Christmas Eve Day involved decorating the tree, and that meant going to the attic to retrieve the decorations. Normally, the maids would retrieve the everything, but Maximo wanted to do it himself since the whole family was home now. Emily, daddy's girl that she was, tagged along with him.

JJ had to turn down the invitation to go up to the attic because she was very allergic to dust, and the last thing she needed was to have an allergic reaction to the substance while pregnant.

That left her on her own for awhile.

"JJ? Are you in here?"

JJ was in hers and Emily's large bedroom on the bed, which was just out of the sight of the doorway. Judging by the volume projection of Elizabeth's voice, JJ realized, that was exactly where she was located, waiting for an invitation.

"Yeah, I'm in here." she called back. "You can come in, if you want."

Elizabeth entered, and when she saw JJ, she sat with her. "What are you doing up here? I thought you'd be down by the fireplace."

The front room of the Prentiss house boasted a very grand fireplace and a comfortable sitting area. JJ could be found in front of it when it was lit, basking in the warmth, just as a cat would lay in a patch of sunlight for hours on end. The babies really appreciated when she did that.

"I was just thinking about tomorrow, and I got distracted."

"Because it's your birthday?"

"That, and ever since we lost my dad and my sister, Christmas just hasn't been the same."

JJ looked sad, so Elizabeth reached out and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

JJ's heart immediately filled with love for Elizabeth because while she loved her own mother very much and would never stop loving her, there were just some things now that they couldn't talk about because their lives had been so dramatically altered in such a short amount of time. Even Archer couldn't talk about these things anymore.

Now that she'd spent time with all of the Prentisses, she was remembering what it was like to have have a full, normal family, who loved her without reserve, in spite of the baggage that she carried.

Emily was rehabilitating her and fixing her broken heart, Maximo could put a smile on her face at the drop of a hat, and Elizabeth was very easy to talk to.

"What if I do want to talk about it?"

"Then I'm all ears, although on one condition."

"Oh?"

"That you let let me do your hair for you." Elizabeth winked, nodding towards the hairbrush and hair-tie in JJ's lap. "I imagine that brushing out your hair with one fully-functioning hand must be hard."

JJ laughed as she handed the brush and hair-tie to Elizabeth, turning her back to her so she'd have easy access to her hair. "It is, although Emily has been doing my hair for me since I broke my arm because she offered to. She's also good at it."

"Emilia started doing her own hair when she was twelve, and was adamant that I not touch it, so I didn't, even when she went goth about five years later. She wanted to learn to be independent."

Elizabeth began brushing JJ's hair.

"What's this about Christmastime being hard? Did you lose your father and your sister at the same time?"

"No, otherwise my mom would have lost her mind, but they both left the world in tragic ways."

"As I said, JJ, I'm all ears."

And so JJ told Elizabeth about what had happened to her family.

By the end, Elizabeth had given her a hair-wrapped ponytail, and JJ thanked her, but her heart was flip-flopping because it had been far too long since she'd confided in a parental figure about the darker side of her childhood.

"Sweetheart," Elizabeth turned JJ around so they were looking at each other again. "I'm so incredibly sorry that these things happened to you and your family. Being left behind, even when someone dies in a tragic accident, is one of the worst feelings in the world. You just want to quit and lie down."

JJ furrowed an eyebrow as she wiped the remainder of her tears. "You sound like you've experienced it before."

"I have, and so has Max."

"What happened?"

"I'm an orphan; my parents both passed away from injuries they'd sustained in a car crash a few months before Emilia was born."

"Oh, Elizabeth." JJ said sympathetically. "I'm so sorry."

"Thank you." Elizabeth patted JJ's hand. "It was Emilia who kept me going on the dark days after my parents died. Knowing she was there, especially when she gave me kicks and nudges, was a great comfort."

"She still has that influence on people." JJ said softly, thinking of quiet times she and Emily had had in the past few days, cuddling and just enjoying each other's company. "I've never loved anyone more than her. Or deeper, even."

"What a wonderful thing for a mother to hear about her only child." Elizabeth's own heart flip-flopped. "You are so precious, JJ, and such a love. I'm so glad that you and Emilia found each other; Max and I have never seen her so happy as an adult."

JJ was the one a puddle of mush now, but she got them back on topic, as they'd deviated from it a bit.

"What happened to Max?"

"He caught his father engaging in adulterous activities."

"Oh, dear…"

"Amadeo wasn't always bad, but near the end of his life, especially after Max and I got engaged, he was a really big jerk."

"You two didn't get along, then?"

Elizabeth nodded. "He didn't care that I come from a well-to-do family, or even that I never had any little boys; no… Amadeo didn't approve of me because I'm American. Even my dual Italian citizenship didn't change his mind. He always thought that Max could do better than me."

"Seriously?"

"Mhm. The affair was a particularly devastating matter because Amadeo was a high-profile politician; his biggest goal was to become the Italian Prime Minister. He was quite close, too, but he became so humiliated that he hung himself a few days later. It's a blessing that Emilia never met him."

"How did Max's mother handle all it?" JJ asked, recalling what a mess her own mother had been after what had happened to them.

"She knew Amadeo was a jerk and she wasn't quite surprised by the affair, but she held her head high and kept going; she wasn't going to let Amadeo's infidelities shame her, nor even the suicide." Elizabeth explained. "This all happened when I was in my third trimester of carrying Emilia, and we were going to be in Italy for another three years, anyway, so my mother-in-law stayed with us at our house in Venice and she looked after me. That was also a blessing because Max had to make a trip stateside two weeks before Emilia was born."

"At least your mother-in-law found it in herself to be happy and turned to family, even in the worst of times. What was her name?"

"Emilia Ginvera, actually."

JJ raised her eyebrows. "The English version of those names are Emily and Jennifer, huh?"

"Indeed, Jennifer. You've got a good ear." Elizabeth praised. "I like to think it's fate that you and Emilia met."

"It feels like that to me, too."

Elizabeth smiled and said in a tone of reflection, "Max's mother passed away a few years ago, and we named Emilia after her. She would have really loved you."

JJ beamed at that and Elizabeth pressed an affectionate kiss to her forehead.

"I know you've probably heard this many times, but it really does get better, even if it takes longer than you'd like."

"Thanks, Elizabeth. I really needed to hear that."

Elizabeth stood and put JJ's hairbrush on her bedside table and smiled at her.

"Any time, sweet one. I'm so glad you're part of the family now."

"I'm so glad to be here and to be part of a family where I can really be myself, baggage and all."

With each passing minute, Elizabeth was coming to love JJ like she'd come from her own body, but even still, she had to refrain from hugging her even more because otherwise, the others would probably break into the snacks they'd made for tree decorating time.

"I'm going to check on the others to make sure they didn't go too far down Memory Lane or start on the snacks. That should give you enough time to clean yourself up."

"Okay." JJ smiled. "See you in a minute."


Tree decorating wasn't the only eventful thing that happened for the family that night; for the first time since she was eleven, JJ found herself attending a Christmas Eve church service.

It was very nice, even though it passed by in a blur.

When it was over, she and Emily went with Elizabeth and Maximo to the corner of the sanctuary where dozens upon dozens of of white votive candles were arranged in a display at the foot of a large marble statue of the Virgin Mary.

The tiny candles were in two very long metal display cases, and there were even a few jars filled with elongated matches attached to the display at different intervals, all filled with elongated lightning sticks for people to light the candles with.

JJ and her family each lit a handful of the tiny candles, each for different reasons, or in memory of people they'd lost along the way.

When Emily finished lighting candles for her two miscarried children and her aborted child ("My three lost souls," she'd told JJ), as well for her grandmother, she noticed that the light was on in the confessional box and that the door was open, she felt a tugging on her heartstrings to got talk to the priest; she was long overdue for a chat with him, anyway.

"Babe," she said to her girlfriend, touching a hand to the swell in the blond's middle. "I need to go to Father Noah. Do you mind hanging out with my parents for a little bit?"

"No, not at all." JJ stood on her tiptoes and gave Emily a peck on the cheek. "You go ahead and go."

Emily thanked her and headed over to the confessional box, leaving JJ to sit down in the nearest pew. The babies both seemed to appreciate that because they both became less wigglier when they sensed that she wasn't in motion.

"Mind if I join you?"

Looking up JJ saw Maximo standing beside her at the end of the pew. She immediately moved over and patted the space beside her.

"Go ahead."

He sat beside her. "Betty is off chatting with Erin; she can always be found at church every Sunday, and also on holidays."

"I never would have pegged Erin Strauss for a churchgoer…"

"There are a lot of things you can't peg her for unless you know her like we do, but I digress. How are you doing, dear JJ?"

"Really good, actually." she answered in total honesty. "I had a chat with Lizzie earlier; did she tell you about it?"

Maximo nodded. "That, she did. She also told me that you know now about how her parents and my father all died… and about how you lost your father and your sister."

"Tonight is the first time I've been to church, just for myself, since my sister died, and you know what?"

"Please tell."

"Today has also been the first time since I was a kid that Christmastime hasn't made me feel sad. I feel… peaceful."

"That makes me so very happy. May I share something with you?"

Taken aback, but still deeply touched, JJ nodded. "Sure."

"Erin told this to Elisabetta and I after the tragedies we experienced: losing someone is never easy, but one day, you'll remember them and it won't hurt… you'll be happy."

Those words unclogged a well deep inside JJ because they struck such a deep chord, and she began to cry and cry, just from the emotion she was feeling.

Maximo held her in his arms, very patient and very full of love. Now that JJ was unguarded, he understood what Emily had meant when she'd said that JJ was in need of some extra love right now.

What broke his heart the most was that JJ had been fatherless for most of her life now. He was going to step up to the plate and look after her the way he'd looked after Emily since the first time Elizabeth had woken him up in the middle of the night to feel her kick because he already loved JJ that much.

He was going to do his part to help her heal.