December 18th, 2001

The past week in France had been a rollercoaster of things. Sam had been keeping tabs on the situation, but it had been hard to gauge because Randy had been a lot quieter than usual. There was no more little inquiring questions that came out of nowhere. No more little conversations with himself that Sam wondered if Randy knew he was in the room with him. Randy was mostly in his grandmother's apartment in various rooms, being aimless.

Randy had been to see his new ballet coach and they didn't have a lot of chemistry. Sam kind of wondered if it was because Randy wasn't letting her in. He was definitely depressed. He was taking her direction, but not making friends.

Similarly, he was much more quiet with Yuna. Yuna told Sam all about it, worrying about him. Sam just told her that Randy was going through a lot. It was a lot for any kid, but they both knew how sensitive Randy could be. It wasn't as if Randy was being mean about anything. He was more disconnecting, and that was concerning.

Today, Randy had been particularly slow in ballet practice. He seemed particularly disconnected. They took a break and Sam called Reiha about it.

"Have you considered that he might be feeling sick? Stress can do that. I know I feel that way when I get too stressed sometimes. Imagine the stress he's under."

This was good advice from Reiha. Sam hadn't thought about that, and felt ashamed. As Randy's guardian, he should have thought about that sooner. He might not have thought about that for a long time if she hadn't said it. It just made Sam remember how much of a team he, Reiha, and Yuna were. It hurt even worse that Reiha was separated from them.

It was a harsh reality. Randy wasn't an ordinary kid for a lot of reasons, but they had to be enormously cautious because Randy had an illness. Having three sets of eyes on him all day at various times of the day helped all of them. Now Reiha wasn't even here and she'd noticed this.

Sam took Randy home early from ballet practice. Randy hadn't even protested. It was odd. Sam knew Randy's favorite part of ballet practice was being en pointe, and he'd only been in slippers for the first part of it. That was just another indication that Reiha must have been right.

Once they got to his grandmother's apartment, Sam gave him the full work up. Checking his peak flow on the spirometer, his blood sugar a few times, even his blood pressure. All of them were off. Reiha had been absolutely right. None of them were at any sort of level that were an emergency, but Sam wanted to monitor him. He decided to let him take a nap. In this way, Sam suddenly found himself with free time. It made him uncomfortable.

Randy looked like a little fairy on the living room couch. His white dress was lending to this illusion, as was his white blonde hair which seemed like a snow in the light coming from the art deco window behind the couch. Sam sat in the large armchair opposite, still watching him for changes, but also in his own thoughts.

His wife was at the hotel nearby. This was a pretty upscale area, and his wife felt a little uncomfortable trying to shop. It wasn't as if Sam didn't make a lot of money. He probably made more money than most people who did jobs like this. But, she wasn't used to such a neighborhood. He wanted to encourage her to go out. They were used to Torrance, California, which is where they'd both grown up. It was a very mixed race kind of place, and most everyone was working class. They both came from this background. It wasn't hard to guess why she didn't feel welcome in the stores here.

Anais was doing damage control, being led by her publicist. She'd gone on a morning talk show that was shown nationwide this morning. It was family friendly, and that was the vibe her publicist Suzanne was going for. Michael was toxic and going through TMZ, but Anais was looking like the good mother she is by keeping it rated G, so much so that children could watch it. In between stories about Papa Noel and Christmas goose, there she was talking about how much she loved her kids. It was genius and Anais deserved to be able to control the narrative this way.

One of the things she'd been asked is how was her family going to celebrate Christmas? The interviewers had been kind, trying not to talk about Michael and what he'd said about what had happened in New York. What he'd said had been wildly skewed and Sam would even call them lies. He'd said that Anais had started the argument. It wasn't true. Michael had been acting terrible the whole time and then had blown up at her. She'd fought back in kind, but in defense. There wasn't one word about that on this program. Instead, she'd kind of seemed taken aback. As if she hadn't really thought about what they were going to do for Christmas.

She had asked Randy for his Christmas list yesterday. He hadn't seemed interested, but now Sam thought that likely he'd felt too sick to think about it. Sam thought now that maybe he should make a list to give to Anais. Just ideas. It was less than a week until Christmas now, so she really didn't have a lot of time to get things he might like. Now that Randy was taking a nap, maybe now was the best time to make that list. Sam would have to search his brain for things that Randy was interested in now. He also was thinking about the fact that Randy had said in New York that "a gift is something you don't need." So, what could Anais get for Randy that he didn't need? That was the hard part. What a challenge.

Sam thought about how this was likely a part of his job that he'd not thought about before. A way to help Randy when he was sick. It made him think about the fact that he and Reiha and Yuna were a team. Maybe they'd heard something that Randy might want for Christmas that he wasn't aware of. So, he took out his phone and began to text.

The first texts came back from Yuna.

"He was talking to me about service dogs. He was worried that he might need one some day. But, I think a dog is a good idea in general. A companion for him. Goodness knows he needs a friend."

This was an excellent idea. But it might not be practical with how the family was now. They'd brought Darla, Anais's dog. She was a very old king Charles cavalier spaniel that was asleep most of the time. If she weren't, she might be getting into all of the antiques in the apartment. The whole apartment was as if it were in a time capsule from the 1920's. Imagine a puppy in here? Still, he couldn't shake what Yuna had said.

The next texts came from Reiha.

"He was talking about music from the video game series Final Fantasy. We talk about it, because it's Japanese and you know, I'm Japanese. I grew up with that series, too. He wants to dance with it. The new game is coming out. I think it's out already. It's the tenth in the series. He'll love it. He said he's played all the others. I bet he wants this one, too."

Check. Got it. He texted back to her, asking if he'd mentioned anything else like that. She probably was thinking about it for a while, and then she came back.

"We've been dancing to a lot of music from Disney movies lately. There's a lot of ballets that are the same story. Hunchback of Notre Dame, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty. I wanted him to get even more familiar with it. The movie Sleeping Beauty even borrows from the ballet's original music. I don't know what you can do with that information, but he loves Disney. I know you and he go to Disneyland a lot. He's missing home. Maybe Disney will make him happy."

Check. Got it. But what part of it?

He sent texts thanking them, but got a text back from Yuna that surprised him.

"Reiha told me what you asked her. I bet he'd like to play Final Fantasy music, too. I'll get him some score books. Reiha can probably get them from Japan. I wonder if they'll arrive in time."

Now that was way too nice. And perfect. Sam texted back that if they had a score book for the new game, then that would be perfect. That way, Randy would get the new game and the score book at the same time. What a great way to distract him from the circumstances. He'd get so into the game and the music that he wouldn't know which direction the sky was anymore since his nose would be so far buried in that scorebook.

Yuna texted back that she and Reiha would work on that.

Sam watched Randy for a while. Thinking about the fact that he looked like a fairy. He wondered if the new Final Fantasy game had fairies. He decided to theme Randy's Christmas presents to fairies. A lot of ballets had them, and he thought about the ballet stories he knew. He definitely didn't know as much as Reiha and Randy about them, but there were a lot of them in there. There were a lot of fairies in Disney, too. Thinking about the commonalities of ballet stories and Disney stories.

He thought maybe a big storybook of fairy tales would be nice. He thought about how Randy had been reverting back to childhood things to cope. Something with a lot of illustrations to lose himself in. On the same note, coloring books would be good as well. Randy liked coloring when he was traveling in particular. It was something to do that he could lose himself in. He needed distractions like this.

He thought about a lot of the time, Randy didn't allow himself to eat unnecessary calories. Christmas was a great time to indulge. They were in a place that made some of the greatest sweets in the world. He wondered if he got Randy a combination of sweets that were sugarless and full sugar if Randy would indulge a bit more. Maybe if he ate with him. This often worked. And he had an idea.

He texted his wife. Two birds with one stone. She could get out and go to fancy shops and have a mission. He asked her, and a couple of minutes later she sent an overjoyed text. Sam trusted her in this mission, because she'd known Randy just as long as he had.

In about an hour, Sam had come up with a pretty good list. And those chocolates and sweets were a great gift from him and his wife. He wanted to get more nice sweets for the family, too. Though, he betted Maya wouldn't touch them. He'd find something nice for her to eat, too. Even Carter would be here. Maybe he'd be able to convince her to eat something extra. They often made fun of each other, and he might just egg her on enough to do it.

He texted the list to Anais, knowing she'd see it. She was so busy that likely she'd send it over to Nancy, but that was okay. Nancy was with Maya, and Maya would be all over shopping. Sam knew also that they'd bought some gifts for Randy in New York, but these gifts were very specific to what he'd actually want. Sam was confident in this.

Sam thought about the fact that Randy was probably going to be hungry when he woke up, and it was a good idea for him to eat when he did, too. In fact, Sam was pretty hungry now that he thought about it. Randy's grandmother's chef was in the apartment somewhere, probably in the library. A perk of living here was definitely the library. It was gorgeous, with Art Deco curli-cues everywhere in a golden brass with natural sunlight streaming in the long, tall windows. It was two stories, a central atrium. There were so many green plants in there. It was nice to just sit in there sometimes.

The problem was, Randy didn't like French food much and that was the kind of food the chef was best known for. He wondered if he could get her to make ratatouille, which was a nice country dish that Randy actually liked. A lot went into making it, but she didn't have to make it fancy. That was the beauty of a country dish.

He decided to see if he could catch her later. He didn't have her number, and he wouldn't want to disturb her anyway.

His mind drifted to what he was going to do himself for Christmas. He wanted to give his wife a nice shopping day without any limits. That would be her present. She was so excited to be in Paris. She should be able to experience it to the fullest. But, he wasn't really thinking about himself. What did he want for Christmas? He definitely wasn't sure. He wasn't really able to think about it right now.

He guessed, after a while, that he wanted some peace. But there was no chance of that. Especially with Maya and Carter in the same place. Carter would be full of jokes that would even annoy his mother and cause a fight. Nowhere near the kinds of fights he'd witnessed lately, though.

He guessed that was relief enough. He'd enjoy Christmas here. Good food, friendly fights. That was present enough.