Home For Christmas

My partner in crime and I wrapped this one up and tied it with a bow, yeah. Thanks, Andy!

Tuesday, 24 Dec 2520
Kuiper II class, Summer's Gift
En route to Ariel
2100hrs, ship's time

I waited until dinner was over and the cleaning up done before looking for Joshua. At this time of night, I knew he’d finished his duties for the day and would be taking his ease somewhere. Tonight it was playing with the cat in the passenger lounge. Or rather, I saw as I crossed the threshold aft, petting her while she sat curled in his lap. I paused to watch them, noting how the rhythm of petting soothed them both, and was loath to interrupt.

Of course, there was enough cat for two people to pat, so I got down on the deck in front of them and added my fingers to his in stroking her ears and chin.

“Dobry vyecher, koshka moya.” I looked up at Joshua with a little grin. “Good evening to you, too. Comfy?”

***

Joshua nodded to Rina as she started petting Schrodinger. The cat didn't seem to have minded. In fact, her purring volume had increased quite a bit. "Indeed. I've got very comfy with Schrody here. And she seems to feel pretty comfy with me. It's nice. How are you?"

***

"Good," I said. I rubbed the cat's cheek, right at the base of her whiskers, and was rewarded with a hard lean into my fingers and a head butt for more. "When you have a minute, I have something I'd like to show you."

***

"If I was going by her wishes," and he motioned with his head towards Schrodinger, who was happily curling up in a small ball in his lap, "I would never get to leave except for providing food and litter box changes. Thankfully, she's not in complete control."

He carefully put his hands underneath the cat and lifted her up evenly as he stood up. He then carefully set her down in his now warm seat. She looked up at him and made a slightly offended squeak that he had dared to get up, but then quietly settled her head back down and closed her eyes sleepily.

"Now that the really important personage on the ship has been taken care of, what's up?"

***

"Yeah, but she knows we love her anyway," I said, smiling down at the cat who'd licked long odds to make it this far. Her fur had come in all the way since her near-death by freezing and now hairs went flying with each stroke. It wasn't unusual to find a laid-aside article of clothing blessed with cat hair, as she found it and napped on it, ostensibly taking in our scent with each breath. I rose after giving her a final pat, saying, "It used to drive Christian to distraction, finding his nice things all over with this stuff."

I brushed my fingertips with my thumb for emphasis, sending a few stubborn hairs drifting down to the deck. I didn't mention how Joshua's trousers were already nearly whitened by his petting session, thinking he'd know soon enough. I shrugged and chuckled.

"It's never bothered me much but then again, my coveralls aren't silk."

***

"And as you may already be aware, my clothing selection is pretty poor, so I don't stress about it." He brushed some hair off of his pants. "Not like I'm likely to have a meeting with anyone Core side for a while where I would worry."

Joshua looked over at Rina and titled his head slightly to the left, a smile slowly crossing his face. "Speaking of cats and the one that caught the canary, what's up your sleeve? The suspense may kill me if I don't find out soon."

***

"Come on back and I'll show you." I strode aft for my workshop, trusting he'd follow.

***

Joshua strolled after her, oddly happy. It felt like it could be a scene from a movie, peeking in on a normal life. It felt good to be normal. He found himself whistling random notes in a slightly off-kilter but happy tune as he walked into her workshop.

***

"Merry Christmas, Joshua." I pulled the bundle from the tools cabinet and presented it to him with both hands.

***

Oh crap, it really was Christmas. It had snuck up on him the last couple of weeks. He had been so excited a month or two ago and then events conspired to distract him.

He smiled a big smile as he reached out and took the wrapped bundle from her hands. It had some weight to it, he could feel that much. He then unwrapped the blanket around the gift and looked to see what it was.

***

The last fold of the blanket I'd cut down fell away and he stood holding a metal bowl nestled in the fabric. It wasn't very big, maybe the size of a large man's fist, of polished metal and unadorned save for the hammer marks from working it. A turned wooden baton lay inside it and like the bowl, its design was simple and as elegant as I could make it.

"Merry Christmas," I repeated. "Use it in good health."

***

"Oh, Rina." He held the bowl and caressed the metal softly. "It's absolutely beautiful."

He picked up the baton and just held it, feeling the weight of it. It felt right in his hand. "It's perfect. How long did it take you to make it?"

***

“Not too long.” A lie. “The hard part was working on it when Arden wouldn’t catch me at it.” The truth. I nodded at the gift. “Go on, give it a tap.”

***

Joshua tapped the baton against the bowl and a pitch perfect note came out and he just closed his eyes and listened to the note ring. "Absolutely amazing. What gave you the idea?

***

“A Companion I crewed with had several in her collection. They're meditation bowls. One of hers actually survived the Exodus, from a little village shrine in the Himalayas. I had some steel to spare and a bit of cypress I'd picked up on Muir...." I shoved my hands deep into my pockets and rocked back and forth in my boots. "It's perfectly safe for food use if you'd rather. Cypress and steel are pretty near indestructible."

***

"Nothing stopping me from using it for both," he said softly. "Unexpected and yet perfectly right. Thank you." And he stepped forward and hugged her, bowl and baton still in hand.

As he stepped back, his smile got even bigger and he did a little sideways bob of his head in excitement. "Now I can give you your present. Presents, really, although they are kind of linked. I didn't wrap yours though. Not that you don't have some idea what kind of thing it is, even if you don't know the specifics." He was rambling now, words tumbling out of his mouth straight from his brain without any stop in between.

"Wait right here, and I'll go get them." And without waiting for acknowledgement, he rushed out of the workshop heading for his room.

***

I couldn’t help grinning in response and with the warmth of his hug lingering on me, I pulled out a chair and sat down to wait.

***

When he got to his room, he realized he still had his bowl and baton in hand. He placed them down on the desk - something to finally mark the room as home. He opened the drawer under his bunk and pulled out the two medium size plastic bags that he had carefully wrapped around his presents. The benefit of being the food shopper, he thought. Scrounging free bags.

He put the bags under his right arm and made his way back to the workshop, where Rina was waiting.

"These two are sort of linked but don't have to be opened at the same time. One of them requires a little explanation, the other not so much. Which do you want to see first?" And he pulled the bags out from where he was carefully keeping them flat under his arm, putting one in each hand, holding them out. Even in bags, it was obvious they were paper, but one bag clearly contained more paper than the other.

***

Blinking in surprise, I expelled a breath and pointed left.

"That one."

***

"The complicated one." If it was possible for him to smile any bigger, he was working hard at doing it. "Good choice."

He laid the one on the right down carefully nearby, and then pulled four sheets of paper out of the left bag and laid them down on the worktable next to Rina. "I present the Summer's Gift, pop-up version."

Each sheet of paper was a tightly drawn illustration of one half of a level of the Gift. Not quite CAD level diagrams, it was clear he had drawn them from memory, but with a good deal of preciseness. He pointed to the Galley. "I drew out the room, but the Gift is more than the empty rooms, right? So if you look closely..."

Upon closer observation, the drawing of the galley was notched into a small hole on the sheet of paper underneath. He carefully pried it loose, and underneath was a small drawing of Joshua serving dinner. The detail was not tremendous, but the intent was clear. "You have to be careful when you pull them up. They're sealed on their little pseudo hinges with glue...but not a lot."

He waved his hand across all four. "They are meant to be taped or glued together at some point. I just couldn't fit everything onto one sheet."

***

"Oh my God..," I breathed, gently brushing a finger over the paper. "Joshua, that's...." I trailed off as I pored over the drawings, carefully prying up a flap here and a flap there, peeking at what lay beneath. Under the flap in Rick’s quarters was a miniature version of him, arms akimbo, saying “That’s not a robot!” in a precise little word balloon. On the bridge, Nika lounged in the pilot’s chair with musical notes drifting around her head. The engine room’s flap was the engine itself and Joshua had drawn me under it, half obscured by metal with an appropriate Russian curse slithering out from beneath. Squinting, I spied several tools littering the deck plates, all of them frighteningly correct in their function and size.

Everything had been executed in fine pencil work and the paper was of good quality. I remembered where I’d last seen it—it had come from Joshua’s sketchbook—and I ran my palm across the drawings reverently, smoothing down the opened flaps. The flap of the medical bay made me pause and giving in to curiosity I lifted it to see Joshua had drawn Arden operating on me and sighing ‘Not again’.

As a rebuke, it was apropos. As an inside joke, funny. And as a present, beautifully done. I could see something of Joshua in every observation made, each delicate crosshatch in shading, the many objects…all of which bespoke the depth of attention and love it took to produce such a gift. He had drawn a picture of home and put a piece of him in it, and had given it to me. He might as well have given me his heart. It would not have touched me less. I had to pull back quickly as my eyelids prickled with tears, and I sniffed them back.

“I don’t know what to say…” I didn’t. Nothing that wouldn’t sound lame, anyway, and Joshua deserved better than that.

***

"Oh, but we're not done yet, Rina. That's one half the gift or one half the Gift depending on how you think about it." And he reached down for the second bag and pulled out a single sheet of sketchbook paper. When he flipped it over, it revealed a full color pencil drawing of the Summer's Gift in the Black, heading towards a green and blue planet wreathed in clouds. Towards the far side of the planet was a single small browish moon in orbit. In the upper left corner, to the side of the ship was the system's sun, shining on the Gift, lens flare and all. The detail was good, but clearly from memory. Everything was slightly fuzzy, but that seemed intentional, as if it was all being viewed from a dream.

He handed it over to her. "The other one is too big to get framed, but you probably should frame this one. It'll keep better. These two together are to help you always have a reminder of the Gift and its crew for whenever it is you eventually leave us. Maybe not soon, but I figured...why take a chance."

He paused for a moment. "Merry Christmas, Rina."

***

All the best moments, the important ones in life, are bittersweet. This was no exception. No matter where I went or how long it took, Mike's call would come and I would leave. That much was certain. Just as certain was the magnanimity of the man standing before me, crafting a gift that spoke of his love and his willingness to let me go when the call came. It was a double sucker punch and I could only sit there, poleaxed, in my chair. Something wet splashed my hand and I gulped, spilling tears.

"It's beautiful," I whispered, my voice thin. "Thank you."

***

"You're welcome."

He leaned forward and wiped the tears away from her face with his hand. As he did, he kissed her on the cheek and then whispered in her ear, "It makes me happy to see you happy, Irina." As much as it would suck when she left, moments like this were worth it all. Then he stepped back and trying to give her some emotional breathing room, quipped, "Of course, now the gods only know what I'm going to have to give you next Christmas. I may have upped the stakes a little too high." Then he smiled softly at her as he wiped some moisture from his eyes with his right hand.

***

“Don’t you cry, mister. Hysterical men annoy the living crap out of me.” I sniffed and laughed, finally getting a grip. “As for upping the ante? Don’t worry about it. You’ll have a whole ’nother year to think of something.”

I slid off my chair and carefully returned both sets of drawings to their bags.

“These are going to my quarters, pronto. The last thing I want is to drip lube or coffee on these. Which would happen if I leave them here.” I was already moving for my quarters, absorbed in sussing out the best place for them. The bunk drawer would make the most sense, being the most sheltered, but it would also be an unsubtle insult: the drawings were meant to be displayed, seen, and enjoyed. I was halfway to my door when I thought to turn around and ask, “You coming?”

***

“Of course I am, silly," Joshua said, smiling as he followed her out. "We could probably build a frame if we got ourselves some glass. I don't think we have the equipment to blow glass here on the Gift.”

***

At that, the conversation turned to the merits of plexi over glass, and then transparent metal. As I held the drawings up against the bulkheads and my locker we discussed framing options and I'd settled on a hanging method when Joshua wrapped his arms around me from behind. I leaned back into them, glad that the weight didn’t hurt as it would have two weeks ago, and held up the plan drawing so he could see it.

“What’s under the flap here?” I touched the one over my quarters.

***

He lifted it up to show the single piece of color in the entire piece - a miniature version of the color portrait he had done of her what seemed like a lifetime ago. "You are, of course.”

***

I recognized it immediately as a smaller version of the portrait he’d given me months ago. It was the only thing in color and I squirreled that thought away for later. For now, I simply wanted to enjoy it for what it was. I closed the flap gently and saw all the quarters had one. Which made my fingers itch to lift them. I flicked a glance up at Joshua and uncovered his. Underneath, a miniature Joshua sat drawing a picture of himself drawing a picture of himself. One of those infinity puzzles that never ran out but kept on going. How like him. Like everything else about the work, it was wonderfully and humorously done. I let the flap fall shut and let my head fall likewise against him and sighed.

“This,” I said softly, giving his arms a squeeze with my free hand, “has got to be the nicest Christmas in a very very long time. Thank you for this.” I looked up at him. “All of it.”

***

He held her a little tighter and then leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "No, thank you. I consider this my first real Christmas and you've made it every bit as wonderful as I hoped it would be."

***

"It's not over yet," I whispered and kissed him, letting my kiss tell him everything I couldn't express in words. But then again, some things didn't need words to be understood.

Since this season turned out to be RP heavy, it's only fair to include the link to everyone's efforts.

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