joe's foster home // fillie

t e n

ten

december 24th

it was christmas eve.

millie expected it to be a bit more somber than it actually turned out. she expected that everybody would be moping in sadness, or she expected some kind of quiet, kind of respectful day, as a reflection of their past lives that led to them being here.

but you can blame noah for turning the day into a musical.

in the morning, during breakfast, noah has graced everyone with his dance to all i want for christmas is you, by mariah carey, which lasted way too long, especially considering how hard he danced then and how little exercise he claims to usually get.

noah also put a poofy santa hat on everybody's head—- which millie wasn't complaining about, she felt pretty cute in a santa hat, and they hade her head warm in the cold climate. noah also encouraged everyone to wear their ugly christmas sweaters, and gaten had one with little bells attached to the front that rang with every step he took.

so, as you can see, noah was a big christmas enthusiast.

noah played the same twenty songs over the course of the day, which joe had the kids making cookies for various charity organizations, including prisoners, children in orphanages, and homeless shelters.

almost everybody ended up dancing to last christmas by taylor swift, which ended up in a burnt tray of cookies-- but at least, by the end of the day, they had cooked almost 500 cookies. however, there probably would've been more if the kids weren't snacking on them every second.

joe then drove all the kids to go drop them off at those various charities, before returning home. when they arrived home, all the kids immediately went up to their rooms, including millie, which she took as an opportunity to wrap noah's secret santa present.

when the coast was clear, she crept downstairs and placed it under the tree, after signing it off in sharpie, to noah, from secret santa.

as she placed it under the tree, she found a present addressed to her from her secret santa. it was neatly wrapped, so she immediately eliminated noah, because she knew what kind of wrapper he was. and the handwriting was simple and neat.

she looked up at the wall. there were six stockings on the wall, all in red, that had each of the kids name on them. millie didn't expect one to be on for her. but here was at the end, and it wasn't just written on in sharpie, it had been stitched into the stocking.

millie smiled brightly, her hand reaching out to stroke the soft fabric of the plain stocking.

it suddenly hit her. it was a light wave, but she really felt like these people cared about her. of course, she was still adjusting, but they were all trying to integrate her into their family, and millie realized she never really felt out of place in the home.

and that made her feel happy.

~~~~

after a light dinner, the house was quiet. everybody was in their rooms. millie wasn't sure what the others were doing but she didn't hear anything. she saw sadie writing in a notebook, scribbled which she presumed were supposed to be words neatly decorating the pages.

sadie was quiet. and she had been quiet. millie hadn't really had a conversation with sadie since she first got settled in her room. they mostly sat in silence, and millie supposed sadie was okay with that. but before, in what felt like a past life, millie was quite the social butterfly, and she felt so buried deep beneath her own skin, drowning without a rock to cling onto.