Author: Pirate Turner
Dedicated To: My beloved Jack
Rating: PG-13 for passionate kissing
Summary: Christmas is the season for wishes and miracles coming to life. Gage tells Sydney of his Christmas wish, and then she asks him for a miracle.
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Het, Holiday fic
Challenge: None
Word Count (excluding heading): 2,390
Feedback: Yes, please!
Archive: WWOMB, -- Anybody else, ask, and I'll probably grant permission.
Disclaimer: Sydney Cooke, Francis Gage, Alex Cahill, and Walker, Texas Ranger are & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Santa Claus is & himself, if any one. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: This is the second in a series of 12 Days of Christmas fics written with my beloved Jack in mind but also shared with you, our readers and, hopefully, our fans. They will be unbetaed the first time they're sent out, as Jack does the betaing, and he'll know nothing of these fics until they hit his box. Happy Holidays, however you celebrate! :-)
Sydney's eyes remained ever vigilant as they patrolled the mall, but Gage's gaze flitted around his surroundings constantly. He witnessed the battles between parents and children and the down-trodden faces of the shoppers who had spent their last pennies in the name of the holiday, faces which, he knew, would light up again come Christmas when they saw their loved ones unwrap the gifts they had worked so hard to be able to buy them. He heard the carols and the cries of screaming children who had been told "no". He saw the glistening Christmas trees and the sparkling decorations strewn throughout the entire mall.
It was the Santa Claus who kept drawing his attention as he waited through one child's Christmas list after another. As Gage looked again at the cheerful display, he did a double take at the child who sat upon the jolly man's knee. She wore jeans and a western shirt, and her hair was done up in pigtails. He couldn't hear what she was asking for, but he still could easily imagine her requesting a horse. He wondered if she was anything like Sydney might have been as a little girl.
Syd glanced at her partner, then at the crowd who had drawn his attention, and then back to the shop window she had been studying. As quietly as though she had been trailing a perp, she entered the shop and made her way to the counter. She had barely began to deal with the cashier when she heard the door chime and looked up to see Gage trudging in, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. "Nobody ever asks me what I want for Christmas any more," he announced sadly.
Sydney found herself caught. She knew it was a new line he was waiting to spring and didn't want to have to hurt his feelings, but yet at the same time, she had to distract him before he saw the clerk retrieve his present. She turned to face him, placing her back to the cashier. "What do you want, Gage?" she asked with a smile even as her mind wheeled with how to answer what she knew was going to come out of his mouth next.
Gage grinned but continued to stand in the doorway where he'd seen mistletoe hanging. "You."
"Me?" she asked innocently as she pointed behind her at the window display of what she wanted. "I'm not a present."
His grin grew. "You could be."
She smiled. "You wish."
"Yes, I do, but I'd settle for a kiss."
His broad grin warmed her to her core, and she had to fight to keep from melting as she gazed upon his handsome form. He loved her, and she loved him. Yet she couldn't let anything come of that love because if anything ever happened to break them apart . . . Well, she'd rather die than ever lose Gage. She couldn't imagine her life without his light shining in it.
She couldn't take her eyes away from him even when the clerk returned with her would-be purchase. Gage's eyes shifted from Sydney to the box, and she knew she had to act fast to keep him distracted. Her hands worked behind her back to remove her wallet from her pocket and then hand the clerk her card. As she did so, she spoke again, "I would hate for you to not get your Christmas wish, Gage."
"Really?" he asked hopefully, his attention once more completely upon his beautiful partner.
"Absolutely," she returned with a smile and a mischievous gleam that he knew spelled trouble, and probably disappointment, for him in her brown eyes. "After all, you've been a really good boy this year, haven't you?"
"Oh, yes, the best!"
"You're always the best," she admitted. She walked slowly over to him while the clerk rang up her present and started wrapping it. The rustling paper started to draw Gage's attention as Syd reached him, but she wrapped a hand around his neck, bringing his eyes immediately back to her. Moving ever so slowly as to give the clerk enough time to properly hide the gift, she leaned in and then kissed him . . . on the cheek.
Even as sparks shot through Gage's body, disappointment also filled him. He pouted down at her, and she smiled brightly. "You didn't say where," she reminded him.
"I thought it went without saying."
"Gage, didn't anybody ever tell you that when you write to Santa, you have to be very precise or else he might not give you the right gift?"
Gage moved fast, wrapping his arms tightly around Syd and bringing her almost crushingly close to his body. Syd's eyes widened and her mouth gaped open in shock. Suddenly she could feel every inch of his body against hers, and she knew just how badly he truly did want her.
Gage gazed down into Syd's eyes. He wanted to touch her face, to caress the skin that he knew must be softer than velvet, but he couldn't for if he relaxed his grip even the smallest bit, Sydney would be out of his arms and he may well never get her back in there where she belonged again. "What if I took my present?"
"Gage, we . . . "
"I know, Syd; I know. You say it every time. We can't. But it's Christmas and, by God, I want my Christmas miracle!" With those words, he silenced her protests with his mouth against hers. She melted underneath the assault of his hot lips. His tongue slipped into her mouth and teasingly touched hers a few times before beginning an out-right sensual duel with it.
Shivers of delight spread through Sydney, thrilling her from the top of her head through to the very tips of her toes, and finally, ever so slowly, she relented. After all, as Gage had pointed out, it was Christmas, and they did deserve a Christmas miracle. Was one kiss really too much to ask to be able to get away with during this magical season? She prayed it wasn't even as she felt her knees go weak.
Gage held Sydney close to him as he continued to kiss her, relishing every taste of her sweet nectar and praying that this moment would last forever, though he knew it couldn't. All too soon, her brain would regain control, and she would peel out of his arms and force him, once more, to keep his distance. He prayed it wouldn't happen, but yet he knew it would.
The sound that finally broke through to Syd's brain and brought it screaming to full alert was the gentle clearing of the clerk's throat. She forced herself to pull away from Gage, but still his hands clung to her. "Sydney . . . "
"Hush," she told him, her eyes shimmering with untold emotions, "please." She placed a single finger, which slightly quivered, onto his lips. "I can't."
"Tell me why."
"I already have."
"No," he said with a slight shake of his head, "you haven't, not really. You've told me you couldn't bare to lose me, but Syd, I'm telling you I love you and nothing could ever change that."
"You might be surprised," she spoke with sadness in her voice, "what changes life can bring."
"I already know," he told her. "Syd, you're the only constant thing in my life."
"And you in mine, Gage, and I don't want that to change."
"It wouldn't."
She sighed and blinked back tears as she placed her shaking hand on the side of his face. She stroked him tenderly, lovingly. "Gage, I . . . " How could she tell him that she loved him without opening them both to a fresh world of pain? Something would happen to tear them apart, she knew, and things would never be the same for either of them. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I can't risk it. I won't risk losing you, and I know you say I won't, but you don't know that for a fact."
"I'd rather kill myself than ever lose you," he told her honestly.
She smiled sadly as she whispered chokingly, "Ditto."
"Then love me, Syd. Let go and love me," he pleaded.
Again, she said, "I can't."
He sighed and hung his head.
"Gage," she said timidly, trying to catch his eyes with her own and stroking his handsome face again, "you spoke of Christmas presents and miracles. I . . . I'm gonna ask you to give me one this year."
"What?" he asked, his head finally lifting and his eyes searching hers warily.
"I want to tell you something, but I want to leave it at that. I don't want it to have any affect on our relationship, on our friendship," she stressed. She must be crazy. It was impossible to ask the question that hung so heavily upon her mind! But yet she wanted so desperately to tell him how she felt and could do so no other way.
Gazing into her eyes, he spoke deeply, "I would do anything for you, Sydney."
"Anything?"
He nodded, though uncertain just what he was getting himself into. As long as she came along for the ride, it didn't really matter. He could face anything with her by his side. "Anything." What could she want to tell him that would fill her with such fear that she trembled? What could it be that she feared would impact their relationship? And it was a relationship, he vowed, no matter how much she wanted to call it by any other name.
He raised a hand and stroked her hair. Her silky, brown tendrils filled his hand, and he ran his fingers lovingly through them. "Tell me," he whispered.
And then she shocked him. With three little words, she told him the miracle he'd been begging for for so long, "I love you." Then, acting swiftly while he remained shocked, Sydney extracted herself from Gage and made her way to the counter. She was still shaking in her boots when she collected her credit card and package and turned, slowly, with dread clogging her throat and making her heart quiver inside her chest, to face Gage again.
She shouldn't have said it. He'd never let it go. He couldn't understand why she ran from him so, refusing to admit the feelings that she knew he knew she had, and he would never see what she saw: that the beginning of a romantic relationship between them would surely, without any possible doubt, lead to the destruction of their friendship.
Gage and Sydney stared at each other from across the small space in the store as other shoppers bustled about, too lost in their own shopping expeditions to take much notice of the pair they all presumed to be just another young couple. The partner's minds whirled as their hearts pounded in the same rhythm. The words, {She loves me!}, sang through Gage's mind, but from the terrified look on Sydney's beautiful face, he knew he couldn't call her on it. She'd asked him for a Christmas miracle, and he'd agreed to give it to her.
He took a deep breath as he watched her looking at him through big, frightful eyes and a beautiful face that was paled so much it hurt him to look upon her. He didn't know everything about her past, he reflected, or those who had hurt her. Somewhere down the line, some one had hurt her terribly, and though it wasn't him, that person's shadow still hovered over their relationship. He feared it might always, but then another part of him knew that it wouldn't, it couldn't. She had finally told him that she loved him. That in and of itself was a milestone worth treasuring forever.
But now he had a choice. He could either keep her trust and speak not a single word about what she had confided in him, no matter how much it thrilled him to his core or made him walk on clouds or made him ache even more to tell her those same words in return, or he could shatter her trust and make her face what she had said, make her face fears she clearly wasn't ready to battle. He found he didn't have to force himself to grin for though his heart was heavy, it was also light and happy. It was, perhaps, the strangest feeling he'd ever had before: of being simultaneously sad and happy, elated and disappointed, thrilled and worried.
Syd's heart beat a frantic rhythm in her ears as Gage crossed the floor to stand in front of her. He gazed deeply into her eyes for a long moment. His grin grew, with some force behind it, until it filled his entire handsome face. Only then did he speak, and when he did, his voice was jovial and teasing. "Is that for me?"
Relief washed through Sydney with such strength she wanted to sink to the floor. She stood standing and gave herself a shake that sent her long hair flying about her shoulders. Gage's fingers curled, but he resisted the urge to reach out and touch her silken strands. "Are you kidding?" she asked in the same teasing manner. "This is for Alex!" She continued to grin at him, but her eyes spoke another story as she walked pass him. "Thank you," they said.
Gage smiled sadly as he watched her go, then followed behind her at a slower pace. He had received his Christmas miracle, but now he was caught being unable to use it! One day, he swore, he'd tell her he loved her, make her say those three little words that meant the world to him again, and from that day forward, he would make her every wish a reality. She wouldn't have to wait for Christmas for miracles, he vowed; he'd bring her one every day.
The clerk grinned as he watched the couple walk out the door. Then he stooped beneath the counter and made a mark with a pencil as he scratched another line underneath the column of men who had gotten their Christmas wishes underneath the store's mistletoe. He hesitated for only a moment before he made another mark underneath the column of women. He thought, with a grin, as he stood back up that he sure hoped to be included in those rankings of wish-winners one day soon.
The End