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

Somewhere, Somehow by pawriter19

Christmas Eve - 12:38 AM

"Stop fucking talking."

She's exhausted. If it wasn't evident by the darkness in her eyes or the permanent crease in her forehead, then her voice says it all. She's tired of fighting, tired of defending herself, tired of being tired.

"Kit, please," Harry reaches forward for her hand but her wrist slips right through his fingers. She leaves the couch, walking towards the bedroom that used to be his – until sleepovers turned into an extra set of keys.

He's just as frustrated as she is, and he'd tell her, but he knows that right now, it won't help. His strength has always been in his communication, but Kit is the opposite. On their first date, Harry did most of the talking. Kit didn't mind, she liked listening to him.

Kit paces in the bedroom, wondering what her next move will be. She should talk to him, she knows. She should keep this conversation moving, because if not, they're stuck in the same place they've been for the past year.

Harry will still want to settle down. Kit will still want to pack their things and go.

She digs through her bedside table until she finds her journal. For a journalist, she doesn't write down her own thoughts often enough, but something about tonight's fight has her brain moving too fast for her body. She needs words to leave so she has room to think and breathe and live.

Harry stays downstairs, doing his best to keep quiet as he pours himself a glass of water. He knows Kit will need a minute or two before she feels his presence again. It'll overwhelm her to have just stormed out, only to be followed.

In his head, Harry overthinks. It's something that both of them do, but it's common for him to immediately regret everything he said. He can't lose Kit, he wants to marry her, but he's losing hope in his ability to convince her.

He lets another five minutes go by before he climbs the stairs slowly. He can hear how frantically she's writing, and it feels like another way to slowly chip at his heart. Her journal entries are never happy – she uses it when she's sad.

"Baby," he whispers, clinging to the doorframe. Her grip loosens on the pencil, and she takes a deep breath.

"Can we talk about it in the morning?" Her questions looms over the room. Both of them know this is how all of their fights end – she asks to talk in the morning, Harry agrees, but they never do.

They'll sleep on opposite sides of the bed, never touch during the night, and Kit will wake up when the sun rises to go for a run. Harry will have coffee waiting for her when she gets back, and she'll drink it quickly before taking a shower. They'll talk about their days as they're both getting dressed. Harry will trim the scruff on his face, and Kit will stand next to him to take a tweezer to her eyebrows.

They won't talk about marriage again until it leads to another fight.

The difference is that the morning means Christmas Eve, and Christmas Eve used to be Harry's favorite. When he was a kid, he would wake up at his grandparents' house on Christmas Eve and Gram would feed him cookies whenever he wanted. Pap would make sure the fire was going all day, and he'd sneak Harry and his three little sisters their presents early.

When Harry was eighteen, too old for the sleepover but getting ready to see his favorite people anyway, he got a phone call. Christmas Eve was his favorite and then, suddenly, it wasn't – because it used to be cookies and presents and fun and family, but then a snowy road and a truck driver took his two favorite people away.

He mourned them for years, and he still does, but there was something different about the Christmas Eve six years after they passed that brought back just a spark of light in his hopeless heart.