Emerson climbed into Dresden's car with a small smile on his face. Dresden was amazed at how quiet things were when he'd pulled up. Last time Emerson had attempted a holiday with his family, he had called Dresden in a panic and Dresden arrived to police cars and screaming. Emerson ended up spending most holidays with the Edwards family after that. It had been years since Dresden had been anywhere near Emerson's old home.

He scrunched his nose up at the stale smokey chemical smell that followed Emerson into the car. He decided not to say anything about it. Emerson would just tell him he couldn't say much about them smoking since he also smoked. The last thing he wanted was to argue with his roommate. Things had been going fairly well the last few weeks and he didn't want to be the one to ruin that.

Emerson had been in a good mood. No more angry outbursts or strange mood swings in the last few weeks. Dresden wasn't entirely sure what had changed but he welcomed it.

Emerson leaned his head back against the headrest and smiled to himself. He hoped maybe Christmas would go as well as today had. He didn't think he'd be able to get presents for everybody, but maybe he could get something for his niece and nephew. He wasn't even sure what they'd like, though, and had no idea how to get a hold of Lucy to ask about Rosie. He'd have to text Claire. He didn't think his mom would be much help. It wasn't a terribly big deal, he still had some time. Hopefully he found a job soon. That would help a lot.

"Mom sent some food home with us. She said to tell you happy Thanksgiving." Dresden informed him as they pulled away from the curb. Mrs. Edwards had not been overly thrilled about Emerson not coming but hadn't said much about it beyond making sure her children took home most of the left over food. Emerson and Zee both had a habit of forgetting to eat unless someone reminded them and she worried that they didn't eat enough, despite Dresden assuring her that he made sure they did.

Emerson nodded, still deep in thought about Christmas presents.

"She also wanted me to ask if you wanted to spend Christmas with us." Dresden said.

Emerson looked over at him. "I don't know. Today went well so I was thinking maybe I'd get ahold of Claire and see if my family was doing anything.."

Emerson's family hadn't had a get together, that he knew of, since he was in high school. That had ended with his dad in hand cuffs, and his mom in the hospital. He'd ended up spending the rest of that week at the Edwards' house and Mrs. Edwards had insisted on him spending holidays with them after that. He wasn't sure if it was because she felt bad for him, or if it was because he was friends with her kids. It was nice of her, but he really would like to be able to have holidays with his real family.

When they got back to the house they shared, it was fairly late and Emerson decided he would just go upstairs for the night. It had been a very long day and he was exhausted. He walked up the stairs and into his room and looked around. He had a small head ache from all the smoke in his mom's kitchen. He sat on his bed and pulled out one of his sketchbooks and his pencils and started drawing his mom's kitchen, and the table full of women talking and smoking. In the drawing, Ezra and Rosie were chasing each other around the house. Everyone was smiling.

...

Emerson woke with a pounding headache. It hurt badly enough that he felt nauseous and didn't want to move. He heard muffled music and Zee and Lacey singing somewhere. He could smell food cooking downstairs. This is what hell must feel like, he thought to himself. His stomach turned and he heaved himself out of bed, stumbling across the hall to the bathroom in search of pain relief medicine.

When he finally managed to make his way downstairs he felt a little better. The music had been turned down to a more tolerable level and the others were eating breakfast. Zee had a huge slice of pumpkin pie. The other two had pancakes. Lacey had text books and notebooks open around her and was studying as she ate. Emerson didn't think he wanted anything with the way his stomach was turning.

Dresden looked up at his friend as he walked into the kitchen. Emerson looked like death.

"Another migraine?" He asked.

"Yup. I think I slept through the worst of it though. It's either that or everybody smoking around me yesterday just got to me worse than I thought." Emerson replied as he sat down in the last chair. He laid his head on the table and groaned quietly.

Dresden felt yet another wave of irritation towards Emerson's family. Emerson was allergic to cigarette smoke. His family refused to believe that was even possible. Dresden really didn't understand why Emerson even tried with these people when they showed over and over they didn't care that much about him. Everytime they tried to talk to him about it, Emerson shut them down and changed the subject, so he'd given up trying.

Emerson's phone started ringing. He stood and shuffled over to the counter where he kept it while it charged. He didn't recognize the number.

"Hello?"

"Hello! I'm calling for Emerson O'Malley?" A female voice responded on the other end of the line.

"Speaking." He replied, trying hard to sound like he hadn't just rolled out of bed with a monster headache. "What can I do for you?"

"My name is Isabel." She told him. "I'm the manager at The Coffee Cup. I finally got a chance to look over your application this morning and I was wondering if you could come in for an interview Monday?"

"Of course!" Emerson grinned. They agreed on a time and he hung up. He turned to his friends.

"I have another interview Monday," He told them. "At the little coffee shop a couple blocks over."

Dresden grinned back at him and Lacey sent him a thumbs up, barely looking up from her books.

...

Emerson walked out of the small coffee shop with a smile on his face. He had a job. Isabel had hired him almost on the spot. He started towards the house, humming to himself happily. He didn't think he'd ever had an interview go so well.

The Coffee Cup was a small establishment that was very popular among the college students that lived near by. Emerson was thrilled. He couldn't wait to start. The people he would be working with all seemed really friendly and he especially liked Isabel. She reminded him a lot of Lacey. They were both such friendly, happy people. He decided that he needed to bring Lacey there some time so he could introduce the two. He felt they'd be great friends.

He thought about calling Dresden but he was pretty sure he'd be sleeping. Lacey was at John's house, supposedly studying for something. John probably wouldn't be thrilled with the interruption. John and Emerson didn't always get along that well. He decided to call Zee. He was probably the only one awake and not busy. He only worked part time and rarely left the house for anything besides work and his weekly appointments.

He pulled out his phone to call his friend. It'd be good for Zee to get out of the house for a while, and he'd probably be doing Dresden a favor also.

...

Zee was bored nearly to tears. He was currently sitting upside down on the couch, his head hanging over the seat and his legs thrown over the back of the couch. Dresden was sleeping, or attempting to anyhow. Lacey was at her boyfriend's house, and Emerson was at a job interview. He hated when everyone else was busy and he had nothing to do. That was part of what had started the prank war between him and Lacey. But now Lacey was always gone and it kind of sucked. The last month or so, Emerson had hung out with him more, but that would be over again as soon as he found a job.

He understood his friends had lives. They worked. They had friends outside of the house. Lacey was even dating. But it was difficult for Zee to handle being alone. He hated quiet. It reminded him of where he'd grown up, made him think about things he didn't want to. But it was even harder for him to go out and make friends. New people terrified him. So he had tried to find a hobby, something to do when everyone was gone or busy. So far he hadn't made a lot of progress.

He glanced at the book he had attempted to read, laying open on the floor beside him. Dresden had basically thrown it at him earlier when he had gone up the stairs to sleep, saying Zee might be interested in it. He was not. He'd read the first paragraph three times and given up. It was too hard to sit still and he kept getting distracted.

His phone buzzed. He saw that Emerson was calling him and hoped it was good news. He knew Emerson didn't like sitting around the house all the time.

"Hello!" He chirped

"Hey, Zee!" Emerson replied "I got the job! I start Thursday!"

"Yay!" Zee shouted happily. Then he remembered Dresden was sleeping upstairs.

"I was gonna see if you wanted to go eat somewhere with me? Get out of the house for a little while?"

"Sure!" Zee looked up at his legs and realized he was still in his pajamas. He didn't think he wanted to go out like that."I just have to get dressed first."

"Ok. I'll be there in about 15 minutes."

Zee hung up and ran up the stairs as quietly as possible. The last thing he wanted was to wake Dresden up. He yanked on a pair of Jean's and a shirt he was pretty sure was either Emerson's or Dresden's. It was huge on him, but he didn't see anything else clean. He threw on his lilac hoodie and grabbed his shoes. He tiptoed past Dresden's room and back down the stairs. Emerson walked in the front door just as he got to the bottom of the stairs.

Emerson laughed and shook his head as Zee hopped towards him, trying to walk and put his shoes on at the same time. They left the house a few minutes later, walking toward a diner about ten minutes from their home.

It was freezing outside. It had been snowing off and on, and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. Zee pulled his hood up and thought that maybe he should have grabbed a thicker coat. He really didn't like this time of year. He loved the holidays, and snow was pretty, but the weather really sucked. By the time they got to the diner Zee was shivering uncontrollably and he couldn't feel his feet. He was glad when they walked inside. He was not looking forward to the walk home.

They sat down as far from the door as they could get and almost immediately a waitress came up with menus. She was pretty, but Zee thought she was kind of intimidating. She was taller than him and had short, dark hair and brown eyes. The waitress glanced over at him and he smiled. She rolled her eyes and turned towards Emerson with a huge grin on her face.

"Hi guys!" She chirped at Emerson. "I'm Kara. What can I get you?"

Emerson smiled back at her. He hadn't seen her roll her eyes at Zee, too busy looking at the menu. They ordered their food and Kara walked away.

When she brought their food back, she told Emerson she was going to be off work for the day in a few minutes and asked if she could join them. Kara and Emerson talked the entire time, and Zee just sat and stared at his food. He was kind of upset that Emerson invited him out to eat just to ignore him and talk to this rude girl.

...

Emerson flopped back onto the couch with a smile on his face. Today couldn't have gone any better. He now had a job, and Kara had given him her number. They made plans to go out for dinner some time the next week. He had to get his schedule first, and then he was going to text her and let her know when he'd be available. Everything was great.

Dresden walked down the stairs. Zee had stomped up the stairs, grumbling something about rude people and turned his radio on, waking up their roommate. Dresden had decided not to say anything because Zee was already really upset and it was nearly time for him to get up anyway. He saw Emerson sprawled on the couch and smiled. Emerson looked happy. The job interview must have gone well.

Emerson sat up when he saw Dresden and grinned.

"I got the job! Isabel's going to text me when she gets the schedule figured out but she said I'll start sometime this week."

"Cool." Dresden replied, smiling. He walked into the kitchen and started making coffee as Emerson told him about the interview and lunch with Zee. He wondered what had put Zee in such a bad mood when Emerson was so happy.

There was a sudden urgent knock at the door. Emerson got up off the couch, wondering who it was and why they were pounding on the door like that. He opened the door and looked down at the little blonde toddler standing on their front steps in confusion. He looked up just in time to see his sister Claire's car pull away from the curb. His niece's mom was nowhere in sight. He picked the little girl up and walked back into the house. The little girl was not at all dressed for the weather. It was snowing and she was in a t shirt and sandals.

Dresden stared at him from the kitchen. "Someone just left a child at our house?"

"Apparently." Emerson replied, setting the little girl down. "This is my niece, Rosie."

"What the fuck?" Dresden said quietly. "Why'd your sister just leave her here? Did she say anything?"

"No. She was already in the car and leaving when I answered the door."

Zee came down the stairs and saw Rosie. He grinned.

"Well, Hello!" He exclaimed "Who are you, pretty girl?" Rosie giggled at him happily.

"Zee, this is Rosie, my niece. I guess she's hanging out with us for a bit. I need to call Claire and see what's going on. I don't have Lucy's number." Emerson told them both and pulled out his phone as Zee led Rosie into the living room.

"Hello?" Claire answered the phone, sounding irritated.

"Um, yea. Someone just dropped Rosie off at my house and drove away. What's going on?"

"I kicked Lucy out. I'm tired of her shit. The bitch took off with my car, so if she shows back up call the cops. I'm pissed."

"What about Rosie?" He asked.

"What about her? You've got her so she's safe. I've got my own kid to worry about and I'm pretty sure you don't want to leave her with mom, right?"

Emerson sighed. He really hoped his roommates wouldn't mind. Dresden was staring at him. He hung up the phone. And went back out onto the porch. At least lucy had left a bag of clothes and stuff for her daughter. He went back in and explained what happened to Dresden.

"That's fine. I'm not going to kick a baby out. She doesn't have anywhere else that's safe for her to stay. We just need to figure out where she's sleeping and stuff." Dresden shrugged. He really hated Emerson's family. "If she's here for more than a couple weeks though, you might want to ask mom about the whole guardianship thing."

Emerson looked over at his niece. She was sitting on the couch watching cartoons with Zee. This was going to be interesting.