"Episode 4 - Life gives you certain amount of happy."

Gabe was right. The town centre really looked magical. When Nathan told us about the town called Mountilse I was sceptical but he'd chosen well. Only Special Agent Nathan Ross knew about our location. He's the one who kept our hideout off the books and did his very best to find us a place like this.

I couldn't have been more grateful.

The shops had upside down 'V' shape roofs, all of which was covered in snow. I felt like I was in Switzerland. The mountains in the background looked like a postcard. Every edge was covered in Christmas lightings including the trees. People in winter coats waddled over the thin sheet of snow that covered the ground.

It snowed heavily last night and the workers had tried to salt and sand the grounds to melt the snow. The main roads looked worse than yesterday. It looked like a snowplough ran through the middle leaving even bigger mountains of snow on each side of the road. The sky above us was absolutely clear unlike yesterday.

We walked down a road with rows two story houses on each side. The bottom ones were all department stores starting from grocery stores to book stores. All the way down the road, there was a mall with glass walls. The decorations in side matched the decorations outside. We, however, parked on the other end by the huge supermarket.

"Where's the market thing you were talking about?" I wondered when we entered the store. He got a shopping cart before taking me by my elbow and pulling me inside. Frowning, I raised one eye brow at him.

"Walk in front of me." He frowned too.

"Why?"

"So I know that no one is shooting at you." His hand was on the small of my back other one pushed the cart. I shook my head, taking the damn thing with me, leaving him to follow.

I'd never had to do grocery shopping before but since living here, with him, we've done this a couple of times. To his surprise, I loved everything about it. It was a simple mundane work for other people which I enjoyed.

I enjoyed doing anything and everything with Gabe.

"Can you help with the Christmas dinner?" I asked, dropping a sack of potatoes in the cart.

"Are you sure? 'Cause the last time I tried to, you pointed the knife at me and threatened to kill me." He made a face that looked like he was smelling gone off milk.

"That's because I asked you to cube the tomatoes, not turn it into liquid." Huffing, I picked up some carrots. He added 5 more bags of carrots but I didn't question him for that.

"It's all... Slippery." He wiggled his fingers.

"So is blood."

"Oh yeah, true." He down-turned his mouth in understanding.

A sharp gasp came from behind us, whipping our upper bodies back towards the source of the sound. A woman in her late 60s stared at us with owl eyes, a hand across her chest. Her heart was probably pounding faster than a stallion thinking we were some killers.

"Meat." Gabe moved his hand dismissively in front of her. "It's Christmas soon."

She let out a loud sigh of relief. A smile replaced her horrid expression.

"Oh forgive me dear. I don't know what I was thinking." She tried to appear friendly which annoyed Gabe even more for some reason. Rolling his eyes, he grabbed my elbow again, leading me away from the stunned woman.

"What's wrong with you?" I questioned when we were an earshot away from the woman.

"Crazy people." He scoffed, literally throwing a pack of Brussels sprouts in the cart.

"Wait, we don't like that." I picked it up, put it back.

"Oh yeah! I forgot I don't have to eat this crap this year." He gave a half laugh, shaking his head. "Last year, me and David stuffed clear plastic bags in our pockets and stuffed the green balls that tastes like feet in them and then threw it away." A fond smile stretched across her lips. A cheerful memory that soften his features.

Icicle stabbed my heart. It squeezed and churned. For him. For the fact that he's missing his family on Christmas for a girl he met only a couple of months ago. Even though that family wasn't bound by blood, they were still his family.

Turning, I walked away from him, unable to meet his eyes.

"Babe, what's wrong?" He asked, putting his hand on my back.

"I feel terrible for keeping you away from your family." I confessed. I knew deep down he worried if Jude ever got to them even though in his file it's clearly stated that he didn't have anyone. Maybe even the fact that he wasn't adopted would show the lack of connection and would leave his family alone.

My mind was racing, working overtime. A sliver of headache was forming at the back of my eyes. That's when his lips met the back of my head, hands snaked around my side, rested on my hip, hidden by a layers of clothes.

"Who says I'm not with family?"

I gasped, overwhelmed by his question.

My stomach flipped. I felt sick. I didn't know how to answer him. The fact that he thought of me as his family, healed the damaged soul inside me that was destroyed years ago. I leaned into him. Feeling all the tension slip away from my body.

We walked side by side, picking out ingredient we needed for the dinner. It was only for us two but we still wanted to all out. I wasn't going to waste away our first Christmas together. As family. We took our time, enjoying the freedom. Gabe looked over his shoulder only a couple of times but otherwise, he was completely focused on me.

We made small talks with the cashier. An older woman who was born and raised in this town. She spoke about the Christmas festival in town, told us to come. Apparently it started after sun set.

According to her, it looked magical. We drove home when the sun was still out. I was slightly disappointed that I didn't get to see the lights.

Once we were home, the sky started to fade to darkness. Gabe was in an ultra-pleasant mood. He was itching to get me into tight short and a sports bra. He moved all the sofas and coffee table away, laid out a thick mat on the floor.

"Where did you get a mat." I paused. "No wait, WHEN did you get a mat?" I stood on by the edge, trying my hair up.

"I got it today. I asked one of the guys working there at the department store to bring it over to the truck." He said it so casually like he asked a friend to do him a favour.

"When?" I stepped onto the mat, feeling the softer ground under me.

"When you were picking out the fairy lights." He was in his shorts and a black t-shirt. "Talking about that, are you going to decorate the outside because the snow is probably going to cover it."

"We can just do the door and windows and the inside." I suggested. I bounced on the balls of my feet, excited about decorating and this little education I was going to get from him on killing people. Well, to defend myself.

"Okay where do you want me?" I asked.

"You're 5 foot 3. You're basically tiny." I threw daggers at him with my eyes making him smile slightly. He looked so handsome with his black tick beard, hair falling around his face. "It's actually a good thing. They will ALWAYS under estimate you. That's where your strength lies, you will be faster, I'll teach you to be and I'll show you how to disarm them."

I nodded. He motioned me to move forward and we met in the middle of the room. Taking my hands in his, he turned them palm side up. "Feel my fingers. Each of them, feel the bones, the joints how strong each one of them are."

I did. His hands were strong and rough. I loved them on my body, inside me. Rolling his eyes, he shook his head. "Stop trying sexualize me, I'm more than that. Also, very inappropriate right now."

"Fine." I groaned, disappointed.

"Try to move them one by one." He spread his finger, pushing down on each. I tried to move them, one by one. The pinky was the easiest to move.

"See. Fingers are like carrots. Today, I'll teach you how to break fingers."

Wide eyed, I realised why he bought all those carrots. Excited, I waited for him to bring them over form the fridge.

"Hands are the most valuable and fingers are the weakest. When it's in a fist..." He clumped both hands together. "It's the strongest. You can't do anything then. However..." He slowly lifted one of his hands spread his fingers around my neck. "When they are around your neck, they are spread." He gave it a soft squeeze. I was slightly unnerved but not scared of him.

"What I'm teaching you isn't conventional. Usually you'd hit them where your arm bends. So they lose their strength and then you can punch them to disarm them. I'll teach you that too. But what I need you to learn is a way to incapacitate them so they can't use their fingers any more. To even go for their gun." He explained and it made sense. I wasn't engaging in any hand to hand combat. What I needed was quick, dirty techniques to survive my attacker.

"Okay. What do I do then?" On reflex, I grabbed onto his wrists. His eyes widened, satisfied.

"Good. That's very good. That's your reflex kicking in. Now move both of your hands to my pinky finger. We need to re wire your reflex so your hands go there immediately. Use both hands to bend back the pinky. It is connected to the ring finger, that will come off with it. Break the pinky. That will loosen the thumb for a couple of seconds, that's when you break the first finger."

Absently, my hands did exactly what he said, minus breaking his fingers.

"If he can't use his hands, he can't really use anything." I stared him like a light bulb went off inside my brain.

"Exactly, now, let's go and break some fingers." He smiled sadistically.

By the time we were done, I had broken all extra bags of carrots and learned all the weak points in someone's arm. He told me not to flail. Told me about the pressure point just above the elbow joint, that weakens someone's arm. Not only that, he taught me some self defence moves but he told me explicitly to not engage in hand to hand combat.

"I'll teach you to shoot and use a knife but don't engage in hand to hand anything. Without a weapon." I was slightly offended but he was somewhat right. Those people had trained nearly all their lives. They knew how to fight and specially, how to fight dirty. They wouldn't care that I'm a girl, so distance and tactic was my best defence.

By the time we were done, I had a couple of small bruises forming on my back and side. At one point, he asked me charge at him and he literally swatted me away. Like a fly and just like a fly, I flew back. He felt bad when I crashed on my butt but he didn't pity me nor did he hold back. I respected him for that. For not treating me like I was made of glass.

Sighing, I soaked my body in the gorgeous oval wooden bath tub. Gabe was putting things away. He offered to make food. Pasta to be exact. I taught him that a while back and it was the only thing he mastered and was proud of.

"Babe, you okay?" Opening my eyes, I found him leaning against the door.

"First day." I mumbled. The golden light up above reflected off the beautiful golden tiles around the bathroom.

"We will do that again tomorrow." He stalked forward, squatted down next to the tub, leaned his forearm against the rim of it. "I know I was hard on you but just because you're you, I won't go easy one you. In fact, I will go harder."

A very distinct dirty thought floated through my mind. Him on top of me, pounding into me like a possessed man. Hair falling forward, hiding his face from the light, body made like a-

"HEY!" Water splashed my face.

"You have a dirty mind." He placed a soft kiss on my temple while I wiped away the beads of water.

"Have you seen you?" My down turned expression made him chuckle.

"Thanks babe." With another kiss, he left. He had already showered. The glass door was still foggy from the condensation. His hair still damp, curling around the edges. My hands travelled down my body, aiming for the pleasure sport when I heard him drop a something.

"SHIT."

Stopping, I sighed loudly, disappoint. One thing dawned on me while I got out of the bath.

I was completely and utterly obsessed with Gabriel Hale.

A week flew by in a blink. My body accumulate bruises from left and right. I didn't mind getting some if they were sex related but we were hardly having that any more. He was focused on teaching me how to defend myself. We even got memberships at the gun range and my aim was getting better each time we went which surprised him.

"You're a very quick learner." Pride swelled in his chest when he complimented me. I had to give him that. It was quite impressive. However, I was done. I wanted him and I wanted a day off from falling on my ass. The day we decided to go the Christmas Festival, I literally threw a mug at him when he started to bring the mat in to the lounge from the garage.

He ducked to avoid it, otherwise it would have hit him right in the face. Damn his Navy SEAL reflexes. Instead of getting annoyed, he was, once again, impressed. "Remind me to teach you how to do that with knives."

Dropping the mat in the lounge, he cleared up the broken glass without a word. Seeing him like that, on his knees with his grey t-shirt stretching back, picking up the curved opaque white pieces of shattered glasses, burned my eyes.

He didn't even ask my why or even got mad at me for nearly hitting him. Rubbing my eyes with the heal of my palms, I reminded him that we were going out for the night and I wanted to take my time getting ready.

I could see the lights from miles away. Gabe drove carefully in the dark on icy ground. I was still terrified of darkness and he sensed that when he took my hand in his. After a very long time, I wore make up and lace undergarment for him later. I wanted to surprise him, make it up to him for being so kind and patience with me.

"Look." He held our interlocked hands up, pointed at the lights far down the dark road.

"Wow!" I marvelled. "The lady was right."

Anyone could see the lights from miles away. It did look magical. The mountains behind a small town filled with lights to illuminated the whole atmosphere. Excitement bubbled up from the pits of my stomach.

"This is going to be fun." I turned towards him. He was wearing a beanie, covering his ears where as I had ear muffs on to protect my fluffy hair.

"Did I tell you, you look extra pretty tonight." I laughed. He wasn't as smooth as Casanovas I remembered from the parties, that the Capones had back in the days but his compliment meant more to me than all of them combined.

"Thank you baby."

Smiling, he kissed the back of my hand absently. Like it was a routine. A norm between us.

I melted inside.

He parked near the supermarket hence we walked towards the rows of glowing houses that hosted shops on the bottom ground. To my surprise there were people on the deck of the first floor. Some holding bears, some sings and dancing.

"Are those bars?" I asked.

"I actually don't know. Maybe they open it up for special occasion." He mused. My hand was in his jacket pocket. I loved it when he did that. It made me feel like I was his. "Do you want to give it a try?" He asked.

"After we see what's behind the mall." I leaned into him.

We kept walking. Nearly half of the town was here. I looked around in awe. Marvelled by the beauty of my surroundings.

"I'm sorry for being a bitch this afternoon." I finally apologised.

"I know." He bent to kiss the top of my head, hooking a couple of stray hairs on his beard when he pulled away. "I kind of over did it." He de-tangled them before we entered the mall. It wasn't huge. Just an oversized building with may be hundreds of stores.

We emerged from the other side. I gasped.

It was like wonderland.

"I thought it didn't snow in wonderland." We passed a stall that smelled like kebab with slabs of meat on a rotator.

"Oops! I said that out loud?" My eyes widened when I saw a stall serving chocolate covered strawberries on sticks in a cup making it look like a bouquet of flowers. "THAT." I pointed. "I want all of that."

He laughed as I practically dragged him along with me.

I ordered the large bouquet of strawberries with white, milk and dark chocolate covering them. Gabe for himself small bowl of fruits with melted chocolate over it.

"I feel like a fucking high school kid." He used his clear plastic fork to pick up a grape smeared with milk chocolate.

"I KNOW. I would share but no." I bit into my dark chocolate covered strawberry.

"Uhh! I think those are real fur, come." This time, he was the one who dragged me along with him making me laugh.