Disclaimer: I still don't own any rights to CSI NY or the characters...so those of you that I promised that I'd share, will be greatly disappointed. But I did get a new digital camera, so I made out better than I thought. My sister is tired of my crappy blurry pictures of her son, her exact words. She doesn't know that it's not the camera but the person behind it that's the problem, LOL!
Brinchen86 asked me for a DL fic a couple of months ago, she has waited patiently and even though I said this would be up by Christmas. I hope that having this up for New Year's is okay. *huge hugs* Have fun, my friend!
This has been re-edited since people have told me it was confusing and that I needed to take a second look. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't proofread which I usually do before posting because I wanted to get this up in time for New Year's Day. Three hours of recreating this from scratch after my laptop does not excuse my laziness. Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed, and lurked!
"Lucy, pay attention! We're here," her mother calls out yanking her out of her doldrums about the upcoming wedding.
"Mom," whines the fourteen year old as her mother gets out of the carriage to stretch her legs. "Why did I have to come to this musty old hotel? Couldn't I have stayed home with Dad and George? At least they know how to have fun!"
"You know why George didn't want to come. After the hustle and bustle of Christmas, he needs a good rest, your father too. A head start of studying up on what to expect this spring for college is going to be good for him." She replies absently looking over the sprawling lawns of white snow, lifting her face to smell of the salt air from the nearby lakes.
"Why did I've to be dragged into this? It isn't my fault that he couldn't keep Elizabeth, and she latched onto Cousin Peter and his money." Lucy mutters crossing her arms stubbornly across her chest making her puffy coat crinkle.
"What was that?" Her Mom snaps lifting an eyebrow, taking a pause in lifting their luggage from the following buggy.
"Nothing," Lucy replies rolling her eyes, hurrying over to help her mother with their stuff.
"That's what I thought," she sighs bending down to look her daughter in the eye, ruffling her hair. "Listen, I know this is going to be tough because I know how deeply it affected you to see George's heartbreak. It hurt me too, but this is family. We support each other no matter what, and George understands why we're here. Peter's going to help us, he promised. I'll help out with the wedding and you will get to roam the grounds until its time to celebrate the New Year. We leave here to go home on the second, so can you at least try to remember the manners we taught you. For me?"
Lucy rolls her eyes, but when she looks at her mom, all of the anger and defiance melts away. "Yeah, I'll be on my best behavior Mom."
The woman hugs her daughter tightly, happy to know that Lucy will try. That's all she's ever asked for.
As they pick up their suitcases and the driver snaps the reins, the carriage rides off to pick up more of their family; Lucy turns to look around at the hotel and the grounds. Covered in snow and icicles, everything takes on an otherworldly sense of being, like she could step back and forward in time.
"Lucy, hurry up!" Her mom yells holding the front door open for Lucy to run through.
"Welcome to Mackinac Island and the Grand Hotel. I'm Marie, if you have any questions, please direct them to me or any of the staff. We're here to help." The plump brunette in a crisp uniform tells them with a smile.
"I'm Amanda West. We're with the Harris wedding, and this is my daughter Lucy. We'll be staying here for the next two nights and three days."
"Lovely," Marie replies typing all of their information in the computer and swiping their cards. "Here are your keys. You're all in the same wing with the rest of the wedding party. I hope you enjoy your stay and note that dinner is provided with these rates, so here is a map to guide you to the Main Dining Hall. Again, if you should get lost, we are here to help guide you back to where you want to go. It can get a bit confusing with how big this place is. And if you are interested Lucy, here are some pamphlets on our Youth Groups. Have a nice day!"
She starts to roll her eyes when a look from her mom stops her, she smiles brightly and takes the pamphlets. "Thank you."
They climb the stairs to where their rooms are when a creak of an opening door to a side suite stops Lucy. A quick glance down the hall to make sure that nobody notices that she wasn't following, Lucy darts into the room that piqued her curiosity, to let out a gasp at the beauty of it. Wedgwood blue walls and a huge canopy bed done in cream with pale yellow curtains sat in the corner facing a fireplace that would rival her closet back home.
But it was the portrait of a young woman from the early 1900s that drew her near. She couldn't see the face of the young woman but knows that she wasn't much older than her, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties. Lucy felt like she couldn't look away. It wasn't beauty of the woman; it was the feeling of laughter and light as the woman skipped through the field of wheat in which the painting depicted. Her white lace Edwardian Tea dress fluttering so that you could feel a warm summer breeze.
She turns and looks at the portrait next to it and a shiver wracks her slight frame. It was of an older man in a gray morning suit with a pocket watch dangling from his left hand, fingering his tiny mustache with his right sitting in a high back chair. There wasn't any particularly ominous about it, but when Lucy stared into his cold eyes she couldn't help but shiver again.
"Oh there you are," Marie speaks from the doorway making Lucy jump. The brunette desk clerk walks over and places a hand on the young girl's shoulder. "Your mother was worried she lost you on the way to your rooms. She called down and asked if you were in the lobby."
"She's beautiful, isn't she," she murmurs to Lucy about the painting. "She caught my interest when I first came to work here. There isn't much that is known about her, other than her name was Lindsay. And how she met and fell in love with Matthew Harris, one of our most prominent families, in the summer of 1905. They were to be married; it never happened because she was found dead, floating in the water on the morning of their wedding day. Nobody knows what happened. Even now, we still get some people who come and visit wanting to solve the mystery. Matthew never married and asked on his deathbed to have his portrait placed beside hers so they'd never be apart."
She snaps out of the romantic fog and looks down at Lucy. "Come on, you need to get back to your moth-"
"What's going on here?" A regal old woman demands marching into the room thumping her cane on the floor. "Marie, who's watching the front desk? Who's this girl?"
"Nothing's going on, Mrs. Harris; the front desk is being looked after by Gina. Young Lucy was curious about the Honeymoon Suite and lost her way. We'll be going now."
Marie tries to hurry Lucy past Mrs. Geraldine Harris, but fails when the old woman reaches out and snatches the girl's ear. "You shouldn't be playing in here, child! It was my great uncle's room and so it shall stay to welcome the next generation of lovers in the Harris family. Have some respect for the dead!"
"Mrs. Harris, stop that!" Marie protests as Lucy lets out a yelp when her ear was taken by those bony fingers. "She was only interested in who Lindsay was, nothing more."
Geraldine's fingers let go of Lucy's tender ear when Marie firmly pulls her out of the room, the old woman's voice yells after them. "See that you keep your nose out of this room! When you get to the front desk let Gina know that she should clean this room again, there's still a foul odor in here!"
"I'm so sorry about that. She lives here year round and since her family has resided her since the hotel opened, she pretty much can get away with anything. Here, let me show you the ballroom, it's where the rest of the Harris family resides."
Walking down a set of stairs they turn left and duck under 'a closed for repair' sign that ropes off the area to enter the hallway that leads them into an impressive ballroom.
Lucy stops and looks around the huge ballroom noting the absence of the glass in the windows. The wind kicked up and the plastic sheeting shuddered with the force of it. Marie touches her arm to get her attention to the paintings scattered all over the room.
Marie and Lucy stop before a portrait of a stern man with gentle gray/blue eyes.
"This is one of the most famous of the Harris relatives, McCanna Taylor and his lovely wife Claire Conrad Harris. She, and the rest of her family, were a part of the Four Hundred back in New York City when she met the Admiral and fell in love with him. They quickly married and then he went off to war. He came home in once piece only to watch her slowly succumb to an outbreak of cholera in the late 1800s. From the journals he kept, he stayed with her not straying from her bedside until her last breath. His family and friends were so worried about Claire they didn't noticed that he had similar symptoms. By the time they found out, it was too late. After their deaths, the Harrises moved from New York to live here when the hotel was finished. They brought along their most treasured possessions, the family portraits."
Lucy leaned closer to the woman on McCanna's right, the brunette with glints of red and gold gleaming from her hair, her eyes filled with laughter and love. "She's beautiful."
"Yeah, all the women were," Marie says wistfully catching Lucy's attention. "She was different though. From reading McCanna's journals, she captured his interest when defending her youngest brother from her bully of an older brother, Francis. Francis married early in life but his first wife died while giving birth to his twin sons Matthew and Russell. It was only after ten years that he married again, this time to a young Greek ballerina, and shocked society when he brought her home. Stella was a good woman, a bit bold and daring, but it was scandalous in those days to marry a stage performer."
Marie nods indicating the woman to McCanna's left. Wild golden ringlets held away from her face by a jeweled peacock comb, a secret smile in the jade eyes.
"Why's she on McCanna's left? Where's Francis's painting?"
"Francis's portrait was taken down after he killed her in a jealous rage, and then took his own. He mistakenly thought she had been flirting with his younger brother and killed her during one of his many rages when they went back to their cottage on the grounds. It rocked the whole family. The younger brother was sent off to Paris to continue his art studies and wasn't allowed to come back until years later."
Lucy takes in the knowledge of this family while her eyes dart from one portrait to another when the sight of one young man's smirk stops her in her tracks.
"Young Daniel," Marie grins watching as a blush blooms on Lucy's cheeks, "Stella's brother was sent to one of the Admiral's buddies after her death. A Lieutenant Donald Flack looked after Daniel, like the Admiral did with him, when he enlisted in the Navy. They spent years on the high seas fighting only coming home maybe once a year. The Harries never accepted his sister, but he wasn't about to let them forget about what Francis had done. When the banns of Matthew marriage became public, Daniel arrived home from New York to be a part of the ceremony. Francis's sons Matthew, Russell, and Danny never gotten along, even as children. But the elder generation felt like it was time to build up the peace again in the family."
"Whew, that is a lot of history for one evening! Why don't you tell her about the ghosts?" Alex, a waiter from the dining room calls out from the door way, startling the two women.
"Alex! Why did you have to do that? Lucy, pay no attention to him, there aren't any ghosts here." Marie's green gaze shoots sparks at the interloper.
Alex shoots a smug grin at Marie, pushes away from the doorway to look seriously into Lucy's eyes. "Once a year on New Year's it is said that the ghosts who used to live here, come alive and stay that way to party with their loved ones until dawn's light. If they try to stay past dawn, the light steals their shade and poof…they are never seen again!"
"Alex, come on. Why don't you tell her about how Bigfoot used to stay in the Jacqueline Kennedy Suite?" Marie snarks at the young man causing Lucy to clutch her belly in laughter.
"Fine, make fun all you like. I just happen to know they're real, why else would this ballroom constantly be closed due to repairs every year around this time?"
"Vandals? An old girlfriend trying to get back at you after dumping her? There are so many reasons." She winks at Lucy, who only laughs harder at the grimace on Alex's face.
"Okay, you don't want to play. I'm leaving," he walks out leaving the women by themselves before turning back at the doorway. "Lucy, if you want to test my theory, stay up until midnight when the clock strikes…you may see them!"
11:59 p.m.
A yawning Lucy touches the button on the side of her watch to light up the dial in the darkness. Midnight. Great, just great, she thought, now Marie and Alex will make poke fun at me when I stumble down stairs for breakfast and pass out in my pancakes. She staggers out of the cushioned chair, her legs having fallen asleep while waiting in the deserted ballroom. Lucy's yellow chiffon dress rustles as she stretches, one of the straps falling off her shoulders.
"I hate it when I get my sister's hand me downs," she angrily pushes up the strap.
"Yes, getting your older sister's rags is the worse!" Lucy jumps when a voice behind her agrees.
Lucy slowly turns around and gets a shock at who was standing there. A transparent raven haired woman dressed in a bright red flapper gown. The beads on her dress jingle as she held out her hand to be shaken. "Hi, I'm Josephine Harris. Is it normal for you to talk to yourself?"
Still frozen in shock at the ghost standing before her, and a ghost she was because Lucy started to see people floating out of their portraits toward the center of the room to mingle. Turning back to Josephine, she can only nod. "You have no shape."
"I'm sorry, I forget that we're dead and it isn't the thing for the living to see us. My body will take shape once everything settles down shortly, I'm still part of the recent dead." She smiles at the girl before it turns into a frown at the continuous banging of a portrait on the wall. Josephine rushes over to the wall and smacks the back of the thumping frame.
"No, Russell Harris! I won't let you out of your picture! You think I've forgotten about you making a dummy out of me? Stealing my money and losing it in the big crash? You can stay there for all time, see if I care.
At Lucy's asking look, Josephine explains. "It's my husband. We were handcuffed shortly before our death when I trusted him enough to be my manager."
"Handcuffed?" Lucy asks, calming down at the sight of ghosts, or should she say people milling about. "Manager?"
"I keep forgetting this is the 21st century, handcuffed in the 20s meant married. I used to sing in some swanky speakeasies. We played some real swinging places along with my piano man Sheldon and his wife. For him life was better, he didn't join us on the early drive to the docks to catch the ferry over here." She applies a coat of lip color sighs happily at knowing Sheldon and his wife had escaped what awaited her. "There you see, I'm real now. What's your name dearie?
"My name's Lucy West." The girl starts as Josephine starts swinging her hips, tapping her toes, and bouncing to the music that's starting to play when her eyes fly open in a panic. "What time is it?"
Lucy looks down at her watch in confusion. She touches the button on her watch, the dial again lights up. "12:04 a.m. Why?"
"Oh god, he's about to get out! Daniel, come on! You only have one minute left!" She yells across the ballroom to the rakish sailor. Heads turn as everyone knows who and what to expect since this has been happening for nearly a hundred years. Daniel's fingers reach out of the painting as he places them firmly on the wall beside it. With one long grunt he hauls himself out of it and lands on the floor with a groan.
"Come on, you don't have much time," the Admiral says lending the ghost a hand. Daniel pulls himself to his feet as Mac slings an arm around his friend's shoulder to keep him upright. They rush from the room.
"Why is he acting like he's injured?" Lucy looks to Claire and Stella for information as they join her and Josephine. "And who's about to get out and why did Danny have to take care of it?"
The ladies look at each other and wonder if they should reveal their secrets to the young girl, will it be used against them?
Claire glides forward, her heavy gold brocade ball gown a Worth Original, rests on the floor behind her. "There are a few simple rules we must follow if we are to stay here. First, we've been granted one night to come alive and celebrate but we must go back before dawn's light. If we don't make it back in time, we disappear forever. Two, it saps our strength to get back to the physical plane and it takes up a lot of energy to eat, drink, and love each other. So we have to be careful. Three, to turn a picture toward the wall traps the spirit inside of it; but to destroy the spirit you have to burn the picture until it's nothing but ash."
"The reason that the Admiral rushed Danny to the Honeymoon Suite is because there's only one other couple who was murdered on the grounds besides me," Stella steps toward the young girl, her sad gaze locked on the hallway where the men disappeared through. "And it was Daniel and Lindsay."
"Wait, what? Don't you mean, Matthew and Lindsay? He never married and wanted her beside him even in death." She asks confused looking at the trio of women.
"Lucy, Daniel and Lindsay were true soul mates. Not her and Matthew. She was engaged to Matthew but all she was to him was a way to gain control of her father's horses, the Monroe's were known for breeding winners. To Daniel, she was his reason for breathing. You should have seen the love and passion blossom between the two." At Lucy's askance look Stella chuckles the gold in her hair glinting as it bounces. "Sex wasn't invented for only your generation, my dear."
"Just because we come alive for one night doesn't mean that we still don't watch or listen to what's going on around us." Stella smiles mysteriously at Lucy as she put an arm around her. The dancer's arm was bare and her white skirt glittering as cascaded halfway toward her knees and ankles to her white ballet slippers.
"You should stick around; we'll introduce you to the man who made this all possible. If we can coax him out, that is." The ladies give a hearty laugh at the thought of the person who put so much magic into his work that made this night all worth it.
"We have thirty seconds, Daniel!" The Admiral barked spurring on the young man at his side who quickly regained his strength. As both of them flew up the stairs to the Honeymoon Suite, they open the door to see male fingers starting to push their way out of the painting.
"Not this time, ya bastard," Daniel's accent thickened in rage as he strides forcefully across the room to flip the painting toward the wall trapping the spirit inside above the roaring fireplace. Hearing a snarl of anger, watching the frame bang on the Wedgwood blue wall, Daniel can only smile in dark satisfaction.
The darkness in his face disappears when his gaze turns to the woman skipping in the wheat field, Daniel places his palm softly on the surface caressing it lightly. "Lindsay, my love. It alright to come out now."
Dark brown eyes peep out from the silky curtain of hair as she swings the waves back and holds out her hands to be helped out of the wheat.
McCanna beams with pride knowing that the young lovers are safe as she steps down from the mantel and into her lover's arms. They don't hear him leave and close the door behind him; they were too busy holding each other to notice.
"Is everything alright?"
"Did you get there in time to trap Matthew?"
"Will they be joining us for the first dance?"
"Are you sure? What's so important about that room?"
The ladies descend upon Mac like a protective swarm and pepper questions at him until he finally holds up his hands in surrender. "Claire, they're fine. Stella, Matthew won't be a problem this year. Jo, no, they won't be joining us for the first dance. And Lucy, yes I'm sure that they'll be in the ballroom in time to coax the artist out of his own painting before we all have to go back. When's dawn this year?"
Lucy, having seen the paper that was left in her room, replies, "It will be 6:00 a.m. Admiral."
"Thank you Lucy, we watched how good you were with Marie in the ballroom. Thank you for that. She's a young woman with a lot of heart for putting up with Geraldine for all of these yeas. It hasn't been easy. You should really ask Lindsay and Daniel why the Honeymoon is so important to the Harris family. It's their story to tell." He gives the girl a gentle hug making her blush and the ladies grin as they exchange a knowing look on the effect McCanna can have on young women.
"Now let's go dancing, I haven't felt this good in years."
"Danny, oh Danny," Lindsay murmurs against the skin of his throat, her fingers threading through blond hair at the nape of his neck. He holds to her petite body as the shudders run through her with being so close to him after such a long wait. He pulls back and caresses her face with his hands, relearning the curve of her cheeks, the slope of her neck.
"I've missed you so much." He bends down to touch his lips to hers in a heated kiss that overwhelms both of them. "The hours, the minutes, the seconds, couldn't go by fast enough."
Her slide of her hand from the nape of his neck to the white lawn shirt he wears, underneath her palm it feels like his skin is on fire. "Lindsay, are you sure about doing this so soon? We could wait a little."
"I'm tired of waiting; I want to be with you here and now." She places her other hand on the side of his face lightly scratching his stubble, making him shudder at her touch. "We made a promise in this room; you have to help me keep it."
She pulls back and starts to shake the daisies out of her hair when he stops her. "Leave them in. I've wanted to make love to you for a long time with them in your hair."
Clothes melt away as they pull back damask cover and slide their hot skin into the cool silk sheets, the flames from the fireplace dancing across their skin. Love and passion explode with the joining of two people, two hearts for this one night of ecstasy.
4:57 a.m.
"Maybe I should go and see what's going on," Lucy pulls away from Stella as she introduces her to yet another ghost with a long tale to tell.
"You're an impatient little thing, aren't you?" Stella tries to keep a sober face but fails, as the laughter peals out. "Today is too good to waste with impatience; Lindsay and Daniel are here now. Go ask them, but when you're done, please leave them alone for a little while."
She pushes Lucy toward the couple, her eagerness now turns to reluctance at the look of flushed happiness on their faces. She didn't want to bring up the past and spoil that for them. As she was about to turn away, they caught sight of her and beckoned her to them.
"The Admiral told us that you were curious about the room. What would you like to know?" Lindsay asks gently leaning her head back against her lover's shoulder; Danny smiles and drapes a lazy arm around her waist.
"I don't know where to start. When I walked into the suite it felt like it was drawing me in." Her hesitation fading under the heat of indignation. "Then Mrs. Harris, Geraldine, shooed me away thinking I was going to mess with the room. That I was the one who left the bad odor in the room when it smelled like lilacs and vanilla to me."
"It wasn't you, Lucy, it was Matthew who left that odor." Lindsay lightly grasps the neckline of dress and pulls it slightly away to reveal deep bruises around her neck. When she shoved her sleeves up, you could see bruises in the shape of a large man's hands. Daniel's hands clench with anger at the sight of the marks darkening her skin, until her small hand soothes it by grasping his tightly.
"Danny and I planned to run away back to Montana a month before the wedding, but when he didn't show up I knew that Matthew had killed him. I was so worried, a few weeks before the wedding I found out that I was pregnant. I didn't know what to do so I demanded to know where Danny was the night before my wedding. Matthew snapped and told me that I'd never see him again in this life time. He was right," she whispered remembering the fight that lead to her death. Danny closes his eyes as he too remembers watching her from the other side unable to help prevent what was coming.
"He strangled me to death in the Honeymoon Suite, though he didn't do a very good job of it. I lingered long enough to place a curse on the room. If the lovers who spent the night weren't true at heart, they would smell death. But if they were meant to be together forever, they would smell vanilla and lilacs. So every year we try to christen the room to keep the room a haven for lovers who are meant to be."
"Lindsay we need you now," Claire moves over to take the woman's hand. The women link hands and follow each other to the painting at the end of the ballroom. The artist responsible for the beauty and magic that brought them all to life, he signed each and every one of the portraits he painted, ARH.
"Adam, its time to come out now." The women and men speak, trying to get the artist to overcome his shyness and step out. The his blue eyes sparkle with the same mischief he had when they were all alive as he leans out and is helped down by all of the ghosts.
"Welcome home, brother," Claire kisses her younger brother on the cheek making him blush a furious red. The men come forward to clasp him on the back and shake his hand, stammering and laughing, Adam accepts the love from his family.
"Raise your glasses," Adam shouts holding a glass of champagne McCanna handed him clinking it with his wife Kendall, "to the New Year! Let us drink and sing to old forgotten friends and never let their memory fade!"
Hear, hears could be heard ringing out from each and every ghost. Lucy watches history in the making, from the 1800s all the way to the late 1950s. Generations upon generations of good men and women wronged taking simple pleasure in what they all take for granted.
Family.
It lasts 'til the end of time.
It also gives her an idea, which sets her blue eyes sparkling with deviltry. The ghosts were too busy dancing and partying to notice her slip away upstairs to the Honeymoon Suite. As Lucy enters the room, she can still see that the portrait is still banging against the wall in anger. Careful of the burning wood in the fireplace, she slowly moves a chair to the mantle. As Lucy takes a hold of Matthew's painting and flips him over, she quickly unhooks it from the wall.
"Thank you for freeing me, but you're a fool if you think I'll leave Lindsay and Danny alone." He sneers as he starts to lean out of the picture, his hands curling around the outside of the painting's frame.
"I'm not a fool," Lucy tells him as she looks him straight in the eye, and leans down to toss Matthew into the flames.
"Nooooooo!" He wails as the fire eats up the canvas like a greedy child, its fingers trapping him and pulling him down into the burning depths. It took only a few minutes, but all that was left of him was nothing but bits of ash.
5:59 a.m
Danny and Lindsay walk slowly up the staircase holding each other reluctant to let go of each other. When they open the door to find Lucy asleep on the bed, Lindsay walks over to run her hand down Lucy's cheek. "I wish she was ours."
"Me too," Danny hugs Lindsay from from behind and kisses her on top of the head when something catches his eye. "Lindsay, why is my portrait here? Did you move it?"
She breaks out of his embrace to touch the picture and then leans down to look at the coals in the fireplace. Small bits of a wooden frame were still there but the rest was mostly ash. "Lucy freed us…Matthew's dead!"
"Lindsay I'd love to celebrate this but the clock is about to strike six, we'd better hurry!" Danny grasp Lindsay's hand and helps her into the painting, taking a moment to look back at Lucy. "Thank you for the gift you've given us."
He climbs up and back into the canvas as seconds later dawn's light fills the room framing the young girl with its pink glow.
January 2
The driver of the carriage packs up the West's luggage and loads it as Lucy pauses to take one more look at the sprawling hotel and all of its beauty. This experience opened her eyes to the magic and wonder of love and she'll never forget that.
"Are you ready to go home, Luce?" Her mother, Amanda, places an arm around her daughter's shoulder taking in the sights with her.
"Yep, I miss Dad and George. It wasn't the same without them here, they would've had fun." She sniffs wishing that her father and brother had joined them.
"I don't think 'fun' is the exact word for this wedding but yes, it was beautiful." She kisses her daughter on the top of her head before picking up the last suitcase and packing in the wagon. "Did you hear Elizabeth complain about the Honeymoon Suite at breakfast? I can't imagine having to spend the night in a room that smelled like death. I wonder why the maids didn't clean the room."
"Yes, I head Cousin Elizabeth," Lucy's eyes gleam at her mother's words, a tiny secret smile growing on her face. "I heard."
The end.
The Grand Hotel is real and is the setting for one of my favorite romantic movies. Some of the stuff is real and while others are creative license. If you want to know more about the hotel, google it. It is a really cool place to read up on. Again, I hope you had fun even though this was shamelessly maudlin and sentimental...this is the mood I was in when writing it. Thank you for reading, and Happy New Year!