Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was Christmas in the city, and the snow swirled around two figures, stranded on the sidewalk.

“It’s all ruined,” she cried, twisting her short locs around her fingers.  “I don’t know what I expected.”

“Don’t say that,” he said, stepping forward and taking her in his arms.  

“Where’s your magic now, Mistletoe Prince?”  She demanded, voice brittle with upset, anger.

“The magic wasn’t anything we did, or what we had,” he said, and she melted when he cupped her face in his hand.  “My princess, this whole time, the magic was you and I.”

And the camera panned out on their intertwined forms as they kissed, fading away into the snowy white clouds as the score swelled to a magical crescendo.

The flickering lights of the end credits reflected in Theodore “Tobey” McCallister the Third’s glasses as he sighed, smiling as he cradled his mug of hot chocolate closer to his chest.  He nestled deeper into his fluffy snow-robots blanket, a bittersweet smile touching the corner of his mouth.  The couch was a little too empty, a little too cold in the December chill.  He stirred his hot chocolate with a candy cane, wishing someone had been around to drink the other half before it had gone cold.

He shook his head, as if he could dislodge the melancholy, and rewound the video, pausing just as the leading man dashed through the snow, glasses fogging up, stopping his leading lady in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Rebecca, please,” he started, just as Claire McCallister walked through the living room door.

“Tobey, dear, have you finished your home–”  She stopped short, raising an eyebrow at the screen, where the blond lead was reaching out beseechingly to his lady love.  “I suppose not.” 

Tobey jumped, scrambling to push mute before turning to his mother with a sheepish smile.  “Hello, Mother.  I’ll right on it in just a moment.” 

“Tobey,” Claire sighed, trying and failing to hide her smile.  “How many times have you watched A Mistletoe Prince this month?”

He flushed, fiddling with his bowtie.  “Oh, not too many, I’m sure.  Maybe six?”

“Try sixteen,” she countered, leaning her hip against the doorframe.

“Well, you can hardly blame me for getting into the spirit of the holiday season, now can you?”

“It’s the third of December, Tobey.” 

“Then I’m doing exceptionally well, aren’t I?”

“Well, maybe you should focus less on your fictional Christmases and decide what you want to do for our real one this year.”  She laughed, sitting on the couch beside him.  “Did you want to invite Victoria and Eileen to visit during break?  Or another one of your little friends?”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”  He cleared his throat, twirling his peppermint stick around in his mug.  “I’ve told you, Mother, we’re in more of a… coworkers situation.  Besides, I haven’t really…”

He trailed off, the move grabbing his attention once more as the Mistletoe Prince confessed to Rebecca, watching as her icy exterior melted away, as she returned his embrace – arms linking around his neck for a camera-spinning kiss.

“Actually, Mother,” Tobey said, gulping down the last of his hot chocolate and standing, ideas already beginning to swirl like so many snowflakes in a blizzard.  “I think I’ve got an idea.” 

Tobey sat next to Becky Brains every day in class, much to his chagrin and his delight.

His chagrin, as she was positively infuriating. She read under her desk all class, but still knew the answers whenever the teacher called on her – provided they were in English block.  She snickered beneath her breath whenever Tobey stuttered his way through an answer, rolled her eyes when he rambled for too long about physics or robotics, and flicked scrawled notes of gossip back and forth with Scoops and Violet, always too quick for the teacher to catch them.  

His delight, as… well.

She smiled when she read, softly, those gray eyes shining.  Her snickers sometimes gave away to full laughter – snorting and unruly and gleeful.  And her notes were filled with her delicate, looping handwriting, nearly printer perfect with the way she carved each letter out – granting each the sort of single-minded care that no one else would pay to mere words. 

Words were, after all, his part-time classmate and full-time rival’s fondest interest.  You could hardly be a word-themed supervillain without a certain passion for the subject, not that Becky had any interest in admitting her secret identity – regardless of the number of times they had skidded into the classroom at the same time, babbling overlapping excuses about having to stop Doctor Two-Brains and WordGirl (Tobey) and absolutely not being WordGirl but actually having a cheese-related parental emergency (Becky).

Still, being so close to Becky every day did provide Tobey with certain… opportunities.

“So,” Tobey said, far too casually as he slid into his seat next to her, accidentally smacking his bag into his leg in an attempt to lay it down smoothly, “are you excited for Christmas, Becky?”

“Smooth,” she deadpanned, watching with a raised eyebrow as he winced, rubbing the bruised spot.  “And I’m… not.”

She cleared her throat, tossing her head back.  “Why would I be?  Big-Dad buys me presents all the time, after all.  And that’s all anyone really cares about, after all.”

“What, never watched a Hallmark movie?”  Tobey grinned, lacing his fingers together beneath his chin.  “I should think even you would know the real meaning is mistletoe and finding out you’re the long-lost heiress to some holiday-themed kingdom, or some other such rot.” 

She snorted, rolling her eyes, but his own were more than attuned to her every movement – picking up on the fluttering corner of her mouth.  “Do cookie-cutter romances with all the same bland white leads really seem like my style, McCallister?”

“Since when,” Tobey said, a touch more softly than he meant to, “have you ever let anyone else define you, my dear?”

She looked, for an instant, as if someone had caught her with her hand in the peppermint-cookie jar.  “I…” 

“Alright, class!”  Ms. Davis cheered at the front of the class.  “Who’s ready to learn about subject-verb agreement?”

And when Tobey looked back at Becky, her usual saccharine-cherubic mask was in place, dutifully tapping her pencil against her notebook, as if taking notes.

“I can see you reading under your desk,” he muttered, far too softly for any normal human to hear.  

And, for just a moment, he caught the edge of that smile that turned his stomach soft and gooey as fresh baked cookies – all ruby lips and white teeth, sharp enough to cut. 

Maybe that would have been the end of it, had Tobey not heard a familiar tune – granted, entirely atonal and completely off-tempo – as he began to pack up his books.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful… 

His head snapped up so quickly that his glasses bobbed on his nose, bouncing twice before they settled on his nose, magnifying his already massive eyes – wide in shocked delight.

“Is that–”  He started, only to be cut off as a black-clad arm slung around Becky’s shoulders, a grinning reporter draping himself across her.

“God, is that Let it Snow?!”   Scoops snorted, raising an eyebrow.  “Don’t tell me you’re falling victim to capitalistic marketing so easily, Brains.”

A flush settled high on Becky’s cheeks, but she laughed – a colder, crueler version of her typical giggle.  “Don’t be an ignoramus, Scoops.”  

The reporter waited a moment too long to respond, and Becky pounced, gray eyes glinting. 

“And if you don’t know what that means…”  She drawled, buffing her red nails on her sweater.  “Well, that just proves my point, doesn’t it?”

The reporter sputtered, drawing back – and Tobey ignored the ugly flash of satisfaction in his chest – but whatever remonstration he was about to attempt was cut off by Violet, leaning against Becky’s desk.

“I actually like Christmas,” she said in her typical monotone.  She was busily snipping at a piece of paper, folded many times over, cutting out a vaguely-elven shape.

Becky’s spine straightened, like someone had pulled her puppet strings taut.  “Really?”

“Of course,” she said, not looking up from the silver blur of her scissors.  “It’s delightful to tell kids Santa isn’t real and watch the light leave their eyes.”

(A row of desks back, Eileen turned to Victoria, eyes huge.)

Violet decisively chopped the head off of her paper person and unfolded it, revealing a chain of decapitated elves, holding hands merrily.  “What do you think?”

“Horrifying,” Tobey said.

“Inspired,” Becky commented.

“Delightful,” Scoops added.

Violet barely smiled, ducking her head so her over-long bangs brushed her nose.  “You all say the sweetest things.” 

The trio of mischief-makers departed, Becky’s slip-up forgotten among them, but Tobey sat, ruminating (and ignoring Eileen’s sobs behind him).  For a moment, he’d thought that his far-fetched hopes had been just that, but now…  perhaps not.

Just maybe his local Grinch had been possessed by a bit of the Christmas spirit.

“Brains.”

“McCallister.”

Tobey dropped into his seat the next day, gently setting his metal backpack down next to him.  

“Still insisting you’ll have nothing to do with the festive spirit?”

She eyed him, droll.  “Still insisting there’s more than my dad’s capitalistic schemes at play?”

“As a matter of fact” – he pulled out two silver-embossed tickets with a flourish – ”I am.  Don’t assume you’d be interested in going ice skating with me this afternoon, hm?  I appear to have an extra ticket.”

Her eyes lit up, leaning forward, only for Scoops to cough something that sounded suspiciously like dork from behind them.  Her face shuttered closed as she leaned back and tossed her hair imperiously.

“As if.  You know what they say about assumptions, McCallister.”

“I hardly think an expression about ‘donkeys’ is appropriate for the classroom, Brains.”

“What?”  She blinked, frowning.  “No, that’s not what I meant at all.”

“Phew,” Tobey pressed a hand into his chest, breathing out in relief.  “I thought that you were talking about–”

“That they’re horseshit, is what I meant to say.”

“I don’t know what I expected.”

“Oh, if she can’t make it, I’d love to go with you, Tobey!”  A chipper voice interrupted, and they looked behind them to see Eileen, beaming, before her eyes took on a haunted set.  “I desperately need to feel the holiday spirit right now.” 

“Ah, erm.”  Tobey cleared his throat, fidgeting with his bowtie.  “Be that as it may, Eileen, I was sort of intending it as a bonding activity.  Between” – he cut a hasty glance at Becky, who suddenly seemed very absorbed in her book – ”friends.  Or something like that.”

“I mean… still?”  She blinked.  “We can always just go as fr–” 

“Suddenly my schedule cleared up,” Becky interrupted, slamming her book down.  “Four o’clock, you said?”

“I don’t believe I did,” he mused with a cat’s smile.  “Although that is just with the advertisement in the newspaper said it opens.  Wonder how you knew that.”

“Lucky guess.”  She tugged on one of her short locs, clearing her throat.  “And I hope you know I’m only going so I can laugh when people fall on the ice.”

“I’d expect nothing less, my dear.”

Becky did, in fact, laugh hysterically every time his skates slipped out from under him.  The blow was slightly softened, however, by how often she herself took a tumble.

They ended up awkwardly shuffling along the edge of the rink, gripping onto the railing for dear life and watching despondently as they were lapped by six year olds.

“This is humiliating,” Becky groused, edging along with single-minded determination.  

“I’ll admit, it isn’t quite what I had in mind,” Tobey confessed, freezing fingers desperately clinging to the edge.  “Why don’t you just fly along instead, hm?  I’m sure you could do it close enough to the ground that no one would notice.”

“Doesn’t that defeat the point of skating in the first place, McCallister?” she snarked, turning back to look at him before freezing at the triumphant grin on his face.  “Which is what I would say if I was WordGirl.  Or anyone who could fly, really.  But I’m not.  So.  Nope.”

“Whatever you say, my darling.”  Tobey did his best to squelch his smile, but it wasn’t helped by how lovely she was with those eyes flashing.  “Regardless, though, we need a plan of attack.”

He pushed himself off the edge, shining with triumph when, wobbling, he managed to stand upright.  He held his hands out, expectantly.  “Alright, come on.  We’ll prop each other up.”

Her spine stiffened, and her cold-flush looked a little more vibrant than it had a moment ago.  “Not sure about that one, McCallister.  I might just drag you down with me.”

“It’s a risk I’m more than willing to take.”

A child who couldn’t have been any older than eight smoothly skated between them, performed a triple axel, and continued on his merry way. 

They stared after him for a long moment before Becky sighed, pushing herself off. 

“Get over here, McCallister.”

He grinned.  “As you wish.” 

Her hands were so small compared to his, her patchwork gloves swallowed up by his woolen mittens, and he swallowed hard, fighting down butterflies.

“Ready?”  He asked, squeezing her hands gently as she nestled up against his side.

She sighed, even as she stole glances at him out of the corner of her eyes.  “Just don’t get us killed.”

“Your vote of confidence, my dear,” he said, kicking them off, “means the world.”

“Winsome.”

“Jolly.’”

“Joyful.”

“Becky, look!”

She grinned, smug.  “That’s not a synonym for merry, Theodore.”

“Your luminous vocabulary knows no bounds,” he said dryly.  “But I just thought you might be interested in knowing that we made it all the way around without dying.” 

“We did?”  She looked around with huge eyes, shining as she took in their position.  “We did!”

She laughed in delight, throwing her arms around his neck and promptly toppling them over.  They landed in a heap on the ice, powdery cold immediately biting through their gloves, their thick sweaters, but Becky smelled like purloined perfume and old paper, and Tobey couldn’t remember ever feeling warmer. 

And, for a moment, all he could see was those shining gray eyes.

And then that eight year old spun a rapid circle around them, splattering their faces with an icy spray.

Becky jolted off of him, flushing.

“Ugh, look what you did,” she grumbled, disentangling herself, and he didn’t bother protesting. 

He just laughed, letting himself melt into the ice as silver skates whizzed past them like so many falling stars.  “Worth it.”

“You’re a sappy thing, you know that?”  Becky said, rolling her eyes as she carefully stood.

But Tobey couldn’t miss that smile.

“Oh,” he sighed, putting his chin in his hand as he gazed up at her.  “I know.”

And when he reached a hand up, she took it, and didn’t let go.

She hastily detangled them when one of her mothers – Ms. Question – came to pick her up.

“There has to be a few questions I can avoid, at least,” she said, half-apologetically, but he couldn’t even bring himself to care.

And when Claire drove Tobey home, he spent the whole time humming to himself as he stared out the window, fingers tracing against the glass as if he could reach out to pluck up the holiday lights and hold their shining warmth close. 

That, of course, was when everything went spectacularly downhill.

Tobey brewed up a batch of hot chocolate and stored it in his favorite robot-shaped thermos, intent on anonymously delivering it and a favorite book of his into Becky’s locker.  Holiday cheer had to come from all corners, after all.  He made it all of ten steps into Woodview Middle School before tripping over Eileen – laying face down in the hallway and groaning ‘Rudolph isn’t real either!?’   The hot chocolate and book went flying, the former spilling all over the latter and promptly destroying it. 

(Across the school, Becky’s super hearing picked up his blustering frustration, still overly prim and proper in the throes of exasperation – golly, gee whiz, good gracious.   She didn’t realize she was smiling until Scoops asked, suspiciously, what she was so happy about.)

He tinkered with an old sled of his, polishing the wooden runners to a fine sheen and attaching gleaming rocket thrusters to the back.  He lugged it to school with him – only half (mostly) using the robotic arms of his backpack – and, after much coaxing and cajoling, managed to persuade Becky on. 

What Tobey hadn’t considered, however, was the impact of the cold on the engine’s capacitors.  As soon as he hit a button on the control panel, setting their ride to slow, it shot off into the air with a roar of fire, the two of them grabbing onto each other and screaming until they came to a sudden, sodden halt in a snowbank.

“Never,” Becky hissed furiously, prying herself out of the powdery mound, eyes flashing, “again.”

(It had to be the cold, the way she could feel brands where he had touched her, grasping in fear – the ghosts of his hands on her waist, her shoulder.  It was cold after all.  Snowflakes clung to McCallister’s eyelashes, making his mismatched eyes look huge and wet.

It was cold.

She didn’t know how, looking into golden hazel and ice blue, she suddenly felt so warm.)

The cookies he tried to make – carefully yet still imperfectly decorated like smiling snowmen – were devoured by Bob nearly as soon as he put them down on Becky’s desk.

(They were her favorite flavor – lemon shortbread.  She hadn’t thought he’d remembered when she told him, forever ago.)

“Weeeeee wish you a merry Christmas!”   Tobey warbled, standing on her doorstep in a Santa hat as Victoria, looking furiously embarrassed to be there, reluctantly sang along in matching elf ears from behind him.  Eileen, adorned with a glowing red nose, was preoccupied with staring forlornly across the street at a lights display of Santa waving cheerfully from his sled.

“No,” Becky said, and closed the door in their faces.

(She went up to her bedroom, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and looked out her window, watching three small figures dash from doorstep to doorstep down the street, spreading laughter and cheer.  She opened her window, tightening the blanket as the winter chill slipped in on the wind.  She could hear their voices – faint, cheerful.

He wasn’t a good singer.

She hoped he’d never stop.

“You alright, sweetheart?”  Pops stood in the doorway, anxiously twisting his paper butcher’s hat in his hands.

She swallowed hard, voice thick.  “Practically merry.”)

((“Mother,” Tobey said, pushing a thick sheet of parchment paper and a bottle of green ink at her.  “You have nice handwriting.  Could you do me a favor?”))

It wasn’t until he tried to persuade her to the dime theater, where they were doing reruns of Christmas classics, that she confronted him, voice bubbling over with frustration, with confusion.

“What is your deal, McCallister!?”  She demanded, whirling on him.  “I told you: I don’t like the holidays!  Why do you keep insisting on trying to get me to do all this saccharine drivel?”

“Well,” he said, smiling somewhat shyly.  “Maybe I just want to make sure you have a merry Christmas, Becky.”

(God, he was too good for her to believe, sometimes.

Sometimes, she wanted to swaddle him up in blankets and hide him away, so nothing would ever tarnish that innocent glow; other times, she wanted to be the one to demolish it with her own two hands, to smear filth and muck into that pretty face, his glowing golden hair.

Her super senses were more trouble than they were worth, sometimes.  The smell of him was all around her – clean, fresh cotton and dried ink and the tang of metal.  His fucking Head & Shoulders shampoo was exhilarative, and wasn’t that a humiliation of its own right, that he – a nerd, a dweeb, a do-gooder – of all people, could be this to her?  

But…  she found it hard to mind, somehow.  And in her quiet moments, alone without the eyes of her family, or Scoops and Violet, or anyone else with so many ideas about what she should be that no one had ever bothered asking her about… 

Well.

It was strange.

No one ever really looked at Becky and saw her.  The way she really was.  They saw the snark and the ripped tights and chipped black nail polish, and after a while, it was easier to just fall into that other Becky – the one who was cool and unbothered and could have impressed her family, made her dad proud, if regular Becky didn’t keep fucking it up for them both.

But Tobey came so much closer than anyone ever had.

And maybe that was why she kept pushing him away.

She didn’t want to think about what that meant, if he could look at all the viscous, wicked, evil parts of her and hold them just as gently as the rest of her.  If he could cherish all the other parts of herself she’d tried so hard to hide away.

If Tobey knew who she really was and if he… he liked her anyway.

She didn’t know if she could handle that.)

“That’s not your problem, Tobey.”  She scowled, arms crossed, thick lips pushed into a moe.  “It’s not your job, or whatever.”

But he just smiled at her with those mismatched eyes – one blue as a winter sky, one a warm hazel like the crackling of logs in the fire.  “I know.” 

Claire found Tobey, asleep at his desk, head pillowed on his arms.  His fingers were scratched, even covered in plaster bandages as they were.  A gleaming silver box sat just beyond his reach, one side and the lid still missing.  She sighed, retreating for a moment and coming back with a fluffy white blanket.  He didn’t stir as she arranged it around his shoulders, placing a kiss on his forehead. 

“Oh, Theo,” she sighed, rearranging the papers on his desk into some semblance of order.  “You can’t keep working yourself to the bone like this, you know.”

But he just slept on, cuddling the hammer in his hand closer, like a teddy bear.  She huffed out a laugh, and he didn’t stir as she arranged his blueprints into a neat stack, didn’t stir as she lifted his head to slide a pillow under it, didn’t stir as she pried the hammer from his bandaged fingers.

He did, however, jolt upright with wide and frantic eyes when her fingers barely brushed the silver box.  “Don’t!  I– oh, mother.” 

He cleared his throat, adjusting the blanket around his shoulders with vague embarrassment.  “Apologies.  I was simply in the middle of working on that.”  He looked down at his hands, frowning.  “Where’s my hammer?”

“In your tool box,” she responded, mouth tightening into a thin line as he immediately shuffled over to get it, rubbing at his tired eyes.  “Tobey, dear, don’t you think it’s time to call it a night?”

“In a minute,” he flapped his hand dismissively, rooting around in his tools.  “I’m nearly finished with the base structure.  Granted, I still have to work on the etchings, which may take a while– oh, and not to mention the inner mechanism!  It should be simple enough though; my main concern is the timing of the structure.  I know these things typically work on a crank system, but the loss of momentum could result in an unpleasant sort of disharmony, so I was thinking…”  He trailed off as he caught sight of his mother’s expression – eyes gentle and worried, mouth skewed to the side.

Tobey cleared his throat, flushing.  “I wouldn’t want to give Becky a subpar present, at any rate.”

“Dear,” she said, gently, laying her hands on his shoulders.  “You know I support you no matter what, but…  is this girl really worth all this?”

He ran his fingers over the silver-plated box, buffing away a smudge with his sleeve.  She’d never seen this expression on his face before, only pale imitations, but they only showed up when he was talking about Becky.  His brow was soft, the corners of his mouth pulled up, eyes shining with something like hope and something like longing and something all too much like despair.

“I’m afraid, Mother,” he said, with something that was nearly a laugh, “that she’s worth everything in the world and more.”

“Right then.”  She sighed, pulling away.  “I’ll make us a pint of hot chocolate, then.” 

He jerked back, blinking.  “Beg pardon?”

“Well, I hardly think you’re going to stay awake of your own volition for much longer.”  She polished her glasses on her sleeve, businesslike.  “Besides, what sort of mother would I be if I let my baby stay up half the night, working away, without a helping hand?”

And when he threw his arms around her, pelting out muffled thank you, thank you, thank you!’s she hugged him back, as carefully as she could, and she wondered when he had gotten nearly as tall as her.

It was the last day of school before it let out for winter break. 

If Tobey was going to make a move, it was now or never.

He stole glances out of her out of the corner of his eye all day, fighting back a jolt of nervousness when she was never looking back at him, not once.

(She had super speed, after all.  And it wouldn’t do to let Tobey know she’d been staring just as much.)

He scooped up her books as Ms. Davis excused them all, walking her outside before she could make more than a token protest.

“So,” he said, fingers flexing around the stack of tomes, “are you– erm, doing anything special for Christmas?  Caroling or going anywhere or watching old movies or…”  He trailed off lamely, face flushing as they came to a stop outside the school gates.  “Anything like that.”

“Like I would do anything that dorky, McCallister,” she huffed, crossing her arms.  “I don’t know, dad hasn’t told me yet… Why, um, why do you ask?”

Her gray eyes looked up at him with a hopeful sort of agitation, thumb tapping erratically against her arm like a racing heartbeat.

“Oh!  Um.”  Tobey cleared his throat, shuffling his feet.  “You see, I was just… I was hoping that maybe– if you’re not busy that is, erm, that you could potentially be interested in spending some of Christmas with, erm.”  He tugged his bowtie, wondering if it was restricting his breath, but Becky’s gray eyes were shining up at him, and he forced out the last word – squeaky and breathy.  “Me?”

“Oh!  I…”  Becky laughed, breathlessly, tugging on one of her locs.  “That sounds–”

“We’re heading out of town, actually.”  

The high, thin voice nearly jolted Tobey out of his skin, head snapping up to see Doctor Two-Brains standing above them, arms crossed.

“There’s a national book convention on the twenty-sixth.  They have specific panels on Princess Triana and the Pretty Princess adaptations.  We’re leaving Christmas eve.”

“Wait, really?”  A stunned grin spread across Becky’s face.  “You didn’t tell me that!”

Doc glared down at Tobey.  “It was a recent decision.”

“Dad, you’re the best!”  Becky flung her arms around his neck, beaming.  “Oh my gosh, it’s going to be so fun!”

The mad doctor wrapped his arms around his daughter, narrow red eyes never straying from Tobey’s crestfallen expression.  “Only the best for you, sweetheart.”

Her grin fell as quickly as it had formed when she turned around and saw Tobey.

“Guess that means I can’t come over after all, huh?”  Her mouth twisted – half apologetic, half mournful.

“No, no, it’s quite alright.”  Tobey managed a laugh, adjusting his glasses.  “Far be it from me to hinder your fun.”

She smiled, uncertain.  “Still.”

“Still,” he agreed, voice soft.  “No matter.  I suppose I’ll just have to see you after break.  Or maybe I’ll see WordGirl if she decides to cause any trouble.”

She looked up at him, tucking a loc behind her ear, and he only wished he could have done it for her.  “Is that a threat or a promise, McCallister?”

“Oh, my dear Becky,” he said.  “Does it have to be just one?”

Which is how Tobey found himself sitting quietly in his room on Christmas eve, forehead pressed against the window and breath fogging up against the glass.  The sky was gray and heavy – a snowstorm was on its way.

In his lap, a perfect silver box sat.

“Tobey,” Claire said, gently, knocking on his open door.  Then, when he didn’t respond: “Theo.”

He tilted his head, flashing her a lackluster smile.  “I heard you, Mother.”

“Dear, don’t you want to do something?”  Her brow crinkled in concern.  “There’s a rerun of Rudolph on right now, why don’t we watch?” 

He shrugged, listless.  “Not really in the mood.”

“Besides Eileen’s house, you haven’t stepped outside of your room all day.”  She sighed, smoothing her hands over her garish woolen sweater.  “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m quite alright, I assure you.  Just a tad…”  He ran out of steam halfway through the lie, sagging back against the window.  

“I didn’t even get to give this to her,” he said, quietly, tracing the incredibly detailed snowflake etchings on the silver box – each one spectacularly unique.  “I was nearly certain she was going to stay in the city over break.  I hadn’t considered… lack of planning on my part, I suppose.  Nothing else to blame.”

Claire watched him, scarred and bandaged fingers tracing over the gentle, curving lines of the box.  Outside, the first few snowflakes began to flutter down.

“She’s leaving tonight, isn’t she?” 

“Seven o’clock,” he confirmed, glumly. 

“Tobey, dear,” she said, gently.  “You do realize it’s only five?”

He blinked at her, uncomprehending, before understanding dawned.  “Mother,” he said, voice quick and bright with eagerness, “would you terribly mind if we–”

“No.”  She already had the car keys in hand, swinging them around her finger, and in an instant, Tobey knew where he had gotten his own mischievous grin.  “I’d be terribly delighted, in fact.”

They rocketed into the car, careening down the street; the roar of their car was deafening in the sleepy neighborhood, lit up with multicolored string lights and candles in every window.

Curious faces peered out at them, disgruntled with the decidedly non- festive intrusion into their silent night, but they all blurred into the background as they zipped out of the neighborhood, faster and faster.  Tobey could barely hear the steady rumble of highway traffic over the pounding of his heartbeat, echoing in his ears.

Outside, the snow flurries fell, faster and faster…  

Just as Claire began to slow down.

She hissed under her breath, yanking a hard right on the steering wheel to avoid rear-ending a sedan.  “It’s Christmas eve.  I should have known every hopeless romantic in Fair City would be making a mad dash for the airport.  No offense, dear.”

“None taken,” Tobey wheezed, wondering if they had time to loop back for his stomach, which he was fairly certain had bounced out four potholes ago.

She weaved in and around the traffic as best she could, but eventually the cars were packed, bumper to bumper, with no chance of maneuvering around.  

“No, no, no,” Tobey groaned, switching back and forth between pressing his nose against the window, glaring out at the traffic, and staring anxiously at the dashboard clock.  His leg bounced sporadically, fingers tapping against his thigh.  

Tap, tap, tap.

Every sound was hyper-loud, even the soft thudding of his fingers against his thigh echoing and pervasiv–

Tap tap tap!

Tobey looked to the right and nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Tobey!  Tobey!”  Eileen pressed her face against the window, beaming.  In her hand was a piece of aged-yellow parchment, covered in perfect cursive.  “You’ll never believe it!  I got a letter from Santa!  He is real!”

Behind her, Victoria stood, looking worn and fond.  “She was very insistent we show you.”

“I’m… so glad to hear that.”  Tobey and Claire exchanged a look.  “Eileen, Victoria, not that I'm not utterly chuffed to see you, but… erm, how did you find me?”

Victoria held up her phone, wiggling it.  “You gotta check your privacy setting, Tobes.  You’ve been sharing location with the group chat for months.”

He flushed.  “And you didn’t tell me?”

She grinned.  “We thought it was really, really funny.”

Eileen looked down the row of traffic, frowning.  “Where are you going, by the way?  You might be late.”

“Oh, oh!”  Tobey jolted, remembering.  “The airport!  I’ve got to get Becky her gift before she leaves!”

“Well, that’s easy enough.”  Eileen tugged open the door, a blast of icy wind rushing in.  “Come on!”

“What?”  Tobey blinked. 

“We’re superheroes, Tobias,” Victoria scoffed, rolling her eyes.  “Besides, how do you think we got here?”

“Come on, nerd.”  Eileen stepped back, hand flying to her charm necklace as her eyes flashed toxic green, emerald creeping across her skin.  “Let’s party!”

With Eileen in giant form, easily clearing honking cars with each massive stride, the airport quickly faded into view out of the now-whirling snowstorm.  Its yellow lights set the falling flakes glowing, flashes of red from the blinking plane lights interrupting the landscape.

“You really like her, huh?”  Victoria said, quietly, from where she was sitting next to Tobey in Eileen’s massive palm.  “You know she’s a villain, right?”

A lump grew in Tobey’s throat, and he couldn’t quite swallow it down.  “I thought you were trying to help me, not stop me.”

“I didn’t say I was trying to stop you,” Victoria clicked her tongue, tilting her head at him, hazel eyes stuck between mischief and melancholy.  “Just questioning your taste, is all.”

“Much appreciated, Vikki.”

“What are friends for, Theodore?”

Tobey jolted, warmth like he’d just drank a full mug of hot chocolate spreading through his stomach.  “Friends?”

“Duh!”  Eileen chirped above them.  “I didn’t want to show my super special Santa letter to just anyone; I wanted to show it to you!”

“Sure, we fight crime together.”  Victoria shrugged.  “But you really think I would go out caroling to impress your evil little crush if we weren’t friends?”

“I…”  Tobey swallowed hard around the lump in his throat.  “I didn’t think you… I know the two of you are quite close, but I didn’t want to assume…”

Eileen grinned.  “You know what they say about assumptions.” 

“That they’re horseshit.”  Tobey nodded sagely.

Eileen nodded along, solemnly.  “Exactly.” 

“Hey, we’re here!”  Victoria said hastily, presumably before the memory of Eileen swearing could cause any more psychic damage.  “Tobes, are you good to go?”

He puffed out his cheeks, a flutter of butterflies in his stomach.  He pressed his fingers to the wrapped package inside his jacket.  “As I’ll ever be.”

Eileen lowered them gently, shrinking back down afterwards.

Tobey made for the airport's doors, then turned, pushing his words through a lump in his throat.  “Thank you both.  Really.” 

Victoria rolled her eyes, buffing her nails on her sweater.  “What did you expect, nerd?  You’re our friend.”

“You’re a great friend, Tobey!”  Eileen cheered, dragging them in for a hug.  “We just want to be good friends to you too.”

And, for a moment, even in the blistering cold snowstorm, he was warm.

“By the way,” Eileen said quietly, once Victoria had stepped a safe distance away to call them a cab back home, “thanks for the letter.  That was sweet of you.  You really are a good friend.”

Tobey’s eyes went wide.  “Letter?”  He babbled hastily.  “What letter?  I didn’t write any letter!  That’s from Santa.”

“Tobey.”  Eileen shot him a droll look.  “I’ve known Santa isn’t real since I was five.”

Tobey’s jaw hung open.  “Wait, what?!  Then what was with all the” – he waved a hand expressively – “dramatics?!”

She shrugged.  “I know the impression I give off.  Sometimes it’s better to lean into it.”  She flashed him a wicked grin.  “Besides, it’s delightful watching Victoria squirm.”

He blinked, slowly.  “You would make a fantastic villain in another universe.”

She just laughed.  “Come on, Tobes,” she chided, swatting at him.  “Don’t you have another girl to flatter?”

Gate 25.

He just had to make it to Gate 25.

Weaving around beleaguered families, dodging between tearful reunions, ignoring the shouts of ‘hey, kid!’ and ‘that’s illegal!’ behind him – Tobey sprinted down the long, bustling airport hallways, heart racing.

The music piped in through the echoing hallways urged him along, tinny and frenetic –  run, run Rudolph, Santa's got to make it to town.  Santa make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down.

He attempted to leap over a stack of suitcases, tripped, and went sprawling on the floor.

“Sorry!”  He called over his shoulder to their indignant owner, pulling himself and ignoring the stitch in his side as he pushed himself further, faster – wheezing terribly.

Gate 23.

Gate 24.

And there, finally – Gate 25.

Becky was sitting alone in the terminal, surrounded by black suitcases.  Even in the harsh, cheerless light of the airport, she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen.  Her knees were tucked to her chest, those gray eyes bright as she flipped through the novel in her hands at a supernatural speed.

Tobey stumbled to a stop, hoarsely calling her name.

“Tobey?”  Becky stood, startled, her crimson velvet skirt swirling around her knees.  “What– What are you doing here?”

“One– one second,” Tobey wheezed, hands on his knees.  “I just outran… so many TSA agents.”

She grabbed his arm and unceremoniously sat him down on the windowsill of the gate’s picture windows, rolling her eyes.  “Get off your feet, McCallister.  You look like you’re going to explode at any second.”

“This is why I had a robot fill in for me for field day,” he panted, going boneless for a moment before shaking himself, sitting up.  His hand slipped into his inner jacket pocket, fingertips brushing the red and green-wrapped package inside.  “Listen, Becky, I know you’re going on your trip soon, but I just had to–”

He looked around, blinked.  “Actually… where is everyone?”

She scowled, sitting next to him.  “The flight can’t take off.  Too much snow.  Dad’s trying to see if we can get another flight out, but I doubt it’s going to clear out anytime soon.”

“Oh, oh!”  He pushed down the sudden jolt of excitement, letting his hand fall off of the wrapped package; his brow creased as he saw her sullen, crestfallen expression.  “I’m… I’m sorry, my dear.  I know you were greatly looking forward to it.” 

“Yeah, well, now it’s all ruined,” Becky muttered, leaning her head against the window.  Her breath fogged against the glass as she tugged on her short locs.  “Ugh, I don’t know what I expected.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Tobey protested automatically, only to stop short as a strange jolt of deja vu hit him.  

“Where’s your magic now, Mistletoe Prince?”  She muttered, seemingly on reflex, only noticing her damning mistake when Tobey breathed in sharply, eyes going wide with delight.

“Why, Becky Brains.”  He turned to her slowly, a wicked grin spreading. 

“No, no, no!”  She said frantically, flushed as she waved her hands.  “You didn’t hear anything!”

“Do my ears deceive me or was that–”

“– Whatever you’re thinking no it wasn’t–”

“– A very familiar movie–”

“– I told you I don’t watch Hallmarks, Tobey–”

“– Because I could have sworn that was a line from–”

“– It was a nickname!  A very derogatory nickname, because no sane person would ever want to be called–”

“A Mistletoe Prince,” they finished, in unison.  

Tobey grinned, broadly, and Becky groaned, ducking down to hide in her sweater’s sleeves.  

“Fine, whatever.”  She pressed her face into the cradle of her arms, voice muffled.  “I may have accidentally seen a few scenes from the movie.  In order.  A bunch of times.  You can make fun of me now.”

“Now why would I do a thing like that?”  He nudged her shoulder with his own, gentling his voice.  “I would be the worst sort of hypocrite.  If anything, I’m delighted to find you really don’t find all those ‘sappy things’ as terrible as you say.”

“Maybe…”  She tilted her face, temple resting against her knee as she looked at him – gray eyes searching, lost.  “Maybe I like those terrible sappy things more than I want to admit.”

He crossed his heart.  “Your secret is safe with me, my dear.”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding almost in wonder at the thought.  “I think it is.”

Tobey didn’t know what it was that filled him with such confidence, suddenly.  Maybe it was the confirmation that Becky was just as nerdy as he’d always known.  Maybe it was the soft, searching way she looked at him.

Maybe it was a little bit of Christmas magic. 

“How’s it go next, again?”  He asked as Becky unfurled herself, the velvet of her skirt brushing his corduroys.  She turned to him, curious, only to freeze as he put a hand to her cheek.  “Like this, correct?”

“Um- yeah.”  She blinked rapidly, a high flush coming to her cheeks.  “I think so.”

“Then I say” – he gentled his voice, letting it come soft and low – “The magic wasn’t anything we did, or what we had.”

Her hand came up to lay against his own, thumb rubbing against the scabs and scars there, tracing the outline of a bandage.  

That hadn’t been in the movie.

“My princess,” Tobey breathed, leaning closer.  Her breath was coming out in short, shallow bursts, her eyes wide and shining.  “This whole time, my dear, Becky, the magic was you and I.”

“That’s not how it goes,” she murmured, bright and teasing.

“No,” he agreed, and his thumb swept over the curve of her cheek.  “But do you know what happens after that?”

Two figures joined in the snow, the camera swirling out into a snow-gray sky.

Becky swallowed hard, her gaze dropping lower on his face for a moment before it fluttered up to his eyes again.  She tilted her chin up, lips a breath from his.

“Yes,” she breathed.  He could smell the sharp, fresh peppermint of her breath as she breathed out:  “Yes.  Yes.”  

Her eyes lidded, half closed, and Tobey leaned forward– 

“The hell are you doing here, McCallister?”

Tobey and Becky jolted apart, faces flaming, like someone had reversed their magnetic polls.

Doctor Two-Brains, red eyes flashing and tail lashing in anger, stood before them, arms crossed and the corner of his lip peeled up to reveal his long, sharp yellow teeth.

“Doctor,” Tobey stammered, frantically adjusting his bowtie.  “Wonderful to see you.  I hope your Christmas Eve has been treating you well?”

“Any luck with the flight, Dad?”  Becky squeaked out, busying herself with adjusting her skirt.

“Nope.”  He popped the p– the sound sharp and syllabant.  “And imagine my surprise when I come back from threatening the people at the help desk, to no avail, and see a little British twerp with his grimy paws all over my daughter.”

“Dad,” Becky hissed, face flushing.  “That’s not what– I just– I hadn’t– We weren’t–”

“All my fault, I’m afraid,” Tobey interrupted, before she could stammer herself into an early grave.  “I was afraid she had a bit of- erm, tinsel in her hair.  I was just trying to get it out.”

“Right.”  His beady eyes narrowed, whiskers twitching.  “And I trust she’s not going to get tinsel in her hair again?”

Tobey smiled, sickeningly polite.  “I’m afraid that’s quite up to her, Doctor.”

“Okay!”  Becky stood, waving her hands between them.  “That’s way more than enough of that.”  She cleared her throat, tossing her head.  “Dad, are we just heading out?”

“We’d better,” he said, venomously, glaring daggers at Tobey.  She was just glad he hadn’t reached for his vaporizing ray yet.  “Before any stray wreaths decide to fall down and knock someone out.”

“I’m afraid that might be difficult,” a familiar voice clucked, and everyone whirled around to see Claire McCallister trotting up on her high heels, smiling cheerfully.  

“Hello, everyone!”  She chirped, coming to a stop and carefully patting her bun back into place.  “I just had the most lovely jog past all those terribly rude TSA agents.  Something about ‘hey, lady!’ and ‘that’s illegal’ and ‘oh god why are there two of them’?”

Doc threw up his hands.  “Sure, let’s just have everyone here!  Who’s next, the Mayor?”

“I’m lighting a Christmas tree,” the Mayor, several miles away at city hall, suddenly felt compelled to say, lighting the city’s giant Christmas tree.

His assistant patted him on the shoulder.  “Yes, you are.”

“But, as I was saying,” Claire continued, unruffled.  “I’m afraid that may prove difficult, Doctor.  That is your van in the parking lot, isn’t it?  With the mouse shaped logo?”

“How many other megalomaniac mouse-themed villains do you know, lady?”

She smiled, adjusting her pearl necklace.  “Yes, that’s what I thought.”  She gestured towards the window, and they all turned to see the van, sunk deep in the snow.

“I’m afraid there may have been a bit of an accident.”

“What!?”  He plastered himself to the window, squinting.  “Ugh, someone slashed the tires.  So much for Christmas goodwill.”

Claire whistled innocently.

“It… does seem as if you’ll have difficulties getting home, then,” Tobey managed, looking incredulously at his mother.  

She winked.  

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, Doctor…”  He turned to Becky, swallowing.  He smoothed his palms down his corduroy slacks, trying to wick away sweat.  “I would be delighted if you would spend the holiday with me– us!  If you would spend the holiday with us, Becky.”

“I…”  She glanced up at her father, uncertain, but he just threw his hands up in exasperation.

“Do whatever you want, kid,” he said, wryly.  “I’m clearly outmaneuvered here.”

And when she turned to Tobey, every twinkling Christmas light shone in her eyes.  “Take me home for the holidays then, McCallister.”

The McCallister family living room was done up in warm red and verdant green, a warm fire crackling, filling the air with the sweet smell of smoke.  The tree, hung heavy with handmade ornaments and colorful garlands, cast a dreamy warm glow across the stacks of gold-wrapped presents, the plates of gingerbread cookies and turkish delight and fruitcake.

Becky let out a low whistle of appreciation, and even Doc’s grumble sounded begrudgingly impressed. 

“We’ve got a guest room upstairs you’re both more than welcome to stay in, of course,” Claire said, bustling past them.  “First door on the left.”

“Ah, here,” Tobey said, taking one of Becky’s bags, “let me help you, my dear.”

“Don’t tell me you’re trying to be a gentleman, now, McCallister,” she teased, sweeping past him with a twirl of her velvet skirt.

“Would you prefer me as a brute, Brains?”  He asked, amused, as they started up the stairs.  “I’m not sure I’m up to the task, but I’m sure I could manage something.  Perhaps I’ll lay books face-down, instead of using a bookmark like a rational person.”

She looked up at him, eyes bright.  “Bookmarks are for quitters, T–”  

Becky froze, gaze fixed somewhere above Tobey’s head.  Her face went ashen, then flushed – two high spots of color on her cheeks.  

“Becky?”  He frowned, craning his head to follow her gaze.  “Are you quite al– ah.”

“Ah,” she agreed, weakly.

A perfect spring of mistletoe hung above their heads, the berries white and soft and gleaming in the low light.

“Becky,” he said, voice tremulous.  “You don’t– I would never pressure you to–”

“Tobey,” she interrupted, softly.  “I know.  Just… close your eyes?”

And, wordlessly, he obeyed.

She laughed a little, the sound warm and close to Tobey’s ear. 

“You know,” she murmured, and he shivered at the sound.  “I always knew my first kiss would be a poisonous one.”

Doc, meanwhile, had been getting his own suitcases into order, casually glancing up towards the stairs, then his head snapping back, red eyes wide with horror.

“Not today, twerp,” he hissed.

He yanked a ray out of his lab coat and fired.

The beam flew straight for the mistletoe, only barely missing the verdant leaves; it gouged a hole into the ceiling right beside the sprig, sending drywall falling down.

He swore under his breath, reaiming– 

“That’s quite enough of that, Doctor.”  Claire’s massive hand plucked the ray from his grasp, frowning down at him severely.  “I’m afraid my household has a strict no rays allowed policy.”

“But…”  He protested, gesturing frantically.  “But!”

And, on the top of the stairs, Becky took a deep breath, hopped twice on her toes.

(This was the beginning of the end, Becky knew.  The time where she would ruin this beautiful boy.  Where she would ruin him and his smell like metal and old ink, his perfect Head & Shoulder curls.  Where she would mar that glow with darkness.

She bit her lip, feeling the stickiness of her black lipgloss.

And, suddenly, she wanted nothing in the world more than to see him smudged in darkness all over.)

Becky leaned up and kissed Tobey’s cheek.  

She was soft, and she smelled like gingerbread and aged paper, and his stomach felt like a snow globe – everything shaken and chaotic and beautiful, all at once.  

When he opened his eyes, she was smiling almost shyly, not quite meeting his eyes as he reached up to brush gentle, reverent fingertips over the sticky imprint she left behind.

“Well,” he said, softly, “I must say that was one hell of a Christmas present, my dear.”

And when the drywall fluttered down around them, it looked just like snow.

Doc hissed through his long yellow teeth, taking a step forward, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

“Come now, Doctor,” Claire chidded, gentled by the note of amusement in her voice.  “Where’s that spirit of holliday goodwill, hm?”

“Spent,” he said, dryly, “along with half my bank account after those useless plane tickets.”

“No room for any more merriment, then?”

“None.”

“Shame,” she sighed, walking off.  “I had just enough cheese to melt in the eggnog.”

“Well, let’s not be too hasty here,” he yelped and hastened after her. 

And, in the end, it was just Tobey and Becky, with drywall in their hair and the stench of the airport hanging off of them.  

And it was absolutely perfect.

They blasted music from the speaker, singing along terribly to Jingle Bells and Santa Baby and All I Want for Christmas is You; Becky fell over laughing when Tobey squeaked his way into the high note, grinning up at him with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, and she only laughed harder when he forget the lyrics.

They poked at wrapped packages, speculating wildly about what could be inside – a digital copy of the library of Alexandria, long-lost pirate treasure, calcified reindeer hoof prints – and, when they had run out of presents under the tree, Tobey shyly retrieved the one he’d hidden in his coat. 

“For me?”   She accepted it curiously, eyes mischievous.  “Why, McCallister, you shouldn’t have.”

She tore through the wrapping eagerly, revealing an ornate silver box, standing on carefully construed, nearly geometrically impossible legs, the whole thing etched with fantastically detailed snowflakes.

She turned it, darting him a look when she saw the tiny silver knob on its underside. 

“Is this…?”

He nodded, suppressing a smile.  “Go on.  Turn it.”  

She twisted the nob – once, twice, three times, click click click – and pulled the lid off.

Notes gentle as fluffy, pure snowflakes falling rang out – bright and clear.  Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful.   Inside the box, two small silver figures glided on ice skates across the perfectly smooth surface of the music box’s bottom, eternally skating in slow, happy circles to the twinkling music.

The figures were vague, indistinguishable from any other pair, but they both knew who the couple was supposed to be.

“Tobey,” Becky breathed, enraptured.  “This is… resplendent.”

“I’m sure I’d modestly protest, if only I knew what resplendent meant.”

When she looked up, he was grinning a fox’s smile.

“Fishing for compliments, McCallister?”

“I’m only giving you the chance to do what you do best, my dear.”

“Resplendent,” she begrudgingly started after a moment, and he bit down his smile.  He’d known she wouldn’t be able to resist.  “Very bright and lovely.  Magnificent.  For example, because this box is very finely hand-made, however” – she risked a glance at his bandaged hands – ”large and… boorish those hands may be, we– I can consider it resplendent.” 

“Ah,” he said, tapping his fingers against the plush carpet.  “I suppose this is the time for my false-modest protests?”

“If you must,” she sighed, but she was smiling.

Tobey cleared his throat, drawing himself up.  “Oh, no, my dear,” he drawled, and a giggle slipped past her glossed lips, “it was hardly a thing at all!  Transcribing the notes of your favorite carol into a music box key took hardly any time, and–“

Becky drew back, startled.  “How’d you know it was my favorite?”

“I… I heard you singing in class,” he confessed.  “Thought you might appreciate hearing it a little more often, without some people interrupting.” 

“You heard me sing, and you still did this?”  She snorted, watching the silver figures swirl around each other endlessly.  “I’m surprised your ears didn’t bleed out.”

He frowned.  “I like it when you sing, my dear.”

She barked out a laugh, averting her eyes.  Still, her hands clutched the music box gently, protectively. 

“You’re probably the only one who thinks that.  I could make dogs howl with my voice.”

“I think it’s divine.  Not in the… technical sense granted, but…”  He cleared his throat, flushing.  “It does me well to know you’re happy.”

“Oh.”  A flush spread across her cheeks, warm and luminescent in the fire’s light.  “I… um.”  She rose abruptly, grabbing her backpack from the front entrance and rooting around in it until she found a tattered green-wrapped package, topped with a haphazard red bow.

“I got you something too.”

She pushed it into his hands, sitting down and studying the hem of her skirt with great interest.

He looked at her curiously.  “Why did you have a gift for me in your bag?”

“Oh!  Um…”

(She had refused to go to the airport until her dad had taken her past Tobey’s house, hands trembling around the carefully-wrapped package in her lap.

She’d stood, teetering on his doorstep, for nearly five minutes, fidgeting, until her dad finally called, asking if she was done.

She flinched at the sudden noise, nails digging into the package, accidentally ripping through the wrapping.

“Yeah,” she called back, voice hoarse.  “Yeah.  I think I am.”

It was something like shame, maybe – the knowledge that this present of hers wasn’t good enough for him.

Rough around the edges and ragged and tattered – it was an ugly thing, what she had made. 

But.  Well.

Somehow, now, looking into those mismatched eyes, she knew he wouldn’t mind.)

“I think I packed it by accident,” she said, instead of any of that.  “Glad at least one fortuitous thing happened today.”

“May I?”

She shrugged, studying her nails with false carelessness.  “It’s your present, isn’t it?”

He tore open the wrapping eagerly, eyes shining when he pulled out a haphazard knit scarf of blue and red and green.

“Becky.”  He wrapped it around his neck, glowing.  “My dear, this is wonderful!”

She ran her thumb over the bandage on her left ring finger, the healing scab of a knitting needle gone awry.  “It’s nothing.  Literally barely took me any effort.”

“I’ll wear it every day.”

“You’ll get bullied out of school.”

“As if anyone could get under my skin as you do, dearest.”

“Do I?”

“You sound surprised.” 

“Well, not that I’m an informidable force, but the competition for chief annoyance at our school is severe.” 

“I didn’t say annoyance, now did I?”

“It was well implied.”

“Thorn in my side?  Of course.  Bane of my existence?  Obviously.  Instigator of a million plaguing thoughts?  Well, that goes without saying.  But you could never be anything as banal as a mere annoyance, Becky Brains.”

“You…”  She swallowed hard.  “You’re a sappy thing, Tobey McCallister,”  she said, and he heard every single thing she didn’t.

“Oh, I know,” he said, standing and stretching, then offering her a hand up.  “Now, what was that you were saying about eating all the sweets and reading until our parents get back?”

“Now you’re talking.” 

And when she reached up and took his hand, she didn’t let go.

“So,” Tobey said, later, in the low and drowsy light of the living room.  The fire had burned down to embers, casting a hushed warmth across plates of cookie crumbs, drained glasses of milk, the boy and the girl laying together on the sofa.

Becky was half-sprawled across him, eyes struggling to stay open as she paged through a book with superhuman adroitness, but she tilted her head, listening.

“So,” he said again and rubbed his thumb across her own.  “What are you doing for New Year’s?”

And she looked up at him and smiled.

When Doctor Two-Brains shook himself out of his cheesy-eggnog induced stupor, he realized with a lurch that he’d completely abandoned his daughter with that little British twerp.  He rushed out of his chair, ignoring Ms. McCallister’s protests, and skidded to a halt in the middle of the living room, ready to grill the kid within an inch of his life– 

They were asleep.

They were asleep, curled into each other like puppies in the cold, foreheads touching.  Their cheeks were a rosy hue from the fireplace, expressions lax.  The sound of their breathing was the only noise disturbing the silent night.

Becky murmured, shifting in her sleep until her nose was pressed into the crook of Tobey’s neck, his arm draped across her back.  Doc scowled and made to untangle them, only to draw up short when he saw Becky’s face.

She was smiling.

And, suddenly, she looked so young in the glow of the Christmas lights, face slack with sleep.  It was hard to believe, sometimes, that his little girl was fourteen.  Hadn’t it been only last year that she’d dragged him downstairs, gap-toothed and grinning, eager to see what Santa had brought and screaming with delight when she saw all the milk and cookies were gone?

“You’re going soft, Two-Brains,” he muttered to himself, and resolved to rob the cheese vault or something to annoy McCallister… just as soon as the holidays were over.   He grumbled, rubbing at the sizable bags under his eyes.  “Kids these days.”

Still, he crossed the living room, lit only by the glowing fire and brightly-lit tree, and pulled a blanket out of the basket in the corner, holding it up to glare at the polar bears idyllically sipping hot chocolate.

“I’m dragging my sweet girl out of here first thing in the morning,” he pledged, glaring down at Tobey, fast asleep.  “So don’t even try anything, kid.”

Tobey snored faintly, and Doc nodded, satisfied.  “Glad we’re in agreement.” 

He shook out the ridiculously fluffy blanket, draping it over them as gently as he could manage. 

He tucked his daughter in with Tobey, dropped a kiss on her forehead, and left them cuddled up together as the final minutes of Christmas Eve began to sip away.

It was Christmastime in Fair City, after all.

And, outside, the snow began to fall.