A/N: I've been debating whether or not to put this up, because at this point it's pretty much fluff and pointlessness. But that's the best stuff, right? Anyways, tonight's been a pretty good night (I fell on my face twice in front of 72,000 of my closest friends. And enemies? I don't know.) and football season is now officially over (on an awesome note) so I think I may have time to work on this. This can stand alone as a one shot, but I have a little bit more up my sleeve. I may continue it. I don't know. Without further ado, I give you...

Merry and Bright

"Life's not the mountaintops, it's the walking inbetween, and I like you walking next to me..." - Ben Rector

If the square were any more packed, it would have been considered a fire hazard. Little kids were packed along the edges of the coned-off roadway, waving their light-up wands and swords and chasing one another with hot-chocolate mustaches and the most adorable, puffy jackets to be found. As I cupped my cup of hot chocolate in my hands, I glanced around at the dark crowd, seeing out a familiar face.

"Looking for someone?" A hand snuck around the small of my back, a warm voice was near my ear, and I smiled involuntarily.

"Well, I was trying for Santa, but I guess you'll have to do," I turned my head to smile at him, and he winked, flashing a wide grin before sobering again.

"Well… I'm not sure I can grow a white beard, but I probably can get ahold of the suit somehow if you really—"

"Zach," I laughed, elbowing him.

"Hey, just trying to better my chances here," he grabbed my hot chocolate and took a sip, tangling my freed hand in his own.

"All the bold moves tonight, Mr. Goode." I couldn't help but laugh as he squeezed my hand and swung our arms back and forth. I took the moment to appreciate how his dark eyes were sparkling in the dim street lights and to notice how good he looked in flannel.

It was that strange time of year when one never truly knew what the temperature would turn out to be. I was wearing my favorite olive peacoat and boots, but the cold was still nipping at my nose in a way that made me wish for a scarf. Zach had a light jacket on over his button down, but he seemed fine in the chill. I suppose he was better adjusted to the cold than I.

"So, how are you finding the Festival of Lights? Is it to your liking?" He took a last sip of my cocoa and then returned it to me, half-empty.

"So far, it's a whole lot of festival and no lights." And it was. For one of the most famous Christmas light destinations in the country, it was seeming more and more questionable as only the streetlights and shopfronts were shining in the night. Strands of dark lights were visible in the trees, but they were awaiting a more dramatic entrance.

Zach just laughed and started pushing through the crowd, tugging me behind him. My gloves were beginning to seem like a bad idea as his grip slipped and he pushed further into the masses. Before long, my glove was being slipped off and the cold of the night was replaced by the tangle of his warm fingertips. Somehow, it seemed as if something in the air shifted at the contact. As if something was finally changing.

"So," he flashed a wicked smile over his shoulder at me, "'Zachary,' you ask, 'why did you bring me to this totally-overrated and semi-lame family event when you know my tendency towards claustrophobia and cold feet?'" He tugged my hand one last time, a good tug that sent me reeling forward to clumsily falling onto him. "Well, Cammie, if you'll restrain yourself for just one more moment, I'll show you."

He made a big show of squaring my shoulders, making sure that I was going to have the perfect view of whatever it was he was about to show me. If he considered my claustrophobia and wariness mere tendencies, his inclination towards being mellow dramatic was a downright habit.

Before long, I noticed what he was doing. Stalling.

"Zach, if you're trying to make the light reveal something big and perfect, fear not. I've never been to anything even remotely like this in Gallagher. No need to worry." My eye-rolling was evident even by my voice.

Zach rounded me to see my face, biting his lip and looking a tad sheepish and a touch adorable. He kicked at the brick street with his favorite shoes, and I almost laughed—their well-worn, beaten leather was beginning to edge past every-hipster-college-guy-ever and into I-found-these-in-a-hobo's-shopping-cart.

Zachary Goode was one to make sure that everything about his person was bordering-on-but-not-really. (Jeans bordering on faded but not really too tight but bordering on skinny.) (Hair bordering on need of a haircut but not really because it was still short enough on the sides.) (Contacts bordering on constant wear but not really because sometimes when he was really tired or bordering on being late he would put on his thick, squared frames that proved he was really bordering on blindness but not quite.) (Random t-shirts that were bordering on strange but not really because "Surf Kansas" is a pretty cool random shirt and he not-really-but-bordering-on-always wore a flannel to cover half of them anyway.)

(A relationship bordering on love but not really because both he and I were too scared to touch and see the sparks that were already bordering on burning us to the ground.) I involuntarily glanced down to his hand, recapturing mine—burning in the freezing night.

"Well," he ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up at the odd angles that bordered on looking styled but really were just the telltale of a longstanding habit, "I…" he was rubbing his eyes, and I knew in the back of my mind that he was wishing he'd worn his glasses. It was all starting to become a bit strange—he was never like this—uncertainty of himself was his only exception to the "bordering on." It was strictly "not really."

"They're seven and a half minutes late with this and we have places to go and things to see."

"Zach," I laughed. "We have plenty of time. I don't know what you're so worried about." We did this sort of thing often—random, local things like the Farmer's Market and the Lights Festival that all of the other college kids passed up to party or study. Even as I was saying the words, the back of my mind was screaming that this was Christmas, this was Zach holding my hand, this was different. And suddenly, I wasn't so sure that I wanted it to be.

"If you must know," he squeezed my hand, and just like that, Zach was back. His worries were replaced by cockiness and his tired eyes were given a smirk to brighten them. "If you must know… Tonight is the night." His grin was barely being suppressed.

"What night?" Was he going to make a move? It'd been six months and he had yet to make a move that was definitive enough to make a lasting change. I pondered on this a little longer until I realized that he was looking at me with a half-fallen, half-frozen expression, waiting and hoping that I'd catch on before he was forced to fill in the blanks himself.

The night…

The night?

My mind scrambled for purchase in the things he'd mentioned to me about—

Oh.

Oh…

The night.

"You find out about Columbia tonight."

He was beaming, but he was weary, and I wanted to hug him and hurt him all at once for making me feel so many things.

The smile that blossomed over his face told me that I was okay—that we were okay. "Yeah," he stroked his thumb over my hand.

"Wow... That's... Why are you here?" He should have been back home, refreshing his computer for an email every few minutes, not freezing with me.

"Because I want the perfect night before I open this," he drew a thick, fancy envelope out of his jacket pocket. "That way, whatever it says, I'll remember that moment fondly."

"What?" I snatched my hand out of his and grabbed the envelope, turning it over in my hands a few times and running my thumb over Columbia's seal in the top corner. "They mail these sorts of things? Who does that anymore?"

He laughed, taking the letter from my hands. "If they're anything, they're traditional, Cams." He tucked it back into the inside pocket of his jacket and recaptured my hand.

I looked up, surprised, and he was watching me, an eyebrow raised. Judging my reaction. Slowly, he started massaging my palm with his thumb, still watching me, and I felt my face flood red as electricity shot up my arm.

It was at that moment that what he'd said earlier caught up to me. I'd been so preoccupied at the sight of the envelope that I'd neglected listening to him as closely as I should have. He wanted tonight to be perfect.

Was this his perfect?

I grinned and broke our eye contact, self-conscious but so alive in the moment. I tucked myself in closer to his warmth, and I saw his smile out of the corner of my eye, bigger than it had ever been. He raised his arm to twist around me, drawing me into him without untangling our hands. The action felt so natural that he could have done it a hundred times previously.

Suddenly, this was becoming my perfect.

He was right. It was going to be a night that changed everything.

I thought for a bit, feeling the need to say something. Something that would make this moment real and not just some sort of dream. But as soon as my mouth opened, the Christmas carols stopped and a hush fell over the crowd.

Zach pulled me in, wrapping his other arm around me and finding my left hand somewhere in the process. As the crowd began counting down, an electricity unlike any I'd ever felt blanketed the square. I could feel Zach's breathing and my heartbeat was in my throat as the children around us screamed as loudly as they could.

"Five..." Zach squeezed my hands.

"Four..." He let go to tickle my side, and I laughed, so warm and happy that the sound bubbled out before I could repress it.

"Three..." I suddenly was wondering what had happened to my hot chocolate in all of this, vaguely recalling him throwing it away at some point before Columbia.

"Two..." I squeezed Zach's hands in anticipation.

"One..." His breath was warm at my ear, and suddenly the world was brighter than I'd ever seen it, a wonderland of twinkling lights, and "Merry Christmas" was sounding more like "I love you."

Review? Please? It's good to be back!

- Inez