Title: An Unforgettable Christmas

Rating: T

Summary: A late Christmas themed AU One+? shot featuring established, but unhappy Linstead and their bubbly almost four year old daughter. Will they still be a family when the holiday is over?

Warning: None

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my imagination.

Jay Halstead's jaw dropped and in the same instant his legs stopped working, the stacked shopping cart he held onto was the only thing that kept him upright as his eyes focused. His stare so intent that for a long moment he forgot to blink, closing them only when they threatened to water having accumulated a layer of grit. Beginning to process what he had seen he had to keep them shut, tightly, because if he opened them and saw it again, saw her, it would confirm his worst fear. A fear he hadn't even had until he saw her like that, saw them. Together. If he looked again and his fear was confirmed he would do something he hadn't in not quite four years.

"Daddddy" The little voice whined, a voice that belonged to almost four year old Victoria Camille Halstead-Lindsay. It was a mouthful of a name for a handful of a little girl, known to most simply as Tori. With golden brown hair, big blue eyes, freckles and dimples Tori was a combination of both parents in appearance and had a personality to match, laidback and short-tempered, reckless yet kind, goofy but smart. She was the reason he had cried all those years ago, no more than a bright pink bundle screaming at the top of her tiny lungs, born a week early on Christmas morning, the best thing that had ever happened to them.

Jay opened his eyes but only when he'd dropped his chin such that his daughter's face filled his vision. "Sorry Pumpkin, what were you saying?" He questioned, caressing her unbelievably soft cheek and looking deep into her eyes, impatient then shining with his attention. She was too small to know it but in every minute of every day she made him a better person.

"What are we gettin' Mummy for 'Twistmas?" Tori enquired, clearly summarising what she had been saying previously.

"I dunno" He mumbled, again lost to her sweet voice and only just mispronounced words. His gaze had shifted back up at the name, the title, Mummy, because as much as he didn't want it to be it was. Erin Lindsay, the love of his life and the mother of his child, standing just a few yards away kissing another man. He would recognise her absolutely anywhere and now, on a second analysis he had absolutely no doubt. It was her, and it wasn't a friendly kiss. How exactly was one supposed to act in that situation?

Jay had no clue but he fought the initial urge to rush to his… his what? She still refused to marry him, to commit to him. Maybe this was why. How long had it been going on? Emotions of every variety washed over him, anger underlying them all. How could she? That man's hands at her waist, his lips on hers. Jay felt foolish to have ever thought that they had been exclusively his. It all made sense. Too much sense. The desire to cry was long gone, now all he wanted was to punch the man kissing his... partner? She wasn't even that anymore.

"Daddy, it's rude to stare you know" Tori told her father sternly, an adage they'd probably used with her a hundred times, twisting around in the seat she was almost too big for to see what he was looking at.

"Hey" He was quick to react, placing his hand on her upper arm and turning her whole body back around to look at him. "What did you decide we were getting… for…" He trailed off, unable to say it. She wasn't just betraying him right? This would hurt their daughter too.

"Mummy" Tori inserted frustratedly.

"Yeah" He nodded, taking one last look at the couple, the happy couple. Erin was smiling from deep inside, teeth and dimples for all to see, and Jay knew that if he were just a little closer he'd be able to see that twinkle in her eyes. The twinkle he'd put there after tough days at work, after Nadia, after giving Bunny a piece of her mind the day she found out she was pregnant, after their first sleepless nights with Tori. It had been his responsibility, to see the upside and point it out for her. Recently though Tori had been the only one to draw that kind of smile from her, or at least that was what Jay had thought. Seeing it now though, like that, he suddenly hated it and for the first time his optimistic outlook was failing him. There was no upside he could think of, it couldn't possibly end well.

Jay knew he couldn't confront her, them, there, like that. In the middle of their local mall, overcrowded with shoppers due to it being the last Sunday before Christmas. But it was more than that, for Tori's sake he wouldn't. He couldn't bring himself expose his baby girl to that, even if she was getting bigger every day and almost four years old, it would break her heart just like it had his. Tori had been planning her parent's wedding since she was two and a half years old and a flower girl at Adam and Kim Ruzek's wedding. It was the only wish Erin wouldn't grant their daughter.

So instead, to save Tori the pain, he smiled as if nothing was wrong and regained his footings. Pushing the cart on a diagonal so she wouldn't see her mother laughing and holding hands with some other man they entered the nearest store to buy something for the woman being made happy by somebody else. Being loved by somebody else, he couldn't help but picture it, the mental image making his blood run cold as he balled his fists.

"Good afternoon sir, how can I help you?" The woman behind the counter asked politely, dressed in her sleek black suit with an air of superiority about her. Only then did Jay look around and take in what store they had entered, a jewellers, gold and silver gleaming, diamonds sparkling with light that seemed to come from tiny suns at their centres. He relaxed a little, somehow comforted or at least distracted by the awestruck look on his daughter's face. Moments later, with Tori's input of course, he was making what could possibly have been the stupidest purchase of his life.

A/N: This chapter is more of a prologue introducing the AU and testing the water to see if anyone is interested in this scenario. It won't be more than a three shot because I just don't have a lot of time to write at the moment, I'm certainly not going to waste my time if there's little interest.

Just to set the record straight I love both Jay and Erin as characters and Linstead to a degree (though I'll always be a Linseride shipper at heart). After listening to Sam Smith's 'I'm Not the Only One' I had to give this a go with them though and I feel that Jay would never cheat while Erin might… under the right circumstances.

Leave a review if you want me to continue, thanks for reading :D