People assumed that Ren always knew what Nora was talking about. That their many, many years together, much of that time spent with only each other for companionship, meant that he was fully fluent in Nora. But while Ren was more familiar with Nora's quirks and interpreting her real meaning than most people, she was still the most utterly singular woman Ren had ever met. She was a boundless wellspring of imagination and enthusiasm, and Ren was sometimes just as caught up in the madness as the rest of his team. But unlike others, he always reacted with gentle amusement rather than Jaune's open mouthed confusion or Pyrrha's polite bewilderment.

Such as now, as Nora waved around a handwritten list of all the things they needed for "Team JNPR's Best Christmas Ever" and excitedly babbled on about this-or-that festive addition to their holiday plans. But while Pyrrha had no idea how to respond to Nora's insistence that she use her clout as Vytal Champion to get them "the biggest tree- no, even bigger than you're thinking! I'm talking Yggdrasil here, people!" Ren could only smile. In a way, this could very well be Nora's first Christmas. Ren could still remember the Christmases of his childhood in Kuroyuri. A painfully bittersweet memory, to be sure, but memories he could cherish as he remembered his mother and father and the innocent days where the worst plight he could imagine was coal in his stocking. But Nora had nothing like that. Every Christmas memory she had was either on the road or in a shelter, a holiday that was more about distracting herself from her poverty.

So Ren had absolutely no objection to Nora going all out… well, maybe some objections…

"-and since Ruby does anything you tell her," Nora excitedly told Pyrrha, "you can get her to make Christmas Dust grenades for Magnhild! I dunno what Dust effects we'd get from comboing Red and Green, but I'm sure Ruby would be able to figure it out!"

"She… she doesn't do anything I say..." Pyrrha lamely attempted to deflect, as though she could deny Ruby's adorable hero-worship for the Invincible Girl. It was rather cute, in Ren's opinion, but Pyrrha's blush indicated that she still struggled with her fame.

"And Jaune-Jaune!" she barked, pressing a commanding finger into his chest before he could come to his partner's defense, her eyes flashing with royal authority, "I need to know if you have what it takes, if you, the Leader of Team JNPR have the necessary, skill, grit, determination, and boldness to pull off what your team needs!"

"I-" he tried to cut in, to no avail.

"Do you have it!"

"I don't-"

"DO YOU HAVE IT!"

"Yes!" Jaune, wholly bowled over by the Queen of the Castle, squeaked in reply.

Nora smiled, a wide grin that Ren recognized as a sign of doom, as she added, "Excellent! I just know you'll cook us the most fantastic Christmas Goose!"

Ren knew that this was the point he had to cut in. "Nora," he said, in his familiar, patient and non-judgmental way of correcting her, "I don't know if Jaune's Team Leader role entails roasting a goose for-"

"Actually," Jaune cut him off, rubbing the back of his neck as he blushed, "That's actually… something I can do? So I can- oh no," he said in too-late realization, "I've just encouraged her and-"

"And that means we're going all out, baby!" Nora cheered, tossing her list into the air before grabbing Pyrrha by the arm and adding, "Jaune-Jaune's on board, so let's go get that tree, Pyr!"

In a blink, the both of them were gone. This was not an unusual way for a Nora conversation to end.

"One of us should probably go after her," Jaune dryly said, the implication clear in his voice which "one of us" he meant.

"Whichever of us doesn't go after her has to clean up the room," Ren replied, eyeing the impacts of Hurricane Nora scattering papers, pens, clothes (Nora had suggested something that sounded like a Christmas pageant but it also might have been a burlesque from the way her eyebrows were waggling at Pyrrha), and other mess scattered haphazardly.

Jaune grimaced. "I'll… see if I can redirect her towards something more… productive," he mumbled as he headed to the door. Ren would give his Team Leader credit: Jaune was shockingly good at Nora-wrangling. For all his limitations, he excelled in at least one field Ren doubted any other Team Leader at Beacon could manage.

But with Jaune gone, it fell to Ren to tidy up. He reached to grab a sweater off the floor (marked by Nora as unacceptably un-festive with its lack of reindeer, snowmen, or Santas), but as he did so, he saw Nora's Christmas list was lying right beside it. With a smile, he picked it up and scanned its contents, finding himself both charmed and amused by Nora's wild whirlwind of ideas. Like how she listed both "bake Christmas cookies" and "burn Christmas cookies" with "get Ren to bake good Christmas cookies" as part of her process. Or the line that was just "Reindeer Traps?" complete with six question marks, or the "Christmas movie marathon (nonstop, mandatory)" that suggested Ren couldn't really let Nora do all these, but at the same time, they were so… so utterly Nora that he couldn't really tell her no!

But Ren paled as he saw the last item on the list. The very final action item for Nora's "perfect Christmas," the capstone of all her dreams and hopes.

"Christmas Kiss Under The Mistletoe."

And Ren knew exactly what Nora meant with that.

"Alright, old man, we know what you're up to and we're not gonna let you keep us in the dark any longer!"

Ren sometimes wondered if he'd gotten too used to Nora's exuberance, if she could physically threaten the school's Headmaster and Ren's only concern was that her skirt was scuffed up from brushing against a dusty wall earlier that day. He was far more attentive to the dust than he was the way the Headmaster's eyes went wide at the accusation and raised his hands in alarm, before his attempt at denial failed.

"I- well, yes, I knew this day was coming eventually," he sighed in resignation, "Yes, it's true. I am not merely the Headmaster of Beacon Academy, but part of an elite group that leads the fight against Salem, the Queen of the Grimm who-"

"Salem?" Nora asked in disbelief, "Who the hell is- no, I'm talking about Santa! Obviously you're some kind of wizard-man, so you know what's the deal with Christmas magic!"

Ozpin blinked. "You… you didn't know about Salem?"

"Obviously not!" Nora said, stamping her feet, "But I'm here about the real issues! The Santa issues!"

"Ah, Glynda's gonna kill me," Ozpin sighed, placing his face in his palm.

This was a huge, world-changing revelation that had massive implications for all of Remnant, even if Nora didn't put any stock in it. Ren's mind, however, was still on the mistletoe.

Why was this hard for him? Did he like Nora? Yes, obviously! Did his eyes linger on her lips when she smiled, did he wonder how they might feel against his? Yes! Had he woken up from dreams that left him gasping for air as he felt Nora's breath against his ear? ...more often than he'd like to admit. He had feelings for Nora. Strong feelings, and there was no way he could claim he didn't, and now, now he had his first sign of proof that Nora had the same feelings for him. And yet, Ren found himself in the grip of terror thinking about it.

How many ways could this go wrong? His mind certainly had some suggestions! Maybe- maybe they wouldn't work as a couple, maybe it turned out that Ren wasn't what Nora wanted in… in a lover. Even thinking about Nora in… in that way put an icy chill up Ren's spine, like it was inappropriate to think of it. And then what? Could they… go back to being friends after that? If he… he failed to live up to her-

Ren didn't want to think about it. His whole life, he'd always had Nora. She'd always been rambunctious and unpredictable, but she had been a constant. They'd gotten used to each other, had figured out how to make their way through the world together. He just had to be responsible, sensible Ren, indulging her flights of fancy and pulling her back from going too far. But if he was her- her- her… her b-boyfriend… what if he wasn't good enough? And then what?

His mind just kept circling back to those two positions. How he could fail to be what Nora wanted in a boyfriend and how that would ruin his entire life. It was stupid, as though Nora was some kind of… some kind of callous, heartless woman who'd cast him aside even though they've always had each other, but Ren couldn't stop imagining it! Even as Nora started brandishing Magnhild in an increasingly-threatening way as the Headmaster tried to explain that he wasn't a "Santa-denier" he was only thinking about-

"Headmaster, I'm here for the- oh!"

Ren, Nora, and Ozpin all turned to see Pyrrha at the door, evidently startled to see her there. Pyrrha, somehow, more so than the others as she turned very red and stammered out. "I'm h-here about the, um, the… the Fall, um, 'Scholarship' opportunity you, um, mentioned..."

It was a terrible lie, but Ren really wasn't in a place to untie what she was nominally lying about. And Nora wasn't even going to try.

"Pyrrha!" she cheered, "You're just the girl I needed to see—and before you accept any scholarships from this charlatan, you should know that he's claiming to have no knowledge of Santa in spite of the fact he has him employed here! Teaching Grimm Studies!"

Ozpin's eyes went wide at that. "You- you think Peter is Santa Claus?"

Nora's eyes narrowed. "Who else could it be?"

Either the Headmaster didn't know how to begin with that or… it was possibly somehow true. Ren wasn't going to rule things out just because they sounded insane, particularly when there was something going on with a Grimm Queen that Ren really wasn't in a place to be speculating on. But Ozpin's actual response was decidedly ineffectual—either his attempt to start dissuading Nora from her preconceptions (amateur mistake, opposition just gave Nora's enthusiasm something to feed on) or his attempt to physically depart from the room (another mistake, Nora would follow her target to the end of Remnant). Overall, it showed a lack of understanding how to deal with a determined Nora when she had a goal in mind.

"GET BACK HERE OLD MAN BEFORE I GOTTA DECK YOUR HALLS!" Nora's voice echoed from down the corridor.

Ren realized he should probably go after Nora and the retreating Headmaster as-

"Actually..." Pyrrha said, putting a hand on Ren's arm to stop him, "I think the Headmaster might… have something like this coming. Put him on the other side of being overwhelmed by things he never thought he'd be asked about."

Ren raised a teasing eyebrow. "Something about those 'scholarship opportunities' you were mentioning…?"

Pyrrha blushed. "Don't… it's something I'm figuring out for myself, and… well," she suddenly flashed a grin, a bit of her champion self peeking through, "I think I've finally learned a bit about standing up for myself and what I want rather than just trying to live up to what everyone expects of me."

That really raised Ren's eyebrows! "Well," he said with a soft laugh, "I'm happy for you. I don't know the circumstances, but I know that's a lot for you and… that couldn't have been an easy decision, but… I think you'll be a lot happier for it." It was strange that a year ago, Ren was a nameless, faceless one of the multitudes who wandered Remnant, with Nora as his only company and community. And now, one of the most famous women alive counted him as a personal friend to the level that he knew her private insecurities and struggles to overcome them. Though, with that in mind…

"Actually," he admitted, "I… I've been thinking about doing… something like that, myself…"

"With Nora?" Pyrrha asked, an undisguised smile on her face as Ren blushed and nodded yes. Pyrrha and he were kindred spirits, the "sensible" ones of JNPR, and she was Nora's best friend, so Ren shouldn't have been surprised that she saw right through his whole situation. Still, she could stand to look a little less self-satisfied for calling it.

"You know what you're getting her for Christmas?" she asked.

"A personalized syrup container," he said with a soft smile. Pretty much the only thing Nora had ever owned was her beloved Magnhild and the clothes on her back (sometimes not even that), and now that they were in Beacon, living in times of plenty, Ren wanted to get Nora something that would say for sure it was hers. Something proudly displaying her name and her hammer-and-bolt insignia, to make sure the whole world knew what was Nora's. He knew she'd love it, but…

"But I think she wants… something more," he added.

Pyrrha picked up his meaning, nodding for him to continue.

"Alright, well… you remember Nora's list for the perfect Christmas?"

With a grin, Pyrrha nodded. "The one where she wanted me to decorate a Christmas boat, in the Argus style, and then set it on fire, which is really not how we do that?"

Ren chuckled before his tone grew more serious. "Yeah, but she also wanted something… something from me."

Ren told her about the list and the mistletoe as Pyrrha listened sympathetically. She was someone who knew how it was to have her affections frozen by indecision and uncertainty, but more so, Pyrrha was just a good listener. Good enough that Ren's usual attitude of composure and restraint was lost for a moment as he just… let it all spill out.

"...so that's what's going on with me," he concluded, giving Pyrrha a weak smile, "So… if you have any advice on..."

"On telling someone you have a crush on them?" she said with a sad blush, "I'm… well, you know I'm not the best at that, but, well, I also..." her blush turned redder and redder as she timidly squeaked, "I kind of thought you two were already dating?"

Ren stared at her. Pyrrha blushed. This continued for a while until Ren said, "But you… you knew I was talking about Nora when I talked about doing something bold for myself? What did you think…" his words trailed off as Ren realized he had an inkling of what Pyrrha meant.

"I thought you meant you were… going to propose?" Pyrrha confessed, looking so awkward, Ren couldn't keep his face from cracking into a smile before laughter overtook him. And as he started laughing, so did Pyrrha, until the both of them were laughing together, just at the absurdity of it all. They were in the Headmaster of Beacon's office, laughing at how ludicrous Ren's relationship drama was. As he wiped a tear from his eye, Ren smiled towards Pyrrha and took a moment to appreciate a little levity in his life… even though the reason he was in the Headmaster's office in the first place was because of his partner confronting Ozpin about a secret Santa conspiracy that ended up exposing a different secret conspiracy. But having some more… ordinary levity certainly did help.

Ren had never realized that a Christmas tree could be such a contentious matter.

They weren't as prominent a symbol in Kuroyuri, where the seasonal warmth meant coniferous trees were rare and hardly resembled the hearty Valean fir trees like the ones that now surrounded him and Nora. Though, as Ren had recently learned, Vale and Atlas had very different species of fir, with the Valean more "tiered" and the Atlesian more rounded. And that was a matter of existential importance between Jaune and Pyrrha's respective childhood expectations of a Christmas tree. But as unusual as it was to see actual tension between Jaune and Pyrrha, Ren was far more struck by the experience of walking through this Christmassy forest. Even though these trees were all planted in neat, orderly rows, it felt like they'd stepped into an enchanted forest, made all the more surreal by how clearly it wasn't natural.

And while Ren was marveling at its enchantment, the rich scent of pine heavy in the air, Nora was fully enraptured by its Christmas magic as she tugged on his arm.

"Can you imagine..." she said in a faraway voice, "filling a tree with ornaments and tinsel and lights and tinsel and a star and then we add more tinsel and..."

Ren smiled warmly as Nora went on to describe everything she'd put on the tree. She hadn't seen many proper Christmas trees either, and the ones they had seen, in the shelters they'd stayed in from time to time during the winter, were often… a little depressing in how threadbare they were. Ren had always appreciated the gesture, the attempt to cheer up homeless children (and they were children, even as fast as they'd had to grow up), but it only ever felt as a grim reminder of what they didn't have.

But as Jaune and Pyrrha started discussing what a proper Christmas tree looked like… even as their respective Christmas traditions somewhat clashed, Nora was wholly drawn into the concept. Especially tinsel. They didn't have many ornaments, being only 18, but getting boxes and boxes of tinsel were easy enough to acquire, and Nora was more than content with that. When Ren had proposed that the two of them go together to get the tree (mostly out of fear of what it might look like to see Jaune and Pyrrha actually fight) Nora couldn't have been more excited.

A dangerous portent, but Nora's exuberance for life never failed to lift Ren's spirits.

"So, Renny!" Nora cut in with the familiar tone of voice that signaled the conversation was about to take a hard shift, "For gifts for the rest of the team, I was figuring we ought to buy Jaune a gun."

Her suggestion barely even phased Ren. "Do you think Jaune would… appreciate a gun? Or that he needs one?"

All Huntsmen-in-Training were required to "demonstrate basic competence" in a variety of combat techniques. It was more a formality than anything, most students came to Beacon with a style that fit them best, but Ren had been required to practice some unarmed combat just like Jaune had to spend time in the shooting range. Where it became clear it was a good thing that they were just a formality because Jaune was a terrible shot, even as Ren tried his best to give him some pointers.

But Nora just shrugged in reply. "I mean, he's the only person I know who doesn't have a gun, so I have to assume he's just stoically hiding his gun-envy. I know if I couldn't shoot grenades everywhere, I would be jealous of everyone. But… he's also, like, super traditional-" something Ren had been surprised to discover, not only in Jaune's extremely detailed menu proposed for Christmas, but also in his… shockingly strident views on what a proper Christmas tree looked like, "-so maybe swords are just a Valean thing. Like, 'guns are for cowards' and- wait, he doesn't think you're a coward, does he, Renny?" Nora's eyes had gone wide as her voice had suddenly picked up an affronted fury, "Because if he does-"

"I don't think Jaune thinks I'm a coward," Ren laughed, trying to reign this conversation back onto the rails, "I think we've all seen enough of each other in the field to know that."

Even Jaune was coming around to proving it. Ren hadn't been entirely sure of his teammates at first—one of whom seemed… rather ill prepared and the other was a celebrity from the tourney circuit, hardly someone with a lot of experience getting her hands dirty—but Jaune and Pyrrha had both come to show Ren that his first assessment of them wasn't the last word. Sure, Jaune's swordsmanship still needed work, but he didn't run from danger, even when he probably should, and maybe Pyrrha's efforts to set up a base camp were… often less helpful than nothing, but she wasn't above being criticized and to learn from others, even if they didn't have her legendary reputation. They were really becoming a good team.

"Point, good point," Nora said with a pensive nod, "But while we're on the subject of gifts, what are you hoping to get for Christmas, huh, Renny?"

As unflappable as Ren was, this was the one question where Nora caught him entirely flat footed. What was he hoping to get for Christmas? Well… could he answer that question to himself, much less Nora? They wanted the exact same thing, really, that last item on Nora's Christmas list, he wanted to be able to… to have that kind of relationship with Nora, but in order to have that… well, he'd have to be a lot more courageous to say the least.

"I… I guess what I want..." Ren paused, trying to muster his words, "It's- it's a hard question to just..."

Fortunately, Nora was more than willing to barrel forward down the conversation. "All I'm hoping for is that this is the first of many Christmases for the four of us. Team JNPR Forever!" she cheered, "That's all I- hold on a minute!"

Another sudden change in the conversation spared Ren from having to fully answer Nora's question. Though the source of his salvation was the last man he could have expected such a reprieve from as he rounded the corner to follow Nora and saw Professor Port, also looking for a Christmas tree and wholly unprepared for what was heading his way.

"YOU!" Nora cried, throwing out an accusatory finger. Port turned, clearly surprised, as Nora let him have it. "You might think you have everyone at Beacon fooled, but I'm onto you… Santa Claus!"

"How could I be Santa Claus!" the extremely tenured Grimm Studies Professor replied defiantly, as though this was an actual conversation a person might have. "Santa has a beard—a full beard, at that!—while I would never do something to distract attention from the most majestic form of facial hair! Why, it would be an insult to my moustache to pair it with such… such a disgraceful way to coif one's face! To think of me, with a beard, like that upstart Ironwood! It simply… oh, it boils my blood simply to think it!"

"Hey!" Nora snapped back, "If you're thinking to disrespect beards, well, Jaune-Jaune has a beard and he looks very handsome with it! So-"

Ren cut in, whispering to Nora, "No he doesn't."

Nora cocked an eyebrow.

"Jaune doesn't have a beard. He's generally clean-shaven. You just doodled one on his picture once."

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh," Nora nodded with understanding, "Then I guess Professor Port and I… don't have a reason to be fighting?"

"We can fight anyways!" the Professor boisterously responded, brandishing his axe with a cheerful—and threatening—grin. "It's the spirit of giving, after all!"

But Ren was quick to shut that down. "A-actually, since you have an axe already," he said, arms raised in what he hoped was a pacifying measure, "How about you help us with chopping down a tree?"

It was a sadly more desperate gambit than Ren had hoped in staving off a battle between Nora and a member of Beacon's faculty, particularly as Port's bushy eyebrows narrowed. "You mean to ask if I would use my weapon, my sworn tool to defeat the Grimm to fell a pine tree?" he asked, an incredulous growl in his voice, before his brow suddenly unknit and he cheerfully added, "Well why didn't you say so earlier! Of course I'd be happy to help two of Beacon's finest hopes for its future!"

"You're thinking of Jaune and Pyrrha," Nora replied, "We're Ren and Nora, we're kind of the background characters of Beacon's future."

"Nonsense!" Professor Port boomed, "Any student who pays close attention to the wisdom I share in my lectures is surely destined for heroism!"

If that was true, it was certainly a worrisome sign of the destiny of Ren's classmates, but he wasn't going to press on it. Particularly as now Port launched into a lengthy diatribe on the necessary virtues of a proper Christmas tree. But unlike in his class, where the Professor could drone on endlessly about whatever topic came to his head, here, he had to match the one person in the world who could extemporize at his level. And Ren had to marvel at how adeptly Nora matched Port's windbaggery at every level, the two of them turning to a passionate debate on how big a Christmas tree could be. Which was quite charming, seeing Nora excelling in her element, but it reminded Ren…

The more determined Nora got that the tree had to be enormous, the more he was aware that they were stuck carrying it back to the Bullhead docks. Which might be a bit much…

But it certainly made him extremely grateful for Nora's prodigious strength!

Thanks to Renarde for feedback on this chapter!