A/N: A piece of AU "Miri Kom" fluff for Christmas. In this story, Arabella never died, certain others ALSO survived, Erik's life vastly diverged from the Kay novel – in some respects, at least… and they will be having a lovely holiday at home.

Syrupy, sugary, saccharine-sweet and cornball fluff! You might go into diabetic shock with all the fluffiness!

I may have some events from the Kay novel that even changing Erik's life would have probably continued to end the same mixed up in terms of timeline. But it's just fluff for fun, so we don't need to worry about that – now do we my good readers? I hope you like this! I haven't heavily edited for typos or punctuation. Sorry guys but it's the first I've been able to write in WEEKS and I just went with it.

"Mes Cheri's…"

Erik came into the parlor carrying a silver tray heavily laden with crystal wine goblets and two kinds of very fine alcohol. His face looked … well… not normal. Even someone so utterly desensitized to the extremity of his deformity could never call his face normal. But… that being said… it looked as close to normal as it ever could have been. He had been gaining a little weight in his ripe middle-age, which had finally given him freedom from the weight-inducing diet his wife had tried to insist he eat for decades. He'd indulged her on one level or another over the years; but he'd known she had a difficult time ever accepting that his frail appearance had been anything but the abuses his mother had made him endure as a child. She'd grown more and more accepting over their marriage, true… but he could always sense the thought somewhere in the back of her mind.

Arabella turned from the conversation she was having with their family and guests, her face beautiful in spite of her growing age, and her dark hair showing more red than ever before; instead of the gray he'd expected the years to give her. She had also gained weight over the years… but having two children was bound to have an effect on ones' body.

"Oh!" she turned quickly and rounded the sofa separating them. Erik glanced over her briefly, pleased that she wasn't wearing her usual pound and a half worth of rings. "Erik! I'd have gotten that! You have guests to be attending!"

"So have you." He pointed out, glancing over his shoulder at the young woman sitting by the fireplace with her husband kneeling at her side and sharing one intimate joke or another. "She looks intensely uncomfortable in that gown. You don't think she'll go into labor tonight, do you?"

Arabella glanced over her shoulder, chuckling and lowering her voice.

"Could be." She admitted mischievously. "She's been having symptoms for two days."

"Dear God, why did Marcus allow her to come?" Erik groaned. "She should be at home where she can be comfortable."

"She wanted to see you." Arabella stated simply. "You've been so busy this year, miri kom. Besides – you delivered her when you were barely a boy; and Savon only a few years later. You can handle a woman in proper labor."

"I'm supposed to be gracious that our son would rather spend the holiday on a pilgrimage to a holy city… is that right?" he asked while she helped pour him five glasses of wine.

"You're supposed to be glad he isn't here to steal attention away from you." Arabella chuckled once more, finally turning away with two glasses in her hands. "Isn't that right, chav?"

"Mother!" their daughter groaned – although a giggle bubbled up from her elegant and swanlike throat. Eagerly she sat up in her chair and reached for one of the goblets. "Please don't call me a child. Not when I'm expecting a third of my own!"

"All daughters are forever children to their mothers." Erik interrupted. "And all sons rarely grow enough to earn the term 'adult'. I am living proof of this, non?"

He winked at his son-in-law, who had straightened to his full height. The man looked puzzled by Erik's joke – and he supposed he deserved it. His daughter had met Marcus because the two had been working together on a project in Picardy. Marcus had rarely seen Erik anything but absolutely serious. He'd also proven terrified of Erik after their first encounter – during which they had both discovered just how overprotective a father could be. It was far worse than anything an employer could inflict… His relationship with Marcus was not a strained one – per se – but it certainly had its more intense moments.

"When is Savon coming home?" his daughter trilled. "I want to introduce him to-"

"Please, Hope." Marcus interrupted with a groan. "No more matchmaking! The last time was a disaster!"

"No, no, it's not like that!" his wife insisted quickly. "It's a young man around our age! Do you remember how last Christmas he claimed to have an interest in police work? Well… I met a gentleman who might be able to help him achieve it! He's an officer – and his father was an officer once, too! Only it wasn't here. It was in-"

"Hope." Arabella interrupted quickly. "I'm sure Savon will be glad to hear what you have to say; but you know how… how…"

She struggled for a polite word that had Erik chuckling.

"I believe you want the word indecisive." He offered. "Last time he sent me a letter, Hope, your brother addressed interest in architecture… I still can't fathom why that didn't rub off on him while he had access to my library."

"He needed to see the beauty of the world and the architecture in it first." Arabella pointed out. "It was bound to happen. He always was such an amazing artist. I hope he comes home with a hundred sketches of Jerusalem. Maybe he'll one day be a great creator of religious monuments; like the chapel in the Vatican that you showed me."

Erik shrugged with a single shoulder.

"I can't say being the father of the new Botecelli would displease me." He admitted. "Bella, mira kom, please get our present for the expectant parents – I believe it's time; and Hope should return to bed as soon as possible. An expectant mother needs her rest."

Everyone glanced at the clock over the mantel to see it was ten past two in the morning. He wondered if going to midnight mass had really been such a brilliant idea. Well… at least he wouldn't be wakened early by eager young children vying for Christmastime attentions. He and his wife could sleep the day away in each other's arms… perhaps waken to a little of the by then very rare occurrence of lovemaking, then return to dozing. Hope, on the other hand… She was much too close to her time. He should have suggested they meet earlier in the day, or the following afternoon.

"I don't feel tired at all lately." Hope admitted as her mother stepped out of the room. "I just feel restless and almost anxious… I can't stop moving."

"You've been sitting still since we got back from Mass." Marcus pointed out. "You'll be fine."
"Your mother was much the same right before she gave birth to your brother." Erik assured. "I don't know how you were with the others…"

He scowled. He didn't like to travel far from home; but it had been just his luck that his previous grandchildren had all been born while he was out of town.

"Much the same." Marcus muttered.

Erik smiled faintly and turned to the piano –which he had pointedly not touched in a week. He was certain that Arabella would spend the next minute or two searching for the gifts that he'd deliberately moved earlier that afternoon to give himself such a moment. The young woman he'd raised as his own watched him with avid interest as he snaked one hand under the large grand piano cover and pulled out a blocky little box of burgundy velvet before stuffing it quickly into his trouser pocket.

He'd have kept it there all evening, except that Arabella had formed a habit f sometimes sticking her hands into places they didn't belong while giving him a hug. He never should have spent so many past holidays keeping treats and surprises on his person or letting dust form on his piano never would have become a new routine.

"Papa-"

"Shh." He warned sharply, although his eyes glittered with merriment and wrath.

Hope subsided just as Arabella returned and offered her daughter a large somewhat flat package. The young woman squared her shoulders and tried to balance the roughly seven by seven inch package on what she still had for a lap. Then, Arabella past a simpler and clearly bookish package into Marcus' hands. Both of them tore into the presents at once, clearly curious and eager.

"I hope this isn't my brothers' art paper." Hope teased.

"I wouldn't make such a mistake as that." Arabella objected, actually looking slightly wounded that her daughter would even suggest such an oversight. Still, her eyes were brilliant as she watched her married daughter open the package to reveal a jewelers box. Hope's hands froze on the velveteen container, her face flushing with anxious excitement.

"What is it?" she challenged as Marcus finished unwrapping a volume to a collections of books he'd been collecting for the past decade. He peered down at Hope's lap, giving no more than an obligatory murmur of gratitude to his in-laws – even though there was certainly no lack of warmth in his tone.

"Why don't you open it and find out?" Arabella suggested.

Hope didn't wait for any further prodding, and her hands shook slightly as she lifted the lid to the box to reveal an old cameo she recognized as having once belonged to her grandmother.

Erik could still remember the awkward reunion that had occurred between him and his mother when he was twenty-four. He'd still been in the gypsy caravan with Arabella then. Both of his children had been born, and they had been frolicking in front of the stage as their father and mother performed for an immense French crowd. They'd left the caravan after that. Things had never been exactly easy between he and his mother – and they had especially never been good between his mother and his wife – but he gave Madeleine credit. She had tried to make up for the past. She had tried… and welcomed her grandchildren into her life the best she could under the circumstances of their part-gypsy status. It hadn't been an easy thing for her… being reunited with a deformed son that had ruined her young life only to find he'd married and procreated with someone who by outsiders would have considered her a gypsy whore.

She'd never been told that Hope was not his biological child. That would have resulted in a kind of heartache that he would have killed her over. As it was, Madeleine had been very happy in her final days; with her grandchildren there to hear her last wishes and endowments. She'd even, by that time, bestowed Erik with his rightful surname – although he'd chosen to never go by anything other than Sauveterre… the one his wife had given him out of love rather than obligation.

The pink pearls and crème colored cameo necklace would have been more than enough to please Hope. But it was the folded pair of pictures lying under it that took her off guard.

"Oh!" she gasped. "Grand-mere and grand-pere!"
"Yes." Erik acknowledged simply. "She wanted you to have those… but I was using them for a time to do some research. And, of course, I was refurbishing that old cameo. It was in terrible shape."

Hope looked like she wanted to fling herself at her parents. Her face went blotchy red and filled with tears, causing Marcus to squeeze her shoulder comfortingly and clear his throat uncomfortably as his face turned away. He was not comfortable with emotion. Sometimes Erik thought the man was an automaton… but knew better. His little girl would not love him if he weren't human.

"It is your turn, mira kom." He prompted to Arabella, giving his daughter a moment to collect herself. As she looked to him curiously, he used a bit of sleight-of-hand to make the little box in his pocket move to the ready palm of his hand. He bowed slightly as he always did when offering her a gift, and watched as her eyes turned into twin suns.

"What have you done now?" she challenged, snatching it away from him as though afraid it was just a tease. "This had better not be another of your pranks, Erik! I am getting tired of the –"

He had been playing tricks on her for almost twenty days – offering her this same exact box repeatedly. Only the box would always be empty or have a piece of jewelry she hadn't worn in a while sitting within. That… or just a worthless bauble that would fit into it. This time however, there was no trick bauble or old piece of jewelry.

Well… actually it was an old piece of jewelry… but…

He knew instantly that Marcus would be further discomfited when he saw the tears not only pool in Arabella's eyes, but slip steadily down her cheeks almost instantly. Hope struggled to her feet from the chair, shoving her cameo and pictures into Marcus' hands before hurrying over. By the time she peered over Arabella's shoulder, her mother hand put trembling hands over her mouth and nose, and let out an overwhelmed cry of amazement. Erik had taken the box back from her in order to remove the ring for her.

"My ring!" she gasped after a moment as Hope reached out to snatch the item from her fathers' hand and examine it herself. "Erik! I thought we'd lost it in Italy!"

"You knew it wasn't lost." He argued gently, letting his daughter examine the yellow gold ring with a kaleidoscope of rubies and ambers. He stepped forward and put his ar around his wife to pull her close.

"B-but I haven't seen it since… since…"

"Since you were carrying Savon." He verified gently.

He could distinctly remember how her second pregnancy had swollen her hands and feet to almost sausage-like paws. She'd been losing circulation in her finger to an almost dangerous point when he'd finally realized that he would have to cut the thing from her finger. It had hurt them both to see it gone.

"I know. I was going to have it fixed for you way back then, but… Well… we were never in one place long enough to find a good jeweler who wouldn't rob me blind or do a poor job doing a fast job of it. Then we were so busy with our family and my professional endeavors. I forgot I had it tucked away waiting for it. I found it after dropping that damned cameo by accident into the bottom of the trunk your grandmother gave us on our second anniversary."

By this point Arabella had calmed herself and was laughing through what remained of her tears, dashing the moisture from her eyes and cheeks with impatient embarrassment.

"I hope you don't mind." He whispered as he took the mended ring and slipped it onto her finger. "But I had the cheap gems replaced with a more genuine article. Wait until you see them in the sunlight. They catch and reflect like fire."

"Like a Pheonix…" she whispered, tilting her hand from side to side so that she could see the stones catch the firelight. "Erik… to think all I got you was-"

"Shh." He kissed her hair and smiled at his daughter. "I don't care what you got for me. I've had the best gift anyone could ever give me… All the best gifts a man could ask for."

Smiling, Arabella nodded in submission.

"Will you play for me later?" she whispered as he took the ring back from Hope and placed it onto his wife's trembling finger.

"Only if you promise to dance."

As the moment slowly dissipated, he glanced toward his piano and the manuscript that had been growing in size over the years. His magnum opus, his Fire Dance, had been completed the previous month. Arabella had heard all of it – but never in one sitting. He'd never thought a song from a gypsy caravan could ever turn into a symphony … but it had… and all in his leisure time. Hope had been enjoying the music her entire life; and was constantly teasing that he should submit it for publishing. He wasn't sure he wanted that… but she was moving in all the right circles from her time in the conservatoire to try and see his masterpiece played in an Opera somewhere in the country. He didn't hold out much hope… but what composer didn't dream – hourly – of having their music played by a full orchestra?

And this was all possibly only because Arabella has loved me… What would I have been without her?

"Oh!" Hope nearly jumped, placing her hands over her engorged stomach and laughing in merry embarrassment. "Oh, you little imp! You aren't getting enough attention, are you? Marcus, come here. The baby is looking for you."

"Imp?" Erik raised an amused eyebrow. He watched as his son in law dutifully walked over and spanned both hands across Hope's stomach. Instantly her rigid posture seemed to relax and she looked at her father apologetically.

"Well… I don't know if it's a boy or girl yet." She reminded him. "And this one is active enough to be … I don't know… doing acrobatics."

"You can't expect peace and quiet when you're nine months into term." Arabella reminded.

"We've finally decided on names." Marcus stated simply. "Marguerite Tsifia if it is a girl."

"After bunica!" Hope said – completely unnecessarily. The girl had very few memories of her great-grandmother (Who she thought was her grandmother. Arabella and Erik had never had the heart to explain her origins to the girl – although she knew Erik wasn't her biological father) but remembered loving her well.

"It's lovely." Arabella said, twitching and trying to repress one of the occasional superstitious urges that reared its' ugly head in her settled gaje lifestyle. In the gypsy culture, you would not name a child after another person. But her grandmother had been gone more than long enough for her to see no harm in the sentiment. "And… if it's a boy?"
"Erik Marcellus Derosiers." Marcus said solemnly, meeting Erik's eyes with a slight nod of his head. "Hope insisted. We have little Aria and Marcus… and after she was so ill with Charles… she insisted on picking the boys' name this time."
"But you're the one who suggested it." Hope pointed out insistently. "I just wanted a family name."

"Charles was your grandfathers' name." Erik pointed out. He hadn't learned until Madeleine was nearly on her death bed… but he supposed he couldn't fault his mother for that. She'd been so damaged by being such a young widow with a deformed child that she'd never thought it important for her son to know who his father was. In her eyes, she was the one who missed him and wanted him – not Erik.

"I didn't know that at the time, now did I?" Hope challenged with a smirk. "Is it all right, Papa?"

"It's more than all right." He assured with a smile, although he closed his eyes and buried his face in Arabella's hair to hide the emotion pouring through him. "I'd be very proud to have a grandchild named after me."
"Isn't that funny?" Arabella chuckled, a low and sultry sound deep in her throat. "He wouldn't hear of his son being named after him."

"He didn't need any further association with me than he was already stuck with." Erik reminded her. "I wanted my children to be able to disown me in every way if that was what they thought best."

"Don't be ridiculous." Hope scolded. "We love you."

"I know, ma Cherie… but your papa was quite… different… when you were younger. I was Foolish and rash."
He wasn't quite sure his son did love him as Hope did… but he did know he wasn't hated. At least… not beyond what most young sons felt for their fathers when they first reached manhood. Savon was a strong-willed boy like his father. But his aimlessness in life had been a concern for Erik from the very beginning… It had created a natural tension between the two men; but Erik had never tried to force his son to be anything other than what he wanted to be. He knew – from personal experience – that someday the young man would settle into something he was passionate about. Erik didn't give a damn if his son found Jerusalem so moving that he joined the priests in the Vatican. Just so long as he found happiness…

He knew just how fragile happiness could be. He'd nearly lost Arabella both times she'd given birth. Hope had barely survived her premature arrival. His reunion with his mother had caused such chaos at first that he'd thought about fleeing the country altogether –forever – with his little family. He'd gone through so much discrimination that he'd found himself wallowing in dark weeks – even months – of self-loathing and hatred of the world… it was amazing his wife and children had ever pulled him out of it. One of those times it had been his own mother and her harsh idea of how to love an unwanted and deformed son that had prodded him back into the world.

But here he was… a grandfather… a semi-respected gentleman with a wife who wasn't entirely accepted but wasn't entirely snubbed at social functions. He had a daughter who had married well and had a beautiful family of her own. True he still had that worrisome wayward son… but… Erik wasn't truly anxious about Savon. At least Savon had the face of a young God to get him through life. And he had such a skill with words that Erik knew he could convince Satan himself to return to God. That was a boy who'd never turn into a Faustian legend!

He had partners in his career that respected him. He had clients lining up for months – sometimes years – in advance to try and use his skills as an architect. He'd taken part in the contest for the Opera Populaire in Paris, which had gained him recognition if not the win. It hadn't helped that his mother had just passed away at the time and he had barely wriggled his way into the project.

The damned war… That had been by far the worst… But they'd somehow persevered. Erik had found ways to sneak himself in and out of the city for what little work was possible. He'd even built a secret place to hide his family if the worst ever happened. But… it never had. His family had been safe; and even in impoverished wartime France, there had been rich snobs who had paid him handsomely for work they shouldn't have been able to rightly afford. His family might have been one of those that starved to death if they hadn't… so he couldn't complain…

But here he was… It was over. He was living in a modest but still spacious house with his wife of many years. He was … strangely… content. It was Christmastime… and all he needed to worry about was the health of his child-bearing daughter… and his son, of course. But they were the mildest of concerns. He'd taught both children how to fend for themselves in the very worst of situations.

They would be all right. Everything would be all right.

"Well… I think I ought to get you home." Marcus decided with an enormous yawn. "You're going to collapse for an entire day if I know you."

"I love you." Hope said, conceding easily enough to her husband and embracing her parents – who held her between them as though they never wanted to let go.

"We love you, too, ma ange." Erik promised. "We always will."