AN: Hello! I hope everyone is safe and well. This is a fun one, but a little out of place because it's a Christmas story and it is... August. Oh well, I thought everyone would enjoy a little Bobby bonding with the Gilbert siblings, so here it is!

Anyway, without further ado, enjoy!

Addendum: Outtakes

Referenced in Ch. 15

Sioux Falls II

South Dakota: December 2015

Elena Gilbert surveys the bleak, bare walls of Bobby Singer's front room. Her duffle bag rests at her feet, Dean's borrowed coat bundled on top of her own. December in South Dakota is much colder than December in Virginia, and there hadn't been time to find a proper winter coat for her as the two Winchester men were eager to pursue a case in balmy Southern California.

Dean had carried her bag into the house and given her a hug and kiss to the forehead, telling Bobby to look out for her before leaving at last. John had not come in at all, but Bobby is quick to reassure her that it has nothing to do with her. The two of men hadn't been on good terms in years.

"Jeremy's room is the only guest room not full of crap," Bobby says in something that sounds like a gruff approximation of apologetic. He picks up her duffle, heading for the stairs. "He can sleep on the couch while you're here."

Elena shakes her head. "I'm fine on the couch," she says firmly.

Bobby sees the determined look on her face and changes his route to the living room. She follows him, finding the next room just as bereft as the first.

"Jeremy's winter break starts today, but you know that. He should be back around 4, it's a long bus ride."

Elena nods. "I know, he told me," she says simply.

Bobby nods in return, at a loss for what to say to a teenage girl. He does all right with Jeremy, given his experience with Sam and Dean growing up, but a teenage girl is out of his jurisdiction. Hell, he's sure John barely knows what to do with her himself.

John and him don't talk much, so he's not sure exactly what his take on her is, but Dean gets on with her like guns and ammo. His account of the girl is glowing, she's quick-witted, courageous, strong-willed – which can't bode well for John's thoughts on the girl – and outrageously funny. Dean didn't mention that she's extraordinarily beautiful too, but Bobby should've guessed.

Girls that beautiful are always trouble, and everything he's heard of Elena Gilbert spells trouble.

He watches her survey his living room carefully, bundled to the hilt in Dean's jacket, looking like wearing it is second nature to her. She hasn't said a word about the state of the place, but he knows southern women, and she hasn't so much as tried to tell him that he has a lovely home, so he knows he's been judged and found wanting.

"No Christmas decorations?" she asks.

He shrugs somewhat helplessly. "I've never been much for celebrating," he admits easily.

She nods, checking the time. "Well, it's 10:30 now, so we've got time," she says with surprising authority for a teenager.

Bobby raises an eyebrow at her. "Time for what?" he asks.

She looks at him steadily. "To make Christmas, of course."


An hour later, Bobby is stunned to find himself in the Christmas aisle in Target a week before Christmas. He hasn't celebrated Christmas much less decorated for the holiday since Karen died. He's not sure where the Christmas decorations ended up – has a sneaking suspicion he might've let a 16-year-old Dean Winchester use some of the ornaments for target practice back in the day – and when he told Elena this, she practically frog-marched him to his car.

He's adding 'force of nature' to the list of things he knows about Elena Gilbert.

He's in charge of manning the shopping cart, so he stands at the ready, watching as Elena examines all of their options with precision. She's looking at each angel carefully.

"I think I still have the star for the top of the tree somewhere," he says, trying to remember where he'd seen it recently.

Elena barely spares him a glance. "We're angel people," she says simply.

"Oh," he replies. "My wife and I always had a star," he recalls.

She looks at him now, dark eyes full of understanding in a way that pains him.

"Get an angel," he urges her. "This isn't for me."

She nods, turning back to look at her choices.

"What did you guys do for Thanksgiving?" Elena asks, genuinely curious.

Bobby shuffles. "Uh, ordered takeout and watched football," he replies.

Elena only hums in response. John wouldn't let her come then – since it had only been a few weeks since she'd left home on the run. Bobby knows enough details of it all to know that it's better that she stayed away, but this clearly isn't easy for her, being away from her brother.

"Where'd you spend your Thanksgiving?" Bobby asks, wondering if it had occurred to John at all that that kind of thing would be important to a girl like her.

Elena and her brother had been beloved children. They had only known safety and support and love until it had all been ripped out from under them. Bobby knows it's much worse to have something and lose it than it is to long for something you've never had.

Elena shrugs. "Just some motel room, Dean was recovering from spraining his ankle so we watched Twin Peaks on my laptop and ate pizza."

Bobby nods. Dean wouldn't know all that much about traditional holiday celebrations himself.

Eventually she settles on a blonde angel in a sorry green satin gown, putting her carefully into their cart with the green, red, and gold bulbs and silver garlands she's already picked out. Elena feels very strongly about Christmas decorations being only in Christmas colors, Bobby had discovered this when he'd tried to throw in a box of assorted bulbs including blue and purple orbs, hoping to get out of here quickly.

Now Bobby accepts that he's not going to win against this teenage girl, so he waits. She drops in a box of something glittery and Bobby winces in anticipation of finding the glitter long after whatever ornament it is has been packed away.

"Bobby?" Elena says seriously.

He looks at her. "Yes, Elena?" he asks, wondering what she's going to say.

"You should know something about Jeremy," she begins, so very serious.

"What's that?" Bobby asks, wondering if she thinks that John neglected to tell him that Jeremy's a medium.

"He hates football."

Bobby absorbs this, starting to chuckle just a little bit. Elena looks confused so he masters himself. "Hell, girl, I'm too crazy about it myself," he admits easily.

This time, Elena laughs with him.

She smiles at him, much warmer than before. "He likes baseball."

Bobby nods. "Baseball's doable."

With that, Elena turns back to the Christmas ornaments. She adds candy canes and a few more ornaments to their cart, then leads him across the store for cranberries and popcorn for stringing and all of the ingredients to make and decorate sugar cookies. Bobby knows exactly where the Christmas cookie cutters are, so that's one thing off the list. There's garlands and lights and Elena even picks a wreath for the front door and stockings for all three of them.

Thinking they're done, Bobby turns to the cash registers with relief. Elena hesitates. Bobby looks back. "Anything else you need?" he asks hesitantly.

"We always had a nativity scene," she tells him slowly. "Just a small one," she hastens to add before he starts panic. "But it wouldn't really feel like Christmas without one."

They return to the Christmas aisle.

Their collection of nativity scenes is sorrier than their collection of angels. Elena looks through them unhappily, chewing her lower lip. There is a porcelain set who's faces are distorted and angry looking, and a Formica set with cheesy grins, but not much else.

Bobby clears his throat. Elena looks over at him.

"Just over on Main Street there's a little china shop, the man who owns it makes everything himself," he tells her. "I think I saw a pretty nice Nativity scene last time I was in town." She looks hopeful so he cants his head to the side. "Let's go."

"Okay."

He stops when they reach the angels again, fishing out her choice from their cart. "He's got some angels on display in the window, if I recall correctly," he tells her.

She takes the angel from him to return to the shelf.


Solomon's China House is warm and smells of cinnamon and is full of breakable bone china. Elena falls in love with it immediately, in awe of the beautiful craftsmanship of every hand thrown piece. Bobby focuses on standing very, very still.

Solomon himself is a tiny British-born Chinese man whose father taught him his craft. He spares Bobby one suspicious look before Elena charms him so thoroughly that he hardly notices Bobby's presence. She finds a beautiful nativity set and Solomon himself brings out an angel he's only just finished and hasn't even been priced yet. She's beautiful with dark hair and eyes like Elena, and a resplendent red velvet gown, her wings made of real feathers.

Solomon tells Elena that his wife makes all of the dresses for the dolls and the angels herself, and then he insists that they must wait while he goes to get her so that she can meet Elena.

"You look just like my angel," he tells her as he goes.

Elena is beaming, cheeks pink, partially tucked behind the turned-up collar of Dean's jacket.

While they wait, Elena wanders the shop. At the back is a sturdy wire Christmas tree decorated with Solomon's other ornaments. Elena looks at them, smiling. Carefully she touches the curve of a howling wolf's tail. There are two turtle doves, wings entwined and beaks touching, a star, and a merry green nutcracker. There's a red toy soldier that Elena smiles at, but beside it is a tiny, perfect, pink ballerina. The ornament is no bigger than the palm of her hand, but every detail is perfect.

"You should get it," Bobby says from behind her.

Elena snaps out of her revere. She shakes her head. "Oh no, not that one," she says. Despite herself, she reaches out, touching the tip of her tiny pink shoe.

"Are you sure?" Bobby asks, seeing the way she can't take her eyes off of it.

She nods again. "Yeah, of course."

Instead, she picks the jolly green nutcracker and gleaming red toy soldier. She carries them to the cashier, putting them down beside the angel and the nativity scene.

Solomon returns with his wife Mei who exclaims over Elena. "The angel!" she cries at once.

Elena smiles at her.

Bobby glances back at the ballerina ornament, trying to decipher the look on Elena's face when she gazed at it.

At the cash register Bobby is trying to remember which of his credit cards has the highest line of credit, but Elena stops him from taking out his wallet.

From her own, she pulls out the coveted black card. She shrugs as she hands it over. "Let Klaus cover it, he can afford it." Seeing the look on his face, she hastens to add, "He never checks where the purchases come from, I know, I've tested it."

Bobby nods, wondering at a girl who's first thought is to make sure that her wealthy – monstrous – benefactor isn't keeping track of where she's going.

"So, Christmas tree next?" he asks with trepidation.

She shakes her head. "No, we'll wait for Jeremy. Let's go home and decorate everything else."


When Jeremy gets back to Bobby's the house is so full of Christmas cheer that for a moment he's left wondering if maybe he walked into the wrong house. He drops his backpack by the front door, wandering further in.

Bobby's old radio is playing the Christmas station and Jeremy finds Bobby and Elena in the living room, kneeling in front of his coffee table, arguing over the arrangement of the Nativity set.

"You are crazy if you think Joseph would let those creepy wisemen stand that close Mary!" Elena is saying.

"Now listen here, little girl…" Bobby begins, but before he can finish Elena catches sight of Jeremy and says his name, cutting him off.

"Elena!" Jeremy says right before she throws herself into his arms.

Bobby smiles at the sight of the two reunited siblings, then turns back to the nativity scene to give them some privacy. Surreptitiously he scooches the wisemen away from Mary and the Baby Jesus, because, well, Elena might have a point about them being creepy. That's an awful long way to travel to visit a newborn baby.

"I like your hair," Jeremy says, smiling into her curls.

Elena shrugs self-consciously. "There isn't really a lot of time to straighten it anymore," she says, a note of doubt in her voice.

"Please," he scoffs. "I know my sister when I see her."

She relaxes a fraction. Jeremy has seen her with curly hair long before Katherine came a-haunting, making her question every one of her decisions – will this make someone mistake her for Katherine? – and it's reassuring that she still retains herself in her brother's eyes, straight-haired or curly.

When Bobby turns his attention back to the siblings, Jeremy has his arm over his sister's shoulders as he takes in the changes in the living room.

"It looks like real Christmas in here," Jeremy is saying, his voice full of joy. "Except no tree." He sounds puzzled.

Elena smiles at him. "We were waiting for you to go pick one out."

Jeremy's eyes light up like exactly what he is, a kid on Christmas. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

Elena looks ready to fly out the door with her brother.

"Hold up, you two," Bobby says gruffly. "We're gonna eat first."

Elena nods in agreement as he goes to fetch the takeout menus.

Jeremy sits on the couch and Elena sits next to him, tucking her legs underneath her.

"So," Elena begins. "Got any homework?" she asks innocently.

Jeremy rolls his eyes. "I just have to read this one book over break," he says.

"Which book?" she asks. They both know she's stalling, but they let it go on.

"The Things They Carried," he answers.

Elena's face lights up.

"A good one?" he guesses.

Elena nods happily. "Trust me, you'll love it."

Jeremy smiles affectionately at her. "I missed that," he tells her. "How excited you get about good books. I always loved knowing when my teacher had assigned a good book just by the look on your face." He squeezes her hand. "I missed you."

Elena wraps her arms around him. "I missed you, too," she says, muffled against his neck.

He hugs her back tightly.

Bobby comes back in with a few takeout menus to choose from, so Elena lets go of Jeremy.


After they eat, they head back into town. Jeremy watches in amused solidarity as Elena layers on her own coat and then Dean's on top of it. Within his first week with Bobby he had to get a new winter coat.

The siblings convince Bobby to go to the grocery store first so they can stock up on a few other holiday necessities – mini cupcakes with green and red icing that stains your teeth, apple cider, Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for the morning, and eggnog.

At the hardware store, Bobby bows out of helping to pick out a tree, only requesting that it isn't too tall before excusing himself to go buy some rum for his eggnog.

When he returns they already have it wrapped and paid for – he assumes it's on Klaus' dime again and he can't help but wonder what he gets in return – so Bobby directs the bemused clerk to his truck. The citizens of Sioux Falls had already been confused when Jeremy had come to live the famously cantankerous Bobby, but now that his pretty sister who bears a remarkable resemblance to a Christmas tree angel is visiting – from college, apparently – they can't help their speculation.

They pass the evening decorating the tree, then making sugar cookies and burning their tongues eating them hot instead of decorating them. Bobby discovers the glittery ornaments Elena threw into the cart are delicate stars, like he and his wife used to put on the top of their tree, and he's beginning to understand the one thing John Winchester had said to him about Elena Gilbert.

"She gets under your skin, she's not an easy girl to disregard."

Later, Bobby has three glasses of spiked eggnog and lets Elena put a Santa hat on him and take a picture of the three of them together to send to Dean.

Bobby is half-asleep in his chair as Jeremy and Elena lay toe to toe on the couch, watching Elf on TV.

"Are you staying for all of my winter break?" Jeremy asks, poking his sister in the ankle.

Elena yawns, shaking her head. "Just until New Year's," she answers.

"You're leaving on New Year's Day?" he asks, surprised.

Elena sits up slowly, shaking her head. "Actually the day before New Year's Eve," she admits.

Jeremy sits up too, even Bobby is alert.

"Where are you going?" is Jeremy's next question.

"Klaus has invited me to his New Year's Eve party," Elena says.

"In Mystic Falls?!" Jeremy's voice is raised now.

She shakes his head. "No, he's not that reckless." She grimaces. "He's throwing it in the penthouse of some skyscraper in Chicago, specifically so I can go."

Jeremy wrinkles his nose. "Why?"

Elena shrugs. "To show me off, to prove a point, to trick me into kissing him at midnight," she lists carelessly. "Who knows. It doesn't matter, I have to go."

"That sucks," Jeremy says flatly.

"I mean, Klaus does throw good parties," she says lightly. "And I bet my dress will be beautiful."


On Christmas morning they exchange gifts. Elena pretends not to notice that Bobby has gifted Jeremy a crossbow. She only cares that Jeremy is safe and that he finishes school and has something that resembles normal life – his extracurriculars are up to him.

Elena gives Jeremy art supplies and he gives her a copy of The Strange Case of Jekyll & Hyde and Other Tales of Terror by Robert Louis Stevenson. He's bookmarked the story he thinks she'll like best; Olalla has stayed with him since he read it.

Jeremy gives Bobby a typed copy of John Gilbert's journals spanning his life in the 19th Century, something he and Elena had already agreed on. Bobby is deeply touched and fascinated. Despite the gift being from both of them, Elena also gives him a flask that doubles as a flashlight and compass as well as being equipped with two shot glasses.

She smiles as she tells him that Dean helped her pick it out.

Bobby thanks her heartily, privately thinking that she hadn't really needed to give him anything. She's brought Christmas into his house for the first time in years.

Bobby's gifts for Elena are the most surprising. He gives her a proper winter coat, reminding her that they'll be taking cases all over the country, and she can't keep stealing Dean's. She tries it on and is surprised to find a box in one of the pockets, her second gift. Inside the box is the ballerina ornament from Solomon's. Bobby bought it that first night when he left them at the hardware store to get rum.

Elena thanks him quietly, hanging it on the tree near the red toy soldier.


When it is time for Elena to leave, none of them want her to go. It's the first time Elena regrets picking hunting over staying with Jeremy and Bobby in Sioux Falls. Jeremy is doing his best to adjust, and while he likes his school and Bobby, he misses his sister and worries about her on the road.

Bobby insists on driving her to the airport, pointing out that taxis knew better than to come down his driveway, and it was far too cold for her to be waiting at the top of the road for one.

Jeremy helps her pack, she's been in a newly cleaned guest room since her second night there. She and Jeremy had attacked it mercilessly before Bobby had been able to protest.

Elena and Jeremy say their goodbyes, clinging to each other until the last moment.

The drive to the airport is mostly quiet until Bobby decides to break the silence. "I'm surprised Klaus didn't send a car for you himself."

Elena gives him a knowing look. "Part of our agreement is that he can't know where Jeremy is," she says simply.

"That way he can't use him as leverage," Bobby realizes.

"He's done it before," Elena replies grimly.

They pass the rest of the ride in silence. When they are close to the airport, Elena quietly directs him with the help of her phone to the hanger she'll be departing from – on a private jet.

There's a smiling man in a smart uniform who helps Elena out of the car and another to take her bags, and Elena has barely said goodbye before she's escorted onto the waiting plane.

It's not until Bobby is driving home to Jeremy that he finally recognizes the look on Elena's face when she gazed at the ballerina ornament in Solomon's shop: nostalgia, the pain from an old wound, the recognition that some things could not be had again, no matter how badly you wanted them.

AN: Listen, no one is immune to Elena Gilbert, not even Bobby! Plus you know, everyone deserves someone to spend the holidays with. I was genuinely tempted to find a way for Dean to stick around because God knows that boy deserves Christmas but I'd originally intended this to be bonding between Bobby and the Gilbert siblings and in the end, I stuck to my original plan.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien is one of my favorite books that I read in school, so I thought I'd give Jeremy a little of that joy.

Bone china was invented in England. It gets its name from being made from actual bone ash - derived from animal bones - among other things. It's also the strongest of the porcelain or china ceramics. My source, you ask? Me! I'm a potter's daughter. :)

I'll see you all on Sunday! Questions? Thoughts? Comments? Please leave a review!

xoxo

-Pixie