Note: Heeey, long time no see. Sorry, I started a new job a few weeks ago and have been super busy. I'm still hanging around, I just don't have as much free time on my hands X) Hope y'all had a great Christmas!

On a side note, this was actually an original story I wrote for Christmas, but I cut out a bunch of irrelevant stuff and added in some FT stuff and ta-da! So if it has a slightly different vibe, it's because it was originally written in a different context.

"It's so pretty," Lucy sighed as she looked around the guild hall.

The day had been spent stringing up colored lights and decorating the tree in the corner and baking cookies that wafted a warm, sugary aroma through the air. It was practically a winter wonderland in here, aside from the lack of snow. Gray figured he could wait until Christmas day to freeze the place out.

"It does look fabulous," Erza declared with a satisfied smile.

Everyone eyed her warily. She had been a terror all day as she ordered everyone around and harassed them until everything was perfect. Gray did have to admit that the place looked great and she had done a good job planning it, but he wished it had been accomplished with a few less bruises.

"Tastes good, too," Natsu mumbled around a mouthful of cookies, crumbs spilling down his shirt.

Erza pulled a face. "That's disgusting. Don't talk with your mouth full. And haven't you already eaten enough of the cookies?"

"Never too many cookies!" he declared as he leaned across the table to snag another from the suspiciously empty-looking platter that Gray recalled having been heaped high with cookies when Mira first set it out a few minutes ago.

He offered one to Happy, who accepted and took a nibble even as he mumbled, "I wish there were fish."

Erza rolled her eyes and gave up on them, while Gray snickered. Lucy seemed to have barely noticed the exchange, still watching the lights with starry eyes.

"It reminds me of the old days," she said with a half-smile. "My mom loved Christmas. She used to put up strings of colored lights around the room with our tree, and at night she'd turn off the overhead lights and read stories to me by the glow of the Christmas lights."

"That's so sweet," Erza sighed. She looked around the room with new eyes. "Maybe we should–"

"Yeah, I don't know how well that would work with all the crazies in here," Gray said dryly.

"Who you calling crazy?" Natsu asked through a mouthful of cookies. It looked like he'd crammed nearly half a dozen in at once, and was spewing crumbs with every word. Gray eyed him with disgust.

"Don't you guys have any Christmas stories?" asked Lucy.

Natsu snorted and promptly choked on his cookies. Gray scooted further down the bench as the dragon slayer coughed up great chunks of cookie and Happy cackled.

"That is disgusting," Erza said. "No more cookies for you. You're banned."

"But–!"

"No buts."

Natsu crossed his arms over his chest and sulked. "I grew up with a dragon," he said haughtily. "We didn't need Christmas stuff."

"Nothing at all?" Lucy asked, wide-eyed.

Natsu hesitated and tilted his head as his eyes went misty and distant. "Well… I guess Igneel used to let me ride on his back and we'd fly across half the continent to see all the lights and decorations in the cities and towns. It looks a lot different from above."

"That's so cool," Lucy gushed.

"One time Natsu took me fishing because he forgot to give me a gift," Happy volunteered.

"We didn't celebrate in the Tower, but my first Christmas on the outside was magical." Erza smiled a little as her gaze wandered along the lights pinned to the wall and followed them across to the tree in the corner. "I wanted to try everything. I remember that I walked all the way out to the far side of the forest looking for the perfect tree and cut it down myself—and ruined a perfectly good sword doing it!—and after hacking it apart, I dragged it all the way back to the guild. It took hours. And I somehow missed the memo and chopped down an oak instead of an evergreen since I didn't know much about real Christmas trees, so I got some odd looks. It was the year of the Christmas oak at the guild."

Lucy burst out laughing, and Gray smiled at the memory. He had totally forgotten about that, it was so long ago, but now he was recovering some dim recollection of a standoffish little red-haired girl with an eyepatch straining to drag a tree into the guild hall. He hadn't seen a stranger Christmas tree since, than the oak webbed in a tangle of lights Erza had insisted on making a mess of.

He listened to the team swap Christmas stories back and forth, of silly traditions and half-forgotten memories, for a few minutes before Lucy eyed him curiously.

"Don't you have any stories, Gray?" she asked.

He rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly as he tried to come up with anything half as entertaining as the other whoppers. "Uh… I burned cookies once and almost burned my apartment down?"

Erza nodded sagely. "I did that once too."

"I know. That's why we banned you from cooking."

Lucy huffed out a breath that puffed her cheeks out like a chipmunk's. "I mean, don't you have any stories about how your family celebrated Christmas or anything?" Her eyes went wide almost as soon as the words touched the air, and her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, I didn't mean…"

She trailed off with a wince. Gray shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He never talked about his family, really. Anything from before Fairy Tail was off-limits, as the team well knew. But still…

He took a cookie from the plate and frowned down at it absently. He tried not to think too much about the past, about the good times he had lost. It was too painful, and it was hard to be happy about a memory when he knew the tragedy that cut it short.

But maybe it wasn't fair to throw away all the good times just because of what had come after. Listening to everyone else's stories left him feeling nostalgic, and his mind drifted unbidden through the past. There were things there that didn't deserve to be forgotten.

"Well…" he said slowly, methodically breaking small chunks off the cookie and leaving them scattered about the plate. "Well, my family was actually pretty poor growing up, and there was this one Christmas…"

Gray woke up in a rush. Today there was no groggy malaise or leisurely return to consciousness, no pulling the covers back over his head or promising himself just five more minutes.

The light filtering through the gap in the faded curtains was still the dusky gray of pre-dawn and the wintry chill seeping through every crack in the walls weighed the air down and turned his breath to fog, but he was buzzing with excitement as he sat bolt upright.

It was two days before Christmas, and he was counting on Santa to bring his train.

The train was everything. He had always been fascinated by the trains rumbling along the heavy steel tracks just outside town in a parade of mystery-laden cars and plumes of black smoke. He wasn't allowed to play on the tracks, but he still liked to walk alongside them and pretend he was going on an adventure. Like he could follow them until they disappeared over the horizon and end up somewhere exciting and new, maybe somewhere with a little more magic.

…To be fair, the rest of the boys in town also liked to clamber all over the tracks despite parents' strict prohibitions, and it wasn't like Gray could always refuse to join them. He didn't want to be called a baby, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy the thrill of it.

But he hadn't done that in months in preparation for Christmas, because disobeying his parents would get him on the naughty list and then he wouldn't get his train.

He wanted that train. It was going to be the highlight of Christmas. Especially since Mama and Papa had already sat him down and exchanged awkward looks and haltingly explained that it would be a small Christmas this year because business hadn't been good and money was tight and they were really sorry but it would be better next year. Gray understood. There was never enough money, and he had watched his parents work harder and harder every year trying to make ends meet. They already had enough to worry about, so he figured it was Santa's turn to pick up the slack and come through on the train.

He pushed the covers back, wincing as the cool air rushed inside his warm cocoon and dragged chilly fingers across his skin, and shuffled across the floor to pull on long-sleeves and grab his coat from the hook on the wall. The house had been getting colder and colder lately, and he wondered if it was some new money-saving strategy to wait until later in the day to begin stoking the coals. But drafty or not, it was nothing a coat and some slippers couldn't fix.

The soft clinking of dishes in the kitchen and quiet murmur of voices told him that Mama and Papa were already up, and his stomach grumbled in anticipation. His hand was already on the knob before his gaze caught on the pile of rumpled blankets squatting on the bed.

He hurried back and set to tugging the sheets and quilt back into place and smoothing them out. It was too close to Christmas to risk skipping out on his chores.

"You're up early," Mama said as Gray wandered into the kitchen.

"Good morning."

"I'd always sleep in late when school was out," Papa said with a grin. He sat at one of the rickety wooden chairs arranged around the table. "Don't you know how to take advantage of your time off?"

"I think it's good that he isn't ruining his sleep schedule," Mama retorted, nudging Papa with her hip as she whirled past to set out porridge and hard-boiled eggs with a bit of bread.

"What are you going to do with your day off?" Papa asked as he immediately began shoveling food into his mouth like it was a race, drawing a disapproving look from Mama. "Going over to Liza's? Or maybe you have plans with the boys?"

Gray shrugged and twirled his porridge around his spoon. "I don't know. Do you need help in the shop?"

"No, no, enjoy your vacation while you can," Papa said with a tired chuckle. "I think I can manage without my trusty assistant today."

No good. Christmas was so close, and Gray was running out of time to make a good impression on Santa. The problem was that he might possibly sometimes be just a tiny bit naughty. Occasionally he talked back or played on the train tracks or didn't do his homework. It never seemed like a big deal at the time, but near Christmastime it was a different story.

"What about you, Mama? Do you need help?"

Mama shook her head. "That's alright, love. Go play with your friends."

"But it's almost Christmas! I need to stock up on nice points!"

"You've been very good this year. I'm sure Santa wouldn't mind if you took a day off."

"But I have to be sure! The better I am, the more likely he'll bring my train!"

Mama and Papa exchanged a look. Papa shrugged one shoulder and swiped the last bit of bread around his bowl to sop up any morsel that might have escaped.

Mama sighed but huffed out a laugh. "If only you were half as helpful year-round as you are when December rolls around. Well… I suppose you could help me wash the dishes before you go play."

Gray hated washing dishes, but he clamped his mouth shut and smiled for good measure. You can do this. It's for the train.

He gathered up his resolve and got to work. In the end, he got lucky and only had to dry the dishes and put them away while Mama washed.

"Do you need anything else?" he asked when all the dishes had been safely stowed away.

"That's alright, sweetie." Mama leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead. "Tell Liza hello from me."

Gray took the opening. He rushed for the door, only to be waylaid by Mama, who insisted on fetching his hat and scarf and gloves.

"Be careful and don't catch a cold," she said.

She wrapped the red-knit scarf snugly about his neck and tugged the hat down over his ears. Gray squirmed a bit, too old for his mother to bundle him up—he could put on his own hat, thank you very much!—but ultimately submitted because it was two days before Christmas.

"It's just next door!" he protested when she handed him old black gloves just a tiny bit too small.

She tapped the tip of his nose with her finger. "Ah, but knowing you, you'll be out in the snow as soon as you get the chance. And then you'll be sorry if you don't have your gloves."

Gray puffed out his cheeks in resignation. "I guess so."

She only smiled and shooed him out the door. "Mothers know everything. Have fun, sweetie."

Gray waved goodbye and hurried down the walk. Papa had already shoveled a pathway down to the dusty little road that meandered lazily through town, slipping past the neat rows of wood and brick houses and skipping past the schoolhouse to join the plaza where the shops huddled around the edges of the square. It made a bid for freedom on the far end of town, little more than a well-worn foot trail that stretched out towards the next town over. It petered out before hitting the coal mines on the far side of that town, the ones that saved everyone in the nearby towns from succumbing to the harsh winter cold when the few sparse evergreens dotting the hillside weren't enough to keep the fires burning. You could get there by following the train tracks, though, if you had your good walking boots on. The trains trundled alongside the mines to get great shovelfuls of black coal to feed the engines.

One time Gray had walked all the way there along the tracks and caught a glimpse of the tired, black-faced men trudging out of the mines and past the teetering slag heaps. His feet had been sore and aching by the time he made it, and he had been in for a world of trouble when he came staggering back home after dark. That scolding had convinced him not to try it again, at least not when Christmas was coming.

In truth, the actual mines had been a bit disillusioning. Gray liked to imagine what lay beyond them, what great cities or vast, untamed wilds hid behind where the sky kissed the hills at the horizon. He liked to dream. Somewhere, far away, there were lands that didn't spend eight months of the year covered in snow or muddy slush, where the sun shone bright year-round rather than a weak, watery gray. Maybe lands where there were still knights and dragons and castles and other things that only lived in books here.

This was his home, and he loved it down to his bones. But when the winters were long and the days dark and the world felt small trapped between two rows of dilapidated cottages on a narrow packed-dirt road that didn't quite reach the horizon, he dreamed of adventures and wondered what he might find if he hopped on the back of the next train and let it carry him to the end of the line.

But now wasn't the time for daydreaming, as Mama called it, or wanderlust, as Papa did. He cut across the snowy yard to the squat little stone house next door.

Liza's mother was already wearing a long woolen coat and pulling on gloves when she answered the door.

"Oh, Gray!" she said, as if she was surprised and delighted to see him even though he showed up on her doorstep at least three or four times a week. "How nice to see you. I have to run some errands, but I'll be back in a little while." She twisted about in the doorway and called, "Liza! Gray is here!"

Liza appeared a moment later, golden hair twisted high on her head in a braid except for where a few wispy curls escaped to frame her large brown eyes. Gray liked her hair. It was why they were friends. When she had first moved to town three years ago, he had overheard her mother calling her 'sunshine' outside the school and mocked her mercilessly until she turned to him with her nose in the air and two spots of color high on her cheeks and said, "Well, at least my hair isn't the color of coal." He had started laughing, and she had turned bright red and started sputtering apologies while he only laughed harder. They had been inseparable ever since.

Now she gave him a sunny smile—the hair wasn't the only reason for the old nickname—that was laced with the hint of mischief few of the other kids saw. Everyone else thought she was the sweetest, shyest thing, but Gray knew she had a bit of a wicked streak buried deep down.

"Wonderful," she said. "I already have the dolls out."

Gray groaned as he pulled off his boots and coat and followed her to the living room to sit down on the circular blue rug stretched across the rough floorboards. He folded his legs underneath him and surveyed the array of dolls lined up in a neat semi-circle around the edge of the rug. Liza's mother indulged her daughter's love for dolls by sewing and stuffing a new one each year, mostly girl ragdolls with different colors of hair and dresses but also a couple boys. And, of course, the lopsided green dragon. Liza and Gray had begged for that one. With how often their heroes ran into dragons, it seemed prudent to keep one around.

Gray was really too old to be playing with dolls and the other boys thought it was weird, but that was what Liza always wanted to do and he tolerated it as long as he got to pick the next activity.

"As long as we can go outside after."

Liza rolled her eyes. "You always want to play outside. I know. Now choose today's hero."

He chose Adam with his black yarn hair and faded red shirt, while Liza snatched up Annie with her brown hair and fraying yellow dress. Gray swept the other dolls into a pile on the side where they could be resurrected as extras if needed and snatched up Sparky the dragon for good measure since he was almost always needed.

"Today," Liza announced, "Annie will save Adam from the dragon."

Gray stared. "But Annie is a princess."

"And? Princesses can be heroes too. How come the knights always slay the dragon?"

Gray had no good answer to that, and the smile Liza gave him when he agreed made him think that maybe she should play the princess-hero more often after all.

Princess Annie went on a wild adventure, defeating a horde of vulcans and crossing the wide blue sea—which was almost perfectly circular and had the strange texture of yarn—before finally reaching the dragon's lair. She rescued the knight in a particularly valiant fashion…at least until she decided to tame the dragon with kindness afterwards rather than slaying it.

That particular strategy would have sparked a controversy on another day, but Gray kept his mouth shut and thought about his train.

"And they lived happily ever after," Liza said happily as the princess and the knight flew off on the back of their dragon. That was how she ended all the stories.

"Until their next adventure," Gray added, like always. "Now let's go build a snowman!"

"Alright, alright."

Gray shimmied back into coats and scarves and gloves and all the rest of it in about ten seconds flat and rocked impatiently on his heels as he waited for Liza to put the dolls away again. She pulled on a heavy jacket over her woolen skirts and spent far too long digging up an assortment of mittens and hats and mufflers.

"Liza," Gray groaned.

"The snow isn't going anywhere. For months. Relax."

She jammed her feet into boots and finally followed him out. The wind slapped them in the face the second they stepped outside, and they pulled their coats tighter. The snow in the yard was the sticky kind good for snowman building, and Gray and Liza had made enough snowmen over the years to work like a well-oiled machine.

Except that halfway through they decided it would be more fun to make Sparky, which necessitated some squabbling and debate about the logistics. Sparky ended up with a rather short, smushed-in snout, and his tail ran along the ground in a lumpy loop. The wings were the most problematic, but eventually they found some branches from a nearby bush, still dotted with waxy green leaves despite the ice and frost, to jam in his back. Liza even ran inside to fetch him an extra scarf.

"He'll get cold sitting out here in the wind," she said.

"He breathes fire," Gray protested.

The old green scarf went on anyway, wrapped loosely around his neck to hide the unsightly seam where his head joined his body.

"I think he looks good," Liza declared, stepping back to study their creation.

Gray was about to suggest they build Sparky a friend—two dragons would always be better than one—when raucous laughter drifted down the street and echoed off the snowbanks.

"Hey, Gray!" Danny yelled. Gray turned to see his friend waving from across the street with a cluster of half a dozen other boys from their class. "Wanna have a snowball fight?"

Gray shifted his weight back and forth and darted a sidelong look at Liza. "I don't know…"

"You can bring Liza, if you want."

"Do you want to?" he asked quietly.

Liza hesitated, pearly teeth gathering in her lower lip as she eyed the group of boys. They didn't usually mix unless Gray dragged her along for the ride.

"Okay," she said, and Gray smiled gratefully. He liked playing with everyone.

The favored terrain for snowball fights was the field by the train tracks just outside town, where there was lots of open space to run and a few small hills and hollows for cover. Gray just liked being near the tracks so that he could watch the trains go by, but he didn't need Liza's disapproving stare to keep him off the tracks today. Santa was watching.

"I'm on Liza's team," he announced as they scattered across the snowy field.

Patrick huffed out a long-suffering sigh in a puff of mist. "We aren't doing teams."

"Why not?"

"Because we did teams last time."

Danny shrugged apologetically from behind Patrick, sandy hair fluttering in the breeze. Gray sighed. If his chief ally couldn't change it, there wasn't much he could do.

"We can still stick together," he muttered under his breath to the girl beside him.

Liza nodded and inched closer. The other boys were likely to gang up on her or ignore her presence altogether. Gray thought this was rather unfair since they had all played together without a hitch just a couple years ago, but apparently times were changing.

"Go!" Patrick shouted.

Everyone dove for cover or dropped to the ground to pack snow into missiles. In half a second, the air was thick with flying snowballs.

Gray grabbed Liza's arm and yanked her down behind the nearest snowbank.

"Hurry, make the snowballs and I'll throw them," he said as he dug into the snow and packed it into an icy lump.

"Got it," said Liza.

This was hardly the first time they had tag-teamed it. She was already packing the snow between her mittened hands, forming snowballs much faster and neater than Gray ever could. Gray was much faster at throwing and had better aim, so he snatched the snowballs from the little pile Liza made and peeked out from behind their cover to toss them. He smirked as he hit Patrick so hard that he stumbled back a step.

"I got Patrick right in the face!" Gray crowed as he ducked back down and turned to Liza with a grin. "Got Nathan too, and–"

He barely had time to register the sly smile tugging at Liza's lips before the snowball slammed into his face at pointblank range. He yelped and scrubbed at the freezing powder clinging to his skin. A high-pitched giggle split the air, soaring above the shouts and yells from the warring boys.

"Liza!" Gray cried. "What was that for? I thought we were a team!"

"Sorry, Gray," Liza called back over her shoulder. By the time Gray had cleared the snow from his eyes, she was already racing across the field. "They said no teams!"

"Oh, it's on!" Gray scooped up a handful of snow and ran after her.

Nearly forty minutes later, everyone was red-cheeked and panting for breath and soaked through. The boys clamored for the title of victor past their whoops and laughter, and then wandered off back to warm homes and steaming mugs of cocoa.

Gray resisted the temptation to lob a snowball at the back of Liza's head as they headed across the field—that was unsportsmanlike now that the game was officially over, and he wasn't going to risk his train for that.

They wandered back to his house, where Mama bundled them into dry clothes before sitting them down in front of the old coal furnace to watch the small fire through the grate while she made them hot cocoa. They basked in the warm glow and snuggled in the blankets as they talked over each other in their excitement to recount the fight to Mama.

In that moment, Gray could forget the cold outside when everything was so warm and fuzzy in here.

.

Gray couldn't sleep. Partly because it was almost Christmas Eve—and Christmas!—and partly because his room was freezing. Even under the blankets, he was shivering.

After a few more minutes of squirming, he gave up and slipped out of bed. The cold air instantly assaulted his skin and he wanted to climb right back in, but he shoved his feet into his slippers and shuffled to the door. There were extra blankets in the closet, and he was going to steal one. Or maybe two.

He drew up short just inside the door as he cracked it open. Hushed voices filtered inside, drifting along the current of chilly air from the kitchen. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, really. That was not a good thing to do, and he was supposed to be good when Christmas was right around the corner.

But he had always been a little too nosy for his own good, a little too curious.

"–going to do about it?" Mama was asking quietly.

"I don't know," Papa said. "Business is just so slow… Well, I guess we'll just have to sit down and do a new budget."

"We'll need to cut back on expenses. It's not like we can just do without coal. We'll freeze. We have enough to last through Christmas, right?"

"Just barely. We might as well start thinking about where we're pulling the money from."

"We'll figure it out." Mama sighed deeper this time.

"Yeah, well, we should make a budget anyway," Papa grumbled.

"It will be alright, Silver. We've always managed before. Just cheer up a little so you don't ruin Gray's Christmas."

"Sorry, sorry, you're right. I've just been stressed. We'll get it together."

"It's alright, dear. Just breathe. And tomorrow we'll go over all the finances."

Papa's reply was drowned out by the soft scraping of wood on wood as the chair was pushed away from the table. Gray pulled the door shut, latching it as quietly as possible. Soft voices threaded beneath the quiet creaking of footsteps, and the door to Mama and Papa's room clicked shut.

Gray crept across the room and crawled back into bed, extra blankets forgotten. He curled up under the blankets and stared at the shadows stretched across the ceiling thicker than cobwebs.

He was not well-versed in most adult things, but even he knew this was a big deal. In a place where temperatures regularly plummeted below freezing and winter seemed to creep further along the calendar each year, keeping warm was a very real concern. And with relatively few hardy trees dotting the landscape and too many hardy inhabitants in comparison, the coal from the mines was how almost everyone heated their homes. It wasn't like in the western countries where everything was done with magic.

This was emphatically an adult problem, which meant that Gray wasn't required to worry about it. But Mama and Papa obviously were, and they already worked really hard to keep everything together.

But what could Gray really do about it? Maybe he could make the trek to the mines again and search the slag heap for bits of discarded coal to swipe?

But did that count as stealing? Because stealing was bad and he would go on the naughty list for sure. Instead of getting his train, he would just get–

Gray sat bolt upright, eyes wide and staring as it hit him like lightning. If he was bad and went on the naughty list, Santa would bring him coal!

He hugged his knees to his chest and shivered as the excitement drained back out of him.

He wanted that train. He wanted it really, really, really badly. He had worked really hard to stay on the nice list, and throwing it all away at the last minute was just…

On the other hand, it would help Mama and Papa. They wouldn't have any use for his toy train, but coal would help all of them.

Gray lay back down slowly and stared out at the shadowy silhouette of the chair in the corner. What was he supposed to do? Everything had been so simple just a few minutes ago. Now there were suddenly two very different paths laid before him, and neither one felt quite right anymore.

He tried to pretend that he hadn't overheard anything at all—curse that bad habit of eavesdropping, nothing good had ever come of it—but he couldn't just make himself forget.

He lay there awake in the dark for a long time, his brain frantically weighing each option until it finally wore itself out.

When he woke the next morning, there was a brief moment of sweet ignorance lingering between dreamy sleep and drowsy wakefulness. It was the day before Christmas! Tomorrow all his hard work and careful self-control would finally pay off and he'd get his train!

Then he remembered last night and deflated, the excitement leaking back out of him as quickly as it had come.

The cold felt mocking this morning as it prodded him into his slippers and coat. He drifted across the room to push aside the curtains and let the early morning light slant through the glass.

He still wasn't sure if he really wanted to do this, but he needed to decide soon. He would only have one day to undo months of work if he decided to go that route.

No magical answer presented itself as he got ready and trudged out to the kitchen with a heavy heart.

"Good morning, dear," Mama greeted, swooping in for a quick peck on the cheek as she busied herself setting out plates.

"Any big plans for today?" Papa asked jovially as he sipped at his watery coffee.

Gray shuffled his feet and flopped down in his chair. Big plans, indeed.

"I haven't decided yet."

Mama and Papa shared a look, eyebrows raised, and Gray knew he had made a mistake.

"Oh?" Papa asked, a wicked smirk tugging at his lips and setting his dark eyes sparkling. "Big plans, huh? And what might those be?"

"It's not–"

"You aren't running away again, are you?" Mama teased. "Because you'll be getting your very own train soon, isn't that right? No need to run off again."

"I wasn't running away!" Gray protested, even though this was something of a running joke by now. "I just wanted to see where the trains went! I didn't know it was that far!"

"Is it a girl?" Papa interrupted. His grin widened. "It's a girl, isn't it? My little Gray is growing up so fast!"

"Wh-what?" Gray spluttered, the heat rushing to his face. "There's no–"

"Is it Liza? Oh, this is so exciting!"

"Eww! It's not–"

"Absolutely not." Mama rounded on Papa with a glare and braced her hands on her hips "Gray is too young for that."

"Aw, lighten up, Mika. The kid's got to learn that cooties aren't real someday."

Gray wanted to sink through the floor as his parents bickered back and forth good-naturedly and teased him about other possible 'big plans'. He busied himself with his breakfast so that he could get away with the occasional mumbled non-answer, but he watched them.

Mama and Papa seemed to be in high spirits as they joked and laughed, and it set Gray at ease until he noticed the new lines on Papa's face and dark smudges beneath Mama's eyes.

He thought that it probably wasn't fair for him to have a wonderfully awesome Christmas if they didn't.

The knot was already starting to form in his stomach, but he squared his small shoulders in determination. This was his chance to do something meaningful and important. His parents did so much for him, but here, finally, was something that only he could do.

"Will you sweep the floor before you go play?" Mama asked.

The question was almost rhetorical. Gray always did. It wasn't like he ever said no.

"No."

Until now.

"Excuse me?" Mama paused, the dishes she was clearing from the table hovering in the air as her hands stilled. She stared at Gray like she'd never seen him before.

Gray found himself squirming in his seat and sat on his hands to stop himself. "I don't want to."

"You do your chores before you go out to play," Papa said with a hard look. The urge to squirm was overwhelming. "It's not like we're asking that much of you. Do what your mother tells you to."

"I don't want to."

"I thought you wanted to be good so that you stay on the nice list," Mama said. Now that the shock had worn off a bit, she was studying Gray like he was a puzzle needing to be solved.

She was trying to understand, and Gray wanted to tell her everything so that she would sit him on her lap and stroke his hair and say everything would be okay. But he knew that if he explained his reasoning, his parents would just tell him not to worry about it and go play instead. Although he desperately wanted to take that out, he wanted to help more.

"I've been good," Gray grumbled. "You said I was nice enough to take a day off."

"You still have to do your chores, sweetie. And listen to us."

"I don't want to," he said more loudly. "Leave me alone."

Papa leaned forward across the table, the wood groaning under his weight, and narrowed his eyes dangerously. "Don't talk to your mother like that."

"I will if I want to!" Gray declared.

Now Papa was angry and Mama was a puzzled kind of disappointed, and Gray wanted out of there. He jumped to his feet, snatched his coat from the back of his chair, and raced for the door. He jammed his feet into his boots with a haste that only years of familiarity allowed, and was running out into the snow before anyone could stop him.

Papa was yelling behind him, but Gray darted around the side of the house and flopped down behind a particularly high snowbank, his heart thundering in his chest as he waited with bated breath.

Snow crunched underfoot a moment later and Papa's voice lost its muffled edge.

"You get back here right now, Gray!"

"Silver," Mama said, her voice growing clearer as she paused in the threshold. "Just go to work. I'll take care of it when he comes back."

Gray winced. Papa's anger was bad enough, but nothing cut as deep as Mama's disappointment. It always made Gray feel like he had let her down, and the sad, tired look in her eyes was a far more effective deterrent than her yelling could ever dream to be.

"What's gotten into that boy?" Papa grumbled.

Mama sighed. "I don't know, honey. Something must be bothering him."

"I'll–"

"You need to go to work, Silver. We'll figure out what's got him all worked up when he comes back."

There was a brief debate in the doorway, but eventually Papa headed for the shop. Even if business was slow, there was work to be done and he couldn't afford to miss any orders. At least Gray wouldn't have to deal with his wrath until tonight.

He stayed hunkered down in the snow for a little longer just to be safe, shivering as it soaked through his clothes. When he was sure the coast was clear, he jumped to his feet and cupped his hands in front of his mouth to blow warm air into them. His teeth clicked and clattered as he huddled down deeper into his coat and slunk off.

He slipped between houses to stay out of sight of the windows in case Mama was looking out for him. The wind whistled around the buildings and in his ears. It raked across every inch of exposed skin and snuck chilly fingers down his collar. Now he was cold and miserable.

His next misdeed was hitting old Miss Agatha in the back of the head with a snowball, and thus began his new life as a miscreant.

He knocked off the head of a snowman in Johnny and Mary's yard, kicked at a scrawny stray cat prowling around the edges of town, threw pebbles at windows, knocked on doors and ran off, yelled incoherently at Mr. Randall from across the street, said a rude word to Jesse's mother as she hurried off to the square, and kicked piles of snow over shoveled walkways.

By the time he made a lazy circle around town, leaving a trail of mayhem in his wake, he was exhausted and dragging his feet behind him. Who knew that being bad was so much work?

"Gray?"

He started out of his thoughts and looked up. "Liza?"

"What are you doing?" She braced her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. "I thought you were coming over."

"Oh. I was."

"Oh, alright, I forgive you." She smiled and half-turned back the way she had come, small hands fluttering in the air as she gestured for him to follow. "If you play dolls first, I'll go sledding with you after."

Gray opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat. He wanted to. He wanted to go laugh and play and forget today had ever happened.

For a second, he really let himself imagine it: taking heroes on a grand adventure and then going on one of his own with Liza in the hills outside town. And then, maybe, he would take a deep breath and tell her what was going on.

She would give him that look, of course. The one that said she thought he was doing something really, really stupid. She would puff out her cheeks bigger than a chipmunk's and tell him that he was being an idiot.

But she would also listen to everything he had to say and think it over quietly for a few minutes and then tell him her thoughts and maybe offer advice. Even when she didn't agree with him, she was good at listening and offering support anyway.

Gray could use someone like that right now. But he also remembered the time he had decided to climb onto the roof and Liza had tried and failed to talk him out of it. And when he had gone up, she had followed after him and broken her arm falling off.

Even if she thought he was being silly, she would go along with his schemes once she realized she couldn't talk him out of them. She might even turn to a life of crime too to increase their chances of getting coal.

Gray couldn't ask that of her. He would have to do this alone.

"No thanks," he said.

Liza tilted her head and frowned at him. "Oh, are you doing something?'

"Not really."

"Then why don't you want to play?"

Gray indulged in one last moment of indecision before committing to his course of action. "I just don't want to play with your stupid dolls."

She recoiled, drawing her hand up to her chest as if burned. "What?"

"You heard me," he muttered, kicking at a snowbank as he frowned at the ground.

"That's not very nice," she said coldly. "What's wrong with you?" She paused, letting the silence seep into their skin, but her voice was just a touch softer when she asked, "Is everything okay?"

That, more than anything, made him want to break down and tell her everything.

"Hey, Gray!" Patrick called. Gray and Liza started in surprise and spun around to see him and some of the other boys sauntering down the street towards them. "We're going to play out by the tracks. Wanna come?"

Gray hesitated, looking between them and Liza. This was a scary kind of crossroads, and he wasn't sure he wanted to choose a path. Liza still looked halfway between upset and concerned, brows furrowed and lips pursed as she scanned his face.

When he didn't answer immediately, Patrick huffed out a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes. "Bring Liza, if you must."

Gray took a deep breath and squared his shoulders as the path before him crystallized like ice.

"No, I'm coming," he said, joining them without a backwards look.

"Gray?" Liza asked uncertainly.

"I'm going. I'll see you later."

He looked back just in time to see the warm chocolate brown of her eyes melt in the sudden inferno that sparked in them.

"You can't just walk away after that!" she cried, stomping her foot and glaring at him. "Come back here!"

"No," he snapped. "Don't you get it? I don't want to play with you or your stupid dolls. You're so annoying. Just leave me alone."

She stared, mouth parted in surprise, and the wounded shock etched in every line of her face made an uncomfortable feeling squirm in Gray's stomach. Her eyes filled with tears, and Gray wanted to snatch the words back out of the air and give up on this whole thing and apologize.

Before he could take them back, Liza burst into tears, whirled about, and ran off. Gray's stomach flopped over as she rushed down the street and disappeared around the corner.

It was just for today, he reminded himself to quell the guilt churning in his stomach and clotting his throat. Tomorrow he could apologize and explain that he didn't mean it, and she would forgive him. Probably.

Patrick whistled, the sharp sound cutting through the air like a knife. "Wow, what a crybaby. About time you finally ditched her!"

He grinned wolfishly and clapped Gray on the back before strolling off down the street again and dragging the rest of the pack along behind him with the sheer force of his presence. Gray didn't say anything as he trudged after them. He didn't have the heart to say anything else mean about Liza right now.

"What was that?" Danny hissed. He fell into step beside Gray and nudged his friend in the ribs with his elbow. "Are you fighting with Liza?"

"I just don't want to hang out with her," Gray muttered, edging away.

Danny fixed him with a hard look. "That wasn't very nice of you."

"I know," Gray snapped. As if he didn't know that.

"You should apologize."

"Tomorrow."

Danny gave him a funny look and dropped it, for which Gray was grateful.

The group headed out to the train tracks, and for once Gray wasn't bursting with excitement. The spot beside him was empty today, devoid of sunshine and smiles, and it made him feel very much alone. Now he was in the right mood to be a gremlin: miserable, snappish, and impatient with the people he didn't really want to deal with when everything else was falling apart. He didn't feel nearly as bad about knocking Tom off his sled with a well-aimed snowball or burying a small rock in a snowball he aimed at Patrick's feet or kicking over Rob's snowman.

"What is up with you?" Danny demanded as Rob gave up yelling and stomped off.

Gray shrugged and wandered off to look for more mischief.

A loud whoop directed his attention to Patrick, who was balancing up on the ties of the railway tracks with his arms spread wide like he was king of the world.

"Come on!" he called.

No more words were needed. A herd of unruly boys descended on the tracks in a stampede, hooting and hollering as they scrambled over the creaking metal and wood.

Gray drifted over to the heavy metal rails peeking from beneath the churned-up snow and watched the chaos. If he was being bad, he should go up there. But he could see Liza's disapproving stare and hear Mama's lecture. Maybe it wasn't really a big deal considering he'd been mean to them all day, but it seemed like a big deal.

Patrick noticed him watching from the sidelines. "You going to come up today?"

Gray blew out a breath in a puff of mist that lingered in the air like an accusation and made up his mind.

"Yeah," he said. "I am."

He took a deliberate step onto the tracks, steel pressing firmly against the soles of his boots. He rocked back and forth a little, shifting his weight on the beam, and looked down the tracks to where they narrowed to a point and disappeared over the hills. He wished he could just walk off to the horizon so that he didn't have to go home and face the consequences.

"Hey, look at that!" Patrick said. "You're way more fun without Liza around!"

It occurred to Gray suddenly that Patrick was a bit of a bully.

He turned around and walked off down the tracks without another word, following them back towards town. He didn't want to sit around here and complain about his best friend.

"Hey, where are you going?" Patrick called after him.

Gray wandered down the tracks until they passed town, and kept on going.

Only when he heard the piercing whistle of an oncoming train split the air did he hop off the tracks. The train whizzed by in a clatter of rumbles and screeches. Thick smoke curled in the air, fighting to blot out the flakes of snow that had just begun falling again.

Gray drew to a stop and stood there, a lone figure in the snow watching the train zoom past. It was all thunder and fury in the machine's shadow, wind whipping through his hair and rumbling roaring in his ears fit to deafen him, but then it was over as quickly as it had come and he was left staring after the last few cars chugging away. After a few moments more, the faint whistling and rumbling had faded back to eerie silence.

He looked back the way he had come and saw nothing but old, rusted tracks snaking through a snowy wasteland with nothing else in sight. It was lonely here, like he was the only person left in the world. The falling snow was already filling in his bootprints, quietly erasing his existence one footprint at a time until it was like he had never been there at all.

He took a deep breath, held the biting chill in his lungs, and started back. The temptation to just keep walking was real, but he knew that he would always go home in the end. As much as he liked adventures, he knew where he belonged.

Despite his reluctance to face the music, he picked up the pace. The wind was chilling him to the bone, and the snow was falling faster and blurring his vision. And he had run out of the house without half of his winter accessories this morning, which he was regretting right about now.

He trudged through the snow until his boots weighed him down like lead blocks and his legs ached and the light began to wane to a dusky gray. And it was still a few minutes before snowy roofs rose from behind the hills, yellow lights shining through windows like a lighthouse beacon calling him home. He let out a sigh of relief that shuddered through his chattering teeth and fogged the air.

He got a few sidelong looks and glares as he slunk through the streets, and quickly decided to stick to skulking in the shadows after Mrs. Richard started clipping after him in an unwieldy trot and complaining that he had broken her window with a rock.

Despite his reluctance, he crept along the edges of buildings in the most direct beeline possible when taking every pain to stay hidden. He had stopped feeling his fingers and toes a long time ago, and the wind was picking up as the sun began to set behind the hills.

The air inside was still a bit chilled since the furnace was running low on coal, but it wasn't nearly as cold as outside and the wind died to a still lull. He swung the door shut, holding his breath as he pushed it back into the frame with numb, clumsy fingers. It closed with the faintest of clicks, and for a second he thought he might have escaped detection.

Then Mama stuck her head out of the kitchen. She didn't miss much.

"Where have you been?" she asked sternly.

Gray shuffled his feet and looked at the ground. "Out."

"Out where?"

"Around."

"Because I've had a few people drop by to fill me in on your shenanigans. Do you want to tell me what happened today?"

He winced. It was a small town, and people talked. Of course Mama already knew what he'd been up to.

"Nothing," he mumbled to the floor.

The silence gnawed at his bones and made him squirm, but he kept his mouth pressed resolutely shut and eventually Mama sighed.

"This isn't like you," she said. "If something is going on, you can tell me. I can't help you if you won't tell me what the problem is." The air of cautious hope soured as the offer failed to elicit a response. "But either way, you know this behavior is unacceptable. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Gray wished he had stuck it out in the cold. "Nothing, really," he mumbled.

Mama blew out a breath heavy with frustration and shook her head. "You're shaking all over," she said disapprovingly. "You shouldn't have stayed out so long. And you don't even have your gloves or anything. Come on."

She clicked her tongue impatiently and ushered him over to sit in front of the embers in the furnace while she gathered dry clothes and blankets. For a few minutes, Gray had a reprieve while she fussed over him. But once he had stopped shivering and the warmth had chased the cold from his bones, the questions started up again. Firm, hesitant, stern, warm, frustrated, concerned—and everything in between. It was like she couldn't decide whether to be angry or worried, so she flip-flopped between both.

Eventually, she grew tired of his uncooperativeness and sent him to his room while she went back to her pre-Christmas errands. Gray paced his room and worried about how much Papa would yell and what his punishment might be. But his thoughts were just going round and round in circles, and he decided it was better to keep himself occupied and hedge his bets with the whole naughty list thing while he was at it. So he pulled the clothes out of his drawers and tossed them on the floor, unmade his bed, and pulled out all his toys.

By the time a loud slam announced Papa's arrival, Gray's room looked like a category five hurricane had torn through it. He sat on a mostly empty corner of his bed and surveyed the wreckage strewn across every inch of the room. It would take forever to clean up.

He rocked back and forth in nervous anticipation while Mama and Papa conversed in muffled voices in the other room.

"I thought your mother told you to clean this room," were the first words out of Papa's mouth when he opened the door and was confronted with a disaster zone. The jovial lines of his face hardened to severe crags, and his eyes grew harder the longer Gray stayed defiant.

He had raised his voice to a shout by the time Mama stuck her head into the room to quell him with a look and say they could finish after dinner. Dinner was a tense and awkward affair, although at least the lecture was put on hold.

"Not at the dinner table," Mama said when Papa began recounting the litany of complaints he'd received from neighbors that day. "It's Christmas Eve supper. Just…don't ruin it any more than we already have. We can finish that later."

But no one could think about anything else, so the traditional dishes Mama had so lovingly prepared tasted like ash and conversation was stilted and steeped in charged silence.

The shouting match afterwards, though, would live in infamy. Mama was giving Sammy that weary, disappointed look again, like she didn't even know how she had raised such a troublesome child, and he found it hard to meet her eyes. Papa did the yelling, at least until Mama intervened again and sent Gray off to bed with a look that said this wasn't over but it was past his bedtime and not even getting in trouble voided bedtime.

He buried himself under the covers and pulled them over his head to block out some of the chilly air. And maybe also to muffle some crying, but he was really only crying a little bit and he would never admit to it because he was too old to be a crybaby.

This was the most horrible Christmas ever. Mama and Papa were angry and Liza was upset and everyone in town hated him and he wasn't going to get his train. Maybe, he thought miserably, he should have thought out this plan a little better before putting it into action.

He sniffled himself to sleep, still wondering if this had all been worth it.

.

"And how are you feeling today?" Mama asked when Gray drifted into the kitchen the next morning. She watched him carefully, like she expected him to grow fangs at any second.

"Okay," Gray mumbled.

Actually, he still felt pretty horrible. His eyes felt sore and crusty, and he couldn't summon up much enthusiasm for Christmas gifts when he knew he was just getting coal.

Papa gave him a sidelong look over his coffee but decided not to resurrect the sore subject after a silent but not terribly subtle discussion with Mama. They chose to ignore the issue in the interest of preserving Christmas unity, but sadly thought to do this by trying to engage Gray in cheery conversation about the holidays and how he must be so excited to open presents. He forced a smile and mumbled some lackluster agreement and didn't say much.

The traditional Christmas pastries and breakfast spread Mama had spent days preparing tasted like cardboard, especially when he was all too aware of his parents exchanging looks across the table the whole time. He poked at his food some more until they gave up.

"Well, let's open some presents!" Mama said finally, her voice a little too loud with forced cheer. "I'll bet Santa brought you something good this year! Isn't that exciting?"

"Even if you were a real pain yesterday," Papa said under his breath. Mama shot him a glare and he smiled a little sheepishly and winked at Gray to show that he was—sort of—messing around.

There were three boxes waiting for him beneath the scraggly branch that served as their tree when trees were hard to come by, tucked beside the small boxes Mama and Papa were exchanging and the sloppily wrapped stack of drawings and attempted art projects Gray had made for his parents. If he had known then what he knew now, he would have drawn less trains.

He opened the presents from his parents first, peeling back the paper and pulling off the curly ribbon bows. He uncovered a new sweater and sleek ice skates. The thought of skating out on the pond in his new sweater with Liza cheered him immensely. Once he made up with Liza, they could still have fun even without the train.

This thought buoyed his spirits just enough to let him tear into Santa's gift—wrapped neatly in red paper with a label marking it from Santa—with newfound enthusiasm. So coal wasn't fun to play with, but it would make Mama and Papa happy. He wriggled in anticipation, bursting with excitement to show his parents what he had done.

He tore off the lid and–

He stared down into the box, his excitement fading to a murky bemusement.

"Oh, how nice!" Mama said. "He brought you the train you wanted!"

"But I was supposed to get coal."

She blinked at him a few times, taken aback. "Because of yesterday? You were terrible, don't get me wrong, but you've been good all year. I'm sure Santa wouldn't let one bad day ruin everything."

Gray wanted to be excited that he had gotten his train after all—and it looked amazing, each car painstakingly carved from wood and painted in bright colors, with a collection of small, notched wooden slats to assemble a track—but now all it meant was that yesterday had been a total waste and he couldn't hand the box proudly to his parents and say, "Look what I got you!" What had been the point of being bad, then? Everyone was mad at him, and he hadn't even managed to do what he'd set out to accomplish.

Mama and Papa exchanged a puzzled look over his head, at a loss.

"Don't you like it?" Papa asked. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and added, "Sure looks like an awful lot of work went into it."

"It's perfect," Gray said with a sniffle as he pushed the box away. "But…"

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Mama asked gently. "Something's been bothering you."

Tears pricked at the corners of Gray's eyes and he scrubbed at them ruthlessly. "I was bad so that he would bring me coal!" he cried, curling over and covering his face.

"Why would you want coal, baby?"

"Just our luck," Papa grumbled. "He's trying to power a real train."

But he dropped a hand onto Gray's shoulder in a sort of half-hug, and Gray snuggled closer and buried his face in his chest.

"Silver!" Mama hissed.

"Sorry, sorry," Papa said under his breath.

"The other night you were talking about how we were running out of coal, so I wanted to get some for you," Gray mumbled, his voice muffled in the flannel of Papa's shirt. "But Santa didn't bring any, even though I was bad."

Silence descended over the room, broken only by his sniffles, but then Mama said, "Oh, Gray, did you hear that? You don't need to worry about that, honey. Your dad and I can take care of that."

"But I wanted to help."

The floorboards creaked a little as Mama scooted closer to take over for Papa and wrap Gray up in her arms. "You do, sweetie. It's such a big help when you do your chores and help out around the house and shop."

"You're still a kid," Papa added. "You don't need to worry about things like that yet. Enjoy it while you can."

Gray couldn't shake the heavy disappointment weighing him down. "I just wanted…"

"Maybe," Mama suggested, "Santa still brought you a gift because he knew your intentions were good. It's alright, baby. We appreciate that you were trying to help."

"I'm sorry I was so bad," he mumbled. "I was trying to get on the naughty list."

"Who knew it was that hard?" Papa said with a chuckle.

He was smiling when Gray looked back up, eyes glimmering with amusement, and Gray smiled back a little shakily before his half-hearted attempt faded.

"Everyone is mad at me," he said sadly.

"We aren't," Mama said. "And maybe they won't be as mad once you explain why you did those things." She patted him on the head once more but gave him a stern look. "But after all the trouble you put everyone through, maybe you should do something to make it up to them."

Gray nodded and pushed the sting of failure aside. It was time to set things right.

Instead of playing with his gifts, he went out with his parents to make the rounds. He shoveled Miss Agatha's walk, built a new snowman for Johnny and Mary, brokered a truce with Rob, finally explained everything to Danny, and doled out apologies by the handful to everyone he had been mean to the day before. He still drew a few irritated looks, but most people, especially the adults, softened visibly when he toed at the ground and mumbled an apology and explained himself.

He felt a little bit lighter with each apology given, but there was one still hanging over his head like an executioner's axe and he couldn't put it off forever.

That was how he found himself shuffling his feet on Liza's doorstep while his parents waited out at the street, waiting while her mother called for Liza over her shoulder and drifted off into the other room. When Liza emerged from her room and crossed her arms in the doorway, she wasn't smiling.

"What do you want?" she asked.

Gray winced. It wasn't like he was a stranger to Liza's anger, but it was never fun and this was a bit more serious than a squabble about what to name a new doll or what color scarf to put on a snowman.

Liza's expression didn't change as Gray rambled on. Her arms stayed firmly folded over her chest, and her foot started tapping against the floor in a series of quiet clicks like her mother's did when the kids took too long to put away their games or come to the dinner table.

"And I didn't mean it," Gray concluded. "I was just trying to get on the naughty list, and I felt really bad. I like playing with you. I'm sorry."

He found it hard to meet her gaze. She kept staring at him like he was a rude stranger that had turned up on her doorstep uninvited, and let the uncomfortable silence drag on for a small eternity to make him squirm.

"You were really mean," she said finally.

"I know. I'm really sorry."

Another pause, just as uncomfortable as the last, stretched between them.

"Okay," she said. She swung the door shut, and it closed with a click heavy with finality.

Gray stared at the slab of wood in consternation, too surprised to protest. He opened his mouth, but then closed it again. Liza obviously didn't want to talk to him right now, and he'd already given his apologies and explanations. He didn't know what else he could say.

He lingered on the doorstep for a little longer, entertaining the far-fetched hope that his friend might open the door again and say that everything was fine, but eventually he gave up and trudged back down the walk to where his parents were waiting by the street.

"She's still mad," he said morosely, even though he was sure they were very much aware of that.

Mama took his hand in hers to lead him back home, but she eyed him sympathetically. "You hurt her feelings. Give it a little time and try again, and maybe she'll be ready to listen.

"You'll figure it out," Papa said. "Maybe bring her a gift. Girls love gifts."

"Silver!"

He held his hands up to ward off her irritation. "Hey, it's true! It's how I won you over."

Mama snorted, but fond exasperation tugged her lips into a smile. "As if."

Gray didn't smile. He felt worse than ever. A crushing sense of hopelessness descended upon him as he let Mama tug him back to the house. It seemed like every time he tried to do something to help, he made mistake after mistake and everything turned into a big mess. Now he had somehow gotten what he wanted for Christmas despite everything, but he had messed everything else up along the way and it left what should have been cause for celebration as a sour taste in his mouth. He couldn't even–

He stopped short just inside the doorway, dragging Mama to a halt, and turned on Papa with wide eyes. "A gift?" he repeated, the idea sizzling along his veins like lightning. He ripped his hand out of Mama's, eyes shining with excitement as new hope welled hot and bright in his chest. "That's it!"

He scampered across the floor to grab the red-wrapped box from where it had been abandoned in the middle of the room. Mama called after him, but he couldn't spare the time to explain. He hugged the box tightly to his chest, huffing a little at its solid weight, and waddled back out into the street. His parents exchanged a look and followed as he hefted the box a little higher and hauled it back up to Liza's doorstep.

He hesitated, eyeing the unforgiving wood planking, but then kicked his boot against the door a couple times in lieu of knocking. After a moment, the wood floors creaked inside the house and Liza's mother pulled open the door. She went still as she spotted him, an awkward sort of hesitation clouding her face.

"Oh, Gray," she said. "You're back."

"Can I talk to Liza?"

"I don't know…" She glanced back over her shoulder. "I'm not sure she–"

"I just want to give her something."

She wavered with indecision, but then sighed and stepped aside. "Oh, alright. Liza! Come here for a second, would you?"

Small feet pattered across the floorboards. Liza drew to a stop several feet from the door and narrowed her eyes. Gray hurried to explain before she could shut him down.

"I brought you a present," he said.

Her lips quirked downwards into a little scowl. "I don't want–"

"I want you to have it. Please?"

She eyed him suspiciously, letting the silence breathe like a living thing, but then walked the last few steps to the door and peered into the box. Surprise flashed across her face and she looked back up with wide eyes.

"It's your train!"

"Yeah," he agreed. "Since Santa brought it anyway."

"But you've been excited about that for months! You really wanted to play with–"

"But I want to play with you more." Gray scuffed his boot against the ground and looked down at the painted cars nestled in the box. His voice dropped to a mumble as he added, "A-anyway, we'll want to use it when we play with the dolls, so it might as well stay over here, right?"

The box shifted in his hands, and he darted a glance up through his lashes as Liza carefully pulled it away. She struggled with it for a moment before wedging it partway onto her hip and hugging it to her chest.

"I'll take good care of it." She smiled down at the ground, and pink dusted her cheeks. "You can come over tomorrow, if you want."

Gray beamed. The apology had been accepted.

"I definitely will!" he said. "Thanks, Liza."

He waved at her and her mother still lurking on the other side of the doorway, and then whipped around and bounced back down the walk, elated. Mama and Papa lingered halfway down the walk, and he grinned and gave them a thumbs up.

"And there it goes," Papa sighed.

Ignoring him, Mama smiled proudly at Gray and took his hand as they headed home again. "I'm glad you worked things out with Liza. Make sure to be nice to her, alright? And next time something is bothering you, talk to us instead of trying to handle it all yourself."

"Okay! I'm going to play with her tomorrow."

"I thought you really wanted that train," Papa grumbled as he trailed after them. "Santa probably worked really hard on that, you know."

Mama shot him an exasperated look. "Silver."

"I'm just saying."

"I'm sure Gray liked the train, didn't you?"

"Of course!" Gray was nearly wriggling with excitement as he swung his and Mama's joined hands back and forth. "It's perfect! It's so cool, I can't wait to play with it! I'm just going to play with it over at Liza's."

Papa looked a little mollified. "Well, that's good. I'm sure Santa would be glad to hear that."

Gray twisted around and nearly banged his head into the doorframe as he walked backwards into the house. "You seem to worry a lot about what Santa thinks. Do you know him?"

Papa blinked at him, expression blank, but then a smirk tugged at the corners of his lips and his dark eyes sparkled. "Well, I guess I do–"

"Silver," Mama interrupted.

"Oh, Mika, you're always spoiling my fun!"

Mama swatted him affectionately and released Gray's hand.

The special Christmas blankets came out, dug out of the closet to be spread across the floor in swathes of blue and red and green. They all snuggled up in front of the furnace, wrapped in blankets with cups of cocoa and plates of cookies in their hands, and listened to Papa recite every Christmas story he knew, complete with sound effects and silly voices. Gray listened with rapt attention as reindeer pranced and pawed on the roof and Santa bounded down the chimney with a sack full of toys, as if it was the first time he had heard the story. He cheered as Clara threw her slipper at the Mouse King to help the injured nutcracker. He squirmed with excitement as the tiny elves worked through the night for the poor shoemaker.

Papa was halfway through recounting Scrooge's conversion from his miserly, misanthropic ways when a knock rang out. He paused and raised his eyebrow at Mama.

"Are you expecting anyone?"

"No, but it's Christmas," she said. "I suppose someone might drop by for a few minutes."

She went to answer the door and Gray followed after her, wrapping the blanket more tightly about himself and letting it drag behind him on the floor.

It seemed like half the neighborhood was crammed onto their doorstep, holding small bags and plates of food. Mama opened her mouth and left it hanging there.

"Merry Christmas, Mika, Gray," said Miss Agatha. "We thought we'd drop by."

She held out a cloth-covered dish, and Mama took it automatically without even thinking to ask what it was.

"And for you," Mr. Randall said, handing Gray a small burlap sack.

Gray had to fish a hand out of his blanket and secure the fabric in his other fist to accept the gift and peek inside. "It's coal," he said in surprise.

"We heard that's what you wanted for Christmas, and you've been troublesome enough to earn it," Mr. Randall said with a wink.

Mama turned bright red and looked like she wanted to sink through the floor and disappear. Papa came up behind her and sucked in a breath through his teeth.

"We don't need–" he started.

"Oh, it's not for you, Silver," Jesse's mother said with the smallest flash of a smile. "It's for your son. You wouldn't say he couldn't have it, would you?"

Papa looked like he wanted to protest but didn't know how.

"Isn't this great?" Gray asked, tilting his head back to look up at his parents with shining eyes. "Santa didn't bring us coal, but everyone else did! Aren't they nice? Thanks, everyone!"

"You're welcome," Miss Agatha said. "Now be a dear and let us in." She patted Mama on the arm as she hobbled past. "Next time you need a hand, you can always ask for help instead of letting your son run around getting into mischief for you. What else are neighbors for? We've always looked out for each other."

Mama and Papa sputtered and stayed as red as sunburn, but stepped aside to let everyone file inside. Gray practically bounced off the walls in excitement as the house filled with cheery chatter. A small pile of coal bags formed inside the doorway, and platters of food were whisked off to the kitchen.

Everything seemed so bright and vibrant with half a dozen of their neighbors crammed into their small house to celebrate with them. Even better, they weren't mad at him anymore and had even brought a bit of their own meagre coal supply to help them out.

His bouncing came to an abrupt stop as a flash of gold like sunshine glinted in the sun and Liza appeared in the doorway with her mother. They stared at each other for a moment, but then she gave him a shy smile and held out the dolls dangling limply from her hands.

"Want to have a Christmas adventure?" she asked.

Gray beamed wide enough to split his face.

And tucked in his blankets with his friends and family gathered round and an adventure at his fingertips, he blazed brighter than the flames bursting to life behind the grate.

"Oh my gosh, that's so cute!" Lucy said.

Gray cleared his throat and poked at the graveyard of disassembled cookie bits littering his plate, embarrassed to have gotten so engrossed in his story. It had been a long time since he'd even thought about it, much less shared it with someone else.

"But why a train?" Natsu asked with great skepticism. "Out of everything, why would you want one of those torture devices?"

Happy rolled his eyes. "Not everyone gets motion sick."

"You get to ride lots of trains now," Erza said with a funny little half-smile.

Gray smiled back a little ruefully. "Yeah, I guess I do. Eventually I did ride the train all the way to the end of the line, and I ended up here."

Dragons and princesses and knights and all. More magic than he knew what to do with.

"Everyone!" Mira called from across the hall, her voice echoing off the walls. "Come on! We're going to get a group picture by the tree!"

"Coming!" Natsu yelled back.

He was off in a flash, bounding away so quickly that he obviously thought he was going to get away with swiping another handful of cookies on his way even though he had been banned. The narrow-eyed look Erza shot after him said this hadn't gone unnoticed, but she took a second to smile at Gray.

"That's a very sweet story," she said. "Thank you for sharing it." Then she drew in a deep breath and marched off across the room. "Natsu, don't think I didn't see you!"

Gray snorted and followed after her more slowly. Lucy fell into step beside him.

"I'm sorry I…"

He gave her a reassuring smile. "It's okay," he said. "Maybe it's good to remember it sometimes."

The smile she gave him in return was still a little unsure, but she nodded. "You sound like you were a cute kid."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

She giggled, and he eyed her sidelong. For a moment, her sun-bright hair and warm brown eyes were a window to the past, reminding him of a long-lost friend he should never have tried to forget.

"Come on, sunshine," he said, shooing her over to where everyone had gathered in front of the tree, shoving and shouting and jockeying for the best positions for the photo.

It reminded him a little of a Christmas long ago, when his family and friends had come together for the holidays and he had been right in the middle of things. The past was dead and gone, but he'd found another family over the horizon to get him through.

Erza nearly choked him to death wrapping an arm of steel around his shoulders as she gathered the team together, still lecturing Natsu as she pulled him and Happy over. Lucy laughed awkwardly at Erza's ire and Natsu's whining.

"Smile for the camera!" Mira trilled.

Gray smiled.