You'll all have to forgive me… I am VERY over emotional at present moment (damn WB for screwing over CCS) so I started crying about the loss of my random Chinese guy ^_^'' all two and a half years ago that it was… (It suddenly occurs to her Henry is Chinese too…) whaaaaaaaa I want Alan to come back… He was my best friend, I *didn't* obsess over him, even when I was alone… I didn't even admit to *myself*, let alone anyone else, that I loved him until he'd left… I guess that's where I went wrong…
Please, if ANYONE knows Alan Wang in Washington D.C., tell him that Katie is looking for him, and e-mail me his E-mail address… I have ways of knowing it's him, so any link to him is greatly appreciated and will merit the giver a piece of signed art from me ^_^ thankies!!! Oh, and thanks all you who've made this my second most successful story EVER. Keep up the reviews ^_^

Happy Holidays
By Lyra Kamiya (let's just stick with that name…)

"Where are you taking me?!"

"We're going to see if we can find Kazu's sled… I know he hides it somewhere around here," Henry smiled, pushing his way into some bushes where the dim lights of the park couldn't reach.

"Henry? Where'd you go, it's impossible to see in here… Let's do something else, then come look for it," Rika suggested, wincing as a snow-covered branch hit her from out of the darkness.

"Oh, fine…" Henry mock-whined, wandering back out. Of course, what he didn't realize until he got out, was that Rika was still in the trees. "Hey, you alright in there?"

"No, I'm stuck on something. Thanks a lot, leading me off on random scavenger hunts…" she sighed, snarling as she struggled to reach and break whatever branch her coat was caught on. "Not good… cold, snow, in my jacket…" she continued to growl as more and more things went wrong throughout her struggle. Henry laughed under his breath and walked towards her voice. "Henry? Is that you? You know it's impossible to see in here, so you better not sneak up on me… I'll punch you, you know it…"

What's she so panicked about? That's *definitely* not like her… He said inwardly, stepping up in front of what he figured must be her. "Relax… I didn't sneak up on you, see? And I'm sorry I got you stuck…"

"How did *you* get me stuck?"

"It was my idea to lead you back here… now hold still, I'll see if I can get you out of here…" he wandered behind her, trying to work loose the coat from the branch it was stuck on…

"What's taking so long?" she complained, fidgeting impatiently.

"I can't figure out how it's stuck on here… I think it might of punctured the fabric… there's no way I'm going to be able to get it off of here, with you in it…"

"So I need to take off the jacket? No problem," Rika sighed, slipping her arms from the coat and turning back towards it. "Can you get it?"

"I hope so… we certainly don't need you freezing out here…" he replied, pulling the coat and limb in opposite directions, seemingly futilely.

"Here, let me help," she insisted, grabbing the snagged collar of her jacket, in the same exact spot that Henry had his hand. She pulled it back away instantly. "Eh, it's too dark in here…" she blushed, being actually thankful for the darkness at that moment. "We'll have to come back for it in the morning…" she sighed, about facing to walk out of the trees.

"Well, here then…" Henry walked after her, taking off his coat. "I know you won't take my jacket most likely, but if you want to, you can. But at least," he looked up at her as they re-entered the lit field of the park, "take my vest. It's not that much, but you can always tuck your arms inside it if they get cold." He held up his vest, this one identical in looks but not in weight of his standard one. Instead, it was actually a rather warm fleece vest.

"Thanks, I guess…" she held out her hand to take the vest, but Henry started instinctively putting it on her arm, and was around the back of her before he realized what he was doing.

"I'm not your little sister…" she pointed out severely, pulling her arm and the vest from him.

"You guessed it…" he grinned sheepishly, continuing to stand behind her, putting his own coat back on, until he felt the blush on his face wear off. It returned as soon as he walked back in front of her though, because she was smiling at him, the rarity of it all…

"Thanks anyway. Whatcha want to do now, oh master of bad plans?" she said sarcastically, tapping her foot on the snow as best as she could. A cool breeze hit them, and she tucked her arms into the vest, as to Henry's prior suggestion, sighing gently as she watched him think. The vest is so warm since he's been wearing it… and it's so soft… it feels almost like it's actually him wrapped around me… the tint of her face slowly turned red, as she lost herself into one of her rare fantasies. She heard him say her name, in her mind… he was right there, holding her tight against the cold of the Christmas Eve night… Then she shook her head and brought herself back to reality as she realized he actually was trying to get her attention.

"Rika? You ok? Your face looks a little frost bitten."

"I'm fine. Hey… this is going to sound really weird but, you wanna build a snowman?" she dropped to her knees and started rolling up a ball of snow before she even had a response, willing to do most anything to change the subject right then.

"Well, I suppose…" he glanced around slowly. "Hey, you know the sledding hill over there?" he pointed towards the other side of the park. "I'll show you a trick my dad taught me!" he laughed, starting to run across the field. "Race you!"

"Hey, now THAT isn't fair! And I'm still going to beat you!" she yelled, standing up and running after him. They were once again racing across the park like young children, it seemed so… refreshing, how the holidays had a way of making *everyone* younger. Henry laughed as he slid to a stop and fell at the top of the hill, flopping backwards into the soft blanket of powder as Rika came to a stop right behind him. "I would have won if you hadn't gotten a head start…" she growled, but laughing in the process.

"I don't doubt it. First, help me up. Then I'll show you the cheaters snowman building method," he grinned evilly, putting his arms into the air.

"And if I throw you down the hill in the process of launching you up?" she blinked at him.

"We'll find out if the cartoon person-to-snowball is true or not," he shrugged, sitting up. "Just pull. I've been helping you all night, and head start or not, it was nearly impossible to beat you in a race, so I'm exhausted."

"Ok, fine then," she rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, pulling him towards her in an attempt to help him up. What neither of them had counted on was the minor detail that he weighed more than her, as she quickly found out upon getting him halfway off the ground only to find herself plummeting back towards the ground with him.

"I guess it was your turn. Payback!" Henry laughed, pulling his arm out from beneath her and recalling his earlier snow-fort wall incident. "You're alright, ne?"

"Yeah, I'm fine…" Rika rolled over and sat up beside him, turning to say something but finding her face less than a foot from his. She turned back away quickly, packing a snowball nervously with her other hand.

"Can I… see that?" Henry asked, pointing to the snowball in the hand opposite him. "See, this is the secret to dad's technique. Take one reasonably sized snowball, one fresh powdery hill, and one good sized, golf ball-like rock. Put the rock in the side of the snowball, off center, pack the snowball until it's about the size of a softball, and roll it, like so." He gave it a gentle toss down the hill. The rock kept it rolling, keeping it's weight off balance, and it rolled down the long hill quadrupling in size, to be larger than a soccer ball.

"That's just weird," Rika sweatdropped. "It's like on the old American cartoons…But what about larger ones for the other two parts?"

"Start with ones like that, and roll them the traditional way," he said calmly, tossing another instant-snowman down the hill. "The hard part to all this is, getting *us* down the hill. We don't have Kazu's sled, and running down would be dangerous…"

"I only demanded to know where we were going earlier because his sled is over there," Rika sighed and pointed to a small outcropping of bushes beside the hill. Henry muttered something and tossed the last snowball down the hill before running to get it.

"I meant his *other* sled!" Henry complained, walking back over. He held up an innertube like sled, that they both knew to belong to Kazu. "The one actually meant for two or more people, not the tube…"

"It's this or our feet, and I think I'd rather ride doubles than humiliate myself by sliding down that hill on my ass…" Rika grimaced at the thought.

"Oh, that's a nice way to put it," he sighed. "You'd have to ride on my lap though…" Henry suddenly realized what he'd just said, and tried to look slightly upset with the thought, while his brain was screaming otherwise.

"Well, I guess…You've been treating me like the little kid all day, and I'm lighter anyway…" Rika turned and looked down the hill, praying her now-hot face would be in the shadows. "Just don't choke me or give me the Heimlich…"

"You don't fall off," Henry shot back, sitting down cross legged in the sledding tube. "Or squish me… you're lighter than me, but I'm not sure *how* many cookies you had at the party…"

"Three," she retorted, sitting down cautiously and putting her head to one side of Henry's, and well in front of it of course. She was leaning so far forward, in fact, that it was clear she would fall off forwards instantly once the tube started down the different angle of the hill.

"I won't bite you," Henry rolled his eyes, trying to remove any ulterior motives from his thoughts. "You're going to fall out, holding on or not, if you don't lean back and just momentie…"

"You seriously need to not pay so much attention to what your Digimon says," she responded, leaning back but still not against him. She was trying to minimize bodily contact…. She didn't like what her mind was trying to go off and think on its own. Henry grinned childishly, grabbing one of the handles behind Rika's hand and putting the other one into the snow to shove them over the edge of the hill…

"Launch!" he laughed, grinning again and blushing as he felt Rika involuntarily lean into him, as the momentum of the sled caused her to be pushed backwards. He closed his eyes as he felt her ponytail near his face… Despite her attitude, she at least uses feminine shampoo scents… he smiled, laughing inwardly as he inhaled deeply, enjoying the mixed fruit scent of her hair. He gently leaned his head onto hers, wanting to see the ride from her perspective, but being too caught up in the moment to care. He knew they'd be at the bottom soon… He didn't want the ride to end, knowing that despite his hopes he'd never be that close to Rika again, at least not without her severely minding. But just the same, he knew she could *never* like him, his suspicions confirmed after the situation with the games that day… So his love was a lost hope, which he would have to enjoy for the moment and move on from soon enough. But…. He wanted to at least test it first…

Then, again fairly predictably, they hit the one jump on the entire hillside, [I've done that before, and in broad daylight non the less.] sending them merely a foot in the air, but that was still enough… They both were launched out of the tube and tumbled, landing side-by-side, in the snow, on their backs.

"You know what? That hurt," Henry whined.

"No shit Einstein," Rika sighed in response.

"You mind not cussing so much?"

"It was fun though…" she sat up, ignoring his comment, cracking her back, and turning to face him smiling.

"Oh, it's now-or-never…" Henry thought aloud, realizing his proximity to her once more. "Rika… look, as we were coming down the hill, I couldn't help but think…. About how much fun it is to be around you, especially at times like that… And, well… I don't want to risk our friendship, but, I truly think that I, well, love you…" he winced, closing his eyes bracing for the 'yeah right' he was expecting. But it never came. He opened his eyes carefully, and was shocked to see her staring straight ahead, a bit spaced out looking. He thought for a moment she hadn't heard him, or at least that she was pretending she hadn't. He opened his mouth to restate the comment, looking off in the same direction she was, but he was cut off.

"Henry… look at me…" she said softly. "You have no idea, how afraid I have been that some guy will say that to me, just because he thought I was 'pretty' or 'hot', or just because I'm the 'Digimon Queen'. But I know, that you wouldn't say it because of that…You're so different from all the other guys I've ever met, and I was kind of hoping that you'd say that, though I doubted it would happen anytime soon, if ever…." She looked up at him and smiled slightly, before smirking at him. "Yeah, I love you too Henry."

"That was certainly quite blunt," Henry laughed.

"Yeah, so?" she demanded, freezing when he smiled back at her and reached his hand over, brushing her cheek gently. She then relaxed, closed her eyes, and smiled, letting her mind wander.

"You're always so serious, but you look even more beautiful when you're happy… or at least, when I know you're happy because of me," he trailed off, and took a deep breath. "Ok, it seems kind of weird to ask permission to do this, but… Rika, can I kiss you?"

She froze again, not sure how to answer. "I… I suppose…" she responded shakily, not knowing what to expect. All she'd ever seen of kissing, was her mom and her boyfriends, and the cheesy soaps her mother always watched, so she only had seen the lusty open mouthed kisses, leaving her very much paralyzed as Henry leaned towards her. But much to her shock, he merely placed his lips on hers for a second, then pulled away, sighing. "That… was it…?" she asked, trying to hold on to that brief moment. She'd been too scared, something that she wasn't often, to enjoy the moment when it happened, and now she only had the slightest thought and memory of the feel of his warm lips against hers.

"Yeah, I guess. Why do you ask?"

"I just… don't think I've heard of people kissing like that before…" she admitted, blushing.

That's the only way I've really seen…And for me it's enough, just knowing that she cares about me. "Well, we could try that again, with both of us actually doing something this time…" Henry suggested, turning about the same shade of red as Rika now.

He turned towards her and leaned towards her again, this time reaching his arm to put on her back instead of the single contact point. Rika heard her own heart beating faster, as she was still nervous… She tried to be much more relaxed this time, however, and smiled, putting her hands on his shoulders and leaning in as well. Now that she was actually paying attention, she knew, right then and there, why the other girls constantly obsessed… She could feel his breath wash across her face before their gently parted mouths met… She leaned more into him, not wanting the moment to end now that she was in it, feeling herself unconsiously scoot closer to Henry, until she was leaning slightly into him with the rest of her as well. She let her arm slide over his shoulder and around his neck, feeling all his warmth and love running through her from just that one simple act. Somehow she hoped that he could feel the same from her… She could now almost understand what, fake as it was, the Soap Opera type kiss was trying to accomplish as she had to resist her own temptation to open her mouth invitingly for the use of her new boyfriend… And finally, she had to give in, sighing against his still closed mouth…

Henry, on the other hand, had only seen the quick and sweet goodbye morning kisses, that typical parents, including normal television ones and his own practiced… So when he felt the warmth of Rika's mouth before his own, he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to do… Part of him wanted to demand what she was doing, but the rest instinctively wanted to seek warmth within the cold of the snow around them, and so he placed his other arm around the ever-closer girl to draw her even nearer, feeling her heat on the rest of him… And he then gently opened his lips, licking them nervously before fully realizing the meaning and consequences of his actions… He felt and heard Rika moan gently as his tongue tapped hers for the first time, both actions unexpected to either of them… and they both sighed, now lost into the sea of passion they had just found. It was almost a different reality…

Rika sighed and pulled away, nuzzling her forehead into Henry's shoulder as she curled up against him. This is so… unlike her, still… Henry smiled, kissing the top of her head gently. It might just be another one of my dreams, but… Would I be able to think it was if it was? He sighed, feeling her warmth against him. It can't be though… I guess the holidays just change all of us, and for the better, as does the rest of life…

**********

"Henry?" Rika asked, leaning against him softly as she heard his watch beep 11 o clock.

"Yeah?"

"Weren't we going to build a snowman?"

"Sure, why not…"


[A/N]

*grins as innocently as possible* *wonders why she ever wondered where her 'daughter' got her love of grinning innocently.* Ok, Don't give me that look, if you read anything I've written I've never done anything like that before… Oh, and this is obviously not the last chapter after all, I just originally hadn't expected to use up that much space (16 pages! Aaaahhh), so next one will be out soon! Review onegai, ja ne to heiwa, ai Lyra-chan!