Chapter three: when Henry decided to invent something to help him decorate for Christmas.
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***December 1879***
It was a special Christmas for Charlotte, Henry and their son Charles, for a number of reasons. It was the first Christmas Charlotte was going to be spending as Consul, their first Christmas in Idris, the Shadowhunter homeland and their first Christmas as a family, as Charles had been born earlier that year. It was also the first Christmas in a number of years that they had spent away from the London Institute and the 'family' that they had created. Yes they weren't related by blood, but it didn't stop them loving each other, as families do.
As Charlotte spent most of her time either being Consul or mother, Henry took it upon himself to help with the Christmas decorations, which was going to be a challenge as he was going to be doing it himself, and the building they lived in was a large one. Add to the mix he was in a wheelchair and was paralysed from the waist down made the challenge even more, well…challenging. But Henry was an inventor, so when faced with a challenge he set about inventing something that would help solve the challenge.
After a lot of thinking, Henry decided to create a machine that would help him to put decorations up in places he was unable to reach. After a few designs, tests, modifications and a variety of remakes, Henry was finally happy that he had created something that he was happy with and was convince would work, so decided to get to work on decorating the house. He'd gone round the house, sorting out which decorations would go in each room, then (with Charles sitting on his lap and the invention being pulled behind him) we went round the house decorating the house, making it feel at through Christmas had finally arrived at the Fairchild residence.
He wasn't going to let the invention however do all the work, both he and Charles did their share of decorating (he had left some out some decorations for Charlotte to put up when she got home, he wasn't going to let her miss out just because she was the consul) and had just finished when Charlotte herself returned home. He made his way to greet Charlotte, partly as it was something he did every day, partly because he wanted to see her reaction, which thankfully didn't disappoint.
On seeing her husband and don enter the room, Charlotte looked over at the pair asking "I guess you had something to do with the sudden explosion of Christmas in the house Henry?" she asked, even though she knew in her heart that he was. Henry nodded in response "Charles helped" he added, and to prove his father's point, Charles gurgled. Taking her son into her arms, Charlotte glanced over at her husband "care to show me the rest of the house?" which was a request that Henry was more than happy to oblige with.
Charlotte had noticed that some of the decorations seemed a bit too high to have for Henry to have been able to reach "did you get one of the servants to help dear?" which seemed to have delighted Henry. "Oh no Lottie. I've been working on an invention to help me decorate as obviously I can't reach places. It worked Lottie! It actually worked without having exploded first!" he said, unable to hide the triumph in his voice, and Charlotte couldn't help but feel proud of Henry in that moment, so leant down and kissed him softly on the lips, much to the disgust of Charles.
