"Bernard! Wait up!" Curtis called after the Head Elf as the two of them ran down the hall. "It's really not that bad-"

"Not that bad!" Bernard turns on his heel and stares down the younger elf. "Curtis we have a teenage human girl living amongst us!" He exclaims. "They are known throughout the world as the ultimate plague on progress with their hormones and their gossip! Santa has brought the ultimate evil to the North Pole and while I know his intentions were good with bringing his daughter here to visit but to LIVE at the North Pole! That's very much against the rules!" Bernard says and briskly walks down the hall towards Santa's room.

"Bernard!" Curtis exclaims. "What exactly do you even plan on telling Santa? He's the one in charge. We can't just tell him to kick out his daughter."

"Of course I'm not going to tell him that." Bernard says. "I'm just going to explain to him that having a teenage girl here would add a lot of stress to the work environment and it may be a good idea to limit 'living' here to just partial visitation during our less hectic months of the year."

With that Bernard knocked on the door to Santa's room and he opened it.

"Bernard? Curtis?" He asks. "Is there something wrong? I'm not due to be down at the shop for another hour."

"Yes Santa something is wrong." Bernard says and steps inside. "Curtis here tells me you've brought your daughter, Holly I believe her name is, to come stay with us here at the Pole?" Santa sighed.

"Yeah Bernard I brought her here to live with us." Scott explains. "I know it's a violation of the rules and everything Bernard but I had no choice. I had Holly back when I was younger, before Laura. She's about two years older than Charlie. She was born on Christmas actually." He says with a chuckle and Curtis smiles. Bernard grinned slightly. "Her mother and I broke up and she promised that she could take care of Holly. But as of late, said mother has...gotten into some trouble, making her unfit to take care of our daughter and she was going to be sent into foster care since I'm up here. Bernard you've seen what happens to kids in that system."

"I have." Bernard says solemnly and nods. "Those poor children. We have to work our hardest for them. Christmas is the only joy they ever get it would seem."

"And I don't want my daughter to end up in that situation." Scott says. "She still has one parent capable of taking care of her and so I need to step up and raise her."

"Yes but won't that be an issue, juggling your responsibilities as Santa with also raising a daughter-" Bernard tries to persuade but then Judy comes running into the room.

"Sir! There's an emergency in the workshop! The snow machine for the snow globes had a pipe break and now the snow is covering everything!" Judy exclaims.

The three elves and Santa all go running down to the workshop area to see what they can do to help fix the break. When they swing the doors open it was like they had stepped out into a blizzard. Snow was flying everywhere and it was hard to see what was going on.

"We've got to shut this thing off before everyone gets buried alive!" Curtis exclaims.

"I'm tall enough that I won't get buried!" Scott says. "I'll go shut it off! Bernard, come with me! I'll need your help." Scott says.

"Why can't I help?" Curtis asks.

"You're too short you'll just get buried in the snow! Try to help the other elves get out!" Bernard instructs Curtis.

Scott and Bernard wade through the workshop and see the machine up ahead. All the while Bernard's fury was slowly growing as he thought about who might have been the cause of this accident. He pulled an elf out who was buried in the snow and after asking if they were alright proceeded to question...

"How did this happen?" Bernard asks.

"Santa's daughter Holly!" The elf exclaims. "She noticed the snow globe machine was lagging and tried to fix it herself to make it go faster but then she wound up bursting the pipe and snow started going everywhere!" Bernard growled.

"I should have known." Bernard grumbles and rolls his eyes. "Go help the other elves, Santa and I will shut off the pipe."

The elf ran off to help the others and Bernard waded his way up to Scott.

"See what I'm talking about here!" Bernard stresses to his boss. "It's dangerous to have someone live here that doesn't know what they're doing. Not only is Holly a danger to the workshop but she's put herself at risk too!"

"I see that now Bernard. I suppose you're right." Scott sighs as he pulls the lever for the machine to shut it off and Bernard grasps it as well and helps him pull until the machine powered down and it stopped snowing in the room."I'll talk with her."

"That's a good idea Sir." Bernard says and lays a hand on Scott's arm. "Now let's help get out all the elves and your daughter that are trapped in the snow."

Scott and Bernard went around, pulling out elves that were trapped in the snow and had trouble getting out.

"See this is what happens when humans come to the North Pole!" Bernard stresses to all the elves as they all stand around the room, waiting for instruction from either him or Scott. "I know you guys are always talking about how much fun it would be to have Santa's kids come and stay with us but that would only lead to disaster, the like of which has just been demonstrated to you!" Bernard pointed out, gesturing to the room around them.

All of the elves hung their heads low in shame, even Scott felt really bad for bringing his daughter here now.

"This mess will take a day at most to clean up! That means we lose a day of work! And every minute counts!" Bernard exclaims. "I understand she's your daughter Santa and I mean no disrespect to her or you but having her here can only bring trouble!"

"She's really not that bad Bernard!" Curtis tries to explain to the older elf. "She's just a bit clumsy. But her intentions are good and she's so kind to all the elves!" They all nod in agreement. "She just wanted to help us out so we could get our work done and have a little fun!"

"Does having all of this snow in the workshop look like fun to you!" Bernard exclaims and gestures to the huge mess around them.

He noticed a hand poke through the snow and wave around blindly looking for something to grab onto. Bernard took a hold of the hand and prepared to pull the trapped person out of the snow. "You guys all seem to think she's pretty fun but from my point of view I'd say she's pretty-Whoa!" Bernard exclaims as he pulls the person out but they were a lot bigger than he was expecting and they end up falling on top of him and the two of them land in another snowbank together.

All the elves laughed and Scott did too, amused by his daughter's clumsiness and also relieved that she was alright. Bernard was fuming as he shook the snowflakes out of his eyes and started to sit up. Fury in his eyes as he looked up to see the person currently on top of him who had caused him such embarrassment.

"Pretty-" He's about to snap an angry comment but stops when he meets the person's eyes.

He had never seen such a lovely shade of green before. In fact, he had never seen such a lovely person in general. The girl laying on top of him had fair skin, with a pink blush gently dusting her cheeks. Her face framed by two long locks of chocolate hair that were curled at the ends and fell past her shoulders, more cascaded down her back, held in place by a barrette on the back of her head. The head elf was at a loss for words.

"I'm so sorry!" The girl says and stands up.

She wore a blue hoodie with black leggings and tan Ugg boots. When she stood up Bernard realized she appeared to be around his age. His heart skipped a beat when she took his hand and helped him stand up out of the snowbank.

"I didn't mean to knock you over!" She apologizes. "I guess you could say I'm pretty clumsy." She blushes and smiles a bit.

"Yeah..." Bernard says dreamily and smiles at her. The two of them still in very close proximity with one another. "Pretty..." He compliments softly.

"That's classic Holly." Scott says and laughs.

Suddenly Bernard's smile fell and his eyes widened when he realized this beautiful girl lacked pointed ears.

"Y-you're Holly?" Bernard asks and the girl nods.

"Yeah." She answers. "I'm so sorry about all the trouble I've caused." She says and Bernard can feel the tips of his ears burn as Holly starts brushing the snowflakes off of his shirt from his shoulders.

"It's okay." Bernard quickly tries to assure her and all the elves gasp. "It's no trouble at all. You were simply trying to help speed up production. You just made a mistake that's all." Bernard says and gently takes her hands again and puts them down, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Thanks for saving me from being buried alive." Holly thanks him.

"Oh I didn't really save you." Bernard says. "All I did was pull you out of the snow."

"Yeah but you were the one that did it." Holly reminds him. "No one else tried to pull me out."

"Well I uh..." Bernard felt Holly's hands leave his as she rushed over to her dad who had come over and given her a big hug.

"Thank goodness you're alright sweetheart." Scott tells his daughter before releasing her from the hug and looking seriously at her. "But you could have been really hurt. Maybe living here with me isn't the best place for you."

"I'm sorry dad. I really wish I could stay here with you." Holly says and hugs her father again.

"Maybe we could just find another place for her here." Bernard suggests and the father and daughter turn to him. "Clearly the workshop isn't really...working out. But that doesn't mean that she couldn't be of some help in the kitchen, or in the stables maybe?"

"Yeah! Maybe I'll be better at helping people out there!" Holly exclaims.

"Well it's definitely worth a shot." Scott says and Holly hugs him.

"Thank you so much dad! I promise I won't let you down!" She says then goes over to Bernard and throws her arms around him in a tight hug that he slowly returns. "And thank you Bernard...You're the best head elf ever!" She says and gives him a quick peck on the cheek that leaves him stunned with the tips of his ears burning as Holly releases herself from his embrace and runs off.

"Whoa! Hey! Easy on the affection there sweetheart! You don't want to go giving people the wrong idea!" Scott calls after his daughter after witnessing what she did to Bernard who was still in shock, gently touching his cheek. "Sorry about that Bernard. I'll make sure she doesn't do that again."

"Oh I don't mind at all Sir." Bernard says and smiles, then stops when he sees Scott arch an eyebrow at him.

"Excuse me?" Scott asks and Bernard stammers.

"I-I mean it's fine. She just didn't know any better I suppose. Sure that was a bit surprising but I'll be fine." Bernard quickly corrects himself and Santa smiles and nods.

"Alright then. Thanks for everything Bernard." He says and pats Bernard on the shoulder. "Just to be safe though I should probably take down some of this mistletoe. There's a bit too much around here..."

"Whatever you wish Sir." Bernard says.

"Alright. Make sure this workshop gets operational again as soon as possible." Santa instructs and leaves.

"Will do Sir!" Bernard says and turns to find all the elves staring at him. "What are you all looking at me like that for?" He snaps.

"I think somebody's in lloooovvvee." Judy says.

Some girl elves giggle with her and Bernard blushes.

"W-what!?" He exclaims. "You all think I'm in love?" He asks in a high voice.

"It's pretty obvious you're into Holly dude." Judy tells him. "One minute you absolutely despise her, and the minute you see her you're suddenly very forgiving of her 'unforgivable' mistake..."

"Yeah. You should probably be the one to start taking down mistletoe." Curtis says. "And save some for yourself. You never know when Holly might walk by..." Curtis teases then closes his eyes and puckers his lips and makes kissy noises at the head elf.

Bernard felt steam come out of his ears and he shoved a shovel into Curtis and the younger elf fell into a snowbank.

"Perhaps I should remind you all that she is Santa's daughter! Any fraternization with her would be a serious violation of the rules!" Bernard snaps at all of them angrily. "And as head elf it would be very very wrong of me to do such a thing. No matter how sweet and pretty..." He says and smiles to himself and shuffles his foot on the ground a bit.

"Bernard has a crush!" They all exclaim in a teasing tone.

"I do not!" Bernard bellows. "Now get to work immediately! I expect you all to work twice as fast now since you've already wasted your break teasing me!" He barks and all the elves scramble to get shovels and Bernard storms out of the workshop.

Once he's outside he closes the door and leans against it, sliding down leaving him sitting up against it.

"Beauty thy name is Holly..." Bernard mutters.