5At the end of Leonard’s tale, Jim wants to know, “Why are you both looking at me?”
Leonard sighs. He says to Spock, “It’s bad. I know it is. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the set. You can give me the rest of my points… and take my check if that’s what you really need to do. Whatever the remainder of the cost for the damage is, I’ll pay it back.” Somehow, he doesn’t add.
As Jim suddenly looks anxious, Spock turns away. “There is something I want to show you, Mr. McCoy.”
Leonard can’t imagine what that would be. He is surprised that Spock hasn’t kicked his butt out of the store yet. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten so defensive earlier. Yes, he’s still mad about certain things but in picturing the larger scheme of things, he knows Spock has more right to be angry than he does. After all, it could very well be Spock’s head on the platter when the owner finds out about the fire. Not to mention that the store is now closed for the time being and will lose at least a day’s worth of potential sales.
Leonard also can’t help but think of the children, the ones whose parents planned to bring them to see Santa Claus. Imagining their disappointment, the heart-wrenching kind only shown by kids, Leonard feels extremely guilty.
On the other side of the desk, Spock unlocks a bottom drawer and removes a large laminated paper of a shape and size that Leonard has seen before.
“Spock…” Jim’s anxiety has transformed into something more chagrined.
Spock brings the chart over to Leonard.
Leonard takes it uncertainly, but that uncertainty dissipates as he reads the name across the top. It takes an additional second for him to realize why the chart is strange.
“There’s more than five boxes.”
“Yes,” Spock replies.
“And there’s tally marks outside of them.”
“Yes,” Spock says again. “Turn it around.”
Jim groans.
The back is covered with series upon series of marks, growing smaller in size as if the person making them had been running out of space to write but was desperate to fit them on the chart. Leonard couldn’t possibly count how many there were.
And he also couldn’t begin to imagine how much trouble someone had to get into to earn all those marks.
Jim tries to take the chart from him. “It isn’t as bad as it looks.”
Spock intervenes by reclaiming possession of the chart before Jim can. “It was, in fact, worse,” he tells Leonard.
Unexpectedly Leonard feels a keen sympathy for this man. “Spock, why the heck is he still here?”
“Frankly, I am not certain.”
“Okay, okay,” Jim admits, “I know I’m not Employee of the Year, but c’mon.” He pleads his case to Leonard. “Spock’s system is a little strict, right, Bones?”
“If it weren’t for you trying to prove a point, kid, Pavel wouldn’t be weeping over the melted face of a reindeer right now.”
Jim winces. “I can fix that.”
“You truly cannot,” Spock intervenes dryly. “Nor would I want you to try. Leonard,” he goes on to say, “my point in showing you this is that I am understandably disappointed by the events of last night but I am also not surprised. In the future, I would ask that before you associate with Mr. Kirk on any matter, you consider the consequences of a negative outcome. Additionally, my only stipulation for accepting that no one is at fault for this incident is a simple one: keep me informed.”
Spock moves away, obviously to give Leonard time to let his request sink in.
Leonard’s mother has always said to never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Jim, scuffing one tennis shoe against the other, refuses to look at anyone.
“Okay,” Leonard agrees, “but I have a condition of my own.”
Jim glances up. Spock lifts an eyebrow.
Leonard’s mouth curves. “When the Santa Line is up and running again, I don’t want to deal with the same problem—which means Jim has to be taken care of. Make him an elf, Mr. Spock… and under my supervision.”
“What!” Jim cries.
“Excellent suggestion, Mr. McCoy,” the store manager replies approvingly. “Jim, you now report to Leonard for the remainder of the holiday season.”
“Spock, you can’t do that!”
Spock merely looks at him.
Jim flushes. “Do I need to bring up Uhura?”
It is Spock’s turn to flush.
“What about Nyota?” Leonard has to ask.
“Do you want to see her chart, Bones?”
Leonard’s mouth falls open. “She has a Misconduct Chart?”
Spock looks very uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. If Leonard had been the one to tell Nyota he was giving her a point for misbehavior, he imagines he would be too. How is Spock still alive?
He takes pity on the man. “Nyota is a forgiving soul.”
“She really isn’t,” Jim replies a tad gleefully.
“I fail to see how this subject is relevant.”
Jim, too, seems ready to take pity on Spock and also to consider something he doesn’t like. He loses some of his amusement. “Spock, what about the safety of the store? Who’s going to look after her if you reassign me?”
“Given your recent distraction with our new hire, I assume you have trained Mr. Sulu well enough to perform those duties in your absence.”
Leonard snickers.
Jim wilts. “…I don’t like elves.”
“And I don’t like Santa Claus,” Leonard retorts, so pleased to have won. “I guess that makes us a pair.”
“Don’t make me wear the hat, Bones.”
Oh, Leonard is going to enjoy what’s to come very, very much. Whoever said turnabout is fair play knew precisely what they were talking about. Finally, the universe ready to let him experience some turnabout for himself!
~~~
“I made it better,” the store’s interior decorator is telling the new Head of Security.
Hikaru Sulu nods, his expression serious as he listens to Pavel’s lengthy description of the extra effort and late hours he put into redesigning the Santa set. Nearby, Monty is bolting a freshly painted (and newly purchased) reindeer to the stage floor. It has a “DO NOT TOUCH” sign hanging around its neck, as well as around the necks of its brothers. Earlier on, the engineer had proudly presented to the entire staff of the store the light fixture he added to the reindeer’s nose that makes it glow red. It came with the assurance that it was hazard-free.
Leonard has to admit that Monty, as well as Pavel, know their craft.
Nyota sails by with two employees dutifully on her heels, each carrying a stack of red and green sweaters. She nods to Leonard in passing.
Someone pokes Leonard’s shoulder from behind.
Leonard rolls his eyes. “What now?”
Jim has the look of someone who is being punished unfairly. With his green elf cap, complete with a bell hanging in his face, he is quite a comical sight.
Maybe this is the reason Leonard is feeling better with each passing day.
“You’re late,” he tells Kirk. “That’s a point.”
“Bones,” complains his companion, “I’m already a thousand in the hole.”
“Now it’s one thousand and one.”
“Ugh,” mutters Jim, pacing away to sulk in the sleigh.
Leonard taps his fingers on his Santa’s Chair, anticipating the opening of the store’s doors and his soon-to-be customers. He makes Jim wipe the noses of the snotty ones.
He’s chuckling to himself when someone steps into his peripheral vision.
“You’re in a good mood, Leonard.”
“Mr. Pike,” Leonard says, surprised by his visitor. “How’d you get in here? We’re not open yet.”
“Oh,” Christopher says, smiling slightly, “I have my ways.” He raises his voice. “Jim!”
The elf hat pops up over the rim of the sleigh, from where Jim had taken to lying down to further bask in his sulk.
Leonard hears, “Oh shit.”
“Jim,” Pike calls again.
Jim sits up, looking both disturbed and resigned. “Why do you keep coming here?” he begs of Pike.
The man holds out a Christmas scarf. “Here.”
“No.”
“James, come here. Now.”
Leonard watches in fascination as Jim finally lumbers over, dragging his feet all the way.
Pike begins to wind the scarf around and around Jim’s neck, until hardly anything is visible below Jim’s nose. Then he tucks the ends away so they won’t flap in the open air.
Leonard looks from the older man to the younger one, really wanting to know, “Is he your father?”
“NO!” comes the muffled but vehement response.
Pike informs Leonard, “I put his lunch in the break room’s refrigerator. Please see to it that he eats the carrots.”
“Okay,” Leonard says.
With the expression of a man who has accomplished what he wanted, Christopher Pike then walks away.
Jim mutters a long, unintelligible sentence into his scarf.
Leonard cups his ear. “What was that?”
Jim lifts his mouth free and complains, “Seriously, Bones, he needs to stop doing this. I’ve told him over and over not to bother me at work!”
Leonard just looks at Jim—looks at him for a long moment before he laughs.
“What?” Jim wants to know, clearly confused by the reaction.
“I have no sympathy for you, kid,” declares the jolly-looking Santa Claus. “Now get into position. Our first one’s going to be so excited to be at the front of the line, he’ll be drooling. If he offers you candy, don’t take it.”
Jim swats at the bell in his face and sighs loudly before moving away from the stage to do as ordered.
Leonard raises a hand and offers a thumbs-up to the whole of the store.
Far across the expanse, in a sales office with a window, a certain manager is taking note of this gesture and deciding all is well with his department store.
The End and Merry Christmas!
[ Previous Part | Master Post ]
Related Posts:
- An Idiot’s Guide to Christmas (3/4) – from December 11, 2014
- An Idiot’s Guide to Christmas (2/4) – from December 11, 2014
- An Idiot’s Guide to Christmas (1/4) – from December 11, 2014
LOL, where to begin………..Pike is a hoot, an absolute hoot………I love him so much The irony of Jim not wanting to be bothered at work is lost on Jim but not on me, or bones or I suspect Pike either. Jim is ever the wayward child but with a good heart. Seems that Jim and bones have formed the perfect partnership in this universe also…….Santa and his elf helper and I suspect friends for the remaining months of the year. I also suspect it will be a long *and suffering one for bones at least*and joyous (okay sure) friendship. Can’t see bones wanting or needing to move on after the holiday season. I sort of feel like Pike is passing the ‘care for JTK’ card to bones when he asks him to make sure Jim eats his carrots for lunch. And seriously Pike would never let his James sit on some strange man’s lap if he weren’t sure it was safe for him….. You have left us with just enough mystery when it comes to Jim’s back story to imagine that he understands sorrow if not the actual loss of a child without really knowing the particular circumstances. I feel like although the story involves all the characters and that they have a part in this (the universe is like a deck of cards and corrects itself. The same characters end up together even if the path they take is not always the same as their counter parts) that like our beloved trek it really was about Jim and bones getting on the friendship track. There was a lot of sub sub plots intertwined within your story but after reading it and thinking on it I have come to the conclusion that all the events that took place, all the actions the characters took, ultimately were all geared towards getting Bones to stay because Jim needed him to. He need bones to answer his question as only a fellow sufferer could. Maybe wishful thinking on my part but I feel like Pike was the master planner in all this…..he knew what both Jim and bones needed (as well as the others) and set about making it happen. Just like he recruited them for star fleet, I feel as though Pike recruited his Santa and elf crew…LOL I take my trek seriously and tend to see all things Jim and bones as it pertains to trek. …..Like Pike bringing Jim his lunch, as if he consistently forgets it, makes me think of Tarsus. It is obvious, to me anyway, that Pike took great care when assembling the lunch box contents. His telling Jim that he is too big to sit on Santa’s lap and bringing him his scarf, and lunch, and generally appears to run herd on Jim indicates to me that Jim did not experience social niceties as a child………….so anyway I am stopping here because dammit this is a Jim and bones Christmas story not a social commentary on the life and times of a young JTK. KUDOS to a wonder trek/Jim/bones Christmas story.
I just knew that you would appreciate the Pike cameos. That was my “surprise” for you! I think I’ve said this before, but I really wanted to show that there is a ‘place’ where Leonard fits in, that naturally being with the ‘crew’ of the department store. Now, by the end, he may not be aware of it himself but in starting to enjoy his work – and the company of the people he works with – he has placed himself on a path of camaraderie and, we can hope, healing. That’s what makes Star Trek so important to me. The premise is rather simple: you don’t have to be blood-related to be family, and family is something to be cherished. These department store workers aren’t just random people hired to do various jobs; they are there to help each other – and to be friends. To my way of thinking, Jim is still the leader in this respect, in the way that he knows when to engage and when to deflect just enough to aggravate Leonard but interest him, while the others subtly work to draw Leonard in. Oh wait… that makes it sound like a trap. But to be honest, it’s a good kind of trap. One that I firmly believe benefits our grumpy Santa Claus in the end. A continuation of the storyline would prove that, I do not doubt. All this said, you are more than welcome to share all your insights/theories about this story. That’s the best part, in my opinion, when the reader is inspired to actually ‘think’ about my story. I love listening to those thoughts. I love in particular that you got the gist behind Pike’s appearances, though I cannot confirm for certain that he is the mastermind. He’s A mastermind, for certain though. At least with regard to Jim. To which, quite humorously, Jim is so very blind. Do you have any thoughts on the others? Isn’t it kind of funny that Spock, supposedly being in charge of all these workers, is kind of a pushover – not to mention that he seems to listen to Jim more than he should? And Scotty – or should I say Monty? – with his very cheerful, very nosy personality? And Keenser? Does Keenser even exist, since we never saw him? LOL. Like you said, I tend to stick in all kinds of sub-sub-plots. It’s more fun that way! Thank you for everything you’ve said, and thank you most of all for continuing to support my writing efforts. I feel reassured that at least one person out there understands my vision.
What I also noticed about Spock is that on more than one occasion he mentions that ‘I have been told…’ Gave me the impression that just like in trek that he doesn’t always get the nuances of emotions. That perhaps Nyota is giving him some insight on people and their issues. Like when bones gets into trouble on the first day and Spock tells him that he as been told that people can be nervous on the first day so he lets it slide. Maybe even it is Pike who guides him.
WILD APPLAUSE!!! OMG that was sooo much FUN!!!! Thank you for this PERFECT holiday fic which, as I promised, kept me company at 1:40AM while I’m putting gifts under the tree, stuffing stockings and setting up the holiday dinner and breakfast tables! Listening to a Christmas Star Trek fic has been my tradition for at least 3 years now and now that I have this one to change out the one that I have always enjoyed before, I just feel like I’ve had the most delightful fannish Christmas gift! This is one story that I will look forward to enjoying year after year! This story was filled with that magic thing you do. The hilarity is never over-the top, it’s just so right and had me bursting out laughing more times than I can count. LOVE it! I can’t thank you enough for gifting the fandom with such a delightful story. Happy Holidays and have a very Happy New Year, filled with inspired writing Muses!
You are so very welcome and bless you for dropping me this note after you finished it! While I can’t imagine wrapping gifts that early in the morning (how do you manage to feel awake the next day??), I’m so glad that you took a chance by incorporating my story into your tradition! That’s truly the compliment, my friend. :) You are the best, and I wish you a happy new year as well! May you continue to be inspired to produce those gorgeous works of art!