When Scrooge awoke it was totally dark and the chimes of a neighboring church were striking the hour. He listened in astonishment... Twelve! It couldn't be, the clock must be wrong! It had been past two when he'd gone to bed...
He went to the window and rubbed the frost off the windowpane. It was still very cold and very foggy outside, and there was no one about.
Scrooge went back to bed. His sleep had been troubled and the thought of Marley's ghost was bothering him exceedingly. He was mulling over the ghost's warning of a visitation when, surprisingly, the bell tolled twelve a second time, and in that very moment light flashed in the room and Scrooge found himself face to face with an unearthly visitor.
It was a strange figure, not a child and yet not a man, with huge blue eyes, blazing eerily in his smooth face. The man-child held a branch of holly in one hand and summer flowers in the other.
"Are you the Spirit whose coming I was foretold?" Scrooge asked gruffly.
"Yes, I am. I am the Ghost of Christmas Past, of your past Christmases," the spirit answered in soft, gentle voice. "Rise Sean Scrooge, rise and walk with me."
Scrooge wanted to plead that the hour was late and the weather too cold for his night attire, but he had a feeling the ghost wouldn't heed him and so he kept quiet as the spirit took him by the hand and as together they passed through the wall.
The city had vanished entirely and they were standing on an open country road, with fields on either side, leading to a village. It was a clear, cold, winter day..
"Hey! I know this place," Scrooge cried. "I lived here as a boy!"
"Do you remember the way to the village?" the spirit asked.
"Remember it? I could walk it blindfolded!" Scrooge replied cockily.
"Strange then that you had forgotten it for so many years - Let us go on."
They walked along, Scrooge recognizing every gate and tree and cow and calling excitedly by name to a group of merry boys who were playing in the fields and wishing each other a Merry Christmas.
"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said the ghost gently. "They have no awareness of us and cannot hear you. Look, there is the school! It's not quite deserted you know, a solitary child, alone and friendless, is still there."
Scrooge said he was aware of that, his voice sounding a bit strangled, as the ghost led him inside the school to a bare, melancholy room where a lonely boy, who would one day grow up to be Sean Scrooge, sat reading, shivering in the cold.
As they stared at him, the solitary boy seemed to perk up, talking excitedly to himself, but really seeming as if he were surrounded by friends and chatting to them.
"Do you know this boy's friends?" the spirit asked.
"Oh yes, how could I not know the only friends of my childhood," Scrooge replied wistfully. "The hobbit, fleeing with the Ring, and the ranger, the steward, the elf... The pirate captain and the blacksmith's apprentice and the beautiful governor's daughter... These were the friends who were always there for me, waiting for me every time I opened a book, greeting me like a brother... Poor boy!" Scrooge cried, his voice filled with emotion. "I wish..." he muttered, his hand fingering some coins in his pocket, "but it's too late now."
"What is the matter?" the ghost asked him. "Are you feeling sorry for this lonely boy, for yourself?"
"No, that boy somehow managed to get along... I would know. But there was a beggar boy singing Christmas carols in the street last night. I wish I had given him some money, that's all," he sighed, surreptitiously rubbing eyes that looked suspiciously moist.
The ghost smiled thoughtfully and took Scrooge's hand again. "Let us see another Christmas," he said.
The schoolroom swirled and dissolved around them. They were now in the busy street of a city. By the decorations up in the shop windows it was plain to see that it was Christmas here too, but it was evening now, and everything was lit up and cheery.
The ghost stopped before a warehouse door and asked Scrooge if he knew the place.
"Why, yes! It's old Fezziwig's firm. It's where I held my very first job! And look, there is Fezziwig himself," Scrooge cried, pointing to an old man with a lean, crinkled face and kindly blue eyes. "Oh, and there's Craig too, my colleague. He was such a sweet guy, very attached to me, you know!" Scrooge commented, staring fondly at the blue-eyed youth who was working side by side with a much younger and cheerful looking Scrooge.
Just then Fezziwig put down his pen and looked up at the clock, rubbing his hands and laughing merrily.
"Hey, Sean, Craig! It's time, stop working, enough of that for today. It's Christmas Eve! It's time to eat, drink and be merry!"
Two young men eagerly emerged from behind their desks. As Fezziwig's joyous call rang out, a number of other workers gathered in the large room, as food and drink were brought in from a nearby pub whose services he had engaged to arrange this small party.
Scrooge beamed as he watched the merriment, the exchange of friendly jokes and well wishes, the toasts raised to Fezziwig. And he forgot the presence of the ghost until it whispered in his ear: "Such a small matter to make these silly folks so full of happiness and gratitude. Fezziwig only spent a few bucks of your mortal money after all, doesn't the extent of these people's gratitude and enthusiasm seem disproportionate to you?"
"It isn't that, Spirit," Scrooge retorted hotly. "It's the way he had the power of making things easier for us, our job a pleasure or a burden, the way he cared about us as people and not just as employees." He sounded extremely perturbed.
He felt the spirit's stare and turned to hide his face.
"What is the matter?" the spirit inquired.
"Nothing really" Scrooge's reply sounded muffled.
"Something is the matter, I think," the spirit prodded.
"No.. Yes... I wish I could say a few words to my employee, Viggo Cratchit, right now. Actually, there is a lot I wish I could tell him, words that should have been spoken long ago and that I never before realized were in me. I hid them inside me and only poured them silently onto his back, when I should have been speaking them to his face, looking into his eyes."
"Ah well," the ghost commented. "Let us see one Christmas more, my time grows short."
The spirit guided Scrooge to another window and bid him to look inside the dimly lit office.
Scrooge himself was seated behind a cluttered desk. He looked older now, a man in his thirties. His face did not have yet the harsh lines of today, but it had began to bear the first signs of coldness and avarice, and there was a greedy, restless motion in the way his eyes kept darting around the room.
He was not alone. A young man was seated in front of him on the other side of the desk, one hand toying nervously with his dark curls as his chocolate eyes, bright with unshed tears, tried vainly to lock with Scrooge's green ones.
"I see.. You don't care about me anymore. I used to be the most important thing in your life, now a different idol has displaced me, now making money is all that matters to you. Your heart has become a safe-box and only gold has a place in it. When we made our promise to each other..."
"Orli, stop it," Scrooge interrupted. "Our contract was an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so and only remotely dreaming that one day our fortunes in life might improve. Through hard work I have managed to change my situation, that brings with it different commitments, different priorities. You are being childish and impractical in thinking I can overlook those and go back to being a dreamy, sentimental pauper."
"You were no pauper Sean, you were a kind, loving man with a heart of gold, now you are a cold, ruthless money-making machine seeking to drop me as you would a profitless enterprise," Orli exclaimed.
"I was a clueless boy," Sean retorted impatiently. "And you cannot say that I have ever sought to be released from my bond to you, that I have never done."
"Not in words maybe, but you have been doing it every day - with your changed nature, with your ignoring me, with your lack of love," Orli replied, his voice broken but his tone compassionate. "Tell me Sean, would you seek me out, and court me, and love me if we were to meet now for the first time?" He stared at Sean steadily. "You don't answer, and that is an answer in itself. No, don't speak, don't lie. In a way I wish this breaking up will cause you pain, but I know that the pain, if any, would last only for a very brief time. I know you will dismiss your memory of me, your regret if any, and I will become for you a discarded, useless dream, one of those that make you feel relieved upon waking up, knowing that it was just a dream. Goodbye Sean, may you thrive in the life you have chosen!"
Orli walked round the desk to Sean Scrooge's side and kissed him one last time, his lips moving passionately over Sean's frozen, unresponsive ones. He sighed and stepped back.
Standing in the street by the ghost's side, Scrooge watched as Orli left, his beautiful face streaming with tears. He stared at his younger self seated behind the desk, face a stone mask, hand toying idly with a stack of checkbooks, as if he expected him to rise and run after Orli. But Scrooge knew he would not. He turned to the spirit, wailing like a wounded animal.
"Spirit, show me no more! Take me home, you are torturing me. I cannot face this past, I cannot face the way I have been replaying this past in present times with another man, one I care for and have been using in the most callous and unfeeling manner."
"I told you these were shadows of things that have been in your past," said the ghost, a bright light streaming from his form. "That they are what you made them, so do not blame me for what they are!"
"Leave me then, take me back, haunt me no longer!" Scrooge struggled, as if pinned down by the light coming from the spirit.
He felt exhausted and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness. He blinked and looked around. He was in his own bedroom, alone. He fell upon his bed and sank into a heavy sleep.
Summary: Humbug! But there's hope for Sean Scrooge.
Rated: NC-17
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: AUChallenges:
Series: A Christmas CarolChapters: 5 Completed: Yes
Word count: 10508 Read: 6678
Published: 07 Aug 2009 Updated: 07 Aug 2009