Author's note: A quick check-in with the Mannings, 23 years after that Christmas present. You know which one.

Blair had never been bad at thinking on her feet. She needed to convince a rich man that marrying her had been his own idea? No problem. She needed to worm her way out of the trunk of a car that was headed for a crusher? Been there, done that.

Sometimes, though, she wished that her life required fewer on-the-fly adjustments.

This was most definitely one of those times.

She had planned a wonderful Christmas celebration. The presents were wrapped and the house was decorated. Starr and Jack would be flying home from the west coast. Blair and Todd would have all of their children around them for the next week, and even if they would be forced to engage in some less-than-pleasant visits with assorted Lords and Cramers, it would be a far cry from a pity party in a ratty room above dive bar.

Then their phones had lit with the video from Hope. It showed Starr perched high on an icy cliff, explaining to her three million YouTube followers that the common garter snake is the only snake found in Alaska.

Then Starr slipped, and she fell and fell and fell.

Hope, Blair noticed, didn't show any sign of fear as her mother fell. Hope believed that her mother was immortal.

Blair knew better.

Suddenly she and Todd were scrambling to find a way to travel three thousand miles two days before Christmas.

They got updates as they bribed and argued their way onto overbooked flights. (Todd's first instinct had, of course, involved a private jet but crowded airways and December weather had made that impossible.) Jack had managed to get himself up the coast from his college in California to meet Starr, Travis, and Hope at the hospital. It gave Blair some reassurance when Jack texted that he had arrived and concluded that it took more than a fall to do any damage to Starr's hard head.

But Blair wanted to see for herself.

Her worst fears were confirmed the moment they entered the hospital. It was a small hospital, barely even worthy of the name. In the front lobby sat a tree every bit as sad as the one that had graced Todd's room so many years before.

It wasn't the decor that bothered her.

It was that she could hear Starr crying.

She and Todd didn't bother to ask directions or permission as they stormed toward the sound.

"Shorty!" Todd's shout made Starr's sobs choke off abruptly.

"You didn't have to come all this way," she said. "I'm fine."

Leaning over her bed, Jack rolled his eyes and backed away.

"There's a finite amount of money that can fix this," said Todd.

Jack snorted with laughter; Todd whirled on him, hard. "Money can fix everything," Todd scolded.

"Not this," said Jack with a smirk.

Starr threw her pillow at Jack.

Blair was suddenly less worried than she had been for the past twelve hours.

"I want to talk to Mom," Starr declared forcefully. "Dad, can you and Jack go to that bar next door or something?"

"No," said Todd. "I will not."

It was Starr's turn to roll her eyes, although the expression lost some of its effect when the eyes in question were red and swollen. "The video makes it look way worse than it was. That's why Hope sent it. She knew it was no big deal."

"Where is Hope?" asked Blair. She would have expected Hope and Travis to be standing vigil over Starr's bed alongside Jack.

Starr was silent.

"She was tired," said Jack. "Travis took her to a hotel room so she could sleep."

"Please, Dad, I want to talk to Mom," Starr begged. "Alone."

"All right," agreed Todd at last. His whole body stiffened, as if it was taking every bit of his strength to acquiesce to Starr's request. He kissed her on her forehead, then grabbed Jack by the shoulder to steer him toward the door.

"We'll call you in half an hour," promised Blair.

Todd barely grunted in response.

"Travis asked Starr to marry him," said Jack without preamble once they'd darted next door into the bar. "He was going to do a big fancy proposal on Christmas, but seeing her fall off that cliff scared him so bad he popped the question as soon as he realized she wasn't dead."

Todd's chest tightened and his vision swam as he remembered the sight.

Jack's fingers fastened themselves around Todd's arm with a tight grip. If any other man had grabbed Todd that hard, Todd probably would have punched him before he'd even thought things through. "She's fine, I told you. Nothing wrong with her that wasn't wrong with her already."

"You could have phrased it more tactfully than 'she fell off a cliff,'" Todd complained, gesturing to the bartender that he was in dire need of beer. "You want a Shirley Temple?" he asked, naming the drink that had been Jack's semi-ironic choice for years.

Jack shook his head. "Whatever's on tap," he told the bartender, and produced his ID without being asked. The bartender squinted hard at the ID, and at Jack, and at the ID again before nodding his consent.

"As many times as you took swan dives off cliffs, I would have thought you wouldn't worry at all when your mini-me did it too," Jack continued when the bartender had retreated, leaving them with two identical frothy beers. "Like that time when I was fifteen and we jumped off the roof of the warehouse into the river so we wouldn't get shot. You weren't worried. You just told me to look at the bubbles when I hit the water so I'd know which way was up."

Todd gulped his beer hard so a lump wouldn't rise in his throat at the memory. "First time you ever called me 'Dad' after the whole eight years thing."

"I'm sorry about all the Scarface stuff back then," said Jack seriously.

Todd brushed the apology off."You had every right in the world to be angry and confused and whatever else you were. No kid should have been in that situation. It's the way you grew out of it and into the man you are now that counts. It's been an honor to watch you, Jack."

Jack ducked his head toward his beer, clearly too embarrassed to reply, so Todd returned his attentions to his firstborn. "Travis proposed and Starr had a level three nervous breakdown?"

Jack nodded. "They've been together for five years. She was, like, thirteen the first time she tried to run away with him. He follows her around the world to every crazy place she goes looking for psycho animals. He thinks her science jokes are funny. Hope thinks of him as her father in every way but name. But Starr was totally shocked. The real reason Travis took Hope away was to keep her from seeing Starr completely hysterical, and obviously Starr doesn't even want to look at Travis. It's ridiculous."

Todd raised an eyebrow. "Yes, God forbid Starr even take five minutes to consider whether she's ready to commit the rest of her life to one man."

"She's already committed. She's done everything but put the ring on her finger."

"So you think they should just get married."

"Not if she doesn't want to."

"All right, then," said Todd noncommittally.

Jack turned to stare at his father. "You're taking this really well."

"I've always known that any man Shorty married wouldn't be good enough for her. And I think you and your mother and I all saw the writing on the wall years ago that it was going to be Travis."

"Yeah, but… everything," said Jack. "You let Starr talk to Mom instead of you even though she's supposed to be your little Shorty who made the sun come out."

Todd decided against being insulted because Jack wasn't wrong. "I was a little bit jealous," he conceded. "But your mother doesn't get to have this drink with you and I do, so she should be jealous too."

"Didn't you tell Starr before I was born that Mom couldn't love both of us and she was choosing me so Starr would choose you?"

"Something like that. But I think you know I don't do things like that anymore."

"I do."

"It's been better for all of us, hasn't it? The first year after I got back was rough, I'm not denying that. But these last five years? They've been the best of my life because I didn't waste energy trying to pit my kids against their mother or against each other."

"Yeah."

To Todd's surprise, Jack leaned into him just slightly. Todd registered for the first time how very tired Jack looked. The beer probably wasn't helping. "When did you start drinking?"

"After soccer ended."

"You've never drunk in the off-season before."

"I've never been old enough before." Todd smiled to show that he knew how little that mattered, not least because Todd himself had started offering alcohol to his son in private when Jack had been about sixteen. Jack laughed. "There was always another season before, but this was the last one."

"It's not too late to reconsider playing professionally after you graduate this spring." Jack, with his shelves of trophies and All-American designations, wasn't good enough to be a star, but he was certainly good enough that some team in some league would put him on a roster.

"Nah." Jack shook his head. "I miss it, but I don't want it. Did you ever get to a place like that with football?"

Todd considered how to answer that without completely derailing the conversation. "For one thing, my football career came to an abrupt and ignominious end, so I never had a chance to think about it. For another thing, most of the reason I played in the first place was to try to make my father happy."

"Did you ever wish I played football instead of soccer?"

"Shit, no!" Todd exclaimed, horrified by the possibility. "The concussion thing alone… no. But— and don't repeat this to your Aunt Dorian— I did love that you played something as well as you did. I liked seeing that part of me in you. It's like you got everything that's good in me and none of the bad."

It escaped Todd's notice until he said it out loud that that was the kind of thing he had always said about Starr.

It also escaped Todd's notice until he said it out loud that the last thing he wanted to do was give Jack the idea that he had hitched his admiration for Jack to Jack's physical prowess. That was treading a little too close to Peter Manning's preferred territory.

"I loved that you were such a good leader that your teammates wanted to run through walls for you and your coaches adored you. I loved those notes from your professors about how impressed they were that you balanced athletics and academics. I loved that you cared enough to be willing to give up alcohol and try yoga if it was going to help with your training."

"That's just normal. Hardly any of my teammates drink during the season, and the coaches tell us to go to yoga."

"Sports has changed since I was your age," said Todd, not for the first time. (The first time had been the time he'd actually gone with Jack and two of his teammates to one of those yoga classes and wondered aloud if the same person had gotten to the three-legged dog and the one-legged pigeon.) "None of my teammates would have been caught dead doing the demented cobbler."

"Reclining cobbler," said Jack, who had heard the joke before. "And thanks for coming to that class with us. Most of my teammates' fathers wouldn't have done that."

"They didn't know what it was like to wonder whether they'd ever see their children again, so they didn't know enough to grab at every opportunity."

Jack leaned in closer once again. "Starr's going to be fine, Dad."

"Mom! I'm so glad you're here!"

As if it wasn't alarming enough for Blair to see her firstborn lying in a hospital bed, Starr burst into fresh tears. Blair crossed the room in one long stride and gathered Starr into her arms. Starr scooted to the far edge of the bed and pulled Blair up beside her. "Anything hurt?" Blair asked as Starr continued to cry.

"No," Starr muttered into Blair's chest. "Everyone made too big a deal out of it."

Falling off a cliff was no big deal. Yes, Starr was Todd's daughter.

"If they won't release me tonight, I'll leave against medical advice and we can fly back to Llanview anyway. We all need to be together for Christmas."

"We will have Christmas together when you're well enough to travel and not a moment before. Or we'll fly Sam and Sage out here as soon as we can get tickets. But if all of this is no big deal, why are you crying?"

"Travis asked me to marry him."

Blair breathed a sigh of relief. Starr's rather dramatic reactions to her romantic life were well-traveled ground. This, Blair could handle.

"I can't say I'm surprised, Beautiful. The two of you have been together for almost five years, right? And he's carried a torch for you for half his life."

"I shouldn't have been surprised," said Starr. "Hope wasn't surprised. Jack wasn't surprised. But I didn't see it coming. I guess I just ignored the signs. I didn't want to see."

"And why is that?"

"Because if I get married…" Starr trailed off with a grimace and a shudder.

"Since when are you against marriage? You spent your whole childhood trying to frog march your father and me down the aisle."

"Exactly!" Starr exploded.

"I'm not following you," said Blair.

"Over and over, I pushed you to marry Dad when it was usually a bad idea. Except for when I was pushing you to marry Dad's impostor, and that was even worse! You said he raped you, and instead of believing you, I went on a hunger strike!"

"You were a child."

"Hope is a child."

"Has Hope gone on a hunger strike to get you to marry Travis?"

"No, but she's known for weeks that was planning to propose. Not just suspected. Apparently she's suspected for years. But for weeks she helped him brainstorm about how he was going to propose and she never even told me."

Blair chuckled wryly. She did know that feeling. "Why is that a problem?" she asked.

"Because when I was a kid my judgment was terrible and maybe Hope's is too."

"Did Hope do anything to bring you and Travis together, or have the two of you been thick as thieves since the winter you spent in Paraguay when Hope was home with me?"

"You know how we got together."

"Have you been unhappy with Travis?"

Starr shrugged. "We've fought. But not much. Mostly it's been great."

"Do you love Travis?"

"Completely."

"Do you want to be with someone else?"

"No. I can't even remember the last time I looked at another man like that." She shivered. "Well, the last time I really looked at another man like that it was Rick Powers. Rick Powers! The most disgusting man on earth and I had sex with him and it was good."

Blair tried not to cringe visibly. "Good sex and the right person don't always go hand in hand, Starr. But you knew Rick wasn't the man for you."

"I thought James was the man for me, but then I laughed about his brother being crushed to death by a chandelier and he never spoke to me again."

"That is unfortunate," Blair agreed.

"And of course Hope's real father is in prison for shooting a horrible man I wanted you to marry."

"Also unfortunate," Blair confirmed.

"When I was asleep in the ambulance on the way here, I had a dream that I fell in love with Tomas Delgado. I was in prison and he broke me out using a scarf full of cheese, and I just started kissing him."

"Unfortunate and probably the result of painkillers a paramedic gave you along the way. None of this has anything to do with Travis."

"Yes, it does. It's all examples of my bad judgment."

"Very few of the examples you've given me have anything to do with your judgment." Blair shifted on the bed so that Starr was resting more comfortably in her arms but still able to meet her eyes. "What are you afraid of, Starr?"

"I'm afraid that if we get married everything that's wonderful will turn horrible."

"Your father and I are married, and things have only gotten better since that happened."

"This time," said Starr. "When Jack and I were already grown up. But the last time you got married before Dad, everything seemed great with Eli and then he tried to kill you. And the last time you were married before that, I don't know, that weird thing with John McBain doesn't count. But the last time you married Walker, you didn't want to admit it, but you were both so happy. And then out of nowhere he's obsessed with my sex life and would rather see me dead than pregnant. If you get married at my age, bad things happen right away."

"I would tell you that you can tell Travis that you don't want to get married yet," Blair began, but Starr interrupted.

"That won't work. It's like we were flying under the radar, and now that Travis has brought it up, either we're deciding to do something or deciding not to. It isn't that we just happened to be together and loving our life. Now everything's ruined."

"You're too smart to believe that there are rules like that," said Blair quietly.

"I'm too experienced not to believe that there are rules like that," Starr retorted.

"I remember the first Christmas I spent with your father," said Blair, and Starr perked up instinctively. She had spent too many years revering her parents' love story to do anything but perk up, no matter what doubts she might have developed in retrospect. "I told your father that the only rule was that there were no rules, except for one rule."

"What rule was that?"

"No love."

Starr looked amused in spite of herself.

"Starr, I know what it is to want to control everything, to want to find something that makes the universe make sense. Your father and I didn't want you to have the lousy childhoods that we had, and you didn't. But you had a whole lot of… events that weren't exactly conducive to a great childhood."

"I did have a great childhood."

"And you might have a great marriage in spite of all the surprises that the world has in store for you and Travis and Hope. You can't stop the surprises. You can't trick them by not wearing a diamond ring. Of course, if you really don't want to marry Travis—"

"I really, really do."

"Then you should tell him that."

"I will. I will just as soon as I break myself out of this place."

Blair smiled fondly. Starr's dramatics often simmered down as quickly as they simmered up— even if, as in this case, her dramatics were based in something real. Feelings changed. People changed. Challenges arose that weren't anyone's fault.

When a nurse arrived with the news that Starr could, in fact, be discharged, Blair excused herself to tell Todd and Jack the good news in person. Maybe they would be able to get back to Llanview for the Christmas she'd planned after all.

Todd and Jack slid to their feet when they saw Blair.

"You left her alone?" Todd demanded, and Blair would have been offended if she hadn't known how worried he was.

"She's in the process of being discharged and we need to start working on a way to get back to Llanview." A beer Blair hadn't ordered appeared in front of her, but she decided that she didn't mind at all.

"Is Travis allowed to come?" asked Jack.

"He is."

"So she's going to marry him?" asked Todd.

"She is."

Jack raised his beer. "I guess that calls for a toast."

"To Starr being discharged," said Todd.

The three of them drank to that.

"To Starr and Travis," said Blair.

They drank again.

"To Starr marrying someone who isn't Cole," said Jack.

They drank just a little bit more deeply to that.

The End, and Merry Christmas.