The Librarians And the Advent List

Dec 13

As Cassandra predicted, she woke up feeling awful. She texted Baird, who only gave her a mild lecture before telling her to stay home and take care of herself. Luckily Cassandra had plenty of tea and orange juice and canned soup. So she settled in on the couch in her pajamas, blanket at the ready and a supply of cable Christmas movies off her DVR.

She'd texted Jacob, letting him know that she wasn't feeling well and that Christmas movies were on her agenda for the day. She didn't expect him to want to join her in today's Christmas activity and his response to her text confirmed that assumption.

So late morning, she was surprised to hear her doorbell ring. She got up, shuffling to the door.

Jacob was on the other side armed with a grocery tote bag in one hand and a small duffle in the other. He smiled when he saw her. She looked adorable. She was wearing pink and white striped leggings under a pair of shorts that depicted polar bears ice skating, a bright pink tank top, fuzzy cat socks and a very large fuzzy gray cardigan.

"What's all that?" she sniffled.

"Well, I'm actually not feeling too hot myself, though I think better than you. So I brought the makings for chicken soup. And I figured I'd camp out on the sofa with you and your Christmas movie marathon so I brought some sweats, a couple of movies and a blanket."

She beamed at him and ushered him in. He went to work in the kitchen making chicken soup.

"It was my granny's recipe, but my sister," Jacob sighed briefly and then continued. "My sister came up with this shortcut using store bought broth so it doesn't take so long. It's still really good."

The soup was really good and they sat on the sofa sipping their bowls. Cassandra realized Stone wasn't kidding, he was sick as well, though not as bad as she was. They probably caught the same bug on one of their adventures.

After soup, he went into her bathroom to change and settled on the couch again. He dug into his bag and pulled out a handful of DVDs.

"I don't know if you've gotten to these yet in your movie watching."

"I started with Hallmark movies so no. The Muppets Christmas Carol?"

Jacob blushed but held his ground. "It's a really good version and they do a remarkable job with the authenticity of the outfits."

She smiled, "let's watch this one then."

They spent the rest of the afternoon like that, camped out on the sofa, starting with Jacob's dvds that also included the original Miracle on 34th Street and Christmas in Connecticut.

At some point, they'd both sprawled out on the couch. At some other point, Cassandra had ended up resting her head on his shoulder. Jacob blinked at the tv which was back to playing some Hallmark or Lifetime Christmas movie, he was pretty sure it was actually live. He realized that Cassandra was asleep as he heard a soft snore come out of her. And he also realized he'd actually been asleep.

He should go. He needed to go. He had no idea what time it was, but if she'd fallen asleep it had to be late. Except he was so worn out from fighting this bug and it was warm and cozy on the couch especially with a warm Cassandra partly laying on him. Before he knew it, he'd fallen back asleep and didn't wake again until morning.