The Phoenix was bound for celebrations as Olivia happily nailed up the changes to everyone’s delegations and work schedules. She had promised to amend the duties so that everyone had something festive to decorate or set up for the December festivities, and as scheduled, she committed it to memory. 

It also helped her mood immensely since she was finally out of her wheelchair thanks to her release from rehabilitation. She only took four months of hard work and rehabilitation with Radium. She took a step away from the paper and viewed the duties as followed.

Olivia smirked at her handy-work as those who were assigned began showing up as their regular times. Charlotte quirked her head at the assignment for Aden’s team and looked to her friend sporting the suddenly festive holiday goggles.

“We have a twelve foot tree on board?” The Gizmo Queen grinned.

“You can thank Jakob, Jimmy, and Franco for that one.” Charlotte shook her head, and then put her finger under her bottom lip. She was confused by the terminology of ‘fluff’.

“And we have to do what with the tree?” Her hazel eyes merely held confusion as the amethyst beauty blinked quickly in disbelief. How had her friend not fluffed or set up a tree? She was her best friend, how could she not do anything like fluff a tree?

A hand dropped on top of the auburn’s quirked head before Olivia could retort. The tanned palm ruffled the strands of auburn plenty, appeasing Olivia as Charlotte gave her an unsatisfied expression. The owner of the hand piped in as if it was only natural for him to do so.

“Cut her some slack, she had that Uncle with a stick up his—”

Charlotte cut him off with a swift elbow to his abdomen. The aforementioned male groaned in protest moving his hand away from her head and bending slightly over. The raven haired twenty one year old had predicted the auburn would act on reflex and he was now rubbing the throbbing pain from his stomach.

“Honestly Aden, we celebrated Christmas before but all of the maids and servants did the decorating!”

She pouted, and for great measure she crossed her arms. Olivia just shook her head and turned to Aden. “Teach her the values of Christmas decorating. She needs it in her bleak life.”

Aden remarked instantly, finally catching his breath that he lost from Charlotte’s elbow. “That might prove difficult.”

“Hey!” Charlotte retorted, and could not say anything more as Aden’s hand clamped onto her head. He yanked her back, forcing her to hop on one foot to balance as they walked to the companionway 1 staircase. They would finish their duties in the Engine room before meeting up with some of the other team working with Xavier to set the tree up.

Olivia happily hummed a Christmas tune as Damien approached her from behind. Before she recognized he had come up behind her, he had dropped a bunch of sparkly garland around her shoulders like a scarf.

“You were asking about the garland earlier.” Damien replied to her inquisitive look over her shoulder. Damien peered over her head to glance at the duties sheet. “Am I with Xavier’s team or with you?”

Olivia elegantly draped the garland over her shoulder like an actress. “My team obviously.” She enunciated her last word in a different lower accent that insinuated dramatic innuendo.  Damien only chuckled. The two of them went to her repair shop located at the south end of the vessel. The inventor was incredibly happy that she just remodeled one of the storage closets into a small hallway to go between the half of the ship. At first one would have to leave the companion 1 area to get into the companionway 2 area, but after Olivia was fed up with walking—wheeling around stairs constantly, she created an easier route.

“Everyone better let off a nebula of Christmas glee, or I’m going to be fairly upset.”

Damien smirked, falling into step with the inventor. The younger brother of Xavier found himself going at the inventor’s set pace more often than not. “I’m sure everyone will be happy to do something festive with the time we have. It’s a nice escape from the things that have happened in this last half year.”

Olivia agreed. “I think it’s very important to raise morale. Otherwise, everything we’ve done will be for naught. I know Markus and Leo would not like that in the least bit.” Damien refrained from mentioning Sarah’s name, for he knew Olivia’s scorn for Sarah Moreno.

Just the mere mention of her name would send Olivia in fits of boiling anger, and the only thing that would appease her anger was throwing a Sarah-look-a-like doll to her mechanical beast to rip apart with his teeth. The puppy probably didn’t know that she was throwing the toy in her anger, but he happily chewed on it in any event.

“What’s first up to repair today?” Damien took the safest route that conversation would provide and they went merrily on their way.

---

Everyone had gathered in the Caboose in the late evening. Charlotte was standing on the second highest rung of the ladder with Aden supporting her waist just below her. Xavier had brought out all of the lights left over from vomiting Christmas lights on the deck, and it was decided that anything extra would be put on the twelve foot tree. Charlotte was struggling to fluff one last branch out before they fully began decorating.

“Are you done yet?” Aden stoically remarked from underneath her. His hands were steady as she hesitantly leaned over to the tree once again. She was not afraid of much, but heights did get the best of her from time to time. Something about falling off the cliff set a traumatic memory of falling in the back of her mind that caused her to be skittish.

“Do you see me finished?” Charlotte exasperated.

She had been with the male the whole day and even when they were setting up the tree, they had to collaborate without causing too much trouble. Franco had to step in when one of their quarrels about how the tree should be set up went off in the middle of the hallway. They were outside the Caboose when a simple question from Rebecca had stirred the dark waters that crackled between those two. Even after that they continued to retort back and forth like an elderly married couple, and everyone could only comment on their display of affections.

Olivia was happily sipping her root beer when she called up to Charlotte and Aden. “Charle, you don’t need to fluff the tree to perfection, come down and take a break. Damien, Dean, and Xavier can start the lights.” Charlotte peered down the fifteen foot tall ladder they had assembled with a grim look. Aden went down the rungs first, and waited at the foot of the ladder until the auburn successfully made it down. He rolled his head around in a small circle to relieve the kink in his neck while Charlotte walked over to Olivia.

“This fluffing is terrible business, do you see how scratched up my arms and hands are?” She showed her hands for the inventor to see, and the maroon-haired inventor chuckled. Olivia could have remarked that she should have pulled on her utility gloves, but Aden had beaten her to the punch once again.

“I offered you gloves.” He then quoted Charlotte’s voice immediately, but he had the same inflection he normally used; bored and indifferent. “’No, you should use them’!”

Xavier laughed aloud, just catching the end of their conversation.

“You two always crack me up.” Xavier pulled out from his utility belt a salve of ointment. He handed the small tube over to the auburn and gestured to her hands. “Anyways, while we vomit Christmas on this barren tree, go apply this medicine over your cuts. This should help.”

Charlotte’s cheeks went red from the blood circulating quickly through her face, and stalked off with the ointment in tow. Olivia watched as Aden silently maneuvered through everyone in the Caboose to follow closely behind the auburn.

When the two were out of sight, Olivia turned her attention to the tree. Everyone was happily pointing up to where Dean was holding up the light strands. He was one of the tallest males, besides Xavier and Tyler who could easily reach the top of the tree thanks to the assistance of the ladder.

Jakob was chatting amicably with Rebecca as she was putting icing on the cookies, Anna was guiding her along the way.

Belle was laughing at the joke Jimmy and Franco had performed.

Tyler was enjoying the fake fire by the small fireplace Olivia had just installed for the ambience, while Cesium darted in between everyone, tail wagging. The mechanical Great Dane was filled with excitement at the sudden buzz in activity.

Damien came up to Olivia’s side once again and presented Olivia with one small wrapped box. The inventor gave him a quizzical glance as he shrugged. “Merry Christmas Olivia.”

She smiled, turning to see her Phoenician family laughing and enjoying each other’s company. It appeared Christmas spirits were really necessary for bringing up morale. She also wondered if The Galaxy was celebrating as they were.

Aden and Charlotte came in only moments before chaos ensued. Cesium, incredibly content by the explosion of activity, ambled his way over to the tree. Before anyone could warn Dean that Cesium’s tail was going to strike the ladder, it knocked it off balance and the twenty eight year old took a tumble down.

“Oh no!” Charlotte’s, Anna’s, and Jakob’s voice yelled in unison as they watched the one eyed male topple off of the ladder and quite literally fell onto the one beneath him.

Xavier, not expecting his fiancé to fall down, had been underneath him and easily broke his landing on the polished floor boards.

There was a momentary pause as everyone checked to be sure Dean and Xavier were alright. Dean waved off Jakob’s help as Xavier groaned from beneath his fiancé. Cesium immediately laid down in the spot his tail hit the ladder, and whined sadly. The poor mechanical beast was just so excited that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings. Rebecca walked over and gave each of them a worried glance.

“Are you alright?”

Dean seemed perfectly fine as he lifted himself off of the floor, but Xavier winced as his left hand applied pressure to the ground. Rebecca knelt down to examine the swelling that was starting to expand on his rotary joint.

“Is it painful?” Rebecca raised both of her eye brows in concern as Xavier gritted his teeth.

“It’s nothing Becca,” The raven-haired girl with emerald eyes gingerly placed her hands on the small swell and closed her eyes. Everyone waited with bated breaths as she began healing his wrist from swelling any longer.

She ended her healing when she felt it was considerably tolerable to deal with as a simple injury. Xavier checked his wrist with Dean hovering over him, “It’s not broken anymore. Drop the concern already.” The older brother used his hand to ruffle the girl’s hair. “Thank you, I owe you a treat.”

The girl beamed at the sudden favor to be repaid.

Aden shook his head as he gave the dog an exasperated sigh. “Honestly.” Cesium whined at his sigh and tried to paw his way over to the Captain, he was only caught up in the festivities. He didn’t want anyone mad at him. Aden dropped down to his haunches and merely brought both of his hands to each ear of the Great Dane’s face. He rubbed them up and down, but he still had a troubled expression on his face.

Charlotte stood above them with an equally troubled face.

Olivia approached her puppy that was accepting the quiet repercussions from Aden and Charlotte. He knew when his master was approaching because she jingled with holiday bells. He whined as he thought the inventor would put him in the new kennel she built for him when he did bad things. Cesium didn’t like being in the kennel.

She didn’t look too angry, but she did give him a knowing look. The puppy whined further.  “You know exactly what you need to do, be a good boy or you’ll celebrate in the room with one rubber toy.”

Cesium whined as he crawled up to Xavier, apologizing with his LED eyes. The male with azure eyes and the moon tattoo patted the puppy’s mechanical head. “Good boy, thank you for apologizing.”

Once all was forgiven the caboose was filled with noise and laughter once again. Olivia returned her glance back to the nearly forgotten present Damien presented her.

“Thank you.” The inventor replied when he walked up next to her. She happily accepted the small gift and pulled out a slip of paper. “Cut this up and distribute it to everyone for the white elephant.” Damien blinked before doing as she asked.

When he was away, the inventor stared down at the wrapped present. That was a surprise.

Moments later Anna disappeared under her cabinets to pull out the spiced rum, eggnog, and plenty of liquor to get the holiday started.

The night was full of rambunctious holiday decorations and plenty of memories were made.

---

Olivia was one of the few remaining survivors of the impromptu holiday party. A majority of the crew had to call it quits to get some sleep as they had early shifts the following day. Damien kept the young eighteen year old inventor company as Aden was carrying out a mumbling Charlotte on his back.

“Do you know what the gingerbread—aa—the gingerbread man covered his bed with?” Charlotte hiccupped happily as the raven-haired male carried her out. He could tell she was smashed because she was telling incredibly bad jokes and puns. So much so that he knew it was time for her to go to sleep. It was days like this when she did stuff that made the crimson eyed male concerned for her sanity.

“I don’t know.” Aden replied stoically, not wanting to unleash another torrent of bad puns.

Olivia, much to Aden’s distress, happily called out to the drunken Charlotte. It amused the inventor to see Aden squirm at Charlotte’s quirky jokes. “What did the Gingerbread man cover his bed with?”

Aden glowered over to the inventor while Damien shook his head. The blonde sibling knew Olivia was antagonizing his poor brother who clearly had babysitting duties over the auburn.

“A coo-cookie sheet!” She giggled ecstatically into Aden’s neck, and wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders. Charlotte liked the feeling that she was flying so she clung to him, especially since it was starting to get cold too.

The twenty one year old sighed dramatically and persisted her to stop with her jokes. “You’re done. No more from you.”

“Bu—but!” Charlotte complained stupidly, “I know one about a tree too!”

“No!” Aden retorted and that was the last of their conversation they heard as the doors to the Caboose closed behind them. Olivia and Damien remained in the Caboose picking up trash and enjoying the newly lit tree in the middle of the mess hall.

“Thank you again, for the gift I mean.” Olivia pulled out the small pouch that held two identical gear-shaped earrings. Although she didn’t have her ears pierced, she figured it wouldn’t be a bad opportunity to get them done. “They match my goggles.”

Damien nodded, bending over to pick up some discarded fabrics. “I passed by it while we were disembarking from NaLuna Province. They screamed you.”

When the blonde Drummond straightened, he had not anticipated the Gizmo Queen to be standing next to him. “Uh… woah, hi there.”

Perplexed by her sudden nearness, he froze when she popped up onto her tippy toes and planted a soft kiss to his cheek. He was taken aback as she pointed to the dangling green mistletoe hanging over them. “Jakob and his band of goof balls must have put it up, those schemers.” She shook her head not realizing until it was too late. Not deterred by what had happened, she pragmatically continued on as if it was a normal thing to see around this ship. “Also I didn’t have anything for you, but Merry Christmas anyways Damien. I really appreciate the earrings.”

The color in his face magnified as she turned to walk abruptly away. Cesium followed closely after his master as she disappeared into the kitchen, undoubtedly to check on the massive clean-up Anna was surely committing herself to do. As she passed through the revolving doors, he touched his cheek in astonishment and shock. “That… was not what I was expecting.” And he could barely contain the explosion of red that surely would break out on his face moments after. The only thoughts that popped into his mind were how he might have to repay Jakob for his thoughtful prank, and his incredibly fast heart beat thumping loudly in his rib cage.