Part Two: Thin Ice

or 'the one where it's Christmas and a present appears that Jamie can't remember buying'

Jamie's grown used to the game of sleeping and not sleeping, and pretending to be asleep. He sleeps when he has the time (which is like never) what with paperwork always on the table and the little bar in the comer of his computer blinking despite the number of times he plugs it in. When he's not sleeping (which is usually the case) he's running around picking up toys, dropping off children, picking up children and as much as he sees them, never having enough time for the children. And then lastly, there are the times when he pretends to sleep. This is where he is now; face down in his pillow, breathing a little too deeply to be comfortable, all the while keeping his ears perked for the rustle of little toes on the wood floor.

"Shh-h," he hears his oldest whisper, if you could call it a whisper (really its only slightly lower than her usual toddler voice). Something mumbles back, quiet and almost inaudible.

"Ah so they're in cahoots," the other occupant of his bed whispers. His wife peaks out from beneath the thick comforter, pulling their hands (fingers still entangled; thank god he finally found that damn ring) out with her.

"Well," Jamie adds lowering his voice, as the feet have gotten closer, "It's that time of year, you know. To put aside one's differences and work together."

She opens her mouth to retort, but before she can even form a word on her lips, a noise sounding very similar to that of a battle cry explodes from near the edge of the bed, and Jamie's lost his breath at the tiny body that hits his stomach with the strength of what he can only imagine a cannonball may feel like.

"What the-"

"Hi, Daddy." She peeks out from his chest, eyes wide and excited, "It's morning!" Jamie chuckles, before gathering the young girl in his arms and cuddling her close, "Can we open presents? Please?" she reaches up and kisses his nose in order to better her odds. Jamie's face turns serious for a moment when he says, "I don't know, have you been good this year?"

"I have! You can ask Jack!" She lifts a chubby finger and points it to the child who has wormed his way up onto the bed and lies with his small head against his wife's chest. The baby gurgles in response, and Jamie trails off with a final tease, "I dunno ..." The face she makes in return, one of frustration at her father's antics, leaves him unable to keep up the charade and he can't help but laugh in response.

"Alright, okay," Jamie says with a dramatic sigh as if she'd finally wore him down, "But only if you can beat me to the tree first!" He sweeps the girl from the bed and offers her a head start as they race to the bedroom door and out into the hallway.

It doesn't take long to unwrap the presents. Small balls of discarded wrapping are littered around the small family, as the children inspect their new toys.

"Wait," his wife says, as the eldest tries her best to open the packaging on one of her new dolls, "We aren't finished yet!" This grabs his daughter's attention and she quickly forgets the package in front of her.

"There's more?" she asks, eyes wide.

His wife pulls up the tree skirt, revealing a final bulky package which she passes to the eldest. Jamie can't recognize the wrapping paper as it doesn't match the rest they'd used to wrap the children's presents the night before. It's simple and brown, a similar color and constancy to the thick paper bags at their local grocery store. But perhaps his wife had bought something last minute as she was known to do, and had hid behind the tree after Jamie had gone to bed (she was a perfectionist after all, and usually ended up re-wrapping Jamie's presents after he'd finished as she was unsatisfied with his wrapping job).

"Is this you?" Jamie whispers, nudging his wife beneath the ribs as his eldest helps the baby tear away at the paper. She shakes her head, her expression confused, and mouths back, "You?"

Jamie returns her bewildered gaze, no, he was sure the two had unwrapped all his presents and the ones from 'Santa Claus.' Paternal fear hits him. Of course his wife wouldn't have used such basic wrapping paper. She was known for her intricate ribbon work and clean, folded lines.

"Whose it from honey?" His wife asks the children cautiously, peering over her daughter's shoulder to see the tag. The child grips the rather large, but oddly shaped gift in two hands and pulls it close. The present was a common shape, rectangular like the other presents that had come in boxes, and Jamie mulls over a mental list of the toys his children had been asking for from Santa Claus. Power Rangers? No. Jack already got two sets of those, and it couldn't be the little Barbie car his daughter had requested for it was already out of it box and was sitting unoccupied and forgotten beneath the tree.

"Jack," the child reads proudly.

"Very good, now whose it from?"

"Jack," his daughter repeats.

His wife shakes her head, but repeats, "Honey, who is the gift from? That's under Jack's name."

"I already told you," the girl replies with a roll of her eyes.. Turning to the baby, she offers the gift, "Here Jack, this one's for you!" The baby, still too young to speak, gives an excited babble on hands and knees. Together (but mostly with help from the big sister), the two pull away the final piece of wrapping and reveal what appears to be a shoebox.

"I'll open it for you," his daughter tells the baby as she pulls off the top of the box before Jamie or his wife could react.

Beneath the crinkled tissue paper is a pair of antique ice skates. Though worn and tired in the leather, the blades are sharp, well crafted, and beautiful. The children, too young to appreciate or even use the gift, quickly forget about the parcel and return to their earlier presents.

Jamie doesn't say a word for a moment. There's something odd about the skates. If he believed in that kind of stuff, he would've said there was a strange aura around them. Not negative, but strange, almost familiar and comforting as if they were an old friend he hadn't seen in years. Carefully, he runs his hands over the cool blade. "So this wasn't you?" his wife mumbles, her hands sifting through wrapping paper as she searches for the tag her daughter had discarded.

"No, and it wasn't you either?"

His wife shakes her head, her hands still groping around for the tag. It's Jamie who finds it: a pale, light blue square of paper. He opens it slowly, curiosity overwhelming parental suspicion.

The message is simple and written in an almost childish and messy scrawl:

"To Jack,

Never stop believing.

- Jack."