Matt Anderson caught the hint of unhappiness in Emily Merchant's eyes as she stood in the Hub of the ARC, watching as Jess Parker string fairy lights around her desk. Emily chatted cheerily enough with the other woman but her smile fell when Jess stepped out to locate batteries for a particularly obnoxious musical Santa toy.
"Something on your mind?" he murmured as he came to stand beside her.
She offered a half-hearted smile and shook her head, her brown curls bouncing gently.
"It's nothing." His eyes challenged the lie in that and she glanced away from his probing gaze. "I'm feeling a little homesick is all. When I was traveling through the anomalies, we avoided any populated time periods. We lost track of dates, too busy trying to stay alive to remember the holidays. Now that I'm back in London, even though its not my London, it brings up a lot of memories."
She smothered a sigh and tried to manage a smile once more. "I knew the day I left that I would probably never see my family and friends again. I thought I had accepted that. But being here, seeing Christmas again, it reminds me of what I left behind. I don't regret the choices I made. But... there are things I miss. Especially this time of year."
Matt put a hand on her shoulder, comforting her in silence for a moment. He wanted to tell Emily that she had friends now, in this time. But he wasn't sure he felt that way himself yet, though objectively he knew it to be true, so he couldn't get the words out. It was lonely being out on one's time. At least in Matt's case, there was nothing he'd left behind that was worth missing.
Another sigh from Emily tugged at his heart and he wished there was something he could do. He couldn't open an anomaly to bring her back to Old London for a visit. As if Becker would allow them to even if the option was there. Still, perhaps there was something he could do...
… … … ...
After their earlier conversation he'd disappeared for an hour or so. He'd caught up with her again as Emily was leaving the ARC for home. Without a word, he handed her a pair of mittens and plopped a knit cap on her head. When she'd slipped the mittens on, Matt took her hand and pulled her out onto the street with him. A Clydesdale stood there, champing at its bit and snorting puffs of steam into the frigid air. Bells adorned the harness that linked it to a sleigh, complete with a driver in a top hat and cravat.
"What's this?" Emily turned to Matt with a frown of confusion.
She was a cautious one, his Emily. Being in a strange time tended to make a person careful, he knew that well enough.
"I thought it might make you feel more festive." Crossing to the sleigh, he lifted out a thick blanket and offered his hand as she climbed up. "We can look for your London under the snow, maybe it will feel more like home."
Matt settled her back in the seat, tucking the blanket around her. He gave her hat a gentle tug to make sure it was firmly on and offered her his usual fleeting smile. With a word from him, the driver set the in motion and the sleigh swished through the snowy streets.
Seated next to her, he pulled on his gloves and took both her mittened hands between his. As he chafed them gently to keep them warm, they rode through London as the city wore its air of winter wonder. Occasionally Emily would point out areas she recognized: a historical building, or a statue that had been standing in a park since her day.
Mostly they talked, two people living in a time that wasn't their own, struggling to fit. Emily described the Christmases in her home in old London: the candles on the towering tree, the manor filling with the smell of evergreen from the garlands swagged about on nearly every horizontal surface. As a child she had loved sleigh rides, and strapping ice skates to her shoes to spin around on the frozen ponds of he family's estate. After she and her siblings would tumble into the family's great-room, rosy-cheeked and dusted with snow, to roast chestnuts in the fireplace.
Matt spoke little of the future, Emily knew its bleak devastation wasn't something he enjoyed thinking about. There were no holidays there, no festivities. The only celebrating ever done there was by the survivors that lived deep underground when they gave thanks for making it through another day.
Since coming to this present, Matt hadn't really celebrated any holidays. He kept the appearance of doing so because people tended to ask questions that needed answers, but his father had been so focused on preparing Matt for his mission that both had largely forgotten to build actual lives. This year, after Gideon had passed, Matt was truly alone. He would never have a warm family Christmas as the rest of his team had experienced at one time or another.
Emily was saddened by the loneliness he never let anyone see. Anyone except her. She snuggled closer to Matt, slipping an arm through his and laying her cheek against his shoulder. He smiled as he inhaled the scent of her hair. It always reminded him of camellias.
"Cold?" She shook her head as she felt his voice rumble through his chest. Still, he reached into a basket she hadn't notice before and came up with a black thermos.
"Abby put together a basket for us, including some cocoa. I had her make it hot enough to warm us the whole ride." Fishing out a travel mug, Matt poured her a measure of the fragrant, steamy chocolate. "Don't say a word but I think she dipped into Jess's emergency chocolate stash to make it."
Emily laughed softly and swore her secrecy as she cradled the mug to her. She released Matt's arm to search her pockets.
"That must be why Abby stopped me on the way out to give me this." Matt looked down to see a small silver flask resting on Emily's mitten. It was his turn to chuckle as he took it from her. "I wondered why she thought we would have any need of spirits. Bit easier to understand now."
A generous tot of rum was poured into each mug and the two settled back, huddled close beneath the blanket. For a long moment they were content to allowing the sweet steam to warm their faces and the hot mugs to warm their hands. Just then the heavens opened up and snowflakes began to fall.
Emily turned to Matt
"I'd like to propose a toast. To Christmas. Whatever is in our pasts, or our futures," her knee nudged his thigh gently, "We shall always have this moment, this Christmas."
He tapped his mug to hers, the hot drink and fiery spirits chasing away the chill as he regarded her. Matt had always admired her fortitude. She had fought terrifying creatures in prehistory, been surrounded by baffling technology in the present, and weathered it all with grace. And still she persisted as a positive light in his life, sharing his home and his burdens. And smiling up at him with a rim of cocoa on her upper lip.
Matt's thumb darted out, swiped a bit of the sweet drink from her porcelain skin. He grinned at her consternation as he licked his finger clean. Emily was struggling out of her mittens to grope in her pockets once more for the kerchief he knew she still carried. The only woman he knew who still carried a pocket kerchief. He trapped Emily's groping hands and she had only a second to catch his rare playful smile before he kissed her.
With delicate pecks, his lips took the chocolate and Emily smiled beneath them. But then his head slanted against hers and she began to drown inside his kiss. As they were pulled through snow-clad London, nothing penetrated Matt and Emily's little world except the sweetness of their kiss and the sound of sleigh-bells.