Rachel couldn't believe the snow outside. It was positively blustering. The tree was put up and the decorations were hung. It was something out of a movie, actually, she thought. She'd never really been somewhere long enough to have decorations and a tree for real, but here they were, all the accoutrement of Christmas, seemingly just for her, Ravit, Kathleen, and Tex.
Kathleen had done it sometime in the middle of the night one night. One moment, it was just their normal house, and the next it was a Christmas wonderland. There were enough presents around the tree to make her curious about who all was coming to Christmas, because surely this could not be for only the four of them. That seemed insanely lavish and she had yet to put the presents that she got everyone out yet.
As the day rolled along, she had yet to see Tex and there was something important she had to tell him. She asked Kathleen and Ravit and they had not seen him. They didn't seem too worried about that fact either. In fact, they said he was probably out present shopping or present building in some way or another.
As day became night, she began to get worried about Tex. Where could he possibly be? And what kind of presents took this long to procure? She sighed. It was probably something ridiculous and they would just have to be surprised. Tex was always doing things like this. She smiled to herself. Her Tex. He was some kind of something.
Well, if he wasn't going to be here to receive her message the normal way, she thought, it could be a Christmas gift too. And she went to work, making it so. A small box, some gift wrap, and a little ribbon would do the trick.
When Tex finally arrived, it looked like he'd been walking in the snow for hours, with a positively red nose and warming up his fingers with his breath as he came inside. "Where have you been?" Rachel asked him.
"Just getting some presents," He said as he kissed her, letting all the bluster of outside onto her. She shivered.
Kathleen came down and hugged her dad. "You've been gone forever. We were about to start Christmas gifts without you,"
"Oh come on now, you can't start Christmas Gifts without your dad, you know that, kiddo," He said as he ruffled her hair.
Rachel rolled her eyes at the exchange. It wasn't like they would really start without him, but he didn't need to know that. "Come on, let's get your gifts inside, and get you warmed up before we start opening our one present," She looked to Kathleen. "It's not Christmas yet, it's only Christmas eve. One present. Rules are rules. Go get Ravit and Ray, since he's been here all day. And I know some of those presents are for him too."
"When did we get such a full house?" Tex asked her with a laugh.
The reality was, they were always going to have a big house. They had family now. Neither of them had been used to that, but now, it was just how it was. Ravit never wanted her own house. She was a foreigner living in a foreign land. Maybe eventually she would go back home, but for now, she was comfortable where she was, being family. Ray, he was Kathleen's boyfriend and a good sailor, taking him in for the holidays because he had no family, it was easy. They would have others come and go, like Wolf, Val, Tom and Sasha on occasion, and even the entire Green family came to stay once or twice. It was always a house bustling with people. From two loners who simply opened the doors.
Rachel shrugged at the question. "So where were you all day?" She asked him. "I missed you."
The great Rachel Scott admitting that she missed someone. In the past, this would have been shocking, but now it was just endearing to hear. Tex had never had to answer to someone before. He was glad the person he was answering to now, it was Rachel.
"That's a surprise," He said. "Let's go into the living room. There's a fire. There's presents. And I can get the kids to help me with the presents from outside."
He settled Rachel into her place in the living room, a cup of hot chocolate to boot, and took Ray and Kathleen outside. She wondered why he was being so sneaky about what presents he had brought and why it took him so long, on Christmas Eve of all days. But that was just who Tex was sometimes. Mysterious. And she couldn't shake that from him, so she just let whatever was going to happen, happen. There was no denying that life with Tex was always interesting.
The kids came in, arms filled to the brim with brightly colored boxes all tied with ribbon. They put them by the tree. And Rachel scooped up her present to Tex, because this is the one he would be opening. He wasn't really getting any choice in the matter.
"Your dad's truck must have been full," Rachel said to Kathleen, who just nodded as she waddled over to the Christmas tree. She and Ray put heaps of presents down and she wondered who all of this was for. Tex surely knew that they were supposed to be keeping it lowkey this Christmas. This was turning out to be anything but lowkey.
The kids wandered out into the cold again to get yet more presents and Rachel couldn't believe it. They really must be having the whole crew over here if this was going to be the Christmas that they had.
Rachel got up from her seat and went to the door, looking at the kids unpacking the back of the truck, but mysteriously Tex was in the cab of the truck. When he looked up and saw her, he poked his head down again, as if he didn't want her to see what was going on in the cab of the truck. Something shifty was going on out there, but there weren't any hints from the kids who just told her that she would love it.
"Come on, Dad said we can start opening our presents," Kathleen said as she pulled Rachel back to her seat.
"I don't want to do anything till your dad's inside," Rachel said.
"It's going to ruin the surprise," Kathleen told her.
Rachel nodded. "Well, that does sometimes happen." She said. "I'd still rather that your dad be inside for this memory, than outside futzing with something in the cab of his truck," She said, trying to get back up. But Kathleen pushed her back down and went to go get her dad, something Rachel was grateful for. It didn't take a lot of convincing to make Kathleen see the light of a good argument.
Kathleen came back in and Tex was right behind her.
With a puppy.
A puppy.
"What is this?" Rachel asked as she got up and immediately started petting the dog.
Tex handed the dog over to her. And she saw a bow on the dog, with a box of stuff in Kathleen's hands that was all you needed to take care of a puppy. "Well, I thought," He said, before he could get another word in she kissed him. "I thought you've been wanting little feet to run around here, and well, I can't make everything work, but I can make this happen."
She pulled him over to her seat and smiled. "You're so crazy," She said, still looking at the puppy. It was a tiny little golden puppy, happy to be in her arms. It was going to grow into something massive, not a bad problem to have when you lived after the apocalypse. "Where did you even get this thing?"
He shrugged. "Now that is part of the Christmas Magic. We don't tell where we got our gifts," He said, putting a finger up to his lips. "Besides, you're clearly enjoying it. Just enjoy it."
She sat down and put the puppy delicately in her lap, where it took some time to rearrange, but slept cooly on her lap. Tex found a seat next to her and they let Ravit, Ray, and Kathleen all open up one gift. Tex seemed content just to watch them tear into paper. For Ray, there was a brand new set of art supplies, so he could start working on his art again, courtesy of Tex. For Ravit, there was a brand new set of kitchen knives so she could find a way to hone her knife skills for something creative, courtesy of Kathleen. And for Kathleen, there was a scrapbook of memories that she had thought she had lost during the plague.
"So what'd you get me?" Tex asked Rachel.
Rachel nodded. "I do actually have something for you." She said as she handed him the tiny box from her other side. She made sure the puppy was sleeping soundly before giving it over. "It's not as big as puppy, but I think you'll like it a lot more,"
He looked at the present. It was indeed not as big as the puppy. The puppy was a big present that he'd gotten her because of a need that they currently couldn't fill. But this was a small box that didn't rattle very well. In fact, it didn't seem like it really had anything in it based on the weight of the thing.
"You're not tricking me right?" He asked.
She shook her head. "There are no tricks for Christmas,"
He looked her in the eyes and she said it again. He looked at the little box one more time and decided to just give in. "Alright," He said as he went to open the box carefully. The others were having a gleeful time, but he was just interested in what was in this tiny box.
He undid the ribbon and tore at the paper carefully. It was a box that had a top on it, which he opened, to reveal pictures. But not just any pictures. Sonograms. "Are Danny and Kara pregnant again?" He asked as he looked at the pictures.
"Look a little closer," She said as she gave him his reading glasses. "You might want these,"
He took the glasses and put them on and looked at the pictures again, now with better vision. Up at the top of the sonograms, he saw patient information: R. Scott. He looked up to her with a look of awe on his face.
She nodded.
He scooped her up and smiled. "I'm going to be a dad again," He said proudly to everyone in the room. "We're pregnant." He said. "But I thought you couldn't…"
She shrugged. "Christmas miracle." Was all she could get out.
"Danny and Kara are going to be so excited to not be the only parents in the Nathan James crew." Kathleen said to Ray, but loud enough for her parents to hear.
Tex looked at Rachel. "Are you scared?"
"To have a baby with you?" Rachel asked and shook her head. "Best thing I could imagine for Christmas."