May Your Days Be Merry
Mac brushed the snow off of his coat with a leather-gloved hand as he stood on Stella's doorstep. He shifted the bottle of wine and the gift he'd brought for her to his free hand in attempt to knock when the door swung open. Beaming at him from across the welcome mat, Stella stepped aside to let him in. "You made it!"
"Did you think I wouldn't?" He set the wine and her gift on a table as he shrugged out of his coat and hung it in her hall closet. "It hasn't gotten that bad out there yet." He briefly took in her appearance and suppressed a chuckle as he picked up his things and followed her into her living room: as with every year that she cooked Christmas dinner, she wore the sweats and slippers that Mac knew were her favorite- the sweatshirt with the almost imperceptible hole on the inside of the left elbow and the too-long sweatpants with shredded hems. She'd had them and worn them on every holiday he could remember spending with her. She'd said once that she spending most of her life dressed up was all the more reason to be relaxed during the holidays.
Now, she used the hand that wasn't covered in a bright blue oven mitt to nudge one curtain panel aside from one of the windows in her living room to take a peek outside. She gave an excited gasp when she saw the steady accumulation of snow. "Bad? Are you kidding? Look at that; we're actually going to have a white Christmas after all! Thank God, too. I'm getting tired of trying to fit 'grey, brown, and gloomy' into the song. 'I'm dreaming of a…grey, brown, and gloomy Christmas,'" she sang and grimaced.
Mac chuckled. "Definitely doesn't have the same ring to it." He held up the wine and her gift. "Where to?"
"You got my wine! Just stick it in the fridge. Your scotch is in there too, of course. And here." She took the bag from him. "This can go under the tree." She crouched before her modest grouping of presents, which were mainly for the team, and placed his gift right in the center.
Setting her wine next to his scotch on her refrigerator door, Mac called, "Smells good, Stell. It looks like you made enough food to feed a small country." The entirety of her stove and most available counter space was covered with pots, pans, plates, and trays of food. He knew he'd be taking some home for leftovers.
"Or Texas," she replied, toying with the ornaments on her tree and smiling at a small pewter Santa on a green ribbon. "And no trying the food before dinner!"
"Damn," he said and closed the lid over a steaming pot with a clank. "How do you do that?"
She winked at him mischievously through the cutout in the wall into the kitchen. "Do what?"
He chuckled and shook his head, marveling at her sixth sense: he'd thought he'd been quiet when he went to taste what looked like tomato sauce, but she never failed to catch him. "No ham or turkey on the list this year either?"
"You know our tradition- we only try foreign food for the holidays. No exceptions."
"Do I at least get to know what it is first?"
She shot him that mischievous grin again through the cutout. "It's Greek. That's all you get to know."
"That's not exactly a surprise," Mac muttered.
"Ha ha. Now set the table, would you?"
"Sure." Mac began opening cupboards and cabinets like he was in his own kitchen to pull out the good china that he knew she liked to use. Compared with her dressed-down holiday attire, he'd always thought using expensive dishware was rather comical. "Do you remember that Christmas that Claire tried to do the whole dinner?" He asked as he pulled out her wine glasses decorated with prancing reindeer.
"Oh God, yes," Stella laughed as she helped him set out silverware. "She was so excited about the rolls she made that she completely forgot about the turkey in the oven. What did she call them again?"
"Sun-dried tomato basil something, wasn't it?"
"That was it! Claire's sun-dried tomato basil cheesy pita rolls! I told her it was too much of a mouthful to try to say."
Mac grinned. "She got the recipe from her sister and insisted we try them. There she was, pouring over the plate of those rolls-"
"- and I leaned over to you and said, quietly because I didn't want her to hear-"
"'-do you smell that?' And the oven started smoking all over the place-"
"I didn't want to be a bad guest or anything, but I was seriously afraid your that kitchen was going to catch fire!"
They laughed easily as Stella laid out the last of the spread on her counter, trying to shove a casserole dish between foil-covered pie and the salad bowl. "Okay," the single excited clap of her hands was muffled by her oven mitt, "dig in."
"I still don't get to know what any of this is?" He asked, already picking up a spoon and digging into a vegetable that looked like spinach.
"Not until after you try it, Mac. You know the rules. May I also remind you that last year you made Estonian food and you still refuse to tell me what exactly that potato dish was?"
"It wasn't potato, I'll tell you that," he said seriously.
Stella rolled her eyes, snatched the spoon out of his hand, and checked his hip gently with hers. "Go sit and then maybe I'll tell you what's on the menu." Ever the gentleman, Mac settled himself down, but didn't touch his food.
When she sat across from him a moment later, they shared a smirk. "Ready?" She asked as she picked up her fork.
"One," Mac said.
"Two," Stella continued.
"Three." They dug into the meal together.
"Mmm," Mac hummed, "this is good. Now I remember why we do this every year."
Stella smiled. "Thank you."
They ate slowly, chatting about open cases and catching each other up on the books they'd recommended to each other to read during their limited free time. Since that first year that Mac had invited Stella to Christmas dinner with him and Claire, spending the holidays together had always been something they both looked forward to. And in the absence of other traditions or people to share them with, they'd created their own and stuck to them fiercely.
After their plates were cleared, leftovers were stored, and dishes were left soaking in the basin in Stella's sink, they moved to her couch to open their gifts.
"Okay, go ahead, Mac," Stella encouraged, handing him a box covered in brightly-colored, gleaming wrapping paper that reflected the twinkling lights on her tree.
He grinned as he took it from her, seeing his reflection in the flashy paper. "Wow," he said. He always enjoyed how she always chose the most obnoxious wrapping paper she could find. It was truly impressive that she could make something so loud look so presentable and inviting. He slowly undid the wrapping and took the familiar white box in his hand. He already knew what was inside: Stella always got him something to add to Claire's old ceramic Christmas village back at his apartment.
That first year without her, he thought he wouldn't want to keep putting it out- he already missed her enough without having to be reminded of it every time he passed his coffee table. But Stella had still given him a new addition for it anyway. The figurine clearly had been custom-made: the ceramic sloped gracefully in an imitation of snow-covered Central Park, complete with an ice-skating rink. When he'd opened it, his lips thinned into a firm line as he willed himself to keep his composure.
"You've been saying that the park helps you clear your head," Stella had told him quietly that night, "so I thought you could add it to her…to your collection." Since then, although she never said anything, he knew she gave him custom pieces of things that had some sort of meaning for them. Although the pre-made figurines like the little church and cottage Stella had given to Claire were lovely, Mac looked forward to the surprise of what she'd think to have made for him each year. Among the twelve or so that she'd given him were a replica of the lab, one of their favorite coffee shop, and one of a waterfall which she'd thought was hilarious after his disastrous attempt to pick up Don Juan in Second Life. He'd pretended to be indignant over her teasing, but the ones that brought back memories of cases they'd worked together tended to be his favorite.
Now, he tried to keep his excited anticipation in check as he carefully unfolded the tissue paper to reveal two tiny ceramic coffee carts. "Is this-?"
"Yep," Stella said happily. "That's the cart that makes your favorite coffee and my favorite pumpkin muffin. And this one," she gingerly lifted the second one out of the box, "is that gyro stand I introduced you to back in October. I had to get you eating something other than ham sandwiches every day." She patted his knee once playfully.
He chuckled. "They're perfect." Once they were safely back in the box and out of his hands, he made his way over to the tree, picked up her gift, and held it out to her. "For you."
She smiled at him gratefully and pulled out an equally familiar brown box from inside her bag. She gasped as she lifted the lid. "Oh Mac; it's beautiful!" By a delicate silver wire, she lifted a round glass ornament from the cushion of tissue paper. Various shades of blue and green swirled in graceful patterns as a small trail of gold and air bubbles sparkled at her.
"I found it in Greece when we were there," he said, taking his seat next to her on the couch again. "You were still with Themis giving your statement…after and I wandered around and stumbled on a glass blowing shop. I found it behind all of these other things and I thought you might like it."
"I love it. Thank you, Mac." She stood to add it to the tree, close to the top, under the star. "Do you remember this one?" She cradled the pewter Santa in her palm again.
Mac stood to join her and peered over her shoulder at it. "Of course. That was the first one Claire got for you. She joked that you liked it better than the sweater she got for you."
"I loved that sweater, obviously. She had exquisite taste and it was gorgeous, but I saw this on the outside of the box and, I don't know, something about it just made me feel like I was finally celebrating like I'd always wanted to as a kid- with family." Mac squeezed her shoulder. "Things just fit, you know. I never really got much at St. Basil's or even with the foster families I stayed with, never mind actually having anything of my own to put on a tree. Everything to do with Christmas felt borrowed, like it wasn't mine to celebrate because it was for kids who had parents and ornaments they recognized on the tree every year. She had no idea, but it was just perfect."
Mac slid his hand under hers to angle Santa towards him. "She asked me about it when we were finishing up the dishes after you'd left. She said she'd never seen someone so enamored with something that seemed so inconsequential before."
"And then the year after that when I had you over, she must have remembered because she went right over to my little tree that barely had anything on it and asked me about each ornament on there." Stella smiled. "I also never expected her to keep giving me another one every year." She slowly ran her fingers over the two others that Claire had given to her and then the ones from Mac.
"I think it was kind of unspoken with her. As soon as she saw what they meant to you, she never wanted to get you anything else. That first year with her gone, I didn't even question whether or not I should continue with it either. I've always thought that I should find you something she would have picked out for you and it hasn't failed yet."
"She taught you well," Stella smirked at him with a brief glance over her shoulder at him. "At least we never have to guess what to get each other. I think this tradition is pretty safe." She finally took her hand away from the tree, smiling at the newest part of her collection from Mac.
"Time for White Christmas?" He asked, suddenly excited for this particularly cheesy part of their tradition.
"Absolutely. I'll get the drinks; you load the tape."
He listened to the glasses clink in the kitchen as he perused her movie collection for one of the only VHS tapes she owned.
"Here you go," she said, shuffling over to the couch and holding out his glass of scotch. He took it from her, not bothering to avoid the inevitable brush of their fingers as he did. She leaned across the arm of the couch to turn off the lamp on the side table. As they settled in and the opening credits rolled, Stella held up her glass, her smile seemingly larger in the flickering light from the television and the lights on the tree. "Merry Christmas, Mac."
He returned her calm, easy smile and clinked the rim of his scotch glass with hers. "Merry Christmas, Stella."
A/N: Hello again and Merry Christmas/ happy whatever holiday you might celebrate, lovely readers! This has been my contribution to the wonderful fluff that was Second Chances (apart from the horrendous acting of the guest stars who shall remain nameless *wink wink*), especially those opening and ending scenes. I've always thought Mac and Stella could have used another scene because of course they would celebrate Christmas together =]. Hope you enjoyed it- it was a lot of fun to write. Also, stay tuned for more fill-in scenes and the sequel to "In Another Life"! Have a safe and happy holiday!