A/N: I've never written a holiday story before, and this probably bears more relationship to a mission fic than a holiday story. Maybe it's just a holiday story in terms of timeframe?

Anyway, I thought I was finished with Casey and Riah and their daughter Victoria, but then I had an idea and began to play with it. Jack, the son Mariah was pregnant with at the end of Ghosts that Haunt makes an appearance, as do Walker and Chuck, the Bartwowski-Woodcombs, Morgan and Alex, Ilsa, and a few others from Forging a Life and Ghosts that Haunt. This is far shorter than those, and the plan is to post daily in order to finish Christmas Day.

The story moves back and forth between Victoria's and Casey's points of view.

I'll post all thirteen chapters today, mainly become Christmas is past, so Happy Boxing Day?

Thanks to all you who have told me you'd like more from these characters.

Mercy Mild—Chapter One

Victoria Casey couldn't remember ever having been so cold in her life. She wondered how her grandpa Ben and her aunt Emma could stand it—Clara, either, for that matter. Clara Woodcomb barely seemed to notice as they waited for Mummy and Aunt Ellie. It was snowing, and the big, soft flakes were kind of pretty against the buildings and trees they coated. They were also cold and wet, which Victoria didn't care for at all. Like Clara, she had been born in southern California, where it was warm most of the time, but Mummy and Daddy moved to Maryland not long after Clara and her family moved to Chicago when both girls were little. While it sometimes got really cold and snowed in Maryland, it was nothing like this.

Apparently, Chicago was different.

They had something called lake effect snow, and when Uncle Devon had explained to her what that was, Victoria had wanted to stop him and tell him she wasn't a moron. Mummy got really mad when Victoria did that, and Daddy wasn't very happy about it, either, so Victoria simply listened and tried to hide her impatience. She really wanted to call him a moron, though, but Mummy usually blamed Daddy for teaching it to her—although Mummy generally allowed that at least Victoria no longer called other people morons. Daddy used to give her one of his Talking To's when she called someone a moron, but some of the time she had the feeling he agreed with her assessment.

Chicago had other snow, too, and it was that kind that was falling at the moment. Daddy had grumbled at lunch about having to shovel the damn snow, and then he'd gone outside and done it. Looking at the thickening layer of white on the sidewalk and on the steps leading to the porch, Victoria figured he would have to do it again when he got home.

The front door to their house opened, and she turned to see Mummy, Jack, and Aunt Ellie come outside. Mummy had Jack by the hand, watched him walk, which he wasn't particularly good at sometimes.

Mummy, for some reason loved the cold and snow. Daddy usually said it was insanity from her side of the family, but sometimes he said it was because she grew up in the tundra and then would add something about her being Canadian before Mummy gave him that look of hers.

Victoria gave the snow one of Daddy's glares and wondered how long it took to get frostbite. Daddy had told Mummy when he came back in from shoveling the snow off the walk earlier that he thought he had it, so she should warm him up. When Daddy put his hands under her shirt, Mummy had shrieked, jerked away from him, and kind of wriggled like she'd seen a mouse or something, but then she had leaned into him and kissed him for a long time. When Daddy slid his hands under the back of Mummy's shirt while he kissed her, Mummy just moved really close to him. If Daddy hadn't had to go meet Aunt Walker and Uncle Chuck because they had to work, he probably would have made Mummy go upstairs to their room and done what Grandpa V. H. wasn't supposed to call unspeakable things anymore.

Grownups were just weird, Victoria knew, but it seemed like she knew the weirdest ones.

Take Uncle Chuck, for instance. He was a lot of fun, but sometimes he was really strange. Now and then someone would say something or he'd see something, and his eyes would droop partly closed and his mouth would drop open a little bit. Then, when that expression that looked a lot like when Jonas Cahill had a seizure was gone, Uncle Chuck would talk a mile a minute about things that didn't make a lot of sense, and then he and Aunt Walker and sometimes Daddy would leave.

That had happened on Victoria's seventh birthday last month. Mummy had been upset, but she didn't say anything when they ran out of the house. She, Grandma Jane, Aunt Dena, and Aunt Ellie had just continued fixing dinner while Aunt Julie and Grandma Ariel said bad things about Daddy. Mummy finally told them to shut up, and Victoria had hugged her mum, who was just as upset about Daddy leaving as she was. Victoria didn't like it when Grandma Ariel was mean about Daddy, but she knew Aunt Julie only did it because she thought it was funny. It wasn't funny, but it seemed to make Aunt Julie happy. If Daddy had been there, he would have been mean right back to her.

At least Daddy and Uncle Chuck and Aunt Walker came back in time for cake, even if they missed supper.

As she stood in the falling snow with Clara and waited for their mums to come down the snowy steps with Victoria's little brother, she wondered when Jack would fall down. It seemed like Jack couldn't stay on his feet most of the time, though their dad usually told her to have a little patience when she complained about it. "He's not a Weeble," Daddy grunted once when she griped about Jack being a klutz. Victoria had stared at him and wondered what a Weeble was.

Whatever it was, like Jack, it must only have two speeds: run and crash. She told Daddy that once as he picked a crying Jack up from the floor in his office at home. Jack had crashed into the gun safe because he was running on the hardwood floor in his sock feet and couldn't get stopped. Daddy had grunted, and Victoria was pretty sure it was the one he used when he wanted to laugh but knew he shouldn't.

Clara was lucky she didn't have a little brother. She thought two-year-old Jack was cute. Victoria rolled her eyes at that idea, especially since at that moment, walking in the snow with Mummy, he looked like a blue starfish in his mittens, parka, snow pants, and boots.

She was pretty sure Mummy was only letting him walk because he wouldn't stay in his stroller and because it wouldn't roll in the snow very well.

They were going to Molly's for cupcakes. When Clara and Victoria got too far ahead of their mums and Jack, either Aunt Ellie or Mummy called for them to slow down. Sooner or later, Victoria knew, Jack would grow tired, and then Mummy would have to carry him. They could all go faster when that happened. Until then, Clara chattered about stuff that didn't always interest Victoria. Clara was a girly-girl, all into pink and Hello Kitty and stuff. Victoria didn't mind pink, and Hello Kitty was kind of cute, but she was more interested in spy stuff and books.

Mummy had bought a row house not far from Grandpa Ben and Aunt Emma's house earlier that year when General Beckman told Daddy she was going to send him to Chicago for work. General Beckman had only wanted Daddy to go, but Daddy had apparently told the General they were all going with him since he wasn't the one undercover (Victoria had overheard that when she was being sneaky and avoiding Jack). When Daddy grumbled about Mummy buying the house instead of renting something, Mummy told him that it was a good investment and that when they went to Chicago for visits when his job was finished, she didn't want to stay with Ben and Emma, nor did she want to stay in hotels. Mummy didn't like being in strange places, so Victoria figured it was because Mummy liked having her own place. There really wasn't any yard, not like at home, anyway, but there was lots of room for everyone to stay with them.

It was over a week until Christmas, but Alex and Uncle Morgan were supposed to be there the next night, and both her grandmas were supposed to come in a few days, though Grandma Ariel would stay with Aunt Emma and her dad. Aunt Julie and Aunt Dena were coming, too, but Grandpa V. H. had promised only that he would be there in time for Christmas.

When Victoria had asked Daddy if they were ever going home again, he assured her that they wouldn't be in Chicago forever. Victoria was glad because she didn't like the school she went to or the cold, and she missed her friends in Maryland.

"Girls!" Mummy called, and she and Clara turned once more to look back. Jack had finally insisted on being carried, and as she watched Mummy pick him up, Victoria noticed a man behind them stopped, too, turned and pretended to scrape his boots off on a curb. Something was wrong, she thought, and then she realized the man's boots were already clean of snow.

She frowned, wondered if she should tell Mummy about the man.

When they got to Clark Avenue, they turned left walked toward Molly's. Further up from where they were going was the pancake place Daddy sometimes took Victoria and Jack to when Mummy slept late on weekends. They stopped now and then and looked in a couple of shop windows along the way. Victoria would have been bored, but she found herself watching for the man she had seen scraping boots that didn't really need it. He appeared to be following them since she kept seeing him. Once Victoria saw him talking to an older woman who was kind of pretty.

There was something kind of familiar about that woman, so Victoria tried to remember where she had seen her. She wore a fur hat and coat—that would have made Mummy mad, and Daddy would have teased her for it if she complained. What Victoria could see of the woman's hair was brown. Victoria couldn't see her eyes, but she was taller than Mummy, maybe as tall as Aunt Ellie but not as tall as Daddy, Uncle Chuck, or Uncle Devon.

Victoria had a cell phone, though Mummy didn't know it. She had promised Daddy when he gave it to her that she would never use it unless she or Jack or Mummy was in danger. Daddy had six numbers programmed into the phone: his, Mummy's, Uncle Chuck's, Aunt Walker's, General Beckman's, and Grandpa V. H.'s. His instructions included the order in which she was to call people if it became necessary: Daddy first, then Mummy (if she wasn't with Victoria and wasn't in danger), Aunt Walker, Uncle Chuck and her grandpa. General Beckman was the last resort, Daddy insisted. Victoria had also promised Daddy that she would charge it every night and always take it with her, even to school. It had become habit since they moved to Chicago to stick it in her coat pocket, and she had done so before they left the house. Now she wondered if she should call Daddy and tell him about the man following them.

Daddy would ask her to describe the man, so Victoria memorized what he looked like: Almost as tall as Uncle Chuck but heavier. He had black hair and should really be wearing a hat. His hair was cut really short, kind of like the soldiers and sailors she sometimes saw Daddy with. His skin was really pale, kind of like milk or the falling snow, so his whiskers showed. Victoria wasn't sure if he didn't shave every day or if he was one of those guys who always had beard showing. He wore a black wool coat that had slivers of wood that fit through loops down the middle of his chest instead of buttons and had a hood he wasn't wearing, dark pants, black boots kind of like Daddy's old combat boots, and a gray scarf.

Once they were in Molly's, Victoria slipped her hand in her coat pocket and touched the phone, considered whether or not she should call Daddy. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed the man walked past the cupcake shop. Maybe he hadn't been following them after all.

Clara told her, "I'm getting chocolate with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles."

Victoria leaned around the woman in front of them and eyed the display case. When Daddy brought them here, he usually got vanilla, which made Mummy laugh. Victoria didn't know why vanilla was funny, but apparently Mummy thought it was when Daddy ordered it. Daddy's face usually got red when Mummy teased him about it. Mummy always got the dark chocolate raspberry and ate it with a fork. Daddy used to tease her about the fork, but Mummy finally gave him a look, kind of like if he didn't shut up about it she might stick it in him. It was kind of scary, but it made him stop teasing her about eating cupcakes with forks.

Mummy usually got Jack a chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting. Victoria tried something different each time. This time, though, she got vanilla with vanilla frosting. The lady behind the counter asked if she wanted sprinkles. She shook her head, wished Daddy was there as she saw the man in the black coat walk past the bakery again. Maybe she should tell Mummy about the man, she thought as they moved to the register where Mummy ordered milk for them while Aunt Ellie waited for coffee.

They all crowded around a table by the door. Victoria and Clara sat in the chairs with their backs to the rest of the bakery while Mummy and Aunt Ellie sat on the bench along the wall with Jack between them. This time the woman in the fur coat walked past, and Victoria set her cupcake on her plate and looked at Mummy. Mummy was wiping frosting off Jack's hand where he'd stuck his fingers in her cupcake. "Finish your cupcake," Mummy told her, nodded at the plate in front of Victoria, and then used her fork to cut a small piece off hers for Jack. He must have got some of the raspberry inside because he made a face and stuck his tongue out with the chewed cupcake stuck on it.

Clara giggled. Victoria rolled her eyes, disgusted. Brothers.

On the way home, Mummy decided to stop in the grocery store. Mummy really preferred the store on Diversey, Victoria knew, but it wasn't on the way back to their house. She trailed her mother up and down the aisles as she found what she needed while Jack and Clara went with Aunt Ellie. The man had followed them into the store, and occasionally Victoria saw him ducking around the end of an aisle.

Victoria was torn. She knew Daddy and Grandpa V. H. worried about Mummy's safety, Victoria's, too, so she felt she should stay near Mummy just in case the man was a bad man. Victoria wasn't supposed to know that people had taken Mummy before. Grandpa V. H. had told her about it over the summer when she, Jack, and Mummy went to Canada for a week while their row house was being redone and Daddy was somewhere overseas. Victoria was the same age her mum had been when that happened. Daddy often told her she had to watch out for Jack, too, though, so she wondered if she ought to follow him and Clara. Mummy could usually take care of herself, after all.

If Mummy didn't have such a thing about guns (something Daddy blamed on her being a communist—which Victoria knew was his word for Canadian when he wanted to make Mummy mad), she wondered if Daddy might have let Victoria have her Beretta U22 Neo that Mummy was not supposed to know about. She was too young to get a conceal carry permit, which would let her carry the gun so Mummy wouldn't know. When she told Daddy it wasn't fair, he'd given her an amused look before telling her, "People get funny about little girls with guns, kiddo."

Daddy always took Victoria for a day every other week when he was home, and they did things together, just the two of them. Last year, Daddy took her to a gun store the day after her birthday and bought her the Beretta. He taught her how to disassemble the gun into its five parts and clean it. He taught her how to load and unload it and how to put the lock on it in case Jack found it. Her little brother wasn't quite old enough to learn how to crack safes, though, so Victoria figured he wouldn't be finding it until Daddy had time to teach him, especially since Daddy made her keep it in the gun safe in his office with his guns.

On some of those days when it was just the two of them, Daddy took her to the gun range and taught her to shoot the Berretta. She was pretty good, got better the more they went, but that had happened less since they came to Chicago. Now she wished she had it with her.

Mummy rolled her cart down several aisles even though she was obviously finished shopping since she didn't look at any of the things on the shelves. After they walked all the aisles, Mummy frowned and asked Victoria, "Where's your brother?"

"He went with Clara and Aunt Ellie."

They searched the store, but they couldn't find them. Mummy was pale and having a little trouble breathing as she talked to the woman behind the service counter. Victoria looked for the man she'd seen following them because she had a really bad feeling.

-X-

Colonel John Casey was bored beyond belief. He'd been bored since Beckman sent him to Chicago, and he sincerely hoped this particular assignment wrapped up before Christmas, which was about a week and a half out. He had plans for Riah, Victoria and Jack, but if they were still stuck in Chicago, he'd have to alter those plans.

He focused on the monitor before him, watched for Bartowski's cue to take the stage, hoped that for once the kid remembered his most recent hard lesson, and considered whether or not they would catch the break that would let them drop their latest bad guy in the dark hole reserved for him and return to their lives. His own life was more complicated than it had been when he first met Chuck, but he couldn't exactly say he was sorry.

If someone had told him nine years ago that he'd find himself in his mid-fifties settled with a wife and two young children, he'd have demanded a toxicology screen to see what in hell they had been smoking, snorting or injecting. He'd decided years before he'd never marry, never have children because his job meant he'd short-change them. Then Operation Moron happened, and not only did Casey find himself married with two small children, but he had discovered he actually enjoyed domesticity—not that he was ever going to admit that. It helped that Riah didn't interfere with his job, didn't get upset when he took off on assignment.

Of course, that happened a lot less since he had taken a promotion, moved up into the equivalent of management with the NSA, which meant a lot less danger—and a lot more boredom, if he were honest. That job usually kept him close to home, so Riah had little to complain about, though she almost never did, and she certainly hadn't before he made the move. He sometimes wondered if his inability to deal well with boredom was why she didn't mind the occasional assignment that put him back in the field and got him out from under foot. Usually, those assignments he accepted that took him from home involved Bartowski and Walker (Casey refused to call Walker by her married name after she and Bartowski got hitched because it was just too damn confusing), and he had reached the uncomfortable conclusion that his wife believed that pair could keep him safe.

The truth was that sometimes he was simply the right man for the job, and when that happened, Riah generally helped pack his bags and kissed him goodbye—which might have bothered him if he hadn't seen genuine worry and occasional fear in her eyes when she let him go. He knew that fear went well beyond the usual concern of wives whose husbands left for work because Riah knew the potential hazards in his job were far greater than a car wreck or a plane crash on the way to or from his assignment.

When the Chicago operation came up, Casey nearly turned it down, nearly suggested someone else, mainly because it was obviously going to take months of cultivating and juggling many assets, and he didn't want to be away from his wife and kids that long. Finally, Beckman reluctantly agreed that Riah and his children could go along with certain restrictions. Riah had readily accepted his boss's conditions, and even Casey had been surprised (and a little suspicious) that the General hadn't asked for more than that his wife was not involved in his assignment, that when he was called he came—no exceptions, no matter what might be happening to or with his family—and that they all kept a low profile.

Riah was supposed to rent a place for them in a good school district since their then six-year-old daughter would likely start the school year before they were able to return to Maryland. Instead, Riah bought a graystone in Lincoln Park near her stepfather's home and renovated the hell out of it. When Casey complained, she had simply pointed out that she had family in that area of Chicago, and because they visited her sister regularly, it would come in handy. She had further explained that it had enough room that if his own family visited, they could easily put all of them up. Riah had then given him that smug little grin of hers and told him, "Be glad I didn't buy the place I liked in Boystown."

He knew the real reason she hadn't followed orders was that she wanted her own space, wanted the security that could be found in their own home as opposed to a rented place, and he had to admit he liked having somewhere that was theirs as well—particularly since Riah had created a large master suite that afforded them the kind of privacy they generally didn't have in Maryland. He especially liked that they were close enough to Victoria and Jack that they were within easy reach of their children but far enough away that the kids didn't hear things they shouldn't. What he hadn't particularly liked was living in the middle of chaos while the workmen transformed the place and his wife furnished it.

The restoration was beautifully done, but Casey had made sure the kind of extras he felt necessary for their safety were incorporated into the plans—after the non-agency builders had finished their work.

Beckman thought it was an added benefit that Ellie Bartowski and her husband were relatively nearby. Casey suspected his boss would want to borrow it for other operations after this one finished, and he wondered what his wife would have to say when the request came.

If they were still there for Christmas—and he sincerely hoped they weren't still in Chicago—there was even room enough he wouldn't have to listen to his other daughter, Alex, and the bearded troll she had married in their own room. He'd already decided to put them on a completely different floor in the opposite end of the house from where he and Riah slept.

Even though it killed him, Casey had to admit Morgan Grimes had made a great husband for Alex. Grimes took exceptionally good care of Casey's oldest daughter. Now that she was pregnant, that mattered more to Casey than the annoyances large and small he had put up with from the younger man over the years. Besides, when Victoria had been a baby, Grimes had taken surprisingly good care of her, so Casey knew his son-in-law would take care of his grandchild with equal diligence.

He shook his head, grinned since there was no one in the surveillance van with him to see it, and thought about being a grandfather when his own son wouldn't even have turned three by the time Alex gave birth.

Victoria wanted a niece, Casey knew, but that was mostly because she had little patience with her brother. He was pretty certain Victoria wouldn't have had a lot of patience with a little sister, either. His younger daughter thought Jack was useless because he was only just beginning to gain control of his limbs. The boy was as different from Victoria as it was possible to be, he reflected. His daughter, as his wife often liked to remind Casey, might resemble her mother, but in terms of personality, she primarily took after him. Occasionally he had to remind Riah that while Victoria was prone to action, she tended to think her actions through before she committed herself. That, he knew, she got from her mother as much as she did from him. Their daughter was generally a sensible child, though her parents' natural caution didn't always factor into the actions Victoria chose.

They were working on that, though, Casey reflected as he adjusted the sound on Bartowski's wire. Victoria had a sense of self that would have done most grownups proud, but her absolute certainty that she would always prevail gave even Casey a few qualms. She was surprisingly self-possessed, something Riah insisted she got from him, though his wife usually added things like single-mindedness and stubbornness to the list. Occasionally pigheaded or incorrigible made the litany if she was particularly pissed off and depending on what Victoria had done that his wife thought he'd encouraged. Casey didn't see anything wrong with being intensely focused on the matter at hand or with sticking to one's guns.

Their son, though, was a quieter child, both verbally and in terms of action. Jack generally didn't chatter, though occasionally he would launch into verbal diarrhea. He usually seemed happier just taking it all in. He was also more observant than his sister, and he had a level of recall for what he saw and heard that was often astounding given his age. It sometimes took some doing to understand the toddler-speak, but the kid was a like a sponge. Casey conceded that was all his mother.

It also was cause for worry for Riah. She was afraid someone might see what appeared to be an eidetic memory when Jack was old enough to really talk as an invitation to see if he would make a viable Intersect. Casey often reminded her that the same was true for Victoria, though their daughter's capacity for recall seemed strongest when it came to what she heard, and it had been years since someone targeted her.

Since Mission Moron ended, the CIA engineers had managed to find ways to let people take the Intersect without risk, but they had also begun to see limitations in having someone have it long term. Bartowski was the only one who ever had—Casey dismissed Riah, who was careful to never let anyone tamper with whatever remained mostly dormant in her head. There was something unique about Chuck that let him manage it, cope with it in ways no one else had ever been able to. Ellie quietly monitored her little brother's mental health, though, had figured out a few things about her father's work that others had missed, and had helped regulate the Intersect her brother still had. Ellie's contributions to Bartowski's mental stability were of great interest to the CIA, but like her father before her, she was unwilling to disclose any more than she had to about her own work with the Intersect. She'd seen first-hand what the costs were, so Casey didn't blame her.

On the monitor, Ellie's little brother was getting ready to make his debut, so Casey set aside his ruminations on family. At that moment, the matter at hand was catching an industrialist who had been a very bad boy. Win Bridges was an arms manufacturer doing deals with bad guys for weapons he wasn't supposed to make for or sell to civilians. Casey, Bartowski, and Walker had been dragged in because Carina Miller was undercover with some hillbilly mafia who were branching out from manufacturing meth to building a small, antigovernment army. It was a series of hate crimes waiting to happen, but the greater concern had become Bridges' growing penchant for arming some of Uncle Sam's enemies.

Casey wasn't sure why the ATF and the FBI didn't just go into the backwoods and take the hillbillies out. Most of the hillbillies' crimes were petty or drug-related, but the firepower they had amassed was intimidating. Add to that the fact that they were playing with the Chicago Outfit and the Russian mafia, and the threat level was high enough Casey and his team had been sent to put an end to it. The arms manufacturer was going down, mainly because his new friends were helping get weapons to international scumbags.

He had to give Bartowski credit. The kid had followed the script, admittedly in his own inimitable way, and that afternoon would be make or break for the operation. If Bartowski could continue to do as he was told, the kid would finally get inside Bridges' organization where he would have a front row seat that ought to let them quickly wind things up, with any luck, by the holidays.

The sour note for Casey was playing with the FBI.

At least Alan Dietrich was his liaison for this, so Casey generally didn't hear from Beckman about his attitude and the need for better interagency cooperation. He and Dietrich went way back, worked well together. That didn't mean he didn't take a few shots at the Bureau, but since Dietrich took a few of his own at the NSA, it was generally a draw.

The door to the van popped, and Dietrich climbed inside. "You about ready for your boy's entrance?"

Casey shrugged. He was strictly surveillance on this part of the gig. One of the Russians was a personal enemy, and he'd met with Bridges on his agency's behalf several times before they knew the full extent of what he was up to. Beckman had agreed it was best if neither of them connected Casey to this operation. This time, they had to work with one of the Bureau's mob experts, a guy who had managed to infiltrate the Outfit enough he could vouch for Bartowski and would then get out of the way. Bartowski was playing arms dealer in this scenario, and Walker rode along as assistant.

This could go all to hell in so many different ways that Casey felt more unease than he normally would. He trusted Walker to have the kid's back, but Bartowski, despite considerable skills even outside the Intersect, was still a wildcard at the best of times, even more so when crunch time came, and this was definitely crunch time.

"Richardson will feed the kid his cue soon," Dietrich said and got comfortable. After a few moments of silence, he offered, "Gina says you should bring your wife and kids over for dinner next week."

"With any luck," Casey returned, "we'll be on an island by next week." Dietrich didn't need to know that wasn't going to be a tropical island. He had decided it was time Riah faced a few ghosts. She hadn't returned to Newfoundland since the Christmas after Victoria was born, nor had she put her house there on the market. As far as he knew, her mother and her sister used it from time to time, but it had otherwise sat empty. Her father had dropped several broad hints his wife refused to pick up on, and her mother had asked several times about the place. Riah simply refused to speak about it, and that had begun to worry everyone.

Well aware his wife truly hated surprises, Casey knew Riah was going to be pissed as hell when they got there, but he'd make it up to her, see she got over it.

Purely to mitigate her anger—not as any kind of cover—Casey had made sure he invited their families along, though Riah thought they were all coming to Chicago to spend the holidays in the newly renovated row house. Their mothers, her father, Alex and Grimes, Emma and her father, and his sister Julie and her partner Dena would all be there. Jenn and Jan had other obligations that meant their families would be unable to go with them. Ariel had agreed to provide transport from Chicago to St. John's, and Casey had invited Paul Patterson simply because Riah liked the man, worried about him being alone for the holidays. He just hoped Bartowski could quickly get the goods or flash and they'd be able to go. Otherwise, they'd have to shift gears and spend the holiday in Chicago as Riah still believed they would.

Just as he was about to taunt Dietrich, his phone rang, and he heard a ringtone he'd always hoped he would never hear.