Disclaimer: You know the drill.
AN: This years Christmas fic seems to describe how I'm feeling at the moment with Christmas. And yes, I know that it's late.
"Oh I wish it could be Christmas every day!" the song burst through the tired old speakers at the mall and Cornelia sighed. There was a time that would have sounded positively heavenly, presents every day, sweets and the general feeling of goodwill and happiness, but as Cornelia had grown older, the charm had began to wear off.
This year was probably worse, as her boyfriend of four years was caught literally in bed with two other girls, at the same time in a crude threesome and despite his determined and frequent attempts to woo her back, Cornelia gave him the same cold treatment he deserved.
And then there was the fact that she couldn't get home this year for Christmas. The roads were virtually snowed under and Heatherfield was pretty much cut off by road and Cornelia didn't have the money to get there by any other means.
Not to mention there was the small fact that her ex-boyfriend and one of her best friends were celebrating their first Christmas as a married couple and although Cornelia didn't grudge Will having Caleb, (It had been YEARS since they had been a couple and Cornelia had grown up a lot since she had been that selfish, shallow teenager she had been when she had first met Caleb) it did feel more than a little awkward to be around them.
So it was perhaps with good reason that Cornelia was feeling more than a little nonchalant about the whole season. In fact, this year she actually thought it would be a good idea to just go into hibernation for the season, if it wasn't for the small fact that she had college work to do and work and neither of them were inclined to let up just yet. And all this for the birth of a boy and given the way she was feeling about boys right now, that didn't seem so important.
With a sigh, she turned around and walked towards her car and got in. Clearly she wasn't going to get anything useful here and the repetitive Christmas music was beginning to give her a headache.
"This is the Crazy Frog!" suddenly blared from Cornelia's phone and not for the first time, she cursed Irma for setting that as her ring tone. With a quick glance at the screen, she saw that it was none other than her ex-boyfriend calling. Resisting the urge to smash the phone (to say she hated her ex would be something of an understatement) she pressed the reject call button.
"It might be the season of goodwill, but that doesn't extend to you," she muttered angrily as she started the car and drove away from the mall.
The snow proceeded to fall even harder and soon Cornelia could barely see beyond the end of her car bonnet. She was just about to try and pull over and wait the snowstorm out when suddenly something large ran out in front of her and with a sharp intake of breath, Cornelia slammed her foot on the brakes.
Unfortunately, the road was extremely icy underneath the fresh snow and instead of slowing down, her car proceeded to spin out of control to crash into a pile of snow very hard, sending her head flying forward into the steering wheel with a thump.
"Ow," she groaned as she sat back up and rubbed her head. "That hurt."
There was a loud crying noise from in front of her and Cornelia's head snapped up to see she wasn't in her car any more. In fact, it looked like she was in some kind of barn or stable or something and lying in front of her was a baby in a manger. A woman of Arabic descent, younger than Cornelia and wearing muddy-brown robes was smiling tiredly at her child and an older man who, Cornelia guessed, was her husband sat beside her with his arm around her shoulders. Neither of them seemed to have noticed Cornelia's sudden appearance.
"Where am I?" Cornelia asked, before frowning as she looked at the scene around her. There were animals all around them and a group of shepherds were paying homage to the baby, kneeling in front of it (Cornelia couldn't tell whether it was a boy or girl from what she could see.). The scene reminded her of the nativity scenes she had seen as a child, although the three wise men or whatever weren't there, they were due to turn up later if she recalled correctly.
"I must have hit my head harder than I thought," she murmured to herself as everyone continued to ignore her. "Excuse me, can yo-"
She was suddenly interrupted as someone literally walked through her and she felt her body squeezed as her body deformed with the person's passage. The person, a man with short black hair didn't seem to notice however and Cornelia gave him a thorough glare at his back, the kind she reserved for Irma when said water Guardian thought she was being funny at Cornelia's expense.
"Why don't you watch where you're going?" she hissed at him, but nobody noticed. She was about to walk away when suddenly the baby opened it's eyes and looked straight at her and although Cornelia knew that the baby couldn't see her, it seemed for a moment that he was staring at her and Cornelia felt her heart soften.
"You're a sweet little thing aren't you?" she asked as she leaned over the child and the child lifted its hand up towards her face, grabbing away at her hair. Putting her hand on the side of the manger, Cornelia sent her mind deep into the roots buried deep beneath the ground and started to coax them forth. Faster and faster they grew until a single flower poked its head out of the ground and Cornelia picked it up and placed it in the baby's hand.
"Happy birthday little one," she murmured as the world turned slowly blank.
W.I.T.C.H.W.I.T.C.H. W.I.T.C.H.W.I.T.C.H.
"Can you hear me miss?" a man asked as Cornelia slowly opened her eyes. Cornelia nodded and promptly wished she hadn't.
"Can you move at all?" he asked and Cornelia nodded again, feeling a sudden wave of nausea pound through her.
"Yes, I think so," she said uncertainly, still feeling a little shaky. "Nothing seems to be broken."
"Well we'll get that checked at the hospital," the man told her in a calm, reassuring voice. "Just to be sure. Do you think you can walk to the ambulance?"
With a click, she opened the door of her car and walked over to a waiting ambulance.
"What about my car?" she asked and for the first time she saw the owner of the voice, a bulky young man with very fair hair.
"There's a garage down the road from here. They're sending a truck to haul your car out now," he replied reassuringly and Cornelia allowed herself to be taken to the hospital. And as she travelled on, she mused over her 'dream' and wondered. Maybe it was worth remembering what it was about after all.
AN: Ok, despite being firmly in the atheist camp. I just wrote a Christmas oneshot involving the birth of Christ. The world is ending ;D