I am super-late, but...
Advent Drabblender, Door One
Title: Three Christmases
'Verse: Magnolias
Characters: Darien, Lita
Time Frame: Pre-Magnolias
Rating: PG
Slight Spoilers for a fic not yet written.
Christmas at the orphanage was the same every year; the same plastic tree with its slightly bedraggled branches, adorned with the same generic green and red ball-shaped ornaments and the same string of brightly coloured lights. The angel at the top of the tree stands sentinel, its face smudged from the years and the tinsel faded from its gold-flecked wings. The meal would be the same: roast chicken with a bit too much salt, bland mashed potatoes, star and angel-shaped cookies from the grocery store adorned with coloured sugar.
There would be a man dressed up as Santa; both of them knew since forever ago that he wasn't real, and that wishes didn't come true in a world of social workers and hand-me-downs, and the entire group of children would go through an almost-formalized round of hearing the usual tired speech about good behaviour and presents (punctuated by hollow ho-ho-ho's) before picking a donated box from underneath the plastic tree.
Last year, Lita had selected a box wrapped in pretty green paper that contained a model plywood airplane. She'd thrown it across the room in a tantrum and ended up in the matron's office. A long lecture later, she'd gone back to her bunk to find the pretty green paper inelegantly wrapped around a pair of ugly mittens decorated with reindeer-- Darien had picked them from underneath the tree earlier. If he had ended up building the model of the flimsy death-machine, she never knew about it.
This year, it's the same bedraggled but valiant tree, the same filling but mediocre meal. But Lita sits by herself as the matron opens the door to reveal Santa. It's not the same Santa: this year he seems to be a bit chubbier, red-cheeked from the cold (there was actually a sprinkling of real snow that morning), and when he laughs, it doesn't sound forced. It's enough to make even a cynical eight-year-old wonder, and Lita's just lonely enough to want to believe in it. A little package came that morning wrapped in pretty green paper-- no terrifying flying machines contained within-- but a pretty pair of earrings that looked like pink frosting rosebuds. The card had been signed by the entire Shields family, but Lita knew that Darien wouldn't be able to visit until tomorrow, and it just wasn't the same. Still, the earrings are the first pretty thing she's ever owned, and they comfort her somehow and give her courage as she approaches the new Santa by her lonesome.
He gives her a kindly smile through the fake beard, and his eyes aren't jaded, and she sits down on his lap. "I don't want any toys this year," she confides softly before he can say anything.
Instead of insisting that all children wanted toys, Santa waits for her to finish. Lita looks down at her cold fingers and wishes idly that she'd worn last year's ugly mittens. "I just want my friend back. Or to get a family like he got. But I'm not a cute baby or well-behaved and a bright, attentive student." She wasn't quite sure what those terms that the psychologist loved to use all the time, but she knew that Darien had been all of those things and that was why Dr. and Mrs. Shields had picked him out of all the kids.
The Santa ponders this for a moment, then quirks his lips. "Well, little lady, I'll see what I can do. No promises, but I'll try my best." The fact that he doesn't just carelessly agree to her wish gave her more hope than a brash promise would have. He laughs, and the ho-ho-ho sounds genuine. "For now, you should still pick a present."
It ends up being a gingerbread house kit. For the next week and a half, she spends all of her free time painstakingly decorating it until it is just perfect, just the way Darien described his new home. Then it was just something to look upon and dream. She never took a single bite out of it.
January brings with it the New Year, and a man with too-long hair and eyes the same shade of bright green as her own in the matron's office. The long-lost Uncle Terry didn't have a big house with a rose garden, but he and Aunt Becky made room for her in their home and their hearts. It took Lita a few months, but she gradually learned to open up to them.
The next Christmas Eve, ten-year-old Lita frosts gingerbread cookies fresh from the oven with painstaking hands. A lot of them would be eaten that night when Darien came to visit, but she'd save a plateful of special ones, to be put out next to a glass of milk.
The stockings were already hanging by the mantel.
Title: Three Christmases
'Verse: Magnolias
Characters: Darien, Lita
Time Frame: Pre-Magnolias
Rating: PG
Slight Spoilers for a fic not yet written.
Christmas at the orphanage was the same every year; the same plastic tree with its slightly bedraggled branches, adorned with the same generic green and red ball-shaped ornaments and the same string of brightly coloured lights. The angel at the top of the tree stands sentinel, its face smudged from the years and the tinsel faded from its gold-flecked wings. The meal would be the same: roast chicken with a bit too much salt, bland mashed potatoes, star and angel-shaped cookies from the grocery store adorned with coloured sugar.
There would be a man dressed up as Santa; both of them knew since forever ago that he wasn't real, and that wishes didn't come true in a world of social workers and hand-me-downs, and the entire group of children would go through an almost-formalized round of hearing the usual tired speech about good behaviour and presents (punctuated by hollow ho-ho-ho's) before picking a donated box from underneath the plastic tree.
Last year, Lita had selected a box wrapped in pretty green paper that contained a model plywood airplane. She'd thrown it across the room in a tantrum and ended up in the matron's office. A long lecture later, she'd gone back to her bunk to find the pretty green paper inelegantly wrapped around a pair of ugly mittens decorated with reindeer-- Darien had picked them from underneath the tree earlier. If he had ended up building the model of the flimsy death-machine, she never knew about it.
This year, it's the same bedraggled but valiant tree, the same filling but mediocre meal. But Lita sits by herself as the matron opens the door to reveal Santa. It's not the same Santa: this year he seems to be a bit chubbier, red-cheeked from the cold (there was actually a sprinkling of real snow that morning), and when he laughs, it doesn't sound forced. It's enough to make even a cynical eight-year-old wonder, and Lita's just lonely enough to want to believe in it. A little package came that morning wrapped in pretty green paper-- no terrifying flying machines contained within-- but a pretty pair of earrings that looked like pink frosting rosebuds. The card had been signed by the entire Shields family, but Lita knew that Darien wouldn't be able to visit until tomorrow, and it just wasn't the same. Still, the earrings are the first pretty thing she's ever owned, and they comfort her somehow and give her courage as she approaches the new Santa by her lonesome.
He gives her a kindly smile through the fake beard, and his eyes aren't jaded, and she sits down on his lap. "I don't want any toys this year," she confides softly before he can say anything.
Instead of insisting that all children wanted toys, Santa waits for her to finish. Lita looks down at her cold fingers and wishes idly that she'd worn last year's ugly mittens. "I just want my friend back. Or to get a family like he got. But I'm not a cute baby or well-behaved and a bright, attentive student." She wasn't quite sure what those terms that the psychologist loved to use all the time, but she knew that Darien had been all of those things and that was why Dr. and Mrs. Shields had picked him out of all the kids.
The Santa ponders this for a moment, then quirks his lips. "Well, little lady, I'll see what I can do. No promises, but I'll try my best." The fact that he doesn't just carelessly agree to her wish gave her more hope than a brash promise would have. He laughs, and the ho-ho-ho sounds genuine. "For now, you should still pick a present."
It ends up being a gingerbread house kit. For the next week and a half, she spends all of her free time painstakingly decorating it until it is just perfect, just the way Darien described his new home. Then it was just something to look upon and dream. She never took a single bite out of it.
January brings with it the New Year, and a man with too-long hair and eyes the same shade of bright green as her own in the matron's office. The long-lost Uncle Terry didn't have a big house with a rose garden, but he and Aunt Becky made room for her in their home and their hearts. It took Lita a few months, but she gradually learned to open up to them.
The next Christmas Eve, ten-year-old Lita frosts gingerbread cookies fresh from the oven with painstaking hands. A lot of them would be eaten that night when Darien came to visit, but she'd save a plateful of special ones, to be put out next to a glass of milk.
The stockings were already hanging by the mantel.