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Santa Claus is Coming to Town

“I don’t even remember the last time I had a real Christmas,” Rose said abruptly, on the last day of Earth-calendar November.

“The winter holiday?” Tyrra asked. “With the strange man in the red suit and the… branch? With dangly things on it?”

Rose sighed, propping her chin in her small hands, an expression too old and sad on her young face. “That wasn’t Santa. He smelled like pickles. And old sweat. And it was s’posed to be a Christmas tree, but they forgot so they got a really small ugly one. Prob’ly real Santa was busy in the war. Or maybe he can’t go to orphanages or something.”

Garrus glanced at Shepard. She mouthed the word later and, aloud, said, “I’ve heard through some very classified channels that Santa Claus was, indeed, a vital part of the war effort. The Reapers weren’t expecting a man in a flying sleigh pulled by reindeer. He ran all kinds of missions for the allies. They called it, uh, Operation Nick and Rudy.”

Rose brightened a little, a hopeful gleam in her eyes. “So he didn’t forget us?”

“Forget you?” Garrus replied, even though Shepard was pretty sure he didn’t have the faintest idea who Santa Claus was or what he represented. “Impossible. It’s just he, uh—”

“It was the reindeer,” Shepard said. “A couple of them got pretty hurt during the war. They’re okay now, but it took a long time to recover.”

“Oh.” Rose nodded vigorously enough that the ends of her curls dipped into her forgotten soup. “That makes sense.”

Tyrra did not look convinced, but, in her too-perceptive-for-her-years way, kept silent.

Deck the Halls

Garrus hoisted the tree, shedding a few fragrant needles, much to the squealing delight of his daughters. These human traditions were strange, but Tyrra seemed to be enjoying them—he suspected she’d gone off and done as much research as he had, after Rose brought it up. Behind him, Shepard grumbled under the weight of a dozen shopping bags filled to overflowing with ornaments and streamers and glittering baubles whose purpose was baffling. He knew damn well the whole lot didn’t weigh half what her old Widow had, and he caught her smiling even as she griped.

He and Shepard stood back once the groundwork had been laid, letting the girls have the run of the place. Rose shrieked and laughed and demanded Christmas carols—“Old ones, Mom, like from a million years ago!”—played loud enough their neighbors a klick down the road probably heard all about the holy, silent nights and wise men? gentlemen? some kind of men? and Mommy kissing Santa.

Not on my watch, thought Garrus. I don’t care what kind of gifts he brings.

Shepard, observant as usual, smirked at him. “Jealous?” The tenor of her laugh told him he was missing something. She reached for his hand, twining their fingers. “No need. One-turian woman, remember? You’ve got nothing to fear from a fat man in a red suit who breaks into houses for a living.”

At the end of the madness, the tree’s lower branches were heavily decorated while the top remained nearly bare except for a very crooked star; the house looked as though nothing less than a thresher maw had spit a great gob of glitter instead of acid all over it; he couldn’t walk three steps without Rose screaming, “Daaaad, you’re under the mistletoe!” and demanding he kiss Shepard (not a hardship; perhaps this Christmas thing had something going for it after all); and the girls—all of them, really—were about as excited as he’d ever seen them.

He’d never been happier.

For the first time in recent memory, he wasn’t even waiting for—as Shepard was fond of saying—the other shoe to drop.

It felt damned good.

O Holy Night

Rose padded out into the living room, her footed pajamas making a distinctive scuffling sound against the wood floor. She rubbed her eyes and blinked at Shepard, who set her datapad down on her lap and her mug of cocoa on the table beside her.

“Did he come yet?”

Shepard waved a hand at the milk, cookies and carrots still sitting next to the fireplace. “Not until you sleep the whole night, sweetheart.”

“Oh,” said Rose, crestfallen. A hint of worry clung to her brow. “’S just… I was hoping I could ask him something. Kinda important.”

Shepard patted her lap, and Rose crawled gratefully into it, snuggling up close. She smelled like baby soap and sugar cookies—the latter probably pilfered and hoarded somewhere in her bedroom—and was warm and heavy with sleep. “I’m going to let you in on a secret.”

“Is that cocoa?”

Shepard laughed. “Yes, darling. Would you like some?”

Rose took a great gulp, leaving a chocolate mustache too cute for Shepard to wipe away. “What secret?”

“Sometimes Santa talks to the moms and dads. I could pass on a message for you, if you want.”

Rose clutched at Shepard’s sweater and remained silent for a long time. Finally, she said, “Okay, but… I just don’t want Tyr to know.”

“It’ll stay between me and St. Nick,” Shepard promised.

The tiny pink tip of Rose’s tongue stuck out as she screwed her face up in anticipation of speaking. “Tyrra’s turian and they don’t have Santa, so I was gonna ask if he could just give her my present so she won’t feel left out. I hate when she feels left out.”

Shepard blinked rapidly to banish the sharp, sudden tears prickling at her eyes. “Oh, Rosie.”

“I mean, if he has an extra one, I could maybe have that? But if not that’s okay.”

Shepard’s laugh emerged a little watery, and she kissed the top of her daughter’s sweet-smelling head. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Remember when you wrote your letters to Santa? I made sure to include a note explaining all about our family. Santa won’t forget Tyrra.”

“Promise?” She tilted her head back, and the worry faded.

Shepard had spent her entire adult life in a position where trust was given and accepted as a matter of routine. A soldier was only as good as the intel she trusted or the person she had at her six or on point or flying her transport. And yet there was something entirely different about Rose’s wide-eyed trust, a delicate treasure flung into the air, always expecting Shepard’s hands to reach out and catch it before it broke.

“I swear,” Shepard said. “Cross my heart.”

Having been given this most sacred of promises, Rose kissed Shepard’s cheek, leaving a sticky, perfect residue of chocolate in her wake. “Thanks, Mom. I’mma go sleep now, ‘kay. Say hi to Santa for me. Tell him I’m glad his deers are better and thanks for working so hard in the war.”

The First Noel

The girls woke early of course, Rose bounding into the bedroom and jumping up and down on the end of the bed until Shepard and Garrus sat up. At least they’d both mostly lost the habit of reaching for sidearms—no longer kept anywhere near the bed—when she woke them so abruptly.

“He came, he came, he came, he came!”

Garrus cleared his throat and adopted his best just doing my job C-Sec voice, “I’m sorry, ma’am, are you saying you’d like to report a break-in?”

“No, Dad! Santa came!”

“Ahh, you know the suspect then. Could you give me a description?”

“Dad.”

Tyrra giggled and took up the game. “He had a lot of weird white human face hair, and he was wearing all red, and he, um, there’s something about a bowlful of jelly? And some animals?”

“Hmm,” Garrus said, pretending to write everything down on his omni-tool. “And what was stolen?”

“Milk and cookies,” Tyrra said. “All of them.”

“But he left presents!” Rose crowed. “Presents, presents, preeeesents!”

Garrus tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Presents for cookies seems a fair trade. Is there one for me?”

“Dad, there’s like a thousand.”

“Breakfast first,” said Shepard, in what inevitably turned out to be a losing battle.

O Come All Ye Faithful

They started trickling in just after noon. Jack with some of her kids and David Archer. Kaidan and his girlfriend. Zaeed, who brought the girls alarmingly accurate replicas of his favorite gun. Cortez and his boyfriend. When Joker showed up, his skycar was so full of packages they spilled out after him. Jacob and Bryn and little Grace, already much bigger than the last time Shepard had seen her. Miranda arrived with her sister. James Vega with so many presents even his muscles were strained, and a plate of cream cheese and lemon cupcakes just for Shepard.

Dr. Chawkwas with half a dozen bottles of brandy.

Shepard didn’t realize Kasumi had arrived until she walked into the kitchen to find her sitting on the edge of the kitchen island, swinging her legs and smiling like a cat in cream.

Those, she’d expected. Even Kasumi.

Shepard answered the door when it chimed later, thinking it was the caterers (“Oh, hell no, Vakarian. I am not attempting a meal of this proportion. I’ll pay them triple to save me the trauma.”), only to find a host of familiar and entirely unexpected faces. Liara, no datapad in hand and eyes smiling, followed by Javik, who only nodded. Grunt and Wrex, each toting a pair of offspring and a disturbing amount of ryncol.

Tali darted out from behind the krogan and flung her arms around Shepard tightly. Behind them, waiting patiently, stood Samara, who approached only when the others had entered.

She touched Shepard’s cheek very gently, expression serene. “You wear motherhood well, Shepard,” she said. “I thought you would, if you walked that path.”

Strange, how just those words spoken by just that voice was a balm she hadn’t known she’d longed for. “I’m glad you came. I’m glad you all came. I don’t know where we’re all going to sit but—”

Samara offered one of her rare and lovely smiles. “The floor, as you know, is my preference. Do not worry, Shepard. If you taught us anything, it is to adapt.”

They dragged out another table and pulled every spare chair from all corners of the house. They laughed and drank; they told old tales; they played with the children.

And when the caterers did arrive, she was relieved to see Garrus had upped the numbers with them when he arranged the whole damned thing. He winked at her, and flicked his mandibles smugly.

Shepard had never been so happy to be ambushed.

Auld Lang Syne

When, several hours before midnight, the girls started getting heavy-lidded and yawned more than they spoke, Shepard fetched a round of sparkling juice both levo and dextro, and they raised their glasses in their first new year’s toast as a family. Rose said she hoped they got a puppy and a kitten and maybe a pony and maybe some new brothers and sisters, to which Shepard replied by not choking on her juice and saying, “Perhaps one at a time?” Garrus only chuckled and ruffled Rose’s hair.

Tyrra looked thoughtful and then said, “Last year I thought we would never… I thought we’d be in that orphanage forever. Or they’d take Rose away from me—”

“No!” Rose protested, “I never would have gone!”

Tyrra’s mandibles widened in a swift, fond smile, and her subharmonics thrummed with emotion Garrus understood completely. “I didn’t think I would get to have a home again. And then you came, and we got to stay all of us together, and I… I just want it to be like this for always because it’s… it’s perfect like a dream but without having to wake up.”

They raised their glasses to that. Garrus caught the sheen of brightness in Shepard’s eyes. He imagined his own subharmonics betrayed his emotion much the same.

Later, when Rose and Tyrra lay soundly sleeping and Shepard and Garrus had switched out juice for something a little stronger—and as good as a turian galactic councilor’s salary could afford—they stood out on the terrace overlooking the sea far below. Garrus did not make a comment about turians and the cold; with Shepard pressed up against his side he hardly felt felt it anyway. The chill brought a brighter rosiness to her cheeks, and every time the breeze ran through her hair, the scent of her sweet perfume wafted his way.

“Tyrra was right, you know,” he said. “It’s been the kind of year I never thought I’d live to see.”

“Out of the mouths of babes,” Shepard murmured. He didn’t know the idiom offhand, but its meaning was clear enough. She turned her head just enough that he caught the curve of her smile. “If someone had told me a year ago what this year would bring, I’d’ve laughed in their faces.” Her smile turned rueful. “Then felt bad about it.” She turned, then, settling her near-empty glass on the ledge of the stone wall before rising on her toes and wrapping her arms around his neck, fingers curled lightly against the back of his cowl. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Thought the kissing happened at midnight,” Garrus said, with a low note of pleasure in his subharmonics. “That’s still fifteen minutes out.”

She kissed his scarred cheek anyway. “Since when do you follow bad orders, turian?”

He pulled her close and dipped her like he’d done once, up on the Presidium, when the world was ending. Though the darkness hid her expression, he felt her full lips smile against him. “I heard there’s usually dancing, too.”

“Damn your research anyway,” she muttered, but good-naturedly. “I suppose it can’t hurt.”

“Only my feet.” She retaliated by stepping very pointedly on him.

This time he didn’t have a friendly bartender and James Vega waiting for a cue. He didn’t have music at all. He could’ve run some through his visor, but it seemed wrong, somehow, in the darkness and the gently falling snow. Instead of a tango, he pulled her close and guided her into a waltz—one two three, one two three. Somewhere down the beach, fireworks began to go off, bursts of bright color against the dark night. A year ago they would have reminded him of gunshots, of battle. Now, though, he saw the streaks of red and gold and white and thought of the Christmas tree in their living room, the bright piles of colored paper and ribbons, of Rose’s hair and Tyrra’s eyes and Shepard’s pale skin in the snow.

“Midnight,” she said. “Happy New Year.”

He brought his brow to hers, then tipped his face down further.

“They’re kissing,” said Rose. “They’re always kissing. Even with no mistletoe.”

“I think it’s nice,” Tyrra replied. “They love each other.”

When Garrus and Shepard turned, sure enough the girls stood at the door, holding hands and giggling. “Thank you,” Shepard said softly. “For doing all this. For… well, I know this isn’t your tradition.”

“Ha,” Garrus huffed. “Just wait until your first turian holiday. This’ll seem tame.”

Shepard tilted her head. “You know what? I look forward to it.” Raising her voice, she said, “Well, if you’re awake, you’d better come out and see the fireworks.”

“And dance,” said Garrus. “There’s always dancing.”

“But Mom’s the worst at dancing! She just does that weird thing with her arms. Mom, your new year’s ‘solution should be to learn dancing!”

Shepard sighed, glancing heavenward, snowflakes catching on her eyelashes. Garrus thought, in that moment, he’d never seen her so beautiful, but before he could find the words to say so, he had an armful of small, wriggling human child.

“You want dancing?” Shepard asked. “I’ll show you dancing.”

Some things, Garrus decided as he watched her awkwardly shuffle along, holding Tyrra’s hands and making the little girl laugh, never changed.

But then, he wouldn’t have wanted them to.