a Buck Rogers story written for Jo Z. Pierce in the Yuletide 2007 ficathon
by Merlin Missy
Copyright 2008
PG
With great thanks to Amilyn for the beta.
Holidays in the future just aren't like they used to be. When he'd been a kid, when he'd read comic books and gone to movies and dreamed of going into space, he'd always pictured the world kind of like Star Trek. Things would be different, sure, but the essential things that made life normal would be there, would even be better. Wouldn't be gone.
Buck hadn't dressed up for Halloween in ages, so October 31st comes and goes for him like just another day. Pumpkins are extinct now anyway.
Thanksgiving hurts. T-day ought to be for spending time watching the game and enjoying time with his family. The Bears had been doing really well right up to when he'd left, and Buck can't think of November without remembering the taste of Mom's stuffing and the sound of his dad pontificating on Mike Ditka. The day after Thanksgiving should be spent driving Mom downtown to do her Christmas shopping, and then supper from Portillo's. Chili dogs are extinct too these days, and the Michigan Avenue Buck remembers only exists in photographs.
He spends the days at work. When Dr. Huer comments on how crabby he's being, Buck shrugs him off. When Wilma calls him on it, he almost tells her. Part of him wonders if she'd like chili dogs.
Buck's first December in the 25th century is very nearly unbearable.
He tries. He finds a tree and brings it up to his apartment. He searches for popcorn everywhere and settles for making a paper chain instead. He rigs up balls and lights from electronics parts. He makes Twiki wear a Santa hat.
And all he can think as he puts each thing on the tree was that these lights aren't right, not a patch on the lights they'd have at Navy Pier this time of year. He'd take Jennifer on a walk through the lights displays around the city and in the 'burbs, and Mom would sing Christmas carols and Dad would grouse, and Buck thinks his heart will break.
Desperate, he makes eggnog from ingredients that may very well never have been part of either egg or nog, but at least there's plenty of alcohol. He toasts a world that doesn't exist anymore and sobs himself to sleep. He doesn't remember this in the morning, only recognizes the furry taste of the hangover on his tongue.
On Christmas Eve, the rest of the world, or at least the world he sees around him in new Chicago, goes on as if it's not that time of year where he should be anticipating the light on his mother's face when she opens the giftbox on Christmas morning to find the diamond necklace he would have spent hours shopping for, finally begging Jennifer to make the final choice. He remembers visiting his friend Sanjay over the holidays just the once, remembers that surreal feeling of being in a world vastly different from the one he knew. He'd never dreamed that would be his new reality.
At night, he watches the first few stars twinkle above the city, and he wishes on each one that this is just a dream.
There's a call.
Eggnog glass firmly in hand, Buck answers, expecting Wilma maybe, or Dr. Huer, but the face on the screen is of a solemn child.
"Heya, Buck," says Hieronymous.
"Hi, kid," Buck says.
"Merry Christmas, man."
"Back atcha," Buck says and takes a long drink.
Hieronymous is usually smiling. He's ten, and smiling comes easy to ten-year-old geniuses who've already made President. Tonight, his face is drawn in lines no little kid should ever have.
"I keep thinking," Hieronymous says. "About my folks. I miss them. You know?"
"I know."
"I'd say it's just the dark of the year talking, but here, it's summertime. Like Christmas in Australia."
"Yeah."
"I did the calculations when I was three to prove there wasn't a Santa Claus. Showed my mom. The air friction alone required for a pan-continental nocturnal delivery system would have flash-fried the reindeer to a crisp." He breaks a smile at last. "I think that was when Mom and Dad finally admitted I wasn't like the other kids."
Buck manages a smile back. "I used to stay up half the night listening for sleigh bells. My dad jingled them outside the house one year." That was half a millennium ago, he thinks.
"You ever pinch yourself?"
"Huh?"
"You know. Pinch yourself to wake up. I do it almost every day. I keep thinking, if I try hard enough, I'll wake up, and I'll be five again, and Mom will be at the bottom of the stairs shouting at me that I have to get ready for school."
Buck stops himself from pinching his own arm, but only just. Instead he takes another drink of his eggnog. "I keep thinking I'll wake up next to Jen, and it'll all be different. I'll just hold her, and I'll be home."
"Yeah." Buck thinks maybe the kid is going to start crying, and that can't be good because it means Buck will start crying too, weeping for the world that's passed.
Instead, Hieronymous begins to sing: "I'll be home for Christmas. You can plan on me…."
Buck joins in, his voice thick with disuse but soon making a passable attempt at the tune. " … if only in my dreams."
Hieronymous clears his throat. "Sorry."
"Don't be." Buck and Jennifer hadn't talked much about kids. They both had their careers to think about, and anyway, they had their whole lives in front of them. Now Buck was looking at a life without a family. He watches the child-President of another world, and thinks he's looking at the only other person alive who remembers the Bears. He wonders if Hieronymous ever ate hotdogs at Portillos, or went fishing with his father, or spent the Fourth of July flat on his back staring straight up at the sky as fireworks cascaded around him.
"Anyway," Hieronymous says. "I oughta go. Got work to do, declarations to sign, that sorta thing. I just wanted to say hi."
"Thanks." And because that doesn't seem like enough, Buck adds, "Really, kid. Thanks. Have a merry Christmas."
"You too." The screen goes dark, and Buck is alone with his drink and his thoughts.
The dark of the year, the kid said. Maybe that was part of it. And what do you do when things are dark?
Buck turns on the lights on his makeshift tree, and begins to sing.