Proud
Summary: The tumblr prompts was "Write about a conversation two people have while decorating a Christmas tree." So I took that and I decided to sprinkle some Secret Circle in there. Charles/Diana family one-shot.
Proud
"Diana, can you pass me the tinsel?" Charles Meade asked from his place atop a very high ladder. He had put tinsel on every part of the tree except up at the top, so he was fixing that.
"Which color?" Diana asked as she hung an ornament.
"Red please." Charles said.
Diana picked up some red tinsel from the box and reached up on her tiptoes to put it into her father's outstretched hand. "Be careful, Dad." she said warily.
"I will be, don't worry." He hung the tinsel and stepped off the ladder. Diana breathed a sigh of relief. He looked at her, and his heart ached when he saw how much she looked like her mother did at 16.
Diana caught his gaze and her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Is everything alright, Dad?" She asked softly.
"You just look so much like your mother right now." He whispered.
Her eyes became sad, and then they shone with tears as she stared straight ahead at the twinkling lights on the tree. Without looking at him, she opened her mouth to speak. "Do you think she's proud of me, Daddy?" she whispered.
He reached out and put a hand gently on her shoulder. "I think she's very proud of you honey." He kissed the top of her head. "I know I sure as hell am."
"But why?" Diana's voice was still a whisper. "I've done nothing that's worth being proud of." She thought of all the trouble she'd gotten the Circle into because of her insistence to bind the Circle. She thought of Heather's death, and of Nick's death, and her mood worsened. Yeah, I'm definitely someone to be proud of. she thought bitterly.
"Diana, you've had to grow up so fast because of your mom's death." her dad whispered. "When you were a little girl, you stayed in with me instead of going out on your bike like other little girls because you had to make sure I was OK. Even now, at 16, you could be going out to parties-not that I enforce it-but you don't. You know how to be sensitive of others, and how to mind your own business. How many fathers can say that about their teenage daughters?" She smiled as he kept talking. "You know what you want, and how to get it without hurting others. You've worked so hard to get where you are today. So yes, I think you are someone to be proud of, sweetie."
She lost it then. Abandoning the tree and her brave facade, she turned around and buried her face into her dad's shoulder, crying.
He rubbed her back, soothing her as only he knew how. He kept her safely in his arms as she cried, wishing he knew how to protect her from every evil thing in the world. And as witches, there were a lot of threats she would have to face. And he would help her any way he could.