A/n: I own not Naruto nor the fine work of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, this story is simply a working of my imagination after getting into the Christmas mood. Enjoy.
"Mr. Scrooge I presume?" Naruto said snidely walking up slowly to the brooding Uchiha as he stood shoulders stooped against the cold on the infamous bridge where Team seven met up for their training.
"Bah Humbug," Sasuke said playing along with the blonde.
Grinning like a fool Naruto looked around, "So where are your twin and Sakura?" he asked.
"He's not my twin… and Sakura is probably buying us something to eat and stay warm, you know how she is." Sasuke said rolling his eyes.
No matter how Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi called the two boys twins Sasuke refused to not deny it and go with the joke. I'm not related to Sai! Sasuke thought.
Naruto chuckled softly creating little puffs of condensed clouds from his mouth.
My how time had changed them now almost twenty they stood tall and were most definitely male, very male. Naruto had never lost his unique fashion sense or his sense of optimism, yet he had grown more mature and over all a better person.
Sasuke had, after returning to the village and seeing his brother's corpse ending his daily nightmare, grown more receptive to others. Although accepting Sai was a bit of an impossibility; that the painter was part of their team evermore would always be a point of annoyance to the soul remaining Uchiha.
"Good morning!" Sakura called merrily as she approached the two males. Over her shoulder was her infamous bag which had earned it the nickname 'Mary Poppins Bag' as she seemed to have everything and anything anyone could possibly want or need within it.
"Dear me, Sasuke, where is your twin?" she asked as she handed them each a cup containing the drink she knew they would prefer, for Sasuke black coffee, for Naruto hot chocolate, for Sai hot cider, for herself a warm chai., and for Kakashi Coffee with a dash of crème which she was putting into a thermos to keep warm for her perpetually late team leader.
"He's not my twin!" Sasuke growled sick of the comparison, but taking the coffee nonetheless grateful for it's warmth as he wrapped his hands around it.
Sakura stuck her tongue out at him as Naruto was busy eyeing the brown bag she had with her looking for something to fill his empty tummy. Seeing where his eyes were aiming Sakura opened the bag and passed Naruto a scone.
"What the hell is this?" Naruto said eyeing the baked good as if it were going to come to life and eat him. "It's a scone Naruto, there's cranberries and lemon in it." She saw his doubtful look and rolled her eyes as she added, "And Sugar, lots and lots of sugar." Seeing his eyes light up she had to suppress the urge to shove the pastry down his throat. She held one up in offering to Sasuke only to have it snatched out of her hands as Sai finally made an appearance.
"Thanks Hag," He smiled at her also taking his drink from the try beside her. Glaring madly she was about to launch an attack on the still smiling male when Sasuke walked up to her and took a scone from the slightly crumpled bag distracting her.
The next few minutes were spent in a moderately peaceful silence as the four of them enjoyed their breakfast. Finally finishing up Sakura set the last scone safely inside her bag away from Naruto's reaching hands for Kakashi to eat later when he showed up.
"Hey Sakura," Naruto began bored now that they had to wait for Kakashi before they began their training, though why was more of a tradition than anything else they were all jounin or higher. "What?" Sakura asked sipping on the last of her chai.
"You read a lot right?"
"Yeah…"
"So you know the Christmas Carol story right… the one with Scrooge and all right?"
"Well I've read it a few times yes why?"
"Tell it to us!" he demanded his blue eyes almost glowing with curiosity large and child like.
Not wanting to disappoint his she looked to the other two males asking their permission before she began to tell the story. Seeing two nods she settled herself against a tree as the three males arranged themselves in a row in front of her. Sakura bit her lip gently as she thought of how to begin the story. Finally taking a deep breathe she began.
"Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.
Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail."
Her rendition of the tale continued only interrupted a few times when Naruto would ask a stupid question, but the two dark haired males on either side of him would tell him to 'Not interrupt" and smack him upside the head. All three of the males felt a common cord among the story, Scrooge, like themselves, was alone with no family in the world.
"Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including-which is a bold word- the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven-year's dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change-not a knocker, but Marley's face.
Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.
He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said 'Pooh, pooh.' and closed it with a bang.
The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went."
The three males looked skeptical about the knocker turning into Marley, and were even more perplexed about Marley coming back to haunt Scrooge, even if it was only for one night.
"Hold on!" Naruto said, pulling away from the 'twins' before they could hit him again, "This is supposed to be a Christmas story not a Halloween story right?" He asked Sakura peering at her accusingly.
"Yes it is Naruto." Sakura answered looking at him weirdly too, hadn't he heard the story before?
"Then whys there ghosts? Huh, huh that's for Halloween right not Christmas." He stated crossing his arms and pouting slightly feeling jipped of his Christmas story, he had never actually heard the story in its entirety, he had only heard it was about Christmas and some guy who was anti-Christmas but got turned around by the end.
"Ugh, well… you've never heard this story before have you?" Sakura asked looking at him, she was surprised when Sai and Sasuke shook their heads too and admitted that this was the first time that they had heard the story too. Unknown to them, up in a tree behind them Kakashi also was hearing to the story for the first time.
Sighing gently Sakura explained the story was not only about Christmas but about morals and treating other people nicely not just around the holidays but all year long; that the ghosts were just aiding in the fact that Scrooge was learning that his actions and selfishness was hurting others in a way that could have serious repercussions later.
Having explained that too them she continued with the story…
Scrooge had met all three ghosts, he had gone back and forward in time, he had witness the loss of his sister Frany, and the loss of Belle, the love of his life all over again before Sakura paused to take a breathe and gather her thoughts.
"Oh come on Sakura you can't stop there! He just found out he had died… that's not fair what happens next?!" Naruto yelled only to yelp as two hands connected with his skull.
"I'm getting there don't worry." Sakura soothed mildly surprised by their obvious enthrallment in the story. Smiling at them she continued.
"Then he awoke."
"Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!
'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!' Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. 'The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!'"
She smiled loving this part of the story where Scrooge was finally repenting after all of the horrible this he had done. With a lift in her voice she finished the story telling of the surprise of the Cratchit's and his nephew. And finally…
"He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!"
"The end." Sakura said gently looking at the three males faces as they contemplated over the whole story. Standing she dusted off her legs and looked out on the field covered in pure white snow.
Hopping out of the tree Kakashi walked up to the group taking his drink and the scone from Sakura gratefully, he then turned and told them that training was cancelled and to enjoy their time off.
All four teens stared at the thirty year old man in disbelief, even now they still sis not understand the way his mind worked sometimes. Rolling their eyes they gathered their stuff and began to make their way back to the village.
"Hey Sakura," Kakashi called. The pink-haired medic turned back looking to him. "Yes sensei?"
"That was a good story." He grinned beneath his mask before disappearing with a poof of smoke. A frown found Sakura's face as she tried to make any sense of his statement only to hear Sasuke call her to follow them, it seemed he was going to pay for them going out to eat… after all he didn't really want to be Scrooge.
The end.