The house is dark, but we don't need lights.

Actually, after spending hours in warm, dim lighting, the idea of turning on an actual light is unappealing.

Jarring.

I light a couple of white emergency candles in the bathroom when we go in to take a shower, rather than turning on the lights.

Which is silly.

But I don't care.

If he cares, he doesn't say anything.

It feels… cozy.

Safe.

In this place we're in together.

This place we found.

We take a shower with just the emergency candles for light through the curtain. We're both exhausted and it isn't much of a shower, just kind of a rinse off with shampoo…

…and standing there together under the hot water, making out, lazily, sated… just… happy and tired.

The way you feel after swimming all afternoon as a kid in the summer.

His wet hair parts differently than normal and I see that long scar curve from his temple to the top of his head, the one normally, carefully, intentionally hidden.

I press my lips against it without thinking and taste wet hair and bitter shampoo.

He doesn't pull away or try to hide it. He lets me.

Then he laughs happily while I dramatically spit out shampoo.

We dry off but don't get dressed.

I originally had grand plans for dinner but instead I throw a frozen pizza in the oven.

We devour it at 3 AM in the living room and finish the wine.

And go to bed, clean and naked and full.

I wake up with his head on my chest, his hair tickling my nose and his fingers curled around my arm.

I never sleep on my back.

And he's never, to the best of my knowledge, slept like this, on his belly, on me. Covering me.

But here we are.

I'd like to stay here, like this, forever.

Fortunately, it being my birthday, I have the day off so there's no need for either of us to get up.

To leave.

So we don't.

He sleeps on me.

He's such a light sleeper, I don't mean to do it, but when I weave my fingers into his hair he wakes up.

He sighs. I feel him blinking, smoothing his fingertips across my stomach in calm little circles until I start to fall asleep again.

I ask him if he dreams with an accent.

He laughs and says no.

I ask him if he dreams in English, or in French, Icelandic…

And he tells me that he doesn't dream.

But I think he does. I think he just doesn't remember them, but I keep that to myself.

Around nine, I get up long enough to make us coffee, but I shuffle back to him, steaming mugs in hand, and burrow back into the sheets that are warm and smell like him and me.

When we really start to wake up, for keeps, we drink coffee and talk.

I get up again, briefly, and slice a green apple to take back to bed and share.

Mostly he talks, and I listen in a kind of happily dazed stupor.

He talks more in bed than he does anywhere else, lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling… he's comfortable.

He talks with his hands.

He's stretched out next to me, my sheets twisted around his hips, telling me about the time he ran for his life from a bull in a field as a kid, and it's such a good story, he tells it so well, and he laughs and…

I gently catch one of his talking-hands, winding my fingers into his.

He rolls his head, smiling, and looks at me.

"Hmm," he bites his lip, pulling our hands towards himself.

He kisses my fingers with soft, wide coffee-warm lips.

And it's easy. Immediate.

We can do this now.

With each other.

To each other.

My body feels sore, raw in a not unpleasant but less than subtle way, but he's careful with me, just as thorough and patient as he was last night, and by the time he's inside of me again, his body arched against my back, his hand curled and stable, strong, against the inside of my thigh, holding me open, keeping me where he wants, how he wants… I'm ready for him.

I'm mumbling, begging…

I don't even know what comes out of my mouth.

But I do know I make him laugh a couple of times against the back of my neck, whatever it is.

Each laugh is deep and real, and followed with a kiss against my vertebrae.

I cum with my hand on my clit.

He cums inside of me.

And that feels so right.

After, we lie there up until hunger finally wins out.

Really… when my stomach rumble loudly enough that he hears it and lifts his head, looking at me with a grin bordering on goofy amusement… that's when we get up.

We make a quick breakfast, scrambling every egg I have, and making more coffee, which we have at the kitchen table and share with Mickey who is finally allowed in.

We shower.

Together.

And I feel like this shower was meant for two people and I just never realized it before.

By the time I'm loading Christmas presents into the boot, I realize that I wasn't just comfortable to the point of inertia before… I'd actually been nervous to leave bed.

Because… maybe if we left that place… maybe this would change.

Or that some part of the charm would break.

Or dissolve.

Because that was-

He walks out of the front door with Mickey trotting and, as much as a dog can, beaming next to him.

He's dressed. Clean lines, good tailoring, and all those neat, orderly pieces of clothes so structured… putting my ratty sweater and jeans to shame.

This morning he'd actually been stunned into silence when I told him that I didn't, in fact, own an iron.

He smiles at me, opening the car door for Mickey, and it's the same smile as the one he had in bed, telling me the story about running like hell from a bull.

Not broken, then.

OoO

So normally on my birthday, I'd spend the day out alone…

Or, not alone… but with just Mickey.

I'm not an overly contemplative person.

I mean, I think a lot. But generally not in a kind of deep, life-pondering way. I'm not a long lonely walk with my thoughts kind of guy.

My birthday has often been the exception.

Over breakfast, David had asked what I wanted to do.

My gut reaction had been to say 'just be with you.'

Which is the truth.

Hoping that that sentiment went understood if unspoken, I told him about my annual long lonely thought-walk and at first, I think he thought I meant that I wanted to be alone.

Which I did not want.

I made that clear. Or I tried to.

And so we drive out here, together, to the preserve, with Mickey a furry ball of excitement in the back seat.

He brought his camera. Which, is great... because the preserve is beautiful. More beautiful in this kind of coastal, foggy cold weather...

But that's just my opinion. Some people really love sunny days.

I'm not one of those people.

The plan is to spend a few hours out here and then make our way over to Mum's.

Mum had gone out of her way to make sure all of them, Rory and Amy, Clara and David knew that they were very much invited to come to her place for Christmas. She'd printed up little invitations and brought them into the shop.

I had given David's to him the next day with his coffee.

I thought he'd have chuckled about it, but he didn't.

He smiled that funny little smile and folded it carefully before putting it in the pocket in his coat's lining.

I suspect she's already made them Tyler-Stockings.

Gaudy, intentionally hideous Bedazzled stockings that she adds new crap to every year…

I love the Nature Preserve. It's pretty isolated, overgrown and near enough to the coast that there's that faint salty smell in the air.

In this kind of winter weather, it's still and quiet… like a sound-stage forest in an old movie.

And, maybe my favorite thing, there's a big tree off the trail that is unnaturally perfect for climbing.

The sky is grey, diffusing the sunlight, making all the greens greener and the yellow grass softer. I let Mickey off his leash and wind the leather strap into a coil.

David's halted back behind me on the trail, looking comfortingly foreign in the setting, in a vest and slacks in the wilderness…

But that's him.

His attention caught on something, and with his camera in his hands… he's just…

I like so much that he's here.

That he came here, to this place that I always come alone.

And that he dressed so inappropriately for it.

I set down the leash and walk over to my tree.

I always really liked climbing. The problem for me was that after a certain point, there weren't that many things sturdy enough for me to climb on.

This tree is sturdy enough. By far.

It has been for years.

I reach up and grab a hold of my first branch, hoisting myself up with a grunt.

And I climb.

Up and up and up.

Until I find my spot.

I sit there, and I can see out, everywhere. I can see Mickey, stalking happily through the tall grass.

I can see Cardiff as a thin line behind me.

And I can see the ocean. Grey and endless and flat.

But I can't see David.

I can hear shoes on the gravel under me.

And a laugh.

I feel that in my chest. Like gravity.

I look down between my knees.

He's looking up at me, smiling broadly.

"You want to come up?"

He laughs, says flatly, "No."

"You sure? It's quite a view…"

"I'm sure," he pushes hair back from his face, "I've got a thing about heights."

"Didn't know that."

He shrugs, "Now you do."

A strong wind blows ocean-air through my tree and I look up, out.

Click.

I look down.

He lowers the camera.

And smiles.

White teeth.

Brown eyes.

And I don't want to be in this tree anymore.

I start my quick descent, sliding and swinging down until I'm holding on to the last branch, waiting to drop back to my feet.

He watches me the whole time.

I drop.

And try to adjust my clothes which have gotten shifted up, shirt twisted around my torso.

Click.

"Come here," he says.

And I do.

I kiss him under my tree, holding on to him with scratched palms.

I kiss him against my tree, the bark against his back, roots under our feet.

My long-lonely thought-walk isn't lonely at all.

And I'm really okay with that.

OoO

Christmas exploded in the house.

It's everywhere.

Dripping from every nook and cranny.

Some of it very English, Father-Christmas stuff… some of it uber-Americana… and even some non-Christmas, pagan stuff.

Nothing overtly Christian, though.

Commercial Christmas is fine, but she's not big on baby Jesus, my mum.

We owned one nativity, once.

She had insisted on putting a different "stand-in" in the center in lieu of the infant savior. It made her laugh.

My favorite was, and will always remain, R2-D2.

Our Lord and Savior.

Whistle-Beep-Boop.

David and I are staying in my room again while the rest of them sleep in the basement.

After being tackled by a wave of hugs, kisses and Happy Birthday's we put our bags down in my room, on the bed which is spread with one of Grannie Tyler's ridiculous Christmas quilts, then go back out to the car and bring in presents.

We stopped by his place on the way over, after staying at the preserve until we started to get hungry.

He wanted to swap out things in his bag and needed to get the presents he had ready.

I had told him he didn't have to get presents.

But of course he had.

He'd not made a big deal about it.

I think they're framed prints, based on size and shape and weight.

He'd wrapped them in plain red paper with white ribbon, crisp neat corners… military precision (making my messily, haphazardly wrapped gifts look as though a badger had at them in the dark before they found their way under Mum's tree by comparison).

All said and done, we start to settle into the living room where Rory, Amy, Clara and Tony are already entrenched under a collection of festive throws, drinking an assortment of hot, and randomly spiked, beverages.

Also?

There's pie.

Rather than cake.

Because I prefer pie.

I'm so happy right now.

It's my birthday.

I'm eating pie.

I just had sex twice in less than twenty four hours.

I climbed a tree.

David's here.

Everyone's here.

And… warm, freshly baked pie with overly generous dollops of really vanillay vanilla ice cream.

"This is glorious," I say stupidly, my eyes closed, shoveling the better part of a second slice into my mouth.

Click.

"Really?!" I look at David, who is, damn him, smirking and checking the camera. "Really?!"

Tony's on the floor next to Rory, and rolls over to look up at us.

"Because what the world needs are pictures of me stuffing my face,"

I set down my plate and lean towards him, reaching weakly for the camera.

He easily leans out of my reach and turns the camera off, setting it down on the table, "You were just really enjoying that…" he says so quietly that only I hear him, and with just the faintest hint of that edge…

He's making pie sexual.

He's making my birthday-pie sexual.

I'm not complaining, per se…

And… I really was enjoying that pie-

Tony laughs, "You mean more pictures of you stuffing your face?"

"There are others?" David asks him, looking past me to him, one curious eyebrow quirking.

"No, Tony…" I implore him, "Don't."

He's watching us with a kind of critical x-ray vision that reminds me suddenly, and somewhat alarmingly, of Amy. He smiles at him, "Lots."

"Ooh… Rosie," Amy, sitting on the couch who is looking positively pervy is also looking at David and I standing close together like she can see right through us, "You're blushing!"

Am I?

"So cute."

Mum shoves a plate of pie into David's hands, "Oh god, yes! We have a whole album of Rose eating," she laughs and pats my shoulder, "I swear she never stopped eating for longer than twenty minute stretches for the first eighteen years of her life!"

I sigh, and look at David who is smiling and licking a little bit of melted ice cream from his thumb.

Dammit.

OoO

There's no formal meal, as is my birthday tradition.

Instead, everything is out at once and people eat whatever they want, in whatever order they want.

When I was a kid, this was my preferred way of eating, but was highly impractical.

So my birthday was kind of the one day it happened.

It's great. Paradise. I go nuts.

I inhale everything, as is my way.

So by around nine I'm laid out on the couch drifting in and of a food coma.

I have reached the point of no return.

And that's when the presents, and all my loved ones, come to me.

David sits next to me on one side while Rory takes the other. I ease myself into a sitting position and open the gifts that Amy puts into my hands.

A new food and water dish for Mickey that Amy has painted herself, depicting Mickey chasing an attractive lady dog across a Van Gogh-esque starry sky.

A $10 Starbucks gift card from Tony, (who thinks he's so funny).

A tiny, delicate little stained-glass night-light in the shape of what actually takes me a second to recognize as an artistically rendered dick and balls from my mum.

At least she's making stained-glass again.

Rory, Amy and Clara jointly give me the Princess Bride on Blu-Ray, which immediately cracks me up.

Painfully… I might add, given just how full I am.

The card is addressed to, "…Our Darling Princess."

"What did you do with that dress, Rosie?" Amy asks.

"Oh, god… it's uh," I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, "on my closet floor!"

Clara hands me David's present last.

It's wrapped in plain blue paper. No ribbon.

He leans forward next to me, elbows on his thighs, watching me.

I tear open the paper.

A very beat up, very old book.

The front cover barely clinging to the battered spine.

I'd say this was a well-loved book.

Well, well loved.

"The Hobbit."

I look at him.

He's smiling behind his hands, "Open it."

I carefully open the cover.

"It's…" I stare at him, "Is this a first edition?"

"Yes."

"Jesus!" How much-

He laughs, "Before you ask, not that much."

Mum is peering over my shoulder, intrigued, readers perched on her nose.

"It's damaged, obviously," he clears his throat, "Very. It's not exactly what the collectors are looking for."

The book is barely clinging on to a structure that could be called book-like, that's true.

"I asked Jack if he knew anyone who had…" his knee touches mine, "Any Tolkien first editions… and this was the only one. He's uh… a very connected man."

"He is," I say quietly.

Inside the cover, in a child's handwriting in splotchy ink from what I presume is 1938, is scrawled "BOBBY."

I swallow and touch the signature with my thumb.

"T-thank you."

I want to cry.

But instead, I reach for him and kiss him.

I'm dimly aware of my family's collective little titter of loving-approval at this.

And I know he is too.

He pulls back slightly, and I kiss him again, quick.

He grins at me, "You like it?"

"It's... my favorite. I love…" I'm really overwhelmed, "I love Bilbo Baggins."

"Yeah, yeah…" he laughs, and I love every single person in this room… but at that moment, there's just him, and that quiet laugh, and the comforting weight of The Hobbit against my thighs, "He's no Gandalf, but he's all right."

OoO

Everyone changes into pajamas and then settles back into the living room to watch the Princess Bride.

Mum is really into it.

I leave the couch to get a glass of water, leaving a Rose-shaped space next to David under the blanket we're sharing.

And under which he's been lightly stroking my knee, which is poking through a hole in the sweatpants I'm wearing.

In other words, under which he's been driving me slowly mad.

I'm pouring water from the Brita when a pair of long thermal-covered arms wrap around me from behind, squeezing me tightly.

"Rory?"

"You deserve this, Rose," he says quietly, smiling against my back.

I knee the fridge closed and set down the glass on the counter and hug his arms, "Thank you for helping me."

He nods.

"You've got a really good heart," he lets me go.

"So do you," I face him.

He shrugs, "It gets the job done."

I laugh softly and pick up my glass.

"So… they're all dying to ask," He smirks, reaching past me into the fridge for a beer, "but they're behaving. It's killing Amy. You two…"

"What?" I look as innocent as I possibly can.

"You're going to make me say it?" he opens the bottle with Mum's church key.

"I think I am, yeah."

"You hit a home run then?"

I swallow my water.

"It's pretty fucking obvious," he smiles, and points at me, "Nobody this loved-up and happy hasn't just had amazing, finally, five-year-drought ending sex," he holds my upper arms, "…with someone they actually care about."

I laugh, and nod.

And he hugs me again.

OoO

When we finally go to bed, shooed out of the living room so that Mum can no doubt hang her hideous Tyler-Stockings, there is a photo album on the nestled on the pillows.

"No…"

He goes in ahead of me and looks at it.

Just at the cover.

"Damn you, Tony!" I close the door.

He looks over his shoulder at me, "Can I?"

I sigh dramatically and fall on the bed, face down, "If you must…"

I moan into a quilted snowman as I feel his weight settle on top of me, legs draped over mine, his mouth close to my ear, "I don't have to… if you don't want me to…"

Teeth close on my ear.

I gasp into the snowman.

He soothes the bite, as he always does, with a soft kiss.

"Go ahead and look," I mumble.

He chuckles and rolls slightly to my side, pulling the album closer with a crooked finger in the coiled spine.

I turn my head to watch his face.

He opens the cover and laughs, involuntarily.

"Oh, god, Rose!"

I sigh and look. It's going to be like that.

Yup.

"That would be five year old me. With a box of chocolate cupcakes intended to be shared with my kindergarten class."

His laughter is shaking the mattress beneath us.

"Needless to say, the cupcakes never made it to the classroom; Mum left me alone in the car with them for about ten minutes… which, was really a mistake on her part."

A completely blessed out five year old me, sitting there with a pink box full of empty cupcake wrappers and a face smeared in frosting.

"It's… you're…" he has his face in his hands, "so fucking cute."

There are pages and pages devoted to infant me eating various things, messily, and he flips through them slowly… thoroughly amused.

I wonder what it's like to see a baby picture of someone you're sleeping with.

Is that weird?

I don't know!

With David… I mean… he doesn't have any baby pictures for me to see, so…

Maybe I'll ask him sometime.

Maybe I'll ask him after he inevitably sees the Bathtime Album.

If it's ever going to be weird, that's the time.

"What!?"

"Oh…" I look over his shaking shoulder, "Yeah… I like pie. There was a pie eating contest. I placed second."

There are a few shots of me in the contest, a blur of pie and curly blonde hair, but the one that really tickles him is the one where I'm standing there, eight years old holding a 2nd place ribbon and completely covered in blueberry pie filling from hairline to waistband.

He turns the page.

There's me and Dad.

He's wearing Tony, who is a tiny baby and little more than a swath of light hair in a Bojrn on Dad's chest, and we're both eating turkey legs.

I'm dressed as a pirate. Dad's dressed as something halfway between a pirate and a Dad with a baby strapped to his chest.

"The Renn Faire. We used to go every year."

He chuckles quietly, looking at nine year old me tearing viciously into a greasy turkey leg bigger than my face at the meaty part, and then looks at my Dad.

"You…" he looks at me, "you look so much like him."

I nod and press my chin into his shoulder.

"Hmm."

He presses the side of his head against mine.

"He was dashing," I say finally, smoothing the plastic over Dad's face.

"Hmm."

I miss him.

I miss the sound of his voice.

"Mum says I sound like him, but I don't hear it."

I turn the page after a minute, because he won't.

I appreciate that he won't.

"I miss him."

He nods, and kisses my knuckles.

He looks through the rest of the album, which ends most recently with a truly unflattering picture of me looking sad, and red eyed, eating an entire watermelon alone with a spoon on the back patio.

"I… may have been a little high," I say, laughing and rubbing the small of his back while he laughs into his folded arms.

"The fact that this exists…" he sighs, voice sounding raw, "makes me happy."

"I'm glad," I say, pulling it from his hands and closing it.

It's about one in the morning now.

I yawn and flop down next to him. We're lying across the bed sideways with our legs hanging off but I could sleep right here, just like this.

Especially when he turns and curls into me, head on my chest over my heart.

"Hey, Rose."

"Uh-huh?"

"You're so beautiful. I wish you could see yourself like I do."

I laugh, and wrap my arms around him, "Thanks."

"Hmm."

We actually do end up falling asleep like that, feet hanging off the side of the mattress, on top of the blankets.

I wake up in the middle of the night, cold, and prod him awake, pulling him with me under the blankets where it's warm.

I turn my back to him, and he wraps himself around me, fitting into place.

"I like that you're awkward," he says softly to the back of my neck.

oOo

This is how Mum always wanted Christmas morning.

The house is loud, and happy, and full to bursting.

Coffee is spiked and hot.

And everyone, and I mean everyone, is cajoled into wearing one of her stupid Christmas hats from the trunk.

Everyone.

"Oh… come on."

He looks at me as if I have finally lost my mind.

I'm holding a Santa hat in my hands.

And it's meant to go onto David's head.

It needs to.

Something like amused horror, if that's a thing that can happen, flits across his face.

I myself am wearing the felt reindeer ears and antlers that are more or less a matched set to the ones that Tony is wearing.

"Look… it makes Mum happy. Really happy. And even Tony's stuck in one…"

I gesture over my shoulder to Tony who is sulking in a drooping Christmas tree hat, gold star dangling annoyingly in his face, "Also, it'll be real effing cute."

"Hmph," he sighs, "Fine."

I laugh, and with great care, put the hat on his head.

He scowls up at me, while I adjust it.

So disgruntled. So fucking cute.

I kiss him.

"Hey… Happy Christmas, David."

He smiles.

"Hey, cute boy," Amy says, and we actually both look at her… which is embarrassing, "Smile."

Also wearing a Santa hat (with little plastic devil horns in the white fuzzy trim) she's dressed ridiculously… but it's charming in its own way; a very tight, very little red dress, more cleavage than is respectable on a fine Christian holiday such as this one, and thigh-high striped stockings. She's holding a little point and click digital camera.

She takes our picture and trots off… bouncing back toward the dining room.

We're alone.

He slips his hands inside my thick sweater, wrapping them around my sides.

I kiss his forehead.

Waking up with him on a Christmas morning?

Whatever I did, in my life that was good enough that karma let me have this?

Let me find him?

Let him find me?

I'm glad I did whatever that was… I'm so glad.

There is a rush as Mom herds everyone back into the living room.

It's time for Tyler-Stockings and presents.

Clara gets Santa Duty, looking adorably accurate in her North Pole Workshop Elf hat with fake pointy ears poking out above her ears… she's giddy to get started.

But first there are stockings.

The Tyler-Stockings are just as hideous as I remember… sequins and fake jewels, beading, appliqués… they are monstrosities. Even the new ones. The ones with Rory, Amy, Clara and David written on them lovingly in puff paint… those less covered in bracken, are still ugly.

Ugly though they may be, they are also full of the British candy that was a staple in our house for so many years…

It's one of those many bitter sweet little moments that I have during the holidays.

Where Dad feels so present.

And so not.

But I love Jaffa cakes.

I really do.

I open mine immediately and start inhaling them with my coffee.

I offer David one, and he takes it, prying it carefully out of the plastic wrap.

Clara takes Santa Duty very seriously, and hands out each present with great pomp, reading the whole label out loud.

"To Jackie, from David!" she says, holding a flat square gift in her hands.

Mum sets down her coffee and reaches out, looking at David with soft eyes, "I get to go first? I never go first!"

David smiles and looks down at his folded hands.

Something squeezes around my heart.

God, David.

I touch his back lightly.

She tears open the paper and laughs, throwing her head back and putting a hand over her chest, "Oh, fuck! Ahaha! It's perfect!"

She sits up and slips on her readers, lifting the frame to see it better.

"What is it, Jackie?" Amy is perched in Rory's lap on the loveseat, where he's got his arms around her waist looking particularly loved-up himself. He's wearing the little top hat Mum can never convince anyone to wear.

He's kind of pulling it off.

Mum lifts the framed picture, a beautiful black and white shot of her from Thanksgiving, a glass of wine in one hand and a joint in the other.

She's laughing.

Both in the picture and now, here.

God he takes beautiful pictures.

"David, sweetheart!" she stands up and sets the frame down, carefully making her way to him, stepping over Tony. He looks up at her.

She kisses the top of his polyester-Santa-hat covered head.

He closes his eyes.

"Thank you so much," she says, quietly to him.

He nods, and says thickly, "You're welcome."

She cups his cheek for a moment before making her way back to her seat.

I want to hug him.

Tight.

And never let him go.

He leans back, into me, as she finds her seat.

And I don't hug him tight, but I do put my arms around him. I do feel his heart beating under my hand.

"Okay, next then! Clara distributes a pair of pajamas to Tony, from Mom, three scented candles from Mum to Rory, Amy and David (she has a friend at a hippie store downtown that colds candle making workshops… she made them each a candle with the scent that she felt exemplified them. Rory's smells like warm sugar, Amy's like cinnamon and chocolate and David's smells like anise… which is so perfect that it makes me question how closely my mother has smelled David).

There is one for Clara as well, but she insists on setting aside her gifts for the time being.

She very excitedly pulls out a big white box and reads, "To Rose from the Wingmen!"

David looks at me sideways and sits forward, opening up space for the box, "The Wingmen?"

"Oh. Ha. I'll uh... explain. Later," I slide off the ribbon and open the lid, lift away the tissue paper.

"A dress!"

"You didn't…" I look at the three of them, cuddled together, and stand up, unfolding the black silk dress.

"That's a pretty dress, sweetheart," Mum says impressed.

It is. Very nice. And I suspect tailored for me.

I'd gone with Rory one day, during his meltdown period, when he said he just needed to get out.

He took me to the place he gets his clothes tailored and sometimes, when he's feeling like it…

constructed.

I'd never been to a real tailor. He talked me into getting a fitting done.

Which was weird.

I actually toyed with the idea of buying some nice clothes.

As that polite little weird tailor was working around me, and I was standing on a block, I had these grand fantasies about what my life would be like in a really nice gown tailored just for me.

How sophisticated I'd be!

How well dressed!

I could see it all unfolding…

Until I asked how much such a life-changing gown would cost and quickly, and as politely as possibly, extricated myself from the situation.

But the three of them had gotten a dress made for me.

I want to cry into my new dress.

"You're a grown woman, Rose," Rory says, his cheek pressed to Amy's arm, "It's time."

"I'll take good care of it," I say, genuinely choked up, holding it up to my chest, in front of my torn, threadbare jeans.

"You'd better, Rosie!" Amy says, scratching Rory's jaw.

"They were very expensive, Rose," Clara says, toying with her braid, "I don't say that to guilt trip you, but just to try to encourage you to not, you know, get mustard on it or anything."

I fold the dress carefully, with reverence, and put them back in the tissue paper before going over and kissing each of them on the cheek, and saying thank you.

"It's just a dress," Rory says softly to me, smiling broadly.

"No it's not," I say back.

Clara distributes pajamas from Mum to Tony and me, and then I stand up, "Clara, I know you're Santa… but Santa gets gifts too."

She sits in my seat, next to David, looking up at me expectantly.

I give her mine first.

Because I can.

It's big.

She tears off the paper.

"Oh, Rose."

She holds the frame with one hand and covers her mouth with the other, looking up at me over the edge.

She's going to start crying.

"Clara?"

"You…"

I glance at David, who is watching her with a new kind of warmth I haven't really seen in him before.

"You painted me something?"

I nod, "Of course I did. I said I would!"

I've been working on it forever.

The brown… just wouldn't behave.

Wouldn't be right.

And, yes… I admit the brown in question is absolutely the brown of David's eyes.

My favorite color.

But… this painting was always for Clara.

Always.

She carefully peels away the rest of the paper, David helpling by balling it up, getting it out of her way.

"I thought you'd forgotten. It's beautiful," she says softly, "No one's ever painted for me before."

She looks at it for a few more moments before very carefully handing it to Rory and standing and launching herself at me.

I catch her, and hold her tightly.

"I'll hang it over my bed!"

I laugh, "That's the most I could ever ask for."

I give her Mum's scented candle (minty with a little bit of rosemary) and a $10 gift card to IHOP from Tony, which she more than graciously accepts.

But then she insists on resuming her duties and gives me back my seat.

She can't lift it, but there is a huge package behind the tree for Tony.

"To Tony, from Rose (and everybody)!" she says, poking her head around the branches.

He drags it out to the center of the room and tears into it.

"What?"

"I felt that you deserved this," I say, failing to hold back a laugh.

But he's genuinely happy.

And that's what matters.

"What is…" Mum gets up to look in the box.

It is chock-a-block full of porn.

"It's from all of us… we all chipped in."

DVD's.

Magazines.

Literature.

And a written promise to pay for whatever online subscription he would most like.

It had been an interesting couple of shopping trips.

Once I took David.

Once I took Amy and Rory.

We cleared out the two adult stores selection of Big Breast genre materials.

He lifts the box of condoms I left on the top of the stuff in the box and looks over his shoulder at me.

"Just in case," I smile.

He stands up, and hugs me.

And it's one of the few times in my life I can remember Tony really hugging me without someone ordering him to.

Amy crawls forward and starts digging through the box. Tony returns to his spot and does the same.

Clara hands Rory and Amy two framed prints from David, both of them in each different picture from Thanksgiving.

They're beautiful people, anyway, but in those pictures… it's like he catches something they don't realize is there.

Tony's gift cards are handed out. Rory, Amy and Clara give my mum a plush, smiling pillow in the shape of a uterus with fallopian tube arms which she then cuddles with for the rest of the morning.

Rory gets his friendship bracelet, and immediately puts it on, offering me his wrist so that I can tie it into place, saying "This is well-made, Ro. Fine craftsmanship!"

I painted for Amy as well, or… actually… I had our collaboration framed; the sheet from my palette upon which she and I had painted a naked man with an enormous dick.

Clara made coffee-cup sleeves for everyone, which are adorable.

She passes them out, unwrapped. Rory stands up and says that he left a few gifts in the car… and Mum says that she thinks we all need a break.

More coffee is poured, and candy is torn into.

I ask David to follow me.

He smirks and nods.

In my room, there are two presents that neither of us put under the tree.

One is square, wrapped neatly in that crisp red paper.

And the other is a squishy, uneven lump of paper and tape and a ribbon that fails to tie the whole thing together.

I hand him my lump.

He hands me the square.

"Go first," he says, sitting on the bed next to me.

I tear into it.

"Oh my god! Look at him! He's so regal!"

He has framed the most elegant picture of Mickey I've ever seen.

I'm there too… looking…

Well… I look good.

But I'm no Mickey.

"David!" I kiss him, "When was this?"

He kisses my jaw, "That day that you came with me to the park, when I was shooting that engagement set-"

"Oh. Oh! Really?" Yup… I'm wearing the shirt I wore that day, "I didn't even know you took this."

He laughs softly, "I'm glad you like it."

I kiss him, "I love it."

He digs a thumb into the lump of paper around my present and it falls apart quickly.

A thick woolly coil of dark red, brown, green and tan striped fourteen foot scarf falls out.

He holds it in his hands, "Did you… you made this?"

"I did!"

"You knit?" he's smiling, rubbing the scarf between his fingers.

"I do. Yeah. I… I ended up working on it during breaks at work… it was very soothing."

He presses his lips together, failing to suppress a growing smile, "You made this for me?"

"Yeah. I hope the color's all right. You don't wear a lot of red, but-"

"It's perfect. I… it's…"

He lifts it up, wrapping it loosely around his neck and shoulders.

"It's…"

I kiss him, holding his jaw, fingers warm between his skin and the scarf.

"Thank you," he says quietly, "Rose."

I wrap my fingers around his wrist, feeling the string I tied there last night, still there.

"Thank you."