It has been many months since Dana had passed and though Alice appeared to her friends to have been on the path to recovery, in the dark of night, when she closed her eyes in that half dream like state before sleep finally took her, she still cried herself to sleep every night. Truth be told, it wasn’t quite every night, it was every night that she didn’t have two-hour long conversations with Dana before bed. Of course Alice knew that Dana wasn’t really there with her, but she knew Dana so well that she was able to know exactly what Dana would answer to everything Alice had to say. But in Alice’s heart of hearts, she wasn’t ready to let go of Dana, so she loved those evening conversations with Dana and on the nights where the pain of Dana’s death was too much to bear, she cried herself to sleep, unable to feign a conversation with her.

On Christmas Eve, the gang all managed to put aside their hectic and crazy lives and enjoy a holiday evening together. Bette and Tina managed through almost the entire evening without arguing. Carmen and Shane quietly avoided each other. Helena brought her children. Jenny, well, she’s Jenny and she came alone, thinking Max, who has always felt like an outsider, would only disrupt the evening. Everyone knew how hard Dana’s birthday had been on Alice and they all pledged to do what they could to make Christmas Eve the very best it could be for Alice. In all reality, this was going to be hard on all of them. As much as the people who are in their lives matter in their everyday, a lost friend whom they loved so much was something that affected them everyday. But this was Christmas after all and they were going to make it festive, warm and something they’d all remember.

The evening went off without a hitch. They laughed, drank and smiled at the memories. Only Helena noticed the brief flickers of sadness that Alice tried so hard to hide. The journalist kept her smile on during the hardest of moments and shared so many stories. She was the life of the party, as she has been for years. This time, there was a lot hiding behind that smile. It appears as if only Helena noticed it.