I really didn't know what to do for this one, which is why this is the only one you're getting today I'm afraid. I was stuck on it for ages. So it's not very good and it's a little OOC, but c'est la vie. Hope you enjoy it anyway. It's only harmless Christmas fluff, after all.

Gingerbread:

Harry's in the kitchen cooking pasta when Nikki returns, laden down with shopping bags. He abandons the saucepan and rushes to take some from her.

"Good god, woman. Did you buy everything in the supermarket?" he quips, carrying some of the extraordinarily heavy bags into the kitchen and placing them on the worktop.

"There's only ten days until Christmas, Harry. If I don't get it now then there won't be anything left to get," she explains, out of breath and flustered from the exertion of the shopping.

He returns to the stove to stir the pasta but continues to watch her as she starts to unpack the bags. "Wow, you're really going all out," he observes. "There's enough there to feed three hundred people, never mind just the three of us."

She shrugs. "This year's different. We're together now and Leo's single... It just feels different. I just want it to be really special." She looks up at him. "You know?"

Smiling, he steps towards her and gently kisses her forehead. "Yeah, I do. You're amazing."

Pointing behind him, she says, "Your pasta is boiling over."

He hurries to turn the heat down, leaving it to simmer as he helps unpack. A laugh escapes him as he reaches into one of the bags. "Oh, what the hell is this?"

Initially looking puzzled, she grins when she sees what he's extracting. "It's a gingerbread house!"

Harry looks at the creation; it's as large as a toaster, decorated with fancy icing and brightly coloured sweets. The whole thing is wrapped in a clear cellophane bag and tied up with a festive ribbon. "Dolls could live in that," he remarks.

"It's really lovely, isn't it? I didn't know whether to get the slightly smaller size, but then I thought: it's Christmas, why the hell not?" she smiles.

"I haven't had gingerbread since I was a child," he says wistfully. His fingers go to untie the ribbon keeping the bag sealed, but her hands slap him away.

"I bought it for Christmas Day," she admonishes. "And it's going to stay that way."

"You can't tell me I'm not allowed it," he complains. "Now I want it even more."

"Child," she mutters, reaching up to put something in the cupboard. When she catches him looking at her pleadingly she adds sternly, "I mean it, Harry. You eat it, you replace it. And it cost a lot of money."

Harry was right about wanting what you can't have. Much later that night, when Nikki's gone to bed and he's watching one of his war films that he loves so much and she despises so intensely, his mind starts to stray to the gingerbread house. The pasta they had for dinner, although nice, wasn't very filling and now his stomach has begun to growl. He glances into the kitchen, where he can just about see it from his position on the sofa, pushed to the back of the worktop because apparently Nikki's bought so much food the cupboards are overflowing.

Pausing the dvd, he gets up and quietly heads into the kitchen. He pulls the cellophane bag containing the house towards him, then stops and stares at it.

The chimney, he decides, have been very precariously put on. Really, it looks like it's going to fall off any minute. And surely if it was to fall off, he couldn't be to blame? He'd be doing the house a favour. A loose chimney is just untidy looking.

Suddenly very interested in the glasses in the cupboard above him, Harry reaches up and takes one. On his way back down his elbow very precisely knocks the chimney, causing it to roll down the roof of the house and then get wedged between the wall and the bag. "Oh no," Harry says sarcastically. "Would you look at that?"

Carefully and precisely, he tugs on the bow until it becomes unravelled. Then he opens the bag, reaches inside, and plucks out the chimney. Consisting of four gingerbread biscuits held together with icing and adorned with 'snow', it looks delicious. But it's the smell that makes Harry forget that he shouldn't be eating it. He's just about to put it into his mouth, when-

"I knew it!"

He jumps like a criminal caught red-handed and spins around to discover Nikki glaring at him, her arms folded tightly across her chest.

"You couldn't have just waited a couple of weeks?" she asks him exasperatedly.

"No," he admits with a slight smirk.

"It's not funny!" she protests, but her lips are also twitching.

"Just the chimney, Nikki, come on. It's not like you can even notice it's missing, look!"

She sighs. "Fine, but you have to split it in half."

Surprised, he frowns and says, "Wow. You gave in quickly."

A slight flush creeps across her cheeks. "You've already broken it off now. Not much I can do."

Harry releases a loud gasp of realisation. "You didn't come out to check on me! You came in here to get some for yourself!"

Her face twitches and it looks like she's waging a furious internal battle, before she finally admits, "Fine! The smell has been haunting me since I picked it up! I'm a weak, pathetic hypocrite, I know."

He laughs loudly. "I can't believe you!"

"Just give me half of the damn chimney."

Still grinning, he breaks the biscuit in two and hands her a crumbling half. "No more than this though," he says seriously. "You're right; we should keep it for Christmas Day."

"Let's just hope Leo doesn't notice the missing chimney."

Next chapter: Presents