Disclaimer: The characters belong to Stan Lee. The Christmas Story (and title) belong to Clement Clark Moore.
A.N: Okay, so this is a follow up of 'Frere Jacques', but it doesn't need to be read to understand this story.
Summary: 'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except a girl a boy and their dog. Sue and Johnny face their first Christmas without their mother.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas.
11.30.
She had heard their father move towards his room a half-hour before, and knew that he'd be asleep by now. Slowly, quietly, she rose from her bed, slipping on her robe and slippers, and pulled her bedroom door open. Stopping then, she cocked her head to the side, listening hard.
A soft snore sounded from the room beside hers, proving that their father was asleep, and she turned on her heel then, walking back over to her bed and pulling a book out from under it, and grabbing the bear from the pillows. Again she stopped at the door, listening to the soft snores for a moment before crossing the hall and propping the book and bear up against the door opposite hers before tip-toeing down the hall, swinging the door open and petting the dog as it pushed it's nose against her hand.
She worked on instinct now, several months of an almost nightly ritual had left the lay-out of the kitchen imprinted in her brain, and she didn't need the light as she walked across the room, poured two glasses of chocolate milk, and stuffed three cookies into the pocket of her robe. She left the kitchen as silently as she'd entered, the open door the only evidence that it had had a nighttime visitor, and as she again reached the bedroom doors, she smiled to see that her bear and the book were missing from where she'd set them sentry.
With a small amount of difficulty, she managed to balance the two glasses into the crook of one arm, and tugged the door open, catching hold of the leather collar as the dog came sniffing around her, and she eased the door back closed.
Johnny was sat on the bed, lit only by the lava lamp on his desk, she could see the redness of his eyes, and the tear tracks on his cheeks, and set the two glasses on the side table before enveloping her brother into a hug.
"Sorry Sue," he whispered, hugging her back, and she merely smiled and shook her head. Johnny had been unbearably naughty the past few weeks, getting more and more troublesome in the build up to Christmas, and Sue knew that it was because he missed their mother, was unsure of how he should act on this Christmas, the first that they would have without their mother.
Sue pulled away from him at that moment, reaching into one pocket of her robe and producing a tissue, and as she dried the tears from her brother's face, she dug into her other pocket, and pulled out the three cookies with a smile, and soon the three – two children and the dog – were sat on the bed, happily eating biscuits.
"We can still read the story?" Johnny asked as Sue pulled the large book onto her lap. Every year, on Christmas Eve, their mother would sit with her children in Johnny's room, and she would read to them their favourite Christmas story, it was one of the Storm sibling's favourite things about Christmas, and Sue knew that Johnny was devastated when their father had sent him to bed earlier that night – without ever once mentioning the story.
"Mom would want us to," she reassured him, finding the right page, and pulled her brother closer to her as she began to read.
When Franklin woke a few hours later, and saw on his return from the bathroom that his daughter's door was open, he moved immediately to the door opposite, and smiled to see his children both on the bed, book propped up between them, and he steeped in to take his part in the ritual, shooing the dog off the bed for a minute to lay the covers over his children, and his smile widened slightly as he realised that both of them were asleep, for Johnny had not once slept in the same room as another person since the day that their mother had died.
He would make this Christmas – their first without Mary - as enjoyable as possible for them all, he decided, gently removing the book from Sue's grasp as he pulled the covers over the sleep pair, and next year, he would be the one to read them their favourite Christmas story.