Christmas had always been an event in the Fabray household, especially as the twins had gotten older. Every year their house got turned into a winter wonderland. From the reindeer sculptures, to the various christmas decorations, to the fresh powdered snow that covered the house and lawn, creating a perfect picturesque white christmas.

Russell glanced at himself in the rearview mirror for the umpteenth time in the past three minutes, before he finally opened the door to his rental car and stepped out onto the drive. He had no idea how Judy made it smell like gingerbread, but even from the car, there was a warm inviting scent that was emanating from the house. He moves to the trunk of the car and opens it grabbing a large garbage bag that was filled with presents and heads towards the front door and pushes the doorbell.

The door swings open, and Russell freezes when Lawrence glowers at him. "Russ."

Russell frowns when Lawrence doesn't immediately move and he sighs, "They're still my children Lawrence."

"As if you were ever—"

"Lawrence."

Lawrence turns to look at his wife who is on the stairs and points to Russell. "I don't like him. I never liked him."

"You never liked anyone Judy dated." Artemis points out as she makes her way down the stairs. She looks over at Russell, "You've lost weight," she points out, before turning to look at her husband. "She's a grown woman, and he is still the father of our grandchildren. Three out of four of them still like him or at least tolerate him, and Judy doesn't want him to be alienated from them. It's Christmas." Lawrence scowled, but stepped aside, allowing Russell to enter the house.

Russell hesitates before deciding to enter the house, he opens his mouth to say something to Lawrence but decides against it and kicks off his boots and he follows the Christmas music to the kitchen where Judy is making gingerbread cookies for their kids annual gingerbread competition. He watches her for a moment, placing his trash bag filled with presents down on the ground and smiles. "Don't you think they're getting a bit old for this?"

Judy looks up at him, studying him for a moment, noting that he had lost weight before going back to making sure the cookies were structurally sound enough to be turned into pieces of a gingerbread house. "Brittany truly believes that Santa exists," She reminded him. "You lost weight," in all their years together Russell had never once taken care of his weight. "Still dating Charity?"

Russell frowned ever so slightly, "You know that's her stage name," he said defensively before closing his eyes and sighing. "No, by the way. Work made me take a physical, my numbers were a bit high so I asked Charlie to send me a workout plan."

Judy paused and finally turned to look at her soon to be ex, taking a closer look. He seemed fine. "You didn't actually—"

"I thought we could bond over it," Russell snorts and shakes his head. "If I didn't know better, I'd think she was attempting to send me to an early grave. So I joined a gym and got a personal trainer. I'm not quite sure if Charlie knows the meaning of restraint."

Judy rolls her eyes, "Well, I'm glad that you're taking your health seriously finally. You're about to be a grandfather, and I know that at least one of our girls would like you to walk them down the aisle at their wedding." Judy goes back to preparing the gingerbread cookies, stopping once again when Russell takes a seat in front of her. She immediately tenses up when Russell reaches for her hand, and pulls her hand away.

"Judy—"

"You need to stop dragging your feet on this Russell. The terms of our divorce are more than fair and—"

"You know I never wanted this."

Judy scowled, "I wanted you to remain faithful, so clearly we don't always get what we want in life."

"I still love you Judy—we can go to marriage counseling, we've been married for nearly thirty years. You can't tell me that you don't feel anything for me anymore," Russell pleaded.

Judy swallowed, "Of course I feel something for you, of course I still love you. But we've done this before. We make up, things are good and then someone young, someone old enough to be your daughter comes along and they mean more to you than your family does, at least until you get bored. Even if you promise me you won't do it again, history has shown me that you will."

"You know they don't mean anything to me," Russell pleads.

"I do know that, just like I know you love our daughters. I know you're proud of all of them and you brag about them all the time, but that doesn't make you a good role model for them. Our relationship is not something I want our children to have. I want them to have partners that love and respect them. And in Charlie's case I want her to stop emulating you."

"What are you talking about?" Russell frowned. Frannie was more like him then the other three.

Judy stares at Russell. "Don't play dumb Russell, Charlie treats women how you treat women. I don't want her to hurt anyone the way you hurt me."

Russell tilts his head, "Judy the only thing Charlie and I have in common is that we both like women a little too much. Charlie isn't a cheater, and she never promises anyone anything that she can't give. I know she doesn't view sex the way you want her to, but she certainly doesn't view or treat women the way I do. Charlie isn't me, she probably will never turn into me. We—you raised them right Judy and you need to trust them to make the right decisions. Charlie is young and at times has the emotional intelligence of a two year old, but she's not me and she'll never be. And if you're really worried talk to her, and if that doesn't work get your mother to do it. Charlie actually listens to her."

Judy was quiet for a moment studying her soon to be ex, there were moments like this when she wished that she hadn't caught him cheating for the umpteenth time. "We have four daughters, and if anyone treated them like you treat me—"

"I'd kill them," Russsel admits and closes his eyes. "Okay."

~ O ~

"No Wolfgang!" Charlie shouts as she tries to stop Wolfgang from ripping apart the Santa hat that she had tried to put on his head. She tries to pry the red hat out of his mouth but Wolfgang stares at her before taking off in the opposite direction. Charlie takes a step to chase after him, but she gives up when he darts behind the couch. Charlie puffs out her cheek and flops down and turns to Arte, the better behaved of her two pets and spots her sitting on their dog bed chewing the red Santa hat. "Seriously Arte?"

Saying her name causes Arte to look up at Charlie for a moment, wagging her tail for a second before she promptly goes back to destroying the Santa hat that Charlie had bought for her.

Brittany smirked at Charlie's frustration, "You know if I had brought Mike with me, I'm sure he could have convinced them to let you take a picture of them with the hats on their head."

Frannie let out a laugh, "Please, you only want Mike here so you two can have sex." Frannie turns her attention back to Charlie who is attempting, poorly, to pry the hat out of Arte's mouth.

Brittany shoots a look at her older sister, "Frannie, you're pregnant."

"I fail to see how that has anything to do with our conversation," Frannie retorted in a testy tone.

"You have a harem!" Brittany accuses. "Do you have any idea who the father is?"

"I don't have a harem," Frannie said with a roll of her eyes. "Charlie has the harem."

Brittany pauses and stares at Frannie, she narrows her eyes. Frannie was attempting to deflect and her eyes widened. "You're seeing someone."

"Seeing someone, implies that I tolerate that person, and I like spending time with them. We all know how I feel about people in general. I do know who the father is, and while he wants to be a part of this child's life, that doesn't mean that I'm going to marry him. At some point I'm sure you'll meet. I thought about inviting him for Christmas dinner, but then I realized that our entire family is insane, and I would like him in the child's life. Now instead of talking about my pregnancy, and the fact that I'm not currently having sex, why don't we focus on Charlie's harem?"

Charlie finally freed the hat from Arte's teeth and looked up at her sisters, "I don't have a harem Frannie. Women are just drawn in to my charm and my we have sex and I ruin them for other people, and they become addicted to sleeping with me. If anything I should probably be a bit more responsible with who I sleep with."

"With great power comes great responsibility," Brittany said sagely. "We should all be a bit more discerning on who we sleep with. Being this good at sex is like a curse," Brittany sighs dramaticly.

"But how do you become good at sex?" The room went silent except for the sound of Wolfgang chewing on the Santa hat, as Brittany, Charlie and Frannie turned to look at Quinn. Quinn sank back into the couch, clearly asking that question had been a mistake. "Just forget it—"

"You and Rachel are finally getting it on! It's about time Quinn, congrats, I honestly thought that would never happen!" Brittany said holding her hand out for a high five.

"She's not dating Rachel, she's dating Marley. It was painful to watch them flirt," Charlie corrects as she moves the couch to grab Wolfgang who growls at her when she reaches for the Santa hat. "Wolfgang, drop it." She's met with a few barks as Wolfgang hops to his feet and charges into her legs, bouncing off. Charlie blinks and looks at him, as he growls and backs up. "Sit." Wolfgang immediately sits, and Charlie pries the hat from his mouth before joining her sisters on the couch.

Frannie held up her hand. "Wait, so Rachel rejects you, and you find someone else—"

"The next weekend at an art class, where there weren't any naked women!" Charlie throws in unhelpfully, "Also, Rachel never officially rejected her, Quinn just—" A thick band of ice suddenly appeared over Charlie's mouth shutting her up.

"You're not helping." Quinn hisses at her twin.

"Actually for once, she is. But I think you should keep the muzzle on her for a few more minutes," Frannie smirked at Charlie who immediately flipped her off. "So this, Marley person that you're dating, how far have you gone? And what are her abilities?"

"And is she cute? Grandma says that's the most important thing." Brittany paused, "Wait why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend? I'm your favorite sibling. I could have given you advice!"

Quinn groans, they were not giving her the answers that she wanted. "All Marley and I have done is kissed, and she doesn't have any abilities. I think she's super cute, she's really smart, and even when she starts talking about technical stuff that I can't understand, I find it adorable."

"You're what?" Frannie hisses and turns to look at Charlie. "You let this happen?"

Charlie rolled her eyes as she melted the ice, "Frannie. Quinn likes women, meaning that she can't have any accidents, also we're sixteen. Who cares if Marley doesn't have powers? Grandma's a level 5, but mom isn't. So even if we assume that genetics plays some role in it, that doesn't mean that your kid is going to be a level 5. Or that your baby will share your abilities. Our abilities are all different, hell Quinn and I are identical and we don't even have the same powers."

Brittany ignored her siblings and focused on Quinn, tilting her head. "Well, I suppose it's better late than never."

"Hey." Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, "Look, forget I said anything—"

"Quinn. You can't unring this bell, Frannie has no experience with women. So any advice she gives is suspect, but I'm sure Charlie and I can come up with a plan. Now, if you didn't have Fabray and July blood in your veins, I'd give you the whole practice makes perfect speech, with a healthy dash of reminding you that communication is your friend. You should always communicate with your partner Quinn, consent is important. But you'll be fine, we're just naturally good at sex, you could even say we're geniuses at it. Once you're in the moment you'll just know what to do."

Quinn stared at Brittany for a moment, before looking at her other siblings who were just nodding along. "You can't—how is that advice?"

"Sex isn't complicated, Quinn. You feel good, you make them feel good," Frannie points out. "What that entails is completely up to you. We can't tell you the right way to have sex because each us of have figured out what works for us, and we stick with it."

Quinn turned to Charlie, hoping that her twin would come through in the clutch. "Charlie—"

"Frannie's not wrong Quinn, don't overthink it. Just live in that moment. Watch her. Listen to her, hear her breath catches, maybe she'll whimper as she's getting close. I mean unless you're unlucky and get someone who is deathly quiet in bed, she'll react and you just follow along." Charlie hummed, "Brittany's also right, I mean my first time was good, so just aim for that. Time and practice are your friends Quinn, every woman is different. Even if I gave you a technique that doesn't mean that Marley will enjoy it."

"You really should think about trying dick, things are a lot easier," Frannie rolled her eyes. As if she had time to figure out how to get every woman off.

Quinn grimaced, "Gross. Can we please talk about anything else? Charlie's afraid of commitment, why don't we analyze that?"

"Everyone already knows that I haven't had a girlfriend since Dani refused to compromise on the whole open relationship thing. It's not a fair of commitment, so much as I don't want to be tied down yet."

"She slept with Santana." Quinn informed Brittany throwing Charlie under the bus.

Frannie scoffed, "Surprise Charlie's a sex addict," she said flatly.

"You're pregnant and you have a baby daddy, I feel like you shouldn't throw stones Frannie," Brittany says and nudges Charlie. "Santana really likes you Charlie."

Charlie laughed, "No she doesn't Brittany, she likes competing with me."

Brittany raises a brow, and she shares a look with Frannie. Charlie had always been slow. "And how do you feel about her?"

"What do you mean how do I feel about Santana? I respect her, and she's fun. I don't have to pretend around her. I don't have to be on all the time, when I'm around her and I know that she can pick up the slack. Honestly I trust Santana more than anyone else on the team."

Brittany smirked at Frannie, "You owe me a hundred dollars."

Frannie is about to retort when the door to the basement opens, "The Gingerbread contest starts in five," Judy calls out to her kids.

Charlie is up and out of her seat immediately, racing up the stairs, before stopping and floating down. "Quinn I was promised all the candy, that includes your gingerbread house."

Quinn scowled, she loved gingerbread cookies. "Gingerbread cookies are a baked good, they are not candy."

"You put candy on them, so it's fair game."

"What if I don't use candy this year?" Quinn challenges.

"Well then I'll win the candy prize, obviously. This is my year Quinn!" Charlie shouts as she bursts through the door and heads to the kitchen. Scowling when she saw both Frannie and Brittany sitting at the table already. "It's my year."

"Sure it is Chuck, maybe this year your gingerbread house will actually look like a house instead of a pile or rubble." Brittany hummed. She had her eye on the massive stocking filled with Christmas candy, maybe this year it would be hers. Quinn won every year.

Judy smiles as she watches her children bicker, and shove each other out of the way. The gingerbread contest had always been a silly event that her children took seriously. Sure it was for a rather large bag of candy, but it was still a tradition that seemed to mean the world to her children. Soon there would be another member of the family to join in with the festivities.

~ O ~

"From what your parents tell me, congratulations are in order. Your team managed to get to sectionals, and from what I understand there has been interest when it comes to agents and hero firms."

Santana looked up from her plate, her gaze moving to her abuela. Christmas dinner was usually a quiet affair, sure they did decorations, but she was way passed the age where Christmas was a big deal. "There was, but the top schools don't really start to pay attention until sectionals."

Alma picked up her wine glass, her sharp gaze still on Santana for a moment longer before she raises her glass and takes a sip. "And what if you don't make it into a top school? What is your plan then? How are your grades?"

Santana gripped her cutlery tightly and swallowed, as she glanced at her parents for a bit of help, but they don't come to her defense and she turns to look at her abuela, "My grades are fine—"

"Fine won't get you into an excellent university. Fine won't get you into medical school or law school Santana. You need to be realistic, you didn't produce results when you were captain and you didn't generate interest before, and this so-called interest has more to do with your captain. Do you plan on being a hero who gets paid pennies on the dollar?"

"The average salary—" Santana begins.

"The average salary is skewed upwards because the top heroes are making millions of dollars, your abuela is correct Santana and you need to have a backup plan. I admit to not knowing that much about what it takes, but I believed in you, till we met the Fabray's. She's already been recruited, Charlie is a minor celebrity already, and her star is only on the rise." Maribel spoke up, shaking her head. "You need to have a backup plan Santana."

"Mija. I don't care how annoyed or irritated you are, if you can't control your abilities, then you certainly have no business attempting to be a hero."

Santana dropped her fork and knife on her plate, and inhaled deeply, trying to keep her face neutral. "May I be excused?" she asks, her teeth clenched.

Miguel scowled, but before he can argue with her Maribel nods. "You may."

Before anyone can say anything else Santana grabs her plate and takes off, dumping the plate that still had food on it, into the sink before taking off to her room, pulling out her phone. She hadn't given much thought to the club that Sugar and Bree had dragged her too, but she needed an outlet, and going to an underground AI fight club sounded like something that would allow her to blow off some steam.

~ O ~

"I'd like to tell you that there are rules, and that you're not in any danger, but my family is insane Marley. There are no rules except to survive, and that might be questionable if Charlie manages to figure out how to use her railgun technique without causing the snow to evaporate." Quinn informed Marley as she pulled into the driveway.

Marley adjusted the snowball launcher that she had whipped together last night, when Quinn had invited her. "Are you sure it's okay to use weapons?"

"No rules—but Frannie's pregnant, and it's just generally a good idea to avoid her. You really don't want a one-way trip to the arctic or antarctica." Quinn said leaning in for a quick kiss, "I built us a fort, that we'll have to defend. It's like capture the flag but instead of flags we're taking territory, Brittany's base is like an igloo, I helped her build it."

"And Charlie?" Marley asked.

Quinn scowled, "Charlie's base is a lump of snow. She ate my gingerbread house, so instead of the ice mountain that she wanted me to make for her, she gets to make her own base. It's a snow bump."

Marley grins, as she adjusts the snowball launcher, on her shoulder as she gets out of Quinn's car. "So what's the plan? Who do we take out first?"

"We make an alliance with Brittany and Frannie, and we go after Charlie. This might finally be the year that we beat her. If we can eliminate her, we can betray Brittany and Frannie. I have no idea what the prize is this year, but we can't let Charlie win and have bragging rights for another year."

"Form an alliance with your sisters, to take out the evil twin with her snow lump," Marley repeats.

"And pray that Charlie doesn't figure out how to make railgun snowballs," Quinn said with a shake of her head, as she takes Marley's hand and leads her behind the house where they had set up their warzone.

Marley blinked, as she spotted fallen snow people, noting the red dye that was strewn all over the 'battlefield' it looked like someone had massacred a bunch of people. "You guys take your fake wars pretty seriously don't you?"

Quinn stops and looks around, "Yes. Yes we do. The key is to trust no one. Especially Charlie, remember we have the same face and she might try and pretend to be me, just remember Charlie can't act."

"You may be identical Quinn, but I can tell you two apart," Marley points out.

Quinn grins and is about to respond when a snowball hits her straight in the face, nearly knocking her over as it explodes into powdery snow.

"WHOOOOO!" Charlie shouted, throwing her hands up in the air, as she turned to Brittany a massive grin spreading across her features. "You owe me ten dollars!"

Brittany made a face, they were over 150 yards away and Charlie's aim was questionable half the time, hitting Quinn in the face had been a stroke of luck on Charlie's part. "Forty if you manage to hit Quinn's girlfriend—without using your powers."

"Eighty," Charlie says, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You get eighty if you hit Marley and Frannie," Brittany negotiated, smirking when Charlie nods at this and picks up another snowball. Quinn and Frannie were going to murder her, and she wouldn't have to pay Charlie a penny. Her sister was such an idiot.

Charlie shook her hand off and turned to look at Marley who was helping Quinn up and took careful aim before launching another snowball at Marley, grinning when the snowball hit Marley in the shoulder, knocking her off balance as she fell onto Quinn. Charlie tilts her head, before looking at Brittany. "Call me cupid."

Brittany rolled her eyes, "Now Frannie," Brittany nods towards Frannie who is reading something on her tablet on the back deck.

Charlie makes a face as she picks up another snowball and studies her eldest sister, before whipping the snowball at her.

Frannie doesn't look up as she opens a portal in front of her body, which swallows up the snowball before it can hit her.

Brittany yelps when a snowball hits the back of her head, sliding down the back of her head and down her jacket. "Frannie."

Charlie makes a face, but turns to Brittany extending her hand. "That counts. Eighty dollars."

Brittany scowled and was a protest when she spotted Quinn entering her peripheral vision, and immediately took a step back as Quinn tackles Charlie, the two end up in the snow, as they begin to bicker and wrestle on the ground. Brittany instead turns her attention to Marley who has jogged up to her, "You must be Marley, I'm Brittany Quinn's favorite sister."

"Marley." Marley introduces, and flinches when an arc of electricity lights up the area and takes a step back, as Quinn falls on her ass and grabs a fistful of snow and tries to shove it down Charlie's throat. "Does this happen often?"

"It's a Christmas tradition," Brittany replied. "It's not the holidays until someone gets hurt or is close to death," Brittany grabs Marley and pulls her out of the way as icicles appear on the ground around them. "They've been doing this since they were in diapers." Brittany yanks Marley back again as Charlie manages to roll to her feet and tackle Quinn. She studies Marley for a moment before focusing, "Is that a snowball blaster?"

"I whipped it up last night," Marley says, her eyes still focused on the brawl that is happening on the ground, and smiles. "Shouldn't we stop it?"

Brittany pries the snowball launcher from Marley and puts a snowball in it and fires it at Charlie, smirking when it smacks her right in the face. "Oh. I need one of these," Brittany informs Marley. "How—" Brittany laughs as Charlie pulls away from Quinn and tackles her to the ground.

Marley laughs, as Quinn hops to her feet, and dusts herself off, and moves towards Quinn nudging her. "I think we should try and get Brittany and Charlie to destroy each other and then we pick them off when they finish attacking each other."

Quinn looks over at Brittany and Charlie for a moment, it really wouldn't be that difficult to turn them against each other, and if they were fighting each other then neither one of them would notice them taking over their territory. "Let's do it."

~ O ~

The door to the back deck opened up, causing Judy to turn to take a look at her children, as they trudged snow into her once clean house. She sighs, and shakes her head, but she forces a patient smile on her face. "So who won this year?" She asks as she stands up.

"Frannie cheated," Brittany scowled.

"There are no rules, I only did what I needed to do," Frannie smirked. "And I didn't cheat. I'm pregnant. Just like it isn't my fault that Charlie's dead set on attempting to be my baby's godparent."

"I'm on the shortlist," Charlie says with a pleased smile as she touches her eye, and winces. It was already swollen shut, and she knew in a few hours she'd have a rather impressive shiner.

Brittany blinked, "What do you mean there's a list, and how in the world is Chuck on this list?"

"There is no list," Frannie rolled her eyes. "And even if there was, someone who got taken out by someone with no powers, wouldn't be very high on it."

"What was I supposed to do? Bring the thunder?" Charlie grumbles, as she moves to the kitchen.

"Bring the thunder?" Quinn scoffed. "Seriously Charlie, when you eventually sign with a firm, make sure you hire a marketing and public relations team. You're supposed to be a hero not a massive dork."

"It's hardly the worst catchphrase." Marley offers, pausing when all the Fabray's looked at her. "I mean I've certainly heard worse."

Charlie flashed Marley a flirtatious grin, only for Quinn to step in front of Marley, "Get your own girlfriend."

"But Quinn—" Charlie began.

Judy immediately grabbed Charlie by the back of her shirt, and pulled her to the kitchen. "Help me with making the hot chocolate."

Charlie puffed out her cheeks, "Adult hot chocolate with the fancy bourbon?"

"No. Frannie's pregnant."

"I don't know why Frannie needs hot chocolate mom, she didn't get hit with a snowball once, because she's weaponizing her pregnancy. Are we sure she's pregnant? She could be faking it," Charlie grumbled, her father always gave her a sip of his, she liked the spiciness of the drink.

"You think I'm faking my pregnancy?" Frannie turns to Charlie, pointing to her baby bump. "How do you explain this?"

"You're getting f—"

Judy immediately clasps her hand over Charlie's mouth, before she could say what she was thinking. "Charlie."

Quinn nudges Marley, "See. Told you my family was weird."

Marley nodded, and shivered, suddenly feeling the cold. "Do you think I can borrow something warm and dry?"

"Sure you can pick out something from—"

"Open door policy." Judy said without looking up from Charlie.

"Finally she joins the club," Brittany mutters under her breath, shrinking away when her mom shot her a look. "Shutting up now."

Judy lets out a sigh and lets go of Charlie who immediately moves closer to Frannie and reaches to poke her in the stomach. Immediately Judy swats Charlie's hand. "Stop it."

"I'm just—" Judy glared at Charlie who immediately shrinks back and makes a face. "I'll get the dark chocolate."

Judy shakes her head, the things she did to keep her children from murdering each other. She deserved a medal for being the mother of the year.