On a surprisingly warm December twenty-fourth, an exhausted Murdoch and Julia returned home from a rather lengthy shopping trip. His arms were so burdened with presents that it was difficult to see in front of him, especially since the only light illuminating the street was emanating from the lamp posts. When they arrived at the dimly shining iron gate, he walked straight into the four foot high brick wall attached to it, dropping half the presents on the ground!

Confound it!

Inwardly he was seething but outwardly he appeared only slightly distressed. A few of the boxes spilled their contents, getting slightly dirty on the sidewalk. But luckily nothing appeared to be ruined. If that had been the case, Murdoch would have tried kicking himself out of sheer frustration (for the day had been very long and intolerably boring), which would have resulted in nothing other than him dropping the other half.

"William," muttered an exasperated Julia, a slight smile playing across her lips at his misadventure.

Releasing her hold on the cream coloured stroller, she bent over to retrieve the first parcel and then stacked it back on top of the bundle. This process was continued for a short while until she was almost finished.

"I'm sorry, Julia," he said quietly, seriously, after he had regained a measure of composure.

She laughed then, replying, "It's quite all right, dear. It's not the end of the world!"

He smiled at her but since she could no longer see his face, it was a pointless gesture. Apparently she had stacked them even worse than before, as he could no longer see in front of him at all. He didn't want to complain so close to home so he said nothing. Julia placed the last present in place and said, "Do try to be more careful this time, William."

"I'll do my best."

Murdoch could hear the slight creak of the gate and then the rolling of the stroller wheels. He moved forward slowly, kicking the side of the wall until he felt the opening to their property. Now it was just a simple matter of walking straight for about ten paces. By then he would reach the stairs and it would become fairly difficult to traverse them without being able to see where he was going. Clearly Julia realized this because she was right there beside him, guiding him with a light pressure on his arm.

"That's it, William," she said as they reached the top. She continued to lead him into the house and over to the kitchen table where he was finally able to rid himself of the odious packages. "Well done, dear," she said, smiling, and then gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

Plopping himself into a vacant chair, "I'm exhausted! Hopefully we won't have to leave this task till the last minute next year."

Smirking, "Yes, those last few murderers were very inconsiderate to your shopping needs."

Reluctantly he returned the smile and then pulled her into his lap, his spontaneity surprising her considering his self professed fatigue. Faces close together, he gave her a look of feigned annoyance. "Are you making fun of me, doctor?"

Mock confusion. "Not at all, detective. Whatever gave you that impression?"

They smiled at each other again and then he felt the familiar sensation of her lovely lips brushing against his own. The kiss began to deepen the longer they kept at it and he pulled her even closer towards him. She thrust her hands into his slick hair, messing the back of it up, and just as they reached the peak of their pleasure, there was a loud wail and their passion was instantly silenced. Even so, they only slowly parted, foreheads touching.

"She does have impeccable timing, doesn't she?" asked Murdoch. "I'm starting to think she's spending entirely too much time around her uncle."

Julia rolled her eyes at that and then left to go tend to the baby, their baby, their miracle child. Olivia had been born on June 9th, 1901 at 2:42 in the afternoon, a month earlier than expected. Her premature lungs had appeared to not be working properly and Murdoch had feared the worst. But God had been smiling on him that day and soon she opened her precious mouth wide and let out the most magnificent sound he had ever heard, the exact sound that had caused his wife to leave the room not a moment ago. *Note: if you want to read a more detailed description of the birth, please see my previous work if you haven't already done so.

A short while later, (but which felt interminably long to him) Julia returned and headed straight for him, eyes hungry to continue their salacious exploit. Her looks made him forget his tiredness all together and as she straddled him, wasted no time in beginning anew. About three seconds later, there was a knock at the door.

Now what?

Julia removed herself from his lap and he went over to see who it was. Carollers. Normally he would be in the Christmas spirit for such things but at the moment, he really didn't want them there. He was about to tell them to go away, when Julia came up behind him, closing the door and placing one arm across his lower back. He returned the gesture and they stood there peacefully listening to a rather exuberant version of Away in a Manger. Afterwards they thanked them and returned inside, only to find their six year old standing there, looking confused at the parcels on the table.

Darn it! He was supposed to be asleep!

A second later their maid, Connie, burst into the room. She observed the scene before her in horror and then began profusely apologizing to him.

"I'm ever so sorry, Mr. Murdoch! He was quite adamant about seeing Santa Claus!"

"That's all right, Connie," replied Julia, sensing her husband was in a bad mood. "Ben can be difficult some times. You can go home now."

"Thank you ma'am!" she said, crossing the room in a few strides and grabbing her coat. Before she left she said, "Merry Christmas!" and was out the door before they could respond.

"Remind me why we hired her again?" grumbled Murdoch.

Julia ignored him and squatted down beside a still puzzled Ben. "Come along, Ben, it's time to go back to sleep."

"But I don't wanna! I wanna see Santy-Claus!" Pointing at the table accusingly, "And I wanna know where those came from!"

Murdoch grimaced and then joined Julia. "Do as your mother says, son."

"No!" he shrieked, "I wanna know where those came from!"

They looked past him, half expecting his racket to have awoken the baby. For now, Olivia was still sleeping soundly but if they wanted to keep it that way, they were going to have to calm their inquisitive son down. Therefore there were only two options before them. Either lie and say they didn't know how the presents got there or tell their child the truth about the magical man.

Sharing one look with each other, they already knew which path they would follow. It was time to crush their sons innocence a little more. Murdoch was sure Ben could handle this. After all, the boy had already experienced more trauma than most people five times his age. How badly could this additional revelation possibly go?

Murdoch sat down in the same chair he had previously been seducing his wife in and asked Ben to sit in the chair opposite him. He thought the best way to go about this was through logic because his son seemed to respond to that method quite well.

"Do you know how big the globe is, Ben?"

While he was still grumpy, his interest seemed to be peaked and he sat there thoughtfully for several moments. Then he shrugged.

"Well, let's just say that if you tried to walk across it, it would take you four years to go from one end to the other. That's more than twice your current age."

His eyes widened in disbelief.

"Now, say you had the ability to fly instead. Say you could traverse the earth in a...sled-" Ben gave him a suspicious look- "How long do you think it would take then?"

"I dunno but it'd be a lot faster!"

"Yes, Ben, it would be but it would still take days to go from one end to another." Seeing his son still didn't get it, he continued. "Do you know how many children are on the planet?"

"I dunno, a lot."

Murdoch nodded. "More than you can possibly imagine. And most have homes just like this, all across the globe." He hesitated here, exchanging a look with Julia and then charged on ahead. "Now in order for Santa Claus to visit every single one of those children in a single night, this night in fact, he'd have to travel at an impossibly fast speed in order to deliver all the presents in time for Christmas." Ben was silent as he processed this information. "Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"

"I think so!" he said excitedly. "You're saying the reindeer can move really fast!"

"Ben," cut in Julia, "do you understand what impossible means?" He scrunched up his face and then admitted that he didn't. "It means something that can't happen. We're saying there's no way Santa Claus's reindeer could fly fast enough to deliver all the presents in one night."

"Oh," he said confusedly. "So how does Santy-Claus do it then?"

Murdoch rubbed his temple, where a headache had begun to plague him. He had hoped his son would come to this conclusion on his own but apparently that was not be. "Ben," he said calmly, staring directly into his sons eyes, "what we're trying to say is that Santa Claus does not exist. He's not a real person. It's all make belief. A story."

Very distraught,"But then where do the presents come from?"

"We buy them for you," replied Julia, sighing. "That's why they're on the table now."

The poor thing burst into tears, running away from his parents grasps. They chased after him and found him huddled up in a little ball in his bedroom closet. His son's desperate sobs tore at Murdoch's heart strings. It distressed him greatly to see his son suffer, regardless of how silly the reason was. But Murdoch had to admit, he had expected Ben to handle this better. After all, he was an intelligent boy and shouldn't really believe in such things as magic. Murdoch himself had learned the truth about Santa Claus at the age of five and a half when his drunken father had dressed up as the jolly man and made a great big mess of the special occasion. He had been a little shocked by the revelation but not very surprised, for about a year before then, he had suspected something was fishy about the whole thing. It was possible that John Brackenreid's influence had played a role in Ben believing in Santa Claus so implicitly, as John was obsessed with Houdini and all things magical, but there was no real way of knowing. Maybe after all the hardships his son had faced, it was more agreeable to believe in the impossible than deal with reality?

"I'm very sorry we had to tell you this, Ben," said Murdoch, kneeling down beside him and touching his shoulder. His son moved away from his touch, causing Murdoch to frown.

"Honey," cooed Julia, "if you come out of there, I'll make you some hot cocoa."

The incentive of such a rare treat seemed to get his attention and gradually the wailing lessened until he was only sniffling here and there. He raised his head out between his knees and looked up at his parents in all his tear streaked woe. Then he got up slowly and Julia picked him up, wiping away the remainder of the salty deposits. Ben rested his head on her chest as they walked away.

While Julia was tending to their son, Murdoch checked in on Olivia, to make sure all the noise hadn't disturbed her. She was still snuggled up nice and warm in her blue and red blankets, her breathing nice and steady. He grabbed hold of the side of the crib and then ever so softly kissed her forehead. Looking at his pocket watch he saw that it was only eight-thirty-two. Even so he whispered, "Merry Christmas, sweet angel," and then left to go join the others.