Cosy Christmas ✓

10 / let it snow

The morning sun was diluted by the snow that had been falling since Connor had set off last night. It hadn't settled at first, melting when it hit the road, but he opened his eyes on the morning of the twenty-sixth to a sheet of white outside his window. For a moment, he felt a little turned around: this wasn't his normal view, the window on the wrong side of the room and the dimensions all wrong. It took a few seconds after waking for him to realise that he was in his parents' house, sleeping in the same bed he had had ever since he was twelve, when he and Cam had eventually decided to stop sharing a room. The guest room had been turned into his brother's room, where he had slept for eight years. Cam had attended a much closer university, spending almost every weekend at home: he had never really moved out, and that had made his death that much more difficult, for Cass especially. He had always been around, even during his degree, and then all of a sudden he wasn't.

Connor lay staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, his hands folded over his chest, and he felt as though he had made a breakthrough. His brother occupied his mind, and he had even popped up in his mind as he had dreamt of the years gone by. Posy had muscled her way into his dreams, the only way he would ever see the two of them in the same place, and it was with a sigh of disappointed sadness that he realised that would never happen. Cameron was his past: Posy was his present.

With a whine of a yawn, Duke jumped onto the bed and lay across his chest, forcing a laugh out of Connor when the air was squashed out of his lungs, and he scratched Duke's head. Only four years old, he still considered the dog to be a puppy, though he was far too huge to be anything like that. His parents had tried to dissuade him from getting a dog when he had only just graduated, with more to think about than looking after an animal, but Duke had been more influential than anyone else. It wasn't until three months after Cameron's death that Connor had given in and gone to a therapist, but a year of sessions while he postponed his degree had hardly made a dent in his grief. Despite being on course for a first, he had come out with a two-two, and adopting Duke had been a consolation.

He hadn't realised at the time just how much he had needed the dog, and now he owed him a thank you. If it wasn't for him, he never would have found a reason to talk to Posy yet now as he lay watching the snow, he was planning how to tell her that he didn't want to say goodbye. The more he thought about it, and he had thought about her a lot since last night, the more he realised that he wanted to see more of her. He didn't want to disappear into the distance as soon as the baby was born, leaving her to her own devices: he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, and it would take a lot more than a child to deter him.

The minutes slowly ticked by as Connor stroked Duke's back, fingers idly scratching him, until there was a knock on his bedroom door and when he croaked out a yes, his first word of the day coming out with a cough, it was his mother who pushed open the door and he was thrown back to his childhood. He had always tried to sleep in as long as possible on school mornings, which had always resulted in his mother having to drag him out of bed and thrust his uniform into his hands. The collection of memories engulfed him as he looked up at her, standing in front of him, before he shifted out of the fugue and smiled at her.

"Hey, Mum," he said, lifting his head off his pillow. The movement alerted Duke, who jumped off the bed and bounded over to Sandra, nuzzling against her legs. She chuckled and scratched his head, cooing at him for a moment before her attention returned to her son.

"Morning, darling," she said with a smile, glancing down at the dog again as he wandered past her into the hallway and thudded down the stairs. Connor sat up and rubbed his eyes before he stretched and sat on the edge of his bed. "We were just making breakfast, didn't want you to miss out."