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DISCLAIMER: The name "Jericho" and all character names and trademarks associated with the television program are the intellectual property of Junction Entertainment, Fixed Mark Productions, CBS Paramount Television and/or CBS Studios, Inc. The following story is a work of fan fiction intended solely as an intellectual exercise without profit motive. No infringement of copyright is intended or should be implied.

Special Thanks to: Skyrose, for all her feedback and encouragement. 

 

 

The night air was alive. A thousand smells and sounds traveled on each gust of wind. Smoke and candles. Voices somewhere, far away. The thick, cushioned quiet of a fallen snow.

Mary listened as she stepped onto the porch. A thousand sounds and smells she knew from before, and yet, a different, unfamiliar night.

She reached the edge of the porch and wrapped one mittened hand around the railing, leaning forward to look at the sky. Charcoal and black, with silvery clouds crowding and forcing the moonlight back. But the pillowed silence was soothing. She closed her eyes for a moment and listened.

She could hear something, faintly, that wasn't coming from the black and blue sky, but echoing through her own thoughts. Snatches from the song she'd sung to the children, softly repeating until their eyes closed. She hummed it to herself, hearing the faint sound creep seamlessly into the snow quieted night.

She laughed to herself. It was nearly as silent as the snow. Last year she had sung the same song, and someone had pointed out the strangeness. What did the kids know about toy trains and little toy tracks? She had smiled then, though she had quickly suggested it was the song itself, not the words within it, that they were listening for.

Another year later, her son using full sentences and asking questions she would never think to pose, and still, it was the melody in the song. Same reason she hummed it to herself, she supposed. She couldn't remember getting a single toy train for Christmas in her life, but the song was housed somewhere in her mind, jumping out in snatches that brought back moments she wasn't sure were real. She remembered it, she was nearly certain, from several voices. A scratchy recorded voice, timeless and tuneful. The deep, husky, coffee and cigarettes voice she remembered the most reliably. Another that was on the edge of things, whispering so quietly at times she wondered if she'd imagined it completely. Snatches of that one were so rare, sometimes they hit her and brought with them a flash of other uncertain wisps. A laugh that might have been contagious. A colour of eyes and lips she might have traced with a little child's finger. A crook of an arm she might have leaned against as she grew tired.

Mary blinked and shivered as the December breeze brushed her face. It was something they talked about often enough: what their children would hold onto, what they would take away from these times. Though she probably worried about it about as much as the others, she knew the slippery way moments had, of weaving through a memory. The way they hit suddenly, in pockets of hot and cold smoke. They had two edges, or three edges, none easy to grasp onto.

She had found herself with one such memory earlier. The details came closer than the big picture. A smooth wooden floor, warmed by bursts of air from the vent nearby. The railing above, covered with garland, but the metal bars were bare as they reached the floor. The smell was sweet and slightly burnt – someone had been baking, a smell she had come to associate with energy and effort. Some song was playing, not an insistent, forceful hymn she would hear on Sunday or a softer night song but a jazzy, tinkling carol. There were voices mixing in with the cheerful notes. Her hands gripped the bars and she pressed her ear to the heat of the floor, whether to hear or in an effort to keep from hearing, she couldn't remember.

Of course I want her to be happy! Giving her stuff she doesn't need doesn't have anything to do with it. She needs boots.”

Kids need other things, you know!”

They don't actually need toys. They need to keep their toes.”

Patrick, if you had any imagination -”

I'm not saying that's all I want to give her, but if you had your way -”

I want to give them to her. It's my Christmas too.”

Give her one. She doesn't need both. She needs boots.”

Her childhood ear had been keen to interpret all the sounds around it, but this time, she remembered vaguely, it had been firmly muddled. The pieces had been there, lingering over the next few days, but they were frozen in a state of disarray, an undisturbed mess.

Kids interpret things, she knew. You give them what pieces you will, but they'll find others you didn't realize you'd left lying around.

Her reverie was interrupted by the door. Eric grinned as he carefully slipped outside, making a show of closing the door quietly behind him while balancing the bundle he was carrying. “How's the watch going?” he asked.

“No sighting yet,” she smiled, raising her eyebrows at him. “Everyone still asleep?”

“Everyone that should be,” he shrugged, unfolding the blanket in his arms. “Wanna join me? Warm up a bit?”

She watched him arranging the blanket on the porch swing, and nodded.

“Kind of like our Christmas Eve tradition, huh?” he asked, as she settled in next to him. She turned to raise her eyebrows again, shivering and pressing closer to him as he wrapped an arm around her. “Freezing for a while,” he said.

She chuckled. “Ah. You mean those years we closed the bar after dark?”

He nodded. “Walking over here, saying hi to all the other crazy people who'd go out on a night like this.”

“The few and the proud,” she smirked. “Yeah, I guess it is a tradition. But you know, I always kind of liked it. The walk over here was a little different, Christmas Eve, than other nights.”

They sat in a silence for a few moments. She leaned her head against his shoulder and watched their breaths as the air left their lungs and hit the cold night. “Little warmer usually, though,” she said, with a shivering chuckle.

“When we were walking instead of sitting around on Santa watch?” he asked. She nodded.

He chuckled himself and rubbed her arm with one mittened hand. “Hopefully it won't be long,” he said, shifting and pulling the blanket closer around both of them. He craned his neck, glancing out at the night, and stealing a glance back over at the house.

She turned her head slightly to take in the look on his face and she chuckled again. “What?” he asked, a slightly suspicious smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head as he raised his eyebrows. “Just...you get excited. About the Santa thing.”

He gave a slightly embarrassed chuckle. She squeezed his hand through the layers of wool. “Well, you know, I loved Santa as a kid. Hated giving him up. Glad I don't have to, really. Except I do wonder if our kids' idea of the guy is going to be radically different from what our concept of him was.” He leaned back on the seat. “They might not think he's such a benevolent giver. Maybe more of a trickster.”

“You mean Santa never tricked you?” she asked with mock incredulity. “You never got something different from what you were expecting?”

“Well,” he shrugged, “There was the year -”

The door swung open again. Eric glanced over and gave his brother a nod as Jake carefully crept outside. Mary made a move to get up. “Baby still asleep?” she asked.

“Yours is,” said Jake. His brother and sister-in-law gave quick nods of understanding and matching grimaces of sympathy. “But I was sent out to see how the watch is going.”

“Still...watching,” said Eric, bobbing his head.

“If you guys want to go in and thaw out, I can wait for him,” suggested Jake.

“We're good,” said Eric.

Jake leaned against the porch railing, standing opposite the swing and surveying them. “Sure? Aren't you the one who's usually afraid you're going to freeze your...face off, or something?” He glanced at Mary.

She shook her head. “That's when winter drags on and on. I like it at this time of year. You can go back in though, if it's a bit cold for you.”

Eric sat in silence, smirking, as his wife and brother traded a few more teasing jibes. He didn't listen to their words, but soaked up their voices, light and sure in the cold night air. How often had they had other nights, this year? Cold dark nights that weren't like this one. Nights with bad news, with panic and rushing. Nights with dreams that tore into next days. Nights he'd wanted to hear some snatch of spirit in their voices, but scolded himself for being selfish. He'd tried to keep strong, keep imagining a time when they would laugh again, when the dark of the night was beautiful. And there were nights like that. And they laughed, and spoke to each other, and they spoke to him. He shook his head, trying to rid it of the slightly cold but comfortable haze that had settled in. “What's that now?”

“Hon, you were saying something about a time, one year?” Mary raised her eyebrows.

“You weren't going to tell her about the time I hid your presents, again, were you?” asked Jake. “Never going to let me live that one down, huh?”

Eric shook his head with a wry chuckle. “No. I was thinking about the biggest thing I ever asked for.”

“Which was?” asked Mary.

“Rocket ship,” he said, with a sheepish smile.

Mary smiled and Jake chortled. “Probably to help you get away from your jerkwad big brother,” suggested Jake.

“That,” smirked Eric. “And more importantly, I wanted to get out and see the world.”

His companions just smiled at him as he took a brief moment to think on his former aspirations. Childish hopes and dreams from the past had been survival stock and trade once, those first months after the bombs. They were largely replaced now by the years of drudgery that had fallen in place as they had become survivors and witnesses of war. They still happened, but were fewer and farther in between.

“So how did he answer that request?” asked Mary.

“Rocket ship,” said Eric. “A kit to build one, at least. At first I was disappointed when I realized I'd never fit into the ship. Seemed more like the kind of thing Jake would like, setting something off that would fly thirty feet and explode. That wasn't what I wanted.”

Jake sent his brother a rueful smile. “I think I remember. Mom wasn't too thrilled with the idea of you blowing something up either, was she?”

Eric shook his head. “Not so much. But Dad...that's what I remember about it. Dad built it with me. We must have spent hours on it. I remember it taking days, but I don't think it...maybe it was because we did it here and there, when we could find time. We had to follow the instructions, glue every little part together, and I painted the whole thing. Then, the day Dad finally said it was ready, we took it out to Spinney's point and set it off.” He sighed quietly.

Mary, he noticed, was watching him quietly with a look on her face that he thought he recognized. Jake seemed to be pondering something of his own. He raised his eyebrows at his brother, but Jake said nothing for a long moment. Finally, he shook his head, and with a more familiar glint in his eye, leaned forward. “So Eric...if Johnny asks for a rocket ship, would you let him have one?”

Eric smirked and nodded. Jake glanced from him to Mary.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, with a smirk of her own. “We're talking in a few years, right?”

“Maybe there'll be rockets in a few years,” said Jake.

The three sat in a slightly more serious silence for a moment, echoes of the recent town hall meeting replacing the echoes of Christmas past. Jake folded his arms, his mind on the room, divided in all directions, their friends and fellow townspeople's voices breaking into confusion. He understood why they panicked, why words brought about sparks of discord. They were tired and weary as he was. Their complaints were valid enough. He felt them too – irritation that things had taken so long, fear that something even worse would happen next, worry that things wouldn't be better, even for his daughter, his nephews and nieces, and those that they worked to protect. He wanted to shout at them sometimes, tell them he was as tired as they were, tell them he didn't make the weather, he was just as subject to its whims as they were. He would glance at his brother, his mother, his sister-in-law, his wife, and they would nod. They would all remain silent.

Eric shook his head. “I'm sure you could find a way to help out with that, Uncle Jake.”

“If anyone could,” added Mary with a chuckle.

Jake took this in and smiled. “I guess I could.” He pulled up the stool from the edge of the porch and sat, folding his arms across his knees. “You know, I don't think they're missing much. I always felt like Santa was trying to trick me.”

“Trying to trick you?” asked Eric, remembering once again the fateful year his own presents had been missing until his parents had gotten a confession out of the culprit.

“Yeah. Into doing what I was told.” Jake chuckled to himself. “Best one they've come up with, don't you think?”

“You got presents you liked, didn't you?” asked Eric.

“Well, yeah. But for a price,” shrugged Jake. He glanced over as the door opened again. “Finally asleep?” he said, dropping his voice to a stage whisper.

Heather nodded in the doorway. “Aren't you guys freezing?”

“We're coping,” said Eric.

“Staring into the fires of Christmases past,” said Jake.

Heather chuckled as she glanced from him, to Eric, to Mary. She had just come from the house where finally, all three small children were sleeping quietly, but now, coming across the rest of the parents on the porch, she felt for a moment as though she'd stepped into a scene from years ago. They could be sitting on the porch, waiting for her to join them, that first winter she'd begun joining them those nights, hearing their stories and getting used to their jokes. It seemed a lifetime had passed since then, she had seen bright days and ugly moments with each of them, and she could see the differences on them, on their faces and in their postures. She supposed she was different too. Still, it could be one of those first nights, as they looked at her, waiting.

“Not a bad way to pass the wait I guess,” she said. “Any sign of him yet?”

They shook their heads as Heather stepped outside, zipping up her coat and pulling her scarf closer. Eric quickly stood. “You want this seat? You've been running around the longest. The latest, anyway.”

Heather nodded her thanks and chuckled, pausing on her way over to squeeze Jake's outstretched hand. Jake pressed a kiss to her hand and let go. Mary yanked some of her blanket to the side and offered it to her sister-in-law. “We were just talking about favourite gifts people got from Santa. I think.” She glanced across at the men. Jake smirked from his perch on the stool and Eric put his hands in his pockets, leaning against the porch railing. “Eric's was a rocket ship.”

“Nice,” said Heather with a quick nod. She turned to Jake. “What did you say?”

“I didn't,” said Jake.

“The bike?” asked Heather, flashing her husband a knowing grin. He shrugged.

“The robot?” asked Mary. She exchanged a glance with Eric, and then one with Heather. They'd heard the story last year. Jake shook his head.

“The hobbyhorse?” guessed Eric, to which the women giggled and Jake sent him a look of martyrdom.

“Too hard to choose,” shrugged Jake. He reached out and patted Heather's knee. “You?”

Heather's brow furrowed in thought. Jake hid a smile, guessing she was taking the question as seriously as she often took things. “Bookcase,” she finally said. “What? That's my favourite.”

The others didn't say anything, but they waited for her to continue. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “I know, maybe not the most exciting. But it was beautiful, and exactly what I wanted. My dad made it, out in the garage. It took him a couple Sundays. I remember he went out there in the afternoon, and I wasn't supposed to go out, but sometimes I'd sneak out with a cup of coffee and stand on the other side of the door. Coffee for him, not me,” she clarified with a smirk. “It was like this...unspoken agreement we had. I didn't ask, and he didn't warn me to stay away. On Christmas morning, it was there in the house, covered with a sheet. All I wanted to do that first day I got it was smell the wood, run my hands over the shelves. Course, eventually you could barely find a space to touch, I covered it in so many books.” She leaned back in her seat, letting out a sigh.

Jake smiled at her. “That's your Santa story? Something your dad gave you?”

She shrugged. “Well, yeah. I was ten, I knew it was him. But we said it was Santa. Another unspoken agreement, I guess. It didn't matter to me. It was special because he made it. I think he liked playing Santa, so I played too.”

Mary nodded, a thoughtful look on her face. Heather gently nudged her. “I missed yours,” she said.

“I didn't say one yet,” said Mary. She pulled her scarf closer to her face as the other three looked expectantly at her. The hot and cold was there again, lingering safely in her mind. “I guess it was the year I got a snow cone maker. I saw it at the store, with my mom.” She smiled for a moment, letting herself pause in the memory. “I told her I wanted to open a snow cone stand. She laughed and said it was crazy, I'd have to wait til summer. I wanted it anyway. I knew I didn't need it. My parents warned me Santa can't always give big presents to little kids. So I didn't really expect it. Then it was there, Christmas morning.”

“How old were you?” asked Heather.

“Five,” said Mary. “I thought it was the best day ever. A snow cone machine and a new pair of boots.”

It hadn't mattered, that she'd known the cost of the compromise. Her mind had had the pieces, but by another kind of unspoken agreement, she hadn't examined them.

“Let's hope one of our kids wants a snow cone maker next time,” said Jake. “Think that'd be easier to figure out. Lots of snow.”

“Do you think they'll ever ask for anything?” asked Eric. “They might just wonder what's going to hit them next.”

“Maybe,” said Heather with a giggle.

“I don't think it'll matter,” said Mary, glancing at the snow that had drifted onto the porch, in the corner near the window, and then back at her family members. “What they really think of Santa. Long as it's fun for them, and they'll know one day, why we did it.”

Heather gave a nod. Jake followed suit and Eric sent her a quick smile. “They might know pretty soon,” said Heather with a wry smile. “The rate Johnny's asking questions. He asked me today if people die when they run out of birthdays.”

The others chuckled. Mary shook her head, still smiling. “And those girls. When they get old enough to tag team, we're all in trouble. One'll notice anything we change in the living room and the other'll hear every sound we make.”

“Maybe not, if Fi takes after her uncle or Siobhan takes after her dad. You ever hear about the time Eric slept through Grandpa playing Santa at the end of the family Christmas? Picked him up, sang Jingle Bells, and nothing.”

“I was three and I was coming down with an ear infection! Talk about noticing things, I seem to remember hearing you complimented Santa on his beard.”

“I knew all along, but I didn't want to make Gramps feel bad!”

Heather interrupted suddenly, with a “Shh! You hear something?”

Four pairs of eyes flitted to the driveway.

A horse and small sleigh were gliding along the snow cushioned street.

“He's here,” announced Eric, rubbing his hands together and standing quickly. The others found their footing quickly too, and at the edge of the lawn, the sleigh had stopped. The driver stepped towards them.

“Ho ho ho!” he exclaimed.

“Hi Stanley,” said Heather, catching him in a quick hug.

“Merry Christmas!” added Mary, pulling him in next. “Long trip?”

“Couldn't get away. Kids took forever to go to sleep. I blame Mimi. She's just way too excited and they picked up on it.”

“Right,” said Jake, rolling his eyes and clapping his friend on the back. “Got the stuff?”

Stanley gave a nod. “Course!” He lifted a sack with both hands. “That's all of them, except that one Clark wants to hear ten times a day. Where are yours?”

“Here.” Eric came up behind the others, hoisting another sack. “Your kids get the books from Fiona's shelf.”

Stanley handed his sack over to Heather. “These'll go here?”

She gave a nod. “Well, Santa replaced hers with the Bailey-Green kids' library. We'll leave these ones out with a note saying that's where they're supposed to go.”

Stanley chuckled as he hoisted the sack he'd taken from Eric over his shoulder. “Right. Well, happy switching, elves. I'll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. Merry Christmas!” Eric clapped Stanley on the back and stepped away as their friend got back to his sleigh.

“Pass one on to Mimi too!”

“See you tomorrow!”

“Good night!”

They stood for a moment, watching their friend glide away as quickly as he had arrived. Silence filled the black and blue.

“Why did he call us elves?” asked Jake. “I don't think I agreed to be an elf.”

“Come on then, Santa. Let's get to work!” said Heather, playfully poking him in the chest. She linked arms with him and pulled him towards the house, pulling the bag of books along with her other arm.

“You ready?” asked Eric.

Mary glanced away from the silent road. “Yeah, let's do this before someone wakes up.”

The four figures slipped inside the warm house and the porch was left alive with a thousand quiet sounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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