The following morning, as the sun began to rise, I found myself standing before the patio doors looking out over the garden in dismay.

The beautiful blanket of snow which had become such a familiar sight each morning had well and truly melted now. Leaving only small patches of slush and ice. The epic snow battle of the previous day had not done much to help preserve what little remained, but I was still sad to see it go.

So much for a white Christmas.

The snowman we had built that once stood so proudly next to the back door was now a slumped over mess. His face scattered in the slushy pile of what remained and the scarf I had wrapped around him now frozen to the ground.

'Nothing fun ever lasts.' I thought to myself. Counting the days on my hand I realised I only had five days left in isolation now and what had once seemed like an age, now seemed like nowhere near enough time.

As excited as I was for Christmas and seeing family and friends again, I couldn't stop thinking about how I could help Henry keep rediscovering the Christmas magic, if only I had more time.

"What's that face for?" Henry appeared at my side, his hand brushing across the small of my back in a way that made me shiver.

"Just that the snow is almost gone." I sighed.

Henry looked out over the garden and then slowly back at me as though sensing it was something a little more than that, "What do you want to do today?" he asked, steering me towards the kitchen for breakfast and away from the thing I claimed were bothering me.

"I don't know, I was going to say bake cookies." I shrugged, still wrapped up in my thoughts.

"Do you need an assistant baker?" Henry offered, a little shyly.

That got my attention. "Are you sure?"

"Why not." Henry laughed at my shocked expression.

"Oh wow, ok, let's eat quickly and then we can get started. If we do them this morning, we can decorate them this afternoon." I explained.

Wolfing down my breakfast, I discussed ideas the whole time, barely stopping to take a breath or allow Henry to speak.

"Can we get dressed before we start?" He laughed at my enthusiasm, as he placed his bowl in the sink.

"Oh yes," I flushed at the sudden realisation that Henry was in pyjamas and I was wearing nothing more than an oversized t-shirt and underwear.

Whilst comfortable and covering the essentials, it wasn't exactly the sort of clothes I should really be wearing around the boss I was trying not to think of as anything else.

Hands pressing the t-shirt to my thighs I hurried up the stairs. With the bits I had washed the night before to choose from as well, I selected the navy gingerbread man top as the best option to wear whilst baking. Paired with some grey marl leggings I glanced at herself in the mirror. Much more decent.

I rushed back down the stairs, beating Henry to the kitchen and began collecting the bits we would need. The cookie mix bag told me we would need an egg and softened butter which I fetched from the fridge. It also asked for flour for rolling, greaseproof paper and cookie cutters.

I frowned as I fetched the tub of flour I had spotted in his cupboards before. I couldn't remember ordering cutters and I very much doubted Henry owned any.

It was just as I finished searching the final cupboard. That Henry wandered in, "What are you looking for?"

"Greaseproof paper and cookie cutters?"

Henry reached for the cupboard above the oven, "Greaseproof paper is here, but I don't have any cookie cutters."

I pouted in disappointment, but my mind was already racing with other options. After a few minutes of searching, I selected an empty pringles tub, which I squeezed into a heart shape and a couple of different sized glasses. "We can make them prettier when we decorate them." I explained.

Henry just nodded, "I trust you Mrs Claus, don't worry."

I laughed and bumped him with my hip as I moved to preheat the oven. There was still that slightly on edge quality to him, but Henry really did seem to be finally relaxing.

"So first, we need to wash our hands." I explained, shooing Henry towards the sink as I did.

He looked confused, but hurried to do as I asked.

"Then," I said, drying my hands on a towel. "We need to combine all the ingredients to form a dough."

I plonked the large mixing bowl I had found on the counter and began pouring the powder mix into the bowl. Henry handed me the egg and butter wordlessly.

"Now we rub them together like this to form a dough." I explained, when everything was in the bowl.

"Are we supposed to get it all over our hands?" Henry pulled a face as he lifted one sticky lump out of the bowl I handed him.

"Yep, that's part of the fun." I said cheerily as I began working on the dough in my own bowl with a lot more enthusiasm than Henry.

Henry's disgusted faces had me in fits of laughter. "It's really not that bad when you get used to it." I tried to reassure Henry as he gagged for the fifth time.

Another few minutes of face pulling later, I declared my dough ready and spread flour on the worktop before dolloping it in the centre. Henry's eyes were wide as he took in the mess. "We can clean it up." I rolled my eyes as I pulled his bowl across the worktop and dump his dough next to mine, "Now do you want to roll them out or should I?"

Henry looked like he wanted to cry at the mess. "You can," He said, moving to the sink to wash his hands.

I shook my head and smiled as I began rolling the dough out. When I was finally satisfied with the thickness, I handed Henry a glass. "Get cutting." I ordered as I covered two trays with greaseproof paper to transfer them over to.

The cutting process took a little longer than expected, especially as one of the glasses kept refusing to release the cookie. In the end, I discarded it with a frustrated noise and we worked a lot faster without it.

"Is this supposed to make me feel like a child?" Henry asked as he carefully transferred a cookie to the baking tray.

"Exactly. Gives me flashbacks to baking with my mother." I replied happily.

He reached over in front of me to retrieve the next one and his hand brushed mine.

There was a moment where neither of us moved, and then he looked slowly back over his shoulder at me. For half a second I thought he was going to kiss me. Perhaps even wanted him to.

Then he pulled back quickly, busying himself placing the cookie on the tray.

Before I could say anything or ask what the moment meant, he was scooping up the first tray, and heading towards the oven. "Wait, wait, wait," I squeaked, rushing over clutching a pen, "We have to poke the holes in them so they will hang."

"Right of course, silly me for forgetting." Henry looked heavenward as if often did when I frustrated him. Almost as though he were asking for some sort of divine intervention to help him understand me better.

Cookies finally ready for baking, we placed the two trays in and began the clean-up process. Henry put a lot more effort into scrubbing the worktop that he had kneading the dough, I noted.

When the washing up was completed and surfaces finished, I set to work, sorting through the decorations we would need. Although the cookies would need to cool before we could ice them, it never hurt to be prepared.

I flicked Henry's back with the cloth I had been using as I passed behind him where he was still polishing the worktop. He immediately whipped round, and before I could do anything, had caught my hands at the wrists, moving them up above my head and pinning me against the wall.

I sucked in a breath and stared up at him, turned on and flashing back to our kiss immediately. Henry seemed to be feeling all the same things, "Keep those hands to yourself Susie. Unless you want me to show you how much fun you can have without access to them." He growled.

His voice sent a shiver through me and I found a little mewling noise of need escaped me. I was pretty sure that I had never produced a sound like that in all my life. I wriggled against his hold, testing how tightly he held me.

Suddenly the timer went and snapped us out of the moment. The sound like a bucket of cold water over us.

Henry stepped back, breathing heavily. "Call me when you want to decorate them." he said quickly and rushed out of the room.

My hands dropped slowly to my sides, but I couldn't quite persuade my body to move even as the timer continued to let out a piercing annoying beep.

I felt out with my hand for the button to silence it, still staring out of the door Henry had disappeared through. Oh we were playing a dangerous game.

Slowly, almost mechanically I switched the oven off and retrieved the trays of cookies and placed them to cool on the side.

There was no sound from the living room, but I still peeked round slowly in case Henry was there. My heart was still thudding from our encounter and I didn't dare see him until I had calmed down. I felt sure that my feelings about the moment were displayed clearly on my face and were contrary to everything I had told Henry.

I had wanted that moment; I had wanted him.

Confirming he had gone upstairs, I retrieved my phone and made my way to the sofa. 'Time to think about something else', I ordered my brain. But Henry kept filling my thoughts.

'Fine, we can think about getting Henry a Christmas present, that's it' I mentally ordered. The thought brought me back to myself a little more, and I began searching and purchasing the bits I wanted to use to surprise him.

It was a little over an hour later when Henry appeared back downstairs and, online shopping complete, I had switched to watching a Netflix Christmas movie.

"Did you want to ice the cookies yet?" Henry asked in a perfectly normal tone as though the moment before had never happened.

"Sure," I stumbled to my feet, my leg dead from where I had been sitting on it,

Henry dived and caught my arm quickly to steady me but let go just as quickly as though he couldn't bear to touch me.

"Thanks." I muttered, blushing bright red and rushing ahead of him to the kitchen.

"What do you need me to do?" Henry asked, rolling his sleeves up.

I stared at his arms a little too long and shook my head as if I could shake some sense back into myself. "First," I said, "We need to mix the different colours of icing and load up the piping bags."

Henry did as instructed, holding the bags open so I could shovel in the icing in garishly bright festive colours into them. Red, green, gold and finally a less obnoxious shade; a simple white.

"Ok, now this is the fun part," I said, finally relaxing a little, excited to be doing one of my favourite Christmas traditions, "Time to decorate."

"What am I supposed to draw?" Henry asked as he looked at the choice of colours.

"Whatever you want. Here," I pulled out my phone and loaded up pictures of Christmas sugar cookies, "Anything like this really."

Henry looked intently at the images as I scrolled and then nodded, "Ok, I've got this."

With a surprisingly delicate hand Henry began creating a pretty white swirl pattern around the edge of one of the cookies. "Perfect!" I clapped my hands in delight, quickly scooping up the red to get started myself.

We were almost halfway through our respective trays when Henry finally spoke again, "This is actually quite therapeutic."

"Well blow me down, if we haven't found another Christmas activity Mr Henry Scrooge Carter enjoys!" I teased.

Henry gave me a little kick up the breakfast bar. "Stop it you, or else!"

"Or else what?" I laughed, turning to face him, a piping bag dangling from one hand and the other on my hip.

Henry thought for a moment, "Or else this." he said, firing a stream of gold icing at me.

I shrieked, jumping back to avoid it and immediately brought my green icing bag up like a gun. "You don't wanna play with me. Think of your nice clean kitchen!"

Henry considered that for less than a second, firing off another piece with a flourish over my head so it landed on my cheek, "Worth it." he crowed.

"Oh, you are on." I giggled back as I sent a huge green blob into the air which landed with a weird plop on Henry's shirt.

Within a couple of minutes we were both covered in icing and I could tell by Henry's facial expression he maybe no longer felt like it was worth it as he surveyed the state of the kitchen.

"You really do bring out the most ridiculous side of me." Henry sighed, scratching his ear and covering it in white icing.

"You love it really!" I giggled as we began the process of tidying up.

When it was finally cleaned to Henry's satisfaction and the cookies were loaded up on plates to set, we looked at each other. "Bath?" I said at the same time as Henry said, "Shower?"

"Good plan." We said together and then burst out laughing again.

We jostled each other as we hurried up the stairs. "Careful, don't want me falling." I joked.

Henry's face fell slightly and he caught my arm in an effort to steady me the rest of the way. "Too soon Susie." He replied with a frown.

Guilt gripped my heart. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I forget to think before I speak."

Henry shrugged, "It's ok. Don't let it spoil a fun day."

I swallowed down the guilt, "So you admit you had fun?"

He shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "It wasn't quite as terrible as I thought it would be."