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It is quiet in the underground city. It is quiet and it is warm.
Niki had thought, at first, that this place might fill up some day - that she might find citizens to fill her empty halls, to break bread and make merry. She’d decorated, in her fancy, a couple of bedrooms that now sit unused and cobwebbed; she’d swept up dust that now gets left to settle. She’s given up hope for that little dream now.
But she cannot help but decorate, at least a little bit, for Christmas.
It’s not like she has much else to do out here where nobody ever comes - she cooks, she cleans, she trains for Syndicate business. Those Withers were at once a stark reminder of the life of war she’d meant to leave behind and a symbol of her newfound freedom, her strength, because it has been drilled into her all this time that she can only be strong when she is fighting, and now she thinks that she believes it. Now, she strings up lights and thinks of fireflies that she might have seen on other, shinier worlds. She makes paper snowflakes with books she meant to use as journals. It’s hard to journal when every day’s the blurring, bleeding same.
Fire in the fireplace. Stockings - long socks, holes in the heels and toes, no names sewn into the sides - on the mantelpiece. Four, and then three, when she remembers, and then four again, because she cannot help but hold out hope for Jack.
She’s sentimental. Part of her likes to berate her for that, hissing that it makes her weak. She does her best to not believe it.
And there is a tree; a little spruce sapling that she’d kept from however long ago when every building in New L’Manberg was spruce wood and stone, cobble, smooth bricks cracked by TNT blasts, the moss scraped neatly away by someone or other. Maybe Phil, when he’d still cared about filling in the creeper holes in that corpse of a second attempt at a country. She strings up golden tinsel and hangs ornaments of precious stone that she’d mined away to make this place look neat and rectangular, and tries to find strength in the knowledge that the last time she saw a tree lit up this well, it was the one she’d set aflame because nobody was listening.
Niki screams a lot down here. Nobody’s listening now, either.
She wonders if - and then she casts it aside, because now she is a new woman, if Wilbur couldn’t tell by the dye job. If he ever comes to see her. Jack told her Wilbur had apologised to him, and Niki had raised her eyebrows and nodded with wide-eyed pretence, and late that night she’d screamed out her frustrations with the man who’d managed to die and come back to life before he’d stop taking her for granted. She is a new woman, though, and she does not dwell on her old friends, her protectors, because she does not need protecting now, and she will not be inviting Will or Tommy to her Christmas celebrations.
She’s not even sure if Phil and Techno celebrate Christmas. They’re old enough, she’s pretty sure, to let the years pass them by without marking it. Phil is, at least.
And then she realises - and she considers, extremely briefly, whether -
And she knows exactly who she needs to invite over for Christmas.
He comes early. Like, Christmas Eve early. Niki would have asked him to turn up on the big day itself, but she knows, in a distant way, how difficult it is to get hold of a babysitter, so she’s happy with the way things are.
Tubbo comes wearing a gaudy red jumper and bearing a bottle of wine, which she takes, and she smiles, and she puts away knowing she’s not going to drink it. He looks tired.
She feels tired.
But she can push that down - she can let that bone-deep fatigue stay stuck to her bones, mingled with her marrow, and she can greet politely and lead him down through the catacombs and sit with him in a chair by the tree and the fire as if she’s got all the energy in the world to entertain her guest.
He knows her, after all. He knows what her lies look like.
“How are you coping?”
“I’m alright. It’s happened before, you know. My best friends dying.”
“I’m aware, yes,” she says, and tries not to think about the fact that she’d almost been the one to get Tommy killed. Both boys still think it was a very coincidental near-miss. They’re all still probably a little irradiated.
“So I don’t really expect much to come of it, if I’m gonna be honest. Like - Wilbur came back. Tommy came back. He’ll be back eventually.”
Niki doesn’t say anything.
“How are things down here with you? The Underground City, you called it? Did you build all this yourself?”
“I did.”
“Very impressive. You should be proud.”
“Not much of a city if there’s no-one living here to share it with,” she mutters, without really thinking about the implications. That he will know, now, how damningly desperately lonely she is.
“What about - up there. Just down the way. Don’t, like, Karl and that lot live out here?”
"They wanted me to tear down the roof, or move up there like this was my basement."
"Oh, no way! You've put way too much effort in down here to mess it all up like that."
"Or hide it."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
They're quiet for a time. Tubbo looks up, like he's inspecting the bricks for moss.
"How's your son?"
"Michael? He's fine."
He smiles. Niki knows what his lies look like, too.
She won't push it, though. This is not a time for bad news - it's Christmas, isn't it? Getting Tubbo upset about whatever it is that's troubling him with Michael won't help her mission, which is to have a good time today. "He's lucky to have such a good dad."
"Thank you, Niki." There's something smaller about the way he says it, something that's withdrawing even as she says it, recoiling under her gentle prods. She can almost feel his sincerity receding. Tubbo looks to the door.
"I'm sorry, Tubbo, I didn't mean to -"
"It's fine. Don't worry, I'm just… getting a little tired. You know it's a long way, even through the Nether."
She nods and grabs, pleadingly, for another thread to keep the conversation going, another branch to keep Tubbo afloat in her company instead of leaving early and leaving her behind on her own in shallow but ice-cold waters. "It is, it is. Warmer down there, though. But you wouldn't mind that, with the sweater?"
"Huh? Oh, yes! This was - this was all Tommy. I told him I needed something to wear for a Christmas party and he came back with it the next day. Said he'd made it a long time ago when things were a bit quieter. Or - it was something like that he said."
"It's nice. Very bright." There's something in the vague effigy of a reindeer crocheted into the front. Or knitted, or something. Niki was never much for the woollen side of textiles. She could barely sew much more than a sturdy backstitch, candidly. That was always Tommy's field of play.
"I don't know where he found all the dye. Never mind how long it's stuck - I washed it, as well, I got worried that it might smell too much like smoke or something so I gave it a wash - all the dye, didn't even lift."
"That's good."
"I mean, can you imagine me showing up with red hands like that?"
Niki has seen Tubbo's hands red before. Neither of them, she thinks, would like to address that. "Yes. That would be silly."
"It'd be like that time with all the beets. Did you ever see the beet farm?"
"The beet farm?"
"Across the middle of the Greater SMP, right down past Punz' house and where L'Targay used to be, it was massive. I think I was just looking for something to do on my days off. It got very quiet in the summer."
"I didn't know they had beets around here."
"Well, you pick up a seed or two from one village or another, you forget about them, and by the time it hits you I think I want to make a massive beet farm right up by Tommy's house you've already got enough to make a good head start. And Foolish helped."
"Sounds pretty crazy."
"It was a good few days. Tommy turned up, as well, if only to yell at us for being weird. That's Tommy, though."
"That's Tommy," repeats Niki, muted.
"Have you heard from him?"
"No."
"He's in a bad way. I think all that - with Dream, I mean, I only heard whispers from when it actually happened, but I think it really hit him hard. He actually went to Phil about it, if you can believe that. Philza! The guy who set off all the Withers in the middle of town!"
Niki swallows bitter guilt. She is redeemed, she reminds herself, in her strength. In her fearlessness, in her volume. She is better because she does not stoop to gentleness any more.
"And you know I've had my own problems to worry about, but I'm better with something to work on, so I've been - I did a bit of fishing, and I spent the whole weekend cooking, and when Tommy comes around I've been trying to make him feel better."
"That's good."
"And it's alright, I think."
"It's all okay," she agrees. "This too shall pass, right?"
"Who said that first?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe it's from Hamilton."
"Maybe."
The evening stretches out before them. It is quiet in the underground city, except for Niki and Tubbo - they talk, they break bread, and they are merry. It's a pretty damn good Christmas celebration, all things considered.
"Your present," Niki remembers, "before you go."
"Oh, you shouldn't have -"
"Nonsense! It's the least I can do, to thank you for coming. Here," and she crouches by the sapling and grabs the parcel from behind it. Tubbo is still shaking his head lightly - it must be a reflex - even as she presses it into his open, waiting palms.
"Okay." He pulls at the twine that holds the paper together. He has a tremor in his fingers, but Niki doesn't mention it; she's pretty sure they all do by now, after all. "What is this, a…? Oh! Hair dye?"
"It's just something I thought you might be interested in. I know you had the blonde a few years ago, I know that's all grown out by now, but I thought you might like to try something new… When I was grieving, I just wanted -"
"Thank you, Niki. That was really thoughtful of you."
"I bet you'll look great in pink."
"It'd certainly be a brand new look."
She laughs. He laughs. It's real this time.
Niki can't pretend she's not a little disappointed to see Tubbo again a few weeks later - not in conversation, just across the way - and realise that his hair is still brown.
But it's okay. She didn't drink the wine, either. They both have different ways of getting by.