Alice Lennox

Chapter 1: The Night That Changed Everything

"Alice, it's Laura. Charlie insisted I call you and ask if you could stay with him and Scott for Christmas. I know it's last minute, but-"

"Sure, I could come over. What time do I need to be there?"

"Right now. Come right now." I heard Charlie say on the other end of the phone.

"Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes." I say before hanging up and calling my mom, which went to voicemail. Must be in another meeting, I thought. "Hey mom, it's Alice, just calling to say that I'm staying with Charlie and Scott for Christmas. See you tomorrow!"

After that, I grabbed my coat and made my way to Scott's place, and found Charlie waiting with Laura and Neal in their car. As soon as I pulled in, Charlie got out and ran up to me, with Laura behind him.

"Hi Alice!" He says excitedly.

"Hey, how's it been?"

"Pretty good."

"Alice, I appreciate you coming, but you didn't have to," Laura says.

"It's not a problem." I respond.

We continued to chat for a bit until Scott pulled in and unlocked the door. Charlie and I hung up our coats while Scott and Laura talked. However, the discussion started to turn into an argument and Charlie interrupted before it could go any farther. "Why do you always have to fight?" He says

"We're not fighting," Scott says before he finally noticed I was there. "Alice, what are you doing here?"

"She's staying with us," Charlie answers before I could.

"Oh, well, you know where the guest room is, you can stay there." He says.

I simply nodded and played a few games with Charlie while Scott attempted to cook the turkey, which resulted in it burning. He then took the three of us out to Denny's, which Charlie didn't seem to enjoy.

When we got back to Scott's house, I went to the guest room and got ready for bed while Scott read The Night Before Christmas to Charlie.

~Later that Night~

"Alice, wake up. There's something outside." Charlie says, shaking me awake.

"I'm sure it's just the wind or something," I say, still half asleep, before I hear a thud. "What was that?"

"Come on, Dad's outside. I want to see what it is."

Before I could stop him, Charlie was already out of the room and on his way outside. I got out of bed and grabbed my coat before following him outside where I saw him with Scott.

"I told you to stay with Alice," He said as I came out.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"Dad killed Santa." Charlie says.

"Did not." Scott defends.

I didn't understand what they meant at first, but then I saw a red suit half-buried in the snow. A moment later, there was a ladder that led up to the roof, and Charlie quickly started climbing it, myself following.

"Dad, Alice, you gotta see this," Charlie says as I make my way up. When I reach the top, I see a beautiful sleigh with eight reindeer in front of it. 

"No way," I whisper in surprise.

Scott eventually climbed up as well, carrying the suit in one arm. When he tried to get us out of the sleigh and back inside, the reindeer suddenly took off and we rode to another house. Charlie and Scott then argued for a bit about whether or not Scott should put the suit on and go inside, an argument I sided with Charlie on. When Scott caved and put it on, Charlie and I watched in awe as we traveled house to house, watching Scott deliver the gifts. 

A/N: Here is the first chapter of Alice Lennox! I was originally going to wait until December to post this, (since I'm not a 'Halloween is over, Christmas time!' person) but then I said screw it. I'll try to update every Thursday from next week through January. Hopefully I'll have it all ready by then.

~Sarah_Renai