Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
"Mommy! Daddy! Mommy! Daddy!"
"Mom! Dad! Wake up!"
"Get up time!"
"Come on!"
The happy cries of two children filled the house and Jack and Kate both laughed. They had both been awake anyway, awaiting the excited calls of the children for the past hour. Kaia and Curtis ran into the bedroom, leaping happily onto the bed and jumping up and down with stockings in their hands, filled to the brim with shapes covered in wrapping paper.
It was the family's first real Christmas. Or rather…
"Come on Mommy! It's Cwistmas!" Curtis announced.
Cwistmas. Bless him, it was a hard word for him to say.
After a short while of excited chatter and more jumping, Kaia and Curtis settled down on the bed whilst their parents watched over them with smiles. Jack had gotten them both drinks earlier, he having coffee seeing as he had been up late the previous night, and had awoken early that morning as well, and Kate having a warm hot chocolate because Jack said that pregnant women shouldn't have coffee. After their scare last month, she wasn't willing to defy him on any suggestions.
With the scare with the twins, Kaia's kidnapping, and Kate's trial over, everything seemed to have fallen into place. A new housing estate had been build in the suburbs of Sydney, which meant that nearly all of the survivors managed to buy a large house to accommodate them, courtesy of Oceanic. Their overall compensation from the airline company had come in at just over £3 million dollars each, which some of the survivors had refused, yet most of them had accepted. Jack and Kate had debated about it at first, yet decided to take it and store it away, using it only when they needed it. There wasn't anything they needed for themselves, so they planned to use it for the children.
All of their closest friends from the island lived in the complex, except for those who decided to return to the states or elsewhere. Charlie and Claire lived next door to them on one side, and Shannon and Sayid, who were also expecting a baby of their own now, lived on the other side. A few houses down, Sun and Jin had moved in after visiting Korea for a short while to assure their parents that they were okay. Hurley lived with Libby just down the road. Sawyer and Ana had moved in together, but told the others that it was simply for "friendly company", but it had become clear long ago that Sawyer's idea of friendly company involved contraception (which, to Jack's horror, had been discovered by Aaron and Kaia whilst decorating along with the question "what's this for?").
Jack and the other male survivors all helped each other with decorating the new houses, but Jack had done most of their house himself, with the strange help from Sawyer, and occasionally Sayid when it was a three person job. Jack and Kate had a warm terracotta coloured room with reds and oranges that radiated with the sunlight.
Kaia had a lilac room, as she refused flat out to have pink because Aaron told her it was as silly colour, and had fallen in love with the colour since Shannon had introduced it to her through the form of a hair scrunchie. This hair scrunchie was almost always in her hair, unless she had it down, in which case it was on her wrist.
Curtis, however, hadn't been able to settle on one colour, so Jack promised to surprise him, and for two weeks, Curtis had slept in Kaia's room whilst Jack worked in that room. Only Kate knew what was happening behind that door, and she couldn't wait to see the look on her son's face when he went into it.
Oh, how he had smiled. Jack painted the room like it was a jungle scene, with paintings of rocks on one side, for the caves, and the other side was done in a beach form, with trees and different animals that Curtis liked fitting in the gaps. Kaia, naturally, still insisted that her room was better with all the lilac coloured furniture that Jack had painted, and the flowers that Kate replaced every few weeks before they died. Seeing the flowers everyday reminded her of Sun's garden on the island.
As the children laughed together, they opened the different presents that were inside their Christmas stockings. CD's of the new music that Kaia liked, DVD's of the films that they had grown to love recently, sweets and toys. Jack put his arm around Kate's waist, giving her a deep kiss whilst the children were occupied with their new toys.
"Merry Christmas." He told her sweetly.
"Merry Christmas." She replied with a smile, kissing him again.
His hand went to her stomach, which was a lot larger than it had been last month considering she had two children growing inside of her. Her morning sickness had reduced to nothing now, and a recent trip to the doctors had showed that she was due to give birth in June, but because it was twins, it would probably be April or May.
After a while, they decided to go downstairs for "breakfast", but in reality were just taking the children down to where the rest of the presents were all over the lounge. Their newly decorated lounge was now covered with two large piles of presents, one was Kaia's, and one was Curtis's, both the size of a mountain, and both earning looks of wonder from the children.
"Are they for us?" Kaia asked in amazement.
"Sure are, sweetheart." Jack said, and Kaia gasped.
"All of them?"
"All of them."
"Like…all of them?"
"All of them." Kate laughed softly.
"Wow." She said quietly. "This is the bestest first Christmas ever!" She said, and ran over to her pile of presents. Curtis followed her to his own, and they happily started unwrapping again.
Jack laughed, and watched Kate's expression as she watched the children for a moment, and then called over to the kids. "Guys, you stay out of trouble for a minute, okay?" He told them. "I'm going to show Mommy her present."
Kate looked at him in surprise. "What?" She asked him through a laugh.
"You be all right down here?" Jack asked the kids, ignoring Kate's question but smiling at it.
"Yeah!" They answered back, and Jack placed his hands on Kate's waist, leading her back up the stairs.
"Come on, Mommy's turn." He said playfully, and led her upstairs.
He lead her upstairs beside their bedroom, up to the room that he hadn't allowed her to be in for two weeks. For the past fortnight, he had been disappearing into it with boxes, making a lot of loud noises, swearing a lot when an unnecessary loud noise occurred, and playing music which he sang along to when he didn't expect Kate to be listening to through the door with their two giggling children.
"Do I get to see what's inside now?" She asked with a playful smile.
Jack nodded. "Close your eyes." He told her softly. She did so without argument, and felt Jack's lips upon hers. She responded to the kiss, and just as it was about to deepen, Jack pulled away.
"Tease." She muttered with a laugh.
"No! Keep your eyes closed." He told her when she went to open them. She laughed, and kept them shut, hearing the door open. Jack took her hands and led her into the room. The door closed behind them, and when she was stood in the middle of the room, Jack stopped walking, still holding onto her hands. "Right, you can open them now." He told her.
Slowly, she opened her eyes, and looked at the room around them, gasping straight away. The room had been painted a cream colour with a white wallpaper border around the centre that had oriental symbols around the edge traced in gold. Against one wall of the room, two birch wood cribs protruded into the centre of the room. The whole room was kitted out for the twins, and Kate's eyes filled with tears at the matching everything.
"Oh, Jack." She said as two tears slipped over her cheeks. She hated feeling over-emotional. It made her want to just rip out her ovaries and throw them somewhere. "It's…beautiful." She gasped.
"You like it?" He asked as she walked over to one of the cribs and traced the edge of it, gazing down at the bedding inside with that maternal gaze he loved to see radiating from her.
"Like it? I love it." She smiled, and went back over to him, wrapping her arms tightly around him. "Thank you." She muttered with a smile.
He hugged her back, grinning to himself, pleased that his hard work had paid off. "I'm glad you like it." He told her. "I know that this is something we didn't have for Curtis and Kaia, and I wanted to surprise you with it." He explained.
"It worked." She said with a laugh.
"Besides," He added, his hand going to Kate's stomach, which was now protruding slightly where the twins were growing within. "I decorated my other babies rooms, I couldn't leave these two out."
Kate grinned, and kissed him. "I love you so much." She smiled.
They stayed in the new nursery for a while longer, whilst Kate explored every detail of what Jack had done, and then they returned downstairs to the kids, who were still unwrapping presents. Kate and Jack settled on the couch, watching whilst Curtis and Kaia unwrapped their new games, toys, and their favourites…bikes.
Then, it was time for the final present to come out. Kate had a hard time winning Jack around on this one, but when they gathered the two children into the centre of the room whilst Jack went into the kitchen, she knew that Jack was secretly happy about this. Seeing as Kaia had been asking non-stop since they got home, and Curtis had been copying her, they had done the normal thing and given in to their demands. He came back into the room with a bundle in his arms, watching as the children's eyes lit up at the sight of the puppy.
"A puppy!" Kaia squealed, and ran over to Jack, who kneeled down on the floor so that the children could stroke the new addition to the family.
The puppy, a black and white border collie with brown marks around the eyes and brown patches on the tail, jumped out of Jack's arms and over to Kaia, where it jumped into her arms and covered her in wet kisses all over her face whilst she giggled.
After a long deliberation of names, they decided to name the puppy Max, and the black and white ball of fur conceded to follow Kaia and Curtis around consistently for the rest of the day.
"Daddy?" Curtis said, as he crawled into Jack's lap that night.
"Hey, kiddo." Jack said, ruffling his curls softly.
"Daddy, I like Cwistmas." Curtis told him with a smile. "Can we have one next year as well?" He asked hopefully.
Jack smiled and nodded. "We'll have one every year." He promised, and Curtis smiled.
A/N: Christmas in August...that's strange.
