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It’s your first Life Day with Cody, formerly Marshal Commander of the Third Systems Army and the 212th Attack Battalion. With the end of the war a few months ago, this celebration seemed to take on special significance across the Galaxy.
The two of you had purchased a tree and dragged it up to the apartment you shared. You’d dug out strands of twinkle lights and a garland of silvery tinsel that hadn’t seen the light of day since the war started. Cody had gamely helped you string the lights and tinsel over the green boughs.
Now came your favorite part. You placed a well-worn plastene storage box on the floor in front of the tree and pulled the lid off.
“What are these?” Cody asks, looking at the flimsi wrapped objects inside.
“Ornaments my family has handed down for a few generations,” you reply. You lift out a glass orb with a scene of ice skaters painted on it. “This is from my mom’s mom; my grandma. She bought it on her honeymoon with my grandpa. He took her ice skating for the first time and she enjoyed it so much, she wanted to have a reminder of the experience.”
You lovingly hang the globe on the tree.
Cody lifts out a misshapen, clearly homemade, disk of blue clay with a tiny handprint pressed into it. His brows quirk as he looks from the ornament to you, clearly seeking an explanation.
You giggle. “My parents made that for my first Life Day celebration. That’s my handprint when I was a baby.”
Cody’s eyes go wide. He brushes his thumb reverently over the tiny impression. “Wow.”
You feel a little jolt of guilt as you realize that Cody doesn’t have anything like your box of ornaments to commemorate his life, or the lives of his brothers. You quickly squash the guilt, determined to memorialize as many new experiences with Cody as you can.
“You’re plotting something,” Cody says, hanging your baby handprint on the tree.
“Maybe,” you say.
Cody chuckles. “That’s definitely your plotting face.”
You grin, then lean in and kiss him. “I love that you know that.”
The two of you spend the better part of an hour placing ornaments on the tree as you tell Cody about your family and the stories behind each ornament.
Afterward, you shove the plastene storage box back into a closet and head to the kitchen to start on dinner. Cody excuses himself to work on the endless reports that seem to have come with the discharging of the GAR, now that the war is won.
You hum along with holiday songs on the radio and dance around the kitchen as you cook. Tomorrow you want to take Cody shopping for an ornament that will be your first addition to your ever-growing collection. You finish setting the table and turn to go get Cody, only to see him standing in the doorway.
“Hey,” he says. He looks a little nervous. “I made you something.”
He holds up an ornament; two overlapping hearts. One he’s painted 212th gold, and it has his name painted on it. The second heart is white and painted your name on it.
“You made this in the thirty minutes it took me to fix dinner?” you ask, taking the ornament and looking it over more closely. Your heart overflows with emotion as you recognize the feel of cool plastoid. “Cody, did you make this from your armor?”
He nods. “I had everything on hand that I needed in my repair kit,” he says. “The hardest part was cutting out the plastoid.” His hand cups yours around the ornament.
You slide your arm around his waist and lean your head against his shoulder. “I love it. I love you.”
Cody pulls you against his chest and bends down to press his lips against yours. When he pulls back from the kiss he says, “And I, you, cyare. May there be many more Life Day ornaments, and happy memories, in our future.”