Chloe stirred out of the deep sleep she'd been in, letting out a long peaceful sigh. She paused for a moment, the memories of last night flooding back to her, and she slowly opened her eyes. She smiled softly as she looked down at the mass of brown hair belonging to her girlfriend while Beca lay on her left side, curled into her. Beca never curled into Chloe. Chloe was the tallest of the two of them. Chloe was also had the bigger frame of the two of them, even though she was considered small to many. Compare the two women and Beca was definitely the smallest. Yet despite that fact, Chloe was always the one who curled into Beca, the redhead being the more cuddly and openly affectionate of the two of them.

So as Chloe felt Beca's chest rise and fall while she curled up in Chloe's warm arms, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness. Because there was only one real reason why Beca was curled into Chloe right now. It was because she was feeling vulnerable. Chloe thought about how unfair it had been of Beca's father to treat his own daughter the way he had. To not believe her when she'd revealed to him something so important that she had been keeping secret from him for a while.

Chloe brought her left hand up from around her girlfriend and began delicately glazing her fingertips across the pale skin of Beca's arm. The young woman didn't stir. Chloe felt her eyes slowly close again, enjoying the peace of the early morning, and the rhythm of her girlfriend's gentle breathing.

All of a sudden Chloe's ears pricked up as she heard the familiar sound of several pairs of footsteps scuttling along the landing, stopping outside her bedroom door. The woman opened her eyes as a grin spread across her face. She could hear loud whispering and giggling from her nephews and niece. But as the door handle pulled down with a creak, Chloe realised that the kids wouldn't be the first to tumble into her bedroom. She noticed Sammy open the door but before she could nudge her girlfriend awake she heard the familiar sound of her brother's Labrador scramble quickly into her bedroom.

Beca yelped as she jumped out of her deep sleep. But her shock was soon rectified with a chuckle as the Labrador that had leapt onto the bed proceeded to lick the brunette's face enthusiastically, his tail wagging with recognition. Chloe couldn't help but laugh as her girlfriend pushed at the dog to give her space to sit up. In the meantime the Beale children had realised just who was in their Aunt's bed with her and they squealed with excitement, dashing into the bedroom.

"Auntie Becaaaaa!"

"It's Christmaaas!"

The children dove onto the bed while Chloe clutched onto Max the Labrador's collar to give her girlfriend a chance to sit up and breathe. There wasn't one person in the room who wasn't laughing or giggling and Chloe felt her heart soar as she heard Beca's laugh, full and loud. The woman had sat up beside her under the covers, wearing a set of Chloe's Christmas pyjamas, and was currently grinning from ear to ear as Jack and Oliver both jumped on top of her to cuddle her tight. Eva pulled the bedcovers back on Chloe's side of the bed and crawled in beside the woman, her Aunt wrapping her arm around her as the ten year old brought the bedcovers up over her lower body.

"Max!" Chloe said sternly, and the dog stopped scrambling for Beca and instead sat obediently on the petite brunette's lower legs, his tail still wagging as he panted. The rest of Chloe's nephews had joined them on the bed; Noah having somehow clambered around the dog and nestled between the two women, pulling the covers over his lower body; Hunter kneeling beside Max; and Sammy sitting on Chloe's lap.

"Auntie Beca, did Santa bring you here for Auntie Chloe for Christmas?" Jack asked, blinking at Beca sweetly with his bright blue eyes, and Chloe felt her heart melt as she watched her girlfriend look over at her with a big grin saying that he had, before seeing her youngest nephew throw his arms around the petite brunette's neck with a loud "yaaay!" and Beca reacting with a quiet "oof!"

"Auntie Chloe can we go into Grandma and Grandad's room yet? Pleeease?" Sammy asked desperately and Chloe smiled teasingly at the little boy.

"Hmm that depends. What time is it?" And the redhead let out a small giggle as her nephew pushed back from her to crane his neck and look at The Little Mermaid clock on her bedside table. He let out an excitable gasp and looked back at her with that dazzling Beale smile that they all seemed to have inherited from Sue.

"It's 6:30!" The little boy squeaked and Chloe heard her girlfriend groan slightly under her breath. She knew this was far too early for Beca to be awake. But tradition was tradition. And in The Beale household 6:30 was prime 'Stocking Present Opening' time.

Beca was perched on the edge of the long bay-window seat in Sue and Jerry Beale's bedroom. To her left sat Chloe. To her right sat Laura then Johnny. Opposite them, sat on the floor, leaning their backs against the wall was Michael, Claudia, Julia, and Ryan. The King-size bed in the room currently boasted Sue and Jerry Beale, who sat on the covers, surrounded by all of their grandchildren (including 18 month old Ellie who happily sat in Sue's arms). The bed looked chaotic, with heaps of torn wrapping paper strewn all over the place due to the children's haste to open all the presents in their stockings. Beca had been a bit shocked at first, never having really seen children open presents at Christmas before. And certainly not from their Christmas stockings. But after ten minutes of gasps and "ooh!"s and "woohoo!"s and "oh wow!"s from the children, Beca began to understand why people liked Christmas so much. The reaction of people opening presents was really quite nice.

Beca turned her head to her left as she felt Chloe loop her arm through hers and take her hand. Normally she would feel uncomfortable about an interaction like this when they were around other people, but Beca saw Chloe smiling warmly at her and the brunette could think of nothing else to do but simply smile back and squeeze her hand affectionately.

"Right then, that's the stockings done. No more presents." Jerry Beale called out in a teasing tone, and Beca turned to watch the children look to their grandfather.

"No that's not all the presents Grandad!" yelled Hunter.

"Yeah, it is!" Jerry said trying to keep a straight face, and the children all began giggling and squeaking "Nooooo" at him.

"It isn't?!" the grandfather said, mocking his surprise with a wide mouth to which the children giggled and protested again.

"Nooo!" screeched Oliver mid-laughter, "You forgot the Christmas Present Chest!"

"Oh the Christmas Present Chest! I forgot!" The man brought his hand to his forehead as though telling himself off for having 'forgotten', "Well what are you waiting for? Better get those presents out the Christmas Present Chest then!" And Beca watched in curiosity as the children scrambled off the bed and ran to a large chest that stood beside Ryan that she hadn't even noticed.

Beca heard her girlfriend giggle slightly as the adults all watched the children grabbing the presents from within the chest. Eva held the lid of the chest up while the young boys dove in to pull out the presents, then she helped the younger boys read out the names on the tags. There were 8 presents in total.

Beca was shocked when Noah scurried up to her and handed her a present. It was a cube shape and rather heavy for its size. It was wrapped in blue paper with cartoon snowmen dotted about it. Chloe loved the colour blue.

"I get a present?" Beca asked in surprise to nobody in particular.

"Well of course you do Beca, it's Christmas." Jerry said with a big grin on his face and Beca smiled back at him.

The deliverer of the present, Noah, had already gravitated over to his mother who held a present of her own and he was busy asking her what it was when Claudia peered over her sons shoulder and motioned to Beca, "Well perhaps we should let Auntie Beca open her present first huh? It's her first Christmas with us isn't it."

Beca swallowed loudly, slightly overwhelmed as she saw six out of seven of the young Beale children scurry over to her. "Um…" Beca said as she looked at each other them, not overly sure what to do. But as she looked back down at the present in her hands she could hear Ryan chucking from across the room.

"Beca you look like you've never seen a Christmas present before!" The man teased.

Beca scrunched her nose up slightly with a small shrug and she glossed her thumbs across the wrapping paper, "Well…we don't…you know, normally do Christmas presents in my family. In fact we don't normally do any kind of presents no matter the time of year."

As expected, everybody in the bedroom gasped. Chloe even brought a hand to her mouth in shock. But Beca looked up at the adults around her and simply shrugged, "It's no big deal. My Dad just gets me an iTunes gift card."

"But…what do you open at Christmas?" Chloe forced out quietly, evidently feeling sorry for her girlfriend which really wasn't what Beca wanted.

"An envelope?" Beca said and furrowed her brow at the reaction that was still being displayed by the Beale's. Of course they were shocked. She could only imagine that Chloe had got her love of giving presents from her family. But it was far from how her family was. "Look, that's just how it's always been in my family." She tried to explain with a shrug, "Not many decorations, a good dinner, maybe a bit of tv. Just another day really…"

"Just another day?!" Chloe cried out in shock and Beca turned to look at her girlfriend who appeared to have tears in her eyes, "Beca it's Christmas Day! One of the best days of the year!"

The room went silent which made Beca feel slightly uncomfortable. It was rare for all the Beale's to be in one room and for that room to be silent. She looked down awkwardly at the present in her hands, before looking back up at the family dotted about the room.

"Sheesh Beca, you're gonna be in for a shock today. We Beale's don't do Christmas lightly…" Michael said with a chuckle and suddenly the atmosphere brightened again as his brother's began laughing. Not doing Christmas lightly? Beca believed it. The kids before her were all donning Christmas onesies, and the adults were wearing Christmas pyjamas, except for Sue and Jerry who were wearing a Santa hat each. Heck even Beca was wearing Christmas pyjamas which Chloe had pulled out of her bottom draw and chucked at her once they'd retired to bed in the early hours of the morning. She'd never worn Christmas pyjamas in her life!

"Auntie Beca are you going to open your present yet?" Beca's gaze landed on a pair of bright blue eyes that belonged to Jack, who stood eagerly at Beca's feet, the palm of his little hands on her knees. She hadn't even noticed him approach her she'd been so surprised by the gift. She looked around the room one last time and each of the adults were nodding at her, almost as if they were giving her permission to open her present first, big grins on their faces.

So Beca brought her attention back to the small box-shaped present. She sees the gift tag says it's 'from Santa' and her heart lurches slightly at the sentiment of what it represents. She couldn't tell if it made her cringe at how sappy it was, a grown woman getting a present 'from Santa', or if she was actually touched by the sentiment that The Beale's had provided her with a present 'from Santa'.

Her small fingers grappled with the well-taped wrapping paper, and she heard mutters and chuckles from the adults around her that said that Santa's elves always had been very thorough wrappers. Which of course elicited a comment from Jerry about how Santa's elves were hip-hop rappers and all four of his children had groaned at the joke that he clearly said every year.

Beca finally tore the last of the paper off and she realised her heart was racing slightly. She now held a small cardboard box. It had nothing written or drawn on it. And so she furrowed her brow slightly with a curious smile.

Beca pulled the top of the box open, reached in, and suddenly her heart jumped into her mouth. She pulled out of the box a deep blue mug, her favourite colour, and on the side of the mug was a black letter 'B' on the side of it. Beca didn't know what to say.

Every member of the Beale family had their own mug in this house. The mug not only had the letter of their name on the side of it but it was also in their favourite colour. For example, Chloe's was a yellow mug, with a black letter 'C' on the side. And now Beca's was a blue mug, with a black letter 'B' on the side.

Beca swallowed loudly and looked up from the mug as Hunter asked her what Santa had got her. The woman held out the mug so the children could see it, and she was met with "oohs" and "wows". Jack, who was thrilled, had dashed past his cousins and brother over to his mother.

"Mommy, Santa bought Beca a mug! Can it go next to mine in the cupboard?" The little boy asked excitably. But at the sound of the request, Oliver quickly joined his twin brother and asked that Beca's mug actually go next to his in the cupboard. Before long all of the children were back up on the bed begging their grandparents that Beca's mug be placed next to their respective mugs in the kitchen cupboard.

Beca felt numb all of a sudden as she stared back down at the mug. She couldn't believe it. She had her very own Beale mug! Beca swallowed hard, feeling pretty choked at the sentiment, and she noticed a hand reach out from her right to nudge the ceramic present.

"Now you really are part of the family Becs." she heard Johnny say and she turned to look at him with a grateful smile. She looks from him and Laura; over to Sue, Ellie and Jerry; to the kids; to Ryan, Julia, Claudia, and Michael, and said a quiet thank you. They all smiled brightly at her.

"Don't thank us, thank Santa!" Jerry said with a wink and a warm smile.

"Right…um…thanks Santa." Beca said, looking up to the ceiling for some reason and briefly holding the mug up as though Santa was watching the room. But she quickly brought it down as the children dashed over to Ryan who had declared it was his turn to open his present from Santa (which turned out to be a rubix cube, much like the one he'd had as a kid, but this one lit up)

Beca looked down at the mug in her hand, finally feeling as though she belonged somewhere and she thought she could feel her heart swell. She didn't notice the soft smile that had slowly wiped onto her face. That soft smile grew into a broad grin as she felt Chloe lean into her and place a firm kiss on her cheek.

"Happy Christmas Beca" the redhead whispered, and Beca turned to look at her girlfriend who was beaming at her, her bright blue eyes sparkling as though she'd just witnessed the most wonderful moment of her life so far.

Wow the power of reviews guys means that thanks to your speedy reviews I was able to write and post this chapter within a matter of hours since the last update. Thank you so much!

i fear this chapter is edging on fluff-town so I hope I'm still keeping Chloe and Beca quite close to their movie characteristics (though of course people do mature and develop over time, as do relationships..)

Justbch - right in there with the quick review, I couldn't believe it! Haha yes I admit they're no longer epilogues huh..though it's fun for me to learn my Roman Numerals! And thank you so much for the compliments! I'll keep writing don't worry!

GanHer - well dude you guessed it. I had it planned aaages ago so I did grin when I read your review haha! Top detective work!

Skyeze.10 - hmm it is tempting to pit Jerry and Beca's Dad against each other huh (I'm still not sure what name to give him, sorry. Lazy writer) but would he be a match for Jerry and Chloe's brothers? Because you just know they wouldn't let their dad fight alone.

Eliley - they are awesome! Nope no mention of her yet...

xx