(For disclaimer, etc. - see 1.)
10. Do You Remember?
Characters/Pairings: Lavon, Lemon
'Verse/Timeline: canon - Season 1, post-Episode 10, Hairdos and Holidays
Date: December 2011
There was always the chance to go be with his parents for Christmas, and the Hayes family at large come to that. Aunts and uncles and cousins would welcome him with open arms, smiles and love. Problem was, Lavon just wasn't in the mood for all of that, not this year.
It had occurred to him that Zoe would make a nice distraction, but she went back to New York for the holidays days before. It was weird how she had become his best friend in the past couple of months, but she absolutely had. Of course, even she didn't know what had the mayor so melancholy this festive season. Lavon suspected Wade had an idea, but they never did talk about it. He wasn't much for a holly, jolly Christmas either, given his own circumstances, so that just left Lavon, all on his lonesome, with a bottle of cognac and too many memories.
Passing by the tree, glass in hand, he stopped and stared a moment at the shiny ornaments, seeing only himself in the reflections. Last year, she had stood by that tree, marvelled at the pretty colours, told him all about Christmasses she had when she was young, with the mother that had left her long ago.
She was as beautiful as she was sad, as amazing as she was broken. Lavon was pretty sure he went ahead and fell in love with her right then and there, maybe even days before. Of course, they had grown up in town together, but he barely noticed her then, what with there being four grades between them and all. Now he could do nothing but notice her, every day, with George Tucker's hand clasping her own, his arm around her shoulders, his lips pressed against her cheek.
Lavon closed his eyes, wished it all away and knocked back his drink in one, heading right back into the kitchen to retrieve the bottle and pour himself another. He wondered if she was doing the same, not the drinking, necessarily, but remembering, just wondering what might have been.
"Coulda all been so different," Lemon said to herself, having the exact same thoughts as her ex-lover, on the other side of town.
"You okay, sweetheart?" George asked her, frowning a little as he searched her face.
Painting on her best smile, she shook her head at him.
"Of course, I am just fine, silly George," she said cheerfully. "I'm just hoping we can prise Magnolia away from that new cell phone daddy bought for her, long enough to get her to help a little with dinner."
"Well, if she can't be convinced, you know I do make an excellent assistant in the kitchen," her fiancé told her. "Whatever you need, I'm here," he promised.
"Yes, I do know that." Lemon nodded, though she heard the words said in another voice entirely inside her mind.
"Whatever you need, I'm here," Lavon had told her kindly, wrapping his strong arms around her when she cried, promising her everything would be okay.
With him, it always was. It might have always been, if she had let him keep all those promises he had made to her her last year. When George had come home, she had made her choice, the only one she could make, or so Lemon had thought. Now, she couldn't help but wonder, as she watched George and Daddy and Magnolia all talking and laughing together. Could she have made a different choice? Should she have? God only knew the answer to that one, and for this Christmas at least, apparently, he wasn't telling.