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CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Saturday, December 16th

"Libeling, I was wondering if you could help me by baking some cookies for the party later this week. Daphne, Red and I are going to go shopping for the Christmas dinner, Jake going shopping for Christmas decorations with Briar, and Mr. Canis is making and mailing the invitations at the post office as well as visiting the sick children in the hospital."

Sabrina groaned. "Granny, you know I'm a terrible cook."

"Yes, you've told me that multiple times before. But, all you have to do it follow the directions on the package. And I'm sure you can get Puck to help you. He's just in his room, doing who-knows-what."

Sabrina sighed in defeat and accepted Granny's instructions. "Fine. It can't be that tough, considering the directions are right on the wrapping."

"Thank you so much, libeling. And remember, Puck can help you. Tell him that I said he has to , or no deserts for a week. All the packages are in the fridge, and, if you could, please make all of them if you have time. Daphne, Red, and I should be back in a couple of hours. Try not to burn the house down or start World War III with Puck. I'll write a note/list of things for you to do."

"Sure, whatever." Sabrina wasn't making any promises, as she sat down to watch TV for 20 minutes before Granny left.

When she heard the garage door slam and the car engine making a raucous as it went down the driveway, she got up from the couch and headed over to the kitchen. She opened the fridge, and saw about twenty packs of break 'n' make cookies. How many packs did they need for Christmas? It wasn't like that many people would be coming over for Christmas— or, maybe, way more people than she thought were coming over. Who knew? But, she did know it would take ages to make them. Unless, of course, Puck helped. It could and would take half the time.

Sabrina closed the fridge door and walked up the stairs to Puck's room, which never ceased to amaze her. After looking around his room for a minute, she finally found him, lying on his trampoline on his back, tossing a baseball repeatedly up into the air and catching it, his gaze focused on the lake in the other direction.

She strode over there, and came right up onto the edge of the trampoline and rested her hands on it, standing right by the edge of it.

Puck surprised her by speaking first. She'd thought she'd snuck in quietly and undetected, but, clearly, she had not. "What do you want?" He asked, somewhat rudely.

Sabrina sighed, because she knew this was coming. "I was, well, kinda hoping, that, well, you would, help bake cookies, um, with me." She twiddled her hair nervously, anticipating his answer, which she though she already knew.

Puck snorted in response to what Sabrina had said, "Of course not. Why would I?"

"Because Granny said you had to."

Puck laughed out loud. "And since when have I listened to the Old Lady?"

Sabrina half-smiled at the point Puck made. "True that. Please, though, can you help me? I'll never get done if you don't help me."

"The answer's still no."

"She threatened to take away you deserts for a week. And remember, the whole next week is going to be composed of holiday sweets and deserts."

He actually looked like he was considering helping her, just because of that threat. "Still not going to help you, because we both know that Granny can't prevent me from eating them anyway, I'll sneak them. Besides, I'm not in the mood for it right now."

Sabrina sighed in frustration, but just as she was about to leave the room, an idea popped into her head. She desperately hoped it would work, as she slowly climbed onto the trampoline, laid on her stomach, faced Puck while being very, very close to him. So very close, that she was almost practically on top of him, the front of her shoulder on top of his chest, her face near the crook of his neck.

Puck, who had been continuously tossing the baseball, suddenly dropped it onto the trampoline as Sabrina scooted closer, placing her hand on his opposite cheek. "Wha—what are you do—doing?"

"Nothing," Sabrina replied as she started twisting her fingers into Puck's hair, which she had to say, was very nice.

Now Puck's breathing had become short and shallow and Sabrina continued to fiddle with his hair, and she tilted her head upward to put her lips near his ear as she whispered, "Pretty please with cherries on top can you help me bake the cookies?"

"Uggghhh." Puck groaned, closing his eyes and sitting up. Only Sabrina could do this to him, make him this vulnerable and agreeing. "Fine. Only this time though. Don't expect it to happen again."

"Yay!" Sabrina squeaked as she jumped up and down on the trampoline "Thanks, Puck!"

Then Puck's heart skipped a beat or two when she gave one of her breathtakingly beautiful smiles. "Whatever. Just don't make me regret this."

As Sabrina turned around to hop off the trampoline, Puck grabbed the baseball he had been throwing up and down in the air and threw it as far as he could across the endless room. It went pretty far, he couldn't tell how far.

But as he stood up and turned around to follow behind in pursuit with Sabrina, he found her watching him with wonder.

She spoke up, "Jeez, Puck. You don't need to show off."

Puck laughed. "As if. I had no idea that you were watching. If I didn't know better, I would say that you were checking me out there." He rolled his shirt up to flex his muscles at her, which she had to say were pretty impressive. She almost gasped at how amazing they were.

Sabrina turned a deep shade of red as she looked down to look at her feet, though there was nothing interesting or new about them. "No. Of course not."

"Sure, 'Brina. Whatever you say."

Sabrina mumbled something incomprehensible under her breath, but somehow, Puck managed to hear it.

"What is that, Sabrina?" He cupped his ear and leaned closer to her. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'Wow"."

"Why, thank you! You know I train to do it just for you!"

If it was even remotely possible, Sabrina turned an even deeper shade of crimson red. Puck just threw his head back and laughed at this and opened the door for her, and gestured for her to go first. Sabrina, still looking at her feet, went though the doorway and down the stairs to the kitchen. She couldn't hold back the small smile on her face, though.

As Sabrina entered the kitchen, she opened up the fridge and they both took out what seemed like the million boxes of cookies. Puck sighed in exasperation as well, for he had not realized that there would be this many cookies to make.

"We'd better get started then, if we're gonna have to make all of these."

Sabrina nodded her head in agreement, but then frowned in disappointment as she noticed a note on the counter.

"What's this?" Sabrina wondered out loud, mostly to herself. Puck stopped raiding the fridge, and turned around with a half-eaten sandwich in his hands.

Sabrina rolled her eyes at him as he shrugged in response to her, and said "What's what?" with his mouth full of food, partially eaten chunks of the condiments in his mouth still visible.

"Uggghhh," Sabrina groaned, disgusted, as she turned her head the other way. "Please don't talk with food in your mouth. It's extremely disgusting, immature, and VERY unattractive on you."

"Soooooo, then." Puck dragged out the 'o' in 'so', and appeared right beside Sabrina, out of nowhere, leaning over to bump her in what was meant to be an affectionate manner. There was a smirk on his face. "You find me attractive at other times?"

"Wha—What?" Sabrina stuttered, her face turning bright red. "I never said that!"

Puck continued on teasing her, though he would never admit it, he liked seeing her face blush, because he thought it was, gulp, cute. Yes, cute. Not the first thing you'd expect to hear from the Trickster King, Prince of Juvenile Delinquents, etcetera, etcetera. "Yeah, but you implied it."

Sabrina was ready to make a comeback at him. "How do I know that you're only trying to use reverse psychology on me to make me think I'm the one in love with you when you're actually the one in love with me?"

Puck opened his mouth to speak, but he was at a loss for words, dumbfounded at what Sabrina had said. "How could I possibly be in love with you?"

Sabrina looked hurt for a second, but then retorted right back, "I agree. How could I be in love with you either?"

Puck also looked hurt for a moment, but he pretended not to care as well. He had involuntary gravitated towards Sabrina, and was now towering over her, less than a foot separating them. "Well, I could see the millions of reasons why you would fall in love with me, if you already haven't. I'm extremely handsome, with my hair, magnificent muscles, flawless physique, and handsomeness. I'm superb at every sport I do, excel in academics and pranking people. I have a ton of friends, and every girl in our school is in love with me! Now give me a reason why you aren't in love with me!"

Sabrina didn't know what else to say. Almost all the things Puck said were true, except maybe for every girl in school being in love with him. Being honest, Sabrina would say almost only half the girls were in love with him, which was still a quite large percentage of the Ferryport Landing population.

Though she hated to admit it, Puck was very handsome, even when he was caked with mud, worms living in his hair, grass stains on the knees of his jeans, and smelling as if he hadn't taken a shower in a week (which was probably the case anyway). Even when he was scrawny and as thin as he could be at 12 years old and just under 5 feet tall, he was still cute. Even when, at 12, he was strong, but didn't show through his external appearance, he was still cute to Sabrina.

Now, he had changed dramatically in 3 years. He was now just over 16 years old (having turned 16 in October), and a staggering 6', 8 inches taller than Sabrina (who was 5'4). And he would most likely even grow another inch or two, according to the doctor. And yes, Puck visited the doctor (forced upon by Granny Relda). He actually had muscles on his arms, and a six-pack on his chest. How did Sabrina know that? From an interesting day when they went to the pool and she had been drooling over him. But that's a different story. Right now, he had on a long-sleeved brown t-shirt that showed off his muscles, and jeans that hung low on his waist, showing the rim of his red plaid boxers. His hair was a light golden brown, due to its darkening out over the years. There were natural sun-streaked layers of various shades of browns and golds, scattered amongst his hair.

Sabrina shook those thoughts out of her head. No way could she consider Puck to be hot. Because he was not. Definitely not hot.

But the more she said those words, the falser they seemed. "Psshh….Seriously. You think I could be in love with you? How about why you're not in love with me? I'm cute, short, blonde, athletic, smart, have a ton of friends, have a hot body, and every guy in the school is in love with me, except for you!"

Puck, though he hated to admit it, Sabrina was growing to become a beautiful woman. It all started when she had pushed him into the lake when he first met her and Daphne. At first, she was a nuisance, a target for pranks. But as the days and years went by, it was hard not to fall in love with her. On her 13th birthday, in early December, he made the most important, life-changing, emotional, difficult decision he had made in his 4,053 years of life. He had decided to grow up for a mortal, a vulnerable girl who at any moment could die. But she wouldn't ever die, because he would always be there to protect her. If she did happen to die, Puck would find a way to as well. He never thought that he would grow up, he had sworn not to, but that had all changed when she had come along.

It was hard not to fall in love with her. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen; and his 4,053 years of life, he had seen a lot of things and a lot of women. She was short, but stood as if she was tall, stubborn, but giving and helping all of those around her, smart, but dumb when it came to feelings about them together, as in love, and funny and sarcastic, but serious when it came to, well, serious matters. Her long, spirally curly blonde hair flowed down her back like a waterfall. It was a light golden blonde, but had natural sun-streaked patches of brown and blonde. The clothes she wore suited her curves just perfectly, with a purple long-sleeved t-shirt, a black and white checkered scarf, and a pair of ripped skinny jeans that hugged her body perfectly. Her face was perfect, with not a blemish, but several freckles scattered along the bridge of her nose and cheeks. She thought she had needed makeup to be beautiful, but Puck thought exactly the opposite. Makeup was okay, but she looked even more beautiful without any on. Her lips were already soft and looked kissable, cheeks always tended to have a natural blush when he was around, and her eyelashes and eyebrows already make her eyes pop. She could have just woken up or get hit by one of his pranks, she would still look beautiful to him. Every day, he had a very difficult time from either wanting to kiss her, stare at her, and one more other thing that her family, or even Sabrina, wouldn't approve of.

Puck had already accepted the truth to what he thought about her. There was no declining it: he was in love with Sabrina Grimm. But, it didn't look like she liked him in that way. Though Daphne said that Sabrina was hopelessly in love with him, he wouldn't believe it until she told him or proved it in some way. Even if she didn't realize she was in love with him until she was 80 years old, he could wait. He would wait for her, and grow up with her to protect her.

In the meanwhile, he pretended as if he didn't like her; as he would get teased relentlessly by everyone. He didn't know how to show his feelings without being overly obvious. And he was terribly afraid of rejection by her.

"Yeah? Well….well…well…" Puck could not find a witty remark to retort back to her.

Sabrina smirked, for she had known that she had won this argument, for now. "Soooooo…. Let's get back to what we were talking about before we started this stupid argument."

She picked up the note that had been innocently lying on the counter, and read it aloud. In Granny's messy scrawl she called handwriting, it said:

Dear Sabrina and Puck,

Daphne, Red, and I are at the grocery store, as we told you, Sabrina. I just realized that we need to shop for all of Christmas gifts and foods, so we'll be back later than we expected, about 11 o'clock tomorrow morning, because we decided to stay overnight on the other side of town to get the late owl and early bird specials for gifts. Jake and Briar are shopping for decorations, and won't be back until tomorrow afternoon, because they're also visiting Briar's great-great- granddaughter, who's in the hospital dying of leukemia. Mr. Canis is making and mailing invitations at the post office, and later coming to help us shop after he visits the hospital. So you'll need to bake those cookies and make dinner for yourselves. There's leftover pasta and sauce in the fridge that you two can reheat for yourselves, or if you want, you can go out to eat. But only if you go together. Make sure the house is still standing when we get home, and don't start World War III with Puck, like I told you earlier. Thanks so much libelings, and I'll see you tomorrow, because hopefully you two won't pull an all-nighter with your friends or each other. Remember, I trust you, and don't make me regret this by you two doing ANYTHING stupid.

Love, Granny Relda

P.S.: Puck, you must help Sabrina with baking the cookies, or no desert for a week. I'm counting on you two.

P.P.S: Be careful, I realized I might have left the sausage on the top of the fridge to thaw. Make sure Elvis hasn't eaten it yet.

P.P.P.S: Remember that tomorrow, at 1 o'clock, we'll be going to Snow's house to get our yearly Christmas Card picture taken. Please dress nicely, and meet as there at 12:55. Puck, that means something other than your green hoodie, and taking a shower before we go.

"Well, that's just great. I'm stuck with you for," Sabrina looked at the microwave clock, which read 2:53, "almost 20 hours, maybe more."

Puck snorted. "You're the one to talk. I'm stuck with you!"

Sabrina rolled her eyes. "Nice comeback."

Puck sighed. "Whatever. Let's just get started now, so we don't have to spend the whole day together."

"Ohh yeah." Sabrina had forgotten about baking the cookies. She went over to the counter and picked up one of the packages, and tore the seal. After dropping the plastic wrapper on the floor and leaning down to pick it up, she attempted to make conversation with Puck. "At least Granny's not making us bake cookies from scratch. That'd take forever. I mean, last year she was slaving over baking and cooking in the kitchen for over 7 hours, because she wanted everything to be just perfect. Do you remember that?"

Puck didn't say anything. With her back still to him, she said, "Puck?"

When, again, she got no answer, she turned around to see Puck standing right there, staring at her, looking her up and down. This time, she yelled, "Puck!"

Puck literally jumped, he was so surprised. He blushed the slightest bit, but he couldn't help but give her another glance, let his eyes look at her one more time.

Sabrina also blushed, for she was pretty sure that he had given her elevator eyes.

"Were you just me checking me out?" Sabrina asked Puck, hesitantly.

Puck fought back the urge to blush. How had Sabrina caught him? "Who, me?" He asked as innocently as he could.

"Who else would I be talking to? Yes, you."

Puck smirked. "Well, since that question was directed towards me, no, I was not."

She eyed Puck warily, highly doubting his words. "Dork. And you said you weren't in love with me," she said as she turned to get back to work on the cookies. "Now, are you going to help me, or not?"

Puck strode over to the countertop, trying to forget what had just happened, and began to open one of the packages and silently work alongside Sabrina, repeating the same process over and over again: open package, break apart the cookies, place the cookies on the tray, and put them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Sabrina was the first one to break the silence, asking what seemed like a completely random question. "Do you have a partner for the book project in English?"

Puck stopped working and looked over for a minute. It was strange. Sabrina never, ever, asked him about anything that related to academics. "Um…No. Travis wanted to be my partner, but he doesn't do anything."

"Oh. Same here, Melody wanted to be my partner, but she doesn't do anything either." Sabrina looked down, still breaking apart the cookies. "Actually, I think Travis and Melody are partners now."

Puck smiled. "Yeah, I know. Travis has had this huge crush on her for ages."

"Yeah, Melody doesn't stop talking about him either." Sabrina looked up at him and Puck looked down at her, both smiling.

Puck broke the silence. "You wanna be my partner?"

Sabrina laughed. "That depends. Last time you were my partner, we argued the entire time."

He recalled that project. "Yeah, but that was a two years ago. Things are different now."

"Different in what way?" Sabrina asked nonchalantly.

Puck shrugged. "I don't know. Things have just changed between us, I guess."

"You got that right," Sabrina mumbled, under her breath.

Though Puck wanted to ask what she meant by that, he decided to just let it go. After a moment, he spoke again. "Well?"

She sighed. "Fine, whatever. You just have to promise to not argue."

"Cool, sure. And you have to promise to at least take my ideas into consideration, and not get all mad at me for little things."

"Okay, deal. When's the project due, anyways?" Sabrina asked, for she had lost track of the days since December had begun, and Christmas break was drawing closer. It was Saturday, December 16th, and their last day before Winter break was Wednesday, the 20th.

"I think she said the day we get back from winter break…don't quote me on that, though."

Sabrina frowned. "Oh, great. We have to get started then soon. There's a lot of work and things that we need to cover, because the book's really long, complicated, and difficult to understand. And we still need to read the book to even get started on the project."

"You just made something that seemed really simple even more difficult."

Sabrina laughed. "Yeah, my friends tell me I over exaggerate everything."

"I can see why. Anyways, what book do we have to read?"

Sabrina stopped breaking cookies for a moment, set them down on the counter, and looked up at Puck. "Well, we can choose from three. We can read A Tale of Two Cities, The Way It was Meant to Be, or A Midsummer's Night Dream."

He thought for a moment. "Well, I would love to read A Midsummer's Night Dream, but considering I'm the star in it, I think that would be a bit suspicious and awkward."

"Yeah, just a little." Sabrina laughed. "And I've read that book, as well. Mrs. Smith said we can't do the project on a book we've already read."

He stopped breaking the cookies apart, dumbfounded. "You actually read that book?"

"Yeah, so what?" Sabrina stuck her tongue out at him.

"It's just… I never thought you would be the one to read that book…You're the last person I'd expect to read it, actually."

"Are you insulting my intelligence?"

Puck threw up his hands, in the 'I'm innocent' gesture. "No, not at all. But—"

"Good. What were you going to say after that?"

"I was going to ask who your favorite character was, if that's okay."

Sabrina tilted her head to the side as she thought of the answer to his question. Puck thought this was very cute, as her face scrunched up as she made a much bigger deal out of the question than needed to be. "Well, I think it would have to be you."

Puck was startled. Whenever he read reviews on the book, or asked people what their favorite character was, it had never been him. Everyone thought he was just a nuisance and a pain-in-the-butt. "Really?"

"Really." Sabrina said, sure of her answer now. "I don't know why…It's just that….your personality brings life to the story, it adds comic relief."

He smiled. "That's cool. No one's ever said that before about me. They just think I'm annoying."

Sabrina snorted. "Annoying? In the book? Wait 'till they meet you in real life; then, I think their opinion will change!"

Puck pretended to be hurt. "Hey! That wasn't very nice!" But he couldn't help but smile at her.

Sabrina shrugged her shoulders. "It's true. Though I will admit, you're not annoying all the time, and it has gotten better over the years. Only a miniscule amount though"

"I try."

They worked in silence for the next few minutes, quickly finishing up the remainder of the make 'n' break cookies. It had taken much quicker than they had anticipated, probably because they were having such fun while doing it. In truth, it had taken only an hour or two, but with Puck's company, it had seemed like a lot less.