Author's note: This was written for the Writers Block Party holiday story exchange, because everybody loves a prompt for Christmas!

This also the first fic I've ever written to warrant a T rating! Smut, what smut?

Thank you for reading and please review!

Last Christmas

It had started when he'd agreed to go through the boxes from the house in Norfolk in search of Christmas decorations. Every object seemed to have a weight to it, a significance, and he could picture where almost all of them had been placed in the home he'd shared with his wife and family before the world went to hell. And then, when he finally found the box of Christmas tree ornaments, he discovered that Darien had put the DVD of their last Christmas together in the same box - not that she'd known it would be their last Christmas. She'd probably thought it would be a nice way to ensure they watched the home movie in subsequent years.

He was being selfish, Tom knew that. Watching it alone in the dark, not sharing it with the kids, but he just couldn't. Seeing their innocent, excited faces, looking so much younger than they were now, as they helped their mother decorate the tree, felt like a glimpse into a different world, and he wanted to keep it to himself, just for now. He wanted to remember the feeling of that house at Christmas, the sounds and the smells, the gingerbread cookies and twinkle lights.

He watched as his late wife's face filled the screen, laughing and protesting as he filmed her. She had been beautiful, Darien. Strong, caring, and an incredible mother. But it wasn't just his wife he was in mourning for as he sat in the dark, it was that house, that family, the future they would now never have, the whole life he'd had before. And more than that, the security of knowing who he was, his values and the framework within which he operated, his place in the world.

He tore his gaze away from the screen and stared at the Christmas tree instead, which stood in the corner of the living room in the apartment they now called home; the tree the kids had decorated earlier. Ashley, such a teenager now, but returned to childish wonder for a precious hour by the act of hanging paper chains and placing baubles. And Sam, so sunny natured always, despite everything, almost incandescent with happiness as he helped his sister.

"You'd be so proud of them." He murmured, his focus shifting to Darien's picture on the mantle. "So proud."

Would you be proud of me, too? He wondered. What would you think of the things I've done? It brought him back to the questions he always landed on in his head; the lives saved against those lost, the decisions he'd made, each of them with a stark set of pros and cons. The exhaustion of leadership, the battle not to second guess yourself.

He rubbed his hands over his face. The quiet moments were the worst ones for all of them, the survivors, the moments where doubt and grief and exhaustion started to creep in, and all too often these days, he was the one doing the reassuring and the comforting, even when inwardly he was howling his own pain. In the world before, Darien had always been there for him, to hold him when he came home from long periods away, to listen as he poured triumph and defeat and glory and poison from his mind. She was a step removed, always; he never had to feel guilty about accepting her comfort, because she hadn't seen what he had seen, she wasn't suffering herself. And now they all suffered, they all struggled, and he fought his demons alone.

He quickly dropped his hands from his face as Sasha came into the room, blinking sleepily, dark hair uncharacteristically mussed, long legs bare beneath an oversized cotton t-shirt.

"Hey," She said gently, "What's going on?" She looked at the flickering TV screen, watching silently for a moment before murmuring, "The kids look so young."

So do I, Tom thought, but he didn't say it.

Sasha came to sit beside him, touching his shoulder. "Talk to me, please."

"I still feel like I could just catch a plane and be there." He said slowly, "I know I can't, but that's how it feels. Like that world is still happening somewhere close, just not here."

"Parallel universe." She nodded. "I feel the same. I think most of us do."

"You know they found an actual trauma counsellor," He commented, "In the Pacific Northwest. They're going to have him focus on the kids who lost both parents but survived. There's more of them than we thought-" He broke off abruptly as something surged into his throat, jamming his voice. He fought down the swell of unexpected grief.

"Everybody lost somebody." Sasha murmured.

He finally turned to look at her, seeing concern and compassion in those bold blue eyes. She reached up and touched his face, and he leaned in and kissed her softly, but she wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly. There was no passion, just comfort, and he found himself pressing his face into her neck, her hands stroking his head, as he breathed deeply. There were moments when it all just became too much - the loss, the scale of it all, the unrelenting challenge - and he never let himself feel it too deeply, because he was afraid that if he did, if he allowed himself to truly surrender, even for a moment, he'd never get the doors closed on it again.

But sitting here in a room lit by twinkle lights on a Christmas tree, his children sleeping peacefully in their rooms, stockings hung hopefully at the ends of their beds - even if Ash at least was a little old for that - and the soft warmth of Sasha in his arms, against his will he felt the wall crack a little, and his eyes grow moist.

"It's okay," Sasha murmured, and he pressed his face more tightly into her shoulder as the dam threatened to burst. He'd cried for Darien, and he winced still at the memory of drunken ramblings and the comfort of his friends, but that had been precise, targeted pain. What he felt now was the weight of it all, pressing down on his chest, forcing the air from his lungs in gasps, and the tears from his eyes, as he clung to Sasha and finally let it go.

It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours, the waves of his grief pounding against the solid rock of the woman who loved him. But when it was over and he was done, her hands were still anchoring him, her body holding him up. He raised his face and the look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know.

He glanced towards the mantle, and took in both Darien's image, and the clock beside it.

"It's Christmas." He said, his voice rasping in his dried out throat.

"It is." Sasha agreed, and she laid a soft kiss on his forehead. "Happy Christmas, Tom." It sounded like a promise more than a greeting, and he managed a half smile as he responded in kind.

"Happy Christmas, Sasha."