One thing remained normal in Claus's life; waking early every morning. Keeping a mission to heart was another, but never had he held a mission like this one so close to him; a mission of improving himself. He always had goals of being the best, and to him, this particular one was different and all the more special. He had no guidance but himself and whatever memory he had left of his resting father. No one could match Flint, and Lighter would never replace that no matter how hard he tried with the ambitious boy who was on his way to the inn.

Like his father, he felt he should always return the favor. They gave him and his twin meals and helped keep things clean, he would organize and do whatever they asked in return. With a determined exhale, he pushed through the door with a bit of weight in his heart. No one came by consistently at this hour but Claus. Bessie was examining strange objects she was getting as of late from the town's new mysterious visitor, Fassad. Claus knocked on the desk she was standing in front of for attention.

She took notice of him and answered, "Oh, don't worry about it, Claus! Fassad and his men took care of things today," The hard working youth frowned at this, and hoped she saw his expression. He was unable to use his voice as of late, as he lost the desire for talk and preferred action instead; he grew to believe it was the way life worked. She saw his expression and stated, "This just means you have more time to play!"

"No," Claus began, only to be cut off by Bessie and pushed towards the door.

"No 'but's! You haven't played in ages, it's not good for you! Go and take Lucas out with you too, you hear?" she demanded and shoved him out of the door.

He nearly fell face-front onto the snowy ground had he not took a hold of the railing near the door. His frown deepened as he thought about how fitting his face hitting the snow would've been. Many rejected him as of late, and called him a 'child'. This made his revelation and conclusions burn all the harsher; he was sure to find another way to achieve his goal.

"Accepting defeat," he said to himself and walked home.

Claus, who was always the early riser, walked through the steep snow on his way back to his bitter-sweet haven. He no longer gave his twin a hard time about waking up in the morning, because he felt he was taking more away from Lucas than what he already lost; fate had done more than enough. Giving him a hard time in the morning would just stress him out more.

Once reaching home, he sat down on the garden bench. He sighed a heavy one as he stared straight ahead and watched his warm breath disintegrate. He felt Lucas's pain, just to a lesser extent it seemed these past few months. H noticed at times he didn't feel emotion towards the tragedy unless Lucas displayed it first; and even then, he still came off like a brick wall Lucas could lean on for support.

"…I don't mind it at all," he said and rubbed his chin. "Strange." He knew in the past he would've gotten agitated that he done all the work, but now… he didn't mind working hard for his twin, and making sure he's happy and healthy. "Thinking of Lucas," he mumbled as he got up and headed towards their bedroom window. He climbed up on some pieces of lumber he had cut and peeked through the window to see Lucas sleeping soundly and peacefully. "…He's hugging my pillow again," Claus chuckled and climbed back down from the window.

"I don't have anything to do and he's still sleeping…" he signed and then stepped into a deep pile of snow that went up close to his thighs. He grinned and stepped out of the pile before it soaked him to the bone.

He scooped up a little ball and scooped up one after another. He smiled as he collected the snow balls and formed the last one he gathered into a weird oval shape with an equally weird shape for the head. He made sure that the two little ones he made were equal in size, and that a tall snow man had a medium sized one besides it. The two bigger snowmen were in the back, the oval one lied down, and the two little ones were in-between it.

The creations were table model sized and stood in the middle of the front yard.

"…I can't leave such small things in the middle of the open like this," he thought as he got up and dusted the snow off of his knees. As he stood around for a few moments, an idea switched on as he exclaimed, "I got it..!" and rushed to the house. To avoid a mess, he made sure to kick the snow out of the bottom of his boots before stepping in. Inside, he went straight to the kitchen and grabbed a dinner plate to take it outside to the mini snowman family he made.

"There, now you have a platter to be on…" he spoke tenderly as he placed each one on the improvised platter and picked them up. He headed back into the house and to the bed Lucas was sleeping on and called, "Lucas…Lucas!" as he placed the plate holding the snowmen onto their table. He was quick with his movements because the house was warm and he didn't want the creations to melt. He shook the boy in the bed and said, "Lucas, get up, hurry!" To his great fortune, Lucas turned over and opened a tired eye. "Ah, get up and look at the table," he ordered and pointed.

The lazy one looked and rubbed his unfocused eyes that were still in the mode for sleep.

"Hmm..?"

Claus grabbed the plate and put it close to Lucas face and said, "Looook!"

Lucas tilted his head as he squinted his eyes to see. As time had gone by, his eyesight managed to strengthen itself. It wasn't as normal as it was before his accident, but it cleared up noticeably. He still needed things to be very close and for his eyes to settle to see what it was. Finally, his sight focused on what was before him. He smiled sadly and asked "…It's us, right?"

Claus nodded and replied, "Yeah, it just randomly came to me to make this for you."

"For me?"

Claus nodded again and headed towards the window to open it. "Yep," he answered and placed the plate outside of the window. "Now whenever you wake up you can look up and see snowmen version of us. Especially if I am outside doing errands. You wont have to feel sad waking up every morn—afternoon," he explained. He closed the window and sat down in a near by chair not knowing what else to do or say.

"…Thanks a lot, Claus. That really means a lot, especially how much you do for me…" Lucas said, unsure of what else to say himself; nothing he could think of expressed his gratitude.

Claus smiled and replied, "No problem!" and after a short while he sighed, "There isn't any work today. Its still morning so... you can go to sleep again if you want."

Lucas had picked up on the sad and lost tone of that ending sentence of his. He had noticed lately that Claus seemed bottled up. He also realized he never really talked to him about the things he intended to since way back in the fall season.

"Claus," Lucas began. Claus responded to him very alert and focused, something Lucas had not grown accustomed to yet. He continued, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Oh... Just, checking! You know it doesn't hurt to check, right?" he laughed nervously and tried to inch out of the bed. Claus may have changed in some ways, but he was still slow at detecting subtle detective work. He bit his bottom lip as his toes tapped around the floor to look for his slippers. His head ached when he relied on his slightly strengthened eyesight too much. His closed eyes opened when he felt his feet be risen from their movements as fuzzy slippers were gently placed on them. Something was indeed wrong, he felt.

"You're actually getting up now?" Claus asked. "That's strange of you, something must be on your mind," he said as he watched his normally lax twin freeze mid-step. "Mind telling me what's wrong? 'Just checking'."

Lucas evened his stance and stood still in silence for awhile. His heart was pounding, and his head was cranking. He wasn't sure on how to place this, or Claus's seemingly fast development. Perhaps he was underestimating him too much? One pale arm of his crept up to his other stiffened arm as he continued to fight with himself to speak.

"You're lonely."

Claus's eyelids lowered as his normally heavy lips curved up a bit. He leaned back into his chair as he watched Lucas make his way to his clothing.

Lucas's fingertips airily brushed around his clothing. He was confused and could not figure things out, and he wasn't sure if it should be bothering him this much. When he felt a round, but pointed warmth rest on his shoulder, he clenched whatever his hand happened to be hovering over.

"I'm fine," echoed into his ear as warm air drifted against him.

His fingers continued to airily browse through his wardrobe.