Hello, everybody! As you read in the description, this is a side story to my 'Eyes' Duology. If you don't know what the duology is, check out my profile!

I will say, there are massive spoilers for 'Blue Eyes' in this story. Again, MASSIVE spoilers for 'Blue Eyes'. But, there are NO SPOILERS for 'Brown Eyes'.

It is not necessary to understand/continue with the duology, so no need to worry about that. This is more a series of mini stories that occur between 'Blue Eyes' and 'Brown Eyes'—tied together by a (very) loose emotional plotline—that I wanted to create because I love this tragic family and wanted to write more about them.

So, if you're here, welcome! And I hope you enjoy the story.

December 25th. Thomas, age 14. Harry, age 6.

The photograph is of three people.

On the left, a teenager with pale skin, blue eyes, and wavy black hair sits on a log by a roaring campfire. He's wearing a long blue overcoat that is a few sizes too big for him, and is holding a pair of slim glasses loosely in his hands. He has his elbows on his knees, and though he isn't smiling, he expression is amused.

On the right, a man in his mid-to-late 30s sits on another log, clad in an old hunting jacket and hiking boots that are peeling at the edges. Discarded wrapping paper has been neatly folded into a small pile by his feet. He is grinning, and on his lap is a young child with the same brown hair and eyes as the man holding him. The boy is bundled in a child's winter jacket, smiling wide enough to see that he's missing a tooth.

In the background is a snowy forest. The sky is overcast yet bright, with thin rays of light peeking between the clouds. They are the only ones here, celebrating Christmas Day with a camping trip. There are no people, no monsters, and nothing to worry about aside from the cold wind… And making sure that the six-year-old doesn't wander off into the forest.

I groaned as I tried, and failed, to find a comfortable spot on the log. "Next year, can I get a voucher to tie Harry to a tree? Because if I have to run after him one more time this trip, I'm gonna let him get possessed by those tree ghosts he keeps pretending to be."

Dad sighed and sat on the log opposite mine. "I should tell you no, but after he's done it for the third time—"

"Today," I added.

"The third time today," Dad said, "I might reconsider."

I huffed and poked at the fire with a stick.

I was never really 'into' camping. Chalk it up to the stylish start I had in life by growing up in a literal mansion, the fact that a bear mauled my clothes once, or the simple fact that I inherited Mom's aversion to roughing it outdoors. But Dad's into it.

We've only done it a few times, mostly because I think it's dumb to exchange things like indoor plumbing for sleeping in a tent. Did I feel guilty about that? Not really. But I was still feeling guilty about the mess I dragged us into last November, so when Dad suggested we go camping for Christmas, I surprised myself by saying sure.

It's not as bad as I remembered. The tent's alright, the fire's warm, and the campsite is pretty beautiful, with snow covering the tall trees and no other people in sight.

Now if only my six-year-old brother would stop causing chaos for a day.

Look, I get that it's Christmas, but sunset triggered a second surge of energy in the kid. Once the sun was gone, Harry tried to sneak away two times to try and 'haunt' us from the treeline. Dad decided he'd had enough of my brother's antics and tucked him into his sleeping bag. After he left the tent, Harry took that as his cue to leave too, leaving Dad and I to run after the brat before he stumbled into a den of hibernating raccoons.

"Think he'll stay in the tent this time?" I asked Dad.

"He better," Dad replied. "Because I told him if he doesn't, he doesn't get to play without his Rock'em Sock'em Robots until next year."

I raised an eyebrow. "Don't you mean 'my' robots?"

Dad failed to stop a laugh. "Right, right. Your robots."

I rolled my eyes. Of course Harry's gift to me would be a toy he'll be forcing me to play non-stop for the next couple months. Or until he finds a new toy to get obsessed with.

I still think my gift to Dad was the best. Sure, he'd gotten me the blue overcoat I was wearing now, but considering he's waiting for me to grow into it, the gift isn't going to pay itself off until I finally hit my growth spurt. The camera I'd given him, on the other hand, was a hit.

Whenever he wasn't playing with Harry, Dad was testing out the shining Nikon FA. He'd taken photos of us, the trees, the station wagon, Harry shoving himself into mounds of snow, and even a couple of group photos of the three of us. He'd put it back into the camera pack, but that's only when he got exhausted after running after my little brother. Dad's excitement paralleled Harry's excitement over the robot toy. Huh, makes you wonder if they're father and son or something.

A rush of wind blew through the campsite. The fireplace roared and flickered with the air, and I shivered as the cold snuck through my overcoat.

"Do you need a blanket?" Dad asked. Right away, he stood up and started walking to the car. "I'll go get the one in the backseat."

"I'm fine." I readjusted my hair and glasses, which had gotten ruffled by the wind.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Dad." I rolled my eyes. "What? Think I'm lying again?"

Dad stopped and turned to me.

An awkward quiet filled the campsite. I expected him to make a joke, say that it was nothing. But he didn't, and I turned my gaze to the ground.

"No. I don't think you're lying." Dad moved over and sat next to me on the log. "That's just me worrying about my son."

I kept my eyes on our boots.

Dad placed a heavy arm around my shoulders. "You know I don't blame you, right? For what happened with your cousin."

"Yeah," I ground out.

"Then what is it?"

"What's what?"

"This guilt," Dad said. "You don't have to feel it, Thomas."

I let out a mirthful laugh and rubbed my fingers together. "Then why do I?"

Dad sighed. "I don't know, son. But I do know that you gotta let it go. Guilt… it's an ugly emotion. It can weigh you down and carry you to places you're not supposed to go. There's not much you can do with it except let it hurt you."

"So you're saying I should never feel guilty?" I asked. "Even when I scared the shit out of Harry?"

"Language," Dad chided. But there was no heat in his words. Instead of scolding me further, he tightened his arm around my shoulders. "You know Harry's forgiven you for that."

My brother's face flashed in my mind. That long night, he was scared. And he wasn't scared of the monsters in his nightmare. He was scared of me running away. Me yelling. Me… begging our dad to kill me. I didn't even wait until Harry was out of the room. I told Dad to kill me, even when my brother was right there in front of me. "He shouldn't have."

"That's not your call to make," Dad said. "It's Harry's, and he's forgiven you. I'm not saying you should never feel guilty. What I am saying is that guilt is there to stop us from repeating our mistakes. You think you'll do what you did again?"

"No," I said immediately. I raised my head and looked Dad in the eye. "I won't scare him like that again."

Dad nodded. "And are you gonna lie again?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Not like I lied about Ferrin," I said at last.

Dad smiled. "I guess that'll do. And in exchange, I won't keep secrets like the ones I kept before. If I have a bodyguard job, or bodyguard training, I'll tell you. And if there's something that could hurt you, I'll tell you. Okay?"

"Yeah," I said. "Okay."

We stayed outside for a while longer. Without Harry jumping around, I could actually hear the forest. Being winter, there wasn't much to hear, but I could occasionally hear the slight rustle of the leafless branches, the crackling of the fire, and the roar of the chilling wind.

After a particularly strong gust, Dad said, "We should get to sleep."

"Yeah."

"Head inside. I'll be there in a couple minutes."

While Dad stayed outside to extinguish the campfire, I made my way to our tent. It was decently big—had to be, since it had to fit a guy who's six and a half feet tall—and was spacious enough for the three of us. It was still a bit of a tight fit, but it's not like we had the space to squeeze another tent in the back of the station wagon.

I zipped open the tent, half-relieved and half-annoyed to find Harry snoring inside. The last thing I needed was to wake up the little brat, but it also meant that this was the soundtrack I'd have to fall asleep to.

I shucked my boots off at the entrance and crawled over to my sleeping bag. Harry was at one end of the tent, I was at the other, and Dad would be in the middle. We'll still be squished together, but when Harry inevitably starts kicking in his sleep, he'll be kicking Dad's side instead of mine.

I folded up my new coat and set it at the edge of the tent, taking off my glasses and setting them on top. The cold hit me right away, so I slid into my sleeping bag. Harry was still snoring, so I turned to my side in the hope that, by facing away from the kid, I could focus on getting some sleep.

Harry took a big breath in, but there was quiet. I didn't hear anything. I sighed in relief, but still heard nothing. Not even an exhale.

And then, in the silence of the tent, Harry let out the longest, loudest snore I'd ever heard.

Just outside, Dad laughed.

I bit back a groan and pulled my sleeping bag up to my ears.

A little bit later, I heard the tent's zipper slide open. I might've also heard Dad grunt as he tripped over my boots.

"Thomas, we've talked about picking up after yourself," Dad scolded. "At least you folded your coat."

I mumbled something under my breath and sank further into the sleeping bag. It was finally starting to heat up, and I felt myself growing sleepy with the warmth.

Dad sighed. "I'll let it slide. But just for today, and only because it's Chrtistmas."

I almost snorted. Yeah, right. It's not like Dad's strict about that stuff. Or much, really, aside from the whole 'I'm a vampire' stuff. But now that that's out of the way, the only strict rules are about the weapons in the car. No using them without permission, keep an eye on Harry so he doesn't use them, and no talking about them in public in case someone overhears us. Overall, it could be worse. And this keeps the kid from trying to stab me when I won't share my pizza with him.

There was a rustle as Dad leaned over to put my boots next to my overcoat. I peered my eyes open to see he was also tucking the camera bag into the corner, where it would be safe from Harry's elbows.

"Thank you again for the camera," Dad said, before sitting down between me and Harry. "I know you're not gonna tell me how much this cost, but I'm pretty sure I've never gotten a gift this expensive since I was with your mom. She got me this whole camping setup a bit before Harry was born, remember?"

"Yeah, 'cause you wouldn't stop talking about it."

"I swear, I didn't realize it. Heh. For her to get me this, I must've been driving her nuts."

I chuckled. "You were. Don't know why, since she'd never agree to go camping."

"She actually did."

I looked over my shoulder and raised an eyebrow as high as it could go.

Now it was Dad's turn to laugh. "Surprising, I know. But… she said she'd give it a go, after your brother was born and he was big enough to join us. She wasn't too keen on the idea of sharing a tent with a baby. Don't know how we all would've fit in here, though."

We wouldn't have. Mom wasn't huge like Dad, but she was still six feet tall. She and him would've taken up most of the space, and I would've been squished in the middle or to the side. And that's without considering how my brother would've elbowed us in his sleep. And yet.

"Harry would've had fun," I whispered, so low I'm not sure Dad heard me. I settled onto my side again, facing the wall of the tent.

"He would have," Dad whispered back. He put his hand on the top of my head, like Mom used to, and rubbed my forehead with his thumb. Did he notice she used to do that? Is that why he was doing it now? "She loved him so much. Just like she loved you."

I closed my eyes. With Dad rubbing my forehead like that, I was falling even deeper into sleep. I started thinking about Mom. Thinking about how she would've complained about the rough ground and the cold air. How she would've put on a show around the campfire, making the whole campsite glow with the shine of a thousand tiny lights. I can imagine my brother jumping and laughing. He would've begged her to do more and more magic. Mom would've rolled her eyes, but then done something huge, like making dragons out of spinning lights. She did that for me, once. On my seventh birthday.

"Night, Dad," I whispered.

"Good night, Thomas," he said. And just when I was about to fall asleep, Dad said, "I love you."

And suddenly I was wide awake again.

"Thomas?" Dad said. "Did you fall asleep?"

I hadn't. I had managed to keep my eyes closed, but a swirling feeling in my stop pushed away the tiredness that had almost lulled me to sleep.

Dad's told me he loves me over the years. At first, it was only occasionally, like when he'd tell me and Mom that he loved us after getting away from a monster that was chasing us. After she died, he'd say to me and Harry when tucking us into bed. But now, after all the chaos that happened after Harry's birthday, he's been saying it even more. He's said it when he drops us off at school, or before he heads to a gig. Sometimes he'll even say it out of nowhere, like when he reminds me to do my homework or goes to take Harry to the playground.

He's been saying it to me for seven years. And for seven years, I've never said it back.

"You see this, Maggie?" Dad said, in a very, very quiet voice. He kept stroking my forehead, and I could practically hear him smiling. "I remember when he barely let me touch you, let alone him. And now…"

The tent went quiet. For a minute, there was no sound, except the slight scratching noise from where Dad rubbed his thumb against my skin.

"I wish you could've been here, Maggie," Dad whispered. "Harry's gotten so big. At the rate he's growing, he might even end up taller than me. And God, he's so funny. He got Thomas these toy robots and still insists they're for his brother. I told him to put on his gloves, and he said that if anyone got cold, it'd be me. He said that after he covered my legs in half a ton of snow. If you were here, you would've shoved his gloves onto his hands, and then you would've helped him cover the rest of me in snow.

"You would've complained about the tent." Dad chuckled. "And when the boys were asleep, I would've taken you to a clearing that's nearby. There's a strange wooden bench there. It's old, and I have no idea why it exists, but you would've liked it. Maybe you would've done something and figured out that—I don't know—a fae built it for meetings in the mortal realm. I would've taken your picture, and you would've looked beautiful.

"And Thomas," he continued. "He would've gotten you something special for Christmas. A dress, or a pair of those fancy earrings you loved. Or maybe something completely different. Whatever it'd have been, it would've surprised you. He has a knack for that." He stopped rubbing my forehead, and set his hand over my head. "He called me 'Dad', Maggie. I finally earned it."

I struggled to keep myself still. I didn't realize calling him 'Dad' was such a big thing for him. I just figured it was time, after everything that happened. But more than that, I didn't realize he talked to Mom like that. Like she was right here with us. How many times has he done that? Just sit next to me and Harry, talking to her ghost. Wherever it is.

"I should get some sleep, too," Dad said to the air. He moved his hand from my hair and settled into his sleeping bag. "Good night, Maggie… And thank you for your gift."

I didn't move a muscle. Not even when I heard Dad's breath even out behind me.

When Mom introduced me to him, I was skeptical. I remembered my last moments in the Raith mansion, when Mom and I spied on Lord Raith feeding on Lara, and I didn't know if this new guy would be anything like my father. It took me ages to trust him, and even then, I didn't think of him as a dad. Even after Mom died and he was the one taking care of me. Back then, I never would've thought about calling him 'Dad'.

But after November, things changed. I'd accepted he was more of a father to me than Raith ever was, and thinking of my birth father as 'Dad' felt weird. Wrong. He wasn't the one who deserved the title. Malcolm Dresden was.

Now, calling him 'Dad' feels right, but it took me years to say that. I know I love him too, but the words feel heavy. I don't know why. I don't have an answer that makes sense to anyone but me.

But I don't have to find the answer right now.

For once, I feel like I have time to figure it all out. Even with the knowledge that I'll Turn one day, I know that day isn't today, which means I have time. Time to focus on my life as it is now without worrying about how it was or will be.

I have time.

And even if that time won't be perfect, it still feels damn good to have.