"Il Est Né" – "He Is Born"

a childhood AU Christmas fic

written for klausscrimshaw

"Papa, I want to leave."

Christine tugs on her father's sleeve, but he ignores her, too focused on speaking with a man dressed in funny-looking clothes. She knows Papa is busy. She knows how his face lit up when he heard of a carnival in the city. They hurried here as quickly as she could pull on her cloak, still having to wound her scarf around her face as she ran to keep up with his long strides. He clutches his violin case in his arms, hoping he can play here to earn some coin.

In this large tent, it is warmer, and she tugs the scarf off her nose and mouth, peering around them. She does not like this strange place. It reeks of animals and something else, and the people are strange. While she has seen many different people in her travels with Papa, she sees the way they whisper behind their hands when they see her. Her hair is wild around her face, and the sole of one shoe is peeling off. She knows her blue eyes are set too wide in her thin face, and her body is scrawny from lack of consistent food.

"Papa," she tries again.

"Does your pretty daughter want to explore?" the man asks, his accent one she does not recognize. "We have much to see here." His dark eyes glitter, and Christine takes a step back.

Papa glances down at her. "Give me a moment, min ängel. I will come and find you."

"There are animals further within the tent if you wish to see them," the man adds.

Christine does not like the way he looks at her, but she nods and does as her father wishes. He will not leave her alone in the apartment – their neighbors are not to be trusted – and she does not want to be a bother when he is trying to find work.

She steps through the curtain to enter a large area lined on either side with cages. She sees no one else, but the hour is late. She takes her time, peering into each cage, seeing animals she has read about yet never seen herself: a young lion in one, birds with colorful plumes, two elephants with limp trunks.

She supposes she is supposed to be dazzled by the exotic animals. Instead, she feels sorry for them. How can they be happy in cages all day? Animals are supposed to roam free.

Reaching the end of the tent, she puffs a sigh. She almost turns back to see if Papa is done, but something makes her decide to continue onward. Her fingers part the exit, and she peers outside. More smaller tents dot the stretch of lawn, some of them lit up with lanterns. There are people stirring about here, and she draws back, not wanting to be seen.

And that's when she notices the tarp separating a section of the animal tent. She nudges it with her arm, and the tarp pulls back, revealing a hidden room with another cage within. Dirty straw litters the floor.

A small brown shape crouches in the far corner.

"What are you?" she murmurs to herself.

The brown shape stirs, and she catches a glimpse of pale arms crossed over grubby knees. He wears short pants with no stockings and a shirt that is mostly tatters. A potato sack covers his entire head. Two holes are cut into the sack, and she sees yellow eyes lift and peer back at her.

A boy? It is a boy, taller than her, but skinnier if that is possible.

She takes a step closer. "You're not an animal at all, are you?"

The boy does not respond, staring openly, arms wound around his drawn knees.

"What are you doing in there?" she asks, stepping closer enough to close her hands around the bars. "Do you need help to get out?" When the boy does not reply again, she searches around the front of the cage. A padlock holds the door locked, and she gives a futile shake of the gate.

"I'll be right back," she promises and dashes out of the room. She flies across the long length of the animal tent until she arrives back, panting, where her father still speaks with the strange man.

Papa looks down at her. "Why are you out of breath, ängel?"

"I saw a boy in a cage!"

The strange man folds his arms, staring intently at her. "Did you now, pretty girl? Snooping, were you?"

She levels a piercing blue glare upon him. "People shouldn't be in cages unless they are bad, and children are never back enough to be locked up. Papa," she says, taking his hand, "let me show you."

"I think our business here is done," the man says. He steps to the side to block their path back the way Christine came. "If you want to see any of the shows, you can come back when we open the day after Christmas as a paying customer."

Papa hesitates, but then he says slowly, "I doubt you would enjoy having the gendarmerie check out your facility here before you open."

It is a threat, but a vague enough one that the man merely shrugs off. "Your daughter is very pretty, violinist. I would hate to have something happen to her."

Papa's face colors above his beard. He swoops down and picks up Christine with one strong arm, clutches his violin with the other hand, and says, "Show me the boy, ängel."

The man scoffs, but he does not do anything when Papa shoulders past him. They hurry down the animal tent, Christine's hand pointing like a white beacon in the low light, until they come to the hidden cage.

Christine knows they cannot leave the boy the moment Papa sees him huddles within those bars. The boy will be theirs, no matter what Papa has to do.

"Clearly, he is a nuisance to you," Papa says to the man, who has followed him. "I will take him off your hands. In exchange, I will not tell the police how you have treated him."

"You can't expect me to let him go for free. He would have fetched me quite a large ticket fee during this winter season, when Parisians are starved for entertainment!"

Christine watches her father's face, which is close to her own, and she clutches his shoulder. They already have so little. She feels a ping of shame for bringing more hardship upon her father, as well as another mouth to feed in the future, but this is one of the many reasons she loves him so. He will not leave without the boy.

Papa's hand goes white-knuckled around the handle of his violin case. Her eyes widen, her heart racing. He can't possibly…

Wriggling, she slips from Papa's arm. She digs beneath the collar of her dress and fishes out the chain there. The pendant, when she cups it in her palms, is warm from being against her skin. The boy's eyes are trained upon her, two yellow pinpricks of light in the shadows of his cell.

"What about my necklace?" she asks the man. "It is gold."

Papa scowls. "No, ängel-" he begins.

"It is all right, Papa."

The man takes the pendant from her. He does not open the locket, but she knows what he will see inside: a tiny picture of her mother. Her heart aches, but she juts out her chin, waiting for the man's decision.

He shoves it into his pocket. "Done." Then he tosses Papa a key. "The thing in there is useless to me anyway. Just last week, he stabbed his handler in the neck with a piece of wood." He laughs as though he has just made a joke.

Papa unlocks the cage. Before either of them can call to the boy, he flashes out of the cage upon skinny legs and launches himself at the man. Christine thinks he is attacking, but he only hugs the man tightly until a kick sends him skittering backward across the dirt floor.

Christine cries out at the viciousness. The boy disappears into the shadows behind the cage.

"That is enough!" Papa's voice booms through the air. He bends down to a knee and speaks much softer to the figure huddling away from them. "I purchased your freedom, my boy. You are welcome to join us at our home, where you will be treated with kindness. We are leaving now, but I hope you will come with us. Come, Christine."

He speaks not another word to the man, who watches them leave. Christine takes her father's free hand and glances behind them once they are out of the clutches of the traveling fair. She does not see the boy.

"Papa, will he follow?" she asks as they begin the long walk back home.

"I hope so, ängel." He is silent for a long while, then adds, "That was quite a beautiful thing you did, giving up your mother's necklace for another."

"I had to."

Still, the loss does sting. Her neck feels empty for the first time in her entire life.

After a while, she looks back over her shoulder. She sees the boy making his way among the shadows of the buildings. He ducks into alleys and hides from the view of other people on the streets, but he is following, and Christine turns back around with a smile.

Their small apartment has chilled since they have been gone. Papa goes to stir up the furnace while Christine leaves the door cracked open just in case. It isn't until they have settled in with bowls of stew that the door creaks upon its hinges. Neither of them glance that way, but she sees Papa hiding his own smile behind his bowl.

Now that he is out of the cage, the boy is taller than she realized, a whole head above her. She wonders if he is older than her seven years. The smell coming off him is almost intolerable, but Papa merely continues to spoon his stew, and so she does the same. Glittering yellow eyes stare them down from the doorway, almost daring them to say anything.

When the boy finally shuts the door behind him, Papa puts down his own bowl and spoons stew into another. Silently, he hands it toward the boy. Like a panther springing, the boy grabs the bowl and recoils into the recesses of one of the bedrooms.

Christine's eyes meet those of her father, and she sees such pride and love shining there.

"It is Christmas tomorrow, Papa," she says later, taking both of their bowls to the sink. "Perhaps we could go window shopping? See the trees lit up in the park?"

"Of course, ängel. I only wish I could provide more for you this Christmas. It will be another stark one, I am afraid."

"It is all right, Papa. You know I don't need much."

"Even so."

Papa gets up from his chair, and Christine sets to cleaning up after dinner. Soon, she hears her father's baritone yelp and an animalistic wail start up from the bedroom. She rushes in to find her father standing over the boy, whose head is now uncovered; the sack is clutched in one of Papa's fists.

"I was only trying to see if he was injured," Papa says a bit breathlessly. "Ängel, go back into the kitchen now."

But Christine has already seen what startled her father so. She can see the sparse hair growing from the boy's nearly bald head, the sunken cheeks, the thin lips. The hole where a nose should be.

The boy is staring at them with wide, wild eyes. His chest heaves. Then he drops to the floor and slides his skinny body beneath the bed frame, hiding from them both.

Christine's heart breaks, but she takes swift action. "I am so sorry," she tells the boy. "Papa and I would never do anything to hurt you. Please come out when you are ready. You don't have to hide from us." Then she pushes her father from the room.

Papa mutters a quick prayer in Swedish. "We may have taken more than we can handle with this boy, ängel."

"Don't despair now, Papa," she admonishes, hands on her hips. "It is Christmas! Tomorrow, we will celebrate everything we have, especially each other."

He gives a soft, rueful laugh. But he does pull her in for a burly hug. "My kind, sweet girl. I would give you the world if I could!"

"Give me your violin playing tomorrow. That is all I want."

"As long as you sing with me."

"Of course, Papa!"

They sit up for a while, but the boy does not emerge again from the bedroom. Papa goes to his own room after tucking Christine snugly on the sofa. She does not mind the boy being in her room; it is warmer here in front of the fire anyway.

She wakes sometime in the night. The fire has burned lower now, but she sees the reedy figure bent over the embers. She watches, scarcely breathing, as he strokes the fire until warmth seeps to her cool limbs once more. He seems calmer now. His clothes look cleaner, and he no longer smells; he must have washed up while they were sleeping.

He gazes into the flames for a while, and she can no longer contain herself. She sits up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. "Hello," she calls softly.

His head jerks around. Eyes hot as the fire burn into her through the holes of his sack. And then he is off once more, fleeing back into her bedroom.

"No, wait!" she says as loudly as she dares without waking Papa. She frees her legs from her tangled nightgown and follows him. When there is no sign of him, she drops to her knees and looks under the bed. Yellow eyes blink back at her.

Sighing, she settles on the floor beside the bed, leaning against the mattress. "I'm sorry if I startled you again. I can't imagine what you have been through. You have no parents? I lost my mother when I was a baby. I can't remember her. All I want is to be your friend, okay? Maybe you will trust me eventually?"

She rests her head back and looks up at the dark ceiling. "I bet it is Christmas now, isn't it? I'm sorry I don't have a present to give you. Would it be all right if I sing? Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, singing helps me fall back asleep."

The boy is silent, so she starts with the first French carol she ever learned: "Il Est Né." She hopes her song might bring him a little comfort too, and she lets the slow melody seep into her limbs. Then she sings a few of her favorite Swedish carols, her voice ringing through the cooler night air of the small room.

Her eyelids are growing heavy again. She straightens, intending to head back to the sofa, when she sees the boy standing before her. She had not even heard him move.

"You have the voice of an angel," he says, his voice low and cracking as though he has not used it in a long time.

She shakes her head. "I'm just a girl. My name is Christine. What's yours?"

He does not answer. Instead, one of his hands goes to the pocket of his frayed pants. The chain glitters as it dangles from his fist, her mother's golden locket catching the light from the living room's fire.

Tears flood her eyes. She holds out her cupped hands, and the boy lowers the necklace into her palms with the utmost care. "Thank you so much," she says in a choked whisper. She has an idea of how he came by it, but she does not ask.

"Erik."

She blinks, looks back up at him. His eyes are sweeping over her face as though committing every detail to memory.

"Erik," he says again. "My name is Erik."

She smiles, and when she does, the tears break over her cheeks. They are happy tears, the first of many.

"Merry Christmas, Erik."