☃ Jack Frost nippin' at your nose ☃

[Peyton Boone]

Merry Christmas...

For the first time in a very long time, the idea of it being Christmas seemed to excite Peyton Deanus. They say the older you get, the less exciting christmas becomes until you have children of yourself. Of course Peyton became a mother for the first time 4 years ago, but it never changed her stance on the holiday. For a long time, Christmas was filled with disappointment and broken promises, those were the memories Peyton's parents made for their children, and for her and her older brother, it was a little too late by the time that they realized the importance of these things. Peyton just wanted her younger brother to have better memories than she had. She cruised through Christmas, putting herself into a turkey coma in order to ignore everything around her as she put its a wonderful life on repeat.

This year was different and Peyton hadn't even had her child yet. All the things she'd been through the last year, you would think that her spirits would have been shattered, but there was something keeping Peyton on a constant high. Or should I say, someone. It was insane to think that in less than a year, she'd found the guy she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Marriage and children hadn't been something that Peyton put on her own agenda, she didn't go looking for it, it just found her. She wasn't a romantic, she wasn't anything, so when she met a guy in a bar, especially a guy that just seemed to grunt at and annoy her, she never imagined he'd be the one.

The last few weeks had been spent stressing and worrying. Peyton's body was a human pin cushion, her back ached and her legs were tired, she swore she had bags under her eyes that could carry groceries and she was exhausted. She knew it was more important to keep her little safe. The baby was getting healthier by the day, but she still knew it'd be better if she stayed pregnant. She was only twenty five weeks, most people weren't even considering birth plans yet, let alone spending their days watching everything they did to prevent going into early labor... again.

They were more than ready for Christmas, they just had to drop presents off at her Moms and collect their turkey (since Kai insisted on getting the biggest one they sold... the damn thing serves fifteen people, she wasn't sure if he knew there were only two of them). The day had been so perfect. She'd got the opportunity to see her family, watch her brother and her son nephew open their gifts before heading home. It was like their own little paradise, they sat and opened their gifts to one another, Peyton laughing at all the pink bits and bobs he'd bought the baby, taunting him that the fact he bought stuff for a girl would just jinx them and that this baby would be a boy, then they settled down to eat themselves into a coma.

She'd settled down early that night with her husband to be. She was comfy and cosy and she was cuddled up to her irish hottie (who'd done his best to tire her out before they headed to bed), it should have been a perfect night, yet she couldn't for the life of her fall asleep. After two hours of restlessly wiggling and tossing and turning, Peyton eventually slid out of the bed, sliding her feet into her slippers and pulling her robe around her. She didn't want to wake Kai, he spent far too much time trying to look after her and not nearly enough asleep and once she was cosy and warm, she made her way out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

By the early hours of the morning, the kitchen that Kai and Peyton shared looked like it was a display room for baked goods. The kitchen table was the most impressive part, a large gingerbread house, iced and covered in sugary treats, stood proud and magnificently, little gingerbread men on covered plates beside them. Then there were the sugar cookie trees, marshmallow snowmen cookies sprinkled with coconut, peanut butter stars and of course, because it was christmas, a tray of mince pies. Heaven knew they didn't need more sugary treats, but it was the only way to tucker the poor mite out. It was nearly seven in the morning when Peyton finally crawled back into bed, sliding off her slippers and dropping her robe to the floor where she stood. Once again she cuddled up to her man, taking in the smell of him and nuzzling her nose against his chest before drifting off to sleep.

There she stayed until such time she should be woken by an irish stud. She was snoring delicately, the sign that she was in fact sleeping well, something she wasn't prone to doing lately, and her cheeks and nose were ever so slightly frosted with flour and red curls spread across the pillow, giving her the illusion of a silly little imp, as opposed to the angel most girls aim to be on christmas. But then.... When was Peyton normal?

[kai]

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Kai Eoghan Boone had experienced what could be called a ‘normal’ Christmas, and he had been as excited as a five year old that morning when he had woken, so much so that if a tacky Christmas jumper and a pair of reindeer antlers had been set in front of him he probably would have worn them, and danced around to grandma got run over by a reindeer. It was the first time since his mother had died that he had had anything close to a Christmas – most years the day went past without him even realising, the new year arriving in the middle of the night with a load of firework at the time, enough to startle whatever it was he was hunting. But this year had been different. This year he had met the woman he wished to spend the rest of his life with, whom now carried his baby within her ( yes his, for the alternate was not something the Irishman tolerated to think about), and he had wanted it to be perfect, down to the very last bauble on the tree.
And now it was over, and Kai laid in bed in the aftermath of a food coma, and an evening spent loving his wife to be, and he slept soundly, and dreamlessly, for the first time in what seemed an age. So often he was plagued by nightmares, so often he slept as if on a bed of needles, the slightest sound waking him from sleep, yet this night he slept so deeply he did not notice when Peyton left their bed to cook, just simply rolled into the warmth her body had left, and nuzzled the pillow that smelt of her hair. Looking at him now, it might be easy to forget that this man made a living of death, and fear.

And so he slept, until his fiancée crawled back into bed with him, causing him to smile in his sleep as kai wrapped his arms back around her, pulling her close to him. It was a few hours yet before he woke, consciousness coming slowly as if he had to wade through custard to reach it, blinking sleepy eyes as he looked down into the red curls of his Christmas imp with a grin. Chuckling softly at her little snore, he lifted a hand to gently wipe the flour from the cheek, wondering as to just what she had been up to in the night. For a moment, he felt bad that he slept through her waking, but it soon passed. He often let her sleep long after he had woken, he could not blame her for doing the same back.

[Peyton Boone]

Merry Christmas...

Peyton didn't sleep dreamlessly, but luckily for the pregnant red head, she'd dreamed free of the horrors that haunted her. You could say that Kai and her were two of a kind, though they were both aware that being pregnant had exasperated the problem. Hell she'd even, much to her boyfriends amusement, begun suffering nightmares about Leprechauns. She was sleeping so well, especially considering how long it had taken for her to wear herself out. She always found it easier when she was with him, she never thought that it'd make much difference to how you slept or what you dreamed of, but it was like her self conscious knew he was there so it kept her as safe as he would. Whatever it was, she chose not to question it.

It was gentle at first, she seemed to drift out of sleep as opposed to the wading Kai had done. It started with a gentle grumble as he touched her face, her shoulders shifting and her face sleepily nuzzling into his hand before she stilled again, still snoring but more gently than before. Moments later, her eyes began gently drifting open, breathing in, making little snuffling noises as her eyes adapt to the light, resting on the love of her life. A smile tweaked at her lips, her eyes unable to leave him and speaking in a sleepy grumble. "Hey there sexy. Are you an angel or am I still asleep?" The smile on her face was infallible as she reached out to grab him gently, just to hold onto him, she just wanted to feel him.

[kai]

Kai was notorious for watching daytime TV, and was known to get quite cranky if he missed one of his stories for anything other than a hunt (or something just as important) and thus he knew from seeing them that often, new parents, old parents, all loved to watch their children sleep, and it occurred to him, as he watched Peyton nuzzles into his fingers and listened to her gentle sleep sounds, if he could watch their baby as intently as he could watch his wife to be. He assumed so, for he assumed he would be no different than the doting tv parents, except you know, real... and better... and with gun training... okay so maybe a little different after all but still. The point was... kai was more than happy to lay there for those moments and watch her sleep... longer, if she hadn’t opened her eyes and smiled at him.

”Now, if that isn’t the cheesiest pick up line i’ve heard tumble from your lips, then i don’t know what is.” he grinned at her, leaning down to kiss his Christmas imp sweetly on the lips, gently pushing some stray hair back behind her ear as he pulled away, though his fingertips lingered there, lost in her red curls. Now... what was the little imp up to last night whilst i slept? There was flour on your cheek....? Kai smirked at her, gently caressing his fingers in her hair, propping himself on his elbow.

[Peyton Boone]

Merry Christmas...

Only Kai could make one of the first things to come out of Peyton, after only a few hours sleep and without any type of caffeine in her system, be a giggle. She didn't even reply for a moment, just bared her teeth at him in a big grin at him. Her hand held it's grip on her arm, holding on like should her grip falter in anyway, she might just fall and lose him. She kissed him back as his lips approached his, lingering for a moment, the force holding their lips together also the reason all the breath was sucked out of Peyton for those brief few seconds. The smacking sound of their lips parting ( I wrote Partying lol! ) echoed briefly through the room, her previous grin wasting no time in returning to the her face, just adding to any impish qualities it might have already possessed.

The feel of his fingers in her hair caused her eventual breath to come out at an ever so gentle sigh, another giggle eventually leaving her as she reached up to swipe some flour off the end of her nose. "Oops." She gently shifted her body, getting most comfortable, looking down at her stomach for a moment, cautiously, like she was being careful so she didn't wake the baby up. When she looked back up to him, it was like she instantly snapped her face back to how it had been. "I can't tell you anything of what happened last night, all I can tell you that should you go get your loving girlfriend the orange juice she desires all will be revealed." Yep that was Peyton code for 'please will you go get me some juice?' but she knew her boy knew that should she have asked the 'please' would have been there.

[kai]

Kai found, as he looked into the green eyes of his now awake girlfriend, that watching her sleep wasn’t the only thing he could do for hours. As he looked into the well of her eyes, he found himself falling into their emerald depths, tumbling until he was lost in her gaze, until she pulled it away from his eyes to glance down at her swollen tummy. Lifting the hand from her hair, he gently grazed his fingers over the swell, gazing down at the evidence of their unborn child for a long moment after she had looked back to him... and as soon as his eyes met hers once more he found himself lost in their depths.

He often wondered if this woman had any idea as to the effect she had on him.
As such, he nearly didn’t hear her when she started talking, nearly missed entirely her asking for a drink... but he caught the end of it and smirked, kissing her lips gently once more, his hand still brushing over her tummy for a moment until he climbed from the bed, dragging a pair of boxers over his nakedness before padding away into the kitchen to get her her juice. He paused for a moment, seeing all the baked good and grinned, stealing himself a cookie that he ate whilst he poured, returning a moment later with the remains of his thievery hanging from his mouth as he settled back on the bed and handed her her juice.

[Peyton Boone]

Merry Christmas...

When Peyton sent her fiancee off to fetch her some juice, it never once occurred to her that when he left her side, she'd begin to miss him. She felt lost without him by her side and she realized she didn't exactly know what she was to do with herself. She couldn't imagine what she would be like when he started hunting again, when he'd leave her on her own. Well, she wasn't going to be on her own, that bump on her stomach was making sure of that. The bump that her fingers were grazing where his had previously been like it in some way made her closer to her man. Even when their little monkey seemed to be asleep, Peyton liked to play with her stomach.

It wasn't long before her baby returned, the cookie in his gorgeous gob proving he had in fact found her pile of goodies, not that Peyton thought it was possible to miss it. Grinning at him as he sat down, Peyton took the juice from him, breaking the cookie in his mouth so she could take a small bite. "I'm just making sure it isn't poisoned for you...." She said around the bite and handed it back to him, sipping the juice and moving so she could sit up against the back of the bed. "You look so good in nothing but boxers."

[kai]

If it was poisoned baby, A), you made them, so why are you trying to kill me? And b)... if it was poisoned, then we’re both screwed, because i already ate half of mine.... Kai grinned at her, and quickly ate the remainder of his biscuit as it was pushed into his mouth. Shifting, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, stroking her arm and kissing her temple. yeah? See, i always thought you looked good in just your underwear too.... but then i saw you naked....

So... what do you wanna do today? Like... what time do you wanna hit the hospital? he asked, stealing her juice for a sip in a similar way she had stolen his cookie. i’m checking it’s not poisoned

[Peyton Boone]

Merry Christmas...

She really couldn't help but giggle at him. She hadn't been awake ten minutes and already most of her morning had been spent in giggles. "I could have just made them really badly... But I'd take the bullet for you baby, it'd be romantic, like Romeo and Juliet." She was joking, clearly, but she couldn't help it. Without a severe amount of banter, they wouldn't be the Kai and Peyton that everyone knew and loved. She held her body into him as his arm snaked around his shoulders, nuzzling his chest for a moment, sighing contently. Grinning at the naked comment, Peyton did whatever it took to not spit out the orange juice she'd just tipped into her mouth.

Early morning heartburn was a bitch, but a bitch Peyton had come to know incredibly well as she reached the end of her second trimester and entered the beginning of her third. She was mainly wincing at the feeling of the juice travelling down her body, snapping to attention when he asks her what she wants to do today, causing her to swallow hard, she was about reply when her glass was lifted from her hand. She chuckled as he used her excuse against him and just shook her head. "Mom's invited us over around lunchtime, Rory stayed with the kids last night and I barely got to see him yesterday, so I said if I was feeling up to it, we might stop by? I figured we could take some of the food we're never going to finish and maybe head to the hospital after?"

[kai]

Unfortunately, kai had no idea who the likes of Romeo and Juliet are, so the Irish male just nodded his head like he knew exactly what she was talking about, and had experience of the two star crossed lovers from Vienna, even if the reality was far from the truth. Instead, he relaxed further into the bed, stroking her arms gently with her fingers as she went over the plans for the day, drumming them across her shoulder in tune with some random melody that was dancing through his head.

That works for me babes. he nodded so, if we hit the hospital in the next hour or so, or as soon as we’re dressed, that should free of the rest of the afternoon to go visit? in kais mind, this all fit together rather well... plus he could watch Jeremy kyle AND loose women whilst she was hooked up the IV...