(For disclaimer, etc. - see 1)

12. Wonderful Christmastime
Characters/Pairings: Sookie/Jackson, Davey
'Verse/Timeline: canon - Season 4
Date: December 2003

She always wanted a family. Though Jackson's idea of four in four did seem more than a little insane when he pitched it to her, Sookie couldn't deny that she did want kids, until she kind of didn't.

It just seemed like a lot of pressure when the time came, when she was actually carrying a baby inside her, knowing one day that child would be born and she would be the one to take care of it. Jackson would help, obviously, but she would be a mother, something she had always wanted, and yet, more than once, she had wondered if she could do it.

"See, there's Mommy, making our very special Christmas meal."

Sookie smiled as she heard her husband enter the kitchen behind her. She turned from her place at the stove to see him framed in the doorway, cradling their son in his arms.

"Hey, little man," she said, waving with her spoon. "Are you having a good first Christmas? Are you?"

"Davey says, 'Yes, Mommy,'" said Jackson in a slightly higher pitched version of his own voice. "'Santa brought me everything I wanted'."

With a giggle, Sookie checked that all the food simmering on the stove was doing fine, then wiped off her hands and came over to take her son into her arms.

"I know he won't remember any of this." Jackson sighed. "But it's still his first Christmas, so it feels like it should be special."

"Oh, honey, it could never be anything but special," Sookie assured him. "It's you and me and our son. What could be more special than that?"

She meant was she said. For all the doubts and worries that had come before, this day above all others seemed to have proved something to Sookie, sealing their family as a unit in a way it hadn't been before. Maybe it was because they were finally as they were supposed to be. No other Belvilles hanging around, no Bruce the midwife, nobody else but the three of them.

"You think the lights on the tree are too bright for him?" Jackson asked as they moved back into the living room. "I think he's squinting at it. Also, I was wondering about the gifts. Maybe we went overboard."

"Jackson, calm down," said Sookie softly, rocking her son in her arms as he drifted off to sleep. "Davey is not squinting at the tree, he's just sleepy, and we didn't overdo the gifts. I don't think you can spoil a baby this small. Like you just said, he won't remember anyway."

"I guess not," her husband considered. "I just..."

"You just want this Christmas to be perfect for our son," Sookie said for him.

"Not just for him," he told her. "For you too, for all of us. Our first Christmas as a family should be perfect, or as close to perfect as possible."

"It will be, it is," Sookie insisted, leaning up to kiss him. "Even if we had no tree, no presents, no food, not even a house or anything, this Christmas would still be so special, because we're all together. We have the greatest gifts in the whole world, Jackson. A happy marriage and a beautiful son of our own. What more could we possibly ask for?"

With a happy sigh, Jackson put his arms around his wife and child, pulling them close and kissing them both.

"Nothing at all," he declared with a smile - Sookie couldn't argue with that.