Title: It Was A Dark and Stormy Night
Fandom: Donald Strachey Mysteries (movieverse)
Pairing: Donald and Timothy
Rating: R, sexual references
Word Count: about 5900

References/Spoilers: Can't think of any.
Disclosure: I wish they were mine. Alas, they are not, so I'm just taking them out for a spin.
Summary: Two lonely, stranded souls share a dark and stormy night that changes the course of their lives forever.

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IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

by

Candy Apple

It was a dark and stormy night...really. I was stranded at the airport, my flight delayed just minutes before I completed a treacherous drive there, and cancelled fifteen minutes after I'd walked through calf-deep snow and sub-zero wind chills to get into the terminal. Some late night flights were still scheduled, even though they were falling prey to delays, and most likely would be cancelled altogether before they actually left the ground.

I was heartsick. I promised my mother I'd be there for Christmas, and if I'd done what I usually do, which is fly out the weekend before, I would have been there. But things got crazy at work, and I was under a lot of pressure not to leave before the twenty-fourth. After all, I was jockeying for that chief aide position, and with Senator Blake's current chief aide, that meant proving you had no life outside serving his every possible need. When he moved on to the new job he'd gotten in DC, it was a good bet whomever he recommended would be his replacement. Unfortunately, hours earlier, I'd found out just how all-encompassing the job description was. Despite having a wife and three children, he'd made a pass at me in his office while we were finishing up the last minute paperwork on Christmas Eve day. We were alone there as the clock ticked its way toward four o'clock. It reminded me of Scrooge and Cratchitt, only with Scrooge telling Cratchitt he had a mouth made for blow jobs.

I never felt so demeaned, or so...utterly disappointed in my life. Suddenly my upward mobility had stalled, and I had no idea what he'd say or do to discredit me if I said anything about it. No question, I was going to say something, all right. There's no way I was going to let someone treat me that way and not speak up about it. But I was just an aide, and he'd been the senator's right-hand man for twenty years, and now he was moving on to a high-powered position in the nation's capitol. It was my word against his. Suddenly, it felt like my political and career life was over.

And I'd screwed up getting home for Christmas for nothing. Since my younger sister, Kelly, became estranged from our family, it meant even more to my mother that I be there for every holiday. She was seventeen when she left home. Given everything else I had on my mind right then, I didn't want to think where she might be in the midst of this horrific winter storm that was having its way with most of New York State.

I couldn't have felt much lower or more discouraged, or less in the Christmas spirit when I spotted him. He was on his cell phone, across the terminal hallway by another gate, where the flight had just been cancelled. He was talking to someone about chartering a plane. He'd looked so intense, so irritated, until he caught me watching him, and for some inexplicable reason, he smiled at me. And what a smile it was. It lit up his whole face, shone through a pair of amazingly beautiful eyes that I could just make out as blue from where I sat. I almost looked behind me, but I decided to take it as being meant for me. So I smiled back. After that, he kept stealing little looks at me, and I at him, while he made multiple calls, each one making him more irritable than the last.

If I hadn't been desperate, I probably wouldn't have been so brazen as to admit I was listening in on his conversation and just go over to where he was sitting and ask if he'd take me to Virginia on his way to Charleston, South Carolina.

I wasn't about to admit to myself that I would have taken almost any excuse to go over there and strike up a conversation, even if I didn't want something. That smile was radiant, and it was the first time I'd felt truly warm since I'd started out from home, driving no more than 15-20 miles an hour all the way there, wondering if I was going to die in a ditch, buried by the blizzard, instead of flying home for the holidays.

"I didn't mean to listen in, but I heard you mention chartering a plane, and I'm really desperate to get to Arlington, Virginia. I'd be glad to pay you what my plane ticket was worth, or half of what you're paying, if you'd be willing to drop me off on the way."

"I'd be glad to give you a ride in my sleigh, but I'm afraid even Rudolf ain't flyin' tonight," he said, sighing.

"No one will charter a flight, either?"

"So far the replies have been, 'are you insane', 'not for a million bucks', and 'you must have a fucking screw loose'."

"I see. Sorry to have bothered you. I just know the flight I'm scheduled for at midnight will probably be cancelled, too."

"Have a seat. There's nobody else for me to talk to here except that old couple a few couches over, or the people with those brats that make the kid from the Omen look like Beaver Cleaver."

"Thanks. I was getting a little bored over there," I said, sitting down, leaving a seat between us. I would have loved to sit right next to him, but I've never been the type to do quick pick ups in bars, and airports didn't seem much better. "I'm Timothy Callahan," I said, holding out my hand.

"Donald Strachey," he said, shaking it. "So what's a nice Irish boy doing stranded in the airport on Christmas Eve?"

"I had to work until late this afternoon, and I was trying to get a flight home to be with my family. My mother's counting on it pretty heavily."

"Well, if she's like most mothers, she'll prefer to have you safe in an airport than up in the sky during this storm. It's not getting better out there, according to the last guy I talked to."

"The one who asked if you had a screw loose?"

"Yeah, that one," he replied, chuckling. "I'm just going to tough it out here until it gets light. I probably can't even find my car out there anymore, let alone get it out of whatever snowbank it's buried in now."

"The ones that have been parked a while are pretty buried. I almost froze to death on the way in here. I'm just getting some feeling back in my legs now." I paused. "So what are you doing here tonight?"

"I'm a private investigator, and a client of mine offered me five grand if I'd fly down to Charleston and see if her husband was holed up with his girlfriend down there. He claimed he was on business, and then used the weather as an excuse not to come home, even before we knew how bad the storm was gonna be."

"Wow. Five thousand dollars just to fly to someplace warm?"

"Plus my airfare and expenses. So I'm really pissed to be stuck here. This is costing me the five grand, and a paid weekend in Charleston during the blizzard."

"And being you're stuck here, you can't be with your family, either."

"Yeah, well, that's not a problem. I wouldn't have been going home anyway."

"Too booked up with clients to get away, huh?" I asked, and he shrugged.

"More like not welcome. Ever since they found out I was gay, I haven't exactly been at the top of the guest list for family gatherings."

He was gay. This couldn't be. I believe in God, in the true meaning of Christmas, but not exactly in Christmas miracles. If the first half of my day was any indication, there was no such thing. But my beautiful fellow traveler was gay. And it sounded like he was single, too. I wondered if I was blushing, because my face felt warm, and my throat was dry, and now was the fun part where I would begin to speak in tongues. Reverse my words. Say something truly awful. One of the reasons I wasn't big on casual pick ups is because I'm just not good at them. I don't have a fluid line of BS to win over hot, interesting single gay men like this one.

Ironic when you think I do PR, spin doctoring, and speech writing for a living. I'm a people person, and I know how to work a room, all the right things to say to the right people. Presidents, congressmen, heads of state - - I can think of some witty comment, or just the right PC greeting for any of them, and I actually like it. It doesn't make me nervous. I'm good at it. I'm just not a clever "pick up line" person.

"I guess my coming out is a real conversation killer with everyone these days," he said, shaking his head, an ironic smirk on his face. "I thought I was picking up on a little something," he added, gesturing between us. "Sorry about that." I didn't realize I'd fallen silent for all that introspection, leaving him dangling, and now I had to say something.

"So am I!" I blurted.

"Okay, take it easy. We'll just forget I said anything."

"No, I mean I'm gay!" I said, and the elderly couple a few couches away looked at me like I had a third eye in the middle of my forehead. I was getting nervous, and my voice rose a bit more loudly than it needed to. Unless he was hard of hearing, I didn't need to lean toward him and declare my sexual orientation twice as loudly as anything else I'd said. I sounded like I was about to jump up on the couches and break into a musical number on the subject.

"Good for you," Donald said, laughing softly. "Proud of it, too, I see," he teased, and I knew then I was turning seven different shades of red. "The men's rooms in this airport are really nice and private on a night like this," he said, almost as loudly as I'd declared myself gay.

"What?" I know my eyes bugged.

"Relax, we have an audience, and I'm just yanking their chain a little," he whispered, an evil glint in his eye, as he indicated the older couple he'd mentioned earlier.

"Oh, good," I said, feeling the breath I'd been holding letting loose.

"But thanks for looking so terrified when you thought I was propositioning you."

"It wasn't that," I said, shaking my head. "I mean, it wasn't because of you. I've just...never really been into casual pick-ups."

"Maybe you need to work on your technique a little," he teased, smiling. There was a kindness in his eyes and his voice that took all the sting out of the words.

"I just want to meet somebody nice where I don't need technique," I said, more candidly than I planned. I sat back in my chair. I had no clue why I said what I said next, but something about Donald and those big blue eyes of his made me want to tell him everything about myself. "I used to be a seminarian until they found out about me, so maybe that's why I don't feel so free and easy with casual encounters."

"How'd they find out?"

"I confessed it, and the priest told me I should do the right thing and admit it, not hide it from the Church to stay in the seminary. So I did, and they kicked me out."

"Ouch. What difference does it make? I mean, Catholic priests aren't supposed to have sex anyhow, so why do they care who you want to have sex with, as long as you don't?"

"Homosexuality is a sickness and a sin in the eyes of the Church."

"So I've heard. What do you do now?"

"I'm a congressional aide. Well, I was. I probably won't be after the holidays."

"Why not?"

"My boss made a pass at me today. I turned him down." I shook my head. "I worked so hard to be in line for the chief aide's job - - he's the chief aide, has been for years. I even postponed leaving on my trip home until today so I could show how dedicated I was by staying and helping him get caught up on all this paperwork that had to be completed by the end of the year. Once I make a complaint against him, I'm probably done for. No one will take my word over his."

"Who is it?" Donald asked.

"Reid Stanford. He's the chief aide to Senator Blake," I replied.

"Is he as pretentious as his name?"

"More so."

Donald rolled his eyes at that. "Can't be the first time he's done something like this," he said, jotting the name down in his notepad.

"Why are you writing it down?"

"I can run a few checks on him, do a little digging."

"I can't afford five thousand dollar retainers."

"Most of my clients can't. If they could, I'd be on a beach somewhere sipping booze out of a coconut right now. Just think of it as a Christmas present," he said, smiling.

"I couldn't ask you to do that for nothing."

"You didn't ask me to do anything. I offered." He looked at me for a long moment. "What did he do?" he asked, and I didn't realize until that moment how much I needed to talk about it, to get it off my chest. So I did. I told him exactly what the old bastard said to me, and how awful it made me feel, like everything else about me didn't matter - - my education, my talent, all my hard work...none of it. If I wasn't prepared to service him, it didn't matter how good I was at anything else, how dedicated I was.

"I'm sorry," I said, finally, realizing that my voice was shaky and I was getting upset.

"Stop worrying about it, Timmy. We'll get him."

Timmy? We'll get him?

I sometimes go by "Timmy" but I hadn't told him that. And why did he care about helping me? My lines were clumsy to non-existent, I was a failed wannabe priest and coming off as something of a prude, and I was whining about not getting to Virginia to see my mommy. All in all, I couldn't think of too many more things I could have done or said to turn him off if I'd been trying.

"My coffee's gone," he said, draining the last swallow from the paper cup. "You want to go to Starbuck's and pay four times what it's worth to get a coffee? You know we're not going anywhere tonight, right?"

"Yes, I know."

As if he were psychic, the announcement came over the loudspeaker system cancelling my midnight flight home. For some reason, I felt so bad right then I couldn't even answer him about the coffee. I just sat there. My career was on the verge of disaster, I couldn't go home to my family for Christmas for the first time in my life, and my feet were still wet and clammy from the hike through the blizzard for nothing.

"Timothy, I promise you, it'll be okay," he said, laying a hand on my arm. His voice was so kind, and he wasn't making fun of me for feeling bad. He was trying to cheer me up, make me feel better. "Let's make the rounds to some food places before they close up, and get some provisions for tonight."

"I suppose we should."

"Hey, there's a McDonald's in this wing that should still be open. We could have dinner and get some extra food there for later."

"Okay," I said, not really considering an overload of McDonald's to be a great menu, but I was willing to admit that by three in the morning, it would probably look pretty good, even if it was cold.

We started out down the hall, me dragging my rolling suitcase behind me, Donald slinging his overnight bag on his shoulder and falling into step with me.

"Don't you own a pair of boots?" he asked, noticing my dress shoes. I felt like an idiot. It wasn't snowing that heavily when I went into work that morning, and I'd been so upset after what happened in the office that I'd never thought to change my shoes.

"I forgot them," I said honestly.

"Your feet must be soaked."

"They're pretty wet," I admitted, shrugging. "Serves me right, I guess."

"Don't you have spare shoes and socks in your suitcase?" he asked. I knew there was something I forgot to pack.

"I have some socks. I guess I should have changed the wet ones. I forgot the shoes."

"What size shoes do you wear?"

"Eleven," I replied.

"Unless we cut a couple toes off, I can't offer you the spare pair of shoes I brought along. I'm a ten."

Yes, you certainly are... Shoes, Timothy, his shoe size is a ten.

"Maybe they'll fall off from frostbite, and then we'll be in luck," I said, finding that being with Donald was making me feel a little less miserable by the moment.

"Things have a way of working out like that," he said, laughing. "Smile, Timmy," he said, nudging me with his elbow. "This thing with your boss...trust me, it'll work out."

"Are you dating anybody?" I asked. Smooth as ever. I wondered if he had mental whiplash from the subject shift.

"Nope. You?"

"That kind of depends," I replied.

"On what?"

"You."

"Me?"

"If you're game to walk to the next terminal, there's a sit-down restaurant there that might still be open. I'd like to take you to dinner."

"Amazing!" Donald said. "I just happen to have an opening in my schedule for dinner. Well, and breakfast, too," he added. When I looked a little startled, he smiled. "That came out wrong. I just meant because we're stranded..." he added, letting the words trail off.

"Right, of course," I agreed readily.

We picked up a bag of food he selected at McDonald's and took it with us, since some of the shops and eateries were beginning to close for the night. The restaurant I'd mentioned was still open, and we sat there and talked for two hours solid until they threw us out so they could close. Donald was smart, witty, and interesting. He'd been in the military before, seen some action in the Middle East, before accepting a discharge and transitioning back into civilian life. He said the rules and regimentation had gotten to him, and the need to stay closeted, but he still seemed a bit melancholy for what he'd left behind. He'd been promoted to military intelligence, to sergeant. His eyes lit up a little when he talked about a few of his experiences with that, and I was surprised he'd walked away from it.

And I was glad, because if I hadn't, he wouldn't have been sitting across from me, sharing what had started out as the worst Christmas of my life, and was quickly changing course.

I told him about my family, my father the Republican congressman. The one who was probably going to think what happened with Stanford served me right for jumping to the Democratic side, since everyone knows they're all a bunch of morally corrupt, loose-living sinners. I also told him about my remarkably wonderful and tolerant mother who was more like my best friend than a parent, and my sister's disappearance. What it was like to walk out of the seminary for the last time into the big, bad world, and have no clue what to do next. How I took to politics and public relations, communications - - though I'm sure he was baffled the latter was actually integral to my career, given my smooth technique with him.

I put on a dry pair of socks, and nothing ever felt so good in my life than getting my frozen feet into them. I had some slippers in my suitcase, too, so I put those on instead of my soaked shoes. We staked out a deserted corner near one of the gates where we didn't have to share with whining children, judgmental eyes, or the general press of humanity. We'd bought blankets at the sporting goods store, and there was something very intimate about napping next to each other, and then waking up and digging into our bag of McDonald's take out when we got hungry.  

I watched him eating his cold cheeseburger, and I couldn't take my eyes off his hands, off the skillful fingers that divested the burger of one of its pickle slices and ate it. I don't know why I liked his hands, but I did. They were strong, but tidy, clean, and for some reason, I wanted to touch them. Hold onto them. Feel them on my body, touching my skin.

"Timothy?" His tone sounded a bit urgent, almost concerned.

"What?"

"I just asked if your food was okay," he repeated, and I looked at the burger I was holding, with one small bite out of it. His was half gone.

"Oh, yes, it's fine. I was just thinking."

"What, that mine looked better?" he teased, taking another bite.

"Something like that," I admitted, though I would have died before I'd have told him I was thinking about what his hands would feel like on my naked body, if we could somehow shut the rest of the terminal out, and make love right there under our New York Yankees fleece stadium blankets. I didn't believe in love at first sight, or that you could actually feel more than simple lust for anyone you just picked up somewhere.

And yet I felt like I'd been with Donald for years. The scary part was, I wanted to be. With him for years, I mean. I'd never felt such a connection with another man, never enjoyed something so awful as sleeping in an airport, so much. I would have preferred to be there with him than at the most upscale and bountiful Christmas dinner party.

"I'm having a good Christmas," I said, waiting for him to look at me again. When he did, I got one of those smiles. I'd have walked through a thousand miles of raging blizzard for that smile of his.

"So am I," he said, licking his finger. I almost grabbed his hand and did it for him, but there was the bizarre irony of this. It was the first time I ever felt drawn to someone so intensely, so fast, and yet it seemed too precious to waste on some ill-timed, cheesy sexual overture. I dug a business card out of my pocket.

"Here," I said. "I'd like to see you again, once the weather clears," I added, smiling. "And not just about you checking up on Reid Stanford for me."

"Yeah, me, too," he agreed, pulling out one of his cards and handing it to me. "Sorry I couldn't charter a flight for us last night, but I'm glad you were eavesdropping," he said. I laughed. Guilty as charged.

"I liked your voice," I said, hoping the admission didn't sound too corny. I liked his hair, his eyes, his smile, and from the surreptitious couple of glances I'd made, his ass wasn't bad either.

"Hope that's not all," he replied, and I felt unsettled, like he'd read my mind.

"No, that's not all," I repeated, smiling. 

So we sat there shoulder to shoulder, tucked under our blankets, grazing through our take out bag, just talking about everything in general and nothing in particular until we dozed back off to sleep a couple hours later. The next time we woke up, it was because the airport was coming to life again, the snow had stopped, people were arriving for flights that were actually scheduled. Donald's head was on my shoulder. My heart soared.

The plows worked all night to clear things up at the airport, and I was almost disappointed when I found out I could get on a flight to Virginia by mid-morning.

"Have a good visit with your family," Donald said, and I felt like my heart would break at the thought of leaving him. Something in his eyes told me he felt the same way. I felt like I was at a defining moment of my life, and I didn't really know why. I had his card, he had mine. We liked each other, we weren't going to give each other the slip and not call.

"Do you think you'll be able to go to Charleston?" I asked. I miss you already.

"If you can get to Virginia, I can probably go there. I can't get a hold of my client. She may not want me to go, because I'll probably end up passing her husband in the air as he flies back to New York if all goes well."

"Oh." I nodded.

"Well, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I had a good time last night," he said, smiling.

"So did I," I replied. "I'll call you when I get back."

"Great. You gonna be back before New Year's?"

"Right after," I replied, and he looked a little deflated, disappointed, but he was good at schooling his features into neutral, and he did so quickly. It hit me then that he was probably going to ask me out for New Year's Eve.

"Okay." And that was all he said. There was an awkward pause before they announced that first class and a couple other special groups could start boarding for my flight. I knew I needed to be ready to get in line, to turn my attention to my trip. Time was running out.

"Take care of yourself, Timmy. See you next year," he said, smiling, and it took me a moment to realize he was just joking, talking about the upcoming new year.

"Yeah, you, too," I said, and he lingered a moment, almost moving toward me, and then not. And then he started down the hall, away from me.

"Donald, wait!" I hollered, when he was far enough away I had to yell to make him hear me. He stopped and waited. I left my suitcase, stuffed my boarding pass in my pocket, and ran toward him like my life depended upon getting to him. In a way, now, I realize it did. I threw my arms around him and held on, as if he was my long lost love, and not just some nice guy I'd spent a crummy night with in an airport terminal.

He hugged me back. I thought maybe he wouldn't, maybe he'd pull away, maybe he'd think I was nuts, but he hugged me just as hard as I hugged him. Just when it seemed like it was a rib compression contest, we loosened our grip a little. And then I did it. Spontaneous, passionate, and totally not me.

I kissed Donald Strachey square on the mouth in the middle of the airport, both of us obstacles in the paths of countless holiday travelers finally hurrying to flights after a miserable night stranded. I kissed him and kissed him and kissed him until we couldn't breathe, until I thought we might be arrested for lewd behavior.

"Come with me!" I said, all smiles and enthusiasm.

"What?"

"Come with me to Virginia. Spend Christmas and New Year's with me."

"With your family? I just met you last night, Timothy. How are you going to explain me?"

"No, no, call me Timmy. A lot of people do. I'll say we've been dating a while and I didn't think you could make it, and then all of a sudden you could - - I'll think of something. Please, come with me."

He looked stunned a moment, then a bit unsettled, and then this huge smile spread across his features.

"Kiss me like that again and I'll fly anywhere with you - - and we won't even need the plane," he added. So I did.

********

I checked my watch for the third time in ten minutes. The weather was nasty outside, and Donald wasn't home yet. It was almost six, and I wanted to be with the love of my life on Christmas Eve. I was a little blue that I wasn't going to be seeing my family, but Mom had the flu, and just wanted to sleep through Christmas, and the nicest thing her children could do for her was to leave her alone until she felt better. We already had a trip scheduled in January, and Mom planned to make Dad leave the tree up until Kelly and I could get there for a late Christmas celebration.

Back on our first Christmas together, I told my mother the whole story of how I really met Donald a couple days after we arrived. By then, she liked him and was comfortable with the idea he wasn't a serial killer or moral degenerate of some sort that was lurking around the airport looking for naive men to wander into his sinister web. She thought it was hopelessly romantic and told me I should write a book about it someday. My dad still doesn't know. He thinks we met at a political fund raiser and dated for a couple months before Christmas. He was happier with that idea.

"Hey, honey!" Donald's voice carried from the front door, along with the blast of swirling snow that seemed to pursue him as he came inside.

"I was worried," I said, pulling him into my arms and holding onto him, prolonging what was intended as a quick kiss hello. "The roads are bad out there."

"Tell me about it," he said, taking off his coat and throwing it over the banister. We have a coat tree and an foyer closet, but it's always the banister. God, how I love my Donald, and I wouldn't want his wet coat anywhere else. "I stopped to pick this up." He handed me a little wrapped box, about four inches by six inches.

"What is it?" I asked, smiling, feeling like the luckiest man in the world. I didn't need any gifts besides just his presence, the scent of the cold night air mingling with the faint lingering trace of his cologne. I just wanted to make love to him all night, and thank him for making every day of my life as happy as the best Christmas ever.

"Last minute Christmas present. Go on, open it."

"Come in and get warmed up. I have a fire going, and martinis chilling," I said.

"Heaven," he replied, rubbing his hands together. I set my gift on the counter and took his hands in mine, blowing on them, rubbing them, kissing them, holding onto them so they'd draw warmth from my own hands. We looked into each other's eyes for a moment, and then we kissed, still holding each other's hands. Maybe there was something to be said for a Christmas alone with the one you love. "Open your present," he urged, with all the enthusiasm of a little kid who'd saved his pennies up to buy something he considered remarkable.

Once we were seated on the couch, I finally did open it. Inside the box was a little crystal airplane on a gold cord - - an ornament.

"Donald, it's beautiful," I said, stunned that he'd been thinking about that night, too. I could feel my eyes filling up and a lump in my throat.

"I was coming back from the coffee shop down the street from my office, and I saw this ornament in the window of that greeting card store. I got thinking about the night we met..." he shrugged.

"I fell in love with you that night." I'd never admitted that to him in so many words, but I suspect he knew.

"I kind of gathered you liked me judging by the way you licked my tonsils in the terminal."

"It was before that. I remember the moment. You were eating a pickle slice out of your cheeseburger. I knew I loved you."

"So that's what that look was? I thought I had mustard on my chin or something," he replied, then gave me a radiant smile that barely saved him from being smacked with a sofa pillow. "For me, it was when you were running after me like a madman, arms outstretched, and you held me like you'd never let go. I decided I never wanted you to," he said, pulling me closer for another kiss.

"We need to find the perfect spot for this," I said, getting up and going to the tree that was near the fireplace. Donald came with me, hovering close at my side, while I removed a crystal snowflake that I had painstakingly placed to catch the best of the Christmas lights. I positioned the little crystal airplane there instead, and watched it catch a panorama of colors, even a little glow from the firelight. "I love it, Donald. I'll cherish it until the day I die."

"Nah, you can hang it on the tree every year, but you need to focus on cherishing me," he teased, sliding his arms around me from behind.

"Darling, you are a gift I get to open every day." I turned in his arms. "Thank you for making all my days happier than any of the best Christmases I had before I met you," I said, knowing that fifty years or so from now, I'd be glad I'd said it, not just assumed he knew it. He smiled at me, but his eyes filled up with tears and then he just hugged me, and we held onto each other like we had in that airport terminal years earlier. I put my hand on the back of his head, feeling his soft hair under my fingers, wishing I could always shelter him from everything bad in the world like I could shelter him in my arms.

"Merry Christmas, honey," I said softly.

"Merry Christmas, Timmy." His head was on my shoulder, right where it belonged. Where I hoped it would be when his beautiful blond hair had turned gray, and slow dancing involved coordinating walkers or canes. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched our little airplane sparkle, and thought about a dark and stormy night seven years ago when I learned to believe in Christmas miracles.

********

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!