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Part I: So this is Christmas and what have you done
(Another year over, a new one just begun)
Even after such a long time away from Iceland, long enough it’s not the words that fall off her lips, Will loves that when Riley thinks of Christmas, she still calls it ‘Jól,’ from a lifetime of habit and childhood. A reminder of everywhere and everything she came from. He likes the sound of it in her mind. The cold crisp feeling of it, frosts with snow and hardened to ice. The icy dawns of a darkened world, where the sun split itself from the darkness and gave birth to such unending light.
That’s Riley, as she turns from where she’s mixing music on a laptop at the table, and gives him a smile that’s one part amusement, and one part fond reproach, and every part the love that filters into everything they do, everything they are, everything they’ve been through, and every future that is finally available. Even with the headphones on, the music too loud to hear him, he mouths the words, I love you, repentance free, and she smiles.
The smile that crinkles her nose and the edges of her eyes, saying “I love you, too” and she’s too loud, trying to speak over the music he can’t hear, except that he can, he can hear it in his mind, in his heart, in her, and all he can think is this is what that dawn must look like. All striated whites and shot through glacier blue, like her hair, like her eyes, like her smile.
A beauty so blinding you would travel the whole world over to find it. That you would fight any war to be able to have, to serve, to protect, to hold on to. Every moment of their battle before this freed year, worth it, for every second longer she was his, and he was hers, and they were all each others, all free, all finally able to pursue what made each of them happiest.
Part II: And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun
(The near and the dear ones, the old and the young)
They come together and they fall apart; because they are never not together, even when they are as far as the world can stretch apart. They are one laugh, and one sob, one delight and one challenge’s brush from each others hands, each others hearts, each other’s souls. The end of their biggest battle for their own freedom, brought them together in person finally, for a wedding, for the fight of a lifetime, and then scattered them to the winds again.
But they never once feel scattered.
It’s the other way around, because distance means nothing to them.
Everything that people miss is everything that they are never less from sharing.Will and Riley are there, together, in the moment when Amanita drags Nomi under the mistletoe, to smile amused as Nomi’s wife kisses her, before they are kissing each other, under that same mistletoe through Nomi’s own. They smile into each other’s lips, each other’s eyes, through Nomi’s joy everlasting, and their own.
The same as Wolfgang and Kala kiss under it, while Rajan holds Kala’s hand and they all three sit on a couch in their new home in India. The same as how Capheus kisses his mother’s forehead while a small tree twinkles in the background. The same as Lito’s fingers stroke the side of Hernando’s face, right below the frame of his glasses, while Daniela is excitedly rambling planning their Christmas party in front of them, and Sun buries her face into Jindo’s pelt, all fierce, deepness in her running no matter how quiet.
Love is love is love. It beats so strongly through them all. What each of them feels.
How each of them feels it. Who they feel it for most. What each of them has fought for and won.
Part III: A very merry Christmas and a happy new year
(Let's hope it's a good one without any fears)
The year after their win is not without it’s tenuousness. Will still wakes up from nightmares, where Whispers haunts his dreams, and Riley pulls him back down, back into her, whispering that he is safe, that they are all safe. Sometimes, she keeps it going, soft words, and sometimes it becomes a soft murmur of music. One that doesn’t belong to any track he’s ever heard her play, or come home to her dancing to.
A music that is only Riley Blue, and her heart wrapped close around him.
When he falls asleep, she turns off the alarms and lets him sleep as long as he can, on the days that he can, that work isn’t calling. Wakes leisurely and watches him sleep. The worry lines washed away by being somewhere far, far away, while he’s safe and sound here with her. The days of endless sleep and endless syringes, with wicked needles, that will steal him from her as soon as he returns, are gone.
Soon enough he’ll be waking, rubbing his eyes, and giving her that crooked, perfect smile. All goodness and earnestness, steadier than the day is long or the sun could be strong, the likes of which she’s never known before Will. Soon enough she’ll away to make coffee for him to wake to, in those silly matching snowflake mugs they got, and he’ll tease her when he realizes she’s still only in his shirt and her socks, and she’ll remind him that it’s not cold here, no matter how cold he thinks it is.
And she’ll mean it’s not as cold here in American as anywhere she’s been.
And she’ll mean it’s never as cold here as any other part of her life has been,
before he filled her world, her life, her heart with warmth.
Part IV: And so this is Christmas for weak and for strong
(The rich and the poor ones, the road is so long)
The season is a perfect one. They find a tree, decorate it, go see lights, and shows, and they try, amid shrieks and laughs to keep their surprises from each other. A problem when each of them is drawn to the other – and the others -- in the strongest moods, and it’s hard not to lean into each other when joy and excitement are racing through them. Sun and Kala and Capheus are the ones who most manage to steal into the moments she’s planning her surprise.
Who Riley can see out of the corner of her eye, as she explains what the Jolabokaflod is, while handing Will a book wrapped as carefully and artfully as she could, and selection of chocolates sent from Gunnar with her own Jolabokaflod present, now that he could know where she was, did. He loves it, loves her, and they end up curled up in their bed, reading books, and eating the chocolate, in a perfect quiet through the late evening, until they fall asleep.
Will kissing her softly, as the lights from the tree, down the hallway gleam in the dark, before it all slips away.