Here's to Christmas - Skulduggery Pleasant FanFic

Chapter 1: A New Beginning

Valkyrie looked up at the modest bungalow that now belonged to her. The walls were whitewashed, the roof was red slate and the garden was small but well kept. The inside was rather charming. Hardwood floors, two decent sized bedrooms and and office. A small but fully functional kitchen that led into an open plan dining room. The keys had been given to her three months ago. She'd moved in a month later.

And it still didn't feel like home.

Valkyrie sighed and accepted the fact that this place would probably never be her home. It would only be her house. Just a nice, small, cosy house not too far from Cemetery Road and a hundred miles away from what she had left behind forever.

She walked into the house and set her keys down on the sideboard next to the framed picture of her and the rest of the Dead Men, bar Ravel, who'd 'unfortunately' been in a meeting. It was taken shortly before their departure to France, not a day before the official start of the war.

When that picture had been taken, though she'd very much been afraid of what the future held, she hadn't expected this. In her imagination, Darquesse never existed in her mind, Ghastly and Anton were never killed by Ravel, Carol was never killed by her murderous reflection and her family were hers and hers only. Instead, the harsh reality was that there was no mum, no dad, no little Alice running around. Just these walls and the ghosts of those she loved once and will never get the chance to love again.

This was her new beginning, her second chance at life, and she was determined to make a better job of it than last time.

The grand clock above the mantle piece told her she hd forty five minutes before she had to be back at the restaurant. Two weeks before the keys to the house were given to her, she'd applied for a waitress job at Jamie Oliver's. To her surprise, she was hired with no experience, but she was smart enough not to question anyone. She took the job without hesitating, and found it refreshingly different. Unlike many waitress jobs, the people at Jamie's often paid very generous tips, and realising this alerted her to the fact that when the waitress cares, the customers care. The other kitchen staff never seemed to stop smiling, anf sometimes that helped Valkyrie to smile too.

Even so, times seemed to be getting increasingly tough for Valkyrie. She'd left the rest of her inheritance to the reflection (albeit reluctantly) after using some to pay for the house, vowing to pay off the mortgage with her own money once she was earning; but despite the good tips and the more than decent salary, she'd had to tighten her belt considerably. And when she started thinking...that was the worst part, because the memories came flooding back all at once.

Valkyrie had lunch, slept for half an hour and was getting ready to walk back to work, when she saw a familiar black Bentley pull up outside the house. She smiled. Her day always got better when Skulduggery drove her to work.

Skulduggery always put things in perspective-he made her see things that would otherwise have been invisible to her. He made her listen to the things she was deaf to. He was her father and her brother and her best friend - everything she needed.

She put on her jacket, picked up her keys and left the house that wasn't her home.