A/N: I don't own Leverage or any of the characters. I write for fun and not for profit. I don 't write slash.

Thank you to all of those who are reading and reviewing.

This is just a bit of fluff for the Christmas Season. Enjoy.

A Very Leverage Christmas:

Chapter 2—Secret Gifts

Nate was lost in his own thoughts as he helped Sophie lay the clues for a Christmas scavenger hunt for Parker. It was for everyone really, but the young blonde was like a little kid at Christmas time, and so, knowing she would enjoy it the most, they were laying down the clues with her in mind. Since the team had been together, and in the times they were together after the team split, Sophie had made it her mission to make sure the younger woman had the kind of Christmas she had never once had as a child.

He had had more than enough to drink, and he thought that was probably why he heard his grandmother's voice in his head—high and sweet and cracked with age—just as it had been the last time he saw her. She was an Irish woman, and that, in and of itself, made her a force of nature. She held both of his hands in her gnarled ones, and drew him closer as she spoke to him. She was one of those people who was always somewhere on the spectrum of irresistible force and immovable object, and no one was ever sure exactly where she was on the spectrum at any given time. Sometimes, she was both, and very nearly at the same time. He had just announced to the extended family his plans to go off to seminary, and she sat watching him with that way she had, as though she was taking in all of the information she heard and filing it away for later. She didn't respond to his announcement, and he almost thought she hadn't heard him, or else didn't approve, when she spoke up.

"What was the first gift of Christmas, Nathan?" This was a game they played. She would ask him a question, seemingly a non-sequiter to what they were previously discussing, but that simply meant that her steel trap mind had drawn a connection, and it was now up to him to find it.

He didn't know why exactly she was asking him that question, or what it had to do with his plans to go to seminary, but he would give her the respect she was due—the respect she demanded as his mother's mother. He thought about it for a moment, and then said, "Family."

"No," she said, looking sad, "though that was a nice try. Think about it."

That was one of the last conversations he'd had with his mother's mother, and he wasn't sure why he was thinking about it now, other than the realization that struck him that he really missed their game. The old lady had died shortly after that, and he had gone off to seminary, and never had learned whatever it was she was trying to teach him that time. Maybe it was the booze, or perhaps it was because the question remained largely unanswered for Nate that it haunted many of his Christmases down through the years.

The first time was with Maggie. He'd had such grand plans in those days. Everything is bigger, brighter, more intense for the young. Something had happened to derail some of his grand plans (as something usually does), and he'd ended up dropping out of seminary and becoming an insurance claims investigator. It was shortly after that time that he'd met a small, blonde woman named Maggie, and he still considered it a small miracle that she'd finally agreed to go out with him in the first place, and how the son of Jimmy Ford, the ex-Jesuit seminary student ever ended up married was still one of the great mysteries of the universe in his mind.

His mind jumped ahead a few years to their first Christmas together as a married couple. He was standing on a step stool in order to place the brand new tree topper star on top of the tree. Maggie was below him, on the other side, throwing bits of tinsel at each branch separately, and he was amused at the care she took to be sure each small strand of the shiny metallic decoration was situated just right on the tree.

No one had ever really asked him the question since that day, when his maternal grandmother asked it, but the question had sprung unbidden into his mind on several occasions, and he had sought to answer it. He heard her voice again in his mind, and thought briefly that she would approve of Maggie.

"What was the first gift of Christmas, Nathan?

"Joy," he had said to himself, unable to think of any greater gift than that. Maggie had heard him, and said, "What?"

"I was just thinking about Joy, " he said, and she smiled, and continued decorating the tree. She hadn't told him that his answer was wrong, like his grandmother did, for she hadn't even known the question, but he couldn't help wondering what she would have said if she had known. Maggie kept her own counsel on certain things, and she might simply not have cared to discuss it. He had no idea. He had never told her his thoughts, being unsure of exactly what her answer would be, he simply hadn't pressed. He had been in a variety of Christmas settings, around a number of people, each time the question floated back across his consciousness.

The next time he was confronted with the question, the circumstances were not happy ones. His son, Sam, was seven and it was the first Christmas they knew of his illness, and incidentally, a Christmas they would spend in a new and terrifying world of hospitals and doctor's offices. One of the doctors in charge of his son's care had asked him the question that time, and he couldn't even remember what the circumstances around the asking were.

"What was the first gift of Christmas?"

"Love," he said, heart breaking at his son's condition. Less than a year later, Sam had died, and Nate had felt a black void take over the place where his heart used to be. The heart itself lay shattered in millions of tiny burning pieces, somewhere else. Christmas would never be the same for him again. Eventually, he would be able to watch others enjoying the holiday without wanting to blow his damned brains out, or trying to drown himself in a bottle of Irish, but it would never hold the same meaning for him again, and yet at the same time, it held a greater meaning. A heart, once given, can never be taken back, at least not while it remains whole, and when he really allowed himself to think about it, he would never have wanted to go back to where they were before Sam was born, because that would have meant missing some of the best years of his life.

Nate shook himself to clear his head of those thoughts. He had now found himself another family, of sorts, and he was currently helping the woman of his dreams put the finishing touches on a Christmas surprise for three people who meant the world to them. Later tonight, they would decorate the tree, and maybe sing some carols. It was shaping up to be a pretty good Christmas for him.

"A penny for your thoughts?"

"I was thinking about a question my grandmother asked me, a long time ago. She never told me the answer, wanting me to come up with it myself, and sometimes, the question comes back to me. I'm not sure why."

"Oh? Well, what's the question?"

"What was the first gift of Christmas?"

"Hmm. Interesting." She didn't say any more, as the others were assembling for the game. They all laughed and joked their way through the clues, letting Parker have most of them, since she was so excited and treated each new clue like a treasure. Sophie had planned carefully, however, and planted a few clues that were written for specific people. The clues she had planted led to a small gift for each of them. When they got to the end, Parker opened the last box to find a jeweled ball ornament that was trimmed in gold, and hinged on one side, so that it opened in the middle. There was a small wad of paper inside that had Nate's name on it. Parker handed it to him, eyes full of glee, and danced off to explore her own treasure.

Nate unfolded the slip of paper, to find a small, hand-drawn picture, which led him a short distance away. He found a long, flat box nestled in the nook of a tree branch, and lifting it down carefully, he opened it to find two sheets of paper, folded in quarters, a scrap of colored paper with Sophie's handwriting, a photograph, and a small string of glass beads of multiple colors. One end of the bead strand had a small silver bead with wings and an S engraved in the center, and on the other end, there was a small silver alphabet block.

He unfolded the note first. In Sophie's handwriting, was scrawled The first gift of Christmas was a child.

He turned the picture over to find a photograph of himself and his son. Somehow, he remembered that this particular photo used to have Maggie in it, but there was no sign of her in this one…just Nathan and Sam. He was surprised to realize that he could look at it, and while it was still painful, there was nothing like the gut-wrenching loss he once felt. He didn't even feel like he needed a drink. With a soft sigh, he unfolded the other papers. One was an explanation of the beads, and it explained that one of the colors in the strand represented Sam, while the other represented new, future possibilities.

The second folded sheet turned out to be a record of a sonogram, and on the bottom Sophie had scrawled, "Meet Nathan James Ford. Merry Christmas, Daddy." Suddenly, he found himself grinning like an idiot, and unable to stop. Merry Christmas, indeed.