A/N: So this idea came to me some time ago, and one day I sat down and decided to give it a go. After all, we all write what we ourselves enjoy, don't we?

This is in Corollary-verse, so AU to season 12. No need to read the other Corollary stories to understand it.

Special thanks to joyteach for beta reading. Thanks ahead to everybody who will read this.

The Big Bang Theory does not belong to me. I only own my OCs, of which two are in this story.

Mommy, we need to talk

December, 2023

[Penny.]

Ahh December 24th, Christmas Eve. What a wonderful day. I've always loved Christmas. Beautiful lights, shiny decorations, presents, and lots and lots of eggnog.

As a kid, when I lived in Nebraska, there was also running in the snow, making snow angels and throwing snowballs at my brother and sister until they ran back into the house. Here, in California, the only snow we have comes in cones.

Still, I've quickly learned to love the Californian Christmas as much as the Nebraskan one, especially since I started celebrating it with my first-friend-and-neighbor, now-husband, Leonard. His Grinch of a mother did not let him celebrate Christmas as a kid, so he was so moved by every Christmas celebration we had. In the first three years, he even wrote me thank you notes for celebrating.

And now that we have the two most precious little girls, Christmas has gotten even better. Our four-year-old, Riley, loves decorating. Yesterday she wouldn't go to sleep until we promised her we wouldn't keep decorating without her. She also loves putting on her little reindeer antlers. 20-months-old, sorry, Mom-talk, one-year-and-eight-months-old, little Princess Sophie, was scared at first when we shut down the lights to check our Christmas lights. But as soon as we turned on the Christmas lights, she was practically enchanted.

Of course, the two also love getting presents. Luckily, I didn't need to stand in an endless line in a toy store to buy presents for my little ones. Just like my husband, my babies are not like others their age. They haven't been tested yet, but I know they're geniuses. They like their toys just fine, but a doll that says "I love you" is sure not enough to excite them.

Her own calculator, that's what will make Riley happy. I swear to God, this is not me trying to push her to anything. For the last, I don't know, five months? The kid's been asking for her daddy's old calculator, or for the ones on our phones, all the time. Leonard taught her addition and subtraction, and they're now starting multiplication, and she keeps giving herself math exercises and checking her answers on the calculator. It's like a game for her. When I was four, my favorite game was pulling my sister's hair.

Sophie's been much into words recently. She's already talking like a three-year-old, and she's always excited when she learns a new word. This includes types and subtypes of things, so I'm pretty sure she's going to love the butterfly guide Leonard ordered for her, as much as she did the online ape guide our friend Amy showed her.

And we had such a lovely tree to place the presents under. I was standing in our living room, admiring it, when I heard small footsteps walking down the stairs. I knew it was Riley, we don't let Sophie walk down by herself yet.

"I'm not changing anything, just looking," I said, turning to her with my hands up in defense.

But Riley sighed and kept walking down, seeming quite serious.

"Wanna join me?" I asked, wanting to keep her around to figure out what this was about.

"Umm okay," she said, and came to stand next to me.

I put my arm around her, "We really made this tree beautiful. I'm sure Santa will be impressed, and leave us the greatest presents he has."

Riley sighed again. "Mommy," she looked up at me, "we need to talk."

"Okay…" I said, worried, "Is there something wrong, Cub?"

"Would you please sit on the couch?" she asked, nodding toward our big couch, the one in the middle of our living room.

"Yeah…" I said, nodding, and went to the couch.

Riley went to the fridge and got out a small bottle of low-sugar grape juice, the one my friends say I'm addicted to, but that is so not true. She put the bottle on the table in front of me, sat on the couch next to me, and took my hands in hers (well, as much as she could, her hands are way too tiny for that). She then took a long breath. "Mommy, this might be hard, so please try to be calm. I will answer every question you have," she said, very serious.

I was still worried, but a small snicker almost escaped. I could totally see both Leonard and myself there, starting a serious conversation, just in the tiny little form of our adorable little angel. But I managed to suppress it. "I will," I said.

"There's something I've been suspicious about for a long time. I've tried to carry on and forget about it, but I couldn't. I had more and more doubts and questions, that I could not ignore. Daddy says doubts and questions are the fuel of scientific investigation," she said, nodding at her last sentence.

"Uhuh…" I nodded.

"Mommy," she took a breath, "I'm afraid Santa isn't real." She paused, looking at me sympathetically with her big green eyes, waiting for me to respond.

"Oh," I played surprised.

"It just doesn't add up. There are so many Christian kids around the world, and I don't think there are too many naughty kids. I don't know any. In order to give everybody their presents on time, Santa would have to move at an unbelievable speed. Even if he was a superhuman, which Daddy says are not real, regular people would not see him at such speed so no one would know about him. And if there were lots of Santas, enough to move at a normal speed, then there would be so many Santas that people would notice there are lots of Santas and tell everybody, and also planes couldn't fly on Christmas Eve and I did the checking," she nodded, "there were and there will be flights on Christmas Eve. And also if there were reindeers who could fly around the world so fast and carry on a sleigh with such a ginormous amount of presents then they wouldn't look like the reindeers we know. You know why?"

"Why?" I asked, 'innocently'.

"Because of evolution, Mommy. They would change and have traits that allow them to do their jobs much better. They would have traits that are better for flying very very extremely fast in the sky and carry so so much weight. So they wouldn't look like the reindeers we know. Maybe more like birds or planes."

"Oh, I see," I said, pressing my lips to avoid laughing.

"Yeah…" she said, nodding, at her most sympathetic, "I'm sorry…" She then took the juice bottle, "would you like some grape juice?"

Damn, the kid knows how to comfort. "Sure," I said, and took it from her. I took a sip, and then asked, "Wait, so what about the presents we get every year? Where did they come from?"

"I think it's Daddy," she whispered. "When I told him about Santa he agreed with me, and then when I said I'm not sure where the presents come from, he said they were from people who love us very very much. I think he meant him because he always says he loves us so so very very much."

"Ohhh," I fake realizing, "I think you're right."

So that's why he was being weird all morning. Leonard cannot keep things from me for too long, and he knows it, so he was 'busy formatting a paper' for hours.

"Are you gonna be fine, Mommy?" Riley asked.

I wanted to hug her as hard as I could, but I had to keep up the act. "Yeah," I nodded, "Yeah, I think I will," I smiled.

Riley smiled back, relieved.

"But, there's one thing that bothers me," I said.

"What is it?"

"I understand that Santa can't be real, but, I do like getting Christmas presents. Waking up in the morning, walking down the stairs, finding all the neatly wrapped boxes… I wouldn't like to give that up."

"Oh," Riley realized, and then had her thinking frown on, the one that's identical to Leonard's. After a moment, she seemed to have figured out something, "Well, what if we keep getting presents?"

"I'd sure like that."

"Maybe we can all give each other presents, and we would say they're from Santa, but that will just be our code word for us giving each other Christmas presents," she suggested.

I pretended to think it over, and then slowly nodded, "Yeah, I think I can do that."

"Good," Riley smiled a big smile.

"Good," I smiled back, and gave her a high-five.

A/N: Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

[If any Corollary readers wondered about Max, he wasn't born (nor concieved) yet ;)]