Family Perks

Summary: "It's not that I don't care," he stated, voice quivering, "because I do. In fact, that's the problem. Maybe things wouldn't hurt so much if I could just ignore it all- but I can't."

Characters/ Pairings: Po, The Furious Five, no romance

A/N: Why, hello, it's me Izzy. And guess what time it is? CHRISTMAS TIME. My most favoritest time of the year! WHOO! This is chapter is NOT songfic, but loosely based on a super sad song I'm singing in choir called Home On Christmas Day. It's about two people in love who were split apart permanently; their lover passed on, and now that it's Christmas time they're lost. And while I love Ti/Po as much as the next guy NO ME GUSTA ALL THE STORIES. Too many guys, seriously :P This story is about family and friendship, even the song has a more romantic tone to it. Just ignore that, alright?

*sigh* I wanted this to be sadder...ah well. Turned out pretty well anyway :P

Also, this isn't in Drabble Edition because it has a more...serious tone to it, and I prefer the Drabbles to be humorous. I dunno why...just feels right. :)

And now that winter's here, soon it will be Christmas,
I see your face so clear though you're far away...

-Home On Christmas Day

Tigress breathed a frosty cloud as she took the final step on the ancient stone staircase. Never had she been more grateful to clear those steps, and now that she had her next thought was home.

Too long she'd been away from the Palace. Leaving when the leaves had begun to dry up and returning when snow was cruniching underneath one's toes. She wasn't cold - breathing techniques kept her whole body at a constant warm temperature - and even if she had been, that wouldn't have stopped her from making her journey. It was an important one- a significant step in her life. She was given the rare oprrutunity to see the village she was born in. The story behind her invitation was a tedious one however; one to remember on another, warmer day. Now she could finally breathe easy. She'd seen where she was born. Her parent's tombstones. A cousin that burst into tears at the sight of her.

The pure essence of family had refreshed her; now she was able to return to her current family: The Furious Five. And Master, and the Dragon Warrior of course.

Tigress gave the Palace a semi-smile, and just as she was about to stalk to her friends, she was tackled at full tilt. She and her attacker rolled for some time, long enough for Tigress to realize that it wasn't an attack- it was a hug.

"TIGRESS!" Monkey cried, climbing off of her and helping her up. "I didn't know you were coming back already!" He broke off to give her another hug, which she was expecting this time, and dodged. "We're just having dinner! Oh man everyone's gonna go bananas!" He excitedly walked to the kitchen with the tiger in tow, grinning and filling her in on what she'd missed in the past month.

"And lastly," Monkey was finishing as they passed their barracks, "Po finally got Master Shifu to start eating meals with us." They entered the kitchen and, sure enough, their elderly master was sitting beside the Dragon Warrior, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He was engaged in conversation with Crane and Viper, but the instant Tigress walked into the room he fell silent.

In fact, they all fell silent, and Tigress was more then a little uncomfortable. As quickly as the silence came, it went, replaced by everyone talking at once while simultaneously trying to hug her.

She remembered in order quite perfectly (it was the happiest of reunions) she greeted her friends in; Crane first, with an awkwardly formal welcome and an equally awkward hug, followed by Viper who squealed and tried to ask a week's worth of questions in one breath. Mantis, however nonchalant he tried to be, couldn't resist leaning against her shoulder sighing about how much he missed the perch. Shifu was not reluctant to hug her, a quiet promise to talk later hanging between them. And just as she was letting her master go, Tigress was again tackled.

However annoyed she was, Tigress smiled and hugged Po in return. "Hello, Po."

The panda smiled broadly at her and hesitantly released her. For a moment he was too happy for words, then he clapped his hands together and declared, "Alright! We're back in business now- the semi-dysfunctional family that is the Dragon Warrior and the Furious Five with their prestiguous master, and I say this calls for food!"

"Po, everything calls for food according to you," Viper pointed out teasingly. Her comment was on the mark, and the panda blushed sheepishly as he lay dishes of fried rice out for everyone.

After being settled and armed with chopsticks, the Palace's occupants began to pry answers out of the tiger. She seemed most uncomfortable with all the attention, if not a little pleased, and tried to answer their questions as orderly as she could. "When I arrived I was overwhelmed. It was too much to take in all at once. My cousin Zhong, who sent for me, had me stay in his house with his family. It was a pleasant little hut crawling with children and I was quite content living there. After about a week, Zhong had me follow him to the outskirts of the village, not knowing where I was going." Her steady tone wavered as she continued, "He took me to the village cemetery."

A hushed silence fell among her friends. No one dared to move an inch.

"There," Tigress gripped her chopsticks, "there I saw what I'd been dreading. Zhong took me to my birth parents' graves. I learned their names: Na Qiang and Na Zongshi. Next to theirs was Zhongs' parents. His father and mine were brothers. Zhong explained to me that my father, Qiang, died in the Fifty Years War, and my mother died of heartbreak not too long after birthing me. My uncle and aunt took me in, a kind gesture on their part, and raised me with their own son as their own daughter. When I turned three, and Zhong was six, they were both killed by a horrible illness that had taken nearly half the village. Zhong and I were put in two different orphanages; he was adopted long before I was and found his origins. He began his search for me at age fifteen, and just found me a few months ago, as you all know.

"I remember very little of my parents, my uncle, aunt, and even Zhong- but I'm nearly overflowing with joy that he found me. I never would have found him." Tigress concluded her tale with a gentle sigh and a small smile.

"So does that mean you've got a name?" Mantis inquired.

"Yes." Tigress' smile grew. "A last name, at least. That's the most important."

Everyone was happy for her, to say the least. Master Shifu seemed troubled but accepting- far more so then she'd hoped. Dinner took a much happier tone after that, and Tigress answered many more questions, then turned in for the night as did everyone else.

Po had courteasouly offered to walk Tigress to her bedroom, babbling nonstop the entire time. "It's really awesome that you got to see your cousin and all the little baby...sub-cousins. You know, with the holiday coming around and all. It's the time for family." He grinned at her, then snapped. "And-OH-and you missed the biggest battle ever! A group of warriors went on a rampage in the village and destroyed like everything- but me n' the Five stopped him," he looked proud as he said this, "and it was awesome." She hummed lightly and nodded.

"But," Po went on, "but don't get jealous or anything. Crane's not as good as a leader as you are..."

Tigress spoke for the first time; "Crane? Crane lead you?"

Po's eyes widened and he averted his gaze. "Uh, yeah. No big deal."

"I thought this would be an oppurtunity for you-"

"Yeah," Po cut her off. "You're not the only one. But things didn't work out and Crane is way better at decisions then I am. We'd be dead if it were up to me." He stopped walking- they had reached Tigress' room. He bid her goodnight, looking antsy, and quickly shoved a scroll in her hands. "Uh, listen, I'm really sure who else I could trust with this, and since you're my best friend I thought you'd be the best option. Can you give this to my dad tomorrow morning? And don't look at it! It's just for, eh, for him."

Without waiting for her to get a word in, Po squeezed her hand and hastily mumbled 'goodnight'. Then he bounded down the corridor, leaving Tigress with a very perplexed look. She slipped into her room and placed the scroll gently by her bedroll. Even if she hadn't said it aloud, Tigress knew she was going to give the goose that scroll.

After, of course, she discovered what was wrong with Po. She had an idea of where to start.

Po's hands were shaking, which made sneaking around twice as difficult.

Of course, being his size and having his luck made sneaking hard in the first place...adding shaking hands just made things worse. He cursed quietly, then scolded himself for using profanity. Mumbling instructions, the panda slung his pack over his shoulder and turned to leave his room.

"Wow," Viper looked hurt as she frowned in his doorway, "Tigress was right. You are sneaking."

Po covered his mouth to save himself from yelping. "What?" he tossed the bag to the ground. "I'm not sneaking. You know Tigress; we love her but she doesn't trust anyone-"

"Po," Mantis appeared from around the corner. Behind him came Monkey and Crane, the former looking shocked at the latter disappointed. "Dude, stop lying. You're caught."

"I'd be caught if I were doing something wrong," Po replied, scrambling for his pack. He took quick sharp steps past his friends. "Which I'm not. So let's all go back to sleep and I'll just...just...return this bag to Shifu! Yeah! He asked me before dinner and I told him-"

Tigress materialized in Po's path, her expression unreadable. "I highly doubt Master Shifu would encourage lying to your team, Po."

Po dropped his pack, cursed his hands again, then covered his mouth. He tried not to meet his friends' eyes, for their worry was bringing him guilt, but found the task impossible. Especially so when Tigress grabbed his shoulder and squeezed him slightly, a gesture of friendship. "Are you going to tell us what's wrong?"

"And before you say nothing," Crane jumped in, keeping the panda from saying just that. "We've all noticed something's up, Po. You haven't laughed a lot lately, or eaten, and I know you're trying to be sneaky when you go train in the middle of the night," the avian screwed up his face, "but I can hear you thumping down the hall every night."

"Even Master Shifu said you weren't in your right mind." Monkey crossed his arms. "We all know it comes with the Dragon Warrior name to lead us sooner or later- with Tigress at her hometown you had the perfect chance and you couldn't. Anyone who's anybody knows you're capable of it...just distracted by something."

Po glanced at the surrogate leader, and the primate, and felt horribly ashamed. He tried to stay silent, but Tigress' grip was tightening and quickly becoming less friendly. "I wasn't..." he stared at the ground. "I wasn't training at night. I was... I was..."

His voice cracked so loudly, so painfully, his friends' widened their eyes and he clutched his face.

"Po..." The panda flicked his ear in the direction of Viper's voice, the only sign that he'd heard her. "You can tell us anything. You know that."

Po sighed into his palms. When he looked up, he was blinking rapidly. "I wasn't training. I was...trying to remember."

"Look!"

His simple brain obeyed; he craned his small neck upwards to see the kites in the sky. He liked them. They made him laugh. He reached up for them and found he couldn't touch them, then lost his balance and tumbled to the ground.

"Look!"

Mama's voice brought him to his feet again. He looked up again, but the floaty things were gone, in their place was something much less pleasant.

"I can barely remember any of it," Po said to know one in particular. "Anything of them. All I have is one scene. One short, tiny scene, and then chaos."

"Look!"

He didn't have a chance; Baba swept him up and shoved him into Mama's arms. "Take our son and go!" Baba turned to use a weird looking object to knock a mean looking wolf down, and Mama obeyed him. She turned and ran, her son clutching onto her robes.

Po began clenching his fists. He was shaking his head subconsciously, trying to stop the memory in its tracks. Tigress dropped to her knees beside him, worriedly grabbing his hands and muttering kind words, words that he didn't hear.

"Mama!"

Had his Mama not looked so sad, the cry would've been louder, more jovial. But it was quiet and squeaky; and he couldn't managed much else. Mama grabbed his hands and kissed them. She pointed upwards; "Look, my son."

He looked up and saw white flakes falling to the ground.

Po yanked his hand free of Tigress' grasp, scooting away from her as well. "I remember the snow so much. I thought maybe looking at it again, outside, would trigger more memories." He stood and started to pace. "But then that didn't work. So I got a better idea." Po paused to stare blankly at his shaking hands. "I'd go back to my village- that gave me memories before right? It should work now.

"I didn't want to worry you all by saying where I was going, so I gave Tigress a note to give to my Dad, and he was going to tell you guys later." Then, with a voice as cold as the weather, Po glared at Tigress. "But things didn't work out that way."

Monkey jumped between the tiger and panda, pointing an accusatory finger at Po. "Don't you dare get mad at Tigress. She was worried about you and knew we were too. She's trying to help."

"That's what we're all trying to do," Mantis added.

A growl, low and angry, emitted from one of the occupants of the room- and it took a considerable amount of searching to discover its source was Po. "Well you can't! None of you can! You don't know what I'm feeling and you never will!"

Almost defensively, Viper spoke, "How can you say that?"

"Easily!" Po pointed at them, hands shaking almost to the point where he was losing control of them. "None of you are the last of your kind, huh? None of you got your life ruined by a madman, right? Am I wrong? If I am, please feel free to let me know!"

He wasn't wrong, of course.

"Just last week," Po's voice rose in anger, "Monkey's sister came into town. And two days ago Crane's mom and Viper's dad stayed right here in the Palace! Mantis is planning on seeing his entire family in three days time...and..." he tried to cover up the falter with more anger, "and now Tigress knows she has a family too. I'm happy for you guys, I swear, but ...it hurts so much..."

The angry outer-covering diminished as Po sank to his knees, eyes blank and filling with tears. He wiped them away, quite embarrassed.

"Po, crying is okay," Viper said quietly, shaken after his outburst. She tentatively slid towards him, tongue flickering.

"In fact, we're kind of worried that you haven't cried. It just means you care." Hearing something serious come from Mantis' mouth was disorienting- almost more so then seeing Po the same way.

"It's not that I don't care," Po stated, voice quivering, "because I do. In fact, that's the problem. Maybe things wouldn't hurt so much if I could just ignore it all- but I can't. And that's not even the worst part. The worst thing about this is...is..." He shut his eyes and inhaled deeply. "I don't have closure, like Tigress has. At least she got to see her parents' graves! I have no idea if my parents are alive or not. With the holidays coming around...it's the time for family right? And... I don't have mine."

"Nonsense," Mantis snapped. "You've got us. And we're pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself."

"We're your family now," Crane elaborated with a kind smile. He took a few steps forward and placed his wing on Po's shoulder.

"In addition you have Mr. Ping. We might not be conventional, but we do love you Po, and care for you like an ordinary family would," Tigress said brusquely. She wasn't an affectionate person, that was for sure, but she did try. However tense her tone was, her eyes told another story.

Everyone else agreed heartily, watching Po with wide eyes. He was sincerely at a loss for words. The only thing that seemed appropriate was...

There was a collective sigh of relief when Po burst into tears. He cried like a child; not at all elegantly, with watery sniffs and tears in every direction. His cheeks were burning; the humiliation that came with crying in public couldn't be mollified by the overwhelming sadness. Despite feeling rather uncomfortable, Tigress attempted to soothe him with a gentle hug. Po melted into her arms like butter. Slowly his floor-shaking sobs became quiet hiccups.

"Thanks guys," he said to all of them, though it was slightly muffled in Tigress' shoulder. "I...can't thank you enough."

"You don't have to; we already know. And...we want to thank you too," Viper said shyly. "We wouldn't have known we were a family without you..."

Monkey mumbled something about figuring it out eventually- and received a scolding glare from Crane. The avian lightened up almost immediately though, in effort to keep Po's mood light as well. Seeing him angry and hurt wasn't pleasant. "So...even if you don't have it yourself, you brought us closure."

Po let go of Tigress to grab his friends- no family in a tight hug. "And that's my closure."

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you have family, friends, or someone you love around with you this holiday season! If you don't, well, you always have me to wish you an awesome season! Once again, Merry Christmas!

-Izzy Smiling =D