To Be A Warrior

Chapter 48: Snowman

"How are you still cold?" Sam asks, his voice holding a tinge of humor as I lean a bit closer to him, my arm brushing his. He doesn't mind. Better me brushing up against him than the dozens of other people in the building.

"I just am," I reply over the chatter, people laughing, some still eating the sweets some of us spent all day in the kitchen making, and some still exchanging gifts. "People keep opening the door to head back to the dorms. Lets all the warm air out."

"Poor darling," He teases, and I glare at him. It only clauses him to grin wider. "Hey, now, don't make such a sour face on Christmas."

I shake my head but drop the glare. "I hope my present is really good, because now you have to make up for being mean to me."

He rolls his eyes at my dramatics. "I told you, I left it in the coms shack. I'll give it to you once we get back, and to get back to me you won't let me open my gift until we get back anyway."

For emphasis he holds up his gift, all wrapped in pink paper since trying to find Christmas themed wrapping paper has proven quite hard in the apocalypse. I can see Sam is trying to test the weight out, noticing how it isn't stiff. I'm sure he knows it's a book, or something close to it, but he doesn't know what the contents of it could possibly be. I have to bite back my grin, internally squealing at the thought of his reaction when he does get to open it.

"It'll be worth the wait, I promise."

My words bring a soft smile to his lips, but his eyes quickly focus on something different. I turn my head to see what he's staring at, and smile as Sarah and Adora both walk over to us, their hands both grasping onto the toy each of them got for Christmas. The two-year-olds both look at us expectantly, and I hold out my hand to pick up whichever one gets to me first. Surprisingly, it's Sarah.

I cock a brow, glancing over at Sam who looks surprised and amused, but he quickly picks up Adora and sets her onto his lap. She seems very content to sit with him, shaking her doll which is a knock-off version of Barbie.

"She's very pretty," Sam replies when she holds up the doll as if to show it off. I pick up Sarah, who does the same. Her doll is a bit like Adora's, although instead of blonde, her doll has black hair.

There was a lot of gift giving this year. I was able to get Phineas some new clothes. Lord knows he needed a better jacket than the one he had, and Milo got some really good running shoes and some art stuff, and a calculator, because he wanted that for some reason. I'm unsure why since he's pretty good at doing math in his head, but who am I to question his hobbies. At least he's getting more hobbies besides just running, even if that hobby has something to do with math.

I found some movies and gave them to Peter. They all had happy endings, and I thought he might need something to keep himself entertained since he'll be traveling back and forth and will have to spend some nights in Banktown, meaning he won't be able to be up at three in the morning talking to me and Tom.

I still haven't given Tom and Jody their presents yet. I was able to find Jody some really nice shampoo and conditioner. I think she'll like it. Because she's grown her hair out, it's back to blonde instead of that horrible box dye black. Now she can actually focus on getting it back to its normal state again now that she's cut off all the dead dyed bits.

I was able to find some books from the same store I found Sam's, although Tom's are more of cool historical facts and languages, just tidbits of things that he likes to grasp onto. It's hard to get someone like him gifts. Not that he wouldn't be appreciative, but as his friend I want to get him something he'd actually, truly like, and it's hard when it comes to someone like Tom.