"Are you sure I can't convince you to come home this Christmas?" Her mother's voice had just a tinge of loneliness, but Emma was set and certain.

"I think I would really like to have a Scandi Christmas this year mum! And I think the best present you could give me is to come and do it with me!"

They'd had this conversation eleventy million times. Emma knew her mum was doing so much better, and that her being in Holmes Chapel, even alone, would be ok, she'd be ok. Emma just knew they'd have so much fun in her newly reclaimed life abroad fusing old traditions with the ones they would make. Her mum was just resistant, she loved her home, was a certified home body, and now that it didn't hurt quite so bad, she loved the reminders of all the Christmases before. She was bathing in nostalgia with a smile on her face and a sweet ache inside.

Emma didn't feel the same. She'd had a fair few wonderful holidays in Holmes Chapel, but to many revolved around Harry Styles, and well, Emma's life did not revolve around Harry. Had never and didn't even have the axis centered around December 26 for a once a year moment any more.

She'd just really gotten back into her own life. Well, Emma patted herself on the back, she'd been living her way for 8 months now, that was almost as long as the 9 months she'd stayed in Holmes Chapel.

When her mother had assured her she was well enough that Emma could go to Iceland, the thought of ice capped fjords in summer thrilled her as though she was climbing them, not just studying them.

So she did.

She felt so much better, and her mother was better and she'd climbed to the top of her trail back to her own life, the one she'd made out of choice and ambition and only been sorry for in brief, lonely morning afters.

Emma wanted to share her life with her mother more than anything, certainly more than she wanted to spend a holiday in a place she now almost entirely associated with hurt. Heartache takes many forms, deep and abiding grief, the kind like she imagines phantom limbs give amputees years on. It also can hurt like a quick sharp mishap, a slip of the knife, full of crimson pain and stitches.

She'd had both together and then his deep cut on top of the other last Christmas. The wound was too fresh to go back at the moment. The good memories were still colored crimson. She needed to wait until her lover's memory flashed with true colors instead of red or blue. Her father's memory was cozier and longer, it was wrapped around the warm pink of her mother, but even it was still too tender.

She needed time.

Emma also had no idea where Harry was these days. She'd cut off all methods of inquiry. She wasn't staying up late googling even, ever, not anything. Not his naked or Camille's. They'd be going on well into their second trip round the sun by now. Probably more deeply in love than he openly confessed to her. Emma didn't need evidence of it. It just opened the stitches she'd sewn herself.

So, no Holmes Chapel, no Google alerts or text messages. She'd blocked his number.

"Well, I suppose if you insist, we can try Amsterdam for Christmas." Her mother covered the sigh at the end of that sentence and Emma appreciated it. She suppressed a wry smile. Her mother could also still hear it in her reply she was sure.

"Oh mum! You won't regret it. It will be so lovely! I can't wait. I'll meet you at the airport, then we will go to my favorite cafe and take a snow walk. It will be picturesque. You'll fall in love, you'll see."

"Alright, darling. I'll give it a chance. I just hate to miss Anne's party two years in a row." Emma cringed and was happy this was not a video chat. She almost gasped and blew her cover when her mum said. "Won't you miss Anne's party? You're close with Gemma, and" she breathed while her mother hesitated, "and Harry?"

God, did everyone know?

"It'll be fine mum. I'll call Gemma. She'll understand."

She would, after they'd had that conversation the last time they'd spoken.

Gem had not really cornered her so much as insisted they get out of the house as often as possible from the day after Boxing Day until she'd left to head back to London.

She, the lovely friend that she was, didn't actually bring it up until she was back for Mother's Day. And she waited until Emma told her she was headed back to her program in the fall with a twinkle in her eyes even Emma knew had been long gone for too long.

Ever the blunt one, Gemma didn't even cozy up to the subject, "so did you break his heart or did he break yours?" She took a big sip of her cider and leveled her state over the rim at Emma.

Emma could feel her face blanching or heating or giving some indication who's heart was broken. Her elegant side step to that mine field was, "huh?" Then a moment later. "Who are you talking about?" To Gemma's patient silence.

"Alright, if that's how you want to be." Gemma playfully rolled her eyes. "You and my brother are not stealth, at all. You would make eyes at each other all night at my mum's and then disappear for the same amount of time. Remember I live with him."

"Do not." Emma didn't bother to deny it.

"I suppose not really, but as much as any one "lives"with him, I do over Christmas, and did for most of my life. I know when he's smitten with someone, and when he's got them around his little finger too." Gemma snorted and ate a chip. "His stupid walk even changes, all of a sudden he swaggers and walks hip first. It's gross!" Her face screwed up.

Emma tried to remember if she had ever seen this hip walk. She supposed she had when he'd walk towards her at the Boar's Head. Or occasionally when he'd corner her by the mistletoe.

"It's not gross." Slipped out.

"That right there," Gemma pointed. "Is gross. Your face all soft and flushed for my little brother. Bleach!" She sighed mixed with a bit of good humor. "But I suppose that means he broke your heart. I can't believe he just turned up with another lady. Did you at least know? I feel like I always know way to much about my brother's sex life."

"Huh?" Emma laughed.

"I just feel like I know way too much about his sex life, due to blind items and pap shots. Thought you might feel the same."

"It's not so simple as that, really. I knew because of that, about his girlfriend." Still couldn't say her name. "But I think he felt like I'd broken his heart, if I'm honest. And That's why he turned up with her. To hurt me back, in case I hadn't seen."

"Did you."

"Certainly not on purpose. My heart and head and life were in shambles, still are, and he made an assumption, and never let me explain."

"Why don't you explain to me."

So she did, haltingly, Emma talked about it all, tears on her cheeks about her dad and then her mum, and even Harry. The sad footnote of loss in a story of grief.

"Why didn't you just tell him?" Gemma asked the question Emma asked herself a lot.

"I guess, I couldn't say it and I couldn't text it. And it confirmed to me that he really only knew me so little, that he could think I'd take advantage of him."

"Did you ever think that was more to do with how other people have treated him than you? he's had to learn to expect the worst of people he wants to trust?"

"Don't make me feel bad for him. Remember? He broke my heart and found someone new. Had the audacity to move on before me!" Emma tried to joke.

"I think, I think you guys got into a mess and never bothered to clean it up until it was so unkempt you couldn't find the good parts." Gemma said after a quiet, mirthless moment.

"Oh no!" Emma tapped her head. "I kept all the good parts."

"Firstly, blech, I wish I could bleach that smile from my head, but 2nd-Is that enough?" Gemma asked.

"It'll have to be, I suppose." She swallowed the moisture in her eyes, "he told me he loves her. Straight to my broken face. Then piled on how he never got the time to love me."

Gem looked curious, then cautious, "I think he does. But it's cuz he wants to. Wants that desperately, to be in love. It may be some leftovers from you."

"Yeah?" Her eyes really pooled then and she bat her cheek to stop more from swarming. "Well I'll have to take that as cold comfort then, that she gets the seed of love he wanted to grow with me."

"I'm sorry. Sure he is too." Gemma sighed. "I'm so sorry for all of it."

"Yeah, yeah." Emma leaned on her friend, her only real one right then. "Me too."

And they left it at that. Emma's eyes were swimming and Gemma blinked a few times too rapidly. They hoisted their glasses. "To almosts!" Emma said.

"To dad's!" Gemma said. Then they both did cry. Talked about Robin's diagnoses. Then it was Emma's turn to be the shoulder, to bolster.

Life went on, the way it always seems to do. Emma and her mom laughed more and then her mum even laughed on her own. By that summer, they both stood on their own two feet, without leaning on each other, except when they wanted to.

By June, there was no reason to stay.

"So, are your roommates excited to have you back?"
Her mum was making tea and packing her aamdwiches.

"Mum, I actually had to find mew roommates. The others had to fill the room I was in." She could see the down turn of her mum's lips from the side. Guilt was heavy. "It's not a big deal. The people I'm rooming with are other grad students, I know them. And it's works for the budget. Mum, you know I'm not riding the bus to camp right? I don't need a sandwich. There will be food at the airport and on the plane?"

"Won't be home cooked." Was all she said.

This wasn't for her then. It was some sort of amends, or a thank you. Like the tea she had taken to bringing to her to her room when she woke up, and before bed.

"That's true." Emma kissed her cheek, "I'm gonna go finish packing." She ate the sandwich on the plane later.

Counting bags, she frowned. She'd acquired a lot. She sincerely hoped the bag wasn't as heavy as her heart.

Emma was going to miss Holmes Chapel.

She did, surprisingly as much as she missed school the first 6 months she was home. Maybe, those feelings were tangled up in other events, the other missing pieces of her former puzzle.

I'm any case, she found herself better at keeping in touch

"So, any cute boys in Amsterdam?" Gemma chuckled over the phone one mid December afternoon.

"Don't you have a boyfriend?" Was Emma's laughing response.

"I do, I really do." And Gemma, the blunt tongued, fierce hearted girl sounded suspiciously like a woman in love. Then she pretended to complain, because she was Gemma, about how They were both a little spoon, pretending to be annoyed about it.

"I'm really happy for you." Emma interrupted,  meant it, even though she still didn't know if there were any cute boys in Amsterdam because she was still hung up on the cute boy who spent Christmas in Holmes Chapel.

Gemma must have picked up the stain of blue in her voice, "Hey, Emma, I think maybe I should tell you something-"

The buzz from her hallway door went then, and Gemma didn't get to finish.

"Hey Gem, my flat mate lost her key. I'll have to ring you back. Tell me then?"

And then it was Christmas, well Christmas Eve and she was at Schipol with a giant sign that said, "Katherine the great( est mum)!"

"Oh, bless you! Could you have made a bigger sign?"

"I'm sure I could have tried. Maybe found some glitter. Think a flat mate has the body sort somewhere." Her mum narrowed her eyes and pinched her cheek.

"Well, if you've finished embarrassing me, show me this dreadful country that's not England and all it has in terms of festive cheer."

"Let's go get some nuts then!" Emma laughed.

"I beg your pardon?" Her mum put on the prude and Emma laughed at her over the top expression as they made their way to the train to the city center.

Her famous Danish bakery was the first stop. "I thought we would have a taste test. We can rate them."

"Do you already have a favorite?" Her mum asked.

"Yeah." Emma thought about the trifle Harry's mum made and that he'd sneak to the boar's head to feed her in bed. It had only taken him watching her eat it once for him to recognize her glee. It was his favorite too. "But, I want to know what yours is!" Emma brought her memory and watering mouth to the present moment.

They ate their way through Christmas Eve And decorated her Kerstbomen. "Sorry the tree is already up. They were starting to disappear for purchase, but reappear in everyone else's windows! I had to grab one."

"Oh, no dear, it's alright. And actually, I brought a gift from Anne. I saw her the other day and had been complaining about you making me come all the way over here-"

"It's an hour flight!"

"Well, I suppose it will do, but it's not home."

Thank god.

"Anywho, she came by the day after and brought a present for your tree." Her smile was so expectant, Emma was expecting the worst. "It's so important to have good friends." Her smile was cryptic. What friends- Anne to her mum or Gemma to her? Who was the present actually from.

The box was festive. And wrapped beautifully just like Anne's house was always decorated so well. Emma set it aside, "I'll open it tomorrow mum, On christmas, at the proper time."

"Oh no! You must open it now. Gemma told her mom it was for your tree." Ah, mystery solved. Gemma was great at wrapping. When Emma opened it, her heart stopped a full beat.

At first she thought it was the frog, the one she'd gotten for him.  That he was giving it back to her like a seal on their relationship that never was. But when she picked it up, she realized it was a proper ornament, not just ornamental. It was a frog, holding a heart.

What Did that mean, whose heart was it?

His for her? Or hers back where he decided it belonged.

"Where will you put it?" Her mother interrupted her train of thought.

"Um, dunno," she moved around the tree to an inconspicuous place. "I guess here." She shrugged.

"Oh no, dear. It's by far the cutest one we have." Her hand scanned over the other ornaments, a hodge podge of beloved ones and ones from Christmas markets. "It goes here." Her Mum stood and took the ornament from its hidden place, placed it front and center. "Let's get the rest up and take a picture."
She'd gotten her mother an aura frame for Mother's Day and she was now obsessed with adding to the Revolving cue of photos.

"Course, ok." Emma ripped her eyes from the frog, but they kept drifting back to it.

It was an hour of a little too much wine and her mother's cheer. It lightened her spirit and got her mind off it's wandery at Harry's intentions, until after silly smiley photos and teary eyed huggy ones, her mum said, "now let's take one for Anne and Gemma. Show them how nice it looks.

Emma thought she'd done a good job at the photo, at arranging her face the way it was supposed to look.

She must have been wrong.

Later, a number she knew by heart but had no current contact for came through. "Your smiles fake. Do you not like it at all?"

She didn't answer it on Boxing Day, or the day after, it wasn't until New Year's Day that she realized she'd blown her resolutions to Smithereens before they could even uphold their name.

All she'd texted back to his cold question was, "how come you're the only person who can always tell."

She may have never noticed she'd done it, with the way her group chats were going off, except he replied before her hangover even subsided.