Rating: PG-13, for a little implied sex.

Summary: Merry Christmas. Spend it with your family.

Spoilers: I think we're beyond that, don't you?
 

MICHAEL:

I thought I felt terrible last night.

I was wrong.

TODAY I feel terrible. Last night was simply the warm up.

Dad put me on the sofa so he could keep an eye on me. I wake up and he's in the recliner, sound asleep.

I'm wearing him out.

I fell asleep listening to Midnight Mass on TV. I think my dad was gonna go-it's the only time he does church practically. He used to say Frohike men did church to be married and to be buried. But I guess he likes Midnight Mass.

As masses go, it's not bad. Lots of music and candles, it can be sort of pretty.

But I hate church because it reminds me of my mom, and what a hypocrite she is. She goes every Sunday, but to me, she's one of the most un-Christian people I know.

I know, I'm just as bad, I should forgive her.

Right now, I don't feel like forgiving anybody.

And I don't want to think about her.

If my dad calls her and tells her this happened, I'm gonna seriously get homicidal.

I don't think he'll call her about this one, though.

At least he believes me when I said I didn't do anything. I think he does.

But I think I'm wearing him down. And I shouldn't do that. Everybody wears my dad down. I don't think Langly and Byers have a clue how much they wear him down.

And they have women to lean on. But they still lean real hard on my dad.

Of course, I lean on him hardest of all. But I am his kid.

Still, I should try to go a little easy on him. It scares me sometimes when I see how many pills he has to take since his heart attack.

He needs a little fun.

I want to go over and tell him I'm okay, but I try to move...

OH JESUS!!! FUCK!!!

I think my pain has pain.

Merry Christmas everybody.
 

ALLY:

I wake up giggling.

Who wouldn't in my place? It's Christmas Day, I had some of the most fantastic sex of my life last night...and I've got a secret.

Langly's going to freak.

It's been 14 years since he saw his niece.

He has no idea, and this is going to be such a kick for him.

And it's going to be a lot less complicated than when he and Joan were united again. The relationship between an uncle who's a teenager and a young child niece or nephew is a lot less complicated than that between two formerly close, then separated, then close again siblings.

I miss my brothers-well, two out of three ain't bad.

I'm seeing one of them tomorrow. Jason and Anne will be here for a few days.

And they're actually getting married in August. Their friends got fed up with waiting for them to set a date and went ahead and planned their wedding for them. This cracks me up. Langly and I did the same thing, but we weren't engaged for four years, either.

I think it was about four months when Frohike picked out our date.

Of course, Jason and Anne are far younger than we are. And for some reason, our lives have taken on this terrible urgency...

But it doesn't spoil the fun.

He's asleep, dreaming, making small soft noises and smiling. He nestles down in the pillow like a contented child.

The temptation to wake him up is overwhelming. I've got this mad urge to get a few ice cubes and slip them down his back.

Not nice, Allison.

But oh so tempting.

It's a little past ten; we have to be at Joan's at one, so we've got time to kick back a little. I need coffee and a cigarette.

I'm greeted by an onslaught of hungry critters. Tiny and the cats are all irritated that we haven't gotten up at our normal time to cater to their every whim, most of which center around the food bowls on the floor.

Animals fed and petted and coffee brewed, I pour two mugs, one heavily doctored with milk and sugar, the other with one splash of milk, and carry them back to the bedroom in preparation to wake the dead.

He's still sleeping happily.

"Hey. Coffee."

"Mmm. Must be Christmas or something." His voice is thick with sleep and his hair's flying everywhere.

He's so damn adorable.

I crawl back on the bed to sit next to him, and we're just kicking back, sipping coffee, enjoying a little holiday peace.

And we only have one child in the house, and she's downstairs, and fast asleep, no doubt. Miranda is not an early riser. We will probably have to pry her from her bed, which suits us fine.

I could get used to this holiday.

I finish my coffee and set my mug down. I'm thinking about taking a shower...

And all of a sudden, I'm pinned down by a large, laughing blonde who's covering me with kisses.

And here I thought I wore him out last night.
 

We're both giggling when it's over, snuggled against each other.

I don't want to get up. This is too delicious.

But now we have just two hours until we have to be at Joan's. We need to start getting our asses in gear.

"I have to get in the shower," I murmur into the soft chest hairs.

"Mmm. Want me to wash your back, little redhead?"

I pretend to debate this.

"Last one in is a rotten egg."

We're still giggling.
 

MICHAEL:

'Christmas in Connecticut' is on, and it's one of Dad's favorites.

"Hey Dad." It's still painful to talk, but he heard me, because I can see him stirring in the chair.

"You all right?" He asks me in a croaky voice.

"I'm okay. 'Christmas in Connecticut' is on."

"Ah, Barbara Stanwyck. A great actress."

I can only tell what the movies are from the dialogue and intro music, not from the visuals. I can't see more than six inches in front of my face. And the soonest I can get new glasses is tomorrow.

He climbs out of his chair and comes over to me and examines my face.

"Michael."

"What?"

"You're getting to be as bad as Mulder."

Thanks a lot, Dad.

I got to get my act together.
 

ALLY:

Waterlogged. It's the best way to spend a holiday.

But all good things must come to an end, and in this case, it was the hot water.

Miranda's going to kill us.

Joan still lives with Jo, but Jo's gone until the day before New Year's Eve.

I think it's been hard for Joan. No matter what her feelings for her former husband, she's still has a major upheaval. She didn't just give up the husband. She gave up everything in her former life.

But seeing how radiant she looked last night...I just hope things go as well as she probably does.

I've seen pictures of a younger Julie, who may have to be distinguished in company as Julianne, her given name.

It's getting confusing here.

Julie favors her father in coloring, but she's got her mother's-and hence her uncle's-face. And especially in the impish gleam in the eyes does she resemble Langly.

He's going to have a great day.

This makes me giggle all the more.

Especially since he doesn't know it yet.
 

It's snowing lightly outside, and it's a bit slippery getting to Jo's condo. She lives in a very secluded area and the roads aren't the easiest to navigate.

Makes me happy I don't have to drive.

I've been trying to keep the giggle gods at bay, but I've been at it all day.

Langly probably figures I'm just giggling because of last night and this morning, so I'm probably covered.

Miranda keeps looking at me with an expression that reads, are you mental? Done, of course, in the inimical style that only a 15-year-old can exhibit.

She's still pissed there wasn't enough hot water.

She'll get over it.
 

We trudge up the walkway with our own case of beer-Joan doesn't really drink much, so we came armed and dangerous. Getting up the walkway to Jo's place is a good trick when it's slippery-two flights of stairs that ice over rapidly.

But we're still sober, although we plan to change that as the day lingers on.

I'm snickering as we ring the bell. Jo's got one of those eight-bell chimes that rings forever, and Joan's there before the last note fades.

A bear hug for baby brother, and then one for Miranda, and one for me.

Joan looks good today. She's dressed beautifully in emerald green, and the lines on her narrow face don't look so prominent. She even has a little color in her cheeks, and it doesn't look like it was all the work of Estee Lauder.

Except that I don't think she shops the Estee Lauder counter these days. Revlon, more than likely.

She leads us into the living room-it's not large, but like Jo, it's comfortable and homey, and there's a slender brunette girl sitting on the sofa, sipping a beer. This must be Julie; she's got the same smile as her mom and uncle.

"Hey, Uncle Ringo!" She's got a loud, cheerful voice, and she jumps off the sofa with all the enthusiasm of a child and bounds towards him.

"Oh My God! Julie! As in my niece Julie!" He sweeps her up in a big bear hug and swings her around. They're both laughing hard. "Christ, you're an adult!"

"Hey, it happens to the best of us! How're you doing, Uncle Ringo?" She reaches up to kiss him on the cheek, then swats him on the behind.

"Ringo, I think you'd better introduce your family," Joan reminds him gently.

"Oh yeah. This is Ally, my wife-" he wraps his free arm around me-" and this is Miranda, my wicked stepchild." Miranda sticks her tongue out at him, and he responds in kind.

"Well, Mom said you got married, but I don't know if I'd have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes! So Ally? He driven you insane yet?" She's grinning wickedly and happily.

Definitely has the same sense of humor as her uncle.

"Close."

"He's driven me insane, and then done it again," Miranda pipes up.

"Give him time, he'll keep repeating himself," Julie assures Miranda. She looks at the case of Corona we're carrying. "Oh goody. You guys came fully equipped. I like that in my guests."

"So that's why you wanted to see us," Langly taunts her.

"You know it, Uncle. Do you know what this guy used to do to me?"

"I'm afraid to ask," I tell her, laughing.

"When I was little, he would take my Barbie dolls, blindfold them, and hang them naked by their necks from a tree."

Miranda winces. "Makes me glad I gave up Barbies when I was ten."

"And we'd play hide and seek, and he'd be so hard to find. Sometimes he'd leave the house and then I'd get mad and start to cry, because he never plays fair!" She's really enjoying this.

It's as if she was never away from him.

"Oh, and you never hassled me, either!" Langly shoots back at her, laughing. "'Uncle Ringo, play with me!'"

"Which you took to mean, torment me!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

Regression, it's a wonderful thing.
 

Langly and Julie can't keep from busting on one another, but they do take some time in between jabs to catch up on the more serious aspects of their lives.

Julie's a physicist, she's been living in Washington State for several years now completing her graduate work. Recently funding for her postdoc ran out, and she's in limbo right now.

For a woman who doesn't know what's going to happen next, she's surprisingly calm.

She's so different from her mother. Joan is obviously thrilled she is there, and she's a very proud mom. Being a proud mom myself, I can smell this miles off. But Joan's tension surrounds her like a veil of needles. Still, she's more relaxed today than I've seen her since I met her earlier this year.

After several hours of telling embarrassing stories about one another-and Langly and Julie have plenty, in which they reveal the other's less than stellar moments with intense relish-Joan indicates that she needs to start dinner, and vanishes into the kitchen with Miranda on her heels, actually offering to help.

This is the same daughter to whom I have to issue a death threat to get her assistance on anything domestic.

Julie, Langly and I all partake of another beer, and Julie suddenly looks more serious than she has all day.

"I told you my postdoc funding got stopped," she begins, no preamble.

"I'm not that drunk, I think I remember you saying something about that," Langly gives her a light, friendly kick.

"Well, anyway, I'm worried about my mom, and I was thinking this might be a good opportunity to come back and, you know, keep an eye on her. And on my father." The last word obviously has a poor taste for her. "You know my father's been siccing his minions on her-just as he did with me when I informed him that I was leaving the church. And I think it's worse for her than it was for me. I'm glad she lives with somebody and she's out her in the boonies, where it's hard for them to approach, but I know she's got tons of trouble at work, and she can barely make a trip to the supermarket without getting ambushed.

"So here's the plan. Right now, I'm putting in applications for teaching positions at just about any high school or college that'll have me-hey, I'll teach high school, I'm not proud, and the kids could be fun. Ideally, I'd like to get a fellowship or a grant so I can continue doing fluid mechanics-that's my specialty-but if it doesn't happen right away, I can live with that."

"Private industry?" Langly asks her. "Any possibilities there?"

"Not really interested. I don't think there're many places where I can do research around here that's not weapons related, and I'm not into that.

"Right now, I think my mom needs me here. I was so glad when she told me she left my father. She should've left the jerk years ago, but you know how he is." She gives her uncle a sharp look. "And how she is. She's determined to take whatever it is she's got to the bitter end. I guess she finally figured out that it's better to have a horrible ending than horrors without end."

Now she looks really worried. "And I think my father's up to something other than bugging my mom. I don't know what it is, and I don't know why I feel this way, but I think I'd like to be able to keep a closer watch on his activities. Uncle Ringo, you're gonna love this. I was actually thinking of playing prodigal daughter so I could get a job in his law firm or in one of his friend's organizations, but I figured my gag factor was too low."

Langly eyes her quizzically. "Don't think you could do it for a few months?"

"Uncle Ringo, you know I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut."

"As a matter of fact-"

"I get it from you, you know." She sticks her tongue out at him and grins wickedly. Then serious again. "Truthfully, I'm not hopeful about getting funding for my research at this point. Basically, if it's not defense research, you're not going to get funding for it. I've written some grants, all of which have been rejected."

"Well, don't you have other talents?" her uncle inquires of her.

"Well, most of them involve a can of Crisco and some telephone cord." She's playing with him. I love it. We're all screaming with laughter at this. I doubt this is something she'd say in front of her mother.

Her humor doesn't last. She doesn't seem like a melancholy soul, but she's definitely got things lurking in her mind that I suspect she wishes weren't taking up residence.

"I'm worried. Two years ago, the Dems swept the election. People didn't give a fuck about Clinton's sex life-sorry, I keep forgetting in my mom's house, I need to watch my mouth a bit-and it looked as if we were going to get back on track. So tell me why, a mere two years later, Clinton's been booted out of office over a scandal whose veracity is dubious at best, David Kneller takes the election, we vote in a bunch of conservative Congressmen and women-some of whom haven't even taken office yet-and things are unraveling even before the inauguration. You tell me, Uncle. Mom says this is your bent."

Langly looks dejected. "Y'know, me and my buds, we're pretty good at getting what we want...but I'm telling ya, trying to figure out what's happening here...these people are good. They're worse than insurance companies."

"I'm thinking there's a tie between them and the insurance companies," Julie expounds on this theory.

The whole damn family has paranoia built into the DNA.

"Yeah, but we haven't been able to prove it to any degree of certainty," Langly tells her glumly. "You do any hacking, Jules?"

Julie looks at him incredulously. "Uncle Ringo, I don't use computers for anything outside of work and e-mail. I get enough of them where I have to use them. And I don't want to. I'm not a Luddite, but I just don't get into the tech thing the way you used to."

"Used to?" I laugh.

"God, he really hasn't changed, has he?" At least she's laughing right now. But again it's short-lived. "Look, I haven't told my mom that I'm probably moving back, and I want to tell her privately, okay? So keep your yap shut, Uncle, or I will have to hurt you. And I'd like to continue this discussion, but not here. Maybe I can come over to your guys' place and see if it's true that my uncle is turning respectable?"

"Trust me, Julie, he is NOT turning respectable." I assure her of this with confidence.

"Okay, wrong choice of words. I hear he's a homeowner. Who'd you have to bribe?"

"I had to make Ally's mom laugh," he tells her.

"That shouldn't have been hard."

"You'd be surprised."

"My mother put a rather substantial down payment on the place, enabling us to qualify for the mortgage," I explained. "Unfortunately, she passed on this summer past."

"I'm sorry," Julie says simply. "Speaking of which..." I think I see her shudder..."Mom looks like hell. I mean, I know things are tough, but she really looks bad. You know if she's been sick or anything like that?"

"She hasn't said anything."

"She probably wouldn't, knowing Mom. I'll have to work on her a little."
 

"I think she should try to kiss up to her old man," Langly announces to me as we're leaving.

"I don't. I think he'd see right through her. And she said it herself, she's got a big mouth."

"Look, things are about to get ugly. It'd be good if we had somebody on the inside."

"I think you may be overreacting."

"I don't."

"And what makes you think she'd figure out anything? Her dad's a lawyer for some evangelical church. Just how much information would she be privy to, anyway? I think you think her father's a bigger player than he probably is."

"I disagree."

"On what basis?"

He snorts. "Kneller's a puppet. He's bought and paid for by these people. I'd like to know what the puppetmasters are up to."

"Yeah, I imagine that's true. But what makes you think Roy Renshaw is one of the ones doing the string pulling?"

"Well, for starters, he's a major donor and a member of the same church he belongs to."

"So are a few thousand other people."

"Yeah, but how many of them get to be elected President? I think my ex brother-in-law-God, it feels nice to say that!-has a connection to all this. I think he may be THE connection."

"You also hate his guts. Don't tell me that doesn't color your judgment."

"Oh, it does. It also makes me think I'm right."

Oh, God help me when he gets like this.

END OF PART 33