Tidings of Comfort and Joy.

Christmas one shot.

1980. December.

Callen ran as fast as his little ten year old legs would take him.

There was no way he was staying in that house a moment longer, he'd had enough of Mr. McDonald beating him with a broom for an hour and then telling him that he wasn't going to be getting a visit from Santa as Santa didn't come to little boys who didn't have parents, he'd had enough, Mr. McDonald had locked him inside his room and gone downstairs laughing, Callen had waited until the whole house was silent and then with tears streaming down his face, he had climbed out of the window and down the drainpipe, to drop to the ground the wind and rain covering his escape as he ran.

He didn't even see the direction he was running in or where he was running towards until he stopped. His breath was burning in his lungs and he coughed a few times as he tried to get air into his lungs. He was cold and shaking and tired.

He looked around him, he had no idea where he was, and he'd only been in this new placement for a month. Running past the baseball diamond of the high school he got to the end of the road. He looked left and right and didn't know where to go. It was dark as it would be at 2am and he looked for somewhere to hide incase Mr. McDonald came looking for him again. Then he saw it, a small light on in front of what looked like to be a small animal pen. He shook with the cold and he walked toward the light.

There were plastic figures of people and the floor was full of warm straw. He grabbed a pile of it and moved out of the wind, huddled in the corner and fell asleep.

Father John Fitzpatrick woke up early, he wanted to see if last nights wind had caused any damage to his church, Bakersfield had experienced it's worst storm for a decade that night and walking around the corner he noted with a smile that the church was unharmed, there were a few bits of windblown straw and the Nativity scene was a bit messed up, but it was still standing. He sent up a prayer of thanks and walked over to tidy the scene before that evening's carol service.

He picked up a shepard which had blown over and went to straighten the straw when he heard a small noise. He looked to see a bundle of what looked like rags in the corner.

Maybe a kitten or a puppy had snuck in looking for shelter from last night's storm.

"Come on little one," he said moving the rags.

"NO!" Callen whimpered and moved out of the reach of the strange hands.

Father Fitzpatrick jumped back as a small blond headed boy moved to the back of his nativity scene grabbing the baby Jesus from the crib and brandishing him like a weapon to protect himself.

John put both hands up so the small boy could see he didn't hold a weapon, "It's ok son, I won't hurt you, what's your name?" he asked.

The boy looked at him with terrified eyes.

"My name is John I'm the pastor here at St. John's would you like to come inside and get out of the cold?" he asked.

"C…Can't…." Callen said and then sneezed.

"I won't hurt you." John said again and gasped as Callen turned the large purple bruise from last night's beating visible on his face. "You need help." He said.

Callen shrugged, "Don't just need…sleep…" he yawned again.

John reached out and took the doll from the boy's hand and placed it back in the manger.

"Come on son; let's get you inside, maybe a hot drink and some food?"

Callen followed a step behind, he didn't want to but the offer of food was too much to resist, Mrs. McDonald was a lovely woman who had fed him every morning, but her husband hated him with a passion and he had been looking after Callen on his own for a week since her mother took ill and he hadn't offered the boy food once, in fact when Callen had been caught stealing a cookie from the kitchen Mr. McDonald had lost his temper which had resulted in last night's beating.