Page 71 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

Jack turned and walked away, leaving the Princess staring after her, leaving Velveteen insensate on her bed, leaving the Night Shift to her work. Action Dude turned to watch her go, grimacing before he looked back to the Princess and said, “I’m just going to… I’m going to see if she’s all right. Okay?”

“Okay,” said the Princess.

“Thanks,” he said, and kicked off from the ground, rising into that odd half-jump that almost all fliers used. He quickly straightened out into a more traditional flying position and soared after her.

The Princess waited until he was gone before putting her hands over her face. “And here I was hoping this was going to be one of the good days,” she said, to no one in particular.

Velveteen slept on.

* * *

Jack walked until she was out of sight of the recovery room. Then she broke into a run, heading for the nearest set of tower stairs and plunging straight up them. Her dress didn’t slow her down. Ridiculous finery was something she had long since gotten used to, in her role as Santa’s daugh⁠—

No. No. She wasn’t, she wasn’t, because this wasn’t her life, this wasn’t her world, this wasn’t her. She was supposed to be…she was supposed to…

She was sitting on the edge of the battlements, crying silently into her hands, when Action Dude found her. Her tears glittered silver and gold, like the dusting on a Christmas cake. He landed cautiously a few feet away, clearing his throat to let her know that he was there.

“Bad day?” he asked. He winced. “Um, okay. That didn’t…okay, that didn’t quite come out right. Are you okay?”

“I’ve been asking myself over and over again whether they changed the world and me, or just changed the world and got me from a mirror that no one was using.” She lowered her hands, looking at him miserably. “They changed us both. I remember being me and I remember being her, and I was supposed to be her, not me. I know it in my bones. This is my punishment. This is how they make me understand that I broke the rules. And it isn’t fair.”

She started crying again. Action Dude looked alarmed.

“I, uh, don’t know what to do with that,” he said. “Yelena never cried.” Not around him, anyway. He was sure she’d done her share of crying behind closed doors, where no one would see her, or judge her, for being a real person. “Vel did, but I’d usually kiss her tears away, and I think you’d punch me if I tried that. Justifiably so.”

Jack laughed in surprise, still crying. “You’d be getting coal in your stocking every Christmas for the rest of your life.”

“I’m Jewish.”

“Every Hanukkah, then.”

“That would be a lot of coal. I could probably heat the whole headquarters.”

Jack laughed again. Her tears had virtually stopped. “Papa doesn’t like anyone to go completely empty handed.”

“Well, he’s a pretty cool dude.” Action Dude looked at her sympathetically. “I don’t know what any of that stuff you were saying before was about, but I’ll listen, if you want me to.”

“No, that’s—” Jack stopped. She’d been talking to Jackie’s friends since she’d woken up tucked into a bed that shouldn’t exist, in a world that shouldn’t have been hers. She’d been trying to cope with the internal clash between two sets of memories, one that felt lived and one that felt like a story about a woman she wished she could have been. She knew she should have been. “I don’t know where to start.”

“What do you mean, you broke the rules?”

Jack looked down at her hands. “The Seasons…we’re not as nice to the people who work for us as we are to guests, and when Vel came to Winter, Papa wasn’t in charge of her trials.” But he hadn’t been Papa then, had he? He had still been Santa, the Big Man, blessedly distant from the frozen home she’d shared with her parents. The dissonance between memory and what she felt she should remember burned. “The person who was, she wanted to be absolutely sure that Vel was strong enough to do what Winter needed. She didn’t pull any punches. She didn’t take her time. Vel was going to die. She was going to freeze to death and die, and it was going to be Winter’s fault, and…”

And there would have been no more visits to the Calendar Country for Jackie, not until enough time had passed to put all Velveteen’s friends and allies in the ground, because they would never have forgiven her for letting Vel freeze. That was a selfish motivation. Maybe if that had been what moved her, she would have been okay. Maybe if she’d thought to cling to that, her hands would still have been cold, her heart would still have been frozen, and she would have still moved in a comforting spray of snow.

But Vel had been Jackie’s friend. Vel had been important to her. In the end, she had acted selflessly, against the wishes of Winter, to save her friend, and it had killed her.

Jack sighed. “It doesn’t matter, I guess,” she said. “I live here now.”

Action Dude frowned. “I have, like, no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure you just told me that you saved Vel’s life. Did you save her life?”

“I guess.”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “Whatever you need from me, ever, you’ve got. For the rest of our lives.”

“What?” Jack stared at him. “I didn’t do it because I wanted a reward.”

“I have two ex-girlfriends. They’ll both tell you that having me offer to be your errand boy is less a reward and more a cosmic punishment of some kind. But I’m still offering. Thank you. For saving her. Even if I don’t quite get how.”