Kate gave him a shrug and a lopsided smile. "Well, I started out 2011 with you giving me a knife," she said, "so it felt like a good idea to end it by repaying the favor." Even if 2011 had been a really confusing year when it came to multiversal timezones, she neglected to add.

"Might I just say," Marshall interjected, "that I'm actually glad people are giving me cooking stuff instead of weapons or miniature versions thereof?"

"That's 'cause we're the troops and you're the catering, bro," Kate replied, flashing her brother a little smile as well. "So are you gonna make us cupcakes today?"

Marshall looked down at his new mini cupcake factory. "... So is this why you were obsessing about whether cupcakes were Christmas appropriate, yesterday?" he wondered. "Because I thought maybe you were having a random craving. And that you were maybe going to announce you're pregnant or something."

Kate wasn't even going to dignify that with an answer outside of a snort and a shake of her head. Instead, she picked up the last two small presents, and offered them to Luke. "And these are for the brat. The bigger one is the one he'll hate for sure. The smaller is one that I actually like, and he maybe might too if not for the fact that I'm not his mom."