A/N: Um, sorry. I'm probably not going to do an imperial affliction and just leave it unfinished.

Also: Please take your sense of time and destroy it. I'm about as good with time as John is.

Traditions were still stupid, I decided as I counted down the days until New Years. Everyone else was out drinking and partying and kissing at midnight when I could barely make it to 8 pm on a good day.

As such, with the backing of my mother, Isaac, and Kaitlyn who had declared my idea splendid and made her time much more profitable, I was throwing a morning New Years, with noon celebrated instead of midnight.

"After all" I said, as I explained to my dad, "what is the calendar but a social construct? Who knows really when the exact second that the Earth has made one full rotation around the sun?"

"Aren't New Years festivities just social constructions too? Who's to say that we can't celebrate it at noon instead?" My dad had caught on quickly to the falseness of our traditions after my war on scrambled eggs. I was proud.

The five of us sat around the table, which was, for once, adequately full, and set into a brunch. It was nothing special, although I had subtly requested foods from all times of day. I didn't really eat much though, much to the chagrin of my mum. But what I did eat didn't taste like dirt in my mouth, as it had six months earlier. I was getting thinner by the day, but that was as per course.

When we had finished our combined meal, we shifted into the living room. I had kind of wanted to be outside for this, but mum had deemed it too cold. Cold tended to make me tired, too.

So we huddled around, making small talk. I introduced Isaac as well as I could verbally to America's Next Top Model. It started out serious, but it soon turned silly.

"Hazel, I refuse to believe that this particular fine lady is seven feet tall with blonde hair and wearing nothing but a poncho made of bow ties."

"Oh but she really is" came Kaitlyn's earnest reply "she's standing beside a four foot brunet wearing a period gown".

"I thought there were height restrictions on models. Don't you have to be, like six foot at least?"

"Four foot two brunette?"

We all laughed. It was nice to have all of my favourite people in a room watching a show about models. We carried on, describing more and more ridiculous models wearing various extinct animals until the alarm on my dad's watch went off.

"One more minute!" He announced to the room at large. He kinda started crying a little, but it was the happy crying so it was okay. I kinda felt like joining in too.

Isaac squeezed my arm "one year gone. Are you ready?"

I thought about that for a moment. It wasn't as if the year had gone, not really. I believed that time was a gain, not a loss. You gain years, not lose them.

I was about to tell him as much when my dad started counting down.

"Five"

"Four" we all joined in.

"Three"

"Two"

"One!"

"Happy New Year" I announced, reaching beside me to give Kaitlyn a hug and she kissed me on the cheek. I leaned the other way and hugged Isaac (who did not), before giving my had to my mum so that she could pull me up to aid the hug which my dad inevitably joined.