She was humming. The way that women do when they are quietly happy or content. He barely remembered his mother doing it when he was a child. Nathan's mother had done it sometimes. Other friends' moms had as well.
Currently, she was humming a tune he also barely remembered as she measured out flour for the cookies she was making.
Duke lowered the newspaper and watched his wife for a moment when the humming lapsed as she re-read the recipe. Every other cookie recipe she seemed to know by heart or was comfortable with winging it. But for some reason, with this recipe, she doubted herself. The recipe her mother had taught her was one that couldn't ever be left to chance. He understood it without being able to name it. All the anxieties and happy expectations, all of the nostalgia for her parents and her dreams of being a parent herself would be expressed in Christmas Ginger Cookies and a thousand other precious traditions that she would share and that the two of them would create together and pass on to the tiny little bump of a baby that was within her now.
She softly sang the next lines of the ancient carole as she began to spoon the dry ingredients into the large mixing bowl of sugars, butter and molasses and spices.
"...the rising of the sun, the running of the deer, the playing of the merry harp and sweet singing in the choir..."
By the time she ended the refrain he was behind her, wrapping himself around her, breathing her in and - for the maybe the millionth time and certainly not the last - settling his hand over her abdomen in his own compulsive gesture of affirmation. That she was real. That they were real. That all was well. If her traditions were to be those of comfort and celebration, his were to be those of protection and preservation. The fear and the violence would never be far enough in the past for him to forget. There would never be a day he wasn't ready to kill to defend her or bring her back.
She looked up at him with a smile as she stirred the forming dough, the song fading again.
"I like that song," he told her.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"It's my favorite," she admitted and began from the beginning, singing quietly, still mixing the dough and letting him sway the two of them back and forth to a slower rhythm.
He would never understand how she could follow his rhythm and maintain her own without effort. It was among the tiniest of her miracles.
As the dough thickened and got more difficult to manage he took over for her and she stepped away to clear some space to roll it out, and set out the Christmas shaped cookie cutters, the song ending as he up-ended the mixing bowl and turned the lump out onto the surface that seemed decorated with swirls of her fingerprints in flour.
He stepped back and leaned against the counter, pinching some dough off and smirking at his height advantage when he raised his hands too high for her to slap at.
"You know any others?" He asked, popping his ill gotten gains in his mouth. It tasted good. A spicy-sweet blend that felt like pulling a warm blanket over yourself in the cold dark. Perfect for a Winter's night.
She smoothed some flour onto the rolling pin and began another carol.
"I saw three ships come sailing in..."
He smiled and watched her work. Her dark hair had grown long and was pulled into a loose knot near the crown of her head. Soft tendrils were constantly escaping in various kinds of curls down her neck, curving along her cheeks until she absentmindedly tucked them behind her ears. Stubborn as the woman they adorned, they always found their way back to her face. He leaned over to kiss her cheek in camaraderie with the unruly curls and this time snagged a freshly cut star to gobble down.
"Duke!" It was equal parts chiding and laughing. "Save some for the actual cookies!"
"I will. I will. Say... Who do you think is going to be eating these things tonight anyway? I mean... I hate to break it to you..." He feigned trying to struggle with the right words. "I mean, did your parents ever tell you... Did they ever give you the talk about...?"
"About being wary of pirates after my cookies?" She laughed at her own innuendo. "No. I had to discover that danger on my own."
She made a little show of body-blocking him from the cut out pieces of dough as she put them on the parchment lined pan and slipped them into the oven. Her brow furrowed slightly as she set the timer and he waited patiently for what was in her thoughts to come out.
"It's just that, this is our first Christmas together, and the last one we will have as just the two of us. I don't know..."
She looked up at him, willing him to understand that this was like a rehearsal for all the Christmases to come.
"And this Christmas, and the next, and the next are going to beautiful. They don't have to be perfect, they just have to be ours, Jennifer."
She nodded and returned to the remaining cookie dough, getting it ready for its own turn in the oven, beginning another song.
"Have a holly jolly Christma -"
She drew up short and her hands fluttered over her belly.
"Jen? You okay?"
He hated the cold dread that washed over before she turned to look at him with wonder.
"I think I felt a flutter. It's too soon for that though? Isn't it? But I'm pretty sure I felt a flutter."
He shrugged, not giving into the fear but not quite letting it go either, and stepped back toward her.
"You feel okay though, right?" He persisted. If something went wrong with this pregnancy, they would hold each other through it. As long as he had her, he could stand anything. They could try again...
"Duke, I'm fine. I am. I feel great." She took his hand and held it over the little swell in her abdomen and watched him for a reaction. He watched her face for clues as to when he should feel something.
Nothing.
"Maybe try singing again?" He prompted softly. She had done it again. Her bright smile and dark eyes somehow shining enough light and warmth on him to chase away the habitual fear and doubt.
She giggled with sudden and misplaced nervousness. Rolling her eyes away with the silliness of it, but began again.
"The holly and the ivy, when they are both -"
He couldn't feel it with his own hand, but he felt it through her.
"Did you?"
He shook his head but smiled as he knelt down in front of her, closing her - closing THEM - in his embrace.
"Not yet." He would have to be patient. He didn't mind. He already had so much more than he had learned to hope for.
He placed a kiss where their baby was growing.
"I think Holly isn't quite big enough for me to be able to feel what she's getting up to in there."
"Holly?"
Her fingers threaded through his hair, tickling at the curls at the back of his neck. She had been a little less than pleased that it had been cut in her absence.
"Yeah. I think that's what she wants her name to be."
"You think it's a girl?"
"I know it is."
"Oh. Reealllyyy?" Mild mocking from his sassy wife.
He looked up at her and let the gravity of his certainty leave her breathless.
"I really am that lucky," he whispered.
Five months later, Holly Jennifer Crocker proved him right.