A/N This story is an expansion of chapter 26 of my story Act Out of Hope. While the story stands on its own, please be advised that there are mild spoilers for the original story. I don't own the characters, other than the original ones I create, but while I'm writing they're more mine than anyone else's.
The First Noel
Chapter One
After breakfast, Matt was so impatient for Kitty to go to the sitting room to see what Santa Claus brought her, he lifted her out of bed and carried her out there.
"I declare, Matt, you're going to have me so spoiled by the time the baby comes I won't remember how to do anything for myself!" she told him as he settled her on the sofa. Her present was next to the Christmas tree, covered with a quilt, and she waited patiently while he pushed it over to her. He pulled the quilt away to reveal a cradle, with a blue ribbon around it, clumsily tied in a bow. "I love it!" she sighed. "But how did you-when did you have the time?"
"I've been working on it since we got back from our honeymoon." She remembered the conversation they had in the buggy on the way home, when he asked her what she wanted for Christmas. "You don't need to get me anything, Matt. I have everything I could possibly want now." He insisted that he knew better than that and kept asking until she finally told him he could get something for the baby.
She leaned toward it for a better look and gasped in surprise.
"Kitty? Something wrong?"
"No…." She smiled and took Matt's hand, pressing it against her stomach. He jumped a little when he felt a tiny movement against his hand.
"Kitty, is that…"
"That's your baby, Cowboy," she whispered, turning to put her arms around his neck. "She's telling you Merry Christmas."
Matt tried to say something, but the words wouldn't go past the lump in his throat. As it so often was between the two of them, the words weren't necessary. The look in his eyes told Kitty everything he needed to say. He kissed her softly, then dropped to his knees on the floor in front of her. With one arm around her waist and the other hand still over the baby, he laid his head in Kitty's lap.
"Matt?" Concerned, she looked down at him and rested her hand on his shoulder. His next words surprised her.
"Merry Christmas, little one," he said hoarsely. "Your mama and I can't wait to see you." This brought tears to both their eyes, and they would have sat there, holding each other and their baby, for quite a while, if it wasn't for a cantankerous voice that no one would have mistaken for Santa Claus.
"Am I interrupting something?"
Matt cleared his throat several times, refusing to look Doc in the eye. "Don't you know how to knock, old man?"
Kitty didn't bother trying to hide her feelings. "Merry Christmas, Doc!" she said, smiling and wiping away her tears.
Doc took in the scene before him. "What's wrong?" he asked quietly, full of concern, as he seated himself next to Kitty on the sofa. Matt got up and sat on her other side.
"Nothing, Doc," Matt said shakily. Doc, not convinced, eyed Kitty suspiciously. Matt elbowed her gently. "Tell him you're all right, Kitty."
"We're all fine, Doc." Kitty put her arm around his shoulders. "The baby decided to make her presence known and Matt got a little overwhelmed." Doc saw that Matt's hand still rested over the baby and understood Kitty's meaning. He shook his head and swiped at his mustache.
"By golly, there's nothing like that, is there?" he asked.
"Nothing in the world like it," Kitty agreed, but Doc could see all her attention was on her overgrown former civil servant. It was positively indecent the way those two looked at each other in front of him. He ought to be used to it after twenty years.
"Some things never change," he muttered, not really expecting to be heard, but Kitty broke away from Matt's gaze and looked down at her nightgown, laughing.
"Look at me, our guests have started to arrive and I'm not dressed yet, and I've got to get dinner started." Matt and Doc stood along with her and Matt put an arm around her waist.
"Don't worry about dinner. Just go ahead and get dressed and I'll take care of everything," Matt told her, kissing the top of her head. Kitty looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Kitty, I think I can figure out what needs to be heated up and what doesn't."
"Sure, Matt," she said with a wink. He could just explain it to the guests if something happened to the Christmas dinner Bess and the girls had spent the day before preparing for them. Nothing was going to ruin her Christmas spirit this year.
Kitty stepped out of the bedroom an hour later and was greeted with the smells of ham and turkey and the sight of Doc setting her dining room table.
"Well, Doc, I didn't know you were so domestic." Doc and Matt looked up to see Kitty standing in the doorway looking like an exquisitely wrapped Christmas gift. She had applied just enough makeup to cover her freckles and her curls were swept to the top of her head in Matt's favorite style. Her Christmas dress was red velvet, trimmed with red and green plaid taffeta, with a high waistline. The full skirt draped softly over her rounded stomach, making it apparent for the first time that she was going to have a baby. Both men looked at her, transfixed. Doc was first to break the silence.
"Merry Christmas, Kitty," he said, taking a swipe at his mustache.
Matt walked around the table and took both her hands, wondering how it was possible, after twenty years together, that she could still be more beautiful each time he saw her. "Kitty," he began, wearing the little half-smile she loved. The knock at the front door startled them both and the mood was broken.
Kitty smiled ruefully. "Looks like I'm ready right on time," she said. With his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist, they went to the door to greet their guests.
The day before, Matt spent the day at the farm with Chester and Joe, leaving Kitty with Bess and her older girls. On hearing that Doc insisted adamantly that Kitty spend as little time on her feet as possible, and that Kitty even more adamantly insisted on having her Dodge City family as guests for Christmas, Bess took it upon herself to prepare the holiday dinner for her. Matt left, assured that the Ronigers wouldn't allow Kitty to lift a finger in her own kitchen. When he returned late that afternoon with the Christmas tree, Bess and her daughters were leaving, their wagon loaded with gifts and the Dillons' kitchen loaded with enough food to feed them for a week, even with Festus and Chester coming to eat the next day. Now the table was overloaded with the results of the day-long cooking session. Kitty looked at Matt, carving the turkey at the opposite end of the table, and at the guests on either side of them. Doc and Festus, for once not quarreling, sat at her left side, along with Louie, who appeared to be sober as a judge. At her right, Joe sat, seemingly awestruck at spending his first Christmas with a family since his mother died; Chester eyed the spread of food hungrily; and Newly sat quietly, no doubt thinking of his wife. She felt a pang of sympathy as she realized that if Patricia had lived, they might have a child of their own by now.
Matt finished carving and was about to begin passing the food around when Kitty stopped him. "Wait, Matt. Joe told me he'd like to say the blessing." Chester looked at his son in surprise, and everyone at the table fell silent, bowing their heads. Joe looked at Kitty shyly and she nodded at him encouragingly. "Go ahead," she whispered, and bowed her head.
"Lord, thank you for lettin' us all be here together on Jesus' birthday. Please bless Mrs. Roniger and her family for givin' us this dinner. Thank you for givin' me and my daddy a job and a place to stay on Mister Dillon's farm, and please bless the little baby Mrs. Dillon is gonna have. She wants a girl but I don't guess there's anythin' You can do about it now if it ain't. Please bless all the ma's and pa's and wives and baby sisters who can't be here with us today 'cause they're already with you in Heaven. Amen."
"Amen," the adults repeated, all of them wiping their eyes surreptitiously. Kitty kept her head bowed, resting it on one hand which covered her eyes, for so long that everyone else looked at each other, unsure of whether they should do anything.
"Kitty?" Matt asked gently.
"Oh, don't mind me," she said shakily, waving away their concern. "It doesn't take much to make me cry these days. Go on, everyone, eat! I'll be fine!" Doc reached over and took her other hand and she squeezed his hand gratefully. Joe looked a little uncomfortable at having made Miss Kitty cry and Chester whispered to him that that's just how ladies were; he'd explain it to him later.
Matt bristled a little at watching Doc comfort Kitty. He knew her pregnancy made her more emotional and by now had gotten used to it, though it didn't make it any easier to see it happen. He should have been the one sitting next to her comforting her, not stuck down at the other end of the table playing host. Once again, duty prevented him from giving Kitty what she needed. "You heard the lady," he said gruffly, picking up the platter of turkey to pass around. "Everybody eat!"