What we didn't get in the second Christmas episode. Madney cuteness.
Alternate Scene #1: Maddie and Chimney admit their feelings together at Christmas (otherwise known as their freakin' season)
This is their first real Christmas (they don't count the first one, before, they don't talk about it now) and the tree that Micheal put up at Bobby and Athena's is perfect and tall and elegant.
They are all at their house for a Christmas Eve party (black tie, because Athena's mom is there and she wouldn't stand for any other way, if it were Athena's way, everyone would be wearing whatever they wanted, she just wanted people happy and comfortable, she didn't give a shit).
Everyone was drinking and socializing, the fireplace is going, May's Spotify playlist has all of the Christmas carols, and the only way he can describe the here and the now is peaceful.
He watches Maddie by the Christmas tree, talking to Buck and still drinking from the glass of wine he'd passed off to her an hour ago now. Standing in the white light of the tree and the reflection of the fireplace, he swears up and down that Maddie Buckley is a real life angel.
She laughs at something her brother said, and he knows it's true because a sound like that, so soft and pure, could never come out of an actual human person. He walks up to them, and Buck sees him first.
"She's all yours."
"What?" Maddie turns her head to follow Buck's gaze and sees him there.
She's thinking that he looks gentlemanly and adorable all at the same time in his classic suit, all except for the tie, which was a deep red with a Rudolph printed on it, complete with the blinking nose.
She starts to laugh again, because it was just so ridiculous, so Howie, but she absolutely loves it and of course it's cracking her up just like this, again.
It made her burst into laughter when he first came from the master bathroom into their bedroom in his underwear and complete bed head (well, okay, it was sex hair but nobody had to know about that), with his dress shirt and suit jacket on, looking completely pitiful and so sweet with that tie around his neck and tied completely wrong.
"Help," he'd asked her and she did, working the tie deftly through her fingers and laughing the whole time. It was a moment in time that she was certain she would hold onto and that felt so good. It felt safe.
"You're beautiful," he said and he sounded so serious, so genuine, that she stopped laughing abruptly.
"What?" Her voice was soft, a little unsure, and she hates herself for that. Wants to kick herself in the butt. She can't ruin this. She won't.
So, she gently cups his face in her hands, runs her fingers over his old-man stubble that she likes to tease him for but threatens to hide his razor every time he goes near it to shave it off completely.
"Thank you. You're pretty handsome yourself, Howie Han."
He holds her tighter and smiles at her, and then together, they admire the Christmas tree for a moment, staring up at in in awe as O'Christmas Tree plays over the speakers. He asks her to dance and she nods and he wraps his hands around her hips as she wraps hers around his neck and then they're dancing.
They might look like fools, but he doesn't care, doesn't check to see if anybody else is doing the same thing, but he has a feeling that they're not. He actually has a very strong feeling that people might be staring at them, but he doesn't turn to look.
He can't. He won't ruin the magic of this moment. "I love you."
She gasps, and he hopes it's not because this is something bad, but also, he knows that it's not. That she loves him too.
"I love you, Maddie Buckley. I love you so, very much."
This time, there isn't glass raining down on them from broken ornaments; this time, there isn't a collapsing tree and pine needles all over the hardwood floor; this time, her skin isn't scratched up and her face isn't covered in blood; this time, she's not afraid of the man standing with her, beside her, and not over her; this time, she has an opposite feeling towards this man, a completely different man, coursing through her veins, bursting from her heart, and she can't wait to say it out loud.
"I love you too, Howie. I love you so, very much, times two." His smile gets bigger. She's glad that it does.
"Times three," he counters.
"Times four," she says back.
She knows what's coming but she let's him have it because it's been a long time since she's been loved like that, maybe her first time, and she knows that she deserves it, that he wants her to have it. To feel what it's like.
"I love you times infinity."
When they kiss, she blocks out the world around her for a moment but then they break apart and she hears it all.
The whooping. The laughter, one of her favorite Christmas songs, playing over those speakers, through it all - White Christmas.
She knows she's a cliché, right down to what just happened here tonight, a stupid, holiday cliché, but she doesn't care. She really can't bring herself to give a damn because she is so, insanely, happy.
Finally, she remembers what Christmas used to feel like, and she thinks about what future Christmases will hold, with Chimney, with the 118, and she can say that, without a doubt, it is her favorite time of year. Her favorite holiday. Hands down.
Review, review! Request some missing and or alternate scenes, too! :) Xx