True Beauty lies Beneath the Skin (Phan)

I Feel Like Killing Myself for Christmas (Trigger Warning)

A/N: NO ONE ACTUALLY KILLS THEMSELVES IN THIS CHAPTER. Just thought I'd put that out there. However, if you or someone you know has suffered a miscarriage, this chapter may be triggering. This chapter is sad in the second half, like I actually teared up writing it.

The pitter-patter of little feet running across the cold, hard wood floors was what woke Dan up on Christmas morning, causing him to smile immediately as Bella crawled into his bed with him. He opens his eyes to find Bella sitting next to him with a huge smile on her face.

"Are you awake?!" She whisper-yells.

"I guess I should have expected a wake up call," Dan says, "Yes, I'm awake."

"I peeked in the living room, and I think Santa came!"

Dan laughs, "You think so?"

"Yeah! Come on!"

In Christmas' past after Bella came along, Dan and Marissa had Christmas morning with Bella at their apartment all together, and then they would head to Dan's parents' house for the rest of the day. After Marissa died, when Bella was still living with Dan's parents, Dan would take a break from job-hunting and living in his car and would stay at his parents' house for a few days to celebrate with them. He always scraped up whatever money he could to get Bella a present too. It was always at this time that Dan's parents would always try to offer him help in some way, but Dan wanted no such thing. He was always out by New Year's, trying to work as hard as he could to get his daughter back.

And he did.

So this Christmas, Dan decided he'd go all out. Or, well, as much as he could.

Dan never gave Bella a complete reason as to why Phil was no longer around; she was too young to understand the real situation...and he'd mentally decided to promise not tell Bella about the bad things Phil had done, since Phil had asked of that. Dan had simply told Bella that, unfortunately, Phil and Iesha weren't going to be around anymore. She was pretty upset about that, which was when Dan decided to pull out the Christmas things and tell her to help him decorate to the apartment. Thanks to Bella's ADHD, this distracted her from any sad thoughts about Phil and Iesha. She hadn't asked any questions since.

So Dan and Bella walked out into the living room that had been decorated with a tiny tree and a few lights. Bella ran over to the tree and counted the presents.

"One, two, three, four?! I got four?! That's so many!" Bella exclaims.

"Three of them are from me, and one is from Santa - it might even be what you asked him to get you when we went to see him at the store."

Bella gasps, "Oooh! I wonder if - wait," She says before whirling around to face Dan, "You got me three presents? You usually can only get me one."

Dan shrugs and smiles, "I had a little bit more money this year, so I was able to get you a little more."

Bella breaks into a huge smile, "Wow, you got me three presents! Which one should I open first?"

x

After opening her gifts, Bella gave Dan several drawings and a couple of projects she'd made at school as gifts. She was probably more excited than Dan had ever seen her over getting two stuffed animals, a doll and a new pair of winter boots that Dan had found on clearance.

"Are you hungry? I got us things to make Christmas breakfast," Dan says once the gifts had been opened.

"Are you gonna eat too?"

Dan gives her a small smile, "Yes, I will."

"Yay! What are we gonna make?"

"Do pancakes sound like a good idea to you?"