Mac grinned and sipped at his Yule punch, his free hand toying with the brand-new necklace around his neck, a silver version of the crest of the Order of Engineers, the mark of an apprentice, gifted to him by the Queen.
The castle's inhabitants didn't usually do Yule gifts of much note (foodstuffs, homemade trinkets or flowers were popular gifts exchanged), since they had been stuck in the castle for 200 years; they'd largely run out of ideas for gifts, but since it was Mac, Bozer and Riley's first Yule, they'd gotten some pretty substantial gifts.
Mac was also wearing his second gift, a brand-new brown leather Engineer's coat, which Beth had sewn.
Riley had been gifted a book of magic, and was wearing a very beautiful dress with intricate embroidery, sewn by Bozer with input from her in the design process.
Bozer, meanwhile, had received a brand-new frying pan (his, as attached as he was to it, was quite battered), plus several custom kitchen utensils that Mac and Michael had put together for him. He also now possessed a letter from the Queen naming him the official Cook of the castle.
Riley made a gesture, and Mac's modified musical instruments changed from playing Yule carols to music for dancing, and Mac gave a fond little shake of his head when the teenage girl shot him a look.
That's my cue to implement Plan H.
Yes, we're up to H.
He finished his punch, then walked over to Jack, who was talking to Cage and Matty.
Mac leaned over and spoke quietly to the older man, gesturing towards Patricia, who was talking to Michael and Caitlyn.
'Why don't you ask her to dance, Jack?' He paused. 'I'll…I'll ask Beth if you ask Patricia?'
Jack turned his head and shot him a look, shaking his head and muttering under his breath, something about Mac being hopeless.
However, he nodded and handed his goblet of punch to Matty, with a request for her to look after it.
(Mac briefly wondered whether that was a good idea; he had a sneaking suspicion that Matty might spike it…)
Jack then cuffed Mac lightly on the shoulder, gesturing to where Beth was laughing at something that Bozer had said.
'Don't you dare chicken out, brother.'
(A little part of Mac really did want to chicken out – he was a terrible dancer – but this was for Plan H. Riley would be furious with him, as would Bozer, if he chickened out.)
(Besides, it was all towards the goal of breaking the curse, and he'd promised Beth, after all.)
(And he did really want to dance with her.)
So, he smirked and shook his head at Jack, pointing at him.
'Not going to. Don't you dare chicken out.'
As the two of them walked off to prove that neither of them were going to chicken out, Matty and Cage just exchanged knowing smiles that were almost smirks, Matty's closer to a smirk than Cage's.
Cage then waved a hand and a metal flask appeared and started pouring a healthy measure of liquor into Jack's punch.
Matty's smirk widened.
Riley grinned, an expression that was almost a smirk, as she and Bozer watched Plan H come to fruition.
Bozer, too, grinned and held out a fist to Riley, who bumped her own to it.
'Plan H was an awesome idea, Riley.' He pointed at her. 'It's totally inspired the latest chapter of my new story! I'm giving you credit, of course.'
Riley gave a snort and shook her head, a rather fond gesture.
(Bozer's writing was…interesting.)
'Is this the one with the undead?'
Bozer crossed his arms.
'Yeah. Don't be a hater!' He huffed. 'No-one appreciates true creative genius when it first arrives on the scene, but time will tell, Riley, time will tell!'
She nodded slowly, sceptically, an eyebrow raised, but didn't say anything more and just drank the rest of her punch.
Then, she grabbed Bozer by the elbow.
'Come on, let's dance.'
As Riley tugged him onto the dancefloor (well, would have tugged if he was offering any resistance whatsoever…), Bozer just smirked.
'Did I tell you about the time I won me and Mac's town's dancing competition? Well, I would have won if Donnie Sandoz hadn't tripped me in the middle of it, but…semantics…'
A piece of mistletoe appeared over Jack and Patricia's heads as they danced, completely out of thin air.
It followed them around, too, as they moved.
It also took them five minutes to notice.
(Cage and Matty, sitting at the table, drinking punch and eating Bozer's delicious gingerbread, just gave knowing smirks that no-one except Jill noticed.)
(Everyone else was very distracted.)
Eventually, Patricia gestured upwards with a slight, subtle nod of her head, and Jack, being Jack, looked up, rather obviously.
He chuckled and shook his head fondly.
'The kiddos ain't gonna let up, are they?'
Patricia, too, gave a little smile that he knew to be fond, shaking her head slightly.
'No.'
'Well, gotta give them points for trying.' They kept dancing for a moment longer, then, slowly, a smirk spread across Jack's face. He leaned forwards to whisper in Patricia's ear, and when he leaned back again, she simply quirked an eyebrow at him. Jack gave her his most winning grin. 'Come on, Patty, it's Yule!'
She smiled as wide as she ever did, then lifted a finger.
The charmed mistletoe over their heads disappeared, and reappeared over Caitlyn and Michael's heads.
The enchanted piece of mistletoe lowered itself downwards, waggling, until it reached the top of a previously-oblivious Mac's field of vision.
He stumbled slightly in his dancing, which made Beth stumble too. He mentally kicked himself and reassured himself that he'd at least caught her, while she looked quizzically up at him (Mac wasn't a particularly talented dancer, but he was very coordinated and agile, so while he lacked rhythm and finesse, stumbling was very unexpected), and her eyes caught on the mistletoe.
Her eyes widened a little, and her cheeks pinked, while his ears burned under his hair. After a rather awkward moment of staring at each other, Beth gave an awkward little half-shrug, then tilted her head to the left and pointed up at the mistletoe.
'Why would the Norse choose a poisonous, parasitic weed as a symbol of friendship? It really doesn't seem to be a sensible or logical choice, symbolically…'
He laughed.
'You know, maybe there's a really good story there.'
'One Viking saved another from mistletoe poisoning?'
She sounded half-considering, half-sceptical, which made his smile widen a little, and he shrugged.
'Legends often start small.'
She nodded.
'True.' Then, she fell silent for a moment, looking up at him, the flush on her cheeks darkening. 'I suppose no matter how it started, it is tradition, so…'
She reached up and kissed his cheek, gently and shyly, her own cheeks pinking further. He grinned, probably stupidly, but found that he didn't really care.
My grandfather always said that the best Yule gifts were the immaterial gifts.
Spending time with your loved ones, singing carols by the fire, getting caught under the mistletoe with that someone special…
Now, when I was a boy, I agreed with the first two.
The third, not so much.
Well, Grandfather, I get it now.
Riley gave a snort of laughter and shook her head, then something in her peripheral vision caught her eye. She tapped the back of Bozer's shoulder with her fingers.
'Boze…Plan J kinda backfired.'
She motioned upwards to the floating piece of mistletoe.
Bozer's eyes widened quite comically, and he instantly removed his hand from her waist and let go of the hand that he was holding with his other hand, holding his hands up instead.
'We don't have to if you don't want to…I mean, pshaw to tradition, we're hip, ground-breaking trailblazers!'
Riley snapped her fingers as Bozer kept rambling on about being cool and innovative and the importance of consent and the fact that they were friends and he was definitely cool with that, and the mistletoe disappeared, then waved her hands, and she and Bozer disappeared from the Great Hall, reappearing in the nook where they'd eaten their very first breakfast in the castle.
(She'd finally managed to nail teleportation to places that she was familiar with, but didn't have a line of sight to, and just two days previously, had managed to transport Patricia with her.)
'Bozer, stop talking.'
He did, immediately, looking around as he took in their new surroundings.
She could tell that it was on the tip of his tongue to start complimenting her on her awesome magic skills, as he'd put it.
With a surprisingly almost-slightly-shy smile, she grabbed his collar and kissed him.
Very late that night, after the celebrations had ended, Jack escorted his lady back to her chambers.
(He'd been raised right by his mama, thank you very much.)
Just outside her door, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, very sweetly.
(That surprised him – Patty was many things, and nowhere near as cold as all those horrible legends suggested, but sweet wasn't something he'd expected, not at all…)
'Happy Yule, Jack.'
There was a soft, fond little smile on her face, and he smiled that same smile back at her.
'Happy Yule, Patty.'
Patricia lifted a finger, and the pot of hot chocolate flew over and re-filled Jack's mug.
He grinned and raised it to her in a toast of thanks, then resumed leaning on the low stone wall of the laundry courtyard, watching the youth of the castle toast 'marshmallows' around the fire, a happy, fond smile on his face.
(Beth and Bozer had made 'marshmallows' last week, by combining dried mallow root, sugar, egg whites and water, in a reproduction of a type of medicine described in a very old book from Egypt. The 'marshmallows', Jack had discovered, were just about the only delicious medicine he'd ever taken, though Beth and Caitlyn were both sceptical on their medicinal properties.)
(It had then been discovered by Mac, quite accidentally, that they were even better toasted over an open flame.)
(He, like everyone else in the castle, had been given a couple to try on a plate by Beth and Bozer, but he'd promptly forgotten about them while he was working on his latest project. The project had caught fire, and before he knew it, Mac had accidentally toasted his 'marshmallows'.)
Jack sipped his hot chocolate, then glanced at Matty (standing on a raised patch of earth that had appeared, courtesy of Patricia, as soon as she'd stepped close to the wall, so she could rest her elbows comfortably on it), who had a similar smile to his on her face too.
(Even she sometimes forgot how young her apprentice was. Cage was twenty, barely into adulthood herself, but even before the curse, she'd been acting like an adult for far too many years. It warmed Matty to see her light-hearted and youthful, using her magic to put out a burning 'marshmallow', laughing and teasing with the others.)
Michael, drinking his own hot chocolate on Matty's other side, was recounting the tale of how Mac had accidentally toasted 'marshmallows' (with great and detailed descriptions of the thingamajig that the blonde had been building at the time, his voice full of pride) to his wife (who had heard it twice already, but had always been very indulgent of what Jack saw as her husband's mild insanity).
Jack's smile widened a little as he glanced back at the rather chaotic scene in front of them (Mac and Bozer were, for some reason, having some kind of swordfight using their 'marshmallow' toasting sticks, while all four girls exchanged eye-rolls and very exasperated looks that were also fond).
He glanced back over at Patricia, who had something very soft, very fond, almost-warm in her eyes, matching the small smile on her face.
Jack had absolutely no idea why (and he barely remembered doing it), but his hand, resting on the stone wall, slid along it slightly towards hers, just close enough that their pinkies touched.
She didn't pull her hand away.
'No.'
Patricia stared at the image in her crystal ball, willing that her eyes were deceiving her.
But they weren't.
She knew that.
For 200 years, she'd known that it was possible something like this could happen.
Her castle was home to many, many magical artefacts. Truly powerful ones.
Ones that some magical practitioners would kill to possess.
But as every year had passed, she'd thought it less and less likely that an attack would come to pass.
Fewer and fewer people knew of the castle's location and its magical contents, after all.
But unlikely wasn't impossible, as she knew every well.
This wizard who called himself Murdoc was on his way. He would arrive in a few hours.
He was amoral. He longed for power. He was very, very powerful. Maybe more than she was. Maybe even more than Riley was.
And he would not stop until he got what he wanted.
She looked over at the man sitting in his favourite armchair. His feet were no longer up on his favoured footstool, as he'd straightened up and grown serious the moment she'd seen Murdoc in the images, having read the gist of them by what little had flitted across her face.
'We got a problem, don't we, Patty?'
'We're meant to protect you, Patty. I'm meant to protect you! I swore it, you're my Queen!'
Alone in her study, Jack and Patricia argued, as Matty supervised the construction of additional traps and defences, both magical and not, around the castle.
Her Captain of the Guard argued that she should stay in her study (the most secure chamber in the whole castle, as that was where all the powerful magical artefacts were kept), let him and the other inhabitants of the castle protect her, as was their duty, as was his duty.
She argued that she should fight, too, to defend herself, her home, and her people.
(She also suspected that, with Murdoc's power, without her aid, they'd not stand much of a chance.)
'I'm hardly a Queen anymore, Jack.' He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head. 'It's the truth.'
'That don't change our oaths, Patty, it-'
She reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, which at least had the effect of startling him enough that he fell silent. She looked up ever-so-slightly into his eyes.
'It's never just been about duty to you, Jack. You protect the people who matter to you, the people you love.' She paused. 'Let me do the same.'
They stared at each other for a long moment, then Jack nodded.
'Just…just be careful, okay, Patty?'
She, too, nodded, squeezing his wrist lightly for a moment.
'You too.'
'Mac.' Beth reached out and caught his arm as he finished assembling a trap with a nod to her father (to whom she'd been talking quietly), and held out one of her darts to him. 'It's a potion that will dull magic.' She bit her lip. 'I don't have much of it, and he's so strong that it won't be enough to suppress his magic completely, but it should buy you some time…'
She'd already given one to everyone else who didn't have magic (except Jack; she had one more left for him, but hadn't been able to find him yet).
He took the dart and carefully put it in one of the pockets of his Engineer's coat, then reached out and took her hand for a moment, squeezing gently.
'Thanks.'
Riley buckled her knife belt around her waist, checking that each of the knives was in its proper place, as Bozer attached his club to his belt, and, for good measure, that trusty old frying pan that he'd quite spectacularly and heroically used on that man-at-arms months and months ago.
They stared at each other for a long moment when they were both done, before Bozer spoke.
'A year ago, I could not have imagined that this is where I'd wind up.'
Riley gave a snort.
'Yeah, me neither.'
'But I wouldn't change it for the world.'
There was a little smile on his face when he said that, and Riley smiled back, then kissed him on the cheek.
'Me neither.'
'Mac, can you promise me two things?'
Michael spoke as he and Mac finished putting the final touches on the latest in a long series of traps (this one involved their flying machine – which still wasn't quite where they wanted it to be, but it was good enough for this trap), nodding to Cage to magic it into place on the Entrance Hall's large crystal chandelier.
Mac simply nodded, already having a very strong suspicion as to what his mentor was about to ask of him.
'Promise me that you won't let our craft die.' His expression softened, even as a little, wry smile appeared on his face, coupled with something in his eyes that seemed to wish they were having this conversation at another time. 'And care for my daughter. Be there for her.'
The implication of his requests, that Mac execute these promises if he survived, but the Engineer did not, was unspoken.
Mac nodded again, his gaze holding the older man's.
'No matter what happens, I promise.'
'There's no-one else I'd rather be trapped in a castle with for 200 years…' Jack, standing on top of a table as he gave the rallying, inspirational pre-battle speech he'd insisted upon delivering to all of the castle's motley crew of defenders, teasingly gestured to Mac. 'Except you, son, 'cause you're too crazy to spend more than a couple of years anywhere with.'
There were several snorts, including from Mac, who also shook his head.
'Yeah, I couldn't put up with more than a couple of years of your habit of constantly talking my ear off either, Jack.'
Jack's expression then turned more serious, as he surveyed everyone before him, his family, again.
'Ain't nobody I'd rather fight alongside either.'
'The feeling's mutual, Jack.'
That was said by Matty, who had a small smile on her face.
As they broke off into their pre-assigned groups for the fight, Bozer nudged Jack with his elbow.
'See? She really does like you!' A smirk appeared on his face. 'But she said she liked me first!'
AN: Apologies for the 'choppy' nature of this chapter, with the two halves being so very different…it was either do this, or have a really unbalanced pair of chapters, one very short, and one very long, so…
Yes, in this AU, Bozer invented the zombie genre.
