Chapter Text
Holden
There was a question burning on Holden’s mind, but in between trying to rescue everyone from the Protomolecule and the aftermath that had followed, there was never time to actually ask it. Decades later, the same question kept popping into his head, always late at night when everyone else was already asleep, only to be gone again by morning. But now, as a certain date was drawing near once more on his home planet, Holden felt the lack of it weigh heavy on his heart. It wasn’t so much that it was missing, but maybe it would add something to the family he had found out here. Or the same family would laugh at him and call him silly. For everyone else, it seemed to be a completely ordinary evening as they sat in the galley and ate their lasagne. Alex had tried a new recipe and it was good, but Holden still found himself looking forward to their upcoming visit to Earth. After their meeting with Avasarala, there would be time for a dinner that involved real cheese. Yet as they approached his home planet, Holden felt his thoughts drift back to the same subject over and over again, the question burning on his lips. He knew he had to ask.
Glancing up across the table, he found Amos and Clarissa sitting on the other side, his fellow Earthers. Were they thinking about it as well? Clarissa must have been. Holden wasn’t sure about Amos.
“Do Martians celebrate Christmas?”
The words escaped his mouth before he could think better of it and the table conversation, whatever it was about, came to an abrupt stop. While Naomi knitted her eyebrows at his admittedly random question, Amos looked as impassive as ever. Clarissa’s expression was impossible for him to read. Was she sad? Excited? Nostalgic? Holden was unable to tell. However, the two Martians sitting at the table, Alex and Bobbie, exchanged a brief glance, obviously taken aback by his sudden question. When they turned back towards him, Holden thought he saw a brief flash of excitement in Alex’s eyes.
Yet it was Bobbie who answered with a shrug. “Sure we do,” she said. “I mean, our ancestors came from Earth at some point, so they brought their traditions with them. It’s not that big of a deal, though. We mainly do it for the children. My nephew used to be obsessed with Christmas carols when he was a kid.”
“Sure,” Alex threw in. “Melas loved it. Why are you asking?”
Holden opened his mouth to respond, but Naomi cut him off before he had a chance.
“We don’t celebrate it in the Belt,” she said gruffly. Whenever the touched the subject of Earth, there was hostility in Naomi’s voice, even after she had travelled with several Earthers for decades. Some old animosities never truly went away, even after everything that had happened, even after the ring gates, even after her fellow Belters had come so far. “It’s a silly Earth tradition that has as little value to us as we to them.”
“A-fucking-men,” Amos agreed and raised his bulb as if to make a point.
While he sipped his drink, Holden felt his mouth fall open in sheer disbelief. Amos was an Earther, just like him, and yes, his friend had a difficult past, but a part of Holden had always just assumed that everyone on Earth celebrated Christmas in some form or another. Despite having religious roots, it had become a family holiday more than an expression of a certain faith.
“Are you saying you never once celebrated Christmas?” Holden found himself asking, his eyes wandering back and forth between Amos and Naomi.
Amos shook his head. Naomi didn’t even respond.
“You’re from Earth,” he insisted. “You must have celebrated it in some way.”
“Not where I come from,” the mechanic just said with a shrug.
Holden could do nothing but watch as Amos put his bulb down and continued to eat his dinner as if the previous conversation had never taken place at all. Then, he realised that there was another voice, hardly audible over the clatter of cutlery.
“Christmas used to be my favourite time of the year as a child,” Clarissa said. Still, Holden couldn’t say whether she sounded sad or nostalgic. “It was magical. Father bought the biggest Christmas trees he could find and the lights illuminated the entire house.”
“You mean mansion,” Amos remarked dryly.
Despite the interruption, Clarissa carried on. “My siblings and I would sneak downstairs during the night, trying to catch Santa in the act, but the only people we ever caught were the servants. They kept saying Santa had asked them to put the presents under the tree for him because he was in a hurry and then sent us back to bed.”
“I’m sure Christmas is very nice when you’re rich, Peaches.”
“You don’t have to be rich to enjoy Christmas,” Holden jumped to Clarissa’s defence. “My parents were never rich, but we could grow our Christmas trees on our own land and each year, we decorated it together. As a family. Mother Elisa was the organiser. She’d tell me and father Caesar and father Dimitri where to put which ornament. Mother Tamara and father Tom sang Christmas carols as we worked. Father Joseph was always the one to choose which tree we’d use. We weren’t rich, but it was no less magical.”
When Holden looked around the table, he couldn’t help but notice the mixed reactions of his crew. Naomi and Amos continued to eat their food as if the rest of them weren’t even there, Bobbie observed the situation with a mild curiosity, Clarissa had an almost dreamy look on her face by now and Alex, well, Alex was beginning to shift in his seat, beaming excitedly at him. It was obvious that there was something he desperately wanted to say. To relieve the pilot of whatever he was trying to get out, Holden gestured towards him, fearing that Alex might burst otherwise.
“We should celebrate Christmas,” the pilot announced, an almost childlike look of glee in his expression. “The lot of us. Together. On the Roci.”
Somehow, that was exactly what Holden had hoped to hear, that was exactly what he himself wanted, to celebrate his favourite season together with all the people he loved most. He found himself smiling back at Alex. “I think that is a wonderful idea. We should do it.”
Even Clarissa smiled in response to that.
“I have an even better idea,” Bobbie remarked while she stuffed another fork full of lasagne into her mouth. “Avasarala asked us to send her a list of things we need for the ship when we land.
Let’s add some tinsel and Christmas ornaments to it and have the old lady pay for the whole thing.”
Holden chuckled at the mental image of Chrisjen Avasarala reading a shopping list that involved ship parts and Christmas decorations. Somehow, he knew that she would find it amusing. “Let’s do that, then. Everyone on board?”
Alex grinned in response. Bobbie nodded. Finally, Clarissa showed an expression he could actually understand and it looked like gratefulness. When Holden turned his gaze towards Amos, the mechanic only shrugged.
“Do what you gotta do, Cap, but don’t expect me to decorate this ship with tinsel when I’ve got an actual job to do.”
Holden turned his head towards Naomi who was stabbing her lasagne with her fork without actually eating it. “Naomi?”
With a sigh, she put the cutlery down and looked at him. “I don’t celebrate Earth traditions,” she replied harshly. Then, her features softened a little. “But if it makes you happy, you can decorate the ship to your heart’s desire as long as your baubles don’t get in the way of anything important.”
Grinning, Holding sat up straight and dropped his hands on the table with a sound. “Great. We celebrate Christmas and send the bill for that to Avasarala.”
“Chrissie is gonna be very happy about this,” Amos added, mumbling with his mouth full of lasagne. The sarcasm was still audible.