All the other fics are pretty cute and sweet, and then there's this one. Harlock helps a little. I tried not to make it too similar to Enough for Eight, but some parts overlap a little.

This one was for Emerarudasu, who requested: "Monono has a breakdown while cooking Christmas dinner and Dadlock has to hold him and tell him everything's going to be ok."

"Tell us about Christmas dinner again, big brother."

"Tell us about how it was warm."

"Tell us about how it felt when you were full."

He took a slow breath in and out, watching what little warmth he had left escaping in a puff of white air. Three shivering forms snuggled as close as they could to him, trying to all warm up against each other. In the beginning, there had been seven of the small voices calling to him. They hadn't needed to ask what it was like to eat. They'd still remembered then.

Now their voices cracked every time they tried to talk. Sometimes they didn't have the strength to. They rarely moved from the bed, because their joints ached too much from the cold, and their fingers and toes were numb to anything. Their cheeks had sunken in, their eyes framed by dark circles. Tadashi was almost afraid to touch them sometimes, because they felt so fragile, like they'd fall apart in his hands.

"There's a ham," he whispered, his voice raw from the frozen outside air. "It's cooked to a beautiful golden brown color on the outside, covered in baked honey and sugar. It's so sweet and chewy, and it's warm in your stomach. Then there's a cake, and Mom makes the best one you've ever seen. It's a rum cake, she says, but she baked all the rum out. And then Dad says how he can fix that, and takes out a bottle. Mom hits him, but she's smiling, and Dad laughs."

"What did they look like?" the smallest one asked, curled up in his lap. Her voice was heavy with sleep, and she could barely keep her eyes open, but she always needed a story to help her fall asleep.

"Mom and Dad?" He chewed his cracked lip for a moment as she hummed a confirmation. They hadn't been gone that long. Did she really not remember? "Dad was really strong, but he didn't have a lot of muscle. His eyes were always shining. Mom was beautiful. Her hair was dark red, and she always painted her nails the same color. She had the prettiest smile. You smile just like her."

"Really?" his little girl smiled softly.

"Yeah." He hugged her close. "And next year, I'll teach you how to make a cake just like her, and we'll have presents, lots of presents. We'll keep the fire going, so it'll be warm all day. We'll have so much firewood, and we'll have so much food that you'll be sick of it. There'll be ham and potatoes and butter and casserole and cake and…"

He must have fallen asleep then. He couldn't remember. He just remembered that he woke up, and she didn't. That was a long time ago. Now he had exactly what he'd promised. The cake was in the oven, and he was slicing the ham. There was so much food, more than they could ever finish in one sitting. The Arcadia had so much food.

Sometimes it made him want to yell and scream at his captain until his voice went out, but he never did. It wasn't Harlock's fault his family hadn't been able to afford a meal. It was good that the crew never had to go hungry. It was good that they could feel full. But sometimes he imagined his brothers and sisters sitting at the dining table with him or running around the halls with Rebi. Harlock probably would never have taken them all in, but the idea of them being healthy, of being alive…

He didn't notice at first when he sliced through the pad of his finger with the knife. Luckily he didn't get any blood on the food and quickly went to wash it off before grabbing a bandage from his drawer full of them. He was particularly adept at cutting his hands up, so he always kept plenty around.

He'd been distracted all day, feeling distant. He'd lose himself in the past no matter how many times he told himself to stop. It was always that same memory of that same day one year before. It was their last Christmas, a day that should have been nothing but happiness and warmth and love. He hadn't been able to even scrape together a damn meal, let alone get them presents. He'd tried to get firewood, at least one thing for them. But even that had been out of his reach. Why would God even make a desert planet so cold anyway?

The oven must have been going off for a few seconds before he noticed it. He'd zoned out, staring at the wall again. He turned and pulled open the oven, the sweetened smell hitting him in the face. It made him sick – rum cake. It was the only recipe he knew well enough, and Rebi had begged for a cake. He couldn't have said no.

Maybe he was a little bit too out of it, but where he hadn't felt the pain of cutting his finger open, he felt the sudden sting of heat as the pan ate into his hands.

Automatically, it fell from his grasp, hitting the oven door before crashing to the floor. He fell back, slamming against the cabinets. Then he sank to the floor and just sat there for a while. Everyone would come in soon, saying how they were starving and he'd taken too long. He just sat on the cool floor with the oven still open and heat pouring down onto him. At least he was warm. At least he had food.

At least they were all dead, so they didn't have to feel pain anymore. At least they were all together, so they weren't alone. And he had Rebi and the captain and Mr. Tochiro and the doctor, so he wasn't alone. But it just wasn't the same. He wanted them back. He wanted his little brothers and sisters and his parents. He wanted to cook them dinner, sit at a table with them.

Despite the pain, he put his hands under his knees and around his thighs to draw his legs in. He just couldn't do it anymore. He couldn't fake his way through this day. It felt like a punishment to be alive, because he hadn't taken care of them like he'd promised, because he'd made lie after lie. He had trouble remembering what they looked like when they were happy because all he could see when he tried to think of them were their faces when they were dead, frozen and pale. He tried so hard to remember what his smallest sister's smile looked like, but he just couldn't do it. Her face could only be stiff and expressionless, hollow from malnourishment.

His sobs filled the room as he hugged his knees and cried against them. His head and hands were aching, and the room felt so hot that he was getting even more nauseous. Why couldn't he have been allowed to just be happy with them? He would have traded anything for that. There was nothing Arcadia could give him that was a match for his family.

The oven screeched on its hinges as it closed. He hadn't heard anyone come in, but they were turning it off for him. Horrified, he tried to slow his whimpers and tears, but there was no point in trying. He probably looked so stupid. On a ship full of pirates, and he couldn't even manage to man up.

The next thing he knew, there were arms around him. Even though they didn't speak, it wasn't hard to tell who it was as they pulled him into their lap and held him to their chest. It only made him cry more to be shown affection or pity or whatever this was. He was supposed to seem strong and capable in front of his captain. No one was allowed to see him breakdown like this, but especially not Harlock.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed against the man's chest. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"You don't have to apologize," the captain murmured. "You can cry if you need to. I've got you." He wanted to tell the boy it was alright, but he just didn't know if that was true. So he held his cook until his sobs slowed enough that he didn't have to take sharp breaths between them.

Tadashi just leaned against his captain, hiccupping. He was simply exhausted. "Do you want to talk?" Harlock asked softly.

"No."

"Alright." The captain ruffled his hair and gave him an affectionate squeeze. "I know I'm not always the easiest person to talk to, but I want you to know that you can always come to me if you need anything."

"It's nothing. I'm fine." He started to pull away, but his captain tugged him closer.

"No, you're not, and you don't have to pretend to be."

Tadashi couldn't bring himself to respond. He wanted to hug his captain, but his hands were stinging horribly. Honestly, everything was starting to feel fine, because Harlock was close and keeping those horrible thoughts away.

"Sometimes," the cook began at length, "I hate cooking for you, because you get to eat, and they didn't. And sometimes I hate eating at all."

"The past can be ugly," Harlock frowned. "The past can eat at you until there's nothing left but those memories swirling through your head. You deserve to be angry, because you deserved so much better. All of you did. Sometimes I think assigning you to the position of cook was the most sadistic thing I could have done, but you're so amazing, and you're so strong.

"Not really. I just try to make it look that way."

"Me too," the captain smiled sadly. "Dinner looks great, you know."

"I hate it," Tadashi hissed.

"I'm sure you do, but we can't let it be wasted, and you know how excited Rebi is for a Christmas feast, Tochiro too."

"They were excited too," the cook sighed. "They got so excited for Christmas, but all we could do was talk about what it might have been like if we'd had the means to be happy."

"But there were times when you were happy and times when you're going to be happy again."

"Not them though, not even at the very end. There was nothing I could do to make them happy."

"If I were dying," Harlock murmured, resting his chin in the boy's hair, "I wouldn't be worried about my own happiness. I would only want for you and everyone else to be happy. I would never want for you to cry over me, because you've cried enough, and I'm just not worth the tears. I think you should remember people for their life and not grieve over their death, because that's not what they would have wanted."

"But Captain," Tadashi's throat went dry, "I think I'm forgetting."

Harlock pulled back to look the boy in the eye. "No you're not," he smiled. "You're just thinking too much about the wrong things. Sometimes the bad memories try to overpower the good ones, but they're still there. And if they weren't, then you'd just have to make new ones."

"Yeah," Tadashi sighed tiredly. "Okay. Alright. I hope you like dinner." He glanced over to the cake, which had survived its fall by landing upright in the pan.

The captain smiled as he stood, the boy still in his arms. "Then let's get your hands wrapped up so we can all have it together."

"Sort of like a family, huh? A weird family."

"Of course. You're going to have a good Christmas, Tadashi. I'll make sure, because you deserve one."

In order to make up for this one, the next one is a huge dumb crack fic.