"What are we giving Mom and Dad for Christmukkah?" Abby asks me at Big Belly Burger on Saturday afternoon.

The last day of Hanukkah falls on Christmas Day this year, which Abby seems to regard as the universe's gift to her personally. I'm surprised we made it seven whole days into the month of December without her bringing up shopping.

"Wine," I say, stealing a french fry from her plate. "It's been wine for the past five years. Next year - try not to faint - it's going to be wine." Not to make them sound like they have a drinking problem, but you really cannot go wrong giving my parents a good vintage they've never tried before.

Abby steals an onion ring in retaliation. "Don't you want to surprise them?"

"You say that every year."

"And you get Dig to buy wine anyway."

"Hey, I buy my own booze now." I mean, I did before, but I'm at liberty to say so now.

"If you take me to Nuxalk Place next weekend, I can find something really, really good," she promises.

This is probably true. My father and sister have a genius for gifts. She buys you, not what you would have bought yourself, but what you could have bought yourself had you been as creative and accomplished a shopper as Abigail Queen. Dad's gifts are invariably personal, in part because he makes jewelry on the same machinery he uses to make arrowheads. Half the women in the family have a small collection of pendants, rings, and hair ornaments made by his own hands. Elaine still wears the necklace he gave her the day she was born.

"But not Lyla," I once observed. "Or the Lances either."

"It's not polite to give someone else's wife jewelry," he said. "Besides, their tastes are different."

That's why he makes Lyla combat knives, Sara throwing knives, and Laurel pepper spray disguised as lipstick.

"Come on, Jonny," Abby wheedles. "One afternoon, that's all I need."

"You want me to go to a mall?" I'd rather get hit in the head with a lamp by a berserker druggie at the scene of a murder. This is not an exaggeration. "Can't you order it all online?"

"It is not a mall. It is a geographically convenient collection of boutiques."

I give her some side eye. "Maybe."

"Jo-na-than."

"The answer is maybe." I slurp down the last inch of her milkshake. "So do you know all your lines for Midsummer yet?"

It's a surefire distraction. For the next twenty minutes, she talks almost nonstop about the stage manager, the director, Tish the fairy queen, and the girl who plays Hippolyta, "who is so pretty I hate her a little bit." I try really hard to keep the names straight, and I mostly succeed.

On the way home, she watches me work the gear shift, twists in her seat to fold her legs under her, and says, "What is a clutch, exactly?"

I stop at a red light, and I look her over. "Your legs are probably long enough." After all, she shot up like a weed this past year, and now she's taller than Mom by an inch or two.

"For what?"

"To reach the pedals."

She beams at me. I take her to the SCU commuter lot, empty on a weekend, and we switch seats. Because she made me sit through drama talk, I make her sit through a detailed explanation of the mechanism by which the clutch engages and disengages the power transmission. Then I let her lurch around and kill the engine a few times, and I take her home smiling.

"That was really illegal," I say as we come up the front walk, "and I've already had my license suspended enough. So no telling."

"Yes, sir."

"Your next lesson is going to be how to slip a chokehold."

"No, sir."

"Come on, you have to at least learn a few basic - "

"Nope."

One day I will overcome Abby's complete disdain for combat sports long enough to drill into her, Hit the creep as hard as you can here, here, orhere and then run away, got it?

We just barely make it inside before the gray skies open up with chilly rain.

Mom and Dad meet us in the foyer, and we stop laughing when we see their faces.

"What happened?"

"Captain Lance passed away about an hour ago," Mom says, sniffling.

Next to me, Abby draws in a sharp breath.

"Do you want to ride with us to St. Joseph's? We're going to go be with Laurel."

It takes me a few seconds to answer. "No." I clear my throat. "No, I'll, um. I'll take my own car."

Twenty minutes alone in my X5 is enough time for a good long cry where no one can see. I thought I might feel better afterward - isn't that how catharsis is supposed to work? - but I don't. I just feel drained.

Captain Lance lies still and strange in his dimly lit room, and Laurel sits in a hard, straight-backed chair against the opposite wall, staring at her father with an expression more angry than anything else. When we come through the door, she stands, thanks us for coming, and stiffly accepts hugs and condolences.

I can't quite look at the Captain yet.

Both of Laurels' ex-husbands are already here. Married or not, they still care for her enough to show up for moral support. Of the two, I know Ted Grant better. We've talked boxing at Christmas parties now and again.

"Quentin never much cared for me," he says ruefully as he shakes my hand, "but I respected the hell out of him."

"I think we've all been there," Paul Kord says, gesturing between himself, Ted, and Dad.

Dad ignores this. He's got eyes for Laurel alone right now, and he pulls her into a proper hug. She relaxes into it by a fraction.

I stand at the Captain's foot board. His head is tipped forward onto his chest, eyes closed, hands clasped in front of him. It looks peaceful, almost like prayer. I've never known the man to pray. All I can think is, This isn't him. He's not here anymore.

Abby, who is in some ways tougher than I am, goes right up to his side with Mom at her heels. Careful but unafraid, she lays her hand over one of his. Whatever she and Mom murmur to him and to each other, it's too soft for me to hear.

I hope the Captain was wrong about that afterlife. If he's not here, I hope he's somewhere. I hope it really, really hard.

"Sara's flight lands in ten minutes," I hear Laurel say wearily. "I have to go pick her up."

Dad looks at me, one eyebrow raised.

I stand up and jingle my keys. "You stay here, Laurel. I've got it covered."

She nods her thanks, and as if by gravitational pull, her eyes slide back to her father.

When I pull up in the arrivals lane, Sara Lance is already waiting on the curb with a small rollaway bag at her feet. Her trench coat is belted against the chill rain, and a thick beanie is pulled down snugly around her ears. She tugs it off as she climbs into my passenger seat, and her cheek is cold against mine when she leans over to kiss me. "Thank you for picking me up, Jonny."

"Of course. I'm really sorry about your dad. It's good to see you and all, I just wish like hell it were for a different reason."

She smiles, and the crinkles at the corners of her eyes make their bright blue seem even brighter in the dim interior of the car. "Same here."

I don't ask where she flew in from. Nobody bothers trying to ask her that anymore.

If I didn't know better, I'd guess that Sara was the older Lance sister. Maybe it's the deep laugh lines or the blond hair shot through with gray that she has never cared to dye. Maybe it's the sense of certainty about her. The moment she got into my car, I felt the same calm as when Dad walks into a room - like somebody's got everything under control now.

I can't help liking her better than Laurel. For starters, she seems to actually like me.

"It's been some time," she says.

"Almost a year."

"Ollie had just given you the hood. You were so wet behind the ears, all nervous and excited about being in the field."

"I'm old and mean and cynical now."

"So I see."

"You know, your dad, um. He helped a lot with all that. The first few months especially. Just talking to him - it helped."

She pulls in a sharp, surprised breath. Her smile tightens into something painful. "Thank you," she murmurs, and she turns her face away from me.

The rest of the way to the hospital, I politely pretend not to notice that her eyes are wet.

Laurel and Sara bury their father on the cold, clear afternoon of December 11 with all the ceremonial honors due a retired officer. Several hundred people come to pay their respects, about half of whom are wearing SCPD dress uniforms. Among them are McKenna Hall, Mayor Harry Lee, and Police Chief Len Broussard.

"Your old man was a tough act to follow," I overhear Broussard tell Laurel, shaking her hand. "Best cop I ever knew."

"You could have learned a thing or two," I mutter under my breath.

Laurel looks so fragile, it's clear that a eulogy is far beyond her, and Sara will not venture more than a few feet from her side. Dad does the honors. Of the people who will not break down at the podium, he's the one who knew the Captain best.

The reception afterward is held at our house, where there is space for so many people, and Milena keeps the pitchers full and the tables laden with finger food. Everyone in our family sort of passes Abby around like a handkerchief or a teddy bear. You're crying? Here, hold this. She must understand why everyone keeps squeezing her shoulder or slipping an arm around her, because she never pulls away first.

The house slowly empties, and Milena goes home, saying, "I give you some time, just family." At dusk only Queens and Lances remain.

We sit around the dining room table, and Mom, Dad, Laurel, and Sara tell stories about the Captain. Dad has some funny ones about the days when he and Laurel dated. "He took excellent care of his service weapon. He was always cleaning it when I came to pick her up." Mom tells one about the night Abby was born, when he sent a police escort to rush her to the hospital, "so you came into the world with your own motorcade, my little diva."

After Abby goes to bed, they talk about the other stuff: using Laurel as bait to catch the hood, disabling a quake machine with Mom coaching him by comm, calling the Arrow while Dad was standing right next to him, shooting an Assassin with his spare sidearm. Some stories I know, but most of it I've never heard before.

The longer they talk, the heavier the weight in my stomach.

It's not grief. Or if it is, it's grief hardened to anger, condensed into a single, concentrated mass of vengeful purpose. Starling didn't deserve a man like that. If a murderously corrupt police department and indifferent officials were the end result of his decades of service, it wasn't because Lance failed the city. Starling failed him.

You can do everything right, and it still goes to hell.

Laurel and Sara fall asleep in our guest bedroom, and Mom, Dad, and I putter around clearing the few remaining dishes that Milena didn't get to. Exhaustion makes me clumsy. I reach for a fluted glass, my fingers slip, and it shatters on the floor.

"I'll get a broom," Dad says wearily.

Before he can turn his back, I demand, "What the fuck is wrong with this city?"

My parents just look back at me sadly.

"I thought maybe the system needed a little help. Someone to do what the cops couldn't, go where they couldn't. But you tried that. You and the Captain tried that, and now look where we are."

"Corruption and injustice are everywhere. Starling isn't exactly special on that score," Mom says, sinking into a chair. "You'd probably end up just as disillusioned on a police beat in Gotham or a newsroom in Coast City."

"Really? Because McGinnis hasn't mentioned cops ordering hits in his city, and Garcia hasn't reported any actual murderers running the police union in her backyard, and even in New Orleans that asshole Holland hasn't - "

"What are you going to do about it then?" Dad demands.

"I'm going to cut some heads off some snakes, for starters."

"I think you'll find they're more like hydras," Mom mutters.

"Do you really think it's that simple?" Dad says. "We just kill the right people, and it all sorts itself out?"

I spread my hands, taking a step toward him. "Sounds like a new and exciting approach to me."

"New," he scoffs. "What the hell do you think I was doing my first year in the hood? Other than a sixteen percent spike in the recorded homicide rate, thirty-two dead men changed nothing for Starling."

"I am done handing over murderers and human traffickers to SCPD! If they can't hold them, they can't have them."

"What are you going to do with them instead?"

I shrug. "Give them to ARGUS. Waller's good at disappearing people, isn't she?"

Dad has not given me The Look in nearly three years. "You have no idea what you just said," he says in sudden, icy rage. "What that woman is."

"So explain! All your cryptic, need-to-know bullshit, and then you accuse everybody of not knowing what they're talking about? Kind of a dick move, Dad."

"Jonathan," Mom snaps, but Dad's voice is louder.

"You are twenty-two years old," he says, "and you grew up as safe and well cared for as your mother and I could make you. You get your first good look at the underbelly of this city, and you think you understand? You think the solution is that obvious, and none of us ever thought of it before?"

I can't dispute that he has seen more of this city than I have. More than anyone, probably. Dad knows Starling to the skeletal remains of vacant factories and to the decaying arteries of disused subway tunnels beneath our feet. He, Mom, and Dig have a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the city's history and geography, because at some point all that crap saved their lives.

But they have been staring at the problem so long, I wonder if they can't see it for what it is anymore.

"The system is fucking broken. Maybe you duct taped it over for a few years, but it can't hold." I look to Mom, because it's just like she said. It wasn't supposed to be like this anymore. "It never holds."

She looks back at me steadily. On her next blink, a tear slips down her cheek.

"Fine," Dad growls. "Tear it down. You could do it; it wouldn't even be that difficult. Burn it to the ground. But first, tell me one thing. What are you going to build in its place?"

I have no answer to that.

In the long silence that follows, Dad and I glare at each other, and Mom glares at both of us and crosses her arms impatiently.

So quietly I can barely hear him, Dad says, "In a few weeks, I'm going to announce my candidacy for mayor in the upcoming election."

For a few seconds, I wonder what collection of English syllables he could have just said that sounded so uncannily similar to, I'm going to announce my candidacy for mayor.

When he does not repeat himself, I let out a flat, "What?"

"I didn't stop serving Starling when I hung up the hood. City Hall is the best place to do that right now."

"Are you out of your goddamn mind? What about our big green secret?"

"It seems to me that an ally running City Hall would be all upside for the Arrow."

"Yeah, but if you get caught aiding and abetting the vigilante, who in case you've forgotten is your son, you are in deep shit."

His smile is grim, but it also reminds me of every story I ever heard about young Ollie Queen flirting with death on his third motorcycle after totaling the first two. "If I get caught."

I narrow my eyes at him. "Is this a mid-life crisis thing? Like, you already have a flashy car and you're not interested in a mistress half your age, so you're going to get yourself a city instead?"

"Starling has lost her way," he says heavily. "This is what I can do, right now, to put her right."

"So she is a mistress," Mom says on a sigh, "but she's four times his age."

I raise an eyebrow at her. "You're ok with this?"

She crosses her arms and looks back at me levelly. "It was my suggestion."

They're serious about this. They're really serious. I lean back against the dining room table, hands braced on either side of me. "This is a terrible, terrible idea," I state for the record. Then I glance back and forth between them, and I give Dad a nod. "When you get sworn in, can you give Chief Broussard the boot?"

"I was thinking I might behead him on the steps of City Hall."

Mom gets to her feet. "You understand this means our whole family will be under the microscope."

I grimace. "Game faces on? Best behavior?"

She smiles tiredly. "I was going to say, 'Let's give 'em something to talk about.'"

I turn to Dad. "Are you doing this because of the Captain?".

"I'm doing it now because of the Captain," he says quietly.

"Okay then." I stare down at the glittering shards by my feet. "Good luck saving the city."

Before they can reply, I step over the broken glass and disappear upstairs to my room.

Laurel throws herself into the Bloom case as if he were personally responsible for her father's death. I'd almost feel sorry for the bastard, if he were any less of a pimple in the asscrack of humanity.

A few nights after the funeral, Mom sends me to drop off food at Laurel's beautiful uptown apartment. Sara greets me at the door.

"Jonny's here," she calls over her shoulder, and then she eyes the deep casserole dish in my hands with interest. "That looks like Ollie's chili."

"Right in one."

Laurel still has a highlighter behind her ear when she comes into the living room. She looks slightly happier to see me than she usually does, which probably has more to do with the chili than my good looks or irresistible charm. "Thank you, Jon."

"Yeah, of course. Mom said to tell you it freezes well."

"Come on in," Laurel says, while Sara puts the food away. I follow her back to her study, which, in contrast to the neat elegance of every other room, has become a mountain range of paper. The tallest peaks rise up on top of her desk, but there are foothills extending all the way to the file cabinets.

I whistle. "Is this all Bloom?"

She moves a pile of manila folders off of a chair, and she goes to sit behind her desk. "Have a seat."

I sit.

She looks me right in the eyes. "I need you to get me more."

Oh, great. We're doing this now? While you are grieving and obsessive? "I'd be happy to put you in touch with the head of Panoptic's private investigative services, if you think it would help."

She narrows her eyes at me. "Wow, would you really?"

"If that's not good enough for you, hit up that psycho in green. I hear he beats confessions out of people, and you know how well that stands up in court."

"Jonathan," she says wearily, "you know you don't need to wear a mask under my roof."

Like or dislike, right or wrong, the Lances are family, and the big green secret is as safe with Laurel as it is with Mom or Dad. But she has only ever worked in the daylight, and she has only ever lived by one name. There are things I can probably never explain to her.

"I'm always wearing a mask." I try to soften my tone enough that she knows I am not doing this to spite her. "Gotta talk to the right one."

She regards me thoughtfully, just long enough to make me uncomfortable, and then she nods.

Sara pokes her head in. "Are you staying for chili?"

I get to my feet. "I've got to get back to Panoptic and finish up some paperwork." Hey, it could be true. Progress reports and threat evaluation matrices magically accumulate while I am not looking.

"Mind if I come with?" Sara says. "Dig invited me to use the fitness center while I'm in town."

That is how I get the chance to spar with the original Canary.

"Use your size and your reach," she warns me. "Keep me at a distance."

I bounce on my heels. "All right, Tweety Bird. Let's go."

Ten seconds later she gets me on the mats with her elbow in my throat.

"What did I tell you? If you let me in close, you've got no position to attack me, and I've got everything to work on you."

Next she sends me reeling with a kick to the gut. "God damn it," I wheeze.

"Come on, be direct. Straight lines are fastest. I'm smaller and more agile, and your big punches are making you vulnerable."

Twenty seconds later, I get her in a lock. She starts chuckling when I ease up and let her go. "Nice one, Jonny."

"Yeah, finally."

"One out of six ain't bad," she says, punching my shoulder. "Ugh, I need a shower. And then I'd better get home and make sure Laurel actually eats something. You're sure you don't want in on that chili?"

"Nah, thanks. Besides, I think Laurel would be just as happy not to deal with me again tonight," I say on a laugh.

Sara gives me a curious look. "Why do you say that?"

I shrug. "She's, ah, not exactly my biggest fan."

She shakes her head. "You've got her all wrong, kiddo. Maybe she gets annoyed sometimes, but she doesn't dislike you." She ambles over to the mini fridge and cracks open a water bottle. "You remind her of someone."

"Who, Dad? Back before the island?" It's the comparison everyone made each time I got arrested, and it would explain a lot. If a reincarnation of the asshole who cheated on me sauntered into my life, I probably wouldn't be rolling out the welcome mat either.

Sara shakes her head. "Tommy Merlyn."

"Huh." Laurel has practically canonized the man who died saving her life, and we all suspect his ghost was the rival who broke up both her marriages. "Why him?"

"When things are bad, or when somebody's hurting, you always try to make them laugh." Sara has a particular, affectionate smile that deepens the distinctive dimple in her chin. I don't see it often, but here it is now. "That was Tommy."

"She told you that?"

"Of course not." She tosses me a water bottle. "But it's who you remind me of."

That's all very sweet, but I have spent at least ten years feeling like Laurel Lance just plain does not like my face. When I drive Sara home, I don't stay for chili.

Sunday dawns grey and dreary, which is the perfect weather for what I have in mind.

"Junebug." I burst into my sister's room, swipe her pillow out from under her head, and smack the shapeless lump of Abby under the covers. "We are D minus ten on the Christmas countdown, and it is time to get in the spirit. Now rise and shine!"

Obnoxious good cheer at eight in the morning is vengeance for all the times she has jumped on people's beds demanding pancakes.

She curls up even tighter. "I'm tired, Jonny."

I pause with the pillow raised above my head. "You sick?"

"Just tired."

"Come on, get up. We're going to your geographically convenient collection of boutiques, and I can't do the super special surprise present by myself." I try dragging the covers off her, but she claws them right back up to her chin.

"Just go to Martin Wine Cellar and find them a nice French red." She casts me a glazed, exhausted look. "Mom's on a Bordeaux kick again."

I step back. Cold constricts my insides. I have not seen that glassy look in her eyes for two years, but I recognize it. "Abby, are you ok?"

"Let me sleep," she grumbles.

Please not this again.

Two weeks after Mom's abduction, the slam of a door woke me at three in the morning. I jumped out of bed, which hurt like hell with my still-healing ribs, and I raced down the hall expecting to find the Black Hand back for revenge.

Instead I found the door to my parents' room hanging open, soft light glowing through it. Dad sat on the rug, leaning against the footboard of their bed, holding Abby firmly with her back to his chest. She braced her hands on his knees, chin straining upward as she gasped for air.

I had never seen anyone hyperventilate before. It scared the crap out of me. For a second I thought my twelve year old sister was having a heart attack.

"Slow down, baby," Dad said, one hand smoothing back her hair and the other splayed over her heart. Her fingers twisted in the fabric of his sweatpants, right over the bandages from his recent knee surgery, and with every tug, he closed his eyes against the pain. But his voice was steady. "Breathe with me. You're ok. I promise you're ok."

Mom emerged from their en suite bathroom with a wet cloth in her hands. "It's all right, Jon," she said evenly, and she sat down next to Dad and Abby with patient calm.

"Easy, easy," he kept saying. "Breathe deep from your diaphragm, just like in choir. Don't be scared, junebug. Breathe slow with me."

I stood in the doorway like an idiot until the panic attack passed. Then I sat cross-legged on the floor and watched Mom smile softly, murmur gentle jokes, and wipe sweat from Abby's face.

Mom and Dad called in the pros the next morning. Lyla gave them the name of a therapist who often came in for trauma counseling for Panoptic's clients and employees. After a few weeks, the nightmares faded and my sister was, by and large, herself again.

But for months afterward, we occasionally stumbled into these heavy, time-stopping fogs in her internal climate. Her eyes glazed over, her voice flattened out, and she slept for marathons of twelve and fourteen hours. If you asked her what was wrong, she'd tell you, "I'm just tired."

"Abby," I repeat. "Are you ok?"

She does not answer me.

I give her the pillow back, and I tuck her down comforter tighter around her. When I close her door behind me, I take a moment to lean against it and try to decide what to do.

Maybe the funeral has finally caught up to her. She put on a brave face for the people who needed her to be her sunshine self, and she did not really get a chance to grieve. Maybe it is the gray weather and the stress of exams and the pressure of rehearsals. Maybe she will wake up fine tomorrow morning.

I go to Martin Wine Cellar, and I buy a nice French red.

In the long, bitter nights of December, Mom and I work hard to track down our mystery hitman. It's been two weeks since we recorded the phone call from Bloom, and we still have nothing but his voice. "Middle-aged Caucasian male, probably from the Deep South, savvy enough to keep his phone and his finances hidden even from me," Mom sums up on a sigh. "That is as much progress as we've made ID'ing him."

"So let me do it my way," I say, pulling on a second layer of Under Armour.

Mom glances at the half-naked mannequin in its case. "If you're planning to threaten people with grievous bodily harm, you'll need to bundle up. It's cold out there."

I shrug. My black and gray motorcycle leathers will work just as well for now.

She cocks her head. "Take Dad's old jacket."

I raise an eyebrow at her. "That's allowed?"

She unseals one of the airtight glass cases at the far end of the lair, and with much more fond gentleness than she ever treats my gear, she unzips the leather jacket and eases it off the mannequin's shoulders. Then she holds it out for me to slip my arms into the sleeves.

It fits me better than it did two years ago, when I got fussed at for trying it on. It is scuffed and faded, and after all this time the leather is still soft as butter. Someone must take it out and work some oil into it every now and then.

Mom gets oddly sentimental, seeing me in it. She adjusts the shoulders and murmurs, "Like it was made for you."

I grin down at her. "Yeah, works out well, doesn't it?"

"This is going to sound silly, but... " She presses my bow into my hands. "Try not to rip this one to shreds?"

Every night for a week, I point arrows at all the usual suspects, asking politely who a corrupt cop might have hired to beat a woman to death. I get some very genuine terrified denials, some desperate speculation, four leads that don't pan out, and a whole lot of bullshit.

I listen closely for the name Desilva while I'm at it, but if this new mob captain is real, she's awful quiet.

Meanwhile, Abby perks up enough to set up both an Advent wreath and a menorah. This means she's perky enough to get mad at me for missing three of the first five nights of Hanukkah. I figured with both Mom and Dad kindling the lights in the window with her, she wouldn't miss me much.

"What are you doing that's so much more important?"

"Look, I said I was sorry."

"How sorry could you be, if you just keep doing it?"

Yeah, misjudged that one pretty bad.

But on the nights I don't make it home until the small hours, bruised and bleeding and shivering, I still find little gifts waiting on my pillow. Homemade sufganiyot, the high quality chocolate I love, and salted pretzels dipped in caramel.

I give them presents too - scarves and books and good coffee - but it's just… stuff. When I find a pair of thermal socks tied up with ribbon, my insides twist with guilt. I don't know how Mom and Abby knew I'd worn through my old pair. At least guilt means I'm doing Judaism right, doesn't it?

Milena commandeers all four of us to help her clean and rearrange furniture for the annual Queen holiday extravaganza. It's black tie, but family friendly. In fact, Santa makes an appearance to pass out candy. Captain Lance kept up the tradition even as his health declined. Last year Santa stopped often to catch his breath, but he still managed an impressive ho ho ho.

Dad, Dig, Uncle Roy, and I are sparring one evening when it occurs to me: "Who's dressing up for the kids this this year?"

Uncle Roy puts his index finger to his nose. Dad and I do the same the second we notice.

"What are you doing?" Dig says, looking at the three of us like we're crazy.

"You should start making a list," Uncle Roy advises him. "You'll need to check it twice."

Milena's dinners get more festive every night, too.

"Are my mashed potatoes a snowman?" Abby says in delighted wonder on the night of the twenty-first. "Is this really happening on my plate right now?"

Dad looks at his perfectly normal scoop of mashed potatoes and asks Milena something in Russian.

"If you are cute as Miss Abigail, you get a snowman," Milena replies serenely. "If not, then not."

Mom switches plates with him like a saint, and he eats the sliver of carrot that was her snowman's nose.

"So. Caroling in the Square," Abby says to the table at large. "Who's in?"

Every December 23 in the cobblestone square in front of the Starling Museum of Art, several hundred people with candles and lyrics sheets gather in the cold to sing with extremely loud and off-key enthusiasm. Starling has what you might call a culture of costumes, and it is not uncommon to see Santa hats, red cheeks, fake beards, or wire-rimmed glasses. People wear bells and reindeer headbands, and there are always at least a couple of weirdos in full elf costume.

It is one of Abby's favorite things ever. Because of course it is. She and Aunt Thea always make a big show of forcing Dad to go, so that he can sigh and shake his head and pretend to be very put-upon.

"You know he loves it," Abby scoffs.

When we pick Aunt Thea up at dusk the next night and load her wheelchair into the back, Abby looks expectantly at the front door for one more.

"Uncle Roy weaseled out?" I ask Aunt Thea. "Lucky bastard."

"We'll manage without him," she says. "The man can't carry a tune in a bucket anyway."

If we are honest, Aunt Thea cannot carry a tune in a Prada handbag. Abby did not get her musical talent from the Queen side of the family.

In the fine mist of rain, among several hundred people sheltering candles in their gloved hands, I stand next to Aunt Thea as she sings loud and proud a few pitches wide of the note. On my other side, Abby puts on a stage-worthy performance, like she is auditioning for one of those choirs of angels I keep hearing about.

Muttering the words of O Holy Night in more or less a monotone, I glance over at Dad, who does not even bother to lip sync. He just looks around the square with a faint smile, taking in the wind-pink faces, the small kids laughing and weaving through the forest of legs, and the strange naturalness of so many strangers sharing a beat, a sound, and a syllable in chorus.

Dad breathes in deep, and for a moment, I understand the melancholy in his smile. This right here is the Starling he loves, but beyond the edge of the candlelight, the streets are darker than he thought.

Aunt Thea catches his eye, because she understands even better than I do. Then she narrows her eyes at him. "You're not singing."

He smiles. "You're loud enough for both of us."

Abby looks tempted to giggle, but she doesn't falter on the soaring "O night divine." I have to admit, if I were choir director of the holy host, she'd be a shoe-in.

For right now, we're standing in the candlelight. It's gold and glowy, and I'll take it.

After the last verse of Silent Night, strangers come over to compliment Abby's voice, which happens every year. They greet us like casual acquaintances when they notice the rest of us - "Oh, hey, Mr. Queen. Merry Christmas, Ms. Queen!" - and they start herding their kids away.

As the crowd disperses, Aunt Thea pulls four candy canes from the bag hooked over the back of her wheelchair, and she spreads them out for us each to choose one. Huddled close against the wind in the darkening square, we race to finish them.

We used to conspire to let Abby win, but since her bat mitzvah, she's had to run with the big dogs. In a fair fight, Aunt Thea beats us all handily. She sucks the red stains from her fingertips loud and victorious, and she grins up at Dad.

"How does it feel, Oliver? Losing to me for the nineteenth year in a row?"

He crunches down on his remaining candy cane, and with his mouth full, he confesses, "Ish excruciating."

The mist turns to rain as we drive home, and when Aunt Thea hugs me goodbye, she whispers, "Come by sometime tomorrow to pick up your dinner jacket for the party, ok?"

I go patrolling afterward, but apparently even scumbags have better things to do than screw around in the freezing rain three nights before Christmas. All I accomplish is getting my new thermal socks thoroughly soaked inside my boots.

The twelve-foot high Christmas tree is lit up in the living room when I sneak in. As I pass by, one of the ornaments spins, and its gleam catches my eye. It is a cherubic little archer dressed in green, with big cartoonish blue eyes behind his painted mask. His bow is strung with gold tinsel.

"Cute, Mom," I whisper.

No one will think anything of it. A stylized bow and arrow are symbols of Starling now, not necessarily the vigilante, and people will slap it on anything - coasters, mugs, wall hangings, ornaments.

It has become part of Starling's mythology, just like the haunted ruins of Queen Mansion or the five hundred and three dark red roses laid at the base of the Everglade Bridge every fifteenth of May. I did not realize until I was ten that the cupids on Valentine's Day cards do not wear green in other cities. I assumed that little girls everywhere dressed up in black masks and blond wigs for Halloween, only to get their plastic staffs taken away for hitting the other children.

Tomorrow night, undoubtedly someone will show off their arrowhead cufflinks or canary earrings and say, "Just a little Starling touch," as if they were in on some grand secret.

But the ornament isn't for them. It's for family - for the people who understand.

I smile, and I slip on up to bed.

Panoptic is quiet the next day. Half of our staff is on break, and absolutely no one wants to spar with me in the afternoon. They want to go home to their families. I skip out at four, and I head to Aunt Thea's studio.

One of the mannequins near her work table is wearing a Santa suit. "That better not be what you meant by 'dinner jacket,'" I say immediately.

"Calm down, that's for Dig." She pushes a soft bundle of red tissue paper into my arms. "This is for you."

I peel away the silver sticker with her design house's stylized T, and I unwrap the paper. Green leather lies beneath. I lift my new jacket by the shoulders and hold it out in front of me.

"The kevlar plates are sewn into the underlayer, which I had specially woven with a tripolymer weft and Spydersylk warp. It'll give you more protection against edged weapons than kevlar alone, but still leave you a full range of motion. I wouldn't call it bulletproof - nothing is, really - but any shot from farther than ten meters is going to have a hell of a time punching through."

Oh, hell yes.

"You like it?" Aunt Thea says, eyes shining hopefully.

I hook the jacket over one index finger, flourish it over my shoulder, and do my best runway sashay. I strike a pose in front of her.

"Jonathan, you little snot." Practically giddy, she reaches for me, takes the jacket, and holds it up for me to slip my arms in. "Come on, come on, try it on for real."

She tugs and pinches and fusses at seams, which is totally unnecessary. The thing fits me like a glove. I'm all pumped to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, because I'm the nastiest bastard in the valley and ain't nobody going to fuck with my leather jacket. I lean down and kiss her loudly on the cheek. "Thank you so much, Aunt Thea."

"My pleasure," she says warmly.

"I'm serious. This is amazing. You're amazing. I'm going to look so much cooler than that asshole with the bat ears."

Aunt Thea laughs long and loud. "I hope it serves you well. Now come get your dinner jacket for the party tonight. Do you remember how to tie the bow tie, or do you need me to show you?"

I have long experience with black tie, and at home I manage to dress myself just fine, thank you. Showered, shaved, combed, and minty, I step out into the hallway with the Bond theme echoing in my head.

Down the hall, Mom leans in Abby's doorway. The back of her head is a swirl of elegant curls, but she is still wearing jeans and a button-down.

"Let me bring you some Pepto Bismol or Tylenol or something. We might have you on your feet by the time people get here."

"I just want to sleep it off," I hear my sister say.

"You have guests, sweetheart," Mom reminds her.

"They don't need me to babysit them, and I already texted Kaylee to explain."

Mom closes the door behind her.

"Abigail Queen is skipping a party?" I ask her.

"It's like a cat turning down fresh salmon, isn't it?" She brushes a stray curl out of her face, careful not to smudge her professionally applied makeup. "They love that stuff even when they're sick. When Jpeg was on his last leg, that was the only thing he would eat."

I jerk my head at Abby's door. "I hope we don't have to put her to sleep."

She pats my cheek. "And I hope we don't have to re-home anybody either."

As she heads down the hall to the master bedroom to get dressed, the thought crosses my mind that Abby might be fibbing a little bit. All she wants to do is sleep, and I'm tempted to go take a good look at her eyes.

But no. If Mom is taking her word for it, so will I.

Over the next hour, the house fills with music and people and laughter. It's one of the most eclectic collections of humanity you'll ever see in Starling - from Mayor Lee, the smug son of a bitch, to Abby's goth theater friend who shows up in fingerless black gloves and an actual Victorian-style corset.

Sara Lance arrives with a woman whose name I must have heard wrong, because no one goes by Sin, do they? "Laurel sends her apologies," Sara says, "but she just wasn't feeling up to it."

Dad nods and lays his hand on her arm. "I'm glad you made it."

Uncle Roy and Aunt Thea show up separately, which is odd, and then Uncle Roy proceeds to down three glasses of Scotch and scowl in the corner most of the night. Mom drags a smile out of him, but nobody else manages it.

"What is Ollie up to?" Aunt Thea asks me off to the side. "I'm seeing a lot more city councilmen and judges and political types than usual."

I shrug, because I'm still kind of hoping he'll give up on the mayor idea. "Dunno. Maybe it's Mom who's up to something."

She is probably the one who rearranged the guest list, come to think of it.

At ten o'clock, Santa comes through the French doors with a giant bag of candy. None of the kids are even a little bit fazed that he put on twenty pounds of muscle and got a really dark tan since the last time they saw him. That's probably because his deep, booming ho ho ho is the most convincing they have ever heard.

Lyla laughs harder than anyone when the littlest girl nearly succeeds in pulling his beard off.

"Look how much fun Dad's having," Elaine says next to me. "Don't you want to take a turn next year?"

The familiar warmth of having Elaine nearby washes over me. I give her a sideways hug and say, "Love to, but my dad has seniority."

My fraternity brothers arrive in ones and twos, including my big and grandbig, and we hit the bar. Damn, it's good to catch up. Most took their business degrees to Coast City or their finance degrees to Gotham, and it's been a long time since we've seen each other.

It's weird, though. We only graduated seven months ago, but the longer we talk, the clearer it is how little we have in common anymore.

After an hour with them, I've got plenty of liquid courage in me. Maybe that's why the next time I see Elaine, smiling by the light of the tree, her black curls spilling down her neck, I offer her my arm.

"Come out on the veranda with me?"

Our breath frosts, and she shivers in the long, sheer sleeves of her gold dress. My dinner jacket is thick wool, and it is plenty big enough to wrap her up warm.

"What are we doing out here in the freezing cold?" she says, laughing.

"You look beautiful tonight."

I have told her that dozens of times before, but there must be something different in my tone, because it catches her totally off guard. "Thank you."

I take a deep breath. All right. Let's do this. "You're always beautiful."

Her eyes soften. "Jonny…"

"I've been joking about being in love with you for years."

She just looks at me.

Go for it. Now. "It's not a joke." Well, there were those times I proposed, which was probably excessive. "It's like eighty percent not a joke."

She does not break into a smile. She does not throw her arms around me. She definitely does not plant one on me and drag me off to the garden to make out.

Instead she bows her head, sets her wine glass down on the railing, and takes a deep breath.

"You know I love you," she starts.

I raise a hand to stop what must be coming next: It's not that kind of love. I used to babysit you, remember? I just don't see you that way. I don't need to hear the rest. "It's okay. Just forget I said anything."

She looks so miserable that I believe her when she says, "I am so sorry."

"Don't be." It feels like I just took a mule kick to the ribs, but I'm sure that will go away soon. "It's okay, really."

Struggling for something to say, she settles on, "You were really brave for telling me."

I give her a look. "Now that's just condescending."

She winces. "Sorry. I guess it was."

"Yeah, I don't need your lip, woman."

Finally, I have wiped the guilty expression off her face. "Your life is full of mouthy women. How do you put up with us all?"

"A drink would help. You want a drink?"

The sharp throb fades when she takes the arm I offer her. By the time I have downed another scotch and soda, it is a tolerable ache.

After that, I probably have a little too much. Then my big and grandbig find a bottle of Fireball, which we all agree tastes like Christmas, or at least like Christmas ought to taste. I have a lot too much.

"Jon, there you are," Mom says when she catches me on my way back from the bar. "Could you be a good host and entertain Abby's guests for a little while, please?"

I wave my drink at her. "'M havin' an adult beverage. Not gonna hang out with a buncha fourteen year olds."

She looks me over, sighs in disappointment, and looks away. "I meant the SCU girls," she mutters, "and I was going to suggest you dance with her friend Tish, because - "

"Not really in the mood for theater kids."

Not long after that, my crowd of Phi Psis gets loud enough that Dad comes and tells us, "Take it out on the veranda."

"Come on, guys." I start herding them out the French doors, and on our way out, I accidentally back right into someone. "Whoa, hey, sorry."

I have stepped on a girl in red satin with a mane of auburn hair. She can't be much more than five feet tall, and she is built soft, with full hips and tiny hands, one of which is held out to steady herself on my arm.

I am smiling before I realize it. "Party's moving out here. You want to join us?"

She raises an eyebrow, withdrawing her hand delicately. "Not really in the mood for frat boys."

Oh. Shit. "You're Tish."

She nods. "And you're Abby's brother."

I gesture out the door. "Invitation stands."

She laughs at my nerve - ten points to me - but shakes her head. "Nice to meet you, Jonathan Queen. Merry Christmas."

She turns her back, melts into a gaggle of flamboyantly dressed people, and slips her hand through the arm of the goth girl in the corset.

I don't remember much of what happens after that.

Christmas morning, Abby feels fine, and I am too hungover to care what is under the tree. So of course she busts into my room in reindeer-print pajamas and smacks me in the head with a pillow.

"Rise and shine!"

Elaine stands in my doorway, and though she has pulled on leggings and a sweater dress, she has not yet bothered with makeup or taming her wild black hair. She looks warm and sleepy and gorgeous, which should be fine provided I don't look directly at her.

"Come on, there's coffee," she says.

I shuffle downstairs to the pajama party. The whole family slept here last night, so Mom and Aunt Thea are already having coffee at the dining room table in robes and flannel. Dig and Uncle Roy doze on opposite ends of the sofa until Lyla sneaks up on her husband and tugs the Santa hat down over his ears.

At breakfast, Dad passes Milena's standard hangover dishes directly to me. When I pass the hash browns to Elaine, she is careful not to touch me. I hope I did not ruin things with my… whatever she is to me. Not my Elaine, obviously.

Presents are a leisurely affair, now that even the baby of the family is in high school. Once upon a time, it was serious business. There is video of Dad and Dig on the floor assembling a Fisher Price tool bench for me, with Uncle Roy's voice behind the cell camera saying, "How many highly trained combat veterans does it take to assemble a child's toy?"

Dad covered my eyes and gave him the finger.

Now we mostly just sip coffee and throw crumpled gift wrap at each other. Elaine unties the ribbon on a box of pearl earrings from my parents, and she leans over the back of the sofa to thank Dad with a kiss on the cheek. Then she loops the ribbon around his head and ties a neat bow at the back. Not only does he let her, he does not take it off for twenty minutes.

I swear, Elaine gets away with nearly as much as Abby - probably for the same reasons that, when he wants a one-word descriptor for what she is to him, Dad simply calls her his niece. "I wonder sometimes," Mom once told me, half-asleep on the sofa in the lair, "whether he would ever have been brave enough for you two if he hadn't loved her first."

The gift MVP this year is probably Aunt Thea. She gives Abby a midnight blue dress custom made for her, and my sister reacts with such convincing surprise that Uncle Roy and I exchange appreciative nods. Give the girl an Emmy, after all.

Christmas night is just for the four of us Queens.

Mom leads us in kindling all nine of the lights, her voice taking on an uncharacteristic seriousness as she does it.

Then we sprawl on the rug in front of the fireplace with hot chocolate, ginger snaps, and spiced wine. The first winter after my parents got married and moved into this house, the living room was nearly empty but for a menorah and a Christmas tree. They did exactly this on Christmas night - blankets by the fire and sappy music playing on Mom's laptop speakers.

Well, maybe not exactly this. They were newlyweds, so there was probably a bunch of additional stuff I do not want to think about.

Abby's eyes are clear tonight, none of Dad's old injuries seem to be hurting him, and Mom looks well-rested and unworried about any of the crazier, stupider members of her family. The windows frost over, and Frank Sinatra wishes us a merry little Christmas.

Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow. I hang a shining star of sticky-backed tinsel in Mom's hair.

She throws a blanket over me, all three of them sit on the corners, and it takes me ten minutes to fight my way out.