Since We've No Place To Go
Title: Since We've No Place To Go
Chapter: 1/1
Pairing: Jesse/Rachel
Word Count: 4,050
Summary: Jesse and Rachel's plans fall through. And then there's a blizzard.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Part of the Twelve 'Ships of Christmas.
Jesse doesn't plan to tell Rachel that his parents are actually going to be in Ohio for the holidays this year. In fact, he doesn't tell her so much as she overhears his mother's voice when he's listening to the message in the cab when they're heading downtown to a cocktail party their agent is hosting.
"So we're spending Christmas in Ohio," Rachel says after he's deleted the message.
He senses the danger here immediately. "Why would we do that?"
She looks at him pointedly. "I've only ever met your parents twice, and we've been together for over three years. They're always out of the country for Christmas, so why wouldn't we take advantage of them being around this year?"
The fact that they're basically horrible comes to mind, but that isn't something that Rachel would understand. She grew up with parents who would have walked to the ends of the earth for her. His parents played favorites and threw money at problems, and even though Jesse generally benefited from his parents' favoritism, he wouldn't call anything about his upbringing warm or particularly healthy.
"I just don't think it's a good idea," he finally says. "I'd rather have a quiet holiday here in the city, just the two of us."
"But we see my dads for Thanksgiving every year."
"That doesn't mean that we have to see my parents," he points out. He thinks that should be obvious, but judging by the look on her face, Rachel doesn't feel the same way. "Can we please talk about this later and enjoy the party?" he asks when the cab turns onto the street where the bar they're going to is.
Rachel rubs her lips together, which is either an expression of her frustration or simply ensuring that her lip gloss is evenly distributed. "Of course," she answers, smiling.
Jesse doesn't know why, exactly, Rachel is upset, but she is. It wouldn't be obvious to anyone who didn't know her well, but Jesse knows her better than nearly anyone. He can read the tiny little signs that no one else would notice, like the way that she stands half a step further away from him than usual, or how she avoids being alone with him for more than a few minutes at a time when their usual modus operandai at parties like this is to find at least one little chunk of time to just be together. (It's one of the little things they've always done that's earned them their reputation as Broadway's most adorable couple.)
"I want to spend Christmas with your parents, Jesse."
She says it quietly when they're in the cab on their way back uptown. Jesse can't say that he's surprised.
"You know I'm normally happy to give you whatever you want," Jesse begins, thinking of at least a dozen different things he could point to as evidence, "but I don't think you understand what you're asking for."
She narrows her eyes at him. "I'm asking for the opportunity to get to know my boyfriend's parents and celebrate the holidays."
She crosses her arms over her chest, and Jesse knows that she's already made up her mind about this. Since he really does want to give her everything that she wants when he can, he knows he's going to end up giving in. It sours his mood a little, so he's more than happy to finish the ride back to their building in silence.
Rachel goes straight to the bedroom to change out of her dress when they get back to the apartment, just like she always does after nights like this, while Jesse goes into the kitchen for a glass of water. He's always surprised by how well Rachel can carry on with the silent treatment; she isn't as prone to running off at the mouth as she was when she was a teenager, but he knows that being completely silent is an effort for her.
He also knows that the only time that she uses the silent treatment is when her feelings get involved, and he's pretty sure that he's hurt her, somehow, with his reluctance to celebrate Christmas with his family back in Ohio. He doesn't know why. It really has nothing to do with her, and everything to do with the fact that spending any significant amount of time with his parents is unpleasant at the very least.
Rachel is in the bathroom when he goes looking for her, standing in front of the sink in a yellow slip nightgown, patting her face dry. He leans against the counter, watching her fold the towel carefully over the bar. "I don't want to fight about this," he tells her quietly.
She refuses to meet his eyes, even in the mirror. She busies her hands, smoothing moisturizer onto her face. "I don't understand why you don't want me to spend Christmas with your family."
"It isn't about you," he says as gently as possible, fully expecting the huff that he gets in return. "Holidays with my family are torturous."
"Don't be dramatic." She drops the moisturizer into the drawer and walks out of the bathroom, leaving him standing there.
"Rachel, I'm the favorite and I think they're torture," he points out, following her into their bedroom. "Jenna won't come. Apparently Riley's family is wonderful," he says, referring to his brother-in-law. "I don't know if Adam will be there, but either way, all the attention will be on you and me. You don't have to go through that."
"I thought you said they liked me."
The uncertainty he sees creeping into her eyes almost makes him want to smile - this is what's bothering her about this - but he knows better. "They do," he assures her. They've only met Rachel twice, once for dinner when they were passing through the city on their way to Europe and once when they came to the Tonys because his show was nominated (which meant that they were easily pushed aside, frankly). Rachel is naturally charming and makes a lovely first impression. That combined with the fact that the closest thing she's ever gotten to bad press was really about him (she just happened to be with him at that party, though she wasn't present when that particular incident took place) means that his father thinks Rachel is sweet and his mother can't be bothered to think much of anything.
"Rachel." He watches her walk from one side of their bed to the other, turning on the lamps on their bedside tables. "Christmas St. James-style is all about getting drunk enough that the passive-aggressive comments are amusing instead of infuriating. It's impersonal and uncomfortable and cold." He looks at her, standing there beside the bed and looking beautiful, and shrugs his shoulders. "I'd rather spend the day alone with you, snuggled up on the couch, watching those movies that you pretend not to like as much as I know you do."
She scowls for a second, but then she just looks sad. "I still want to go," she admits, almost like she's ashamed.
He figured as much. "Your masochistic side is showing," Jesse teases, stepping forward to put his hands on her hips.
"Maybe I just think you're exaggerating," she shoots back.
He shakes his head. He's already lost the argument - and the battle - because he can't deny her anything, especially not something so simple. And maybe there will be some satisfaction in saying 'I told you so' when it's a disaster.
"Fine."
"Fine?" she parrots.
Jesse rolls his eyes. "We'll spend Christmas with my family."
She tips her head back to kiss him, setting her hands on his shoulders. "Thank you."
*
It's adorable, the way Rachel throws herself into getting ready for their Christmas trip, the way she starts to get actively excited about two weeks before they're due to leave. He knows that she grew up celebrating Christmas secularly with her non-Jewish father, not to mention the fact that she grew up with largely non-Jewish peers, but this is as excited as he's ever seen her about the holiday.
He's hoping against hope that his parents somehow manage not to behave like themselves in front of Rachel. He's dreading the disappointment in her eyes when she realizes that Jesse was right about them all along, and it would be really lovely if they could just prove him wrong.
Rachel has gotten gifts for his parents every year since they started dating, but she nearly drives him to madness this year. She insists that the gifts have to be more meaningful (more impressive, he thinks is what she means) to repay their hospitality and, "because I'm going to see their faces this time." The only gift that he's worried about is what he's going to get her.
She wraps his parents' gifts and ships them to his Ohio a week before their flight to avoid paying baggage fees on them.
"You don't think they'll open them early, do you?" she asks when she gets home from the post office.
"You're adorable," he tells her instead of answering. He saw her Do not open until Christmas! warnings, handwritten in decorative letters and embellished with glittery snowflake stickers.
She tilts her head at him (adorably) and smiles. "Thank you."
*
Ignoring his mother's calls is something he does out of habit and something like a self-preservational instinct. Having their conversations through a series of voicemails (and, occasionally, emails) is something that they've perfected over the years, and it's a system that really works for them, whatever dysfunction it reveals in their family.
He gets the message when he's leaving the gym to meet Rachel for lunch.
Hello, darling! his mother's voice comes through the receiver. I'm not sure if you've been paying attention to the weather, but they're calling for snow here in Ohio this weekend, and your father and I really aren't interested in sticking around for that, so we've booked a flight to Bali. I hope it doesn't muck up your plans with Rachel too much, but I know you understand. Merry Christmas!
Jesse rolls his eyes, hitting the button to delete the message before shoving his phone in his coat pocket. Of course his parents are selfish enough to completely derail his and Rachel's holiday plans and think nothing of it. His father might actually feel bad, a tiny bit, about disappointing Rachel, but not enough to apologize for himself, and his mother is really only worried about her own comfort.
He's already dreading the look on Rachel's face when he tells her that Christmas with his parents is canceled, even though he thinks that, really, this is probably for the best.
"Have you heard anything about snow?" he asks after he's kissed her hello and settled into his seat at the restaurant.
She gives him an odd look, smoothing her napkin in her lap. "No."
"My mother has," Jesse says wryly. He hates the way that Rachel's face falls, like she already knows what he's going to say. "Apparently they're calling for snow in Ohio, and my mother is allergic to being even a little bit uncomfortable, so they're going to Bali for the holidays."
"Bali," she repeats incredulously. Jesse nods. "They canceled Christmas."
He doesn't mean to laugh at her, but she looks and sounds so sad, and it's so dramatic and classically Rachel - the Rachel he started falling in love with when he was eighteen - that he can't help it.
"They canceled our trip," he corrects, ignoring the indignant look on her face as best he can. "This is a sign, Rachel, from Mother Nature herself. It wasn't meant to be."
She scowls. "You're happy about this."
Yes, but he knows better than to say that. "I think it's a blessing in disguise," he offers, a more diplomatic answer.
*
It turns out that the snow that his mother referenced in Ohio was little more than flurries. But by the time the storm gets to the northeast, there are blizzard warnings and people taking about a white Christmas during which they'll be able to measure accumulation in feet rather than just inches. It's supposed to start in the early hours of the morning and keep up for most of the day, and honestly, the whole thing could wind up being a nightmare.
Rachel, of course, is excited.
She insists, first of all, that they need supplies. Initially, Jesse agrees with her. The first winter that he spent in the city, he'd gotten caught off-guard by a storm and had been forced to venture out into the muck and mayhem after he'd exhauasted the supply of ramen noodles in his cabinet, the origins of which he wasn't even entirely sure of. (To this day, he can't remember ever buying ramen noodles, but there they were.) It's just good sense to stock up on the essentials.
Of course, Rachel's idea of blizzard essentials is a little different than Jesse's.
She insists that they go to the used bookstore a few blocks from their apartment first. "What if we lose power and have live for days on end without technology?" she proposes when he asks why. "Don't you want to have something to do besides sit and stare at each other?"
Jesse could point out that between the two of them, their personal library isn't unimpressive, and there are plenty of things that they each haven't read, but this is one of the things that he loves about Rachel. She doesn't think like everyone else, and it makes even the mundane things something like an adventure.
Of course, she is still a very practical girl under all of that adventure, and she's the one who realizes that they left bottled water off their shopping list and grabs a couple of boxes of matches when they're at the checkout at the market.
Rachel spends most of the evening sitting in an armchair near the windows, reading the Cleopatra biography she got at the bookstore that afternoon (so much for worrying about losing electricity) and, Jesse knows, watching out the window for the snow to start falling. She's also ignoring the marathon of episodes of The Twilight Zone that he found because every time she watches it, she sleeps fitfully and has bizarre dreams.
This is another of the things that he loves about being with Rachel. They're able to share the same space without being on top of one another, to each do their own thing without expecting the other to play along just because. It's comfortable in a way that Jesse hasn't ever been with anyone but her.
"When is it supposed to start?" Rachel asks as the credits roll on an episode.
"Not until after midnight." He looks over the back of the couch at her. She's looking out the window, the twinkle lights that she used to frame the window illuminating her face softly, highlighting her profile. "Nothing yet?"
"No." She turns to face him, leaning forward a little to set her book on the table. "What if it doesn't snow at all?" she asks sadly.
"They called the blizzard imminent," he reminds her gently.
She lets out a little sigh and turns back to the window. "I'm going to be so disappointed if I wake up and everything isn't white."
Jesse turns the TV off and stands, walking across the room to where she's sitting. "Let's go to bed."
She blinks up at him. "I'm not tired."
"Rachel," he says lowly. "We don't have to sleep." She shoots him a look. "We'll just cuddle under the covers and wait for the snow."
Rachel crawls into bed beside him in a pair of blue pajamas patterned with polar bears, and as much as he loves it when Rachel wears little slip nightgowns and revealing things, he loves her quirky little pajamas. They remind him, as much as anything, of the girl that he fell in love with in high school. She kisses him gently when he tells her that, and the sweet little pajamas don't stay on for long.
They leave the curtains open so they can see the first snowflakes in the sky when they begin to fall, but they still haven't seen anything before they fall asleep, curled together beneath the blankets.
*
"Oh, my god."
Jesse opens his eyes when he feels Rachel scrambling out of their bed, though he squeezes them shut again immediately when the brightness of the room makes them ache.
"Jesse, look," Rachel insists a moment later, prompting him to open his eyes again, squinting against the light.
He misses the warmth beneath the covers as soon as he flips them back, and the hardwood is cold under his feet, but all of that becomes secondary when he sees what Rachel is looking at.
Snow has drifted up against the window from the fire escape outside. The snow is still falling heavily, fat, wet-looking flakes that he can just barely see through to across the street, where the awning on the bakery there is weighed down with the white stuff. He peers down at the street, which is solid white, and he wonders if it's been plowed at all since the snow began.
"It hadn't even started when I fell asleep," Rachel comments. "When was that?"
He slips his arms around her waist, pulling her against his chest when he puts his head on her shoulder. "After one." It's a little cooler in the room than he'd like, but Rachel is warm against him. He wishes he could convince her to come back to bed and sleep for a few more hours, but he knows that once she's up, she's up.
"How much do you think it is?"
"It's hard to tell, with the drifts. I bet it's all over the news." He kisses the side of her neck when she lets out a little hum. "I'm going to start coffee."
Jesse spends the morning sitting at the breakfast bar, alternating between watching Rachel bake pumpkin bread and molasses spice cookies and watching the newscasters on TV who are talking about "snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse" and whatever other stupid names they can come up with for the blizzard that's brought most of the northeast to a stand-still. The apartment smells like Christmas, and with all of the twinkle lights glowing and the fire in the fireplace that Rachel asked him to light, it feels more than a little festive, even if it is just the two of them. He certainly likes this a lot better than what they'd had planned.
"Would you like some tea?" she asks, coming into the kitchen when he's cleaning up after lunch. He nods and moves away from the sink so she can fill the kettle, leaning back against the counter to watch her move. She's dressed for a day in the apartment, in a pair of jeans that are a bit frayed at the cuffs and a hooded McKinley sweatshirt that must be at least ten years old, and she has a pair of pink, faux-fur-lined slippers on her feet. "What?" she asks when she turns away from the stove and catches him looking at her.
Jesse shakes his head. "Just thinking about how much I like you like this."
"Like what?" she asks, coming over to stand in front of him.
"All domestic and relaxed," he answers, wrapping his arms around her and lacing his fingers together at the small of her back. "It's a good look for you."
She tilts her head at him, bringing her arms up around his neck. "Is this your way of telling me that you want to keep me barefoot in the kitchen?" she teases, leaning up on her toes to press her lips to his.
Jesse smirks against her mouth, spinning them around and lifting her up to sit on the edge of the counter. "You aren't barefoot," he points out, fitting himself between her legs.
"Technicality," she murmurs against his mouth, threading her fingers through his hair when she kisses him.
He's pushing his hands up the back of her sweatshirt when the kettle starts whistling on the stove. Rachel tightens her legs around his hips when he moves to turn it off. "Leave it," she breathes out, pressing herself forward against him. She's just barely perched on the edge of the counter.
"Just to turn it off," he assures her, kissing the hinge of her jaw before moving away just enough to flick off the burner.
After all, there are more effective means of keeping warm than drinking herbal tea.
*
"You know," he points out when they're sitting on the couch that evening to watch Love Actually, "if we'd spent Christmas with my parents, we probably wouldn't have been able to get back into the city when we'd originally planned."
She looks at him reproachfully. He doesn't mind, really, because he knows he's right. "Just watch the movie."
He doesn't say anything else, but he knows exactly what Christmas Eve would have been like in the St. James house, with his mother's little comments and his father's silence and Jesse feeling like he couldn't drink wine fast enough to make himself stop caring about the way they would have undoubtedly made Rachel feel. If he has a drink today though, it'll be because he feels like celebrating, and why wouldn't he feel like celebrating when he has Rachel all to himself?
The snow stops all at once just after three. One moment, Jesse looks outside to see the same heavy, giant flakes that he saw first thing that morning, and the next, there isn't anything at all.
Rachel just shrugs when he tells her. "We should watch White Christmas next," she suggests instead, curling closer into his side.
They do exactly that, and they eat dinner that night by candlelight just because they can, with a jazzy sort of holiday playlist in the background. It's just a simple pasta dish that they threw together, but it feels festive and a little romantic. The whole thing has a very "Let It Snow," "Baby, It's Cold Outside" vibe to Jesse, and even though Rachel teases him for playing both of those songs after they've cleared the table, he knows that she's a sucker for this sort of thing.
The way that she kisses him before she pulls him into the bedroom just reinforces his opinion that Christmas alone with her is infinitely better than time with his parents.
"I'm still disappointed that our plans fell through," Rachel admits when they're lying in the dark in bed, "but I do love the way it's all turned out."
Jesse pulls her a little closer, running his fingers through the ends of her hair. "Me, too," he says simply.
Chapter: 1/1
Pairing: Jesse/Rachel
Word Count: 4,050
Summary: Jesse and Rachel's plans fall through. And then there's a blizzard.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Part of the Twelve 'Ships of Christmas.
Jesse doesn't plan to tell Rachel that his parents are actually going to be in Ohio for the holidays this year. In fact, he doesn't tell her so much as she overhears his mother's voice when he's listening to the message in the cab when they're heading downtown to a cocktail party their agent is hosting.
"So we're spending Christmas in Ohio," Rachel says after he's deleted the message.
He senses the danger here immediately. "Why would we do that?"
She looks at him pointedly. "I've only ever met your parents twice, and we've been together for over three years. They're always out of the country for Christmas, so why wouldn't we take advantage of them being around this year?"
The fact that they're basically horrible comes to mind, but that isn't something that Rachel would understand. She grew up with parents who would have walked to the ends of the earth for her. His parents played favorites and threw money at problems, and even though Jesse generally benefited from his parents' favoritism, he wouldn't call anything about his upbringing warm or particularly healthy.
"I just don't think it's a good idea," he finally says. "I'd rather have a quiet holiday here in the city, just the two of us."
"But we see my dads for Thanksgiving every year."
"That doesn't mean that we have to see my parents," he points out. He thinks that should be obvious, but judging by the look on her face, Rachel doesn't feel the same way. "Can we please talk about this later and enjoy the party?" he asks when the cab turns onto the street where the bar they're going to is.
Rachel rubs her lips together, which is either an expression of her frustration or simply ensuring that her lip gloss is evenly distributed. "Of course," she answers, smiling.
Jesse doesn't know why, exactly, Rachel is upset, but she is. It wouldn't be obvious to anyone who didn't know her well, but Jesse knows her better than nearly anyone. He can read the tiny little signs that no one else would notice, like the way that she stands half a step further away from him than usual, or how she avoids being alone with him for more than a few minutes at a time when their usual modus operandai at parties like this is to find at least one little chunk of time to just be together. (It's one of the little things they've always done that's earned them their reputation as Broadway's most adorable couple.)
"I want to spend Christmas with your parents, Jesse."
She says it quietly when they're in the cab on their way back uptown. Jesse can't say that he's surprised.
"You know I'm normally happy to give you whatever you want," Jesse begins, thinking of at least a dozen different things he could point to as evidence, "but I don't think you understand what you're asking for."
She narrows her eyes at him. "I'm asking for the opportunity to get to know my boyfriend's parents and celebrate the holidays."
She crosses her arms over her chest, and Jesse knows that she's already made up her mind about this. Since he really does want to give her everything that she wants when he can, he knows he's going to end up giving in. It sours his mood a little, so he's more than happy to finish the ride back to their building in silence.
Rachel goes straight to the bedroom to change out of her dress when they get back to the apartment, just like she always does after nights like this, while Jesse goes into the kitchen for a glass of water. He's always surprised by how well Rachel can carry on with the silent treatment; she isn't as prone to running off at the mouth as she was when she was a teenager, but he knows that being completely silent is an effort for her.
He also knows that the only time that she uses the silent treatment is when her feelings get involved, and he's pretty sure that he's hurt her, somehow, with his reluctance to celebrate Christmas with his family back in Ohio. He doesn't know why. It really has nothing to do with her, and everything to do with the fact that spending any significant amount of time with his parents is unpleasant at the very least.
Rachel is in the bathroom when he goes looking for her, standing in front of the sink in a yellow slip nightgown, patting her face dry. He leans against the counter, watching her fold the towel carefully over the bar. "I don't want to fight about this," he tells her quietly.
She refuses to meet his eyes, even in the mirror. She busies her hands, smoothing moisturizer onto her face. "I don't understand why you don't want me to spend Christmas with your family."
"It isn't about you," he says as gently as possible, fully expecting the huff that he gets in return. "Holidays with my family are torturous."
"Don't be dramatic." She drops the moisturizer into the drawer and walks out of the bathroom, leaving him standing there.
"Rachel, I'm the favorite and I think they're torture," he points out, following her into their bedroom. "Jenna won't come. Apparently Riley's family is wonderful," he says, referring to his brother-in-law. "I don't know if Adam will be there, but either way, all the attention will be on you and me. You don't have to go through that."
"I thought you said they liked me."
The uncertainty he sees creeping into her eyes almost makes him want to smile - this is what's bothering her about this - but he knows better. "They do," he assures her. They've only met Rachel twice, once for dinner when they were passing through the city on their way to Europe and once when they came to the Tonys because his show was nominated (which meant that they were easily pushed aside, frankly). Rachel is naturally charming and makes a lovely first impression. That combined with the fact that the closest thing she's ever gotten to bad press was really about him (she just happened to be with him at that party, though she wasn't present when that particular incident took place) means that his father thinks Rachel is sweet and his mother can't be bothered to think much of anything.
"Rachel." He watches her walk from one side of their bed to the other, turning on the lamps on their bedside tables. "Christmas St. James-style is all about getting drunk enough that the passive-aggressive comments are amusing instead of infuriating. It's impersonal and uncomfortable and cold." He looks at her, standing there beside the bed and looking beautiful, and shrugs his shoulders. "I'd rather spend the day alone with you, snuggled up on the couch, watching those movies that you pretend not to like as much as I know you do."
She scowls for a second, but then she just looks sad. "I still want to go," she admits, almost like she's ashamed.
He figured as much. "Your masochistic side is showing," Jesse teases, stepping forward to put his hands on her hips.
"Maybe I just think you're exaggerating," she shoots back.
He shakes his head. He's already lost the argument - and the battle - because he can't deny her anything, especially not something so simple. And maybe there will be some satisfaction in saying 'I told you so' when it's a disaster.
"Fine."
"Fine?" she parrots.
Jesse rolls his eyes. "We'll spend Christmas with my family."
She tips her head back to kiss him, setting her hands on his shoulders. "Thank you."
*
It's adorable, the way Rachel throws herself into getting ready for their Christmas trip, the way she starts to get actively excited about two weeks before they're due to leave. He knows that she grew up celebrating Christmas secularly with her non-Jewish father, not to mention the fact that she grew up with largely non-Jewish peers, but this is as excited as he's ever seen her about the holiday.
He's hoping against hope that his parents somehow manage not to behave like themselves in front of Rachel. He's dreading the disappointment in her eyes when she realizes that Jesse was right about them all along, and it would be really lovely if they could just prove him wrong.
Rachel has gotten gifts for his parents every year since they started dating, but she nearly drives him to madness this year. She insists that the gifts have to be more meaningful (more impressive, he thinks is what she means) to repay their hospitality and, "because I'm going to see their faces this time." The only gift that he's worried about is what he's going to get her.
She wraps his parents' gifts and ships them to his Ohio a week before their flight to avoid paying baggage fees on them.
"You don't think they'll open them early, do you?" she asks when she gets home from the post office.
"You're adorable," he tells her instead of answering. He saw her Do not open until Christmas! warnings, handwritten in decorative letters and embellished with glittery snowflake stickers.
She tilts her head at him (adorably) and smiles. "Thank you."
*
Ignoring his mother's calls is something he does out of habit and something like a self-preservational instinct. Having their conversations through a series of voicemails (and, occasionally, emails) is something that they've perfected over the years, and it's a system that really works for them, whatever dysfunction it reveals in their family.
He gets the message when he's leaving the gym to meet Rachel for lunch.
Hello, darling! his mother's voice comes through the receiver. I'm not sure if you've been paying attention to the weather, but they're calling for snow here in Ohio this weekend, and your father and I really aren't interested in sticking around for that, so we've booked a flight to Bali. I hope it doesn't muck up your plans with Rachel too much, but I know you understand. Merry Christmas!
Jesse rolls his eyes, hitting the button to delete the message before shoving his phone in his coat pocket. Of course his parents are selfish enough to completely derail his and Rachel's holiday plans and think nothing of it. His father might actually feel bad, a tiny bit, about disappointing Rachel, but not enough to apologize for himself, and his mother is really only worried about her own comfort.
He's already dreading the look on Rachel's face when he tells her that Christmas with his parents is canceled, even though he thinks that, really, this is probably for the best.
"Have you heard anything about snow?" he asks after he's kissed her hello and settled into his seat at the restaurant.
She gives him an odd look, smoothing her napkin in her lap. "No."
"My mother has," Jesse says wryly. He hates the way that Rachel's face falls, like she already knows what he's going to say. "Apparently they're calling for snow in Ohio, and my mother is allergic to being even a little bit uncomfortable, so they're going to Bali for the holidays."
"Bali," she repeats incredulously. Jesse nods. "They canceled Christmas."
He doesn't mean to laugh at her, but she looks and sounds so sad, and it's so dramatic and classically Rachel - the Rachel he started falling in love with when he was eighteen - that he can't help it.
"They canceled our trip," he corrects, ignoring the indignant look on her face as best he can. "This is a sign, Rachel, from Mother Nature herself. It wasn't meant to be."
She scowls. "You're happy about this."
Yes, but he knows better than to say that. "I think it's a blessing in disguise," he offers, a more diplomatic answer.
*
It turns out that the snow that his mother referenced in Ohio was little more than flurries. But by the time the storm gets to the northeast, there are blizzard warnings and people taking about a white Christmas during which they'll be able to measure accumulation in feet rather than just inches. It's supposed to start in the early hours of the morning and keep up for most of the day, and honestly, the whole thing could wind up being a nightmare.
Rachel, of course, is excited.
She insists, first of all, that they need supplies. Initially, Jesse agrees with her. The first winter that he spent in the city, he'd gotten caught off-guard by a storm and had been forced to venture out into the muck and mayhem after he'd exhauasted the supply of ramen noodles in his cabinet, the origins of which he wasn't even entirely sure of. (To this day, he can't remember ever buying ramen noodles, but there they were.) It's just good sense to stock up on the essentials.
Of course, Rachel's idea of blizzard essentials is a little different than Jesse's.
She insists that they go to the used bookstore a few blocks from their apartment first. "What if we lose power and have live for days on end without technology?" she proposes when he asks why. "Don't you want to have something to do besides sit and stare at each other?"
Jesse could point out that between the two of them, their personal library isn't unimpressive, and there are plenty of things that they each haven't read, but this is one of the things that he loves about Rachel. She doesn't think like everyone else, and it makes even the mundane things something like an adventure.
Of course, she is still a very practical girl under all of that adventure, and she's the one who realizes that they left bottled water off their shopping list and grabs a couple of boxes of matches when they're at the checkout at the market.
Rachel spends most of the evening sitting in an armchair near the windows, reading the Cleopatra biography she got at the bookstore that afternoon (so much for worrying about losing electricity) and, Jesse knows, watching out the window for the snow to start falling. She's also ignoring the marathon of episodes of The Twilight Zone that he found because every time she watches it, she sleeps fitfully and has bizarre dreams.
This is another of the things that he loves about being with Rachel. They're able to share the same space without being on top of one another, to each do their own thing without expecting the other to play along just because. It's comfortable in a way that Jesse hasn't ever been with anyone but her.
"When is it supposed to start?" Rachel asks as the credits roll on an episode.
"Not until after midnight." He looks over the back of the couch at her. She's looking out the window, the twinkle lights that she used to frame the window illuminating her face softly, highlighting her profile. "Nothing yet?"
"No." She turns to face him, leaning forward a little to set her book on the table. "What if it doesn't snow at all?" she asks sadly.
"They called the blizzard imminent," he reminds her gently.
She lets out a little sigh and turns back to the window. "I'm going to be so disappointed if I wake up and everything isn't white."
Jesse turns the TV off and stands, walking across the room to where she's sitting. "Let's go to bed."
She blinks up at him. "I'm not tired."
"Rachel," he says lowly. "We don't have to sleep." She shoots him a look. "We'll just cuddle under the covers and wait for the snow."
Rachel crawls into bed beside him in a pair of blue pajamas patterned with polar bears, and as much as he loves it when Rachel wears little slip nightgowns and revealing things, he loves her quirky little pajamas. They remind him, as much as anything, of the girl that he fell in love with in high school. She kisses him gently when he tells her that, and the sweet little pajamas don't stay on for long.
They leave the curtains open so they can see the first snowflakes in the sky when they begin to fall, but they still haven't seen anything before they fall asleep, curled together beneath the blankets.
*
"Oh, my god."
Jesse opens his eyes when he feels Rachel scrambling out of their bed, though he squeezes them shut again immediately when the brightness of the room makes them ache.
"Jesse, look," Rachel insists a moment later, prompting him to open his eyes again, squinting against the light.
He misses the warmth beneath the covers as soon as he flips them back, and the hardwood is cold under his feet, but all of that becomes secondary when he sees what Rachel is looking at.
Snow has drifted up against the window from the fire escape outside. The snow is still falling heavily, fat, wet-looking flakes that he can just barely see through to across the street, where the awning on the bakery there is weighed down with the white stuff. He peers down at the street, which is solid white, and he wonders if it's been plowed at all since the snow began.
"It hadn't even started when I fell asleep," Rachel comments. "When was that?"
He slips his arms around her waist, pulling her against his chest when he puts his head on her shoulder. "After one." It's a little cooler in the room than he'd like, but Rachel is warm against him. He wishes he could convince her to come back to bed and sleep for a few more hours, but he knows that once she's up, she's up.
"How much do you think it is?"
"It's hard to tell, with the drifts. I bet it's all over the news." He kisses the side of her neck when she lets out a little hum. "I'm going to start coffee."
Jesse spends the morning sitting at the breakfast bar, alternating between watching Rachel bake pumpkin bread and molasses spice cookies and watching the newscasters on TV who are talking about "snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse" and whatever other stupid names they can come up with for the blizzard that's brought most of the northeast to a stand-still. The apartment smells like Christmas, and with all of the twinkle lights glowing and the fire in the fireplace that Rachel asked him to light, it feels more than a little festive, even if it is just the two of them. He certainly likes this a lot better than what they'd had planned.
"Would you like some tea?" she asks, coming into the kitchen when he's cleaning up after lunch. He nods and moves away from the sink so she can fill the kettle, leaning back against the counter to watch her move. She's dressed for a day in the apartment, in a pair of jeans that are a bit frayed at the cuffs and a hooded McKinley sweatshirt that must be at least ten years old, and she has a pair of pink, faux-fur-lined slippers on her feet. "What?" she asks when she turns away from the stove and catches him looking at her.
Jesse shakes his head. "Just thinking about how much I like you like this."
"Like what?" she asks, coming over to stand in front of him.
"All domestic and relaxed," he answers, wrapping his arms around her and lacing his fingers together at the small of her back. "It's a good look for you."
She tilts her head at him, bringing her arms up around his neck. "Is this your way of telling me that you want to keep me barefoot in the kitchen?" she teases, leaning up on her toes to press her lips to his.
Jesse smirks against her mouth, spinning them around and lifting her up to sit on the edge of the counter. "You aren't barefoot," he points out, fitting himself between her legs.
"Technicality," she murmurs against his mouth, threading her fingers through his hair when she kisses him.
He's pushing his hands up the back of her sweatshirt when the kettle starts whistling on the stove. Rachel tightens her legs around his hips when he moves to turn it off. "Leave it," she breathes out, pressing herself forward against him. She's just barely perched on the edge of the counter.
"Just to turn it off," he assures her, kissing the hinge of her jaw before moving away just enough to flick off the burner.
After all, there are more effective means of keeping warm than drinking herbal tea.
*
"You know," he points out when they're sitting on the couch that evening to watch Love Actually, "if we'd spent Christmas with my parents, we probably wouldn't have been able to get back into the city when we'd originally planned."
She looks at him reproachfully. He doesn't mind, really, because he knows he's right. "Just watch the movie."
He doesn't say anything else, but he knows exactly what Christmas Eve would have been like in the St. James house, with his mother's little comments and his father's silence and Jesse feeling like he couldn't drink wine fast enough to make himself stop caring about the way they would have undoubtedly made Rachel feel. If he has a drink today though, it'll be because he feels like celebrating, and why wouldn't he feel like celebrating when he has Rachel all to himself?
The snow stops all at once just after three. One moment, Jesse looks outside to see the same heavy, giant flakes that he saw first thing that morning, and the next, there isn't anything at all.
Rachel just shrugs when he tells her. "We should watch White Christmas next," she suggests instead, curling closer into his side.
They do exactly that, and they eat dinner that night by candlelight just because they can, with a jazzy sort of holiday playlist in the background. It's just a simple pasta dish that they threw together, but it feels festive and a little romantic. The whole thing has a very "Let It Snow," "Baby, It's Cold Outside" vibe to Jesse, and even though Rachel teases him for playing both of those songs after they've cleared the table, he knows that she's a sucker for this sort of thing.
The way that she kisses him before she pulls him into the bedroom just reinforces his opinion that Christmas alone with her is infinitely better than time with his parents.
"I'm still disappointed that our plans fell through," Rachel admits when they're lying in the dark in bed, "but I do love the way it's all turned out."
Jesse pulls her a little closer, running his fingers through the ends of her hair. "Me, too," he says simply.