Chapter: 6/14
Chapter Warnings: Angsty sex. References to car accidents. References to miscarriage. An author whose notes might be giving you the wrong idea, so just read on.
Additional Notes: As your Christmas/Holiday present, lovely reader, this is the second of two, not one, chapters I'm posting today. Make sure you go back and read the last one before this one, or things might be just a bit confusing (plus, chapter five holds a special place in my heart). For all of you who actually read the ANs, good on you ;)
Thanks To: See previous chapter's thanks.

(Wednesday, December 14th; Week 13)

John is on the train home from Harry's, sitting angrily in a corner of the car, when he receives the call.

John has received many calls before. This time should be no different. Oh, yes, just some bruising, he'll be fine. We're keeping him for the night, just to make sure that swelling goes down. There were a few stitches involved, but he'll be in good shape by the end of the week. He's always dreaded different calls, ones that aren't so easily resolved, but only in the quiet of night when the nightmares are still fresh as they pound through his blood. They're calls he has never, in caring for colds and influenza and broken wrists at the most, had to make, and it's a blessing. He can't imagine having to pick up the phone and inform someone of the worst, listen as the news sinks in.

But he knows what it's like to be on the other end, and he definitely knows this is the worse end of the deal. But this time, he worries for two.

Sherlock hears him pounding through the hallway in the moments before he arrives, flushed and out of breath and seething panic into the room. He can read the fear in the increasing speed of his footsteps, hear it in the rushed way he accosts the nurses and begs them to show him where he is. Finally, he sees it in wide blue eyes.

"Sherlock," John sighs, and whether it's relief or anger or terror, it doesn't matter, because John is suddenly there, surrounding him, enveloping him in his knit-wrapped arms and crushing his slender form against him. Sherlock's hands curl in the warm fabric, drag him closer despite himself. The trembling finally stops, and he inhales on a shaky breath.

John tries to step back, but Sherlock chokes something unintelligible and presses him back. John cards anxious hands through his hair, settling him, shushing him gently.

"It's alright. The baby… is alright," he says on a whisper, because he knows it's what John needs to hear.

"The nurses told me," John reassures him, though there's a tremor to his caresses that wasn't there before.

But you had to see it for yourself. Yes, my John, I know. I was the same way. Make them run the tests, demand the results, get me out of this car and tell me if I've lost it all.

The thought turns down the dark road, in the sudden, unpleasant stomach-dropping way achieved at the height of a rollercoaster, and he flinches against it. Delete, delete, delete. Request invalid, Restart Y/N?

"I can't stop thinking about it," he admits, and the broken confession and the sharp breath of hot air that warms against his collarbone sends a painful jolt through John. His arms tighten, and Sherlock sinks into the hold as John cradles him closer, ever closer.

"Tell me what happened."

But what is there to tell, really? And if I open my mouth, I'm not sure what will come out. All his carefully controlled and contoured edges; all shattered. Just this mess inside his head through which he cannot sort. All this information, all these emotions, and he can't process it, can't think, because every time he thinks there's only… "Lights up ahead. Rain. Cabbie had been in an argument with his wife. Violence involved - welts rising across his cheek. Red-faced, obviously furious. Wasn't thinking, too focused on his home issues. Lights grow closer. It's a parcel truck, I can see that and I can see that we're moving from our lane. I can see the angles, map it out to its exactness and see our paths intersecting before it happens, and I can't do anything to stop it. The lights are there and I'm not doing anything because I can't, I can't move, all I can do is throws my hands across myself. It's all I can think about, there's nothing else, it fills my mind as the light fills my eyes and the sound fills my ears and we go spinning off into the rain. I cannot fail in this, this one thing. And I didn't. They cut the trapped belts and there were tests and I was fine, and it was fine, but I keep seeing -" He buries his face in the crook of John's arm, breathes deep. Cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon; all I wanted was the smell of cinnamon and you and I couldn't imagine not having it.

"Stop. Open your eyes, Sherlock."

John's voice is warm, and soft, and home, and he can't help but answer it. His eyelids part, and he feels a wetness clinging to his lashes but can't bring himself to care. John's lip trembles at the sight, but his voice remains steady, and Sherlock clings to it just as strongly as the fingers fisted in his jumper.

"Just me. Just look at me, Sherlock. Everything's fine." There are more murmured assurances, and mindless words and stroking hands, and Sherlock feels every one drop into his scalp.

They seep through to his brain, and slowly, the roiling mass of thought untangles. With shudders he comes down, until slowly the clarity he has become accustomed to is restored. His heart beat slows, the monitors next to him level. Nurses enter, side-stepping the doctor who throws them hard stares, as if daring them to ask him to move. They don't. Checking his abrasions and bruises, they simply deem him satisfactory and move quietly from the room. John watches them go, grits his teeth for a minute, and then climbs into the bed alongside Sherlock, holding him against his chest.

It's distinctly uncomfortable. Also distinctly illegal or incorrect or something of the sort, and he looks up at John. His eyebrows rise, but John shakes his head.

"I'm your doctor, and I'm only doing what's best for my patient."

Sherlock's mouth twitches, but he says nothing. He feels oddly… drained. And he can't bring himself to puzzle the feelings of it out, because he's had enough of it. Feeling. So pointless, so exhausting, and yet… he feels John slot along his side, rounding to the curve of his belly. John's hands, strong, steady, hold them together, his face buried in the dark tangles.

"Sleep," he whispers, and yet again the words are dropping into his brain. Oh. He'd suspected John would want to talk more. John likes talking; thinks it solves things. But maybe some things are better left unsaid. Or maybe others, he thinks, as John's fingers drawing soothing shapes into his back and the scent of home fills his lungs, just don't need words at all.

For the first time, his thoughts had failed him. But John… John never has.

"How was your sister's?"

They're sprawled across the bed, home at last, Sherlock assured of his health and John strictly promising to take care of him, not that he'd needed to give his word. Hazy moonlight drifts down through the square window, and as Sherlock asks the question his silver eyes look huge and white as he stares up from the pillows. John sighs, doesn't break his hold with them. "You tell me." He rolls on his side to face Sherlock, as they mirror one another.

Sherlock's eyes dart over his frame, assessing, gathering, tentatively feeling out in that way he'd lost. "You… your tense shoulders. Unhappy. Visits with your sister usually end this way, it's nothing new. But I also noticed that your wallet is missing the picture you usually keep tucked behind your cards. That's new. And not good."

John gives a grim shake of his head, closing his eyes and burying his face against the pillow. "No, you're right. It's not good." He inhales sharply, tongue darting out to wet his lips. "We had…an argument."

Sherlock waits for him to elaborate. He'd known from the moment John had suggested his outing that this was a doomed gesture. Noble, perhaps, but noble didn't always and didn't usually mean successful. But he was John, and noble was what he did best, and Sherlock was going to let him try. What John thought would make this different than every other failed attempt of the past, Sherlock didn't know - maybe, like him, he was affected by the thought of their miracle alone. Let it grow too large inside his skull. Maybe they placed too much hope on things like this, just because they were too much to hope for. But again, Sherlock did not say anything - best to let John come to some conclusions on his own.

"Everything was going fine," he begins quietly. The room echoes back through the stillness, thick and dark around their cocoon of bedspread. "I told her the news, and she was happy for us. I thought, maybe… I thought we were getting somewhere, you know? For once, we were…getting along. Happy. But." His lips purse. "I came downstairs late last night, and she's sitting at the table with a bottle." A short, derisive laugh cracks through the silence. "And, god help her, she has four finished ones in front of her. But then, as if that wasn't enough…she started…talking."

His voice has grown hoarse, and Sherlock slides a cool hand across the mattress to grasp his wrist. John stares down at the spindly fingers that attach themselves to him, feather light, and do not slacken in their firm and gentle weight. He swallows.

"She and Clara. They were pregnant. Harry was. And she lost it." There's a dullness in his voice that raises the hair on the back of Sherlock's neck. It's a dead sound, a horrified, numb noise that issues from his throat. As if the words by themselves just weren't chilling enough.

Because of the drinking. She drowned herself and any chances at life inside her, washed it away in acid at the back of her throat. Let it burn its whiskey trail and left the flames to destroy everything else. Wasn't strong enough to fight the blaze. Not even for a child, pulled from the ashes.

The hand he has around John's arm tightens, and to his insurmountable distress, John does not squeeze back.

"I would have been - was - an uncle," he says in a low voice, and Sherlock notes the growing pulse against his fingers; feels the quickening breath against his cheek. And eventually, he feels the tremors that shake through John's shoulders as wet eyes rise to his own.

"I would have been an uncle, and she didn't even try to-"

Sherlock scoots closer, until they're mere millimeters apart. He takes John's face in his hands, thumbs smoothing down the tracks that have come to line his face; coming away wet and salty. His fingers continue to settle over the skin, restlessly willing him to be okay. He was never one for this; John was the comforter, John was so good at this and he… he was… he bites back a whimper as John continues to crumble under his hands. There are no ways in which I can make this right for you. Is there nothing I can do?

He moves his mouth over John's, long, deep kisses that draw him in to the wet, warm comfort of his lips and tongue. John's mouth parts helplessly under his, and he strokes a gentle tongue inside, the barest of trailing swipes across his lips. It's warm and soft, and even as he gives and gives to the motion, he is coaxing John into taking, breathing heavy in between the quiet sounds of flesh on flesh as they sink through the thick, heady air.

Sherlock tilts him onto his back, their mouths still moving with one another as they roll. Sherlock slides his arms up the pillow, supporting himself on his elbows as he dips his head and caresses his tongue with his own. He pulls back with a wet slide, opens his eyes to see John's bruised lips and dark eyes. He drops his head again, but this time only lays his forehead across John's. The hands he has curled in the pillow by his head come to stroke along the sides of his face, holding him so that they are connected and unbreakable as he fastens his gaze on John.

"Would have. But this is the present, John. And there is a future." He bites down on John's bottom lip, turns his protests into a sweet, keening cry instead, as John grabs fistfuls of dark hair and yanks him down again. Sherlock feels the heart beneath him picking up speed; feels as it becomes harder for him to catch breaths between the vicious, desperate way in which John is laying claim to his mouth. What started off slow and sensuous and deep grows in its quiet intensity, as the air lost between them only serves to fan the burning fire that sears its way along their spines.

John gasps as Sherlock shoves a rough knee in between his legs, grinding down against the growing hardness there and earning another barely restrained whimper. Sherlock growls, low in his throat, and crushes his mouth again to John's.

"Cry. Scream if you want. Let it go," he pleads in between on ragged breaths, because it is the only thing he knows how to say; the only comfort he knows he can give. And John does love to talk. But this tension that has dragged on in his shoulders, hangs heavy in the air around him - Sherlock is tired of reaching towards him and finding glass walls where once was empty space.

So he shatters them, takes his hands and claws them from John's skin; takes his tongue and draws it from his lips. He pulls John's pajama bottoms down; bats his trembling fingers away and sheds his own impatiently before throwing himself down again. He presses his tongue in the divots of John's heaving collarbone; soothes him in the long swirls of saliva he paints across the skin. He glistens under the faint glare of the moon, and Sherlock finds his breath catching in his throat at the tortured lines the glow carves across his features. Let it go, let it go; John, let me make you whole in the way only you have ever done for me.

John bites his swollen lips as he tugs Sherlock back up on his knees, spidering his hands down over his back as they shift upwards. He pulls them together, and Sherlock feels the press all around his abdomen as John curves to fit against him. There's a hand resting against his nape, the faintest of pressures keeping them in contact, and the brushing of his calloused knuckles rouses goosebumps across his skin. He pulls back with a breathy exhale, but does not go far - his eyes dart up to John's, their noses brush as he tilts his head.

"Take me?"

John's eyes grow darker, the hands he's surrounded him with tighten fractionally. "How do you want to do this?"

Sherlock gives him a quick once-over, then crawls back to rest on his thighs. "Sit up," he orders, and John straightens. Sherlock scoots him back against the headboard, stopping to take one more kiss, letting John's moan drown in the thick contact of skin on skin. When he surfaces, John is the picture of desire, his legs spread across the rumpled sheets and his cock jutting from his body, tip glistening, his face full of heat and his eyes bright to match the redness of his lips. But there are still lines, deep and dark across his forehead, and the memory of pain in his blown pupils. Sherlock wants to burn it out of him.

He turns, nestles his back into the nook of John's chest. An unexpectedly tender kiss drops into his hair, and hands settle on his waist, fluttering over the taut surface. Sherlock's long arms reach up behind him, fingers curling around the wooden headboard, and his head falls back against John's shoulder, turning to inhale the mix of sweat and the undertones of his own unique flavors. As his nose meets the skin ever so lightly, John shudders behind him, providing the support with his hands as Sherlock's arms hoist himself into the air. The hands leave his waist, and Sherlock is suspended as the burning of this position begins in his shoulders, trembling as he waits. Moments later, and yes - a finger, liberally coated in lubricant, circles his entrance, and Sherlock inhales sharply as it goes knuckle deep, swiping along his tense walls. A second finger slides in after it, and Sherlock can't stop himself from sinking down onto John's hand, head thrown back and exposing the long line of his neck with a shuddered gasp.

John leans over and bites, sucking and soothing in quick darts of his tongue as Sherlock fucks himself on John's fingers. "God, I love you like this… all wanton and desperate for me," John whispers to the broken flesh, and Sherlock's retort cuts off as John gives a violent twist of his fingers, the faintest of brushes against his prostate sending shuddering jolts up his spine and straight into his brain. Just proving his point. Sherlock can appreciate that. Yes, he can appreciate it very much, especially as his muscles clench and release around the quick movements of John's calloused hands.

But eventually, John is withdrawing his fingers, and Sherlock can hear from the squelches that he's preparing himself, too. His arms, burning with exhaustion already, shake madly, and he's not sure if it's from effort alone or the breathless anticipation that incites the heaving of the ribcage protruding from his sides. He bucks back against John, who complies, his hands latching them together as, with a breath, he draws his hips down, down, down.

Yet again the feeling he has so often when he's with John; of being so incredibly full. But this, this closeness, this intimacy as John's hips begin to rock gently upwards into his, and Sherlock lets his hold slacken to drop them more firmly together - there's a physicality to that connection, and he hopes the intensity of what they feel every day, magnified by the press of their bodies, is enough to drive the pain and doubt from John's mind and that sad look in his eyes. He knows it can. It's happened before. And now, now is more important than ever - for the both of them, if he's being honest (because the police lights are still flashing behind his eyes and he can still feel a belt cutting into his shoulder), but Sherlock is a master of disguise.

Nothing, however, can hide the way in which his jaw unhinges on a soundless cry as John moves against him, grunting his own noises of pleasure as Sherlock flutters and flexes around him. He sinks down, hard, swivels his hips, and the high, agonized moan that rushes next to the space of Sherlock's ear has him doing it again, but this time John crashes up, meeting him with his own weight as his fingers cinch more tightly over the expanse of his waist. Sherlock's eyes squeeze shut, as they begin to settle - but it isn't settling, not really. It's a struggle, as they both labor and pant against one another, sticking together, stretching apart, and smacking once more against each other.

Without warning, John snakes his hand around and curls his nails over Sherlock's length, pausing to thumb the head. He hisses, rocks back and down in a way that causes the wooden frame of the bed to shudder beneath them, and John makes a choked sound in his throat as Sherlock twists and bares the line of his neck. John's breath scalds across his ear as it comes faster and faster, and Sherlock resists rocking forward into that talented, able hand to squeeze around John - all for him, all for you.

His hands push down, full weight coming to rest, before he is repeating the motion in rapid time, John's own movements becoming erratic and strained. Sherlock can feel the lines of tension thrumming through where they are pressed to one another, and he begs John, in the careful, sweeping shifts and dips of his body, to let go.

But he refuses, and they are battling, madly warring against one another in their desperate attempts to bring the other down. John skirts his teeth against the lobe of Sherlock's ear, and his hand gives a wickedly lazy slide of gentle fingers before squeezing sharply and unexpectedly. Sherlock sighs, high and inhuman in his voice, but the familiar tug in his gut is becoming more pronounced. In frustration, he rises almost completely off John, only the head of him enveloped, before letting gravity take him in once more. But it is in vain - even as John moans in abandon, his move has only served to rock him into that sensitive spot, and the need and desire all pool together in one desperate, white-hot node that Sherlock is powerless to resist. He comes, the cry ripped from his throat, knees snapping up as his toes curl with the arch of his back.

The aftershocks shudder through him, but even then, he does not forget John. The man at his back, this ever present man, is still thrusting towards oblivion, and Sherlock learned long ago the lengths to which he would go to please John. And this, this is more than giving what he wants - this is what he needs; this thing between them that somehow makes everything in the world alright, no matter what the papers said or what family secrets he unearthed or no matter the alignment of the planets in the solar system. There was always this.

Placing his feet firmly on the bed, he presses backwards, a languid but powerful roll of his hips pulling another gasp from John. But gasps; he can do so much better than gasps. Riding John's own desperation, he begins to speak.

"Do you know what you do to me?" he whispers, letting his tongue reach out to rasp against John's cheek. "How no one else is able to make me come as hard? How there has never been anyone else to capture my attention so fully? And then, when they had it, not lose it? Only you, John. You have only ever held that power of me. John, augh - you can feel it, too, can't you? The curling in the pit of your stomach, that fire. I'm the only one you've ever had it with, John. I'm the only one who ever will. So come for me, love. Show me just how much you want me. I'm all over your hands; your sweat and mine are the same against my back. It's all for you, just like it's all for me. So let go. Show me just how hard I make you, ah - yes, how hard I can make that burn and glide and that sweet ecstasy. Show me, John. Show me."

The crescents John is carving into his hip with one hand are suddenly exposed, as his fingers drop to grapple desperately at the bed sheets at the low-throated command. He rises, breathes a name, and - with an uninhibited groan he spills into Sherlock, teeth latching into his shoulder and not letting go through the soul-wrenching spasms he rides out in hiccupping jerks of his hips and lolls of his head.

Sherlock relaxes against the heaving chest at his spine, his skin jumping as he feels the shocks spread through his nerves and spark off their ends. It's easy to just rest limply against one another as they drift slowly back to earth; let their holds cool and slacken. Too easy to just lose himself in this, because really, was that not how it all got started? But then, if this was the result, getting lost and staying there couldn't really be so bad.

He's drained, it's obvious in the confused, darting thoughts that spiral through his brain in none of their civilized order. He shifts, head falling against John, who is pressing soft, dreamy kisses, almost as an afterthought, against his shoulder. He smiles faintly, and when John looks up, the expression is returned. There is still the memory of sadness hiding in their dark blue depths, and Sherlock knows this is far from over. John has carried aches and pains throughout his life, and the addition of these will simply be another weight upon his shoulders - but one that he, as always, is able to bear.

And maybe, he thinks, as a soft hand comes up to stroke over his stomach in calm circles, some things will lighten those loads. Someones.

He shivers, and whether it's the thought or the registration of the winter air against his chilled skin, it prompts him to lean forward and hike the blankets up over him and John. They settle back, Sherlock still cradled against John's chest, his own hand cradling the weight that hangs against his front.

John cares too much. That was obvious from the start. It was obvious, too, that sometimes, it hurt. And somehow always, in the end, it was worth it.

And as John curves against him, burying his face in Sherlock's curls with a long, deep draw of breath and screwing his eyes shut against the world in his slow descent into sleep, he realizes he's starting to understand what that feels like. In that deep, hollow place under his collarbone, there was a steady beat that never faltered.

John keeps a close eye on Sherlock for the next week, ready to jump at the first sign of trauma; the first glimpse of an overlooked injury or a forgotten wound. He can feel that anxious gaze upon him, John trying to be subtle and discreet in his care, but Sherlock does not call him out on it. In truth, he understands John's ever increasing desire to be protective. His hips continue to shift wider, and even as other symptoms have begun to slowly abate, the changes in the set of his waist and the crick in his back and the tenderness of his chest all make it ever more undeniable that the reality John once had to assure himself of has now quite arrived.

And ever since the accident, well, he was under even more personal care. Though to be honest, there was little to do that would rouse John's suspicions. It was one of the dry periods where criminals suddenly decided to take a group holiday, and with John firmly insisting on keeping any more chemicals out of the house, well, he wasn't able to get up to much. Though he doubted he would remain completely fine with the new limitations and restrictions of his body as time progressed, for the time being, their hazy, air pocket of uninterrupted space was almost… pleasant.

Their recovery, he supposed, as the year slowly dwindled and prepared to morph into the new.

John soothes away the old hurts by throwing himself enthusiastically into what he's deemed their last Christmas as just the two of them, an Event of Monumental Significance. Sherlock watches in amusement - and often slight befuddlement - as John goes around the flat with his preparations. Slowly, the flat transforms itself. Slowly, they forget.

John argues one night from in front of the hot oven, his cheeks flushed and hair askew, that Christmas is magic. Sherlock rolls his eyes and scoffs when John is looking. He might also steal cookies from the tray whenever he isn't, but, well, if John wanted to he'd observe it for himself. Mrs. Hudson, staring between them at the counter with a smirk, winks, and passes him the tube of frosting from behind her back.

They stand around a corpse, huddled together for warmth, and Lestrade talks about the gift exchange going down at the Yard. John brightens, and before Sherlock can protest - there's a man lying dead, as John is usually so fond of pointing out - they're drawing names. John has Lestrade, Sherlock notes without having to read what's on his slip - it's obvious in his delighted reaction. He, of course, has Anderson. Sherlock sulks the whole way to the department store, but brightens by attempting to guess at the things John has in his bags when they meet up again to return home. He is more considerably cheered when he devises a plan to rig Anderson's desk with a lovely pair of obnoxious, mechanical singing birds he finds in a tech shop. With modes from classical symphonies to hard metal. An on switch that, when he works on it a bit, will trigger the melody at the slightest provocation. Oh, yes, he is most definitely cheered.

Bill, one of John's old mates, stops by one evening. John is a different man - still John, undoubtedly; but there's a side of him that's brought out in the companionship of an old comrade that Sherlock has never seen before. It is most interesting. Bill, however, is typically dull - yet he willingly helps John string Christmas lights along the front of the door, something he's been begging to do but never had the time for himself, and since it makes John happy, he does his best to smile. It's easier, when John sends him proud glances and gushes about their work and the baby and Sherlock over steaming mugs. Easier, when Bill claps him on the shoulder and tells him he's good for John and he can see the shining in his partner's eyes, to respect the man. Easier still, when as he leaves, he embraces Sherlock and John can feel the corded stripes of vicious scars across his back, and sees John's face when he feels them too, and remembers.

"I don't understand why we need an entire tree," Sherlock remarks one day, perched in his chair and not looking up from where he's enthusiastically taking red pen to an article about the effect of various household chemicals on human skin. "Much less a live one."

John, puffing in great gulps as he attempts to shove said entire tree through the doorway to no avail, glares absolute knives in Sherlock's direction. "It's Christmas. We have trees."

"Bah. Bleach burns with those striations? Please," he mutters, and then, more loudly, "It just seems like a lot of unnecessarily arduous work."

"Says the man sitting on the chair," John gasps, finally succeeding in getting the large bulk through the doorway. A shower of pine needles rains down in the living room in celebration of their arrival. John narrows his eyes at them. "You could have helped, you know."

"Manual labor," Sherlock reminds him, pointing down at his protruding stomach and simultaneously scribbling out an entire paragraph. "Not supposed to do it anymore."

"Because you did it so much before," John mutters, just loud enough for Sherlock to hear. He looks up in affront, but John just silences him by planting a kiss on his lips.

Sherlock helps him decorate the tree, mostly because he's pretty sure hanging tiny ornaments on a tree does not constitute as manual labor, and John keeps wheedling, as it is. But he's also sure - as they unpack boxes of John's old things, and find themselves improvising bows with leftover surgical tape, and when Sherlock nearly falls over when he tangles himself in long lines of garland while John laughs so hard he cries, and as they argue over whether putting a skull on top of the tree is suitable to the holiday spirit, and while Sherlock pouts because John won't let him climb the ladder and put it on himself, and when John cheers him up with a kiss that tastes like butter cream frosting - that none of this, any of it, is really a labor at all.

Yes, his feet ache when he finally sits down in front of the fire with John, curled up on the floor against the quiet movements of his chest. Yes, for some reason, it is that much harder to stop sneaking cookies off of John's plate. Yes, he's more aware of the chill in the air that seeps ever more presently into his skin. And there's no case, and he has no patches, and John dumped the last of his experiments in the rubbish bin yesterday.

But he stops explaining his surprising levels of comfort away with hormones. He has compiled enough evidence to believe there must be something to this family business after all. Something that, despite all the other things, makes everything worth it.

Maybe, now, it's just the feeling that he was right, and in all his years of smug assertion and rates of success, he has never been happier to be so completely and utterly right.

Thanks for reading, and if you so desire to leave comments and critique, I can assure you that they would be most lovely Christmas gifts for me :) Enjoy your holidays, and see you back here on Thursday!