Work Text:
When December rolls around, Maeve is shy of a year old, and the curve of Tess’s belly is prominent once again.
“I want to do something nice,” Tess chews at her lip- Joel’s finger tugs it gently from between her teeth, soothing to marks she’d left behind.
“She’s still a baby, Tessa,” he reminds her, and Tess sighs, rubbing at her stomach as she shifted in bed.
“But she won’t be forever,” she counters, and Joel shifts slightly to look at her. “And this baby will be here soon enough, and if we don’t start traditions now, then we never will.”
“Alright,” he holds his hands up, conceding. “What do you wanna do?”
Tess’s demands are relatively simple; she wants a tree in the living room, which Joel wrinkles his nose at, but accepts defeat. He fashions a stand from some scrap wood and Tommy’s help, and takes his brother with him to find a decent sized tree to cut down in the forest and drag back to the house. It takes them half an afternoon, but Tess is so delighted at the sight of it, Maeve on her hip and staring at the thing in wonder, that Joel doesn’t even mind so much that his back is tweaked from dragging it across town.
Her second demand is cookies, because this baby already had a sweet tooth. A woman in town had a recipe for butter cookies, and Joel could make icing easily enough, but Tess wanted gingerbread, which was harder without a recipe. It took the melding of the minds- and digging through the old library for a few hours- but finally they found an old recipe book buried way in the back that had cookie recipes, including both gingerbread and molasses cookies.
Her third demand had been more of a request- a wreath for the front door. She knew it wasn’t like they could just head to a Christmas market like in the Before, and Tess had already assured him that if he couldn’t make it happen, the tree would suffice. But something about seeing her standing there, all belly and baby on her hip, made him want to provide for her more than he already had, so with Josie and Maria’s help, he’d fashioned a wreath himself with fallen fir tree branches and bits of ribbon from an old sewing kit.
“Joel it’s beautiful,” Tess gasps when he hands it to her, tears beading in the corners of her eyes as she grinned, already looking for something to use to hang it from the door.
“Got a hanger here, darlin’,” he tells her, holding up the metal hanger he and Tommy had fashioned at the smithery, and then she did burst into tears, as was more and more common these days.
Maeve, nearly nine months old now and crawling everywhere, was fascinated by the tree and was constantly trying to grab on it and haul herself to her feet. Joel was constantly on the lookout for her beneath it in the tree skirt Tess had sewn from spare scraps of fabric, and usually had to tug her out, giggling her little head off.
“The tree isn’t for standing, missy,” Joel tells Maeve once again, settling her on his hip as she began to grasp at his beard with both hands, blue eyes wide and happy as she beamed up at him. “C’mon, let’s try and finish these cookies for Mama, hm?”
Bringing Maeve into the kitchen, he settled her into her highchair with a wooden spoon to bang to her heart’s content while he squinted at the faded recipe before him, adding ingredients to a bowl one by one. Slowly, it begins to look like gingerbread- smell like it to- and once it’s in the oven in what he hopes looks like gingerbread men, he gives Maeve some cubes of cheese to snack on while he cleaned up.
“Mm…not quite gingersnaps, but so fucking good,” Tess hums around the mouthful when Joel presents one to her, grinning from ear to ear, and Joel puffs his chest out with pride. “Thank you, baby.”
“What the hell is that,” Ellie looks at the cookies warily when she comes home, arching an eyebrow, and Tess hands her one.
“It’s gingerbread- just try it,” she insists, and Ellie barely nibbles at it, clearly terrified it would poison her. Her eyes widen as the taste spreads over her tongue.
“It’s spicy!” she exclaims, and Tess laughs as she takes a huge chomp out of the gingerbread man.
“You should learn to trust me, silly girl.”
Christmas dawns frigid and snowy, and Tess and Joel bring Maeve into their bed in the early hours of the morning, the little girl burrowed between them and sleeping soundly against Joel’s chest, messy blonde curls tucked under his chin. Tess chases the movement across her belly, sleepy and lethargic until it slows completely, and she meets Joel’s eyes over Maeve’s head.
“Good Christmas?” he asks softly, and Tess nods, finding his fingers and squeezing.
“Best one I ever could have asked for, Tex,” she whispers, and brings his knuckles to her mouth to kiss. “Thank you for indulging me.”
His smile is soft in response, and he strokes his knuckles down the length of her cheek tenderly. His next words wrap around her like a warm blanket, sweet and soft and gentle.
“Anything for you, darlin’.”