The moment Jack put a foot inside the hub, he was completely stunned.
"What the...?"
Everything was covered in Christmas decorations. There were lights everywhere, red ribbons, paper starts and even a dancing Santa. It was madness.
"Oh, hello sir!" Ianto appeared from behind the enormous Christmas tree placed right at the centre of the room, perfectly decorated in silver and red.
"Ianto...what did you do to my hub?"
"Well, I thought a little bit of Christmas atmosphere could be good for moral. I want to surprise everyone tomorrow morning."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "A little bit?"
Ianto took a look around. "Well...I might have let this slip away from me."
"I can see that." Jack was examining what looked like a very suspiciously angry reindeer placed on top of one of the computers. "What's the deal with this thing? It looks like he wants to murder me."
"I think it's cute."
"Do you? Really? And...what is this smell? It's delicious."
"I made Christmas cookies."
Jack smiled. "Of course you did."
He knew he should be annoyed by all this, but Ianto was just so damn cute in that moment, in the middle of the room, struggling to untangle yet another bunch of Christmas lights.
Jack moved toward him, took the lights away from his hands and threw them away. He took Ianto's face in his hands and kissed him. Once they parted, he pointed right over their heads: "mistletoe!"
Ianto smiled, his arms still around Jack. "Merry Christmas eve, sir."
There was not much more decorating going on that night, as they discovered how romantic Christmas decorations could be.
So...first Christmas as a married woman. Strangely enough, it did feel different.
She and Rhys had decided to just bail on their family and spend their first Christmas alone to make up for all the time Gwen had to spend at work every day. Jack even promised her a full 24 hours off "as long as the world wasn't ending."
So now they were sitting on the floor, right next to their Christmas tree, like normal people, opening up their silly gifts. They had this tradition of buying each other a bunch of crappy, ridiculous gifts to exchange before the real ones. That was why Gwen was now holding a giant alien puppet.
"Well, it fits with your job!" Rhys was smiling that big, childish smile.
"You are such a bloody idiot."
"I love you too," he replied, moving closer to kiss her.
Gwen thought about how close she had gotten to losing him, not that long ago, when she let her job completely mess up their relationship. She couldn't believe what a fool she had been. Right there, watching him tear apart wrapping paper, she realized he was the thing that was keeping her sane in all the madness. For all the very unexpected turns her life had made recently, he was her constant. He was still the same, silly Rhys.
"Are you kidding me?" he asked, pulling out of a box a pair of red brief with the words "Merry Xmas" stamped in the back.
"What?" she laughed, "I think they'll look great on you!"
She moved towards him, putting her arms around his neck. "...maybe you should ho try them on right now."
Owen was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, rolling his eyes every few seconds and sighing out loud even more often. Tosh really wanted to punch him.
"Owen, you really need to stop."
"I am freezing my arse off here."
"Well, I am not exactly having fun either. Believe it or not, spending Christmas Eve trapped in a car is not exactly my idea of a nice holiday."
She was telling only half the truth. If being forced into a never ending stake out wasn't ideal, spending a holiday with Owen wasn't that bad, even if he was acting like a child.
"Why, did you have plans?" he asked in a mocking tone, knowing way too well that she didn't.
"In fact, I was gonna go over to my neighbours for a big Christmas dinner." She tried to make it sound less lame than it was.
"Bet they are in their nineties and miss they grandchildren."
"No, they are not!"
"Eighties then. No way you have cool young friends."
"That's not true! I have a lot of young friends!"
"Really? Name one. And Torchwood members don't count."
It took her a moment way to long to answer.
"Thought so," Owen jumped in, an annoying grin on his face.
She turned around and stared out the window. Why was she so in love with someone who was always so mean to her?
"You know, I think it's kinda nice that old people like you," he suddenly said.
Tosh turned to look at him again, surprised.
"I mean, I get why they would love you to have you as a granddaughter." He sounded very embarrassed, like it was a terrible sacrifice for him to say something nice for once.
"Thanks." They kept eye contact for half a second before he turned away. Tosh was smiling now.
"Oh, Owen, look, it's midnight! Merry Christmas!"
And then, he did something really surprising. Something Tosh never saw coming. He leaned in and gave her a very chaste, sweet kiss on the cheek.
"Merry Christmas, Tosh."
It wasn't exactly a passionate kiss, it was more friendly, even brotherly maybe, but it was enough of a Christmas gift for Tosh.
Just a minute later, he was being rude and annoying again. But that little moment reminded her why she loved him: because deep down, there was a lot of goodness in him, and she could see every bit of it.