Chapter CLXII: Christmas in Chaldea

As though to mock my concerns about telling more of my past to the twins and our Servants, things went relatively back to normal after our little impromptu debriefing. We settled back into the routines we’d been living for most of our time in Chaldea ever since this all started, including the brief reprieve from training given as a grace period for us Masters to write and file our reports on what had happened during our most recent deployments.

Renée fit neatly into our group with almost no effort whatsoever. As though she had belonged there the entire time, she wound up taking care of the kitchen with Emiya, who seemed to have resigned himself to her presence in what was usually his space, and Marcus was only glad that there was someone else to handle things so that he could go back to his normal position in the organization. Someone had even found her a spare uniform to put on, and she took to it like it had always been hers, wearing it with the same grace and air she had worn that maid uniform we had first seen her in.

Mordred, of course, had wiggled into her own niche and disappeared for hours at a time into El-Melloi II’s room. Not to screw around, as I might have expected of a rowdy, upfront personality like hers, but — as I discovered when curiosity got the better of me one day and I checked in on them — to play racing games together. They were apparently quite evenly matched, at least judging by how intensely they both focused on the game.

It was actually kind of funny to see what was supposed to be this dignified Lord of the Clock Tower lounging about in a t-shirt and shorts and cussing at the screen as he mashed the buttons on his controller. Almost as funny as imagining the look on Marie’s face if she ever found out.

Jackie, meanwhile, had been given her own room right next to mine, but somehow or another, she always wound up sleeping in my bed with me every night. It…probably wasn’t the healthiest of things to indulge her like that, but at least for the moment, I didn’t have any idea how I was supposed to convince her to stay in her own room. I imagined that if I tried to frame it as her needing to be able to sleep without me while I was out on deployment, then she would just say something about how that was why she needed to get as much time with me as she could until then, and I didn’t have a good answer for that one.

At least there wasn’t a fight about keeping her knives out of the bed. I hadn’t needed to ask her since that first time, and she was only too happy to shed most of her clothing and gear if it meant sleeping in one of my shirts at night.

The only people who still seemed to be having trouble digesting what Marie and I had told them were Da Vinci and Romani, and being fair, they had been told a lot more with a lot greater detail than the rest of the team. After almost a whole week, however, I was starting to get a little bit concerned.

With everything that had been going on and all of the things on my mind, I didn’t even realize what day it was until I stepped into the cafeteria and found a Christmas tree — fully decorated — propped up in the one corner. String of red and green lights hung above the countertop where Emiya was dishing up breakfast, blinking off and on in alternating patterns and branching out from a bristly wreath.

When I meandered up to him and gave the lights a pointed look, Emiya couldn’t do anything more than offer me a shrug and say, “My dear Master thought the place could do with a little festive cheer, so I indulged her and projected a few things to brighten up the room.”

Ah. I looked back at the Christmas tree. Once again, the mystery of his limits deepened, although I suppose some lights and a plastic tree weren’t anywhere close to the most complicated things I’d ever seen him reproduce.

At least the cleanup would be easy. I think Marie would have had a lot more to say if it was going to leave a lot more of a mess behind.

“And what did the Director think?” I asked him.

“That it was fine as long as it didn’t stay up past New Year’s,” he answered. He filled up my plate as we talked. “I told her it was just for a couple of days anyway.” He smirked. “She did call it a colossal waste of magical energy, though. For the pittance it takes to keep these up that long.”

A huff of air slipped out of my nostrils, not quite a snort. Changing the topic, I asked, “And Renée?”

“Yes, Miss Taylor?” Renée replied, turning away from what she was cooking long enough to look my way. “Is something the matter?”

“Just wanted to make sure you’re settling in okay,” I told her.

She nodded. “The machinery here is more advanced than what I was working with in London, but…Emiya has been gracious in helping me to adjust.”

She wasn’t being openly hostile about it, and in fact, she still spoke largely in the same sort of calm monotone she’d been using since we met, but I thought I detected a bit of suspicious confusion. Just in that pause alone.

Emiya sighed. “As you can see, there’s a bit of what I guess you could call culture shock, but as expected of Nicolas Flamel’s daughter, she’s a surprisingly quick study.”

There was a tortured, metallic screech from further back in the room as Renée’s hand slipped, but by the time my eyes flicked over towards her, she had already corrected herself, staring studiously at the skillet she was working. The tips of her ears had turned vaguely pink.

“I think she’s still getting used to that part, too, though,” Emiya muttered so that only I could hear.

So it seemed.

When he finished filling up my plate, he handed the tray over to me with a smirk and an almost mocking, “Merry Christmas.”

I realized why when I looked down to see the Christmas tree-shaped pancakes piled up on my plate. Little chocolate chips dotted them in neat rows, creating the illusion of ornaments hung upon the branches.

The unimpressed look I gave him only served to make his smirk bigger.

Rather than continue a fight I would probably lose even if I won, I left him behind and went to find myself a seat. It was only as I was sitting down that I was a little stunned to realize this particular table had somehow become my usual table somewhere in the last month or two. Not because I liked it or because it was the most convenient table, but because — the part that really got me — it was the table the twins and Mash liked to sit at, too.

When had that happened?

“Mommy?”

I jolted out of my thoughts and turned to Jackie — right, I’d told her to meet me at the table while I went to get my food — giving her the best reassuring smile I could. “It’s nothing, Jackie, just getting lost in my thoughts.”

Jackie nodded, and then asked, “Are Mommy’s thoughts scary?”

I did my best to fight down a much more genuine smile, and didn’t quite succeed. “Some people might think so.”

“Some people are stupid,” Jackie announced with all of the confidence a child her age could possess.

“They are,” I agreed. I turned back to my plate. “Now let’s have some breakfast. Emiya gave me enough for both of us.”

Jackie’s eyes lit up, and so did her face a minute later when she got to eat a bite of the chocolate chip pancakes, because whatever else she might have been, she was a little girl and she had a sweet tooth like one. Worse, as a Servant, she didn’t have to worry about things like calories or cavities or proper nutrition, so I couldn’t even honestly tell her that she had to eat her vegetables if she wanted to grow up big and strong.

That thought…soured things just a little. Jackie was a Servant. She was never going to grow up. She would never become older than she was right then and there, and no amount of healthy foods or tender nurturing would change that in any way. She would, always and forever, be exactly the age she was now.

I hated Andersen for being right, just then.

I couldn’t save Jackie. I was over a hundred years too late to even try. Nothing I did would make any difference for the little girl recorded on the Throne, whose fate was already set in stone, immutable. Then, in that case, the only thing I could do was try and give her the childhood she had apparently never had. To give her the mother she craved and desired above everything else so that when the day came she returned to the Throne, these memories might provide some comfort to that little girl.

If that involved spoiling her a little, then oh well. That was the one upside to this whole thing: I didn’t have to worry that she would turn into a bratty teenager somewhere down the line.

Right as I was biting into my own pancakes, the door whooshed open and a familiar trio walked in together.

“Hashire sori yo,” Rika sang, “kaze no you ni! Yuki no naka wo, karuku hayaku!”

The words were gibberish to me, but the tune sounded suspiciously like Jingle Bells, only reinforced when Rika got the chorus just in time to reach Emiya and — thankfully — stop so that she could get her breakfast. Emiya complied with what I could only describe as a faint, vaguely exasperated smile.

Ritsuka, too, looked resigned. If she’d been singing the entire walk over here, then he had my sympathies.

“Merry Christmas!” Rika bellowed as she picked up her tray. “Ho ho ho!”

The expression on Ritsuka’s face begged the ground to open up and swallow him whole, but no such thing happened on their walk over to the table. Rika, either completely oblivious or completely unconcerned, only beamed at me as they approached, and while her brother and Mash took their seats, she boomed again, “Merry Christmas, Senpai! Ho ho ho!”

“Rika,” Ritsuka began, sounding exhausted — and it wasn’t even ten o’clock, “are you going to say that to everyone we meet today?”

“But it’s Christmas Eve!” Rika protested.

“You’re not even Christian!” he pointed out.

“I’m a firm believer in the holy spirit of gift giving!” she insisted, and then a thought occurred to her and she turned to me with a gasp. “Wait a minute! Senpai, do you think Santa Claus is real? Like, is he a Servant?”

I opened my mouth to offer an immediate denial, then had to stop and think about it for a second, because fuck me, he probably was, wasn’t he? Saint Nicholas was a real person, after all, and he had been mythologized enough that there was undoubtedly a Heroic Spirit that had formed from his legend. Even if so much of it had wound up the inventions of later peoples and was founded on thin air, Dracul had proven that a bunch of people believing in something hard enough could twist that Heroic Spirit into something completely different.

Goddamnit. Santa Claus was real, wasn’t he?

I reached up with one hand and pinched the bridge of my nose beneath my glasses, because there went another part of something I had accepted as fact being upended by the fucked-up, nonsensical bullshit that was Servants. Rika, naturally, took this as confirmation.

“He is!” she squealed, absolutely delighted. “Oh, oh, do you think his sleigh really travels faster than light? Is Rudolph real? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen? Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen?”

With every word, Mash only seemed to get more confused, but Rika continued on blithely, completely oblivious.

“Do you think he’ll deliver presents tonight?” she asked me, like I had any idea. “Can we set up a camera and catch him in the act, or does he have some kind of Presence Concealment bullshit that lets him avoid detection? Oh! Would that make him an Assassin Servant, then? But what does he assassinate? Milk and cookies?”

“Servants have to be summoned,” Ritsuka told her, “remember?”

Rika held up a finger. “Unless! The Counter Force thingy summons them to do a job! Right? Like Mo-chan and Abe and Super Action Mom!”

“I don’t think the Counter Force is going to summon Santa Claus just to deliver some presents for you, Rika,” I managed to say.

“Why not?” she demanded. “We’ve been busting our asses fixing these Singularities, haven’t we? I don’t think having Santa show up and give us some gifts is that much to ask by comparison!”

“Because morale generally isn’t something that the Counter Force really takes into account when it summons Servants,” I said.

“It isn’t?” asked Rika. “I mean, shouldn’t it be, though? I feel like my morale is pretty important to the survival of the human race, you know!”

Maybe so, and maybe inside the Singularities, there might be some consideration paid to the personalities of the Servants and how well they’d be able to handle the situation. But outside of that?

I shook my head. “The Counter Force isn’t a person or a god or anything like that. It’s more like a…machine or an algorithm. It’s always going to throw the least amount of power at something as it can, and that means that…things it might consider frivolous, like summoning Santa Claus to deliver presents to less than a hundred people, would be something it considers a waste of resources. It won’t even think of the effort as worth it.”

Rika pouted, and under her breath, muttered, “It should.”

If she actually meant that, this would have been an entirely different conversation.

Of the group, Jackie wound up being the one who enjoyed breakfast the most, although I had to admit that the ridiculous chocolate chip Christmas tree pancakes made me feel a little bit more like that little girl who had lost her mom nearly a decade ago now. Not enough to behave as childishly as Rika did, but enough that the gooey warmth in my belly wasn’t entirely the chocolate, balanced out by the pang of melancholy that sat alongside it — an old wound that I had to keep reopening for Jackie’s sake.

Once we split up, I went back to my room and spent the rest of the morning putting the finishing touches on my after action report for London. Jackie seemed all too happy to park herself in my lap and watch, even if it couldn’t have been the most engaging of things to sit there as I typed away in relative silence.

There was so much we were going to have to sanitize from some of these reports just to keep the Association off of everyone’s backs. I guess I just had to hope that Da Vinci and the other technicians were good enough at their job that no one picked up on the bits that got censored or outright removed, like the Philosopher’s Stone inside of Renée. Or Solomon calling me out in front of everyone.

For lunch, Jackie and I went back down to the cafeteria and met up with the twins and Mash again, and Rika was much more subdued than before, slouching and grumbling about having to do her report. Ritsuka, for what it was worth, didn’t look any more thrilled about it than she was, but he didn’t complain. It seemed my point about the importance of keeping the records straight so that we could avoid some trouble later on had been taken to heart.

After lunch, I went down to the gym and got in a run and a light workout to make up for the bit of slacking I’d been doing for the past few days, with Jackie cheering me on from the sidelines. To cool off, it was down to the pool for Mash’s next swimming lesson, and Jackie, it turned out, wanted to join in and learn, too.

Unfortunately, although Chaldea had many different sizes of spare swimsuits, none of them had been made with a girl her size and age in mind.

“Your clothes will get all wet,” I told her. “We’ll have to talk to Da Vinci about making you a swimsuit first.”

Jackie just tilted her head, confused, and with the sort of logic only a child could have, asked, “So if we take off our clothes, we can swim?”

Somewhere behind me, Marie — who had been wary of Jackie’s presence the entire time — sputtered indignantly and spat out incoherent protests about decency and nudity and how it wasn’t proper.

For the sake of avoiding the aneurysm Marie would probably have, I set my hands on Jackie’s shoulders before she could do what I thought she was about to and dematerialize her clothing.

“We don’t swim naked,” I told her firmly but gently. “Okay, Jackie? We’ll get you a swimsuit and you can learn to swim like Mash, we just have to talk to Da Vinci first. Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Okay?”

Jackie pouted, but accepted it with a disappointed, “Okay.”

Fou blew sharply on his whistle as though calling foul. I was incredibly tempted to flip him the bird, but I managed to master the impulse and ignore him. That leeway he’d earned for saving my life only went so far, though.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Despite Marie’s obvious discomfort, however, nothing else worth talking about really happened. It was just another swimming lesson among the many we’d given Mash so far, although how much longer they would really be necessary was becoming a serious question. Mash wasn’t exactly taking to the water like a fish, but she was learning pretty fast, and soon enough, the only thing left would be for her to practice, practice, and practice some more.

“I think I’d like to try swimming for real,” she said when we started wrapping up, “next time we get the chance to have a beach vacation. A-ah, as long as the Director is okay with that, I mean!”

A complicated expression crossed Marie’s face, but all she gave Mash was a vague, “We’ll see.”

After drying off and getting changed back into my usual clothes, I set off to Da Vinci’s workshop with Jackie in tow. No reason to put it off, this time, and I’d been meaning to ask her about getting Jackie something else to wear to begin with.

Of course, she turned out to be hard at work when I got there, or at least so distracted by her thoughts that she didn’t react until I lifted a hand and knocked loudly and firmly on the wall outside the room. Her eyebrows rose when she saw it was me, but she was all smiles an instant later when her eyes trailed down to find Jackie next to me, looking around with wonder.

“Taylor,” she said by way of greeting. “What can I do for you today?”

“A couple of different things,” I told her. “First off, Jackie wants to learn how to swim, but Chaldea doesn’t have any swimsuits in her size, so I figured you’re the person to ask about getting one made to fit her.”

“Ah,” said Da Vinci. “Yes, yes, a simple enough thing to do, I could have it done in an afternoon. The rest?”

“Second…”

My lips pursed, and I looked down at Jackie. “Jackie, could you take off your cloak?”

Jackie looked back up at me curiously, but didn’t ask why before the tattered black mess shimmered and vanished, leaving her in…well, a waistcoat, stockings, and panties. Da Vinci’s eyebrows rose again.

“I was wondering if you could make something a little more…appropriate for her to wear,” I said. “Something she could take in and out of spirit form and wear normally all the time.”

“But we like our clothing,” Jackie complained. “It’s comfortable.”

“It’s not something a girl your age should be wearing,” I answered immediately. Glenn would’ve had a stroke if he’d ever seen her with the cloak off. “It’s not something a girl should be wearing into battle at any age, and I’m sure Da Vinci can make you something just as comfortable that’s a lot warmer and a lot nicer.” I looked back at Da Vinci. “Right?”

“That…shouldn’t be too hard,” Da Vinci agreed. “In fact, it would make for another excellent test of a system I’ve been working on for the past few months, so it wouldn’t be any trouble at all to make Jackie a…spiritron dress. Compared to some of the other things it’s meant to do, in fact, it would be trivial.”

Jackie still didn’t look quite convinced.

“Just give it a chance,” I whispered to her. “For me, okay?”

“Okay, Mommy,” Jackie said reluctantly.

To Da Vinci, I said, “Thank you.”

“No trouble, no trouble at all,” said Da Vinci. “Was there…anything else?”

Yes, actually.

“Any word on my spiders?”

“Ah.” Da Vinci smiled apologetically. “There were a few…distractions during your last deployment, so I was forced to put off finishing them. Not too much longer, you have my word on that, but not yet.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

I was fine enough with leaving it there and going on my way, but…

I hesitated. “Da Vinci. Do you…have any questions for me?”

She blinked at me. “About your…circumstances, such as they were?”

“About anything we went over last week.”

Whether or not I really wanted to answer any questions about it all, Da Vinci just…knew too much for me to leave anything hanging. Better she had as much context as she needed before and in case she ran into something where it was relevant, because the worst thing she could do was plan for something she didn’t know enough about and send me into a battle with a flamethrower against a pyrokinetic.

Da Vinci huffed and shook her head, smiling wryly. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Taylor. I’ll admit, I’ve been… Well, it’s taken some adjusting. Hearing that every parallel world — or at least a decent number of them — came very close to being destroyed was a bit of a shock, as you must know, almost as much so as finding out that the perpetrator was some kind of alien god. I’ve…had to adjust my understanding of reality.” She laughed a little, self-deprecating. “My living self might have had a heart attack learning just half of it!”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I’m sorry.”

But she just shook her head again. “Things are what they are, and neither you nor I have the power to change that. I must admit, however, that it has gone a long way to explaining the Director’s confidence in you. You might not be particularly noteworthy as a mage, but had he still been alive at the time, I think even Marisbury might have found your record impressive enough to warrant a spot on Team A.”

She meant it as a compliment, but knowing as much as I did about Marisbury and all of his evils, I couldn’t bring myself to think of it as one. Frankly, I thought it was more likely that he would have just cracked my head open to see if he could figure out how my powers worked and if they could be replicated. Whatever it took to ensure that his pet project against the end of the world worked out the way he wanted it.

“Maybe.”

Da Vinci seemed to realize she’d touched a bit of a nerve, because she winced just the slightest. I didn’t really want to hear her apology, however, not the least of which because it wouldn’t mean all that much when she hadn’t had any part in any of it anyway, so I tried to cut the conversation off there. “I’ll get out of your hair and leave you to whatever it was I interrupted. But if you do have any questions, you know where to find me.”

She nodded and turned back to what she’d been working on. “I do.” Over her shoulder, she offered a wave. “Ciao!”

“Later.”

Jackie and I left her workshop behind, and I led her back to my room for a little while so we could pick up the book I’d been reading to her where we left off. At some point over the next week or so, I was going to have to figure out some way of keeping her occupied while I tried to learn runes from Aífe, and at the rate things were going, I might have to start paying Arash to babysit Jackie for me for a few hours every day.

Not that I could picture him complaining. He took to everything with an enviable aplomb.

When dinnertime rolled around, I set the book aside and we traveled back down to the cafeteria to eat, where I found…

“Merry Christmas!”

…almost the entirety of the remaining staff mingling, including most of the Servants. Lines of popcorn on strings had been hung about the place — Rika was, in fact, still in the process of slinging one around the Christmas tree in the corner — and red and green tinsel decorated the walls. Festive tablecloths depicting snowmen, Santa Claus, reindeer, or any of a number of holiday characters had been flung over every table, and banners were draped across the walls with “Merry Christmas!” in big, bold lettering.

The smell of roasted turkey hit me a second after the decor did, assaulting my nose with the memories of Christmases past. Dad, Mom, Emma, the Barneses, all of us gathered around a table as all of the clichés played over the radio.

It had been nearly ten years since the last time I’d properly celebrated Christmas.

“Unsightly, isn’t it?” Marie asked, and I was startled to realize she’d somehow crept up next to me without me noticing. The sour expression on her face might have been a pout on anyone else. “Romani and Rika and that Archer of hers planned this behind my back. By the time I realized what was going on, everything had already been set up and there was nothing I could do.”

I looked at her, and quietly, I asked, “Would you have said no?”

Her grimace was an answer all on its own. “It’s the principle of the thing! I’m the Director, they should have asked my permission!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Romani said as he meandered over. By the smell, the mug in his hand contained eggnog. “Rika asked, and I thought, well, there wasn’t any harm in it, was there? It’s an easy way to keep up morale, and if there was a time to do it, you can’t do much better than Christmas, can you?”

“You might be the Vice Director now,” Marie grumbled, “but you should still have asked!”

“Sorry, Director,” he said a little more sincerely. “It won’t happen again.”

She let out a short, throaty sigh, as though a groan and a grunt had married halfway out of her chest. “There’s nothing to be done, at this point. Just…enjoy it while you can, Romani.”

Romani gave her a lopsided smile. “As you command, Director.”

And then he wandered off again.

“That guy,” she groused when he was gone. “Can’t he be a little more responsible?”

I thought about saying something, but I could recognize when Marie was complaining for the sake of complaining, or even when she was doing it because she thought she was supposed to. I’d known her for long enough to see that.

I’d also known Theo, if less well. They weren’t exactly the same, not even anywhere near it, but the hallmarks of a family — a father — with high expectations and a low tolerance for failure were, in some ways, universal.

“It’s only for a day or two,” I told her instead. I gave Jackie’s hand a squeeze, as though to reassure myself that she hadn’t wandered off. “It’ll be good for morale.”

“Ugh,” Marie said, but she didn’t contradict me. She didn’t try to stop me either as I got in line to grab some food, because it was dinnertime, I was hungry, and the smell of turkey was trying very hard to tempt me.

It was the liveliest I’d seen the cafeteria since the Sabotage. The room wasn’t filled — of course not; even with all of the Servants we’d brought back and summoned, the total number of people in the facility number less than forty, and the cafeteria was meant to accommodate almost half of the original staff size at once — but it was far closer than it had been any other time the better part of the last half a year. And what we lacked in raw numbers, people like Shakespeare, Mordred, Bradamante, and Rika made up for with their presence and boisterous personalities.

Even six months ago, it would have been surreal to see a famous pirate like Sam Bellamy chatting with Siegfried or Mordred bickering with Jeanne Alter while Aífe watched them both for the slightest sign of misbehavior. Bradamante regaled Hippolyta and several technicians with a story from her past, swinging a half-eaten drumstick around as though it was her lance. Sylvia had apparently cornered El-Melloi II and gotten him to actually talk; I wondered if a version of him existed here in this timeline, and if she knew that version personally.

When it was my turn to be served, Emiya dished me up a generous helping of turkey — slathered in gravy — a rich stuffing, a few slices of ham, and a spoonful of candied yams. It looked and smelled like it could have come straight out of a Christmas movie.

And then he prepared a second tray with nearly as much food, adding some buttered vegetables on the side, and this, he gave to Jackie, who took it with wonder.

“Enjoy,” was all he said to us, smiling.

When we sat down at my usual table, we did. We very much did.

Marie, Romani, Ritsuka (whose plate was loaded up with fried chicken instead of turkey), and Mash eventually came to join me, although Rika was apparently too wound up to eat, because she meandered around the room, wishing everyone at every table a “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays.” As she got closer to our table, I realized she was dressed up like an elf, the North Pole kind from that stop motion Christmas special that always seemed to find its way onto TV at Christmas time, complete with a pair of shoes that had bells attached to the toes.

I guess I should be glad at least that she never started caroling, “We are Santa’s elves!” I wouldn’t have put it past her to have memorized that song.

By contrast, Mash seemed utterly overwhelmed.

“I-is this how Christmas parties usually are in Japan, Senpai?” she asked Ritsuka, watching the goings-on with wide eyes.

He snorted. “No. Japan celebrates Christmas more as a way to go out and party than as a religious holiday. A lot of people use it as an excuse to hang out with friends.” He shook his head. “Mostly, it’s really more of a couple’s thing than anything else. It’s a really popular time for love confessions for that reason.”

“Really?” asked Mash. “But Senpai is so…”

She looked over at Rika, who had drawn one group of technicians — some of whom seemed to have gotten drunk on the eggnog — along with Bradamante into a rendition of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, even though Bradamante didn’t seem to know any of the words. At some point, Fou had even joined in, squeakily chirping along, with an oversized Santa hat flopping about on his head.

“Rika is Rika,” was Ritsuka’s response. And it wasn’t exactly a bad one either. He peered over at me. “I’ve heard it’s very different in America, though.”

Mash looked over to me now curiously.

I thought about explaining the corporate exploitation and commercialization of Christmas in America, how it had long since become a way for big store chains to milk money out of people by convincing them to spend that money on things they wouldn’t normally buy, but there was no need to ruin the mood, so I didn’t.

“It varies from family to family,” I said instead. “Some people think it corrupts the original meaning of the holiday to do anything except get together with family and go to church. For the most part, though, it’s just a chance for people to splurge a little and buy gifts for the people they care about. Usually parents for their children, people for their friends and coworkers, or relatives for their nieces and nephews.”

“Oh,” said Mash. “We’ve never done anything like that here before.”

Come to think of it, we really hadn’t, had we? I’d never really considered that before. I was still trying to put myself back together for what would have been my first Christmas here, and last year, it just…passed me by before I knew it.

“This is Chaldea,” Marie grumbled, “not a shopping mall.”

“Partly, that’s because we were never trapped here during Christmas time before this year,” Romani said with a sigh. “But partly, it’s because there isn’t anywhere you could go to buy a present for anyone, and having them shipped in is just too much of a hassle. And, well…” He coughed into his fist. “The Director…thought it was frivolous.”

“That’s because it is,” Marie replied, and then she let out a sigh of her own, spearing a chunk of turkey with her fork. “But under the circumstances, I…guess I can let it slide. Just this once.”

“Thank you, Director,” Ritsuka said earnestly, and the honest gratitude in his voice made Marie’s cheeks pink.

“B-but only just this once!” she insisted. “It’s one thing when it’s such a major holiday, but I won’t allow random parties that make a huge mess out of my Chaldea!”

Ritsuka still smiled. “Of course, Director.”

Marie huffed and went back to her meal.

The party went on for several hours. Romani got up from our table to refill his mug several times, and every time, he came back with his face just a little bit redder than it had been before and his lips just a little bit looser. The expression on Marie’s face as she watched him told me that he would be getting an earful tomorrow, or maybe as soon as she had enough privacy to dress him down. I could already imagine the lecture about his duties as Vice Director and how he couldn’t let himself get swept up in the moment just because it was Christmas.

Rika eventually made it over to the table with some food, proclaiming, “Merry Christmas!” as she sat down, and then she dug in with gusto and shoveled her meal into the bottomless pit she called her stomach.

“I won’t be able to eat regular KFC at Christmas ever again after this!” she proclaimed.

“I’ll have to see if Emiya can give us a recipe to take back home with us,” her brother said, amused.

Rika could only complain, “It won’t be the same!”

And once she was done eating, she relaxed into her chair with a sigh. “If this is what Christmas dinner is like in America, I’m moving there once we’re done with high school.”

“What about college?” Ritsuka asked.

Rika’s face twisted, and she allowed, “After college, then. Or maybe I go to college in the States? Ugh, but I’d have to get into, like, Harvard or Yale or something. Mom and Dad would shout my ear off if I went to school ten thousand kilometers away just for some good food.”

Mash opened her mouth to say something, only to pause as her brow furrowed. “From Tokyo to Boston, Massachusetts, that’s…actually very close to the correct distance. Senpai, d-did you really just guess that?”

Rika blinked, astonished. “Actually…yeah. And I got that right entirely on accident? Huh. Look at me go, Ma and Pa, I’m a math genius! Or would that be geography? Think that’s enough to get an acceptance letter from Harvard once this is all over?” She grinned. “Oh, man, imagine Mom and Dad’s faces if I got into a college I never even applied to!”

Romani snorted into his eggnog.

“I just want to see Mom and Dad again,” Ritsuka said somberly. His sister agreed with a solemn nod.

“Don’t be stupid,” Marie told them. “Of course you will. We’ve already made it this far, haven’t we? Whatever else is waiting for us, we’ll make it through it just the same.”

The twins broke out into smiles, and they both nodded. “Right!”

“We’ve got Senpai here, after all!” Rika added.

“And you, too, Senpai,” Mash said. She smiled brightly. “With the three of you, and the Director, and Doctor Roman, and Miss Da Vinci, we’ll overcome whatever stands in front of us, I just know it!”

“And whenever we’re in danger,” said Ritsuka, placing his hand over hers, “you’ll be there to protect us, too.”

She nodded. “Of course!”

The moment lingered. For just a second too long, Ritsuka and Mash stared into each others’ eyes — and then, suddenly, seemed to realize what they were doing, and Ritsuka pulled his hand away as though he had been burned. Faint splotches of red decorated both of their faces.

Jackie tugged on my sleeve, and when I looked to her, she asked me, “Does Mommy have a mommy, too?”

Half the table turned to me, waiting for my reaction, and I felt their eyes as I offered Jackie a little smile and told her, “Not anymore. She died…about seven years ago, now. A car accident.”

Jackie nodded, all serious, and in the guileless way only a child could, said, “Mommy must’ve been really sad.”

I felt my lips twist into something bittersweet. “Yes. Yes, I was.”

And in some ways, I hadn’t ever really stopped. I got better. I moved on. But if taking care of Jackie had taught me anything, it was that I still had a lot of baggage attached to Mom’s memory, still had a hole in my life that fit her size and shape, even if the edges had softened. I wasn’t sure it would ever go away.

A moment of awkward silence stretched. In the background, the buzz of the party continued on, completely oblivious.

“I’m gonna go see if Emiya has any Christmas cake!” Rika blurted out, and just as abruptly, she stood. Ritsuka stood up a second later.

“I’ll go with you,” he said, and then they both hurried back to the counter and Emiya, retreating from the conversation and its weight.

“I’m…sorry,” Romani said.

I gave him a look, a quirk of my lips and a raised eyebrow. “For what? It happened years ago, before we even met.” Before I even came to this world, I didn’t say, although there was no way he could have missed the implication. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“Yeah,” he said, forcing a laugh. “I guess you’re right.”

When ten o’clock rolled around, I excused myself and led Jackie back to my room, and as the door whirred shut behind me, I felt suddenly exhausted, like the mere act of being present around so much activity had drained me of my energy. Jackie watched me go through my usual nighttime routine, and by the time I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep, she had already dismissed her normal clothes — knives and all — and slipped on the shirt of mine she’d been using as a nightgown for the past week.

Mothers the world over probably would have been extremely jealous of how well-behaved Jackie could be. I distinctly remembered putting up a fight almost every night when I was her age, because I wanted to read another chapter, and another chapter, and just one more chapter, and Mom, being older and wiser, knew that if she let me, I’d stay up all night reading.

Jackie put up no such struggle, climbing into my bed with me and snuggling up into my arms as I turned the lights out. It seemed incredible, but somehow or another, I’d gotten so used to her being there that maybe it was me who would have trouble going back to sleeping alone next time we went on deployment.

For several long minutes, I simply lied there, looking out into the dark. Something vaguely like regret swirled in my stomach, mild and tempered by the reality of the situation and the limitations that came with it.

“Jackie?” I murmured at last.

Jackie shifted in my arms, her hair tickling my collarbones. “Yes, Mommy?”

“I know there was never really a chance to even try and look for something, but… Was there anything you would have wanted for Christmas?”

Her fingers curled around my arm, gentle but firm. The closest thing to a hug she could give me like that.

“No. We have everything we could have asked for already.”