"Danny? Danny!? Are you there, boy!?" Jack yelled into the now dead phone. No answer came.
"Dad, the power's dead," Jazz stated the obvious.
"Not for long!" Jack's voice went from worried to determined, "Maddie, get the Fenton Emergency Generator running. I'm getting' the RV ready and goin' out to fetch our boy!"
"Jack, the roads are…" Jack had already ran out of the room, "…Never mind. Jazz, keep the fire going while I get the generator ready. I knew having a real fireplace would end up better than a gas one," and with that, Maddie headed down to the lab. Jazz walked over to the fireplace and threw on a few more logs, as the flame was starting to fade away. She had a feeling that, no matter how much firewood they put in there, she was going to feel cold tonight.
----
Jack pulled on his leather jacket and hat with earflaps before charging into the garage, almost breaking the door off his hinges. He also almost ripped off the door of the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle trying to climb in the car.
"I'm comin', Danny!" he shouted, shoving the keys into the ignition. Jack just remembered he hadn't opened the garage door and barely did so in time before the RV pulled out into the streets. The roads were filled with three inches of snow and increasing, and the winds were strong enough to rock around even the Fenton family's ghost-hunting vehicles. It was a small miracle Jack managed to get out off the driveway and into the street at all. Undaunted, Jack shifted gears and, for a brief moment, it looked as though he would be on his way. But the roads were slick and the snow made it almost impossible to see. Jack's over-determination and impatience wasn't helping things either. Soon Jack felt himself fly forward in his seat, the airbag shove up in his face, and the entire van shake. He'd crashed right into a lightpole, knocking it into the street.
"Darn these things!" Jack muttered into the airbag. More slowly than he had been coming out, Jack got the RV back into the garage.
----
Jazz sat by the fire, waiting to see if her mom could actually get the power back on in the house. She stared at the dancing flames, not really seeing what her eye was looking at. An image of Danny frozen stiff as board was stuck in her mind, and she could only get it out and look away from the fire when Jack came running into the room, tossing off his hat and coat.
"Hope your mother's able to get the Fenton Emergency Generator running," he puffed, "No way I'll be able to get Danny in this weather using the RV," just then, the doorbell rang. Hope spreading all through their bodies, Jack and Jazz ran to get it. It wasn't Danny, but the figure in their doorway looked as cold and miserable as Jazz had been imagining Danny. It was Mr. Lancer, still wearing his clothes from school that day and bluer than his normal shirt.
"A-A-Any c-chance I c-c-could come i-i-i-in?" he shivered, and he began falling into the house. Jack caught him and helped him over to a chair. He and Jazz both were disappointed he wasn't Danny coming back, but they couldn't let him stay out there.
"What happened, Mr. Lancer?" Jazz asked.
"I was picking up some food and on my way home when the storm started up. I lost control, sped down this street, and my car ran into a fallen lightpole in the middle of the road," he sneezed. Behind Lancer's back, Jack grinned nervously.
"Where's Danny?" Lancer sniffed. The dark, worried looks spread back over everyone's face.
"He's…out," Jack said.
"In this weather!?" Lancer jumped out of his chair and whirled around to face Jack, sneezing again.
"He went out before the storm hit," Jazz explained, "He was on his way back when we called him and then…the power went dead."
"Maddie's working on the Fenton Emergency Generator as we speak," Jack said, some hope coming into his voice, "If the house can get powered I can employ a little invention I prepared for just such an occasion! And Danny's resourceful. He's probably out of the forest already!"
----
Danny had just barely gotten far enough so that the bench he had been sitting on was out of sight. Even in his ghost form, walking with his back to the wind was almost impossible to accomplish without falling over again. It was growing harder and harder to see from all the snowfall, and the snow kept piling up in front of him. He hadn't worn any boots or snow pants; there had been no snow when he went out and he hadn't seen this coming. The snow was forced up his jeans and against his legs as he walked, and as it melted against his body it dripped down into his shoes, soaking his feet and freezing them along with everything else. It was times like this he had as much skill and control with his powers as Vlad did; he'd be able to stay intangible long enough to fly home. Now his scarf was coming loose, flapping around in his face. He stopped to grab at it, but a squirrel from the forest jumped off a nearby branch onto his shoulder, grabbed at the scarf, and ran off with it.
"Hey!" Danny shouted, "Come back here with that!" the squirrel ran off the plank and into the woods. For some reason, all logic, reason, sense, and need to get inside left Danny, and he went running after the little animal. Despite all the snow and wind, Danny was actually able to run after the squirrel pretty quickly. He soon found himself by a large tree which had a huge section of its trunk missing, high and deep enough for someone to sit in. It was facing away from the wind and snow, and there was actually still dirt visible around it. The squirrel was gone, but Danny's scarf was lying on the dirt. Danny just stared with his mouth half-open.
"Led to shelter by a squirrel," he looked up at the tree, trying to find the little creature. Something about this felt very out of the ordinary, like some other power was at work here. He quickly shrugged the feeling off.
"It's not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me," he said to himself. He picked up his scarf and sat down inside the trunk of the tree. It was still plenty cold, but the wind and snow were gone and he had a chance to relax a bit before continuing on.
----
Sam's dad paced up and down the length of the room. No one knew where Sam was or when she had left. This was always a minor crisis; they never knew what she might be up to alone; but the severity of this particular situation was unlike anything they'd dealt with in a good long while. Now the power was out, taking their gas fireplace with it. Everyone had gotten out warm clothes and was sitting down (except Mr. Manson) all shivering with cold and fear and trying to think of something. They had to find Sam! They stayed this way for quite some time (with all the clocks dead and no one having a watch, it was impossible to know for just how long) when an idea made its way into the twins's heads.
"Use our cell phones to call hers," they said together out of the blue. Everyone looked as though they had been hit with something heavy; it had taken them this long to think of something that simple?
"Give me the cell phone," their mother said. One of the twins handed one to her. She dialled Sam's number and put the phone to her ear. She could hear the ringing tone on the phone…and an actual ring coming from upstairs. Mr. Manson ran up to see where it was coming from. He soon came back downstairs, looking even colder than before. Sam's cell phone was in his hand, ringing.
----
Sam held her coat tight around her body, pulling the top up to partially block her face from the wind. Everything was blowing right at her, and she'd fallen over twice already. She had a long-sleeve T-shirt and black pants under her coat in place of her usual attire, but she was still freezing half to death. The snow was also went into her socks and melted down on her feet as she walked. She had to take very small steps with several seconds in between to keep from falling over again, which, even with this precaution, was becoming much harder to do. She had somehow managed to get out of the park and back into Amity, but it was a long way from home. She was in the "old market," as it was called; the oldest, poorest part of town one had to pass through to get to the park. It was a small piece of the city, but a depressive, gloomy one. Amazingly, it wasn't known for crime or violence or anything like that.
Sam walked down one street. Half a foot of snow had accumulated in the short time since the storm started. She slowed her progress down even more as an especially hard gust of wind flew out at her. She felt herself shift back in the snow. The wind kept up at this strong gust. Rather than fall on her back again, Sam dropped to her knees and curled up in a ball.
'Well this is a lovely evening,' she thought to herself. Even in her head, the words were ringing like sarcasm. She was shivering worse than ever and her breaths were becoming short, fast, and unhelpful. She honestly felt like she was going to die. It was the only thing she could think of. She was doomed.
"Need some help?" over the howling winds and with her head so low, Sam barely heard the words, but they got through to her mind, and were repeated, louder, "Do you need any help there?" she looked up. A shabby-looking man with a salt-and-pepper beard and battered, dirty winter clothes that looked as though they'd been thrown out years ago stood in front of her, a concerned look on his face. He was almost as dirty as his clothes, but there was an air of warmth that came out from him. Sam straightened herself out a bit more.
"Yeah, kinda," she called back.
"Well come on inside," he motioned over to an alleyway, "You can wait out the storm," he started back. Desperate to get out of the cold, Sam got up and followed after as fast as she could.
"Inside" turned out to be the alley itself. Three other people were in it already, tending to a small fire fuelled by paper. One with long blond hair and a beard sat up against the wall, a guitar in his lap. There was some canned food and a can opener near him and a few opened, empty cans off in a corner. Some old quilts and blankets were stacked up by the cans. It was still cold, but the fire helped and it was sheltered from the wind and snow. The man who had found Sam headed in, and Sam herself followed quickly, breathing heavily and still shivering.
"You look colder than ice," one of them, a short man with five o' clock shadow said, "How long have you been out here?"
"Over an hour," Sam gasped. The man who had found her grabbed a blanket off the stack and wrapped it around her.
"Well, it's not that much warmer in here, but at least there's no wind," he said, "I'm Greg. This is Bob," he pointed to the short man, "Jim," he pointed to a man leaning against the wall who looked a bit like Hayden Christensen, "and Joe," he pointed to the man with the car. They all nodded when their names were called.
"I'm Sam," Sam said, smiling slightly.
"Well, glad to know you, Sam," Greg shook her hand, "You hungry?" Sam felt her stomach growl. She never did get her snack before heading out. She nodded.
"Well, we've got…" Joe set his guitar aside and looked at the cans, "Evaporated milk, pumpkin, beans, spaghetti-Os, peas, soup, corned beef and…that's about it," he looked up. Sam shrugged. She really didn't care so long as it was something…and not meat.
"Corned beef alright? We've got the most of that," she shook her head, "Spaghetti-Os?"
"No little hot dog bits or anything in it?" she asked.
"Vegetarian, huh?" she nodded, "Nope, just the noodles and tomato sauce."
"Fine."
"Spaghetti-Os it is then," he grabbed for the can opener and a frying pan near the fire. Within a few minutes, Sam was scraping the food into her mouth with her hands, not the slightest thought of manners in her mind.
"You sure were hungry," Bob noted. Sam nodded.
"You guys live here?" she asked through bites at the food.
"Nah," Greg said, "This is more of a clubhouse. We were here when the storm hit and decided to wait it out. We were saving this food for Christmas," he nodded to the cans. Sam stopped eating there, remembering why she was out to begin with. All four of the men noticed.
"Holiday blues, huh?" Greg said sympathetically.
"For three years," Sam mumbled.
"Magic went out, huh?" Jim asked. Sam gave no answer, but it was easy to guess.
"It happens," Greg shrugged, leaning against the wall. Then, he suddenly laughed, "Remember that one Christmas a few years ago? We got that one goose, but somehow a firecracker got caught in some of the paper, and the whole thing went flying all over the place," all four of them cracked up at the memory. Even at the time, it had been funny.
"We were chasing after the pieces," Greg laughed, now turning to Sam to explain the situation, "and grabbing at the paper and running all over the place," he shook his head, wiping away a tear, "We just gave up, grabbed something at the Nasty Burger, came back here and played dominoes all day," Bob brought up another Christmas, one where, somehow, Joe's hand got caught inside the turkey and they had to destroy it to get it out, eventually playing a made-up game with the bones. Sam just listened and watched, feeling something she hadn't felt in years. All these Christmas stories, the atmosphere around this alley, the fond memories of the four men…these were all catastrophes! But the light way they had taken them, the ends of the stories, how they were laughing about them now…it felt so…warm. And not just any kind of warm; there was some sort of unexplainable magic added in. It felt like the way she thought Christmas was supposed to be before…before she gave up. Before she concluded it was impossible for anything to be like this. Before that defining moment in sixth grade when she had lost all connection with the holiday season.
Sam could well remember before then, thinking this was what was supposed to happen at Christmas. The closest she ever came to it was hearing about Danny and Tucker's Christmases when they went out together afterwards. Yet sitting here, in the presence of these men, she was beginning for the first time in years to start to feel a bit of regret about her choice to hate the holidays.
----
Danny was half-asleep, leaning up against the tree trunk. Snow and wind were piling up all around him, but he was safe from both where he was. He was still shivering a bit from the cold and his breathing was a bit raspy, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before. With a yawn, he made a half-effort to open his eyes and look out into the weather clearly. All of a sudden, a flood of memories seemed to break through a dam inside his mind, filling up his head and pulling him back several years…
----
The last few years in Amity Park had seen dry holiday seasons, but now, finally, they were having a white Christmas. The snow was coming down heavy and some roads had been closed off, but there was no wind. Five-year old Danny Fenton was now out in the streets, dressed warmly and ready for five fun-filled hours before the Fenton family Christmas dinner. As was Fenton tradition, gifts were saved for after dinner rather than in the morning. Despite how much the suspense was killing him, Danny had kept himself from trying to peak at any Christmas presents this year. He was now building up a snow fort. His dad had told him that, when there was a white Christmas, it was tradition to have an all-out boys vs. girls snowball war, and that this year the guys were bound and determined to get back for their humiliating defeat last time. He stepped back to take a look at his work so far.
"Too small," he concluded, and went back to work. It was true; it wasn't high enough or long enough to protect and hold the entire family.
"Danny!" Jack jumped outside, "How's the fort coming along?"
"Still too small, Dad," Danny said, not looking up from his work. Jack looked it over.
"Well you're doing a fine job building it up!" Jack smiled, patting Danny's shoulder, "That snowball war is ours! And, eh…" he dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned up real close to Danny, "I've got a bit of a secret weapon," he winked.
"What?" Danny whispered back.
"I modified the Fenton Ectoplasm Ray to be the Fenton Snow Ray," Jack slipped it out of his coat as if it were vital to national security and spies were all around them. It looked like a ray gun, because it was one. One that started with "Fenton!"
"I, uh, think your mother and Jazz are busy tryin' to put out another batch of cookies," Jack went on, "You wanna test it out?" Danny wasn't sure that was the best idea. His dad's inventions never seemed to work if they were being tested.
"Uh…" he started.
"Alright then, we'll do it!" Jack jumped up, firing off the ray gun. A jet of icy snow in ray form shot out into the street. It bounced off the window of the house across the street, flew up and off the front car window, shot off some ice on the road, and crashed into a lightpole, knocking it into the street. (Ironically, though Danny couldn't have known while recalling the scene, it was in the same spot as the lightpole Jack had knocked over that very night with the RV.) Jack and Danny stared at the sight in shock, completely silent.
"Think fast," Jack finally said, tossing the ray gun to Danny and running inside. Danny caught it and continued to stare at the lightpole, confused.
----
Danny found himself cracking up at the memory. The electricity company had come by later and towed the pole away, but no one ever figured out what had happened to it. Danny had finished the fort and in the snowball war Jack's ray actually did work, securing a male victory. Grandma Fenton had provided most of the food, which was delicious, and Danny had gotten some neat astronomy-related models and books. The kind of snow they'd had that year was the kind that made Christmas…well, Christmas. And for once, no negative thought, no ghost-related depression, no guilty feeling spoiled his good mood. He now looked out into the woods again. The snow had gone up to almost a foot and the wind was howling worse than ever.
"Whoa," he noticed, still a bit distracted from his new-found happy mood, "Time to head back," maybe that wasn't the best idea, but Danny looked at it this way; the storm was likely to keep getting worse, and he wanted to start back again before it was completely impossible to move. Besides, he did say he would be back by ten. Moving out of his little shelter and brushing the dirt off the back of his coat, he stepped back out into the storm, almost flew over, caught himself, and headed on.
----
Sam found herself joining in at laughing over the past Christmases of Greg, Bob, Jim, and Joe. Jim had just talked about one time when a dog had stolen their lamb and they were chasing after it for hours before deciding to pick up some salmon and call it a night. These four seemed to have the most unlucky and luckiest Christmas Days in the world.
"It was good salmon," Jim wiped away a tear, "No offence," he added to Sam.
"It's fine," she laughed. She found herself not really caring about her vegetarian views while listening to these four.
"Well, I've run out of Christmas stories," Greg said, still chuckling. The others agreed, "Joe, you want to play anything?"
"Sure," the long-haired man reached for his guitar, "What'll it be?"
"Anything," Greg shrugged.
"Alrighty then…" Joe thought, "I've got something," he tuned up his guitar and started to play…
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray
Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy
From God our Heavenly Father
The Blessed angel came
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings of the same
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by name
Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy
Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy
"Fear not," said the angel,
"Let nothing you affright
"This day is born a Saviour
"Of the pure virgin bright
"To free all those who trust in him
"From Satan's power and might"
Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy
Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy
And when they came to Bethlehem
Where our dear Saviour lay
They found him in a manger
Where oxen feed on hay
His mother Mary kneeled down
And to the Lord did pray
Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy
Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day…
"All right!" the other three men started clapping, and Sam found herself doing the same. With all the other commercial aspects around her all the time and modern pop song renditions filling the stations, she never did realise how nice these traditional carols sounded.
"Want another one?" Joe asked. Everyone quickly agreed that they did, "Alright then," he prepared to start playing, but everyone noticed that it had gotten even colder. The snow had been piling up so much that a bit of especially strong wind caused some of it to fall into the alleyway, falling onto the fire.
"Oh, dang it!" Bob moaned.
"You still got those matches?" Greg asked, kicking the snow off the fire.
"Yeah. We don't have that much paper left, though," Bob pulled out a few crumpled scraps from his pocket.
"We'll manage," the four men gathered near Bob, trying to get another fire going. Sam stayed where she was, the song still sinking in. She was feeling a bit of…guilt. Guilt for letting all the commercialism get to her all these years, guilt for being so hasty in her decision in sixth grade…even guilt for some of her rage at her family. Not for fighting with them, not for loathing their commercial look on the season, not for finding them overprotective, but for some of her unforgiving, unsettled fury she'd let out at them. And the "protective" part of "overprotective" stood out the most in her mind.
She still didn't want to see her family tonight. She didn't want to apologise. But she did want to talk with someone. Someone who knew about all her problems already. Someone with some of the same problems with the season this year…
'Danny,' she made up her mind. She set the blanket back on the pile and turned to leave.
"Where do you think you're going?" she heard Greg ask.
"Oh…I just…I kinda need to talk with someone. A friend," she didn't turn around.
"Does he live far from here?"
"I can get there," her decision defied all her usual reasoning and logic. With the way the storm had continued to pick up steam, it was almost suicide to go out in it. But she really felt like she needed to talk with Danny. Greg didn't answer for a while. Finally…
"Take the blanket with you," Sam reached for it and wrapped it around herself.
"Thanks," she said, and started to walk out.
"Merry Christmas," all four men called. Sam stopped for a moment. She turned around.
"…Merry Christmas," she nodded and smiled. Then she stumbled out into the streets, where the snow was approaching two feet, and kept on going, taking the same slow steps as before and feeling a bit warmer, both inside and out, than she had when she had left home.