A/N: Happy Holidays everyone! I know I'm a bit late putting this fic out and I was actually considering not putting it out until next year but I figured we're all still in holiday mode so, why not? Anyway, this is a bit of a makeup present for all those waiting for the next chapter of Falling Through Cracks and I hope this tides you all over until I can get it up. (Don't worry, it hasn't been forgotten XD )
Don't forget to let me know what you think!
Happy Reading!
It was around this time of year when turning down even the most innocent looking streets at night could get you blinded by an assortment of blinking, flashing, multicoloured lights. It was the time when no one looked twice at full grown men in red coats and fur-lined hats with their faces hidden by breads and even palm trees lived in fear of anyone carrying an axe. It was a time when diets got thrown out the window and Candy Canes found their way home as stealthily as the best trained spy, tucked deep into pockets, hidden in boots or crammed into mouths in one go. A time when singing in the streets was acceptable and money burned its way through pockets even faster than usual. It was the holidays.
That was not to say that Callen had anything at all against Christmas. It was, like all other major holidays in the year, simply another day and he approached it as such. It wasn't like he cared much for dates anyway and this particular one had never exactly held a special place in his heart but that was fine by him.
"I still can't believe Hetty's making us work right up until Christmas," Sam complained as he turned the Challenger down a middleclass suburban street with ease, "I mean, it's the holidays!"
G, who had been searching for house numbers behind an array of blown up Santas, snowmen, reindeers and other assorted holiday decorations as they drove along, laughed slightly. "I donno why you're so surprised, she does it every year," he pointed out turning to smirk at his partner, "Besides, are you honestly going to tell me you're looking forward to taking the family to your folk's place for your vacation?"
Sam muttered something about siblings and airplanes and Callen laughed again, pointing out the window as he did so at house decorated with what looked like a small army of snowmen, each painted childishly in different colours and each wearing some form of knitted clothing. "This is it."
The Challenger pulled up to the curb slowly and the two men climbed out, Sam tucking the keys into the back pocket of his jeans as they made their way towards to the front door. "What about you? What are your plans for the holidays?" he asked Callen with a slight smirk of his own before adding, "And don't you even think of saying sleeping, because we both know that's bull."
The younger man turned to face him as they reached the door. "Well I was thinking of practising my Russian and maybe taking apart a few toasters," he said in mock seriousness before flashing a grin and knocking on the door.
"Ha, ha," said Sam sarcastically, turning professional as the door was opened.
A woman stood before them, all smiles and flyaway hair escaping the casual bun perched atop her head. She was in her mid fifties but her eyes shone with a youth that could not be denied or ignored. "Can I help you?" she asked cheerily.
"I hope so," said Callen, taking the lead for now, "Are you Caroline Willis?"
"I am," the woman replied, "May I ask who you are?"
"We're with NCIS," Sam spoke up, taking over for his partner smoothly and producing his badge while beside him Callen did the same thing, "We're hear about a police report you made a week ago. A strange man at Bayside Elementary School?"
"Oh, yes. Of course. Please, come in!" she beckoned them inside, shutting the door behind them with a snap. "Now, what would you like to know?"
"What happened?" Callen asked simply.
"I'm a second grade teacher at Bayside," she explained, leading them into the kitchen and taking a seat at the table across from Sam, "So I know all the regulars. That's why I noticed this guy, I'd never seen him around before and something about him just seemed... Off... It was like we always teach the kids, 'tummy talk,' when something just doesn't feel right, and he certainly didn't feel right. Pushed right through a group of kids without so much as blinking. He just seemed to be in a real hurry."
Sam nodded. "Do you remember what he was wearing at all? What he looked like?" he asked.
"Umm, dark jeans and a brown jacket, it looked leather but I didn't get a close enough look to be sure. He had dark hair, cut military style, you know? And a very pointy nose."
"Is he one of these men?" the dark skinned agent prompted, setting four pictures on the table between them.
"That's him right there," Ms. Willis replied, pointing out the third picture with certainty, "And he was carrying a briefcase too, a black one."
"That was going to be my next question," Sam smiled, "It wouldn't have happened to be one of these briefcases, would it?" And he replaced the four pictures of Marines with four photos of briefcases, sliding them across the table.
While his partner had been interviewing their witness, Callen had taken it upon himself to have a look around. Not that he expected to find anything of value here, they were just filling in a few holes in their timeline after all, and the case was a rather simple one but it had become something of a habit for him to study every home he walked in to. This one in particular had Christmas exploding from every corner yet in the same childish way that the snowmen outside were painted. Garland was taped erratically to the walls along with plastic cut-outs of Santa and his many elves, there were paper stars hanging from the living room ceiling and he counted five stockings by the electric fireplace with the names, Toby, Doug, Ella, Vanessa and Mom stitched on them. Across from the fireplace was the Christmas tree itself, alight with more lights than the whole of the street put together and behind the tree were a pair of eyes.
Callen blinked. The eyes blinked back. Then slowly the face of a boy, no more than five, emerged from behind the branches.
"Who are you?" he asked curiously, tilting his head to one side and gazing up at the agent with innocent brown eyes.
"I'm Callen," G replied, moving into the living room and continuing to look around, "I'm here to talk to your mom."
"Oh," said the boy softly, "Well I'm Toby." He had come completely out of the cover of the tree by now and was clearly thinking on something when suddenly his eyes lit up. "Do you wanna see my snowman?" he asked, bounding over to Callen so quickly that the man didn't have a chance to react, "Ma says we have to make our snowmen really really pretty so Santa can see them from his sleigh, that way he comes here first!"
Callen looked down at the overly excited child, wondering vaguely if he'd ever had that much energy. "Toby, I don't think going outside is such a good idea without telling you mom first," he pointed out.
The boy's face fell, but in an instant his toothy smile was back in place and he was bouncing again. "Can I show you my tree then?" he asked, "You already saw it once, I was behind it, but I can show you really good this time!"
Unsure of exactly what else to do, Callen followed Toby to the Christmas tree. "It's very nice," he told him, glancing at the overabundance of lights, "I'm sure Santa will see your house first."
"Really!" Toby looked thrilled, "I think so too! Cause we have the tree and the snowmen and look!" He pointed to the mantle above the fireplace. "We have the funny doll things too. Vanessa says they're not dolls they're 'figurines' but they look like dolls to me. Oh! And we have the Christmas cards!"
But anything Toby said from that point on, Callen didn't hear. It was a card which had caught his attention, causing the excited babbling of the five year old to fade into background noise as he stared at it. It was standing to the side of all the others next to a porcelain figurine of a woman ice-skating and looked as though it had seen better days. The paper was old and faded, the blue colour having almost turned white in some places and a crude paper snowman had been glued on to the front. The edges had been cut crookedly with decorative scissors and it looked as though it had been folded in the wrong place a couple of times.
Almost without thinking Callen made to reach for it but his senses caught up with him just in time and he lowered the raised arm quickly. There was no need making a scene...
"Yo, you coming?" came Sam's voice suddenly, pulling him from his thoughts.
Turning towards the kitchen Callen saw Sam giving him an odd look while Ms. Willis was merely smiling.
"I see you've met Toby," she said kindly.
"I was showing him how Santa will come here first!" the boy said proudly, "He thinks so too!"
Callen smiled slightly. "Yes, I do. If you don't mind me asking, how old is this card?" he gestured to the faded snowman, trying to ignore the calculating look being thrown his way by Sam and wondering why the hell he was even drawing attention to it but continuing anyway, "It looks pretty beat up."
Ms. Willis's smile changed at his words, her face taking on an oddly reminiscent look. "Quite old," she replied, making her way over to him and picking it up, "More than thirty years old, actually, and the reason I do what I do. The reason I have little Toby here with me, or any of the others before him."
"Toby's a foster child?" Callen asked, looking down at the boy who was still smiling without a care in the world.
"Yes," Ms. Willis ruffled the child's hair affectionately, "I've never felt the need to have any children of my own, probably because I already have everything a person could hope for in a family. But without this card, my family may never have come to be."
"I think I need to hear this story," said Sam, who had followed her into the living room, with a smile.
Ms. Willis nodded. "Alright. I was only a year into my teaching career, still young and more caught up in the drama of the staff room than really getting to know my students. It was a few days until the kids were out of school for the holidays and I had my class making Christmas cards for their family..."
The laughter and squeals of children left to their own devices to create and play resonated around the classroom. Paper flew through the air, tiny feet hurried this way and that and the overall atmosphere was nothing less than joyous. Ms. Willis sat at her desk overseeing the chaos that was her second grade class, smiling to herself as she watched the cooperative behaviour being shown by most of the students.
There was one student, however, who was showing no such behaviour. He sat alone at his desk, untouched paper lying before him as he stared at it silently. Refusing to let one foul mood ruin the class atmosphere the young teacher stood up and made her way over to the boy, bending down next to his desk and smiling at him.
"Why aren't you making a card too?" she asked him kindly, just as she'd been taught and waiting for the piercing blue eyes to meet hers before continuing, "I can help you with ideas, if you'd like."
The boy shook his head, looking away again with a pained expression and fiddling with the corner of his paper. "I got lots of ideas..." he muttered, a sadness that shouldn't have been possible in a seven year old's voice catching her off guard.
"What then, sweetie?" she asked again.
A half hearted shrug came from the child and for a moment it did not seem like he was going to respond, finally though he spoke in a tiny voice filled with nothing but shame. "I don't have anyone to make a card for."
To say she was shocked would have been an understatement. How could she have not noticed this? How could she have not asked about the quiet little boy who never made any effort to play with other students or speak up in class? But she couldn't let him see her shock, for he had raised his eyes to her face once more and was studying her closely.
"What about where you're staying?" she suggested, "There must be someone there you like."
The boy shook his head. "People don't like me," he said softly, "The big kids think I'm too little and just get in the way and the workers have too many of us to care..."
Trying to keep the sadness off her face was getting harder by the minute and she resigned herself to letting it show because she knew she couldn't hide it much longer. "What about here, in class? Maybe you could make a card for a friend?" It was a desperate stab in the dark for never once had she seen him talk to anyone in the classroom but there was so much she clearly hadn't seen that maybe...
But he shook his head to that too, looking just as sad as before. "I don't have any friends." He sighed slightly and let his eyes travel back to the paper on his desk. "It's okay though, Christmas is for people who get presents and have people to get them presents and parents and brothers and sisters... That's why I don't get Christmas, I don't have that, so I'm not allowed to get it."
Well that was one statement that Ms. Willis was not going to let slide. Not on her watch. "That's not true," she argued softly, putting a hand on the boy's small shoulder and squeezing it, "Christmas is for everyone, not just for certain people. You get Christmas just as much as anyone else." She smiled, an idea forming in her head. "I know, why don't you make yourself a card? That way you can have Christmas too?"
The boy looked at her for a moment then shrugged again. "Okay," he agreed softly.
And as she returned to her desk she was pleased to see the boy dig into his project with almost the same enthusiasm as the other children.
It was two days later, the last day of classes before the break, when she spoke to the boy again. As the other students stampeded for the door she was surprised to see him standing awkwardly next to her desk and rocking back and forth with his hands held behind his back.
"What do you need, sweetheart?" she asked him with a small smile.
He licked his lips nervously, refusing to meet her eyes and shuffling his feet slightly. "I made this for you," he said softly, "So you could have Christmas too. One of the big kids read it, and he said I spelled everything right..." And he held out his hand, a blue folded card clutched in it for her to take.
Accepting the gift in surprise she opened the card and found a smile on her face instantly. "It's beautiful,' she told him honestly, "I love it, thank you."
And for the first time since he'd entered her classroom months before a tiny, real smile crept onto the boy's face, making his eyes come alive. "You're welcome," he said shyly, "Do you really like it?"
"I do, I love," she replied, "Merry Christmas, sweetie."
"Merry Christmas, Ms. Willis," he answered and then scampered from the room, the smile still on his face.
"It made my Christmas," Ms. Willis smiled, handing the card to Sam for him to read, "I was so happy that he'd at least smiled just that once. But a month later he was gone, I asked at the front office and they said he'd been placed in a family on the other side of the city and changed schools. I never saw him again. But I couldn't let go of that card, and it got me thinking so about a year later I started taking in foster children of my own. He changed my life."
"Dear Ms. Willis," Sam read out, "Thank you for making me smile. Merry Christmas. From G Callen." He glanced around at the two other adults, pausing only a second longer on his partner before covering for it with a quick smile. "Well he did spell everything right."
Ms. Willis laughed and even Callen smirked slightly which he knew had been Sam's aim.
"Well, Ma'am thanks you for your time," the younger agent said, slipping his professional mask over any real emotions that were thinking of peeking through.
"And for the story," Sam added as the two men headed for the door.
It was getting late by the time the last of the tech crew decided to call it a day and Callen was left alone with headquarters to himself. Sam had, unsurprisingly, interrogated him all the way back about his former teacher but had been willing to leave him alone tonight after a few choice comebacks proved to him that his partner was in fact, fine. And the honest truth was that Callen really was okay; shaken, obviously, but okay. No the only thing that troubled him was the story not because of what it told but because of what it didn't. It didn't tell the ending, because for Ms. Willis, there wasn't one. Sighing heavily he opened the simple Christmas card he'd stolen from Hetty's stash and began to write, not pausing long enough to think for he knew he'd never finish it if he did.
The other day I met a woman while on the job who told us a story from her past. It was the story of a Christmas card and the boy who sent it. But it occurred to me later that the story didn't really have an ending. Here's hoping this gives it one. I did alright, I found my place but I will never forget how you made me smile at a time when there wasn't much going right in my life.
Thank you again, and a very Merry Christmas to you and whoever is lucky enough to be sharing your home.
-G Callen.