Perfect
She can't do this.
Her body shakes as she tries to balance the carrier with Al bundled inside and her bag while she digs for her keys. Quarter days at work despite her maternity leave so she can stay up all night with Al before dropping her off at her dad's before going to the precinct. She's exhausted and angry and frustrated and freezing cold and she just can't do it.
Al cries and Kate drops the key ring in lieu of stroking a finger down the baby's cheek, breaking up the tears and melting snowflakes with her fingertip. "Hey, kid. Shh… Just let me get inside, okay?" she asks, trying to keep her voice steady because she knows the girl can sense her moods.
When she leans down to get the keys from the ground, Al grabs for her hair that had escaped from under her hat. Kate bites her lip against the yelp of pain, hooking a finger through the ring to search for her key. The metal cuts into her fingers as she forces the key into her lock and turns it.
Except her apartment is not dark, not chilly like she expected to come back to.
It's bright, twinkling with strings of yellow lights and strands of golden garland. There's a vase of poinsettias on her table, flickering bulbs in the candles in her windows. It smells like cookies and cinnamon and peppermint.
And there's a tree in the corner of the living room previously occupied by her dad's old armchair, the same place it had always been when she was little. It sparkles with tinsel and more lights and ornaments that she hadn't seen since she had graduated from the Academy and stopped really going to his place for Christmas Day. The gold, metallic star, chipped from years of use and tilted on the top branch of the tree, winks in the lights.
Kate drops her purse, the keys following, but she keeps Al's carrier in the crook of her arm after the month of practice. "What…?" she murmurs, the tears already pricking at her eyes. Her jacket goes over the back of the couch. She has time to put the carrier on the kitchen table when someone clears their throat behind her.
She spins, hand already going for her gun, shifting to stand in front of her daughter when she sees her dad, Ryan, Esposito, and Lanie all in the hallway.
"Hey, Katie," says her dad softly. Al squaks from the carrier and Jim grins. "And my Allie-bug, of course."
"Dad, what's going on?"
He smiles, nodding back toward the group. "We know you've been busy and that decorating for the holidays might fall by the wayside," he explains.
"So we decided to help out," finishes Lanie, elbowing the boys who nod and mutter their consent.
She doesn't know what to say, mouth open and closing as she glances between everyone. Instead of answering any of them, she turns to unbuckle Al from the carrier before she squirms her way onto the ground, shedding the piles of blankets she had tucked around the girl. Al mouths at her neck, fingers curling into her hair and knocking her knit hat to the floor. She picks it up, toeing off her shoes.
"Listen," her dad says, a hand on her shoulder to draw her eyes up to his. "If you don't want it, we'll take it down and -"
"Oh, no!" says Kate, not a shout because of the baby at her ear but it's loud. "No, guys. This is… This is more than… Thank you," she finally sighs. "Thank you so much. Everyone."
Ryan goes to take out the sheet of cookies as Kate walks around the couch to the tree. She sits, her back against the coffee table so that Al can turn her head against her knees and see the lights. She finds the silly, homemade ornaments from her childhood among the ones her parents bought.
"I know this Christmas isn't exactly what you must have imagined your first one with a kid being," her dad says over her shoulder as he perches on the coffee table.
She shakes her head, reaching out slowly so that she doesn't jostle Al. Her fingertips brush the little book inscribed with just an A, the year underneath. It's next to her own first Christmas ornament, the only difference being the sweeping K.
"No, Dad. It's perfect."