I stayed home sick today, when it happened.

I was in that sort of half-asleep state of mind you get when you have a fever, when the phone rang. My mom answered it, and a few minutes later I heard her gasp, loud and clear, even though I was upstairs in my room with the door closed and locked and she was downstairs in the kitchen. I got up, slowly, still groggy, and started lumbering down the stairs.

I heard my mom start to speak.

"Oh God, oh God, no, no, please, God, no… Oh Lord, no!"

I started walking faster, until I ran into the kitchen only to see my mom slowly sit down in a chair, pale and crying. These silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh God, no, please, not him… I-I… please, don't tell me- he isn't-"

My mom's eyes met mine, and this realization flashed in my mind. That sudden, over-whelming feeling that makes your stomach plummet and your heartbeat quicken.

Someone died.

…

There was a fire earlier today, where my uncle and aunt live with my two-year-old cousin. My uncle's a part-time firefighter, so he went out to battle the flames.

It was a big fire.

(Someone died)

…

My uncle's coworker- his friend- was consumed by the flames. Burned alive. That's all my mom told me; she refused to say anymore.

(Somebody died)

Tomorrow's god damn Christmas, and then suddenly… this.

That man, my uncle's friend, he had a family. He had a home.

And he's dead.

…

(No, no, please, anything but that. My God, heaven forbid- … I'm so, so sorry…)

…

He's dead. And tomorrow's Christmas.

…

(No, no, please! L-Lord Almighty, in heaven and in earth, please, don't- don't- why? I'm so, so sorry.)

…

I'm scared. I'm afraid.

Merry Christmas.

…

(NO!)

…

Disclaimer: Merry-freaking-Christmas.

Summary: She has good reason to hate today. And it all has to do with those damn ghosts and dolls everywhere.

…

She hates Christmas.

She hates how her teammates

(Friends, part of her mind whispers)

can just go around acting so care-free and innocent right in front of her, and not even think twice.

(Granted, they don't know about The Incident)

Raimundo is putting up decorations, and Clay is holding up Omi who is putting the golden star up on the Christmas tree, while she just sits here in her corner

(where no one can see her)

and struggles to hold it together. Because all the memories just repeatedly slam into her, again and again, and it's filling her up, pushing her to the brink-

(Not their fault, all her's. It's because of her that somebody is-)

-she takes a slow breath to calm herself down. Because she doesn't want to loose control again.

(Never again. Please, please, please, don't let it happen again!)

Her teammates glance at her, concern flashing in her eyes, but she just smiles and goes back to the book she's 'reading'.

(A Christmas Carol; by Charles Dickens. Ghosts.

How fitting.)

She wants to hurl.

She wakes up screaming. It's that age-old nightmare, one she's been having for years

(Ever since The Incident)

and it sends her teammates running into her room, all full armed, expecting some sort of attack.

When they realize it's just her, and her alone

(In an empty cold room with ashes at her feet, the wind every now and then making them swirl into little tornadoes that would normally fascinate her if she didn't know what those ashes were made of)

they stare and stare and stare, until she feels something wet on her face and she realizes she's crying.

So she stares and stares and stares right back, almost as if daring them to come near her. Rai hesitates, glances at the others and takes a step forward before she turns her back on him and burrows in her covers, pretending to be 'asleep' until the others leave.

She can still feel eyes on her though, and it isn't to hard to guess that it's Omi who lingered behind, judging by his short shadow

(nice to know someone cares enough)

that falls across her room. Eventually, he too leaves.

She goes back to the land of nightmares.

(Even though she's living one right now.)

Her dad sends her a package the next day, on the 23rd. Right smack dab on the anniversary.

It's a large box, and the others stare at it

(and by extent, her)

as she picks it up and goes into the courtyard. She slowly unpacks it, empties the big box's contents, and lines up all the china dolls in three neat rows.

(there's twelve dolls in total; a side of her lips quirk up a little in morbid amusement. Dad sent twice as many this year as he usually did.)

It's tradition for her. She does this every year. It helps reduce the pain

(at least the mental pain)

and the guilt and just the hurt, in general. It's sort of like her's and Papa's secret tradition, one they do every year.

(except this year, because she's at the temple and the others need her. Her Papa understands. She misses him, though.)

Papa also packed the gauze and bandages, along with the first-aid kit which she leaves in the box for the time being. She wraps her hands, until her small hands and forearms are completely swabbed in bandages. Then, she pulls on her favorite pair of gloves

(favorites of this year, at least)

and stares the dolls down. They look right back at.

She picks up one, that has curly dark brown hair and warm

(for a doll, at least)

brown eyes, and stares

(and stares)

(and stares)

at it for a moment, before smashing it to the ground. It explodes like a little ceramic atomic-bomb, and sends bits and pieces of sharp objects everywhere. Behind her, her friends jump a little at her unexpected burst of violence

(they don't know the half of it)

and she can feel their stares on her as she proceeds to smash another ten dolls in various ways.

(each time, she never uses her fire powers. how could she?)

Then on the last one, she stops.

It looks just like her mother.

(the reason why she's smashing all of these dolls in the first place.)

The long blonde hair-

(her mother was American; an inventor. That's how her parents met in the first place)

The tanned Californian skin-

And the eyes. Her eyes. Both Kimiko's, and Annie Reimond-Tohomiko's bright blue orbs that made people stop and do a double-take

(always staring; people had stared at her her whole life)

But the eyes in this doll weren't as alive as her mother's had been. They were devoid of life-

(just like Annie's -her mother's- eyes had been when Kimiko found her in their burning mansion, the mansion that Kimiko had set fire to in the first damn place-)

She finds herself suddenly apologizing to this doll, this cruel

(even though her father would never personally send this type of doll to her)

imitation of a woman who had been full of life and had been loved by everyone around her.

"I'm sorry." Kimiko's voice comes out jagged and whispered, and she starts to wobble, until she falls to her knees and begins outright sobbing. "I'm sorry!" She wails, and it's true because

(she's a filthy, stinking murderer)

it's all her fault that her mother's dead, because the temple hadn't found her soon enough, and she'd accidentally unlocked her powers and without any control of them Kimiko had burned her vacation home in California

(her mother's home state)

and her mother to a crisp. There wasn't anything left to salvage, by the time she was done.

Nothing but ashes.

(not even enough to fill the cremation jar she still carries around with her. in fact, it's even in her closet at this very moment.)

Kimiko passes out.

(Stress, mental pain, and the guilt of being alive can do that to you.)

When she wakes up, the others demand to know what's going on. Well, Omi's actually the only one who asks her. Clay and Master Fung just stand there, while Rai holds her.

So she tells them.

Explains how her powers over fire came to life all of a sudden, in just a random burst, when she was four, and as a result her home-away-from home in California burned down. Her father had been on a business trip at the time, but her mother was with her when it happened and-and… she hadn't been as lucky.

(she killed her own mother)

And in fact, today was the anniversary of her mother's death. December 23rd.

(her own. Damn. MOTHER.)

"God, Kimiko, you coulda told us." Rai murmured, looking at her gently.

(not staring, Kimiko thought relieved)

She just smiles and nods and gives in to the others 'I-toldja-so's' and they all spend the rest of the day as some admittedly dysfunctional family.

(they don't grasp the concept that someone DIED today. but she's strangely okay with that…

for now.)

…

She doesn't tell them that after passing out in her burning house all those years ago, Kimiko awoke to be face to face with a doll

(her mother had always loved these stupid china dolls)

with half-it's face melted -or burned- off.

Kimiko doesn't mentioned that she immediately fainted, and was only awoken when paramedics and the police responded to their neighbor's

(who lived a mile away)

reports about seeing smoke in the air.

She doesn't mention the pain of having tubes shoved down your throat because you got so much smoke in your lungs you can barely breath on you own.

She doesn't mention how many nights she and her Papa sat through, holding each other and wetting the family photo album's with tears.

She doesn't mention the funeral.

(she doesn't mention all the looks of pit she gets.)

She doesn't mention she couldn't let her mother's ashes go.

She doesn't mention any of this.

At all.

…

Have a happy holidays, readers, and appreciate being around your actually living family.

Also try to appreciate being alive in general, kay?

~OHA