Grimjack stopped. A massive Excedial vault door was all that stood between them and the center of this facility. He rolled his shoulders, but Freddy swirled his candy cane in front of him.
“Allow me,” he said before sauntering to the door and looking it up and down.
“What, you an expert and B&E now?”
“Well, not specifically. Besides, this isn’t too complicated.” Freddy jumped up onto the door’s handle and tapped around with his candy cane. “Mhm, that’s the problem with the modern locks. Too much of a reliance on fancy electronics, and not enough physical barriers.”
Freddy twisted around his candy cane, and the end started to glow. Sparks started to fly as he pressed it against the door. “Give me five minutes. It’d be a lot quicker, but you’re pretty big. Ah well, no changing that, unless…can you break down into pieces like a 3D puzzle?”
“No.”
“Well, worth asking anyway,” Freddy had pulled a pair of welding goggles from somewhere and strapped them over his eyes. “Be sure to watch my back kiddos while I earn that sixty percent.”
“It feels like we haven’t really had much of a chance to sit down outside of the Monkey incident, and we had to be really quiet then,” Jangle tried to make conversation with Grimjack as she twiddled her thumbs. “So, I was thinking you could maybe tell me your name at least?”
“Unimportant.”
“Okay, well are you doing anything for Christmas?”
“No.”
“What, just because you’re a sourpuss doesn’t mean you don’t celebrate. Isn’t there family you visit for the holiday?”
“No.”
“What about friends?”
“No.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that. Not having family or friends can make things pretty tough around the holidays. Why, I remember after my dad passed away. It was hard to even want to see my stepmom that Christmas. It just brought up painful memories. Why, just thinking about going to that old house made me miserable for months, but…”
“Look, I appreciate the advice, but I do have family. I just don’t see them.”
“Huh? Are they just too far? I mean, you could always do one of those virtual Christmases.”
“That’s not it either.”
“Well, why wouldn’t you want to see family?”
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“It’s…complicated…”
“I see…” Jangle didn’t press him and gave a sympathetic look towards him before shifting the conversation slightly. “Well, how about I tell you about my stepmom a bit then?”
Grimjack shrugged but didn’t say anything. Thinking about Grimjill here made things inside him ache. Things he thought had been replaced ages ago. He’d have to get that looked at when this was all over.
“Alright then! Let’s see…Ah! I know.” Jangle cleared her throat. “So, I was dreading seeing my stepmom at Christmas. Well, there really wasn’t a good way to just not show up. You know, what with my obligations and working so close to her. I tried to find another family to have Christmas with, but all my coworkers just gave their condolences and turned me down. I gotta say, I was furious back then. I mean, a girl loses her father and despite all their talk of Christmas cheer, everyone turns her away for Christmas? I was this close to changing my gifts for all of them to be coal. Again though, that’d be pretty frowned upon, and it never got much further than a thought.”
Jangle paused a second and sighed. “Okay okay. Maybe I did check how much coal would cost and the price scared me off too. Anyway! What’s important is that I could either have Christmas all by my lonesome, or with my stepmom absent of my dad. It’s not like I hated her, it was just weird. Having another woman come in and swoop up my dad after my mom died just felt wrong to me. It didn’t make sense, but it sort of soured our relationship, and kept us at arm’s length my whole life.”
“Right, but what about that Christmas?” Grimjack had become more interested than he expected, but he didn’t want to let her on to that fact. So, he tried to play it cool and asked in as casual and disinterested of a voice as his modulator would allow.
Jangle’s mouth was covered, but it was obvious she was smiling under her outfit. “Right, so my stepmom and I have a not-so-great relationship, and I’m forcing myself to spend Christmas with her. I get to the door, and my heart is aching so much it feels like it will burst. The house was always so warm and comforting. My dad’s laugh could be heard through the halls. It was so gentle, like all the rough edges had been sanded down, and the noise would just wash away your worried and weariness. But now, standing outside of my ancestral home, it was dead silent. The house was dark, only one or two lights on. As I rang the doorbell, and my stepmom answered it, everything got worse. She was smiling, and in my heart I knew. I wished she had died instead of my dad. I grew angry. I wanted to yell and scream at her.”
Jangle was shaking slightly and took in a deep breath to try and compose herself. Without thinking Grimjack had set his large hand down on her shoulder, and she seemed to calm down a little as she continued. “Before I could say anything, she opened her mouth. She was probably going to welcome me, and talk ask about my job or something, but instead she broke down. She collapsed in the doorway right there and started bawling.” A few tears started to drip from jangle’s eyes as she pushed herself to continue. “For some reason that broke through what little resistance I had, and I started crying with her. Instinctually I think, we both hugged each other and just cried our eyes out. It was like a dam had broken and everything I had kept in was flowing out with no way to stop it.”
Jangle chuckled as she wiped her eyes and patted Grimjack’s hand on her shoulder. This shook him from her story for a moment as he realized what he had done, and he quickly pulled his hand away and now held both of his hands behind his back. “So, you two were crying.”
“Yep, a pretty sorry sight. Two elf girls crying on a porch as a gentle snow came down. No one came out to check on us either. It was like we were in our own little snow globe, sobbing away. When we had both seemed to force everything out, we just stayed there exhausted. Both hugging the other with what little strength we had left. Finally, she was the one to break the new silence. She wiped the tears from my eyes and told me how she knew how much my father meant to me, and how sorry she was that he could only be here in spirit. I still couldn’t speak, and my eyes tried to force out tears, but there weren’t any left. I was tapped dry as I just sobbed and heaved.”
Jangle shook her head and let out a small giggle. “It was pretty pathetic I know, but sometimes it’s important to let yourself cry. My stepmom helped me see that. She brought me inside and made me some fresh hot chocolate. She did have some cookies, but they had burned while we were on the porch. It was pretty chaotic. She is terrible with problems, so I had to help her clear out the smoke. We ended up baking cookies all night and sharing memories of dad. It was probably the first time I ever spent actual time with her. Like real quality time where we both paid attention to each other. I just hadn’t given her a chance before then, and it helped me realize that even if I was kind of rotten to her when I was younger, that it was never too late to start. Give someone a chance, and a lot of the time they’ll surprise you, especially family. I actually found out that was why everyone turned me down, and the neighbors didn’t come over. They all knew we needed each other. That we needed to address this difficult time as a family, and I’ll always be grateful to them for that. Makes me feel bad about a few of those gag gifts I’ve sent them over the years. Ooh boy, like this poo-pet thing. It is fertilizer made from poop but shaped into an animal. You supposedly just place it in the garden, and it feeds your plants. It even had little corn for eyes.”
She smiled and shook her head for a moment before she looked up at Grimjack with compassion in her slightly red and puffy eyes. “I just think Christmas is especially good at bringing people back together. At repairing broken bonds…That’s what it’s really about you know. Not the naughty or nice stuff but spending time with people close to you. Nothing else refreshes the soul like a Christmas with family and friends.”
“It’s just…”
A frigid wind swept around them as a sharp voice called out, “Ho…ho…ho…” The words seemed to cut straight through Grimjack’s armor and send a chill directly into his heart.