Lydia woke up early that day, just like she did every year. It was Christmas, her favourite day of the year. No matter how crappy life ever got, Lydia could count on Christmas being great. She’d usually meet up with family, or spend some time with her parents, but this year was different.

Lydia wandered downstairs, where she would usually find both of her parents waiting for her. On Christmas, they made an effort to actually get along, and both spend some time with their daughter, which never failed to make Lydia happy. This year was different. Lydia entered her living room to find only her mother on the sofa, a small smile brushing her lips.

“Where’s dad?” Lydia asked,

“Oh-I’m sorry, Lydia, but your father couldn’t make it this year. He-um, had some business to attend to.”

“Oh, okay.” Lydia tried to stay positive, it was Christmas, after all. “Is grandma coming over?”

“Well…that’s the other thing, Lydia-“

“What?”

“She’s in hospital, and after breakfast, I need to head down there, but I should be back later this afternoon. Are you fine by yourself for a couple of hours?”

Lydia stared at her mother in disbelief. She was leaving her. Alone. On Christmas. Stay positive, Lydia, it’s Christmas, after all.

“Sure, I’m fine.” She managed a half smile. This was shaping up to be the worst Christmas ever.

Her mother smiled, wrapping her up in a hug. Lydia opened her gifts, though it didn’t feel quite the same without her father and grandmother there. They ate a simple breakfast of eggs and toast, before Lydia’s mother walked out the door, leaving Lydia completely alone in her living room on Christmas day.

Lydia flopped onto the couch, switching on the television. Even the Christmas decorations hung limply around the room seemed to be taunting her. She sat on the couch, bored out of her mind for almost an hour before she heard a loud knock on the door, and got up to investigate.

“Lydia!” Came the cry from the other side of the front door.

And there stood Stiles. Wearing only a hoodie, despite it snowing outside. With his dark hair and whiskey coloured eyes, goofy grin on his soft, soft lips..

Stop it, Lydia. You’re not allowed to think about him like that, you had your shot. He’s with Malia now.

“Stiles. What the hell are you doing here?” She asked slowly.

“I’ve been assigned to collect you for team Stilinski.”

“Team what?”

“Team Stilinski.”

“I got that part, you idiot. What is ‘team Stilinski’?”

Stiles rolled his eyes, a slight smirk pulling at his lips.

“My team.”

“Now you’re just being annoying. Bye Stiles.” Lydia groaned, pulling the door shut.

“No!” Stiles cried, putting his foot in the door opening. “It’s for a snowball fight, or more a snowball war. You have been assigned to team Stilinski.”

“What are the other teams?”

“Team McCall.”

“Can I change?”

“Lydia!” Stiles whined, “You’re on team Stilinski. Same as me, Isaac, and Malia.” Stiles smiled.

“Oh, right, of course, your girlfriend’s on our team..”

“Yeah, my girlfriend.” Stiles laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Come on, get dressed and meet me in the jeep.”

Lydia shook her head, walking back up the stairs. She quickly changed, and pulled on a large coat, before running back outside to meet Stiles in his jeep. They were alone, which shouldn’t have affected Lydia, but it did, she was thankful Malia wasn’t there, as selfish as it sounded, she couldn’t stand seeing her and Stiles together.

The ‘Snowball War of Christmas 2012’ so dubbed by Scott, took place in a large clearing in the Beacon Hills Reserve. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lydia knew this was a stupid place for a snowball fight, but she was just glad to be out of her empty house, with her friends.

Team Stilinski consisted of herself, Stiles, Isaac, and Malia, while team McCall was made up of Scott, Allison, Kira, and Liam.

“Rules.” Scott called across the clearing, “Each team will be given ten flags to guard, and the other team’s objective is to steal said flags. The team with the most flags at the end of the game are pronounced the winners, and each member of the team gets to choose a punishment for the other team to have. Understood?”

The pack called back a symphony of ‘understoods’, before Scott continued.

“Stiles and I have each found bases for our teams, and you have ten minutes to prepare to attack and defend.”

“And no supernatural powers allowed!” Stiles shouted.

“Let’s do this!” Scott cried, as the teams ran off in opposite directions.

Team Stilinski’s base was behind a large fallen tree trunk, wide enough for them all to crouch behind. Stiles had buried the flags at the base of a tree not far from the base, to “throw them off” as he said.

Stiles talked about some sort of strategy, but Lydia wasn’t paying attention. She was just watching his lips, moving quickly with his rapid speech, and his beautiful eyes, the colour of liquid gold, his jaw, sharper than a knife..

She quickly snapped out of it, in time to get a gist of the game plan. One of them would be at the base at all times, and they would swap whoever was there every so often. Lydia was first guarding the base, which was fine by her. Scott howled, which signalled the beginning of the game.

Lydia crouched behind the tree for around ten minutes, doing exactly as she was instructed, watching the ‘flag-tree’. She jumped as a finger tapped her on the back.

“Geez, Malia! Give me a warning next time!”

“Sorry, but Stiles said it was my turn to watch the flags.”

Lydia huffed, hopping off the ground and heading over towards the commotion. She peered around a tree, watching her friends throw snowballs at each other, having the time of their lives. Maybe this Christmas wouldn’t be so bad after all. This did look kind of fun. She bent down, scooping up a ball of snow, and stepped out from behind the tree.

What she didn’t see was the giant snowball hurtling towards her face. That was, until it hit her square in the nose.

Lydia fell backwards, toppling down into the snow. She clasped her nose immediately, and her hand came away with blood. Great, now her nose was bleeding. The cherry on top of the already crappy Christmas she was having, this was officially the worst Christmas Lydia had ever had. Stiles was the first one to her, looking worried and guilty all at the same time.

“Lydia, I am so, so, so sorry!” He pleaded, “I didn’t see you, so I didn’t know it would hit you, and-“

“Stiles. Shut up.” Lydia snapped.

“Okay.”

“I think it’s broken.” Lydia sighed, “Can you drive me to the hospital?”

“Yes, sure, of course, absolutely, anything-“

Stiles helped her up, and walked her back over to the jeep, apologising the whole way there. Even when he’d just broken her nose, Lydia still couldn’t help but love spending even this minuscule amount of time with Stiles. Alone. Away from his were coyote girlfriend.

It took only about ten minutes to get to the hospital, another thirty for the x-rays, and another twenty five for them to set a cast on her face. Lovely, just lovely. But Stiles stayed with her the whole time, nervously shuffling about as if her life was on the line. As if he really, truly cared about her. Loved her even. No, that was ridiculous, he was with Malia now.

Lydia asked to be driven home, to which Stiles obliged. They arrived at her house within a few minutes, and Stiles, like a gentleman, walked Lydia to her front door.

“You know,” he started, “You still look really beautiful with a cast on your nose.”

Lydia laughed a little bit, “Thank you, you look really handsome when you’re worried.”

“Worried? I was terrified! What if your nose was so badly broken it could never heal, and it was because of me!”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Right, sorry. I’ll always worry about you Lydia, always.”

“You-you will?”

“Of course, I care about you, so much.” Stiles blushed a little, brushing his hand against Lydia’s cheek.

Lydia leant into his touch, “I care about you, too Stiles.”

And then it happened. Stiles leant forward a little, looking deep into her eyes, and Lydia leant forward too. Then, before she knew it, he was kissing her. It was gentle and passionate, and even better than their first kiss in the locker room, so long ago.

She allowed the kiss to envelop her, felt Stiles’ warm hands on her body, tried not to jostle her nose injury, all the romantic stuff. Then she remembered. Malia.

Lydia stepped back quickly, pushing Stiles away.

“Stiles! You have a girlfriend!” She cried,

“I-I do?”

“Yes, Malia, you idiot! We can’t do this, you’re with her, and-“

“Lydia-“

“-it’s not right to cheat on her, no matter-“

“Lydia-“

“-how annoying she may be, she’s still your girlfriend-“

“Lydia!”

“What!?”

“Lydia, Malia and I broke up a few weeks ago.”

Lydia froze. Those were quite possibly the greatest words she’d heard in her whole life. Malia and Stiles had broken up! He was single, and Lydia was single, and maybe this could actually work!

“..Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We haven’t really told anyone, didn’t want to dampen the Christmas spirit. Besides, it’s been happening for a while, now it’s just official.”

“So you’re not with Malia?”

“No.”

“Which means-“

“Lydia, I love you, I always have, and I always will.“

Lydia smiled, a real, genuine smile, for the first time that day.

“I love you too, you idiot.” She laughed, pulling Stiles into another kiss.

“There you go!”  Stiles said.  “Now c’mon, everyone’s starting to open their Christmas presents.”

“I still don’t know how you talked me into this.”  Derek muttered as he followed Stiles to the living room.

“Because despite what I said earlier, you’re not always a sourwolf.”  Stiles said.  “And because you know that Secret Santa is a great idea for pack bonding.”

For the most part, the pack had already exchanged gifts with their Secret Santas.  Scott looked awkwardly up at Derek as they came in, thanking him for the journals on being a strong alpha.

“They were my mother’s.”  Derek said in his usual stoic tone.

Lydia hugged Allison tightly, thanking her for the art supply set, while also complimenting Erica’s taste on the scarf she’d given Allison.  Erica smiled at the compliment as she opened her own present, gasping a little at the gold and amethyst necklace.  Boyd turned his attention away from the Fallout 4 game Isaac had gotten him to kiss Erica’s cheek.  Isaac thanked Lydia for the copy of Mad Max: Fury Road as Jackson thanked Scott (sincerely, for once) for the new lacrosse glove.

Stiles was opening his present, dreading it a little.  By process of elimination, he knew that Jackson had drawn his name, and he seriously doubted it would be something thoughtful.

Sure enough…

“You’re a dick, Jackson.”

“Interesting choice of words, seeing as how I got you “I Love the Bi Life”.  Jackson replied back with his token smirk.  “Besides, you came out as bisexual.  Consider it a congratulatory present.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and then looked to Derek, who was still standing off to the side, a little further from everyone than Stiles liked.  He set the book down on the end table and walked over to him, smiling again.

“C’mon.  Your present is upstairs in my room.”

“Guessing I shoulda gotten you that Kalem Sutra book instead.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Jackson.”  Stiles replied as he led Derek upstairs.

“It’s not that, by the way.” Stiles said to Derek as they ascended the staircase.  “I mean, I’ll admit I had to think long and hard about what to get you when I drew your name, but I knew it couldn’t be that, not that I really considered it or anything.  But your present is in a box.  And it’s not my dick in a box, I mean, the box has holes in it, but not for my dick.”

“Stiles.”  Derek interrupted.  “Make sense.”

Stiles whirled around to face Derek, his eyes wide in mock offense.  “You know me better than that!”

Derek rolled his eyes, following Stiles into his bedroom.  There was a wrapped box sitting on his desk with small holes scattered throughout.

“I thought maybe it’d be better to have him up here where it’s quiet, at least for now.”  Stiles said.  “And I know you can already smell him, probably smelled him when you came into the house, but humor me and open your present.”

It was a rare occasion in which Derek was silent because he honestly didn’t know what to say.  He crossed over to the desk as a tiny furry paw came out of one of the holes.  Derek untied the ribbon and lifted the lid of the box, his eyes locked in on the little black kitten inside.  He was tiny, barely three months old.  Green eyes stared back at Derek as he mewed, climbing easily into Derek’s hand, purring in content as the werewolf cradled him to his chest.

“He was a stray, Scott found him and brought him to the animal hospital.  Dr. Deaton checked him out, I paid for all his shots, and he’s perfectly healthy now, just needs a home.”  Stiles explained, smiling softly at the image before him.

“Thank you.”  Derek said, looking Stiles in the eye.  “He’s perfect.

Stiles smiled.  “What’re you gonna call him?”

Derek looked at the kitten, a rare smile crossing his face as the kitten nibbled lightly on Derek’s finger.

“Black with green eyes… I think I’ll call him Toothless.”

“I knew you liked those movies.”  Stiles said with a grin.  “Merry Christmas, Derek.  And happy birthday.“