Every New Beginning... (Chris Evans AU)

.50.

Opal POV

"I promise, Pops, he's completely fine now."

I unlock his apartment door, holding it open wide for him to enter. I had gotten back just a day earlier in order to pick Pops up from the rehab center and bring him back home.

"They requiring PT?" he asks as he makes himself comfortable in his oversized recliner.

"Yes. He goes three times a week. Although I'm not sure what he'll be doing during his trip at Christmas. Maybe they'll send him with exercises to do at home just like you have to do."

"Don't remind me." Pops picks up the remote, turning on the TV and finding his afternoon game shows. "Speaking of Christmas...what's the plan this year sweetie?"

I flop myself onto the couch before pulling my legs up and laying down. "What do you want to do?"

"Christopher coming?"

"No, he's going to be in Boston, at his parents." I think back to our conversation at the airport. "He asked me to join him. Meet his family and all."

"Looks like I'll be enjoying a TV dinner then. Lasagna sounds pretty good. Maybe I could get Mila to drop something off on Christmas Eve," Pops plans out his days as if I told him I wasn't going to be here.

"I'm not going, old man."

He mutes the sound on the television. "What do you mean you're not going?"

"Just what I said. I'm not going for Christmas." I roll over onto my side, still laying across his couch. "I want to be here with you."

"Ope, you see me all the time. You don't get to see your officer near as much. You should go," he insists.

I groan, frustrated that he's going to make me actually say the words out loud. Words that will make me depressed again at the mere thought. "This could be our last Christmas together."

"Or it could be your first of many with him," he smarts back to me.

"If I'm still with him next year, then that can be my first with him. I want to be here with you."

"You know, as well as I do, that after what the doctor said you will not leave me alone on a holiday until I finally breathe my last. So don't pull this bull with me, Ope." He's getting angry with me now. We've not spoken much about the doctor's advice on his new treatment plan. Dr. Wagner told him he could think about it and give an answer at the first of the new year.

"Pops, I want to be here with you for Christmas. Chris doesn't go back to work until mid January. He knows I want to be here with you so he also asked if I'd join him for New Years."

I watch him close the recliner up before standing, moving towards his bedroom. When he comes back he hands me an envelope. "What is this?"

"Merry Christmas," he says simply before going back to his chair, turning the volume back on the TV.

I rip the envelope open to find $300 in cash. "What in the world?" I exclaim, now in an upright position.

"Go buy a plane ticket, Ope. I don't want to hear another word about it."

"Pops! This is not okay. Not to mention I can afford my own plane ticket. You need this more than I do," I plead with him.

"Opal Lillian Lucas, you listen to me and you listen good." He looks me dead in the eye, voice stern. "If I give you something, you say thank you and do what I say with it. Understood?"

I feel small again, like I'm fifteen again, being scolded for not going where I originally told him I was going. Being given a talking to across the kitchen table before being grounded for two weeks.