The Blue Moon Crossover Christmas Special<br/><br/>Sam bustled about, feeling giddy with excitement as she checked the food and the decorations one last time. The colored lights on the fir tree in the corner burned with a steady electric glow. They’d been a splurge, but they were safer than candles. And with a baby sleeping upstairs, she’d wanted the tree to be safe.  There wasn’t a such animal as an electric menorah, though.  So it sat on the mantle, candles burning bright and warm.<br/><br/>“Relax, liebschen,” Erik laughed, sliding his arms around her waist. His hands on her belly, warm through the fabric of<a class="link link--external" href="https://a.1stdibscdn.com/archivesE/upload/v_58/27_14/img_5695/IMG_5695-1_l.jpeg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">her dress</a>, reminded her for a moment that she hadn’t managed t lose all of the weight she’d gained in pregnancy. “Everything is ready.”<br/><br/>“Ah know,” she smiled, leaning back into his embrace. “Ah’m jes’ excited, yeh know?  Hostin’ th’ party in our own house this year.”  She wrapped her arms around his and smiled. “Hardly feels real. This time last year, you’d jes’ asked me to marry you.”<br/><br/>“I can ask again this year,” he teased, nipping lightly at her bare neck.<br/><br/>“Stop that,” she protested, arching her neck to give him more access. “Th’ guests’ll be here any minute.”<br/><br/>“Then I’ll have to be quick,” he replied, running his hands up her belly to cup her breasts. She made a purring sound, covering his hands with hers as he gently squeezed...<br/><br/>There was a knock at the door.<br/><br/>Bith of them sighed. Disengaging from each other, Erik straightened his tie while Sam adjusted her gown. “I’ll, uhm, get the wine,” Erik said, tugging at his trousers.<br/><br/>“Right. Ah’ll get th’ door,” Sam nodded, glancing at the mirror and checking<a class="link link--external" href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a4/d2/46/a4d246c7cafa36e134590cb68a78ee44.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">her hair</a>. She usually didn’t do much more than braid it, but she’d had it done up nice to go with her new dress. And while she had definite plans to let it get all messed up by Erik later in the evening, right now she wanted it to look nice.  Someone hammered at the door again.<br/><br/>“All right, all right,” she snapped, stalking into the hall and heading for the door. “Hold yer damn horses!”  Probably Kieran, she decided. His manners were even tougher than hers, possibly because he hadn’t bothered with them. Maybe if he’d stayed with Colin. The knocking sounded again, and she scowled. “Ah said,” she snapped, pulling the door open, “Hold yer...”<br/><br/>The words died on her lips.  She knew both of the women at the door, and neither one was Anne Marie. One was the Indian gal she’d met in New Orleans, Jackie something. She was bundled against the Berlin winter in a sheepskin jacket, and had a baby cradled in her arms.<br/><br/>“Holy shit,” gasped the Sam Cavendish on the stoop. “Don’t Ah look like a proper lady, hun?”<br/><br/><hr class="bbc-hr bbc-hr--3"/><br/><i>Elsewhere...</i><br/><br/>Quentin caught three blaster bolts on the blazing white blade of his lightsaber, sending two into the ceiling and the third back into the chest of a startled-looking mantoid.  He slashed sideways, amputating the hand of a Gammorean with a vibriaxe, then spun and kicked another man in the stomach.  “You all right?” he called.<br/><br/>There was a surge in the Force, and two humanoids flew past him to slam into the wall. “Oh, I’m just wonderful,” Kaydia complained, her lightsaber flaring green as she deflected a blaster bolt back down the hall. “What happened to<i>covert</i>?”<br/><br/>“It’s not my fault!” he protested, scanning the room. Everyone was down now, either unconscious or dead. “All I Did was<i>look</i>, and their alarms went off!”<br/><br/>“Uhm-hm,” she replied skeptically, catching one last thug with the Force and bouncing him off the ceiling. “I thought Shadows were discrete?”<br/><br/>In the distance, echoing down the corridor, the sound of metal on metal could be heard. Without another word, the two Jedi cautiously approached. It grew louder, resolving into a musical ringing sound that ebbed and flowed in the rhythms of battle. There were voices as well, sharp and taunting but in distinct.  Finally, they reached the source.<br/><br/>“Well,” Quentin said “You don’t see that every day.”<br/><br/>Several bodies lay on the deck of the bridge. At one end a woman with long red hair and a green dress wielded a<a class="link link--external" href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/312L0pl3aTL._SY463_.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">long, straight sword</a>as she fought two of the crew of the pirate ship. At the other, a flamboyantly-dressed man used a slightly curved, basket-hilted sword to fight the ship’s captain, a scarred Mon Calamari with a serrated hook of a blade.  The flamboyant man sidestepped, feinted, and thrust the Mon Calamari through the heart. “Everything under control, love?”<br/><br/>“Oh, you know me,” the redhead replied, parrying a sword thrust. “I’ve never minded two at once.”  She slashed and the swordsman went down, his throat opened. “Unless they don’t have any staying power.”<br/><br/>“Need any help?” The man asked.<br/><br/>“You’ve watched me with other men before,” the woman replied. “I’ll let you know.”  She twisted her wrist and turned a clumsy swing aside, then stabbed her second opponent in the throat. “There.”<br/><br/>“Who<i>are</i>you two?” Quentin asked, sounding puzzled. They clearly weren’t with the pirates, but there’d been no other ships about.<br/><br/>“Well,” said the man, swaying a little as he waved towards the woman. “I have the privilege of being able to tell you that she is the fearsome reformed pirate Red Jenny, scourge of the South China Sea and my dear and lovely wife. And I, my good sir, am Captain Jack Sparrow.”  He sketched a little bow, then looked crestfallen at the lack of response from the two Jedi. “You’ve not heard of me?  Jenny, love, they’ve never heard of me!”<br/><hr class="bbc-hr bbc-hr--3"/><i>A little while ago...</i><br/><br/>“Right,” Sam said slowly. “You don’t look like no shaman.”  He sure as hell didn’t. Someone calls himself a shaman, you expected an Indian. Not some burly white man with close-cropped hair and some kind of strange olive colored coat.<br/><br/>“No,” he corrected. “Not<i>a</i>shaman.<i>The</i>Shaman. It’s my title.”<br/><br/>“Pretty fuckin’ arrogant title, you ask me.”  Sam poured herself a cup of coffee and stared at the crazy man, wondering again why she’d allowed him into her house. Jackie was still asleep, since the baby had been up half the night crying, and the last thing she needed was to get woken up by a kitchen full of crazy.<br/><br/>“Maybe it is,” the man agreed, reaching into a pocket and sliding a small box across the table. “Rub this on Jack’s gums, though, and he’ll feel better.”<br/><br/>She picked it up. The label was clearly written in English, but the label meant nothing to her. Children’s Tylenol. “Yeah. A’ll be sure ta feed mah son pills on the word o’ a hobo that’s Putin’s on airs.”  She set it down.  “Ah said Ah’d feed yeh some breakfast. Ah ain’t gonna...”<br/><br/>“You’re making an unwanted assumption, Samantha Margaret Cavendish,” the man interrupted, then chuckled as she gasped in surprise. “I’m here to...”. He paused, staring at the revolver she was suddenly aiming at him. “Put that down.”<br/><br/>Sam started to obey, then her knuckles whitened as she forced herself to keep the  weapon level. “Go fuck yerself.”<br/><br/>He laughed, sounding pleased. “Impressive. But I’m not here to harm you, or Jacqueline Sparrow, or your son. No, I’m here to do something for you.”<br/><br/>“What?”<br/><br/>He spread his hands. “Well, let’s just say that you can think of me as the Ghost if Christmases that Might Have Been.”  He searched her confused expression. “Dickens reference?  A riff on A Christmas Carol?”<br/><br/>“Suh, Ah got no idea what th’ hell yer talkin’ about.”<br/><br/><hr class="bbc-hr bbc-hr--3"/><br/><i>Now</i><br/><br/>Still in her fancy dress, Sam sat at the dining room table and stared at the other Sam as she told her tale. It wasn’t quite like looking in a mirror. The other Sam wore her hair shorter, for one thing. And her nose had been broken, making it a little crooked. And she was a little leaner, her clothes a little more threadbare and patched. But she seemed happy, clearly in love with her Jackie and firing on the little black baby they’d brought along. “So he wasn’t a crazy derelict, was he.”<br/><br/>“Nope,” Sam confirmed. “He brought us here, ta Berlin, in some kinda...” she searched for words.<br/><br/>“Medicine lodge,” Jackie supplied.<br/><br/>“Ah reckon,” Sam said with a shrug. “Opened a door in a damn Rick, an’ led us into a big ol’ room. Like, like a church. One o’ them real big ones.  An’ then, We was here.”<br/><br/>“Well,” Erik said, sounding a little dazed, “You and your friend might as well stay for dinner.”<br/><br/>“Wife,” Sam corrected, draping her arm around Jackie’s shoulders. “She’s mah wife, not jes’ mah friend.”<br/><br/>“She’s... What?”  Erik sounded shocked.<br/><br/>“Wait.”  Sam looked at the other Sam. “In yer Tejas, gals kin marry other gals?”<br/><br/>“Nope,” Sam replied with a grin. “You think Ah care, though?”<br/><br/>Sam laughed then, and took Erik’s hand. “Nope.”<br/><br/><hr class="bbc-hr bbc-hr--3"/><br/>“He was number thirty-four,” John said, wiping his sword off and gesturing at the orange skinned... man?  Thing?<br/><br/>“What do you mea, ‘number thirty-four’?” asked the woman with the green glowing sword.  Kaydia, he recalled from the brief exchange of names. He took a moment to appreciate the curves her outfit displayed before responding.<br/><br/>“Oh, it’s simple enough. I sail under a curse, you see. No rest beyond the grave for me, not until I deliver a hundred souls wicked enough to be condemned to Davy Jones’ Locker”. He gestured at Jenny. “And my lovely wife volunteered to keep me company as I sail.”<br/><br/>The two... Jettys?  Jeti?  Whatever. Quentin and Kaydia were their names, and they glanced at each other. “Oh. So you’re cursed.”<br/><br/>It was clear from Kaydia’s tone of voice that she was humoring him. John shot Jenny a questioning look, then turned on his heel. “Come along,” he said, swaggering off. “Let me show you something.”  The two... Cheddy?  Hell, the two Knights followed, watching him with more than a little caution. He didn’t care. Instead, he paused dramatically before a massive window and spun on his heel. “Look for yourselves.”<br/><br/>They did. Kaydia’s eyes widened a little, and Quentin tried to stifle a noise of surprise. “What... What is that?” he asked.<br/><br/>John grinned, waving at the full-rigged galleon that drifted alongside the starship, sails stirring in an impossible breeze. “That is the<i>Black Pearl</i>.  Now,” he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Care for a little trip, just to prove she’s real. We’re headed for, uhm...”. He cast a helpless look at Jenny.<br/><br/>“Some place called al-Nithiel,” she replied.