A/N: The following chapter was derived from this prompt on my Tumblr:

Can I request bumbleby - Blake's first thanksgiving?

Ting ting ting.

Could I have everyone's attention, please? Yes, me, the girl clinking the glass and the spoon, the one you've probably never met before. The girl wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a black cat walking underneath a ladder. Clearly unaccustomed to public speaking.

Thank you all for the laughter. My soul may yet be saved.

My name, for those of you who don't know, which is likely to be most of you … that sentence sounded a lot better in my head … is Blake Belladonna. I'm here as a guest of Yang Xiao Long, the girl sitting next to me with the cutest smile in the universe.

I may have had a little to drink. Not alcohol. Just … excuses.

I just wanted to . . . well. It's Thanksgiving, so what else are you supposed to do besides give thanks?

My family never celebrated Thanksgiving, as a precursor to what I'm about to say. To do anything like that, I think you need to be able to celebrate being a family. That was never something we were very good at. Awfully good at picking other families apart, but …

Getting off track. Thank you, Yang. Still not used to public speaking. Let's see. When I was … a little girl. I always pictured Thanksgiving in a certain way. You've probably pictured it yourself. Turkey, dressed to the nines and stuffed with whatever it is you stuff turkey with. Cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and little kids mixing up the two together. Every family member is sitting, quietly discussing, around a table full of goodies, brought from a country across for a special time in which everyone comes together in fellowship and family values.

The Xiao Long reunion has been … basically the opposite of all that. Do, uh, "normal" families get their turkey stolen by their dog?

Okay, okay, I understand – traditions are important. And, if I'm being honest? The cranberry sauce in people's hair, the black eyes, the tables turned in more than one sense – looking it all over in my mind, this mess of today has felt …

… ah, I'm crying. Silly me. Wow, um.

… you all made me feel at home. I've never really felt that way before.

Thank you. Thank you all, for, for the fights, and the laughter, and the food and chatter and … and for looking at me like I belong here. You all have … no idea what that means to me.

But most of all, I want to thank the girl with the cutest smile in the universe. That's the girl sitting next to me, for those of you who might have forgotten. Yang.

How can I begin to describe you?

Hopefully, in the most embarrassing way I possibly can. This may be the only opportunity I ever get to say things about you in front of your family, after all.

Home is important. Vitally so. It's the place you go to when you have no place else left to go. But what's just as important is that you always have a path to get back to it.

Yang, you're my path. Whenever I get lost in the shadows – whenever I get so focused on studying that I start to lose sleep, or whenever I fall into my old destructive habits, or whenever I say something like "my family's never celebrated Thanksgiving" … you're there. Singing me lullabies. Giving me guidance. Inviting me to your family reunions as if I was always supposed to be there. You don't just light up my life – you illuminate it. You lead me back to normalcy, back to myself.

You lead me back home.

Thank you, Yang. Always and forever. I love you so, so very much.

… I hope none of you were expecting me to go anywhere with that. Like I said, I'm no good with public – oh.

Smooch.

I dunno, I think the day after Thanksgiving is a pretty good day to post this fic!