Holiday time is their silently-agreed favourite time of the year. Their business nearly triples, due to people needing party platters, or specially designed cakes and pies, and so they get to decorate the bakery with holiday lights and tinsel, a big Christmas tree in the corner of the bakery.
They also have their own Christmas tree up in their living room, not to mention a mistletoe in every room because Jacob couldn't resist.
Due to the bakery doing so well, and Jacob making enough money for their easygoing life, they get to close the bakery for a week during Christmas. Both of their families come down for a visit during that time. They set their bedroom and the extra one up for their parents, and then they set out extra mattresses in the living room for themselves, Sage and Angie, and the twins.
Sage and Angie have been best friends since they first met, despite the age difference. Sage chose a college near where Angie lived, and now they live together in a cosy little home. Angie has her boyfriend, and Sage has a few off and on things, and it's almost like both of the families have just merged into one already.
They push all the little tables downstairs together for Christmas dinner, plugging in the interior Christmas lights that string around the cafe for a pretty, dim lighting that makes the night even more beautiful. Carrie and Laurelle don't allow Troye or Jacob in the kitchen at all, claiming they cook too much and this is for them.
They hang out with the twins. The twins that are now 8 nearing 9 years old. Gabi is as mischievous as ever, and Becca as sweet, but they both meet in the middle when it comes to sass.
They all exchange gifts, but by far the best gift given is the gift Becca gives Troye, which is a framed photo of him and her on Jacob's graduation day.
Everyone has grown so much.
**
It's around the one year anniversary of the Pink Milk cafe, that Troye's treatment is done.
He had three different doctors at the Centre, different meetings throughout the week and at different times. Honestly, he could probably fill both their bathtubs with all the city bus tickets he had to buy over the years he had been going.
There was never a set time in how long Troye would have to be doing his treatment, it was always more of a 'go until you're okay again' type of place.
The problem with Troye, though, was breaking down a lot of the walls he had built since that time and really restructuring a lot of the ways he thinks to get him in the healthiest mental position possible for the amount of trauma he went through.
So it was a very step-by-step process, and when steps are involved, there is always room for step backs, which happened frequently in the first year. Overall though, the doctors told Jacob that once Troye got comfortable around them and was able to really open up, it was easy to help him. He was cooperative, and loving, and definitely the most kind-hearted patient they had had in a very long time.
Even though they couldn't erase what happened to him, they helped him recover from it, and they helped him leave it in the past rather than having those fears and struggles rob his present and future.
So they let him go. They told him to call if he ever needed anything, gave him genuine, heart-aching hugs, and let him go.
**
There's a night. Troye is sitting in the kitchen window nook, one leg bent under his bum and the other pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around and chin placed on his knee. The window is pushed open, warm summer breeze filtering in and the stars bright and on display in the navy blue sky. Jacob is down in the bakery in a pair of boxers and one of Troye's t-shirts, pinning up his students' artwork that they let him keep from the school year.
