Disclaimer: Moira MacTaggart, Rahne, Wolvie, and any other canon characters mentioned within are the property of Marvel and are being used without intention of profit or harm. Do not archive with my permission -- please, feel free to send me feedback at kielle@subreality.com, I think this baby might just break my writer's block...

Now for the more personal explanation: The following story occurs (unofficially of course unless certain people give it a red light, which I doubt) within the continuity of...(drumroll, please)...both the Dawn Arc AND the Kai & Logan series.

"HUH?!?"

Yeah. I did it. :) This is a gift to both Kaylee (owner of Kai, Jack, & Zach) and Tapestry (guardian of Dawn Embers & Glenn Keaton) for Christmas 1998, written in a frenzied burst of inspiration on Christmas Eve. It was also designed to fit Mitai's "Happy Christmas" challenge...even if this story isn't QUITE set at Christmas, it's the spirit of the season that counts gosh darn it. Hope they like it -- and I hope you do too! Happy holidays, everyone!

PS: Last-second thanks to Indigo, Mockery, and Celendra for helping me to shake off my name-finding problems. :)

"You are going t'the mainland, an' you are taking them shopping. A willna accept nae f'r an answer."

Kai didn't like being told what to do. Oh sure, she'd had more than her fair share of being bossed around in her life, which was part of it of course. A big part of it. Still, though, she liked to think that she wasn't just some stiff-necked balker who said "no" just to "keep from looking like a wimp," like some immature testosterone and/or estrogen cases she could name. She could follow orders, if she had to. But at the doctor's sharp tone, her first knee-jerk reaction was to refuse. Who wouldn't?

Sensing a problem, Moira MacTaggart looked up from her paperwork and made a conscious effort to smile. She pulled off her glasses and laid them on a stack of medical tomes and propped her cheek on one fist. "Kai...look, I know you're worried about Jack, but he's in good hands--"

"I'll say."

"--and those girls really need t'get off of the island for a few hours," Moira continued doggedly, refusing to be swayed. "A know it's a wee bit early, but Rahne really loves Christmas, and, well--"

Kai sighed, finishing the sentence in her head: And that other kid probably won't live to see the holidays. Damn. She relaxed consciously, reminding herself to return a small smile of her own. "I suppose a few hours away couldn't hurt. I'll see if Logan wants to--"

"A'd really prefer it if it's just the three of ye."

One eyebrow lifted. "Oh? OH. Um. Look, Doctor, no offense, but I think you may have gotten the wrong impression of me. If this is s'pposed to be some sort of 'girls' day out,' I'm not really..."

Moira fixed her with a quite uncharacteristic pleading look. Kai sighed again, more heavily. "Right. Take the girls shopping. Okay. But if we get attacked by supervillains and dragged off for genetic experimentation, YOU'RE gonna get to explain to Logan what happened."

Three "girls" stood at the entry to a shopping center in Inverness. One, a small redheaded lass in Sunday-best green plaid, was too excited to notice the biting Arctic chill in the air. "Ooo! A bookstore! A'm sure there's somethin' here tha' Mummy will like!" Rahne Sinclair cried as she shot ahead into the mall like a pup on a scent.

The second of the trio was lean and rangy with a faintly Native-American cast to her features that would have seemed out of place in the north of Scotland had she not been securely bundled up in a greatcoat and a borrowed woolen scarf. Cold was NOT Kai's thing. She automatically started forward with a muffled oath as the little redhead took off running, but then she caught herself and stopped. Not likely she's gonna get lost in a bookstore, she decided ruefully.

Instead, she glanced back over her shoulder at her second responsibility for the day. Barely visible in the midst of a thick tan wrap and shawl, the other girl was totally nondescript: brown-haired, brown-eyed. Normal. Quite utterly normal. At least, that was the impression that the image-inducer clipped to her belt was supposed to project, and it was doing a fine job of it, too.

Of course, it wouldn't make a lick of difference if someone were to accidentally bump into the huge folded wings that the image inducer was intended to hide. Which was a situation Kai aimed to avoid.

"I really don't want to stand out here all day," she grumbled. "Coming? Ahem. Hello? Earth to Dawn!"

"Uh?" Dawn Embers gave a little start and her eyes focused on Kai as if she was returning from a very, very long way away. Almost immediately, she began to shiver. "Sorry, I was...man. It is COLD out here."

"I'd noticed," Kai said dryly. "You like bookstores?"

"Oh sure, love 'em. Where's Rahne?"

Kai glanced meaningfully at the book shop right inside the mall entrance. "She loves 'em too. And it's warmer inside."

Dawn needed no further urging. As she passed Kai, the older woman resisted the urge to ask why she'd been spacing out. Poor kid was telepathic, and dying of Legacy...despite the amount of psi-suppressant drugs Moira had her on, she was probably picking up static from the city...

"You don't have to pity me, okay?"

Kai started. "I--"

"And no, I'm not reading your mind." Dawn had stopped dead right inside the mall doors, garnering annoyed looks from patrons who had to thus maneuver around her. Kai winced in anticipation of trouble, but apparently the girl had her currently invisible wings pulled in tight enough to avoid collisions. "It's kinda obvious. Dr. MacTaggert bullied you into this 'babysitting duty' thing, huh?"

"I wasn't bullied." Kai strode forward, out of the cold outdoor draft and into the bookstore without waiting. Dawn shrugged and followed a close pace behind, quietly, as if awaiting further protests, but Kai wasn't one to waste words. "Where IS that kid..."

Dawn grinned and pointed. "Young adult section. Find the horse books and you'll find our little wolfling. If you don't mind, I'll be in the fantasy section, okay? I think Lackey's come out with some new Valdemar books since I got into the whole superhero thing. Bye!"

And thus, a mere five minutes into their shopping trip, Kai suddenly found herself standing in a whistling draft, surrounded by racks of cheesy calendars...and, worst of all, bereft of BOTH of her charges.

"I'll bet this never happens to Jean-bloody-Grey," she muttered as she grimly set her shoulders and stalked off into the maze of shelves and stacks in search of two sections she wasn't sure even existed.

Kai bit back a smile. And now for Embers...

She picked up the book that Rahne had been longingly mooning over and set off in the direction of the "science fiction/fantasy" sign she could see a few aisles away. Halfway there, however, she found the object of her search lounging in one of the comfy chairs strewn around the place, feet up on another chair and nose sunk deep into a book with a griffon on the cover. Kai cleared her throat. No response. She sat down in an adjoining seat and cleared her throat MUCH more loudly; this time the book lowered a fraction and eyes regarded her over the top of it. "Is it time to go already? I figured it would take you much longer to scare Rahne out of her favorite section."

Kai grinned in a lopsided fashion, plunking her feet up at well and leaning back with her hands behind her head. "Nope, not really...she's surprisingly easy to scare. But yeah, we've got a few other shops to hit before we get out of here. Herr MacTaggert's orders. Did you find what you were looking for?"

Dawn reached down to pat a stack of paperbacks on the floor next to her chair. "Uh huh. Hope no one minds, these are all for me. I've got a lot of catching-up to do...and I'm going to have a lot of time to read."

"Hey, there's always the Internet for when things get boring," Kai commented, thinking of the long winter months which lay ahead for the denizens of Muir Island and glad that she was heading back to the States soon herself. Brrr. It's cold enough already! Why anyone would want to live in a place where you have to thaw yourself out before taking a leak, I don't know--

"Not when I get too sick to sit at the computer," Dawn said softly from behind her book. She didn't seem to have intended that comment to be overheard, but of course Kai's sharp ears picked it up anyway. The older woman winced.

Damn. Foot down throat AGAIN.

She cast a quick sidelong glance over...and found that the girl was staring at her. "Oh no," Dawn groaned, mortified. "You heard that, didn't you? I wasn't fishing for sympathy, I swear. It's just...well...oh, never mind. You wouldn't understand."

Oh HELL! There go the storm shutters slamming shut. Guess I'd better say something...I am really NOT cut out for this...but I haveta say SOMETHING. Logan will kill me if this kid comes home more depressed than when we left the island...

With that thought firmly in mind, Kai took a deep breath and fumbled full steam ahead into unfamiliar social territory. "Not completely, no, but I'm guessing that it's gotta be tough to act all the time like it doesn't matter, right?" she tentatively offered. "I mean, Legacy's bad enough, and I heard what happened to your boyfriend--"

Dawn paled as if struck. Kai bit her own tongue a second too late, and cursed herself soundly for her lack of tact. "Look, look, I'm not much on diplomacy, okay? I just wanted to say, hell, I don't know you well -- okay, fine, I don't really know you at all -- but you're allowed to be a little upset. Right? You're allowed to ask for a *little* sympathy, I think."

Dawn shrugged and tried to look exceedingly interested in her book, but it was a pretty thin pretense and she knew it as well as Kai did. "I'm honestly trying to not think about all that. You know what's really bothering me right now, right at this moment? Promise not to laugh."

"Okay, shoot."

The girl closed the paperback in her hands, flipped it to the last page, and handed it over. "That."

Kai looked at it blankly -- the page in question bore a splashy full-size advertisement for the author's next work, due out in February. "What about it? I guess it looks okay to me if you're into fantasy books..."

"Next book in the series, and I'm not going to get to read it. Silly, huh? Here I am facing death before Christmas, DEATH, and I'm getting all depressed over missing a stupid book."

Awkward silence reigned for a moment. Then:

"Actually, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself -- it does sound kinda depressing to me," Kai commented. She patted Dawn on the shoulder in a friendly fashion as she stood up, her mind suddenly spinning wheels elsewhere. "C'mon. Let's round up Rahne and get over to the department store before the crowds hit."

"Department store...?"

"We've been saddled with Dr. MacTaggert's shopping list, too."

Dawn chuckled as she got to her feet, careful to hide the fact that it took an effort. "Well, at least it came attached to her credit card."

"Logan? We need to talk. It's about...Warren."

"Huh?"

T'was two weeks before Thanksgiving, and all through Muir Island,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a--

"AHHH!"

The lump in the bed exploded in a flash of feathers and flying blue hair -- the shadow which had been caught reaching for the dresser threw itself aside just in time as a lamp shattered against the drawers. However, said shadow wasn't quick enough to avoid getting beaned in the head by a flying Jordan novel (hardback, no less) and consequently went down hard in a tangled mess of legs and tripped-over chair. "OW! EMBERS! For Chrissake, CUT IT OUT! It's ME!"

Blue eyes peered warily over the far side of the still-settling heap of blankets. "Kai? What are you doing in my...it's four o'clock in the...I could have hurt you!"

"You DID hurt me. GodDAMN." Kai sat up, gingerly prodding at the rapidly receding lump on her forehead. "You've got a good arm. Ever think of goin' out for baseball?"

"Thanks, I-- no, you're NOT going to change the subject, lady."

Kai was still sourly feeling the sore spot on her skull. "I wasn't trying to. That was an attempt at humor. Ow! Gotta be grateful for the ol' healing factor, or between this and the toothmarks Rahne left in my thigh...I'm just NO good at this Santa thing, I guess."

"Toothmarks? Rahne? SANTA? Kai, I know you're not all there in the head--"

"Thanks, kid, you're a sweetheart."

"--but it's the middle of November."

"Yeah. I'd noticed." She stood up and retrieved a bundle from the floor, kicking aside the remains of the chair to get at it. "But I decided that you'd want this now, and then I thought 'what the heck, I'll give the wolfpup her present tonight too.' That horse book, something about an 'island horse,' I'm not sure, but...well, she liked it, and that's all that counts. Even if I DID get bitten in the process."

"But why--"

Kai pushed on without hardly even pausing for breath, anxious to get back to her own guestroom. This wasn't how she'd planned the evening! "Because I don't know where I'll be at years'-end. I'm leaving Muir tomorrow, you know. Jack's gonna be okay, and, well...I don't belong here. Dawn? You don't look too good. Get back into bed."

Dawn shot her a token "you're not my mother" glare even as she sighed and did exactly that. Kai didn't like how pale she'd become over the last few days alone, and she certainly didn't like the small rasp that she could now detect under the girl's breathing. Still, if Dawn wasn't going to make a big deal about it, neither was she.

"You're changing the subject AGAIN!" the object of her thoughts admonished her, folding her arms around her knees and giving her a hard look. Her wings, mummified into gracelessness by white bandages, rested heavily against the headboard behind her -- for the first time, Kai wondered how she slept comfortably. If she did at all. "You're in my room. At four am. Playing...Santa? In November, yet. What's going on?"

Kai blinked innocently. "You're a smart girl, you tell me."

Dawn stared at her hard. "I'd guess...and this is just a guess, mind you...that you were trying to leave me a goodbye present so you could leave without actually saying goodbye."

"Well...yeah. But it's also an early Christmas present. Because I won't be here for Christmas," she hastened to add, "not because of...anything else." To cover the awkward moment, she moved quickly over to the bed and thrust the package into Dawn's arms. "Here. Merry holidays."

"Oh...! This is heavy...you, uh, didn't have to get me anything..."

"I know. But I wanted to. I had a good idea, and some help." Suddenly embarrassed, Kai edged towards the door as Dawn tried to find the edge of the haphazard wrapping. "Well, I'd better be getting back to--"

"No, wait, hang on!" Dawn hurriedly set the package aside and leaned over the edge of the bed, fishing around under it with one arm. She came up from the dustbunny depths with a bag from the bookstore, folded shut and tied shut with a piece of twine. "I was going to wrap this; I didn't get time. Sorry about that. I wasn't sure what you'd like, but then I realized that you don't know what you like either, so...here. I think you'll like it. You need it."

NEED it? Kai pondered that strange comment as she gingerly accepted the gift. Dawn seemed to read the complex reasons behind her hesitation and casually added, "You can open it in your room if you like. Just promise to write to me and tell me if you like it, okay?"

"Sure. I'll be writing anyway. You tell ME what you think of YOUR present." And with that, Kai beat a pleasant but hasty retreat. Truth to tell, she was dying to know what Dawn thought of her own present, but she was feeling inexplicably shy about being there for the "unveiling." There was a strange unspoken ritual to "thank-yous" of that sort which rang false to her...she'd rather let the girl alone to be free to enjoy her gift without feeling obligated to go through all that rigamarole.

Kai, deep down you're just a coward, she told herself wryly. And now you're being a *sappy* coward... She slipped silently through the darkened corridors back towards the guest wing, fighting down the smile -- not very successfully -- with a scowl.

It was a box. A pretty black laquered box. A pretty black laquered box full of paper, she found when she cleared away the wrapping and pried up the inlaid top. There was type on the coversheet, but the pale glow from the medical scanner to the right of the bed, which had been enough for a conversation with Kai, was not enough to read by. She reached out to turn on the night lamp, the one she HADN'T flung across the room the second she'd woken to find an intruder in her room, and...

And just about fainted dead away.

It was...The Book. The next one by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon...the one she thought she'd never live to see.

More specifically, it was an autographed photocopy of the manuscript for a book which wouldn't see bookshelves for almost three months!

There was a bright pink sticky-note attached to the coversheet, right under the authors' names:

"Kid liked the book, huh?"

"Yep. Go back to sleep. I'm gonna read for a bit."

Logan rolled over and squinted against the nightlight. "You? Read? It's four in the--"

"I know. Keeee-ryst. For some reason everyone seems to want to make really, REALLY sure that I know what time it is tonight." Her tone wasn't harsh, however, and was followed by a kiss on his forehead. "Sorry about the light. I'll just read the first few pages and save the rest for the plane tomorrow, okay?"

A snore was her only answer. Kai rolled her eyes and finished demolishing the bag. Two paperbacks fell into her lap. Something I need, huh? Let's see... She squinted at the cover of the top book:

??? Hrm. Fantasy. I should have known. I wonder if I was into fantasy when I was a kid? Ah well, may as well give it a chance.

Kai shrugged cynically and got down to reading. And reading. And reading...

And for the first time in weeks, laughter echoed through the halls of the Muir Island Research Center.