Wrapped Up In You

So Here We Are

Merry Christmas! (filler)

 "Wake up Vix...wake up," Zacky's voice called through her sleepy haze. For a second she thought she was dreaming. But he shook her gently.

With a groan of frustration, she opened her eyes open just a fraction. "It cannot be time to get up already," she muttered.

"Yes it is. Merry Christmas. Now get your ass out of bed."

"It's still night Zacky."

"No it's not. It's about an hour before dawn. C'mon, we're going to be late."

Vix opened her eyes fully and glared at Zacky who was already dressed, in warm outdoor clothes. "Wha..."

"It's Christmas morning and they have a tradition to uphold. Get out of bed. Now."

It took a little more convincing, some bribing and some blackmailing but eventually she climbed out of bed. She stood under a hot shower for ten minutes to wake and dressed in her the warmest clothes she had some of which were thankfully dry after her dunking a few days earlier.

"You know, I don't think this is a good idea. On the last occasions when one of us ventured away from the cabin, you ended up being viciously assaulted by a crazy woman with a saucepan, we got into a bar fight with two crazy locals  and I almost drowned. Statistics indicate that we should remain in doors."

"And miss what's going to happen. Nah..come on let's go," Zacky told her, grabbing her hand and pulling her out.

They got into the BMW and drove in the dark silence till they reached the bank of the adjoining lake. The dark sky was beginning to lighten a little with the faintest shimmer of pink on the horizon.  Once they arrived, they walked hand and hand to the bank of the lake where quite a few of the townspeople were standing. In the distance across the lake, Vix could make out the dark mass of land at the other side. It was still dark. Those people were still sleeping.

To her surprise Jack, Allan and their friends...even Brook were also on the bank. They greeted Vix and Zacky like old friends. 

"What is this?" Vix asked, looking around and seeing nothing.

Zacky led her by the hand onto the sand where the other men had gathered around a large pile of driftwood. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pointed into the horizon. "See over there, that's Fawnskin the smaller town on the beach. There are people gathered over there too....and hear that?"

"Church bells?"

"Yeah. There's a church over there and it used to be the only one back in the day when this place was first settled. One Christmas,the weather was pretty bad and it was dangerous for everyone to get there, so the Church rang its bells to signal when the service was beginning and all the people on this side  gathered on this beach to pray. Eventually it became tradition and they would light a fire for light and to keep warm. There's a couple of families on the west side of the lake that gather on the beach over there and light the fire too."

As Zacky was explaining to her, one of the local men set fire to the bundle of firewood. It took light quickly and soon a roaring bonfire was underway. Zacky pointed again and Vix saw that similar fires were lighting on the different sides of the lake. Zacky wrapped his arms around her from behind and she leaned against his chest.

"How did you find out about this?" She asked staring at the beautiful fires roaring on all sides.

He replied directly into her ear"I heard something about it when we went to town last week but I didn't give it another thought till yesterday. I ran into Jack at the store and he said it was something not to be missed...so here we are."

."Ok, this was worth getting out of bed for."

"Told you, now we can go back and do whatever else we want for the day."

"This is a great present Zacky...thank you," she said softly.

He chuckled "You may have a little something under the tree when we get back."

"You too," she replied with a grin.

After the fires died down, they made their way back to the car and drove back to the cabin. Sleep had caught up with Vix and she was anxious to crawl back into bed for an hour or so. But as they got closer, they saw the charcoal Benz, a large black Suburban and a blue Denali parked in front of the cabin.

"What the?" she began.

Zacky took a deep breath before giving her a tentative smile. "I hope you're ready to meet the family."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah...that's Brian's Benz...Matt's Suburban and Johnny's Denali. Looks like the gangs all here"

Vix looked from the parked cars back to Zacky.

"Oh shit...."