Disclaimer: A thanks for Joss, for creating this verse to play in. Best present ever!

For those of you who are following Eidolon, I hope to have a new chapter by early next month, as the holiday season predictably causes some delays. For those of you who have no interest in Eidolon, and I think probably you vastly outnumber the ones who do, please enjoy this healthy and nutritious substitute.

If you still want more warm fuzzies, I've drawn a picture for you all. Feel the warm fuzzies! It is mandatory. Copy paste this into your URL, minus all the spacing. www . angelfire . com /ok5 / bytemite / Serenitree . jpg

She'd lied to a preacher, but she thought maybe the spirit of the season would forgive her. The truth was, she had many secrets. She kept them all safe.

The atmosphere was thinning around her, around Serenity. Frost traced patterns etched over her metal skin, across the view above. With welcome hum of Serenity's song, the sensations grounded her. Her toes on the grating, posed to lift into the air. Solid oak under her hands that echoed with calm laughter around dinner plates.

The redman came down the chimney, came to take instead of give, only to be shaken off like ice crystals trailing in a wake behind them. Acceptance. A game of jacks in the cargo bay, warm around her like the blanket that she didn't need.

All the snowmen had turned into Santa Claus, fallen down and she'd danced and played. Sailing the rushing river, deep and black, and she carried them, just waiting for the fare. They didn't need to hear what the ravens told her, about the dagger edge. She thought perhaps she had stopped the tears. She hoped so.

She wasn't supposed to look in the presents, but she liked them. All their colorful paper, feelings and memories inside of what was and would be, and no coal for her.

Treachery could be taken back, cold wind from the frozen lake receding behind them. A grumbling that was person-formed, angry and already planning some revenge on her poor brother, but never again betrayal. Grudging respect and pity now mixed with the doting mother and knitted hats and snowball fights.

Their shepherd had retreated to pray, memories heaped on him like the wisps on his snowy head. Save the ghosts in the shell. He'd never really known family; brothers at an abbey who wouldn't understand the truth, new friends around him now who did, all too well.

Kaylee didn't ask anything, never had much. Just lights and good food and big gatherings. A season of festivities in months supposed to be dark, but the sun had gone out entire and left joy disappointed.

There would be no celebration, because it hurt too much. The numbers in the books said they were bleeding in more ways than one, and not just the near miss today, bullets around his weary face that chased him home. There was a little tin for emergencies, hidden in his desk, and it was almost empty. They weren't going to be able to run much longer. He wasn't even sure if they were still crawling.

Time once was life was more cheerful, and there was nothing sharp about the holidays except for the icicles outside. A ranch house, cozy with everyone he knew, wassail in a bowl and gingersnaps on a plate. All well missed but given up for gone, blown away with apples and trenches.

And found again, with a husband and a wife, too satisfied to notice. Duty might call but they were already thinking about later, when the autopilot was on. Keen eyes softened and tension faded. Anxiety caressed away. Even a tight run ship could be festive, and alcohol loosened ships more still. Dinosaurs with ribbons paraded around a decorated palm tree, and the spirits of past and present were pleased.

Like curtains parting before a shrine, a hazy fragrance in the air, the now and the future and the hereafter all yet to be written. It was about the charity and the feeling; love sweet from the lady of compassion in defiance of tradition. The cultures were merged, in one was the reflection of the other, influenced for better or worse.

A dinner had been planned for all of them, a chance to have more time together, an opening to reach out and heal the pain. Instead the night waited, a leavetaking lonely and inevitable. But the phoenix always cries when it is reborn amid the frankincense. The truth would come out then, but truth was better faced together than alone.

None of that was particularly relevant. Simon knew both sets of traditions, and believed neither, and River had debunked the possibility of reindeer flight when she was five, though she hadn't yet ruled out automatons from an advanced civilization. She smiled, her eyes closed as she felt Kaylee find the tree, credit notes stuffed between branches, presents underneath. Girl salad and a steak dinner. Her brother and herself, safe. Wash and Book, alive. Zoe with a new secret, not showing yet. Smiles shared all around. Minds buzzing with speculation and gratitude, captain thinking Inara, Inara thinking the captain.

This was what was important, she thought, and descended into the cargo bay.