Last day of this story. Hope you enjoyed.

Disclaimer: Don't own the Quest crew, but I do own every one else. Not making money, yadda, yadda.

Day 4

We managed to drag ourselves out of bed around ten the next morning.

When we came downstairs, we found that there were dishes on the dining room table – still dirty with bits of egg and toast crust.

In the kitchen, Jonny and Michael were fiddling with the stove. A sauce pan on the back burner hissed in protest.

"Has the fire marshal been alerted to the fact that you two are playing with the stove unsupervised?"

"Of course," Jonny said. "Did you miss the fire engine waiting outside?"

"Whatcha guys making?" I said.

"I don't know yet," Michael said.

Jonny raised a brow at him. "I'm making Mac and Cheese. Either of you want something that's not mystery meat?"

"Is this your second breakfast?"

"Second breakfast? I just woke up."

"So those dishes on the dining table..."

"Property of the morning people."

"So you're going to have Mac and Cheese for breakfast on Christmas morning?"

"Good food has no time limits, my friend."

"Does bad food have time limits?"

"I like Mac and Cheese," I said. "I'll have some. Do you need help?"

"I don't suppose you could make the water boil faster, could you? And, yes, before you say ask, I do have the burner on high, and, yes, it is the right burner. Thank you."

"I think I'll help Michael make something a little less mysterious," Ryan said.

"Too late, he's already got some substance in his pan."

"Those are potatoes, Jonny."

"But do they have cheesy goodness?"

"Do you know what you're putting on your potatoes, Michael? Or what you're having with them?"

"I was thinking I'd make that up as I go. They're potatoes, right, they go with pretty much anything."

The door swung open and Gwen surveyed the room, chin parallel to the floor, eying each one of us over the top of her nose.

"Ryan and... Michael," she said. "We need you to help rearrange the living room so that we can all sit around the tree."

"I can help," Jonny said.

"No," she said. "No, you can't."

"Ha," Michael said. "My reputation's still better than yours."

"I'm just not sure how to take that."

"Can you do something with these potatoes while we're gone?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Ryan gave me a peck on the cheek before hurrying out to the living room.

Gwen stayed behind a moment, measuring Jonny with her eyes. "Don't touch the stove while we're gone." She said, then disappeared.

"Well, that sort of defeats the purpose of me doing something with the potatoes, now doesn't it?"

"It gives me something to do."

"You know I can operate a stove without catching things on fire, right? One person's vote of confidence: that's all I need."

"I won't tell anyone if you use it."

"That's the closest thing to a 'yes' I've ever received." He turned the stove down and poured the box of macaroni noodles into the pan. "I plan all this out, you know. I mean, at first, breaking innumerable bones – repeatedly, including my femur – repeatedly, might seem like a pretty steep price to pay to not have to move furniture. But, then comes the moment when it's either the cheesy goodness of Mac or rearranging the living room, well, this moment, dear Katia, this moment is when it all becomes worth it."

"You feel left out, don't you?"

"A little."

"Hey," I said. "I know this isn't any of my business, but... I just hope you're doing okay. After... everything yesterday. Are you okay?"

He shrugged, setting the ladle on the counter and opening the fridge. "Not much I can do about it at this point, so no point in thinking on it."

"That's a little depressing."

"Life is depressing," he said, digging through the crisper. "On the bright side, we still have onions." He stood up and tossed one in the air to demonstrate.

I raised a brow at him.

"For the potatoes. You can put onions on potatoes, right? To make them... a more legitimate meal."

"That's not what the look was for."

"Should I be crying right now? I should probably be crying, huh? Or, maybe yelling at Jessie. But, she's pregnant, and, as much as I honestly don't want to raise a kid, I really don't want to be raising a kid with defects because his mother's raised stress levels gave him... defects." He pulled a knife from the block and peeled off the brown outer layers of the onion.

"Is it a he, then?"

"Too early to say. At least that's what they tell me and I don't really question them." He chopped the onion straight onto the counter without a cutting board. "Does that make me a bad person? Because I don't want to raise this kid? I mean, I will, but I have no desire for it. If Jessie had a miscarriage right now, I wouldn't give a damn. I would finally sleep, you know, really sleep, and would just start over in the morning."

"You know that I'm going to tell you that that doesn't make you a bad person."

"I was looking for cheap reassurance. I guess it doesn't make a difference if you mean it or not."

"I don't think it's your first impulses that make you a good or bad person – you can't really help those. It's the choices that you make – deciding to do the right thing despite those impulses that determine what kind of person you can be called. Besides, you haven't even met him, yet. You might like the kid."

"I might," he said, shaking the knife at me. "I might. They say I will and, well, like I said, I don't question them. Oh my god."

"What?"

"The noodles are done. Like, done five minutes ago, done."

"Where's the strainer?"

He pointed to a cupboard and I dumped the noodles into the strainer while he tossed the onions over the potatoes and twirled the spice rack.

"Does Jessie know how you feel?"

"She feels the same way, or possibly just wishes that I was more responsible."

I opened my mouth to deny his claim, but decided that he was probably right. "I'm sorry," I said.

"Well," he said. "My guess is that most the people alive right now are the result of their parents' stupid choices – and if those stupid choices hadn't been made, a lot of the people I love probably wouldn't be here right now."

"Was it worth it?"

He stopped twirling the spice rack a minute, looked at me, then laughed. "Yeah," he said. "But not in the way that you're probably thinking."

"In what way, then?" I looked down at the steaming noodles. "I'm sorry. That was probably too personal."

He picked a spice and poured it generously onto the potatoes. I dumped the noodles back into the pan and opened the fridge.

"Um. Do you know where the butter is?"

"Behind the olives."

I retrieved the butter and the milk and measured them out as quickly as I could.

He bit his lip. "I'm sure you know what happened? Before all of this... before me and Jessie..."

"I'm pretty sure I do, yeah."

"Well, whatever you're thinking – yes. It happened. And I was there." He ran his tongue across his lips and stared at his hands. "You wouldn't think – I mean, it wasn't me – but I was there and – it... it probably shouldn't-"

"It damaged you, too."

He took a deep breath without taking his eyes off his hands. "It was worth it," he said. "At that point. I know it sounds silly, idiotic, even – fighting fire with fire. But it did help – heal, you could say."

"So you feel like Jessie does, about the whole thing? At least what she said yesterday?"

"No," he said. "No, I do not feel like Jessie does. Yes, that was a reason, but I felt a level of attraction as well..." He looked up, as if searching for more words.

"I bet she did, too. I would have." I twisted my hands together. "I'm going to go see if Ryan and Michael need help."

He laughed. "And let this perfectly good meal of macaroni go cold?" He twirled the pan beneath my nose. "Mmm. It's better hot. You know how Mac gets all clumpy if you let it get cold. All we need now is silverware." He gestured toward a drawer beside the stove.

I relented and got two spoons from the drawer.

"You eat Macaroni with a spoon?" he said. "That's crazy."

"What do you eat Macaroni with?"

"A fork. Like a real person."

"You can't scoop with a fork."

"You don't scoop it. You stab it."

"Well that's just violent."

"The noodles won't mind. You're going to masticate them in 2.5 seconds, anyway."

I put one of the spoons back and got a fork. "Fine, but I like scooping."

"How'd you like that big word, by the way? Masticate. See, I used it right, too."

"I'm very proud."

He smiled at me, lopsidedly – the same way that Ryan smiled at me the first time that we met.

Ryan and Michael came back in, door swinging behind them.

"What do you guys eat Macaroni and Cheese with? A spoon or a fork," Jonny said.

"Oh geez," I said, looking through all the cupboards for bowls.

"I don't eat Macaroni and Cheese at all."

"With both," Michael said. "I scoop it onto a spoon using my fork. Much easier that way."

Jonny shook his head at him. "You're like a kinder gardener."

I put two bowls on the counter.

"What strange, lost civilization are you from?"

"What did I do this time?"

"Do you eat your steak out of a bowl, too?" He moved around the island towards the cupboard.

"Macaroni is not steak. You can't get it out of a bowl?"

"I can. But, why would I want to when I can have a plate." He replaced one of the bowls and retrieved a plate.

"You know what we all need," Michael said, wrapping an arm around Jonny.

"Do I wanna know?"

"Eggnog."

"What kind of eggnog?"

"The good kind."

"How about you make it and I'll plead ignorance later."

"I can do that."

"I spiced your potatoes, by the way. I didn't know what else to do with them."

We dished the macaroni up and sat on stools by the bar.

"Macaroni for Christmas breakfast?" Jessie said.

Jonny and I just about jumped out of our skin.

"Jesus, Jess. Make some noise when you come in."

"I could tell you to do the same most days."

"Want some?"

"No. I'm not hungry."

"What're you doing in the kitchen, then?"

"Looking for you."

He pushed his plate over a bit. "Have some anyway, you're too skinny."

"You oughta know by now not to tell me what to do. It won't end well."

"What do you want?"

She sat beside him. "Do you want to start over? The right way?"

"The right way?"

"Slowly."

He stared at his plate a moment. "Can I think about it?"

"Of course." She stood up and left.

-----

The Christmas festivities didn't start until one in the afternoon, when everybody finally gathered in the living room. Ryan and I sat alone on a love seat.

Jessie and Hadji sat on a couch to my right. Michael sat on the divider between the two couches. Jonny sat across the room, next to his dad.

"Do you ever get mad when you can't get that last little inch of eggnog out?" Michael said.

"I might," Ryan said. "If eggnog were measured in inches."

"You know what? I hate you."

Ryan shrugged.

Everybody got Michelle a gift, including myself. While she opened her gifts, playing amidst a mountain of tissue paper, I relaxed in the complete normalcy of that half hour – where it felt like any other Christmas.

I got Ryan the collector's edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and he got me a necklace.

Jonny plopped down between Jessie and Hadji.

"Hi," he said to Jessie. "I'm Jonny."

She laughed half-heartedly.

"Are you ready for this?" he said.

"Not in the least."

"Yeah. Me neither." He tapped her knee. "Are you excited?"

"Yeah." She held her belly and looked up at him. She smiled. "It's a piece of you in there. Always will be."

END.

Anyone have any ideas for what the kid's name should be in the sequel? At any rate, the first chapter of that story will be up next Monday (hopefully).

Also, I was hoping to get some feedback as to what your favorite / least favorite day was.

Thanks for staying with me! Happy Questing.