On Christmas I awoke to the smell of the peppermint conditioner Magnus' had been using in his hair. His lips were latched onto the underside of my jaw, sucking just shy of mark-leaving territory. Not bad at all, as mornings went. I let my boyfriend know I was awake by wrapping my arms around his bare torso. He hummed against my skin.

"Merry Christmas..." I sighed, blissfully ignoring everything I should have been stressing over.

"And to you, Alexander." Magnus pulled back slightly and smiled. His voice was breathy and his eyes were half-lidded. "My Darling."

I hazarded a quick peak at the time, trying to figure out how long we could spend before we'd have to receive guests. I was anticipating enough awkwardness in my day without being caught in an R-rated situation.

I squinted at the glowing red numbers of the clock but I couldn't read them off with my head at a funny angle.

"We've got time." Magnus smirked, put out his hand and twisted the clock out of my view. Somewhere the logical part of my brain realised that probably meant he was lying... However, I wasn't letting that part of my brain drive me at that moment. Magnus' chest was hovering just over my face and I craned my neck up to kiss him there. I heard him chuckle darkly.

Who knows what might have happened if my phone hadn't started to ring.

Before I could sit up to grab it Magnus had my hands pinned down. I rolled my eyes and tried to wriggle out of his grip, but his stare made me freeze in place. He was giving me the kind of promising look which made me want to do whatever he wanted. But the phone was still ringing.

"Call them back." Magnus growled playfully, going in to nibble at my earlobe.

Damn him.

"It's Christmas." I insisted. "It's probably my family."

"Your family who are coming over later." Magnus' fingers were wondering to all kinds of distracting places as the ringing stopped. "Izzy will understand."

I snorted and shoved him back onto his own side of the bed. As if I would ever tell my sister I skipped her call for a reason like that. She would ask for all kinds of details I had no desire to give. That girl had a disturbing level of interest in my love life.

Magnus groaned at me when I sat up to answer. He started muttering all kinds of things about how he'd be having words with my sister. I was half-impressed that he'd guessed the caller would be Isabelle until I saw that she'd tried to call me twice already. I thumped Magnus on the arm for not telling me the device had been ringing while I slept and he gave me a look like a wounded animal.

"Answer your phone!" Izzy snapped at me without so much as a 'Merry Christmas'. I tutted at her.

"I was sleeping." I grumbled, settling back down onto the pillows. "Happy holidays to you too, by the way."

"Sure, sleeping." Isabelle's voice was oozing with scepticism.

"Oh shut up." I told her, not liking her implication. No matter how close it was to the truth.

"Don't snap at me on Christmas!" My sister chided. Which was funny considering she'd snapped at me the second I answered her call. The idea of hypocrisy was evidently wasted on Izzy.

Beside me, Magnus started making chatterbox signals with his hand. I had to stifle a laugh, lest I face further tellings-off from sister-dearest. When he used the same hand to pinch me on the side I jumped to the other end of the bed. Meanwhile Isabelle continued to speak over the noise of what was most likely an avalanche of her shoes. That sort of thing happened all the time back when I lived with her.

"- up since Angel-knows-when. Mother called your landline earlier but Magnus said you were sleeping." Isabelle put extra-disbelieving emphasis on that last word before she carried on speaking a mile a minute. "I totally didn't believe him and I figured if you two were having guy-time he wouldn't remember to tell you when we were heading over. Did he mention it?"

"He did not." I confirmed, glancing over to see my boyfriend avoiding my gaze guiltily.

"We're leaving like right this second." Said Izzy. "So you might want to get your butt in gear."

Then the line went dead. Leave it to her to go for the dramatic hang-up. I stared at my phone dumbly for a second.

I had meant to ask her about Camille; whether or not our Mother knew that she'd be at dinner. That information could definitely have done with some smoothing-over. If only to avoid an unnecessary shock.

No sooner had I started scrolling for my parents' numbers in my phonebook than Magnus was on me again. The distraction was poorly timed, sure, but not completely unwelcome. To tell the truth I really wanted to drop everything and waste all the time we had left.

I groaned and closed my eyes. Worrying was pointless. As far as I knew my Mother had been in contact with Camille in the past, anyway. Considering she hadn't flipped out and banned her from speaking to Isabelle the two of them must have been able to get along, at least. I was more uncertain about my Father. Then again, he would without a doubt be on the lookout for something to make him unhappy. If Camille's presence was taking care of that then at least he wouldn't direct his misery at my Mother.

Things would work themselves out.

"We still have time…" Magnus ventured, shifting the two of us so that I was laying beneath him once again.

"Time for what?" A voice interjected from the doorway. I practically jumped out of my skin seeing Cam stood there, as if she had appeared out of nowhere. I hadn't even heard her opening the door yet there she was, leaning against the frame with an innocent look on her face.

You know. Like she hadn't just walked in without knocking and completely interrupted us.

For all her acting skill the naive look didn't last for long before she completely broke character. Then her grin was absolutely wicked. Not long ago I would have been preparing to hide under the covers and never emerge again. However, this was pretty much my life now. I was all-but accustomed to a life where boundaries weren't so much firm dividers as they were guidelines. Seldom-followed guidelines.

"Camille, don't you think you should have knocked?" Said a cautious voice from around the corner. It must have been Ralf Scott. He was just out of my line of sight but Camille spun on her pointed heel to face him. Like a model at the end of a runway.

"Don't talk nonsense." Camille called back at him in her bell-like voice. "If I were not to enter I would not have a key."

"It's technically an emergency key." I reminded her, beginning to feel less mortified. "Not a 'Hey Cam, we love it when you just randomly wonder in' key."

Camille rolled her eyes and strode over to Magnus, who had gotten up at some point and shrugged on one of his robes. The two of them hugged and for a moment I thought she was going to hug me too, before she realised that I really had no intention of getting out from under the sheets in front of her. I'd done that once in my life; it was not an experience I had any plans to repeat. I waved a hand at her to let her know it was okay not to bother.

"You'll like Alexander." Camille called back over her shoulder at the still-empty doorway. "You can bond over your remarkable dullness."

The words were insulting, but Camille's voice was fond. She was smiling, too. In fact she looked so completely happy that it was impossible to believe she meant a word she said. When Ralf Scott eventually entered, Cam didn't look at him like he was dull. She looked at him as if he was the first rescue plane to approach her desert island. Her smile brightened her whole face in a way I wasn't sure I'd seen before.

"So by dull, you must mean sensible." Said the elder Scott brother. His eyes widened a little when he looked between Magnus and I. I guess he wanted to eat his words, because given that Woolsey was his frame of reference I could only imagine what he thought had been happening.

The sad truth was that it probably wasn't that far off what had been about to happen.

"Okay!" Magnus clapped his hands together and announced. "This bedroom is way past capacity. I suggest we reconvene in the living area!"

"I wouldn't say it's overly full…" Camille drawled, but she did start to stride out of the room all the same. She took hold of Ralf Scott's arm as she left as if he needed any encouragement to get as far away from the scene as possible.

Magnus told Camille to keep herself occupied while we got dressed. It wasn't very hospitable but she wasn't a very good houseguest anyway. By the time we emerged – with Magnus grumbling a lot about his plans being ruined – she was dragging Ralf Scott by the arm through the winter-wonderland that was out apartment. The two of them looked fairly impressed by all the decorations filling every spare space. We probably could have hired a Santa and charged public entry, to be honest.

"Boys, it is beautiful in here." Camille sighed, wondering past the tree with lingering looks over all its trimmings. Chairman Meow darted out of nowhere to rub against her legs, purring happily. She scooped him up and he tried to crawl up onto her shoulder before she got him to settle. "I'm so glad that we aren't spending the holidays apart."

"That would be a heinous tragedy of the highest order." Magnus replied dramatically before grabbing her at her tiny waist and spinning her in the air. The long white skirt she was wearing bellowed out gracefully and she threw her head back laughing. The poor cat ran for his life.

When I looked at the elder Scott brother he didn't look pleased.

"You two have a deeply unhealthy relationship." He frowned.

Magnus and Camille either didn't hear what he said or were ignoring him completely. The two of them started chattering away as if they hadn't seen one another in years. I was used to that, at least. I felt a little bad knowing that Ralf Scott didn't have that luxury. He was Woolsey's brother and he knew about the sort of arrangement Camille and Magnus had had long before I'd even met them, sure. But the difference was that unlike me he hadn't been directly involved until very recently. And their closeness was the sort of thing which seemed incredibly weird until you got your head around it.

"You get used to it." I tried to sound reassuring. "They're a lot like siblings, really."

"Siblings?" Ralf asked, eyes trained suspiciously on the once-couple. "My brother and I aren't... close."

I paused just short of telling him I already knew that. Somehow it didn't seem all that appropriate. Like an idiot, my hand shot out ready to shake his. It seemed weird to have an introduction after having slept in the guy's house once, but I guess it was kind of necessary.

Ralf had a firm grip and seemed oddly serious. Not the kind of person I would have envisioned Camille with at all. That isn't to say that he wasn't a nice enough guy... I think he just felt a little awkward. I could sympathise with that, at least. He followed me into the kitchen area instead of trying to make conversation with Magnus and Cam. He agreed not to call me Alexander on the condition that I stopped addressing him with his surname.

Fair enough.

"You seem very calm, watching the two of them..." Ralf noted with another mildly uncomfortable glance over his shoulder.

He looked nervous, which I guess made a little sense. He hadn't seen Camille the way I had, tearing herself apart over him; worried that she couldn't give him the dedication he needed. Ralf probably thought he was at risk of losing her, knowing her past. I felt pretty bad for Camille, putting in so much effort to change her ways only to be doubted. Was that how I treated Magnus? From a different perspective it seemed unfair to make people jump through hoops like that. On the other hand, I could definitely understand the need for a little more security.

"When my sister gets here you'll totally get it." I shrugged, checking the fridge contents despite the fact that I knew the contents obsessively well by now.

For me it was relatively easy to draw parallels between Magnus and Camille and my relationship with Isabelle. At least, it was now. There were times when my little sister was all up in my space, so to speak, and annoying as she could be I loved her for it. If Ralf didn't have that with Woolsey then I could understand what had him so worried. I remembered feeling that way. I remembered always being prepared for Magnus to stray and break my heart again. Thinking I was out of my mind to trust him yet loving him all the same. It's a scary situation to find yourself in.

"What are you two gossiping about over there?" Magnus called back at the two of us, which was rich when I was sure when I was sure he had been talking about columns in Ebony for at least a half hour.

"Comparing sibling dramas." Ralf shot back, with the air of somebody who really didn't want to continue a conversation.

"Well we can't all be model families." Camille teased. She strode closer but stopped short of actually entering the kitchen. Something told me she wasn't going to be a particularly helpful presence.

As if I didn't know that already.

"If you're part of a model family then I'm terribly concerned about the state of humanity." Ralf smirked at her. Maybe the guy had a sense of humour after all.

Thank you for reading, especially if you've waited a long time for new chapters.

Tonight I'm going to upload the last of this fic, I'm not sure how I feel about it but I can't just keep re-writing it over and over again, going away and coming back to it unsure every time. It's high time we resolved this one, I think. But I honestly cannot thank everybody who stuck with this one enough. I know that I can't possibly please everybody but I hope that you'll like these last few installments. I never anticipated how much this story would grow, it's wild, and everybody who read and reviewed was amazing for making me want to produce something worth reading. Which is probably why I'm super nervous to bring it to a close.

Anyway, I'm waffling. Thank you, again. I hope you enjoy.