A/N: Chapter 4! I got it done as fast as I could. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Yu-Gi-Oh GX nor the song with which this story shares a title.

Chapter 4

Zane POV

Jesse set up a visit for Aster and I to the Domino City Orphanage on Christmas Eve. He had called the director of the funeral and she thought it would be a great present for the kids to have us come.

We entered the building and went to the front office. We were greeted immediately by the woman who was in charge of the orphanage.

"Zane, Aster, thank you so much for coming. The kids are going to love it. They are all in the activity room watching rudolph with Jeremy and Helen." They were two people who worked here.

"We really don't mind at all, Lana. They are a bunch of great kids." Aster did the talking as I had never met this woman before.

"They have no idea you two are here. They are going to love the surprise. Well the movie should be over soon." We followed Lana to the activity room. "Wait here for a minute." She walked in leaving the door open. We kept an ear out for the right time to come in. I heard that, sure enough, the movie was coming to an end.

"Hey kids." They greeted her. "Remember those visitors that we told you might be coming if you all were good?"

The kids got really excited asking so many questions about who it could be. Lana quieted them before she continued. "Be on your best behavior for our guests. They're just outside."

That was our cue. The two of walked inside and the kids immediately cheered. They ran up to us and started saying things but they were all talking at once so it was really hard to make out what any one child was saying. There were only twelve children in the orphanage at this time. There were never too many children. The foster system was incredible and not many children stay here long before some nice family comes to adopt them. The oldest was this little boy currently talking Aster's ear off and he was no older than eleven. The youngest was a girl who was about three. I saw her sitting with Jeremy obviously very shy around new people.

"Hey, Dylan, Julie, Phillipa." The three children he'd named were obviously surprised that Aster had remembered them. He only recognized three? Does that mean that nine of these children were new to the orphanage?

We got the kids to finally calm down and sit on the floor. Then we got to answer the questions of the little kids. "Introduce yourselves and then ask your questions."

The children all raised their hands at once. Lana called on a small girl in the front. "My name is Molly and I am four. How old are you?"

I smiled at the cute question. Aster answered first. "I am twenty-one."

"And I am twenty-five."

"Wow," more than one of them answered. I guess to a bunch of children people in their twenties did seem old.

We answered some more questions. Marcus asked if we had any siblings and his twin Max asked if we had any good friends. We told them about our friends and when we told them we were friends with Jaden Yuki, some of the children who followed pro dueling, which was most of them actually, got incredibly excited. They asked us all sorts of questions about him and some of them asked if we were only making that up to trick us.

We answered more questions from the children before one that we didn't know how to answer came up.

It was from that boy who Aster recognized. He was the oldest child here. "Aster, last time you were here you told us about Zane. Are the two of you best friends?"

Neither of us wanted to answer mostly because we didn't know how. Did we say yes to avoid an awkward conversation? Did we say no and resort ourselves to explaining a homosexual relationship to a bunch of children. We glanced at each other neither knowing what to say. Thankfully, Lana stepped in and saved us.

"That's enough of the questions, I think it's time for Christmas Eve dinner." The children were upset that they wouldn't get an answer, but they soon got over it and headed to the dining room for dinner. Holidays were a few of the special days of the year where they got a very nice meal. The orphanage wasn't in debt by any means, but they certainly couldn't afford to feed them food this nice every day of the year.

We all started to move that way and I caught a glance of Jeremy coaxing that little girl from earlier out of the room. He was having a slightly hard time. I went over to her and knelt in front of her. "Hey there, what is your name?"

She pushed herself into Jeremy's side avoiding the question. "It's okay. Tell Zane your name. He won't bite I promise."

She relaxed a little bit and glanced up at me. She whispered, "Josephine." It was barely audible but at least she finally spoke.

"Well, Josephine, what's say we got get some dinner? You wouldn't want to miss out on that would you." She shook her head slightly. "Well come on then." I smiled at her. "A cute girl like you shouldn't hide in here while the rest of the kids have all the fun." I stood up and offered my hand to her. Slowly she separated herself from Jeremy and put her hand in mine. Jeremy and I took her to the dining room and set her in a seat next the other children. Aster was helping get the children their food and I talked to Jeremy.

"Why is she so shy?"

Jeremy got a sad look on his face. "She didn't come from a great home. Her parents were drug addicts and they yelled at each other all through the night. The neighbors reported noise and domestic violence multiple times but nothing ever changed. People came and went from the house and did God knows what there.

"One night, after multiple nights in a row of yelling, the house was silent which was more off putting to the neighbors than the noise. Two of the neighbors went to check on them in the morning having not heard any noise for a while. They found her parents dead on the floor having overdosed on whatever they had taken. They called the police and reported it. The police searched the house for anything illicit and found her hiding in a closet.

"We think her parents went crazy when they overdosed and she hid from them until they seemed sober again, but when she never heard from them again, she just stayed in the closet. The police took her to social services but they sent her here instead of putting her in the foster care system. They thought she should be around more children before sending her to a new family. She came her and when we tried to talk to her, she only told us her name."

Children should not be subject to a life like that. "Is that why she doesn't like new people."

He nodded. "So many people came and went from her house that strangers were only ever violent adults. She's wary of new people and stays with either me or Helen when adults come to see the children. I'm afraid that if she doesn't open up, she'll never find a good home because we don't know enough about her to match her with one."

"She seems like she'd be such a sweet girl. I hope she can get a good home soon."

"Us too. The other children are nice to her so we think she's making progress. I don't think she's used to having people be nice to her."

I found myself hoping that maybe I could be the one to adopt her. I was surprised by that thought. I had never once thought about anything like that. I glanced at Aster who was smiling while the kids ate and he talked to them. Would Aster ever want a child? I had no idea. He doesn't seem like the child type. Well, then again, neither did I. Were the two of us fit to raise a child? Maybe someday. But I didn't know. The time we've spent with these children has been nothing short of fantastic.

We left the orphanage around 8:00 for the children's bed time. We left small gifts for each of them for their stockings. Driving back to our apartment I'm sure both of us were thinking about the children and how, despite their situation, they have incredible attitudes. And maybe Aster was thinking about how a child would be a great addition to our lives.

I know I was.

The next morning, we slept in. I slowly woke and opened my eyes to see Aster sleeping against my chest. My arms was around his waist like it was most nights. I smiled and brought that hand up to his head and brushed his hair away from his face. That was enough to wake him up. He didn't open his eyes but he drew a big breath in.

"Merry Christmas."

I smiled keeping my hand on his face. "Merry Christmas."

We stayed in bed for a while while we woke up. We had no pressing things to attend to until that night. And even then all we were going to do was go to a Christmas party at Jaden and Jesse's apartment. Jaden went all out for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and we all agreed that their home was the go to home for holiday parties.

Around 11:00 we made our way out of the bedroom. We had our breakfast and then we sat on the couch together after we had grabbed our gifts to each other from wherever we hid them.

"You open yours first." Aster pushed the wrapped box towards me.

"Okay, okay." I started to peel back the wrapping paper, but I went painstakingly slow just to annoy him. It worked.

"Zane. Just open the box." I laughed at his expense and just tore the paper off.

I had no words for what was inside. It was a black picture frame. And the photo was of Aster and me about four months ago. It was my favorite picture of us that I had. Neither of us even knew that it was being taken but that made it so much better.

It was of the two of us on a hill overlooking the city. Hassleberry wanted to take us all on a hike, but I think he just wanted to do his archaeology things in the company of friends. We had gotten to the end and everyone was catching their breath and drinking water. Aster had gone over to the precipice of where we were standing and looking out as the sun started to set. I had gone over to him and I put my arms around his waist and he put his arms around my neck and we put put our foreheads together. I looked at him and he looked at me and we just stayed like that and someone, I think it was Atticus, took a picture.

I looked at it now and I saw that the way we were looking at each other was a comforting sight. It was one of trust, one of understanding.

It was the look of two people in love.

And around the picture was a white border on which Aster had hand written: After five years with the best person in my life, I can't wait for the rest of our life together. I love you.

At this point I hadn't said anything. Aster had started to get anxious. "I'm sorry if you don't like it, but I couldn't think of anything else to get you. I figured anything material you wanted, you would just buy yourself so-"

I cut him off with a kiss. It wasn't slow or passionate, more need based like I wanted to remind myself that he was still there he still loved me.

"I love it, Aster. It's the best gift I've gotten for any holiday." He seemed reassured. "Now I just think that my present won't be nearly as good as yours."

He smiled and opened it anyway. I had gotten him tickets to a wine tasting at a vineyard not far from the cabin we were going to for new years. "A wine tasting?"

"Yeah, it's this small vineyard a few miles away from my family cabin. I was thinking we could go out there for New Year's Eve and spend the holiday there." I had only gotten the tickets to the vineyard because his real gift I was saving for midnight of the new year. I thought about the small velvet box sitting in my dresser drawer in our bedroom.

"Thank you." He kissed me again. And when he pulled back, he said, "I love you."

I kissed him again. "I love you too."

Aster stood up and started pulling me towards the bedroom. "Aster, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to show you just how much I love you."

He pulled me into the bedroom and closed the door behind us leaving us alone in the bedroom for whatever Aster had in mind.