Title: Dear Santa

Author: Dark Roswellian Angel

Elizabeth McDowell

Disclaimer: I do. I so totally do. Which means that Alec will, of course, be waiting for me in my stocking Christmas morning. Bring on the Christmas cheer :)

Copying/Downloading/Posting: Please let me know first, and let me know where my work will be posted as I would love to come visit it. Make sure that it is put under my name, as I would love to hear how others feel about it. Thanks ;)

Rating: K+, just in case

Synopsis: 7-(short)parter. Snow Day in Las Vegas, NV put me in the mood. It's Christmas time, and several people are writing their letters to Santa. A lot of those letters seem to have a recurring theme. Find out what it is and whether or not Santa will respond. I will update one chapter a day and finish on Christmas Day- It's a Merry Christmas present to my readers.

A/N: Part 3 is up. Yay! This was only going to be one letter, but Angelofdarkness78 had a great idea, so I'm going to use that in here- thanks :) Hope you all enjoy

This day started out a beautiful clear blue. The temperatures were so warm (only 10 below) that, had it not been just 4 days before Christmas, the elves would have been tempted to request the day off (even though they love their work, everybody needs a day to just play every once in a while). Still, even with all their work to do, once again they quickly assembled when they heard the Mail Call Bell chiming its "12 Days of Christmas" tune. Today they were in such a hurry that they actually beat the jolly old man to the Opening Room. One rather impatient elf was even tempted to open the sack without him, but just as he approached the chair, Kris (Kringle) opened the door behind him sending him 4 feet up in the air in surprise.

"Now then, Marco, you know better than that. I was just finishing some of Mrs. Claus' French Hot Chocolate when the bell rang. I know you're impatient to get back to work, but 7 extra seconds isn't going to mess things up too much," Santa said to the impatient young man. Then, he sat down and got to work. This time he made it through almost half the bag before coming across two very strange looking letters. The first looked as though someone had glued two pieces of regular paper together to make the envelope. The handwriting was very stiff and disjointed as though a child had been allowed to address it. Santa smiled expecting to read one of his very young fan's letters, but at the very first sentence, the line between his eyebrows rose in surprise.

Dear Santaman,

I never heard about you until Medium Fella asked if he was crazy for sending you a letter, but I figured he's not crazy so it's okay that I told him no. And then he told me about you. I guess this time of year is all about you and some other guy, but Alec didn't seem to know too much about the other guy. Still he knows more about both of you than I do- Manticore didn't exactly make a point of teaching the transhumans much about celebrations or holidays or anything nice. The people across the street putting lights on the outside of their house and some other people bringing a big dead tree into their house and a bunch of people walking up and down the street singing last night- I guess that's all about you too, huh? I thought they were pretty whack, but maybe not.

Maybe I should ask Max some about you- she always knows about the outside stuff that I don't get. You probably already know about her. She's pretty important, and she's pretty smart. It's just when it comes to knowing her own heart, and the people around her sometimes, that she isn't as smart as she thinks she is. She's still brilliant- it's just that she's scared. She's not like me. She spent a lot of time by herself. She had to hide herself from everybody around her- even worse than me 'cause she had to hide the inside her and let everybody look at the outside her. I have to hide the outside me but I've never had to hide the inside me. It made it hard for her to trust other people; even worse it made her think something was wrong with her inside so she doesn't trust herself either. Maybe that's her problem- maybe if she trusted herself she wouldn't have to listen to an Ordinary (even though I like Logan… mostly) to know what she should do. She would know that she's strong enough to make her own decisions, to open herself to the people who care about her and they'll accept her, to lead all of us in the way that us gens need to go. 'Cause she's the only one who can- she let us all out; she's the only one who can put us together and get us to where we should be. And I think she's starting to get that 'cause she's starting to get all stressed out and she's being meaner to the only other person who can really help her.

But I'm not supposed to be talking about all that 'cause Alec said that you grant wishes and I heard this story when I just got out of Manticore about getting wishes (I was listening to a mom and her kid through a window), so I know that you always get three and have to be really, really careful with them so that they will work out right 'cause if you accidentally say that you wish for something then you lose one of your wishes and you maybe even hafta use another wish to fix whatever your first wish was. So I guess I need to say what I want.

First, I want Max to be happy. But it's more than that because the only way for her to be happy is for her to be the real her and not be all confused on the inside. She has all her tricks and treats on the outside right now, but she doesn't know that her inside is more beautiful than her outside. She needs someone to help her see herself and she needs to know her family is safe from the upstairs people. And you have to take the virus bitch down so that her and Logan can get busy 'cause she needs to know that's not what is keeping her from being with him.

Second, I want Alec to be happy, too. And that's more than just that, too. 'Cause for him to be happy, he needs to know that he's good and that people trust him and that it's okay for him to trust him too because he's going to do good things. People need to treat him nice and he needs to be nice to himself.

And I think the most important thing to make both of them happy is that they need to find out that they love each other. 'Cause right now Max is telling herself that she loves Logan 'cause she's scared to be a transgenic. She thinks that transgenics are bad because we're not real… no, that's not exactly it. We're made instead of really born and we were made by bad people instead of by good people and they made us do bad things. Except, it wasn't supposed to be like that- if Father had been there he would have helped us. Maybe that should be my third wish- to bring Father back to us. Except then he would be our leader instead of Max and Alec, and I think they are the best leaders for us because they are part of us. Part of our family. I think maybe it's 'cause she lived with all the whacked upstairs people all those years because if she really thought about it, being a gen is dope 'cause you can do all sorts of stuff that outside people can't. But all the outside people don't want us knowing that we're good 'cause then they would feel like they're not as strong or fast or smart as us. Which they're not, but they're still good, too. So, Max is all confused about herself and how good she is and she tries to hide parts of herself even from her and part of what she's hiding is that she and Alec match 'cause they're made of some of the same stuff and have done some of the same stuff and they understand each other. In fact, I think the only person who can help Little Fella be happy with all of what she is, is Alec. But I'm scared that she's going to have to be happy with herself first so that she can accept that they're the same. And Alec has to start liking himself to be able to see that he's the same as her 'cause right now he acts all happy and like he wants to be with all the girls but he really thinks that he's being bad and that he's not as good as Little Fella and that hurts him. But I don't know if he can start liking himself until she helps him see how good he is. And I don't know how to help either of them 'cause they need to be together so that they can be happy but they have to be happy with themselves so that they can allow themselves to be together. And when I think about all of it, it hurts my head and I start getting all confused, too. So I think maybe you're the only one who can help them. So, please, please, please with mac 'n' cheese with little hot dogs and gravy on top help them, okay?

For my third wish, I'd like lots and lots and lots of hamhocks. Big, juicy, yummy hamhocks just like the ones Alec got me for trying to kill me. Only I don't want anyone to try to kill me first, okay? Thanks.

Bye,

Joshua

For a long moment, Santa sat looking at and rereading this new letter. Then, with a big smile on his face, he began to laugh- a great big bowl-full-of-jelly laugh. "Well, it looks as though we have a new friend," he said as he looked around and wiped his eyes. "Now, I've heard of these transgenics before, but I've never actually heard from one- we may have to start making more toys for them as well 'cause this sounds like a very nice young man, even if he does have a little too much canine in his cocktail (the elves looked at him appreciatively- they would never tire of how he could automatically know things about people as soon as he received one of their letters). And, it sounds as though this Max and Alec are very important to a lot of people. I wonder if we'll be getting any letters from them." They all hoped so because that would make it much easier for Santa to decide what the best way of helping them would be.

"Santa, you still have more letters. Maybe their letters are still in there," one elf named Betsy suggested.

"Ah, you may be right my little friend," replied Santa as he sat back to open the next rather unusual-looking letter. This one looked as though someone had kicked and crumpled it before deciding to send it. On one corner it looked as though it may even have been set on fire.

Santa,

I ain't exactly known for being the sweet type. I ain't no princess or nothin'. But I am good, or at least pretty much. And I think the whole there-ain't-no-Santa-for-transgenics deal is jacked, so I'm writing. 'Cause I figure I got as much right to free presents as anyone else. And right now I'm needing some supplies because mine are almost out and I'm stuck in this rat-infested, sewer-backed-up, overcrowded, undersupplied stinkhole where I'm being forced to help everybody else, transgenics and transhumans alike, so I can't get them for myself.

See, the thing is I don't really smoke cigars (something about those science guys choosing to design the gens like me without the ability to inhale too deeply so that sand couldn't clog up our lungs during sandstorms- on the plus side we don't have to breathe as often as other gens either), but I'm absolutely addicted to having one in my mouth. Don't tell anyone but it's kind of like a security blanket for all the lizard gens. And between you and me, there are plenty of reasons for us to need to feel some security right now, being stuck in Terminal City's chainlink prison like a few of us are. So, the problem is that even without actually smoking them, cigars don't last forever. So I'm down to my last two and that's only going to last another month and a half, and then I don't know what I'm going to do. I know I should probably go to Princess or Ice Queen and ask them to pick some up for me the next time they're out and about and all free-like, but I'd rather eat nails sharp-end first and then jump up and down and have them all stick into my insides than admit to either of them that I need their help.

So, that's why when Joshua told me about writing to you I figured I'd give this a try. 'Cause it can't hurt, right? And I figure that, seeing as how you never brought any of us nothin' while we were growing up in MantiHell, maybe you could see your way to bringing me this now. And, if you really need me to repay the favor, even though I heard just bein' good or nice or whatever was enough for you (although I don't know just how well I qualify for either of those), then how about this? If we ever meet up, I won't treat you like normal Ordinaries, alright? Well, actually, I figure you probably aren't like regular Ordinaries as it is what with you flyin' all over the world in one night- are you one of us maybe? Well, if you are one of us, then I guess I can't treat you like an Ordinary anyway, so how about this- if you ever get in a jam, I'll back you up. If I'm not already busy with somethin' else, like watchin' Princess and Ice Queen pussy-footin' around each other, actin' like they're not totally hooked on each other, like they ain't each other's shiznits, or like she's still in love with that worse-than-the-normal Ordinary and he's still wantin' to jump in every girl's pants around. Man, I swear that is getting seriously old. If they don't figure things out soon, I'm going to be tempted to bash their pretty little- oh, sorry, I forgot about the whole being-nice deal. Maybe that's what I should ask for- for you to make them open up their eyes and see what they really want- each other. No, on second thought, I'd rather just have the cigars.

Mole

It took Santa a second to get over the precociousness of this letter, but after he did, he turned to his helpers. "Well, friends, it sounds like this year is going to be a very interesting one. I can sure say one thing for these transgenics- they write interesting letters. And I think we should all be very glad that they're on our side." All the elves nodded in bemused agreement.