This chapter is kind of grim! Rated M, I guess, but not for fun reasons. Thanks for your wonderful feedback.

"All right, witch. Your turn. How was Christmas so terrible in the wealthy, privileged world of Chastity Claire Babcock?"

CC's fingers slowed their stroking in his hair, and she turned her head to gaze into the waxing fire.

"The earliest Christmas I remember was the year I was five," CC began. "At some point, one of my mother's friends had given me a bunny as a pet, and my mother promptly forgot about it. I don't think any of our servants knew that I had a rabbit in my room, so no one helped me to feed it or take care of it. And I was five. It died on Christmas Eve, probably from starvation, and I was terrified that my mother would find out. I tried to hide it – I think I put it behind a sofa in the parlor or something, thinking that if I hid it far away from my bedroom, no one would think that I was responsible for it."

Niles felt his blood begin to run cold and a sense of terrible foreboding began to bloom in his chest. He pulled CC closer, as though he could absorb her into his body.

"The next morning, my brother and sister and my cousin Gigi and I ran down the stairs to see if Santa had come during the night. There were presents stacked high under the tree, and we started to separate them into piles for each child." CC swallowed hard.

"But when we had finished sorting, there was only one present in my pile, about the size of a shoebox."

Niles clasped his wife to his chest and felt his eyes filling with tears. "Oh, no, CC, no."

"It was so strange to see that one box compared to my siblings' huge piles of gifts that they all stopped to watch me open it. You can…" CC cleared her throat against the rise of tears she thought she'd already shed for this memory. "You can imagine how we reacted when I opened the box. I think DD was crying even harder than I was, and Noel actually threw up. My mother made me take the box into the backyard and bury the bunny, right then and there. I think-" she pressed her damp face into Niles' sweater and snuffled hard. "I think she was trying to teach us a lesson, but I can't for the life of me imagine what it was."

Niles was utterly silent, tears pouring down his cheeks. After a trauma like that, she should have grown up to be a serial killer, he thought. No one would have blamed her for turning into a psychopath, and instead she's learned how to be loving and intimate and- Niles' train of thought was cut off at the feel of CC's fingers wiping the tears from his face.

"Oh, Niles, don't cry," CC soothed, kissing his eyes and his streaked cheeks. "It wasn't dead bunnies in shoeboxes every year. Some years were actually pretty normal."

Niles gritted his teeth without opening his eyes. "CC, I am going to kill your mother. And your father, for letting her do that to you."

"Don't, Niles, please. It's done. Just help me give our daughter the Christmases we never had, okay?"

"Okay." Niles released a shaky breath and opened his eyes, releasing another small flood of anguished tears. "Okay."

"And also, you know…"

"What is it, darling?"

"Concede that I win the bet."

Niles barked out a noise that was not quite a laugh. "God, yes, CC. You win. There's no contest. You had the Christmases that nightmares are made of."

"So I get to pull the prank on the Sheffields?" CC's warm palms cupped his face as she continued to wipe the tears from his eyes with her thumbs.

"Yes, darling, the prank is all yours."

Niles bent his head forward so that his forehead touched his wife's.

"CC, I'm going to make it up to you," he whispered. "Your horrible Christmases – I'm going to make them up to you."

CC leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips. "You make it up to me every day, Niles."

Niles eased his arms beneath CC, scooping her up and setting her down on his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, their foreheads still resting against each other.

"I love you, CC," whispered Niles in a hush, stroking his hands up and down her back.

"I know, baby. And I love you," she responded. They sat quietly for a few long minutes, holding each other.

As the fire sputtered out, CC murmured to Niles, "I'm going to make up for your missed Christmases, too."

Niles eased CC from his lap and stood to unplug the lights on their tree. He held out his hand, and CC twined her fingers with his as she stood.

"The only Christmas presents I'm ever going to need are you and our little girl," said Niles, following CC up the stairs.

"Well," he amended, "You, our little girl, and that prank we're going to pull on the Sheffields."

"The prank I'm going to pull," corrected CC, "and you're right. It's going to be epic."