Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

"Hey, Romy."

"Ling." Romy opened her eyes and saw Ling sitting beside her, his dark eyes sparkling with humor and mischief. "Is something wrong? Did the report come in from Ian and Ren?"

"Calm down, everything is fine," he replied, gently pushing her back to the ground from where she'd instinctively half-risen. "I was just wondering if you knew what day it is."

"Beats me," she sighed, looking back up at the artifical sky. Even at night, with all the edges blurred, she could still see the anti-aliasing around the edges of the clouds backlit by the moon. "We've been here so long, I've lost track of the real world."

"I figured as much," he grinned. "I ran the BIOS clock prog I put together. It's December 25th out there."

"So?"

"Um, hello? December 25th? Jolly ol' Saint Nick, mistletoe, chestnuts on an open fire, presents for all the good girls and boys?"

"It's Christmas, I get it. What I meant was 'so what'?"

"C'mon, Romy. You can't honestly tell me that you didn't get that little twinge of love and hope in your heart at the mention of Christmas."

"Nope." She saw him open his mouth, no doubt about to launch into another tirade about Christmas, so she reached up and clapped her hand over his mouth, stopping him. "First of all, I kind of lost my enchantment with Christmas after spending so many years in the hospital over the holiday season. Believe me, if you ever want to become disenchanted with Christmas, watch the girl in the bed next to you pray to God and write a letter to Santa asking them to help clear her cancer only to die on Christmas Eve. Second, Christmas doesn't have any meaning here. It simply doesn't exist. The only thing that matters is ridding the network of the Rezzers."

"What if I said I have a present for you?"

"More strands of binary code?" She gave him a half smile, looking into his kind eyes. "That's lost it's appeal too, knowing nothing here is real."

"Oh no, what I have for you is very real." She opened her mouth to question what could be real in this electronic world before it was covered, gently and softly, by his own lips...