On Christmas Day
By Vilya
Disclaimer: After two and a half years, I still don't own the GS characters. Not even Picard, gosh darn it.
Chapter One: Freeze This Moment
The snow fell in flakes the size of marbles and holly berries, drifting gently down to cover the houses and shops of Vale. A week before Christmas, there in the twilight, the town looked sleepy and peaceful. Most people were already inside, and those few left out in the snow were doing simple things like bringing in wood or hanging a last decoration or two.
Isaac was a wreck.
"I'm getting married in seven days," he said for what felt, to his guest, like the thousandth time. "I can't do this. I just can't."
"You love her, Isaac," Garet reminded him, tugging uncomfortably on the far too formal, in his opinion, wedding garb he was wearing. As Isaac's best man, he'd been forced to look the part. "Get over it. All you have to do is put a ring on her finger and kiss her. It's not like you didn't do that at Christmas last year." Garet ducked the pillow that came his way, though even that was hard in his best clothes. "I hope Ivan isn't having this problem."
"Ivan would like you to keep all comments to yourself," Ivan remarked as he pulled open Isaac's bedroom door. "Isaac. You look…well, I was going to compliment you, but in all honestly you look like you might faint."
"Thanks so much, Ivan," Isaac shot back dryly. "Now are we going to rehearse this thing or do I have to make Jenna the Head Wedding Planner instead?"
"She's already a hothead," Garet commented, though he was grinning as he said it—there was little doubt in the minds of anyone in Vale that the two Mars Adepts would soon be together permanently.
"And a headache," added Ivan, picking up the pillow and setting it back on the bed. "Come on, Isaac. Out of all of us, you're the least likely to ever get butterflies over anything. Marriage can't be that difficult."
"When it happens to you, I'll ask you if that's still how you think, okay?" Isaac got up off his bed and looked at himself in the mirror. He was twenty-three years old, his birthday barely two months behind him, and his hair still stuck up at odd angles. He doubted it would ever really settle and lay flat.
"Ivan's too busy studying to be the next Kraden," Garet protested, grinning at the diminutive Jupiter Adept's sudden glare. "A bit too short to really fill Kraden's shoes, but maybe there's hope for your height yet."
Before Ivan could retaliate, there was a soft knock on the door. Three sets of eyes focused on the dark wood.
"Isaac? May I come in?" The voice was quiet, reminiscent of the softly falling snow outside, and to Isaac it carried a hint of a smile.
"Mia!" he said in a combination of nervousness and utter excitement. "I mean, yes, of course you can!" Mia opened the door and almost immediately Isaac had his arms around her, his face buried in the soft fur that lined the hood of her winter cloak.
"Isaac, you're acting like I've been gone for years. I was only over at Jenna's decorating. …Well, alright, and cooking, but…Isaac? Is something wrong?"
"The more I hold you, the less afraid I am," he whispered. Smiling the soft smile that only Mercury Adepts, and few among them, can manage, Mia returned his tight embrace. He smelled of a burning fireplace and pine branches, the aspects of Christmas which Mia most adored; she gave the scent of fresh cookies and warm spices, which held Isaac's fondest memories of the holiday.
Ivan and Garet slowly edged out of the room and walked down the stairs, noticing Dora and Kyle sitting together on the sofa in front of the fire. Shaking their heads, they had a silent conversation—involving the use of eyebrows and facial expressions—in which they decided it would be better just to head up to Ivan's, possibly grabbing Jenna and Sheba on the way, for some hot chocolate and fresh cookies.
Isaac finally let go of Mia, though he continued to gaze into her cerulean eyes, and his hands found their way into her long azure hair. Lightly, he kissed her forehead, letting her go when she laughed, just as softly as she had spoken; like the sound of falling snow.
"Isaac…you're really something else. Have I told you yet how lucky I am, to have you?" Mia whispered, tugging lightly on his golden scarf.
"Several times."
"Well, I'm telling you again. Now come outside, it's snowing in the most beautiful way and you have to see your village buried like it is."
There that was again. The 'your' village. As though even after they were married, Mia planned to go to Imil. Isaac wasn't sure he could ever leave Vale for Imil, but he knew he wouldn't let Mia go by herself either. He did know that sometime, one of them would have to make the choice.
For the time being, he decided to follow Mia outside into the cold snow, marveling at the way it lighted perfectly on her hair and caught in her eyelashes, and how she never looked the least bit cold.
Of them all, Ivan was the only one who had chosen to live permanently in Vale, instead of returning to Kalay and his parents or Hesperia and his sister. He had taken up residence in the house where Kraden had lived, after the old man had moved to the fishing village of Champa, and had for nearly a year done nothing but bury himself in Kraden's old books and scrolls about Alchemy.
Not much taller than he had been at fifteen, Ivan was at twenty-one one of the two most powerful Adepts in Vale. He liked to think so, anyway, attributing the title to Sheba also. Halfway to his house he and Garet had parted ways; it had been later than they'd thought, and Garet claimed to be able to smell dessert coming all the way from his house.
Leaving the Mars Adept to his evening feast, Ivan walked slowly up the long stone stairway leading to the level his house rested upon. He was quite surprised when he found Sheba at the top of it, leaning against a snow-covered tree, bare of leaves in its winter sleep, staring out at the horizon.
"What do you see?" he asked in a quiet voice.
"This world…" she whispered in a voice so soft he could barely hear it. "It's nearly blinding in its brilliance, Ivan. I have seen so much of it in a year…"
"Everyone out there is having Christmas just like us," he added, feeling as caught up in the vastness of it all as Sheba was.
"Christmas?" she asked, genuinely surprised. "Oh. It is Christmas, isn't it. Somehow I keep forgetting. And Isaac and Mia are getting married, too…on Christmas day. The same day they proposed."
"The same day they did everything," Ivan continued. "Confessed their love, kissed for the first time, got engaged…I wish I could remember what day it was when we first met Mia, to improve the irony, but sadly I'm getting old." This was calculated to make Sheba laugh, or at least smile. Instead, she turned back to the cold landscape. "Is everything alright, Sheba?"
"Probably," she answered, which for a Jupiter Adept was no kind of answer at all.
"Sheba."
"I can't seem to find Christmas, Ivan," she said sadly, meeting his violet eyes with her own brilliant turquoise ones. "I mean, it's cold and snowy and decorated…and I even have your gifts. But it doesn't feel like Christmas. Everything I've seen…so many people who will probably go without Christmas…so many who would rather scorn and hate than accept and love…it is because hate is easier? Because love takes a greater strength of spirit? Are all regular people, non-Adepts, so…cold inside?"
Ivan couldn't help staring. While it was given to their element to be philosophical, he had never heard such questions from Sheba before. It almost frightened him.
After returning briefly to Lalivero to visit her family, Sheba had gone on a journey around the world in an attempt to both learn anything she could about her past and learn anything she could about herself. She had only arrived in Vale two days ago, and already Ivan had the feeling she had done much of the latter.
After a while, with nothing else to be said between them, he resumed walking to his house.
Sheba sighed after he left, unable to decide between being glad he was gone and missing his company. She had spent so much of her life alone among people…and yet that was all she wanted now. Wasn't it?
She walked slowly back down to the Vale Inn, stopping to admire the candles flickering in the windows. She hadn't been standing there very long when something cold and wet struck the back of her head. Whirling, she faced a very innocently grinning Felix.
"Evening, Sheba," he said quickly, both hands behind his back. She glared at him for a moment, then bent to retaliate with a snowball of her own. Felix was prepared, however, and launched another one; using Jupiter speed, Sheba jumped out of the way.
"This looks like fun!" said a voice from the doorway of the Inn. They both turned to see Picard standing there, with two older children behind him. The Lemurian still looked as he always had, but the children were very different from the time Felix and Sheba had last seen them.
"Picard!" Sheba said happily, running to give her old friend a quick hug. "When did you get in?"
"Earlier this evening. Don't spoil my surprise, now," he cautioned with a grin. "These two want to really give Mia a treat."
"Like we'd miss her wedding!" said the girl, Megan, grinning. Justin, the boy beside her, smiled as well. "Besides, we've been waiting for years for her to finally fall for that Isaac boy."
"He isn't a boy anymore, you know. Twenty-three is pretty old for a hero," Justin reminded her. Megan made a face at him, and two Mercury-created snowballs flew at his face. He ducked and began pelting her with a barrage of his own.
"I suspect Mia has been waiting years for something similar between the two of them," Picard remarked quietly. The apprentice Guardians of Mercury Lighthouse heard him and both turned on him in a fury of snow.
"Oh no," Felix commented lightly. "That's a bad idea."
"Why, whatever do you mean, Felix?" Sheba asked, grinning.
"Well, you see, they are about to mess with the master of Mercury. I give them five minutes."
"Three."
"Oh, no. Picard wouldn't beat them that easily; he's far too nice for that."
Sheba laughed, and Felix did, too. For a moment, things felt like old times again. They watched the Mercury Adepts relentlessly attack one another with snowballs and snow boulders, until Picard finally triumphed by crafting two half-human snowmen.
"I believe that will be all this evening," he said, brushing snow from his hands and hair. "Good night, Felix, Sheba."
"Night Picard," Felix said, heading for the stairs up to his own home. "Night Sheba!"
"See you tomorrow, Felix!" Sheba called back. She took a moment to blow the snow away from the half-frozen Mercury Adepts before following Picard inside.
Changing out of her wet clothes and into a warm nightgown, Sheba stood at the window of her room and looked out at the horizon again. Some things would always be the same; some had changed forever.
Chief on her mind that night was Ivan. He hadn't replied to any of her questions, but he had understood. He had understood, and had known there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do but listen. She admired that about Ivan—he knew, perhaps by some Jupiter instinct, exactly what most situations called for. Unless, of course, it was something Venus-oriented. In that case, he was usually walking very quickly in the other direction.
A Christmas candle, holly leaves and berries encircling its base, flickered in her window, too; distractedly, she flicked her fingers across the tip of the flame. The children in Lalivero had marveled at that simple trick of speed, she remembered. She also remembered, with a small smile, several instances where she hadn't been quite fast enough to escape being burned.
With one last look at the softly falling snow, she blew out the lantern by the door and went to bed.
When Sheba woke the next morning, it was to the sound of thudding coming from above her. She rose and opened the window, looking around before glancing upward.
"Picard? Is that you up there?"
"Good morning Sheba!" came the Lemurian's voice. There were a few more thuds, a skidding sound, and Picard came tumbling over the edge of the roof. Sheba yanked her head back inside barely in time, looking out again in time to see him land in a flurry of snow.
"Picard?" she called again, louder this time. There was a resigned groan from the new pile of snow beneath her window. Sheba laughed to herself and pulled the window shut again.
Ivan, approaching the Inn, had seen the Lemurian's gallant landing. Casually he approached the snowdrift and looked down at it.
"Morning Picard."
"Ivan."
"You do this every year, did you know that?"
"No," Picard said dryly, finally freeing his upper half from the snow. "Honestly, I hit my head so hard every time I forget, so I have to do it all over again the next year." He glared unconvincingly at the snow beneath him and kept trying to pull himself free.
"You know, for a Mercury Adept, you sure do fight the snow a lot," Ivan continued, offering the man a hand. Picard took it, pulled himself free, and instantly turned to look up at the roof again.
"Need I remind you that you still owe me your life?"
"Several times over, yes. But if I hadn't come along you'd still be stuck half-buried in the frozen white stuff."
"Oh, fine. But I am not going back up there."
"I should think not. Care to join me for breakfast? …What's the Inn serving?"
"Something with eggs in it, I am certain," Picard replied, heading for the door. Ivan followed him, the smell of breakfast cooking wafting out the door to greet him.
"Mmm. This smells better than even my cooking."
"It isn't." Sheba, sitting with Megan and Justin at a six-person table, gestured to the three empty seats. "Go on, sit. We have to decorate the big tree tonight, so you'll need breakfast." She stared at Picard for a moment, hiding a grin. "You're…melting."
"I what?" Picard looked down at the large puddle he was creating on the floor—all the snow on his clothes had melted instantly once he was inside the pleasantly warm Inn. "Oh. Well, this certainly gives 'snowman' a new meaning."
Megan and Justin laughed, and Sheba smiled. Ivan and Picard sat down, and soon they were all busy with breakfast.
After breakfast, the three Mercury Adepts set off for Isaac's to surprise him, with plans to find Mia—she was staying with Felix and Jenna, but was hardly ever actually in the house—afterward and start an all-out snowball war. Ivan promised to come and either join them or thoroughly enjoy himself watching.
He and Sheba were left there at the table, across from each other. Even if there had been anything to talk about, neither of them would have said anything. After a while, they got up and headed outside, walking down to the big Psynergy stone at the entrance to Vale.
"How did they ever replace this, anyway?" Sheba asked, placing one hand on the stone.
"I don't think it ever really broke. I don't know if it can break," Ivan added thoughtfully. "I should figure that one out sometime."
"They're right. You really do sound like Kraden."
"That isn't a compliment."
"I know." They laughed, and Sheba wished that the moment could crystallize. Ivan was her peer in age, intelligence and companionship; he was her best friend. She didn't want to spend Christmas any other way.
If only she could find that place inside her where Christmas had always lived before. That would make things perfect. She couldn't shake the feeling that something, something very important, was missing. Right at that moment, laughing both at and with Ivan, she vowed to find it.
Thought you'd never see me again, didn't you? Well, you were wrong! The Christmas Fic is underway! The next chapter will, of course, be up tomorrow, and the one on Christmas day assuming is up and running. See you soon!