The Perfect Christmas ~ A/I ~ YTEEN ~ Complete

[Sugarplum7]

Title: The Perfect Christmas
Author: Sugarplum7
Disclaimer: The characters are a product of Melinda Metz and Jason Katims. The song “I Never Knew The Meaning Of Christmas” was written by Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken.
Rating: YTEEN
Category: AU
Couple: Alex and Isabel
Feedback: It is much appreciated, but please keep negative feedback constructive.
Summary: This is just another Christmas fic I wrote to round out the collection I seemed to have formed. This is also a prequel to “Complete” (like “The Present”) but reading that is not necessary for understanding. This is a light, soft, fluffy, PWP (Plot? What Plot?) fic I have written for our wonderful Stargazers. Completing the little short story holiday collection I seemed to have written: “The Present”, “The Perfect Christmas” and “Complete”.
Author’s Note: I don’t know how well this truly turned out, but I hope that it is at least enjoyable for you, the readers. I wanted to branch out once again and give Alex and Isabel a try. I hope it is . . . acceptable. And many thanks to Isabelle for the readthrough.

Enjoy.


<center>The Perfect Christmas
By Sugarplum7</center>


Her hands were placed on her hips as she regarded the garland strung atop the mantle. Her eyes narrowed critically and she shifted her weight, changing positions to look at it from a different angle. This had to be perfect. All of it did. She needed the way the light from the fire blanketed the stockings hanging on either side of the fireplace to be perfect. The garlands had to be just right. They needed to “pop” just enough to draw a person’s eye, but subtle enough so it did not take away from the entire picture.

Her head tilted and she walked closer to adjust the way the tinsel was placed on the mantle. There was too much of it on the right and it threw off the entire symmetry for the fireplace. She walked back to where she was previously to regard her correction.

She smiled, but then that expression fell from her face, and a frown replaced that expression. She sighed heavily and shook her head. After walking back to the fireplace she turned the teddy bear stocking holders that Alex had given her last Christmas as stocking stuffers. Their angle was just slightly askew, and she could not have slightly askew holders when their friends came by.

She had organized a group of them to go caroling tonight. She made sure that everyone was costumed and that they all knew what songs they were to be singing. Again, perfection of their execution was key. She never went caroling without prior knowledge that everyone was informed with what would be sung along with which neighborhoods they would be going to.

She looked at her watch.

“Twenty minutes,” she said to the empty room.

She walked over to the kitchen, pausing to turn one of the garlands lining to banister on their staircase. “Alex?” she called out to the house. She had told him to put on his costume ten minutes ago. He should have been done by now.

“Yeah, Izzy?” he said. She could hear his footsteps as he made his way down the stairs. “Where are you?”

“Kitchen,” she said without pause. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” he said. She turned to face him, a beautiful smile on her face as she caught his eye.

She walked over to him. “Your tie’s off,” she said.

“It pinches my neck,” he offered with a half-hearted shrug. “I think it looks fine without it.”

“Yeah,” she said, a painted smile still on her face. “It looks fine. But it looks better with the tie. Why don’t you go and put it on?” She patted his shoulder as a cue to go retrieve his tie. She walked back out to the living room, finding that things in the kitchen were in order for when her guests arrive.

She heard his footsteps behind her on the hardwood floor, and she stopped in front of the fireplace in their living room.

“Iz,” he announced, “it pinches my neck. It’s uncomfortable. I don’t really want to wear it. And you said so yourself, this looks fine.” He adjusted his collar and jacket and she tried to smile when he repeated the “lie” that she told him earlier.

“I know I said it looks fine. It does. It just looks better with the tie. Just like the Christmas tree,” she said as she turned to regard the tree. He walked closer to her, standing beside her and looking at the tree. “It looked fine with the tinsel on it, but it looks much better without it. Fine is good. But it isn’t as great as it could be.”

She heard him sigh deeply. She knew how she got around Christmas, and he knew that too, and married her despite that fact.

“Isabel, I know you want this night to be perfect. I know you do,” he said as he brought his hand to her cheek. It took a little more maneuvering than usual because of the bonnet’s sash that was tied under her chin.

The smile on her face fell at his comment. He was going to say something to contradict her wish for perfection. She knew it was coming. She knew it and averted her gaze. She was not sure she could look at him when he said it.

“Christmas doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect, Iz. Christmas isn’t about perfection. It isn’t about . . . things. It isn’t about getting the perfect tree with the perfect ornaments, or having the perfect matching stockings hanging on the mantle. It isn’t about any of that.”

She sighed and his hand fell from her cheek to her hand. She felt him twine his fingers with hers as he took her left hand. He brought her hand to his lips, kissing her fingers lovingly. “It’s about us. It’s about our friends. It’s about the feeling of happiness you get when you realize how much you love others and how much they love you. It’s about that . . . caring.” She smiled lightly at his struggle to find that last word he was fishing for.

“I know,” she said still looking down at her feet and she tapped the toe of her shoe distractedly. “I just can’t help it. I want things to be perfect,” she said quietly.

She did not speak for a moment, and he did not say a word. She wondered as she looked at their clasped hands, did he know that she wasn’t finished with what she wanted to say?

“I want things to be perfect,” she said again, less quiet than she had earlier. “For you.”

“I don’t need things to be perfect, Iz.”

She let go of his hand to walk closer to the tree. She needed some distance between them. It was so hard to think when he was holding her. Her hand went to a branch to fix the way an ornament hung, almost instinctively.

“No,” she said quietly. “I know that, but I still want it for you. I want you to have the perfect Christmas.”

She looked up and met his eye and she found herself caught. “I want it for you. And . . .” She trailed off not knowing how she wanted to complete that thought. She wanted it for him. That was true, but it had grown to become more than that? She wanted it for him, but the search for perfection had somehow become a bit of a compulsion.

The perfect Christmas was something that she wanted for him, but had it become something that she needed for him? She opened her mouth to say something but closed it immediately. What did she want to say?

“Iz,” he said closing the distance between them as though he knew she was struggling to voice her thoughts.

His arms were around her and she smiled as she curled into the comfort of his embrace. “I already have the perfect Christmas,” he told her softly as his hand rubbed her back soothingly. “You make it perfect every year.

“Every year I get to spend Christmas with the woman I love. Don’t you know how perfect that makes things?”

She closed her eyes trying to fight back the tears that were quickly filling her eyes. She pulled back from the hug to look at him, and she knew her eyes probably glittered a little too brightly from her unshed tears.

She looked up at him. She didn’t want to, but there was just something about Alex that always made her search to find his watchful eye. It made her heart flutter whenever she saw him looking at her—a feeling she wanted to experience once more. She saw his eyes fall to her hand and his brow furrowed questioningly.

“Did you remove the extra tinsel I put on the right side of the fireplace?” he asked.

She looked down at her right hand and saw that she still held the tinsel she had removed no more than a few minutes ago. She looked up at him guiltily, and he laughed as he pulled her closer. He placed a tender kiss on her forehead and her eyelids fluttered closed as she concentrated on the soft feel of his warm lips.

“I love you,” he told her with a smile on his face.

“I love you, too,” she said, kissing him softly and breaking it to wrap her arms around him in a secure embrace.

“Merry Christmas, Isabel. Remember, you make my Christmas perfect just by being with me. You are my perfect Christmas.”

At his soft-spoken words the tears she had been struggling to keep from falling slid down her cheeks as she closed her eyes. Her smile brightened as her arms around him tightened.

He loved her and she never doubted that. Just like he never doubted how much she loved him.

Once again he had reiterated what Christmas really meant. It was the same thing that many people had told her before, but it never meant as much as it did now. He made her believe it. He made it . . . real.

She knew at that moment . . . She knew at that moment that she never wanted to let him go.

Never.

“Merry Christmas Alex,” she said quietly, losing herself in the moment. Their guests would arrive soon, but she didn’t care about that right now. The wish for perfection fell away with this moment. She was safe and secure in his arms.

She wanted this forever.


<center>~*~ ~*~ ~*~
I never knew the meaning of Christmas
Till you came into my life
I was lost in the dark
Till you opened my heart
Like an angel shining bright

Suddenly I realize
That I never knew the meaning of Christmas
Till I looked into your eyes
~*~ ~*~ ~*~

The End</center>



To my readers:

I hope that this fic warms your hearts the way that writing it has warmed mine, the way that each of the Christmas fics has warmed my heart. I wish to all my readers “Happy Holidays” from my heart to yours. It is my wish that this holiday season fill you all with feelings of happiness and joy.

~Sugarplum7 (Katie)