Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again—you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

-- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

Lyric smiled and chatted with the people near her, after Riley’s story was done. When the singing began, she joined in, figuring out the lyrics as they went along. She loved to sing and wasn't going to let a little thing like not knowing the words to Atlantean children’s songs stop her.

She closed her eyes and sang, letting the joy and companionship in the room soothe her soul and infuse her with the spirit of the season. In the middle of a song that seemed to be about fish and grapefruit, as far as she could grasp the meaning, she felt something Meredith would have called a disturbance in the force. It was as if the air pressure in the room changed; as if a powerful gale force wind were headed straight toward her.

Dare.

She could feel him. It didn't make sense, had never made sense, but there it was. She could feel him coming for her, and her body started trembling almost in spite of herself.

He stopped in front of her and pulled her arms. She could feel that he was trembling, too.

"I'm here. I'm back. I'm so sorry I left you alone for so long, but I never will again, I swear it."

She almost fell over. “You—what? Dare, are you--"

His voice had had a strange lilt to it, so she leaned forward and sniffed. Sure enough, his ‘important business’ seemed to have taken him past at least one Atlantean whiskey distillery. She leaned back, unsure whether to be amused or annoyed, but amusement won out.

"Really? If you wanted to go drinking, I would've been happy to go with you."

"I would've asked you, but you threw me out so you could work," he said humbly.

She had to laugh. Dare and ‘humble’ didn’t belong in the same sentence. "I know. You're right. I have the manners of a wild boar when the Muse takes me like that. I'm sorry, too, but you’re back now. Should we go for a walk? It's a beautiful night."

He grasped her wrist and started walking, pulling her none too gently along with him.

"Beautiful night, yes. No to walks. I have things to say to you, and I’d like to say them in private."

She stepped up her pace to keep up with him and twisted her wrist a little bit until she was holding his hand. "That works out well then, because I have things to say to you too."

The sound of the crowd had been fading steadily as they walked along, and suddenly Dare swung her around until her back was against one of the cool marble walls of the palace.

"I've changed my mind. I can't wait until we get up to your room. I need to put my hands on you.” With that, he took her mouth in a deep, passionate kiss. His hands stroked down her back until he found her butt. He squeezed it and then lifted her up, startling her into wrapping her legs around his waist.

"Dare. What if somebody walks down this hallway?"

He tore his mouth away from hers, and he was breathing hard. "I don't care," he growled. "Let them get their own damn hallway."

He flexed his hips so the hardness of his body was exactly in the spot where she wanted it, and she moaned and went boneless, clutching at his shoulders for all she was worth.

"Dare – –"

He bit her neck.

She cried out.

"Please. Please let's go to my room. I would like to have this conversation with you, but I'd like to have it naked," she told him.

“Why didn’t you say so?” He swung her up into his arms. "This will be faster."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and decided to bite his earlobe this time.

"You keep talking about my round butt, so I find it hard to believe you want to carry me up three double flights of stairs again."

"Ha. You weigh nothing. Remember, superior Atlantean strength."

By then, he was running up the stairs. Luckily they didn't pass anyone, or at least not that she heard, because it probably would've been entirely obvious what they were rushing off to do.

At least, what she hoped they were rushing off to do.

By the time they made it to her room, she was already ripping the buttons off his shirt.

He lowered her to her feet and took her hand her face in his hands. "I need to tell you something."

"I need to tell you something too," she said.

"In this, I won't be a gentlemen. I need to go first.” He took her hands and knelt on the floor. "I must tell you that I have finally realized why I’ve been living with a hole in my heart for so long—because you weren’t with me. Lyric, I love you more than life itself. Without you, I have nothing, want nothing, and feel nothing. My soul is yours, my heart is yours, my life is yours. I will give you anything and everything you could ever desire, if only you'll be mine."

Lyric couldn't stand for him to be kneeling. She wanted them to be equals, always. She pulled him to his feet again until he was facing her and then she began to speak, heedless of the tears running down her face.

"Is this even possible? How can this be happening to me? I've waited all my life for a Christmas miracle – I've always believed – even when my parents died. Even when the doctors told me I'd never see again. I always believed, and hoped, and waited. And now – oh, Dare – now you are my Christmas miracle. I love you, and I'll love you forever."

He kissed her, then, and the world stopped spinning on its axis for a long, long time.

"I know your home is important to you," he said roughly when they finally pulled apart. "I would give up the sea for you, were you to ask me."

"I would never ask you to do that."

“No. You’re right. I shouldn't ask you to make the choice. You don't have to ask; I renounce the sea for you on my own initiative."

She shook her head and backed away a step. "No. No, you can't –"

“Lyric. Are you trying to tell me that you won’t have me? I won’t accept it, after you told me you love me. I don’t want to need you more than air, or light, or life, but I do. You own me now, body and what’s left of my blackened soul, and I’ll never let you go.”

“Then don’t. Don’t let me go,” she whispered, and she held out her arms.

When he stepped into her embrace, it felt like she was finally—finally--coming home.

And when their clothes and inhibitions fell away, and he took her into his arms, she knew that forever had finally begun.