December 25, 2010

~*~ CP~*~

Carol is definitely glad she resisted any of the bride and groom separate on the night before the wedding traditions. Waking up to kisses is worth ignoring the superstitions. Morning sex isn't the norm for them with so many duties tugging at them both.

But no one is going to expect them anywhere this morning and now he's smiling slyly at her.

"Not worried about seeing the bride before the wedding?" she teases as she pulls the nightgown over her head.

"Always heard it was the bride in her dress, and you, darlin', are wearing no dress."

"How very true."

edited scene

"Love you," he says softly.

She cups his. "I love you, too."

She thinks this is a much better wedding day tradition than hiding from each other all day.

~*~ GR ~*~

Glenn wakes to hear soft singing. Maggie's pacing the room with baby Matthew, singing some soft pop song he can't remember the name of. "Patricia sleeping?"

She nods. "He's fed, but not settling just yet. I told her to get some sleep."

"Want some help?"

She shakes her head, smiling, so he relaxes in the bed to watch her with the baby in her arms. He never thought he would want to be a father so young, but watching his fiancée with a newborn, he understands why women talk about yearning for babies.

She even verified it might take a few months, but he can't wait to see her body grow and change. The impulse makes him understand his best friend's need to have a baby a little more. Cricket adores her adopted son, but she admits he hasn't cured her wish to go through a pregnancy either.

He counts himself lucky that there are no barriers other than time and a lot of enjoyable encounters between him and fatherhood.

~*~ JD ~*~

Jazz wakes to the vibration alarm on his wrist watch and stretches, careful not to drop his arm over the side of the bunk like he normally might. Last night's party turned into a giant coed slumber party, so the basement is crowded with sleepers. Sophia and Abby are curled up in a sleeping bag, nose to nose, next to his bunk. He offered them the bunk, but Abby insisted on their spot.

So close together, they look far more like sisters than adopted cousins, with their near identical coloring. He eases his camera out of the recessed shelf in the bunk and takes their picture. His mother and uncle will both love a copy of that image. For good measure, he gets a shot of Patrick and Al in their separate bunks across from him for Patricia.

He puts the camera away and snags the bundle of clothes he left at the foot of his bed in preparation of the girls blocking his access to his under-bunk storage. But he can't resist reaching down to run his fingers through Sophia's silky soft hair. Weird as it is sometimes to share their parents and be a couple, he's still glad Abby's becoming her cousin officially today and not her sister.

He dresses in the bathroom, layering in warm runner thermals under his cargo pants and henley. Toasty as the basement is, it's thirty degrees outside. Picking his way through various sleeping kids and teenagers, he smiles to see their chaperones sound asleep on one of the couches. Amy's hair spills like spun gold across Jamie's arm, making his dark skin seem shades darker. He wishes his camera wasn't back in his bunk.

Keying the gun safe open inevitably wakes Jamie, but once he sees Jazz, he just smiled and gives him a sleepy good morning. He returns the greeting as he slides his holster on his belt, along with his knife, an extra magazine of ammo for his Glock, and the ammo pouch for his rifle like Shane insists on him carrying on his animal care rounds.

After Terminus, his brother-in-law worried about how far from others he frequently is, even with the pairs rule and the good radios. He's spent a lot of his down time drilling Jazz since. He thinks he could probably pass all the physical parts of the old police training now, and Shane wants to continue to work with him on ambidextrous firing on rifles so he's not fumbling if he ever has to pick up someone else's right-handed weapon.

He tugs his coat on and slides the strap of the Ruger M77 rifle across his chest. He hates the noisier report of the rifle versus his air rifle or bow, but the noise is the point. The Ruger fired from even the river edge of the property can be heard to summon help as fast as using the radio.

With his balaclava and hat in place, he tugs on his fingerless work gloves and closes the gun safe. It's as cold outside as he expected, but Titus is waiting just beyond the outside door with Romeo at his feet.

The sight of the contentment on the big man's face makes him glad they have pups to spare, especially when he greets Wilma and Betty with sweet enthusiasm when the two heelers bound up.

"Already milked the little cows," he tells Jazz.

"You're gonna get fat on all Beth's thank you cookies."

Titus laughs. "It's too cold for little girls to have to be out doing the milking."

Jazz suppresses the amusement that Titus sees Beth, two years older than him, as a kid, but never seems to see the same with him.

Titus slides in the backseat of the Polaris because both of them in the front is a clash of shoulders. The dogs all hitchhike today by piling into the empty seats.

"You excited about the wedding today?"

He grins. "Yeah. They're together either way, but it's nice they're doing the wedding too." Nobody would ever try to take him from Carol if something happened to his dad and they weren't married, not like the old world, but it's still nice to be official in the eyes of the community.

"Is it rude to ask what happened to your first mother?"

Jazz likes that he didn't say real mother, like some do. "Dunno. I've never met her. Carol's the only mother I've ever had. My sisters probably know where she was."

"Can't imagine that. Guess it's the same as me and my father. Man disappeared when my mama was still carrying me. Best thing that happened to her, she says, because then she met my Moms and they been together long as I can remember."

He thinks about asking the man if he thinks they made it, but then decides it's a stupid question. If Titus thought his mothers were alive, he would have gone after them. Everything he says about them, the little tidbits shared, indicate they had a great relationship, as Titus puts it "despite his missteps".

"Was worth waiting a long time, for Carol as a mom," he says instead.

"Yeah, mama like her is worth waiting for."

Jazz just smiles.

~*~ SW ~*~

Being kissed awake is definitely a Christmas present all by itself, Shane thinks. "Good morning," he drawls.

Scout places a final kiss on the bridge of his nose before ducking back down to use his chest as a pillow. "We gotta get going soon if we're doing that breakfast shift."

The entire regular kitchen staff officially has the day off for Christmas. While the lunch/supper combo meal set for two p.m. is being catered by various cooks much like Thanksgiving, no one wants Christmas to be cereal bars and fruit cups. So, Scout drew straws on all the team leaders without children who could actually cook to be the breakfast crew, then volunteered herself after his name got drawn for cooking.

"Mmm. Glynnis left you all those Swedish Tea Ring things to stick in the oven so you can 'cook', didn't she?" His own task is biscuits and gravy. Not everyone will show up there for breakfast, but they've got enough non-cooks and those without actual kitchens that he figures at least half the community will pop down.

She laughs. "Of course. And I'm capable of fruit parfaits."

"A'right." But he doesn't move just yet, drawing her up for a slow and leisurely make-out session that isn't meant to go anywhere but allowing him to enjoy her warm and enthusiastic love of being close to him.

"Love you," he murmurs softly.

She smiles down at him. "Love you too."

~*~ SP ~*~

Sophia dresses in her 'stealth outfit' for the day. None of the Dixons and extended Dixons are going to be officially dressed for the day until later, when her mother and father are firmly away from spoiling the surprise. So, she's kitted out in leggings and an obnoxious Christmas sweater of Honey's, giggling a little at the actual jingle bells tinkling as she moves. She bets this thing drove people crazy if Honey wore it to school.

Honey's in the kitchen with Jazz, yawning over a cup of coffee. She stayed the night in the basement too, somehow ending up using Beth as a pillow of sorts in a sleeping bag pile down near one of the couches.

"Where's Abby and Carl?" she asks.

Jazz is already at work at the stove and he shrugs. "She forgot something she just had to have from their house. Think it might've been a present for Lori. So, he walked her down there to find it."

Alright. Well, they're doing breakfast for their parents before going down to eat at the community center, and they don't really have to have the other two's help. She's happy that Jazz thought her plan is a good one, especially after she told him Mama's never really gotten breakfast in bed. "What do you want me to do?"

He scans the stove-top and counter, before pointing to the can of blueberry pie filling. "Open that up. You remember how to make the little pocket pies, right? Dough's in the covered bowl."

Glad that he's trusting her with one of his favorite things to make, she sets to rolling out the dough and carefully spooning blobs of thick blueberry filling. It's kind of fun, and she sees why he likes to bake, in a way. By the time she's finished with more pies than their parents will eat and set them by the stove-top for him to fry, Honey's participating a little more, mainly by stealing one of Jazz's burners to make hot chocolate.

"I wonder if we'll still have any way to make that for Mama by next Christmas," Sophia asks.

The other two stare at the little pot of milk and cocoa powder a little mournfully. Everyone knows it's going to be one of the first things to run out and never be able to be replaced. Honey picks up the tin to check the best by date. "Well, depending on the supply we have, next year, yeah. Maybe one more."

Jazz stirs the potatoes he's pan roasting, but he's lost in thought until Sophia nudges him. "Lindens. I read somewhere that linden seeds are kind of like carob."

"Well, the flowers make good tea and the leaves and bark good eating, so I don't know why we never tried the seeds. Plans for the spring," Honey says as she pours the hot drinks into mugs.

Jazz tips Sophia's pocket pies into the oil he has heated up and watches it for a minute. "Think Patricia would like breakfast in bed too?"

Sophia giggles. "I doubt she'll complain." So, she goes to set up a third tray to the ones already out as Beth comes sleepily into the kitchen. "And here's her food delivery service."

They all laugh at poor Beth's confusion.

~*~ MD ~*~

"I think we got visitors," Merle mutters into the pillow. They both fell back asleep after the earlier 'exercise' of the morning, and while he should probably get up and before impatient mostly grown (or grown, there's no telling with his family) offspring invade, he's enjoying being curled up bare skin to Carol too much at the moment.

"You really want to be bare ass naked if they get bored with knocking on Christmas morning?" Carol teases.

And dammit, she's sliding away, so he decides to take her sage advice and find some damn pants before he ends up wearing nothing but a bedsheet with company.

"Just a minute," Carol calls out.

There's a round of giggling in the hall, which tells him they've got at least two of the younger girls out there. He forages on the floor for his pajama pants and sits up enough to get them on and Carol tosses him an undershirt.

But when Carol goes to open the door, now demurely clad in her nightgown again, the knob won't turn. There's more giggling.

"You gotta stay in bed, Mama!" Sophia calls out.

Carol looks puzzled, but then sniffs and grins. "Breakfast," she mouths at him as she hurries back to the bed. As soon as she has them properly tucked back in and propped on the pillows, he tells the kids to open the door.

It's not quite all the kids, but there's enough of them for a small crowd. Honey and Sophia have the food trays and walk them carefully to the bed. Jazz, Cricket, and Christian are behind them. Cricket may have come late to the idea, because unlike the younger three, she's not dressed in one of the garish Christmas sweaters Honey collects or at least attempting Christmas colors like Jazz is with a green vest on over his red henley. The baby's wearing reindeer pajamas and antlers.

"Christmas wedding breakfast for two," Sophia announces proudly.

He glances at the spread, which is probably more than he and Carol could hope to eat, but Carol's looking teary-eyed as she smiles and holds her arms out to usher the kids one at a time for a hug and kiss. Even Cricket accepts enthusiastically, although she actually ends up holding Carol close long enough for the baby to squawk and protest.

"This is beautiful," she says. "Thank you."

The hug and kiss routine repeats on his side of the bed and Christian begs (and receives) a chunk of potato off Merle's plate. Kid knows exactly who the softie is around here, he thinks.

"Now y'all enjoy while I herd these three off down to eat breakfast. Rumor has it they let Scout in the kitchen down there. Building's not on fire, so I'm thinking Shane's doing the actual cooking," Cricket says. "We'll do family presents after breakfast." The three don't seem to need much herding, as they call out goodbyes as they trot off to find their coats. He supposes with the different aspects of gifts this year and all of the kids well into teens or above, waiting on gifts isn't a hard thing. They wanted to do them when everyone could be there, and he didn't expect to end up with most of the kids overnight until after they made the plans.

Cricket lingers a minute though, bouncing Christian a little as the imp begs another potato from Merle.

"Hey Carol?" When Carol's attention shifts from her tray to the lingering young woman, Cricket smiles that slow smile that reminds Merle of his own mama. "It's good to have a mom again. Just you wait for Mother's Day this year." And as mischievous as she can be sometimes, she scampers out of the room and leaves him to deal with his weepy, happy bride-to-be.

~*~ GR ~*~

"Something smells really good over here." Glenn pops through the bathroom into Patricia's room, where Maggie's rocking the newly nursed baby and Beth's settling a tray for Patricia. "You make her breakfast in bed, Beth?"

The blonde shakes her head. "I wish I had the idea, but Jazz and the girls made extra with their wedding breakfast for their parents."

Patricia looks at the potato, sausage, and egg scramble alongside the two pocket pies and grins. "I will not complain about getting the extras from that."

Beth looks a little hesitant, as if something's on her mind. "Do any of you know if there was something with the animals last night?"

"Not that we heard, anyway," Maggie replies. "Why?"

"Well, Daddy's bed hasn't been slept in. The door was open when I went up to change for the day and everything's made with his laundry still sitting in the basket."

Maggie giggles. "I can't believe Daddy stayed out all night somewhere. Who do you think it is, Patricia?"

The older woman uses a bite of food to delay answering, and Glenn wonders if she does have a good idea and isn't going to share. He's right. "How about we let your daddy share that information when he's ready. If he decided to stay overnight, I'm guessing he'll be sharing that soon enough."

Beth looks sad. "I kept hoping maybe he'd marry you," she tells Patricia.

That earns her a gentle kiss on the forehead. "Now, Bethy, I love your father more than almost any person on this earth, but never romantically. Maybe there will be someone for me one day and maybe those twenty-one years I had with Otis will be all I end up needing. But I'll tell you this much. You'll be happy for him when you know."

Glenn is really damned curious now, because there are a lot of single women around, but not a lot in Hershel's age range. Glynnis is too old, surely, although he supposes she wouldn't be the first woman here to enjoy romancing a younger man if it's her. Katherine and Natha from Grady are both in their fifties, and while he really hopes it's not Alaina, he guesses if she's old enough to be Christopher and Bryce's mother, that makes her in the right age range too.

Patricia glances at Maggie and laughs. "Girl, give that baby to Glenn and go get some clothes on before you end up going for your breakfast in your jammies."

"Freeze some important parts that way," Beth teases.

Considering Maggie slept in a pair of boxers and one of Glenn's T-shirts, they're right on that possibility. He takes the baby with all the care someone so fragile and new needs and works himself into a seat in Maggie's now abandoned rocking chair while Maggie bickers with her sister all the way back into the other bedroom.

"It's a good look on you, Glenn."

He startles a little, seeing Patricia smiling gently at him. "What is?"

"Holding a baby."

He blushes, looking back to the tiny, doll-like features of Matthew. He's such a pale little fellow, compared to what Glenn remembers of his youngest sister as a newborn, nearly bald except for the barest of blonde fuzz and no eyebrows to speak of really.

"You're going to be a good dad, you know."

He does smile at her then. "I sure hope so."

But for now, this is the little Christmas present he's glad he gets to share in.

~*~ LG ~*~

"Door just opened and a pair of baby elephants is tromping in," Daryl grumbles.

Lori rolls her eyes, although she can't really argue that the two kids are making enough noise out in the living room for a half dozen kids. They seem to find whatever it is, signaled by Abby's war cry of triumph about it.

There's a hurried conversation that isn't quite audible, but then the kids come down the hall and there's tapping at the door.

Daryl gives her a hand when she can't quite lever up onto pillows as she tells them to come in.

Both kids are pink-cheeked from their trip down from the main house, grinning ear to ear. Whatever the discussion was, Lori's guessing it involves the clumsily wrapped present in Abby's hands that she hands over while bouncing enough that Carl ends up putting his hands on her shoulders to calm her down a little. They're both still in their winter wear, but it's obvious they're waiting on her to unwrap the present.

"We have other things for later," Carl says. "But Abby didn't want to wait on this one, so you could wear it today."

Lori opens the package carefully, feeling it shift as she does so. There's cloth revealed, a pretty length of silk fabric just right for a hair scarf. Lori sort of knew this one was coming, since she works with the inventory enough that the teachers asking for supplies for the project was something that went through her. But she expected one of those tie-dye projects like Carl did at summer camp. This is a beautiful painted scarf, all in pinks and purples and blues.

"This is really pretty, Abby. You made this in class?"

She grins. "Yeah. That's why none of the moms could come inside the school house."

As she lifts the scarf, she sees why it felt heavy when the necklace and earrings slide free of its folds. She picks them up, admiring the handmade items.

"Abby did the pendant and I did the earrings," her son says, shy for the first time she's seen in a long time.

The earrings look like miniature acorns, clear resin with sprigs of cedar inside. The caps look to be actual acorn caps, carefully preserved. The necklace is meant more as a Christmas piece, because the triangular pendant has its own tiny sprig of cedar, but with little metallic snips of glitter meant to be ornaments.

"They're perfect." She's got her arms full of happy kids at this point and she kisses both their heads. "I thought it was supposed to be kids unwrapping presents first on Christmas," she teases.

"That's after breakfast, Mama. But yours was too pretty to wait," Abby says. Lori looks to Carl, whose traditions were before breakfast presents, but he's grinning happily. "We're going to meet Sophia and Jazz at breakfast."

They each get another kiss and hug and Daryl's included in this round by the kids.

As soon as they've made their noisy way back outside, she gets him to help her put on the necklace and trade out her earrings. "How on earth did you manage acorns?"

He laughs softly. "Silicone mold. We may have added a couple of those little art shops to a trip or two when we had extra time. Had the epoxy and other things already from other projects. They wanted to have something carved, but they're still learning and jewelry's a little tougher to carve."

She does have several small wooden animals and a half dozen wooden spoons from those efforts, so she knows they're getting there.

She tugs him close and kisses him thoroughly so he knows she appreciates the effort he put in to letting the kids make their gifts.

"Keep that up, woman, and we're not gonna make it to breakfast."

It's not often he teases that kind of urgency, so she decides it's a challenge she'll accept.

They don't make breakfast at all that morning.

~*~ SW ~*~

Breakfast is gone down to no leftovers at all when Shane snags a couple of the older teenage boys and puts them on dish duty. They don't grumble near as much as he would have at their age, but then again, it puts them on display as doing something nice in front of all the girls. Maybe he would have with that incentive at sixteen too.

He tugs Scout over from where she's put the last of the serving pans to soak and pulls her into a hug. "Anaya's here now," he says softly in her ear. "Gareth says they did presents this morning, and the other girls are spending the rest of the day with Jacqui and Jim. Told him we were gonna talk to her."

"Good. We might have a wrinkle though. If she says yes, she doesn't have an outfit for today."

Sophia's little wedding plot does complicate things a little, on making sure Anaya doesn't feel left out. She might not want to, but they need the option. "Weren't there multiple outfits for Abby since they weren't sure what would fit?"

"Maybe. I'll have to ask Lori for sure."

"If not, we'll figure something out. Change ours up to something we can match for her."

She takes a deep breath and meets his eyes as she takes his hand. "Ready?"

"Yeah. Let's go see if a little girl wants us as parents for Christmas."

~*~ SP ~*~

Sophia sees Scout and Shane going over where the new kids are, the ones everyone's been wondering who'll adopt them. The boys went home with Tyreese and Karen yesterday, but the girls are all still with Gareth and his mom. She didn't even know Scout and Shane were even thinking about adopting any kids, since there's the baby and all. But they're both sitting with the girl, the one that isn't a sister to the other two. Shane is crouched next to where Scout's sitting. She smacks Jazz on the arm and kicks Honey under the table.

"Look, we're getting a new niece!" she whispers as loudly as she can.

Honey shares her enthusiasm by smacking Cricket to attention too. "Look, Cricket."

She kinda hopes the girl doesn't look their way, because it's probably creepy happy that so many people are staring and excited and hoping the girl's going to say yes.

It's a yes.

Shane's got an armful of clinging child and fluffy black curls as Scout slides off her seat to join in the big hug. Sophia bets there's tears too, because she feels like happy crying and Honey is happy crying and Jazz is hugging her tight.

"Oh crap," she says. "We need presents."

Time to get to work.