Written by Phil Colvin,
Chapter 5
St George’s Books
A few minutes later
It was clearly going to be impossible to get the sleigh down from the roof, but Mulder thought that the reindeer would probable be able to do it themselves. The biggest worry now was how to deliver the presents.
"As far as I know, the only thing Santa really needs is the sleigh", said Mulder.
"Meaning what?", asked Grace.
"Meaning that anybody can be Santa, as long as they have the sleigh and the costume to look the part."
"But who?", asked Gabriel, "Bear in mind that Santa has a very....individual figure."
"What we need is someone male with roughly the same build", said Scully. She looked at Mulder, he looked at Gabriel, he looked at Grace. Everyone turned and looked at Mosely.
"Mostly....", smiled Gabriel
"No way!", shouted Mosely, backing away.
"But you’d be perfect!", said Grace.
"What do you mean?", said Mosely, "I’m a failure as a family man, I hate children..."
"Yes", said Scully, "But you’re so....."
"Round", smiled Mulder.
"Oh, I see", said Mosely, "You only want me for my body!"
"What can I say!", laughed Gabriel, "You and Saint Nic. here must have been separated at birth!"
"Just watch it, Knight."
"Look, Mosely.", said Mulder, "I know you are perhaps a little sceptical as to the validity of all this, I too am wondering I I’ll wake up in a minute to see this was all a terrible dream. However, at the moment we are stuck with it and this is the only solution."
"No, Mulder, there is another solution. We can just leave this and have a nice Christmas."
"Mosely, if you don’t do this then there is no Christmas."
"Well that’s too bad!", shouted Mosely, "It looks like I’ll have to spend ANOTHER year without Christmas!", and with that he stormed into the back room. Mulder blinked a few times.
"Well, all things considered, I think that went rather well."
Mosely was flicking through one of Gabriel’s magazines when Grace walked in.
"Mosely? Can I have a chat....."
"Get lost." Grace sat down beside him.
"Do you want to tell me what the problem is?"
"I’ll tell you what the frickin’ problem is! I’m stuck here with you morons who are expecting me to believe some myth in the vain hope I might be helping some children who I don’t really give a toss about!"
"But you’re a police man."
"So what?"
"So isn’t it your duty to help people, even if you don’t want to."
"True, but that only counts inside New Orleans. And I never get thanked for it, anyway!"
"But you would get thanked if you did this. Think of the millions of children you would be helping!"
"I don’t have any kids, Grace, I can’t think of them."
"All right, think of all the mince pies you’ll get."
"Not interested."
"And the brandy."
"I can get free brandy here! As long as I run away from the store fast enough...."
"What are you afraid of, Mosely?"
"I’m not afraid!"
"Yes you are...you’re afraid that you’ll fail."
"Don’t start your psychology crap, Grace." But Grace continued.
"You’re afraid that you’re going to mess up because you feel like a failure. You want to be a family man, but you can never juggle it with your career. You look at the way Gabe is able to do what he does without responsibilities and try to do the same but you can’t." Mosely was silent for a second.
"The trouble with you, Grace, is that you’re so frickin’ perceptive."
"That’s why I’m the smart one."
"All right, Grace. I’ll give it a go."
"Really?"
"Yes, I’ll try and be firkin’ Santa."
"Great!", smiled Grace, "Now put this on and meet us in the front room. She threw him the Santa costume.
It took a while for Mosely to change. Grace feared that e might have changed his mind again and escaped through the window but a few minutes he emerged in full Santa regalia. Everyone felt the urge to laugh, but all the suppressed it except Gabriel.
"What’s so funny?", said Mosley.
"Nothing", smiled Gabriel, "It’s just I’ve never seen anyone wear a Santa costume and make it look like evening wear. I think I’m falling in love with you, Mostly...."
"Knock it off, Knight!"
"Seriously", smiled Scully, "It does look like an OK fit."
"It’ll have to do", said Mosely gruffly, "It’s frickin’ uncomfortable."
"What do you expect when its only worn once a year?"
"OK", said Mulder, "We’ve got the costume, the sleigh and the Santa. What else do we need?"
"Well", said Mosely, "Unless you want me to explain to the kids why Santa has stubble, I’m going to need a beard."
"Oh, no problem", smiled Scully as she walked over to the unconscious real Santa and pulled off his beard, Gabriel looked in amazement.
"Are you telling me that thing is fake!"
"Oh come on, Gabe", smiled Mulder, "Who on Earth has a real beard like THAT?"
Outside St. George’s Books
Mosely realised he was going to actually have to climb onto the roof of the shop. He had always had a fear of heights and the thought of flying through the air in a sleigh did not make him terribly happy.
"Don’t worry!", Gabriel shouted in encouragement from below, "It’s not the fall that kills you! It’s that bit where you suddenly come to a stop...."
"Shut it, Knight!" Mosely gritted his teeth and kept climbing the ladder. After what seemed an eternity he reached the top to the sounds of muted applause from below.
"Frickin’ idiots", thought Mosley has he approached the sleigh, "What the heck am I doing here?" he sighed as he climbed aboard. In front of him he could see the reindeer, they seemed happy enough. Each one wore a collar with its name on it. Mosely didn’t have time to learn them all, although he knew one was called ‘Prancer’, it had been part of an office joke a couple of nights before. He also had no idea whatsoever on how to control this stupid thing. All there seemed to be were a couple of reigns. Mosely decided to try the traditional method. He pulled back on the reigns and shout,
"Giddy up!", he soon regretted it. All the reindeer began to run at an incredibly fast speed in perfect formation.
"Woah!" shouted Mosely, "Slow down!", but within seconds they were approaching the edge of the roof. Mosely could only watch helplessly as the ran straight off and into the air. It felt like the whole sleigh was treading air for a second but suddenly everything was lifted. Mosely watched the shop roof disappear away from him. He saw the forms of Gabriel, Grace, Mulder and Scully on the ground. In a few seconds they were gone. It was then Mosely decided it was time for a good old-fashioned panic attack.
Grace watched the sleigh disappear into the air. Everything was silent. It had all taken place at such an incredible speed that nobody had time to say anything.
"Well", said Gabriel, "At least he didn’t get killed....."
"Yet", said Mulder.
"What do you mean?"
"Riding Santa’s sleigh isn’t like riding a bike, Gabe. There’s a lot to do. Plus the fact he’s got to start going down chimneys and stuff."
"Woah! Mulder, I think you’re taking this all a little seriously! It’s just a bit of fun..."
"Fun? Gabriel, being Santa isn’t just a job where you only have to work one day a year. It’s a responsibility, a position of respect and most of all, hope."
"Hope?"
"Everyone in the world needs someone to look up to, something to look forward to. For the kids, its the thought that somewhere there is someone who is willing to give them a toy to celebrate one of the most important events in history."
"I didn’t know you were a Christian", said Grace.
"I’m not, but anybody who can pull off a vanishing act like Jesus did has earned my respect. If he ever does a double act with Elvis then I’m converted."
"Mulder, I think it’s great you’re into this stuff but....."
"Gabriel! Don’t you get it?", said Mulder as resolute as ever, "Santa means more to kids than anything else, far more than the Schattenjagers ever will!"
"Yeah, but the Schattenjagers weren’t invented in a Coca Cola advertising campaign."
"Neither was Santa, it was just a makeover. And it worked!"
"How?"
"Santa didn’t get much fame before the early 1900s, so he positioned his employees in high levels of Coca Cola who managed to put through an advertising campaign which the bosses thought was advertising their drink when it was in fact advertising the new look Santa."
"Do you really believe that crap, Mulder?"
"As much as you believe your Schattenjager crap."
Meanwhile, Mosely was having more than a little trouble being Santa. He’d got the hang of the sleigh, he’d sorted out his route (he just imagined it was like doing a drugs bust in a very large building where he had to systematically explore each part) and he’d even practised the ‘ho-hoing’ a bit. But he hadn’t got a clue what he was supposed to do when he got to his first destination. According to Mulder, the chimney but was easy. The only hard bit was when there was some kid who had stayed up late and was expecting the full ‘meeting Santa’ but. These were the really smart kids, the ones who instinctively tugged the beards of Santas in the mall, the ones who would be able to tell he was a fake in seconds if he didn’t get everything right. He checked the first bag again, they were all presents of London, England, Mosely had decided to go to the Meridian line and work east, that way he could gain time as he went. The first package was for a girl called ‘Elizabeth Knight’. Mosely wondered if there was any connection as he steered towards the house.....
St George’s Rare Books
Mulder and Gabriel’s latest fight had put up another set of barriers between them. Gabriel was in the front room drinking coffee, Mulder was out back wondering how many dead bodies Gabriel had under the floorboards. It was there that Scully found him.
"Hey Scully", smiled Mulder, "I wonder if the skeletal Mrs. Knight is sat behind this wall in her night-dress. It would make sense, her son is disturbed enough...."
"Mulder...."
"Don’t start on me, Scully."
"I know you don’t get on with Mulder very well."
"Top marks for observation, no wonder you’re a doctor."
"But that’s no excuse for the way you’re acting."
"Scully, the guy is a jerk! How do you expect me to act!"
"I agree that he has an unsociable manner."
"I’ve met more sociable mutants"
"But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a heart"
"Let’s face it, Scully. Gabriel keeps his feelings in his pants."
"Interesting thought."
"He is so hung up on his quasi-religious crap that he doesn’t stop to listen to anybody else."
"Yes, I’ll admit that he is stuck up on that Schattenjager stuff still. But can you blame him? Especially after what happened to his uncle...." Although neither of the agents had spoken to Gabriel for two years, their investigations into his involvement in events in Munich had caused them to look into his history. Gabriel Knight was a very disturbed man, both his parents had died when he was young and he had been raised sheltered from his ancestry. Scully had concluded that when his uncle Wolfgang had died, Gabriel must have snapped emotionally. So much so that he actually believed in the folklore which Wolfgang had got himself killed by (according the file the poor man had committed ritual suicide in Africa). For once, Mulder had agreed with her hypothesis and so Gabriel did not get the honour of having an X-Files devoted to him (although Mulder did want him to get a mention in the list of ‘America’s Most Disturbed’
"Whatever your feelings", continued Scully, "The issue now isn’t about Gabriel’s mental state, it’s about the state of the poor detective who we just launched into the Stratosphere!"
"He’ll be fine" sighed Mulder, "He just has to get a hang of the job."
"Don’t you think he may be a tiny bit bemused or confused by the experience? Maybe it’s just me, but the shock of finding out that Santa exists and that he has to play him on the same day must have shocked that man."
"Don’t be ridiculous, Scully", said Mulder, "Everyone knows that Santa exists. it’s just that some people prefer to stick on the safe side of science and deny it."
"Are you saying that when we met Santa in ‘94, you weren’t the tiniest bit surprised?"
"No. I was more surprised when he told me that the Easter Bunny was a actually a marketing promotion by Pepsi which was meant to be a competition to Santa but failed."
Gabriel was looking out of the window watching the skies. he wasn’t looking at anything in particular, he was just staring aimlessly. Grace checked her watch, it was about 2.00 AM. It was Christmas Day and she was stuck in a war zone between two adolescent men whilst one of their friends was zooming around the world giving toys to children. All in all, pretty normal considering some of he things which had happened on past Christmases.
"Do you realise that this time last year you were dead?", said Grace.
"Is that supposed to make me feel grateful?"
"This is really childish."
"No way! It’s Mulder that’s being childish! He started it!"
"Uh huh."
"If you don’t have anything useful to say then please shut up.", He turned back to the window. Well, that was Plan A finished unsuccessfully. Time to change the subject.
"I wonder how Mosely’s getting on"
"Flying around the world drinking booze in every house he goes to? He’s probably having a ball."
"You have to admit that he’s being pretty brave."
"Maybe."
"Look, Gabriel, it’s Christmas. Now I don’t care if you want to drink yourself into a hole or something but I intend to have a good time. If you can’t get past that then I suggest you do what you want!", and with that she stormed out into the street and straight into Agent Scully.
Scully had come out just after finishing her conversation with Mulder, and she too was not looking forward to a day with two warring men. She spoke to Grace.
"So, how’s the boy wonder?"
"I left Gabriel clawing at the windows and howling that a wild dog. How about Mulder?"
"I never thought I’d ever see a man being but I think I have now."
"I think we’re going to have to resurrect the ol’ Christmas cheer around here."
"How?"
"Well", smile Grace, "I know there’s an old tree out back somewhere..."
Somewhere above the USA
4.00 AM New Orleans Time
Mosely was on his last sack of toys now. He’d been all around the world. He’d met hundreds of children, given out thousands of presents and eaten hundreds of mince pies. It amazed him to see only a couple of hours had past, but he figured it was one of those phenomenon things which Mulder was so interested in. With a final loop he headed towards New Orleans. It was now time for Christmas, and it was party time!
Gabriel and Mulder were both bemused to see Grace and Scully walk into the shop with a Christmas tree straddled between them. They both watched as the two women began putting decorations on it and parcels underneath.
"I guess they finally went crazy", sighed Gabriel. In a few minutes, the tree was finished except for the top. Grace searched the box of decorations but found nothing suitable.
"Maybe we can get Scully in a dress and put her on top", smiled Gabriel. Grace looked at him and smiled, She walked up to him and reached for his talisman, pulling it off. She walked over to the tree and placed it on the very top.
"There", she smiled, "Perfect." Everyone watched the talisman glow in the light of the fairy lights beneath it.
If you have any comments, you can email Phil Colvin at sculder_mully@geocities.com.
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