(no subject)
"Twas a Couple Nights Before Christmas"
Secret Santa Gift for Kendokuschi!
The Wish: I'd like a Mirandy crackfic that either involves the entire runway staff being magically transformed into toddlers (but keeping their personas and memories)
Happy Christmas Kendokuschi!!! Sorry this was so abysmally late!
“This is an extraordinarily bad idea,” the second of the pair of deceptively angelic looking creatures offered woefully.
The first smirked behind her hand, and patted her comrade in arms heartily on the shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous Isaac,” she consoled over her laughter. “You know as well as I do that the big man has been after this one since she was born; since her children were born. And it was at his suggestion that we try this particular tactic.”
“Tamsin,” the younger man began warningly, “you do realize that if there is any way humanly- or even inhumanly- possible Miranda Priestly can get her hands on us, barring first the fact that our uniforms are fashion sacrilege and that she’d rip the bells off our hats and choke us to death with them-
“Yes Isaac?” Tamsin drawled wearily.
The assistant picked at a fluff on his green suede jacket, paled significantly, and gulped. “She’ll fucking kill us.”
“Language,” Tamsin grinned. “All that cussing is not particularly festive.”
“Being skinned alive and having my carcass made into the latest handbag line isn’t particularly festive,” Isaac corrected haughtily. “I was just being accurate.”
The diminutive female smiled and readjusted the holly wreath around her neck, which itched and pricked at her chine, but looked incredible with her silver guilt buttons and red suede boots. She had to admit it to herself, though she’d never say it aloud, and certainly not to anyone who would relay it to the big man- but she’d dressed for this year’s confrontation with the world’s most formidable humbug- and she’d dressed to impress.
Tamsin glanced from her hidden realm to the woman in question, who was currently tearing at least three or four strips off of several employees in her office.
“I don’t care if the model wasn’t feeling well or if she slipped on a banana peel and turned herself into a quadriplegic. These proofs are abysmal and you will re-shoot this, whether it’s three days before Christmas or not.”
Nigel shivered uncomfortably and tugged at the tie which seemed to be doing double duty these days as a noose.
“Because,” Miranda continued with the full force of her eviscerating calm, “do you know what comes after Christmas?”
Nigel refused to take the bait, as did the ginger-haired Emily, who suddenly found her shoes to be quite interesting.
And Andy, even though she’d been Miranda’s assistant for over a year, even though she should have know so, so much better, decided to ignore the reddening coals of warning in Miranda’s frosty irises, and offer up a response.
“New Years?” she answered timorously.
Miranda’s ‘I eat puppies for petite dejeuner’ grin spread ruthlessly across her features, and the assistant quailed, despite her best efforts not to. The unfortunate thing was, the more insulting Miranda allowed herself to become, the more enticing it made her towards the young woman- who was quickly succumbing to the most serious crush she’d ever experience in her life.
“That’s right, Andréa,” the editor drawled, eking out every last millisecond of torture. “The new year. But,” she continued scathingly, “what is needed to begin a new year, I wonder.”
This time, just this once, Andy had the presence of mind to keep her large mouth firmly clamped shut. It might have had something to do with the heel of Emily’s Jimmy Choo grinding helpfully into her instep.
“A new month,” Miranda finished with deathly calm. “A new month, and a new issue. And as human resources for Elias-Clarke has decided all of you must have at least two days holiday each for Christmas and New Years, I have a loss of four days between now and the day that the new issue goes to print.” She glared at the offensive evidence of the shoot gone to hell, and flicked her wrist disdainfully. “Fix this. Now.”
But before the editor’s terrified minions could begin to back away from the dread queen’s presence, Tamsin popped into existence on Miranda’s desk, followed shortly by her assistant Isaac, who moved strategically so his boss stood between him and the editor, and in the process, knocked the editor’s latte over onto the proofs, the tepid milk pooling dismally over the photographs.
“No loss there,” Miranda commented blithely, unfazed, it seemed, by the sudden appearance of the two strangely dressed, child’s height things standing on her pristine work surface. She glared up and down the full three feet of Tamsin’s height, taking in the woman’s strangely stylish appearance.
“Tamsin, dear,” she greeted falsely. “How wonderful to see you again. How’s the new assistant?” She glanced over the unbelievably short woman’s shoulder at her equally tiny accomplice, and Isaac ducked a little, which elicited a disgusted sigh from his boss. She was about to reply, when a scuffle from behind forestalled her answer.
Nigel, who knew better than to out and out bolt from Miranda’s office during such an obvious predicament, was currently attempting to barricade himself behind Andy and Emily, and while Andrea seemed content with her new occupation as human shield, the brit was trying to use her bony elbows to jab the art director away, and seemed mere seconds from delivering a painful upper cut to the older man’s jaw.
“Enough,” Miranda whispered , and all movement ceased, though a strange, strangled whimpering sound still seemed to be emanating from somewhere in the bald man’s throat. The editor quirked an expectant brow, and Nigel smiled nervously.
“I have a f-fear of m-midgets,” the art director confessed.
“Hey!” Isaac cried, affronted. “We’re not midgets, we’re-
Tamsin kicked her assistant solidly in the shin, and he gave up with a muted grumble.
“They’re elves,” Miranda offered suddenly.
Nigel sat down in the nearest chair, for that didn’t seem to be much better, and Emily gawked at her employer as though she was wearing last year’s Bill Blass.
Andy, who had gleaned back some of her usual good cheer smirked, and covered her mouth.
“Is something funny?” Miranda seethed, massaging her temple against the approaching headache.
“Elves?” the second assistant chortled. “As in, ‘toy-making, reindeer-brushing, santa-helping’ elves?”
Miranda rolled her eyes impatiently, and drummed her pristinely manicured nails against her thigh. “Yes.”
Andy’s mouth fell open. “You’re shitting me,” she accused, completely forgetting herself.
“I assure you Andréa,” the editor began coolly- though she was actually more than a little endeared by the young woman’s profanity. “I am most certainly not shitting you. They show up like this every year near Christmas, idiotically believing that somehow, through some miracle, I will change my mind and after fifty two years suddenly start believing in Santa Claus.” She paused to right the spilled coffee and mopped her desk with several tissues. “It’s become even worse since the girls were born.”
“And why do you think that is, Miranda?” Tamsin chimed in suddenly.
“I’ve no idea,” the editor answered coldly, though her eyes took on a decidedly guilty hue of deep, shale grey.
“Of course not,” the elf nodded coyly. “Because it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you have never, will never allow your children to believe in Santa.”
Andy gasped loudly, and fixed her boss with large, accusing chocolate eyes. “Is she serious?”
Miranda fiddled with the arm of her glasses and brushed her trademark snowy lock away from her forehead. “Why lie to them? This world is not a fairy tale, and the earlier they learn that, the better.”
“She says as two elves stand on her desk,” grumbled Isaac sarcastically.
Andy glanced from the male elf, back to Miranda, who seemed to grow smaller in her couture shield. “He’s kind of got a point there, Miranda.”
“You think?” Isaac chucked out before Tamsin silence him with a pointed glare.
Miranda sighed heavily. “I don’t care whether he has a point or not. This nonsense has been going on since I was old enough to walk.”
Andy continued to gape at her boss. “And it never occurred to you to just give in?”
Miranda stared at her assistant until the young woman shrunk into herself.
“Stupid question, I guess,” Andy mumbled. “but still,” she continued more bravely. “Denial, much? These guys have been showing up every year for practically your whole life, and even with hardcore evidence standing right in front of you, you refuse to believe what they’re saying?”
“Honestly, Andrea?” Miranda sighed heavily, feeling that she somehow owed her assistant an explanation. “Until this year, I thought I was hallucinating.”
“And now?” the young woman asked hopefully, convinced Miranda could not deny the truth with so many witnesses.
“It’s still an option,” Miranda answered stubbornly, glaring at the elves on her desk.
An awkward, disappointed silence filled the office; Runway staff and elves alike stood shuffling their feet, until Tamsin sighed with resignation.
“I suppose that’s our cue,” she said, mostly to herself. “Isaac, would you like to do the honors?”
The younger elf looked nervously towards Miranda, who fix him with a steely glare, then quailing under her scrutiny, he deferred once more to his superior.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Tamsin smiled. “The big guy thinks you’re ready, and so do I. Just think of the acclaim you’ll receive if you’re the elf who finally get’s the infamous scrooge Miranda Priestly to believe in Santa Claus.”
Isaac ignored Miranda’s disgruntled mutterings and puffed out his chest importantly. Separately cracking each one of his spindly, glove clad fingers, he smiled confidently at Tamsin. “You got it boss.”
And no sooner than the words had passed his lips, the editor’s office began to shimmer and crackle with a strange, magical energy which stood everyone’s hair on end and filled the air with the sounds of a thousand tinkling bells.
“Oh for god’s sake,” Miranda sighed, much beleaguered, as with a final bolt of searing white light, the editor and her three employees disappeared from the hallowed office with a loud bang that rattled each an every window of the Elias-Clarke tower.
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“Oops,” Isaac said a little sheepishly as he looked down at the floor, a dazed circle of toddlers gazing blearily up at him from the nursery floor.
“I’ll say,” Tamsin sighed, picking a piece of lint from her silver leather pants.
“What in god’s name have you done?” said a small voice from the floor.
The two elves looked down to see a rather irate three year old with platinum blond hair and chic, fuchsia glasses perched on her tiny, bumped nose, glaring sourly up at them from where she sat on a large, stuffed bear.
Tamsin and Isaac looked at each other, then returned their smiling faces to the fuming three year old Miranda Priestly.
“Look how cute she is,” Tamsin commented sweetly.
“She is kind of adorable,” Isaac agreed, taking a step forwards to ruffle Miranda’s telltale, though entirely blond, forelock out of place. The toddler fussed angrily with her bangs, and stood, tiny hands on hips.
“You’ve gone too far this time,” Miranda accused, glancing towards the tiny feet poking out from underneath her skirt.
Tamsin grinned. “Maybe. But,” she continued warningly, “maybe this time you’ll finally learn your lesson, especially with a little help from your staff.”
Little Miranda blanched. “My- my what?”
Isaac smiled pointedly down at the rousing toddlers, and Miranda glanced around in a panic at the three babies, one with red pigtails, one with shiny espresso curls, and a little boy with round, thick-rimmed glasses.
“How long?” Miranda sighed, tiny voice defeated.
“The usual,” Tamsin confirmed in a business-like tone. “This will last for twenty-fours hours, unless of course you change your mind before then.”
“Not likely,” Miranda pouted, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest.
Tamsin nodded proficiently, and the air began to crackle. “See you in twenty-four, then.”
And with that, both she and her assistant popped out of existence, leaving the newly regressed staff of Runway to themselves; leaving them to wait for the true mayhem to begin.
The editor looked down with some dismay at her ‘staff,’ who were only now becoming fully cognizant of their current situation.
Nigel, who had been the first to sit up and look around was running his chubby hand frantically back and forth over his head, panic for the moment forgotten as he became engrossed with the fact that he had a full head of hair- for the first time in twenty years. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed in surprise.
Miranda rolled her eyes and shifted her attention around the room to Emily, who had by some miracle managed to make her way over to the only reflective surface in the room and was currently examining each fold of her newly acquired baby fat with a look of horror on her cherubic face.
Finally, Miranda looked down towards Andrea, who sat looking quietly ashamed on the floor, her tiny hands balled into frustrated fists on her lap.
“Andréa?” Miranda knelt down carefully beside who used to be her exceptionally competent second.
Andy looked into the iconic blue eyes of her boss, though framed by a much smaller, much rounder, decidedly more adorable version of the familiar visage.
“I can’t walk,” the girl mumbled forlornly.
“What?” Miranda demanded, panic colouring her tone even harsher than usual. “What do you mean you can’t walk. Are your legs hurt?”
Andy frowned stormily, and pointed to her stout little legs. “I mean I actually can’t walk. I can’t remember how to walk.”
Miranda, who was feeling guiltier by the second, shoved her hands under the baby’s armpits and hauled her to her feet. Andy tottered unsteadily for a moment, thinking she might actually manage to stay vertical, when several seconds later, she fell spectacularly backwards, plunking heavily onto her ass. The second assistant noticed with much dismay that she actually appeared to be wearing a diaper.
Emily, as if having a sixth sense for impending humiliation, especially where Andrea was concerned, chose that moment to toddle over.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked snottily as she tugged absently on a pigtail.
Andy, sulking, refused to answer and instead somehow managed to arrange her uncooperative body so that she was facing away from both Emily and Miranda.
“She can’t walk yet,” the editor offered quietly, and the Brit clapped her dimpled hands together gleefully.
“You can’t be serious! You’ve got to be at least a year old, Andrea.”
Andy, who seemed to have as much control over her emotions as- well, a one year old- began to sniffle. The editor, upon hearing the makings of a full out meltdown, glared pointedly at her first assistant, who shrugged her shoulders and wandered off, most probably to harass Nigel instead.
The editor sat down beside the fussing baby, prepared for some strange reason to offer comfort, when a pair of full-sized shoes appeared in her peripheral vision and a calm pair of hands picked up the crying toddler.
“Now, now,” said a soothing, familiar voice, “what happened, Andy?”
The baby pointed a fat, accusing finger in Emily’s general direction, and against her own will, Miranda said in a childish voice, “Emily was mean. She made Andy sad.” Miranda frowned, perplexed. That was not at all what she had meant to say, and it was most certainly not how she meant to say it.
“Thank you, Mira,” said the voice, and Miranda looked up to see the face of- yes, it really was- her actual nursemaid from when she was a child in England. Bloody elves.
“Why don’t you go play in the dress-up chest, Mira, while I cheer Andy up?”
Much to her chagrin, the editor could only nod dumbly and do as she was told. And thank god. When Miranda approached the chest, she happened to walk in front of a standing mirror. She stood agog, staring at her reflection with a mixture of dismay and gut-wrenching disgust.
Pink. She was clad head to toe in lacy, frilled, bow-bedecked pink.
Frowning her displeasure, the editor made her way over tot he chest beside the mirror, threw the lid off, and began hastily pawing through the box for something- anything- that looked a hell of a lot less like a baby shower threw up all over her.
Item after item was tossed carelessly from the chest until Miranda stood once again in front of the mirror, trying to arrange the oversize skirt, blouse and blazer into some semblance of an outfit befitting the editor in chief of the largest, most successful fashion publication in the world.
As an afterthought, Miranda added a pair of silver hooped clip ons, a matching necklace, and a pair of red pumps which were at least six sizes too large for her tiny little feet. She could barely walk, really, but the whole situation was so ridiculous anyway, what did it matter if she had to shuffle forwards to keep her feet from falling out of her shoes-- or if the knee length pencil skirt actually came down to her ankles?
Nigel had been watching all of this for the past several minutes, and as pathetic as Miranda’s attempt to get back to business was, he decided that he’d better make an effort to glean some semblance of normality from their dilemma, if only to keep his boss from going into the next ice age.
Sighing, he picked up an abandoned tie from the floor, knotted it clumsily around his neck, and tottered over to the chest, pawing through the leftovers until he found a large, gaudy ring which he slipped onto his finger. It hardly mattered that he had to keep his little fist tightly clenched simply to prevent the thing just from falling off.
“Nice look,” Miranda commented blithely, and Nigel could only shrug his shoulders.
“I could say the same for you,” he replied, plunking himself down on a pile of clothing. “What the hell is going on here, Miranda?”
The editor pulled with irritation at one of the pinching earrings. “It would seem that the tactic this year is to revert me back to my childhood so that I might more easily believe that there is, in fact, a Santa Claus.”
Nigel suddenly, and quite inexplicably, looked stricken, but before he could comment on his boss’ theory, Emily wandered over, clearly bored and running out of people to make fun of.
“Nice tie,” she snickered eyeing up the paisley monstrosity, which Nigel still wore tied in a huge, ugly knot around his neck.
“At least he made an effort,” Miranda countered icily, eyeing up her first assistant who was still dressed in a pair of overalls and a cotton shirt sporting several dozen fluffy white kittens. “Which is more than I can say for you.”
Baby Emily turned a whiter shade of her usual pallor, and immediately threw on a sequined cocktail dress and wrapped a molting fur stole around her neck. Miranda was about to turf out a second piercing comment when the nurse returned, Andy still in her arms.
“Well, don’t you three look all grown up,” she said indulgently. “But you’ll have to leave your game for now, because it’s snack time.”
Miranda grumbled, her ire raising at having been interrupted. Emily, who had gone rigid at the mention of the the word ‘snack’ stood up, hands on hips, and said haughtily, “Don’t wanna.”
Nigel snickered, and the editor was hard pressed to stifle her own giggle concerning the effects of the elves’ magic at work, entirely certain that Emily’s vehement protest had not come out quite as she had intended.
When the nurse, who’s name as Miranda recalled was Sara, walked away, Emily turned grumpily to her coworker and boss. “What the bloody hell was that?”
“It would seem,” Miranda began blandly, “that we can talk to each other normally, but when trying to communicate with adults, we speak in a way limited by our current- uh- ages.”
“What fun,” Emily groused sourly. “So if I told that woman to take a flying f-
“Language,” Miranda chastised. Just because they were all children stuck in a nursery didn’t mean that everyone’s professionalism was allowed to go to hell.
Meanwhile, Nigel smirked. “You’d probably end up calling her a pooh-pooh head.” The editor rolled her eyes at this, but found she couldn’t disagree.
“And we’re stuck here like this for how long?” Emily asked, panic beginning to tinge her voice.
“Twenty four hours,” Miranda replied. “Or until I agree that there is, in fact, a Santa Claus.”
Without explanation, Emily’s lower lip began to tremble, and the older woman glanced back at the art director for some kind of support. But Nigel seemed to be in a similar state of distress.
“What is wrong with the two of you?” Miranda barked, feeling like her grasp over her staff was unravelling entirely. Elfin magic she could deal with. Being stuck as a badly dressed three year old for a day, she could deal with. But watching two of her most valued employees- not that they knew it- weep like the infants they currently were- it was truly one step over the fucking line to insanity.
“There is too a Santa,” Emily whined, stomping her tiny foot for emphasis.
“She’s right,” Nigel agreed timorously, tear slipping down his cheek. “Why do you always have to be such a bitch, Miranda?”
The editor surveyed her two employees with mounting horror. So that was the elves’ devious plan- to strand her with a bunch of crying babies for twenty four hours, until she cracked and told one of them that Santa was real, if only to stop this brutal noise.
Upon hearing the squabbling children, Sara returned post haste and took in the two tearful faces and Miranda’s hardened scowl.
“What’s going on here?”
This time, Nigel pointed his finger at Miranda. “She’s a meanie,” he said forcefully.
“Am not,” the editor countered quietly.
“Are too, are too!” Nigel yelled, waving his short little arms for emphasis. The editor could only wonder at what the frustrated boy-man was really trying to say, because he looked royally pissed off.
“Am. Not.” Miranda narrowed her eyes viciously, and crossed her arms over her chest.
Suddenly, Emily decided to make a foray into the argument. “No Santa!” she yelled, her voice high and piercing. “No Santa!”
Sara frowned and looked disapprovingly down at Miranda. “Mira- did you tell the other children that there is no Santa?”
The editor shuffled her small feet awkwardly. “Maybe.”
“I see,” Sara said quietly. “That’s not very nice, you know. Even if you don’t believe, most children do.”
“Santa?” Emily whimpered imploringly, tugging at the nurse’s skirt for attention.
Sara patted the little red head soothingly. “Yes Emily, there is a Santa. Miranda is simply someone who doesn’t believe, and that’s where she misses out.”
The editor’s first assistant stuck her tongue out at her boss, and Miranda smiled falsely.
“Very mature, Emily. Or were you actually trying to give me the finger?”
The ginger haired baby blushed rather spectacularly, and retreated after the nurse towards the snack table, preferring to take her chances with the food rather than face Miranda.
With the children settled around the table, poor Andrea actually having to withstand the utter humiliation of being plunked into a high chair, Sara began doling out a snack of milk and festive looking gingerbread men.
Emily stoically refused to touch either, while Nigel and Andy nibbled away happily enough. Miranda took one sip of milk swallowing it slowly and with obvious disgust.
“This is freezing,” she declared. Andy looked up from the cookie she was currently attempting to gum into submission.
“You could ask her to warm it up.”
“I don’t think Sara is particularly enamored with me at the moment,” Miranda said quietly.
“Why don’t you get Andrea to warm it up for you,” Emily began coyly. “But- oh! That’s right. She can’t walk yet!”
Andy glared at the ginger haired girl. “How’s all that baby fat working out for you, Em?” she sliced in demurely. “You’re looking particularly round and pudgy at the moment.”
Emily looked prepared to leap up onto the table in order to strangle her coworker.
“Would you two stop bickering, or I’ll fire you both when all this is over.” Miranda glared at the two baby girls with all of the superiority she could manage to convey on her deceptively angelic face.
Nigel smirked a little around the gingerbread leg in his mouth, and Miranda, sensing revolt, turned to him with a sickly sweet smile.
“I suppose that leaves you,” she commented smoothly. “The microwave seems to be over there on the counter.”
The art director frowned and placed his cookie on the table. “I may be able to walk, but how do you suggest I reach the microwave?”
Not to be deterred from attaining the closest thing she was going to get to a latte in this godforsaken fairy tale gone o hell, Miranda narrowed her eyes.
“Bore someone else with your questions.”
Affecting a mighty sulk, Nigel abandoned his snack entirely, stood with all the righteous indignation his two and three quarter foot stature could muster, and dragged his chair towards the counter. Casting his gaze guiltily about the room, and finding Sara engrossed in some notes she was writing, he returned for Miranda’s less than scalding milk.
Miranda and her two assistants watched with a mixture of amusement and anxiety as the art director attempted to all at once look over his shoulder at Sara, hold on to the cup with one hand, and haul his uncoordinated body onto the chair with the other.
A tiny, collective sigh of relief could be heard within the nursery as Nigel finally ascended to the microwave. He even managed to get the cup into the appliance and begin punching in the sequence of numbers before Sara got wise to his shenanigans. She was across the rom in an instant, hoisting Nigel from the chair with firm hands.
“And just what do you think you’re doing, young man?” she scolded gently, placing the frustrated toddler on the floor.
“Mira’s milk too cold,” he intoned dolefully.
Sara nodded knowingly and cast a disapproving glance in Miranda’s direction. “Well,” Sara said when Miranda failed to look the least bit guilty for having co opted Nigel to do her dirty work. “It’s very thoughtful of you to want to help, Nigel, but it’s dangerous to be climbing up on chairs. I’ll warm it up for her, but next time, Miranda should ask me to help her.”
And Sara did warm the milk up, to a barely tepid state, which the editor discovered with much distaste as she sipped sullenly from the cup.
“Thanks so much, Miranda,” Nigel said sarcastically as he licked the icing face from his cookie.
The editor, who was in fact feeling a little guilty about the whole stupid situation, merely sniffed and looked out the window.
As the regressed runway staff finished their plebeian fair, Sara began arranging a circle of pillows in one corner of the nursery as the children looked on with mild curiosity.
“If she thinks I’m going to to take a nap,” began Emily with no attempt at masking her disgust, “she’s got another thing coming.”
“I have to agree with you on that point,” Miranda said, coolly eying up the pillows, and Nigel seemed to concur, a telltale raising of his eyebrows a familiar indication of his displeasure on his round little face.
Meanwhile, Andy, who seemed to be most affected by the strange transformation, offered up a mighty yawn. But before anyone could comment, Sara returned to the troupe, brandishing a large children’s book.
“It’s reading time,” she announced cheerfully as she collected Andy from the highchair and directed the rest of the children to follow her over to the corner.
Sighing, Miranda stood from the chair and prepared herself to be subjected to such a trivial waste of time. But as the toddlers settled themselves comfortably on the pillows surrounding Sara’s chair, she seemed to be the only one who wasn’t looking at least a little excited a the prospect of being read to. Oh yes. This was absolutely her own personal version of hell.
Sara plopped Andy down beside the editor, and the little girl, still not quite sure of the comings and goings of remaining upright, leaned bodily into Miranda to keep from falling over. The editor looked down into the horrified eyes of her second assistant, but feeling a momentary pang of compassion, simply wrapped her short arms around the baby and pulled her securely into her lap.
Andrea, for her part, tried to thank her boss for the display of mercy, but because Sara was still too close, the acknowledgment erupted from the young woman’s mouth as an unpretentious, delighted gurgle, and Miranda couldn’t help herself smiling as the chubby little girl snuggled backwards into the supportive warmth.
Miranda wondered whether that particular behavior were part of Andy’s transformation, or if her earlier suspicions of a deeper affection weren’t as impossible as she had previously thought them to be.
Sara, oblivious of the little blond girl’s less than age-appropriate thoughts, looked on approvingly, happy to see that at least two of her young charges seemed at last to be getting along. And without further preamble, she opened the large book and propped it open on her knee so the toddlers sitting at her feet had full view of the pictures.
“Alright, you lot,” she began brightly. “Because we only have two more sleeps until the big day, I thought I would read ‘The Night Before Christmas’.”
Andy clapped her hands jubilantly in response, and even Nigel and Emily looked up at Sara with wide-eyed excitement at the prospect of hearing the beloved children’s tale.
Sara smiled down at all of them, and with a warning look in Miranda’s direction, she began to read in a vibrant, illustrative voice.
“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” She leaned down to tickle Nigel, who laughed joyfully at the nurse’s antics. “All the stockings were hung by the chimney with care in the hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.”
At the mention of the big man, Miranda snorted indignantly, but the daggers in Sara’s eyes were a little more than the three year old La Priestly was willing to contend with. Somehow, the editor thought to herself, finding herself in the dreaded ‘time out’ was a little more humiliation than she was able to subject herself to.
Sara was able to make it through several more stanzas of the poem, and all the children save Miranda were enthralled with the nurse’s theatrics.
“When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer!”
Miranda ground her teeth as baby Andy chortled and bounced around excitedly in her lap.
The editor vowed to herself that she would not succumb to this festive drivel, but as Sara read on and on, and the children’s fascination mounted, Miranda felt a pang of guilt that she had deprived her girls of such childhood pleasures, as frivolous as they might seem to her now- as they had always seemed, really.
But as Miranda was about to tip over the edge into a chasm of motherly iniquity, Sara interrupted her fall with a dramatic crescendo in her storytelling.
“Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound!”
Miranda looked around in dismay as her staff seemed to regress further and further into their infant hood. Nigel, Emily, and especially Andrea were practically vibrating with excitement, and frustrated with the overall insanity of her situation, Miranda’s earlier ire was renewed, and her stubborn disbelief of the fat man in the hideous suit returned with ferocity.
“He had a broad face, and a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.” Sara grinned at Emily, who seeming to have made piece with her baby fat, was doing a fine- though entirely annoying- impression of the man himself, holding her tummy and giggling raucously.
The editor seethed at her first assistant’s complete mutiny, but Sara read on, unfazed.
“He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself!” The nurse forced a jovial laugh, which sounded more fake than anything Miranda could have managed at any of the many benefits or gala’s she attended each year.
And that was Miranda’s breaking point. “This is utter bullshit!” she exclaimed, elfin magic transforming her enraged outburst into something which sounded more like, “No Santa, you dumb-dumb!”
Sara glared murderously at the little blond editor-to-be, and almost simultaneously, all hell broke loose.
As if led in chorus, all three children burst into tears with little Andy, still ensconced in Miranda’s arms crying loudest of all- her reverberating wails the sound of a truly devastated one-year-old.
None of Sara’s fussing or ministering seemed to soothe any of the children- her staff, Miranda reminded herself- and the editor was quickly reaching a point where she thought her eardrums might actually burst from the cacophony of heartbreak echoing around the story corner of the nursery.
And as the little Andrea in her lap wailed and wailed, Miranda began to realize something she hadn’t before.
All these years of refusal and denial, all of her stoicism and haughty indifference- what had it really gotten her? And more importantly- what had it gotten her children?
If the brutal bereavement Andy was now experiencing were any indication, Miranda felt that her girls must have experience at least some sense of loss of exclusion at being denied the childhood fantasy of Santa Claus. And as she thought longer and harder, Miranda remembered her own Christmas experiences, living in a tiny three-roomed apartment with her four siblings, parents too poor to offer up anything at Christmas except canned ham and afresh oranges.
Why would her own parents encourage a belief in a fictional figure, when they had nothing to give him any credit for?
And it was then, at that moment, as Andy sat crying in her lap, that Miranda realized her mistake.
All of her adult life, she had vowed to give her children everything, but she had deprived them of the simple right to something she herself had never had; the right to be children, the right to imagination and fantasy and a little magic at Christmas time.
“Well, shit,” Miranda exclaimed in what was about as close to an ‘Aha’ moment as she was ever going to get- and as the words left her lips, she was surprised to hear that she had uttered them in her own voice, not that of a child’s.
In fact, as she looked down at the baby in her arms, the editor realized that she had been returned to her regular, impeccably dressed, entirely adult self.
She glanced around warily for Tamsin or Isaac, but neither elf had appeared- and Miranda still had three squalling babies to contend with. Practically like old times, when she considered the volume and frequency her own twins had achieved when she had brought them home from the hospital. To add to the confusion, Nurse Sara was nowhere to be found.
With a small, indulgent smile gracing her mouth, and a distinctly- however incongruously- merry twinkle in her eyes, Miranda moved over to Sara’s rocking chair, collected the book from the floor, and settled the sniffling Andy in her lap.
Nigel and Emily, eyes red and noses running dejectedly down their little pink faces, looked expectantly up at their boss- if they even recognized her as such- and waited for Miranda to finish reading the story. The editor cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses, and when she couldn’t stall any longer, she began to read.
“A wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work- and filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk. And laying a finger aside of his nose-” the editor paused and pressed one elegant finger against her long, bumped nose- “And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!”
Andy’s sniffling had subsided somewhere near the mention of filled stockings, and she clasped onto Miranda’s thumb with a joyful giggle. The editor grinned, fingers tightening around the chubby hand in her own, with only half a thought towards how entirely absurd it all was.
“He sprang to his sleigh,” she continued with flair, “to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim,” Miranda whispered, “as he drove out of sight…”
All the children gazed up at the editor, enraptured, and Miranda laughed with true delight.
“Happy Christmas to all! And to all a good night!”
As Andy squealed gleefully in her lap, the air charged around the children and editor alike, and suddenly, as if nothing had happened at all, Miranda found herself back in her office at Runway, Nigel and Emily standing, mush as they had several hours before, in front of her desk- the expressions on their faces something akin to horror.
Because, Miranda realized under the considerable weight on her legs, something was still slightly out of sync. Namely, one Andy Sachs was still sitting, now fully grown, in her lap.
Andrea bit her lip, and squinted with burgeoning dread at her boss, who gazed back at her for a moment with the full force of the oncoming permafrost.
“And what would you like for Christmas this year, little girl?” Miranda queried icily.
At once, Nigel and Emily fled the office, leaving Andy to her presumed fate of death- or at the very least- endless, sadistic torture.
But then Miranda’s lips began to twitch, and her eyes began to crinkle, and when she couldn’t hold out any longer, the editor in chief of Runway began to laugh with such glorious abandon that Andy nearly melted on the spot.
And this strange behavior prompted the young woman to do something she would never have dared, under normal circumstances. She leaned forwards, and slowly, sweetly kissed Miranda on the cheek.
“Merry Christmas, Miranda,” Andy said breathily, leaning against the older woman.
Miranda gasped in surprise, but soon settled under the warm weight of her assistant. “Maybe there is a Santa Claus after all,” she mused quietly.
“You bet your ass there is,” Andy confirmed wholeheartedly as she finally allowed herself to relax completely against the editor’s chest.
And Miranda allowed it, finally daring to believe she could have this closeness she had been longing for, Andy’s sweetly scented hair tickling her collar bone. Sadly, her legs began to fall asleep.
“Andréa.”
“Hmm?” the young woman sighed contentedly.
“I think I need to go home, then read to my children.”
“Oh,” Andy said, trying with little success to mask her disappointment. “Okay.”
“I was wondering,” Miranda began awkwardly, “if you would-uh- like to join us?”
The brunette slipped her hands around the older woman’s waist and squeezed her affectionately. “Love to.”
Secret Santa Gift for Kendokuschi!
The Wish: I'd like a Mirandy crackfic that either involves the entire runway staff being magically transformed into toddlers (but keeping their personas and memories)
Happy Christmas Kendokuschi!!! Sorry this was so abysmally late!
“This is an extraordinarily bad idea,” the second of the pair of deceptively angelic looking creatures offered woefully.
The first smirked behind her hand, and patted her comrade in arms heartily on the shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous Isaac,” she consoled over her laughter. “You know as well as I do that the big man has been after this one since she was born; since her children were born. And it was at his suggestion that we try this particular tactic.”
“Tamsin,” the younger man began warningly, “you do realize that if there is any way humanly- or even inhumanly- possible Miranda Priestly can get her hands on us, barring first the fact that our uniforms are fashion sacrilege and that she’d rip the bells off our hats and choke us to death with them-
“Yes Isaac?” Tamsin drawled wearily.
The assistant picked at a fluff on his green suede jacket, paled significantly, and gulped. “She’ll fucking kill us.”
“Language,” Tamsin grinned. “All that cussing is not particularly festive.”
“Being skinned alive and having my carcass made into the latest handbag line isn’t particularly festive,” Isaac corrected haughtily. “I was just being accurate.”
The diminutive female smiled and readjusted the holly wreath around her neck, which itched and pricked at her chine, but looked incredible with her silver guilt buttons and red suede boots. She had to admit it to herself, though she’d never say it aloud, and certainly not to anyone who would relay it to the big man- but she’d dressed for this year’s confrontation with the world’s most formidable humbug- and she’d dressed to impress.
Tamsin glanced from her hidden realm to the woman in question, who was currently tearing at least three or four strips off of several employees in her office.
“I don’t care if the model wasn’t feeling well or if she slipped on a banana peel and turned herself into a quadriplegic. These proofs are abysmal and you will re-shoot this, whether it’s three days before Christmas or not.”
Nigel shivered uncomfortably and tugged at the tie which seemed to be doing double duty these days as a noose.
“Because,” Miranda continued with the full force of her eviscerating calm, “do you know what comes after Christmas?”
Nigel refused to take the bait, as did the ginger-haired Emily, who suddenly found her shoes to be quite interesting.
And Andy, even though she’d been Miranda’s assistant for over a year, even though she should have know so, so much better, decided to ignore the reddening coals of warning in Miranda’s frosty irises, and offer up a response.
“New Years?” she answered timorously.
Miranda’s ‘I eat puppies for petite dejeuner’ grin spread ruthlessly across her features, and the assistant quailed, despite her best efforts not to. The unfortunate thing was, the more insulting Miranda allowed herself to become, the more enticing it made her towards the young woman- who was quickly succumbing to the most serious crush she’d ever experience in her life.
“That’s right, Andréa,” the editor drawled, eking out every last millisecond of torture. “The new year. But,” she continued scathingly, “what is needed to begin a new year, I wonder.”
This time, just this once, Andy had the presence of mind to keep her large mouth firmly clamped shut. It might have had something to do with the heel of Emily’s Jimmy Choo grinding helpfully into her instep.
“A new month,” Miranda finished with deathly calm. “A new month, and a new issue. And as human resources for Elias-Clarke has decided all of you must have at least two days holiday each for Christmas and New Years, I have a loss of four days between now and the day that the new issue goes to print.” She glared at the offensive evidence of the shoot gone to hell, and flicked her wrist disdainfully. “Fix this. Now.”
But before the editor’s terrified minions could begin to back away from the dread queen’s presence, Tamsin popped into existence on Miranda’s desk, followed shortly by her assistant Isaac, who moved strategically so his boss stood between him and the editor, and in the process, knocked the editor’s latte over onto the proofs, the tepid milk pooling dismally over the photographs.
“No loss there,” Miranda commented blithely, unfazed, it seemed, by the sudden appearance of the two strangely dressed, child’s height things standing on her pristine work surface. She glared up and down the full three feet of Tamsin’s height, taking in the woman’s strangely stylish appearance.
“Tamsin, dear,” she greeted falsely. “How wonderful to see you again. How’s the new assistant?” She glanced over the unbelievably short woman’s shoulder at her equally tiny accomplice, and Isaac ducked a little, which elicited a disgusted sigh from his boss. She was about to reply, when a scuffle from behind forestalled her answer.
Nigel, who knew better than to out and out bolt from Miranda’s office during such an obvious predicament, was currently attempting to barricade himself behind Andy and Emily, and while Andrea seemed content with her new occupation as human shield, the brit was trying to use her bony elbows to jab the art director away, and seemed mere seconds from delivering a painful upper cut to the older man’s jaw.
“Enough,” Miranda whispered , and all movement ceased, though a strange, strangled whimpering sound still seemed to be emanating from somewhere in the bald man’s throat. The editor quirked an expectant brow, and Nigel smiled nervously.
“I have a f-fear of m-midgets,” the art director confessed.
“Hey!” Isaac cried, affronted. “We’re not midgets, we’re-
Tamsin kicked her assistant solidly in the shin, and he gave up with a muted grumble.
“They’re elves,” Miranda offered suddenly.
Nigel sat down in the nearest chair, for that didn’t seem to be much better, and Emily gawked at her employer as though she was wearing last year’s Bill Blass.
Andy, who had gleaned back some of her usual good cheer smirked, and covered her mouth.
“Is something funny?” Miranda seethed, massaging her temple against the approaching headache.
“Elves?” the second assistant chortled. “As in, ‘toy-making, reindeer-brushing, santa-helping’ elves?”
Miranda rolled her eyes impatiently, and drummed her pristinely manicured nails against her thigh. “Yes.”
Andy’s mouth fell open. “You’re shitting me,” she accused, completely forgetting herself.
“I assure you Andréa,” the editor began coolly- though she was actually more than a little endeared by the young woman’s profanity. “I am most certainly not shitting you. They show up like this every year near Christmas, idiotically believing that somehow, through some miracle, I will change my mind and after fifty two years suddenly start believing in Santa Claus.” She paused to right the spilled coffee and mopped her desk with several tissues. “It’s become even worse since the girls were born.”
“And why do you think that is, Miranda?” Tamsin chimed in suddenly.
“I’ve no idea,” the editor answered coldly, though her eyes took on a decidedly guilty hue of deep, shale grey.
“Of course not,” the elf nodded coyly. “Because it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you have never, will never allow your children to believe in Santa.”
Andy gasped loudly, and fixed her boss with large, accusing chocolate eyes. “Is she serious?”
Miranda fiddled with the arm of her glasses and brushed her trademark snowy lock away from her forehead. “Why lie to them? This world is not a fairy tale, and the earlier they learn that, the better.”
“She says as two elves stand on her desk,” grumbled Isaac sarcastically.
Andy glanced from the male elf, back to Miranda, who seemed to grow smaller in her couture shield. “He’s kind of got a point there, Miranda.”
“You think?” Isaac chucked out before Tamsin silence him with a pointed glare.
Miranda sighed heavily. “I don’t care whether he has a point or not. This nonsense has been going on since I was old enough to walk.”
Andy continued to gape at her boss. “And it never occurred to you to just give in?”
Miranda stared at her assistant until the young woman shrunk into herself.
“Stupid question, I guess,” Andy mumbled. “but still,” she continued more bravely. “Denial, much? These guys have been showing up every year for practically your whole life, and even with hardcore evidence standing right in front of you, you refuse to believe what they’re saying?”
“Honestly, Andrea?” Miranda sighed heavily, feeling that she somehow owed her assistant an explanation. “Until this year, I thought I was hallucinating.”
“And now?” the young woman asked hopefully, convinced Miranda could not deny the truth with so many witnesses.
“It’s still an option,” Miranda answered stubbornly, glaring at the elves on her desk.
An awkward, disappointed silence filled the office; Runway staff and elves alike stood shuffling their feet, until Tamsin sighed with resignation.
“I suppose that’s our cue,” she said, mostly to herself. “Isaac, would you like to do the honors?”
The younger elf looked nervously towards Miranda, who fix him with a steely glare, then quailing under her scrutiny, he deferred once more to his superior.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” Tamsin smiled. “The big guy thinks you’re ready, and so do I. Just think of the acclaim you’ll receive if you’re the elf who finally get’s the infamous scrooge Miranda Priestly to believe in Santa Claus.”
Isaac ignored Miranda’s disgruntled mutterings and puffed out his chest importantly. Separately cracking each one of his spindly, glove clad fingers, he smiled confidently at Tamsin. “You got it boss.”
And no sooner than the words had passed his lips, the editor’s office began to shimmer and crackle with a strange, magical energy which stood everyone’s hair on end and filled the air with the sounds of a thousand tinkling bells.
“Oh for god’s sake,” Miranda sighed, much beleaguered, as with a final bolt of searing white light, the editor and her three employees disappeared from the hallowed office with a loud bang that rattled each an every window of the Elias-Clarke tower.
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“Oops,” Isaac said a little sheepishly as he looked down at the floor, a dazed circle of toddlers gazing blearily up at him from the nursery floor.
“I’ll say,” Tamsin sighed, picking a piece of lint from her silver leather pants.
“What in god’s name have you done?” said a small voice from the floor.
The two elves looked down to see a rather irate three year old with platinum blond hair and chic, fuchsia glasses perched on her tiny, bumped nose, glaring sourly up at them from where she sat on a large, stuffed bear.
Tamsin and Isaac looked at each other, then returned their smiling faces to the fuming three year old Miranda Priestly.
“Look how cute she is,” Tamsin commented sweetly.
“She is kind of adorable,” Isaac agreed, taking a step forwards to ruffle Miranda’s telltale, though entirely blond, forelock out of place. The toddler fussed angrily with her bangs, and stood, tiny hands on hips.
“You’ve gone too far this time,” Miranda accused, glancing towards the tiny feet poking out from underneath her skirt.
Tamsin grinned. “Maybe. But,” she continued warningly, “maybe this time you’ll finally learn your lesson, especially with a little help from your staff.”
Little Miranda blanched. “My- my what?”
Isaac smiled pointedly down at the rousing toddlers, and Miranda glanced around in a panic at the three babies, one with red pigtails, one with shiny espresso curls, and a little boy with round, thick-rimmed glasses.
“How long?” Miranda sighed, tiny voice defeated.
“The usual,” Tamsin confirmed in a business-like tone. “This will last for twenty-fours hours, unless of course you change your mind before then.”
“Not likely,” Miranda pouted, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest.
Tamsin nodded proficiently, and the air began to crackle. “See you in twenty-four, then.”
And with that, both she and her assistant popped out of existence, leaving the newly regressed staff of Runway to themselves; leaving them to wait for the true mayhem to begin.
The editor looked down with some dismay at her ‘staff,’ who were only now becoming fully cognizant of their current situation.
Nigel, who had been the first to sit up and look around was running his chubby hand frantically back and forth over his head, panic for the moment forgotten as he became engrossed with the fact that he had a full head of hair- for the first time in twenty years. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed in surprise.
Miranda rolled her eyes and shifted her attention around the room to Emily, who had by some miracle managed to make her way over to the only reflective surface in the room and was currently examining each fold of her newly acquired baby fat with a look of horror on her cherubic face.
Finally, Miranda looked down towards Andrea, who sat looking quietly ashamed on the floor, her tiny hands balled into frustrated fists on her lap.
“Andréa?” Miranda knelt down carefully beside who used to be her exceptionally competent second.
Andy looked into the iconic blue eyes of her boss, though framed by a much smaller, much rounder, decidedly more adorable version of the familiar visage.
“I can’t walk,” the girl mumbled forlornly.
“What?” Miranda demanded, panic colouring her tone even harsher than usual. “What do you mean you can’t walk. Are your legs hurt?”
Andy frowned stormily, and pointed to her stout little legs. “I mean I actually can’t walk. I can’t remember how to walk.”
Miranda, who was feeling guiltier by the second, shoved her hands under the baby’s armpits and hauled her to her feet. Andy tottered unsteadily for a moment, thinking she might actually manage to stay vertical, when several seconds later, she fell spectacularly backwards, plunking heavily onto her ass. The second assistant noticed with much dismay that she actually appeared to be wearing a diaper.
Emily, as if having a sixth sense for impending humiliation, especially where Andrea was concerned, chose that moment to toddle over.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked snottily as she tugged absently on a pigtail.
Andy, sulking, refused to answer and instead somehow managed to arrange her uncooperative body so that she was facing away from both Emily and Miranda.
“She can’t walk yet,” the editor offered quietly, and the Brit clapped her dimpled hands together gleefully.
“You can’t be serious! You’ve got to be at least a year old, Andrea.”
Andy, who seemed to have as much control over her emotions as- well, a one year old- began to sniffle. The editor, upon hearing the makings of a full out meltdown, glared pointedly at her first assistant, who shrugged her shoulders and wandered off, most probably to harass Nigel instead.
The editor sat down beside the fussing baby, prepared for some strange reason to offer comfort, when a pair of full-sized shoes appeared in her peripheral vision and a calm pair of hands picked up the crying toddler.
“Now, now,” said a soothing, familiar voice, “what happened, Andy?”
The baby pointed a fat, accusing finger in Emily’s general direction, and against her own will, Miranda said in a childish voice, “Emily was mean. She made Andy sad.” Miranda frowned, perplexed. That was not at all what she had meant to say, and it was most certainly not how she meant to say it.
“Thank you, Mira,” said the voice, and Miranda looked up to see the face of- yes, it really was- her actual nursemaid from when she was a child in England. Bloody elves.
“Why don’t you go play in the dress-up chest, Mira, while I cheer Andy up?”
Much to her chagrin, the editor could only nod dumbly and do as she was told. And thank god. When Miranda approached the chest, she happened to walk in front of a standing mirror. She stood agog, staring at her reflection with a mixture of dismay and gut-wrenching disgust.
Pink. She was clad head to toe in lacy, frilled, bow-bedecked pink.
Frowning her displeasure, the editor made her way over tot he chest beside the mirror, threw the lid off, and began hastily pawing through the box for something- anything- that looked a hell of a lot less like a baby shower threw up all over her.
Item after item was tossed carelessly from the chest until Miranda stood once again in front of the mirror, trying to arrange the oversize skirt, blouse and blazer into some semblance of an outfit befitting the editor in chief of the largest, most successful fashion publication in the world.
As an afterthought, Miranda added a pair of silver hooped clip ons, a matching necklace, and a pair of red pumps which were at least six sizes too large for her tiny little feet. She could barely walk, really, but the whole situation was so ridiculous anyway, what did it matter if she had to shuffle forwards to keep her feet from falling out of her shoes-- or if the knee length pencil skirt actually came down to her ankles?
Nigel had been watching all of this for the past several minutes, and as pathetic as Miranda’s attempt to get back to business was, he decided that he’d better make an effort to glean some semblance of normality from their dilemma, if only to keep his boss from going into the next ice age.
Sighing, he picked up an abandoned tie from the floor, knotted it clumsily around his neck, and tottered over to the chest, pawing through the leftovers until he found a large, gaudy ring which he slipped onto his finger. It hardly mattered that he had to keep his little fist tightly clenched simply to prevent the thing just from falling off.
“Nice look,” Miranda commented blithely, and Nigel could only shrug his shoulders.
“I could say the same for you,” he replied, plunking himself down on a pile of clothing. “What the hell is going on here, Miranda?”
The editor pulled with irritation at one of the pinching earrings. “It would seem that the tactic this year is to revert me back to my childhood so that I might more easily believe that there is, in fact, a Santa Claus.”
Nigel suddenly, and quite inexplicably, looked stricken, but before he could comment on his boss’ theory, Emily wandered over, clearly bored and running out of people to make fun of.
“Nice tie,” she snickered eyeing up the paisley monstrosity, which Nigel still wore tied in a huge, ugly knot around his neck.
“At least he made an effort,” Miranda countered icily, eyeing up her first assistant who was still dressed in a pair of overalls and a cotton shirt sporting several dozen fluffy white kittens. “Which is more than I can say for you.”
Baby Emily turned a whiter shade of her usual pallor, and immediately threw on a sequined cocktail dress and wrapped a molting fur stole around her neck. Miranda was about to turf out a second piercing comment when the nurse returned, Andy still in her arms.
“Well, don’t you three look all grown up,” she said indulgently. “But you’ll have to leave your game for now, because it’s snack time.”
Miranda grumbled, her ire raising at having been interrupted. Emily, who had gone rigid at the mention of the the word ‘snack’ stood up, hands on hips, and said haughtily, “Don’t wanna.”
Nigel snickered, and the editor was hard pressed to stifle her own giggle concerning the effects of the elves’ magic at work, entirely certain that Emily’s vehement protest had not come out quite as she had intended.
When the nurse, who’s name as Miranda recalled was Sara, walked away, Emily turned grumpily to her coworker and boss. “What the bloody hell was that?”
“It would seem,” Miranda began blandly, “that we can talk to each other normally, but when trying to communicate with adults, we speak in a way limited by our current- uh- ages.”
“What fun,” Emily groused sourly. “So if I told that woman to take a flying f-
“Language,” Miranda chastised. Just because they were all children stuck in a nursery didn’t mean that everyone’s professionalism was allowed to go to hell.
Meanwhile, Nigel smirked. “You’d probably end up calling her a pooh-pooh head.” The editor rolled her eyes at this, but found she couldn’t disagree.
“And we’re stuck here like this for how long?” Emily asked, panic beginning to tinge her voice.
“Twenty four hours,” Miranda replied. “Or until I agree that there is, in fact, a Santa Claus.”
Without explanation, Emily’s lower lip began to tremble, and the older woman glanced back at the art director for some kind of support. But Nigel seemed to be in a similar state of distress.
“What is wrong with the two of you?” Miranda barked, feeling like her grasp over her staff was unravelling entirely. Elfin magic she could deal with. Being stuck as a badly dressed three year old for a day, she could deal with. But watching two of her most valued employees- not that they knew it- weep like the infants they currently were- it was truly one step over the fucking line to insanity.
“There is too a Santa,” Emily whined, stomping her tiny foot for emphasis.
“She’s right,” Nigel agreed timorously, tear slipping down his cheek. “Why do you always have to be such a bitch, Miranda?”
The editor surveyed her two employees with mounting horror. So that was the elves’ devious plan- to strand her with a bunch of crying babies for twenty four hours, until she cracked and told one of them that Santa was real, if only to stop this brutal noise.
Upon hearing the squabbling children, Sara returned post haste and took in the two tearful faces and Miranda’s hardened scowl.
“What’s going on here?”
This time, Nigel pointed his finger at Miranda. “She’s a meanie,” he said forcefully.
“Am not,” the editor countered quietly.
“Are too, are too!” Nigel yelled, waving his short little arms for emphasis. The editor could only wonder at what the frustrated boy-man was really trying to say, because he looked royally pissed off.
“Am. Not.” Miranda narrowed her eyes viciously, and crossed her arms over her chest.
Suddenly, Emily decided to make a foray into the argument. “No Santa!” she yelled, her voice high and piercing. “No Santa!”
Sara frowned and looked disapprovingly down at Miranda. “Mira- did you tell the other children that there is no Santa?”
The editor shuffled her small feet awkwardly. “Maybe.”
“I see,” Sara said quietly. “That’s not very nice, you know. Even if you don’t believe, most children do.”
“Santa?” Emily whimpered imploringly, tugging at the nurse’s skirt for attention.
Sara patted the little red head soothingly. “Yes Emily, there is a Santa. Miranda is simply someone who doesn’t believe, and that’s where she misses out.”
The editor’s first assistant stuck her tongue out at her boss, and Miranda smiled falsely.
“Very mature, Emily. Or were you actually trying to give me the finger?”
The ginger haired baby blushed rather spectacularly, and retreated after the nurse towards the snack table, preferring to take her chances with the food rather than face Miranda.
With the children settled around the table, poor Andrea actually having to withstand the utter humiliation of being plunked into a high chair, Sara began doling out a snack of milk and festive looking gingerbread men.
Emily stoically refused to touch either, while Nigel and Andy nibbled away happily enough. Miranda took one sip of milk swallowing it slowly and with obvious disgust.
“This is freezing,” she declared. Andy looked up from the cookie she was currently attempting to gum into submission.
“You could ask her to warm it up.”
“I don’t think Sara is particularly enamored with me at the moment,” Miranda said quietly.
“Why don’t you get Andrea to warm it up for you,” Emily began coyly. “But- oh! That’s right. She can’t walk yet!”
Andy glared at the ginger haired girl. “How’s all that baby fat working out for you, Em?” she sliced in demurely. “You’re looking particularly round and pudgy at the moment.”
Emily looked prepared to leap up onto the table in order to strangle her coworker.
“Would you two stop bickering, or I’ll fire you both when all this is over.” Miranda glared at the two baby girls with all of the superiority she could manage to convey on her deceptively angelic face.
Nigel smirked a little around the gingerbread leg in his mouth, and Miranda, sensing revolt, turned to him with a sickly sweet smile.
“I suppose that leaves you,” she commented smoothly. “The microwave seems to be over there on the counter.”
The art director frowned and placed his cookie on the table. “I may be able to walk, but how do you suggest I reach the microwave?”
Not to be deterred from attaining the closest thing she was going to get to a latte in this godforsaken fairy tale gone o hell, Miranda narrowed her eyes.
“Bore someone else with your questions.”
Affecting a mighty sulk, Nigel abandoned his snack entirely, stood with all the righteous indignation his two and three quarter foot stature could muster, and dragged his chair towards the counter. Casting his gaze guiltily about the room, and finding Sara engrossed in some notes she was writing, he returned for Miranda’s less than scalding milk.
Miranda and her two assistants watched with a mixture of amusement and anxiety as the art director attempted to all at once look over his shoulder at Sara, hold on to the cup with one hand, and haul his uncoordinated body onto the chair with the other.
A tiny, collective sigh of relief could be heard within the nursery as Nigel finally ascended to the microwave. He even managed to get the cup into the appliance and begin punching in the sequence of numbers before Sara got wise to his shenanigans. She was across the rom in an instant, hoisting Nigel from the chair with firm hands.
“And just what do you think you’re doing, young man?” she scolded gently, placing the frustrated toddler on the floor.
“Mira’s milk too cold,” he intoned dolefully.
Sara nodded knowingly and cast a disapproving glance in Miranda’s direction. “Well,” Sara said when Miranda failed to look the least bit guilty for having co opted Nigel to do her dirty work. “It’s very thoughtful of you to want to help, Nigel, but it’s dangerous to be climbing up on chairs. I’ll warm it up for her, but next time, Miranda should ask me to help her.”
And Sara did warm the milk up, to a barely tepid state, which the editor discovered with much distaste as she sipped sullenly from the cup.
“Thanks so much, Miranda,” Nigel said sarcastically as he licked the icing face from his cookie.
The editor, who was in fact feeling a little guilty about the whole stupid situation, merely sniffed and looked out the window.
As the regressed runway staff finished their plebeian fair, Sara began arranging a circle of pillows in one corner of the nursery as the children looked on with mild curiosity.
“If she thinks I’m going to to take a nap,” began Emily with no attempt at masking her disgust, “she’s got another thing coming.”
“I have to agree with you on that point,” Miranda said, coolly eying up the pillows, and Nigel seemed to concur, a telltale raising of his eyebrows a familiar indication of his displeasure on his round little face.
Meanwhile, Andy, who seemed to be most affected by the strange transformation, offered up a mighty yawn. But before anyone could comment, Sara returned to the troupe, brandishing a large children’s book.
“It’s reading time,” she announced cheerfully as she collected Andy from the highchair and directed the rest of the children to follow her over to the corner.
Sighing, Miranda stood from the chair and prepared herself to be subjected to such a trivial waste of time. But as the toddlers settled themselves comfortably on the pillows surrounding Sara’s chair, she seemed to be the only one who wasn’t looking at least a little excited a the prospect of being read to. Oh yes. This was absolutely her own personal version of hell.
Sara plopped Andy down beside the editor, and the little girl, still not quite sure of the comings and goings of remaining upright, leaned bodily into Miranda to keep from falling over. The editor looked down into the horrified eyes of her second assistant, but feeling a momentary pang of compassion, simply wrapped her short arms around the baby and pulled her securely into her lap.
Andrea, for her part, tried to thank her boss for the display of mercy, but because Sara was still too close, the acknowledgment erupted from the young woman’s mouth as an unpretentious, delighted gurgle, and Miranda couldn’t help herself smiling as the chubby little girl snuggled backwards into the supportive warmth.
Miranda wondered whether that particular behavior were part of Andy’s transformation, or if her earlier suspicions of a deeper affection weren’t as impossible as she had previously thought them to be.
Sara, oblivious of the little blond girl’s less than age-appropriate thoughts, looked on approvingly, happy to see that at least two of her young charges seemed at last to be getting along. And without further preamble, she opened the large book and propped it open on her knee so the toddlers sitting at her feet had full view of the pictures.
“Alright, you lot,” she began brightly. “Because we only have two more sleeps until the big day, I thought I would read ‘The Night Before Christmas’.”
Andy clapped her hands jubilantly in response, and even Nigel and Emily looked up at Sara with wide-eyed excitement at the prospect of hearing the beloved children’s tale.
Sara smiled down at all of them, and with a warning look in Miranda’s direction, she began to read in a vibrant, illustrative voice.
“Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.” She leaned down to tickle Nigel, who laughed joyfully at the nurse’s antics. “All the stockings were hung by the chimney with care in the hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.”
At the mention of the big man, Miranda snorted indignantly, but the daggers in Sara’s eyes were a little more than the three year old La Priestly was willing to contend with. Somehow, the editor thought to herself, finding herself in the dreaded ‘time out’ was a little more humiliation than she was able to subject herself to.
Sara was able to make it through several more stanzas of the poem, and all the children save Miranda were enthralled with the nurse’s theatrics.
“When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer!”
Miranda ground her teeth as baby Andy chortled and bounced around excitedly in her lap.
The editor vowed to herself that she would not succumb to this festive drivel, but as Sara read on and on, and the children’s fascination mounted, Miranda felt a pang of guilt that she had deprived her girls of such childhood pleasures, as frivolous as they might seem to her now- as they had always seemed, really.
But as Miranda was about to tip over the edge into a chasm of motherly iniquity, Sara interrupted her fall with a dramatic crescendo in her storytelling.
“Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound!”
Miranda looked around in dismay as her staff seemed to regress further and further into their infant hood. Nigel, Emily, and especially Andrea were practically vibrating with excitement, and frustrated with the overall insanity of her situation, Miranda’s earlier ire was renewed, and her stubborn disbelief of the fat man in the hideous suit returned with ferocity.
“He had a broad face, and a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly.” Sara grinned at Emily, who seeming to have made piece with her baby fat, was doing a fine- though entirely annoying- impression of the man himself, holding her tummy and giggling raucously.
The editor seethed at her first assistant’s complete mutiny, but Sara read on, unfazed.
“He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself!” The nurse forced a jovial laugh, which sounded more fake than anything Miranda could have managed at any of the many benefits or gala’s she attended each year.
And that was Miranda’s breaking point. “This is utter bullshit!” she exclaimed, elfin magic transforming her enraged outburst into something which sounded more like, “No Santa, you dumb-dumb!”
Sara glared murderously at the little blond editor-to-be, and almost simultaneously, all hell broke loose.
As if led in chorus, all three children burst into tears with little Andy, still ensconced in Miranda’s arms crying loudest of all- her reverberating wails the sound of a truly devastated one-year-old.
None of Sara’s fussing or ministering seemed to soothe any of the children- her staff, Miranda reminded herself- and the editor was quickly reaching a point where she thought her eardrums might actually burst from the cacophony of heartbreak echoing around the story corner of the nursery.
And as the little Andrea in her lap wailed and wailed, Miranda began to realize something she hadn’t before.
All these years of refusal and denial, all of her stoicism and haughty indifference- what had it really gotten her? And more importantly- what had it gotten her children?
If the brutal bereavement Andy was now experiencing were any indication, Miranda felt that her girls must have experience at least some sense of loss of exclusion at being denied the childhood fantasy of Santa Claus. And as she thought longer and harder, Miranda remembered her own Christmas experiences, living in a tiny three-roomed apartment with her four siblings, parents too poor to offer up anything at Christmas except canned ham and afresh oranges.
Why would her own parents encourage a belief in a fictional figure, when they had nothing to give him any credit for?
And it was then, at that moment, as Andy sat crying in her lap, that Miranda realized her mistake.
All of her adult life, she had vowed to give her children everything, but she had deprived them of the simple right to something she herself had never had; the right to be children, the right to imagination and fantasy and a little magic at Christmas time.
“Well, shit,” Miranda exclaimed in what was about as close to an ‘Aha’ moment as she was ever going to get- and as the words left her lips, she was surprised to hear that she had uttered them in her own voice, not that of a child’s.
In fact, as she looked down at the baby in her arms, the editor realized that she had been returned to her regular, impeccably dressed, entirely adult self.
She glanced around warily for Tamsin or Isaac, but neither elf had appeared- and Miranda still had three squalling babies to contend with. Practically like old times, when she considered the volume and frequency her own twins had achieved when she had brought them home from the hospital. To add to the confusion, Nurse Sara was nowhere to be found.
With a small, indulgent smile gracing her mouth, and a distinctly- however incongruously- merry twinkle in her eyes, Miranda moved over to Sara’s rocking chair, collected the book from the floor, and settled the sniffling Andy in her lap.
Nigel and Emily, eyes red and noses running dejectedly down their little pink faces, looked expectantly up at their boss- if they even recognized her as such- and waited for Miranda to finish reading the story. The editor cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses, and when she couldn’t stall any longer, she began to read.
“A wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work- and filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk. And laying a finger aside of his nose-” the editor paused and pressed one elegant finger against her long, bumped nose- “And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!”
Andy’s sniffling had subsided somewhere near the mention of filled stockings, and she clasped onto Miranda’s thumb with a joyful giggle. The editor grinned, fingers tightening around the chubby hand in her own, with only half a thought towards how entirely absurd it all was.
“He sprang to his sleigh,” she continued with flair, “to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim,” Miranda whispered, “as he drove out of sight…”
All the children gazed up at the editor, enraptured, and Miranda laughed with true delight.
“Happy Christmas to all! And to all a good night!”
As Andy squealed gleefully in her lap, the air charged around the children and editor alike, and suddenly, as if nothing had happened at all, Miranda found herself back in her office at Runway, Nigel and Emily standing, mush as they had several hours before, in front of her desk- the expressions on their faces something akin to horror.
Because, Miranda realized under the considerable weight on her legs, something was still slightly out of sync. Namely, one Andy Sachs was still sitting, now fully grown, in her lap.
Andrea bit her lip, and squinted with burgeoning dread at her boss, who gazed back at her for a moment with the full force of the oncoming permafrost.
“And what would you like for Christmas this year, little girl?” Miranda queried icily.
At once, Nigel and Emily fled the office, leaving Andy to her presumed fate of death- or at the very least- endless, sadistic torture.
But then Miranda’s lips began to twitch, and her eyes began to crinkle, and when she couldn’t hold out any longer, the editor in chief of Runway began to laugh with such glorious abandon that Andy nearly melted on the spot.
And this strange behavior prompted the young woman to do something she would never have dared, under normal circumstances. She leaned forwards, and slowly, sweetly kissed Miranda on the cheek.
“Merry Christmas, Miranda,” Andy said breathily, leaning against the older woman.
Miranda gasped in surprise, but soon settled under the warm weight of her assistant. “Maybe there is a Santa Claus after all,” she mused quietly.
“You bet your ass there is,” Andy confirmed wholeheartedly as she finally allowed herself to relax completely against the editor’s chest.
And Miranda allowed it, finally daring to believe she could have this closeness she had been longing for, Andy’s sweetly scented hair tickling her collar bone. Sadly, her legs began to fall asleep.
“Andréa.”
“Hmm?” the young woman sighed contentedly.
“I think I need to go home, then read to my children.”
“Oh,” Andy said, trying with little success to mask her disappointment. “Okay.”
“I was wondering,” Miranda began awkwardly, “if you would-uh- like to join us?”
The brunette slipped her hands around the older woman’s waist and squeezed her affectionately. “Love to.”