Chapter 9: Christmas Eve’s Revelation
1197 Words
Christmas Eve had arrived.
For the elves, it was the most exciting day of the year—the culmination of months of hard work, late nights, and endless toy-making. The workshop buzzed with an electric energy, and despite the pressure of the final hours before the grand delivery, everyone seemed to be thriving on the chaos.
Everyone, that is, except Nicholas Claus.
For Nicholas, Christmas Eve wasn’t magical. It wasn’t joyous or warm.
It was a test. A responsibility. A burden.
His job wasn’t to enjoy Christmas. His job was to deliver it.
And every year, it reminded him of the same cold truth:
This wasn’t his choice.
It had never been his choice.
Nicholas walked through the workshop, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the final preparations. Elves hurried past him, stacking gifts onto enchanted sleighs that would distribute packages to different regions of the world.
Every movement was precise. Efficient.
Just the way he demanded.
“Final route calculations?” he asked Bernard as he passed by.
Bernard, who had been double-checking a set of maps, looked up. “All done. Everything’s optimized for time and magic efficiency.”
Nicholas nodded. “And the sleigh?”
“Dasher and Comet threw a fit about the new harness, but they’re fine now. You’ll be in the air right on schedule.”
Nicholas exhaled. Everything was running smoothly. As it should.
So why did he feel so… off?
Why did it feel like something wasn’t right?
He knew the answer before his mind even fully formed the thought.
Alina.
He hadn’t seen her all morning.
And that, more than anything, unsettled him.
He found her outside, near the edge of the snowy cliffs where the Northern Lights shimmered faintly above the horizon.
She was sitting on the ground, arms wrapped around herself, her gaze fixed on the sky.
Nicholas hesitated. He wasn’t sure why. He had no reason to check on her. She was an employee, not his problem.
And yet, before he could stop himself, he walked toward her.
“You’re missing the chaos,” he said.
Alina didn’t move. “I needed air.”
Nicholas frowned. “Something’s wrong.”
She let out a small laugh, but there was no humor in it. “You’re observant when you want to be.”
Nicholas didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to respond.
Instead, he sat down beside her. He wasn’t sure why—he didn’t sit on the ground. He didn’t do casual comfort.
But somehow, next to her, it felt… natural.
Alina let out a slow breath. “It’s strange,” she murmured. “Christmas is supposed to be about joy. But for some of us, it just brings back things we’d rather forget.”
Nicholas turned to look at her.
She wasn’t smiling.
She always smiled. Even when she was teasing him, even when she was challenging him, she wore that infuriating smirk, that lighthearted ease.
But now?
Now, she looked tired.
“Alina,” he said quietly, “what happened?”
She hesitated. He saw it—the way her fingers tightened in the fabric of her cloak, the way her jaw tensed, like she was holding back something too heavy to say aloud.
Nicholas waited.
He had never been patient with people. He had never cared about their personal struggles or emotions.
But with her, something was different.
Finally, Alina spoke. “My family…” She exhaled, closing her eyes for a second. “They weren’t kind people.”
Nicholas’s chest tightened. He didn’t say anything, didn’t push.
“I wasn’t… wanted,” she continued, voice steady but distant. “I was an accident. A mistake. And I was treated like one.”
Nicholas clenched his fists.
He knew cruelty. He had seen it in the world, in the children whose letters arrived full of desperation rather than Christmas wishes.
But hearing it from her—someone so warm, so resilient—made his stomach turn.
“I ran away when I was sixteen,” she said, staring at the snow. “Spent years finding my own way, figuring out how to survive. Christmas always reminded me of them, of what I didn’t have. That’s why I came here. The North Pole was… different. It was a place where Christmas wasn’t about pain. It was about joy.”
She finally turned to look at him. “At least, for everyone else.”
Nicholas swallowed hard. “Alina…”
She shook her head, a small, tired smile on her lips. “It’s funny, isn’t it? We spend so much time making sure the world is full of magic and happiness, but we never stop to think about the people who don’t feel it themselves.”
Nicholas didn’t think.
For once, he just acted.
He reached over, taking her cold fingers in his.
Alina tensed for a fraction of a second, startled by the contact.
But then—she didn’t pull away.
Nicholas hadn’t realized how small her hand was until now, how fragile she felt despite the strength she carried in her voice.
“I get it,” he murmured. “More than you know.”
Alina searched his eyes. “Do you?”
He nodded.
Because for the first time, he was starting to understand something about himself too.
They were the same.
Two people who had spent their lives on the outside, watching a world filled with joy but never quite feeling it themselves.
But now, here in the quiet together, maybe that was beginning to change.
A long silence stretched between them, filled only by the soft howl of the wind and the distant glow of the Northern Lights.
Nicholas knew he should leave.
He had a job to do. Christmas was waiting.
But somehow, letting go of her hand felt harder than stepping into a sleigh that would take him across the world.
Finally, Alina broke the silence.
“You should go,” she said softly. “The children are waiting.”
Nicholas hesitated, then slowly released her hand, standing up.
He looked down at her, at the way she sat there in the snow, still lost in whatever pain she had spent years hiding.
And before he could stop himself, he said the one thing that had been stuck in his chest all night.
“Stay up.”
Alina blinked, looking up at him. “What?”
“When I get back,” Nicholas said, his voice rough, unsure, “stay up.”
She frowned slightly. “Why?”
Because I don’t want to come back to an empty room.
Because tonight, for the first time in years, Christmas feels like it means something more than just duty.
Because I don’t want to be alone anymore.
Nicholas cleared his throat. “Just… stay up.”
Alina watched him for a long moment.
Then—she nodded.
And for the first time, Nicholas Claus wasn’t just delivering Christmas.
He was waiting for it to come back to him.
- Writer
