Rip woke to the sounds of Christmas carols echoing through the hallways. It wouldn't have been too bad of a way to wake up except for the off-key singing that was belting along to the lyrics of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

As the sounds of singing got closer, the torture of his poor ears ended when he heard somebody knocking on his door.

"Riiipppp! Wake up!" Sara said in a singy-songy voice through the door "Its Christmas morning!"

When Rip failed to respond in a timely manner, the knocking became more aggressive.

"Rip I swear if you're not up in the next minute I will come in there and you do not want me to come in there."

Rip grumbled a bit as he slowly rolled out of bed about insubordinate crew members and annoying blond hair assassins who was way too excited for Christmas. He finally managed to find the willpower to get out of his warm blanket cocoon and swung his feet onto the cold metal grating below.

He then proceeded to grumble some more while walking toward the door and ran his hand fruitlessly through his hair as he attempted to tame his awful bedhead.

When he reached his door, he opened it and asked testily, "Yes, Ms. Lance?"

Before double taking when he saw what she was wearing, she was decked out in big blue poofy reindeer slippers complete with a small bell on the nose that jingled a bit each time she moved her foot. She was also wearing comfortable looking fuzzy pajama pants and was wearing reindeer antlers, but the worse part was her large gaudy looking Christmas sweater with creepy smiling snowmen, reindeers, and Christmas trees.

"What on earth are you wearing Sara?" Rip said so shocked that her first name slipped out

"What are you taking about Rip? Don't you like my outfit?" Sara asked sadly looking at him with her big blue eyes

Rip quickly backtracked, "Oh no… I love it's… it's great. I was just taken by surprise of how er… festive it is."

"Great!" Sara said happily with a humorous glint in her eyes

"Well then here you go Rip!" She said while shoving an identical pair of previously unnoticed reindeer antlers into his surprised hands and as he fumbled to grab them surprised, "And don't say you don't like Christmas I heard you humming Frosty the Snowman under your breath yesterday in your office." She said with a knowing look her eyes barley suppressing the humor she felt

Rip blushed just a bit he thought he was alone when singing it!

"Well still Ms. Lance…"

"Aannnd don't forget you want to set a festive spirit for the rest of your teammates right? Team spirit and everything? A good captain has to set a good example."

"Fine.. fine" Rip said defeated "Let me just get changed" He hoped that while he was changing Sara would forget about the ridiculous reindeer antlers and have found a different victim.

"Ok see you soon Rip! And don't forget your antlers!" She said happily, but her eyes threatened bodily harm if he decided to "forget" them.

"Great." Rip muttered back unenthusiastically and closed the door turning back into his room

He tossed the antlers onto a chair before collapsing back onto his bed.

"Ugh… Why would I ever think a team would be a good idea?" He thought to himself and tiredly rubbed his hands over his eyes.

He refused to let himself think about the fact that this would be his first Christmas in a long time without Miranda and Jonas. Jonas was still of the age of believing in Father Christmas, so last Christmas Eve they all stayed up late making cookies together and eating the slightly burned cookies on the couch together.

He quickly rubbed away the prickling of tears and reminded himself of the fact that the rest of the crew would be missing their families too.

With that reminder, he pushed away all other thoughts of self-pity and pushed himself into a sitting position before getting ready. Before he left his room, he grabbed the blasted reindeer antlers lying on the chair.