Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.

Rated: K+

Author's Note: Plot bunny courtesy of Smithcrafter—thanks.

Note to the fan fic continuity inspectors: since there is only one Christmas per year, what follows may conflict with other Christmas fics, possibly including my own, but mostly it fits in right before 'All Things Change but Truth'.

And, as always, my thanks to the betas: Owl, Susan Z, and Cheri.

Addressee Unknown

By L. M. Lewis

Mark McCormick kept Christmas well, or, at least, as well as anyone could between bad guys and hedge clippings. And he had, in the course of three years at Gulls Way, gradually persuaded Hardcastle to his way of thinking: a tree, strings of popcorn, eggnog, and, if at all possible, no last-minute surveillance operations to interfere with the holiday itself.

The judge went along with it, mostly willing, only slightly grumbling. He complained only as much as was expected, as his end of an unspoken bargain. And if he did have to be prodded along at times to do his part, that was only to be expected as well. It might just have been that the younger man enjoyed the reversal of roles, and the nagging was almost always good-natured.

By McCormick's time-table—the master plan—the Christmas cards were to go out the first day of December. Two and a half boxes full, though Hardcastle insisted it was silly to send them to people he saw several times a week, and even sillier to include the ones he hadn't seen in years.

"Then who do you send them to?" Mark looked up impatiently from the envelope he was finishing the address on. "People you see 35 times a year? Come on, I'm doing the hard part for you; all you have to do is sign your name."

"And write in who it's to," Hardcastle harrumphed.

"Won't kill ya." Mark shook his head dolefully. "And if it does, then you died for a good cause."

"A good cause is getting caught up on all that filing in the basement."

"Later. I'll even help. We're almost done here. See? Last one." He added a stamp to the envelope he'd just finished and passed it over.

The judge checked the address, opened a card and added his bit, signed it with nothing even approaching a flourish, and then shoved it into the envelope with a sigh of relief.

"There, happy now?"

"Seal it shut," Mark coaxed firmly.

Hardcastle frowned, gave the flap one quick pass and then a single, solid pound of his fist.

"There."

"Perfect." Mark grabbed it, stood it upright in the box with the others, and stuck the whole thing under his arm. "I'll mail 'em tomorrow."

"Hey," Hardcastle nodded at the envelope on the end table. "You left one."

Mark looked back over his shoulder, then turned and quickly scooped that up as well. From where the judge stood it looked sealed but incompletely addressed. He opened his mouth, but then caught a quick flash of something in McCormick's expression that made him hold onto that thought.

Instead, he settled for, "Why don't you put 'em by the front door, so you don't forget 'em later on."

Mark nodded at this and stepped out into the hall. Hardcastle noticed the unfinished envelope hadn't joined the rest. By some poorly executed sleight-of-hand, McCormick had slipped it under the box, out of sight, before he set the whole thing down near the doorway.

It required no particular insight to deduce whose name was on the now-hidden card. Even as recently as a year ago there might have been a whole list of people McCormick had to be circumspect about having contact with, but now his parole was up—it had been for nearly nine months now—and if he wanted to send Christmas greetings to an old buddy from the joint, that was his business. Besides, most of those guys were easy enough to find—an unfortunate number of them still had the same address.

No, an unaddressed envelope could only be for one person. Sonny Daye, Mark's wayward father, had passed through Malibu back in the spring, unannounced and uninvited. He'd even made a sketchy attempt at making things right with the son he'd abandoned twice before.

But events had intervened.

They'd parted on good-enough terms, at least better then the time before that—a hasty departure in the night and no forwarding address—but again the long silence, no contact whatsoever, and it had at least appeared that McCormick had once again made up his mind to cut his losses.

Hardcastle cast one quick look down at the box of cards, and what was hidden beneath, before heading for the door to the basement. Mark followed dutifully behind, saying nothing. The judge almost wished he'd get it over with—ask it straight out. The truth was, he had no idea either where the man might be. Sometimes McCormick's notion of his wide-ranging connections was slightly over-imagined.

"There aren't all that many," he muttered, reaching for the light switch at the top of the stairwell.

"Huh?"

"To file," he added hastily, thumping down the stairs. He glanced over his shoulder. Mark was frowning; he looked distracted. "Just a couple months' worth." He stepped into the room at the bottom of the stairs and reached in the darkness for yet another familiar switch. "I'll sort; you pull," he added, sitting down at the table where the stack of clippings and notes lay.

McCormick nodded, still distant. He opened his mouth, hesitated a moment, and then got as far as saying, "I don't suppose you've—" before he broke off, halting suddenly.

Hardcastle looked down at the first clipping. "'Degresio. That'd be the second one, top drawer . . . suppose I've what?"

Mark shook his head and bent to his task, pulling open the drawer with more force than necessary. "—considered putting all this on a computer," he grumbled.

"Nah," Hardcastle attempted a smile, "call me old-fashioned, but I like the way it's organized." He gestured to the cabinets with a sweep of the clipping.

Mark snatched it from his hand. "The mob is organized; this is barely-controlled chaos." There was more bitterness than humor in the statement, and definitely more than could be accounted for by having to spend part of an evening in the basement.

The judge gave him a sharp glance, then shook his head.

McCormick looked mildly chastised. He pulled the relevant file—no unnecessary violence this time—and inserted the sheet. His 'sorry' was a barely audible mutter, followed by a scant sigh and, "It's just . . ."

That one petered out, too. Hardcastle did nothing to help it along. He picked up the second clipping. "'Paterwick', ah, fourth cabinet, second drawer, or maybe the front of the third."

They progressed through the stack with no more side comments—steady work and done in under an hour and a half. It was not yet late, but McCormick hastily dismissed himself as soon as they were through. He picked up the box of cards, carefully supporting them with one hand on the bottom, and departed, still not having asked what he almost certainly wanted to.

The judge watched him go—his shoulders forward and down a little, his gaze cast down on the ground in front of him—until he slipped past the bushes and out of sight. The lights of the gatehouse came on a moment later.

Hardcastle closed the front door, pondered for a moment, then glanced at his watch. Not all that late, but it was Sunday night and it would be three hours later still for some of the people he'd need to call. No rush for it, really. It was possible that the problem would solve itself in the next few days—Sonny might send a Christmas card of his own. Stranger things had happened.

He grunted at his own misguided optimism regarding the kid's father. It seemed funny to have caught a case of it just as McCormick seemed to be recovering from his own.

00000

The week crawled along. McCormick was off to class most mornings and so it was the judge who fetched the mail in—plenty of cards but none from any hotels in Reno or Las Vegas—not even a tacky postcard from Atlantic City. If Mark was still hoping, he kept it well-concealed.

As for Hardcastle, his initial, casual inquiries had taken on a slightly more dogged tone with the passage of days. It hadn't seemed as though it ought to be that hard to find the guy. He might be a needle in a haystack, but the FBI had some pretty impressive magnets, and he still had a little credit on the account with them.

And if he had left the impression—an entirely unstated impression—that Sonny might have reasons to make himself useful to the feds, if and when he was located, well, a little motivation never hurt. Anyway, those guys owed McCormick, too.

But by Thursday, Hardcastle was starting to have some doubts about the efficiency of delegation. He thought he might have to grab a pitchfork of his own and dig in. It would help, though, to at least have it narrowed down to one stack. He was frowning over the most likely possibilities at breakfast that morning, when the phone rang.

Mark looked up from his section of the paper and started to lean over to snag the receiver. Hardcastle's quicker response seemed to startle him.

"Probably for me," the older man said, already on his feet and standing at the counter.

McCormick gave him a look of mild puzzlement. The judge ignored it, keeping his end of the telephone conversation vague, if not outright cryptic. The pen and pad were at hand. The haystack was Las Vegas, and the thing had already been winnowed down to a fairly recent address and place of employment.

Hardcastle jotted and smiled, offered general thanks and loose promises to keep in touch. He hung up, hastily stuffed the piece of paper deep into a pocket, and presented McCormick with a look of absolutely unassailable innocence. He was good at it, too. He'd picked up one or two things from the kid over the past three years.

Mark's bemused expression immediately took on an edge of concern. "What's up?"

"Oh?" Hardcastle looked around as though he had no idea there was anything at all to be up. "Ohh," he looked down at the phone as if he'd just noticed it, "the call?" He flashed a quick grin.

"Yeah, the call." Concern had become suspicion. McCormick was frowning. "You aren't working on anything right now, are you? I thought we'd settled that. You gotta log in all the flight plans."

"It's nothing like that." The judge crossed his arms and looked stern.

Mark retreated back to puzzlement. The judge reflected briefly on the value of having a reputation for veracity.

"Okay," McCormick finally let out a conceding sigh. But after a moment's pause he added, "Then what was it?"

Worse than a terrier on a bone. Hardcastle hung onto the expression that had seen him through innumerable hands of poker. He shook his head as though it deeply pained him to be the victim of such unwarranted doubt and he finally admitted, with just enough reluctance to be credible, "It was about your Christmas present."

"Ohh . . ." Mark settled back into his seat, looking abashed and then, after a moment, said "Sorry," in a tone of chagrin.

Hardcastle waved it away, feeling a little touch of chagrin himself. Not that he planned on getting caught, but it didn't pay to walk this close to the edge of the truth.

And the truth of it was that he had been flying solo a couple of times lately, helping out an old friend or two with mostly minor matters—nothing worth dragging the kid along on, especially so close to the end-of-semester exams. But this, this was not one of those occasions.

His smile of satisfaction more-or-less overrode the sneaking suspicion that he was playing a game of Battleship, and if McCormick didn't drop one right down the smokestack, he had no right to expect anything but an unelaborated announcement: 'Missed'.

He kept that last thought to himself, and tried not to bask too much in the younger man's air of apology. He even saw him to the door, and tried to make the inquiry about when he was expected home sound merely routine.

"Might be a long day," Mark cocked his head as though he was running a pretty long mental 'to-do' list. "You already thinking dinner? I can let you know how it's shaping up once I get at it."

"Nah, got some burgers—they don't need much warning. Might be kinda late, though, huh?"

Yeah, you going out?" McCormick's slightly-wary look was creeping back.

Hardcastle waved it all away—brief and nonchalant. "Errands, maybe . . . shopping." He added a little emphasis on the end and let it imply whatever it needed to in order to get McCormick out the door.

"Okay," the kid finally grinned, still standing in the doorway, "so what is it?"

Hardcastle thought about the leather briefcase, already wrapped and hidden in the upstairs closet. He thought about this morning's phone call.

"Something you need." He smiled and shoved gently, then closed the door hastily behind the other man.

00000

He was back in the kitchen, phone directory open, before the sound of the Coyote's engine had even receded down the drive. He'd briefly considered taking care of the whole matter by phone, but rejected that quickly enough. Nothing short of a personal, face-to-face confrontation could guarantee that the thing would get done. The judge preferred to see it all the way through to the postage stamp and the mailbox, if possible.

He'd also considered driving, but even with the best possible luck, that would mean a late return home tonight and a cover story of some sort. Flying, on the other hand, would chop hours off the trip, hours he might well need to run the quarry to ground--not to mention his nagging concern that no current known address of Sonny Daye would necessarily stay current for long.

And none of this, he'd concluded, was in violation of any promises he might, or might not, have made to McCormick. Going to have a nice visit with the father of a friend was hardly flying solo, and what the kid didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Hardcastle smiled and reached for the phone.

00000

It was dark by the time he returned home that evening. Dark, and no Coyote in sight, though that momentary, unwarranted hope was dashed by the light in the front window of the main house. There'd obviously been time for him to stow it in the garage already.

The judge climbed out of the truck, tucked a couple of small packages under his arm, and straightened his shoulders. Mission accomplished, now all he had to do was survive the debriefing.

And that, it turned out, was less arduous than he'd expected. McCormick had only beaten him home by twenty minutes or so, and seemed to accept his absence with no further suspicions. It was almost too easy.

There was one slight hang-up.

"I tried to call," Mark offered casually, as they sat down to dinner. "You must've been out."

He hadn't mentioned the time of the call. Hardcastle shrugged, still nonchalant. "Yeah, probably. I was out most of the day."

There must have been something in the way he presented it—as quietly commonplace as 'pass the ketchup'—that made it unassailable. The truth usually is, even when it keeps company with a whole bunch of stuff one would rather not go into.

00000

He certainly didn't expect it Friday. Saturday, he thought, would be optimistic, though he'd hand-carried it himself as far as the main post-office.

But by Monday he definitely had high hopes, and he was not disappointed.

The last bit was the trickiest. He didn't, as a rule, study McCormick's mail, therefore he supposed this piece shouldn't rate any special attention. But, on the other hand, it was postmarked 'Las Vegas' and the name on the return address was scrawled, but legible. He calculated out the correct amount of appropriate pre-ordained knowledge for the situation, and practiced looking pleasantly surprised as though he wasn't, which he figured was just about right for what were supposed to be the circumstances.

He'd set McCormick's small pile of mail on the kitchen table—the usual spot—with that envelope on top. He rearranged it a couple of times, as though it were a still-life. He even demoted the envelope to second from the top briefly, but then decided that would be a suspicious degree of inattention on his part, and switched it back again.

At the sound of the car in the drive, he gave it all one quick, last glance and decided it would have to do. Then he turned back to give the chili one more stir. A few minutes passed. It became obvious that Mark wasn't coming directly to the main house—nothing surprising there but a little disappointing. He was just on the verge of tidying up the stack one more time, when he heard the front door open.

"Judge?"

Ordinary and commonplace, like the footsteps in the hall and the unconcerned smile on McCormick's face when he finally strolled into the kitchen. He was wearing a very casual grubby shirt and had a basketball tucked under one arm.

Hardcastle had a momentary twinge of doubt—he hoped it didn't show. The man before him looked absolutely at home, and in no need of anything more than a quick drubbing on the court. It might be better to let some things rest.

But Mark had already noticed the mail. He put the ball down on the table, steadied it for a moment as it started to roll, then ignored it as he reached for the envelope, frowning.

He stared at it for a long moment. Hardcastle tried to look anywhere but there. No matter what he saw on the other man's face it would be . . . what? He wasn't sure about that. Maybe difficult. Certainly awkward, and he wasn't used to awkward between him and McCormick anymore.

It was a smile, a cautiously surprised smile, and then a quick glance over at him.

"It came in the mail today," Hardcastle said, then cringed, then decided stating the obvious was probably what he would have done, so maybe that wasn't so bad.

For a moment he thought the kid wasn't going to open it, that he might carry it back to the gatehouse and deal with it there. But then Mark flipped it over, and ran his thumb hastily under the flap, not quite tearing it, but almost.

He watched him read the words—not out loud this time, but his lips moving slightly, as though he was trying out the truth of them. It wasn't a long note, but Sonny could do a pretty fair imitation of heartfelt when leaned upon appropriately.

The smile was transmuted to a puzzled frown by the time he was done—the alchemy of doubt. There was another quick glance in his direction, maybe an appraisal.

The judge smiled back blandly. "Anything new?"

Mark shook his head, his own smile returning slowly, maybe a bit more knowing. For a moment, Hardcastle thought the jig might be up, but, if it was, McCormick wasn't saying. Instead, he merely shook his head again.

"Same old," he finally said. There might have been a shadow of unhappiness falling across that, but it took a keen eye to detect it. "I suppose I ought to send him one back."

"Quick," Hardcastle nodded, "before he moves." He permitted himself a grin.

"Yeah." Mark put the card back in the envelope, a little more carefully than his tone. He set it down on the table. He touched it one more time, as if that might dispel the doubt. His expression was . . . fixed.

"Later," he said quietly.

And then the grin was back, the envelope decisively forgotten. He picked up the ball, tucking it under his arm. "I need twenty bucks and you need some practice."

"Twenty, huh? What if you lose?"

"Not a chance," Mark grinned. "But if I do, you're gonna get a lump of coal in your stocking for Christmas, cause that's all I'll be able to afford." He gave the ball one quick spin on his finger, then snatched it up as it started to fall. "Come on."

He was already back through the door and gone, obviously not expecting any argument.

Hardcastle shook his head and smiled, then turned and followed him down the hall, knowing beyond a doubt that, with gifts, it was the thought that counted.

Finis

Author's postscript: Can it really be two years? Yeah, two years and two days. And to all the kind folks who supported the endeavor--betas, readers, correspondents, friends--my thanks. LML