L&O: SVU fic: Hippos, Wagons, and Other Christmas Ghosts 2
part 2...
Chapter Four
December 24th
4:52 PM
It had taken nearly eight hours, but eventually around 4:30, Olivia’s fingers had gone numb from her private marathon Minesweeper tournament. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see the infuriating little grid and she feared she was going to dream about it too.
And then her eyes met her partner’s, who had also been reduced to doing nothing besides staring for just over twenty minutes, and she knew that she would most certainly dream of those heavenly blue eyes and that devilish smirk. She got goosebumps just seeing it directed at her.
She’d seen it before, of course, because in all their years together, she’d pretty much seen every expression the man had, except for that one, the one he made when he - well, almost every one about summed it up. The playful smile and unrelenting stare usually resulted in her wanting to be playful too, usually by giving him something to stare at. She’d always imagined a strip tease would do a damn good job. The problem was that the stare and smile were never, ever directed at her. And yet they still managed to make her contemplate giving him a strip tease. The combination was just that potent.
She’d gotten them separately, but never in tandem. When used together, even Mr. Oblivious recognized that the expression was a powerful tool for controlling the most headstrong of women. He reserved the commanding recipe for particularly tough women in the interrogation room, women who were smarter than the usual techniques, women who were beyond everything besides pure sexual attraction.
Being on the receiving end of that look finally explained to Olivia exactly why so many women were suddenly very pissy when they realized that Elliot was not alone.
She shivered and wondered what he was up to.
Because he had to be up to something if he was using that stare on her.
She swallowed hard and willed her body not to respond, but damn if it wasn’t far too late for that command. Not that it would have worked anyway.
December 24th
4:55 PM
Her nails, which she’d decided during her earlier inspection were in desperate need of a manicure, drummed into the desk. Elliot was still staring at her. The smirk had abated somewhat, or perhaps the potency had worn off slightly having faced it for several minutes straight, but his eyes were still steadfast and even seemed to reflect a hint of the smile that appeared by all other rights to be fading.
She shivered and pretended not to notice.
December 24th
4:59 PM
He was undressing her in his mind.
She was sure of it. It would have been a bad enough thing on a regular basis done by anyone else. Though, done by anyone else, she would have been so thoroughly pissed off that she might have threatened a harassment suit, a physical injury, arrest, whatever seemed most appropriate.
Rather than any of the standard options, however, the idea that it was Elliot who was doing it filled her mind with a question. Not what did he think he was doing. Not why was he doing it. Not what did he expect to happen since she would know what he was thinking. No, although those questions were there in some recessed corner being ignored totally, those were not the primary concern. Sadly, the feminist in her ran off and hid in utter embarrassment because the only thing she was particularly concerned with at that moment was whether or not Elliot was enjoying the imaginary view.
And the way he wouldn’t stop looking at her, wouldn’t even blink, told her that he absolutely was.
She decided not to think about it. She’d have plenty of time to think about it during the following day and a half until she would be facing him again. Until then, she’d just revel in it.
December 24th
5:00 PM
“I’d ask what you’re so damn happy about, but I really have to run.” Conveniently, her happiness was contagious, because he’d started to smile back at her. Not the will-you-be-my-love-slave smile, but a regular I’m-enjoying-myself smile.
It had been a good long time since he’d seen her smile out of such genuine happiness and she knew that she looked damn good when she did, so she fixed her joyful smile on him. “Merry Christmas, El. I’ll see you around.”
He’d been staring at her for over a half hour, but he stopped in his tracks, his coat hanging limply from his hand while he stared a moment longer at her smile. He seemed to catch himself, furrowing his brow and blinking a few times, quite possibly realizing what he’d been doing for the past half hour for the first time. Then he looked back, not quite at her and smiled. “You too. Have fun with Simon and Lucy and Kyle.”
She didn’t have time to be impressed with the fact he’d managed to remember their names. She didn’t have time to be glad he’d finally mentioned Simon’s name without her prompting. He was there one moment; gone the next. Shaking her head slowly, she followed him, the unfamiliar idea forming in her head that she needed to get moving too or she’d be stuck in traffic on the way to her brother’s.
Her brother’s.
For Christmas Eve.
She was so tickled at the notion that Elliot didn’t cross her mind again for a good long time.
December 24th
7:48 PM
The people on the commercials made it look so easy. The directions on the package made it sound so easy. But when faced with actually doing it, following simple instructions in plain English appeared to be out of her reach.
And just what did good spreading consistency mean anyhow?
She’d promised a five-year-old that they could make cookies. And she’d stupidly asked him what kind he wanted. Had she any experience dealing with children that hadn’t been abused she might have known that showing up with slice-and-bake pre-made cookie dough would have been the way to go. But no, silly girl that she was expected Kyle to be as low maintenance as she had been at the same age. She’d mistakenly opened a can of worms. Because Kyle didn’t want the simple cookies that would be ready in ten minutes which came pre-stamped with Santa faces on them.
He wanted the kind his mommy made. Because they were “the yummiest in the whole wide world.” And that was logic that Olivia, as a logical, problem-solving oriented adult had trouble combating.
So she’d bought all the ingredients on the list Lucy had patiently recited over the phone and arrived at their house with the expectation that she could follow a linear sequence of steps in a chronological fashion and arrive at the result in the picture. And she might have been right, had she not been distracted in the midst of instructing Kyle on what to do by a pair of stunning blue eyes.
What was particularly stunning about them was that they weren’t even there. Just thinking about that stare reduced her to spontaneous brain death. During her transient catatonic state, Kyle had taken it upon himself to mix everything on the counter together, since Olivia had made the mistake of lifting him up to sit on the counter while she blended. When she stopped blending, preoccupied with blending herself and the owner of the blue eyes, Kyle picked up where she left off.
Jarred back into consciousness by the buzzer on the oven that indicated it had pre-heated, Olivia somehow neglected to realize she’d abandoned the process in the early stages and put Kyle’s handiwork in the oven to bake.
December 24th
8:13 PM
Something was very, very wrong with the cookies. They didn’t look right. They didn’t smell right. And despite cooking them far longer than the directions had called for, they had yet to achieve solidity.
She also only had seventeen minutes before Kyle was due in bed, at the risk of having Santa scrap his visit. Kyle, who sat with his nose to the glass pane on the stove to watch, was rapidly growing more nervous that he would not have prepared the required cookies for Santa. Olivia, who had already accepted utter defeat, didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t going to happen. She leaned on the counter and put her face in her filthy hands, not caring one bit about the cookie ingredients she smeared on her face in the process. Her brother and sister-in-law-to-be were about to have to calm a hysterical child that was hysterical because Olivia couldn’t stop daydreaming about her married and completely off-limits partner of ten years. She doubted they’d care if she had flour and cocoa all over her face when they disowned her and threw her out of their house.
The next thing she knew, Kyle was tearing out of the room.
“Santa!”
Figuring she was busted for being a failure of an aunt, she stayed right where she was and waited for someone to come yell at her.
December 24th
8:17 PM
When no one appeared to throw her out and no disappointed kid reappeared to tell her it had been a false alarm, she figured she needed to follow up. There was a chance that her nephew of sorts was climbing his way to the roof to look for a certain red-suited man, leaving Olivia even more guilty of wrong-doing.
But she stopped in her tracks when she got to the doorway, stunned by the sight before her.
Kyle, having heard something that equated to Santa in his mind, had thrown open the front door. Lucy, who’d been busying playing Santa in the other room, had responded, but she too remained frozen in her tracks, albeit for an entirely different reason.
Kyle was staring mesmerized at the man in the doorway. Eventually his ecstatic face fell. “You’re not Santa.”
Elliot shook his head. “No, I’m not.”
“But I heard a reindeer!”
“That was my car.” Elliot squatted down to eye level with the boy. “You’re Kyle, aren’t you?”
Olivia was enthralled, too much so to notice the fear on Lucy’s face.
Kyle nodded. “Do you work for Santa?”
Elliot smiled. “Yes, I do. And Santa wants you to know that he knows you’ve been a very good boy this year.”
Kyle’s eyes lit up and he surged forward to hug the man he didn’t know.
Lucy did the same, grabbing at Kyle before he could touch Elliot. “Don’t talk to strangers!” Holding Kyle in a tight hug while backing away from the door, she looked at Elliot. “Do I know you?”
Simon came running at Lucy’s shout, luckily recognizing Elliot. “Lucy, it’s ok.” He patted her shoulder. “It’s Elliot.”
“I’m looking for Olivia.” Elliot still hadn’t noticed that she was in the doorway. “You must me Lucy. Liv told me about you and Kyle.”
The man was smooth. Because, Olivia thought, just the night before, he’d been pretending that she didn’t have a brother and definitely didn’t know the names of his family members.
Lucy set Kyle back down, who ran back to Elliot. “Well, then, come on in.”
Elliot scooped Kyle up, well versed with handling children, and offered his hand to Lucy and Simon. “Sorry about the confusion. He was just so excited about hearing the reindeer.”
Simon looked skeptical. “I thought I heard a horse too. That was your car?”
Olivia loved watching him interact with her family, as loose as that definition was for her. When she thought about it, she realized she wasn’t watching Elliot interact with her family. She was watching Simon, Lucy, and Kyle interact with her family. It was overwhelming, she realized, so much so that she couldn’t say or do anything to let them know she was there. It was heartwarming. It was breathtaking. It was amazing. She could only stand there and smile as her nephew wrapped his short arms around Elliot and squeezed him as hard as he could.
Lucy and Elliot were making quite the fuss over what a good boy Kyle had been when Simon looked over and saw her. “There you are!” She nodded, pretending she’d been busy with the cookies.
And then Lucy, with the eye of a woman with a beating heart, winked at Olivia. “I think your present came early.”
In that moment, Elliot almost got his wish of getting a time machine because Lucy’s words had the power to stop time. For Olivia, at least. She had never been so embarrassed, not since her mother had stopped showing up drunk to her school functions. Families had the ability to mortify a person to death, she remembered.
She swallowed hard, knowing her cheeks were stained red. She stuttered out a few syllables because she wasn’t sure how Lucy had figured out what she really wanted for Christmas or how her Christmas wish came to pass. And then she promptly remembered that she worked with Elliot and that he was probably there to drag her back to the office, leaving her to feel even dumber in front of Elliot.
“Did Fin and Lake catch Chambers?”
Elliot looked dumbfounded for a moment. “I don’t have a clue.”
“Then what are you doing here?” She didn’t mean to be rude; her brain wasn’t functional.
His cheeks started to color to match hers. Lucy stepped in, taking Kyle out of his arms. “Little man, I think it’s time for bed.”
“Do I have to?” Kyle looked hopefully at Elliot, as though his promise about Santa was already set in stone.
Elliot nodded. “You’ve been very good, but Santa can’t come while you’re awake.”
“Ok, mister.”
Lucy tickled him and laughed. “Kyle, why don’t you call him Uncle Elliot?” Even Simon was blushing furiously at that point, shooing the two from the room and following close behind to put Kyle to bed.
Finally alone, Olivia discovered voluntary control over her mouth. “I swear I have no idea what that was about.”
He nodded and, based on what she knew of his family, she was sure he understood. “Lizzie still calls Munch her uncle. Don’t worry about it.”
She came into the room fully. “So this isn’t about work?”
“Santa wanted me to bring you something.” He disappeared back to the porch for a moment. When he reappeared, he was holding a very large package.
They had never exchanged gifts. It just wasn’t something they could do. In the beginning they hadn’t known each other well enough to bother. In the end, they knew each other too well. She would easily have done a better job picking a gift for him than his wife ever had; he would have put considerably more thought into a gift for her than he ever did for his wife. A plain “Merry Christmas” was all they ever gave each other. She was completely unprepared for him to drive all the way out to Simon’s house in Jersey to bring her a present. And she felt terrible that she didn’t have anything for him.
“What is this?” Ever since that disaster of a Christmas with her mother, she’d been anxious and suspicious facing presents. The fact that it was from Elliot only made it worse.
He grinned, but his grin faded quickly. “Is something burning?”
December 24th
8:45 PM
Olivia was perched on the counter exactly where Kyle had been sitting. She would have thought the coincidence strange, except that it was the only space on the counter not covered with some sort of cookie ingredient. Elliot was trying to scrape the broiled globs off the baking sheet.
The batteries from the smoke detector lay next to Olivia; the kitchen door stood open inviting in the ice cold air to replace the smoke.
She wanted to be embarrassed at her utter failure in the kitchen, except Elliot’s amusement was so very real that she couldn’t help but enjoy it too. Especially since Elliot was more than happy to shift into protective male mode and “save” her from the kitchen fire. Hell, he was even saving her from having to admit that she’d ruined the cookies with his offer to help once he was done cleaning up.
He looked up from his scrubbing, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up above his elbows as he worked. “How exactly did this happen?”
She pretended not to be hypnotized by the well-defined muscles working in his bare forearms. It took her a moment, having been so surprised at his presence that she’d managed to put it out of her mind. “Um - I’m not actually-“ And then she remembered. Kyle had taken over with the recipe, without being able to read a word. Because she’d been busy thinking of Mr. Blue Eyes himself. She smiled despite herself. “I might have let Kyle help too much.”
He rolled his eyes. “You let a four-year-old make cookies himself?”
“He’s five.” Realizing that her correction did nothing to further her case, she added an emphatic shrug.
Perhaps it was the holiday spirit, but Elliot seemed to accept her bullshit answer. “You probably wouldn’t have done any better anyway.”
“Hey!” In mock anger, she reached for something to throw at him.
The spatula, still covered with uncooked dough, flew through the air, splattering dough everywhere.
As Elliot wiped one of the globs off his chin, he sighed. “Great, now I look like you.”
Olivia had thought Lucy’s comment was the epitome of embarrassment. But no, Olivia had stumbled into a new depth all on her own. There she was, fantasizing about the man cleaning up the mess she’d made and flirting her ass off, having smeared flour and sugar and cocoa all over her face. She wanted to die.
Propping her elbows on her knees, she dropped her face into her hands, unconcerned that she was only exacerbating the problem. “You could have told me I was a mess,” she moaned into her hands.
“You’re not a mess.”
She would have disputed his statement, but his hands were on her wrists, pulling her hands from her face, gently wiping them clean with a paper towel. She wasn’t sure what to say.
“In fact, you might be the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.” Having finished with her hands, he reached toward her face and repeated the process. His eyes softened as he worked, staring at her with something she could only describe as adoration as he touched her face.
Words were a complete loss for her. She could only stare at him with a stupid smile on her face.
Chapter Five
December 24th
9:15 PM
“I have to say I never suspected you could cook.” She waited for Elliot to glare at her. Once he did, she continued. “And had I ever suspected you could, I still never would have imagined you could make cookies.”
Ever protective of his masculinity, he growled at her. “I’ll have you know I’ve never made cookies before. I do, however, know how to read.”
She could have argued that she knew how to read too, but she was, once again, distracted by his eyes. At least that time they really were locked on hers. So she did what any sensible woman would do. She batted her eyelashes at him. “Why should I read when I’ve got you to do it for me?”
Elliot ignored her and went back to his baking. Olivia didn’t mind and went back to watching him.
December 24th
9:32 PM
“Wow. These are really good cookies.” Elliot was admiring his own handiwork - taking a bite, staring at the remaining cookie while he chewed, then taking another bite.
Olivia giggled, trying to talk around the whole cookie she’d shoved in her mouth. “Uh huh.” They were actually the best damn cookies she’d ever eaten, but she was afraid to tell him that. She had to keep his ego in check.
“If you keep talking with your mouth full, Santa’s not going to leave you anything.”
Finally finished with the delicious cookie, she smiled like the cat that ate the canary. “Except Santa already gave me my present.” She watched his eyes widen, realizing he thought she was referring to Lucy’s comment. Lucy’s statement was entirely accurate, but that wasn’t what she was talking about. She slugged him in the shoulder and then stole the cookie out of his hand. “I meant the thing in the big, wrapped box in the living room.”
Her eyes were sparkling; she knew it. She felt like the whole world was sparkling, so her eyes would have to reflect that. She’d never been in such a good mood ever in her life and a big part of that was simply because the man standing next to her was standing next to her. That he was staring at her like the feeling was mutual was just icing on the cake.
Even in her glee, reality impugned the happiness. Her smile fell flat. She fixed her stare on him. “Seriously, El, what are you doing here?”
And just like that, his smile, his easy going manner, his good mood vanished. He scowled at the floor. “Do we have to do this now?”
His words were unexpected. She’d expected him to refuse to discuss it. She’d expected him to deny anything was out of the ordinary. She’d expected him to say anything else. But she didn’t know what to do with him admitting there was something going on, that it was something he didn’t want to talk about, and, perhaps most importantly, that it was something he acknowledged she would have some part in.
And all that added up to her realizing that it absolutely was something they needed to do right then. “Elliot, you showed up at my brother’s house on Christmas Eve when you gave every indication that you were celebrating Christmas with your family.” It would seem that something was very wrong, but his demeanor said he was, in fact, rather comfortable with whatever was going on.
He nodded toward the doorway and wiped his hands on a dish towel. “You want to sit down?”
She wanted to shake the truth out of him, but she forced herself to be patient and led the way to the couch. Sitting down, she held her breath and waited.
“You remember I said I dropped my phone this morning?” He waited for her to nod. “I didn’t drop it. Kathy threw it at me.”
A million different things popped into her head, but the main one was that she’d just thrown a spatula at him herself, so it didn’t necessarily explain why Elliot was there. Except that Elliot was using it to explain why he was there. She had no idea what to say, so she only nodded.
“Things have been really bad since before the baby.” He tightened his fists in his lap. “Hell, Liv, I’m still not even sure how that happened. I was out of my mind that night and I fucking ruined everything.” His fists released and he reached over, snagging her hand in his before she noticed what he was doing. “I knew it was never going to work. But she asked me to try and I thought I owed her that much, you know? But it was all the same shit as before and I realized being on my own wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be and I’m sick of her using the kids to manipulate me.”
“I didn’t know. You seemed happy. I thought everything was fine.” And she had. She’d never suspected that anything was amiss. In retrospect, she should have realized that he was oddly quiet about his family life since he’d moved back, but she’d thought he was just not talking about it with her.
“And then I realized that you weren’t holding it against me. You weren’t pissed off at me for misleading you or anything.” His hand shifted around until his fingers could lace through hers. “I wanted to spend all my time with you, not with her.”
She wasn’t really good with deep, not when it wasn’t some random victim where she didn’t have to share the turmoil and pain. She knew he was hurting and it hurt her, but at the same time, his words sounded like that hurt might wind up having a positive impact on her life. She shrugged, loving the feel of his hand warming hers. “Well I do have a wonderfully entertaining personality and a magnificent figure.”
He grinned. “Don’t forget how modest you are.”
“There’s always that too.” She shifted over slightly to allow her shoulder to touch his.
And just like that, the tension returned. “I didn’t want to leave her. I didn’t want to be the kind of man who left his wife and family for another woman.”
His words stunned her. They terrified her. Flirting, wanting, imagining - that was one thing. Actually talking about it, possibly taking steps to resolve it, was a separate matter altogether. And then a terrifying thought occurred to her - maybe she wasn’t the other woman. She could easily only be his partner, the person supporting him, his friend. It was a painful idea. She tried to reassure herself that it couldn’t be the case. She’d been sure when he’d hugged her that it had been more than a friendship hug. She’d certainly never hugged any of her friends like that, not that tight, not that long. And the way he was holding her hand - that was definitely not something Cragen would approve of. That was a fact she could hold onto.
She glanced at him, spurred on by the rapt attention he was giving her. “Even if you left your wife, you wouldn’t leave your children. They’ll always be your kids, El, no matter what.”
He nodded. “I know that.”
They sat there, enjoying a quiet moment, holding hands and touching shoulders. It was still early, but Olivia knew she could have easily drifted off to sleep with her head on his shoulder.
“You still haven’t exactly explained what you’re doing here.” Until she knew for sure, until she was positive that they were communicating correctly, there wouldn’t be any sleep.
With his free hand, he motioned at the large red box with the big green bow. “When I was unloading the car tonight, Kathy came outside to help me. I was locking it up when she pointed to that and asked when I was bringing it in.” He shrugged. “I told her it wasn’t for her or the kids and I thought she let it go. Then about ten minutes later, she started grilling me about it, demanding to know what it was and how much it was and who it was for and why I was trying to hide it from her.”
Even knowing it was inappropriate, Olivia couldn’t help but smile. “So what is it?”
“How about you open it and see?”
She shook her head. “In a minute.” She didn’t want to interrupt his story. She didn’t want the worry of his conclusion hanging over her head when she opened it. She wanted to take time to really relish the idea of receiving a gift from someone who knew her well and cared about her.
“When I told her it was for you, I actually thought she was going to kill me. She was so mad.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. You saved her life. You saved our baby’s life. And she resents that I bought you a gift.”
She didn’t like it, but even if Elliot hadn’t been there with her instead of Kathy and holding her hand, she still could understand it. “If I were her, I’d probably feel the same way, El. Women are territorial like that.” She smiled at him. “Especially when they know they have a good one.”
“She asked me to think very carefully about how much I wanted to give you this present and about exactly how much it meant to me.” He sighed, tightening his grasp on her hand. “And when I told her it meant a whole hell of a lot, she asked if I’d rather give it to you or stay married to her.”
She couldn’t help the gasp that escaped at his words. In her mind, after the accident, her relationship with Kathy was better than it ever had been. Apparently not.
“So I got in the car and left.”
She let out the breath she was holding. “El-“
His hand dropped hers, moving instead to cup her cheek. “It’s not about a Christmas present, Olivia. It’s about how I feel.”
Swallowing hard, she knew everything was coming down to his next words. She knew her face revealed her fear. She was sure he could even hear the way her heart was pounding. “How do you feel?”
“It’s not right, Liv. It’s just not right.” He shook his head sadly.
She understood in that instant why people wrote sad songs about broken hearts. She understood how people could die of a broken heart. She was pretty sure she was about to.
“I can’t stay married to her.” His other hand came up to frame her face. “Not when I’m in love with you.”
It took her brain a while to process his words. She had steeled herself against hearing that he couldn’t give her the present after all, that he wasn’t going to flirt with her anymore, maybe that he wouldn’t even work with her in the future. And by the time she realized what he’d just said, his mouth was on hers.
Unable to respond verbally, she explained herself with her kiss. Her lips parted before he even prompted her, allowing his tongue access before he’d requested it. Locking her hands behind his head and neck, she kept him close as she chased his tongue back into his mouth. He’d left his wife for a chance with her, to give her a present, and she wanted to repay him. Her kiss was hungry, her mouth demanding. He might have started it, but she took charge, barely letting him far enough away to breathe. When her mouth slid down to his neck, his arms pulled her close. She could feel the chuckle reverberating through his body before the sound hit her ears. Her lips kept working, trying to brand his skin with her touch, trying to mark the territory as hers.
His lips moved over her face and throat, never releasing her from his hold. “I just want to make sure I’m reading you right.” His words were interspersed with kisses and she found she much preferred that method of conversation. “You’re ok with this? With us?”
She giggled as she shifted, positioning herself as close to his lap as she dared in her brother’s house. “Yeah, we’re good.”
She could feel his smile against her skin as his mouth moved back up to claim hers. “Just making sure.”
December 24th
10:17 PM
“We’re not interrupting anything, are we?” Simon’s voice was strangled, pretty much exactly the way Olivia had always suspected a brother would sound when he walked in on his sister making out with a guy.
Lucy’s laughter filled the air in response. “We are, but it’s probably better that we interrupt it now instead of a few minutes from now.”
Elliot was suitably embarrassed, tucking his red face down while he attempted to extract his hands out from under Olivia’s shirt without drawing attention to where they’d been.
Olivia knew she should have been embarrassed herself, more mortified than she had been earlier at Lucy’s words, but she wasn’t. Grinning, she met Lucy’s eyes and they shared a moment of camaraderie, one woman in love to another. “Sorry.” She wrapped both of her arms around one of Elliot’s, snuggling in beside him. “I hope Santa didn’t see that.”
Lucy was in front of the TV, playing with the remote. “Little man is asleep, no thanks to someone who allowed him to eat more sugar than she put in the cookies.” She shot a pointed look at Liv. “Anyone up for Jimmy Stewart?”
Olivia had always hated Christmas movies as much as she hated Christmas carols. They never ceased to depress her. But somehow she knew she would feel differently with Elliot beside her. Because for once in her life, she could watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” and not think that the angel wouldn’t have much to show her that was worse without her in it. Things were different.
Elliot’s arm moved around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “Sounds good to me. There are cookies in the kitchen.”
Lucy headed for the other room to retrieve them while Simon settled onto the loveseat. “Was that the smoke detector we heard earlier?”
Olivia started to laugh so Elliot had to answer. “Never let this woman near a stove, ok? Not without warning the fire department.”
Lucy came back in with the plate of cookies and set them on the coffee table. “Simon can’t cook either. He managed to burn soup the other day.”
Simon’s face was red as he took Lucy’s hand and pulled her down to sit beside him. “I’m going to get you for that. Maybe I won’t give you your Christmas present.”
She leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. “I bet that’ll hurt you as much as it hurts me.”
Olivia smiled at Elliot as he watched the young couple. He whispered as the movie started. “I hope it turns out better for them than it did for me.”
Resting her head on his chest, she stretched her arm around his waist. “I think it turned out just fine for you.”
“You’re absolutely right, baby.” He leaned down to drop a kiss on her head. “And the next time Fin calls you that, I’m going to have to hurt him.”
December 24th
11:48 PM
The credits were rolling on the TV, but no one moved to shut it off. Elliot gently shook Olivia awake, pointing at Simon and Lucy. They were curled up together, sound asleep. She ginned at him as she stretched. “Should we wake them?”
He shook his head. “Let them sleep.”
“What about Kyle’s presents? He’ll wake up and there won’t be anything here.” She pointed the remote at the TV and silenced it.
“I’ve been Santa for a long time, Liv. Watch and learn.” With a wide smile, he headed into the other room where Lucy and Simon had been hiding out when he arrived.
Olivia herself had never played Santa, except when she’d been shopping for Kyle, but she wasn’t quite prepared for the stack of presents in the dining room. They covered the table, the floor, and had been piled in two stacks by the door. Even Elliot seemed alarmed.
“How many of these did you buy?”
Olivia looked around. Most everything was wrapped, except for a few of the larger toys that Simon and Lucy had assembled. “Honestly, I’m not sure. They were just kind of shoved in bags the last time I checked.” She pointed at one of the finished ones. “I think I bought that green plastic thing. It looked like something that might amuse a kid.” She pointed at another one, a video game system, complete with all the bells and whistles. “That one too. I remember that distinctly because some woman tried to claw my eyes out for it.”
Elliot’s eyes widened. “You do realize that’s one of those things on those lists that my kids want and I can’t afford, right?”
Olivia shrugged. “It seemed really popular, so I thought I should buy it.”
“They’ve been selling out everywhere. Don’t you watch the news?” He started piling up the brightly wrapped packages into stacks they could carry.
Taking a stack out of his hands, Olivia shook her head. “When do you have the time?”
“I have as much time to watch television as you have to shop.” He picked up another stack and followed her to the living room.
Olivia squatted down by the tree, whispering so as not to wake the sleeping couple. “These are from Simon.” She lifted up a few boxes. “They’re for Lucy.” She shifted them over to the side. “Hey, there’s one for me!” She stared at her present, still surprised that she’d gotten one from Elliot.
Elliot knelt down beside her, lifting the presents from Simon. “It’s Christmas, you know, and he knew you were coming. Why wouldn’t you have a gift?”
She shrugged, a feeling that she was being stupid coming over her. “I didn’t expect anything.” She looked down, unexpectedly overwhelmed with emotion as tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
He set the packages back on the floor and wrapped his arms around Olivia, pulling her off her feet and into his lap. “You’d better get used to it. You have people who love you, Olivia. People who want to give you things because they love you and they want you to be happy.”
She nodded against his shirt, feeling overwhelmed instead by the warmth of both his embrace and his words. “I’m not used to this sort of thing either.”
His arms tightened, squeezing her. “Like I said, you’d better get used to it.”
Nodding, she straightened up. “We’d better set these up before someone comes creeping out to see if Santa’s been here.”
Elliot went back to the stack of Simon’s boxes, setting them along the far side of the couch. He saw Olivia’s questioning stare. “Kids have a tendency to open presents without checking the tags. It’s best to move the things that aren’t for them.”
“Probably prevents them from being disappointed that they aren’t for them, right?”
“Now you’re catching on.”
December 25th
12:34 PM
“I think that’s everything.” Olivia stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed the room.
Elliot shook his head. “Almost.” He disappeared into the kitchen, coming back a few moments later with a cookie, a plate, and a glass of milk. He set the plate and glass down, breaking the cookie into a few pieces and handing some to Olivia. “Here, help me out.” He took a few pieces himself, crumbling a small piece of it over the plate. Then he drank half the glass of milk and offered the rest to Olivia.
She accepted it and smiled. “I came here to bake cookies for Santa and I forgot about them entirely.”
“You would have destroyed the boy, Liv.” He picked up the note Kyle had left for Santa and stuffed it in his pocket. “Do you know where they have a notebook?”
Confused, Olivia retrieved the one they kept by the phone. “What’s that for?”
He grinned and sat down on the couch, patting the seat beside him. “You’ll see.”
She waited as commanded, leaning over his arm while he carefully printed in block letters rather than his usual illegible scrawl. “I didn’t know you knew how to write legibly.” She’d always just kind of guessed at the content of anything he handwrote.
“You learn it at Daddy school.” He turned back to his work, leaving a note for Kyle to thank him for the cookies and to encourage him to enjoy his presents. Olivia laughed when he added a note that Rudolph had especially enjoyed his cookies. He wrapped it up with a reminder to be a good boy for next year. He signed it ‘Santa’ and left it tucked under the plate scattered with cookie crumbs, next to the mostly empty glass of milk.
Olivia sat back and stared. He was so sweet when he was dealing with kids. She couldn’t believe the time he’d taken to prepare a note for Kyle, something the boy he didn’t know would probably treasure.
“What are you smiling at?” Elliot was blushing, having noticed Olivia’s stare.
“You. I like seeing you be a daddy. It’s cute.”
He nodded, seeming to consider her words for a long time. Then he winked. “Mention that again in a year.”
She furrowed her brow in confusion. “Huh?”
“I just had a baby. Give me a year and then we’ll talk.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I didn’t mean- I wasn’t-“ But she stopped. She knew he understood her motives. He’d taken the time to think about his answer. She’d never seriously thought about having children of her own. It wasn’t that she didn’t want them; she did. But she didn’t want to raise them alone and, with all the cases she’d investigated, she had always doubted she would ever find a man she could trust to help her.
Elliot was throwing a wrench in all the ideas she’d ever had, in all the plans she’d tentatively made for her future.
She didn’t mind one bit. Smiling so hard she could barely talk, she nodded. “Maybe I will.”
Chapter Four
December 24th
4:52 PM
It had taken nearly eight hours, but eventually around 4:30, Olivia’s fingers had gone numb from her private marathon Minesweeper tournament. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see the infuriating little grid and she feared she was going to dream about it too.
And then her eyes met her partner’s, who had also been reduced to doing nothing besides staring for just over twenty minutes, and she knew that she would most certainly dream of those heavenly blue eyes and that devilish smirk. She got goosebumps just seeing it directed at her.
She’d seen it before, of course, because in all their years together, she’d pretty much seen every expression the man had, except for that one, the one he made when he - well, almost every one about summed it up. The playful smile and unrelenting stare usually resulted in her wanting to be playful too, usually by giving him something to stare at. She’d always imagined a strip tease would do a damn good job. The problem was that the stare and smile were never, ever directed at her. And yet they still managed to make her contemplate giving him a strip tease. The combination was just that potent.
She’d gotten them separately, but never in tandem. When used together, even Mr. Oblivious recognized that the expression was a powerful tool for controlling the most headstrong of women. He reserved the commanding recipe for particularly tough women in the interrogation room, women who were smarter than the usual techniques, women who were beyond everything besides pure sexual attraction.
Being on the receiving end of that look finally explained to Olivia exactly why so many women were suddenly very pissy when they realized that Elliot was not alone.
She shivered and wondered what he was up to.
Because he had to be up to something if he was using that stare on her.
She swallowed hard and willed her body not to respond, but damn if it wasn’t far too late for that command. Not that it would have worked anyway.
December 24th
4:55 PM
Her nails, which she’d decided during her earlier inspection were in desperate need of a manicure, drummed into the desk. Elliot was still staring at her. The smirk had abated somewhat, or perhaps the potency had worn off slightly having faced it for several minutes straight, but his eyes were still steadfast and even seemed to reflect a hint of the smile that appeared by all other rights to be fading.
She shivered and pretended not to notice.
December 24th
4:59 PM
He was undressing her in his mind.
She was sure of it. It would have been a bad enough thing on a regular basis done by anyone else. Though, done by anyone else, she would have been so thoroughly pissed off that she might have threatened a harassment suit, a physical injury, arrest, whatever seemed most appropriate.
Rather than any of the standard options, however, the idea that it was Elliot who was doing it filled her mind with a question. Not what did he think he was doing. Not why was he doing it. Not what did he expect to happen since she would know what he was thinking. No, although those questions were there in some recessed corner being ignored totally, those were not the primary concern. Sadly, the feminist in her ran off and hid in utter embarrassment because the only thing she was particularly concerned with at that moment was whether or not Elliot was enjoying the imaginary view.
And the way he wouldn’t stop looking at her, wouldn’t even blink, told her that he absolutely was.
She decided not to think about it. She’d have plenty of time to think about it during the following day and a half until she would be facing him again. Until then, she’d just revel in it.
December 24th
5:00 PM
“I’d ask what you’re so damn happy about, but I really have to run.” Conveniently, her happiness was contagious, because he’d started to smile back at her. Not the will-you-be-my-love-slave smile, but a regular I’m-enjoying-myself smile.
It had been a good long time since he’d seen her smile out of such genuine happiness and she knew that she looked damn good when she did, so she fixed her joyful smile on him. “Merry Christmas, El. I’ll see you around.”
He’d been staring at her for over a half hour, but he stopped in his tracks, his coat hanging limply from his hand while he stared a moment longer at her smile. He seemed to catch himself, furrowing his brow and blinking a few times, quite possibly realizing what he’d been doing for the past half hour for the first time. Then he looked back, not quite at her and smiled. “You too. Have fun with Simon and Lucy and Kyle.”
She didn’t have time to be impressed with the fact he’d managed to remember their names. She didn’t have time to be glad he’d finally mentioned Simon’s name without her prompting. He was there one moment; gone the next. Shaking her head slowly, she followed him, the unfamiliar idea forming in her head that she needed to get moving too or she’d be stuck in traffic on the way to her brother’s.
Her brother’s.
For Christmas Eve.
She was so tickled at the notion that Elliot didn’t cross her mind again for a good long time.
December 24th
7:48 PM
The people on the commercials made it look so easy. The directions on the package made it sound so easy. But when faced with actually doing it, following simple instructions in plain English appeared to be out of her reach.
And just what did good spreading consistency mean anyhow?
She’d promised a five-year-old that they could make cookies. And she’d stupidly asked him what kind he wanted. Had she any experience dealing with children that hadn’t been abused she might have known that showing up with slice-and-bake pre-made cookie dough would have been the way to go. But no, silly girl that she was expected Kyle to be as low maintenance as she had been at the same age. She’d mistakenly opened a can of worms. Because Kyle didn’t want the simple cookies that would be ready in ten minutes which came pre-stamped with Santa faces on them.
He wanted the kind his mommy made. Because they were “the yummiest in the whole wide world.” And that was logic that Olivia, as a logical, problem-solving oriented adult had trouble combating.
So she’d bought all the ingredients on the list Lucy had patiently recited over the phone and arrived at their house with the expectation that she could follow a linear sequence of steps in a chronological fashion and arrive at the result in the picture. And she might have been right, had she not been distracted in the midst of instructing Kyle on what to do by a pair of stunning blue eyes.
What was particularly stunning about them was that they weren’t even there. Just thinking about that stare reduced her to spontaneous brain death. During her transient catatonic state, Kyle had taken it upon himself to mix everything on the counter together, since Olivia had made the mistake of lifting him up to sit on the counter while she blended. When she stopped blending, preoccupied with blending herself and the owner of the blue eyes, Kyle picked up where she left off.
Jarred back into consciousness by the buzzer on the oven that indicated it had pre-heated, Olivia somehow neglected to realize she’d abandoned the process in the early stages and put Kyle’s handiwork in the oven to bake.
December 24th
8:13 PM
Something was very, very wrong with the cookies. They didn’t look right. They didn’t smell right. And despite cooking them far longer than the directions had called for, they had yet to achieve solidity.
She also only had seventeen minutes before Kyle was due in bed, at the risk of having Santa scrap his visit. Kyle, who sat with his nose to the glass pane on the stove to watch, was rapidly growing more nervous that he would not have prepared the required cookies for Santa. Olivia, who had already accepted utter defeat, didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t going to happen. She leaned on the counter and put her face in her filthy hands, not caring one bit about the cookie ingredients she smeared on her face in the process. Her brother and sister-in-law-to-be were about to have to calm a hysterical child that was hysterical because Olivia couldn’t stop daydreaming about her married and completely off-limits partner of ten years. She doubted they’d care if she had flour and cocoa all over her face when they disowned her and threw her out of their house.
The next thing she knew, Kyle was tearing out of the room.
“Santa!”
Figuring she was busted for being a failure of an aunt, she stayed right where she was and waited for someone to come yell at her.
December 24th
8:17 PM
When no one appeared to throw her out and no disappointed kid reappeared to tell her it had been a false alarm, she figured she needed to follow up. There was a chance that her nephew of sorts was climbing his way to the roof to look for a certain red-suited man, leaving Olivia even more guilty of wrong-doing.
But she stopped in her tracks when she got to the doorway, stunned by the sight before her.
Kyle, having heard something that equated to Santa in his mind, had thrown open the front door. Lucy, who’d been busying playing Santa in the other room, had responded, but she too remained frozen in her tracks, albeit for an entirely different reason.
Kyle was staring mesmerized at the man in the doorway. Eventually his ecstatic face fell. “You’re not Santa.”
Elliot shook his head. “No, I’m not.”
“But I heard a reindeer!”
“That was my car.” Elliot squatted down to eye level with the boy. “You’re Kyle, aren’t you?”
Olivia was enthralled, too much so to notice the fear on Lucy’s face.
Kyle nodded. “Do you work for Santa?”
Elliot smiled. “Yes, I do. And Santa wants you to know that he knows you’ve been a very good boy this year.”
Kyle’s eyes lit up and he surged forward to hug the man he didn’t know.
Lucy did the same, grabbing at Kyle before he could touch Elliot. “Don’t talk to strangers!” Holding Kyle in a tight hug while backing away from the door, she looked at Elliot. “Do I know you?”
Simon came running at Lucy’s shout, luckily recognizing Elliot. “Lucy, it’s ok.” He patted her shoulder. “It’s Elliot.”
“I’m looking for Olivia.” Elliot still hadn’t noticed that she was in the doorway. “You must me Lucy. Liv told me about you and Kyle.”
The man was smooth. Because, Olivia thought, just the night before, he’d been pretending that she didn’t have a brother and definitely didn’t know the names of his family members.
Lucy set Kyle back down, who ran back to Elliot. “Well, then, come on in.”
Elliot scooped Kyle up, well versed with handling children, and offered his hand to Lucy and Simon. “Sorry about the confusion. He was just so excited about hearing the reindeer.”
Simon looked skeptical. “I thought I heard a horse too. That was your car?”
Olivia loved watching him interact with her family, as loose as that definition was for her. When she thought about it, she realized she wasn’t watching Elliot interact with her family. She was watching Simon, Lucy, and Kyle interact with her family. It was overwhelming, she realized, so much so that she couldn’t say or do anything to let them know she was there. It was heartwarming. It was breathtaking. It was amazing. She could only stand there and smile as her nephew wrapped his short arms around Elliot and squeezed him as hard as he could.
Lucy and Elliot were making quite the fuss over what a good boy Kyle had been when Simon looked over and saw her. “There you are!” She nodded, pretending she’d been busy with the cookies.
And then Lucy, with the eye of a woman with a beating heart, winked at Olivia. “I think your present came early.”
In that moment, Elliot almost got his wish of getting a time machine because Lucy’s words had the power to stop time. For Olivia, at least. She had never been so embarrassed, not since her mother had stopped showing up drunk to her school functions. Families had the ability to mortify a person to death, she remembered.
She swallowed hard, knowing her cheeks were stained red. She stuttered out a few syllables because she wasn’t sure how Lucy had figured out what she really wanted for Christmas or how her Christmas wish came to pass. And then she promptly remembered that she worked with Elliot and that he was probably there to drag her back to the office, leaving her to feel even dumber in front of Elliot.
“Did Fin and Lake catch Chambers?”
Elliot looked dumbfounded for a moment. “I don’t have a clue.”
“Then what are you doing here?” She didn’t mean to be rude; her brain wasn’t functional.
His cheeks started to color to match hers. Lucy stepped in, taking Kyle out of his arms. “Little man, I think it’s time for bed.”
“Do I have to?” Kyle looked hopefully at Elliot, as though his promise about Santa was already set in stone.
Elliot nodded. “You’ve been very good, but Santa can’t come while you’re awake.”
“Ok, mister.”
Lucy tickled him and laughed. “Kyle, why don’t you call him Uncle Elliot?” Even Simon was blushing furiously at that point, shooing the two from the room and following close behind to put Kyle to bed.
Finally alone, Olivia discovered voluntary control over her mouth. “I swear I have no idea what that was about.”
He nodded and, based on what she knew of his family, she was sure he understood. “Lizzie still calls Munch her uncle. Don’t worry about it.”
She came into the room fully. “So this isn’t about work?”
“Santa wanted me to bring you something.” He disappeared back to the porch for a moment. When he reappeared, he was holding a very large package.
They had never exchanged gifts. It just wasn’t something they could do. In the beginning they hadn’t known each other well enough to bother. In the end, they knew each other too well. She would easily have done a better job picking a gift for him than his wife ever had; he would have put considerably more thought into a gift for her than he ever did for his wife. A plain “Merry Christmas” was all they ever gave each other. She was completely unprepared for him to drive all the way out to Simon’s house in Jersey to bring her a present. And she felt terrible that she didn’t have anything for him.
“What is this?” Ever since that disaster of a Christmas with her mother, she’d been anxious and suspicious facing presents. The fact that it was from Elliot only made it worse.
He grinned, but his grin faded quickly. “Is something burning?”
December 24th
8:45 PM
Olivia was perched on the counter exactly where Kyle had been sitting. She would have thought the coincidence strange, except that it was the only space on the counter not covered with some sort of cookie ingredient. Elliot was trying to scrape the broiled globs off the baking sheet.
The batteries from the smoke detector lay next to Olivia; the kitchen door stood open inviting in the ice cold air to replace the smoke.
She wanted to be embarrassed at her utter failure in the kitchen, except Elliot’s amusement was so very real that she couldn’t help but enjoy it too. Especially since Elliot was more than happy to shift into protective male mode and “save” her from the kitchen fire. Hell, he was even saving her from having to admit that she’d ruined the cookies with his offer to help once he was done cleaning up.
He looked up from his scrubbing, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up above his elbows as he worked. “How exactly did this happen?”
She pretended not to be hypnotized by the well-defined muscles working in his bare forearms. It took her a moment, having been so surprised at his presence that she’d managed to put it out of her mind. “Um - I’m not actually-“ And then she remembered. Kyle had taken over with the recipe, without being able to read a word. Because she’d been busy thinking of Mr. Blue Eyes himself. She smiled despite herself. “I might have let Kyle help too much.”
He rolled his eyes. “You let a four-year-old make cookies himself?”
“He’s five.” Realizing that her correction did nothing to further her case, she added an emphatic shrug.
Perhaps it was the holiday spirit, but Elliot seemed to accept her bullshit answer. “You probably wouldn’t have done any better anyway.”
“Hey!” In mock anger, she reached for something to throw at him.
The spatula, still covered with uncooked dough, flew through the air, splattering dough everywhere.
As Elliot wiped one of the globs off his chin, he sighed. “Great, now I look like you.”
Olivia had thought Lucy’s comment was the epitome of embarrassment. But no, Olivia had stumbled into a new depth all on her own. There she was, fantasizing about the man cleaning up the mess she’d made and flirting her ass off, having smeared flour and sugar and cocoa all over her face. She wanted to die.
Propping her elbows on her knees, she dropped her face into her hands, unconcerned that she was only exacerbating the problem. “You could have told me I was a mess,” she moaned into her hands.
“You’re not a mess.”
She would have disputed his statement, but his hands were on her wrists, pulling her hands from her face, gently wiping them clean with a paper towel. She wasn’t sure what to say.
“In fact, you might be the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.” Having finished with her hands, he reached toward her face and repeated the process. His eyes softened as he worked, staring at her with something she could only describe as adoration as he touched her face.
Words were a complete loss for her. She could only stare at him with a stupid smile on her face.
Chapter Five
December 24th
9:15 PM
“I have to say I never suspected you could cook.” She waited for Elliot to glare at her. Once he did, she continued. “And had I ever suspected you could, I still never would have imagined you could make cookies.”
Ever protective of his masculinity, he growled at her. “I’ll have you know I’ve never made cookies before. I do, however, know how to read.”
She could have argued that she knew how to read too, but she was, once again, distracted by his eyes. At least that time they really were locked on hers. So she did what any sensible woman would do. She batted her eyelashes at him. “Why should I read when I’ve got you to do it for me?”
Elliot ignored her and went back to his baking. Olivia didn’t mind and went back to watching him.
December 24th
9:32 PM
“Wow. These are really good cookies.” Elliot was admiring his own handiwork - taking a bite, staring at the remaining cookie while he chewed, then taking another bite.
Olivia giggled, trying to talk around the whole cookie she’d shoved in her mouth. “Uh huh.” They were actually the best damn cookies she’d ever eaten, but she was afraid to tell him that. She had to keep his ego in check.
“If you keep talking with your mouth full, Santa’s not going to leave you anything.”
Finally finished with the delicious cookie, she smiled like the cat that ate the canary. “Except Santa already gave me my present.” She watched his eyes widen, realizing he thought she was referring to Lucy’s comment. Lucy’s statement was entirely accurate, but that wasn’t what she was talking about. She slugged him in the shoulder and then stole the cookie out of his hand. “I meant the thing in the big, wrapped box in the living room.”
Her eyes were sparkling; she knew it. She felt like the whole world was sparkling, so her eyes would have to reflect that. She’d never been in such a good mood ever in her life and a big part of that was simply because the man standing next to her was standing next to her. That he was staring at her like the feeling was mutual was just icing on the cake.
Even in her glee, reality impugned the happiness. Her smile fell flat. She fixed her stare on him. “Seriously, El, what are you doing here?”
And just like that, his smile, his easy going manner, his good mood vanished. He scowled at the floor. “Do we have to do this now?”
His words were unexpected. She’d expected him to refuse to discuss it. She’d expected him to deny anything was out of the ordinary. She’d expected him to say anything else. But she didn’t know what to do with him admitting there was something going on, that it was something he didn’t want to talk about, and, perhaps most importantly, that it was something he acknowledged she would have some part in.
And all that added up to her realizing that it absolutely was something they needed to do right then. “Elliot, you showed up at my brother’s house on Christmas Eve when you gave every indication that you were celebrating Christmas with your family.” It would seem that something was very wrong, but his demeanor said he was, in fact, rather comfortable with whatever was going on.
He nodded toward the doorway and wiped his hands on a dish towel. “You want to sit down?”
She wanted to shake the truth out of him, but she forced herself to be patient and led the way to the couch. Sitting down, she held her breath and waited.
“You remember I said I dropped my phone this morning?” He waited for her to nod. “I didn’t drop it. Kathy threw it at me.”
A million different things popped into her head, but the main one was that she’d just thrown a spatula at him herself, so it didn’t necessarily explain why Elliot was there. Except that Elliot was using it to explain why he was there. She had no idea what to say, so she only nodded.
“Things have been really bad since before the baby.” He tightened his fists in his lap. “Hell, Liv, I’m still not even sure how that happened. I was out of my mind that night and I fucking ruined everything.” His fists released and he reached over, snagging her hand in his before she noticed what he was doing. “I knew it was never going to work. But she asked me to try and I thought I owed her that much, you know? But it was all the same shit as before and I realized being on my own wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be and I’m sick of her using the kids to manipulate me.”
“I didn’t know. You seemed happy. I thought everything was fine.” And she had. She’d never suspected that anything was amiss. In retrospect, she should have realized that he was oddly quiet about his family life since he’d moved back, but she’d thought he was just not talking about it with her.
“And then I realized that you weren’t holding it against me. You weren’t pissed off at me for misleading you or anything.” His hand shifted around until his fingers could lace through hers. “I wanted to spend all my time with you, not with her.”
She wasn’t really good with deep, not when it wasn’t some random victim where she didn’t have to share the turmoil and pain. She knew he was hurting and it hurt her, but at the same time, his words sounded like that hurt might wind up having a positive impact on her life. She shrugged, loving the feel of his hand warming hers. “Well I do have a wonderfully entertaining personality and a magnificent figure.”
He grinned. “Don’t forget how modest you are.”
“There’s always that too.” She shifted over slightly to allow her shoulder to touch his.
And just like that, the tension returned. “I didn’t want to leave her. I didn’t want to be the kind of man who left his wife and family for another woman.”
His words stunned her. They terrified her. Flirting, wanting, imagining - that was one thing. Actually talking about it, possibly taking steps to resolve it, was a separate matter altogether. And then a terrifying thought occurred to her - maybe she wasn’t the other woman. She could easily only be his partner, the person supporting him, his friend. It was a painful idea. She tried to reassure herself that it couldn’t be the case. She’d been sure when he’d hugged her that it had been more than a friendship hug. She’d certainly never hugged any of her friends like that, not that tight, not that long. And the way he was holding her hand - that was definitely not something Cragen would approve of. That was a fact she could hold onto.
She glanced at him, spurred on by the rapt attention he was giving her. “Even if you left your wife, you wouldn’t leave your children. They’ll always be your kids, El, no matter what.”
He nodded. “I know that.”
They sat there, enjoying a quiet moment, holding hands and touching shoulders. It was still early, but Olivia knew she could have easily drifted off to sleep with her head on his shoulder.
“You still haven’t exactly explained what you’re doing here.” Until she knew for sure, until she was positive that they were communicating correctly, there wouldn’t be any sleep.
With his free hand, he motioned at the large red box with the big green bow. “When I was unloading the car tonight, Kathy came outside to help me. I was locking it up when she pointed to that and asked when I was bringing it in.” He shrugged. “I told her it wasn’t for her or the kids and I thought she let it go. Then about ten minutes later, she started grilling me about it, demanding to know what it was and how much it was and who it was for and why I was trying to hide it from her.”
Even knowing it was inappropriate, Olivia couldn’t help but smile. “So what is it?”
“How about you open it and see?”
She shook her head. “In a minute.” She didn’t want to interrupt his story. She didn’t want the worry of his conclusion hanging over her head when she opened it. She wanted to take time to really relish the idea of receiving a gift from someone who knew her well and cared about her.
“When I told her it was for you, I actually thought she was going to kill me. She was so mad.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. You saved her life. You saved our baby’s life. And she resents that I bought you a gift.”
She didn’t like it, but even if Elliot hadn’t been there with her instead of Kathy and holding her hand, she still could understand it. “If I were her, I’d probably feel the same way, El. Women are territorial like that.” She smiled at him. “Especially when they know they have a good one.”
“She asked me to think very carefully about how much I wanted to give you this present and about exactly how much it meant to me.” He sighed, tightening his grasp on her hand. “And when I told her it meant a whole hell of a lot, she asked if I’d rather give it to you or stay married to her.”
She couldn’t help the gasp that escaped at his words. In her mind, after the accident, her relationship with Kathy was better than it ever had been. Apparently not.
“So I got in the car and left.”
She let out the breath she was holding. “El-“
His hand dropped hers, moving instead to cup her cheek. “It’s not about a Christmas present, Olivia. It’s about how I feel.”
Swallowing hard, she knew everything was coming down to his next words. She knew her face revealed her fear. She was sure he could even hear the way her heart was pounding. “How do you feel?”
“It’s not right, Liv. It’s just not right.” He shook his head sadly.
She understood in that instant why people wrote sad songs about broken hearts. She understood how people could die of a broken heart. She was pretty sure she was about to.
“I can’t stay married to her.” His other hand came up to frame her face. “Not when I’m in love with you.”
It took her brain a while to process his words. She had steeled herself against hearing that he couldn’t give her the present after all, that he wasn’t going to flirt with her anymore, maybe that he wouldn’t even work with her in the future. And by the time she realized what he’d just said, his mouth was on hers.
Unable to respond verbally, she explained herself with her kiss. Her lips parted before he even prompted her, allowing his tongue access before he’d requested it. Locking her hands behind his head and neck, she kept him close as she chased his tongue back into his mouth. He’d left his wife for a chance with her, to give her a present, and she wanted to repay him. Her kiss was hungry, her mouth demanding. He might have started it, but she took charge, barely letting him far enough away to breathe. When her mouth slid down to his neck, his arms pulled her close. She could feel the chuckle reverberating through his body before the sound hit her ears. Her lips kept working, trying to brand his skin with her touch, trying to mark the territory as hers.
His lips moved over her face and throat, never releasing her from his hold. “I just want to make sure I’m reading you right.” His words were interspersed with kisses and she found she much preferred that method of conversation. “You’re ok with this? With us?”
She giggled as she shifted, positioning herself as close to his lap as she dared in her brother’s house. “Yeah, we’re good.”
She could feel his smile against her skin as his mouth moved back up to claim hers. “Just making sure.”
December 24th
10:17 PM
“We’re not interrupting anything, are we?” Simon’s voice was strangled, pretty much exactly the way Olivia had always suspected a brother would sound when he walked in on his sister making out with a guy.
Lucy’s laughter filled the air in response. “We are, but it’s probably better that we interrupt it now instead of a few minutes from now.”
Elliot was suitably embarrassed, tucking his red face down while he attempted to extract his hands out from under Olivia’s shirt without drawing attention to where they’d been.
Olivia knew she should have been embarrassed herself, more mortified than she had been earlier at Lucy’s words, but she wasn’t. Grinning, she met Lucy’s eyes and they shared a moment of camaraderie, one woman in love to another. “Sorry.” She wrapped both of her arms around one of Elliot’s, snuggling in beside him. “I hope Santa didn’t see that.”
Lucy was in front of the TV, playing with the remote. “Little man is asleep, no thanks to someone who allowed him to eat more sugar than she put in the cookies.” She shot a pointed look at Liv. “Anyone up for Jimmy Stewart?”
Olivia had always hated Christmas movies as much as she hated Christmas carols. They never ceased to depress her. But somehow she knew she would feel differently with Elliot beside her. Because for once in her life, she could watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” and not think that the angel wouldn’t have much to show her that was worse without her in it. Things were different.
Elliot’s arm moved around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “Sounds good to me. There are cookies in the kitchen.”
Lucy headed for the other room to retrieve them while Simon settled onto the loveseat. “Was that the smoke detector we heard earlier?”
Olivia started to laugh so Elliot had to answer. “Never let this woman near a stove, ok? Not without warning the fire department.”
Lucy came back in with the plate of cookies and set them on the coffee table. “Simon can’t cook either. He managed to burn soup the other day.”
Simon’s face was red as he took Lucy’s hand and pulled her down to sit beside him. “I’m going to get you for that. Maybe I won’t give you your Christmas present.”
She leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. “I bet that’ll hurt you as much as it hurts me.”
Olivia smiled at Elliot as he watched the young couple. He whispered as the movie started. “I hope it turns out better for them than it did for me.”
Resting her head on his chest, she stretched her arm around his waist. “I think it turned out just fine for you.”
“You’re absolutely right, baby.” He leaned down to drop a kiss on her head. “And the next time Fin calls you that, I’m going to have to hurt him.”
December 24th
11:48 PM
The credits were rolling on the TV, but no one moved to shut it off. Elliot gently shook Olivia awake, pointing at Simon and Lucy. They were curled up together, sound asleep. She ginned at him as she stretched. “Should we wake them?”
He shook his head. “Let them sleep.”
“What about Kyle’s presents? He’ll wake up and there won’t be anything here.” She pointed the remote at the TV and silenced it.
“I’ve been Santa for a long time, Liv. Watch and learn.” With a wide smile, he headed into the other room where Lucy and Simon had been hiding out when he arrived.
Olivia herself had never played Santa, except when she’d been shopping for Kyle, but she wasn’t quite prepared for the stack of presents in the dining room. They covered the table, the floor, and had been piled in two stacks by the door. Even Elliot seemed alarmed.
“How many of these did you buy?”
Olivia looked around. Most everything was wrapped, except for a few of the larger toys that Simon and Lucy had assembled. “Honestly, I’m not sure. They were just kind of shoved in bags the last time I checked.” She pointed at one of the finished ones. “I think I bought that green plastic thing. It looked like something that might amuse a kid.” She pointed at another one, a video game system, complete with all the bells and whistles. “That one too. I remember that distinctly because some woman tried to claw my eyes out for it.”
Elliot’s eyes widened. “You do realize that’s one of those things on those lists that my kids want and I can’t afford, right?”
Olivia shrugged. “It seemed really popular, so I thought I should buy it.”
“They’ve been selling out everywhere. Don’t you watch the news?” He started piling up the brightly wrapped packages into stacks they could carry.
Taking a stack out of his hands, Olivia shook her head. “When do you have the time?”
“I have as much time to watch television as you have to shop.” He picked up another stack and followed her to the living room.
Olivia squatted down by the tree, whispering so as not to wake the sleeping couple. “These are from Simon.” She lifted up a few boxes. “They’re for Lucy.” She shifted them over to the side. “Hey, there’s one for me!” She stared at her present, still surprised that she’d gotten one from Elliot.
Elliot knelt down beside her, lifting the presents from Simon. “It’s Christmas, you know, and he knew you were coming. Why wouldn’t you have a gift?”
She shrugged, a feeling that she was being stupid coming over her. “I didn’t expect anything.” She looked down, unexpectedly overwhelmed with emotion as tears pooled in her eyes. “I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
He set the packages back on the floor and wrapped his arms around Olivia, pulling her off her feet and into his lap. “You’d better get used to it. You have people who love you, Olivia. People who want to give you things because they love you and they want you to be happy.”
She nodded against his shirt, feeling overwhelmed instead by the warmth of both his embrace and his words. “I’m not used to this sort of thing either.”
His arms tightened, squeezing her. “Like I said, you’d better get used to it.”
Nodding, she straightened up. “We’d better set these up before someone comes creeping out to see if Santa’s been here.”
Elliot went back to the stack of Simon’s boxes, setting them along the far side of the couch. He saw Olivia’s questioning stare. “Kids have a tendency to open presents without checking the tags. It’s best to move the things that aren’t for them.”
“Probably prevents them from being disappointed that they aren’t for them, right?”
“Now you’re catching on.”
December 25th
12:34 PM
“I think that’s everything.” Olivia stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed the room.
Elliot shook his head. “Almost.” He disappeared into the kitchen, coming back a few moments later with a cookie, a plate, and a glass of milk. He set the plate and glass down, breaking the cookie into a few pieces and handing some to Olivia. “Here, help me out.” He took a few pieces himself, crumbling a small piece of it over the plate. Then he drank half the glass of milk and offered the rest to Olivia.
She accepted it and smiled. “I came here to bake cookies for Santa and I forgot about them entirely.”
“You would have destroyed the boy, Liv.” He picked up the note Kyle had left for Santa and stuffed it in his pocket. “Do you know where they have a notebook?”
Confused, Olivia retrieved the one they kept by the phone. “What’s that for?”
He grinned and sat down on the couch, patting the seat beside him. “You’ll see.”
She waited as commanded, leaning over his arm while he carefully printed in block letters rather than his usual illegible scrawl. “I didn’t know you knew how to write legibly.” She’d always just kind of guessed at the content of anything he handwrote.
“You learn it at Daddy school.” He turned back to his work, leaving a note for Kyle to thank him for the cookies and to encourage him to enjoy his presents. Olivia laughed when he added a note that Rudolph had especially enjoyed his cookies. He wrapped it up with a reminder to be a good boy for next year. He signed it ‘Santa’ and left it tucked under the plate scattered with cookie crumbs, next to the mostly empty glass of milk.
Olivia sat back and stared. He was so sweet when he was dealing with kids. She couldn’t believe the time he’d taken to prepare a note for Kyle, something the boy he didn’t know would probably treasure.
“What are you smiling at?” Elliot was blushing, having noticed Olivia’s stare.
“You. I like seeing you be a daddy. It’s cute.”
He nodded, seeming to consider her words for a long time. Then he winked. “Mention that again in a year.”
She furrowed her brow in confusion. “Huh?”
“I just had a baby. Give me a year and then we’ll talk.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I didn’t mean- I wasn’t-“ But she stopped. She knew he understood her motives. He’d taken the time to think about his answer. She’d never seriously thought about having children of her own. It wasn’t that she didn’t want them; she did. But she didn’t want to raise them alone and, with all the cases she’d investigated, she had always doubted she would ever find a man she could trust to help her.
Elliot was throwing a wrench in all the ideas she’d ever had, in all the plans she’d tentatively made for her future.
She didn’t mind one bit. Smiling so hard she could barely talk, she nodded. “Maybe I will.”