Writer's note: Inspired by a post I can't link to because of FF's policies. Sigh. You can find the link on the AO3 version.

Credit for the original concept goes to theworldofrwby (no longer active) and gayandsleepy on tumblr for inspiring this and giving me permission to use their ideas as the basis for this, and to Ryn (lycanheiress) for reacting so strongly.

The Year Without a Summer

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,

- Lord Byron, "Darkness," 1816

Yang woke with the alarm, the buzzing of her scroll pulling her from blissful dreamless sleep to face the day. The room was dark, even with the blinds left wide open. The sun hadn't risen either, still hiding behind the horizon, apparently as eager to wake as she was.

Waking would mean remembering who wouldn't be there when she opened her eyes.

Glancing at the clock, Yang groaned and forced herself to her feet. She was running late. She'd already slept through the first warning alarm – she couldn't really afford to stay in bed any longer. Not if she wanted to avoid being tardy again. Which would mean yet another meeting with the counselor, another round of people telling her that despite how she felt, she really needed to be back on the school's schedule. That everyone else was ready for her to move on, and it was rather rude of her to keep inconveniencing them. That it was time for her to be over her grief.

In the end, it would be more of a hassle than managing to walk to school and pretend to pay attention. Part of her wondered if that was the point, to annoy her until she did what they wanted just so she wouldn't have to deal with them again. The cynic in her doubted it – the chances of school administration staff being that intelligent were slim to none.

The floor was cold beneath her feet – the heater hadn't come on again. Her dad kept saying he was going to fix it, but it just never seemed to get done. Not that she could blame him. Yang grabbed a change of clothes from the still-unpacked laundry basket, half-folded and tossed in haphazardly after she'd pulled them from the dryer. Wrinkled jeans and an equally wrinkled shirt in hand, she trudged down the hall towards the bathroom. She paused briefly before her father's door, looking at the little brass handle set in the dark brown wood. She should ... no. She could leave that for later. She needed to shower anyway. He could afford a few more minutes of sleep.

Blistering hot water and a violent scrubbing cleared her mind a little, and she stepped out of the shower minutes later raw and red-faced. Wiping steam from the mirror, she checked her reflection and sighed. Dark circles ringed her eyes, deep curves that left her looking like an extra in a zombie flick. She looked about as tired as she felt, weighed down and struggling just to move.

Closing her eyes, she thought of the counselor at school, with his cute little phrases and the expectation that eventually she'd stop caring so much, if he just said them often enough. She thought of the students who avoided her like the plague, not wanting to be confronted with the grief of the girl who'd lost her Mom. Of the whispered pity from students and teachers when they thought she couldn't hear. Of the ones who thought it might be funny to make a crack about her mom just to see her reaction, and who she made sure always regretted it later. She held their faces in her head, feeling the anger welling up inside her, and just let it simmer.

The anger helped. She knew what her counselor – the one that school still made her talk to once a week – would say, but she'd given up on his ramblings a while ago. Maybe it wasn't healthy, and maybe punching the first moron to make a crack about her or Ruby wasn't the 'proper' way to deal with this. But it worked. Worked for her, at least. If people gave her a little more space than normal, or avoided her a little bit longer, that was fine by her.

Holding onto that fury, Yang toweled off and dressed, not really caring all that much what she yanked out of the dresser. Satisfied that whatever she was wearing was at least the right way 'round, she trudged downstairs, glad to hear the sound of movement already coming from Ruby's room.

Breakfast was next on her new list of self-assigned morning duties, bread popped into the toaster to brown, bowls and cereal boxes left out for Ruby to grab when she woke up. Coffee was step number three, pressing buttons on the black-and-silver contraption until it started whirring away, readying her dad's morning sludge. She watched it brew for a while, wondering if this time, she had gotten it right.

She wasn't sure exactly how to feel about that. Her mother had always been the person who made the coffee – mainly because she was always the first one up. According to her, she 'was more Grimm than human without caffeine.' It was normal for Yang to come downstairs and find her mother already into her second or third cup. Well ... had been normal. Even now, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that it wasn't supposed to be her doing this. Part of her wanted so desperately to get the recipe right, to show Mom, wherever she was, that Yang wouldn't let her down. The rest of her knew that would be even worse for her father, a reminder that she, and not her mother, had been the one to make it.

The clock turned seven, and something clicked, disturbingly chipper music starting to play from the radio sitting on the counter-top. Yang looked down at the familiar machine, lost in the memory of her mother struggling with the manual while she tried to set the dumb thing up. A memory of Summer, joking that her hands were always covered in egg or batter when she wanted music, and of the solution: a radio with an alarm function. It still took her forever to get the radio to actually turn on with the alarm.

Shaking her head, Yang realized she knew the song, the early hour and get general inability to care making it take longer for her to recognize the tune. Right, she thought, listening to the melody adopted into Christmas canon from a Broadway musical. I forgot. It's December.

Yang listened to the radio for a few more seconds before clicking it off. "We Need a Little Christmas" died halfway into its third verse, leaving the kitchen feeling just a little bit emptier.

Ruby was already coming down the stairs by the time Yang decided to go get her. The younger girl clambered sleepily down to the kitchen, giving Yang a quick one-armed hug around the waist before dumping the contents of one cereal box into her cartoon character bowl, oversized plastic spoon already in hand.

"Murrning!" Ruby said through a mouthful of brightly-colored cereal.

"... morning," Yang replied, forcing a smile as she tucked into her own breakfast and slid the plate of toast over to her sister.

Ruby swallowed and took a piece. "I finished my list!" she chirped, biting into the slightly too-crispy bread.

"... what?"

"My list!" Ruby chirped, looking at Yang as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "For Santa."

"Oh ... right," Yang managed. Somehow she still hadn't made the connection. Neither she nor their father saw the point of decorations this year, and her current routine of going straight from school to home meant that she'd mostly avoided the Christmas carols probably filling every other building in town. It had been easy enough to forget the holiday, especially since no one really felt much like celebrating.

"Can you check it for me?"

"Check what, Ruby?"

"My list to Santa!" she pouted, holding out the carefully folded piece of paper in both hands. "Come on, Yang. It's important!"

... maybe it wasn't that bad an idea after all. She had no intention of celebrating, and Yang doubted their Dad wanted to either, but that didn't mean they couldn't do something for Ruby. Something to distract her a little from the fact that it wasn't their Mom making breakfast any more.

"Sure, sis. Leave it on the table. I'll mail it to Santa after school."

The white lie came easily. Their parents had told her about Santa a few years before, when she'd snuck downstairs and found her dad putting presents under the tree. But if Ruby still believed ... well, there was no reason to pop that bubble now. What the heck. If Yang thought that anything could make this hurt just a little less, she'd probably be writing a list of her own right about now.

"Thanks sis," Ruby smiled, and started cramming books into her backpack.

Yang watched from the window as Ruby climbed aboard the school bus, the bright red backpack vanishing behind the double doors.

The list was still sitting on the kitchen table, folded and addressed in crayon to the North Pole. Sighing, she reached for it, dragging it to her by the corner. She would probably be the one who went to get the present anyway. Might as well look now. She'd have to take the bus into town, but it would be one less thing for her father to deal with. The least she could do was make sure that Ruby didn't have an awful Christmas, on top of everything else. It wouldn't be a big celebration, and she very much doubted that it would qualify as 'jolly,' but whatever presents Ruby wanted, Yang could make sure she-

"..."

Fingers shaking, she painstakingly folded the square of paper back together, her jaw tight and aching. Taking a breath, she held it like that useless shrink had told her to, then let it back out, her chest shaking.

Her father chose that moment to stumble down into the kitchen, half-blind from sleep as he fumbled with the cabinet door. She waited until he had some food in him, and more importantly caffeine, then sat down in the chair across from him.

"Dad?" she asked, trying to talk around the lump sitting in her throat. She waited until he put down his mug, nails digging into the palm of her hand. "Sorry, but ... Ruby wants a gift from Santa."

He was silent for a while, and Yang could see the same thoughts running through his head. The reluctance to do anything for the holiday and the growing resolution that Ruby deserved to have this, to have some happiness, in spite of everything else.

"Okay. I'll try to pick it up after work."

"No, it's ..." she swallowed, staring down at the list before passing it over to him. "I don't know ... how to explain this to her."

The creases opened as her father fumbled with the page, Ruby's writing big and sloppy and in bright red crayon. Beneath the usual greeting, beneath the reminder that she'd been good, the promise that she was going to keep being good, Ruby had just one wish for Christmas. One thing she wanted above all else, written in loopy childish letters that made Yang sick just looking at it.

She watched as her father's face fell, crumbling apart as he stared down at his daughter's messy writing.

Santa,

My naem is Ruby. I'm six and you gave me a sord last year.

For Christmas, cud you bring my mom home?

Dad and Yang are really sad and I promise I'll be really realy good.

Please? I want Mommy back.

Writer's Note:

So, that was the first of my Christmas specials for the year. Please leave a review if you can find the time. Anything's great: questions, comments, critiques.

For reference, the Year Without a Summer was an actual event. A volcanic eruption put enough ash into the air to wreck the weather for parts of the world, including Northern Europe. The poem, Darkness, was written by Byron after having experienced the event, although it leans more towards general apocalypse.

I thought it fitting.