» It's the first time you spend Christmas with him and it could easily be the first Christmas you ever spend because the void in your head doesn't tell you a thing; but then again, the smell of cinnamon and wood does seem familiar, even in the blank spaces of your mind.
It doesn't matter anyway because if there is nothing, you just have to create something, and that is exactly what he tells you while the two of you are sitting in front of the chimney, and the perfectly decorated tree with all its crystal ornaments and burning candles is nothing compared to the patterns the fire draws into the green of his eyes as he talks about presents and carols, his voice being a hymn itself, dripping from his lazy lips.
You are wrapped up in blankets, sharing the heavy carpet on the floor. The Young Lady is already asleep, curled up against her brother's side and it's not the first time you wish you could change places with her and it's definitely not going to be the last. But there is no way for you to change the position you are in, and on second thought you also wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, because right now you are close enough to him to see the hair on his arms and if this is as close as you will ever get to him, then so be it.
You both fall asleep right there, the woolen carpet as your mattress, the heat of the gleaming blaze contained by the blankets, and your last thought is that he might catch a cold but you are not persistent enough yet. The smell of what wakes you is overwhelming, and surprisingly no one scolds you and the Young Master for sleeping in the parlor, but maybe everyone is just too occupied with bringing all this food.
You are forbidden to help, for the first time since you have been here, and so you just sit on the big table next to your Young Master and watch awkwardly overwhelmed by the whole event, even though Oz has told you about it, you still can't wrap your mind around it just yet. The banquet comes and goes, and you just barely notice by the side-glances your Master casually throws at the empty chair at the head of the table that something must be wrong, but you won't figure out just what exactly it is until the moment it's almost too late. You don't spend another thought on it now, though, distracted by someone giving you the bowl with the mashed potatoes, and you have never tasted something like that in your entire life that is the past five months.
The part with the presents scares you because you don't have anything for anyone, but everyone is really kind about it and no one seems to even expect something; not that you do, surprise hits you hard when there is, indeed, a small package for you, wrapped in blue paper and a nice ribbon. It contains a framed picture of the people you are not considering family yet, but will; it's the first one and it will still have a place on your nightstand when your light has been swallowed by darkness.
» The last time you spend Christmas with him for a long time isn't all that different from the first time; sleeping in front of the chimney has become a habit and he has already told you that he just wants to sneak a peek at the man dressed in red and white who is supposed to bring all the presents. Of course he has never caught a glimpse of said man and neither have you, but you are not as curious as him and you don't mind the disappointment as long as it means being able to watch shadows and light flicker across his face with the sound of splintering wood in your ears.
The biggest difference in all those years is that this time, you have a present for him, too. It's not much, just a cheap tie you bought from what little money you can call your own, but you still hope he will like it. It's the first thing you've ever bought for him and your heart races when you hand it over, your entire being torn between watching him unwrap the small box or look away to not see his reaction at all. You do kind of both in the end, watching through spread fingers how his eyes light up like a candle and his lips turn into a big smile; you could swear your heart is missing a beat there.
» Later, you think there should have been signs, warnings, omens that told you that your time was over; but there hasn't been a thing and no matter how many times you go back to that memory, dive head-first into the pitch black darkness that has engulfed all your thoughts, you still can't find a thing and you don't know if it's a reason to blame yourself because surely you must have missed something then, or if it's a reason to not blame anyone because no one could have seen it coming. In the end, you decide that it doesn't matter and that it is a waste of your energy; energy you should pretty much invest into bringing him back rather than throwing pebbles against an iron wall.
» Your first Christmas without him is terrible and you still can't quiet tell how you managed to survive it. It is dark and cold and there is no light dancing in green eyes, so you lock yourself in a room that is too big for you and you cry through the whole night and the whole day. No one comes to get you and no one brings you a present and no one expects you to have a present, so you can stay where you are, huddled in a corner, no blanket wrapped around you because the physical cold is better than the cold in your heart, and your body can endure but your mind can't.
When the whole thing is over, you don't remember much of it and your thoughts are bitter as you wonder how many things you've already lost in that twirling storm inside of you.
Maybe someday it will be too much.
You are fifteen and you grin as you think about cracks in your sanity.
» No one is more surprised than you when you step out of your room and your foot bumps against a small package, wrapped in silver paper and decorated with a small branch. You pick it up from the floor and put it in the inside pocket of your coat because you are already late and Break doesn't like to be kept waiting when the two of you are about to go on a mission.
Years have passed and it has become your habit to sign up for Christmas duty at Pandora, always just leaving small things behind in that home of yours; a piece of jewelery for Vanessa, a book for Elliot, a new checkerboard for Vincent; you never get something in return, though, besides the stuffed animals Vincent leaves in your room while you are gone.
This year is different and you will never figure out just what exactly made Elliot give you that picture, but in that small and shabby room you share with Break on the mission it seems to be as out of place as you are, and maybe that is what makes you keep it and put it to the other one on your nightstand.
In that night the moonlight falls through the tiny window and onto a small spot on the mattress next to your face, and it is that moment in that long and sleepless night that you realize for the first time that cracks are letting the light in.
» You have planned to spend Christmas in your own apartment for the first time, and even though you have been terribly scared, you've also been convinced that this is the best. But before you even realize it, you have been kidnapped, literally, and you find yourself in the company of an all too loud Xerxes Break and an all too amused Sharon Rainsworth and an all too apologetic Reim Lunettes, and together they are all too convincing; making you stay at the Rainsworth manor.
It has turned into a tradition before you even realize it.
» The last Christmas without him is like the majority of the Christmas Days without him, and maybe that is what hits you when you think back to those days. There has also been no sign for you stepping closer to reaching your goal, and yet you made it within a year's range. He re-appears so suddenly as he has disappeared, and with him returns the sun to your world. But the sun has brought another sun and you are terribly scared that they will burn each other up without you being able to interfere.
Because not only is he back, but he's brought her with him, and she is a parasite and a monster and a murderer, and annoying and loud and so, so hoggish; and before you even notice it the adjectives you use to describe her are those for a human and not those for the monster you thought her to be. The cracks have let her in without your permission and it's too late to get her out again, but you find yourself unable to even want her to disappear, because she is just as much like the sun as your Master is, and her light reaches you just like the moon and the stars have always found their way inside.
You don't stop her. You can't. You can't want her to stop.
» It has been a year between the day you were still clutching your throat as you fell asleep and the day you couldn't find sleep because your heart is racing in your chest like it wants to beat down every second left of your miserable and beautiful life.
You don't sleep, you stand up more than early because you need the extra time now that everything takes you longer with just one arm, and then you prepare all the things you've always seen others prepare ever since you've started to fill the void in your mind.
There are empty chairs at the table, more than just one, but you don't let them be taken away because you've come to terms with it and so has he and you couldn't be more proud of him.
» As the years go by, more chairs stay empty; it starts with Leo, his crumbling body fading into the light of the Paradise you all have restored, and that Christmas you can feel old and powerful blood run through your veins and your head is filled with lots and lots and lots of memories, foreign memories that don't belong to your life but that are still there for you to catch glimpses of every now and then. Your own memories mix up with them and you get to see your real first Christmas, and so many others, but none is as beautiful as that very first one you spent with him.
There is a mistletoe under the door frame but you don't notice it when you enter the parlor, and before you realize it there are two pairs of lips brushing against your cheeks and two pairs of arms wrapping around your hips and two voices breaking out in soft giggling. It's not the first time that you wish you would still have both arms just to pull them both closer, and it's definitely not going to be the last, but it's probably the one where you are the happiest version of yourself that you will ever be again.
You can feel yourself shatter in that moment, the cracks having grown too big, too much light passing through them to fill you up, and so you burst into life, smiling from ear to ear, tears tingling in the corner of your eyes while you are caught between those two suns that have never done anything but heal you.