And To All A Good Night [h.s. one shots]

Waiting For You by stillhurtingstyles

Prologue

When May was seven years old, she came home to find a snow globe on her bedroom window. She had never seen it before, but her eyes lit up in wonder. She swore it was glowing. Walking toward it, really more of an uncoordinated run, May jumped up on her bed and scrambled to the window, desperate to get her sticky kid hands on the magical object.

The snow globe featured a beautiful christmas scene. It was a small town, and though you couldn't make out what the little shops were, they were adorable with their red awnings dusted in snow. In the center was a little town with an ice rink. In the middle there was a couple ice skating. The man wore a blue puffer jacket and the girl wore a bright pink one. Their knit hats were of the same colors, and they stood embracing in the center. Their faces on the figurines were no bigger than a baby's fingernail, but you could still tell they were deeply in love. At their feet, not on the ice but sitting safely in the snow sat a golden retriever. It looked like paradise. It looked like the Christmas that May had always dreamed of.

She carefully flipped it over revealing a small knob. Cranking with as much care as her tiny fingers could muster, she flipped it over and placed it back on the window sill. Like magic, the couple in the middle of the frozen pond started spinning in a circle. Baby It's Cold Outside instrumental started playing.

She had no idea how the snow globe got there or where it came from or why it was even there in the first place. There was only one explanation.

"Santa."

She flipped it over again, turning the knob to hear the song again. As she hummed along, she closed her eyes, crossed her fingers, and made a wish.

"Please, Santa. Can you make it snow tomorrow?"

When she woke the next morning, she ran outside, completely bypassing the Christmas tree with a bunch of presents. Her bare feet hit the snow and she squealed with pure joy and delight. Her magical snow globe had made it snow. Just as her friends were starting to stop believing in Christmas magic, May has just found hers. She believed in Christmas as much as she believed in love, and it became a Christmas tradition to make her one great wish on her snow globe.

That snow globe is probably the best kept item in the house. May only twisted the knob on Christmas Eve. The song was only allowed to play when she was making her wish the night before. She dusted it monthly, and no matter where she stayed during Christmas, her house, her grandparents house, even her college apartment one year, the snow globe went with her. It wasn't until she was twenty that she gave up on the magic.

At eight, she wished for a puppy. Peppermint, her King Charles Cavalier, was sitting under the tree the next morning.

At nine, she wished for a doll. It was one of those special dolls that no one even remembers now. But at the time, it was the biggest toy of the year. A few days before Christmas she overheard her mom crying because she wasn't able to find one. They were sold out everywhere. But on Christmas Eve May made her wish, and the next morning there was one sitting under the tree, with a bow slapped on it.

At ten, she got the canopy bed she always wanted.

At twelve, her family went to Paris.

At thirteen, she wished for her grandma back. Her grandma was undoubtedly her favorite member of their family. Her grandma passing away was her first true heartbreak. But she knew if anything could bring her grandma back, her snow globe could. No, her grandma did not rise from the dead. But that year, her mom had found a present addressed to May behind the tree that no one remembered putting there. When she opened it she gasped so loud her parents were scared that there was something in it that hurt her. She pulled out a blanket knitted by her grandma. It even smelled like her old perfume. She remembers thinking she was too old to cry, but she was too happy to care. She slept with that blanket every night, even when the scent faded.