Nothing about the manically flashing lights, jarring jingles of piped music, or curdling scents of apple cider and chestnuts made Raine feel anything other than nauseous.

She just wanted some cigarettes. That was the only reason she'd found herself forced to venture out into the wretched winter wonderland her hometown had become. While the rest of the year, simple errands weren't an issue, for some reason the first of December made every day tasks into some nightmare gauntlet of elf dodging, false smiles and forced fun of the worst level.

Raine had never seen the sparkle of any of it, but this year in particular it grated on her soul. To her it was all so obviously false. There was worry behind every smile, fear behind each seemingly cheerful greeting. Will lunch be good enough? Will the children like their presents? What if the shop is out of sprouts? How will we afford to pay this back? And yet year after year people merrily got on the bandwagon, insisting that it was all worth it.

Feeling as if she'd trekked through Narnia, she finally reached the store, and navigated her way past the obnoxious displays, trying desperately not to let the glitter latch onto her. It seemed to be cascading off of the sign adorning the front of the showcase of all the store's very best festive tat.

"Believe in the Magic of Christmas." She snorted. If that Magic had anything to do with glitter, or as she liked to call it, devil dust, then she wanted absolutely no part of it. Just as she approached the counter, a woman with extraordinarily white blonde hair tripped over a trailing cable from the fairy lights. Instinctively, Raine dived to catch her, for fear of her ending up face first in a shelf of glass snow globes.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. As she lunged towards the stricken shopper, her coat caught on the sign, the glitter acting like velcro and pulling it, and the plethora of polystyrene ball bearings mascarading as snow behind it, all over the shop floor. It was like an avalanche. But dry, warm, and obscenely sparkly. And underneath it, was Raine, the sign glinting away happily on top of her.

The shopper rushed over to help her, attempting to brush off the worst of it and thanking her for her efforts.

"At least you sparkle now! No need to find a Christmas jumper." She tried to find a positive. Raine smirked.

"This stuff kills turtles. Or something. It's bad anyway." She muttered in response.

"My God, it's all over your hair." the lady was only just stifling a giggle, "Look, you deserve a little something. Take this. I bought it as a spare in case I'd forgotten someone." She handed her a similarly sparkling bottle of some sort of mulled cordial.

"Thank you, but really, you don't need to. I just need to get my tabs and get home."

"Please. If nothing else, it matches you." She held it up next to Raines glittering mane of hair. Defeated, Raine took it and tried to look grateful.

"Christmas Magic." She read the label and chuckled, "Alrighty then." The lady looked at her deeply for a moment and sighed.

"Maybe the universe is trying to tell you something, sad girl. Maybe it's time you gave it a chance." The words didn't quite seem real, and yet they angered her all the same. When she turned around to confront the woman, there was no sign of her anywhere. She shook her head and jammed the bottle in her pocket.

"You should put some tape over that cable." She said to a shop assistant who was merrily stacking shelves by the counter, seemingly oblivious to it all, "20 lambert please." She spotted a man by the window, trying to warm himself in his wet hat and gloves, "Make that 40. And two lighters. And these please." She threw a hat and scarf onto the counter.

"Do you have any ID, sweetie?" The kindly looking man behind the counter asked, not even flinching.

"I'm twenty-eight." She replied darkly, fishing in her pockets. Her blood ran cold as she realised. Different coat. She'd switched them over and left her ID in the other one, "I'm sorry, no I must have left it at home." She said weakly, knowing it was exactly the same excuse any underage kid would use.

"I can't serve you, I'm afraid."

"Listen, that man out there, the other 20, and this were for him. Can I pay for it and let him collect? That way you're not serving me. You're serving him, and frankly there's no way he's under 18." She tried. She needed the win of that one good deed, "Magic of Christmas?"

The sales clerk chewed his lip and thought about it for a moment.

"Alright. As it's Christmas. God knows he could do with the kindness." He smiled and ran her card.

"Thank you." It wasn't worth being angry. Anger took energy, and that wasn't something she had going spare. At least her quest into the grotto hadn't been for nothing. Trying to brush off as much glitter as she could, she pulled her coat around her and stepped back into the street.

"Mate, there's something for you behind the counter in there. Hope it helps." She said to the man as she passed.

"God bless you, love. Merry Christmas!" He smiled back. He didn't even know what it was, she thought, it could have been anything and his immediate response was gratitude.

"Yeah. Sure. Listen, I don't know what this stuff is but take it. You need it more than I do." She handed him the bottle, but he pressed it into her hands.

"I don't think that's true. You look like you could use a little magic. Will you wait?" She watched stunned as he gathered together the few coins from his hat and hurried into the store.

"Sure." Why not? She figured. It wasn't as if she had anything to rush home for. He re-emerged seconds later, a beaming grim on his face.

"This is so kind. I know it's not much, but I wanted to repay you. Take this." He handed her a little chocolate bar in the shape of father Christmas, and offered her one of the cigarettes she'd bought him.

"You didn't have to. But thank you." She accepted it gratefully and stood with him to smoke it, "I hope these are alright. I've seen you smoke but never noticed the brand."

"Aye, love. Beggers can't be choosers as they say."

"It's Raine. I'm Raine." He paused for a moment and shook her hand.

"I'm Tom. I used to know a girl with a little sister called Raine." he mused quietly. Raine thought nothing of it. The two of then stood in comfortable silence and smoked together, watching the frantic carousel of the world going by around them.

"Doesn't this all make you feel sick? All these people spending their money on things that'll be binned in a few weeks, walking past like they don't even see you?" She asked eventually. She despised every single one of them. The charity promoter who physically moved to a different spot so as not to catch their eye, the carol singers pointedly looking anywhere but at the suffering in front of them.

"I like watching the happiness in their eyes. I like to guess their stories. Like that lady there, I see her every day, buzzing around the street running errands for her boss, and every day she stops by the tree and just looks at it for a while with this smile that says she's found total peace. That's the magic of Christmas. Or so my friend used to say." Raine watched with him and tried to see anything close to warmth in any of them.

"I knew someone who said that too. For a while I believed her." She said without meaning to, "They say it's going to be another cold night. I've got a sofa bed, it's not much but, you'd be welcome to it."

"You don't know me. I could be anyone." He said with the same tone she'd known once before.

"You're Tom. And it's Christmas. I'll trust you not to kill me in my sleep." She laughed. He was right, she knew, but her life had become so monotonous and empty these days. What was a little risk? It wasn't like she had anyone else to worry about. Besides, something told her he was fine. Somehow, she'd always felt like she knew him, he just had one of those faces.

"If you're sure, that would be wonderful." Before he could change his mind, she helped him gather his few things into his military issue bergen and started the walk back towards her little flat.

"You really don't go in for decorations do you?" He laughed as she flicked the light switch, illuminating the dusty room.

"I used to. Not this year though." She took his bag and set it by the radiator, "If you need to dry anything, feel free to spread it out. And bathroom is through there, I'll find you a spare towel." She fussed over some pots in the kitchen while he gratefully made the most of her offer.

Really, she was glad of the distraction. Christmas had never been a fun time for her. Either it was her parents arguing about the debt it caused, or her sister deploying, or her father leaving...each year just got more lonely. But this year was the first year that she was truly alone.

As she stirred a pot of hot chocolate, she lost herself in the slow melting of the chocolate drops, mixing gently with the milk one by one, until there was nothing left of them.

"Thanks for this, love. Really. There's nothing quite like a good shower and dry clothes." She jumped and spun around to see Tom rummaging in his bergen for his dry kit. The towel around his hips revealed a large tattoo on his shoulder that she vaguely recognised.

"Were you in the military then?" She asked, swiftly looking back to her pot.

"What gave it away?" He joked back, "I was in the Royal Marines. Did ten years before I um...well. Couldn't any more."

She poured out the chocolate into two big mugs and handed him one. As he turned around she saw a scar on his chest which made her stop involuntarily. Hurriedly he put the cup down and pulled a shirt on over it.

"Sorry, I...I didn't mean to stare."

"It's alright. Really." He gave her a smile and took the bundle of clothes to the bathroom to change. When he re-emerged he looked as if all the tension in his body had left him. Where as before she'd felt a friendly draw to him, now he seemed to radiate a safe, gentle warmth.

"So. What's a girl like you doing in a dark flat all alone at Christmas?" He relaxed into the sofa next to her, basking in the warmth of the chocolate.

"It's just not my thing." She lied a little awkwardly.

"Ah, it's like that. I see." Something about the look he gave her said that he really did, "Well then, Miss Raine. What is your thing?"

"How do you feel about whiskey?"

They drank and chatted idly about nothing in particular for hours, watching the snow fall outside. Tom had a way with stories that made her laugh so hard that for a while she forgot her misery and anger at the world. Even when the conversation threatened to take them down a darker path, he pulled it back effortlessly with some horribly dark joke.

"God. My sister told jokes like that. You'd have got on like a house on fire." She said it without thinking.

"Did she? What does she do?" Raine felt the familiar numbness wash over her as if a bucket had been emptied over her head.

"She was a medic." Her voice sounded a million miles away, "In the army."

Tom reacted immediately, putting his glass down and placing a cautious hand on Raine's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"It's alright. She died in August. IED. Killed instantly apparently. There was a marine, trapped and bleeding. They thought the route was clear but...well I guess they missed one." The words came surprisingly easily as Tom listened intently, his hand gently squeezing her when she started to struggle, but never too much.

"It gets better. I know everyone says it and you don't believe it, but it does get better. I lost a mate this year too. She was a medic and all. I only saw the headline, no details. I hope it was quick for her. She didn't deserve to suffer. And she'd have been a terrible casualty." His laugh didn't quite follow through, catching in his throat instead.

Raine stood up and found a candle in her cupboard, filling both of their glasses again.

"What was her name, your mate?" She asked, the whiskey giving her courage she didn't know she had.

"Sutherland. Ally Sutherland. Though we used to call her..."

"Beanie. Because she..."

"Always had a pocket full of jelly beans." He finished for her, "So you're little Raine."

"Guess so." She felt herself shaking slightly. Of all the people she could have met, "You're Tom Dickson aren't you?"

"She told you about me?"

"Yeah. You um...look different with the beard. Hang on." The sadness gave way to elation as she ran to her room and rifled through the drawer where she kept her sister's letters, the tearstained blue papers refusing to lie flat and be searched. Eventually she found it. The one photo her sister had sent her back from Iraq.

"Ha! God I remember that like it was yesterday." Tom beamed as she handed it to him, "That was our first tour together. I look so young." It was another lonely Christmas, one filled with worry as a younger Raine had sat and watched her mother drink and pace hoping the phone would ring. In the photo, Tom was wearing an antler headband and Ally had a home made santa hat. They looked genuinely happy.

"You know, that day was tough for me. First time I'd been away for Christmas, and in that place...it wasn't great. Ally cheered me up. Magic of Christmas, she said. Doesn't matter where you are, it's there if you look hard enough." He admitted, handing it back.

"She used to tell me that. She really believed it. Every year when things got bad at home, she'd be the one with a smile and a smuggled box of chocolates or a Christmas cracker. When mum and dad were arguing or mum was too drunk to be civil, she'd take me up to our room and we'd share whatever it was she'd found." Raine's mind drifted back to the woman in the shop and that bottle.

Leaping up, she fetched it from her coat pocket and poured the sparkling liquid into two glasses.

"To Ally. And the Magic of Christmas." She said, raising hers.

"To Beanie. The girl who saved my life." Tom replied, "Oh that really is grim." He almost choked on the sparkly concoction, picking up the whiskey instead.

"Will you stay? She'd hate to think of you out there on your own."

"I can't ask you to do that..."

"You're not asking me to do anything. I'm asking you. Stay. Please. Until you find your feet." He thought it over.

"One condition. She'd want me to see that you're OK too. I think we met for a reason. To take care of each other for her?" Raine wanted to tell him she was fine. He'd been through so much and what had she really done in her life? She felt as if she had no right to be as miserable as she was. But one look at the sincerity on his face told her that he wouldn't believe a word of it.

"Deal." She hugged him. Together they lit the candle, and spent the night swapping stories and laughing. In the street below a lady with extraordinarily white blonde hair smiled softly, watching the shadows of the two new friends dance merrily.

Turning away, she tapped the bottles in her pocket and looked up to the heavens.

"Alright Ally? Where to next?"

Word count: 2755

Entry for Wattpad Stories Undiscovered Advent Calendar