Baby, It's Cold Outside

In the middle of no where with only one other house within view for miles one living alone could find themselves bored quite easily. Christian was used to spending an extended period of time in the big house alone with the occasional visit from his cousins or uncle but this winter was especially cold and snowy so he couldn't go flying for entertainment. He had asked Linette to come visit before break started so he had something to look forward to. After his father's death Christian had spent a year living with his uncle but he refused to go back and has been living alone in his father's home. In the past few years the teen had cleaned the house until it was much nicer than he had ever seen it, every room but the study.

While he waited until the day she was to arrive he cleaned it up even a bit more. Finally the day had arrived and Christian prepared everything so it would be perfect. He placed some logs in the fireplace and lit it, he'd been using that fireplace a lot this winter, and turned on the lights on the tree. He had just hidden his present in a box with holes when he heard the door, perfect timing they wouldn't want to keep it in that box long. Christian answered the door as quickly as possible to avoid keeping his girl in the cold for too long.

It had been a lovely and shocked surprise to have both her parents willing to let her visit her boyfriend at Christmas. Usually her winter holidays were split between the two of them with Christmas day on alternate years. It was an okay arrangement but would have been better without her brother in the same house as herself over those years. That stage of her life would soon be over as Louise would be the only one left to finish her school years. The fact that this was Linette's final year at home made the permission to take some of that time away from family extra special.

She suffered her brother's escort to Christian's home with some thankfulness she at least managed to talk him out of meeting him. Intimidating him would have been the better word. It was just drop off and pick up again later. What he did in the meantime was his business and Linette did not want to know. Linette would be glad when she could finally go where she wanted without having to rely on others. She stepped up to the front door of the home vaguely aware Benoit was watching from a distance. "Christian," she greeted with an eager smile and reached up to hug him. "Let's get in before I freeze and my brother decides to talk to you after all." She hoped that Benoit was freezing for his troubles.

Christian pulled the door open and smiled brightly seeing his beautiful girlfriend on the other side. She looked very cold and a gust of wind confirmed that the weather outside was frightful. She reached up for a hug, probably looking for warmth more than affection but Christian was more than happy to provide both. He kept an arm around her afterward and before pulling her inside he turned to wave at the car still sitting outside his house with a smirk on his face. He had kept the poor girl out long enough so once he was sure her brother saw him he brought them both inside. "Welcome to the D'Angelo house." He said with a grand sweep of the room with the arm not around her waist.

While there was heating in the house the fireplace made it even warmer so Christian slide his arm from around Linette and took her hand instead taking her over to the now lively flames. "Sorry for keeping you out there so long." He said with an apologetic smile. "How has your break been?"

"Very different to my own humble home," Linette murmured. "Both of them." Her mother's house wasn't what Linette considered her real home but it was a place she spent part of her school holidays in. "Do you ever get lost here? I know I did my first few weeks at Beauxbatons and this place is...well you know." She shrugged.

She smiled as she warmed her hands in front of the fire. "I'm warming up now so no harm done," she replied. "My break's been fine. Family's okay and soon I'll be going to mum's place in Luxembourg to spend the rest of the holidays. I love mum but the place she has is nothing like home." Her smile was a bit sadder now as vague memories of Christmases from when she was a little girl came to mind. "I really miss having Christmas with both my parents under the one roof," she murmured and then suddenly clapped her hands together. "That's enough about me. How's your holidays been so far?" One way or another she would not dwell on old regrets and thus ruin this time she had with her boyfriend.

Christian chuckled at Linette's remarks about his house. "It's not that big. I'll show you around later if you'd like." He said with a grin. He had to admit that this house was bigger than the one his mother and him stayed in in England but he didn't think it was that big, but perhaps that was just because he was used to it now.

The Cerisier smiled softly before prodding at the fireplace to push a log back into the fire that was slowly falling out. He listened though while doing so and started to wonder if he should have asked that after all, he could hear the drop of mood in her tone. "I'm sorry." He said meeting her gaze. "It could be worse." He said quietly. He wasn't sure how much of his parental situation he had told Linette about but he was sure by now everyone knew they were both dead and that would be enough to understand why he said that. Clapping her hands she brought them back to the current situation which was not about the sad family lives they had. "Been completely and utterly bored to tears here all alone." He said with a grin. "But I did get out long enough to get you something. Wanna see it now, before I lose it?" He said with a crooked smile. She probably wouldn't understand that yet but she would once she saw what it was.

Linette nodded. "Yeah. I know. It's not a palace like Beauxbatons but it is a lot bigger than any place I've lived in." That was what came of being born into a much humbler family with few books. "Do you have a library in this house?" Who cared what else was here. That was the one room above all others she wished she could have added to her own home.

"Yeah," she agreed, "I might not have any of them at all." Now as she thought about it she would even miss her brother if something happened to him. It was a rather scary revelation. "You did? Where is it? Can I see it now? And how could you lose it? Will it grow legs and walk?" It had to be a book of some sort didn't it? She hadn't made any secret of how much she loved to read so Linette was convinced the gift he had was a book.

Christian was rather unconcerned with the size of the house as he'd been living there since he was eleven, he'd practically forgotten what it was like to live in a small house. The one thing hey didn't seem to have was the one thing Linette was looking for, a library. "There is a small library of sorts in my father's study, but I haven't been there in almost three years. Sorry not many big readers around here." He said apologetically, he had tried many times to try and get his dad to put a library in but that didn't happen.

He wanted to move past the sad stuff as that was not what he had invited his girlfriend over for. He smiled at her reaction to his mention of her gift. "Hold on I'll get it." He said with a chuckle before fetching the green box from beside the couch. The lid had a bow tied on it but wasn't tied to the box, which was obvious when there was a bit of orange hanging out the top. Christian quickly and carefully pushed it back in the box and shut the lid and brought it over to where Linette stood by the fire. He held the box up to her hoping the little thing didn't pop out before she lifted the lid off. He was aware that her Melanie had died fairly recently so the best thing he could think of to get her was a kitten, not as a replacement because he knew you couldn't replace one you love, but as a new friend.

Linette gave a big sad sigh sound and tutted. "Such a shame," she said as she shook her head and then grinned. "That means I get to keep any books I'm reading to myself. No reading over my shoulder the way Benoit used to do. Odd that since he never was much of a reader." Linette laughed as she added, "he always ended up with a headache when he did that 'cause I'd hit him over the head with my book. Hard covers are very useful for that sort of thing."

The gift he handed her was not something which looked like a normal every day gift. "It's not a book," she remarked. Then her expression changed to a puzzled look. "Did this box just meow?" A grin then threatened to split her face. "I think I know what this is." Linette didn't waste another minute as she pulled the lid off the box and lifted out the ginger kitten. The grin softened to a soft smile. "Oh. You are so cute." The box fell as she held the kitten close and soon heard a rumbling purr. "Boy or girl? I forgot to check."