Merry Christmas, everyone! This is my gift for Chelsie Dagger in the Secret Santa exchange. This is one of my favorite Christmas songs, so I hope you enjoy it. Xoxoxo all around!

She never thought it would happen with a waltz.

It was a slow one, now that they'd started, but it had been so unexpected when he'd taken her hand.

Her eyes had gone wide as he'd drawn her into his arms.

"Mr Carson, what —"

"Shh."

His fingers almost touched her lips, and then he was leading them, which was rather new. Not that it was different from any other waltz they'd danced (not together; never together; every Servants' Ball was still work for them and they let the young ones have their good time after he and she each danced the pleasant and obligatory waltz with their upper-class counterparts).

But he was leading them now, slow circles around his pantry, and then he was humming; it made her want to laugh at first — nervously, of course, and she held it in because she knew he would take it the wrong way if she did laugh at him, now, while he was humming for the first time since… since, well. Since the day she got the all-clear and he sang in his pantry, private joy made loud, impossible to ignore. (And impossible to address, still secret despite that smile, that booming voice).

He hummed a tune that she recognized immediately. Truth be told, she was a bit shocked to be dancing to it.

It was a favorite, a song that conjured up the candlelit scene in church earlier that evening. Soft, warm yellow light, and the congregation singing of stars brightly shining and the soul feeling its worth.

They had walked back side by side. Not arm in arm; they never walked arm in arm but as they shared their first dance he began to think they might, now. They'd avoided her sitting room with the sprig of mistletoe in the doorway.

(He'd scowled the first time he'd seen it, almost hitting his head on it while rushing into the room to ask her some urgent question.)

So. A waltz, and his voice deep and quiet.

They'd started out with the proper distance between them. He was an excellent lead, of course.

She would never have expected that he would draw her an inch or two closer. That at a certain point in the song, he would pull away and drop down on one knee.

Vaguely she thought of how cliché it might sound to think of time slowing down.. Another part of her mind answered that clichés began with lived experience.

She froze, her hand held in both of his. Her eyes were wide and her brow furrowed in worry and confusion. Her other hand had rested on his shoulder; her fingers had trailed off of it as he moved and now her hand floated, tense in mid-air.

Momentarily she thought he'd fallen, lost his balance (unsteady, her mind flicked crazily back to his silly concerns on the beach, his pretending to fret about falling over). She even wondered if maybe he were about to collapse.

But he was looking up at her, clear-eyed, intense, and kind all at once, and she couldn't quite believe it, nor could she quite stand, and she swayed, her knees buckling a bit, and she caught hold of a chair for balance.

"Mr Carson, are you —"

She'd meant to ask if he were alright, but she couldn't get the words out because now suddenly he was fumbling with his waistcoat.

Seriously concerned, she tried to pull him up.

"Mr Carson?"

She reached for him, not sure where she could put her hands. His face seemed too intimate a place. All of this seemed too intimate; they did not touch one another as a rule.

A long-ignored part of her mind shouted at her that she knew exactly what this was, precisely what his posture signified, and that furthermore, it was a chance at what they'd always seemed to be approaching.

She shook her head after a few seconds of these reflections because he was talking to her. She shook her head slightly and focused on him.

"Mrs Hughes, I assure you, I am quite alright."

"Mr Carson, what— what are you doing?"

He was still on one knee. He was alright, and he was still down there. These two things made the part of her mind that had been shouting at her practically shake some sense into her as he pulled the ring from his waistcoat pocket and she gasped, choking on nothing.

She coughed.

For an insane second he thought she was laughing at him.

She saw his stricken look, tried to comfort him with a hand on his arm, raised eyebrows, a gesture asking him please to wait, just wait a minute, and he did because even in these charged moments they could read each other astonishingly well.

He stood, holding her hand, making an offer to help — she waved his hands away, finished coughing, managed to breathe, looked at him.

"Yes,"

Before he even got the words out.

He paused, his eyes dark and questioning, and his mouth slightly open in surprise.

She tilted his chin up with two gentle fingers, effectively closing his mouth.

Then she pulled him back to her, placed his hands back into the ballroom hold. Walked one step back into his arms.

He recovered, smiling as she'd never seen it before, adorable, showing the traces of the little boy he'd once been. She reached up, touched the crinkles at the corner of his eye.

He dipped his head and kissed her. Kissed her, gently, and she kissed him back, her hand at the back of his neck. His hand at her waist pulled her in.

In between them he held her other hand. Which he kissed reverently.

She gave him her smile, opened her fingers and touched his lips, his cheek. Felt his stubble for the first time.

But all at once, something needled him. His brain told him she'd said yes, but he couldn't be certain until they'd both said the words.

"Will you marry me?"

Now she did laugh at the absurdity of the situation. A yes before a proposal; who had heard of such a thing?

"Of course I will, Mr Carson."

And he wrapped his arms tightly around her, around her corseted waist. Though it might have made more sense to hold her around the shoulders, her being so much shorter, he needed the closeness of her, her arms around his neck. She was on tiptoes, her chest pressed against his.

The times he'd allowed himself to imagine holding her, he'd not quite known what it would feel like, but whatever he'd thought, it wasn't the severe, contained surfaces he felt now. Not that he found her wanting, mind. Heavens, no. All of it was new discovery, unknown textures, unfamiliar movements that somehow felt like the only possible thing to do. He thought of unwrapping her, freeing her body from the stiff garment, and gave himself a mental shake.

They stayed together for a long time that night, all in wonder. Each entertained thoughts of spending the night in the Blue Room, but knowing they couldn't do such a thing (not yet but soon, and the wanting took their breath away), they said good night. They slept a few short hours and dreamed of a shared future.