Okay, I know that so many of you have been waiting for this for so long. I'm sorry that it took me so long to get this up, but I had some techinical difficulties when I lost all of my chapter plans for every story I was writing, and it took me a while to get reinspired with this one. It's changed a little from what I originally thought it would be, but seeing as it's almost Christmas, I thought I'd kick things off on a festive side!

Please review! I know you want to! Milk and cookies for all who review.

Angel-death-dealer

xxxxx

Chapter One: Is This Real?

Jessica hadn't been able to sleep for hours now. She'd nodded off around eleven o'clock after staying up late playing poker with her father. She'd won this time fair and square, proving to her father that he couldn't read her as well as he could his sister. Of course, sometimes, he could read her like a book but when she really tried he could never read her at all. Her aunt often pointed out that his poker face was one of the many things that she'd inherited from him. Luckily for him, however, they hadn't been playing for stakes, just with a set of poker chips that her father had brought out of storage from his teenage years.

She rolled over in her bed and looked at the alarm clock. The glowing red lights showed that it was twelve minutes past six in the morning. Finally, she agreed with herself that this was a more than reasonable tome than the last time she'd checked (at half past three) and clambered quietly out of bed. Retrieving a sweater from on top of her chest of drawers, one that a distant relative had sent her for Christmas last year and was at least three sizes too big for her, and slipped it on over her pyjama top, padding quietly over to the other side of the room. Grinning, she creaked open her bedroom door, sliding it ever so gently so that it didn't make a noise. She knew that opening it quickly would probably ensure the silence better, but sneaking quietly and slowly was all part of the fun.

As quietly as she could she padded down the hall, her bare feet almost soundless and any sound that did come from them was muffled by the slightly more audible sound of the bottom of her pyjama pants scraping against the carpet. She crossed the hall, and reached out for the handle to her father's bedroom door. Taking it in her hand she turned it slowly, listening for the click that echoed a little in the early morning silence. When she heard it, she pushed open the door just as slowly, if not slower, as she had done her own. This time, however, she didn't close the door behind her, and she snuck into his bedroom.

She noticed straight away that he was still asleep, lying on his back and facing the ceiling with his closed eyelids. As she got closer, she could hear the sounds he made in his sleep, too loud to be breathing but to quiet to be snores and she grinned to herself. Getting closer still, she noticed that, as usual, he'd kicked off the covers in his sleep - something that they both did because of their unusually high body temperatures. Edging right to the side of the bed where he slept, she waited, frozen motionless in preparation, and, of course, to make sure that he was definitely still asleep.

Convinced that he was, and just about to jump him, she took a breath, but she was surprised when Johnny's body leapt into a sitting position and threw her down onto the mattress beside him.

"Daddy!" she squealed as he began to tickle her wherever he could reach; her sides, her underarms, beneath her knees, her feet...he knew that she was ticklish, especially when caught off guard. "Daddy, stop!" she pleaded with him, but through her laughter he paid no attention to her.

Eventually, she managed to get herself back up from where she was at his mercy on the bed and she grabbed a pillow, hitting him on the back of the head with it. Of course, this did nothing but start a pillow fight, one that lasted for at least ten minutes, filled with loud laughter and the muffled, playful screams that were toned down by the blocking of the pillows. It wasn't long before the energy they had was exhausted and they lay side by side, facing the ceiling as Johnny had done alone a moment ago. Both of them were breathing hard, catching their breathe from what some people would consider a fairly good workout, and still laughing quietly to themselves.

Only minutes after laying down, Jessica regained the same burst of energy that hadn't left her since she'd first woken up and rolled over quickly, hitting Johnny gently on the chest with her pillow before rolling back the other way and clambering off the bed. Once on her feet, she checked to see if Johnny was following her example and getting out of bed, but he wasn't.

Frowning, she spotted a pillow that had been lost to the floor in their battle, and she picked it up, throwing it at him. Right on target, it landed on his face. "Come on! Get up!" she insisted, and ran to the bedroom door. "It's Christmas!"

Jessica managed to get halfway down the hall towards the living room before realising that he was still in bed, and she ended up going back to force him out of bed again. However, she found that he was waiting to tickle her senseless again but she was determined not to let that happen another time, and took of running down the hall faster than he could catch up with her.

When they eventually made it to the living room, Jessica ran straight towards the Christmas tree, going over to the window ledge behind it and opening the last door on her chocolate advent calendar. She giggled with delight when the chocolate touched her tongue, and heard Johnny laughing along with her from behind her. His laughter soon stopped however when she made a dive for the Christmas tree and he caught her around the waist to stop her.

"Hey, let me go!" she protested, squirming against him as he lifted her off her feet.

"Oh, no, you don't," he told her, turning her in his arms so that he could keep a better hold of her and ending up with his daughter on his back. "We're waiting for the others, remember?" he saw her pouting in their reflection in the mirror. "Don't look at me like that, we agreed this last night."

"I was excited, I wasn't concentrating," she pointed out to him. Christmas Eve always brought out a side in Jessica that hadn't grown up as she had over the years. This year, she'd spent the entire evening running around the house, bouncing up and down because she didn't know what to do with herself. He loved seeing her so happy, but he had to admit that her energy sometimes exhausted even him.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You were concentrating when I asked you if you wanted any ice cream," he reminded her.

Jessica sighed, caught out on her original excuse. "Ice cream doesn't need thinking about, it's a necessity."

"Is it?" he challenged.

"Yeah, Auntie Sue said so."

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I bet she did."

"Did I mention you were the best Dad in the entire world?" she asked him.

"Not this morning you didn't," he smiled.

"You are, you know," she told him. "The greatest, best, most fantastic Dad in the history of Dad's."

Johnny smiled, fighting back for a laugh. "Nice try, firefly, but we're waiting for the others to get here."

She pouted again, hoping that he would fall for it the second time. "But they won't be here for hours!" she protested.

Johnny placed her down on the floor again and headed towards the kitchen. "Then we'd better have some breakfast," he suggested.

She groaned dramatically as she started to follow him into the kitchen, but she quickly doubled back, making another break for the Christmas tree and everything beneath it. However, just when she was about to touch it a hand shot out and grabbed her wrist - not tight enough to hurt her, but enough for her to know she'd been caught red handed.

"I was just going to hold them," she said quickly trying her best to sound innocent.

"I thought we agreed that shaking presents is wrong," he reminded her, remembering back to an incident last year, when a present for Sue had been a set of china ornaments from her father and Franklin had shaken the present, shattering them into pieces.

"No, it's not," she said with a sweet smile, still trying to win him over.

"They might be breakable," he pointed out.

Jessica thought about this for a moment, biting her lip, something she did when she knew that she was wrong and was desperately looking for a way to get out of it. "...it's not wrong..." she muttered helplessly. Johnny just laughed again as he swiftly lifted her up, this time throwing her over his shoulder.

"Dad? Dad, what are you doing? Daddy! Put me down!" Her protests her accompanied by the flailing of her arms and legs but her tiny eleven-year-old frame stood no change against his hold, and she slumped against him, surrendering by default as she huffed, "Did you have ANY friends growing up?"

Johnny just continued to grin as he carried her into the kitchen. He sat her down in one of the chairs and after kicking the door shut behind him, he went to the kitchen worktop, watching his restless, energetic daughter slumped her upper body in a sprawl over the table.

"Daaaaaaaad, it's Christmas!" she complained. "We've gotta open presents!"

"We will open them," he assured her.

"But we've gotta do it now!" she insisted.

Johnny had a feeling that Sue and Reed were upstairs having much the same problem with Franklin. Franklin was seven years old now, which meant that having watched his elder cousin for many a year on Christmas morning he was starting to perfect the morning routine himself. This, however, was the first Christmas that Johnny and Jessica had spent in their separate apartment of the Baxter Building, so they were alone on Christmas morning. They'd moved into the apartment just below the main lab-based apartment that they'd originally all shared at the start of the summer, having finally felt that, with Sue and Reed having a second child under their feet as well now, that they could all do with the extra room.

"Jessie, the sun isn't even up yet," Johnny told her, indicating to the kitchen window where the sky outside was still grey. He went over to the CD player, putting in the same Christmas disc of old rock and roll classic covers that Jessica had fallen in love with from a young age. "What do you say we make the messiest, best breakfast that we've ever had?" he asked her.

She lifted her head from the table and grinned at him. "Now you're talking."

----

The Christmas breakfast proved to be just as messy and fun-filled as Johnny had first suggested it would be. Twenty minutes later the father and daughter team had managed to prepare the pancake batter and were just getting ready to cook it. Of course, the main reason it had taken twenty minutes was because Johnny was still trying to keep Jessica from the presents in the living room. But at the moment, there was one more pressing matter taking over her mind.

"Seriously, we are not putting any more chocolate chips in the pancakes, Little Miss Storm" Johnny said through a laugh.

"We seriously are, Little Mr Storm. " Jessica decided, and went ahead with dumping the rest of the packet into the prepared mix before Johnny could say otherwise.

"That's 'Mr. Human Torch' to you," he corrected her.

She raised her head and put her hands on her hips, looking at him all the daring that she could muster. Yes, she'd learnt this from her aunt. "Are you flying and on fire?"

He looked down at himself. No he was very much de-flamed and on the ground in his kitchen. "No."

"Then you're not the Human Torch today," she said simply.

She went back to stirring the pancake mix, now complete with chocolate chips, and Johnny nudged shoulders with her. "Cheap shot," he grumbled, even though he was still smiling.

"I'm right though," she grinned.

"Not all the time," she scoffed.

"I totally am," she said, like a the teenage girl that Johnny was fearing her growing into in a few years time.

"Are not," he argued.

"Wanna bet?" she challenged him. That had been a phrase she'd learnt from him within weeks of living with him at the age of three.

"Does it involve opening presents?"

"Yes,"

"Then no," he said simply, giving her a broad smile as he poured the pancake mix into the saucepan. "Nice try, but it's not going to work."

----

After she'd managed to get through breakfast without trying to escape to the presents again, Johnny allowed her the time alone when he went back along the hall to take a shower. Of course, he was only gone about ten minutes, but the whole time he could envision coming back to a living room covered in torn wrapping paper, and his daughter in the middle with the 'it wasn't me' expression on her face. When he came back, however, she was standing behind the sofa, her hip resting against it as she carefully fingered a cushion edge with her fingers. About six feet ahead of her was the Christmas tree, and beneath that, the presents. She could easily see the ones that she'd worked so hard on to wrap by herself, and the ones that had been put aside for the rest of the family that they'd wrapped together a few nights ago, but especially, she could see the ones that had been wrapped with her name on.

Johnny watched her from where she couldn't see him, and saw the curiosity in her eyes. So many years now he'd seen her staring at a Christmas tree, and the child-like innocence never faded. There was always a look of such wonder in her eyes that he wished she'd never lose. He watched her, leaning against the wall as she stayed motionless.

She was eleven-years-old now, and still the absolute image of her father. Her hair was much longer now, falling past her shoulders with a gentle wave to it near the bottom. Johnny was no expert, of course, but he had learned with time that when the wave became more extreme it was time to get a haircut, but usually Sue or Jessica would remind him, and later pester him, of that before he even realised it needing doing. Just as he had predicted the first time he laid eyes on her, she loved the outdoors, and the freckles on her cheeks and nose were still there, only more predominant now that she spent most of her days running around outside in the sun. There wasn't a single thing she turned down when it came to outdoor activities, proving that she was as active as her father as well.

Jessica had gone to a regular kindergarten, and whilst there were a few accidents with her powers she'd fit in as well as any other child in her class. Thankfully her accidents only involved burnt paper or melted felt-tip pens, and no harm was done to her or her classmates but Johnny was afraid that, even though she was working incredibly hard to learn self-control, her mind might slip up and she could cause some damage. However, just before they had started to consider what primary school she should attend, Franklin had revealed his own powers at the age of two, a year younger than Jessica had been at her first show of power. Franklin's power had been so much more dangerous than hers, though. When he had become scared during a power-cut, he had managed to levitate everything in the room, including the people, and then drop everything to the ground without even thinking about it, which had resulted in many broken ornaments, picture frames, and a large dent where Ben had landed.

Knowing that his son's powers were clearly still developing and yet already he was dangerously powerful, Reed had gotten in touch with an old mentor of his and Sue's. Charles Xavier ran a school exclusively for children with special abilities like Jessica's and Franklin's. When Reed had mentioned singing Franklin up for the waiting list of school age children, Johnny had asked him to enroll Jessica for the start of the first school term. This way, not only did they get through their day without being taunted for what they could do, or goaded for who their parents were, but they also got an extremely good education, or at least they had to be considering the grades and homework that Jessica was bringing home.

Her best subject was easily physical education, even though she was top of her class in science and physics. As much as he tried to encourage her with the academic subjects as he did with the physical, he had to admit that he was glad that his daughter shared his love for the outdoors. He admired the bond that Reed and Franklin had with science and space, but Johnny wasn't sure how he'd cope if Jessica wanted to spend all her time indoors. He'd come to depend on her energy to contribute to his own, and even if it was just a walk down the park, it was worth it in their eyes.

At the end of the day, Jessica was his whole world. He'd be lost without her, and he certainly didn't know what he'd be doing with his life if she wasn't around. He couldn't even imagine what it would be like to wake up in the morning without going into her room and making sure she was getting ready for school, or cooking dinner for one, or hearing her music over the top of his own. What would he do without her? He couldn't imagine her not being there anymore. He couldn't even imagine what would happen if something would take that away from him.

He could see that she was itching to move, even in the slightest, where she was toying with the rope tassels on the corners of the cushions - but she didn't move. She just stared at the tree. She wasn't smiling, but her lips were parted ever so slightly in a cute way that, had she been just a few feet shorter, he could have mistaken her for a five year old again.

"I can't do it," she spoke out to him, showing that she knew he was there. After all, he wasn't exactly hiding, she just hadn't been looking at him. "I know I want to open them, but I couldn't."

"Why not?" he asked, not moving from his space.

She turned her head towards him. "Because you weren't here," she said sincerely.

All the excitement in her eyes and the laughter that had been in her eyes all morning had disappeared from her, and Johnny realised that what now stood before him was his growing-up daughter - no longer the little girl that saw Christmas as all about presents and good food, but the girl who was beginning to take Christmas seriously. He stepped closer to her as she continued talking. He knew her well enough to know that there was still something else that she wanted to say in her silence, and that if he waited, just for a little while, she'd come out and say it.

"If there's no one here with me, then it's like it's not real," she admitted, looking back at the tree before focusing her gaze to the pillow tassel she was torturing with her fingers. "Nothing really feels real when you're on your own."

Standing beside her, Johnny put his arm around her waist. Immediately, her head fell against his chest, and he placed a kiss upon her tousled brown hair. "You're not on your own now," he told her, almost challenging her to see if she would move for the presents, but his tone was soft.

"I'm still not opening them," she said, shaking her head against his shoulder. "This is a family Christmas. We've gotta wait for the rest of the family and then when we look around the table when we have dinner we'll know that this where we belong."

Hearing her say this caused his heart to swell within his chest. He'd never been a perfect father, he could admit that, but he liked to think that he had helped his daughter to grow up with good values. He liked to think that he'd taught her that the true meaning of Christmas was spending time with your loved ones rather than receiving presents, and that school was important for the future no matter how much she didn't get on with her maths teacher. Because of what happened with her mother walking out and leaving her with him, he'd always tried so hard to make her feel she belonged with him and the rest of the Fantastic Four family, even though it had never been said - it turns out that it had been there all along.

"Does that mean that we're always going to have Christmas together, eve when you're all grown up with your own family?" he asked her with a smile.

She raised her head and grinned. "Just try and stop me."

He grinned back at her. "Come here, firefly," he told her with a gentle laugh, bringing her properly into his arms. They crushed each other into a hug, and when they parted he kissed her on the forehead. "This is definitely where you belong," he assured her.

"With the most Fantastic family in the world?" she smirked, knowing what his answer would be.

"With me," he corrected her, bringing her into his arms once again.

----

Christmas morning hadn't always been enjoyable for Johnny. For him, Christmas had always been a family occasion, even when his family wasn't quite complete. After he and Sue lost their mother, their father began to work more, and many a time after that he hadn't been there on Christmas Eve to help Johnny put his stocking up, or even be there first thing in the morning when a young Johnny would creep into his fathers room, jumping on the bed to get him to wake up because Santa had been. Instead, that role had been passed on to Sue, and it had been his sister who had kept the magic of Christmas alive when his parents weren't there.

It reminded him a lot of how Jessica crept into his room every Christmas morning without fail. She had the same creeping footsteps that he heard when she shuffled along the carpet, and he knew she'd push his bedroom door open just enough for her to slide through the gap. They'd both always been ecstatic about Christmas, and for Johnny his first Christmas that he was able to share with his daughter was the final step in him growing up. Now, he was the one helping put up the stocking, and telling his daughter to go to sleep or Santa wouldn't come. He was the parent now, not the child.

Somehow, Jessica managed to contain herself for a few more hours, and still hadn't attacked the presents even though she'd been caught gazing longingly at them.

"They're not going to disappear if you stop looking at them, you know," Johnny had told her, as she had lost yet another car race on the games console because she had looked over at the presents once again and crashed into a wall.

"I know," she told him, gearing up for another rematch even though she would no doubt look over and crash again. "I just like Christmas," she told him in a tiny, awe filled voice.

The sound of the mail box shattering against itself alerted their attention at the other end of the hall and Jessica frowned at her father. "What's that?"

"Sounded like the mail," Johnny mused, a confused expression on his face.

"I thought we didn't get mail on Christmas day?" Jessica said, tilting her head to one side.

"We don't," Johnny said, getting to his feet and going down the hall, with Jessica, as always, hot on his heels.

Sure enough, on the doormat beside endless pairs of his daughter's sneakers, Johnny found a single envelope. He bent down to pick it up, spotting a singular name on the front, and no address. Whoever had sent this must have just posted it personally. Frowning, he opened the front door, looking into the hall but found there was no one in sight. "Weird," he murmured to himself.

"What is it?" Jessica asked him, standing on tiptoes to look over at the envelope.

"Probably a Christmas card,"

"Is it for me?"

He nodded, looking down at the slanted writing reading Jessica-Skye on the front. What confused him was that no one he knew called her by her full name. He didn't even call her by her full name, not even when he was being deadly serious. The last time he'd used her full name was when he filled in paperwork for the school or the doctors. "Yeah, it's for you."

"Cool!" she exclaimed, taking it from him and running back down the hall - finally, something she could open. She took a running start at the back of the couch, leaping over the top of it and landing on the cushions on the other side no matter how many times her father told her not to, and started to tear open the start of the envelope. Reading inside it, however, she frowned. "Daddy?" she called.

Johnny finally caught up with her and came to the back of the couch. "What is it?"

"Is this real?" she asked, holding the card out to him.

He took it when she offered it to him, seeing that the front had the traditional 'merry Christmas' writing covered in large amounts of red glitter. Underneath was a picture of a traditional four-piece family - a mother, a father, a son and a daughter - all sitting together before a roaring open fire in a overly decorated living room. It didn't alert his attention too much, as they had about a thousand Christmas cards around the apartment with much the same design.

"Looks real to me," he observed, handing it back to her.

She didn't take it though. "Look who it's from, Daddy," she told him quietly.

He opened up the card, where he found more slanted handwriting. "Is it real?" she asked him again, seeing that he had the same confused expression that she'd had moments ago when she first read it.

But Johnny couldn't answer. His mouth dried up with words and he didn't know what to say to her. The words before him were as clear as day, and whether it was the real thing or just someone playing a cruel joke, he didn't know - and he didn't want either possibility to be true.

Dear Jessica-Skye

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! May your festive season be filled with delight!

I love you sweetheart,

Mom.