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"I can figure out the flight plan, get the laser equipment, get the plane, and fly it," Megan had said, "but mission success depends on you."
"Intense," observed Liz, narrowing her eyes as a defence against the pleased little swoop in her stomach that came from being trusted to be competent in Megan's own key area of competence.
"The work with the laser is going to be what really sells it," Megan explained.
"But if it doesn't, there's always a cover story, right?"
"Right," Megan gave her an approving nod. "But the best cover-up explanations are the ones you don't have to use."
She grimaced.
"Also I need you to help convince your mom it's a good idea."
"Ah," Liz said, on much more familiar ground. "I knew there was a catch."
After the disaster that was Hallowe'en (even accounting for the lowest common denominator of teenage brainlessness, you'd think the entire school would have learned not to try to spook the local spook), Megan had aimed to be on her best behavior for Christmas. She'd earnestly assured Liz that she'd watched far fewer Hallmark Christmas movies than teenage romcoms or coming-of-age dramas, and she had worked in a mall over Christmas once, so there were carols she hated, and also she knew the truth about Santa...
...at which point Liz had nearly broken her own safely-interacting-with-spy rules and shoved a hand across Megan's mouth, because guess who didn't know about Santa? Parker.
Crisis narrowly averted.
At a cost.
Because even though Christmas wasn't a territory as foreign as high school, Megan was really invested in it.
Following the original foreign exchange student cover story, she would have "gone back home" to her "foster family" for the week. ("I had a couple of jobs in mind," Megan shrugged, when asked, and then clarified they were the normal kind not the spy kind. "So many places need extra hands to cover Christmas shifts. And I could use the pocket money. It's no big deal." But having somewhere to belong, even a little, for Christmas - that was clearly a big deal.)
She was still feeling guilty about getting the Larsons hospitalized, held at gunpoint, handcuffed, and so on. So when Liz emphasized the need to keep Santa sacred, she could actually see the ideas catch fire behind Megan's eyes.
Hence the plane and the lasers.
"We're not... hunting Santa, right?" Liz had asked.
"No! Oh, no no no. Observing.. We take the plane up, tell Parker which way to look, you work the laser suite, we get a 'sighting', we fly back home. Simple."
It did sound simple when she put it that way.
"It'll be a cool story for him. Plus it'll be fun?" Megan grinned engagingly at her. Then the grin dimmed a little. "Plus, like, if he does get into Prescott, you can't believe in Santa Claus there. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts."
Right. Lack-of-normal-childhood baggage. That evoked an uncomfortable feeling of sympathy, and also set minor alarm bells ringing for Liz, the kind that said, It's not safe to care about things. Was Megan's idea just about giving Parker a cool experience, or something else?
But this was Megan's field, sort of; Liz trusted her with the practical details. And the helicopter ride had gone fine. Liz decided not to listen to her fears. "Tell me what we need to do."
With her mom, she worked the angles of a quiet evening for her mom to do something nice for herself on Christmas Eve before family activities on Christmas Day, and a fiendishly powerful incentive for good behavior for Parker leading up to Christmas. Then Mom put Megan through an hour-long grilling on her flying and general safety credentials; Megan emerged scathed but unscarred, and happily so did the plan.
The laser equipment was delivered by one of Megan's scary burly anonymous unmarked-white-van driving associates, in early December. "Good," Megan said. "We need to practice for a clear night and for cloudy." So they did, all rugged up at the school playing field long after Parker's bedtime. The custom silhouettes swept across the sky above them.
"Wait," Megan said, consulting a little device that looked like a phone when she didn't turn it on, and, since it was on, was currently displaying all air traffic in a twenty-mile radius.
They waited while a plane tracked across the sky above them. Liz' breath frosted in the air in front of her; Megan sipped from a thermos of peppermint hot chocolate. She'd offered it to Liz a moment ago and Liz had declined, but she was having second thoughts. Across the field, across the road, a range of billboards were bordered with neon holly leaves and candy canes, flashing on and off, garishly loud colours preventing the night from being truly silent.
What am I doing out here? Liz wondered, but that was a dangerous thing to wonder, because if she let herself think about it - think about the girl next to her with her big dark eyes and her heart always on her face, her diamond-hard determination in a fight, her hands deft even in the gloves they were both wearing - she might know.
Instead she let herself try to actually read the billboards.
"We might get real snow before Christmas," she found herself saying. "Do you want to sign up for a sleigh ride?"
Megan turned to her, eyes shining. "Oh, could we?"
She sounded as excited as Parker when they'd proposed a Santa flight.
"Yeah," Liz said, and if it wasn't delivered with her customary nonchalance, at least she trusted Megan not to call her on it.
"Thanks," Megan said, her smile brighter than the neon, and then she blinked self-consciously and looked down at her gadget. "OK, one more go, then let's go home..." So they went through it: the warm-up time, the different light settings, how they would cope with a cloudless night, or an overcast night, or something in between.
Liz drove on the way back.
On Christmas Eve, when they headed to the airfield, Megan was behind the wheel.
Parker wanted to know, "Why don't you just steal a plane? I thought, since you're a spy..."
"I've stolen planes when I had to," Megan replied, glancing at him in the rear-view mirror. As Liz reckoned it, this wasn't even close to the craziest spy-related thing she'd said that day. "But that means at least one more person who wants to get in my way or call the cops. Someone who remembers. A trail. Worse, a paper trail. The best spies don't draw attention to themselves. The best spies don't make people suspicious."
Parker took this in with a dubious frown.
"A lot of spycraft is preparation ahead of time," Megan continued the lecture. "Hence the flight plan."
She continued to bring Parker into harsh contact with reality when she made the Larsons wait in the car for an entire twenty minutes (Parker timed it) of pre-flight ice checks. But finally they were boarding, Liz loading up the lasers (explained away as safety equipment) into the back, and then helping Parker step up over the Cherokee's wing. Buckles buckled. Headsets on. A long taxi - and then finally they rose into a sky of scattered clouds and a full moon.
"So you remember from following NORAD," Megan prompted. "Santa usually flies really high. Higher than jet airliners. At that altitude, we wouldn't necessarily expect to spot him, but..."
"He has to come down to deliver presents!"
"Exactly. So our best bet is to head towards New Haven and try to get a glimpse of him taking off for his next destination." Megan got really serious. "Just keep in mind, Parker, this is a long shot. I'm working off the latest flight info provided to NORAD from the North Pole, but we aren't dialled in to their communications and Santa could have had to change his plans. There's no guarantee, you got that?"
She sounded utterly convincing. Liz realized this was the same mode she would have used on targets and enemy spies, selling a narrative. Kind of weird, to hear it in action. Kind of endearing. For someone with probably a dozen cover identities, Megan was so … real. However that made sense.
"Yeah, I got it," Parker said gamely.
"You're comfortable, right? All good?"
"Yeah." Parker adjusted his headset.
Liz was sitting behind him, in what Megan has explained was normally the "kid" seat. That might actually be a more difficult ask than the laser tricks. She fitted in - just.
The plane was loud, but not as loud as the helicopter had been. It felt both more real and more surreal than a commercial jet. Thrumming through the air in a piece of equipment small enough Liz could almost knock it over on the ground. Feeling the change every time Megan adjusted a dial.
"We're approaching to the north of New Haven," Megan said. "I've tracked much further north than I would if we were actually going to New Haven - that's so we get a good view when we turn. Based on my calculations, Santa will ascend from the city in a couple of minutes. We won't be able to pick him out from the city lights and haze at first, but should see a small shape rising very quickly. Much faster than an aeroplane and with a different light pattern."
Liz chimed in. "You remember the pictures we looked at?"
"Sure." Parker was absolutely focused.
"We're going to come around now," Megan continued, and the plane tilted in a long, gradual near-circle.
Liz looked surreptitiously down at the flight tracker. She and Megan had gone over this. No aiming the laser at another plane. Try not to aim the laser at the ground. Switching the laser on and off was OK, they could explain that away, especially if there were clouds, and thank fuck, there were. She had thumbed the laser on and off surreptitiously on their way over here, pointing behind them, when Parker was distracted. She was ready. It was cold and loud and uncomfortable and this whole thing was ridiculous but it was also amazing. She was so keyed up she wanted to giggle, but she wasn't sure she would stop if she did.
The flight tracker vibrated - Megan's go-ahead signal.
"Eyes peeled, Parker," Megan said. (Also a go-ahead signal, because redundancy, said Megan, is a spy's friend.)
Liz switched the laser on to the first planned setting. A cluster of red lights, strung out in a ragged line, followed by a larger bunch of lights in yellowish-white and greenish-white. She swivelled the pointer set steadily, making the distant projected image rise.
"There!" Parker yelled, excruciatingly loud through the headsets. Still: victory.
She'd planned for the horizontal challenges of simulating the movement of the sleigh while projecting it from a moving plane. The way the plane was supposedly approaching Santa was more difficult to account for; she could adjust the focus a little but she wasn't really sure it worked as a simulation of zooming in. As the "sleigh" reached the largest bank of clouds it seemed likely to rise through, she quickly thumbed over to the second image, a more detailed pattern that allowed the red lights to suggest different individual reindeer, and allowed the off-white lights to suggest the boxy shape of the sleigh.
Then she lifted the image higher, higher, past Parker's craning view through the window of the plane, and cut off the laser.
"He was there," Parker said, enraptured.
"Nice spotting," Liz said, basking in his excitement and the feeling of having done her own part well.
"Mission accomplished," Megan confirmed, letting out an explosive sigh. "Let's go home."
"Santa's going to get there before we do," Parker observed.
"All part of the magic," Liz said.
The magic feeling almost lasted to touchdown. Liz's legs and back were sore, and Megan had to help her down out of the plane as well as Parker. But they'd left hot water bottles in the car and enough thermoses for everyone, this time. Liz called her mom to check in while Megan finished parking and checking the plane. In the back seat of the car, Parker put his coat over the pile of equipment (nondescript when packed away in its cases) and turned it into surely the most uncomfortable pillow ever, but when they drove away from the airfield, he was asleep.
They were quiet until the turnoff for Newton came into view. "So what did you think?" Megan asked quietly.
"I had fun," Liz said honestly. "It was impressive, seeing you use your powers for good. I'm impressed."
"Wow," said Megan, shaking her head and laughing a little. "Liz Larson, impressed. This day will go down in history. Merry Christmas to me."
"My nose isn't that high in the air," Liz protested. They rolled to a pause at a four-way intersection for someone else's family car to go through.
"No, no, I know." Megan's smile was warm. "It's just ... I'm glad. I wanted to impress you." She went through the intersection.
"Well, that's something," Liz said lightly. "Merry Christmas to me."
Megan gave her an odd look, like maybe she'd expected Liz to take that in a certain way and had got something different. She opened her mouth to say something back and then shook her head as if arguing with herself. "Hold that thought."
They pulled in at the house, got Parker out, and dragged him to bed - "you can tell Mom all the details in the morning," which was clearly Liz's mom's preference too.
Liz was almost in her pajamas when Megan knocked on her bedroom door. "One sec..." Liz let her in.
"I was just wondering," Megan said, and wow, that suave spy demeanour was nowhere to be seen, "when I said I wanted to impress you and you said Merry Christmas to you..."
"Yeah?"
"Like... you like that idea? That I was trying to impress you? Because I didn't mean all that much by it, when I said it - just that my background has caused you a lot of grief and I wanted to show you that there are upsides, too - but I could mean a lot more by it. If you wanted that too."
Now Liz was half wondering if Megan was emphasising awkward sincerity on purpose.
"Upsides, huh," she said. "To having a spy around?"
"To having a spy ... girlfriend?" Megan offered.
Warmth bloomed in Liz's chest, reaching where the hot water bottle and hot cocoa hadn't. "Wow, okay," she said. "Wow." Where was her own guarded demeanor when she needed it? Except maybe she didn't need it. "That's what you're asking? Okay - okay, yes."
"Yes?" Megan's grin was so bright Liz almost couldn't look at it. "This is the best Christmas ever."
Like she had anything meaningful to compare it to - but that didn't have to matter. Liz was going to make sure future Christmases had a run for their money.
And then Megan stepped closer and kissed Liz, and it was simple, and easy, and - Liz wanted to do it again. So she did.
A while later, they needed to catch their breaths.
"Uh… so. Merry Christmas, Megan." Liz said.
"No kidding," Megan said, and only belatedly remembered the appropriate response. She cleared her throat, and Liz grinned at her. "Merry Christmas, Liz."