard was dead, there was no way that he was going to hurt, let alone come anywhere near their boys ever again.
The last of the ornaments were hung on the tree, all that was left was the string of lights. Soon enough, they were out of decorations and the world outside had gotten dark.
The four of them leave the living room (and the tree, Maddie had to semi-forcibly drag Tails away) to sit down to dinner.
Dinner was nothing fancy — they would be having a nice, proper Christmas Lunch the next day so that meant that the meal that night was ordinary — but it’s the first proper one that they’ve had together in the house since Robotnik had taken the boys again, so it feels momentous somehow.
They spend the rest of the evening in the living room, watching Christmas movies, which is effectively introducing the boys to the classics of Christmas. When they had moved in there after getting into pyjamas, Tom had added another log to the fire.
Both of them fall asleep eventually (Tails falls asleep first, Sonic not long after the kit). By then, it had been getting pretty far into the evening, late enough that Tom and Maddie decide to head to bed also. The agents carry the sleeping boys carefully upstairs to bed.
Once they had tucked both into bed, the couple congregated in their own room.
“It’s only been five months since that mission — when we found them — and they’ve both come such a long way,” Tom said as they both got into bed.
Maddie hummed the affirmative. “Yeah, they have. You remember how terrified they were back then?” she asked.
“Yeah, It’s surreal to think that was just five months ago,”
Those eleven words hung in the air over their heads as Tom clicked the light off.
The next morning, both adults wake early, an old habit from Christmas past. Especially the ones that they spent time with Rachel and Jojo.
They find Tails and Sonic…sitting in front of the Christmas Tree. It seems like the two have been sitting there for some time already.
“Hi, you two,” Tom says, once he’s sure that they have both seen him and Maddie.
The two kids turn to properly face the adults.
“Merry Christmas!” Maddie adds.
“Merry…Christmas!” The holiday greeting is expectedly clunky coming from Tails but still includes the excitement that apparently is universal in all kids.
Sonic follows suit, a few moments behind, and a little less enthusiastic than his brother. Actually, it sounded a little scared. That thought threatens to tug the corners of Tom’s mouth down into a frown but he managed to catch himself before it could.
“Do you two want to have breakfast then unwrap presents, or unwrap presents then have breakfast?” Maddie asks, although not before she and Tom share A Look.
They choose the second option. The two’s shared interest (and confusion) at the concept of presents that were for them and weren’t for the desire to hurt wrenched at both Maddie and Tom’s hearts, and made them both promise that yes, the presents are for them and no, none of them would hurt.
It had been a…complicated process getting, wrapping and hiding presents for the two kids without either of them noticing but they had managed.
Finding presents that either of them would like proved rather difficult as, in the five months they have known the two kids, hadn’t outright mentioned anything that Tom and Maddie could get them as a present.
It is worth it, in the end, for the happiness that resonates within both of them when they open the presents on Christmas morning.
Tom is stuffing the last of the used wrapping paper into a bin bag when the birds in the trees outside suddenly take off in a cacophony of startled squeaking.
What disturbed them? All four members of their family (family, huh) are inside the house, Tom can see all of them so it can’t have been a human.
“Uh, Tom?” Maddie calls softly from her spot at the window.
He abandons the bin bag on the floor, checks that neither of the boys had heard Maddie (they hadn’t, both are still fascinated by Tails’ present) before he crosses the room to join his wife at the window.
“Who’s that?” Escapes his mouth before he can catch it.
There is something — no, someone standing out in the snow, and whoever that someone is has red fur. The newcomer that is standing in their snow-dusted backyard looks somewhat similar to Sonic.