Speed Racer Fan Fiction / InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Love, Life, and Reincarnations ❯ Christmas Memories ( Chapter 8 )

"Listen to the children sing/Watch them dancing all round the Christmas tree/Waiting for the opening/early Christmas morning . . ."

Torie adjusted the volume on the stereo then strained to listen to the rest of the house. She thought she had heard the phone ringing, but, with the music on, she hadn't been able to tell. And putting the headset on was not a good idea while she baked. When she heard nothing more, she shrugged. It wasn't the first time she thought she'd heard something and it wouldn't be the last. She kept the volume down, just to be on the safe side and turned to see three pairs of eyes - one golden-brown, one blue, and one amethyst - watching her with bright interest.

"What?" she asked. To that, her oldest son began to giggle. Torie raised an eyebrow at the four-year-old. Sesshomaru, for some reason, had been easily amused as of late. Anything could send the child into a fit of giggles. Once he got going, Little Ryan and Inuyasha weren't too far behind him.

"Nothing," he replied innocently. Torie shook her head.

"Okay, silly butt, back into the kitchen!" She made a shooing gesture. Sesshomaru and Little Ryan squealed then scrambled to race each other into the kitchen. Inuyasha held his little arms up. Torie frowned a little as she swung him up to be balanced on her hip. Immediately, he clung to her. Torie kissed his forehead then began to sing softly as she followed the older boys into the kitchen.

"All around the fireplaces, angels waking, smiling faces . . . wrapping us with love and graces . . . early Christmas morning . . ."

"Cookies! Cookies!" Sesshomaru jumped, grinning.

"Yes, yes," she chuckled. "Cookies. Go sit at the table while I pull them out of the oven."

He dashed over to the table, where Little Ryan had already pulled out a chair and climbed onto. For a moment, she debated setting Inuyasha in a chair then decided against it. Chances were he wasn't feeling good - she thought he'd felt a little warmer than usual when she kissed his forehead - and he'd probably gotten into one of his "I want Mommy" moods.

`I can manage,' she thought as she retrieved an oven mitt. `I have before.'

"Mommy, can I have a cookie please?"

"When they've cooled down, baby."

With a gaining ease, Torie pulled the cookie sheets out of the oven and placed a few more in. She'd eventually have to set Inuyasha down to frost and package the cookies, but that wouldn't be for a while yet. If she had to, she could frost cookies with Sesshomaru when Little Ryan and Inuyasha took their naps. While the next batch of cookies were baking, she turned to her sons at the table. Sesshomaru had been gazing at her thoughtfully. Or, rather, he gazed at his brother cradled in her arms.

"Inuyasha's not feeling good, is he?" Though he posed it as a question, it sounded more like a statement.

"Probably not, Sessh," she replied, sitting next to him. Little Ryan, when she glanced at him, had rested his head on the table.

"Will Santa still bring him presents if he's not feeling good?"

"Santa?" Torie smiled a little. "Who's been telling you about Santa?"

"Nana and Grandma," he stated. "They said Santa only comes to visit good boys and girls."

"I see . . . Well," Torie began, readjusting Inuyasha so that he was nestled snug in her lap. "Santa visits all children who celebrate Christmas and who believe in him."

"Like me?"

"Yes," she nodded, "like you. Good children get presents from Santa, but bad children get coal in their stockings and under the tree . . . Like in The Santa Clause movies. You remember watching those?"

"Uh-huh . . ."

"It's like that. However, just because your brother doesn't feel good and may get a little cranky doesn't mean he won't get a present from Santa. You're allowed to be a little grumpy when you're sick or not feeling," she explained. Torie chuckled at the relief written on Sesshomaru's face.

"Can I stay up and wait for Santa on Christmas Eve?"

"No, baby, you can't," she smiled. "Santa won't be coming to our house on Christmas Eve. We asked him to come on the night of the winter solstice. See, Daddy and I celebrate Yule and the changing of the seasons."

"Pagan holiday," Sesshomaru murmured.

"Right. But that doesn't mean that the two holidays have different meanings. Farfrom it. They're both about celebrating the miracle of life and family."

"Oh . . . can I stay up and wait for him on the night of the winter solstice then?"

Torie couldn't refrain from chuckling. Her sons were, without any doubt, the greatest joys of her life.

"Baby, he won't come if you're waiting for him. Santa has a secret way of climbing down chimneys that no one, not even the movie makers, knows about. He doesn't even tell Mommies and Daddies about it."

Sesshomaru's eyes widened.

"Really really?"

"Really really," she smiled. They fell silent for a few moments, the only sounds in the kitchen being the soft breathing form Inuyasha and Little Ryan, the thumping of Sesshomaru's feet against his chair, and the music coming from the living room. She'd have to find a way of getting the cookies out of the oven and getting Little Ryan out of his chair before he fell out.

`Nothing I can't handle,' she told herself. `I'll get the kids first.' Adjusting Inuyasha once more, Torie got to her feet then stepped around Sesshomaru to scoop up her other baby. Little Ryan immediately held onto her then settled right back down.

"Stay right there, Sesshomaru. I'll be right back."

"Okay, Mommy."

Torie had just stepped into the living room when the front door opened. Her husband came inside, stomping some snow off his boots. His cheeks were slightly red from the cold and he pushed the door shut before turning to see her snail her way to the couch.

"My goodness woman," he chided softly, not even bothering to take his jacket off. "You're going to give yourself a heart attack if you keep this up."

"I love you, too, Ryan," she smiled sweetly. She had made it halfway to the couch. "Will you pull the cookies out of the oven for me please? I'd like to tuck them in."

"How about I take one of them from you before you collapse?" he inquired. Ryan had already moved to her side.

"No," she shook her head. "I've got them. Besides, I want to check Inuyasha's temp before I go back into the kitchen.

"Torie . . ." He gave her a worried look.

"Ryan, I've got them," she assured him. "Please check on Sesshomaru and pull the cookies out of the oven."

"All right," he sighed before giving her a quick kiss. Ryan shrugged out of his jacket and hung it up before disappearing into the kitchen. Torie set each child on one end of the couch, tucking a large blanket over the toddlers. She had just came back from retrieving the baby thermometer when Ryan met her at the couch. Torie knelt next to Inuyasha, smoothing back his ebony hair and placing the thermometer in Inuyasha's ear.

"He was quiet yesterday," came her husband's statement. "More so than usual. Cookies are out, by the way. Sesshomaru's dusting the ones you pulled out earlier."

"At least he's occupied for the moment."

The thermometer beeped and Torie checked it. "And we have a child with a low-grade temp. Probably teething again. Poor baby."

Between her two youngest, Inuyasha had get to grow in all of his baby teeth, Torie had noted, and she made sure she kept an eye on that, much in the same way she listened and watched her children whenever they had a complaint of some kind. Like a new mother who has slowly eased up in her worries but not entirely. She didn't think she'd ever be able to ease up in her worries. In the space of three months, she had been blessed with, not one child, but three, and it had presented challenges to her she had not been truly prepared to face.

"To think," Ryan smiled, thumbing their youngest son's cheek. "To think we were ready for parenthood when we had Little Ryan. Then Sesshomaru and Inuyasha came along . . . Turns out we weren't ready. Would you change anything about this, Torie? Anything at all?"

"No," she smiled. "I wouldn't change a thing, Ryan. Granted, we weren't ready for three children at the same time, but we've adapted, we've managed." Torie raised her head so that her doe eyes met his ocean blue. "They're the reasons why I can love this holiday again."

-- If you've ever baked sugar cookies before, you know that you use a lot of flour when cutting the dough out, and they have flour covering them when they come out of the oven. To dust them, you take a small barbecue brush and sweep the flour off. Hence my term, dusting the cookies. :)