They say miracles happen on Christmas. But no one believes in that horse s---.

Only an idiot could have seen magic on that day. The rat had a good look that frozen Christmas afternoon and didn't see any glow on the snowflakes raining down to chill the bones of those caught under them. Like that bunny he found. The one waiting back home in his sewer. The one waiting for him.

This is nothing to wait for, he thought to himself. The flower in his hand was rotted and wilting. The chocolates were scraped from a box at the bottom of a trash bin, gathered in a bottle cap that reeked of beer. In his greasy hands it wouldn't have mattered if they were fresh anyway. These weren't gifts. They certainly weren't worth waiting for. But then again, nor was he.

But she was. Worth every moment. But if he had known what he did now, he would never have made her wait.

The roads were empty and the garbage cans full on that Christmas afternoon. It was a perfect time for a sewer rat to scour the street. With his mouth watering at the thought of licking the inside of a thrown out can of cranberries, he almost didn't notice the trembling white bunny curled at the foot of a building. Rabbits didn't belong in the city, at least not outside. But when she stared back, she said nothing so nor did he. She was still there when he cleared the west side of the street. And she was still there when he cleared the east side. He worked hard to ignore her, pushing out the questions in his head. It was easier that way. And it was Christmas. Things were supposed to be easy. Which is why it didn't make any sense when he stopped himself at the gutter.

"Night's coming. You're going to f---ing freeze out here," he snarled to her, annoyed at how her misery had drawn out inconvenient sympathies. "Get inside." She just looked back, shaking, freezing, saying nothing. "I said, go home!" he snapped, angered by her silence. It was getting cold, and he wanted to go back to the warmth of his sewer.

Finally she spoke. "I don't have any place to go." She looked chilled even more by her shame.

The rat stared. He frowned. He swore. He came up with a dozen excuses not to then a dozen more. And despite every one of them, he told the bunny to join him in the sewers to warm up.

She didn't hesitate. As they walked along the sticky floor under the chemical lamps, she explained her situation. She had been bought as a Christmas gift for some children who excitedly found her under the tree that morning. They had played with her too rough, though, and she got scared and bit one. Their over protective parents were quick to respond, throwing her out with the rest of the garbage. The rat found his heart broken by the cruelty of her story. No miracle in that. Not a hint of magic. The same cruelties as any other day.

Maybe it was that heartbreak that led the rat to let the bunny stay in the unused flushing tunnel he called home. And maybe those thin sympathies were what kept him from saying anything when her stay turned to weeks. But more likely it was how she thanked him endlessly for his kindness, how she never complained about the smell, how she insisted on doing anything she could to repay him. It was stupid, though. She wasn't repaying kindness, she was repaying laziness. Every time he put his feet on the washed floor, every time he listened to her thank him again for giving her a warm home and food to eat, a part of him stung. It stung him for accepting anything for the thin graces that could be stretched from the heart of a dirty sewer rat like him.

Because that's all he was. As he looked at his greasy hands clutching that bottle cap, that rotted flower, he remembered himself. He had lived in the sewers all his life, living alone, living by garbage, the waste of others. He was greasy, filthy trash. With her gleaming white fur, she was the real treasure. She had a chance to be in a warm, clean house, fed good food, groomed and cared for, all the things he only knew looking through windows from the tops of dumpsters. That's why it angered him so much when she looked at him like a hero. All he was doing was holding her back from what she deserved, pulling that domestic beauty into his cesspool, living near sewage, eating scraps every day. It was all he knew. Which is why that flower and those chocolates were all the gifts he could find on that Valentine's Day.

He was about to throw it all down a drain when she stepped into the tunnel. He stopped, his heart sinking, realizing he was caught. His eyes watered up as he pulled back his hands to look at the gifts, seeing all his own filth in them. When she asked what he was holding, he couldn't refuse. He showed her the garbage, his ears down, though his heart was lower.

She puts her paws to her mouth. She nibbled on her fingers. She smiled. "You got those for me?" she asked, her voice cracking softly down the echoing tunnel.

The rat lifted his ears. He watched her eyes as she looked back at him with a joy more true than he had ever seen in his life. And for the first time, the rat felt that maybe that Christmas had been a little bit magical.

Because miracles can happen.

---

A little break from the FBA, turning toward a rat and rabbit story I'd had rattling around in my head for a couple years. I wanted a picture to go along with the story and  o-kemono is the best in the business when it comes to these poignant, touching moments. He did a spectacular job here. :) Thanks, O-K!!