Kindling Wonder

There were always children that wavered between the naughty and nice list from day to day, and even year to year. It was one of the many toils of North's job, sorting out the in-betweens. While he tried to get the two lists sorted out before Christmas Eve, there were always those last minute changes: believers stopped believing, a fight broke out before bedtime, reconciliations were made, and other small, human things.

After all the practice he'd had, it would surprise anyone that he might stumble across a surprise midflight. It was tempting for North to call in one of the other Guardians—maybe Tooth or Sandy, who were always just a few cities ahead of him—to see if he was the only one, but he supposed it wasn't the same. Only Aster would really be able to sympathize. He shook his head. Bad idea. The Easter Bunny would harp on it for days if he did have prior experience.

With a more than skeptical stare back down at the dash of his sleigh, he tapped the small globe model on-screen that told him which houses had believers, which list they fell on, and whether Sandy's dream sand had sunk in yet. He was currently slightly behind schedule in New York City, as was ever the case with the largest cities, but he was tapping a light that was already flickering on and off in spastic bursts somewhere in the Middle East. Aster would contradict him, but North knew every light on his map. He only needed the map to remind him of his time constrictions (which were always a bit malleable) and which list he'd finally decided to place the child on (even more malleable), not who they were.

But the light he was looking at wasn't one he'd laid eyes on in…at least two full years, whether it be on Christmas or any other day of the year on the massive map at the pole. The child was one of the cases changed by tragedy, a state that was all too common when family and friends were taken too early for belief to heal. This child had finally slipped from his globe, and his foremost thoughts, when the last of his family members was killed in questionable circumstances. Doubt had crept into the fiercely burning light and adult emotions had chipped away at innocent belief. North could not deliver presents to those whose hearts raged with revenge and dark secrets, for wonder could not exist in tandem.

He'd often suspected that had Jack become the Guardian of Fun a little earlier that the light would have very much enjoyed his presence. The feelings that used to embrace him when he glanced northward to England were those of a fellow fun-loving spirit. But that fun had turned to darker purposes, ones he did not think even Jack could turn the little light from.

North triple-checked the glowing digital clock that gave him the time specific to the zone he was in. In two years, the light had strayed—in distance and heart—but if his sleigh were true, then perhaps…perhaps the child's belief had healed. Perhaps it had just taken a little longer than most. And perhaps the flickering was more ominous than merely a wavering sense of wonder.

The longer the light blinked at him, the more the irregular rhythm reminded him of a heart beat struggling to keep up with its bearer.

Kindling Wonder

He had been an idiot. A total, bloody idiot.

Those were Alex Rider's predominant thoughts as he laid back in the cool sand. It hadn't taken long for the terrible scorching heat of the day to be replaced by a bitter, freezing wind.

Most teenagers can afford to be idiots. In fact, many take this allowance for granted. Alex had been given few allowances, and this, he grimaced, wasn't cooking up to be one of them.

He should have returned to the meet-up point at the time he and Ben had allotted weeks ago so the two of them could get back to base and done with this whole operation. He should have. He could have. But he hadn't. All it had taken was a passing phrase from a loose-lipped, doe-eyed guard passing the time with a buddy before the shift-change. One phrase, and he shot off a message saying he would miss the drop and try tomorrow. There had been no response—as was the intention of one-use, untraceable burn phones—but he could practically sense his sometimes-partner's frustration and confusion radiating back at him from the other side.

Curiosity killed the cat. Yeah, it was one of his failings in his profession. Spies don't get curious. They get killed, gunned down in the street by snipers or a passing pedestrian. He should have let it go, but had that ever stopped him in the past? No, and honestly, he couldn't bring himself to regret it. Alex twisted wrong, and he pressed the cloth of the plainly colored, cotton thawb hard into his abdomen as he let out a high, keening moan. Okay, maybe he did regret some of it, but not having foiled a potential mass murder. Besides, there was another part to that Chinese fortune. But satisfaction brought it back. "Damn straight," he whispered, though he wasn't sure how many lives this cat had left. His clock was probably ticking down to last of them as he waited for someone to pick up on the short-wave transmitter sending his distress signal and location.

There was a distant thrum of wind lacing the air, and he knew from his handful of trips out here that it didn't bode well for him. Alex looked up from the blood staining through to turn his fingertips crimson at the sand storm building up in the distance. He stilled, taking in the red sun still burning brightly across the desolate plain that stretched out for hundreds of miles east of him, lighting the horizon on fire and giving a distant sparkle to each grain of dusty earth as if all the stars had fallen to lie at his feet. As if the rust-tinged storm was allowing him this last view of the brilliant night sky—a literal heaven on earth—because he would be denied a final peek at the real thing. A sense of wonder that he had long been lost without, returned in a brilliant starry sparkle to his eye. And North had to cover his eyes as a light dimmed and nearly crushed by darkness suddenly flared to new life.

Golden sunlight, twisting through hues of red, orange and a gentle violet reflected in molten brown eyes, lighting them with new fire. There was something about teenagers, whether it was the hormones raging just beneath the surface or the intense desire to prove themselves capable, that made them stubbornly hold out until the last. Hope was in the clenching of the arm wrapped tightly around his stomach as he stood after stumbling and scrabbling for a handhold. And Aster gasped as warmth flooded his limbs, making his heartbeat race with adrenaline.

He grasped a root protruding from the sandy dune above his head and memories flooded his mind of climbing trees with the gentle, occasional assistance from Ian, of skiing through a hail of bullets on an ironing board and waking to find himself back in the arms of his caretakers, of Ben's emergency airlift in Australia, of his reunion with K-Unit in a Saudi wasteland and of the last time he'd seen Jack give him that big grin that only she had been able to do. Tears dripped from his eyes and Tooth brushed the moisture that threatened to spill out on to her feathers as her fairies flurried around her, squeaking about a memory box that had triggered on its own and he paid them no heed as he tied his damp turban over his nose and mouth.

His dreams from the past—of being a superhero like the ones he saw on the telly or a policeman before his uncle's death had forever ingrained him into the dark underground of the world—were still far from his grasp, but as he pulled his foot up in what shouldn't have been such an excruciating movement, he realized that he could still dream of a future not dripping in blood or cloaked in shadows, of the day when he could get the upper hand on MI6 and relax around strangers and friends alike. And the Sandman's dream sand was twisting into shapes of its own accord, resonating with a far-off child's cry for the ear of a wishing star.

Salty tears dripped into thick white cloth, stinging as they ran over torn skin, but Alex eyes were for the task ahead of him alone. Blood clotted the sand beneath his position, but the teenager's hands were poised and dedicated to the wall of sand rather than the jagged tears ripped in his sides and arms begging for ministrations. A smirk stretched across dry, cracked lips as he scrutinized the potential handholds above him. "It's been awhile since I've done any real rock climbing," he murmured to himself thoughtfully. "This should be fun." And a mirroring pained smile came unbidden to a winter sprite's face as the words echoed in his head, quickly turning to fear for a believer, because who else would he hear from so clearly?

In the back of his mind, he knew this climb would have serious consequences on his body, but getting up higher would make it easier if Ben or K-Unit were looking for him and when that sand storm hit, he would be much better off in a place where he couldn't be easily buried. He didn't know if he felt so light and giddy because he had lost so much blood or because he was—for the first time in months—looking forward to taking a break from work. Would Ben have the time to share a meal with him some time? Maybe Wolf wouldn't mind a movie night after this, and Eagle could sniff them out some actual popcorn. And if Tom didn't mind a bit of a wait, he'd take him up on that football game he'd promised him way back when. If he could just get back to the base, Snake would have him looking like new again. Isn't that what he always did? Bloody miracle worker, that Scot was.

He wouldn't mind the fussing, the swearing, the friendly punches that still managed to bruise, the hair ruffling, the running tackles, or even the fact that not a bloody person in K-Unit knew how to cook a decent omelet. He wouldn't mind any of it, but first, he had to get over this wall. He wanted to get home and nothing, no one was going to get in his way.

Kindling Wonder

North shook off his last hesitation, tossing a final sack of presents into a small Brooklyn house before leaping into action. "Follow that light," he commanded of a snow globe, tossing it into the air as it began to show him his intended destination. He didn't glance back once as he drove his reindeer through the portal to a desert wonderland.

At first glance, nothing seemed particularly important about this stretch of sand until a large hole opened up several miles below him. North directed his reindeer to land nearby and Aster leapt out of his tunnel as it sealed up, leaving only a small desert flower to mark its location. "North! Don't ya have a holiday to be conducting?"

"Says bunny leaving Easter preparations behind," North boomed cheerfully back. His mood quickly turned somber. "A light extinguished for last two years has been rekindled, but I fear it is too bright to last long."

Before Aster could speak his mind, a burst of bright colors circled his head as fairies took perch on his ears. "He remembers!" cried a smiling Toothiana, but like North, her smile was two-sided. "He remembers, but the light is in such anguish for one so young." Her fingers twisted as nervously as her wings beat the air.

Sandy was at her side. His prior location had not been far from the Tooth Fairy's, as was common most nights. He was waving his arms, and when he had their attention, he kept his pictures short and to the point. "He dreams, but does not sleep."

"His hope was strong enough to wake me from my nap," Aster added. "I didn't even see the light until right before I left, and it takes quite a bit of belief to give me a jolt like that. It was almost lik… Ah hell."

Aster had noticed a flash of something bright in the sky, and when he covered his face with one large paw, the rest of the Guardians looked out to see what he had. North, of course, gave a loud "Jaa! Merry Christmas, Jack!"

The sprite had dropped down from the clear sky, riding the very air like it was his own personal ski slope, and when his bare feet skimmed the first dune, a thin layer of frost formed beneath it. A light flurry of snowflakes was swept past them on the next cool breeze moments before he dragged his long shepherd's staff through the air beside him to slide to a stop. Even then, his toes never quite managed to touch the ground. Like Aster, there was a rush of adrenaline raging through his veins the likes he had felt only once since becoming an immortal: when the belief of Jamie and his friends clicked in, and their own excitement flooded his being with a surge of power. "He wants to have fun," he explained, eyes wide as looked back at a point in the distance over his shoulder, "and he wants me to help." Jack whipped his head back to the group and seemed to bounce atop whatever invisible cloud nine he was being supported by. "What are you waiting for?" Without even waiting for a response he took off like a comet.

"This had better not happen every time he gets a new believer," Aster complained, sighing as Sandy nodded with faux seriousness. "Alright, the pull is strong enough that I can probably get us fairly close to the child." He thumped the ground with his foot. "We can come back for your deer, North."

"Deer!"

Kindling Wonder

It was exactly like he remembered from much further back, Ian hoisting him up to the first foothold before returning to man the rope. Well, it was a little different. For one, the tug on his waist wasn't the same and he didn't have the comforting upward pull from his uncle down below. His hand had tightened around hard, unyielding plastic that wasn't accompanied by the thrilling realization that he might accidentally pull too hard and send it tumbling back down to the starting block.

But climbing was a game nonetheless. The conditions were irrelevant. He had climbed mountains free hand before during one of his uncle's 'business trips' to France and become used to the lack of ropes. Heights weren't a problem. Rather it made the venture all the more apparent and breath-taking. Alex didn't turn to take in the view as he would have under normal conditions, but he could imagine how incredible the desert must look from this far up. Adrenaline shot through his veins as a breeze blew past his cheek, sharp enough to cut and cold as ice. It was a foreign feeling against the sunburns that he just knew were blistering by now, foreign enough to feel almost like a human touch.

That was something he'd gone awhile without too—actual feeling, mind you, not the like the mechanical handshakes and congratulatory thumps on the back that might have meant something if he weren't about to betray their trust and secrets. He'd been absent too long from friends and allies.

An unnerving cold settled in him. Alex didn't have to look down to know that he had already climbed a good distance up. Adrenaline could only take him so far. He settled his weight into a crevice by his hip, putting his weight on to the side that could hold it, and used precious time to assess the remaining distance above him.

Too far. He shook his head, but the cocky smirk never failed him. Much too far, but how else could he test his limits? How else would he ever know what he couldn't achieve?

Ben knew that he just couldn't stomach a lot of foreign foods. Some Indian spices gave him the worst of migraines, and he would never, ever be eating raw fish again.

Wolf had learned very, very early about his fear of heights. He was handling it better now—being in the Royal Air Force made it necessary—but he knew when to admit his weaknesses and request the lower altitudes.

Eagle's problems were less about the mentality and more about environment. Apparently, he had a particularly pleasant scent to dogs, birds, cats, large cats and, strangely enough, sharks. It took only two missions for him to learn that a) assignments didn't go smoothly when all the animals in the area wanted to stop by and check him out, b) there were these wonderful masking colognes that helped and c) the aforementioned scents were many things, but they weren't waterproof. Stealth still wasn't his strong point.

And then Snake, Snake had the most unfortunate of weaknesses: low stamina. For the average Scot, he was in great shape, but for an SAS operative, he was on the slow side. High intelligence, keen intellect, quick thinking and the mastery of an extensive number of languages (with the native accent, he always added) had kept him well-established in his unit despite complaints about his physical shape. "It's not like he's fat or asthmatic," Wolf was constantly repeating.

K-Unit never failed to remind each other of their failings, but it was just as much in jest as it was the whisper that followed even Roman generals after brilliant successes: memento mori*.

But it had never worked like that with Alex. Sure, they made plenty of comments about his age, but where he lacked in experience, he more than made up for it with the ability to quickly absorb information and skills. Additionally, everyone he had ever met had severely underestimated him simply because he was young. It wouldn't last forever, though, and he would have to acquire a new advantage.

He sucked in a breath as he pushed himself up into a better position. He had to stop reminiscing. It was a bad habit to get into every time he bled out heavily. Concentration is a necessity when hanging off cliffs without harnesses. Yet for the oddest reason, he couldn't help but feel like a five-year-old boy on his first rock-climbing wall again, apprehensive but excited, a little nauseous but steadily more comfortable as he ascended.

An odd feeling, but something of a comforting one as well.

Then a fairy flew past him.

Alex almost lost his grip, stumbling for a heart-stopping second but quickly regaining his balance. The rock face sliced into his hand. Hardly noticeable, but it still stung.

Okay. Recap.

He'd seen a fairy. Not a butterfly. Not a bird. Not a plane. Not a…whatever else flew in this area (which wasn't much). That had been a fairy. A fairy. Either he was going crazy—which, y'know, was a plausible theory between the stress of his job and blood loss—or there were little winged mythical creatures flitting around his head.

It was official. He was going crazy. Wolf would have a field day with this one.

There was no way the guys were prying this little nugget of wisdom out of him.

A hand tapped his shoulder. Not above him, or beside him. Behind him.

Alex took a deep breath in. Then out. In. Out.

When he had cleared his blood-lacking brains of fairy dust and reminded himself that no matter what was behind him, he had to hold on to the wall, he slowly turned. "What?"

A boy who looked to be the same age as himself stood behind him in the casual attire you would see on the average teenager inhabiting a cold country. He'd seen many such examples during winters spent in Scotland. Except none of those boys had been floating on half-frozen sticks a hundred meters above the ground. "Need a hand?" That explained it. Bloody kid was an American.

"Things to do, places to be," he said with a small wave. "I'm already terribly late as it is."

The boy on the floating stick smirked. "And leave me out of all the fun?"

Alex considered his options, of which there really weren't as many as he'd like. He could continue his original plan, which was hardly one to begin with, or he could go with this American and hope for the best.

There was hardly a choice there.

He rolled his eyes—bloody American teenagers and their toys—and grabbed the proffered hand. "Well in that case, I wouldn't mind a lift." It was somewhat impressive, he had to admit, that the kid managed to hold him up while still keeping the stick-thing steady. His eye made the slightest twitch when he realized that his new companion was a good head taller than him. Recalling his tightrope experiences (it was so wrong that he could pluralize that), he adjusted his feet and kept both arms loosely wrapped around the boy's chest. "So how fast does this thing go?"

"Fast enough to make you wish you had one of your own."

Alex chuckled before his senses were completely blown away. He completely forgot anything about the pain as he breathed or the sand storm building in the distance as the thrill of the ride astounded him. It was the equivalent of sky diving in the wrong direction, speed boating through the clouds, or maybe skiing without the necessity of bindings.

It was like being a child again on his first adventure.

Tears clouded his eyes as ice crept up his side, freezing skin and blood alike. The boy whooped as he sent the two of them into a short, controlled barrel roll. Alex laughed, relishing in the rare sensation of freedom. His arms tightened, and he rested his sunburned cheek against the shoulder in front of him. It was cold, like a comfortable ice pack, and he relaxed into the chilly grip.

He still needed to get the information to MI6, but he figured that everything had to come in its own time. Nothing potentially world-ending was going to happen in the near future (that he was aware of, anyway), and MI6 could give him some leeway, considering he'd practically done them a favor. Besides, he thought with a weary smile, K-Unit was going to handcuff him to their medical cot the moment he got back. Maybe this time he wouldn't mind so much.

Kindling Wonder

Jack shifted the light leaning against him. There was a subtle shift in his consciousness, like a sixth sense that informed him the teenager was sleeping. Not that he necessarily required the internal sensor. It was fairly obvious between the limp grip barely clinging to his sweatshirt and the dream dust that had begun to spiral its way close enough to sink into the teenager's once-blond hair.

"Jack!" He ducked to the side as a vision of sparkles and feathers shot past him. "You found him! Isn't he just the cutest?" Jack took the equivalent of a step back as a curious hand stretched out.

"Hands away from the mouth, Tooth. I just got him to relax. You can check out his teeth later."

Sandy sat on his golden manta ray just above them. Jack figured he was watching the shapes forming in the dream sand, though he must have seen some deeper meaning, because all Jack could see was a little boy playing soccer** with other kids and cheering with four taller figures, two of whom he assumed to be his parents. When the dream morphed, the adults around him were all male and the little boy had grown to almost reach their shoulders. It was the same game, but the adults were kicking the ball around with the boy this time. Despite the uneven match, they were all smiles and grins.

When the Sandman noticed his staring, he merely gave him a thumbs up.

"Jack," the winter sprite tilted his head backwards to better see Tooth, who was threading her fingers lightly through the believer's tangled hair, "Aster and North are on the ground. Of the Guardians, Aster has the most experience with healing injuries, though I don't know how many mortal children he's worked on.

Jack nodded. "Then we better get him down to the bunny." Tooth and Sandy each indicated their agreement.

Though the sprite and queen descended to meet the Pooka and Cossack, the Sandman made no motion to follow. A thoughtful look had crossed his face, small golden fingers tapping the flat head of his manta ray. Thin strings of dream sand flowed across the desert sky to resemble a pale yellow river trickling down a transparent brook, twisting in eddies and lapping at cloudy banks.

There was more to this than it seemed, he knew, something that put a teenager thousands of miles from home with terrible injuries in an inhospitable environment and returned a believer to them. Something was stirring that threatened one…maybe more of their believers. Perhaps it was what had taken a child's belief too early.

He feared that this situation was one purely of human affairs, which lay entirely outside of the Guardians' jurisdiction.

Kindling Wonder

Snake and Eagle were met with a not-entirely unpleasant surprise upon their return to base. Given that the medic was going off on another tirade about their supplies and the complete lack of nutrition in their food, anything at all could have been considered a welcome reprieve for K Unit and the four others bunking with them. Eagle was, in fact, just about to go cross-eyed as long, probably important medical terms began spouting through his ears when he tripped over a soft, thin object into Snake, sending them both tumbling inelegantly to the ground.

Flat on his back with a vein throbbing in his temple, Snake quietly, but quite firmly, asked, "Could you please get off me?" It wasn't really a question.

"Ow ow ow owwwww! I think I twisted my ankle," the soldier sprawled over him complained. "Or stubbed my toe or something, because I huuuurt." He didn't show any visible signs of moving, so Snake pushed him off with a hand to the face.

"And you had an elbow in my stomach. Next time you trip over your own feet, keep me out of it."

"It wasn't my feet," he mumbled, pushing himself off the ground to spit sand from his mouth. "I 'hink so'one lehft deir bags in de paf," Eagle added as he tried in vain to wipe all the tiny grains of dust from his tongue.

"A bag?" Snake stood, brushing his desert camouflage off and looking around for the item. "Why would someone leave their…"

"Deir wha?" He glanced up to see Snake frowning. The explosives specialist finally abandoned his task, spitting the last of the sand out as he tried to figure out what had caught his attention. "Is that a soldier? It isn't one of ours if he's out of uniform."

"He's on base, which means he's got the clearance," Snake reasoned, walking over to a robed form sprawled on the dirt path as if he had laid down to take a nap. "It's almost midnight, but you'd think that he'd at least grab a bunk. If one of the night shifts catches him, he'll be on kitchen duty for at least a month." He crouched down to look for a pair of dog tags or at least an ID badge, which a civilian would certainly have to wear in full view if they were on base for any length of time, when he happened to notice a pair of pale hands—cut up, bruising, dirty and smeared in blood—loosely wrapped around his midriff. "He's injured, Eagle. Get me a stretcher and make sure the evening doctor is still awake."

The soldier had just spun around to grab supplies when a rarely used profanity split the air. "What?" He ran back to lean over his shoulder. "Holy shit! Is that—?"

Snake nodded grimly as Eagle lifted the form up into his arms, putting one of his own hands tightly over the blood-stained ones. "Alex."

"When did he get back? We've had search parties all over the place for the last three days!"

The two rooms set aside for medical personnel on base was empty, the on-call night staff probably dozing in the rec center with their ring tone volumes turned up as far as they would go. It wasn't like they were expecting much worse than sunburns and razor nicks at this point. An operating table was cleared of the boxes of bandages and newspapers that had been stacked on it and Alex set lightly down on top of it, a sheet folded up into a makeshift pillow resting under his head.

"Eagle, I need you to grab Ben and Wolf," he said, pulling off the stained robe and grabbing a pair of scissors to cut off the izaar underneath. "From what I can tell, he's already lost a lot of blood. These look like they were made by bullets. I'll have to borrow an x-ray from another base to make sure shrapnel didn't bury itself into anything vital."

The soldier gestured from Alex to the door and back. "Uh, should I get one of the on-call nurses?"

"No, make sure we get Ben informed ASAP. He's been in a state of panic for the past few days. He might try to go out himself if he doesn't know Alex is here."

"Snake?"

His voice was hoarse and dry with sand inhalation, but it was familiar as always. The medic's eyes tracked down from the hand grabbing at his cargo pants to a pair of tired caramel orbs. Alex's free hand was rubbing at his eyes. "You're…awake." He noticed almost immediately that Eagle was about to speak, and sent him off on his chores with a wave of his hand. Eagle hesitated, but sped out. "How do you feel?"

"Mmm t'red. Think I could use s'me sleep. In a bed, y'know." The teenager wasn't entirely coherent, but it sounded less like blood loss and more like an overworked, exhausted spy. "S'ry, shoulda been back ages 'go." He let out a long, deep yawn, small tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.

"You don't appear to have hit your head, so I'll let you sleep. But first," he quickly amended, to Alex's dismay, "I need you to summarize what happened so I can treat you."

"Treat…?" Snake was about to take back those comments about blood loss and possible concussions when the teenager blinked. "Oh, no, they're fine. The fairies and that kid took care of it."

Last he recalled, Alex was type AB. Normally he would have just grabbed a bag of type O, but with such a healthy stock he could afford to be picky.

"N' then the Easter Bunny—Aster, I think—had this cream tha' felt so nice, 'specially on th' burns. You should get s'me," he solemnly suggested as Snake added severe dehydration to his treatment checklist.

"I'm glad you're doing so well, Alex, but I need to know how many times you were shot. You were shot, I assume?"

The teenager nodded, sand falling from his hair as he did so. He would definitely be getting a sponge bath at the very least once his wounds were stitched up and he wasn't as hesitant about letting him move. "Twice, a' think. Maybe a third, bu' tha' one was jus' a graze. Two d'finitely imbedded. Don' worry, Jack got 'em out. No m're bleedin'."

Repression of his former caretaker's death was probably a good indicator of either PTSD or heavy blood loss, if not an unhealthy mix of both. Snake nodded to say that he was listening as he grabbed gauze from the cot on the floor. "How'd you stop the bleeding?"

"I din't! Jack did." Snake turned in time to see him pulling up his cotton izaar and put his hands out to stop him—his wounds were clotting around the cloth, and he didn't have blood for a transfusion, heavy towels or antibiotics out yet—only to see something he certainly didn't expect. Despite having likely spent the better part the last three days either out in the desert or in minimal air conditioning, a layer of ice had somehow accumulated on his side and spread across his abdomen. For all the brain wracking he did, no explanations came to mind. Certainly no plausible ones. Yet the ice had been incredibly effective, clotting the wound in place of skin, slowing down blood loss and keeping infections from setting in, as far as he could see. He could clearly see both bullet wounds, as well as the makeshift stitches and pink butterfly bandages—with, yes, colorful butterflies on them—acting as a temporary treatment.

However effective this miraculous ice was, it was also in the process of melting, weeping a small amount of blood around the edges despite the bandaging job.

"Yes, yes I can see that," he remarked dazedly. This was certainly a first. "Umm, your friends did a good job, but I need to replace the stitching. The, uh, ice is melting too."

Alex hummed his agreement. "Santa said that would probably be the case."

This was officially the weirdest case he had ever even heard of, much less been present for. Alex was going to have plenty of explaining to do after he fixed him up.

But first…

Ben burst through the door. "WHERE IS HE?! Alex! Where the hell have you been?! Forget that, what the bloody hell were you thinking?!"

"Hey, Ben, did'ja know that Santa is Russian?"

…first, he had to get a hair dryer from god-knows-where. That ice was pretty thick.

*Memento mori is a short phrase that was supposedly whispered in the ears of Roman generals by servants when they came back from battles to large elaborate parades. It means, "Remember that you are mortal, remember that you will die." The reason was obvious. With subsequent wins came heightened pride and a decreasing effort to listen to the advice of others, to rely on others, and to stand above one's station.

**I hear your protests already. Yes, yes, it's football not soccer, but Jack's an American. Even up in New England, they still call it soccer. I don't care how much European influence he's had. And if he asks for some cooked potato slices, he's calling them fries. If you wish to furiously argue this point, send me a PM. Any flames will be used to make my own batch of crisps/chips/fries/wedges.