"Take mine." (Kes, Tom, EMH, Zimmerman)

AU: "The Nutcracker"

/

"This must be the ugliest doll I've ever seen. What do you think?"

Her younger brother's drawling voice startled Kes out of her thoughts. She had been looking up at the Christmas tree, watching the candles flicker and breathing in the scent of pine, but now she glanced over to see what had Tom so amused.

He was holding up a wooden nutcracker, which he had just unwrapped. It really was a peculiar-looking figure, with bulging eyes, a flat nose and a mouth that stretched from ear to ear, but his military uniform was meticulously neat, from the gold buttons on his indigo coat to the polish on his black boots, and there was something appealing about his face. At fourteen, Kes would have thought she was too old to think of toys as alive anymore, but something about those big, dark eyes made her imagine a look of sadness in them.

She shook her head to clear it of daydreams and frowned.

"I don't think he's ugly, exactly. He's not handsome, but I like the way he looks."

"Children, mind your manners," their mother's commanding alto voice came from the sofa by the fire. "Your Godfather Zimmerman carved that nutcracker for you himself."

Ludwig Zimmerman, who was sitting next to her with a glass in his hands and a sardonic smile on his face, chuckled. "Oh no, I'm not offended," he said. "He's no beauty, that one. Takes after me too much."

Mark and Kathryn Johnson exchanged quiet smiles, and Kes could see why. The little nutcracker and the old man really did look strangely alike, except that (in Kes' opinion) the former in his uniform was better dressed and had a friendlier expression.

"Pass me the nuts, Mama, please? I want to see him in action," said Tom, jumping up with the toy still in one fist. He had already eaten enough roast carp, potatoes, oranges and sugar plums for someone twice his size, but his appetite, like his energy, was boundless. Kes did not envy her mother the task of sending him to bed tonight.

"Put the shells back in the bowl. I don't want them on the carpet." Mrs. Johnson handed over the bowl of nuts, and Tom used the nutcracker's moveable jaw to crack them one by one.

For a while, the evening was peaceful, broken only by the occasional cracking shell and the adults' laughter as they drank their mulled wine and caught up on each other's lives.

"So, how is your son coming along in his studies?" asked Professor Johnson. "I was hoping he would join us tonight."

"Not well, I'm afraid." Zimmerman's brow was furrowed. "He's clever enough, but his swordsmanship is a disaster. I'm beginning to wonder if he'll ever make it in the army when he's older."

"And what of that?" Johnson asked mildly. "Not every man is cut out for military life. I certainly never was."

"You English don't understand." Zimmerman waved away his friend's argument with an impatient hand. "A Prussian gentleman's son must prove himself as a soldier if he is ever to rise in the world. I worry about him … more than you know."

He said that last so softly that Kes, who was curled up on the rug near his end of the sofa, was possibly the only one who heard him. Personally, she thought war sounded like a terrible thing. She hoped that young Master Zimmerman - whom she had never met, but knew by reputation - would make up his own mind when it came to choosing a career.

"When I grow up," Tom chimed in. "I want to go to sea."

"And so you will, I'm sure," said Professor Johnson, smoothing the child's blond hair with mingled pride and anxiety for his future, "But not for a long time yet."

Mr. Zimmerman sighed, shook his head, and changed the subject to a mechanical problem he was working on. He was a civil servant by profession, but he made clocks as a hobby, and often gave them away as gifts. There was an entire miniature city of clocks, music boxes and other devices in a glass-fronted cabinet on the wall.

Kes held his latest creation on her lap, a snow globe that played a gentle waltz when she wound it with a key. Inside the globe, tiny swans floated in a lake filled with blooming water lilies. She lost herself in daydreams, imagining that she was small enough to walk in that landscape. She could almost smell the lilies and feel the snowflakes brush her face.

A crack-snap and a disappointed "Aww!" from Tom broke her concentration once again.

While trying to crack an oversized hazelnut, he'd broken the nutcracker's jaw. He pouted, like he always did after breaking a toy, but a broken toy was not what Kes saw. Real pain contorted that small wooden face. Her own jaw ached in response.

"Tom!" she gasped, but another voice drowned her out.

"Thomas Eugene!" Mr. Zimmerman could be short-tempered, but Kes had never heard him shout like this before.

"But sir, he's built to crack nuts," Tom retorted. "What kind of a soldier can't even follow orders? Hre, let me try again."

He picked up the nut that had caused the damage. Mr. Zimmerman slapped it out of the boy's hand, and it rolled under the table..

"And what kind of a general sends a wounded man back into action? Shame on you!"

"Have a care how you speak to my son, Ludwig," Mrs. Johnson said, a warning edge to her voice as she put a hand on Tom's shoulder. "He should have been more careful, yes, but after all it's only a toy."

"Only a - if you had any idea - "

The clockmaker paced in an agitated circle, running a hand over his face. He had always been protective of his creations - Kes hadn't been allowed to touch any of them until she turned thirteen - but this was something else altogether.

Quietly she stood, placed the snow globe she was holding into the cabinet with the others, and laid a hand on Mr. Zimmerman's arm.

"It's all right, Godfather," she said in her most soothing voice. "You can put him back together again, can't you?"

"Hmm?" He pulled himself together with visible difficulty, blinking at her from behind his monocle as if he needed to remember who she was. "Oh yes. Yes. I suppose so. Tom, get the glue."

With a remorseful look at the broken nutcracker lying on a cushion, Tom ran out of the room at top speed to fetch the glue he used for building his model ships.

"Now all we need is, ah, something to tie the pieces back until the glue sets. A handkerchief, or … "

"Take mine." Kes pulled out a white linen handkerchief from the pocket of her pinafore.

"Thank you, my dear." Mr. Zimmerman smiled and squeezed her hand between both of his for a moment before taking the handkerchief. "You are very kind."

Mrs. Johnson gave her daughter an approving look over the old man's shoulder. Evidently, though she didn't understand why anyone would be so upset over a toy, she appreciated the way Kes had calmed their guest down.

Once Tom came back with the glue pot, the operation did not take long. Mr. Zimmerman's hands, always skilled, were especially precise tonight as he used a small brush to apply the glue and set the broken jaw back in place. Kes held the nutcracker still, and if she felt a beating heart underneath his painted coat, she told herself it was nothing but the pulse in her own fingertips.

"I'm sorry, sir," said Tom in a small voice as he watched them work. "I didn't mean to break him."

"I know, my boy," said Mr. Zimmerman. "But I think your sister should look after him from now on. Will you, Kathryn?"

He was the only one who ever called Kes that. She was named after her mother, but growing up in Berlin, none of the neighborhood children had been able to pronounce the English name correctly, and so her nickname had stuck. Kes felt very grown-up when her godfather addressed her this way, as if he were trusting her with a very important charge. She picked up the nutcracker and cradled him in her arms.

"I will, sir. I promise."