Hello dear readers, and happy holidays to all of you! This year's Christmas story turned out a bit angsty, but I hope you'll like it still.

Many thanks to my brilliant editor and dear friend for her continued support and helpful ideas. Thank you, Masha! :)

There.

Letting go of the armrest of the heavy armchair Christine straightened her posture, eyeing the small space in front of her she had just created. If the other armchair was pulled to the side as well – and the table taken away to... well, somewhere else – then there would be just enough space for what she had in mind. In fact, it would be just perfect: framed by the two windows it would make a stunning sight, and she could already picture it glistening in the morning light as the rays of sunshine got caught in the various ornaments. Perhaps there might have been a bit more room for it in the dining room – but who would ever place something as important as this in the dining room? The two of them spent only a shortest time in there and she wanted to see it as much as it was possible. This was going to be their first, after all, and though there still were more necessities missing than they already possessed, she had no doubt that the final result would be magical.

So long she had been yearning for this...

Yes, it would be perfect – but only if she finished with the preparations.

Letting go of her daydream she set to work again, rounding the armchair to reach its pair; then grabbing the furniture she tried to pull it to the side.

Ha.

She let out a frustrated sigh.

It refused to move.

She tried again.

Still nothing.

"What are you doing?" Came the voice of her husband from behind her and she turned around to look at him.

"Trying to figure out if a tree fits in here," she answered, walking to the other side of the chair in the hope that pushing at it would have a more effective outcome.

As she took her new position Erik also made a few steps towards her, his eyes regarding her ministrations with an unnameable expression. "A Christmas tree," he concluded after a short contemplation.

"Of course." What other kind of tree would she want to...

Oh.

In her elation that finally she would spend the winter holiday with him she took it for granted that he was just as excited to celebrate it with her as she was over spending it with him. However rational her reasoning sounded, it was still presumptuous.

"I'm sorry," she began, her fingers brushing random patterns on the upholstery of the armchair. "I've always loved Christmas and it never occurred to me that..."

Meanwhile he reached the other side of the armchair and stopped in front of her. "No; if you wish for a tree then you shall have it by all means. I know how you love the festivities."

There was a familiar warmth in his voice that made her stomach tremble with emotion: of course he knew she loved it – he had been there for her for years. It was a strangely comforting feeling to know that he shared most of her memories of those times, even if it had been far from an ideal relationship. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that his behavior actually constituted stalking... but knowing that the reason behind it had been his yearning for something he had never had made the otherwise outrageous transgression a lot easier to overlook. Especially considering that in the end he had given up on all of those dreams just to make her happy.

Sometimes she wondered whether he continued to place her wishes before his – and whether it was not exactly that had just happened.

"But do you want a tree?" she asked him at last.

"I don't know," he said, looking up at her briefly before his gaze dropped to the space created for their future tree. "I've never really felt the need to mark the occasion."

Her heart gave a painful twist at the words and her eyes began to sting. Up until now the idea that he had most probably never celebrated Christmas before didn't once cross her mind. She had already known that his life had not been as it should have been, but it was rather just a general notion she had of it, mostly without any specific details. He rarely, if ever, spoke of those times, and even then he just gave her a succinct summary of events; but his silence was telling enough for her to not want to hurt him with further questions. Come to think of it, it was highly unlikely that he had had a tree for himself while still living beneath the opera house, and what little he shared about his childhood it seemed entirely improbable that his family cared to include him in the festivities – if they celebrated it at all, that is.

She swallowed hastily, trying to brush aside the quickly forming tears.

"And now... would you like to celebrate it? I won't insist upon it if you'd rather stay away from the festivities," she offered carefully.

"No, not at all." His eyes left the carpet, venturing an uncertain glance at her. "I've always wanted to be part of the holidays – or rather, share yours," he added, his voice tapering off in the end. His hand at his side gave a restless twitch and after a strained moment he took a step back and away from her.

Why would a simple wish be so upsetting?

"I wanted you to be there, too," she assured him.

However, there was nothing even remotely calm in his eyes when he finally looked at her briefly.

"Would you have said the same had you known the truth?" he asked her.

"Probably yes," she replied. It was difficult to tell with the distance between them but it seemed that his breathing had become uneven and gasping, and maybe it was just her imagination but it certainly appeared as if a long tremor had shaken him at her answer.

Knowing him, there was something truly distressing behind his uneasiness, something that he had no desire to share – but that he was unable to keep secret, either.

A cold wave tingled down her spine and she swallowed, trying to get rid of the tightening in her throat.

Last year the winter holiday was a rather... troubled... period in their relationship. Only two months prior of it happened the tragedy at Il Muto, and they had not spoken to each other since then. It had been the first time since they had known each other that Christmas had been spent without a word exchanged between them. During the first weeks of the silence between them she had been too upset to even think of talking to him but as the holiday season drew nearer it was impossible to ignore the memories of the past years and so she began talking to the mirror once more – but it had been without any effect.

Seemingly, it had been just as a dreary period for him as well.

Sometime during her musing he had wandered back to the door to the kitchen but before he reached it he turned back abruptly, walking towards her as if he had changed his mind.

Then before he reached her he turned around again.

"Last year... what did you do last year?" she asked him when he started on another round.

At her words, he stopped but didn't yet face her. "Nothing," he said. "It was like any other day,"

There was an unusual edge to his voice as he spoke, something that made her heart skip a beat; and when she looked up at him he was looking anywhere else but at her.

She let out a sigh and tried to swallow the lump from her throat.

He was lying.

"I see," she told him, grateful that her voice didn't fail her.

Something must have been in her tone, though, because his head bowed with a sigh, and he reached out with his other hand to turn the ring on his left.

"I'm sorry," he said, his shoulders slumping. "I didn't mean to offend you by lying but I didn't want to hurt you with the truth, either."

"Is it so grave?" she asked.

His throat moved with a swallow before he said, "I was almost at my lowest."

Rounding the armchair she walked up to him. "You're not like that anymore," she told him, prying his right hand from turning the ring on his finger for the thousandth time.

"It doesn't change the past," he said, his fingers resting in her hold without returning it.

"Neither does it if you keep sticking to it."

He let out a deep sigh and allowed his hand to slip from her grasp and walked a couple of steps away from her. A whole minute passed in silence until at last he said, "I wholly believed you betrayed me."

"It wasn't too far from the truth," she admitted uneasily.

He shook his head. "It was. I had no right to assume you belonged to me or that you owed me at all for anything." He lifted his arm with the next intake of breath but then it dropped back to his side without any further movement. "I didn't go anywhere near the mirror after Il Muto," he said, his eyes returning to hers only briefly. "I knew you didn't want to see me and I didn't want to hear that from you as well."

"I wasn't around it for a while, either. For weeks I had been too angry and frightened to even think of talking to you again."

His eyes couldn't really meet hers as he asked, "What happened then?"

"The holiday season. I didn't want you to spend Christmas all alone, especially that we parted on not so amiable terms."

His lips opened as if he wanted to say something but in the end no sound came out and he gave up. It took only a few strides for him to approach her, but he couldn't stay still when finally he reached her, instead he began another circle around the room.

"I missed you terribly," he breathed when he stopped finally.

"I missed you, too," she echoed.

He shifted and bowed his head before stealing a quick glance at her, his gaze finally settling on her feet. "On Christmas Eve I even went to the mirror to talk to you until midnight as we always did – but you weren't there."

A stinging pressure started around her stomach, accompanied by a shiver running down her spine. "I'd been there several times earlier that week but since you never answered no matter how many times I had spoken to you I didn't even try on Christmas Eve." As her own eyes were riveted to the same spot he was examining so closely she saw it only from the corner of her eyes how his right foot gave a nervous shuffle at her words. "I wouldn't have been able to face your absence so I just spent the whole evening with Meg."

His head snapped up at her confession. "I thought..." He fell silent, his hand lifting to rake his fingers through his hair. "When you weren't there I left immediately. I thought you had decided to spend the holiday with him."

"I think he wanted me to." She swallowed, folding her arms around her body against the sudden cold around her. "But then he never actually invited me to his estate. I guess his family wasn't too keen on the idea of having dinner with someone like me."

Crossing the room he walked to the piano, but suddenly he turned again, stopping three strides away from her. "I didn't wait for you longer than five minutes. Then as soon as I returned to the house I started working on Don Juan for there you would have chosen me."

Cold enveloped her at hearing his confession and she shivered. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted the sordid nature of that act, but that was not at all that made her heart twist with the next beat. He had spent Christmas all alone, yearning for her presence so much that he had written an opera just so he could pretend to be with her. Oh, it was quite obvious that anger had been a source to that, too – and considering the endless guilt that was now written all over his face there must have been a great deal of vengeance involved in it as well – but after almost one year of marriage she knew him quite well. His wrath had not only been a response to her supposed betrayal but it was just as much some kind of protection against the all-consuming despair that he was so prone to harbor.

Her arms tightened around herself as a lump began to form in her throat.

Even after all this time the memory of his huddled frame kneeling on the floor was just as fresh in her mind as if it all had happened last week, although several months had passed since she had returned to him. She still remembered the strange quiver her stomach had given at seeing him as he had held onto her crumpled veil with trembling fingers – and sometimes she even felt that quiver, too.

Her eyes began to sting.

Never again.

He would never again feel so alone.

"Did it work?" she asked him at last.

He shifted on his feet while his hand lifted from his side; for a moment it hovered in front of his face before he raked restless fingers through his hair. "Not really," he blurted out finally. "Even if I had something to do, on those very rare occasions that I ventured upstairs during the holiday I was constantly reminded what it used to be. And I... I liked to pretend it wasn't my fault."

For long moments it was only the quiet sound of cracking fire that could be heard in the room. After a short while he shifted on his feet again and she noted with an uncomfortable pressure around her stomach that he started twirling the ring on his finger once more.

Her knees almost buckled when she began walking towards him, and she drew in an uncertain breath when she finally approached him.

"You're shaking," she noted, one of her hands coming to rest on his shoulder. Relief melted some of the tension in her chest when he didn't shy away from the touch – but he didn't return the gesture, either.

"It was cold without you and now it all came back and..." The rest of his sentence was lost in a sigh and she couldn't hold back the tears any longer.

Her arms wound around his trembling frame and when a moment later he returned her hold she let go of the last remnants of restraint and a wave of emotions washed over her in a long shudder. His hands splayed out on her back as if trying to protect her or in an attempt to console her, she couldn't decide; when in fact it was her who wanted to console him in the first place.

Several breaths later she felt him burying his face in her hair and her fingers curled into the back of his shirt in return.

So that was the why.

It all made perfect sense now and she was almost amazed at how she hadn't realized right away why he had been so reluctant to answer such a simple question as whether to have a Christmas tree or not. No matter how many times she told him that she had forgiven him she had a suspicion that it was him who couldn't forgive himself, and the thought made her stomach clench with an emotion she didn't wish to name. Sometimes it even seemed that he purposefully held onto bad memories just for the sake of punishing himself for the deeds he had committed in the past.

Letting go of his shirt she smoothed a short path on his back, and she felt most of the tension leaving him in a long sigh in return.

Several minutes passed in complete silence.

At some point the restless moving of his fingers on her back had stopped, and now they simply rested there, the earlier tension of his body now completely gone.

At last they parted at an unspoken accord. His hand didn't let go of hers, though, and his thumb brushed a shy caress across her ring.

It took her frail voice two attempts until she could speak again. "You can enjoy the festivities despite what happened last year," she told him gently.

The movement of his finger on her hand stopped abruptly, and slowly his eyes lifted to hers. "Maybe," he agreed feebly. "But I certainly shouldn't."

"You shouldn't blame yourself forever," she reminded him, her hand clasping around his.

He shook his head but at the same time his hand curled around hers with a soft tremor. "I cannot not think that last year I spent this time writing something where you had no other choice but to choose me."

"You more than made up for it since then."

A shiver ran through him at her words, then slowly he leant forward to breathe a reverent kiss to her ring.

"I wish I was a better man," he said as he straightened again. "For you."

Air trembled in her throat and she had to swallow. "You are good enough for me," she assured him.

His eyes drifted closed at her words, and his head came to rest against her forehead for a moment before his lips brushed against hers in a light kiss. "I love you," he breathed against her lips.

"I love you, too," she echoed, her thumb sweeping a short caress across his face. "Just the way you are."

A mild tremor shook his frame against her, and a heartbeat later he repeated the earlier kiss.

They remained there unmoving, but it would have been impossible to tell how much time had passed.

It was her who spoke first then. "So you do would like to have a tree?" she asked, though she was already certain of his reply.

"Very much so," he agreed, drawing back from her with one last caress to her face.

"Would you please..." She began, making a feeble gesture towards the armchair on their left.

"Of course."

The previously immovable furniture now slid to the side at his first try.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" He asked when he turned back to face her.

"I wish you'd forget about what happened last year," she told him, watching how a swirl of emotions flitted across his face at her request. "Just... enjoy the holiday."

His head moved in agreement and it seemed that his lips slowly curled into a hesitant smile, too. "With you I will," he vowed.

This year they once more had their usual talk on Christmas Eve, but this time instead of a mirror it started by their own Christmas tree – and ended well past midnight in bed.