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"Joyeux Noël," Henley tells Jack, clinking her glass against his, smiling at Merritt, who's benevolently raised his glass to clink with Daniel - someone has to, and while young Jack may be willing, Merritt considers it the better part of wisdom to leave the youngling to Henley's tender mercies for the moment. Less chance of another tightly corked bottle of bottled-up emotions that way.
Daniel, predictably, ignores Merritt. Merritt's okay with that, more or less; like most control freaks, Daniel is still figuring out that you can't erase a person's influence from your life by pretending it doesn't exist. Merritt's willing to provide the hard, irrefutable proof to stimulate that realization from happening sooner, rather than later. Say, within the next twelve hours.
"What is that, French or something?" Daniel sips his wine from an unclinked glass. "Are we speaking foreign languages this evening? Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" He asks Jack, of course, not Henley.
"No, man," Jack says, which is a contradictio in terminis, as far as Merritt is concerned, or very nearly so. "Just sticking to English over here."
Jack's glass is still full; Merritt spots a chance and raises his glass. Possibly, they toast the glory of the English language, which is fine with Merritt; he's got nothing against it. Possibly, also, drinking wine from a twice-clinked glass will bring Jack luck in the soon to arrive new year.
"I just wanted to wish everyone a merry Christmas," Henley says. She looks radiant in the candlelight.
"How nice." Only Daniel would consider that statement some sort of challenge.
When he's feeling merciful, Merritt wonders who or what screwed up Daniel's head in that very special way, and whether or not the process can be reversed.
Of course, after living with the man for well over nine months, an unscrewed Daniel might no longer fit. They all have their quirks; they've all made allowances, in their own way.
Jack nods, either because he's taking Daniel's comment at face value (unlikely) or because his way of dealing with Daniel is to act as if he does (much more likely). "Merry Christmas everyone. Let's make this next year a good one."
"That's too early," Daniel says. "This is Christmas, not New Year's Eve."
"Danny." Henley's tone is as close as she ever comes to 'sharp'. (With Henley, alcohol puts the edge on, rather than taking it off.)
"No, no, that's fair." Jack grins. "So, to all of you except Danny, I'd like to say: let's make it rock, you guys."
"Oh, very mature."
Merritt judges the moment ripe to make a contribution of his own to the conversation. "Now, personally, I cannot vouch as to my ability to 'rock', as Jack here puts it, but I surely do look forwards to working with all of you. Excepting, again, Danny, of course. At his own request."
"I didn't ask you to insult me," Daniel says. Clearly, he hasn't been listening to the words that have been coming out of his mouth this past hour. "I merely pointed out that - "
"We know," Henley says. More gently now. "We heard you, Danny."
Daniel nods once, sharply. With anyone else, he'd continue arguing, Merritt knows; with Henley, Daniel seems to accept that even if she cuts him off mid-sentence, she still understands him perfectly well.
"All right then, joke's over." Merritt grabs the bottle of wine, deftly refilling four glasses in the span of mere seconds. "For real, this time. Merry Christmas."
Four glasses clink together - three voices speak as one.
"Merry Christmas."