Summary: It might have turned to happiness

Standard Disclaimer: I'm just a fanfiction author. All hail the rightful owners.

Merry Christmas to any of my readers who celebrate it!

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world — oh, woe is me! — and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"

Marley was quick. He kept his pen moving at unreasonable speeds because he liked the sound it made, dry and sharp to preserve the ink. The zeros and dashes made a tarantella as he exacted out the loans. He wrote evictions here, a foreclosure or two, scritch scratch efficiency. It warmed the blood.

Scrooge's writing kept nowhere near the pace. Most of his time was expended scowling at the documents, broken periodically by effusive bursts of scribbling. They fell over Marley's steady beat, like a vocal line over percussion.

Habit, that was all. One didn't need any more than what one was used to.

"Excuse me, sirs?" The clerk squeaked. "Might I not put another log on the fire?"

"Why?" Scrooge demanded, raising an eyebrow and curling his lip sardonically, "I do not need it."

The clerk looked imploringly towards the second man.

"Well then. "Marley declared. "Neither do I."

They shared a conspiratorial glance.

"Besides," the first announced. "It will scarcely be an hour until you rush off on your divinely ordained night of empty headed foppery and off-key carols. Why should I warm the room, with my employees half foot out the door?"

Scrooge hated Christmas. Marley understood that well, for so did he. Pointless forced joviality mad e a miserable slog. Nevertheless, Marley had grown accustomed to waiting out such things with his cantankerous partner in the wings.

That begged an idea. Could he not sit through the accursed eve the same way? His apartments were cold and not much for guests, but he could buy a little fowl. There were two chairs. It could be managed.

"Scrooge we…" Something acid came up in his throat and chocked the vulnerable thing that was trembling there.

His partner looked up. "Hmm?"

"Nothing." He managed. "We can talk tomorrow. You are coming in yes? Not taking the day?"

Scrooge laughed. "Naturally, I am not taking the day."

However, Marley did not see Scrooge tomorrow. For, as everyone knows, by then, Marley was dead.

It would never be warm again.

Marley drifted through his haunts, forming a habit of them, as he had in life. First the workhouse, then the orphanage, he dragged his chains by, wincing at the ferric sounds of their rust. He approached Scrooge's office by the same back-way route each time, as there was almost always some poor soul starving there to wail over.

The ghost sat in his accustomed chair every night there, from five to ten past six. However, instead of sitting stoically, as he had in life, the apparition wept. He supposed he ought to be watching the miserable clerk Cratchit, for heaven knows his sins towards him and his like were great.

However every time, for that hour ten, his eye remained fixed on Scrooge. Whatever force of nature kept him restless over the earth at his penance had allowed him that.

The wind rustled his back, and he didn't have to look behind him to know who was there. It was them again.

"I could warn him." Marley noted.

A baby cried out somewhere, cold.

"I know you think he can't be taught, but you don't know the man as I did. Scrooge will surprise even you, spirits. He will squeeze even salvation from your grip. He is a wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching marvelous old sinner."

With that, Marley turned around, tears ever on his incorporeal lashes, and faced the yearly apparitions.

"You say it won't do me any good. No, I don't suppose it will." He chuckled bitterly. "I am beyond help and helping. You have made that clear, spirits, I assure you!"

The visitors followed their usual practice and remained silent.

He hefted the nearest of the lockboxes over his shoulder with sudden gusto, though the chains struck against his back. "I will warn him." He decided.

The wind gusted.

His other hand, Marley extended to the trio. "Won't you join me?"

THE END