Josh lay on his bed, an increasing desire sweeping across him as he stared up at his ceiling through blue eyes and golden fringe, his emotions battling one another. He threw a baseball from hand to hand, not even paying attention to it, just giving himself something to do to distract himself, lest he be seized by passion and dash from his room to hers, eager to do what he wanted and spend time with the woman he loved enjoyed spending time with more than anyone else, felt a profound emotional closeness to and could talk to very, very easily. He had, you see, gone and bought Rahne a gift. A very nice gift indeed, and one which was actually moderately expensive. Josh did not have a great deal of money. His parents had largely abandoned him, so he couldn’t ask them for cash, and so he had to rely upon payments from the school for his earnings, as well as a string of jobs. Josh did not hold down a job easily. He was too prone to laziness, disinterest and arguing with his bosses for him to maintain a position anywhere, if they’d hire mutants at all. He’d actually gotten a job washing pots at a restaurant in the nearest town just to pay for Rahne’s gift, such was the extent of his devotion to her. He wondered how silly that must have seemed. He was utterly failing at keeping himself distracted. He couldn’t keep her off his mind, but he couldn’t go to see her now. It was too early. She might still be in class (where, he reminded himself painfully, she worked as teacher and not student), someone might see them, they might get discovered, any number of horrible fates might befall them. God, talk about the best way to ruin Christmas for the both of them. He wasn’t sure if he should even go at all.

Maybe he could just give it to her later, or just not give it to her, and pass it on to someone else. His little gift. His stupid gift. It was stupid. It really was. He shouldn’t have bought it, really. Too sentimental, too romantic, too sweet, too meaningful. They were not serious. They were not in a relationship. He should not have spent the past several days, weeks, months worrying over something as simple as a Christmas gift. She probably hadn’t even gotten him one. Oh, god, what if she hadn’t gotten him one? How embarrassing that would be. No, he was sure she’d gotten him a present. Unless, that was, she considered it not Christian? Wait, were presents Christian? Would she be offended if he gave her a present? He should not have been going insane in his room like this over simply giving Rahne a gift. He could give it to Nori, except he was pretty sure he’d be electrocuted for even daring to give her such a thing. They were, after all, just friends. And he and Rahne were not just friends. He could give it to David as a joke, but it had cost two hundred dollars. That was a damn expensive joke.

Eventually, Josh actually settled on doing some work as a way to distract himself. In preparation for someday joining the New Mutants (March. Oh, how excited he was for March) he had asked Ms Munroe for some of the archives on the X-Men’s old adventures. Much of what she’d given him was boring political stuff. Professor Xavier debating with some scientist on MSNBC and this petition and that speech, but every now and then it got cool, with fights and adventures and stuff. Logan was the coolest, obviously, everyone knew that, but there were others. Josh refused to acknowledge Ms Braddock could be anything other than a bitch in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but even Mr Summers, who had a stick so far up his ass that his breath smelt of wood shavings, got some moments of coolness. There was one particular old escapade which Josh loved reading about: A crazy group of millionaires in New York trying to fight the X-Men and getting their asses very decisively kicked by the entire team. He settled down with a few of the files and, before he knew it, was 10pm. That was late enough. Pulling on his shoes and shoving the box under his jacket where it wouldn’t be spotted, he headed down the hall, glancing conspiratorially as he went. He finally reached Rahne’s room, and took a deep breath.

He relaxed as well as he could. She’d blush, she’d insist he shouldn’t be there, she’d let him anyway…He prepared himself mentally for what was to happen. He wanted her to grab him and kiss him and drag him inside without blushing, without a lack of surety or confidence. But that didn’t happen. And it was that shyness, that ability to overcome their own problems- he a boy abandoned by his family who wanted to put off adulthood forever, she a conflicting lycanthrope- and show him the wolf within, that ability to be at the same time sweet, virginal and pure and hot, passionate and wild. That was why he loved her. He knocked on the door and pulled the little white box with its glittery red ribbon from his jacket. “Hey there, Lassy.” He grinned and waggled the box. “Merry Christmas.”

It was a soft sort of night. The kind of evening where everything was subtle and muted and content. Rahne Sinclair certainly was, curled up in the sagging armchair that she'd placed by the large bay window that dominated the west side of her room, her lap covered by the faded folds of one of the patchwork quilts she'd made in a similar season years ago on Muir. Unsurprisingly, a well-thumbed book lay in her lap, one hand turning the pages slowly while the other clasped a mug of milky tea to her sternum. Outside the window, her sensitive ears could pick up the soft noise that meant snow was falling and maybe that quiet, background whisper was what had caused the small, beatific smile that was hovering around her delicate mouth.

It was the snow or the book, which was an old favourite. Or maybe it was the equally hushed voices of the King's College choir emanating from her old CD player. Around this time of the year, Rahne was always found seeking comfort in the familiar music as the mixed voices rose and fell around her in A Festival of Nine Lessons. 'I sing of a maiden, That is matchless,' the recording sang to her in the peacefulness of her lowly-lit room, 'King of all kings, For her son she chose.'

Rahne Sinclair's appreciation of Christmas had changed over the years. In her austere and lonely childhood, it had been a wistful sort of holiday, for her father was busy with sermons while she was forbidden from interacting with her excited agemates. Christmas for the lonely little girl had been less about chestnuts roasting on an open fire and more about being forcibly reminded of how lucky she was that she even had a roof over her head, that Reverend Craig had saved her body in a way that it was unlikely he'd be able to save her soul. And then her mutation had come, but so had Moira...

On Muir, Rahne learned what it was like to be loved. And for all that ice had rattled against the windowpanes as the wind howled around the facility like a banshee, Rahne had blossomed like a flower touched by the warmth of spring that first Christmas on Muir. With Moira's gentle guidance and the company of other children, she had come to see that Christmas - the way it should be celebrated - was about giving and not guilt, about love rather than shame. And so it was that the girl gave glady where she could. It often wasn't much given the fact that she was still sore-pressed to enjoy what she considered spending extravagantly, but she was a generous young woman at heart and the gifts she had for her friends and loved ones were currently residing in the bottom of her wardrobe, each one representative of a not inconsiderable amount of time and effort and thought. One, in particular, she had agonised over and she still felt nervous flutters in her stomach each time whether she wondered whether the recipient would actually like it...

Speaking of whom.

Rahne's head tilted up from her book even before the knock came, her sensitive hearing having picked up on the foosteps stopping outside her door. She was set into a corner of the floor, so people rarely approached her room unless their intent was to actually come in. The slimly-built mutant unfolded herself from the chair, book and tea both being laid carefully on a dresser-top before she padded towards the door. Her feet were bare and silent, drowning a little where the hems of her pyjama trousers pooled around them, but her steps were hardly tentative - indeed, they were almost hurried. This late, only one person was likely to be knocking on her door...

Maybe the mellowness of a quiet evening had infected her, but it was with a shy sort of pleasure that Rahne responded to Josh's presence, rather than her normal worried jitteriness where his late-night visits were concerned. "Josh," she half-whispered, conscious of her neighbours, but smiling affectionately up at him all the same. Habit meant that she glanced over his shoulder just to check that no one was around, but she was almost surprisingly relaxed as she reached out to take his hand and draw him into her room.

Her eyes lit upon the wrapped present in his hand and, more predictably, she flushed, her cheeks rosy in the light from the reading lamp that was the only source of illumination in the room tonight. "It's not Christmas yet, you know that right?" she asked, even as she closed the door behind the younger mutant and the choir sang 'Mother and maiden, There was never, ever one but she' behind them.

For a second, he thought it was a chorus of angels. For a second, his mind entered the realm of cliché movies and he had half believed that Rahne had become so perfect, so beautiful, that the very sight of her now conjured up the singing of an actual choir in his head. Then he realised that it was not a choir of angels, but the mechanical singing of a CD player she had in her room. Rahne actually liked to listen to this sort of choral music. Josh had been amazed when she'd introduced him to it. Amazed both that she could actually like such a thing despite being a modern twentysomething and also amazed at how, when she made him listen to it, it made him feel things. Josh was not a great music aficionado. Aside from the popular stuff, he rarely really went out of his way to discover anything new and much of what he listened to was commercialised pop designed to make sales, not bring emotions to the surface. Yet there was something about the earnestness of those voices, the emotional fidelity with which the songs Rahne so liked had been written and performed that made him feel, just for a second, a little closer to some higher force. He had hardly gone out and bought a CD of it, but he'd appreciated it, and he'd discovered yet another one of the little quirks that gave him the strength of feeling he had for Rahne, the quirks which she embraced in front of him despite her shyness making it so hard for her to open up with anyone.

She poked her head out, looking beautiful without the aid of make-up or flourish or the other little physical magic tricks which he was used to so many other, inferior women using, looking beautiful in spite of the fact that she had probably simply been getting ready for bed when he called, and he caught that affectionate little smile she wore like a fine, glistening jewel. How he adored to see such smiles on her face, how he revelled in her laughter and embraced every sigh and adored every whisper of love...and every moan. She was dressed plainly, but her fashion and splendour outdid every supermodel he'd ever seen and even the one he'd met in person (although Rahne certainly wasn't being told that story). Josh still got butterflies in his stomach when he saw her, even months on, the light of first romance refusing to leave his heart even as they were tossed by unavoidable troubles.

Her hand tightened around his and let himself be led in. His smile grew bolder, but also more loving. He reflected her affection and amplified it a thousand times, now aware that they were unseen by prying eyes. He waggled the present a little more, then set it down on the side and felt a little line form in his brain. It was stupid, but he convinced himself it sounded suave and charming, like the sort of thing he could imagine his idol James Bond saying to some beautiful woman at the end of the movie. "Well, everyday is like Christmas since I met you."

A long, awkward pause. Then Josh burst out laughing, grinning at the levels of lovestruck stupidity which he must have been possessed of then to even imagine that that line would sound anything other than goofy even in a million years. He fell back on to Rahne's bed and carried on laughing, his eyes damp with embarrassed tears. "Oh, god..." He whispered, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt after a few seconds of laughter. "That sounded so much better in my head." He stood up again and kissed her lightly on the lips, taking the opportunity of privacy to pull her slender body close to his, wrap his arms around her and feel and enjoy their physical closeness, taking the present back in to his hand and pressing it to hers. "I thought maybe you might not want me to visit over the Holidays, so I'm giving you this now." He looked her in the eyes. He had another stupid line in his head. Maybe this one would sound better. "But there's this problem," He sounded genuinely worried. All an act. "Because even though this is a very, very nice present, it's not even going to be half as beautiful as you."

Eh. Still a little goofy, but he could work with a little goofy.

Sometimes, it was embarrassing to realise that a teenager was so much more eloquent when it came to feelings than Rahne was. Cheesy as well, maybe, but who was she to judge? Who was she to even recognise cheesiness when faced with it either? She could hardly judge the authenticity of this line or that line when she was woefully uneducated as far as popular culture was concerned and, more often than not, her earnest nature made it difficult for her to do anything other than take people seriously, entirely at face value.

Besides. He was young. He was allowed to be cheesy and too enthusiastic and naively idealistic. What was her excuse? Because, after all, aside from a mortifyingly innocent crush on Samuel Guthrie back in the early days of her time at the Institute, Josh represented her sole venture into the world of romance. Most of the firsts that young girls got over and done with in their teenage years, Rahne had accidentally saved for Josh and, really, she should have been mortified in this day and age to have been in her twenties and never have been kissed. To never have been held. To never have looked at a person and thought 'mine, mine, mine' with all the fierce possessiveness that the wolf inside could muster.

...because that was what she indeed thought each time she looked at time, each time she rounded a corner or opened a door and he was there. And it was felt with such a strange dichotomy, with the hunger of the wolf and the shy wonder of the girl she'd never really been allowed to be before. Strict fathers and small islands hadn't really leant themselves to socialising before and it was with a peculiar clenching of her heart that Rahne often wondered what her life would have been like if she'd never met Josh. What if he'd been born a human and had never come here? There wouldn't have been any secrets, that was true, but now - faced with the way the lamplight that made him glimmer like burnished gold, like her very own cache of hidden treasure - it was uncommonly easy for Rahne to forget all the parts of whatever lay between them that weighed heavily on her soul.

He was her first and, consequences or not, that alone couldn't be taken away from them.

But even Rahne could recognise a line like that and the silence had dragged out briefly in the wake of his words as she'd done her best not to giggle, actually biting down on her lower lip to repress the sound. So it was a relief when Josh was the first one to break the pause and her laughter mingled with his in relief, her chest suddenly so full of such fondness that is was briefly difficult to breathe.

Her arms wrapped around her own slim waist, Rahne laughed until it hurt, though she did try to stifle the giggles that flowed like water and wine from her lips. The rules were more lax for New Mutants and staff were unlikely to question the present of one peer in another's room, but Josh was a student and that was something she didn't want to have to explain just because she got carried away in her amusement. She was still chuckling lowly when Josh stole a kiss and her lips curved up against his, her eyes almost lost as they crinkled affectionately up at him.

"Well, I still liked it," she said, staunchly loyal even in the face of such cheesiness. Her face experienced several different expressions flickering over it when she felt the gift pressed into her hands - gratitude, an obviously touched look, a tremor or nervousness and indecision. Dominant, in the end though, was pleasure - pleasure that he'd thought of her, pleasure that he'd actually wanted to give her a gift in this season of giving. "Yes, I'm goin' back to Muir to see my mother for Christmas week," she said softly, a little surprised by the unexpected pang of regret that shot through her at the notion of not seeing him for a week. She often did a fairly good job of convincing herself that this wasn't serious...but now, alone in the warm, comfortable bubble of her room, she couldn't fool herself that she wasn't in this for the long run, for however long they could make this last.

After all, she'd gotten him a present, hadn't she?

Oh, her blushes, was she ever going to learn to rid herself of them? Rahne was decidedly pink when he flattered her in what she assumed was another of his jokes, since it was nigh on inconceivable that a face like hers could please anyone as much as he claimed. "Och, now you have me worried," she said, smiling but with obvious nervousness in her eyes. She extracted herself carefully from his grasp and crossed over to her wardrobe where she crouched. After a few heartbeats of rummaging, she emerged with a large, pliant looking parcel in her arms, one wrapped in red paper and with an embarrassingly sentimental and obvious gold ribbon keeping it tied.

Rahne walked slowly back over to him, eagerness again warring with trepidation on her open-book features. What if he didn't like it? What if he thought it silly? What if his gift was more thoughtful, more appropriate, more expensive than her own? So it was with a shyness that was almost as thick as the first time she'd ever been naked in front of him that she pressed the package into his arms, the hand that wasn't holding his own gift trembling ever so slightly as she did so.

"It probably won't match your gift," she told him despondently, "or you for that matter, but..." She shrugged, smiling in embarrassment and hiding her face briefly in his shoulder, as if she was the younger one here. "...I wanted to get you somethin' anyway," she concluded in a small voice. To be honest, it was more correct to say that she'd wanted to make him something. As a girl who was still reluctant to spend a lot of money, for all that Moira was constantly telling her it was alright, she'd instead chosen to actively put a lot of effort into creating a gift for Josh and the result was something she hoped that would remind him of her even when they weren't actively together. She was familiar enough with his body to have guessed well enough at his size and that combined with several balls of deep blue merino wool yarn, plus more hours than she could remember of counting stitches had resulted in the soft cable knit sweater that she'd painstakingly knitted in secret in the months leading up to Christmas. And, in as a final touch, she'd worn it for a few hours before wrapping it in the hope that the faintest trace of the fragrance would remain in the wool.

No wonder she was worried - it was a homely gift from a homely girl and now she was paranoid that he'd want something more modern, more him, more special than something his grandmother could have knitted him.

That he could say such absolute crap and get away with it was just one of the literally thousands of reasons Josh could come up with, if you pressured him in to making a list, of why this might work. Why, when he thought about his future, he could not picture it without Rahne in it, and as immature and naive and idealistic as that might have seemed, it was true. What would he do without her? She brought a shocking amount of light in to his life. She was someone he could share with unashamedly. Whilst he had known her judge others for a lack of "Christian values", she seemed incapable of doing so with Josh. She still stood opposed to him in many ways, not necessarily seeing eye to eye on every matter- Rahne, for example, preferred choral music to all-American rock and roll- but it seemed that no matter what he told her, he could trust her not to like him any less for it. He had not yet told her his ultimate secret- that he used to be a part of the group known as the Reavers, and that for nearly a month he had worked alongside them as they planned acts of violence against mutants- but that was not out of fear of how she would react so much as it was the fact that, with so many years difference between the Josh of his past, immature and so desperate for friends that he would accept blindness to morality as the price, to the Josh of today, still immature, yes, but capable of striking out on his own when neccesary, and dedicated to healing of man and mutant alike. Mental healing, physical healing, emotional healing, it didn't matter. His calling was to take those in need and help them, and he could do that forever.

Though he didn't want to admit it, Josh actually felt a little upset that Rahne was leaving for Christmas week. He was spending the week at Xavier's, which was a popular move for a lot of students who didn't want to ruin a family Christmas by being the only mutie at the dinner table or had been left to the school by the family, and he had been hoping to see Rahne a lot more given that the winter break meant he had no lessons or reasons to do much during the day other than see her, talk with her and be with her. "Have fun," He said, trying not to sound too hollow. Then he realised how selfish it was to act like that. He summoned up a little more emotion, thought about how he'd jump at the chance to spend a Christmas with his family. "Hey, I can email you while you're there, and I'll be waiting for you to come back." He smiled down at her. She was so pretty. Like a renaissance painting, such real, striking classical beauty. He was the luckiest man in the world. He knew it. "Say hi to Moira for me." Josh had tried to read one of Moira's books once, the one on omega-level mutations, but it had hurt his head after about twenty pages. He'd spent most of the rest of the night playing Portal and trying not to think about some of the terms within the book, terms like "limitless power".

Josh watched with enchanted eyes as Rahne got him his gift from the wardrobe. He felt it it. It was soft, like cloth. Ordinarily, a kid would not enjoy a sweater for Christmas. For Josh, the very concept of her having gone to the trouble of having picked him something out was so loving, so caring, that it genuinely made him smile just to squeeze at the package and guess what it contained. He was enraptured by it. The idea of a hand-picked gift was what mattered to him. He'd had expensive gifts. They tended to be entertaining for about a month, at the most, before they lost their magic. A piece of clothing, though, he'd think of her every time he wore it, every time he saw it hung up. "I guess," he said, a little mischievously, something still childishly gleeful about what he was going to suggest. "I guess we can open our presents a little early, since you're going away?" Opening Christmas presents early. Even when you were 19, it was still the cardinal sin of the festive period.

Not waiting for her agreement, Josh pulled it open gently. He preserved the bow, preserved as much of the wrapping, as if the sentiment which had led to her wrap it so ornately, so prettily, was being maintained by not shredding it to pieces just to get at what was inside. He unfolded the jumper. It was...it was as close to perfect as any gift he had ever received. It was closer to perfect than any gift he had ever received. He pressed his nose to it. There it was, he thought he'd detected it when he opened it, that sweet smell of hers. It smelt like her, it had been handmade by her. Knitting, it was such a simple, sweet skill, such a domestic goddess-type ability. He'd never met a girl of Rahne's age who could knit before, or not this well. He immediately shed his shirt shamelessly and slipped the sweater over his head, grinning joyfully as his head popped out. "It smells like you." He said, then he stood up and made his way to the mirror hanging in her room. What he saw struck him dumb.

It was astounding. The soft blue played with the harsher yellow gold of his skin, the colours sliding softly together. It was comfortable, lacking the itch that knitted wool could have and instead feeling like he'd worn it a thousand times against his bare skin already. It was warm, it was comfy, it fit perfectly to his lithe, slender body and it made his blue eyes pop and sparkle like a pair of sapphires. Eyes which were, at this moment, struggling not to mist ever so slightly. The (somewhat pathetic) fact was that this was the nicest thing he could think of anyone doing for him since he had arrived at the Mansion. "Rahne" He said, his voice a little thick with emotion. "It's so perfect." He turned around kissed her properly, then, a deep, lover's kiss. He was so struck by her beauty, but the thoughtfulness of her gift, by the thought that so many hours of work had gone in to it.

His own gift seemed totally blown out of the water by comparison. It sat there, in its humble box. A small silver cross on a long, black string beaded with silver beads, on five beads there were the letters "R-A-H-N-E". It was not personal or handmade. It seemed tacky and small and lame by comparison, but it was the present which he had picked out with the most love, his careful hands placing wrapping paper oh-so-gently around the box, sealing it with a ribbon he'd picked it out himself. A perfect gift for a perfect girl, it had seemed at the time. Now, it was the worst choice he could possibly have made.

Rahne's gentle, affectionate smile faltered a little in the face of his response to her mentioning her visit home. Oh, he was trying to be generous and not show his disappointment, but her Josh could be remarkably transparent for someone who looked as if he was carved out of metal and that twisted like a knife inside of her. There was a bit of warmth to it as well because, selfishly, she could never quite allow herself to believe that she meant that much to someone that a week away from her could be perceived as a bad thing. But, mostly, she was sorry. Sorry that he was going to miss her, sorry that he felt he needed to be the brave one here when he was the younger of the two of them, sorry that she herself had had to acclimatise herself to the idea of not seeing him for a week...

"Of course you can email me," she said. "I want you to, in fact." Her attempt at humour was presented as a wry, hopeful smile and a shrug of those slim, angular shoulders of hers. "That's if the wilds of Scotland have touched base with such a grand concept as the world wide web yet." Slowly, her forced humour eased down into a gentler sort of melancholy and, impulsively, she reached over to tuck her fingers under his chin. "Hey," Rahne said softly. "I know it's only a week...but I'll miss you. You know that, don't you?"

What she was learning, slowly - for this was still her first ever serious entanglement with a person, however old and behind she was in that sense - that happiness was more easily achieved when things weren't taken for granted. And, sometimes, that meant communicating what could have probably gone unsaid, making sure that the other person knew that they were treasured. However silly or sappy you then risked sounding.

Before they got too bogged down in melancholia, it seemed that distracting themselves with gifts was as good an idea as any. Rahne cast Josh a briefly amused look. "You'll take any excuse, won't you?" she teased, but she was eager enough to see what he'd gotten her as well, for all that her heart was still in her throat and fluttering rather anxiously about whether he'd actually like hers.

It was difficult to keep an eye on him as he opened her gift and pay attention to her own present, which was demanding all of its focus, as it rightfully deserved. The tip of her tongue caught between her teeth in a look of concentration she'd been wearing since she was a wee bairn first learning how to push a broom around a dusty, austere house, Rahne peeled off the wrapping paper, doing her best to keep it in as perfect and intact a single sheet as possible. As Josh unfolded the sweater she'd knitted him - and she'd been right, the blue was exactly the right shade to make him shine like a burnished, molten being - Rahne herself lifted the lid of the box...and felt a peculiar swelling within her chest as she looked at the cross he'd gotten her. It was more than a pretty, shiny gift, more even than something personalised by the addition of her name to it, it was a sign that Josh saw right to the core of her, saw who she was at heart...and accepted her for it. Was celebrating it, even, with this gift, this cross, this symbol of the faith around which her life had been built.

Josh may have kept his sentimental side to a hint of moisture in his eyes, but Rahne - weaker-willed and with less control over her own feelings - actually failed to stop that single tear from coursing down the feline angle of one cheekbone, touched as she was.

Oh, she was lost, so very very lost, no matter how much she tried to tell herself that what they were doing together wasn't something that would tear her apart if it was ever taken away from her...

"Of course it smells like me," she said in answer to his observation, trying to sound unaffected, but her voice trembled and quavered in a way that gave lie to her attempt. "I wore it for a wee bit." A joke, maybe a joke would stop her from feeling so fragile, so hopelessly vulnerable, so raw. "You know wolves, we want our mates to be marked with our scent."

And, really, she didn't have time to think about the implications of what she'd just said because Josh's lips were on hers and, still clutching his gift close to her chest, she closed her eyes and melted into him. For once, there was nothing halting or hesitant against the way she pressed herself against him, struck by the dizzying notion of never wanting to let him go. And when she finally pulled away, a little breathless, it was through damp eyelashes that she looked up at him.

"It's not much, I know," she said awkwardly, her gaze skittering downwards to the cross she held in her hands, "not compared to what you got me. But I wanted somethin' you could wear and think of me, and I wanted to make it myself and..." ...and she was rambling. Which had to stop. Rahne looked up at him again, beseechingly, and held up fingers across which the black string and its precious cargo was stretched. "Will you put it on for me, please?" What went unspoken was the fact that, right now, she didn't ever want to take it off.

Josh nodded almost dumbly. He wasn't quite sure what to say, and was taken aback at the ease with which Rahne seemed to have wrongfooted him with her decision to go back home for the holidays. Of course he wanted her to be happy, but he was also a little peeved at her. Didn't she understand that he all but needed her here with him, when he was going to be getting so lonely without his family and with all of his other friends gone away? He couldn't find it within himself to be so selfish, but he did feel a little spike of jealousy to Moira for getting to spend time with Rahne when he didn't. He was sure that they'd manage to keep in touch, but he didn't have to patience to make a long-distance relationship (or whatever they had) work for very long at all. He smiled, and shrugged a little. He didn't know much about geography. What if whatever bit of Scotland (Or England, as he called it in his head out of habit and then always had to correct himself) didn't have an internet connection all the time? He used to play Call of Duty with some guy from the Danish coast whose internet connection would cut out any time the weather got bad. Presumably somewhere that much in the middle of an ocean would get crappy weather pretty much all the time? What if they never got a chance to talk?

Josh grinned at her. It was true. He was excited for Christmas, he was excited for presents. Then he felt a twinge that made him feel like he was far too young for her. He was still getting excited about presents, for god's sake. To him, with his boy's vision of real maturity, it seemed almost shockingly childlike to dare to get excited about presents. In fact, it seemed just a step up from sitting on Santa's lap and telling him you'd been a good boy all year. Not that, with his affair with what was technically a member of staff quite thoroughly under way, he really counted as a "good boy" at all. He was excited most of all, though, to see Rahne's reaction to the gift he had gotten her. And when he saw it, it took all of his belief in his fragile concept of "manliness" not to cry like she did. It suited her. It looked good on her. He genuinely liked to see her in it. When they had first begun to spend time together significantly, the sheer intensity of her faith had shocked Josh. Outside of one or two kids from his old school, he had never met anyone who seemed to be so passionate about god as Rahne did.

Then, something like almost total fear entered Josh's voice. He was usually too stupid, arrogant and foolhardy for fear, but Rahne undid those qualities enough that he could feel it. Well, maybe she didn't thoroughly undo his stupidity. In fact, it was possible she added to it, but it was not like he could not shoulder the burden for her sake. "Do you..." A little pause. He swallowed down his insecurity. Right now, the most important question he had ever had to ask anyone was dangling on the tip of his tongue. How could he ever ask it? What if she said no? "Do you like it?" She hated it, of course. In his head she had been admiring it only out of politeness, and the sort of sick disgust which made one turn their head at the site of a car accident. Her tears had been tears of sorrow, of course. Sorrow that someone she had- past tense- cared for giving her such a perfectly unsuited gift. Now, prompted by him, she would tear it from her neck and fling it at him, her fury total and toxic and complete and he would be ejected from her room by the scruff of his hand-knitted neck, pursued by a violently hurled box and a volley of furious, Scottish-accented barks of righteous indignation. How dare he get her such mass-produced tat when she had made, made, something for him?

He suppressed his insecurity, fear and hatred for himself for getting her something so horrible. He pushed it down. He couldn't let it show. He projected an aura of slick confidence. Maybe if he wore a mask long enough, its contours could become those of his real face. Maybe if he was the smooth operating, suave guy who, in his mind, she really desired (because, of course, how could she truly like his flaws? How could she like his goofiness or his stupidity or his ignorance or his youth, when they were things he wanted to utterly purge himself of forever?) then she could forgive him his trespasses and his flaws. "So, heh," Keep it together, Foley. Never let 'em see you sweat. Except Rahne had seen him sweat plenty. She'd seen it all: blood, sweat and tears. "Heh, what did you wear...underneath it?" He smiled, trying to keep up the confidence and the smoothness and the flirtatiousness. He could be like a frozen lake- cool and smooth on the outside, deep (and full of dead fish) on the inside.

As quick as he could and feeling terrified, even though on some level he knew he really didn't need to be, that Rahne would judge him for his very visible mutation. Josh removed his sweater and pulled on hers. God, it was so comfy and warm. It was like being a sheep. Then, remembering that Rahne was a wolf, he stopped thinking that way. "It's so comfy." Even where it itched against him he could ignore it, because it was so absolutely warm and pleasant to be in. "I can't believe this." His confidence finally broke. "I mean," He sounded sad, and felt stupid and like an ungrateful sort of person. "You made this. Like, properly made it. With your hands and stuff." Josh Foley, the world's least eloquent mutant. Why couldn't his superpower be knowing what to say in every situation? That beat the hell out of healing. "And I just got you some piece of crap..." It really was a piece of crap. Mass produced, not unique and special like her present. Not unique and special like her. He frowned, and gripped the neck. He felt like a failure wearing something so special as what she had made him, so he decided he might as well take it off.

Did she like it?

Did she like it?

Now Rahne was known for her reserve. No, not reserve, her shyness. The fact that she limited herself, held herself back because she was scared of making a mistake, of being a disappointment, of failing the people she loved and respected somehow. A psychologist would have a field day with her, tracing it back to 'daddy' issues and a persisting sense of childhood inadequacy, but it didn't take a college education to recognise the fact that Rahne Sinclair was not a hugely confident person and that her opinion of herself...well, it wasn't good.

But her self-esteem issues aside, there was still a part of the girl that had the capacity to just...throw herself at things. At people. Without worry or cause for concern or her typical obsessing over whether what she was doing was good enough. Granted, that side usually showed itself when she didn't give herself time to think or to worry in, but now? Now was one of those times.

Rahne didn't even need to think about a response to Josh's tentative question. Instead, she just acted. She didn't quite fling herself at him, but it was a close one, and there was certainly no hesitancy in the way that she pressed against him, burying her face in the cloth of the jumper she herself had knitted even as her hands rose up to palm his shoulderblades.

Hidden, she exhaled, a juddering sigh that made her shoulders shake a little, but then she stilled against him. Finally she looked up and Rahne...Rahne was too awkward and angular and boy-shaped to be pretty, but her smile at least was radiant because of Josh.

"I love it," she said with complete and unwavering honesty. Her eyes darkened a little and her pulse jumped briefly in her throat, but around Josh she could be braver than she normally was. Around Josh she could be bolder. Around Josh she could be more than she normally was and the wolf in her didn't want to back away, not now, not from this. "I love you."

Her hands plucked idly at the blue cloth where it lay over his sternum, absently lifting then smoothing the wool. "I did make it," she admitted, her mouth lifting slightly at one corner. "With my 'hands and stuff' even." She looked up at him again, eyes nervous and hopeful and intense all at once. "You may not have made this, Josh--" She touched the necklace where it lay still in her hand. "--but...I know you don't have the same relationship with God that I do. And that's okay. But this...the necklace..." Her voice lowered, developed a slight quaver to it and maybe she was lame for letting her voice shake because of all the feelings inside of her, but Rahne had never pretended to be cool or composed. "...it's nice to feel that you love me. All of me. Even the bits that maybe you don't understand."

Her free hand sought his out, wanting to tangle his fingers with her own and Rahne bit her lip, suddenly looking intensely wistful even as she squeezed his hand. "I wish you could come with me to Muir," she said softly. "I don't know what I'm going to do without you for so long..."