She burst out laughing, the cold air escaping her lips, "No. Why would I go to hell?"

"I mean, I know religion is important to you. And marrying someone who isn't Catholic would-"

"Please Michael. I'm not that religious. I think God would be happy that I found a true and pure love in you. Not in a Jewish man. But in you. And God would be happy that you found it in me, right?"

I nodded. Well, we'd already be going to hell for sleeping with one another anyways. But we intend on getting married anyways. I was reminded of this fact by a flier in a window about a justice of the peace offering to marry couples before the man shipped out for a minimal fee. I started to ask when she wanted to when I realized she was crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked, stopping our walk back to my apartment.

"It's Christmas," she replied. "I would be home with Simon. Our nurses would be getting us ready for bed. An hour from now we'd be playing in our joint room. Staying up late as a treat. Looking at our magnificent tree. Now my life is just so…different. Good, but different than I would have imagined. "

I took her into my arms and let her cry. "It's okay baby, let's go home."

I put her to bed after she settled down. Then I set out for the streets. I needed to find a tree for her and to decorate it as nicely as I could.

MIA:

"What?" I mumbled.

"It's Christmas," Michael replied, pulling me out of bed. I barely had time to put on my slippers.

"Michael, so what?" I replied. My celebration was over. The Moscovitz's weren't planning on doing anything special. They were going to Dr. Moscovitz's mother's house for the day. "It's seven in the morning."

"I know," he said in an excited voice. "I have a surprise for you."

I stepped into his room. He'd decorated it for Christmas just for me. "Where'd…how…"

"Not easily," he said with a laugh. He placed a piece of tinsel on my head. "A lot of it is from Felix's mom. But I bought the tree myself. They were going to toss it but I offered to take it off their hands. You like it?"

He looked exhausted. I laughed, "Of course I do. I'd be a fool not to! Thank you!" I cried, wrapping my arms around him. "It's perfect."

We spent the early part of the morning in his room, I taught him some Christmas songs from Genovia. He played me some American ones on his guitar.

But then we went to his grandmother's house. In Connecticut. She hated me.

"This is the Genovian? Phillippe's girl?" she asked.

Dr. Moscovitz nodded proudly, "Isn't she lovely, mother?"
"Looks like her mother. Not an ounce of Renaldo in her. She isn't the one to-"

Dr. Moscovitz stopped her before she let Lilly in on the deep dark secret. He knew Michael knew I was a princess. But no one knew that Lilly knew the truth. "She's going to marry Michael," he replied. "They are engaged."

She looked at Michael skeptically. "You are marrying a Renaldo?"

Lilly made a weird face. "I think Grandma needs her medicine," Mrs. Moscovitz told her. "Go get it in the kitchen. Now."

After Lilly left. "You are going to go be prince?" she asked Michael.

He looked at me.

"He would be the prince consort," I replied.

She looked at me like I had three heads.

"But pretty much a prince," I mumbled.

"What do you want with him?" she demanded.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Are you going to make him become a gentile? Like they tried to make us over there-"

"Mother, stop," Dr. Moscovitz replied. "She has never pressured Michael into anything. He's done everything on his own. Everything," he emphasized.

I cried in Michael's room that night. "She loathed me. Because my grandfather made Catholicism the national religion in Genovia. You don't have to be Catholic. You jut get more free things….ugh, I wasn't even born when he passed that resolution!"

He sat next to our tree. "No one said it was your fault."

"No. You are supposed to say that she loved me. That she didn't totally hate me."

"Mia, she can't have a fair handle on you. She barely knows you. I do though," he replied, pulling me towards him.

I sighed. "I don't want to make-"

"Open it," he said handing me a box.

"What is this?" I asked, surprised.

"When you open it you will find out."

So I opened it and found a silver snowflake charm on a necklace. "Michael…"

"To remember my proposal by," he said with a child like smile I couldn't resist. So I kissed him.

"Like I could ever forget," I said with a giggle.

"Hey," he said suddenly. "I have an idea. Wanna go get married?"

"I already said yes," I said with a laugh. I started fumbling with the clasp.

"No, right now. We can. I have a little bit of money left over we can-"

"Where?" I asked.

"Come on, I'll take you."

"Wait. We need rings," I said. "I have one for you in my room. Wait here."

I rushed back to my room and grabbed a gold ring I had been given in Genovia. It had been Simons. On our sixteenth birthdays our grandparents gave us rings with our names engraved on the insides. We exchanged the rings the night he ran away. I hoped he wouldn't mind me loaning my betrothed his.

"Let's go," Michael said pulling me to the front door.