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Something about the correct atmospheric conditions - a tree, the stockings, decorations, a very festive husband - made Christmas morning an entirely new experience. Mimsy had no difficulty understanding why other people had always enjoyed the holiday, if this was what they were used to, and similarly registered that the absence of all of these details were why it had always been so irrelevant to her.

This simply had not happened when she was a child, and as a result she had no interest in participating in the festivities as an adult. She was sure that she had given Robert a gift last year, at least, but an entire portion of the month of December was awash in a haze of JOY, a sugarcoated intoxication that made it difficult to trust her own memories of the events. Artificially experienced emotions made the more logical side of things so troubling to process.

Under The Tree

Robert had been so very pleased in how much time and effort he'd put into this Christmas. He'd never had his own house to decorate; the closest he'd come to was an apartment, and usually that just meant a tree. But now, the entire house was one giant present, from one room to another. He'd gone to great lengths to make sure that this Christmas was absolutely drowning in holiday spirit, because something told him Mimsy had never had a big Christmas, and he had many years to make up for. With every room, and every inch of the outside of the house, he did just that.

The lights on the roof had been a little scary to put up, but he'd managed it all.

And he'd been just as pleased about how much effort and thoughtfulness he'd put into his presents. He'd never done something like this before, but he read in a magazine that women loved the kind of gift that you can't buy in stores, and then he read about boudoir photos, and looked into that a little too much. When he found out guys could do them too, he thought himself the smartest man in the world for thinking this up.

But the ring had been planned for months ahead, because it felt natural, like breathing. He wanted to marry Mimsy every single day of his life, but he had to wait for the special ones, so she never got tired of it. And Christmas was about as special as you could get.

He bounced like a child when she opened her gifts, beaming with the kind of pride that only he had the power to possess. That pride slowly died when he opened his gift, and realized how incomparable Mimsy's gift had been. She kept everything. She made marks for the things she couldn't have kept. She remembered every single moment of their lives together. The good. The bad. Every smudge and scrape and triumph, all placed together in one book, unfinished and waiting for the rest of their lives to continue. She'd done this, all on her own, for him.

And she thought she didn't have a heart.

Robert flipped each page carefully, and with each reminder of every step of their journey, his pride turned into welling, aching joy; followed closely by utter embarrassment.

This was what they'd meant, when they said something you can't buy in stores. This was the truest, purest token of love, tangible and readable for him to look at every day. His throat closed up painfully, and he gently closed the book, bringing it to his chest to hold it close. His eyes shut, and he held on for as long as he could, but the floodgates would not hold much longer.

"This," He whispered, his voice ragged with pain. "Is the greatest gift anyone has ever given a person in the history of the entire world." He informed her, promptly before bursting into loud, sappy tears.

Under The Tree

Mimsy was suddenly all around him, with her touch and her eyes and the smell of her sweater filling his senses and demanding attention. His body moved with an instinct that was as thoughtless as breathing, to wrap around her until she felt like part of him. She was comforting him, but he was so deep in his regret that it was difficult to pull him out of the sobbing mess he'd turned into. He cried into her sweater, and hiccuped when the tears became too much for his body to handle.

"But I gave you that last year." He reminded her through the tears. "I wanted to get you the best present this Christmas, but nothing's gonna top this. Nothing. I love it. I love you. It hurts." The last was said with a whine, as his heart throbbed with an unending pain as he tried to express how much her gift meant to him, and failed miserably. Words weren't enough.

He brought his hands up to hold her face between them, and pressed her forehead hard against his. There was a moment of hard concentration, as he tried to psychically drown Mimsy in all the feelings that were going through him, but of course that did nothing other than give himself a headache and give her a sore forehead from all the pushing.

He gave up with a pained huff, and crumpled against her, trying to pull the book out from between them. "Will you go through them all with me? Like a storybook. Tell me our story, Mimsy."