A/N: This story was written in response to a challenge issued by Kendall, aka MidnightBlue88. It's just a oneshot, but I reserve the right to use Chad elsewhere if I so choose.

These were the guidelines of the challenge: An Andy story containing no 1. Allison or any mention thereof; 2. wrestling or any mention thereof; 3. Andy's dad or any mention thereof; 4. use of the phrase "The Breakfast Club." I highly commend Kendall for an absolutely wonderful challenge. I loved it immediately, and I'm so glad she came up with it. I would also like to bow at her feet for helping me make this story postable. Thank you SO much, K.

I hope you enjoy. : )

Bright Venus

by: UnicornPammy

It was so cold in the attic, Andy could see his breath. His skin pimpled, and he shivered. What's the deal? he thought. I thought heat was supposed to rise. He felt around the inside of the doorway for the light switch, and found it. A single, naked bulb sparked to life, glaring at Andy as if resentful for the interruption of the darkness.

Andy shook his head. Maybe a little too much eggnog tonight, huh?

He waded past the piles of junk that had accumulated over the 25 or so years his family had lived in the house. He moved past old toys and trophies, used sports equipment and trunks of out-grown clothing and baby stuff his mom had kept for sentimental reasons.

He found the box he was looking for, shoved in a cobwebby corner. Andy's Stuff was scrawled on the top and repeated on the sides. The marker's ink was faded, but he could make out the childishly formed words. He still didn't have the best handwriting.

The packing tape that held the box shut was brittle and yellowed, practically crumbling when he touched it. Six years of enduring alternating bouts of intense heat and bitter cold had weakened the box. He only hoped the contents were not similarly affected.

Ignoring the dust, Andy pulled the flaps open, feeling a bit of excitement rise up into his chest and throat to mingle with the still-raw pain of his recent loss. It was kind of like a treasure hunt. Unburying the past.

On top of everything was his boyscout sash, encrusted with a rainbow of patches. He pulled it out gently, running his fingertips over a few moth-chewed holes. Then he flattened his hand over the patches, amazed that he could still remember how he'd gotten each one. With great care he set it aside and turned back to the box.

There were some G. I. Joe's and a compass. "All right!" he said softly to himself. "I thought I lost this!" Andy picked up the compass. It was camo-colored metal, and he'd gotten it by sending in what had seemed like a thousand Wheaties cereal box tops, along with fifty cents for shipping and handling. He put it in his pocket, vowing it would never go back into storage. He pushed aside the G. I. Joe's, and the ratty old blanket he'd used as a cape when he pretended he was Superman. Beneath it all was the real prize:

The Galaxy Finder 3000.

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The Galaxy Finder 3000 was the only thing Andy wanted for Christmas when he was eleven years old. He'd wanted it so badly; he wanted to be an astronaut. By the time Christmas came, his mom had been ready to strangle him every time he mentioned it. So for the entire week before Christmas he didn't say a word about it, feeling certain he would be rewarded for his silence.

On Christmas morning he opened his presents with gusto, so excited he even crowed over finding a package of socks. Then it was down to the last one... It didn't look like the right shape to be a telescope, but maybe his parents were just playing a trick on him. He opened it. It was a huge book about the constellations, which was cool, but it wasn't The Galaxy Finder 3000. He faked enthusiasm as much as he could, but inside he was bitterly disappointed. All he'd wanted was The Galaxy Finder 3000. They could take all the other crap back if he could just have his telescope.

He became sullen, sitting silently through Christmas breakfast and Christmas services. Finally it was time for Christmas lunch with his maternal grandparents at their big old house. It was the house his mother had grown up in. After lunch they migrated into the living room to sit around the tree and open more presents. But Andy just climbed onto the couch next to his Grandma Vena and put his head on her shoulder.

"What's the matter, Andrew?" she asked him, her blue eyes concerned.

"I didn't get it, Grandma."

"Didn't get what?"

"The Galaxy Finder 3000. It's all I asked for. It's the only thing I wanted."

"Aw, I'm sorry, honey," she said, patting his cheek in an attempt to console the inconsolable. "Well, I've got a present for you. Why don't you open it? It might make you feel better."

He sighed, knowing it wouldn't--what could?--but he didn't want to hurt her feelings. "I'm sure it will," he said, but his voice held no conviction. He watched as she went over to the tree and looked down at the brightly wrapped presents crowding around the base. She bent and made a show of trying to pick something up. "Andrew, can you get this for me? It's a little heavy."

A tiny spark lit in Andy's chest. His heart started beating a little faster.

"Go on, Andy," his mother urged from her spot on the floor. She was sitting cross-legged next to the tree, holding the smallest Clark, Andy's two-year-old brother Chad, in her lap and helping him open presents.

It's not really my telescope, he tried to tell himself. Don't get your hopes up, Andrew. He slid down off the couch, and his feet took him to the tree as if they had little foot minds of their own. And then he was standing beside his grandmother.

"Right there," she said, pointing to a long, rectangular box. "That one right there. It's got your name on it, right?"

He bent to get a closer look at the dumb Santa-and-reindeer wrapping paper. Yeah, there was the tag with his name on it.

To: Andy

From: Santa

"Well, I guess that's yours then," Grandma Vena said. He started to bend down to get it, but his grandmother stopped him. "Oh, but wait. I just remembered. When Santa dropped it off, he told me to tell you that the only way it will be what you truly want it to be is if you believe in him."

Andy was taken aback for a second. "What?" He looked at his grandma, wondering if she'd gone nuts, or if she was just teasing him. But her expression was entirely sincere.

"Santa seems to think you've lost faith in him. That isn't true, is it?" Her voice was dramatically sad, as if she were acting a part.

What's up with this dumb Santa stuff? he thought. I'm eleven. I'm too old for Santa.

But when he looked at Grandma Vena's face, he seemed to see something that told him that she, as old as she was, still believed in Santa Claus.

Andy caught the smirks on the twin faces of his older brothers Rom and Remy. They would torture him later, torment him to no end for this. He looked at his mom. Just play along, is what it looked like she wanted to say. He could see it in her eyes.

"You believe in Santa, don't you, Andy?" his grandmother repeated. He looked at her again. Her blue eyes, eyes only he and Chad had inherited, were indeed very serious. It seemed like his answer was very important to her.

It was very important that he believe in Santa Claus.

And then he saw why: his little brother Chad was watching him. Chad was only two, but you could tell that he understood what everyone was saying, even if he couldn't talk very well himself. His grandmother wanted Chad to believe in Santa Claus. Well, if the price for obtaining his Galaxy Finder 3000 (because at this point it couldn't be anything else; his beloved grandmother wouldn't put him through this for something dumb like clothes) was a few moments of dignity, then he could certainly pay.

"Yeah," he said, pasting on a smile that was only half-forced. "Yeah, sure I believe in Santa Claus."

Grandma Vena's face lit with a smile, and she pulled him to her in a tight hug. "I knew you did," she said as she released him. "Go ahead. Open it."

Andy fell to his knees and hauled the package into his lap. It really was heavy. He was almost afraid to open it. Because, well, he didn't believe in Santa.

He looked up at Grandma Vena. He did believe in her, though.

So he opened it.

And there it was.

-------------

It was very cold outside. There was a thick blanket of snow on the ground, but the sky was clear, the stars twinkling like tiny diamonds scattered across black silk. The snow made it seem very bright, almost like twilight. Andy saw Orion and Ursa Major. Ursa Minor had always been a little more difficult for him to find, but there it was, and at the end of its tail was Polaris, the North Star.

Something special was happening tonight. Andy cleared a patch of snow off the top of the wooden picnic table in the back yard and set the dusty box down. He opened the box and gazed at its contents. He had taken very good care of his telescope until he'd had to pack it away. The polished black enamel gleamed in the moonlight, and it brought back memories of the first time he'd brought it outside, opened the box, took it out, and set it up. In a spot very close to this one.

He lifted it out of the box, unfolding the legs of the attached tripod. He adjusted it, having to pull the legs out to their maximum height. And it still wasn't tall enough. He didn't remember having to bend down so low to look through the eye piece. But then, he'd been twelve when he'd packed all his toys away. He was eighteen now, but he still remembered how it had taken every ounce of will power he'd possessed to keep from crying as he'd lowered his Galaxy Finder 3000 into the box labeled "Andy's Stuff."

He moved it around until he found what he was looking for, then focused in. It was amazing to be able to look at something so far away. He looked for a while, then he straightened, leaving it in that exact position. Then he turned and made his way toward the big oak in the far corner of the back yard, and climbed up to the tree house that had sheltered the Clark boys for a good fifteen years. He tried to stand up straight, and hit his head on the ceiling. When did it get so small in here?

"Hey, Chad," he said to his nine-year-old brother. Chad sat in the only window of the tree house. It faced away from the yard, toward the park. The baseball fields were lit up, and one of the local softball teams was playing a game of winter ball. The big light standards shown against the tree house, turning Andy's little brother into a silhouette. Andy saw that Chad's head was bare, so he pulled off his own knit cap and shoved it over his brother's short, dark hair.

"Mom's worried about you," Andy said.

"So?"

"So, she was wondering if you wanted to come in and have some dinner."

No response. Andy ran his cold fingers through his hair, not too easy to do when you were stooping over to avoid banging your head on the ceiling of a tree house. His back started aching, so he shuffled over and sat down next to his brother. He tried to think of something philosophical to say.

"So, what do you want for Christmas?" was all he could come up with.

Again, no response. He couldn't even get the kid to talk to him. After a few long minutes of silence, he started to get up.

"I want Grandma Vena back."

Andy stopped. He felt a lump rise in his throat, and tried to swallow it back down. "Me, too," he said, his voice a little thicker than normal. He turned to face his brother. In the light from the ball fields, Andy could see tracks of moisture running down Chad's face.

"Y'know, they can take back all the other stuff they've gotten me by now," the boy said. "I wouldn't care. I just want Grandma Vena back." More tears rose into Chad's eyes and spilled over onto his cheeks. "I don't care about any of that other shit." Then he buried his face in his arms and wept.

Andy gently pulled Chad down into his lap, and put his arms around his brother. "Don't say shit," he said, his voice wobbly. He felt tears stinging his own eyes. Andy held his little brother while he cried, and Andy cried himself. But there was a bit of relief mixed in with the sadness. It had worried the whole family that Chad hadn't shown any emotion over his grandmother's recent death, not even at the funeral. Andy was worried that he was keeping everything inside. He knew it was going to come out eventually, and he had worried over what form that emotion was going to take.

Boys just didn't cry, at least not in their family. But they had all cried at Grandma Vena's funeral. All except Chad. Andy had grown to realize over the course of the past year how unhealthy, and even dangerous, it could be to bottle up emotions like that. The only other way that Chad knew to express his grief was through anger and sullenness.

Their mother had tried to get through to him; even she had failed. But somehow, since it was Andy, it was now okay for Chad to cry. Andy knew that their mother would have made a big deal out of it, coddling Chad and cooing at him and shushing him. Andy was the only person who would just let Chad cry, and wouldn't turn it into a big deal or make fun of him for it.

Chad knew that Andy wouldn't tell a soul. And that's why it was okay for Chad to cry.

Eventually, Chad stopped crying. He pulled away from Andy and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Andy let him go, surreptitiously wiping his own eyes.

"Hungry yet?" he asked.

Chad shrugged. "I guess."

Andy gestured to the hole in the floor of the tree house, the only way down unless you wanted to jump out of the window. "Why don't we go get some dinner?"

Chad shrugged again, and lowered himself down through the hole, traversing the descent like a monkey, allowing himself to fall the last few feet. Andy waited until he saw Chad land safely on the ground before he started his own descent.

"Whoa, what's that?" he heard from below.

"What?"

"That thing in the yard! It looks like a telescope." Chad's voice was becoming excited as it moved away from the tree.

"Wait a minute, let me get down there." Andy's climb down was a bit more lumbering. He hadn't been up in the tree house in ages. It wasn't quite like riding a bicycle; however, falling the last few feet was still fun. Except he forgot to flex his knees to cushion his fall. A jarring shock went through his body, and he couldn't keep his balance. He went down with a muffled exclamation.

Chad turned away from the new item of interest, and laughed at the cursing heap that was Andy. It was the first time Andy had heard him laugh since they'd learned of Grandma Vena's death. He stopped cursing and smiled, then painfully regained his feet.

Chad ran over to the telescope. "Whoa, this is cool! I kinda wanted a telescope. Where'd you get it?"

"Santa."

Chad glanced at his brother, one eyebrow raised derisively. "Santa?"

"Okay, so it was Grandma Vena."

His little brother chuckled. "Was that when she made you say you believed in Santa Claus?"

Andy paused. "How do you remember that?"

Chad put his hand against the cold black metal tube, and murmured another "whoa." Then he glanced back over his shoulder at Andy. "I was a kid, I wasn't stupid."

It was Andy's turn to chuckle. His cynical, smart-ass little brother was back. Finally. He walked past Chad and grabbed a cinder block from a stack of them behind the garage. He came back to the telescope, and dropped it next to his brother. "This, my friend," he said as he lifted Chad and set him back down on top of the cinder block, "is the Galaxy Finder 3000."

"That's a dumb name."

"Just look through there," he said, tapping the eye piece. Chad obeyed.

"Whoa, what's that?"

Andy sensed a recurring theme.

"That's Venus. Grandma Vena was named after it."

Chad became subdued again, his face pressed intently to the telescope. After a few moments he said, "It's really bright."

"Yeah. It's not like that all the time. Most of the time, but not all the time." He stood quietly while Chad continued to look through the telescope, and started thinking about that Christmas afternoon seven years ago, and what he did in order to get his Galaxy Finder 3000. "Chad, do you believe in Santa Claus?"

His little brother was silent for a long time. Finally, without looking up he said, "I never did."

That surprised Andy a little. "Really?"

"Yeah, really."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I mean, who cares about some fat guy in a red suit?"

Andy shrugged. "I guess you're right." He paused for a few moments. "So, what do you believe in?"

Chad seemed to be thinking about that. "I believe in Grandma Vena."

Andy nodded. "Yeah."

Chad was quiet again. When he spoke, his voice was very small and vulnerable. "It's like..." he started, but his voice was choked. He cleared his throat. "It's like she's looking at us."

Andy had to clear his own throat. "Yeah."

A/N: I would like to dedicate this story to my cousins David, Thomas, and Grace who lost their maternal grandmother on Dec. 22, 2000.