Title: The Gift

Author: badly-knitted

Characters: Meriel, Ianto, Jack.

Rating: G

Spoilers: Nada

Summary: It's Christmas, and there's one special gift Meriel wants more than anything in the world.

Word Count: 500

Written For: Prompt 16: Heartbroken at anythingdrabble.

Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood, or the characters.

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Meriel was heartbroken and trying hard not to show it; she didn't want to seem ungrateful. It was Christmas morning, and she had a huge pile of gifts to open, but none of them were big enough to be the thing she wanted most of all. She'd seen it in the window of a shop a few weeks ago and had instantly fallen in love with it, so much so that as soon as she'd got home she'd written her letter to Santa, with the longed-for toy in big capital letters right at the top of the list of presents she hoped she'd been good enough throughout the year to deserve.

She'd been so excited on noticing last week that her heart's desire was no longer in the shop window. Surely that meant Santa had collected it in order to get it wrapped for her. The last seven days had crawled past as she waited in eager anticipation to wake up and find the big parcel by the tree in the living room, but when she'd run in, wide-eyed and excited, she'd felt her heart sink, right down into her bunny slippers. Santa must not have thought she'd been good enough

Meriel racked her brains to think what she'd done that was so naughty, but couldn't come up with a single really terrible thing. She'd tried so hard to be good, helping others, doing all her schoolwork as neatly as she could, and even eating her veggies without complaining. She'd shared her sweeties with the kids at school, kept her room tidy, put her toys away every night except when she'd been poorly, and helped around the house.

She had told lies, but only little ones, and mostly because being truthful would have upset people, like telling Auntie Gwen her top looked nice even though she really thought it was too small and Auntie should have got a bigger size.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" her taddy asked. "It's Christmas, and look at all those presents you've got to open! You should be happy."

She should have known her taddy would notice.

"I am, it's just… I asked Santa for a very special, very big present, and it's not here. I was so hoping…" She trailed off with a disappointed sigh.

"Oh, is that all?" her daddy said, smiling. "Well, maybe you should take a look at the note Santa left on top of your presents."

Meriel went over to the stack of gifts, and sure enough, there was a note.

'Dear Meriel, I thought I'd save your daddies some work. Go look in your playroom. Love from Santa XX.'

Eyes wide, Meriel ran to her playroom and there it was, the doll's house, shiny and new, sitting in the corner. There was another note propped against it.

'Now open your other presents so you can play with this one properly.'

Running upstairs, she launched herself at her presents, tearing off paper to reveal tiny furniture.

It was the best Christmas ever!

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The End