Christmas Morning ... early

It was the sound of the small, quiet, bare footsteps that woke Charles on Christmas morning. He didn't move, not wanting to give away that he had woken, preferring instead to listen as they grew even quieter and then stopped just before she reached the bottom, when surely she spotted what Father Christmas had deposited underneath the tree.

"Charlie?" Elsie's hand reached for his hip, and he turned to see his wife's blue eyes looking at him with delight from her side of the bed.

"She's up," he confirmed quietly, "and from the sounds of things she hasn't made it off the third stair."

As he uttered that last word, the footsteps grew much louder and came much more quickly as Lottie ran to their room, bursting through the door she knew was to remain closed unless she knocked, and vaulted herself onto her parents' bed.

"He's been! He's been, Mummy! Papa, he left a horse!"

"He'd better not have left a horse, or you'll be cleaning up after it!" Elsie teased even as she opened her arms and her daughter scooted across the bed and snuggled into her Mum's embrace.

"A rocking horse, Mummy." Lottie let out a giggle, her four-year-old self full of a joy she couldn't contain. "And two other packages and something that might be for you or Papa and I saw a peppermint stick in my stocking!"

"What about my stocking?" Charles asked. He leaned over and kissed his daughter's temple, her soft, auburn curls tickling his nose. "No peppermint for me?"

Lottie looked down at her lap. "I didn't look, Papa. But I'll share if he forgot."

Elsie moved their girl over and swung her legs off the mattress, her feet seeking warm slippers even as she reached for her dressing gown. "There's only one thing to do," she decided, standing. "Let's go!"

Lottie made it to the hallway before Charles could even sit fully up in the bed. He turned and caught his wife's glance and his chuckle made her smile once more as she approached him and made a futile attempt to straighten his mussed hair with her fingers. "I don't know why I'm bothering," she muttered.

He reached up and snatched her around the waist, pulling her into his lap and sneaking a quick, blistering kiss.

"Merry Christmas, Elsie," he whispered, and his tongue grazed her ear.

"Ohh, that's not fair, Charlie," she scolded, swatting his arm. "Come on; let's get down there before we miss her pulling off the paper."

The Carsons watched as their beautiful girl - their quite unexpected blessing of a daughter - peeled the brown wrapping off of her other packages: a soft doll which Charles knew Mrs. Patmore had made; a sweater, blue like Lottie's eyes; and a small stuffed bear from Lady Grantham.

The stockings did, of course, contain peppermints for not only Lottie but for her parents as well, along with the expected oranges and bits of chocolate. Charles, not surprisingly, popped a chocolate into his mouth immediately.

He watched as Elsie got up to make the tea but he stayed where he was, chatting with Lottie as she played on the horse. She was a very precocious child, so much like what he'd always imagined Elsie was like in her childhood. He tried to imagine what Lottie might be like at the age of five when the new baby would be coming along - the same age Elsie was when Becky was born - and he looks up as Elsie comes back with the tray, his eyes trained on the small extension of her belly that, before long, will be the topic of another conversation with their bright young lass.

The sun, now fully up, was glistening on the frosty grass outside. Lottie peered out the window, but when asked if she'd like to play in the garden, she shook her head.

"It's cold by the window, but I want to be warm," she stated. "And play with my new doll. May I bring her to the big house and show her to Anna?"

"You may." Elsie nodded, then added, "But be sure you don't disturb her until she's sat to tea, because she'll be quite busy when we first arrive. She's still settling into her new position, and there's rather a lot to do on Christmas."

"I know. And you and Papa will be busy, too."

"Well, I'm certain Anna will love your dolly." Charles didn't mention that everyone in the house had already seen the doll, for which Mrs. Patmore had elicited opinions from everyone on numerous occasions to ensure that it would be 'just right for that sweet little girl.' "You'll have to decide on a name. Perhaps Anna might help with that."

He helped Lottie gather the torn paper and toss it into the fireplace. They then collected the ribbon, and Charles gave her a dowel on which to roll it so that she might save it to play with later.

"I need to go, Mummy," Lottie said suddenly, and she turned and ran up the stairs to the loo.

"Thank goodness she finally got the hang of that," Charles said.

"Well, she just gets so excited and distracted. I'm sure that's normal for children."

Charles swallowed the last bit of tea in his cup and set it and the saucer down on the small coffee table.

And then, just like always, Elsie leaned across the table to take Charles's empty cup; in the process, her arm bumped the hurricane globe on the table. He shouted as the fire caught-

Charles startled awake and sat up instantly, his eyes unable to see as his heart pounded in his chest.

"Charles? Wha'izzit?" Elsie's voice was gruff and she'd been yanked from a sound sleep. She licked her lips and tried again. "What's the matter?" Reaching over, she sought out his hand, disheartened to feel it trembling in her own.

"Bad dream," he said, but then he rethought that. "No, actually. Good dream. Bad ending."

Elsie sat up and reached for the small bedside lamp, but Charles stopped her. "The moon is up," he said, and as she looked out the window she could see that a gentle snow was also falling.

"A Christmas snowfall," she murmured happily. "Oh, the children will be so excited. Perhaps they might go sledding if Nanny is up for it."

She was puzzled to see Charles staring blankly out the window, and even more confused when her words seemed to sting him. "Charlie?" Her voice was small and gentle, and she was patient as he collected his thoughts.

Several long moments after, he turned to her, his eyes moist. He'd become much gentler after they'd married, likely the result of the difficulties of those first couple months, but he was rarely brought to weeping; in fact, if she thought about it, she'd only ever seen him cry a handful of times in all the years they'd known one another.

"Whatever is it, love?" She reached for his face and wiped at a tear with her thumb.

Charles smiled a bit, but he shook his head. "It's foolish, really. Just a dream I used to have. I haven't had it since just before we were married, and it always ends so suddenly and frighteningly." He turned and kissed her palm. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"Well, I'd have been up soon anyhow," she quipped, nodding to their en suite. "Now, tell me what this dream is all about. Please."

He was wary, but in the moonlight he could both see and feel the intensity of her gaze, so he acquiesced. He told her of the beautiful Lottie, of the dreams where she wakes on Christmas morning, or of her first day going to school, of dinners at a small table in a cottage, and of sitting in the garden at dusk. She's always the same age, he explained, and the dream always ends with Elsie knocking over a candle or lamp of some sort.

"I never see the actual fire, thank God," he said at the end. "I'm not sure I could bear that."

"And we had our own fire at the abbey, too," she remembered, and he nodded.

"I know. That was a horrible way to wake up, although I didn't have the dream that night."

"Well, no, of course-" But she stopped herself. "Wait a minute. Charles, for how long have you been having these dreams?"

"Since 1919," he replied instantly, shocking her.

"Since ... 1919," she repeated slowly, thinking back, and then she lifted her gaze to his. "Not Haxby," she added in a whisper.

"Precisely then."

A memory assaulted her: the fourth night of their honeymoon, the confession of hers which she'd thought would appall him...

"I've been in love with you for longer than I'd like to admit."

He tipped her face towards him, his finger under her chin as they kissed. "And how long would that be?" His lips trailed across her cheek, down the side of her neck, and across her shoulder, distracting her.

"It was being ill that made me realize how much I didn't want to hurt you," she confessed, gasping as his lips grazed the side of her breast. "But I didn't realize how much I was in love with you until later. Until Alice ..."

And then, all words ceased, replaced with sighs of pleasure ...

"You've been dreaming of us as a family since 1919," she clarified one more time, only now realizing that they'd never finished that particular conversation. If she'd had to hazard a guess, she'd have assumed his feelings had developed when she was ill.

"I have," he admitted. "I never told you because I didn't want to frighten you."

"Frighten me? Why would that have frightened me?"

He sighed. "Well, not frighten. Disappoint is perhaps the better word." He drew her to him in a close embrace, dropping a kiss to her hair. "We could have had so much time, Elsie."

"Don't. We agreed not to tread down that path, Charles," she reminded him. "And besides, we couldn't have. Not then. We couldn't have afforded it - in many ways."

She wrapped her arm around his chest and squeezed. "I'm not sure I could have had a child of my own. To tell the truth, I don't think I ever even wanted that."

"Oh, come now, Mrs. Hughes," he asked, remembering. "Did you never wish you'd gone another way?"

"Using my own words against me." She chuckled, and the mood in the room lifted. "I did perhaps. Sometimes. I told you that much. But ..."

"But not like that."

She shook her head. "No. I had Becky to think about, of course. I suppose I never wanted what made no sense. It would have been an impossibility. And I always harbored a fear in the back of my mind that I'd have a child like Becky. She has been a joy in my own life, but I never could have cared for her properly and worked if she'd been my own child."

He hummed, pensive, and they slid back down onto their pillows, aware that even Christmas morning arrived much too early for a butler and a housekeeper.

"I'd have loved a child that looked like you," he admitted quietly. "But I have loved all the days I've had with just you, too."

Her heart clenched just a tiny bit. "Are we very young then, in your dream?"

"We are. And I'm sure to have it again, although I'd prefer it not to end so abruptly and horrifically just for once."

"Well," she reasoned, stifling a yawn. "Perhaps now that you've shared it, it won't."

She reached up and kissed him sweetly. "Good night, Charlie."

"Good night, love. Or rather, good morning. Happy Christmas."

She thought of the girl with the auburn curls and the peppermint stick in her hand and, as Charlie so lovingly explained, smeared all around her lip.

"Happy Christmas," she whispered.


A/N: The coincidence that this chapter was ready this weekend, after having been begun weeks ago, is unnatural even for HogwartsDuo and myself, for whom brainwaves always seem to cross. It gives us a jolt, and it's always unintended, but I hope if you've not checked out her newest entry, you do so today. Thanks to everyone for checking in on this Christmas story. Please do leave a review if you're so inclined. One more to go. Xxx

Lyric inspriation:

Dream Child (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

"And there upon that Christmas scene
The candle wax of melted dreams
And the years they had taken."

(I know, I've used it before.)