"Here we come a-whistling—"

"Wassailing!"

"Way-sailing."

"Ugh!….Among the leaves so green/Here we come a-wand'ring/So far to be seen."

"It's 'fair' to be seen," Skip, ever the professor said from the nest of blankets he'd made on the sofa that sat against the picture window. It'd once been the only sofa, and hadn't truly been meant for lounging on, but the pieces that'd been chosen by Travis's interior decorator had been replaced by more comfortable models by the time Chris had moved in. "'Fair' as in attractive."

"I've heard fairly," Paddy said. "I'm fairly sure."

"Not fair they're the ones being seen," Sergio grumbled. "I love caroling. I can do so in three languages. All the verses."

Chris moved back from the front window and gave him a patented Crystal Palais glare. Even au natural it made the Chicano man cower. "I love that you only have boring old bacterial pneumonia. Don't be a grinch."

"Meri's already got one of those to deal with," Dustin called from the kitchen.

"Gio's being a diva," Nick said. "It's not enough to make you all panic thinking we both have pneumocystis, she wants to be the Patient Zero of another round of goddamn Legionnaire's Disease."

"Patient Zero was marketing spin," Professor Skip reminded them all.

"You don't remember Legionaire's Disease." Sergio scowled at Nick. "You were a fetus."

Chris scoffed. Sergio was all of five years younger than the kid in the La-Z-Boy, and it made him a fetus, Nick an embryo, and the two carolers barely even twinkles in the eye. Pure potential.

"Not in '76!"

"Shh!" Chris waved them all off and went to the windows by the door to watch the approaching kiddos dragging Willie's Radio Flyer wagon down the sidewalk. Willie lived two houses down; Chris had babysat for him, presumably what led to then being phoned by Ellis Grey. That hadn't lasted. Ask the witch about the skeletons in the closet, and you're going to get banished. But Chris had worked with kids for too long to simply disappear on a little girl who'd been more afraid of talking about her bad dream than the dream itself.

"We are NOT daily beggars/That beg from door to door;/But we are neighbors' children,/Whom you have seen BEFOOORE!"

Dustin clicked his tongue. "Her mama's no Grinch. That broad's a Scrooge through and through. 'Course, I'm not sure those ghosts would faze her. She'd say 'boo' back."

"That's the truth," Chris said. "My guess is that she grew up pretty average, just more ambitious than the other girls on the street. Christmas Past wouldn't pull a punch. Christmas Future would show her Meredith working through Christmas Day while she's trying to chop up gingerbread men at the old folks home. She's clear on the damage she's doing; she just doesn't know how to fix it."

"Stop working socially." Skip grunted. "I don't wanna empathize with that bitch."

"Don't," Sergio advised. "Spending more time with the chicky would not be hard as she pretends. Nor would listening to her once in a while."

"She's a funny thing," Skip smiled. "Listen to that."

"Peace and joy come to you!/And Happy Hanukkah, too/ No matter what you dowe hope you/have some holiday cheer/followed by a happy new year!"

The shout-singing ended with banging on their door. "Pa rum pum pum pum," Chris sang, opening it. "Meri Berry, did you take God out of that song yourself?"

"Obviously," the girl said. "I'd've re-done the whole wassail thing, caroling would fit, but I didn't have enough time."

Chris laughed. For days after the ACT-UP had staged their protest against the Catholic Church's refusal to support safe-sex education, Meredith had been distressed about how many people weren't distressed. Other chapters had protested in their own way, and to show her that protest could also be irreverent, Chris had shared the letter from a friend in the Los Angeles leadership. Initially, she'd been interested only because she thought a makeup artist might have ideas about "making people look more dead," but her reaction to the attached copy of The Altered Boys X-Mass Songbook made Chris glad he'd waited until school let out to share it with her. If she'd dropped a pencil during her math exam to signal her whole sixth grade class to sing "Rubber the Red-Tipped Condom" in rounds, it wouldn't have taken much deduction for Dr. Grey to figure out where she'd had picked up

"You did a nice job. I appreciate the good wishes. We've got some sick sisters."

"You're all sick, Aunt Chrissy."

Nick's laugh became a cough. Sergio shrugged. "Chicky never met a truth she didn't tell."

Chris ignored them. "Willie, you need help with that?"

"I got it!" the boy called as a series of thumps drew all attention to the door. The Red Flyer wagon was full of full of brown paper bags. Meri stood in the center of the living room, running her hands over her jeans like she'd forgotten she wasn't wearing a uniform skirt. Will went to park himself on the floor, but one gesture got him to stop halfway down and hop to her side. Nick poked Chris in the shoulder as she perched on the arm of his chair. She rolled her eyes hard enough to be seen in the back row. He was sure that those two were going to play out a fantasy-loving boy and down-to-Earth girl-next-door romance. He had to be forgiven for not having lived here long enough.

He hadn't seen Meredith watch Splash on TV, or heard Willie talk about Steal Magnolias. Chris hadn't wanted to be a girl growing up, and had had female lovers; she wasn't going to pigeonhole either child. But they weren't the sort of opposite that attracted. He'd had his own childhood sweetheart. For now, that wasn't what these two had. They were buddies. At this age, that was what they needed.

"You have something to tell us, hun?" Dustin prompted, once Paddy had come through, still holding a jar of peanut butter and a spoon.

"Yeah. Um, so, I don't know if, um, like…. I…we know it's been a really crappy—"

"Hey, missy—"

Chris reached over Nick to smack Skip in the back of the head. "We do not interrupt Meri Beri!"

"Oh, it's okay."

"Who is the queen here?"

"…everyone?" she ventured. "Except Will and me. And it's Travis's ho—"

"Travis-Schmavis, I make the rules, princess. Go on."

"Well, just…it's…usually you do the house up for Christmas, and…and…. I thought maybe it was that there hasn't been a lot of time? Because…well, because of funerals. But also the reason might be everyone's too sad. It is sad. Mom says…she says death is, always, because life is…scientifically, life is incredibly unlikely. And, uh, I think probably everyone matters to someone. Todd and Ernesto mattered to me. And Will! It's just also…also last year Todd found out I'd never done Christmas cookies, and next time I came over he'd gotten all these cutters and icings and sprinkles. He made sure it didn't matter that I messed a bunch up. We made dozens—Also, he said they tasted the same, but Stella at the café says people like to eat pretty things more, which means he might not have been right about that. It's okay. Even Mom said the nice ones were 'more than edible!'

"Ernesto…this is silly, but when I was thinking of him and Christmas—I probably have a lot more memories, because he lived here the whole time I've lived here, but, like, when I had to play Jingle Bells for that dumb piano thing? Even though I'm way more advanced than that? He told me to sing the Batman smells one in my head while I played. It was way funnier, would've been even if it hadn't—"

"It wasn't funny for me!" Will interrupted.

"I remember that." Sergio laughed. "Chicky sang it aloud for God and all."

"It slipped out!"

"How many weeks that get you grounded for?"

"Two. It's not like I really stayed in my room all that time. Only I couldn't go over, or have company. Your mom would've told on me, and even if she hadn't been home, Heidi's a little tattletale. You'd say it was worth it if you'd seen people's faces, anyway." She shifted, and tugged on the ends of her hair as the wicked grin faded. Chris had assumed that Dr. Grey hadn't been all that upset, or the punishment would've been enough to stop Meredith from relishing it to this point. That the woman heard about it secondhand went unsaid. Her mother's appearance would've been headline news and inspired perfect behavior. A woeful misunderstanding, since Dr. Grey let her more spirit antics slip. "So, so…um, um, yeah. We brought…we kinda brought Christmas? It's not…It's not fancy. If you want, we can take your holiday stuff down from the attic."

"She means I can."

"I'm just as strong as you!"

"My balance is better!"

"Kids," Paddy interrupted. "We're not all playing tug-of-war with the Reaper, yet."

Will's eyes went as wide as silver dollars. He didn't spend half as much time here as Meredith, and Chris suspected that he didn't fully understand that with this virus looking healthy didn't mean you weren't sick. Unlike some, who didn't want to go through the grief of knowing before they had to, they'd all done it.

The likelihood weren't as close to a hundred percent as most of America seemed to believe, but everyone in their House of Queens had been positive. The odds had been on what that meant. Chris had been out since long before he'd left DCF, much less discovered Chrystal. He'd gone to the bathhouses where every night made him feel like a kid on Christmas, and taken the poppers they'd once believed caused Gay Related Immunodeficiency. So far, she showed no symptoms; not a single purple lesion—not even a herpes sore. Nick was nineteen years old, and unlike the teenagers you heard about being kicked out at thirteen and living on the streets, he'd been a baby-faced virgin until starting at BU. Two years ago, he was simply baby-faced.

Unlike her friend, Meredith understood, possibly more than many AIDS patients. Her silent watchfulness over the past month had concerned him, but today, she grinned at Paddy's remark, and then said, "And if you don't want…if it's too sad, that's okay,"

"Bullshit,'is it too sad?'" Chris said. "Of course it's sad, kiddo. They're gone, but we're here. We should be celebrating hat every day. Everyone should."

"'A very merry un-deathday to you,'" Skip sang, before standing up to pluck a construction paper garland out of the nearest bag."

"We're gonna do the decorating, Professor," Will said.

"And we want our garlands at nipple-level?" Dustin rested his elbow on Meredith's head. She giggled, pushing him away.

"We got one up over the fireplace at my house!" she objected.

"How'd Momsy like that?" Chris asked.

Meredith shrugged and started rifling through bags. "She never minds s'long as I take it down the day after Christmas."

"And to put it up, did you climb furniture and/or each other?" They answered affirmatively with silence. "Those of us who are able will help. Those who are picky about design will eat some cookies." She placed a plate of messily frosted cookies on the coffee table and took off the Saran Wrap.

Finding the bag she wanted, Meredith said, "Can I put this by your legs, Uncle Nick?"

"I'm no one's uncle,," Nick protested. "I'm not old enough!"

"I was an uncle at birth," Dustin said. "Youngest kid, big family."

"All to say, yes, sweets," Chris said, and then she bit the head off a snowman. "Roar. These are stellar."

Meredith settled her bag into the gap at the back of the sofa cushions, and then climbed up next to them, before kneeling on the back. From the bag, she retrieved a carefully rolled-up sheet of plastic. "Mom won't let me put this up because she doesn't want tape residue on the window," she said, taping it up on her neighbors' window. The adults all looked at each other. After smoothing on the third piece, she added, "I'll come clean this up after the holidays."

"And if we want to keep it up?" Sergio asked. "That's beautiful, chicky!"

"It's just Sharpie on clear paper, or whatever. We painted the lines with black glue, which was cool to make, but they mostly needed an excuse to talk about stained glass…. They look different in the light."

"Quite true," Skip said, coming over to peer at her work.

"That's a Christmas tree, and at the top is a Caduceus, because not everyone likes angels or stars, but everyone needs medicine."

"She wanted to do an anatomic heart," Will put in. He was plugging in the child-sized keyboard that had precariously balanced in the wagon. "Ms. Hearst said to save it for Valentine's Day."

"As if I'll be allowed to. That'll be some sappy thing that symbolized love in Mesopotamia or something."

"Your teachers frequently move from medieval architecture to Babylonians?" Skip asked.

"I said 'or something.'"

"You gonna give us a rendition of Jingle Bells?" Sergio asked.

Meredith looked over her shoulder at Chris, who winked back at her mischievous look, and then turned to open the last bag, expecting more decorations and food from the Stop 'n' Shop.

"Meredith. Come help me put this up." She regretted her tone before the girl's shoulders could stiffen, but it was all see could muster staring at the contents of the last few bags.

"Sure." She leapt from the couch, coltish, preteen limbs sprawling in the air. "I'm gonna ask Mom if we can go ice-skating tomorrow, I think, but it's been kind of cold. Plus, The Little Mermaid, and the weird Christmas Vacation thing are both still playing."

Chris took a moment to imagine Dr. Grey seeing in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Who knew? Maybe it'd appeal to her sense of humor. She must have one somewhere. Then, she separated one cluster of bags from the rest.

"You wanna tell me what all this is about?"

With an expression that could've belonged to the woman they'd called the Wicked Witch from the West before the little girl started coming over, and thought frequently since, she said, "I should think it's obvious."

Chris raised her eyes to the ceiling, and when she lowered them she was facing down a child biting her bottom lip. Her hair, which Dr. Grey usually braided or pulled back with a headband, curtained her face.

"They're just medical supplies."

"These are," she agreed, holding up one bag of gloves, basins, and absorbent pads. "And these…." She indicated the next bag which held bags of IV fluid and tubing. "I don't ever want to know how you got them—" She considered the size of Meredith's backpack, and how full it always was. "—or how long it took."

A spark began to emerge in those suspicious green eyes.

"What about these?" She separated the handles of one of the bags, revealing several pairs of scrubs, and at least one stethoscope. "Is that a hospital ID?"

"It's just for show. But I thought…Grant's family didn't let Travis visit, and now he's sad all the time, and you say he's at his boyfriend's, but I haven't seen him with anyone, so something else is going on. If it happens agaon...you should be with who you love if you're really sick, and they kicked him out, and it shouldn't be allowed!"

"Meri—"

"Don't tell me it's complicated!" She crossed her arms, and raised her chin. "I've been there. In Infectious Disease."

"I know, sweetie. I'm still impressed with you for going to the Christmas—"

"It was a dorky hospital Christmas party," Meredith interrupted. "I go to, like, a dozen a year. The cancer ward one is sadder, even though they're not all as sick, and more of them are old. Isn't that weird?"

"It's unexpected." Chris's mind was fixated on the contents of the last bag, which wasn't fair at all. How many times had Meredith said fine or it sucked, but I'm fine about visiting those hospital rooms? If her mother hadn't been known, she wouldn't have been allowed in several of them. "Cancer research has more funding, and they are making advances, but if I understand the science, a lot of the same drugs have been used since the start. They're making new discoveries for us—not quickly enough, but depending on who you are, there might be more hope. Or maybe it's that we're all in the same fight, even if we don't' all get the same infections. Cancer's such a broad thing…. On a more grumbly note, maybe we're more used to being lonely. I can't tell you exactly what anyone else thinks, and hopefully I won't know what I think at that point for a long, long time."

"Longer, if you—

"I can't take stolen medication. Meredith…."

"They would've thrown it away! Mom said! She said it might as well have been Ernesto's or…or Skips, or…or anyone's."

"You asked your mom about this?"

Meredith nodded, her gaze back on her boots. "I haven't only gone on the ward with you. A lot, it's the emptiest place at night. Depends on the charge nurse. Mom says it was a lot worse at the start. But anyway, I saw them clearing out someone's stuff who hadn't had anyone. They said the pharmacy would dispose of it, and Mom said, yes, that's true because you shouldn't share medication; layman people don't know about the dosages, but if they haven't expired, and you do know how to take them, they're not going to hurt. And—And she said she'll start writing for it."

That was not exactly yes, I asked my mom about these specific bottles of azidothymidine

Chris sighed and reluctantly opened the bag that might as well have held bottles of gold. It wasn't as hard to get AZT as it had been a year ago, but it wasn't easy. Some guys were afraid of what the label on the bottle would give away—as though the diagnosis wasn't on file, and the office wouldn't notice them wasting away.

"She said she'd prescribe for us? Recently?"

"Uh-huh. She'd assumed that, uh, the usual channels have proven insufficient, and she hadn't wanted to set a president of diagnosing every rash in the neighborhood, but…but there's such a thing as being too…too conservation? No…."

"Conservative," Chris offered, voice breaking like they'd gone back in time twenty-five years.

"That's it. Like the president." Her narrow brows furrowed. "I don't think I meant president the first time. But, um…I think she felt bad."

"There's no precedent," Chris said.

"Yeah, that's it!" She grinned. Her front teeth were still too big for her smile, and that left canine hadn't come all the way in. Jimeny Christmas. Curt had been right to say that they were playing with fire, getting close to a third-grader, but Chris had pretended to take it the wrong way. She didn't regret it, even on nights where she'd walked Meredith back next door and spent the evening there to keep her from seeing more than she should at someone's birthday party.

If she'd been an ordinary kid, it'd be easier to worry that they'd scared her for life. In her case, it was a matter of not causing too many new wounds, and here she was handing him one way to do it.

"It's not a cure, Meri."

"It's a treatment. With a lot of side effects. I'm not a little girl anymore, Auntie." The notes of Jingle Bells were pecked out on the keyboard in the living-room, and her lips formed the words Batman smells….

"You'll always be a little girl to this old queen." Chris said. "We'll talk about this later, okay?" She put the bag on the counter. "Go get the songbook out of my room. And bring my elf ears."

"You're such a dork," she squealed, and a moment later her footsteps were on the creaking stairs. Chris leaned against the counter and then took a bottle out of the bag.

The name of the poor sap the prescription had been written for had been blacked out. Below it, Meredith's blocky printing spelled out NICK. Investigating, he found one for everyone who lived in the house, and three unallocated. At the bottom of the bag there was a note.

Call any time after Jan 1. Additional scripts (antibiotics, pain medications, etc.,) can be arranged within reason. I am bound by my contract, my oath, and my daughter. These cold equations do not always provide the same value for x.

E.G.

Fuck you too, lady. Next time, Chris was going to search that apartment for a framed picture of Margaret Thatcher. Beyond that, he couldn't do all that much other than stick around. Meredith might've brought Christmas to them this year, but Chris could try to ensure that she kept being the kind of person who'd do that.

And who'd come flying down stairs two at a time singing, "Oh, you better wise up if you're straight or you're bi!" She hardly missed a beat while starting to accompany herself on the keyboard. That girl was never going to get away with claiming "I really suck,Auntie. It's not just Mom!" again.

Chris put the bag in a cabinet and returned to the living room. She needed to intercept the songbook and have another quick conversation with her, before Will went home singing "O' Cum All Ye Faithful."

"You better get real, I'm telling you why!/Condom use is coming to town!" Meredith's giggles rang out over the laughter that filled the living room.

Will's parents were all right. Maybe Chris could just write them a note. She had no doubt that if he stayed friends with Meredith, he'd bring home stranger stories. Generally a fan of sunshine, Miss Crystal Palace found herself hoping for a rainy Christmas Eve so one of those might be that time she made Ellis Grey see All Dogs Go to Heaven.