Thank you for the reviews.

So we have started at the beginning and now we know where we are heading (like you guys expected anything less from me). Shall we start to put all the little things in place over the many different Christmases?

A little healthy competition is perhaps needed...

Set during 2007 and Series 3.

Day Three
Gingerbread

Rachel and Eddie enter a gingerbread house competition, only Eddie is sure that Rachel has stuck hers together with tape.

Word count: 1,482

It was meant to be a competition for the kids. Just something that was a little bit of fun in the festive season that wasn't paper chains and just watching Christmas films that were related to the subject they were in.

A bit of light competition for the students.

So Rachel wondered why she was in her office, with some trays of gingerbread that she had stolen from the hall and icing, trying to figure out the best way to put them together. She didn't quite know how her and Eddie got into the conversation that they did and how they both ended up in the competition that they had to make the best gingerbread house they could.

It was bad enough that she wasn't really a baker, and therefore had never made a gingerbread house before, but she had only just realised that she had taken on mathematician at a challenge that involved building. She could see him now, with his ruler, trying to make sure that everything was straight. That pure thought made her giggle for a moment.

She turned to her laptop as she bit her lip, wondering whether she could quickly lookup how best to go about building the house, before thinking that she could do it without any help. It couldn't be that hard, could it?

Eddie let out a sigh as he slid the tray, with his gingerbread house on, out of the cupboard where he left it for the icing to dry overnight, glad that it was still all standing and it looked structurally sound. Which he hoped was going to happen. Thanks to his nieces wanting to make gingerbread houses for the last four years and wanting Uncle Eddie to help them.

There was a part of him that couldn't understand why this all happened but his competitive streak came out. And so did Rachel's. If anything, he loved her competitive side and he loved how adamant she was that she could do a better house than he could.

He was trying not to think about how cute she looked when she told him that she would show him before she almost stormed off in the direction of the hall to see if there was any gingerbread left for them to have a go too.

If anything, he was trying not to think about many of the little things that Rachel would do. He knew that he was physically attracted to her on her first day. He would think any man would be mental not to find her attractive. But it was as he got to know her a little more that he realised that sort of person she was that he realised that attractiveness ran deeper.

Eddie shook his head to clear his thoughts before he went back to the task at hand and working out how he was going to decorate the house.

Eddie was more than a little impressed with his gingerbread house. In fact, he was so impressed by it that he had taken some photos so that he could show it to his nieces next time he saw them, hoping that they would be just as impressed and proud of their uncle.

He didn't notice Rachel sneaking in with hers (which she managed to do because he was too busy admiring his, as she told him later) until she came up beside him and let out a small groan.

"Worried Mason?" He said as he turned to her.

He got the sense that her's hadn't gone to plan by the look on her face before she composed herself and turned to him. He was fairly certain that he had won their little competition but it was clear that Rachel wasn't going to let him know that.

"I don't know what you mean Lawson."

"Where is yours then?"

Rachel's eyes flicked to hers and Eddie bit his lip to stop himself from smiling. Because he had definitely won. Mainly because hers looked like it wasn't in one piece. But the more he looked at it, the more he realised how much of a disaster it had been.

"Is that… tape? On your gingerbread house?"

"No."

"That there looks like sellotape." He said as he pointed to the roof.

"Do you think that you are going to lose so badly that you are now seeing things?"

"I am not seeing things."

"Are you really a bad loser, Lawson?"

"Rachel, that is sellotape."

"It is not."

"I think you are the bad loser."

"It is not sellotape."

"Well if that's the way you want to beat me."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

Eddie would admit that his mind went somewhere else when she said that and he could see the light flirtiness between them over the conversation that they had just had. Maybe it was a sign that he should make a move and let Rachel know that he liked her a little more than a friend.

"Oh, I'm far too much of a gentleman to say that." He said.

He didn't dare comment on the way that she was looking at him after that and he was a little annoyed when they were shooed out of the hall for the judging to begin.

"How did you know how to do that?" Rachel asked, trying not to sound like she was sulking at the fact that her gingerbread house had been a total disaster.

"I think Lydia started it. She wanted to make one and no one else would help her except for me. I think Lottie remembered that I allowed her to eat too much of the icing that every year now, Uncle Eddie has to help them make a gingerbread house. It is more for Lottie and Abbie and Lois now. Lydia helps when she thinks she is missing out and Cathy just comes for the finished product."

"Wait, how many nieces do you have?"

"Six nieces and four nephews."

Rachel felt her eyebrows raise up. "How?"

"James has three kids, two girls and a boy. Alice has four, three boys and a girl. And Tony had three girls. Why? How many do you have?"

"One nephew. I do only have one sister."

"So no baking gingerbread?"

Rachel leant forward and snapped off part of her gingerbread house. She pulled off the bit of tape that was hiding in the icing before she dunked it into her hot chocolate.

"No." She said as she took a bite of the gingerbread. "And it definitely wouldn't taste like this if I had anything to do with the baking process."

"Does the perfect Miss Mason have something that she isn't good at?"

"Well, I never had you down as a baker, Lawson."

"Of course you wouldn't. I… actually love baking."

"At least I have an idea of something I could get you for Christmas."

"So are we getting each other something for Christmas then?"

Rachel stopped as she realised what she had said and as much as she felt like she should backtrack, she didn't want to. Because maybe this is where she could suggest where she thought their relationship could go. That they could build on the friendship that was building and that, maybe one day, she would be there, meeting all his nieces and nephews, and just generally find out more about him.

She knew that she was from a small family. It had just been her, her mum and Melissa until it was just her and Melissa. Philip made things better but she hadn't known any more than just three family members. So to hear about Eddie's three siblings and ten nieces and nephews made her feel excited. It made her want to be a part of that family.

"Maybe a little something. You know… between friends." She said.

She couldn't help but notice the smile on his face and it helped show her where he was. She watched him as he took part of her gingerbread house (with him wanting to keep his intact for as long as possible), with him finding a bit of sellotape, holding it up for her to see.

"I still can't believe that you thought you could stick it together with sellotape." He said with a laugh.

"Well someone is just going to have to show me the right way to go about it."

"Now I can definitely do that Mason."

Rachel knew that it was all because of a stupid competition but she felt closer to Eddie than she had done before. And she had worked out the way that she wanted things to go with Eddie. She was sure that time would tell about the direction their relationship would go and she hoped that it was favourable.