Never Fear

35

"Willow, what is that?"

"Why my dear Jonathan, this is tinsel."

"What are you doing with it?"

"Waving it happily around. Look at it in the light! It's so shiny!"

Jonathan looked at Willow disbelievingly, it was hard to believe that she was only a year younger than himself. The way she acted one would surely think she had the mental age of a small child. Jonathan put a finger to his chin in thought, perhaps she did have. "Where did you get it?"

Willow threw it in the air and caught it. "I nabbed it."

"You stole? After you have such dislike towards doing so?" Jonathan smiled, Willow didn't retort to his words and continued to play with the tinsel.

"Jonathan, how are we doing?"

Jonathan walked over and sat down next to her. "Everything is up and running." He said and plucked the tinsel from her hands. "The stuff we rigged up in the sewers I believe would have been taken down." He paused, "On courtesy of Batman."

"What are we going to do then?"

"What do you give on Christmas?"

"Presents." Willow answered happily while clapping her hands together. Jonathan placed the tinsel over her shoulders and nodded slowly. "But...oh...you have to make Christmas into something scary."

"I was going to anyway."

Pouting and ruffling the tinsel, Willow shot him a look. "State the obvious much?"

"You shouldn't have asked such a silly question."

"So! Rigging presents, how? Just...how?" Willow watched as Jonathan moved from her side and walked into the confessional work room. He walked back out flicking through a book and balancing another underneath. Willow recognised the book as the one she flicked through when she discovered the message on the letter Jonathan had sent her from his small stay in Arkham.

"Here," putting the book in her hands, Jonathan's slender finger tapped several places on the map.

Willow looked up at him. "We're breaking into post offices?"

Jonathan gave a nod and took to flicking through the other book he was holding. Placing this one in her hands he ran a finger along a network line. "It's an abandoned subway," he explained when Willow looked confused. "It runs right under four of those post offices."

"We'll break in from below."

"Yes."

"Then what?" Willow snapped both the books shut and looked up at him. "Open other people's presents and rig them up somehow? It'll look mighty suspicious Jonathan, if the wrapping paper would be ripped and whatnot."

Jonathan looked puzzled for a moment before clicking his fingers and sitting down. "What if we could create something which could be taken in by the body through touch?"

Willow looked at him dumbly. "Confusing, much?" Willow rolled her eyes and took to playing with the tinsel again. "So what, this thing which we're, I mean you, are going to create is going to be taken in by the body through touch. Much like when getting fingerprinted at the police station? The ink gets on the fingertips but does not go away." Willow looked at him, "The ink stays and is annoying."

"Odd comparison. But I guess if that makes it easy for you to understand, then yes. That's what we're going to do."

"You. There's no 'we're' when it comes down to this. There's only you."