Summary: Yuletide is best spent with friends and family. But nothing hurts more than when there's somebody missing, and no way to see them again. Or is there?

Disclaimer: What's more likely: college student owns beloved franchise worth billions of dollars anually in revenue and writes bad fiction about characters she created under a ghost-name and identity when she was ten years old, or broke college student writes bad fiction about characters she does not own?

Queen's Quornor: I know it's a day late, but it's getting posted prior to the new year, so it still counts. Besides, I've had plenty on my plate this past week: my father got major surgery, and I get to have my gall bladder taken out on the 2nd, two days before I spend five hours in a car on my way back to college. What a way to start off the new year! Anyway, I tried to think of something I could do involving canon characters only, and came up blank. Cloud and Tifa weren't even cooperating, thanks to last year's "The Twelve Days of Annoyances." But Akalara and Azrael piped up this morning, and when they did a few others decided to join in.

I'll Be Home for Yuletide

Tifa had been gracious this year. She had thrown a Yuletide party and invited everyone, both AVALANCHE members and Turks, and hosted it in her Seventh Heaven. Having been forewarned by Tseng about the culinary skills of the greater majority of his Turks, she had wisely decided not to ask everyone to bring food for the party. She had, however, asked the three amateur chefs in the bunch to help her cook all the food she needed.

Thanks to the quartet's efforts, there was a grand feast of finger-foods, desserts, and staples for the assembled multitude of friends and former enemies. Tifa had also replaced all the discs in the jukebox with Yuletide carols and songs, much to the displeasure of several individuals. Yuffie had gone through the bar and taped mistletoe up in every doorway as soon as she arrived, then lounged beneath the doorway to the stairs until Cloud came through.

Which had resulted in Tifa posting a sign forbidding anybody from kissing Yuffie beneath the mistletoe, and dragging Cloud back under another sprig to thoroughly erase whatever memories he had of the ninja's ambush.

The party had consisted mainly of drinking, dancing, and kissing under the mistletoe. The kids had their own holiday bash upstairs, so there would be no corruption of their innocent little minds. The Turks had begrudgingly agreed to keep all groping to a minimum while at the bar, and Barret had taken it upon himself to supervise Yuffie's behavior this year, leaving Tifa free to mingle as she pleased. Tseng had also made it abundantly clear to his Turks that any damage done to the property would be coming out of their paychecks, so they were on their least destructive behavior tonight.

Regardless, the inevitable had occurred; most of Tifa's alcohol had disappeared, the food had been demolished, most of the guests had paired off and vanished somewhere downstairs, and Reno was paying for a new front door.

Akalara had deviated from her usual practice of getting plastered with Revan, Brit, and Torr and joined Cloud and Tifa at the bar, sipping at a mojito while watching her friends party. Yuletide was her favorite holiday, a welcome change from the normal agenda of paperwork, surveillance, and assassination. She thought of this time of year as a kind of spiritual cleansing, when her soul had a chance to recover from whatever horrors she had committed as a Turk over the past eleven months. This was a time of peace, fellowship, harmony, and being with the ones you loved.

But therein lay the rub, for her and Kandi and the members of AVALANCHE, as well as Reno and Lily. They were surrounded by people they cared about, but not everyone could be there.

She thought of her son upstairs, her beloved son who looked so much like his father, and surpressed the sudden urge to cry with a healthy swig of vodka. Optimists could say whatever they pleased, but a child was little compensation for the loss of the one you loved. She thanked the gods every day for Azrael, but...

Kandi was too preoccupied with Rude to think about Zack tonight, which wasn't entirely a bad thing. She couldn't lose herself in a bottle right now, given that she was pregnant, and alcohol had long been her escape whenever the grief overwhelmed her. Akalara didn't blame her; she had often turned to booze for the same reason, though less of late. Revan had taken the bottles' place as her source of comfort, though she had never told him why she sometimes showed up at his office, kicked Torr out, and made him do paperwork over her shoulder. He had asked, but the green-haired woman would only tell him that she needed him. He knew how much Sephiroth had meant to her, and she didn't want him thinking that she was using him.

Right now her blond lover was involved in a drinking game with Reno, Cid, Yuffie, and Brit, Torr having joined the line outside the men's room a few minutes ago. They had invited her to join in, but she just didn't feel like getting smashed tonight.

"Are you sure you're all right, Ak?" Tifa asked, refilling the Turk's empty glass. "You've been really quiet tonight, and I've never seen you so....um..."

"Sober?" Akalara supplied with a lopsided grin.

"At a party, yes. You're usually drinking like a fish, not nursing a glass." The martial artist gave her the glass, taking up her own drink. "What's wrong?"

The green-haired woman shrugged and fiddled with her katana pendant. "Just thinking."

"About Sephiroth?" Cloud asked, taking a drink of whiskey.

She nodded slowly. "Can't really help it. Something in the air, I guess."

"I know what you mean. I've been thinking about Zack and Aerith a lot tonight."

"Me too," Tifa admitted, sitting on the stool she had placed behind the bar for tonight. "It's a part of the Yuletide spirit. We all get nostalgic."

"Those of us who still possess full mental capability, you mean," Cloud said, nodding towards the many drunk Turks and AVALANCHErs. "I don't think our friends could think about the past right now even if they tried."

Akalara's drink paused in mid-lift, and she turned to stare at the blond. "Since when did you start referring to us Turks as 'friends'?"

"It's rhetorical for most, but there are a few of you I consider friends." Cloud refilled his glass with the whiskey bottle Tifa passed him. "I've known you, Kandi, and Reno for years, and I've gotten to know some of you better thanks to the kids. I'll never completely think of Reno as a friend, though."

Akalara smiled and turned her attention back to her mojito, still playing with her necklace. "Understandable. But yeah, I can't really stop thinking about Seph tonight. Or any other Yuletide Eve, for that matter. I spent my first with him."

"You mean your first Yuletide?" Tifa asked.

"Yeah," she murmured, pushing some of her dark emerald hair behind her ear. "I'd never had one before, and he took it upon himself to show me the best holiday season possible. Tree, music, fire, all the usual cliches and traditions. Some of them weren't entirely successful, but he tried, and the thought's what counts. After the dinner party I threw, I spent Yuletide Eve with him on the couch under a blanket, watching holiday movies." She traced the top of the glass, her face pensive. "He gave me this necklace the next morning. Told me that whenever I wore it, put it on and took it off, I'd think of him. I've worn it every day since he gave it to me."

"You really loved him, didn't you," Cloud said softly, looking at her with sad, knowing eyes.

"Still do," the green-haired Turk replied, her voice quiet. "And always will."

ASASASASASASASASASASASASASASASASASASAS

The party had broken up at midnight, when the kids had realized that if they didn't get to sleep Santa wouldn't leave them any presents. Well, some of the kids. Andria, Azrael, Bryce, and Denzel had played along to humor the others, even egging it on with comments on how they could hear jingle bells, wings, and chocobo calls. The members of AVALANCHE were staying at the bar for the night, but all the Turks had elected to go home.

Akalara had loaded Azrael and Revan into Kandi's car, refusing to drive her own despite only being buzzed. Her red-streaked friend agreed to drop them off at their apartment, then take Akalara to get her car tomorrow. Revan had been conscious enough to make it to the apartment, but headed straight for the master bedroom as soon as his green-haired girlfriend scanned her palm and opened the door. Azrael had followed his example after telling his mother good-night, though Akalara had heard the tell-tale cutting and taping of gift-wrapping through the door shortly thereafter. Once assured that her man and son were both in bed, the green-haired woman had commenced searching through the apartment for the gifts she had hidden weeks ago and putting them under the tree.

At last she sat on the couch and put her palm pilot away, deleting the list of Yuletide gift hiding places with a sigh of relief. Crazy holiday shopping, finished. Wrapping, done. Silver-haired son, presumably asleep. Drunk boyfriend, passed out. All that was left for her to do was lay back and relax with a glass of eggnog.

What a wonderful way to bring back her melancholy.

Cloud and Tifa had only made her feel worse, though that hadn't been their intention. The conversation had turned to memories of Sephiroth and Zack, with Tifa mostly listening and commenting on the stories told by the swordsman and the Turk. Tifa's one story of the pair did not end well, so she had told Akalara only of the journey up to the reactor, not the aftermath. Listening to the story and knowing what had happened, Akalara could mentally tick off the exact points when things had gone wrong, when Jenova had started to reach out to her silver-haired lover even before he had set foot in the reactor. Cloud had immediately supplied a more humorous tale about Zack and Sephiroth, but Akalara hadn't been able to forget the thought that he had been suffering.

She wrapped her hands around her eggnog and snuggled deeper into her blanket, watching the snow blowing around outside. It made sense that Sephiroth had remembered a little bit of Nibelheim; he had been born there, after all. But she knew him. Not knowing why he had such vague half-memories would have bothered him intensely, like an unscratchable itch. When confronted with a problem, he couldn't fully concentrate on anything else until he had a logical answer. That need to find out why he could almost remember a town he had never visited before had fed right into Jenova's hands, along with the need to verify or deny whatever she had told him with truth.

That alien bitch had played on his greatest weakness, and then destroyed him.

Akalara wiped her eyes and took another sip of eggnog, her thoughts wandering to her son. Azrael had been born with Jenova cells in his body, something that had not concerned her at all until the alien became common knowledge, as well as the information that SOLDIERs - and Sephiroth in particular - had received some as a part of their training and conditioning. Monica had told her that Azrael had suffered a massive case of Geostigma, almost dying at the end, and Akalara had almost gone mad with worry over her son because she couldn't be around him regularly when he needed her the most. Thankfully the sickness had been cured by Aerith's healing rain, and now all of Azrael's strength, speed, and agility came solely from his parents. But Akalara still had to wonder: if the rain hadn't come, or if he hadn't been cured, would Jenova have tried to possess her son after Cloud killed Sephiroth's reformed body?

You know I wouldn't have let her, Ak.

She smiled and ducked her head, feeling the couch dip down behind her and arms wrapping around her torso. "Would you have even had a say in the matter, Seph? You know full well how powerful she was."

Powerful or not, she would not have laid one tentacle on my son. Or you, for that matter. You carried Jenova cells, too.

"I remember. But I only had a slight case of Geostigma in comparison to some, which was probably due to the manner in which I received the cells. Baby-mother transfer and all that."

And you know what happened to my mother because of that transfer.

"Azrael didn't have nearly as many Jenova cells as you did, so I didn't end up like Lucrecia. There just weren't enough in me for that." Akalara traced her fingers over the hands clasped beneath her sternum, using her other hand to put her glass down. "But that would have destroyed me, if she had been able to get through to him. I would have had to watch my collegues hunt down our son and kill him, or even done the job myself. I couldn't have done that, Seph. I would have shot myself first."

But thankfully that didn't happen. Neither of you carry Jenova cells anymore, and nobody else on the planet does either. She has no way to come back, despite her presence in the Lifestream. Regardless, I would have destroyed both of us if she had tried to take either of you. I did it once, and I would have willingly done it again.

She nodded and leaned back against him, feeling one gloved hand rise to trace the side of her face. "I'm glad it didn't come to that. I'd rather continue this life alone and see you again in the Lifestream than be safe only at the cost of your total annihilation."

Well that's good to know. The phantom fingers lightly skimmed her cheekbone and traced the curve of her ear, sending shivers down Akalara's spine. I heard you, Cloud, and Tifa talking about me at the party.

"I figured. You're always watching over us." She closed her eyes and sighed, lacing her fingers with the one on her stomach. "Not that I mind, though."

Your personal guardian one-winged angel, he said with a chuckle. I didn't know you remembered that Yuletide so fondly. I made such a mess of some things, I believed you put the memories far out of your mind.

"I cherish all of the memories I have of you and Zack, but especially you. Besides, that was my first Yuletide. It'd be a little hard to forget it."

And this is your, what, tenth or eleventh?

"Something like that." Akalara turned her head to kiss the unseen fingers on her cheek. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight, but I'm glad you showed up. I really needed to see you, Seph."

I know. I wanted to see you too. Also, I have a gift for you.

Her cranberry eyes flew open, and she looked back where his head presumably was. "Gift?"

Yes.

"How could you have a gift for me? There aren't any malls or anything in the Lifestream. Besides, what's a better gift than being with you here, tonight?"

This.

One minute she was laying on the couch in her darkened apartment, the next she was standing in a field of flowers. Akalara stared, recognizing the field from her first brief stay in the Lifestream's meeting ground earlier that year. "I thought you said the living could only get in here under very special circumstances, Seph."

"I wasn't lying, Ak. But it's Yuletide Eve; the rules change for a few hours." She turned to see Sephiroth standing a few feet away from her with a soft smile on his lips. He wasn't an unseen presence now but visible and solid, as lifelike as the first time he had visited her. "Aerith explained that tonight the living and the dead can meet on neutral ground and interact as equals, until sunrise. It's a gift from the Goddess to all of her children, to remind them that death is not the end. Cloud and Tifa should be meeting with Zack and Aerith right now, or Zack with Kandi and Andria. Maybe all four if he doesn't take too long."

"So you already visited Az and Kandi?" Akalara asked, going to him with wide eyes.

"I did, and Lily too. Our son was busy wrapping gifts, or I would have stayed longer. He made me promise not to tell you what he got you." The silver-haired man reached out and drew her against him, holding her close. "I can tell you, however, that you'll like it."

"I'd like almost anything he gave me, and you know it." She wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes, inhaling his familiar scent deeply. How she'd missed this. "I love it when you visit, Seph, but this is so much better. Thank you so much."

"It's my gift too, Ak. I can't be with you or our son for three hundred sixty-four days out of the year, but I can for this one. I've been looking forward to this ever since Aerith told me about it." He kissed the top of her head. "It is the greatest present anybody could desire, being with the ones you love the most."

"And it's an annual gift, right?"

"Assuredly. And I'll give it to you every year until your life is finished."

She leaned into the warm solidity of her love, feeling happier than she could ever recall. "This is one gift I'll never dream of returning for something better." She lifted her head from his chest and smiled up at him, still holding him close. "Happy Yuletide, Seph."

"Happy Yuletide, Ak," Sephiroth replied, leaning down to kiss her.