Christmas was in the air. Actually it was everywhere. Christmas was practically on top of the city, hovering over and waiting for its impending landing time where it crashed into the earth with an explosion of peace, love, joy, and not only putting up with, but spending money on people whom you normally can't stand.

Ty was sooo glad he didn't have to put up with that part of Christmas anymore. In fact, this year it would be just him and Tses, as it was last year. Only this year he was determined not to disappear just days later. The redhead was bundled up in his usual black leather jacket, faded blue jeans, and black tennis-shoes with green laces. His fingerless gloves were black with studs on the wrists today.

As it was, the redhead was walking towards his new apartment, a plastic bag in the crook of his elbow. In his other hand was his cell phone, and he was looking through the contacts, once again cleaning out numbers he didn't need. He stopped at one, looking at the name. Noel...he wondered if she was doing okay. It seems it'd been forever since his friend had just up and left. Without thinking, he hit "Call."

It rang, then he finally spoke. "Hey, Noel. It's Ty. Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and see if everything was okay. Also, thought I'd let you know that ex I had trouble with and I got back together."

Tses wasn't big on holidays. At least, she wasn't big on most holidays. Christmas seemed to be the odd exception. The lights, the winter weather, the gifts. She sort of had a soft spot for all of that, and this year, she was determined to make things even more festive. The new apartment was ok, but it was still missing one thing. So TSes, with her ever devious mind, went about remedying the situation.

Exactly 3 hours later she was not so subtly sneaking across the New York rooftops with a Christmas tree across her back, and a string of Christmas lights trailing behind her.

Ok, so it wasn't the most beautiful tree, but it was from a rich family who had two of them anyway, and this was just their spare. They had all the lights and decorations though, even some ugly little angel cherub things. She might have busted a wing or two dragging it across a few fire escapes. No matter. By the time she was stumbling down the rooftop, and trying to cram it through their apartment window, a few broken decorations weren't the least of her worries.

"Damn....should have picked a smaller tree..." She muttered, trying her best to shove the branches through the window.

Ty was on her list. She didn't have to check the tattoo because it was a short list and she saw it just about every day. Ty was on it. And in her phone. And in her notes. They were sorta friends, she guessed, though she couldn't think of the last time... or any time she had met him.

When his face showed up on her screen, she scrambled to answer.

Aaand missed. Dang. Noel was spending the day awake since she didn't have to work tomorrow. She'd joined in the festive mood only so far as to drink hot cocoa instead of a coke. Oh. And she'd bought ear muffs.

> "Hey, Noel. It's Ty. Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and see if everything was okay. Also, thought I'd let you know that ex I had trouble with and I got back together."

Uh. What? All the notes Noel had on Ty said that the girlfriend was the be avoided at all costs. Like, Ty should avoid her too. Like, bad news. Like, they had talked about erasing her from his memory kind of bad.

She dialed him back right away.

"Where are you." Technically that was a question, but it didn't come out that way. It also wasn't preceded by a hello or followed by a goodbye after she mentioned that she was on her way.

Just in case, Noel packed her gun in her under arm holster. Earmuffs in place, Noel left a quick note for her roommate and then hightailed it over to where Ty was to... well, first she would meet him and then she would tell him how dumb he was.

He knew he'd struck a nerve when Noel called back right away. And the fact that she didn't even say hello when he answered was further proof. In her mind, he'd done something bad. But he never told her the good times. He never told her why he wanted to forget, exactly. It hurt to remember back then. But later, he got to a point where it hurt even more to forget.

But that didn't matter right now. What mattered was his friend obviously wasn't happy with his decision. "I'm on [such-and-such] Street, heading to [so-and-so] Apartments. I'll wait for you." He knew her well enough to know that she'd be coming for him. She may have had a tendency to forget things, but who she was didn't change. He'd gathered that much. Setting his bag down, he leaned against the wall, waiting. Pulling out his phone again, he dialed the phone in the apartment, waiting for it to ring.

"Hey Tses, it's Ty. I'm gonna be a little late coming home from the store. Long lines, what with the Christmas thing, and I ran into an old friend. I'll be home soon. Love you~"

Tses was halfway through the window with the Christmas tree when the apartment phone went off. The sound was obnoxious. She mad sure to note that to Ty when she saw him next. But it was hard to shut up the dumb thing when her butt was stuck between a tree trunk and the fire escape and her arm was pinned against her side. A bit more wiggling, more cussing, and a few minutes later and Tses was laying under the tree, little broken cherubs littering the floor. Mischief was playing in the tinsel, paws balancing on her back.

Finally getting free, Tses made it over to the answering machine and started punching buttons. The message started playing after a few clumsy attempts, and by then, her irritation took a ... new target.

"A friend...." She repeated, and her mouth turned into a frown. "But...all his friends are girls..." A few moments later and the still injured thief was back out the window and off across the streets of New York.

"Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas and what the heck, Ty? Your girlfriend sucks and now by proxy that makes you suck. What were you thinking? Everything you told me before was that you were horrible to each other. Like forget-the-tramp kind of horrible." Noel couldn't even get through her greeting before she had her hands on her hips.

The memorymancer coughed into her fist. Maybe she was coming on a bit strong. "It is nice to see you, though. Been a while." She was loathe to admit that she didn't actually remember Ty's face, but it was the picture on her phone that had let her know who she was looking for.

And, in person, it pretty much felt like they were friends right off the bat. He didn't mind her yelling. At least, he didn't flinch. So he was obviously used to her which put Noel at ease.

It was nice to have friends who she was able to just pick up again.

"It's complicated. I was more miserable without her because I was always thinking about her." His voice was calm, but he knew he was going to end up with at least one of two women mad at him today. "Yes, I made her seem terrible...it was wrong, but when I wanted to forget, I came up with excuses to, only focusing on the negative. We've gone past that now. No, everything's not all perfect. I won't lie and tell you it is. Then again you'd be able to tell, anyway." He let out a sigh, then smiled.

"Nice to see you too. Glad you're okay and all. When you stopped coming around, I worried at first, and nothing in my room gave me any leads, heh. I know...you think I'm an idiot." He gave a light shrug, grinning.

Tses was not exactly an expert tracker, but Ty hadn't been that far from the apartment when he made the call. A birds eye view helped her locate the renegade boyfriend, and then all she had to do from there was follow. Following was a lot easier when she didn't have a bad leg and shoulder though... What used to be graceful jumping from roof to roof resulted in terrifyingly short jumps, clinging to ledges while cursing profusely and a bloody shoulder.

Then she decided to continue on foot.... like a normal person.

The meeting looked, normal, ish. Other than the fact Ty totallyandutterlylied that he had been at the store and 'ran into' a friend. More like, met up with a girl. Who, he apparently lived with, judging by the conversation she was overhearing around the corner. Oh, so he just liked adopting women and living with them. Or letting them live with him. Or whatever. She was still angry.

She was angry enough to hit him over the head with the Christmas tree. Darn liar.

And on Christmas too! She made notes to wrap boxes of coal for him.

Noel rolled her lips together to keep from interrupting Ty. "Oh. my. God. I can't believe you're pulling the whole 'I was only miserable because I missed her' thing. That's like TV teen drama." She she would know. Noel watched the dickens out of Dawson's Creek on her roommate's Netflix account.

"Look, obviously I don't know everything and you don't exactly look like you're suffering right now. Just... If you need back up. No. Before you think you might even need backup. If you get the ghost of an inkling that you need somebody, call me." Noel wondered if she could find a practical way to hide a body. Because if he called her, it miiiight just come to that.

It was so weird to feel this fiercely protective over somebody she apparently hadn't seen in months.

"I must have forgotten." Noel ran her hands through her hair until they got tangled in her stupid holiday earmuffs. "I mean, you're in my phone, but..." Noel shrugged. She didn't remember why she left since she didn't remember staying wherever Ty was staying.

She must have had her reasons, though, since he wasn't labeled as her roommate or suite mate or anything like that. "I went to a women's shelter." Which typically meant some man had made her uncomfortable somehow and she'd needed distance. Noel toyed with her ear muffs for a moment while she let that revelation sink in.

"I don't think you're an idiot." She put the peppermint earmuffs back on with extra force. "I know so." She smirked. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Ty let out a sigh. "Yeah that's what it sounds like. But it's...not that simple. Yeah we're both pretty messed up, but Tses and me...we function better together." He listened as she mentioned forgetting and going to a women's shelter.

"Yeah, I figured something happened along those lines. I mean the forgetting. Though I'm kinda hoping the shelter was after you forgot. Or hell, maybe sharing a room with a thief and a cat drove you to it." He chuckled, but he really hoped that wasn't it. Not that it was unlikely...because it was very likely.

"Yeah, I know what I'm doing here. You just gotta trust me on this. Shouldn't be too hard, right? You've trusted me with your life, after all."

Tses listened from around the corner, brain sifting through the words he was saying. One part was almost sweet, then the more she listened about his 'relationship' with this stranger, the more jealous she felt. Oh, so he shared a room with her. Oh and she trusted him with her life. Well, didn't Tses just feel special and unique now. If she could shoot daggers with her eyes...

Now...the only thing was....what would she do about this? She could get mad, or get even. Both were options in this case. They weren't standing anywhere decent to really do anything serious like dump water on them or actually get revenge. Hmm... Her irritation just continued to grow until she noticed a faint light bouncing off the building next to her.

Well, that worked. Moving forward, walking straight through the building and popping out BETWEEN Ty and his 'friend' she crossed her arms and glared. "Lines at the store...huh...Glad to see you're still working that whole honesty thing."

> "You've trusted me with your life, after all."

Noel nodded absently at the thought. She trusted him with her life? What did that mean exactly?

>"Lines at the..."

Holy GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST! Noel cocked back a fist and let it fly before she'd heard anything more than that.

The lady just walked THROUGH A WALL for crying out loud! In hindsight, a punch would have gone right through a ghost, but that logic didn't factor in here. It was just Noel's knee-jerk reaction to someone stepping out of a wall and toward her personal space.

Ty was going to react to his girlfriend phasing through the building between him and Noel, but before he could react to that, he caught a fist right to the eye. "Ah! ****!" He sputtered. "Still haven't gotten used to you being able to do that, Tses. And I fudged the truth because I remembered you tend to have little jealous fits if I'm even in the same area as another girl," he said teasingly, a gloved hand still over his eye. Yep, that was gonna bruise real nice...

"Noel, meet Tses. Tses, Noel..." His face was beet red, his eye hurt...and this could not go very well. Merry freaking Christmas~

Tses was very grateful the light form didn't disappear right away. As the punch went through her, the slight tingling sensation startled her, but from the sound of Ty's yelp it would have hurt a lot more if it hit. Well, saved her a punch... She crossed her arms and glared at Ty. "So you think lying about meeting a girl is going to go over even better?" She shot a look at Noel. She still didn't trust her. She forced the light form to stay longer, maintaining her spot between the two of them.

"Now, it's been a long day, and I'm sure you two have plenty to catch up on. So I'll go back to my shopping and you can go back to your black eye." She said, and walked through Ty on her way towards the nearest store. Jerk, jerk, jerk, jerk. She wasn't sure she could turn the light off at this point anyway, and it was hard to hit someone like this. Jerk, Jerk, jerk.

Oh geez. Her fist went... but that was... "Oh. Gosh. I'm so sorry. She spooked me." It was awkward trying to reach around the person, but apparently she didn't have to. Noel reached right through Tses then to grab Ty's shoulders. She pat his shoulders to make sure he wasn't going to fall over or anything. Yeah. He seemed okay. So she let him go.

> "Noel, meet Tses. Tses, Noel..."

"The girlfriend, I guess?" Her tone let Tses know just how much stock Noel put into that title. Was she like a hologram? Ty was actually dating a real girl, right? Not some kinky computer thing? She even walked right through Ty on her way to go shopping.

"Rude." But she did shrug an apology to Ty. Noel hadn't meant to make things worse. Especially not like this.