The First Christmas
(Or, Ian, Amy an Active War Zone that is a Kitchen, a Paper Clip, Knife, and Whipped Cream)
"Amy love, I need some help with- oh." Ian Kabra stops short when he enters the kitchen of the Attleboro mansion, neatly paper-clipped files dropping onto the floor as he beholds the state of horror he has just entered.
The once spotless and pristine kitchen currently looks like an active war zone, when, as far as Ian is aware, no other branch has recently decided to act on whatever weekly vendetta they have against the Lucian or Madrigal branch.
Striding the few steps needed to properly take in all this, Ian observes the (what can laughably be called) kitchen in all its glory.
The oven, for starters, looks like something blew up in there, while gobs of sticky frosting adorn almost every cabinet handle. The countertop along with the dishwasher (for some strange reason) has what looks like gingerbread stuck to it. And as for the whipped cream... well, it's everywhere, from the top of the fridge to the whisk that is currently in the hand of his extremely irate wife.
Suffice to say, "winter wonderland" isn't the term he'd use to describe this little scene possibly out of Dante's journey through the third circle of hell.
She's standing in front of all this mess, the whisk in one hand and a knife in another, looking like a cross between an extremely beautiful murderess and a domestic goddess.
(Not that he's about to tell her that).
Instead, he adopts his most conciliatory tone when he asks as gently as he can, "Amy... what happened?"
It turns out that she wanted to bake a gingerbread house for their daughter to decorate. In a moment of sentimentality (as her mother had apparently done the same for her; Ian is not about to point out that there is little point in having a one year old decorate a gingerbread house, as exhibited by the frosting and candy-covered Amy with her grinning mother in those old photographs), she had decided to do it herself.
Amy had wanted a quiet Christmas this year, nothing like the previous opulent affairs some Cahill or another had insisted on hosting, and as the leaders of the Lucians and Madrigals respectively, they had to attend.
So instead, Amy had taken charge of decorating Attleboro (but that didn't stop Ian from hiring a small army of decorators to help), cleaning, and now cooking.
It's a small but intimate Christmas, something out of the books Amy read as a girl, and Ian could only hear about from his friends. In a way, it's wish fulfillment for both of them, as they try their hardest to make their daughter's first holiday special in all the ways it could never be for them as children.
But now, Ian finds himself comforting his wife as she questions their every intent this entire month.
"I can't believe this happened," She wails into his shoulder (he manages to extract the knife from her hand, but the whisk she continues to clutch is currently staining his Armani), "I mean even Dan has had better luck in the kitchen! Remember that Baked Alaska last Christmas?"
"God forbid he ever gets hold of a Brûlée torch again," He mutters, but continues to sympathetically stroke her hair.
"But he did it!" Amy mumbles indignantly. "How come I couldn't?"
"Amy," He says with as much delicacy as he can possibly muster with a straight face, "You erm, do realize that cooking is not exactly your forte?" When she looks up at him to listen, he takes that as a sign of encouragement to continue. "And that we employ a full time cook for this exact reason?"
"But I wanted to do something for Grace this year," She says sadly, "To show her that she's special. We're barely there for her already, Ian. I don't want her to forget that the holidays are about family, and not just expensive presents and catered food."
When she says this, it touches something deep in Ian. Sure, they've both been earnest in their attempts to make the entire season a magical one for Grace, but for Amy to lay it out like this... he remembers his own not-so-fond memories of the holidays, when his own parents would often be absent, or hosting the most lavish parties money could buy for the Lucian elites.
Were he and Amy going to be those parents one day? Putting the welfare of the entire Cahill family over their own child?
"Amy," He murmurs, "I know you wanted to make her first Christmas special, but when Grace grows older, she won't remember any of this," He says, gesturing to the room. "She'll just remember that her mum and dad were there to celebrate it with her."
"You really think so?" She asks hopefully, her jade-green eyes alight with that familiar sparkle.
"I know so," Ian reassures her, pressing a kiss to her temple. "I learnt a long time ago that it was never about the food or presents or the parties. It's about family."
"I guess you're right." She brightens a little, and then asks with a teasing note in her voice, "When did Ian Kabra become the reasonable one between both of us?"
He snorts lightly at that. "When I married you."
"Ha ha," She deadpans, and then half-heartedly whacks his back with the whisk. Soon, her musical giggles merge with his throaty chuckles, and Ian suddenly thinks that despite the wreckage of a kitchen and his ruined suit, there is nowhere else he'd rather be to celebrate Christmas, because this is what Christmas is all about.
And that's about it folks! A special thanks to MademoiselleEtincelle for taking the initiative to create this challenge to keep this fandom alive. I'm new to the 39 Clues fandom, and am in the process of writing my first fanfiction, but I thought this was a brilliant idea! Looking forward to the next challenge :)