Author: Sunhawk
Pairing: None
Rating: G
Warnings: Chibis
Disclaimer: I don't own GW.
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, cheery random Tuesday, joyous commercialism, blissful whatever you celebrate (We're a diverse group, we are)!
Wrapping up another year (anybody else noticed that they're speeding up?) and I can't say (despite the vague fandom attractiveness of the numbers) that 2012 was a particularly good one. But, I suppose, (in the grand scheme of things) at least the Mayans were wrong, so I guess it wasn't all bad. Here is hoping that 2013 is a little less of the suck (set your goals low, kiddies, and they're easier to make).
Anyway... enough musing. On with the fic. ;)
This one is for you, Silke dear... I hope it doesn't suck.
If you've been paying attention to the Christmas cards for the last five or so years... you know how this comes out... :D
Christmas 2012 - The Great Odyssey Part 1
It was the day before Christmas which was like the night before Christmas, only not dark. Christmas was the most awesome of all awesome days, better than a birthday because everybody else got presents too, so you didn't have to share or anything. And instead of just cake, there were cookies and fudge and peanut brittle and brownies and candy and pies and cake. And you didn't get yelled at for eating it unless you were a pig and ate the last piece. (Trowa said that was the good stuff rule... never eat the last one.)
But there was something about Christmas that wasn't all together awesome; you didn't get to see your friends because Christmas was all about families, Duo's Mom said. So you had to stay home. Or, like Wufei's family did, you went to Grandpa's house.
Duo didn't think it was fair that he would get a bunch of cool toys and couldn't even show them off until the next day. What good was a brand new set of ultimate Gundam Legos with the Moon Base expansion set if he couldn't have Heero over to help him build? Not that, of course, he knew that was what he was getting, but he was pretty sure because that's what he asked his Dad for every time they went shopping. And his Dad liked Legos too and they would stand and look at the box together in the store and point to all the pieces and say 'cool!' a lot.
And, not that Duo didn't love the Christmas morning breakfast with his Mom and Dad and the gooey rolls his Mom only made from scratch that one day all year. And not that he didn't love getting to stay in his jammies all day. And not that Christmas dinner wasn't the best dinner that there ever was with all the special stuff that you never had any other time of the year. But it would have been the most perfect, bestest, most awesomest Christmas ever if he could have had his friends over too. And they could have all stayed in their jammies all day, even if Quatre really did still wear the jammies with the feet in them like Trowa said. And his Mom could make a hundred sticky rolls and they could all eat breakfast together and then build Gundams all day long.
But Christmas was all about families, so Duo's Mom said he would have to 'make do' with seeing his friends on Christmas eve day (which was Christmas eve without the dark part). So right after lunch and after his Mom had bundled him up in coat and hat and mittens and snow boots, Duo ran off with his little sack of presents to Trowa's house. Duo liked Trowa's house; it wasn't as cool as Quatre's house, because Quatre's house was the biggest, but Trowa's Mom was a crazy cat lady, and they had lots of cats. Though Duo wasn't allowed to say crazy cat lady anymore, even if he didn't understand why it was ok for Uncle Howard to say, but not him....
When Duo got to Trowa's house, Heero and Wufei were already there and trying to build a Tinker Toy Ferris wheel in the middle of the living room. Heero was building, anyway, but Trowa and Wufei were trying to keep the cats from knocking it down. Especially the big black cat named Bully-Boy. Bully-Boy was Duo's favorite because he didn't run away the minute Duo came into the room like the other cats. Bully-Boy would hang around long enough to make the funny hissy noise before he ran away, so Duo was usually able to pet his tail before he left....
'Thanks, Duo!' Wufei grinned, when Bully-Boy had made the hissy noise, gotten his tail petted really good, and run off. 'Now we can finish building the circus!'
That didn't seem like a not-dark-yet Christmas eve kind of thing to do to Duo, and he looked around for the presents. He was pretty excited about the present part. It was kind of cool to open presents with his friends when it wasn't Christmas yet (like cheating!), but since he wouldn't get to see them on Christmas, they had to do it early. 'I thought we were gonna s'change gifts?' he asked.
'Not yet,' Trowa told him, going back to helping with the Ferris wheel now that he didn't have to be the cat guard. 'Quatre isn't here yet.'
Well, that made sense. They had to all be there, of course. Heero's Dad called them the Impossible Five, after all. And Impossible Four just wasn't the same. So even if Duo was excited, he was a big boy and knew they had to wait for Quatre.
'Can't we call him and tell him to hurry up?' he asked, and Heero sighed.
'Trowa's Mom said no.'
And you didn't argue with Trowa's Mom. Or his sister either. Trowa's sister was almost a teen-ager and she was just scary.
So Duo put his little sack of presents next to the TV so they wouldn't get mixed up with the regular presents, and went to help build the circus. Wufei kept calling it The Greatest Show On Earth in a very important voice, and Duo didn't understand why it was funny, but it was, and they all had the giggles.
Trowa's Mom was baking cookies for Christmas dinner, and even let them each have a single one, hot out of the oven, so everybody was pretty happy with the hot cookies and the tinker toy Greatest Show On Earth, and the Christmas music playing. It was almost, Duo thought, like Christmas day could be if his Mom would just let him have his friends come over too. Only it wouldn't be just one cookie, it would be a whole bunch of cookies and they'd stay hot and fresh all day and it would be awesome....
But then Quatre finally got there, dropped off by his big Uncle Rashid who kind of scared Duo, though Duo wouldn't ever tell anybody that. Well... maybe Heero, but Heero was good at keeping secrets, but even Heero might think he was a sissy, because Heero wasn't afraid of anything... not even of his own creepy Uncle Jay. But anyway... Quatre got there and the Impossible Five were all together and it should have made it present time, but...
Quatre wasn't happy. Quatre was late and he didn't even want the cookie that Trowa's Mom tried to give him, and it was still hot and everything. Quatre didn't giggle when Wufei said 'Greatest Show On Earth', even in his deepest, most important funny voice. Quatre wasn't even excited about the present s'change or anything....
'You eat too many cookies?' Trowa asked. Trowa knew what happened when you ate too many cookies because he'd sneaked a whole plate to his room last Christmas and ate them all by himself and hadn't wanted cookies again until way after Fourth of July.
'No,' Quatre said, 'I don't want any cookies is all.'
That seemed to Duo to be an awful thing to say, because really... no cookies? Who would say such a thing? But then... maybe Quatre was sick? Duo went and sat down next to where Quatre was and put his hand on his forehead like Duo's Mom did his sometimes. Though... Duo didn't know what Quatre's forehead was supposed to feel like, so he asked, 'Are you sick?'
'Sick of Christmas,' Quatre grumbled and looked like he might cry....
All four of his friends couldn't help but gasp at the... as Duo's Dad would say... horror of it all. Sick of Christmas? Sick of Christmas?!
'But why?' Heero wanted to know.
'Aren't you getting any presents?' Wufei wanted to know.
'You sure you're not sick?' Trowa wanted to know.
'Are you crazy?' Duo wanted to know and Trowa smacked him.
And then Quatre did start to cry. Duo rubbed the back of his head and gave Trowa a mean look, but Trowa was busy patting Quatre's arm and didn't see it. 'My Daddy isn't going to be here for Christmas!' Quatre wailed, 'It can't be Christmas without my Daddy!'
Duo didn't know what to say, because when he tried to think of Christmas without his own Dad it made his tummy hurt. And Quatre didn't have a Mom, just his Uncles and that just made Duo sad too....
'Why not?' Wufei said, looking confused. Quatre's Dad wasn't home a lot, and when he was, he showed up in a cool looking uniform and never got to stay long. Duo kind of knew that Quatre's Dad was in the army, and he kind of knew what that meant, but not really. It mostly meant that Quatre's Dad wore a uniform to work and he worked somewhere that was really far away. Like the UPS driver.
'The War,' Quatre said and it was that bad word that Duo only heard his Mom and Dad use when they thought he was in bed asleep. But if Duo was really, really quiet and moved really, really slow he could crawl out of his room and sneak into the dining room where you could see the TV from under the table. And sometimes he heard grown up talk because his parents didn't know he was there, though most of the time it was boring stuff about taxes and cleaning out the gutters. But sometimes his folks would talk about something called The War. Duo wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but he was pretty sure there was fighting and bad stuff happened that made his Mom sound sad....
'Oh,' Trowa said, just as though that explained everything, and Duo didn't want to ask any questions in case he was the only one who didn't really understand.
So they sat for a little bit while Trowa patted Quatre's arm until Quatre stopped crying and then they decided they would take the Ferris wheel apart and build something else instead.
'Let's build a zoo!' Trowa said.
'I want to make a whole town!' Duo said.
'We could build a pyramid!' Wufei said.
'How about a bigger Ferris wheel?' Heero said.
'I want to build a rocket ship,' Quatre said, and he had the look on his face that made his Uncle Rashid start asking questions. 'And fly it to where my Daddy is.'
There weren't enough Tinker Toys to make a rocket ship big enough to hold them all though, so in the end they just made a cat corral that Bully-boy knocked down anyway. But he made the funny hissy noise again, without Duo even having to pet his tail, so it was still fun.
Then Trowa's Mom said it was almost time to 'fold up' and if they wanted to do the present s'change, they needed to 'hop to'. Sometimes Duo thought Trowa's Mom was weird, but figured it might be part of the crazy cat lady thing. Did he really have to hop across the room to get his bag of presents? But hadn't they just gotten in trouble last week for jumping in the living room while playing the skydive game off the back of the couch? Wasn't that the same thing?
Duo just chewed his lip and waited for somebody else to hop first.
Instead, Trowa said, 'We should wait.'
'Wait?' Wufei wanted to know, 'What for?'
'For Quatre's father to come home,' Trowa said, all excited about his idea. 'Then we can all have Christmas together!'
Duo kind of wanted to argue about that idea, but then Heero got excited too. 'If we moved Christmas, it would mean more days off school!'
'It would?' Duo said, and decided he might like that part pretty good.
'Yeah!' Wufei agreed. 'We're already off school for Christmas... they can't make us go back until Christmas comes!'
And then Quatre was grinning and happy for the first time that day and Duo thought it might be a pretty good idea after all. What his Dad called a 'win win'. Maybe if they stalled Christmas for a few more days, it would give their folks time to buy more presents too! That made it a 'win win WIN'!
So when Trowa's Mom came to tell them it was time to 'fold up', they all took their own little bags of friend-presents home with them to hold for the new Christmas eve....
When Duo got home, his Mom helped him out of his jacket and boots and gave his bag a funny look. 'Honey... you boys didn't have a fight, did you?' She wanted to know. 'Why didn't you open your presents to each other?'
'We don't fight, Mom,' Duo told her with a roll of his eyes like his Dad did sometimes to show that he thought his Mom was being silly without actually saying it. 'We just moved Christmas.'
His Mom stopped hanging up his jacket and gave him a look that was even funnier than the first one. 'You... what?'
'Quatre's Dad isn't home yet,' Duo explained while he pulled off his wet socks. 'He's away at The War. So we moved Christmas, because Quatre was sad.' Duo decided not to mention the part about school. Or the extra presents. He thought that might be something that should be just between the Impossible Five.
'Sweetheart,' his Mom said in that tone of voice like she used when she caught him trying to make a parachute out of his bed sheet, 'you can't just... move Christmas.'
'But why not?' he asked, kind of confused about that part, since they'd already decided on it.
'Well,' his Mom said, 'you just can't.' Which didn't sound any better than the because it's good for you part when he asked why he had to eat his broccoli.
'But why?' he asked, and made his Mom sigh. It was the sigh he usually got right before the louder sigh that he got right before he got in trouble.
'Because...' she said, and threw her hands in the air. 'Because you can't just go moving Christmas!'
Duo didn't really want to get the louder sigh that came before the trouble part, but this wasn't good. It could mess up the whole plan and Quatre was counting on the plan. The guys were counting on the plan. They were counting on him!
'But.... We already did!' he said and held his breath waiting for the loud sigh.
His Mom just stood for a minute, her hands on her hips... like she had to think about it. Duo thought that might be good... maybe there really wasn't a reason and she'd change her mind. But then the loud sigh came anyway.
'Duo, think about it,' she said. 'Santa Claus is in charge of Christmas, not you boys. He... uh... has a schedule and everything. You can't go changing things now.'
Oh. Well that made sense. They hadn't really thought about that part. Things were, as Heero's Dad said, about to get comp'icated.
'I gotta call Heero!' Duo said, because if anybody could figure this out, it was Heero.
'It's kind of late...' his Mom started to say, but then sighed again and kind of laughed, 'but I suppose you need to un-cancel Christmas.'
Duo rolled his eyes again (they never canceled it!) but didn't say anything, because he wanted his Mom to dial the number for him in cause Heero's creepy Uncle Jay answered the phone. Duo didn't know who she got, but they talked for a few minutes and there was a lot of laughing before his Mom finally gave him the phone and it was Heero on the other end.
'We have a problem,' Heero said, all serious, when they could finally talk. 'My Dad says we can't change the date.'
'I know!' Duo said, all in a hurry with his news. 'My Mom says we're not in charge of Christmas... Santa is!'
Heero thought about that for a minute. 'Dad says Christmas has to be on the twenty-fifth...'
'But why?' Duo wanted to know, 'Easter isn't on a day!' He knew that because his Mom always had to look it up. Heck, sometimes it wasn't even in the same month!
'I don't know,' Heero admitted, 'maybe rabbits just aren't good with dates?'
So Santa was better with dates than the Easter bunny maybe? That made sense, because Santa had elves and reindeer and all that other help and Christmas was kind of a bigger holiday. The Easter Bunny just had to do candy and eggs. And maybe Easter moved around because the eggs just weren't ready? So maybe...
'We have to ask Santa to move Christmas,' Duo decided, because really... that's what his Mom had said. Santa was in charge of the whole thing.
'Yeah!' Heero agreed, and his voice was the one that Duo's Dad called his 'termined' voice. 'I gotta call Trowa,' he said, and then whispered, 'Watch for... The Signal.'
'Roger,' Duo whispered back, because they'd seen it on their favorite police cartoon and it sounded cool. Then they hung up....
Duo wanted to run right off to his room, but his Mom made him sit down and eat his dinner first and she and his Dad laughed about how fast he ate because he was in such a hurry to go to bed so Christmas would come. Duo didn't argue, because he didn't want his Mom sighing at him any more. He even hung his stocking like usual, even though he knew it was too early now, that Christmas wouldn't be coming for another week. He rushed through his teeth-brushing and his good-nights, and finally he was in his room with the door shut, all 'tucked in'....
He held his breath and listened for the squeaky board that told him his Mom was going down the stairs and then he counted to ten twice (because Heero said you had to count to twenty, but Duo could never remember what came after twelve, so he just did ten over again), and then he slipped out of bed, dug his flashlight out from under it, and went to sit on the trunk by his bedroom window.
Heero's house was way around the block from his, but their backyards almost touched. Behind Duo's house was mean old lady Une, and Heero's house was right next to hers. From Duo's bedroom window, he could just see Heero's bedroom window in the winter when the leaves were all off the trees. Duo was a little worried that he might have missed The Signal, so he flashed his own flashlight just once, to let Heero know he was there and watching. He grinned when he got a flash in return....
It took a little while after that, but Duo just waited because he knew that Heero was sneaking down to the window at the end of the hall where he could see Trowa's house. It wouldn't take Trowa as long to pass The Signal to Wufei, because Trowa had a corner bedroom with two windows. Then The Signal would have to go to Quatre and then come all the way back to him....
It seemed like he sat there for a very long time before The Signal shone out of Heero's window again. But then Duo was confused... it wasn't the two flashes signal that meant good night, and it wasn't the three flashes that meant Heero's Mom was about to catch him out of bed, and it wasn't the bat signal with the piece of red tissue paper over the lens that meant danger! (they'd never had to use that one), but Heero just shined the light steady at him. Duo finally flashed back, just to let Heero know he was there, and then Heero moved the light down until it was shining into Duo's backyard....
When Duo looked down, there was Wufei standing in the snow under his window! Duo couldn't believe it and turned his own flashlight that way to see better. When he did, Heero's flashlight turned off and Wufei started waving his arms. Duo gave a little wave back, and then Wufei made the 'come here' wave.
Duo just sat for a minute. Come here? Come here?! For a second, he thought maybe Wufei was crazy, but then it all came clear in his head and he almost giggled. They had to ask Santa to move Christmas, right? So that meant...
They were going to the North Pole!
Duo flashed his light at Wufei and then went to get dressed. He tried to hurry, but it was hard to do that and be quiet too, but Duo was afraid the guys wouldn't wait for him if he took too long. When he was all dressed (two pairs of socks!) and ready to go, he grabbed his emergency adventure backpack (all the guys had one), went back to the window one more time to check that Wufei was still waiting, and then snuck out of his room.
It seemed to Duo it took an hour to make the slow creep down the stairs, being careful of the squeaky boards, but his folks were watching an action show on the TV and there was lots of shooting and yelling. He finally got to the bottom and snuck around to the kitchen and then into the pantry, and finally out the back door and then he ran to meet Wufei and they giggled together and headed for Heero's house through the backyard. Heero was already outside, waiting by the secret clubhouse that Heero's Dad had made them out of the giant box their new fridge had come in....
When Heero saw them coming through the line of bushes, he waved them to follow and they all headed for Trowa's house. Their feet made crunchy sounds in the snow that seemed as loud as a herd of elephants, but nobody seemed to hear them and Duo almost got the giggles thinking about it, but Heero was all serious, so Duo tried to be serious too....
When they got to Trowa's house, Quatre was already there and Trowa had his sled all piled with stuff and the two family dogs, Buster and Bubba tied to the front. Duo got excited about the dog sled (like real adventurers!), but everybody shushed him and then the Impossible Five (plus two), headed over to the school lot where the baseball diamond was hidden by the snow, so they would be away from all the houses where somebody might hear them.
'Are we really going to the North Pole?' Quatre wanted to know once they were standing where they thought the pitcher's mound ought to be, and it made Duo feel happy that he sounded happy and excited again. Duo didn't like sad Quatre.
'Yep,' Trowa said, having to tug on Buster's collar to keep him and Bubba headed in the same direction. 'Heero said Duo's Mom said we have to ask Santa to move Christmas.'
'Yeah!' Duo chimed in, because really... it was his Mom and all. 'Mom said he has a s'hedule and we gotta let him know to change it.'
Wufei nodded. 'I called Grandpa Long to tell him why we wouldn't be there tomorrow, and he told me good luck!'
Then Heero looked very pleased with himself and pulled a paper out of his coat pocket. 'And I got a map!'
'Cool!' they all said together, because they could see that there was a big red X marked at the top.
'My Dad gave it to me last year, when I wanted to know where the North Pole was. He said it was somewhere past the top edge of the map!' Heero said, very proud that he remembered he had it.
Duo went to look at the map with Heero and just saw a bunch of lines and tiny, tiny words he couldn't read. 'But... where are we?' he wanted to know....
'The blue X down here,' Heero said, and pointed to a spot that just looked like a bunch of lines and squares and Duo looked around, not sure at all that he could tell.
'So we just have to go north until we get to the edge of the map, and then go north some more,' Heero explained and Duo grinned happily, deciding that it didn't matter if he could figure out the map, as long as Heero could.
'Ok! Let's go!' he cried, and they all shushed him.
'But...' Trowa said, sounding kind of like he did the day the teacher asked him to say what was 3 plus 4 plus 5 in front of the whole class, 'which way is north?'
Then it was Wufei's turn to look all proud and he pulled something out of his pocket. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'I got this. My Grandpa gave me a compass for my birthday!'
'Cool!' they all said together and gathered around to watch as Wufei held the compass in the middle of his hand. The needle on the dial wiggled and jiggled and finally stopped moving pointed directly across the diamond and down Hamburg Street.
'Hey,' Quatre said, his eyes getting big like the cartoon characters did on TV right before the light bulb appeared above their heads. 'That's where the Northgate mall is! That's why they call it that!'
It made Trowa grin. 'That's three things that says we're going the right way!' and he grabbed Buster's collar and Wufei grabbed Bubba's and off they went across the ball field and down Hamburg Street (though they stayed in the grass away from the street because they were big boys and knew that wasn't safe).
It took a long time to walk the four blocks to the mall because Buster and Bubba kept wanting to stop to sniff in people's yards, but there wasn't anything good to smell in the mall parking lot and they 'made good time' until they got to the edge. They stopped there to take a rest while Heero looked at the map and Wufei looked at the compass and Trowa pulled out a thermos that had hot chocolate in it. They all sat on the edge of the sled and passed it around to share.
'Look!' Heero said, suddenly all excited, and held the map up, pointing at a spot and then pointing up at the big sign out on the road. 'They match! We're right here! The mall is on the edge!'
'We gotta be half way there at least!' Duo cried, and they all shushed him....
Wufei pointed out across the field, 'my compass says north is that way, maybe the north pole is on the other side of those trees?'
'We should keep going,' Quatre said, looking up at the sky the way the cowboys did in the movies, 'it's getting late.'
Duo looked up at the sky too, but all he saw was clouds and snow and a few stars, and didn't know how he was supposed to tell what time it was. Though he supposed it was dark and that was good enough....
Buster and Bubba didn't want to get up yet, so Trowa went back to the sled and dug around until he came out with a box of dog biscuits, and then Buster and Bubba were excited to go on too. Though Duo thought it was kinda mean the way Trowa walked ahead with the treats and wouldn't give them out right away....
They didn't make 'good time' going across the field, because it was rough and bumpy and full of old corn stalks that tried to trip them. But Buster and Bubba wanted those dog treats real bad, and kept going behind Trowa, who was going behind Wufei, who had out the compass and was pointing the way....
Duo just tried to not fall down, and wished that his backpack wasn't quite so heavy.
When they finally reached the end of the field and climbed up onto the grass at the edge, Trowa gave Buster and Bubba one treat each and they had to wait while they ate them, snuffling around in the snow and grass for every last crumb. There was a lot of tail wagging....
'Which way now?' Quatre wanted to know and Wufei pointed into the pine trees. It seemed kind of dark and scary to Duo, but Heero gave a tug on Buster's collar and Duo didn't want to be left behind, so he scrambled up to take over Bubba's collar.
At first it was kind of hard to get the sled between the trees, but then Wufei found a path and Buster and Bubba decided the path was the way to go, and followed it without too much pulling. Though the smells must have been way more interesting than the parking lot, because they both had their noses to the ground and snuffled a lot....
Then the trees began to get thin again and Wufei, who was out front with the compass, suddenly put a hand up for them to stop (Though Quatre didn't see it and almost ran into him, and Trowa too), and whispered, 'I see something!'
'What is it?' Trowa whispered back, and though Duo couldn't see past Wufei and Trowa and Quatre and Bubba's head... he could hear something....
Something was coming down the path from the other direction and Duo was just starting to think that maybe this adventuring stuff wasn't so much fun after all when Quatre whispered, 'It's a deer!'
Deer weren't all that scary! Duo saw them sometimes out in the fields when his Mom drove him to school in the morning, and they always stood real still and his Mom said they were trying not to be seen. So Duo figured they must be pretty shy. 'I wanna see too!' and he let go of Bubba to go up with the others. The deer wasn't far in front of Wufei and it was... really big. Bigger than Duo had thought, and he was kind of not so sure if maybe he should be scared after all....
'Heero...?' he said, because Heero wasn't scared of anything, and he figured if Heero was scared too, then Duo was going to be really scared. But Heero was grinning real big.
'That's not a deer!' he said, 'that's a reindeer!'
When Duo looked again, he had to admit that it didn't really look like the deer he saw with his Mom. Those deer really were smaller, and their feet were smaller and if they had antlers, they weren't such great big antlers.
Then behind the reindeer, another reindeer appeared, and then another, and then another!
Duo got really excited then. 'How many are there?' he asked, though he just knew how many there would be. Quatre (who was very good with numbers) began to count and when he got done, he was excited too....
'Eight!' he said, and then looked again. 'No! Nine!'
And every kid in the world knew what nine reindeer meant.
'We found the North Pole!' Trowa said and they would have cheered, except they were kind of afraid of scaring the reindeer....
But the reindeer didn't seem afraid at all, and kind of seemed like they weren't too happy to find the boys in their back yard. They kept looking at each other like they were trying to make up their minds what to do....
'What if they tell on us?' Wufei wanted to know and Duo remembered the Rudolf special they watched every year, and remembered that Santa could talk to the reindeer. That might not be a good thing....
'What do we do?' Quatre asked, all breathless, and Duo just knew he was about to get upset. 'We have to get through to Santa!'
Trowa was quick to run back to the sled and after some more digging around, he pulled out a basket and grinning real big, showed them the apples and carrots inside.
'You thought of everything!' Duo exclaimed and they all reached in to grab something to feed to the reindeer. Ahead of them, on the path, one of the reindeer shook its head, and there was the ring of bells. Duo decided he didn't really want to go first.
Heero (who really wasn't afraid of anything if you asked Duo), went slowly toward the first reindeer, the biggest one, and held out his hand to be sniffed. That's how Duo's Dad said you were supposed to greet new animals (though Duo usually couldn't manage it; he got too excited and wanted to hug first), and the reindeer (Duo just knew it was Rudolph!) reached his big head down and sniffed at Heero's hand. Then Heero gave Rudolph a carrot.
'He likes it!' Quatre whispered, when Rudolph began to crunch happily, and the other reindeer looked interested....
'Quick!' Wufei whispered, 'put the apples over here so they're off the path!'
So moving slowly, and holding out the apples and carrots for the reindeer to see, they put them down in a pile beside the path. The reindeer very happily followed.
'It's working!' Heero said, and they almost forgot that they wanted to go down the path, while they watched the reindeer pick through the apples and carrots....
But Quatre remembered and whispered, 'Hurry!' and they grabbed their sled and dogs and tried to be sneaky while the reindeer weren't paying attention. Buster and Bubba seemed kind of nervous about the big reindeer, so it didn't take much pulling at all to get them to go on....
'This way!' Wufei whispered, but he wasn't pointing at the compass, he was pointing at the snow and they hurried down the path following the tracks of the reindeer, only backward. Duo thought that was awfully smart of Wufei... the reindeer had to have come from Santa's place, so the tracks would lead them right there!
He looked back once and couldn't help but think the reindeer looked like they were talking together over the pile of apples. The Rudolph one was watching them go, so Duo waved goodbye, just to be polite....
At least the pine trees were gone, and it wasn't so dark and scary anymore, and the path was a lot better than that rough old corn field. Duo thought they must be getting close, because they had to be just forever past the edge of Heero's map by now! Just when he was wishing they might take another little break, Heero said, 'Look!'
The sky had cleared up and the moon and snow made it easy to see that the reindeer tracks led right to a barn. But not just any old barn, not like the barn at Duo's Aunt Helen's farm, this barn was all fancy with windows and wooden decorations, and there was a huge Christmas wreath on the barn doors. The tracks went right inside, so the boys went right inside too.
There were stalls full of clean straw (reindeer would know better than to poop there like Aunt Helen's cow did), and harness with bells hanging by each one. There were buckets of corn and buckets of water, and it was the neatest, cleanest barn that Duo had ever seen, and he'd seen two!
'This stall says Comet on it!' Heero said.
'I think this one says Donner!' Wufei said.
'This one starts with a B!' Trowa said.
'There are nine stalls!' Quatre said.
'We found it!' Duo said, and nobody shushed him.
Then Quatre went and peeked out a window on the other side of the barn and his voice got all quiet again. 'Look!' he whispered and they all went to peek too.
On the other side of the barn was a yard and there sat the biggest, fanciest sleigh that any of them had ever seen. It was red and gold and white and silver and gleamed in the moonlight like Quatre's Uncle Rashid's new car had the day it was delivered. And it was piled in the back with sack after sack of what they just knew were Christmas presents.
'We made it in time!' Quatre said, getting excited again. 'Santa hasn't left yet!'
Duo had been so excited that for a minute he'd forgotten what their mission was. He was just as sure as he could be that they were right there at the North Pole, but it was one of those 'Wow!' things that he wished he had just a few minutes to think about, but he remembered that they were in a hurry.
'There!' he said, thinking all of a sudden to look at something besides the sleigh. 'That has to be Santa's house!'
It made Duo think of the gingerbread house that Heero's Mom had made one year. Bright and bigger than life, but cozy and tiny too. It didn't look nearly as big as Quatre's house, but somehow it was... what his Mom called 'pressive.
'We gotta hurry!' Trowa said and he ran back to their own sled to give Buster and Bubba both two treats each and he told them very, very sternly to 'Stay!' but Duo didn't think they were paying much attention because they seemed to like the straw and they were already snuffling after crumbs....
Wufei led the way and they ran out of the barn around to the sleigh, Duo really kind of wanted to try climbing up into the big seat, just to see what it felt like, but knew they didn't have time. It had to be really late, by then... nine o'clock, at least!...
There were a bunch of tracks in the snow by the sleigh and Wufei said, 'This way!' in a whisper that was kind of loud. The tracks weren't reindeer tracks, but more like people tracks and they led right to a door. They went to the door and then just stopped and stared.
'Should we... knock?' Quatre wanted to know, and that did seem like the polite thing to do. Duo didn't even go in Heero's house without knocking on the door and Heero's Dad said he 'practically lived there'.
'But what if nobody answers?' Trowa said and that made sense too. If they knocked, then to stay polite, they'd have to wait. And if nobody answered, they might end up standing there all night!...
Wufei went over to the side of the house and peeked in a window. 'I don't see anybody,' he said and Duo began to chew his lip, not knowing what to do....
But then Heero got his 'termined face and said, 'We're on a mission!' and he reached out and opened the door. For a minute they all stood there, kind of waiting to see if something bad would happen, but nothing did. Heero took a deep breath (Duo saw him) and walked in. They were quick to follow, because everybody who ever watched Scooby-doo knew that bad things happened if you split up.
'It's... it's the workshop!' Trowa said, looking around with his eyes all wide.
'Wow.' Duo said and everybody nodded.
It was like the biggest, most awesomest toy store in the whole world. Only the presents were all special because nothing was in a box like the toys were at the toy store. There were sacks everywhere and toys, and candy, and wreaths and just... everything Duo had ever seen that was about Christmas. There was even a funny little crooked Christmas tree! A kid sized tree! Or... Elf sized....
'Wow,' Duo said again, because... elves. Real elves. Elves... were real!
Quatre was hugging a teddy bear and Trowa had found some candy canes, and Duo was just thinking that a candy cane would be pretty good to eat, because all this adventuring kind of made a guy hungry, when Heero said...
'Uh-oh...'
Uh-oh was not a word you wanted to hear when you were on a mission (or an adventure). Uh-oh was the word the heroes in the movies said right before the bridge fell down, or the boat started to sink....
They all turned to look at Heero, but it was Wufei who pointed to the window, so then they all turned to look at the window and... there was a reindeer looking in at them.
'Uh-oh,' Duo said too, even though Heero had already said it, but it just seemed like a double uh-oh kind of thing.
But then there was a new voice and that new voice said, 'Holy cra.... Christmas!' in a really, really surprised kind of way.
That was when Duo got to see his first ever, for real Elf.
TBC...
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