Disclaimer: If I owned it, do you think I'd be this badly in debt? Everything recognizable belongs to the Mouse and all associated with him.

This is a response to Reylsi_Fan's Elf Challenge over on LJ. Come and join the fun!

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Chapter 1: So, You're the Real Santa Claus?

Kelsi Nielson was never, ever going to let her mother talk her into anything, ever again.

When her mother had first asked her to help out at the Women's Crisis Center where her mother herself volunteered on a regular basis, Kelsi had figured she would be ladling soup or handing out blankets. But no—her lovely mother had volunteered her to play one of Santa's elves. Kelsi wondered if this was her mother's payback for the sixteen hours of labor she'd had to go through when Kelsi was born.

The small brunette stared at herself in the helpfully positioned full length mirror, turning left and then right to get the full affect. She was wearing bright green tights, bright red, knee high boots, some sort of green and red tunic, and a red and green elf hat, complete with bells. As if the outfit wasn't humiliating enough, her mother had also found a pair of elf ears to stick to her real ears and painted red circles on her cheeks.

Kelsi wondered if justifiable matricide would get her on the naughty list. She thought she had a pretty good case for it, if she got the chance to defend herself to the Jolly Old Fat Man in Red.

"Kelsi?" Star Nielson called, appearing at the door of the dressing room where her daughter was currently getting ready for her most recent humiliation at the hands of her mother. "Are you—oh, you look adorable!"

Kelsi glared at her mother as best she could—she wasn't actually allowed to wear her glasses, and her mother was supposed to be getting her contacts from home so Kelsi wouldn't accidently dismember someone with a candy cane.

"I have your contacts." Star assured her, moving forward to place the case in her daughter's hand. Kelsi's fingers wrapped around it, and she managed to blunder her way into being able to see again. She blinked rapidly, trying to get the contacts to settle, and then peered at herself in the full length mirror. It was even worse in focus.

"Mom." Kelsi started, but Star didn't give her a chance. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her daughter, resting her chin on her shoulder. Star was only an inch or two taller than her daughter, so it wasn't like she had to bend down far or anything.

"Thank you for doing this, Kelsi." Her mother said, looking at their reflection in the mirror. "It means a lot to me that you are, and it means a lot to the people who run the Crisis center. And I know it'll mean a lot to kids coming to see Santa."

Kelsi sighed. How was she supposed to argue with that?

"I know." She said, reaching up to adjust her cap. She smiled slightly, as something occurred to her. "And it's not like their coming to see me—all the kids are going to want to see Santa Claus."

"Right. Although you do look absolutely adorable." Star beamed, and Kelsi blushed under her makeup.

"Mom." She groaned, and Star laughed, giving her another squeeze before letting her go.

"Now, all you have to do is take the picture, and then give the kid a candy cane. Santa will handle everything else." Star assured her, and Kelsi nodded, before tucking one of her dark curls behind her—fake—ear.

"Let's get this show on the road." She declared, adjusting her cap to a jauntier angle.

--)---)----

Two hours later, Kelsi was two seconds away from demanding a hysterectomy for Christmas from her mother. Some of the children—most of the children—were extremely well behaved and waited patiently for their turn to sit in Santa's lap and give him their Christmas list.

However, it was the handful of hooligans that were inches away from having candy canes stuck up their noses. They ran around and screamed, and one nasty little boy seemed intent on torturing everyone in the line before he was done. The boy's father stood perfectly still and called for his son to come back to him, and then would sigh and shake his head when the little hooligan would ignore him.

The little brat—Kelsi thought his father was calling him Matt—seemed most intent on torturing one of the better behaved children. The little girl had a pair of long black braids falling down her back from under a purple knit cap, and Matt the Brat seemed to think those pigtails were put on this earth for him to pull. The pretty little girl yelped every time he tugged at them, but other than that didn't make a move to get away from him or retaliate.

Kelsi shot a nasty glare at Matt the Brat's lazy father one more time, before resolving to give the poor little girl two candy canes once she got a chance to see Santa Claus.

She had to hand it to the Center though—they had gotten one hell of a Santa Claus. So far he'd known every child she'd lead up to him on sight, and called them by name and spent several minutes apiece just talking to whatever child he happened to have in his lap. He had a nice voice too, Kelsi thought, and the prettiest blue eyes. Seriously, she would have loved to have seen a Santa like this when she was younger. She wondered if he did this professionally, or if he was a volunteer like her.

The trouble started just as she was leading the well behaved little girl up towards Santa. Her mother, a petite woman in a worn brown coat, smiled down at the little girl and waved. The baby—she couldn't be more than three or four, looked back at her mother in panic for a moment, before looking up at Kelsi and taking her hand. She was up two of the four steps of the platform where they had set Santa's throne when Matt the Brat decided that he just wasn't going to wait around for his turn to see Santa anymore.

With a primal scream, the little boy flung himself up the steps, barreling into Kelsi's legs as he did so. Unfortunately, the boots Kelsi was wearing had nothing in the way of tread on the bottom of them, and the steps up to Santa's throne had been shined to a high gloss. This, combined with the fact that Matt might have been young but he wasn't exactly small, all worked against the plan—the plan being, of course, for Kelsi to stay on her feet.

Kelsi shrieked as her world spun wildly around her, and she had just enough time to be glad that she had let go of the pretty little girl's hand before Matt the Huge Brat knocked into her. Her head knocked against the linoleum covering the cement floor with a loud crack that was the last thing she heard before stars exploded in front of her eyes and then everything went black.

--)---)----

A loud sob was the first thing she heard as she swam her way back to the waking world. She opened her eyes, and blinked—and blinked again. Santa Claus was hanging over her, his worried blue eyes studying her intently.

"You killed Santa's elf!" A hysterical voice shrieked, and Kelsi blinked again, trying to lift her head enough to see who was crying so hard.

"Don't move, Kelsi." Santa told her, his voice slightly muffled by the full white beard he was still wearing. He looked up, waving to someone she couldn't see. "She's over here."

"What happened?" A new voice asked, and Kelsi managed to turn her head just enough to see a tall black man with a pony tail jog into view, a pretty little girl with dirty blonde curls on his hip. He sat the little girl down back away from Kelsi and Santa, before dropping to his knee on Kelsi's other side. He quickly reached out to stop Kelsi from sitting up. "Stay still, sweetheart."

"I'm sorry!" A little girl's voice was wailing, and Santa looked away from Kelsi toward the voice. Kelsi was just able to make out the little girl she'd been taking to see Santa before the hellion bowled her over bawling in her mother's arms.

"Baby, it's not your fault." Her mother was trying to comfort her, but she was having none of it.

"I'm sorry Santa! I'm sorry!" She continued to wail, and Santa looked back the tall man before looking down at Kelsi.

"Kels, I'm going to leave Malik here with you. He's a paramedic. I'll be right back, okay?" He promised her, and she tried to nod.

"Don't move, sweetheart." Malik—she assumed the tall man kneeling next to her was Malik—told her. "I've called for a bus, you'll be alright."

"A what?" Kelsi asked, looking up at him. He smiled down at her—he had a beautiful smile.

"An ambulance. We're going to take you to the hospital, okay?"

"What?" Kelsi demanded, trying to sit up. Malik restrained her with a hand on her upper chest, his look pointed. "I don't need to go to the hospital."

"Honey, you were unconscious for about five minutes. That's not good." Malik told her, looking up and away from her.

Kelsi managed to turn her head just enough to see Santa kneeling in front of the hysterical little girl, talking quietly to her. After a moment, the little girl started to settle down, scrubbing at her face with her hand. After another moment, she leaned forward to hug him, burying her face against his red velvet shoulder. Santa stroked her back gently, before handing her over to her mother to comfort, patting her on the back gently before he made his way back over to them. And then he was kneeling beside her, and peering down into her face.

"You still with me, Kelsi?" He asked, and Kelsi tried to nod. "Don't move, baby."

"Yes, I'm fine." Kelsi told him. That's when she heard the sirens, and she groaned. "And I don't need to go to the hospital."

"Yeah, actually, you do." Santa Claus told her, and Kelsi frowned.

"No, I don't. I'm fine. I just have a little headache." She told him, and Santa snorted. It looked weird, because it made his beard fly up and out, before sticking to his nose a little bit.

"Kels, one of your pupils is completely blown. You have a concussion. You need to go to the hospital. Now, stop arguing with me or I will put you on the naughty list."

"Do I know you?" She managed to get out before promptly blacking out a second time.

--)---)----

When she came too, she found herself being rolled along a very white, very long hallway. Worried faces hovered above her, but none of them were her mother's—or Santa Claus's. A small part of her was a little freaked out that she was here by herself, but the larger part was way more interested in what exactly they were going to do to her while she was here.

The answer to that turned out to be tests. Lots and lots of tests. They scanned her head, her back and her chest. They flashed lights in her eyes. They stuck her fingers with pins, and they whacked her knees with a hammer.

After nearly two hours of this, a doctor wandered into the little cubicle where they were keeping her between tests and informed her that she had a relatively mild concussion and that they would release her as soon as her mother got here.

Kelsi managed to force a smile onto her face, and nodded when the doctor told her to sit tight for just a little longer. As soon as the young doctor wandered back out, she slumped over backward, groaning in annoyance. This would have to happen to her. Not only was she stuck at the hospital, she was stuck at the hospital in an elf costume. Seriously, could this day get any worse?

"Oh, he must have come with you." A cheerful voice bubbled from the doorway of the little cubicle she was sitting in, and Kelsi turned to look at a plump little nurse, who was smiling brightly at her.

"Excuse me?" She asked, even though all she wanted to do was throw things and demand that the woman leave her alone right now.

"Santa Claus, of course! He is so good at it." The little nurse continued, lowering her voice on the last statement. "The kids in the pediatrics' ward are just eating him up."

"Santa came with me?" Kelsi asked, confused.

The little nurse nodded, her dark brown bob swinging. "Mm-hm. They wouldn't let him back here with you because he's not family, but he road over in the ambulance with you. Cracked the guys up, but he said that no way was he going to let his favorite elf go to the hospital by herself."

Kelsi blinked rapidly, deep in thought. Did she know Santa Claus? Something about the voice was familiar, though she could tell he was speaking with deeper voice then he had naturally; and she was pretty sure she'd seen those baby blues somewhere before. However, her recent head injury was making it hard to think, so she just asked the first thing that popped into her head.

"What's he doing in the pediatrics' ward?" She asked.

"Playing Santa, of course." The nurse gurgled, and Kelsi nodded, before realizing that this was a very bad thing to be doing as it made her brain feel like it was tumbling around in her skull, and that sucked.

"Oh." She said instead, and the nurse beamed at her.

"Now, you just sit tight, and your mother should be here in just a few moments." She told her, and Kelsi stopped herself from nodding again.

"Okay." She agreed, and the plump little nurse bounced off.

As soon as she was out of sight, Kelsi jumped down and made her way out of the cubicle room. Hey, if Santa Claus was going to follow her to the hospital, she at least owed him a ride back to his sleigh or whatever, right?

Right.

--)---)----

After a few misses, Kelsi managed to make her way to the children's ward of the hospital. Kelsi took in the brightly colored wall paper, and shuddered just a little bit. No matter how they dressed it up, this was still a place where sick children were brought and stayed and sometimes even…didn't leave.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she followed the excited chatter toward one of the lobbies in the large ward. She turned a corner and stopped, a smile pulling at her lips.

Santa Claus was sitting in the middle of the lobby, two little children—a boy and a girl, judging by the colors of their pajamas—perched on his knees, with a third child—another little boy-- apparently trying to climb him like a tree from behind. Various other children were scattered throughout the room—some in wheel chairs, some standing, some in their parents' arms. No matter where they were though, their eyes were trained on the man in the red suit, bright smiles on their faces.

Santa himself seemed to be in his element. He laughed—both the classic 'Ho ho ho' and another, more familiar laugh. It was quick and light, sudden and warm. He caught himself at it a few times, and rapidly deepened it into the 'ho ho ho' that was expected.

Kelsi watched him for a moment longer, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the wall, just watching the scene in front of her unfold. Her smile grew, the longer she watched Santa with the children. She was really going to have to compliment her mother and the people at the Crisis center—they had found one amazing Santa this year.

A little girl in a wheelchair looked up and caught sight of Kelsi standing against the wall. Her face lit up, and she beamed at Kelsi, before whipping her head around to look at Santa again.

"Santa! Santa! Is that your elf!?" She called with a barely noticeable lisp, pointing at Kelsi. Santa looked up from the little girl he was listening too, before waving happily at Kelsi.

"That she is! My favorite elf, right there. You know, she's the reason I stopped by a little early to see you guys this year." Santa told them, and the little boy in his lap looked over at her, his round glasses slipping down his nose.

"Really? Why?" He asked, looking back at Santa.

"Well, you see, poor Mistletoe was getting the reindeer ready for a practice flight, and, well, Dasher got a little anxious and knocked the poor thing down." Santa told the crowd of children. "He didn't meant to, of course—he feels horrible about it, I know. But, she took a nasty little spill, so I brought her here so the doctors could fix her up."

"Don't you have a hospital at the North Pole?" The little boy who was climbing Santa like a Christmas tree asked, his arms around Santa's neck.

"We do, but I wanted Mistletoe to get the best possible care—so I brought her here!" Santa told the children, who all began murmuring and giggling in happiness at his statement. "And now, that I see Mistletoe is all better, I'd better get her—and me—back to the North Pole. Still have a lot to do before Christmas you know—this is my busiest time of year."

The two boys currently clinging to him slid off, reluctantly, but the little girl clung fast. He shifted slightly so he could look at her better, and she sat up straighter, wrapping her arms around his neck and snuggling against his chest.

"Well you come back, soon?" She asked, and Santa patted her back.

"I will. After all, you're all on the nice list—I have to drop off all your presents!" He told her, and she smiled brightly.

"You won't forget?" She asked, and Santa shook his head.

"Never." He promised, and Kelsi blinked hard, pressing her lips together. The little girl kissed his cheek happily, before sliding off his lap and toddling back to her parents.

Santa watched her for a moment, before standing up and straightening his suit. Lifting his hand, he waved to all the children watching him adoringly, a grin visible under his heavy white beard. "Now, remember to be good, so you all stay on the nice list: eat all your vegetables, do what your parents tell you too, and remember that if you blame something on your little brother or sister, I'll know. I'm a little brother too, I know how you older siblings get."

The children tittered, and Kelsi giggled as well, putting a hand over her mouth to stop it. Santa walked toward her, the children calling good bye and waving. He turned and walked backwards, waving to all the children as he did so, before he reached her side.

"Alright, Mistletoe?" He asked, and Kelsi grinned at him.

"I'm great, Santa."

"Alright, than! Back to work we go!" He declared, more for the children's benefit than anything else, she thought. With one last wave, Santa and Kelsi made their way out of the lobby, and towards the elevators.

Only once they were closed, did Kelsi turn to look at the Santa Claus standing beside her. Half a dozen questions were dancing around her head, demanding an answer, so she opened her mouth and let one of them out.

"Mistletoe?" She demanded, before biting down on her tongue. That wasn't the most important question she wanted answered, but it seemed to be the one her wounded brain wanted to ask.

"It seemed to fit. It was either that or Christmas Carol, and I liked Mistletoe better." Santa told her, and Kelsi stared at him, her mouth working but no sound coming out.

Finally, she regained control of her vocal cords. "Okay, who are you?" She demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. "Because I have to say, you're starting to creep me out a little bit."

Santa looked over at her, lifting busy white eyebrows. "I'm Santa Claus."

"Seriously."

"Seriously."

"So, you're the real Santa Claus?" She asked, and he grinned at her.

"Maybe." He agreed, and Kelsi snorted.

"Sure." She said, before studying his face again. "Come on, tell me who you are. I know I know you from somewhere."

"From all those Coke ads they run this time of year." Santa told her, and Kelsi glared.

"Don't you know it's not nice to tease people with head injuries?" She demanded, and Santa laughed again.

"Speaking of which, what did the doctor's say?" He asked.

"I have a concussion. Don't change the subject." She told him. "Do I have to rip that beard off of you to find out?"

"Please don't." Santa asked, reaching up to stroke the white hair on his face. "It's glued on, that would really hurt."

"So, tell me who you are!" She demanded, and Santa laughed once again.

"You know, we've been going to school together since we were six and you don't even recognize me. That hurts Kelsi, it really does."

Kelsi's mouth dropped open, and she leaned forward, peering at Santa Claus's face, trying to see through the heavy white beard, glasses and white eyebrows. It suddenly clicked into place, and Kelsi's mouth dropped open even farther.

"No way."

"You're seriously going to make me take this beard off, aren't you?" He asked, and Kelsi gasped.

"Ryan?!" She shrieked at the top of her lungs.

Ryan Evans—dressed as Santa Claus—grinned back at her. "Took you long enough, Mistletoe."