ANOTHER YEAR LATER

“Jonathan?”

“Hey,” she can’t see him for all the books piled high on the table, but just from the monosyllable she can tell he’s exhausted.

“What are you doing studying at a time like this?” Anna asks gently, crossing over to the kitchen table and parting the books to catch a glimpse of Jonathan’s face, pale and drawn with tiredness.

“I don’t know,” he responds honestly, voice hoarse. “Med school has ruined my life.”

She lets out a soft laugh, moving round the table to stand behind him and take the pen from his hand, dropping a kiss on his cheek as she does so. Anna draws back, letting her chin drop onto his shoulder and beginning to rub small circles onto his shoulders. “Well, not tonight, okay?” she murmurs. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Okay,” Jonathan sighs, eyes closed. They stay like that in silence for a while, before he eventually says: “Hi.”

“Hi,” she chuckles in response. “How are you, obvious med school troubles aside?”

He twists in his chair to face her, already looking a little bit better than before as he offers her a smile. “Good. Very good, now that you’re here. How’s life in the North Pole?”

“Oh, you know, a little dark, a little cold at times,” Anna says with humour, and then her expression drops as she remembers: “And Nick didn’t get up to do the presents, so I’m on it this year. Which means I can’t stay long.”

“Oh,” Jonathan’s facial expression matches the disappointment she feels.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Sorry about that. But I have your presents!” Anna nods towards the sack that she’s left by the fireplace.

He smiles. “Flynn would be happy to see that.”

“And Jonathan wouldn’t?” she quirks a brow.

“Jonathan is happy to see you,” he corrects, getting up to give her a hug, and she feels his warmth rush through her at a dizzying speed. Anna lets a content smile slip onto her face of its own accord.

“And Anna is happy to see Jonathan,” she mumbles into his shoulder.

“More like Anna is happy to see Jonathan’s cookies,” Jonathan pulls back with a knowing look.

“You got me,” she smirks. “I’m only here for the baked goods.”

He rolls his eyes. “They’re on the counter.”

Anna heads straight there, grabbing one without another word.

“Sorry,” he apologises, following her. “Just plain ones this time.”

“Plain iced ones,” she corrects, crumbs flying everywhere. “So not plain.”

"As long as you enjoy them," he yawns, smiling. 

"Of course I do," Anna rolls her eyes, licking the remaining crumbs of what was once (okay, by once she means, like, two minutes ago) the cookie off her fingers. 

“Good,” he hums, then yawns again.

“Stop yawning, it’s...” she trails off to stifle a yawn of her own, “s’infectious.”

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan rubs his eyes. “I’m just really tired...”

“And I have no idea why you stayed up,” she chastises.

“For you,” he replies in a tone of voice that implies it’s obvious (okay, it kind of is).

“I am not worth this amount of yawns and exhaustion, Jonathan McQueen,” Anna informs him in a no-nonsense voice, grabbing the plate of cookies and taking it with her to the couch.

“Of course you aren’t,” Jonathan rolls his eyes and sits down next to her. They look at each other for a moment, then he yawns. Again.

“Dear God,” Anna sighs. “Alright, c’mon,” she stretches out on the couch and pats her lap, signalling for Jonathan to rest his head in it.

He frowns. “Wait, what?”

“Geez, does lack of sleep also equate to a lack of brain cells?” she teases. “Lie down, Doctor McQueen.”

“I’m not a doctor yet,” Jonathan informs her. “And no.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I’ll fall asleep?”

“...which is kind of what we’re aiming for here.”

“Anna, I am not sleeping while you’re here,” he says, shaking his head with conviction.

“You seemed quite content to do so last time,” Anna points out with a wicked smile.

“After someone wore me out,” Jonathan retorts wryly. She flushes bright red.

“Not my fault I’m magic,” she mutters. “Back to what I was actually saying – ”

“I can’t sleep while you’re here! I have plenty of time to sleep when you’re not here! A whole year, actually!”

“Okay, well, you don’t have to fall asleep,” she tells him. “Just...lie down.”

“Lying down tends to lead to falling asleep.”

“And other things.”

“Jesus, what is it with you tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Anna muses. “Think I’m just on a roll. It’ll pass. Now lie down.”

“But – ”

“Jonathan, this isn’t up for discussion,” she grabs onto his shoulders and begins to push him down towards her lap. It’s a struggle at first, but eventually Jonathan gives up fighting (too tired, probably) and lets his head rest in Anna’s lap with a sigh.

“I’mma fall asleep,” he warns her, eyes already drifting shut.

“I can talk to keep you awake,” she offers as she begins to run her hands through his hair.

“About what?”

“About...um, whatever you want me to?”

“Okay,” he exhales on a heavy sigh. They stay like that in a silence for a while, long enough for her to think maybe Jonathan has fallen asleep, but just as she’s about to crane her neck to check, he mumbles: “Tell me about the places.”

“What?”

“Ages ago,” he continues sleepily. “I asked you to tell me about all the places you see. And you never did. Remember?”

Anna does. Junior in high school Jonathan was bright-eyed and eager, hungry for a glimpse of the world that wasn’t Athens, Georgia. It’s one of those things, she guesses, that you can never grow out of. He might be able to silence it for stretches of time, but there’ll always be the voice in the back of his head, asking about Paris and London and Tokyo.

“Okay,” she says, so soft even she can barely catch it. She takes a deep breath. “In France,” Anna says quietly. “Christmas is called Noel. The Christmas season starts on the sixth of December, and it’s called la fête de Saint Nicolas, which Nick literally never shuts up about.”

“La fête de Saint Anna sounds better,” she hears Jonathan say. Anna laughs.

“Glad someone thinks so,” she says lightly. “In Japan, there isn’t really much of a meaning to Christmas, because they’re Buddhist. But they still do stuff like put up a tree and things. And, uh, Christmas Eve over there is kinda like Valentine’s. A lot of couples go out to dinner, stuff like that.”

“Guess we can put that on our agenda, huh? Have a Christmas Eve in Tokyo,” Jonathan comments lightly, but it hits her like a sledgehammer in the chest. One more number she can add to her list of things she wishes she could do with Jonathan, but will never be able to.

“Yeah,” she lets out in a choked whisper, then clears her throat. “And, uh, London...well, London doesn’t do things much different from over here. Sometimes it can be a lot more...well, wet. It rains a lot in Britain. Or at least, that’s what I’ve noticed. It’s...it’s nice. They really know how to do it over there.”

“Is that so?” Jonathan murmurs. He’s silent for a moment, then says: “I’ve always wanted to see London.”

“Have you?”

“Yeah,” his voice becomes more distant, as though the dream he’s voicing is, too. “Like – it just seems amazing, you know? Telephone boxes and Big Ben and the Queen and the rain and – and their buses?” Anna chuckles at his incredulous tone. “I mean,” he continues, “their buses are bright red. And they have a subway like the one in New York, and I mean – who wouldn’t wanna go, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe once I finish med school I’ll go,” he muses. “Or I’ll get you to take me on your turbo sleigh.”

There it is again, the sledgehammer, pounding mercilessly into her heart as he voices another dream that can never come true. “Jonathan...”

“Don’t,” he says before she can continue, voice tight, stretched taut over the syllables.

“I – ”

“Not this time,” Jonathan cuts her off again, with a little more force but still calm. “I know. Just...not this time, Anna. Not now.”

Then when? she wants to scream, but not at Jonathan, at – at everything but Jonathan, at herself, for being so clumsy and loud eight years ago and running into a blonde boy with a baseball bat who stole her heart and ran away with it, leaving her to chase after him every Christmas Eve. Wouldn’t it all have been so much easier if she’d never met Jonathan McQueen at all?

Anna regrets the thought almost as soon as it forms in her mind, eyes flickering to the head in her lap. Yes, it would’ve been easier, but without Jonathan things would still be empty, black and white. Now, maybe her life is still black and white, but there’s some colour every twenty-fourth of December, a splash of red and green and gold that makes her elated and miserable at the same time. What’s the point in saving a life if it’s not worth living? his year-old words bounce off the walls in her mind, echo over and over. She thinks he was probably right. Firstly because Jonathan is usually right, and secondly because she can see it now, put it into context. It would have been easier if she hadn’t run into Jonathan McQueen eight years ago, but it wouldn’t have been better.

“You’re the best Christmas present ever,” Anna blurts out suddenly. She feels Jonathan stiffen slightly, and then watches as he sits up to look at her.

“What?”

“You know how I said that Nick and I don’t get presents. I think I lied. Like, I didn’t mean to lie, I just kinda, did so, you know, accidentally, if that’s possible...” she stops to take a deep breath. Focus, Anna. Your point. “What I mean is...I do get a present every year, and it’s you.”

Anna blushes slightly as she says it, knowing that they’re words that belong in a Christmas movie, not real in life, but she can’t take them back, and she doesn’t think she wants to, not with the way Jonathan’s looking at her.

“Is that...okay?” she asks hesitantly.

He holds her gaze for a long time, before exhaling slightly. “Yeah, it’s okay,” he whispers. “I mean – it’s more than okay,” he corrects in a slightly louder tone of voice. “It’s – it’s totally okay, like, more okay than the usual okay, right up there with the most okay things ever – ”

“Good,” Anna says with a breathless laugh, pressing two fingers to his lips. “I should make these heartfelt confessions more often,” she says thoughtfully.  “With the way they always seem to lead to a role reversal between us...”

“Shut up,” he says, pushing her hand away from his mouth and leaning in to press it to hers. She’s pretty sure she ruins the kiss by laughing into it, and sure enough, Jonathan’s pulling away with what’s probably an attempt at a scowl on his face but ends up looking really weird, because his eyebrows are drawn but his mouth is stretched into one of the widest smiles she’s ever seen.

“Shut up,” he repeats. “And let me kiss you.”

“Oh, how charming,” she quirks a brow. “Be still, my beating heart.”

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm,” Jonathan pokes her. “I can be very charming when I want to be, thank you.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Anna snorts.

“Good,” his eyes flit to her lips. “So can we try again?”

He kisses her before she can get out a response, slowly and steadily, as though it’s the most important thing in the world to him. They break apart a few moments later, but she digs her fingers into his shirt so he doesn’t pull away, feeling him breathe as their noses crush together. They’re silent for a long while.

“I love you,” Jonathan breathes against her lips, words delicate and soft in the hushed silence of his living room. She kisses him then, clutching at the bottom hem of his shirt, and lets herself swallow the words and feel them bury themselves deep inside her, embed themselves into her ribcage.

Three quarters of an hour later, she chokes the words out as she stands in his fireplace and he wraps his arms around her, terrified by the strength they hold.

 “I love you too.”

___________________________________________________________

a/n: ohohohoho annathan those be some big words ur usin 

quick note - i hope jonathan's wanderlust and desire to visit london is even vaguely believable. i'm one of those lucky sods who rides one of those big red buses to school every single morning, so i'm not sure if i have an accurate idea of what people who've never been to my hometown perceive it as, or what they find the most interesting thing about london. but hey ho i hope it's adequate

vote and comment i love you i love you i love you I LOVE YOU ALL

- mariam