Hey! This is set near Christmas (because I think snow will be involved later on as like a background thing coz I love it!) and this chapter is sort of a build up to how they get the whole idea of 'The Bucket List'! Oh and Jac and Jonny are together because they're too cute to not be together! Please enjoy and drop a review!xx

"Do you know what?" Jac grinned at her colleagues all surrounding a table in Albie's.
"No, but I bet you gonna tell us!" Michael replied, the high amount of alcohol he'd already consumed that evening making him laugh at his own, stupid comment. Serena rolled her eyes at her friend's drunk reaction before, like everyone else, turning back to Jac for an elaboration.
"Damn right I am! I'm actually going to say it guys. Ready – listen carefully, this will be the first and last time you'll hear these words come from me – Merry Christmas for a few days' time suckers!" She laughed, holding her glass up. "Merry Christmas to someone who'd care more about Baby Jesus if he was in Kate Middleton's uterus." Most of the male members of staff pulled at face of disgust and everyone also raised their glasses, clashing them randomly with whoever's glass they could reach, as was the case when one was toasting with a big number of people.
"I didn't realise you were into this whole festive-holiday stuff, Jac!" Elliot observed lightly, leaning around Hanssen to address Jac.
"I'm not." She shrugged, taking a sip of her wine. For at least a little longer she was going to keep her icy façade, at least until she had enough wine to use an excuse for being soft. A word not in the consultant's dictionary.
"Are too! I distinctly remember you stealing a choccie from the Nurse's station this morning!" Jonny grinned, knowing full well the young consultant was in denial.
"Shut up!" She retorted sharply, half-glaring at the Scottish Nurse next to her.
"Or what? Will Santa put coal in my sack?" Jonny pouted, taking a swig of beer from the bottle in his hand.
"Santa!" Serena snorted, before Jac had the chance. "Don't tell me mummy and daddy haven't already told you they do the presents." Jonny's face fell in mock shock and hurt.
"What Ms Campbell?" He whispered, purposefully taking on a theatrically dramatic tone. "You're telling me he's not real?!"
"Of course he is!" Everyone looked up in surprise when they heard Hanssen answer.
"What?" Serena smiled to the Swede sat next to her. "You believe in the big bearded fellow?"
"Indeed." Hanssen nodded. Serena and Jac both glanced at the glass of wine in his hand. Perhaps it had been a mistake inviting him along, God's knows it had taken most of their shifts on their knees before he'd even considered their invitation. "Well how else do you explain the pile of presents at the end of my bed?" He replied logically to Serena's sceptically raised eyebrow.
"Right." She said slowly, throwing him a look suitable for a man escaped from a Mental Asylum. A cross between fear, worry and disbelief.
"I don't really." He reassured her with a small smile.
"Well, why you guys hang around talking Santa Claus and Christmas decorations, I'm going to get the next round in. Serena?" Jac said, already standing up without waiting for an answer.
"Sure." Serena also stood and joined the waiting red-head at the bar. Jac placed their orders, generally ordering 'same again's' for almost everyone.
"Do we think we should get Hanssen a soft drink – just to be on the safe side?" Jac whispered to Serena, who smirked in response.
"Poor man!" She smiled, glancing over her shoulder and back at the table they were all inhabiting. "Perhaps we shouldn't have forced him here! Not really his cup of tea, as it were, is it?"
"Why did we drag him here?"
"Tara." She replied simply. It was obvious to anyone who'd spent half a minute with the Swede recently that he was more affected than most by the F1's tragic death. She watched as Michael, in an attempt to get to the toilet, trip drunkenly over Mo's legs, to lose balance completely and fall backwards onto a completely unexpecting Hanssen. "Actually, do you know what, make that a diet coke for me." Serena laughed, wishing she could access CCTV as she watched Michael's stammered apologies.
"-two beers and a diet coke for her." Serena turned back in time to hear Jac finish off their order.
"Sure. Will Diet Pepsi be OK?" The barkeeper asked, flustered. Serena doubted he'd been out of college a day.
"Will Monopoly money OK?" Jac asked icily, immediately turning on the intimidating demeanour usually reserved for F1's. It seemed even those who didn't know her were scared to death as the barkeeper shrunk back slightly under her stern gaze.
"Right. One diet coke it is." He smiled nervously.
"Good man." Jac glared patronisingly. "He is cruelly depriving some village somewhere of an idiot." She added under her breath to an amused Serena.

When they returned to the table, desperately trying to keep a hold on the numerous beers and wine everyone had ordered (bar Mo who felt the need to order a gin-and-tonic as she didn't want to be to 'mainstream' as she put it), Michael was still missing and everyone else still seemed to be in a deep conversation about Christmas. As she resumed her seat next to Jonny, Jac caught the words 'men' and 'presents'.
"We're aren't that bad!" Elliot protested to Mo's obviously offensive comment.
"Elliot! 99.9% of the time a woman's worst present has been from men and the rest of the 0.1% is because they didn't bother in the first place!" Jac laughed.
"Yeah, exactly what she said!" Serena added, also sitting down. Jac noticed that for some reason Serena had slipped into Michael's empty space next to Hanssen, and not the one she was in before.
"Women are happy enough to stereotype men as Bad Present Buyers but you don't appreciate how much effort goes into buying a present that awful!" Jonny pointed out. Jac rolled her eyes and handed him Mo's gin and tonic to pass on to her. He obliged, but playfully took a massive mouthful just before he handed it to her. Mo slapped him lightly before snatching what was left of her drink.
"I was gonna send you something awesome this Christmas Jac!" He grinned when Mo had successfully wiped the side of the glass the Scot had drunk from with a grimace.
"Oh yeah?" She asked, a disbelieving eyebrow raised.
"Yeah but the postman told me to get out of the post box…" He sighed melodramatically. Elliot laughed while Serena and Jac stared, stony faced.
"Must me a male thing." Jac finally concluded and Serena nodded in agreement.
"Stupid enough." She shook her head in disbelief but with a hint of amusement.
"Women. They think so much of themselves, don't they?!" Jonny mocked. Hanssen glanced at Serena sat next to him. This looked like it was going to be one hell of a battle between the sexes.
"That's because we should. Prove we're not better." She challenged, a dangerous glint in her eye.
"Ok…God created men first."
"That's because every masterpiece has a draft." She quipped immediately. "Do continue."
Jonny swallowed. That was the only strong point he had and the alcohol wasn't making his brain work as fast as he wanted.
"And that proves my point." Serena smirked at his silence. Jonny just huffed and folded his arms childishly while Jac smirked.
"One nil to the girls!" She grinned. Mo, Serena and Jac all clinked glasses with a self-satisfied smirk painted on each of their faces. The men watched this exchange with glares. Nothing was worse than a man with a damaged ego.
"At least we're not so frickin difficult to buy for." Jonny mumbled, taking a dejected mouthful of beer.
"We're not! You're just too dense to realise what we want!" Jac scoffed. Jonny remained silent, still looking slightly peeved.
"Wait until you get a teenager, Maconie, they're worse!" Serena assured him, still relishing the victory. Hanssen almost smiled at the smug look etched on her face. 'She would've made Connie Beauchamp proud' he thought dryly.
"Can't be. You just shove a bunch of toys in a sack around midnight and say 'Look, Santa's come and gave you all these presents and has eaten the cookies and drank the milk you left for him!' while you're thinking, 'that fat loser gets all the credit for this!'" Jac shrugged dismissively.
"Yes, but that's when they're toddlers. Teenagers are a nightmare! The worst mistake you could make is to ask a teenage girl 'have you done your Christmas list yet?' A new mobile phone, make-up, an Ipod, designer clothes-" It didn't take a genius to work out that Serena was probably just listing of the items on the list her daughter had given her.
"Great." Jac replied flatly. "There's me thinking Christmas was about family and love and all that shit."
"Yeah, that's what they all say! The best bit is when you get to queue for hours in a shopping mall for your child to see 'Santa'." Serena smiled in a sarcastically cheery tone. Jac's face contorted into a look of disgust.
"Eeew! No thanks!" She grimaced quickly.
"Oh, it's all part of it Jac, you'll love it!"
"Oh, yes. I can't wait to have a flamboyantly dressed stranger grope my children." Jac quipped dryly.
"Your children? Ughh…who'd be desperate enough to go there?" They all turned at this new but familiar voice. Michael threw a glance out of the corner of his eye to his old seat and clearly realised Serena was occupying it. Not thinking much of it, he just slipped into her previous seat.
"Funny Michael funny. Look at how genuinely funny I found that." Jac glared. Everyone turned to face her and she stared back, looking as neutral and slightly bored as ever. "That funny." She clarified, signalling her blank face. Michael just rolled his eyes in response before picking up his almost empty bottle of beer to drain it.
"Who's up for some real fun?" He grinned mischievously. Everyone took that as their cue to glance nervously around at each other. A drunk American's and their ideas of 'real fun' were obviously never going to be the same.
"As long as it doesn't include quad-biking, mountain climbing or wild, unlimited sex, sure." Serena shrugged.
"Nah, that's for experts, we'll start at basics." Clearly a space, he placed his recently-emptied bottle of beer in the middle of the table, equal distance from everyone surrounding it. "Spin the bottle!" Serena raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
"Do you know what Spin the bottle is?" She asked.
"Not Spin the Bottle as you're thinking of it, Truth and Dare decided by Spin the Bottle." He grinned.
"Your idea of 'real fun' is Truth and Dare? Oh dear, just imagine your interpretation of 'extreme thrills'!" She commented sceptically.
"You can scorn all you like, Rena, but only skilful dudes can make Truth and Dare fun. You in?" Serena nodded, followed by Jonny, Elliot and then Jac. Hanssen remained unresponsive, never one for getting himself involved in something he had no idea of what the implications were.
"Mr Hanssen?" Michael asked. Serena glanced at him and immediately saw his objection before it had escaped him.
"Yeah, he's in." She answered quickly.
"Who knew I could talk without saying anything?" He quipped, throwing the empty beer bottle a nervous glance. His aloof and buttoned up exterior meaning even as a student, he'd never played any of these kind of games.
"Go for it then." Mo dared. Michael grinned and he reached out. With a flick of his wrist, the bottle was sent spinning around in circles. After a few moments, the speed of the bottle began decreasing until it finally came to rest. Everyone's gaze followed the direction of the bottle to see who it was pointing at.
"Mr Hanssen." Jonny swallowed. Serena and Jac glanced at Hanssen. He didn't seem outwardly bothered by the face he was about to be subjected to a truth or dare, but they were sure he was inwardly panicking.
"Ok." Michael smiled, watching Hanssen carefully, not doubting that he would come up with some tactic to get out of it. "Truth or dare?"