AN: OMG, the last one at last (so obvious that I'm not even sure it could be called a pun). This one is a little bittersweet too - well, a little bitter, but mostly sweet :) It's Setsuna/Sara, post-series this time. 'Twelve drummers' symbolizes the Apostles' Creed, which pretty much contains a lot of basic Christian theology - "I believe in Jesus Christ... our lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Sprit, and born of the Virgin Mary" etc. It's another one of those 'ooh, the irony' things, in other words, but also it occurred to me that packing all that theology into a few easy-to-remember lines kind of makes a nice parallel for the cheapening discussed here. Okay, okay, there's probably a perfectly good reason for it, I know pretty much nothing about any and all religions, heh. This chapter actually refers specifically to events in chapter nine, but it's all in fun (I hope). And on that note, I'm feeling just a bit sick (go figure!), so I'll just say merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night :) (passes out -.o;)

Twelve x Drummers Drumming

They had known that, even after everything they'd been through together, there would be hard times. They had known that there would be unforeseen hardships. This was one of them.

It had happened when they had been walking back to their apartment building after doing a little Christmas Eve shopping. They had to pass by the church to get from point A to point B; there was simply nothing they could do about it. And so they had wound up stopping and watching, either by some unspoken agreement or just because they were both frozen in place, as the wedding procession filed out of the building.

"Sara," Setsuna murmured, sounding pained, as he noticed that she was focusing intently on her shoes. She looked up as he spoke, however, and gave him a brave smile.

"Let's go," she said, and they did. They passed the next hour quietly in their little apartment... until the snow started.

"Ooh, look at it," Sara breathed, plastering her nose to the tiny window. Setsuna, behind her, smiled as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"It's not as pretty as you," he said teasingly, and she giggled.

"You're so lame!"

He buried his nose deep in her hair, and sighed. "One of these days, I'm gonna marry you," he murmured.

Sara closed her eyes. "How?"

"We'll go to America," he told her, "where everybody will look like us. We'll say we were both orphans, so we don't have any birth certificates..."

She opened her eyes again, and smiled. "It sounds so frivolous, doesn't it?" Setsuna arched an eyebrow. "Birth certificates, marriage licenses... it's all bureaucracy." Sara took his hand, outright beaming now. "Let's go for a walk."

Setsuna twitched. "Wha? It's seven o'clock! And it's snowing..." In the face of her relentless bright grin, however, he threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine, fine, guess I can't let you freeze your butt off all by yourself..."

After getting appropriately bundled up, Sara led them eventually to a nearby park. The snow was falling pretty heavily; by that point there was already at least half an inch on the ground. "Do you remember this place?" Sara asked.

Setsuna frowned. "Hey... isn't this where we always used to play...?" He couldn't help but think how close that meant their old house was, but Sara was still smiling.

"Uh-huh," she agreed, and pushed him.

"Gargh, hey!" he protested, and then sweatdropped as, giggling, Sara let herself fall down next to him.

"Lay back, silly! Snow angels!"

He looked at her for a moment as if she'd grown a second head... but then he just laughed and, in spite of feeling rather foolish, did as he was told.

"Hmm," Setsuna eventually hummed, staring up at the white snow falling out of the black night sky. "This is pretty familiar, isn't it?" Sara glanced over at him, and he grinned. "Yeah... I told you I was gonna protect you, and you dumped snow in my ear."

She shrugged flippantly. "You started it," she said, grinning back.

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"I could do it again if you're not care- mmph..."

In the end, they completely ruined the space between the two snow angels - leaving a shape that looked like one angel behind.

The End