A/N: Last chapter! Hope you enjoyed!

4

Bernard sat up and tried to stand; Dr. Norskard pushed him back down. She was talking and looking concerned but Bernard couldn't understand her. She pulled the catheter out of his arm, along with the tape. Apparently he'd caused the spade-shaped needle to twist around when he'd tried to pull it out in the machine and now the doctor wrapped a red band around his elbow above the cotton ball she'd stuck over the hole. His teeth rattled; he tried to stand again. She pushed him back down.

"I need to get out," he chattered.

She unclipped whatever had been clipped to his finger.

"Okay," she said. "We can leave now."

He stood, or tried to, but he was shaking and his joints seemed weak. Dr. Norskard and Santa helped him into the radiology room and it seemed to him as if they intended to sit him down in the chair next to the computer, where Dr. Norskard had previously taken his blood pressure, but he pulled away from them and pushed through the door into the hallway before they could stop him. He made it across the hall and several steps down, where three chairs sat lined up against the hallway wall, and here he turned and sat down and placed his trembling hands on his knees and really felt that wild ponies wouldn't have been able to haul him back into the radiology room again. He would have simply teleported away right there in the middle of the hospital, witnesses be damned, but knew he'd end up dead if he tried to teleport in the state he was in.

Iron. Of all the things that could have happened to him in a hospital, he gets shoved into an iron tube specifically designed to become a powerful and murderous magnet. The Earth's magnetic field was powerful, but not as powerful as other things in the solar system, and when these things screwed around with the Earth's fields Bernard sometimes felt it; sometimes more, sometimes less, but never anything like this. He loved humans, he did, but magnet-machines? He bitterly thanked humanity for a decade's worth of nightmare material.

Santa had followed him out and was now hovering. If Bernard hadn't been so shaken, he would have had a full-blown hissy fit at Paul Mason. Why didn't you listen? he wanted to shout. I could have died in there! Not understanding how the MRI thing worked, he didn't really know what would have happened if the doctor had turned the machine on, but he couldn't help imagining himself being blown apart and plastered to the inside of the MRI tube like sparkly red spray paint. Dr. Norskard was barreling through the radiology door now and coming towards them, holding a bunch of tools, and Bernard turned and interrupted Santa; the man had been saying something but Bernard had heard none of it. Instead of any of several nasty things he wanted to hit Santa with, Bernard heard himself say:

"Go call Sandman."

Santa looked from Bernard to Dr. Norskard and back to Bernard, and then he gave a slight nod and walked away.

Dr. Norskard took out her trusty flashlight and shone it into Bernard's eyes as she began to ask him questions. Was he dizzy? Did his head hurt? Was he feeling faint? What was today's date? He answered her questions as she finished with the flashlight and checked his pulse and listened to his heart and wrote things down and when all was said and done it turned out he was fine, really, except for feeling cold (because of the contrast dye) and feeling tired (because of the sedative) and feeling a bit loopy (because of the pain-killer) and being in shock (because of what he knew had been a brush with what could have been death but to her had only been a claustrophobic episode).

Then a nurse came with a wheelchair and took him away from the radiology wing. Bernard did not ask anyone to let Paul Mason know where to find him. The nurse wheeled him down several hallways, and then into another room where someone tried to take a blood sample, and when he refused, they took the bandage from his hand so they could take the glass out of his palm and re-wrap it. Then they tried to set his broken wrist, but could not find the break, of course, so paperwork had to be done to render him exempt from treatment. Then they noticed that he was still trembling.

"Are you cold?" the nurse asked him, curiously.

"No." By now, the effect of the contrast dye had worn off.

"Ah," said the nurse, nodding in understanding. "Traffic accidents are terrifying."

Bernard didn't feel like explaining the real reason behind the tremors.

"I'll get you a blanket," she continued. "Then I think we have some issues here to clear up with your, ah, account. Dr. Norskard will be in shortly, she said she wants to discuss a few things with you." The nurse patted a stack of paperwork over on the desk before taking off in search of a blanket. Bernard sat and trembled and waited for the nurse to return with a blanket until he realized that right then was probably the ideal time to leave.

He left the room and it came to his attention that he wasn't wearing shoes. He couldn't remember when they'd come off but he didn't care to track them down. His balance had largely returned, which was a good thing, since he was trying to look inconspicuous as he made his way past hospital staff and patients from the bus accident who he hoped were on their way to a better hospital experience than he'd just been subjected to. He wasn't even sure where he was going. He couldn't teleport yet; he still didn't feel put-together enough.

He realized he'd better find Santa. Furious though Bernard was with the man, he still didn't want Santa to have to get tangled up in all the paperwork that Bernard was sure was headed his way – at least not here in the hospital. Let all that come later, through the mail. For now, it was better that they both made an exit as soon as possible.

That, and he wanted to make sure Santa had called Sandman.

"He'd better have called," Bernard grumbled to himself. The feeling of urgency to correct that whole situation, which had so hounded him before, had now been numbed. He felt smaller – diminished – and he felt his energy to deal with Santa's recruitment plan, whatever the consequences, were also diminished.

Bernard tried to remember which way he'd come from, and begun to backtrack, keeping an eye out for the various nurses and doctors who he was sure would be looking for him soon. He followed the signs to radiology and, now that he was aware of what radiology meant, felt distinctly worse as he got closer to the magnetic machines. Warily, he turned towards where he had thought Dr. Norskard had said the waiting room was. Right before rounding the corner, he could hear Santa's voice, and Bernard tried to put away his anger as he came around the corner. Now wasn't the time to explode at his boss, now was the time to quietly exit the premises and –

Bernard stopped short in the wide doorway and stared. A flock of kids were clustered around Santa. The kids were young, and they were all wearing bracelets just like Bernard's, and two of them looked very pale, and one was in a wheelchair. They were all smiling and staring up at Santa Claus. The parents kept to the chairs, but they were all beaming at the man in the waiting room with the white beard and funny laugh.

The kids were telling him what they wanted for Christmas.

Bernard's mind stalled.

Santa caught sight of him in the doorway and just for a moment his bright smile was dashed away by a slurry of other emotions, among which were concern and irritation and relief, a strange combination indeed. The smile was back in a minute but it wasn't as sincere as before as he turned his attention back to the kids.

One of the girls had caught Santa's distracted stare and turned, and saw Bernard standing in the doorway. She shot up and ran to him – nothing wrong with that girl, he thought – and said,

"Are you an elf?"

He didn't know what to say.

"Because that's Santa Claus and you have pointy ears."

Kids always picked up on these things, the small things.

"You got me," he said. "Yeah, I'm an elf." His teeth chattered; still in shock.

She spotted his hospital bracelet, and held up her own next to his, and then smiled up at him as if the plastic bracelets were friendship bracelets, and then she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room and he almost lost his balance but caught it just in time to fall into a crouch next to the rest of the smiling kids gathered around Santa. They thought the arrival of a real live elf was apparently the greatest thing since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures, which were, Bernard happened to know, the latest great thing. The little girl was no longer smiling, however. She hadn't let go of Bernard's hand.

"You're shivering," she said. "Are you scared?"

He looked at the girl with the matching hospital bracelet and thought of how she was the same species as the humans who had managed to create a magnet-machine that felt several dozen times worse than what happened when unimaginably large celestial bodies interacted. He could feel the eyes of her parents, just two chairs over, boring into his head.

"He's shivering because he just saw the amount of paperwork coming my way, isn't that right?" said Santa.

"Yeah. Two feet high. At least," said Bernard. "Terrifying." The parents laughed appreciatively.

"Time for me to go, kids," said Santa, rising, and sounding sincerely regretful. The waiting room parents called off their kids and all of them waved as Bernard and Santa left, no doubt thinking the hospital had been awfully considerate to hire entertainers for the kids, unseasonable as the act had been.

"Are you okay?" Santa asked quietly.

"Yes. Did you – "

"Yes, I called Sandman. Everything's fine. Details later."

Bernard shot him a dubious look but said nothing. Together they trekked strategically around the hospital corridors, looking for an exit and avoiding the wings most likely to have people who may have been searching for them. After one close encounter with the grumpy nurse who'd first tried to draw Bernard's blood, they found themselves in front of a small side-exit that opened up into a dark parking lot slicked with rain. They left behind the hospital, and they temporarily left behind the dreaded paperwork, which would continue to haunt Paul Mason in the form of hospital bills, explanations of benefits, and, eventually, thrillingly austere letters from debt collectors (to Bernard's secret delight). Eventually the elf network managed to make the whole incident disappear from all official records but it took several months.

It wasn't quite pouring outside but it was more than a drizzle, and it wasn't long before their clothing was sodden.

"Where are we going?" asked Bernard, breaking their silence.

"Bus," said Santa.

Santa had just enough cash on him to buy two more tickets. Once they sat down (it was late, and there were plenty of open seats), Santa handed Bernard his own radio, and his hat, which Santa had found alongside his own radio behind the radiology help desk.

"I called Sandman off," said Santa. "Everything's fine. Sandman found one elf but she wasn't interested. Apparently she said she didn't want to leave Iceland; something about wanting to take care of the people there in the village she lives in."

Bernard nodded once; it sounded like Sandman had gotten lucky. Days later Bernard would find out from Sandman himself that two other elves had in fact been found, both of whom would turn out to be on the nasty side. Later, when it came time to deal with them, Bernard didn't draw Santa into it, for fear of digging up the recent past. Sandman would prove to be extremely apologetic for having gotten involved without knowing what he was getting into. Bernard forgave him readily; it wasn't Sandman's fault.

At the moment, however, Bernard was not thinking about Sandman.

A woman sitting across from the two of them was actively trying not to stare at Bernard, at his lack of shoes and his bracelet and his bloody sleeve and wrapped palm and at the bruises that were crawling down onto his wrists from the inside of his elbows. He pulled his sleeves down and rested his face in his hand, and the rest of the bus ride was silent. It took only minutes to get to the stop near which Santa had parked his car.

The meter had long since expired but miraculously nobody had placed a ticket on the windshield. When they got into Santa's car Bernard was still shaking, so Santa threw his jacket over onto Bernard's lap, and then more carefully draped a spare coat that had been in the back seat over Bernard's shoulders, which was, Bernard thought, a strangely considerate thing for Santa to do. Santa went so far as to dig a pocket knife out of the glove department and hand it to Bernard. Bernard snapped the knife open and cut the plastic bracelet from his wrist.

Santa drove them out of Boston proper, and towards Newton. After ten minutes, Santa said,

"I think you owe me an explanation."

Bernard reached over and turned the radio on. He knew he was being surly but he thought if the trembling in his gut didn't stop soon he was going to vomit, and talking about secrets and trust and blame and so forth was only going to make him feel worse.

Def Leppard blasted through the cab.

"Oh please, not that," yelled Santa, over the noise.

Bernard changed the station.

The rest of the ride to Newton passed with the radio and the sound of the rain on the windshield filling in the silence. They passed clusters of buildings lit from within, constellations of windows and apartments and towers and cars and highway lights flashing and leaving spots and streaks of bright color in Bernard's eyes; he closed them.

They arrived in Newton at Santa's brother-in-law's house – it was the brother-in-law's car – and Santa started towards the backyard to fetch Comet.

"Think I'll take off from here, Santa," said Bernard. Santa turned and looked him up and down.

"You sure? Feeling up to it?"

"I'm fine."

Santa didn't look as if he believed Bernard but he was mostly telling the truth.

"Okay," said Santa, nodding. "See you up there."

"Right."

"I expect we'll talk about this at a later point," said Santa. "You have some explaining to do."

Bernard made a noncommittal noise. Santa took that as a promise, or close enough to a promise to drop it for the moment, as he then nodded and turned and left. Bernard took a breath, let it out, took another breath, let that one out, shook out his arms (winced; both of them hurt), closed his eyes, told himself he could do it, and then he teleported back up to the North Pole. Back up to Judy the Wonderful, back to the elves he'd grown to love over the centuries.

Probably he shouldn't have teleported, and though nothing really went wrong, his headache came back in force. First he found Judy (to reassure himself that she was still there and was still wonderful), and then Judy lugged him to the Elfirmiry, where the staff told him he had a moderately serious concussion and should take it easy and not bash his head against any walls. When they'd asked what had happened, he said 'bus accident', and though they definitely saw his wrapped palm and probably noted the presence of the myriad bandages and deepening bruises spangled up the insides of his arms, and knew that 'bus accident' didn't quite explain everything, they never asked him to elaborate, and he offered details to nobody, save those members of the elf network concerned with smoothing everything out back down in Boston.

Santa tried many times over the next few weeks to pry some answers out of Bernard about what had happened in Boston – what Bernard had done that had caused Judy (the Vengeful) to disappear so quickly, why the fear of iron and magnets and why the extreme reaction, why the insistence that no more elves be located, and, above all, why the refusal to answer Santa's questions.

Bernard knew he'd never trust Paul Mason enough to answer these questions. It wasn't necessarily that what Santa had done was unforgiveable – if it had been nearly anyone else, Bernard would have shared the blame and forgiven what missteps had happened, or so he liked to tell himself. But Bernard now had the inexplicable fear that any trust they built between them would surely be shattered by some future incident. He wasn't sure this was logical, nor was he sure it was the right thing to do, but after what had happened behind the hospital's radiology doors, his trust would not sit with this Santa Claus, even though in the end Paul Mason had relented and called Sandman back from Iceland. Trying to trust Paul Mason was like trying to put the same end of two magnets together.

Santa seemed to think the same of Bernard. Even after the drama with the bus and at the hospital, drama that could have been prevented with a handful of answers, Bernard wouldn't talk.

Once they knew this about one another, once they stopped trying so hard to prove the other wrong, once they let the Boston incident sink into the past and they shared a tacit agreement never to bring it up again, they settled into an understanding about the reality of their relationship, which was that they must stop expecting to see eye-to-eye. They had lost their chance to get along, and each of them blamed the other. Fortunately, they didn't need to get along to get things done.

Despite all this, Bernard found that disliking the current Santa Claus felt unnatural, to say the least, and it was with a shameful sort of relief that he received the news late on December 24th, 1993, that Paul Mason had fallen off a roof in Chicago, IL, and the new guy and his son were on their way to the North Pole.

A/N: Thank you to all who read and thank you to all who left their thoughts in reviews, and thank you to all who forgave all the medical and historical and possibly grammatical inaccuracies. Yay fantasy!

This is the last chapter of THIS story but possibly we haven't heard all we're going to hear from some of the side characters in this story, who may pop up in Just An Elf.