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carewyncromwell · 10 months

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“I had my books to read -- Didn't know that I would ever need Other ponies to make my life complete... But there was one colt that I cared for -- I knew he would be there for me! My Big Brother Best Friend Forever! Like two peas in a pod, we did everything together! He taught me how to fly a kite... (Best friend forever!) We never had a single fight... (We did everything together!)

~“B.B.B.F.F. (Big Brother Best Friend Forever)” from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

x~x~x~x

Christmas was always a very special time for Carewyn Cromwell. For as far back as she could remember, it was the time of year when she could sing lots of beautiful music and spend quality time with her two favorite people in the world -- her mother, Lane, and her big brother, Jacob. Even before she took the name “Carewyn Cromwell” -- in that time when her Muggle father Evan Bach was still in the picture and so she, Jacob, and Lane had all had his last name -- the holiday season had always been special. Understandably Carewyn doesn’t remember her time as “Carewyn Bach” that well, given how very young she was, but there were two images she held onto tightly from that time in their old house in Westminster, both of which were from her third Christmas. The first was of a tall man with his face in shadow tentatively patting the top of her head -- the second was of sitting on her stomach on the floor, squashed under the fully lit Christmas tree. If one were to ask Jacob about these fragmented memories of his sister’s, he would have the appropriate context needed to understand them.

The Bachs’ house in Westminster was a decently-sized, two-story detached home -- a rare and special thing so close to the city. It was made all of red brick, with multiple large white-painted windows and a white-painted front door with a brass door knocker. Its modest front yard was mainly covered over with brick, but hosted several white rose bushes that Evan paid to be pruned and trimmed bimonthly, to keep everything well-coiffed and respectable. The largest of the house’s windows was a bay window over the kitchen table with a ledge that Lane always put a vase of flowers in and that the family’s old Siamese cat Ella used to sunbathe on. And during the holiday season, the kitchen table was moved so that Lane could put the decorated and lit Christmas tree right beside the bay window, so that any visitors to the Bach home could see the lights twinkling out through the glass.

This Christmas -- the 25th of December 1974 -- was set to be Jacob’s tenth Christmas and Carewyn’s third. Carewyn had turned two that September, while Jacob was just two months shy of his eleventh birthday. Carewyn had grown a lot in that last year -- Lane was charmed by how quickly she’d picked up talking, even after how slow she’d been to start walking, and Jacob only egged this on by talking to Carewyn almost constantly, whenever they were together. More than a few times that December he asked his sister about what she wanted Father Christmas to bring her, though Carewyn didn’t seem to know how to answer.

“I dunno,” she’d say, as her eyes migrated up toward the ceiling.

“Oh, come on,” Jacob encouraged her. “You’ve got to want something. And with how good a girl you’ve been all year, I’m sure Father Christmas’ll give it to you, if you ask him.”

Carewyn didn’t answer, instead too preoccupied with tugging at the loose thread on the corner of her skirt. Immediately picking up on her restlessness, Jacob neatly ripped off the thread off his sister’s skirt with no effort.

“Do you want a new dress?” asked Jacob. “A new teddy bear? Or how about an Easy-Bake Oven? Then you can bake your own cakes and sweets, all by yourself!”

“I dun want a Noven,” Carewyn mumbled.

“Why not?” asked Jacob. “Don’t you want to be able to make your own treats whenever you want?”

Carewyn shook her head stubbornly. “I dun want a Noven because...you didn’t get one.”

Jacob blinked in surprise. Carewyn kept her eyes down on the skirt of her dress, flapping it up and down absently.

“Mum said...Mum said to Dad that you asked...Fafa Christmas for a Noven for Christmas. And a chem -- chem -- chem’stree sit.”

“A chemistry set,” Jacob corrected with a broadening smile.

“Mm-hmm. But Mum said...you didn’t get the Noven you wanted. Even if you really wanted one.”

Jacob’s face softened in understanding. His almond-shaped blue eyes sparkled fondly down at his little sister.

“Aw, Pip...you’re right. I didn’t get the Easy-Bake Oven I asked for. But it’s okay -- it was a while ago that I asked for it...”

Three Christmases ago, in fact -- the year Carewyn was born. It made Jacob wonder why Lane had even brought it up to Evan again after so long...was Evan rambling on about Jacob not having interests like “normal” boys his age again or something?

“...And well, I still got my chemistry set, and that was fun.”

Carewyn looked unconvinced. “But...weren’t you sad?”

“That I didn’t get my Easy-Bake? Sure, a little bit,” Jacob reassured her. “But well, I’m not as good of a kid as you are -- it’s probably appropriate that I didn’t get everything I wanted for Christmas...”

If Mum had managed to convince Pops to let me have a ‘girly thing’ like an Easy-Bake Oven, it would’ve been a minor miracle, Jacob thought sourly.

Carewyn's cute little face twisted into a deep frown.

“You are good, Jacob!” she said, sounding incredibly upset.

She immediately threw her arms around her brother’s waist and squeezed. Jacob, who’d predicted the move before Carewyn made it, caught her in both arms, and his face softened further as he hugged her back just as tightly.

“Hm, well...at least you think so, Pip.”

With this, he scooped her up and started heading for the kitchen.

“Come on -- why don’t I help you write your letter? You tell me what you want to say to Father Christmas, and I’ll write it down.”

“Kay.”

~*~

Jacob did end up proofreading and clarifying Carewyn’s sentences quite a bit, when writing her letter. When he read it aloud for Carewyn, though, she was beaming from ear to ear and nodding, clearly approving of his “translation.”

Dear Father Christmas,

My big brother Jacob is writing this letter to you for me. I wanted to tell you to get him everything on his list, please, and to get Dad a new record that I can listen to. Elvis is fun! Also, Mum needs some new rainboots. Please make them yellow, so they match mine. I also want to go to school with Jacob, but Jacob says you can only give me things you can wrap up with paper and ribbons. So please just give me something pretty, wrapped up in pretty paper with a pretty blue ribbon. Blue’s my favorite color.

Don’t eat too many biscuits, or you’ll get a tummy ache.

Love from

Carewyn

~*~

When the morning of Christmas arrived, there was a large haul of neatly-wrapped presents under the tree. Every single present was wrapped in the same kind of music-note-printed white paper, with identically-tied red or green bows. Several years later that particular type of packaging would be the main thing that would clue Carewyn onto the fact that they were all wrapped by her mother Lane, rather than Father Christmas. For now, though, Carewyn didn’t think anything of it, instead taking innocent joy out of her parents neatly undoing the paper on their gifts while her brother overdramatically ripped open the paper on his, grinning mischievously at her the entire time as she tried to bite back her giggles.

“Jacob, dun do that!” little Carewyn would scold Jacob, lightly punching his back and shoulder through her giggles. Her ineffectual scolding would only make her brother laugh louder, which in turn only made Carewyn happier and more giggly than ever. The noise, however, grated on Evan, who rubbed his temple irritably.

“Jacob,” their father said reprovingly, “that is quite enough.”

Jacob shot Evan a rather sour glare -- Lane immediately intervened by leaning over her lap so that she could lightly pat her son’s shoulder from his place on the floor.

“Settle down just a bit, you two,” she said more gently. Clearly she had been a bit overwhelmed by the noise too, but had held back seeing just how happy her kids were. “Jay...I believe that one on the side is the last of your gifts. Why don’t you open it, so we can move on to Winnie’s?”

Putting down the Once and Future King anthology he’d unwrapped with the other books he’d gotten, Jacob shifted over to look under the tree. He found that last gift (which was wrapped in a red ribbon) and, once he’d reached around Ella the cat, brought the package into his lap. It was a moderately-sized gift, about the size of the books he’d already gotten from Father Christmas. It also had a tag written in Lane’s neat penmanship that read, “To Jacob, from Mum and Dad.”

With a quick, beady look at Evan, Jacob very pointedly ripped the paper right off the top so that he could see what was inside.

When he looked at its contents, though, his eyes lit up like fireworks.

“...A portable cassette player and recorder!” he cried in delight. “Mum -- you actually got it -- ?!”

“Your father paid for it,” Lane said pointedly with a wry smile. “I just picked it up at the store.”

She glanced at her husband meaningfully, who cleared his throat.

“...Yes, well...you have been behaving a bit better as of late, Jacob,” Evan mumbled. “Helping your mother around the house...looking after your sister...”

“And you clearly wanted it so much,” Lane said fondly.

Jacob’s face had burst into an amazingly bright smile, worthy of the sun. Unable to stop himself, he jumped to his feet and ran over to throw his arms around his mother in the biggest hug.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” he said, beaming from ear to ear. “It’s just what I wanted!”

Once he’d released Lane, Jacob seized the box from the floor and sat back down on the rug as he started babbling excitedly to Carewyn.

“Look here, Pip -- this is a recorder! Now I can record songs from the radio and we can play them on cassette tape whenever we want! And I can record other things too! I can record things in class and play them back for you, or I can record us singing -- I can even just leave you messages you can play here while I’m at school!”

Carewyn’s eyes lit up, just listening to Jacob. It was like his enthusiasm just bled into her like colors running through a watercolor painting, and she was soon beaming just as broadly as her brother. Evan sat off to the side of the couch, watching his son eagerly share his gift with Carewyn with a strange, almost sad smile prickling at his features.

Noticing her husband’s expression, Lane brought a hand onto his knee, giving it a supportive squeeze before turning back to her children.

“All right, Jay,” she said with a smile. “I think it’s high time Winnie started opening her presents.”

Jacob’s huge grin seemed to gleam brighter at this. “Right!"

Once again reaching around Ella the cat, he picked up one of the remaining packages under the tree, all of them wrapped in blue ribbon, and handing it to his little sister.

“Don’t forget to read the note for her, Jay,” Lane reminded him.

Jacob peeked at it over her shoulder. “‘To Carewyn, from Father Christmas.’” He smiled encouragingly at her. “Go on, then, Pip.”

Carewyn got mostly clothes that year. Both “Father Christmas” and most of Evan’s family members sent along new dresses, though Evan’s cousin Mary had sent along a set of cute little toys called Weebles, which Ella the cat ended up playing with just as much as Carewyn did.

“Don’t forget to thank Cousin Mary when she visits, Winnie,” Lane reminded her.

“Yes, Mum,” Carewyn said promptly, even while only half paying attention.

Along with the dresses, Father Christmas also got Carewyn a new baby blue romper, perfect for playing outside. Carewyn’s last gift, though, earned a strange frown from Jacob when he read the tag.

“‘To Carewyn, from Dad.’”

Carewyn didn’t notice the confused look Jacob shot their father as she took the gift into both hands and very neatly undid the bow. Once the bow was off, she ripped off the corner so she could tear off the rest of the paper.

Inside was a rather pretty blue book with a beautifully painted illustration of an angelic-looking woman floating over a princess sitting in an open coach led by horses -- “The Classic Fairy Tales.”

“Oh, Winnie,” said Lane in breathy happiness, “it’s a book! Your very first book, Winnie.”

She shot a significant smile at Jacob. Feeling confused, Jacob glanced back at Evan -- Evan’s body language was evasive as he got up from the couch to put his spent coffee cup in the sink.

“Well, yes, I...thought it was about time that we built up a proper library for the baby,” he said stiffly. “Books suitable for a girl her age...”

“They’re magic stories, Winnie,” Lane said to her, her voice soft in both volume and emotion as Carewyn flipped through the pages of the book, consulting the pictures. “They’re stories your father and I can read to you at night, before you go to sleep.”

Jacob was still kind of bewildered watching his parents through this whole thing. There was something under the surface in how Lane and Evan spoke about the book that Jacob just didn’t quite get -- it didn’t feel like Lane had picked out the book and Evan had paid for it, the way they had with Jacob’s recorder, and yet Lane didn’t seem at all surprised by the gift (understandable, since she’d wrapped it) and seemed to really want Carewyn to be excited about it. Was it just because Lane liked reading as much as Jacob did and wanted Carewyn to like it too? If so, why didn’t she take some credit for the gift? For whatever reason she’d wanted Carewyn to see this gift as being just from her dad, not both of them.

That schmuck barely pays Pip any mind, in the first place, Jacob thought irritably. It was one of the things that made him most resent his father, that he ignored Carewyn so much of the time. Even now, he’s not even looking at her...

This thought made something click in Jacob’s head.

Is that why Mum wants him to get sole credit? Because she wants Pip to think Pops does care?

Jacob’s lips twitched with a smile despite himself.

Aw, Mum...you hate how he ignores her just as much as I do, don’t you?

Noticing Carewyn glancing up at him, Jacob grinned all the more brightly.

“That’s Hansel and Gretel, Pip,” he said, pointing at the picture she’d stopped on. “That’s a great story -- it’s about a brother and a sister, just like us! And that’s Cinderella,” he added, pointing to the picture on the cover. “She’s going to this really big party. See her dress? It’s pretty, right?”

Carewyn’s eyes seemed to sparkle seeing how happy Jacob was. She beamed from ear to ear, nodding eagerly. Then, with a quick look up at Evan as he returned to the sitting room, she put down the open book on the floor. She shuffled up onto her feet and toddled over to her father. Before he could sit down, she then threw her arms around his leg and hugged it, just the way Jacob had thrown his arms around Lane earlier.

“Just I wanted!” she chirped.

Evan looked completely taken aback. He stared down at Carewyn, his dark eyes wide and his expression almost insecure in how he took in his tiny daughter’s beaming face. Then, very tentatively, he reached out a hand and patted the top of her head, attempting a weak smile of his own.

“...I’m...glad you like it,” he said lowly.

Even despite his discomfort, his dark eyes did betray something oddly touched as he shifted his gaze over to Lane, who was smiling warmly. His weak smile even became that bit stronger, seeing his wife’s expression.

“Ahem,” he cleared his throat, “we’d...best get ready for the day. It’s nearly 11 already...”

~*~

After all four Bachs had gotten washed and dressed, Lane set about getting the Christmas turkey cooked in the kitchen, while Evan went out to pick up the chocolate Yule Log he’d ordered at the local cake shop for dessert. Originally Lane had suggested Jacob and Carewyn go with their father for the drive, but Carewyn was so preoccupied with her new Weebles (or, more importantly, watching Ella the cat bat at them with her paw) that Evan decided it was better to “leave the baby” at home. As soon as Carewyn was going to be left out of the little “outing,” though, Jacob immediately decided he’d stay at home too, and he promptly picked up one of his new books (A Wrinkle in Time), slouched across the armchair with his legs dangling off the arm, and started to read. Carewyn was a little put-out when Evan left the house, but she was distracted soon enough when the kitchen timer went off and she immediately toddled over to “help” her mother with setting the table. (This involved Carewyn taking the cups Lane handed to her in both hands and delivering them one at a time over to the table, as well as pulling all the chairs around the table out enough that everyone could sit down comfortably.)

After their late lunch of turkey, roast potatoes, cranberry sauce, pigs-in-blankets, and stuffing, the Bachs watched the Queen’s Christmas Broadcast -- a tradition Evan insisted on, though Jacob always found it incredibly uninteresting. He took several opportunities during the broadcast to make faces at Carewyn to try to make her laugh, which irritated Evan. The rest of the day involved enjoying the chocolate Yule Log and singing along to the family’s Christmas records. Jacob sang It’s the Most Wonderful Time of Year so flawlessly that Evan actually praised him -- something Jacob didn’t quite know how to accept, considering how little Evan did it. Jacob ultimately chose to forget the whole thing when Evan left the room altogether in response to Carewyn happily screaming out her best attempt at Sleigh Ride, claiming a headache. This left Jacob, Carewyn, and Lane alone for about an hour, during which Lane quieted Carewyn down by shifting the records over to the works of the Kings College Choir. Evan returned in time to hear Lane quietly singing along to The Holly and the Ivy, and he came up behind her to kiss her on the cheek.

“Pretty pretty, Mum,” Carewyn said, beaming as she gave a light tug to her mother’s pant leg.

Lane laughed softly as she scooped Carewyn up into her lap and gave her a big hug. “Thank you, sweetie.”

The night ended with two mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows, one cup of coffee with milk and sugar, and one cup of English Breakfast Tea with lemon in front of the fireplace. Ella the cat curled up for a nap on the now-completely-empty skirt under the Christmas tree in the kitchen while Jacob and Carewyn played with his new recorder and Evan put the batteries in the new pocket calculator that Father Christmas had gotten him. These moments were captured in pictures taken with Lane’s own gift from Father Christmas: a snazzy new Polaroid camera.

At seven o’clock, Lane took Carewyn upstairs so she could get ready for bed. She tried to encourage Evan to come up with her, even going so far as to place Carewyn’s blue book of fairy tales on the side table near the stairs pointedly, but Evan soon became too preoccupied with setting up the new coffee maker in the kitchen and never ended up making it up there.

Looking noticeably disheartened as she came back downstairs, Lane didn’t even look at the book on the table again as she settled herself back down in the armchair -- and so Jacob once again found himself glaring openly in his father’s direction as he got up from his spot on the floor.

“I’m going to bed too,” he said very shortly.

He scooped up all of the books he’d gotten, as well as his recorder, and carried them upstairs. He pointedly didn’t look at Evan, even when he purposefully knocked right into him on his way up the stairs.

“Jacob!” Evan called after him, taken aback and disapproving.

But Jacob didn’t care. Even with how sweet and innocent his Pippa was, all that old plonker ever did was ignore her -- he didn’t deserve a “sorry.”

~*~

Because Jacob went up to bed so early, he hadn’t gone to the bathroom beforehand. That was why he ended up having to get up in the middle of the night. Once he’d left the hall bathroom and started back toward bed, though, he noticed the door to his sister’s room had been left ajar.

Pip?

Feeling a pang of concern, Jacob darted over. Upon peeking into her room and turning on the light, he didn’t find her. He looked around, taking note of the empty hallway and the other closed doors on the floor, and then as sneakily as he could, he darted across the hall and down the stairs. He didn’t find her in any of the chairs in the sitting room or on the floor either.

“Pip?” Jacob called out only as loud as he dared. “Pippa?”

There was a rustling from somewhere in the kitchen. Jacob came around the door frame and entered the kitchen, and immediately relaxed.

There was Carewyn in her lacy flower-printed nightgown, nestled underneath the Christmas tree. She was lying on her stomach, with her legs stretched out behind her and her arms folded under her, and Ella the cat was stretched out on the tree skirt next to her. The Siamese cat surveyed Jacob with a mild expression as he approached.

“There you are!” said Jacob. “What are you doing under there?”

Carewyn shrugged, her eyes falling down to her hands clutching the tree skirt. Jacob crouched down to better look her in the eye.

“You’re not hiding, are you?” he said with an amiable grin.

Carewyn shook her head.

“Well, good,” said Jacob. “You know you don’t have to hide from me...”

His expression grew a bit more concerned. “Is everything okay?”

Carewyn nodded. It seemed like the truth to Jacob -- she didn’t seem the least bit distressed. Instead she almost seemed expectant: like she was patiently waiting for something.

Jacob cocked an eyebrow at the Christmas tree and then back down at his sister, his face slowly unfurling in a bigger grin.

“...Aw, Pippa...you’re not waiting for Father Christmas, are you?” he asked.

Carewyn looked up at him with a rather bashful expression. It made Jacob laugh despite himself.

“Aw...he’s not coming again tonight, Pip. It’s Christmas! Father Christmas only comes on the night before Christmas.”

Carewyn’s face noticeably dropped, hearing this. “...Fafa Christmas isn’t coming back?”

“He will,” said Jacob. “Just not tonight. He only ever comes once a year.”

Carewyn’s gaze fell down to the floor as she rested her head on her hands. Her eyes even started to water a bit.

“Aw, Pip, it’s okay,” Jacob reassured her immediately. “He’ll be back next year. And when he does, you’re such a good girl that you’re bound to get even nicer presents...”

But Carewyn shook her head.

“I dun want any more,” she mumbled.

Jacob blinked. “You don’t?”

Carewyn shook her head again. “Mm-mm...I got I wanted.”

She shifted a bit. When she did, Jacob finally took in what she’d been holding against her chest. It was the book of fairy tales Evan had gifted her -- she slid it over to him so he could pick it up.

“I got a pretty...with...with a pretty paper an’ a pretty bow,” Carewyn explained. “I wanted to say...I got I wanted.”

Jacob felt like his heart was being enveloped in a huge warm hug as he heard this. All he’d been able to wrangle out of her, when writing her Christmas letter, was that she’d wanted something pretty, wrapped up in pretty paper with a blue bow. Even though, yes, their mother Lane had wrapped up all of her gifts with blue bows, Carewyn had clearly found the book to be the prettiest of her gifts -- maybe, Jacob suddenly considered, because Lane and Jacob had reacted so happily about it. Because unlike the Weebles or the clothes she’d gotten, it was something that Carewyn could share with them, the same way Jacob had shared his recorder with her.

“I wanted to say I got I wanted.” She wanted to tell Father Christmas how much she liked her gifts.

Fondness for his baby sister washed over Jacob like a wave of warm water, making his blue eyes shine with pride and affection.

Pip, you really are a saint.

“...Well, then...”

With some difficulty, Jacob sidled underneath the Christmas tree so that he too was lying down on the floor on his stomach next to Carewyn.

“...Since you got just what you wanted...how about I read you a proper bedtime story? Since old Pops didn’t get around to it.”

Carewyn smiled and nodded. With a broadening grin, Jacob flipped open the book until he’d found the story he was looking for.

“Here we go...‘Hansel and Gretel.’”

“They’re like us,” Carewyn recalled brightly, pointing at the picture of the two siblings.

“Right, they’re brother and sister, just like us,” Jacob said, grinning as he affectionately bumped his shoulder beside Carewyn’s. He then proceeded to read,

“‘Once upon a time, near a great forest, there lived a poor woodcutter, his wife, and their two children. The boy's name was Hansel and the girl's Gretel...’”

As Jacob told the story, he took every opportunity he could to make Carewyn laugh, putting on his best imitation of his snippy English teacher when reading for the woodcutter’s wife and a cackling, “old-lady” voice for the witch. It entertained both Carewyn and Jacob greatly. Carewyn liked the first story so much that Jacob went on to read two more -- Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella -- after which Carewyn started to nod off. Her head drooped down onto her brother’s shoulder, and Jacob smiled fondly down at her before, taking care to avoid Ella the cat, he slid both himself and his little sister out from under the tree and scooped her up so he could carry her upstairs to bed. The old Siamese cat proceeded to follow Jacob and Carewyn upstairs, only breaking off once Jacob had put Carewyn to bed and closed the door. The feline then lost interest and sidled her way back downstairs, presumably to “reclaim” her spot on the tree skirt. Jacob himself then went off to bed, a full smile attached to his face.

Evan ultimately left almost no impact on Carewyn’s life. Fortunately she never had any gaping holes left behind in his absence -- for she had a devoted big brother there to ensure she never once felt like she wasn’t special or her feelings didn’t matter.

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #my writing #carewyn cromwell #jacob cromwell #evan bach #lane cromwell #okay this is *supposed* to be a companion to that post I did about evan and jacob #you know for father's day -- focusing on carewyn's relationship with her dad #but it ended up being a few days late *and* focused on christmas #so hahaha we've got christmas in july #oh well! XDD #but yeah I'd always had carewyn's birthday in august 1973 but in order for math to work I realized it would have to be in september 1972 #damn it :P #but anyway #on a personal note that 'just i wanted' thing? that's actually based on an old christmas video of me when I was little #I was imitating my parents since they'd used the phrase 'it's just what I wanted' when they opened their gifts #the thing I was *so* happy to receive that year?#a VHS of snow white and the seven dwarfs #<3

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