A/N: Howdy, folks. Now, this chappie is going to be a mix of everything. Basically everything anyone loves in a fanfic thrown in and mixed together. After reading this, you'll think that I just got out of a focus group meeting. You'll probably think that the only thing I lacked was a grumpy-yet-lovable chimp in a suit.
Well, I had that, too. He's called the Spy.
*ba dum tss*
*crickets chirping*
Uh...yeah. Special thanks to ChaosandMayhem for the beta work. Now enjoy!
Ullapool, Scotland, Christmas Eve, 1944
"Are you sure about this, Sergeant Thompson?"
"I'm only sure that this child is the next step to blowing the Fritz out of our great country."
"But, Sir! He's…he's…Scottish."
"Nonsense, Private Pankhurst. He and I live by the same rules of our Queen. The boy lives a bit more north, but in the end, we're all children of the Kingdom."
"But, Sir! He's…he's also black!"
"That can't be helped, Pankhurst. We will just have to endure his disability as true, steady Brits."
The door soon opened, and a young boy entered the secret military base hidden deep in the Northern Highlands. The boy carried a small cardboard box of experimental and highly dangerous explosives. He saw the two men sitting at the table; the young, nervous private and the proud, stoic sergeant. They had their hands laid flat on the smooth metal table, and squinted at the boy, hardly visible in the dark room. The boy was somewhere between the age of eight and eleven, had an eye patch over his left eye, and looked about as serious and stoic as the sergeant. He walked up to the table and placed the box on it. The two military men nodded at him.
"Gentlemen," the boy nodded.
"Tavish DeGroot, is it, eh boy?" The Sergeant asked, looking at the case file sitting on his lap. The boy nodded.
"So what have you got for us today, old boy?" Asked the Sergeant. Tavish rummaged through the contents of the box with a small smile on his face.
"Gentleman, Eye have been lookin' int'a yer ways of blowin' up the Germans tae bits," he said, in his strong accented, high-pitched childish voice. The two military men were listening to the child closely.
"It seems to me that you use mostly HMX nowadays. Also known as cyclotetramethylene-tetranitramine. Quite complex, produced by nitration of hexamine in the presence of other, more basic chemical compounds. Ye lads 'ave been good at makin' it for the last ten years or so. You might think it's tha best explosive Her Majesty's Army could ask for, right lads?"
The two men nodded, and then flinched as the boy slammed his small black fist against the metal table.
"Wrong!" He shouted as some test tubes and packages jumped up in the box. The Private gulped as he saw this. The boy pulled out a small bottle. It seemed to be completely empty. The two military men stared at the glass body in admiration, not being too sure what they were looking at.
"Gentlemen, Eye present to yee, the most powerful explosive yet to be created by man! Its performance is twenty-five percent greater than tha one of your precious HMX," the boy made a mocking grimace as he said the name of the explosive. "It's the fastest known nonnuclear explosive, detonating at ten and one-hundredth miles per second. Now, Eye know what yer thinkin'; 'Nonnuclear? That stuff is fer pansies!' Well Eye say, try callin' us pansies when yer getting' blown away by this miracle of detonation! Made out of cubane, with a relative effectiveness factor of well over two, and a bloodeh stability that'd make ya wannae chew yer own foot off!"
The boy slammed the bottle against the table.
"Your precious HMX seems like crap now, don't it?"
"Hmm…" the Sergeant murmured, "An explosive like this would do wonders for the world of combat, good chap."
"That's something ye can ber yer crumpet eatin' arse on," the boy said victoriously, crossing his arms. He then grabbed the bottle and presented it to the two men.
"Now, let's start the biddin' at two hundred quid."
"Two hundred pounds?!" the Sergeant said, his mouth agape. "You're mad, you Scottish twit!"
"Oh, well now, looks loike you aren't interested. Look, lad, Eye 'ave ta make a livin' too, ya know? Cubane ain't cheap. Gram fer gram, it's more expensive than gold, and twice as rare!" the boy held out two of his fingers, trying to emphasize the rarity. The sergeant huffed.
"We will give you one-hundred and fifty pounds for it, no more."
"Well now yer bein' mean ta me, lad!" the boy clutched his heart. "Yer tryin' ta bankrupt me, ya are! What soulless monsters! Tryin' ta rid a poor boy outta his wage…"
The Private frowned at the boy, about to trick them out of their budget. The Sergeant shook his head.
"Alright. One-hundred and seventy pounds, five shillings for the bottle, and a sixpence for your trouble, old sport."
"Make that a florin fer me effort. And stop calling me old! Eye am at least six times as young as ye!"
The Private nodded to the boy, and presented him with an envelope. He then added seven shillings in the boy's hand.
"Thank ye, gentleman. It has been an honor."
The boy then grabbed the box and ran out of the base, before either of the men could realize that the bottle he had given them was completely empty. He ran down the hills, looking at the stars. They twinkled on the twilight sky, still quite pale after the snow that fell over the hills the night before.
They really did shine as bright as her eyes.
"…so then, Eye jus' took the money and left! Eye can't wait ta see their faces when they open tha bottl'. They're gonnae be livid! But wot are they gonnae do? They'll be down South in their pansy lil' England. Twits! Twits abound!" Tavish laughed loudly, telling his friend Adelaide about his latest endeavor at making some quick cash. He leaned over Adelaide's work desk in her factory. She was currently assembling weapons for the soldiers. She barely looked at him while he was telling his story.
"Wot's wrong, Ghost? Ye hardly said a word ta me since Eye got here."
The girl ran her fingers through her long, platinum hair. Her normally ghostly pale face was turning red with hurry, and she spoke quickly, assembling another rifle. She was working at the same pace as all the other women in the factory, and their work seemed almost synchronized.
"Nothing is wrong, Tavish," she spoke quietly; "I just have to put all these weapons together in half an hour!" She gestured to the piles and piles of metal scraps behind her back. Tavish noticed his friend's soft, delicate fingers becoming red with blood. He glared at them.
"More help is coming to help work. Mostly children that used to work in the sewing factories. What help they will be!" She said sarcastically. She brought her index and middle finger together and showed them to Tavish.
"Most of them have sewed their fingers together, like this. That means that we will have to do even more work because of their inability to sew properly." She huffed once again. Tavish looked at his friend work, her bloody red lips puckering whenever she failed to fit the magazine clip into the weapon. She put away another finished rifle and began working on the new one.
"So what are ye doin' this Christmas, ghost?" asked Tavish.
"This, unfortunately," the young girl said with a sigh. Tavish's eyes widened in surprise.
"But…we always celebrate Christmas. We drink hot cider and give each other presents and everything!"
"I'm sorry…" she whined. "But right now, I can't even think about Christmas."
"So you don't even have a Christmas roast? Or presents? No roasted chestnuts? Even me mum is making roasted chestnuts, and she's blind as a bat!" He leaned over to her, speaking slowly and quietly.
"Do you have a Christmas tree?"
She shook her head, a sigh escaping her lips.
At that point a larger man grabbed Tavish by the wrist, instructing him to leave. Adelaide waved goodbye to her friend, who looked at her in bemusement. No Christmas tree? If there was one person on the entire planet who needed a tree, it was his best friend Adelaide. As he stepped out and into the cold, misty streets outside of the factory, he looked down at the box he was still holding in his hands. In it he had lighters, bomb fragments, matches, explosive substances… and even a few festively decorated grenades he threw in for laughs. All in all, these items looked a lot like Christmas decorations. He looked towards the large, lush, evergreen forest on the outskirts of the town. He smiled as he looked at the largest tree, sticking out high above all the others. Tavish had a plan.
He was going to get his Ghost a tree.
Click.
Click.
Ptang-ptang.
Clack-clack!
Adelaide sat up on her warm bed and rubbed her eyes with her bloodied knuckle. She smacked her dry lips together and blinked, trying to clear her vision. The first thing she saw was a big clock on the vanity desk. It was exactly midnight. The second thing she realized was that every muscle in her body ached from another busy day at the factory. It took every ounce of will power to get out of the covers and get up to the window, where she finally saw the third crucial thing in this picture;
Tavish was throwing pebbles at her window.
"Adelaide!" Tavish yelled, only to lower the tone of his voice. "You have to come down," he whispered; "Come down now! It's incredible!"
Adelaide blinked once. Her deep blue eyes really did resemble two bright, shining stars.
"What's incredible?" she asked, her words being mixed with a long yawn. She covered her mouth with her hand, excusing herself.
"You have to come down! Come on, come on, it's Christmas already! Come on Ghost!"
"Tavish, it's late and I really have to sleep if I want to work well at the factory tomorrow, and-."
"Screw the factory!" Tavish cried, waving his arms. "Look at ya'self, lass! Blonde hair, blue eyes… If the Nazi's do come 'round you'll be just fine!"
Adelaide couldn't help but to laugh at that.
"Come on, trust me!" He gingerly pointed at his eye patch, extending his arm out to her.
"Pirate Ghost?" he asked.
He didn't wait long for her response.
"Pirate Ghost." She smiled and ran downstairs, hastily grabbing her jacket along the way down.
Adelaide didn't care much about walking. Walking up a hill for twenty minutes could be pleasurable or completely exhausting. Walking up a hill for twenty minutes with Tavish Degroot covering your eyes with his hands the entire time is plain torture.
"Can I look now?" she asked for the umpteenth time.
"Almost, Ghost."
She huffed. She was too tired already, but continued to struggle up the hill, keeping up with the boy's hurried pace. She was too anxious to find out what this entire thing was about. She was about to take another quick step when her friend's hands stopped her from moving forward. She tripped backwards and huffed once again.
"Okay, you can open your eyes now!" Tavish said.
"I can't. You're blocking them," she growled. Tavish apologized and moved his ebony hands off her ivory face. Adelaide looked up for one brief second…
Gasp!
What she saw was the endless Ullapool skyline. Above it were hundreds upon hundreds of bright, twinkling stars. They twinkled in a strange harmony, and seemed to be falling like snowflakes atop the large evergreen trees surrounding the two wide-eyed children. The snow that accumulated on the emerald branches seeped through the prickly leaves, making it look like every single one of the trees was decorated with ribbons of silver and diamonds, gleaming in the moonlight. There was one tree that stood out among all the others, a magnificent thirty- foot-tall pine tree, decorated with many red sticky bombs and oddly placed colorful cables connecting them. These small bombs may have looked like the simple explosive contraptions Tavish showed Adelaide almost every day, but on this glorious night, they looked different. They looked festive.
And then it hit her.
They looked like Christmas ornaments.
She stared long and hard at the unusually decorated Christmas tree her friend had spruced up for her. Her face took a doltish expression, and her jaw was lowering itself closer and closer to the snowy ground. At one point, Adelaide closed it, fearing that it would break off.
"Tavish…did you…is this for… Tavish it's…" she stuttered. The young boy soon interrupted her, tossing a few sticky bombs he took from his jacket pocket onto the ground.
"It ain't finished yet, lass," he said half-nervously. He instructed her to stand near the bombs as he walked up to the base of the tree. She stared at him as he returned, holding a strange, bulgy object in both of his hands.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing at the five-pointed metal object made out of scrap metal and held together by some scotch tape and rope. It was sloppily made, but she thought it looked fine, nonetheless. Tavish examined the object in his hands.
"Well…every tree needs a star, right?" He fidgeted with the metal object in his hands, avoiding eye-contact with the girl. "Eye thought that…well…" he began looking everywhere but in the girl's direction, speaking rather hastily.
"Every tree needs a star, lass, and Eye…Eye wonted ya to…Eye thought, maybe…You'd loike ta…put it on top?" he finished, trying desperately not to look to anxious while waiting for her response. The girl took the makeshift star from Tavish and began looking at it more closely. She then looked up to the top of the high tree, a steely emotionless expression on her face.
"How do you think I could get up there?"
The boy smiled and took out a small metal case with two red detonation buttons. Adelaide looked small contraption, then back at the scattered bombs.
"No…" she said through a small chuckle, only to realize that Tavish was being completely serious. "No, Tavish!" she repeated, this time with a serious look.
"Come on, Ghost!" he tried to convince her. "The trick is to jump a moment before the thing goes off, and then you get to fly through the air, and then-." Tavish raised his arm up to illustrate the flight, but Adelaide interrupted him.
"These… Stickybomb jumps, or whatever you call them are insane! I can't jump and just hope not to get blown up by those…those…things!" she pointed at the tiny scattered bombs.
Tavish exhaled loudly, raising his eye towards the starry sky.
"You're not scared, are you?"
Adelaide looked away, shyly. She nodded.
At that moment, Tavish took her small, delicate hand in his, grabbing it reassuringly. She looked at him, holding the star firmly in the palm of her hand.
"On the count of three?" he asked.
Adelaide looked at the small bombs under her feet as Tavish moved his thumb across the smooth surface of the detonator. His friend's smile was agreement enough.
"Okay, lass, on the count of three, we jump. Okay?"
She nodded, grabbing his hand more firmly.
"One…"
Tavish secured his thumb on the button, feeling Adelaide's iron grip.
"Two…"
His toes curled, ready to jump. He bent his knees slightly.
"Three!"
The two kids were flying through the air, being fired away like two torpedoes. They screamed loudly, first with shock, then with fear, then with terror as they whooshed through the prickly branches, bruising their skin. But soon, neither Tavish nor Adelaide felt the prickly sensation, and they were now in for a clear sailing high and above the treetops. They soon found themselves screaming with excitement. Adelaide looked down, laughing all the time. The two of them were flying like birds. Neither of them wanted to descent anytime soon.
"Now, lass!" Tavish ordered. The two were whooshing past the decorated tree. Adelaide reached out her arm and jammed the star on top. The top branches stayed, but soon, it was clear that the ornament was secured. It shined on the silvery moonlight.
"I did it!" Adelaide exclaimed in an unusually high-pitched and excited voice.
"Uh-oh," said Tavish. Adelaide looked at him briefly.
"Uh-oh? Why uh-oh?"
The joyous screams soon developed into cries of horror, as the two would soon be taught a very valuable lesson in gravity.
What goes up must come down.
And quite soon, a small hill of snow became a mess of various limbs as the two made quite an ungraceful descend. Adelaide was the first to kick herself out of the snow and raise her head above the pure, white blanket of frost. She spat out the earthy ice that filled her mouth and shook the snowflakes of her head. She looked at her accomplishment for a brief second before calling out Tavish's name. The boy soon appeared next to her, groaning and rubbing his head.
"Wot the bloodeh…?" he asked, his mouth wide opened. He soon began waving his hands around, screaming almost incoherently.
"Why is it dark? Why's it dark, Ghost?! NAH! I'm blind! I CANNOE BE BLIND, GHOST! I CANNOE, NOT JUS' YET, LASS!"
The boy fretted about the loss of his eyesight for a few seconds before he felt Adelaide's hand on his face. She pulled his displaced eye patch from his good eye and back on his gaping eye socket. He blinked once to clear his vision.
"Oh." He turned away from her, slightly embarrassed. "Thanks."
"It's beautiful, Tavish," she said, looking at the now glorious tree. Tavish took out the small metal contraption once more.
"You wonnae see it lit up?" he asked. Adelaide didn't answer him, but the idea of lighting up the tree made her eyes glisten.
"Cover yer ears, lass!" he said, just as he pressed the second, smaller button on the remote.
The bombs went off in many colors, lighting up not only the tree, but the entire forest. The glow stretched far and beyond the tree, and the two kids could almost hear the angelic choir in the distance as the bombs exploded in perfect harmony. Everything was brilliant and magical.
For about a second.
And then the force of the bombs made the earth move and shake vigorously, causing the two children to topple over. The ground cracked, still shaking. The tree was moving, drifting away on the large portion of land Tavish had just blown up. The two kids stared in awe as the patch of land moved further and further. The noise was deafening. All the houses, all the factories, all the people that lived on that side were moving further and further. When the loch water finally filled the gap between the children and the now distant part of land, Tavish thought that he might have underestimated the power of the small decorative bombs.
"Whoops."
Adelaide blinked upon seeing the western part of her beloved Scotland drifting away in its now island state. She put her hand on Tavish's back and gave it a few quick taps.
"Don' worry," she said; "That part of Scotland is mostly just whiskey and potatoes."
"Eye guess seven tons of decorative C4 was a bit too much… Do you think the folks'll get mad?" Tavish asked. Adelaide looked back to the gleaming surface of the muddy water.
"Maybe. Some lads are getting off work soon, and they might be on their way to the pubs over yonder…"
"When do you think they'll get here?" Tavish looked around the forest, nervously.
He received his answer when he saw a horde of angry Scots, holding broken bottles, pitchforks and flaming torches in their barbaric hands. The ruthless Highlanders pointed at the boy, and looked ready to charge.
"GET HIM!" one Scot shouted, lifting up his torch.
Tavish thought that this might be a good time to run like hell.
"I wos hidin' from the lads fer two weeks in an abandoned cave before me mum finally found me. Fer a blind woman, a fortnight wos quite good, mind you. It wos me worst Christmas, but Adelaide later told me that it wos her best," the Demoman finished his tale.
The Pyro commented something about that story being adorable and clasped its hands together. The Spy smiled at the tale as well. Having an outdoor Christmas tree was a charming idea. It seemed quite familiar.
Too familiar.
"Anyway, Eye ended up havin' ta pay a hundred an' seventy pounds fer a new pub. The bit of Scotland is still floatin' 'round somewhere. Eye think it's now called 'Ireland'."
"Yeah, well, I think dat story gave me cancer," Scout said, staring at the package Medic was holding on his lap, while writing a letter on it. "I think the only think we're all interested in is; WHAT'S IN DA BOX? WHAT'S IN DA BOX?! COME ON, DOC, WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!" the boy screamed at the doctor.
"I don't know, Scout," the Medic said through his teeth; "now shut up!"
"Hmmph hmmpnhhmd thhm Ghmmst, Dmmohmmn?" asked the Pyro.
"Ghost? She started coughing up blood a few years ago and died," Demoman shrugged and took a sip of Scrumpy. "'s alright, lads. I still get ta see her occasionally, before I respawn."
"Oi still don't think that's normal, mate," the Sniper commented, leaning his head on the palm of his hand.
"Anyway," Tavish continued; "That wos the last time Eye ever tried to be romantic ta anyone but meself. Cheers, mates!" he said, taking a swig of Scrumpy and toppling over his chair with a thump. The team gave little, if any, reaction to this.
"Ach, ja." The Medic looked up from the letter he was writing, a solemn expression on his face. "Many men do zhings zhey are not proud of vhen zhey are in love…zhey do shtupid things despite being in love…" the Medic looked around, to see if Heavy returned from cleaning his mini-gun.
"Oh boy, here we go…" Scout said, imagining that the Medic was about to tell a semi-tragic Christmas story of his own. He looked at the cardboard box once more, anxious to find out what was in it.
It was obvious that he would have to wait a little longer to find out.