Author: Ultimatepickupline (Reese)
Couple: M/L
Rating: Child
Disclaimer: yata, yata, yata, don't own it.
Summary: Christmas one parter. Liz is alone...so far.
A/N: Special thanks to Tanya 7496 who made my banner, bluebballjumper who beta'd this fic, and my best friend who insipired me to write it, even though she didn't know she did.
When you’re alone, Christmas is lonely. That’s not a very profound statement or anything, it just happens to be the truth: when you’re alone, Christmas is lonely. You watch all the decorations go up and you’re happy at first, because your first thoughts of Christmas are those memories you have of making Christmas Lists to Santa and anxiously anticipating Christmas morning to see what Santa brought you. You remember making Christmas cookies with your mom and putting up Christmas lights in the cold with your dad. You reminisce about agonizing what to get your parents for Christmas on your two dollar a week allowance, and you recall taking the family Christmas picture for the Christmas cards and making little crafts in art class to hang on the Christmas tree. You recollect singing Christmas carols at the top of you lungs and listening to other people who come by your house Christmas caroling. You think about all these things and you can’t help but smile and feel your spirits rise, because Christmas was such a great, magical time in your mind.
But if you have happened to live through putting your parents in the ground, and you’ve just moved to a new place where no one knows you except your co-workers, then you only feel the joy of Christmas Past for about a minute before the pain and loneliness of Christmas Present and Christmas Future comes creeping in to soil your happy memories and destroy any happiness or hope you had for the holiday.
Now you’re sure that while this Christmas may suck because of your current condition, it can’t suck forevermore. Can it? It gets better for you in the future. Right? Of course it will. But that doesn’t mean that it will change for you within this season. So when your only friend at the publishing firm you work for, Maria Deluca-Guerin asks you if she can set you up on a blind date for your Christmas present, you don’t think it will be life-changing. The only reason you even really agree is because you know that Maria would never settle for not getting you a gift at all, and you know that as a newly-wed just out of college, she barely has enough money to get her husband a gift, let alone you. So you accept.
You don’t really prepare for the night of the date, because you don’t see anything really coming out of this. You wonder how much someone could really know about you just by working together for three months anyway. This couldn’t end up being the love of your life, and you’re not in the mood. So why bother?
What you really want to do is curl up with your laptop and talk to your friend online. You met him in a chat room for grieving loved ones, and you understand each other. He lost his wife, and you lost your parents. It’s not the same thing, but you can still relate to each other because grief is a powerful thing that can bring you closer to some people and cut you off completely from others. Your grief caused you to be cut off from everyone because you couldn’t stand living in your childhood town. So you moved out and accepted the promotion you were previously hesitant about. His grief also made him move, but at least for him he had the option of moving closer to his cousin. So he knew someone.
Now you’re not in the habit of lying to yourself so you’ll freely admit that this other random person online is the only person who really makes you feel normal again sometimes. It doesn’t happen often because your grief is so thick, but you know that conversations with him at least give you a little bit of reprieve from the daily wear of your grief. So you treasure your time online, and you tell him everything, and he’s probably the person who knows you best in this world, and vice versa. You even tell him about your secret resentment that you have to go on this date. He says he understands because his cousin has done the same thing to him and wishes you happiness despite your misgivings.
So you decide to make at least a half-hearted effort. You pick out a red sweater and a black skirt you know looks good on you, and you put on some simple, but elegant make-up and brush your long brown hair out and pull half of it back. You go to the agreed upon restaurant, are quickly seated, and take the menu from the waiter to look at as you wait. You wait for longer than you thought you would have to and spend your time talking with the waiter, playing with the white rose on the table, and looking around for your mystery guy. You’ve just decided that you aren’t going to wait any long and you’re getting your stuff together to go when finally your date decides to show up.
You’re a little annoyed that this guy obviously didn’t have the decency to show up on time, but you decide that there’s nothing to be gained by not even giving him a chance and it’s no skin off your back to give him a shot, so you decide not to let his lack of punctuality bother you. He apologizes, you accept, and you move on with the night. You order your food and start talking and by the end of the meal you decide you definitely made the right decision because believe it or not you actually like this guy.
After dinner the two of you walk back to your apartment to bid each other good night. Your date kisses you on the cheek and gives you a gift. He says that he thought he should get you something since he realizes that the reason for this date is because his cousin wanted to get you something but didn’t have the money to do so. So you should consider this gift a gift from her. Then he apologizes that it isn’t very much and that he didn’t know what you would like. He hands you a small, flat box in shiny gold wrapping paper with a green ribbon and encourages you to go ahead and open it. You take your time to open the small package without ripping the wrapping and you finally open it to find a beautiful glass snowflake ornament that has “Christmas two thousand-six” inscribed in the middle. He says that his mother always loves them, and that every year his father gives her one as a gift on the first day of December. You smile, tell him it’s beautiful, thank him, and kiss him on the cheek. Then you say good night, turn around to open your door, and go inside.
As you get ready for bed you think about how great this night was and hope there will be more like it in the near future. You’re bubbling with excitement as you open your laptop and log online to talk with your friend. You want to tell him that the happiness he wished for you was granted, and that you think for the first time in nine months things are looking up, and the future doesn’t seem so glum. Unfortunately, he isn’t on so you can’t talk to him. You settle for checking your email, reading a book and going to bed.
But during the night you get a wonderful email, one that you didn’t expect, but cherish for years to come.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Liz,
It seems that just as you were set up on a date by your friend, I was set up on a date by my cousin. Like you, I wasn’t expecting great things, but I went with the idea that I could at least have fun. What I didn’t expect was to be completely captured by my date before I even arrived. I ended up being an hour late not because I have a problem with being punctual, but because I spent the entire hour watching her. Luckily for me she must not have held a grudge, because the date went perfectly.
At the end of the night I gave her a snowflake ornament that my mom collects, and I got the most beautiful smile and sweetest kiss in return. I know it seems early to be saying this, but I can just see our future Christmas trees filled with these snowflakes.
It appears that those best wishes I wished for you earlier, worked in my favor as well.
-Max