Author's Notes: Be aware, this story is lightly flavored with spoilers. A little bit of holiday reading, hopefully for your enjoyment. Merry Christmas everyone!!
My Secret Santa
by Kristen Elizabeth
He'll never admit it, but Gil Grissom secretly loves Christmas.
I discovered this on my first year in Vegas, when he and I were on call Christmas Eve. It wasn't a murder that brought us out, thankfully, just a run of the mill burglary. Unfortunately the thieves had taken off with most of the family's Christmas presents. When we arrived, the two children were in tears.
"Why didn't Santa come?" the girl who couldn't have been more than five cried to her mother. "I was really good!"
I was dusting for fingerprints on the mantle while the mother tried to explain as much as she could to her daughter without completely ruining her belief in Santa Claus. Grissom came up behind me to check my work. Or at least that's what I thought he was doing; I found out years later that when he did that, he just wanted an excuse to get closer.
"Anything yet?" he asked.
"A few. Hopefully not Santa's." I smiled at him over my shoulder. "I really want to get the bastard who would do this."
Grissom nodded. "No one likes a Grinch."
I was used to Shakespeare and Plato from him, so the Dr. Seuss reference surprised me. But what really made me pause was what he did next. The little girl was still bawling her eyes out, and the mother wasn't doing much better at keeping her emotions in check.
He approached the child and knelt down. "Your name is Jamie, right?" She sniffed and nodded, big fat tears rolling down her cheeks. "Well, Jamie, my name is Gil. And that's Sara." He pointed at me. "We're scientists for the police. But on Christmas, we work for Santa Claus."
Jamie stared at him with wide eyes. "Really?"
"Yes. When the presents Santa leaves get lost or stolen, we find out who took them. And I promise that Sara and I are going to do everything we can to help Santa out with your presents, because he told us that you and your brother have been very good this year."
Like magic, her tears disappeared and she beamed from ear to ear.
And I fell a little bit more in love with this constantly surprising man.
The first real, thoughtful, totally unmotivated Christmas present I received in years came from Grissom. Sure, I'd received trinkets like earrings or lingerie if I happened to be dating someone around the holidays, but those were hardly gifts from the heart. They were "I'll give you a gift, and you'll give me one later" presents. They didn't count.
During my second year in Vegas, Grissom caught me alone in the break room a few days before Christmas, and handed me an obviously hand-wrapped Christmas present. The bow was a little lop-sided and the folds were kind of haphazard, but he offered it to me without expecting anything in return.
That year it was the autobiography of a world-renowned forensic anthropologist, a specialty I'd expressed an interest in after finding the body of a gorilla in the desert.
The next year he had oranges delivered to my apartment, after I mentioned once that the citrus in my grocery store was sub par. For eleven months out of the year, I could walk into the break room in a tutu and he wouldn't notice, but when Christmas rolls around, he pays attention to the details. But his wasn't the only present I got that year. Hank bought me a see-through nightgown from Victoria's Secret. And somehow persuaded me to model it for him.
During my fourth Christmas in Vegas, things were even more strained between us, so I was floored when he presented me with an entomology textbook. I wanted so badly to believe that it was his way of offering me a glimpse into his complicated mind. To this day, I have large sections of that book memorized.
I wasn't expecting much the next year, what with the damage Ecklie had inflicted on our team and the sudden presence of Sofia, but he came through with beautiful gold bookmark and a tired smile that meant more to me than anything else.
My sixth Christmas in Vegas was the first time I wasn't on call for the holiday. In one of those carefully contrived coincidences, neither was he. His present was three meals in bed, two foot-rubs, and an orgasm that never ended.
Grissom likes giving gifts. He likes locating the perfect item that speaks of both him as the giver, and you as the receiver. He never has things gift-wrapped; he always prefers to do it himself, although his wrapping skills have never improved.
You know you're special if you get one of those horribly-wrapped, carefully-chosen gifts. But even if you don't, there's always the chocolates and cookies and candy canes that mysteriously appear in the break room all month long. Very few people have figured out where they come from.
Grissom is the guy who has to watch the Christmas classics if he catches them on TV. He always buys a fresh tree. On the way to a scene, he points out houses that have particularly elaborate lights. He writes Christmas cards to his mother's friends in her absence. He will work a triple shift over the holiday if it means someone with a family can spend as much of it as possible with them. He drops money into every bell-ringer's pot.
For him, Christmas is a cultural joy, rather than a holy day, but he embraces it with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Maybe it's because it's the one night of the year where it almost seems like there really could be peace on earth and goodwill towards all men.
As he likes to quote Lenora Weber, "Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups, too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts." Grissom needs one day to recover from the other 364.
On my seventh year in Vegas, there were no cookies in the break room. He didn't buy Christmas cards. I set up our TV to record "A Charlie Brown Christmas," only to find that it was deleted the next day. When I suggested we go tree shopping, I was told to buy a fake one if I had to get one at all. I had to remind him about the bell ringers before he walked right past them.
On Christmas Eve, Grissom gave me a gift-wrapped package containing some expensive perfume that we both knew I would never wear.
It was the last straw.
"You have to go," I told him that night as we lay in bed. "I want my secret Santa back."
He held me in the dark, well into Christmas morning. At dawn, he finally spoke.
"I miss him, too."
We kissed and I cried a little, which I never did before I fell in love with him. Later, I made pancakes while he wrote a letter, formally accepting the teaching position on the other side of the country.
While we ate, we caught the last part of "It's a Wonderful Life," just in time to hear the tinkle of bells as the angel got his wings.
Fin