Dedication: To jrzgrl, who came up with this challenge.
Disclaimer: (sighs....)
Four Christmases
On their first Christmas together, Hood gave Rachel a box of expensive candies. She was rather blindsided by it; she hadn't been expecting anything, and in a desperate attempt to cover it, invited him to her apartment for dinner. She wound up serving Chinese take-out because the paperwork ate up all her cooking time. If Hood minded, he certainly didn't show it.
On their second year, Hood turned the tables by inviting Rachel along with him down to his sister's house for Christmas. Once again caught off-guard - how was it that he could keep doing that to her? - Rachel brought along a bottle of Hood's favorite single-malt, a good wine for Alex, and a sparkling cider for Owen.
On their third Christmas, Hood brought Rachel flowers, because she was in the hospital, again. Two dozen roses, twelve deep red and twelve sunny yellow. He never learned that she slept with two of them - one of each color - on her pillow at nights.
When she got out of the hospital five weeks later, Rachel gave Hood a new double-woven woolen pea coat, to replace the one that had gotten destroyed in the bomb blast. It set her back almost five hundred dollars, but the expression on his face when he opened the box was worth every penny.
On their fourth Christmas together, Hood gave Rachel a ring, and a proposal.
She gave him a yes.
A/N: I was going to do a full Twelve Christmases, but for some reason I can't go beyond four without angst interfering, and I don't want to write angst at the moment, sooo.... four it is. Love ya'll and Merry Christmas!
