Gallagher Girls: Holiday Headcanons
Cammie & Zach:
They start to make their own little traditions over the years.
One of their favourites' is getting in the car after it's dark and driving around to look at all the Christmas lights and decorations.
They like to make up little ratings, pick out their favourite house, the best street, and things like that.
Zach usually drives while Cammie controls the Christmas music and occasionally makes Zach take a few sharp and sudden turns because "Oooooh, that street looks good" and "We have to see that one!"
It's also a pretty good way to exercise some in-vehicle countersurveilance techniques.
Zach grew up without having many traditions in his life—the holidays were never an exception, so he likes that he finally gets to make them with Cam.
His favourite part is seeing Cam light up when they spot THE HOUSE.
Her face is frozen with the kind of joy a 4-year old might have, she's so giddy her smile hangs wide open, and Zach always drives real slow just so it lasts a little longer.
Every hour driving, every aimless turn, every year it's all worth it for that single moment.
To him, it's more magical than all the Christmas lights.
Abby & Townsend:
One year, Townsend comes home to find a tree has appeared in their apartment, boxes that were clearly once in storage have been placed throughout the living room, decorations are scattered across every surface, a few rogue bulbs are rolling around on the floor, and he's pretty sure that what's supposed to be hot chocolate is boiling over on the stove.
It's like a Christmas bomb went off.
And there, in the middle of everything is Abby, playing Christmas music with the volume cranked up as she tries to untangle a never-ending string of lights.
He starts to help, but only after "Abigail, how can you disassemble a bomb, but not untangle a bloody string of lights?" "Are you just going to stand there and ask questions, or actually help me?" "How did you even get the tree in here?" "Just help me!"
She is pretty cute when she's frustrated.
They bicker about how to decorate the tree, what ornaments go where, and how many times a person can listen to "Last Christmas" before going completely insane (Abby's pick, not Townsend's).
After everything's on the tree and Townsend puts the star up, maybe they end up slow dancing to "I'll Be Home For Christmas," just swaying there in the glow of the tree; taking a moment to enjoy their chaotic little Christmas.
And then Wham! comes on again....
Rachel & Joe:
Most years they like to escape to the cabin.
Winter mornings there are some of the most peaceful mornings they know.
Joe makes the coffee while Rachel settles on the couch by the fireplace with a book or newspaper, and somehow everything is so much more quiet with a fresh layer of snow.
Every other year, Rachel pulls out a few old boxes filled with decorations and pictures, and little souvenirs from all the times they had to spend the holidays in some other part of the world.
There's pictures of Cammie's first Christmas, childhood ornaments made out of Popsicle sticks and clay, cards and gifts that hold a fortune in sentimental value.
There's something that manages to touch everything in those boxes—and that's Matt.
He's in the pictures, he's addressed in the cards, he's a memory that lives in every toy and trinket that's home is now in a box.
Once it would have been too painful—to rummage through old memories, but time has a way of healing, and more and more it just feels right—to remember someone who gave so much—loved so much.
Because they both have no doubt, that the best gift was being loved by Matthew Morgan.
And they're just glad they have each other to remember that.
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Astrid calling Sophie "Mum" came about first as a spiteful joke. Over a year of her parents' rancorous divorce turned her angry and resentful, aware of being used as a bargaining chip more than once, aware that each parent wanted to foist her off on the other. Her birth mother because she'd never really taken to parenting; her father because he was flush in new love with Sophie-as-Charlotte.
Sophie tried to respond in kind with as much of Charlotte's warmth as she could muster. At first, she was more concerned with maintaining the grift even as her grip on it grew more tenuous. And Astrid wasn't completely wrong about her, after all; Charlotte was the new model William upgraded to, a prettier and much younger second wife with a slightly scandalous overlap with his first marriage. Later, her concern for Astrid surpassed the grift as Astrid stayed stuck in the middle of two parents who didn't particularly want to deal with her, shipped off to boarding school for that first year and passed back and forth a bit too enthusiastically the following summer.
She might have targeted William as part of a grift, her (and Ramsay's) solidified entrance into high society, but she did come to truly love him as Charlotte. But she could see that William and Astrid's mother were parents more because it was expected than any actual desire for children. And having been an afterthought herself to her parents and later the extended family she was passed around to, Sophie found herself connecting with Astrid even as she flinched internally every time Astrid called her "Mum," the acidity of the title out of Astrid's mouth slowly softening over time.
A child needs someone, after all, and for better or worse, that slowly became Charlotte until the moment Sophie left her behind.
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