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Karlach was digging out the family Christmas stockings. She and Wyll had used a few different sets throughout the early years of their marriage, when it was just the two of them. But they'd been using the same three stockings now for fourteen years, since Luke had been born.
She pulled out the boxes with the tree ornaments and the garlands for the house first, before she found the box with the stockings tucked further back in the closet. "Hmmm," she thought to herself, "that's weird. Usually I stack them on top of each other." It was a storage closet, though, that the whole family used. Luke's soccer gear was tucked in here, Wyll's fencing gear, her own boxing gloves. It wasn't entirely abnormal for things to get shuffled around.
Focusing on the task at hand, Karlach opened the box with the stockings and pulled out the holders first. Further in, she found the stockings. As she pulled out Wyll's, made of dark red wool and decorated with little gold stars, she smiled. Wyll was the best decision she'd ever made. They'd met in college. He was pre-law and she was pre-med and they'd clicked instantly. It had been a whirlwind romance and they'd stuck by each other through law school, and med school rotations, finally getting married when Wyll had passed the bar.
Within a few years, Luke had been born. He was their bundle of joy, their little world. He'd made their family complete.
Karlach shook her head, smiling at the memories, reaching in to grab Luke's gold threaded stocking. As her fingers clutched at it, she felt it almost crinkle in her grasp, hardened from…something. She looked through the rest of the contents and checked the bottom of the box for a spill of some kind, but found nothing.
Curious, she lifted the stocking and noticed it was some kind of white substance dried into the fabric, like it had been used to wipe something clean. Bringing it to her face, she sniffed, trying to determine what it was, and suddenly, understanding dawned in her. She threw the stocking at the wall, and it hit with a thud.
"LUKE! What the hells did you do to your stocking!"