Author's Note: Because the Planet, as I assume, has no Christ, there is no need for Christmas. But I want a Christmas special. So there will be Santa Claus, elves, and everything but the religious influence. Just a bit more fucked up. And it shall be called Winter Day, because I am tacky. And it will be on November 25, because I like the month. Deal with it.

How this works is so: Today, October ninth -- despite the fact I wrote this in, like, July or August -- marks exactly twelve weeks from Christmas Day. As the chapter title gives away, there will be twelve pieces to this, posted every week until Christmas Day, which will be the last one. Savvy? As some random trivia, this is also my girlfriend's birthday and our homecoming dance day. I normally don't say stuff nobody cares about -- and no one reads these goddamn things anyway -- but if you could, wish her a "Happy Birthday Kathy" via review for shits and giggles? She'd appreciate it. xD

---

The Turks Christmas Special : Twelve Inches Falling

---

The year had been odd since September, when the first snowflake of the season fell. Admittedly, it was the wrong season for snowflakes at all, and everyone knew it, but it was still a time for old ladies to start baking cookies and getting out their scarves for Winter Day. Much to the bemusement of snow-haters, it was then a time for old men to get out their snowblowers when Midgar awoke to find its things buried under a record five feet of snow the following morning.

"Blame Meteor," said everyone.

Reno was unsure where he stood on this freak weather occurance when it happened again in November. Sitting on the roof of his house because he planned to eventually hop down and look for his car, he decided his indecision was based on the fact he hadn't received any paperwork on it yet. He admitted it; he'd become so dependent on the Turks that his very opinions on the city were molded around what they told him to feel about what was going on. Or maybe it was just because he didn't much care about weather fronts and what they meant.

On one hand, he decided this was a very fun way to live his life; they told him what to do and he disobeyed them, then they paid him for it and he did it all over again.

On the same hand, he had a finger that said fuck all this snow; that single finger won the war, as he wanted his smokes from his car.

Really, the antenna with the blaze-orange flag sticking above the snow made the car easy to find, but Reno was still sitting on his roof because he had no intention of freezing his ass off unless it was a dire emergency. And so he sat and thought for a bit longer, craving a cigarette but at the same time not feeling much like hypothermia.

It was November 16, which meant that Winter Day was only a little over a week away. Winter Day was basically a day that the corporations had made up to sell cards, candy, and presents. As the myth went, an old man in a red suit named Schmidt went around putting toys down chimneys and being carried around by a team of small dragons. So the rule was to go to bed and turn off your fireplace, because Schmidt didn't take any responsibility for burnt toys, which were made by gnomes somewhere near Icicle Inn.

Reno knew as well as anyone over age ten that it was all a load of Schmidt itself, and that it just meant the parents were stressed to get their kids to bed and the presents placed and department store Schmidts to be placed for public ridicule. The whole holiday would have made Reno sick, but he liked getting the usual gifts of liquor and tobacco.

Last year, he'd gotten Elena an engagement ring. The problem was, she'd seen it as just a friendly gesture and Reno had said nothing. He simply shrugged it off, went on a bender to end them all, and passed out the next night in some poor woman's garbage pile. The look on her face when she found what she reported to be a dead Turk laying atop her discarded newspapers made it all worthwhile for Reno, who had been perfectly awake but too out of it to move.

But Reno hadn't persisted a relationship with Elena anymore, simply because he'd received no paperwork on that, either.

The finger that said he needed to look for his car rotated just enough to say "Fuck you!" to ShinRa, Inc, which the Turks were still a part of. They'd decided to stay with the company because "Tseng would have wanted it that way," which was a nice way of saying they had absolutely nowhere else to go for work. Really, Rude could have become a bodyguard and Elena had always wanted to be a ShinRa secretary, and Reno. . .well, he admitted, they were all just there because they pitied his lack of real skills.

His more optimistic side piped up and said, "Hey, it does bring in a hefty paycheck, and you're not often bored!" He supposed that was his pre-Meteor optimism, because the AVALANCHE deal had made everyone think they were freelance heroes and no one needed an assassin anymore. Sure, they had regular jobs, but not anything nearly as interesting as their once-ordered "Blow up this building, kill this guy, and take these drugs from him."

Reno also had to admit, he was bored as hell half the time now. Shooting someone who stole company property just didn't require the skills that a three-month drug cartel infiltration did.

Possibly his biggest gripe as of late was that he hadn't been shot at in months. Two years after Meteor, everyone was solving their own problems, crooks got sloppy, and the crime rate plummeted. Reno hadn't taken a bullet since Barret Wallace, and no one had tried to shoot him since the largest mission between then and now, which was to cut down an entire gang.

The excitement just wasn't there anymore.

And Reeve had taken the company for a complete spin, this time saying they were going to be good. Good. "Yeah," had said Rude, "good. The biggest fucking joke in history; ShinRa turning a new leaf." But the Turks still did the same work they always had, just this time more orderly.

Even Elena said she missed Rufus' policy of "bring me the head of the guy and hear nothing else on it." Now Reeve required mission reports. How it went, how many shots were fired, how long it took, how much resistance there was, if it appeared to be a set-up, what time it took place, how many civilians died, how many criminals died, how many were sent to the hospital, how many got away, how much damage was caused to the area, how the Turks were feeling, if any of them had been shot at. . .among many other things in those nine-page reports.

Sometimes, Reno wanted to kill him.

Which brought him back to his list of people to kill. Lately, he'd been thinking about a rampage on department store Schmidts to make a statement. Reeve had given the Turks and a handful of selected employees a few weeks off for Winter Day, which was welcomed whole-heartedly.

After nearly half an hour of a thought process that spun circles in the mulling over why Winter Day really existed, Reno decided his feet were cold enough to piss him off and it was time to get some shoes and dive down for his cigarettes. He disappeared inside for a moment, slipped on his shoes minus socks, and then reemerged onto his roof just in time to hear a shrill cry from up the block.

"Tuuuuuurkeeeeeey!"

He nearly had his gun in his hand when the call had started, and then he'd just sighed in exasperation, slipped, and tumbled off of his roof. Luckily, it was a five foot fall and all he could complain about was being really cold. Yuffie Kisaragi had decided to attach herself to him for the past few years, coming at random times and staying for days on end when Godo kicked her out.

Reno couldn't truly complain; she was excitement, for a change. That and she could cook, which was a lot more than he could. Too bad for her, his guest bedroom was filled with a lot of shit this time around.

"Heeeeey Tuuuuuurkeeeeeeey!!"

She was definitely headed this way, he reasoned, and leaned against the garage door. Well, really, there was two feet of garage door and then his back rested on the side of the house, but it was still garage door under all this mess. "Mess," said his other side, "means you find it a hassle."

Hey, maybe he did have a bit of independence after all.

The figure that skidded around the fence was amusing all on its own. In her old, AVALANCHE battlegear minus the weapons, Yuffie Kisaragi snowboarded right into his driveway with a load of baggage on her shoulders. It may have been more graceful if she hadn't run directly into his antenna, wobbled, and fallen over with another cry, but it was still something to behold nonetheless.

After a moment of groaning and cursing her luck, Yuffie rolled over and looked up at him, smiling as widely as ever. "Heya, Turkey."

He just looked at her with a bit of amusement and pointed to the car. "Dig it out and I'll bum you a smoke," was all he said before jumping up, hauling himself onto the roof by the gutter, and disappearing through his bedroom window once more.

Definitely something akin to the welcome she'd expected, reasoned Yuffie.