21. Christmas Traditions
'Verse: Runaways-verse
Timeline: Our Little Corner of the World
Date: December 2018

"We have the best kids," said Rory, smiling happily as she watched them from the kitchen doorway.

"I really agree," Jess assured her as he dried his hands from washing the dishes and rolled his sleeves back down, "but you choose now to notice? I can hear them squabbling from here."

"Yes, there is squabbling" Rory admitted as her husband came to join her observing the scene in the living room, "but nothing bad, and look at them in there. Twelve and fourteen, way too old to believe in Santa, at that awkward age when siblings don't usually get along, so I'm told, and Jack is a teenager, which I always thought meant locked in the bedroom, music blaring, only grunting out answers when absolutely necessary," she rattled out. "But look at them. They still love each other. They still want to be part of family things like putting the ornaments on the Christmas tree and baking cookies with you. It just makes me happy," she said, smiling widely.

"Happy, huh?" said Jess, tilting his head as he looked at her, then reaching out to brush a tear from her cheek.

"Yes, happy," she told him, smiling yet. "They're so cute."

"You know we can hear you, right?" Jack called to them without looking.

"Jack really has a problem with being called cute," Tori added, giggling some. "Personally, I'm okay with it."

"Pretty sure the cutest kids let their parents get a chance to help decorate the tree," said Jess as he moved further into the room and Rory went with him.

Tori dutifully handed the nearest box of ornaments to her parents and moved over a little so they got their chance to join in with the tree decorating. It wasn't long before a branch could barely be seen for all the ornaments and Tori made a sad sound.

"What's wrong with you?" her brother asked.

"We didn't put on this one," she said, turning the ornament over in her hand. "It was... I remember it was Mrs R's favourite," she said, lip wobbling just a little.

"Then that one is definitely going on," said Jess, looking over the tree and picking out some generic, fairly plain ornament that nobody would care too much about that was sat front and centre of the tree. He carefully hung it on a branch in the back and then nodded for Tori to put Mrs R's favourite in its place.

"I think that looks perfect," said Rory, putting her arm around Tori and kissing the top of her head.

"I think so too," she agreed, hugging her mother. "She'd want us to have a happy Christmas. She always wanted that."

"Yes, she did," Rory agreed.

"She was the best old lady ever," said Jack, smirking the way his father always did.

Nobody admonished him for the joke, they had made it in Mrs R's presence often enough over the years and she always found it funny. Besides, the sentiment was true.

"She really was the best grandma," said Jess softly, clearing his throat in the next moment and painting on a smile as he found his family all staring at him. "And you just happen to be the best wife and kids in the world too, so I guess I've been pretty lucky all around," he told them, with tears in his eyes.

Nobody mentioned it, they just moved into a group hug and admired their Christmas tree together.