Dark Prospects

Disclaimer: Sorry I forgot to put this on chapter 1. I own nothing except Noel, which is really sad since Noel is being an evil psychopath at the moment…

Kanna: Thank you for reviewing! You probably won't like Noel for a while, but you'll find out why she's so irritating later I promise. If it's any consolation, my muse hates her too… She'll get better. *sinister laughter comes from no where in particular*

MTG: ^_^ Thanks. I'll try not to be one of those people who start fics and then leave them with one or two chapters, but my teachers all hate me and try to kill me with homework so no promises. Sorry.

Criminally Insane: _ Shut up, Amanda. No one cares what you say. And you owe me 20 dollars now.

isadora quagmire: Thanks! If I'm not crushed under the weight of my math homework I will update reasonably fast.

Chapter 2: Kill Her and Make It Look Like an Accident

Bernard sighed. An entire hour of wishing ill will in Noel's general direction and she hadn't disappeared yet. Why had Santa agreed to let her stay, anyway? She was human! Humans don't just randomly decide to stay at the North Pole. Surely there was some kind of rule against it? What was wrong with just dumping her outside in the snow? No one would care.

And that wasn't an exaggeration. The girl was so horrible to all the elves that most of them just ignored her completely. Unfortunately, she seemed perfectly content with that and showed no signs of wanting to leave.

Only Judy could stand to be in the same half of the North Pole as her. She was almost sickeningly nice to Noel for reasons Bernard couldn't even begin to fathom. His work had allowed him not to have to see her very often for the last week, but every time he did he had to resist the overwhelming urge to tie her to one of the more churlish polar bears.

Today she was being particularly annoying.

"You should eat something. You look like you haven't eaten in a while." Judy said carefully, trying vainly not to provoke her.

Noel turned to her and glared coldly. "Just because I don't eat every scrap of junk food I can get my hands on, doesn't mean I eat too little." She glanced specifically at some of the more stout elves as she said this.

Judy sighed softly. "All right, but if you'd like something later, just ask me."

"I never said I wasn't hungry. I just said I don't eat too much." Noel replied sourly.

Forcing herself to smile, Judy asked patiently. "What would you like? We have cookies, cocoa—"

"You have anything less… sweet?" Noel wrinkled her nose in disgust. Today she wore a much nicer outfit that Santa had most likely, borrowed from one of the elves for her. Probably Judy, as the two were roughly the same size. It was dark green and very pretty, but it was slightly too small and showed how starved she really was. Did she eat at all? "Like a piece of bread or something."

As much as he would have loved to be anywhere else, Bernard really was hungry, having already skipped breakfast in favor of helping out Santa in the wrapping department. "Judy, may I have some cocoa please?" He asked warmly, walking over to the two.

She smiled gratefully at the Head Elf and nodded. "Yes, of course. I'll be right back." She turned and quickly fled the room.

In Judy's absence, Noel turned to him. "How can you stand all that sugar?" Her voice was thick with distaste.

Bernard considered just ignoring her, but decided against it. "I'm an elf. We like cocoa." He said shortly.

"Well I think some of that cocoa seeped into your brain rendering you incapable of intelligent thought." She replied.

"You think? Isn't that an oxymoron?" He couldn't help it. She got on his nerves.

What would most likely have been a scathing retort was cut off when Judy reentered the room. She handed each of them what'd they'd asked for and made a rather unbelievable excuse to leave.

Bernard didn't bother coming up with a lie. He just left.

"She's crazy! And she's trying to take the rest of us down with her. Sir, she can't possibly stay." Bernard came dangerously close to begging.

Scott sighed. "And what would you have me do, Bernard? Throw her off the sleigh into the Atlantic? Don't answer that." He added, knowing what answer he would receive.

Curtis spoke up. "Sir, I think she's criminally insane. We can't allow her to stay here. She'll steal all the toys and ruin Christmas!"

Santa fixed the younger elf with a look that clearly said something like, 'You're one to talk with all that "Santa Clone" business last year' and sighed. "She hasn't shown any remote interest in stealing toys, and I don't like her any more than the two of you, but since she won't tell us where she lives we have no other choice than to keep her here."

"Do you always make a habit of talking behind people's backs?" Came an icy voice from the door.

"Do you always make a habit of eavesdropping?" Bernard countered, unabashed.

Noel shrugged. "I never regret it."

Bernard sighed. This girl would be the death of him.

~

A/N: The first few chapters are really boring, but I need to make Bernard REALLY hate Noel before the rest of the story can happen. L Sorry.

Noel is extremely two-dimensional at the moment and she probably will be for a while, but not forever. She is really terrible too, but she has a good reason, which you'll all find out later when she's not just an irritating human anymore.