AN: So have 2 chapters :) I may or may not post the last chapter before I go away Thursday but it depends if I have time. Enjoy, Kallie xx

2 days later, Kittie was sat in the airport lounge waiting for her flight. Around her, her younger siblings were playing tag round the seats, and Michael was desperately trying to get them to sit down. Normally that would have been Kittie who would have warned them about falling over and getting hurt, or bribed them with baking cookies when they got to Canada. But Kittie was sat texting Oscar, wishing they weren't go away so she could spend more time with him. Then she would feel selfish and bad for thinking like that. She couldn't wait to spend some time with her family, especially as she rarely got to see them. She just knew that she would really miss Oscar as well, however it would be good to have some time apart. They both had busy lives, and seeing each other everyday was just not feasible as much as she wanted to. Fast communication was still possible though as they lived in the 21st century.

A flight attendant announced that their flight was boarding, so with a quick text to Oscar, Kittie shoved her phone in her pocket and began to play round up her siblings. Charlie darted off to the side, followed by Maisie, and Kittie sighed. Shouldering her backpack, she chased after them.
"Guys, come back," she called, following them to the far side of the airport lounge. "We have to get on the plane now, or we can't go to Nana and Papi's."
"Don't wanna!" came the response from Charlie who stuck his tongue out and laughed before darting off again.
Kittie stopped, knowing how to get them to come with her. "Oh okay then. We'll just leave you here in the airport all by yourselves until we get back."

Maisie glanced at her big sister, panicked. Kittie knew this would happen, and turned away, slowly moving back towards everyone else.
"No!" she squealed, running after Kittie and attaching herself to Kittie's leg. "Don't leave me here, please."
Kittie smiled at her and stroked her hair. "I won't." She glanced at Charlie who was stood still, unsure if she was bluffing or not. "Charlie, if you don't come now, you won't get to make Christmas cookies with Nana, or get Christmas presents, or lay in the snow or have roast turkey and bacon sausages on Christmas Day."
Charlie, a great lover of food, considered not having these things and sighed. Reluctantly, he wandered back over to Kittie, dragging his feet. "Okay, but only cause I love bacon sausages."
"Oh, so I can have your Christmas presents?"
"No way! I love them too!" he retorted quickly. "They're mine not yours."

Kittie laughed and herded them towards everyone else. Sophie, Tom and Cal were looking bored waiting to get on the plane and find their seats. They hated waiting around. Sophie just wanted to read her book, Tom wanted to watch films, and Cal just wanted to pretend he wasn't with his younger siblings. He got on well with them, but there were definitely times he stopped acting like a kid, and started acting like the moody preteen that he believed he should be. Michael had a firm hold of Tom's arm who had been known to dart in front of everyone else and squeeze onto the plane alone. Maisie, spotting Sophie, ran over to her and began chatting about some TV show that they liked to watch together that was probably a bit old for Maisie who was 3. Charlie was still sulking a bit, and wandered over to his brothers, still dragging his feet. Their mum tutted before scooping him up in her arms and tickling him to get him to smile again. Judging from the happy squeals, it worked.

Kittie shuffled forward with her family, keeping an eye on the younger ones incase they decided to bolt again. Thankfully for her they didn't. They boarded the plane, the young ones running ahead to find their seats. Kittie watched them weave in and out of the other passengers and shook her head.
"Guys, slow down. There's no rush to find seats you know," she called as she followed them, knowing she would be sat next to Maisie.
Maisie adored her big sister and had specifically requested to sit next to Kittie. When she'd been initially told no, she had held her breath until she passed out and then locked herself in the bathroom until it had been agreed.
Maisie ran back down the plane and tightly grabbed Kittie's hand. "Come on! I want to sit down and hear the story!" Kittie had recently recorded her reading a bunch of stories for each of her siblings so that they had something to listen to on the flight if they wanted. Maisie's favourite at the moment was The Land of Stories books by Chris Colfer, and whilst it meant they weren't paying for audio files, Maisie refused to listen unless it was Kittie's voice.

Maisie was surprisingly strong for a 3 year old and dragged Kittie down the plane towards their seats. They'd each been told their seat number and had memorised it to make getting everyone on board so much easier. Each child was paired with an adult as well so if any problems occurred, an adult would be there to control each situation and child. She chatted away to Kittie from her window seat as Kittie stored the pink carry on bag in the lockers overhead. Maisie herself had a small pink rucksack with her name stitched on which had her bunny, blanket and an iPod nano with the recordings on as well as a colouring book and crayons for if she got really bored.
Sorted, Kittie made sure Maisie's seatbelt was done up properly and sat down next to her little sister. She was quiet.
Maisie touched Kittie's hand lightly, startling her slightly. "You miss whatshisname don't you? You'll see him when we get back. You've got me."

Kittie smiled and squeezed the hand slightly. "Thanks Mais. Right are you ready?"
Maisie nodded excitedly as Kittie pulled out the iPod and headphones, before handing Maisie a mint to suck. "Don't chew it. It's to help your ears when we take off."
Maisie nodded again and put the mint in her mouth, letting it sit their until the engines roared. She clapped when Kittie hit play on the iPod. "Is this the first one?"
Kittie nodded, taking out a drumstick for her and a book to read. "Yup."
Maisie beamed and settled back, cuddling her bunny tightly that Kittie had got out for her. Kittie shook her head as her little sister became engrossed in the audio story before turning her book the right way round so she could read it. Distracting herself would be a good move, and hopefully a new book would do the trick. Checking on Maisie one last time before take off, she opened her book and began reading where she had left off. She hoped she could get lost in the world of shadow hunters quickly.

The next day, as Kittie was off ice skating at a rink with her family, Oscar was sat in his house, still wondering what his plans for Christmas were. He flicked through the TV channels lazily causing moans from his sister who had been watching the show.
"Oh lay off Lily. It's boring and I don't want to watch that. Let's watch something else."
Lily scowled at him in full 5 year old fashion. "But princesses!"
"I've got the remote and I say no," replied Oscar, waving it at her.
"You're just grumpy cause you're missing your girlfriend."
"I..." Oscar stared at his little sister, surprised she had picked up on it. He'd been home less than 24 hours, and already she noticed. "Well aren't you the little detective. Yes, I miss Kittie but she's in Canada and I'm here in Salisbury. Not much I can do about that."
Lily frowned, screwing her face up, partly from confusion, and partly from Rebecca coming in and screaming. "But didn't mum tell you?" She turned to her little sister. "Becca shut up! I'm trying to talk to Oscar."

A bit disappointed in the lack of care offered by Lily to the 2 year old, Oscar got off the sofa and picked up Becca, bouncing her slightly until she stopped crying. But then he supposed Lily was only 5. "What did mum not tell me?"
Lily picked up the discarded remote and changed the channel back to the princess programme. "We're going to Canada to visit Auntie Myra and Uncle Tim."
"Canada is a big place Lil, and I said no princesses." He took the remote from her and brought up Netflix. "How about a film instead?"
Lily nodded. "Frozen. Will you sing with me?"
Oscar sat down next to her and smiled. "Always." He moved Rebecca so she could see the screen as well, before putting on the film. He made sure the two girls were settled next to each other before getting up. "I'll be back in a sec okay?"
Lily and Rebecca hardly noticed, their attention fixated on the film. Oscar shook his head and went to find his dad and step-mum. Hopefully they would be able to clear this up and actually tell him what the plans were.

When Oscar called her that evening, he made sure his sisters were both in bed and that his suitcase was far away from his laptop. He didn't want to risk spoiling the surprise. Apparently Oscar's aunt and uncle knew Kittie's grandparents quite well, family friends or something, and it had been arranged that the families would meet up and spend Boxing Day together. Of course Kittie didn't know this, and it was a surprise for her, having just been told they had been invited round for lunch by family friends.
He sat and waited as Skype rang, staring at her profile picture. She looked really pretty in it, despite having a bucket of what he presumed to be icy water being tipped on her by her sister Sophie. He assumed it was from the ice bucket challenge last summer, a craze that had swept the country. His own profile picture was him, Tyler and Sam covered in paint after an FM fundraiser event the same summer. He smiled, remembering the fun they had had painting fences and the children's centre for charity. They had raised a lot for Naomi house, one of FM's three charities for the year, and it had been nice to do something for the community, not to mention how much fun and messy it had been.

At last Kittie answered, looking a bit out of breath like she had run for the call. "Sorry, I was helping sort out Maisie. She woke up screaming and then I tripped over one of the dogs. Apparently it's a good idea to lie in the middle of the corridor for me to fall over."
Oscar laughed. "Apparently it is. Besides, you're very clumsy."
"I'm not clumsy, I'm accident prone, that's all," Kittie retorted, her rash side starting to show again.
"Of course," Oscar agreed, not entirely believing her.
"So do you know what you're doing for the holidays yet?" Kittie asked, changing the topic. "Last you knew, you knew nothing."
Oscar shrugged, trying to look bored. "Yeah. Dad said were heading up north to see some family and we're staying with them Christmas Eve to the day after Boxing Day. Then we'll be back and I'll probably head back to Winchester for New Years."

Kittie nodded. "Cool. Oh wait, aren't you coming to the New Years party? We've got lots of people coming to the house, and I invited you last week."
"I'd completely forgotten about that. Of course I'll be there. Can't let you down." He smiled, not believing he'd actually forgotten that.
Kittie smiled back. "So today we went ice skating. The little ones loved it, even though they kept falling over a lot. Sophie, Tom, and Cal aren't that bad. Cal's quite a natural actually, but Maisie and Charlie were all over the place. We refused to let them have some of those stupid penguin things."
"Charlie and Maisie are the youngest, aren't they?" Oscar asked, just making sure.
Kittie nodded. "Yeah. Charlie's 5 and Maisie's 3."
"I'm sure you said Charlie was 4 the second time we met."
Kittie shrugged. "Possibly, I forget. He's definitely 5. His birthdays in April and Maisie's is in February. There's just under 2 years between them."
"How could you forget how old your siblings are?" he teased.
"Hey, I know when their birthdays are, and I have 9 siblings. It's a bit tricky to remember exactly how old they all are all the time."
"I suppose it's allowed when there's 9 of you."
"Not to mention my niece and nephews. You know Alec's now got another kid. Elinor had the baby yesterday. He was a bit early, but he's just in time for Christmas."

"Aww. What's his name? I take it they've named him?"
Kittie nodded. "Yeah, they have. His name's Toby after my great grandfather Tobias. He's Canadian born as well so they're gonna have to sort out getting him a passport and everything so he can go home. Thankfully, they live in Helena and drove to Winnipeg otherwise they wouldn't have been able to come."
"That's still a long drive for a heavily pregnant woman."
Kittie shrugged. "8 months. The baby was a month early."
"Wow. I bet he's tiny."
Kittie shrugged again. "Yeah but there's been smaller in the family, namely me."
"Not much has changed there then," replied Oscar with a smile.
Kittie scowled, like he knew she would. "Hey!"
"But you're wonderful just the way you are."
Kittie still scowled. "If I was there with you, I'd throw something at you right now."
"I know you would love. I'm sorry. But I do like you small. All the better to cuddle. You're perfect height to me. I wouldn't want you any taller. You're my kitten."
Kittie's face softened. "Nice save mister."

There came a shout from downstairs and then Oscar noticed the screaming coming from his sisters. "Hang on, something's happening downstairs."
He got up quickly and ran out of his room, heading downstairs. Kittie waited, knowing what family is like and having to sort out any problems. Oscar came back up 5 minutes later carrying a sniffling Rebecca.
"Becca, this is my girlfriend Kittie. She's in Canada at the moment." Rebecca snuffled and waved at Kittie, burying her head in Oscars shoulder. Oscar smiled at Kittie. "Sorry. A bat got into the girls room and terrified them. Lily's downstairs with my step-mum."
"It's okay." Kittie smiled at Rebecca, having heard about her from Oscar. "Hi Becca."
"I bet she's excited for Christmas."
"We all are," he replied shifting Becca slightly so that it was more comfortable. "It should be fun even though it's not quite what I expected."
Kittie frowned at him. "You're sounding mysterious."
"Not mysterious, just not wanting to tell you any details, cause I want to tell you them later after its happened, especially cause I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen."

A female voice rang up the stairs. "Oscar, can you put Becca back in bed please? And you should think about going to bed soon as well. You've got a busy day tomorrow."
Kittie frowned again. "What are you doing tomorrow?"
"Joyce insists on cleaning the house top to bottom before we leave in the evening for up north. Our flights at 8pm and the girls should be asleep then which will make things easier." He glanced at Rebecca and saw she was asleep. "Besides we only started talking half an hour ago and you didn't answer until gone 10."
Kittie shrugged. "The kids seem to think they can get away with really late bedtimes here and I can't control if Maisie wakes up screaming cause she's not at home and had a nightmare."
"Okay okay, chill. No need to get all defensive on me love."
Kittie smiled, remembering the first time he told her off for that. "Sorry."
"I know you are." He sighed. "Right, I've got to go. Love you Kittie and Bon nuit."
"Bon nuit mon cherie." Kittie blew a kiss and waved at the camera before the screen went dark from Oscar ending the call. She sighed and wondered what she was going to do before she felt tired enough to sleep. She supposed she could read.

The next day, she had very little communication from Oscar. An IM every now and again which she presumed were in between packing and helping clean the house. And then just before 8pm communication ceased as Oscar boarded his flight. Why he needed a flight to head up north she didn't know, but then she assumed it beat driving for hours with two small girls. She wasn't quite sure where he was heading, thinking it was maybe Scotland as that was up north and you could get planes there. To distract herself from the lack of communication, she played with her siblings, made Christmas cookies, and read. Fortunately for her, she had taken along a few books so she didn't run out of them. After that evening, she didn't hear from him again until that morning, and all it was was a quick message to say he was exhausted and that he had landed safely so she shouldn't worry. Even after he had got wherever he was going, the communication from his was minimal. Kittie kept messaging him to see how he was, and where he was, barely getting a reply that never answered the where question.

So that evening, when she was sat on her windowsill wrapped up in a thick woolen jumper and a blanket with a book and a mug of her nans famous hot chocolate, she was surprised to hear from him.
"Hey love," read the message.
Kittie quickly texted back. "Hey stranger."
The reply came quickly. "Sorry. Things have been chaotic here and I've been rushed off my feet, but now I'm not busy."
"Just as well. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me."
Kittie gave a wry smile as she read his reply. "Forget you? Never."
"Good. I've missed talking to you." She sent the reply quickly.
"I've missed you too." There was a pause before another message came through from him. "What are you doing right now?"
"I'm sat with hot chocolate talking to you."
"What's the weather like?"

Kittie glanced out the window and saw a figure standing by a lamppost on the other side of the street, standing in the light shower of snow. "Snowing lightly. There's a person outside the house."
"Maybe you should go see if they need anything. Their car may have broken down or they may be lost."
"But they're a stranger."
"You should always help those in need. Besides if they're there to lure pretty girls like you away, then you can scream as your family are just inside."
"Why do you want me to go and help them so much?"
"In Canada, do as the Canadians do and help one another. Just go."

Kittie sighed and stood up, carefully placing her mostly full cup of hot chocolate on the desk. She grabbed a coat and hat off the back of her door and headed downstairs.
"I'm just off for a walk," she said to her family who were sat in the living room.
"Okay, have fun," came the nonchalant response from her mum.
If Kittie hadn't been so tired, she would have been more suspicious of the lack of concern from her family, and the pushiness of her boyfriend to help a stranger.
She opened the front door and stepped out onto the street. "If I die, I'm totally haunting you," she texted Oscar before heading over to the person. "Excuse me, are you alright? Are you lost?" No response. "Can I help you with something?" She moved closer, confused as to why they wouldn't answer. "Excuse me, sir I-"

Oscar looked up and smiled. "Hey there beautiful."
Kittie squealed and flung her arms around Oscars waist, hugging him tightly. "Oh my gosh. It's you, you're here in Winnipeg." She let go and hit him. "You douche. Why didn't you tell me you were coming here?"
Oscar laughed. "I wanted it to be a surprise. Everyone else knew by the way, before you start just yelling at me."
Torn between joy and annoyance, Kittie hugged him again. "I can't believe you didn't tell me. No wonder my family were so calm and you were so insistent. Oh I hate you."
"No you don't," said Oscar soothingly, pulling her close to him again. "You love me, even more so for being here and surprising you."
Kittie tilted her head to the side and smiled. "You're right, I do." She reached up and kissed him, not caring if anyone saw.
Oscar kissed her back, holding her as the pair stood under the golden light of the street lamp, soft flakes of snow catching their hair as it fell. Noting a change in light, he pulled away and looked up to see the front door of Kittie's grandparents had been opened. "So, are you going to introduce me to your family?" he asked, stroking her cheek softly, his hands slightly cold from standing outside for a bit.
Kittie sighed and nodded reluctantly. "I suppose although I was enjoying standing out here with you."
"What you mean in the freezing cold? In case you haven't noticed, my hands are already getting cold."

Kittie dragged him over to her family. "This is my boyfriend Oscar. Oscar, this is my mum, dad, Nana and Papi."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Oscar said charmingly.
Kittie's mum beamed. "Hi Oscar. It's so nice to meet you at last. We've heard so much about you."
"Muuum," moaned Kittie, embarrassed as she clung to Oscar's side.
"Oh hush Kittie. I'm Sarah, this is my husband Dan, and these are my parents Julie and Peter."
"It's a pleasure to meet you all."
Julie stepped back towards the front door. "Shall we go inside out of the cold?"
Oscar nodded, pleased with this idea having not dressed as warmly as Kittie. "Yes please, although I can't stay out too late. My family aren't entirely aware that I'm here tonight."
"Ahh a rebel," smiled Kittie's mum. "As long as you don't hurt my daughter."
"I won't ma'am." Oscar put his arm around Kittie's shoulders and followed her family into the house. Of course he would meet everyone properly Boxing Day, including all her siblings when he and his family came over for lunch. But that was tomorrow, and for now he would have to endure the "don't harm our daughter/granddaughter" talk.