Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
By
E. S. Young
Chapter Fifty-One: They All Fall Down
Finally, the chapter you've all been patiently waiting for. The last chapter! I'll be sorry to see this fic go, especially since, while I have characters and scenes for a third story, I have no real plans of writing one. I hate saying that, truly I do. However, though I may not post a third installment, I may just write up the scenes that I have and post them in a kinda one-shot fic. Hmm…maybe. In any case, enjoy the final chapter :D
"David!" Lynné exclaimed delightedly as the solemn face of David Moreau detached itself of the shadows.
"Mademoiselle," he began with stiff formality as he tucked a sleek handgun into his suit jacket, "I do not like you. At times I see you as the very bane of my existence. However, I would rather see you live than have you die at the hands of Édouard Poisson."
"Good to kno –" Lynné was about to say before she was cut off by when the terrified cry of "Mademoiselle!" sliced through the air. In a matter of seconds Joséphine had darted into the room and flung her arms around Lyn's torso.
"Mademoiselle, j'ai été si inquiété! Et Oncle Vincent m'a dit d'être silencieux - mais les gardiens ne nous laisseraient pas à l'intérieur! Donc j'ai dû parler! Et ensuite .. alors nous étions à l'intérieur ... et le M. Moreau a tué Grand-père! Mais je ne me soucie pas, mlle! Je ne me soucie pas!" (Mademoiselle, I was so worried! And Uncle Vincent told me to be quiet -- but the guards wouldn't let us in! So I had to say something! And then..then we were inside... and M. Moreau killed grandfather! But I don't care, mlle! I don't care!) The child barely paused to take a breath as she unleashed her verbose explanation. Suddenly, she let out a gasp, pulling away from Lyn as if the young woman were radiating heat. "Mlle ... où est votre jambe?" (Miss…where is your leg?)
"Good question," Lynné responded. Completely ignoring the child's aghast demeanor, she looked to Liam and pointedly demanded, "Where is my leg?"
"I, um –"
"In his desk, I presume," Moreau supplied, striding through the wreckage to Lynné, careful not to let a single speck of blood touch his expensive footwear. Behind him, Vincent Poisson was carefully lifting the limp wrist of his father, hoping he would not find a pulse.
"Would a leg fit in a desk?" Liam questioned stupidly.
"It is a rather large desk, Monsieur," Moreau said with a patronizing glance toward the young agent. Without another word he began to rummage through the titanic desk of the late Édouard Poisson.
"'Stab Fish with pen…'" Lynné quipped, turning her gaze from Moreau to her irate brother. "Couldn't come up with something more…effective?"
"At the time? No," Sands replied shortly, eyeing Zebbidy with contempt. "Besides, not everyone is as gifted in the art of Morse Code as you."
"Did you find it, David?" Vincent demanded, kicking his brother's cadaver away in disgust.
"I believe so," Moreau answered, beaming as he lifted the artificial limb in triumph.
Swathed in a web of grief, Ajedrez had slipped out of Poisson's office undetected. She had escaped with her life and yet she found that it was very difficult to care. Adrián, her fiancé, was dead, murdered before her own eyes. Strange how a person such as herself – who was so accustomed to death – could feel so utterly woebegone.
Drenched in numbness, Ajedrez drifted through the darkened halls, barely acknowledging the twists and turns that her path contained. It was so odd for her to behave this way, so different from her normal, callous self. Immediately she knew why she despised emotions. They were a nuisance. Love got in the way of everyday life, anger obstructed one's vision, and depression could sometimes be so forceful that people would take their own lives just to escape it.
Yes, being callous was good. When she wore the mask of apathy, frivolous emotions were not permitted to enter her system. Stoicism was her barrier. It had shielded her during her father's harrowing orders, his unpredictable conniption, and his constant conjectures toward her loyalties. And now the strong shield of apathy would protect her from the grief that threatened to consume her entirely.
Adrián… What had he been to her other another sycophant looking for a handout, seeking her charity, specifically her money? Of course he had been there for her – Pretended to be there, she corrected herself – during the long, dark months that followed El Día de los Muertos. How could he not have? It would have been insane to pass up such a marvelous opportunity, and Adrián had known it. When he found Ajedrez lying half-dead in the middle of the street on the Day of the Dead, he had seized the chance and clung to it as if his life were on the line instead of hers.
Gold-digging pajiera… He was only after my money.
Though the words held the same razor-sharp fury, they lacked conviction, and Ajedrez knew that, even if she admitted to hating Adrián out loud in front of three witnesses, she would only be fooling herself. And even she might not believe her lies.
"God damn it!"
With a perfunctory sign, Richard Harrington glanced up from the living room's marble fireplace, absentmindedly returning the wrought-iron poker to its proper place alongside the tools. He had been busying himself with stroking the flames in the hopes that he would free himself from his fiancée's trite animosity toward Lynné Sands, the CIA, her hair, Édouard Poisson, and the world in general. And Harrington had nearly succeeded. He had just removed the poker from its stand when Catherine chose to cry the Lord's name in vain.
"What's wrong, Kitty?" he droned, his eyes focused on the ceiling.
"Édouard Poisson is dead!"
Harrington whirled around. "What?"
"Alphonse, too. They're both dead. Shot."
"By who?" he demanded, aghast.
"Vincent!"
"Vincent Poisson?" Harrington gave her a blank stare, his mouth hanging open stupidly.
"Of course Vincent Poisson," Cat sneered.
"Who'd you think it was, Richie? Van Gaugh? Man's not the murdering type, though he did amputate his own ear…but that may have been brought on from eating lead-based paint."
Whipping around toward the direction of the speaker, Cat's mouth dropped open in horror as a lithe figure detached itself from the shadows of Poisson's great living room. It let its footsteps echo across the silvery marble tiles as it strode gracefully across the room.
"Boy, Kitty," Lynné sighed, shaking her head in wonderment, "I gotta hand it to ya. When you go shopping for future husbands, you don't screw around."
Cat's black eyes narrowed as she watched her stepsister meander about the living room.
"I mean, Larry was a real looker – not my type, but still a looker. And then there was Travis. A little too…reserved for my taste. Then again, I'm bangin' Fusco, so I can't talk." Lynné smiled benignly, though her eyes glittered with acerbity. "But now that you're with Richie, they're in the past, right?"
Cat said nothing.
"You're entering dangerous territory, Lynné," Harrington warned, his eminent form silhouetted against the blaze in the fireplace.
"Oh, Rich, I've already entered and am half way out. All I have to deal with now," she sighed, "is you."
"What about Ajedrez?" Cat demanded.
"Oh," Lyn said offhandedly, "Sands is taking care of her."
Zebbidy watched helplessly as Sands moved toward the end of the hallway, his footsteps inaudible even against the hardwood floors. He didn't look at her, but shifted his oft-used pistol from his left hand to his right and peered around the corner. Nothing. He moved on, not waiting for Zebbidy Poisson to follow.
"I apologized, didn't I?" There was a faint squeaking from behind as Zebbidy's boots creaked when their owner sprinted to catch up. "What more do you want?"
"Quiet would be nice. I'm trying to listen."
To Sands' annoyance, Zebbidy ignored the request, as he knew she would.
"I would have told you earlier," she attempted to amend, "had I known about –"
"Zeb, just…shut the fuck up, all right? Can you do that for me? Good."
At last Zebbidy's lips came together and she said no more, leaving Sands to his long sought after censorship. He continued his trek through the massive home, which was gradually becoming more and more like a jungle to him as he pressed onward. A wispy ghost of a memory came unexpected as he turned a corner, one involving an eccentric heiress who had, in her old age, been convinced that malignant spirits were out to get her. Her panic had quickly developed into madness, and she spent her inheritance on a colossal, maze-like house that included staircases that ended at the ceilings, doors that lead to nowhere, and a number of dizzying twists and turns.
Good thing Poisson didn't live long enough to go that nuts.
He was gettin' there. Wonder how long it'll take before the insanity of a grieving heiress affects Ajedrez?
You kidding? She's hardly "grieving," and anyway she's already fuckin' deranged. How crazy do you want her?
"The man wasn't my grandfather," Zebbidy suddenly declared with quiet defiance. Sands noted that she was careful to use past tense when referring to the late M. Poisson. "Not to me," she said as an afterthought, almost to herself.
Sands said nothing. Apparently playing lookout was more difficult than it appeared. That, or Sands' multitasking skills were abysmal.
"I just want you to know," she began, trying another tactic, "had I known what she'd done to you, I never would have –"
"I just want you to know, Zeb," Sands cut in neatly, turning to face her, "that withholding information is a very serious crime. A federal offence, actually. And you kept your info to yourself for how long? Six – no, seven months? Gosh, I don't even wanna think about the time you're gonna serve."
He watched as Zebbidy bowed her head, red tresses acting as a shield from his scathing remarks. Disgusted, he abruptly turned on his heel and strode down the hall, allowing himself to be consumed by the shadows.
Tension filled the air as Liam crouched beside an armoire waiting for chaos to unfold. It was expected whenever his partner was put in charge of a situation. Like Mary and her sheep, wherever Lynné Sands went, mayhem was sure to follow.
Liam exhaled slowly.
A slight pressure in his back made him jump. Someone grabbed his arm and he turned so quickly the muscles in his neck pulled harshly against the strain. Joséphine's eyes narrowed in annoyance as she poked his arm again and raised her finger to her lips. The message was clear: Be quiet.
She probably thinks I'm trying to give us away, Liam mused miserably. He and Lynné may have discovered that they shared a less-than-common interest, but he knew that he had a long journey ahead of him before he gained forgiveness – a journey whose path was both grueling and treacherous. And now, apparently, Joséphine had decided that he wasn't trustworthy. Liam couldn't say that he blamed her. As far as the child knew, Liam had betrayed her unwilling guardian, Lynné Sands. Worse yet, he had handed Lynné over to Édouard Poisson, a man whose evil Joséphine had grown all too accustomed with.
With a pointless nod, Liam turned away from the tiny girl, his mind now focused resolutely on Lynné. She was speaking with Agent Johnson, – "Cat," as the woman preferred to be called – and from the looks of things Lynné had just uttered a particularly nasty epithet. Something about Cat having no taste in men.
Liam had to offer his silent congratulations to his partner. For nearly four years he had been working under her frosty gaze, yet he continued to be shocked by her eccentric antics, how she could remain completely unmoved in even the most lethal situations, and the way she would mutter "Cancer is overrated" whenever he would warn her about smoking. He knew of the sheer inanity of getting his partner to stop smoking. Lynné loved her cigarettes and didn't care if her addiction offended anyone, nor did she apologize for all of the secondhand smoke that said addiction created. And with the number of cigarettes Lynné inhaled, Liam wouldn't have been surprised if his lungs were as black as hers were.
He had grown rather attached to his partner after she lost her leg. It wasn't that he felt responsible for her – he knew full well that Lynné was perfectly capable of looking after herself, two legs or no. It was the strange, nagging guilt that always came whenever he had contemplated leaving her in Mexico. At the time he had not known what the meaning of that feeling was, but stunning revelations tend to have impeccable timing. In the past few hours the meaning had made itself all too clear.
I am sexually involved with a crazy, one-legged CIA agent, Liam realized, the thought hollow with disbelief. And I love that woman. Damned if I don't.
"Where is Vincent Poisson?" Cat persisted.
"Oh, you know about Vince?" Lynné said with mild surprise. "Currently he and the charming M. Moreau are scouring the mansion for Ajedrez and you two."
"David Moreau?"
"Yep."
Catherine gawked as her mind tried to digest this new information.
"David Moreau is a close, personal friend of Édouard Poisson," she tried to assure herself.
"Yeah," her stepsister agreed, "that's why he killed him."
Before she could stop herself, Cat's eyes widened in shock. Slightly fazed but determined nonetheless she stubbornly repeated, "Moreau is a personal frien –"
Lynné tsked. "That's so like you, Kitty. So closed-minded, so…unimaginative… Things change. Why is it so hard for you to accept that? Although," she said slowly, "I've gotta admit that whole 'exacting revenge on Lyn' plan was pretty unexpected."
Cat regarded her stepsister warily, albeit her amazement and, to a lesser extent, her smugness could not be completely quelled.
"Then again," Lynné mused evenly, "I guess I always figured you'd go crazy and try to kill me. After all, you always have had a grudge against me, and you've always seemed a little…" She made a seesawing gesture. "…out there. I mean, you had a crush on your brother. That's just messed up, hon."
"Sheldon's my stepbrother, Lynné, thank you very much," Cat sneered imprudently.
"Oh, so you're not going to defend my accusation? I did say you had a crush on him, you know. You're not going to fight that? Not even a little?" Lynné pretended to be crestfallen. "Oh, Kitty, I'm so disappointed…"
"Enough!" Harrington commanded, fixing Lynné with an inimical glare. In an instant the fire poker was in his vice grip and pointing it at the agent as a portent. "You have insulted my fiancée for the last time, Lynné! Consider yourself lucky that I'm giving you a warning when I should have just shot you the moment you entered the room."
Lynné rolled her eyes, unimpressed, and scoffed at Harrington. "Guess this is just a night for disappointments, ah?" She looked at him derisively. "A poker? Come on, that the best you can do? What's the matter, Richie? Don't you have a gun?"
Harrington said nothing and instead glared at her, stony-faced.
"No?" Lynné taunted. "Too bad. I do."
Richard Harrington was dead before he hit the floor.
The iron fire poker rattled briefly when it clattered against the marble hearth.
Lynné ignored her stepsister's earsplitting shriek while she calmly slipped her gun into its holster. She found it rather strange that Cat hadn't whipped out her own firearm by now and started firing blindly in Lynné's direction. Instead Cat was still overcome with grief, hurling empty threats at Lynné between the screams of sorrow.
"Oh God, Richard…Richard… You…Lynné…I'll kill you, Lynné," Catherine vowed brokenly. "I'll kill you!"
That's more like it, Lynné mused stooping to retrieve the fallen poker. She idly fingered the tool's handle as she took the time to turn several of the enkindled logs over. Steadily she watched as the tip of the poker grew increasingly hot, waiting for it to go from black to fiery orange, blazing yellow, and then at last a luminous white that permeate through the stygian room.
"God, I hate you, Lynné." Cat's shrill, querulous babbling pulled Lyn out of her reverie. "I hate you."
"I know," Lynné said quietly into the fire as she watched the poker's progress. The cusp was still a molten yellow. Not yet.
"You just don't care," Cat accused caustically. "You never have."
"Gee, Cat, you just now figuring that out? No, wait. This is another one of those moments, right? Where the evil villain – you – expresses her general dislike for the good guy – moi. Then she rambles on about how a lifetime of hatred and bullying from the aforementioned good guy has turned her, the evil villain, into the –" she took a moment to choose the proper analysis for her stepsister " – repugnant, irascible, psychotic bitch we all know today."
Having said her piece, Lynné turned back to the fireplace and said nothing. To Catherine, it appeared as though the agent believed the conversation to be over. That or she merely found no importance in any conversation in which she was not the main speaker.
Though she could only make out Lynné's profile, Cat knew that the raffish smirk – an infuriating paragon of arrogance – had decided to grace her with its presence yet again.
"You know what your problem is, Kitty?" her stepsister suddenly asked, destroying Catherine's chances at starting a full-out battle royal. "You place blame on everyone but yourself. Granted, some rude comments have been made over the years. Pretty much everyone and their cousin has insulted you at least once. But instead of trying to decipher why the comments were made, you claim that those who made them were just jealous of you or trying to be mean – something along those lines. But Cat," she said very softly, "did you ever stop to consider that maybe, just…maybe…they were right? And that you had brought those comments on yourself by being such a bitchy little sycophant? Think about it. Although – " she paused to watch an enkindled log crumble as she speared its charred wood with the poker " – you've always been one to deny the truth about yourself. I'll bet this is boring for you, after all…it's just me voicing yourthoughts."
Without another word, she turned back to the poker and removed it from the fireplace. Beside her, the mental scale that kept Catherine's madness in balance teetered dangerously. It had been swaying ever since Lynné had entered the room, but Cat had managed to keep everything in check. It had been difficult, but she had managed nonetheless. Richard, her partner, her darling husband-to-be had been killed without a thought before her eyes, and still her mind had, more or less, remained symmetrical. But then those painfully truthful words had been uttered.
'You place blame on everyone but yourself.'
'You've always been one to deny the truth about yourself.'
It hadn't been much. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard before. But something about that offensively casual tone had been just enough to tip the scales of her mind and sent their contents spiraling into oblivion.
Lynné heard the familiar click of a gun's hammer being drawn back. Even more customary was the lifeless, cylindrical barrel of a pistol against her temple. Cat was beside her, her emaciated form palpitant with ferine dementia.
"You know what, Lynné?" she growled, her voice dripping with malevolence and quivering with animosity. "Fuck you."
Her stepsister let out a soft sigh of disdain, her gaze still drawn to the fire.
"No, Cat," she murmured distantly. "After you."
With the invitation still falling from her lips, Lynné Sands bent her knees, dropping to the ground just as Cat's gun went off. She grasped the handle of the fire poker. Its tip glowed eerily white against the vibrant orange of the flames. Cat had recovered from the shock at witnessing Lynné dodge a bullet when a gun was pressed to her head, and Lyn knew that she hadn't much time. Summoning what remained of her strength Lynné aimed the poker, tightened her grip on its handle, and thrust it upward, never stopping until she knew that she had hit her target.
There was the satisfying hiss of moisture against heat. The scent of scorched flesh permeated the air, thick and roiling, almost nauseating in its assault on her senses. A dull squish as the sharp iron point was driven into a doughy, mucilaginous substance said it all.
Cat never had the chance to scream. A startled gasp as the searing end of the poker was forced into her right eye would have to suffice. There was a sudden crack, like ice breaking from a glacier, as Lynné embedded the fire poker deeper into Cat's eye socket until at last the bone gave way and the tool broke through the back of Catherine's skull. It was an awesome sight, the lurid amalgam of blood, brains, and ragged flesh intermingled with tiny shards of bone, and all of it woven into a nest of matted, sanguine hair.
A muffled flump sounded as Catherine fell to her knees, the corners of her lone eyeball crinkled in hurt disbelief beneath the fluttering of lashes. Her handgun lay forgotten merely several inches away.
Through slightly parted lips there came a meek croak of a gasp, barely audible over the crackling of the fire. Lynné watched with avid, if somewhat platonic, interest as the blue of Catherine's eyes became diluted and until her stepsister swayed and toppled over in a sad, macabre heap on the hearth, her pitiful croaking muted at last by Death's imperative hand.
Unsurprisingly, a sense of satisfaction enveloped Lynné, but the feeling was quickly chased away by cool, oddly soporific relief. Without warning, the urge to collapse swallowed her aching body, and had the welcoming embrace of Poisson's navy blue armchair not been present, Lynné surly would have been lost to the world of unconsciousness.
Ding dong, the bitch is dead, the voice caroled cheerfully.
Lynné rolled her eyes as she sank into the armchair, her lithe frame folding into its soft cushions with ease.
"Oh my God…" She didn't need to look up to know who the new speaker was. She was far too accustomed to that childish panic to be mistaken. Sure enough, when Lynné opened her eyes she was greeted to the tall, deceptively lean figure of Liam Fusco holding the hand of a slightly shaken Joséphine.
"Catherine," he murmured faintly.
"Yeah," Lynné replied the corners of her lips twitching into a tired smile. "I've never seen her look better, either."
There he was. Ajedrez smiled. She hadn't expected him to simply show himself that quickly, but then again, it was most likely part of one of his feeble, half-hatched schemes. So pathetic. It was quite amusing, however, and almost…cute…in a way. Ajedrez could not understand why the way he was so supportive of his feeble plans was appealing. It simply…was. Perhaps she would have found it tiresome under any other circumstances. Had Sands been a clumsy, unattractive geek Ajedrez would have killed him the second his whipped out his inhaler, whether she had the desired information or not.
Sands was something of a geek, if she recalled correctly. All of those collectible lunchboxes practically screamed numskull, and the assortment of cheesy disguises, combine that with his love of asinine T-shirts (Sands had no grasp of fashion to speak of) and immature joke and one would have the quintessential idiot. Yet he had had a certain air about him that seemed to erase all traces of stupidity his person may have ever held. And she knew that he was smart, brilliant even. He knew it, too, and that was his first mistake.
Blinded by his own self-assurance, Sands had willingly informed her of his plan to walk off with her father's money. He spoke calmly when discussing his scheme, but she had see the excitement in his eyes that day when he had finally revealed everything. The poor bastard had been so confident in the flawlessness of his plan and so certain that she was trustworthy. Ajedrez had to admit that convincing him hadn't been easy. Upon meeting anyone new Sands was immediately paranoid and suspicious of their true motives. Though he appeared relaxed, he was truly on edge, just waiting for the stranger to make their move.
It had taken some extraordinary acting, but she had done it. She had had to whore herself to the king of all pajieras, but she had done it. For her father, she had done it. Eventually she managed to lure el idiota into her trap. She had been quite proud of herself, too. Until, of course, Sands, vengeful mierda pequena that he was, sent a bullet ripping through her innards.
He had not seen the bullet penetrate her skin. He had not seen her die. He hadn't seen anything thanks to Dr. Guevera. Yet he knewfor certain that she was dead. Just as it seemed, now, that he was confident that he would walk out of this alive. She supposed it was his cocky attitude that had told him that. Such a waste, for his arrogance truly was his one weak point.
Oh well. It's no one's fault but his own, she mused and fired two bullets neatly into his chest.
Two furious bangs ripped through the air, bringing an end to the nighttime silence. A strangled gasp flew from Sands' lips before he even had a chance to raise his pistol. Blood began to pour from the gaping holes in his chest. In a matter of seconds his shirt was soaked. The force of the gunshots caused all of Zebbidy's stitching to come undone. Old wounds bled freely as the even rows of catgut burst upon impact and pain exploded in his chest.
Through the haze of it all he could see Ajedrez. She was smiling. Her eyes were narrowed but she was smiling nonetheless. How strange.
From off in the distance a sorrowful cry sounded and seemed to echo throughout the room. Or perhaps it was all inside his head. He couldn't be sure. All he saw was Zebbidy's attenuated form – rather, her legs. Sometime during the mayhem that followed the gunshots Sands had fallen to his knees. He couldn't quite remember doing that, but he couldn't bring himself to question it further.
Zebbidy was standing in front of him now, posing as a barrier between him and Ajedrez.
"Clever of you, conchuda," Sands heard Ajedrez purr through his reverberating agony. "I want him alive."
"Enough," Zebbidy whispered fiercely. "I can't stop you from killing him, but I refuse to let you torture – "
"Are you in love with him?" Ajedrez snorted disgustedly. "Or are you just compassionate?"
Sands didn't wait for Zebbidy to answer. He knew he was going to die, but he'd be damned if he was going to let Ajedrez live. The mind-numbing pain of before was gone, evaporated when endurance kicked in. The burning ache was still strong, but the will to live was stronger and it doused the flames to a brittle flicker. With his grip secure, Sands peeked the muzzle of his gun around Zebbidy's legs, aimed, and fired.
Ajedrez's pistol flew through the air and skittered across the ground until it lay, quite harmless, in the corner. Señorita Barillo herself let out a cry of furious anger and clutched her bleeding palm.
Time was precious and Sands didn't waste a second of it. With a mighty shove he pushed Zebbidy to the ground and, ignoring the cry of protest, trained his gun on the faintly keening Ajedrez.
Two shots, one through each of her faux legs, did the job.
Despite it all Sands had managed to fide the exact stone to pull out from Ajedrez's seemingly undefeatable walls and make them crumble. He regarded her for a moment, watching her mercilessly crushed form without pity. The heiress was on her knees, glaring venomously and muttering reverently through bared teeth when the final bullet raced through the air.
Her eyes crossed as if to look at the round, utterly perfect hole that now decorated her forehead. For a moment, silence descended – a tacit requiem mass for the fading drug lord. Then, quite suddenly, noise remembered its place and quickly resumed its duties. And Ajedrez fell onto her side with her beautiful chestnut locks tumbling over one another in a coppery tangle that covered her entire face, save for a solitary, heartless eye. The light on that eye slowly grew dim until finally it was gone forever, and Sands, with his ravaged body leaking more fluids by the minute, watched it happen. It was the last thing he saw as the world drained before him and he succumbed to the blackness, cradled in Zebbidy's arms.
Oh thank gods… I didn't think I would finish this in time. Today's the anniversary of when of first began this fic, if you don't know. :) Crazy, isn't it? Not as crazy as Tom Cruise has been acting lately, though. I've actually taken something of a liking to him now that he's lost it. But that's irrelevant to the story, isn't it? Sorry. Don't worry, kids. Sands isn't going to die. While this is indeed the last chapter, I have a short epilogue to post before I officially declare the end of Smoke. And forgive me for the lack of Author's Thanks in this chapter – I'm pressed for time! Adios and happy Fourth of July for those that celebrate it!