Chapter Text
TESS
The streetlights were decked out in wintergreen garlands, Christmas lights hung in every window display, and some rendition of "All I Want For Christmas" seemed to be playing in every other store. I'd lost count of the times I'd heard Mariah Carey belting out the popular hit since the day after Thanksgiving. And there it was again, drifting out of the nearest store as a group of teens stepped out onto the sidewalk carrying Peppermint-print shopping bags in shades of red, gold, and green. Christmas spirit was in the air, and every storefront display, too.
"Sky, remind me again what we're doing?" I asked.
"Christmas stuff," he stated cryptically. Snowflakes had landed on his eyelashes and in his black hair, but his dark eyes were warm as he watched me.
"Wouldn't that involve going to see Santa and getting cute pictures taken?" I asked.
"I thought that was a thing for kids," he said, hints of his European accent slipping through even though he'd lived in the US for about a decade now, since he was fairly young.
"Oh, it is, but we could do it too," I replied.
Sky paused to look at me, grinning. "I don't think it'd work out. For one, if you sat on Santa's lap, I might get jealous. And two, I don't think he'd be cool with me sitting on him."
I rolled my eyes at him, reaching up to pull his hood down over his eyes. "That's not what I meant, Dumbass."
He laughed and pushed the hood off again, grin still in place. "I should've known."
I snorted. "Right. So, if we're not doing *that*, what are we doing? You might've noticed, the rest of the holiday crowd is going that way."
Sky narrowly avoided being shoulder-checked by a dude with his nose stuck in his phone, oblivious to his surroundings. "Let holiday zombies have their Santa pictures. We're doing something *real*."
"Which is?"
"Do you trust me, Tess?"
Of course I did, after months of dating, or I wouldn't be out alone with him. Still, I played along.
"Hmm... That question usually means someone's about to do something dangerous or untrustworthy."
Sky laughed and took one of my hands. I let him lead me around the corner, toward the town's center. During summer, there was a small lake there, maintained by the city. In the winter, it froze over, and people used it to ice-skate. The light posts around it were decorated with winking Christmas lights, and a sign near the edge of the pond's border with Santa on the front read, "Ice-Skaters welcome" with prices to rent skates if you didn't have your own.
I'd come here every year since I was four, when Mom first taught me to skate, and it had been a kind of tradition since then. Not this year, though. This year, she wasn't healthy enough to come with me, so I'd honestly thought I wouldn't go, because going staking alone was just... sad.
"I hope you don't mind. Your mom told me you come here every year. She wants you to keep the tradition going."
I smiled. "She said that?"
"I know she wants you to keep enjoying this. She'll just have to come out with us next year to make up for it."
"Right," I agreed. I liked that he included my mom in our plans... Especially our future ones. He knew she was sick, but he never acted like he thought she'd be... gone on day. It kept me sane. Knowing that he believed she'd make it past this helped me to keep believing.
We went over to the kiosk and rented our skates, then Sky led me out onto the ice.
"Also, I hope you don't mind, but I called your mom earlier. We're going to your house to make a gingerbread castle later," he said.
"A castle?" I asked. "Isn't that a bit ambitious?"
"Not at all. Between the three of us, I think we'll manage it."
I laughed and hugged him. "Thank you. Really. It means a lot to me that you include her."
He wrapped his arms around me in return. "I like your mom. She's awesome."
I loved the way his eyes caught the sparkling lights all around us. I loved how he thought about what I wanted and treated my mom like she was his family. I liked him. Maybe I even loved him.
A little boy with murder in his eyes skated right toward us, blurting, "Watch out! I'm driving here!" at the top of his lungs, ruining our moment.
Sky managed to swing me around in a loop so we didn't end up in a three-person pileup with the over-eager kid, and we both laughed.
"It's dangerous out here."
We skated to the middle, holding hands, and talking about our plans for the holidays.
"Do you have any family you'll be visiting for Christmas?"
Sky shrugged. "I usually do something the week before with Andrew and Emily. They're the closest thing I have to family. We do dinner and a get-together before they travel east to visit other relatives."
"Sounds fun."
Sky paused our circle around the ice, slowing to a stop in the middle of the glowing ring. He watched me for a few seconds, and I could tell there was something he wanted to say.
"What's up?"
"I would like it if you came with me to meet them. We do our Christmas thing a week early, so it wouldn't interrupt anything you and your mom are doing... I hope."
"Is this like... meeting the parents?"
Sky glanced away momentarily, then met my gaze again. "Kind of. If you're not comfortable with it, yet, I understand... But it would mean a lot to me if you want to. They're not weird or anything."
It was only fair. He'd been chill about meeting my mom, and nothing had ever felt tense or uncomfortable at all. Besides, I could tell it mattered to him.
"I'd love to meet them."
"I'll let them know, and we can work something around your schedule."
"I hope they like me..."
"They will." He sounded certain of that.
"Anything I should know?" I asked.
"Andrew will probably ask you way too many questions. He means well, but he's kind of a nerd."
I snorted. "Okay. "
He'd mentioned Andrew and Emily to me before a few times. The first few times, I'd honestly thought they were his parents, and that he just had an odd relationship with them, to call them by their first names. It wasn't until the fourth time he'd brought them up that I realized they weren't related.
"Anything I should bring to this get-together?" I asked.
"Just yourself."
"Sounds good. Let me know when. I have the whole week before Christmas off."
We spent the next half-hour skating and even when my fingers and nose got cold, I didn't want to stop. Sky "innocently" led us under the arch where someone had hung mistletoe, and I kissed him, then asked why it was a tradition.
I hadn't actually expected an answer.
Sky shrugged. "Depends on which lore you follow. In the Norse folklore, an arrow dipped in mistletoe was used to kill Odin's nearly-invincible son Baldur..."
"Uh... Okay, what's that got to do with kissing?"
He laughed. "Well, if you'd let me finish..."
"Go on," I prompted.
"If you look up the cheerier version of the story, he was brought back to life, and his mother then declared mistletoe a symbol of love."
"What about the less cheery version?"
"I think she cried on the mistletoe and it blossomed, and she declared it would never hurt anyone again. Norse stories are all a little out there," Sky said, shrugging.
"It's kind of weird that you know that. Are you sure *Andrew* is the nerd?" I pressed my hands against his chest and stared up at him.
He smirked. "Hey, you asked me. Did you want me to shrug and say I didn't know?"
It was my turn to laugh. "Yeah. You're totally a nerd."
"Says the girl who dresses up as Harmony-what's-her-name from the wizard movies every year for Halloween," Sky returned.
"It's Hermione Granger, and I'll forgive your blasphemy this time. I'll have you know she's the best character in the whole Harry Potter series. She wasn't born into a wizarding family, but she learns fast even though she's a Muggle-born."
He laughed. "Got it. Forgive my blasphemy."
Was that a teasing note I'd caught in his voice? I thought so. I poked him in the ribs for the audacity. He had a lot of it.
After a bit, we left the skating ring and turned in our borrowed skates, then took the bus home. The commute, which used to feel so long and dull to me, felt like minutes when Sky was with me. We spent the ride home planning our gingerbread castle. Sky wanted cannons, a drawbridge, and a moat.
"What good is a moat?"
"We can put gummy sharks in it!" he insisted.
"Okay fine, we can have a moat. Where the heck are we going to put this monstrosity?" I asked, thinking of my mom's little house, and the minuscule amount of space available for putting something like that.
"We'll figure out the 'where' later. You have to learn to live a little, Tess."
I snorted. "Easy for you to say."
"Nobody lives forever. We might as well do all the fun crazy things we can fit in while we've still got time."
He wasn't wrong, I had to admit. Sky always had a plan to try something fun and interesting, within reason, and I found I liked it. I hoped things would always be like this.
We got to Mom's place - after making a stop to pick up Sky's gummy sharks - and let ourselves in with the key we left under the mat. Mom was in the living room with hot chocolate waiting for us.
"Did you two have fun?" she asked, smiling. She looked tired. I knew her treatments were hard on her, but she always put on a brave face for me, never letting me know when things were bad. I worried about her, and if it wasn't for Sky, I'd probably go crazy.
"We did," Sky answered for both of us. "And we brought gummy sharks for the gingerbread house."
Mom laughed. "What kind of gingerbread house needs gummy sharks?"
"The kind with a moat," Sky told her.
She laughed again, and I felt my heart squeeze in the best way. He always knew what kind of silly nonsense to say to make Mom laugh, even on her worse days.
We grabbed all the gingerbread, the icing glue, and various candy decor we'd purchased, and brought it to the large kitchen table. We drank hot chocolate and built the walls or our castle. I made Sky hold the frame, and surprise-attacked him with icing, since he was defenseless and any retaliation on his part would result in our castle falling apart. He laughed at me and vowed revenge, which he got, in the form of getting a smudge of melted chocolate on my nose.
Somehow, despite the sugary war we waged, we ended up with a surprisingly pretty gingerbread castle, including a little moat with gummy sharks, and gingerbread men for guards. I loved it, and I loved it more when Sky mounted one of the gummy sharks on a toothpick and put a red sprinkle on its nose, calling it Rudolph the red-nosed shark.
Today had been a wonderful, perfect day.