I'm pretty much whipped..
charloft Winter Bingo
Like Elly, I'm going to update to this post and will get to it... whenever. Have to rule half a planet, after all. :p
The new card.
Christmas carol
old year
tradition
fireworks
quilt
elf
regift
character's been nice
warm
nice
aunt
( Read more... )
Like Elly, I'm going to update to this post and will get to it... whenever. Have to rule half a planet, after all. :p
The new card.
Christmas carol
old year
tradition
fireworks
quilt
elf
regift
character's been nice
warm
nice
aunt
( Read more... )
While Chapel was busy tending to the various injuries - the local doctor's assessments were fairly spot on, but she was still giving everyone something to stave off infections, just in case - Dree moved into Chapel's office. Behind the door was a large whiteboard, full of notes and information that Chapel needed to keep handy. (A second, smaller board, hung lower down on the wall, an easy reach for a five-year-old's short arms.)
Dree let her eyes glance over the various comments and reminders before making herself look up to the top right corner. There, marked off by some colored tape, was an unlabeled box. Slowly, Dree picked up the eraser and wiped away the number above the diagonal line. The marker had dried a bit, leaving a shadow of the number, but it had also been nearly a year since the total had changed.
Setting the eraser back onto the tray, Dree picked up the black marker and wrote in the number from below the line, then rewrote the original number in the lower corner, along the tape's edge. She was fairly certain Chapel knew the number by heart, though. Replacing the cap on the marker, Dree once again reached for the eraser and cleared the lower section of the homemade box. Taking a breath, she picked up the orange marker and filled in a medium-sized 2.
She knew that Chapel had stopped in the doorway, but it didn't stop Dree from making the note. She did glance at Chapel for a second before dropping her hand slightly and adding the date along the edge of the tape. Lowering her chin, Dree recapped the marker and replaced it to the tray.
Chapel stepped into the office and placed a comforting hand on Dree's back. "Let's have that be the highest number that box sees this year, yeah?" she said, continuing on to her desk. Dree knew she was referring to the orange two, but made no effort to reply. Chapel knew she'd been heard and also knew that there was no way either of them could truly guarantee the number wouldn't get any higher.
Pulling a file off her desk, Chapel moved back to Dree's side and tugged on her arm. "I'm surprised you managed to erase that," Chapel nodded, inclining her head toward the board slightly. At Dree's narrowed eyes, Chapel smiled and pulled Dree toward the door. "Figured that had permanently dried, long as it's been there." Dree smiled for a moment and then looked down again.
"Come on, Your Majesty. Let's get you an allergy test."
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Dree sipped at her mug of hot tea and moved through the house. The place was quiet, as the twins were finally asleep, and Max had been worn out by chasing Tinny around the ranch. Glancing in on Max, she smiled at the sight of him fast asleep and headed back to see where the adults were. After searching three rooms, she still couldn't find anyone.
The sound of humming coming from the porch caught her attention and Dree leaned out to see Isabelle on the porch, looking out over the ranch as her hands worked the knitting needles automatically. Dree leaned against the door frame and watched Isabelle, transfixed as whatever she was making grew another two rows.
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Dree sucked in a breath as she sat up. Wincing, Dree reached for her side and grimaced as the pain coursed through her. Letting out a shaky breath, she looked around for a moment, trying to will her eyes to adjust to the dark room. Carefully reaching along the surface she had been lying on, Dree knew that she was in a freezer, but she didn't know how far off the ground she was. Common sense would assume that she wasn't much higher than chest-level, as it would be hard for anyone to lift a dead body over their heads. As she started to move around, Dree wished for two simple things...
First, that she didn't feel up any dead bodies.
Second, that she had some clothes.
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Dree walked through the door of the Mirage and waved to CJ and Wyatt. Seeing Kenna and Diz, sitting at one of the tables, she headed straight for them, as Wyatt's message had said that the girls wanted to see her.
"Hello, ladies," she said with a smile and pointed to an empty chair. "May I join you?" Diz nodded and climbed out of her chair while Kenna leaned sideways to pick up the bag sitting between the two of them.
"We brought presents for the babies," Diz announced as she came around Kenna's chair and stopped in front of Dree. Dree looked between them and smiled.
"You did? You didn't have to do that."
"We don' need 'em any more," Diz continued, shaking her head and, in the process, her whole body.
"Here, Diz," Kenna whispered and held up Diz's gift. Diz turned and took the blanket from Kenna, then turned back to Dree and dumped it in her lap.
"This is for TJ. It was Jeb's but then he gave it to me and I think it would be good for TJ because it is red. And it was Jeb's and Jeb is a boy and TJ is a boy." Dree looked down at the blanket and smiled. She still remembered the day Diz was born, like it was yesterday, when she sent Billy to the cabin to get the blanket.
Dree smiled again and blinked before she started crying. "Thank you, Dizzy, I'm sure he'll love it. And we'll take very good care of it." Out of the corner of her eye, Dree could see that Kenna was holding on to Wyatt, still looking ragged as ever. Her breath actually caught, but she managed to force a smile and Kenna slid off her chair.
"I want Elsie to have it. It was Jeb's first, too, but then he gave it to me. And he is very brave and he will keep the bad dreams away." Kenna placed the bear on top of the blanket and stepped back.
"Ken... I can't take this from you," Dree said, shaking her head. The bear was already sitting in her box and, besides that, it was Kenna's bear. He was with her for everything.
"Dizzy said that she has bad dreams, like Mommy did, before. And he helped her to sleep so he can help Elsie." Kenna reached over and put her hand on Dree's. "It's okay, Aunt Audree." Dree looked at her girls and continued to force herself not to cry. Setting the bear and the blanket on the table, Dree slid off the chair and knelt down in front of Diz and Kenna.
Opening her arms, Dree closed her eyes as the girls leaned into her hug. "I love you two, very much." Pushing them both back slightly, she smiled and nodded. "Since they aren't old enough to say 'Thank you', I'll say it for them." Diz and Kenna smiled and hugged Dree again.
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El'Ari was curled up on the end of the couch, scowl on her face, as she watched Liz move around the apartment, minding her own business. She didn't want to be there, but it was the holiday break and she couldn't stay at school; and, since she had nowhere else to go, Liz offered her apartment. El'Ari thought it was just cruel torture, having to spend her only time away from school and her forced punishment with the person in charge of enforcing her forced punishment.
An eyebrow went up as El'Ari watched Liz pull a box from the closet and set it on the floor. A moment later, Liz pulled out a small tree and smiled as she poked at the branches. As Liz went about her business of clearing off the counter, to make a place for the tree, El'Ari found herself watching Liz. Okay, maybe ogling was a better term. Liz moved back and forth from the box a few times - leaning down and pulling items out, moving back to the tree and then back to the box - and, after a few pokes at the branches, she turned and gave El'Ari a smile.
"What do you think?" she asked, then plugged in the lights.
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Max made a succession of noises as Trey finished getting him dressed. He laughed and shifted to roll on his side as Trey got him under the arms and moved to pick him up. "You gotta stand, bud." Max leaned forward in Trey's hold and looked at the floor as Trey set him down. "No," Trey said, holding Max in place, as Max tried to head for his toys. Max's face scrunched up and he grunted as Trey pulled the zipper up and kissed Max's cheek.
"All ready to surprise Mommy!" Trey said with a grin. Max screeched and smiled, throwing his arms up and bouncing.
"Uhhoo," Max said, when he realized his hands were missing. Waving his arms around, Trey laughed and hauled Max up.
"What happened to your hands?" Trey carried Max toward the kitchen and reached for the plate on the counter. He'd managed to get Audree out of the house for a good portion of the day - Massey helped him out, but asking her to help with an inventory - and had started preparing their quarters for the holiday. As he set up the small tree, Trey wondered if she even knew that it was Ozma's Eve.
He'd made her gingerbread cookies - she preferred iced gingersnaps, but the gingerbread was easier, in case Max managed to get within reach of the cookies - and, after a few weeks of sneaking time whenever he could, Trey put the finishing touches on Max's outfit. Glancing at the clock, Trey wondered how much longer Massey was going to keep her. He took a bite of one of the gingerbread cookies and held it up for Max.
"Eat this arm, bud," he said, pulling Max's covered hand away from his mouth. "Is it good?" he asked as Max sucked on the gingerbread man's arm for a moment before it broke off the rest of the body. Trey took another bite and reached under Max's chin to adjust the collar. "Mommy's gonna eat you up," he told the one-year-old, as Max reached a covered hand for the cookie.
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Dree paced the floor with TJ in her arms, humming softly as he fought to stay awake. It had gotten cold outside and, while Dree didn't want to make him too warm, she also knew that bundling him up would help the boy to sleep. One-handed, Dree pulled the thick blanket out of the closet and moved over to the rocking chair. She shook out the blanket and draped it rather messily over the chair, then sat down and pulled the ends of the blanket up to cover both of them.
TJ fussed for a moment, waiting for Dree to hold him closer. She worked the blanket around him and leaned back in the chair. "Is that better, my Middle Man?" she asked in a whisper. When his nose scrunched slightly, Dree smiled and watched him nod off. All of a sudden, her face fell and and glanced away.
She stared at the door, wishing he would show up in the doorway, as he would when Max was up in the middle of the night. A small squeak from TJ brought her attention back to the newborn and she sniffed. "Sorry, Middle Man..." She knew he could sense her tension and upsetting him would keep him awake that much longer.
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For one who always loved winter, she hates Christmas the most. Well, it's not Christmas, exactly - that's on the Other Side. The part she hates is the... it's just the whole...
Everything.
Snow used to make her happy, but first snowfalls in the Zone were shared with Wyatt. Snowmen and snowball fights with the kids. Decorating the tree - it's not exactly their tradition, but DG and Hilary loved to decorate for their Other Side-holiday, and it became a habit.
They made the holiday warm, cheery... joyful.
As the years went by, as she lost everyone who mattered, it was just another reminder of what she no longer had. She tried to ignore it.. but always found herself putting up some sort of decorations, at the last minute.
Each year that passed, she made herself add one more decoration - whether a paper snowflake, taped to the window, or a new ornament for the tree. She made herself listen to Scott's favorite holiday songs and she made herself sit in the park, watching the folks rushing around with their last minute-shopping.
It was easier, once she had Ally, because the little girl gave her a reason to celebrate once again. They made new ornaments, decorated the bakery and the cookies; she helped Ally learn all the words to the carols and they would snuggle under a blanket on Ozma's Eve, sipping hot chocolate and trying to stay awake, in case Ozma showed up.
After she escaped from Illarina, she decided that she had to stop living like she was the walking dead. She needed to get back to what made her happy, so that she wouldn't think about the year of pure hell she'd endured. So, she did.
The first Christmas she spent with El'Ari, she had to explain what she was doing and why she was doing it. The tree alone had thrown El'Ari for a complete loop - Quaylar didn't take a perfectly good tree from outside and bring it in to dress up with lights and stuff. And they also didn't string up lights outside, either.
Though, in her defense, the white lights on the porch were always there, because the light on the porch just wasn't enough to keep the space lit.
Once again, though, the Zone took everything from her, including her will to celebrate. Trey and El'Ari were doing everything they could to keep things "normal", so they pulled out the bits and pieces and sat her down to help decorate. The first year took nearly a week, just to get her to put a single ornament on the small tree they'd found.
The next year, Max was with them, and she tried a little harder to put on the holiday cheer. By the time they had resettled on Laethriel, Trey was gone, there were two new babies and decorating the house was the only thing she could do to keep herself sane - and that was saying something.
This year, though... the Zone had, once again, pulled the rug out from under her. While everyone was inside, trying to keep up the cheer, for Isabelle's sake... she just couldn't do it. Once they'd started singing, she had to get out and excused herself to the porch for some air. It wasn't that she wanted them to stop... she just couldn't listen to it. And, for Isabelle's sake, she tried, but she knew that she was going to do more damage staying there.
It was cold outside, there was snow on the ground and the moon was bright, giving everything a blue glow. She made it over to the corral fence and gripped the rail as she sucked in a deep breath. Leaning against the post, she sunk down and sat on her heels, then looked up at the sky. "Damn you..." she whispered and closed her eyes as the tears started to fall.
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Dree moved down the bar and reached for a glass. "What can I get you?" She asked, prepping a glass for the rum and Coke for the suit down the bar.
"A beer would be great," she head and looked up with a smirk.
"We have lots of beer-" she started. When she saw the man standing across from her, her breath caught. 'Damn,' she thought and blinked. "Uh... what kind of beer do you want?" She recovered, throwing a look to the stage. El was futzing with her guitar and making a funny face as she tried to get it in key.
"Give me your favorite, I guess," the brunette said with a crooked smile. Glancing at her hand as Dree passed over a cold bottle, he noticed the ring. "Well, that figures," he told her with a sigh.
Dree frowned and leaned against the bar. "What's that?" He nodded to her hand.
"It figures that a pretty lady with excellent taste in beer would be taken." Dree wished the lights would go down already, because she was pretty sure she was blushing.
"Maybe I'm just wearing it to keep all the strange men away," she told him, raising an eyebrow. He smiled and Dree's breath caught again. 'What the hell is wrong with you, Springer?' the voice in her head asked. She got hit on by guys - and girls - all the time...
But this was the first time she actually liked it.
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