A/N: I apologize for not having this up last night, but the site wasn't letting me log on. And then I had to help my cousin with her wedding all morning. It's not letting me upload a new document, but I've just taken an old document and replaced its content with this. Take that, ! Anyway... I also apologize for the shortness, but the whole first bit of this chapter went on for so long that it would've made too much of a super chapter if I'd have kept going. Barring technical difficulties, the rest of the Christmasness will be up tonight.

It's snowing outside when I wake up on December 24th. The flakes fall to the ground outside the hotel, coating the ground with a thin layer of white. Joyously, I pop up from the bed and speed over to the window, barely noticing that Mitchie's not in the bed and Margaret's not in the hotel room. It's not my fault about that; snow just does something to me. I'm really excited for this- like small child excited. Snow has always held good memories for me, probably the only good memories of my childhood, the one and only happy memory I have of my family.

Four years old and running through the trees, the heinous acts of this community cannot yet enter my innocent head. I am bundled up from head to toe in whatever mismatched garb my parents dug up for me. Most of it is Justin's old clothing, things he outgrew two years ago. I'm much tinier than he was at this age.

My hat keeps slipping from my head, frustrating me to no end. But I have to keep it on or my father will yell at me. He doesn't like for me to be in danger, even though there's almost no danger here. However, the cold might get to my ears and cause them to turn red and fall off or something. I wasn't really paying attention to what he said about that.

But the main goal right now is to avoid Justin, who wants to pelt me with a snowball. He's somewhere on the edge of the woods, too; we're not allowed to go in any deeper. I keep hearing him call my name, but that just proves he's silly since I can tell where his voice is coming from. Occasionally he'll throw a snowball at something else like a tree or a squirrel and I'll have to stop myself from giggling too loudly. I'm mostly caught up in the thrill of avoiding him, which will be even better when I sneak up on him with a snowball of my own. I am a lot cleverer than he thinks a four-year-old girl can be.

I think I am getting close to him when all of a sudden the calls stop. I'm suspicious of the silence hanging in the air, whipping around in circles to try and catch his sneak attack. Breathing just a little harder, I start to run. He can't attack me if he can't catch me, right?

Sprinting as quickly as possible, I weave a zigzag route through the trees, all noise becoming muffled by the thick blanket of snow that largely remained untouched. Listening to the sounds of this winter scene makes listening to a symphony seem dull, mostly because of the added acoustics of the snow against the backdrop of the chirping birds, the running rodents, the rustling trees. I'm about to stop and smell the roses but then I remember that Justin's attempting to smack me with his snowball so I keep running.

I don't get very far before I bump in to my tiny toddling brother. Little Max hardly comes up to my waist, but the strong look of determination on his face makes him intimidating enough. In the most adorable of ways, of course.

"Stop right there!" he says in a very serious voice, his lip in a pout. "None shall pass!"

"Max!" I laugh quietly. "Justin's not supposed to find me!"

"I know." We stand quietly in the snow for a moment before his little face turns devilish. "But I don't care!" Without warning, Max flings himself on me with all the force of his tiny two-year-old frame which is enough to catch me off guard and send the two of us flying to the ground. Barely big enough to cover my torso, Max proudly clamps his hands over my wrists as I squirm beneath him.

"Max!" I giggle at him trying to pry his hands off my arms without hurting him. He's so young, so fragile. Mom and Dad always warn me about playing too rough with him. Even though I think it's ridiculous.

"You're not getting away, Alex!" This is the first time that anyone has ever called me Alex.

"My name's Alexandra, Max!" I shriek at him, fighting off the hand he reaches to slap my face.

He looks at me, totally serious, and whines, "But I can't say that!" I take advantage of his confusion to wriggle out from under him and then grab his shoulders.

"I've got you now, Max!"

"Max!" Justin comes running out from the woods, looking all panicked when he spots us. "No, Max!"

"I'm sorry! I tried!" But he doesn't look all that sorry, mostly because I've started to tickle his sides so that he's doubled over with glee right now, hardly attempting to free himself from my clutches.

Justin looks at him oddly, but with a smile. "Put him down, Alexandra! Right now!"

"No way!" I reply with a happy sparkle in my speech.

"I mean it! Now!" The whole tone of the situation changes, his tone becoming frighteningly dire as he speaks.

Still staring at Max so that he doesn't escape, I say in my laughing tone, "Oh, c'mon, Justin. Nothing's going to-"

I am cut off by a swift crack that damages the peace of the woods. Birds fly away, rodents scamper, and the wind howls almost deafeningly through the trees. Against my hand I feel something warm and sticky. Warm and stick and red.

I look up at Justin with tears on my eyes, blurry vision focusing on the gun in his hand aimed at a now limp Max. "How could you...?"

Slow, silent tears drip down my face as I stare into the white abyss now outside the window, swirling and pounding against the glass panes. I feel Mitchie cautiously come up from behind me, reaching her arms around my waist and resting her head on my neck. "What's wrong?"

"Isn't it funny how one fucking thing can taint your entire childhood?" I ask miserably.

She shifts uncomfortably, like she's scared of my reaction to her next question. "I wasn't aware you looked back fondly on your childhood."

I sigh as I almost unconsciously move my hands to cover her own. Her body is slightly damp, indicating a shower. Her wet hair brushes against the back of my pajama shirt. "I had one. Maybe there were more from when I was a baby, but I can't remember those."

"Tell me about this one." Her voice lands feather light on my ears and I feel like I have to go on.

But not before I take a huge, shaky breath. "It was snowing. We were all little- Justin was five, I was four, and Max was only two. And it was just such a normal thing: the three of us running around in the snow, the two of them ganging up on me. Then Max kept flip-flopping sides between me and Justin and the two of us eventually decided to gang up on him. Mom and Dad came in to help Max, and we had a snowball fight. I don't remember what happened after. But I didn't get to relive that whole memory. When Justin and Max were about to pelt me with snowballs, it changed. Justin had a gun and... and he shot Max." My grips tightens around the windowsill and my entire body tenses up, but Mitchie still holds on. "That memory was... it was my whole childhood, Mitchie. N-nothing else was ever that good again. And now it's ruined! It's all fucking ruined!" I kick fiercely at the wall, but Mitchie still won't let go. If anything, she squeezes me tighter.

"The memory is still there. You just have to give yourself some time to find it," Mitchie advises.

"I'm not sure I want to," I mumble bitterly. "I'm not sure if I want to remember Justin as anything worth more than a pile of shit because of what he caused to happen. And my parents... I don't know if I want it back."

She kisses right where my shoulder and my neck join in a sloping curve- gently, softly, tenderly. "Someday, you will. Trust me. Someday you'll want it back. As much as I hate my parents, I will always remember one thing they used to do for me- every Sunday, without fail. That is, until the day I stopped speaking."

"What did they do for you?"

Even though I can't see her face, I can feel her lips curl into a smile against my neck. "Every Sunday, before morning services, my dad would make pancakes in funny shapes. That's it. I just... it felt like they cared so much when the three of us were in there, trying to get the batter in the perfect shape and we'd compete to see who did it the best. That's my childhood; I lived for Sundays."

"How do you not hate them?" I can't believe how calm and happy she's being about this entire thing. I'm still ready to pummel Justin whenever I get the chance to see him, though Tom seems to think it's best we stay separate for now.

"People change, Alex. Some get better, lots get worse. It's not a bad thing to happily remember who they used to be in spite of who they've become," she says.

"You're too damn insightful, you know that?'

She leans over to kiss me on the cheek. "I know."

I take one last look at the snow before allowing her to drag me away from the cold window, back to the warmth.