This originally started as a fluffy, hallmark-inspired Christmas story... but hey, it's me. This is still a Christmas fic with cuteness and an eventual happy ending... just a lot of angst before we reached that :3

Rose is in a dark place at the beginning, so please be aware before reading. Therapy-related scenes are in the story, please take them with a grain of salt, cause I'm not in any way a trained therapist.

I've been working on this one for almost a year, but I love it so very much, so I do hope you'll give it a try ❤❤❤

Let me know what you think ❤

I could remember the seconds leading up to the crash, the song we were listening to and the dumb joke Andre made. But I couldn't remember the impact or anything that happened after.

I remembered hands and shadows.

A crow.

And then I woke up in the hospital.

It wasn't until I saw my best friend die that any of it started to make sense.

The night of the crash—I died.

And when I witnessed death—my connection to death's world solidified, the veil was lifted, and I could see ghosts.

It took me a while to accept it and even longer to learn how to live with seeing the dead. My best friend, Mason, hung around, my constant companion because everyone else was scared off.

Lissa didn't believe me. I tried to tell her Andre was still there, and he was worried about her. She stopped answering my calls. My mother thought it was all a reaction to trauma, and I was sent to live with my father. I'm not sure how it was meant to heal my trauma, but it made me not her problem.

Abe was busy and not big on forcing family interaction. I saw him a total of seven times growing up, so there wasn't much of a father-daughter relationship. He kept to his stuff and let me do mine. I finished high school but didn't go to my graduation. Abe told me I didn't need to get a job if I was studying something, so I signed up for an online degree in Creative Writing. It was easier if I didn't have to be in a room full of people.

Some ghosts knew I could see them, but they mostly stayed away. Except for Mason—I swear his unfinished business was pissing me off.

"You should get the blue one."

I rolled my eyes, grabbing the red bottle instead; I hadn't slept much the night before and needed the sugar to keep me going.

Mason sighed, "The blue one tastes like candy. You have to get it and then think of me when you drink it. Come on, Rose." He was leaning over my shoulder, and I had to dodge around him. I hated walking through a spirit, the chilling feeling it gave me, and he knew it.

My weird movements gained a raised eyebrow from the owner, Frank, but he didn't mention it—never did. I came to his shop three times a week on my way to my required therapy. Abe didn't have a lot of requirements; this was one he agreed to enforce only because Janine wanted it.

She didn't seem to care if the therapy worked, only that I went. Most sessions we spent in silence. Others, I would recount some of my interactions with ghosts and watch Deirdre bend over backwards, trying to reconnect them with my trauma. She believed I had a mental break and that the ghosts were just my inner demons. It was all my subconscious trying to deal with what I witnessed.

Sometimes, I enjoyed throwing out clinical terms I had learned over the years and turning the conversation around on her.

I grabbed a bag of chips and some jerky, placing it all on the counter. Frank didn't make small talk, scanning all of the items while I tried not to look at the ghost of his wife behind him.

"How are you doing, Marge?" Mason asked with a flirtatious smile.

Some ghosts didn't show signs of how they died, while others did—like Marge. She still had the knife sticking out of her eye, a nasty trip and fall while she was yelling at her husband. Marge scoffed, jumping onto the counter and crossing her legs, "I would be better if she would just tell this idiot my message."

I didn't react and silently cursed Mason for giving away that I could see her months ago. Marge snapped her fingers in front of my face.

"Come on! All you have to do is tell Frank to tell my boyfriend I died."

I quickly paid, took the offered bag from Frank and ran out. Mason followed me and laughed, "They are a great couple. I can always feel the love."

"You really should just shut up sometimes," I grumbled as I unscrewed the cap on my drink. "You could at least not flirt with every dead girl you see."

"Who else am I meant to flirt with?" Mason started to wave his arms dramatically at the people passing us, "None of them can see this beautiful face!"

I shook my head, slipping on my headphones with the slight hope of drowning him out.

"At least I don't have to call back a dead girl."

Why did Mason have to die a horny seventeen-year-old?

"You seem well," Deirdre lied, a controlled expression on her face that I was sure she thought was kind. A false belief that if she looked approachable, I would reveal all of my secrets.

"I feel like shit," I replied with a smirk.

"Are you taking your medication?"

"Of course."

Deirdre eyed me and wrote on her notepad.

Mason laughed. "She doesn't believe you," he told me, tilting his head as he read over her shoulder, "She also wrote that she is going to call your dad, and there's a weird drawing of a horse… or maybe it's a dog."

Mason didn't have much of an understanding of personal space; the most he respected was not being in my room when I was getting changed and staying out of my bathroom. I smiled at Deirdre, "You don't have to call Abe. He knows I'm taking my pills." It was an easy lie; Abe never checked but would lie and say I did.

While Janine believed I was crazy, Abe seemed to disagree. He never said it to my face, but considering he never pushed the medication or had me committed, I felt confident in my assumption.

"Oh," Mason grinned, "she didn't like that. She underlined it. Twice."

I rolled my eyes. "You don't have to be in here, you know," I told him. He shrugged and started walking around the room, swiping at things in hopes he could knock them off. Ever since we watched a movie where the ghost could move objects, it had become his goal. The first time he knocked a can over shocked us both.

"Are you seeing figments again?" She spoke carefully as if I would break down at any moment.

"Mason," I told her.

She nodded, "What are your thoughts about Mason?"

"That's he's annoying, and won't stop asking to watch WWE."

Her lips pursed. "If Mason is in the room with us, how about he reads what I'm writing and you tell me?"

Mason grinned, already bounding over to her chair. I shrugged again, "Sure."

Deirdre gave me a sweet smile and started writing. Mason waited until she was finished before reciting it, "The child sits on the mat."

"The child sits on the mat," I repeated and waited for how she was going to play it off as a lucky guess. Instead, she clicked her tongue and turned her pad.

"I wrote driving along the beach." A look of satisfaction in her eyes as if she had achieved something.

I scowled at Mason who wore a shit-eating grin. "You're a prick, Mase."

"Maybe, Rose, you need to consider that Mason isn't actually there. We spoke about how traumas can be interpreted by the brain. You need to start accepting that seeing ghosts is just your brain's way of coping. Once you accept that they aren't real, you can start to get better." She tilted her head, "Don't you want to be better again?"

The egg timer on her desk went off and I was out of my chair within seconds. "Guess that's time. See you next time, doc," I called after me as I all but ran from her office, I didn't want to be in there any longer than I had to be.

I needed to negotiate with my parents to cut my sessions down to once a week rather than three, hoping to use studying as an excuse.

Abe had made me a deal when I came to live with him. I had to play nice and do the requirements Janine had until I was twenty-one, and then I could do whatever I wanted and would have a nice trust fund that Abe had set aside for me. Just two more years left and I was escaping it all.

There were a surprising amount of ghosts in the supermarket. I also ignored them there. Except for Brad, a dead employee who liked to go through the aisle singing Britney Spears songs. He always knew what the best deals were.

I didn't go in there for much, just another bottle of vodka. My fake ID would always be the best gift Mason got me and he knew it, even if he hated me using it now.

"Didn't you get a bottle two days ago?" he asked with a frown.

I side-eyed him and shrugged. Not much made ghosts disappear, but alcohol was one of them.

"Maybe you should slow down. You have been drunk every night this week."

"So?" I took a second bottle, might as well stock up now. "Maybe I like the quiet."

Mason was pissed, unable to do anything to stop me. He marched up to the display of wine bottles beside me, a determined look on his face. It made me nervous.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, glancing around me to see if anyone was watching.

"Stopping you from making bad choices," he declared, his hand pushed against the bottles but went through them.

I realised what he was doing and kicked out at him, just hitting the air. "Don't you fucking dare." He knew this was the only place that didn't question my ID.

"One day, you'll thank me," Mason breathed and pushed on the bottles again. This time his hand connected.

It was barely a nudge, but it was enough. I watched in horror as one bottle fell and hit the other—it was a domino effect; about fifteen bottles fell over and smashed on the ground at my feet. Red wine splashed and covered my shoes and jeans. No one else was in the aisle, leaving me the only one to blame when the employees rounded the corner.

I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath, "I'm going to kill you, Mason."

Abe placed his car keys on the kitchen counter, a look of disappointment aimed at me as he gestured to the bar stools that lined the island. I reluctantly sat and prepared myself to be lectured again. He stood opposite me and placed his hands on the counter.

The kitchen was large and modern—everything in this house was. Abe was a man of expensive taste and could afford it with the money he made from his businesses. He never went into detail about what he did and kept me away from most of it. I liked it that way. It wasn't like I was looking to take over any family business.

I think he had gained more grey hairs since I moved in, though his dark hair was still thick and wavy. I kind of wished I had the same waves as him rather than the thick curls of my mother. Abe unbuttoned his suit jacket and sighed, "That's the third time I've had to get you from jail. Are you trying to get committed?"

"I hear the food isn't half bad there," I jibed but dropped my eyes at the stormy look he aimed at me.

"You're lucky that they were willing to let it go. The damage you caused and a fake ID? You couldn't have spilled the cheaper wines, could you?" He dragged a hand down his face.

I decided to look anywhere except at him or Mason, the bastard who didn't even look sorry. There was no point even trying to explain what happened, and no one seemed to buy my "it just fell" excuse. The only camera that caught what happened was angled so you couldn't see the bottle fall, just me kicking at where Mason was.

"This can't keep happening, kiz."

I scowled. "I'm not doing any of this on purpose."

Abe sighed again, "Next time, they will press charges." The warning made my stomach twist in fear. If I was charged, they would look into my file, and I would end up committed to some psych hospital.

"Is there alcohol in your room?"

My eyes snapped to his. "So what if there is?"

His eyes narrowed, and then he nodded at Pavel, his personal guard, though he was more like a maid doing everything Abe asked of him. Pavel came back into the room and placed two bottles of vodka on the counter.

"You went through my room?" I asked incredulously.

"We agreed that I wouldn't interfere with what you did in your own space if you stayed out of trouble."

"What's next? Going to take away my electronics, too?"

Abe shook his head, expression drawn, "No more alcohol, and I'm making some changes around here. You can't keep getting in trouble."

I groaned and jumped down from the bar stool. "It's not my fault. It was–" I cut myself off, frowning at the realisation that I couldn't say the truth because he wouldn't believe it. Abe might not think I was crazy, but he didn't believe in ghosts.

Everything kept getting screwed up because I could see what others couldn't. I wished I had just stayed dead after the accident.

"Whatever," I relented, picking up my bag. "It's your house, old man. You make the rules." There was no use fighting it; until I was twenty-one, I didn't have control over my life. Once I had that trust fund, I would disappear to some small town and live in peace.

"I'm trying to protect you, Rose," he called after me. I didn't bother to turn and acknowledge him.

I stalked through the hallway and up the stairs to my room, closing and locking the door after me. Mason walked through the wall; his lips pressed into a thin line.

"It's what's best for you, Rose. You will just drink yourself to death if you keep it up," he tried reasoning with me.

"You can fuck off, Mason," I spat and searched through my underwear drawer. I hid a bottle in there just in case Abe ever did go through my room. I pulled out a bottle of rum and twisted off the top.

"Rose, wait!"

I drank from the bottle, turning to stare him down. It took drinking almost half of the bottle, but soon Mason was gone, and I couldn't hear his voice anymore.

Finally, it was quiet again.