Duo goes to Mass on Christmas Eve, even though he says religion is not something he can bring himself to believe in. But just the same, he goes every Christmas Eve, staying until he can barely hold himself up any more.

I have this need to be the one who puts the star on top of the tree. And I'm the one who always insists that the tree be real, no matter how far I have to drive to get one. Duo always laughs and says that we could just save the time and buy an artificial one, but I like the smell of pine in the house.

But the one tradition we always share is our Christmas morning.

We always rise together. Showers wait until after gifts and breakfast. I make hot chocolate (with marshmallows) and Duo separates the gifts into piles. Then we sit on the floor together and open gifts together.

It's funny how time has changed some things though. When we were younger we almost always ended up back in bed after breakfast, making love for what would seem like the sixth time that day. Now we have things to do after breakfast, even though we're both retired. It's not that we don't want each other; it's more that life has kept intruding as the years have marched on. What seemed important back then isn't so important now.

And the pajamas have changed too. Duo used to never be without these black, silk pajama pants that made his ass look supremely nice; now the pajama pants are usually just cotton, with whatever pattern caught his eye on them. And socks. As time has gone by Duo's feet have become increasingly cold.

Me? Well, I found that being so resilient during the wars took a toll on my body after all. I never grew taller than 5'7", probably as a result of being half Japanese. Duo is taller than me by a few inches. I've lost some hearing in my right ear because of a close encounter with a bomb when I was still an active agent and have this problem with high blood pressure I can't seem to kick. That may or may not be attributed to treatments taken earlier in my life. Lord knows what J drugged me up with.

Duo has continuing problems with his stomach that probably stem from spending much of his childhood malnourished and medically untreated. And he has a limp in his right leg from a shotgun blast that would have killed a lesser man.

Right now I'm handing Duo his final present of this current Christmas. Duo hand wraps his gifts because he's good at it. I take mine out to get wrapped because truthfully, I'm really bad at it.

"What is it?" he's asking as he shakes the box.

"Don't shake the thing Duo. What if it was breakable?" It isn't, but he doesn't know that.

It's a box inside a box inside a box. He's grinning as he shifts through paper and styrofoam until he comes up with a small box.

His reactions always get to me. Every single time they get to me. He always looks twenty years younger on Christmas morning. This time his eyes brighten and his smile is goofy as he takes out the ring.

It's a simple band, made of a high-grade metal. I just don't buy gold. It looks tacky to me. And he knows it's something more because he knows me. He looks at the inscription and tears well up in his eyes.

"What's this for?" he asks, blinking furiously to stop the crying.

"It's our twentieth Christmas together," I tell him.

He crawls over to me and sits in my lap on the floor. It's awkward but I don't care. "Did I ever tell you that I'm the luckiest guy in the universe to have you?"

The mushiness doesn't even faze me anymore. Manliness be damned, I love him more than anything. "I knew that."