"Good job with the lights. If I didn't know better, I'd think this wasn't the first tree you'd decorated," Andy teased Sam as she opened the box of ornaments and started sorting them.

"It's not," he boasted as he looped the final strand of white lights around the top half of the tree. "I've helped out with Oliver's tree a few times, so I'm far from a novice, McNally. Of course, I wouldn't say I've done a lot of the Christmas thing over the years. Growing up, Christmases were kind of a non-event. And as an adult, I've just mostly done my own thing. Sometimes, I've been undercover during the holidays. You know, kind of a mixed bag . . . . But I've never done much celebrating."

"Yeah, well, this year you're going to celebrate the heck out of the holiday. Do you wanna know why?" Andy asked intensely, lifting a glass ball out of the ornament box.

"No, I don't think I do," he responded with a laugh. "I'm actually a little scared of you right now."

"This is like when you say you don't want to know something but you really do, right?"

"No. Not even a little bit."

"Nice try. I don't believe you. Anyway . . . you're with Andy McNally. This is an Andy McNally Christmas and Andy McNally doesn't celebrate Christmas halfway. So you should get ready for something really special."

"And just like that, I went from a 'little scared' to 'terrified.'" He chuckled as a wary expression crossed his face.

"That's okay. I expected you to be a little Grinchey about the whole Christmas experience."

"Grinchey?" Sam stared her down with a raised eyebrow that was intended to intimidate but unfortunately missed its mark.

"You know," she said as she approached the tree with the ornament and slid it on to a branch. "The Grinch. Big, grouchy, green guy . . . ."

"I'm familiar with Dr. Seuss. I just fail to see the similarity. I happen to love the holiday season even though I've never done much celebrating," he claimed.

"No, you don't," Andy called him out with a laugh, lifting out another ornament and handing it to him.

He took the ornament from her and eyed it suspiciously. It was a bird sitting on a nest of twigs. "This one's a little feminine, don't you think?"

"Just hang it on the tree!" She swatted at him, missing her target when he side-stepped her arm and hung the bird's nest on the tree. "I'm sorry I don't have anything more manly for you to hang. Besides, this tree is in my condo, and in case you hadn't noticed, I am a female."

"Oh, believe me, Andy, I've noticed." He waggled his eyebrows as he approached her. Then, with one smooth movement, he scooped her up and tossed her gently on the couch, quickly settling above her and dropping a soft, lingering kiss on her mouth.

Andy gave him a half-hearted push to move him off of her, but they both knew she wasn't committed to it. "Sam," she whined, "We're supposed to be decorating the tree. You're getting distracted too easily."

"We are decorating. Look," he said, turning his head to face the tree.

"We've only put up two ornaments!" she protested.

"And it looks amazing," he claimed. "I'm actually more of a minimalist anyway. Why don't we just call it 'good,'" he suggested, kissing a spot behind her ear that elicited a low moan from Andy.

Finally, she managed to mutter, "Well, I'm not a minimalist. I happen to like a fully-decorated Christmas tree."

"I'm just spreading some holiday cheer," he mumbled as he ghosted featherlight kisses down her neck.

Giving in, she brought his mouth back up to hers and pulled him in to a long, languid kiss that left them both breathless. The prospect of seeing a fully-decorated tree within the next few hours dimmed considerably.

Sometime later, they lay underneath a thick blanket on the couch, facing each other with their legs intertwined. When Andy asked Sam if perhaps he might be ready to finish decorating the tree, he answered by pulling her in tightly against his bare chest and burying his head in her hair.

Looking over his shoulder, Andy giggled at the sight of their clothes tossed haphazardly around the room and one of Sam's socks hanging from a branch. "Wow, you weren't kidding about spreading holiday cheer," she remarked with an impressed tone.

He quickly glanced behind him before burrowing back in to the space between her neck and shoulder, mumbling, "That's what you call progress, McNally. Now we have three ornaments on the tree."

Hours later, after a nap and another round of "holiday cheer," Andy peeled Sam off the couch and forced him back in to his clothes. When he didn't seem amenable to the idea, she picked up his shirt from the pile and pulled it over his head herself. She tossed him his boxers, making the bold claim that they were going to have a decorated tree by the end of the evening.

"Fine," he grumbled as he got dressed. Andy was already fully-clothed again and pawing through the ornament box.

"Here, hang these," she instructed with a laugh as she made him a small pile of ornaments on the coffee table.

"Hmmm," he said as he checked out his pile. "Do you have one of these for every year?" he asked, holding up an ornament that said Happy Holidays 1997. It was an ornament with three bears hugging each other.

"Pretty much. My Mom used to get an ornament for us every year. After she left, Dad usually kept up the tradition, but I think he may have missed a few years," she reflected as she hung a drummer boy ornament on the other side of the tree.

"Oh," he responded thoughtfully. Sensing a change in his mood, Andy looked around the tree at Sam and could tell he was deep in thought, probably about his own childhood and the fact that he didn't have many family Christmas traditions of his own. Since getting back together, Sam had been more open with her about his family. She could tell he was definitely trying to share more with her, and she appreciated the added details about his past. Instead of feeling like he had to talk, he seemed to want to talk to her now. Every now and then he'd drop some new story or details on her about his childhood and teenage years. It was a slow process, but gradually, Andy was getting to know more about what made Sam who he was. Just two nights before, they had been lying in bed talking about a case they'd both worked that day when he transitioned almost seamlessly over to a story about himself.

"I actually feel bad for the guy, you know," Andy said as she rubbed her hand in circles on Sam's arm. They were lying in bed and he had her pulled up against his chest with his arm wrapped around her mid-section.

"Of course you feel bad for him. He's a nice guy. That doesn't mean he wasn't still in the wrong. Sometimes nice people go down the wrong paths in life. Doesn't mean they're not nice, Andy. Just wrong. And sometimes people who are on the wrong paths stumble on to the right paths . . . " Sam reflected.

Before Andy could say anything he continued talking. Soon, it became obvious that he was no longer talking about the case and that he was getting more personal. "I used to think the hand you were dealt was the luck of the draw, but lately I've started to wonder if we're sometimes given the chance to make choices that have the power to change the course of our lives. Sort of like a course correction.

"I believe that more and more when I think about the path I was on as a kid and where I ended up." Andy wasn't even sure Sam realized he was talking out loud until he caught her off guard by addressing her directly. "You know about my Dad and the stuff at home, right?"

"Yes. I remember," she said quietly with a nod. She knew he was only looking for an assurance from her that she was still there with him before continuing. They had talked about his home life several times in recent months. The first time, she'd been surprised when he started talking about his childhood in the truck on the way back from his sister's house. She'd thought she covered her surprise well. Apparently she was more transparent than she realized, though, because he looked over at her and said, "Yeah, I know it's a real shocker to find out that I actually do have a past." Since that first talk in the truck, they'd had several more such 'conversations' and she was less surprised now when he suddenly felt the need to share and launched in to details about his past.

"So I really just wanted to be away from there as much as possible. I ended up hanging around with some guys at this body shop downtown. They were mostly good guys just like the guy we arrested today. The guy who owned the body shop where we hung out also had a few side businesses, one of which involved fencing stolen car parts. Some of us started working for him. Mostly, it was just something to do. A way to pick up a little extra cash. At the time, I was kind of like, 'Why not?' It was pretty small time stuff, but then I got picked up by the cops. I ran in to the guy who eventually became my T.O. He was around the station last year. I don't know if you remember. Nash and I worked a case with him." He stopped for a second and she nodded, letting him know that she did remember. "Meeting him completely changed my life. I gained some perspective and for the first time, it was like someone suggested that maybe there was a different path for me."

There was a long period of silence and Andy thought he was finished talking. Then suddenly he said, "Anyway . . . that was my course correction."

"So basically, what you're saying is that maybe the universe has a plan for you after all?" she suggested in a knowing tone.

"Yep. I guess that's what I'm saying . . . ." He let out a low laugh and pulled her closer to him.

When the ornament box was empty, Andy and Sam stood back to examine their handiwork.

"McNally, I have to confess, it does look pretty great," Sam admitted, putting his arm around her shoulders as they looked at the fully-decorated tree. The sun had set hours before, and the tree lights glowed warmly in Andy's otherwise dark condo.

Andy laid her hands on Sam's chest, grinning up at him. "So, I have one more to add," she told him, walking quickly toward her bedroom. When she came back out, she had an ornament dangling from her finger as she held it out for his inspection.

He took it from her and smiled. "Hmm, that's a nice one." He immediately put it on the front of the tree, rearranging a few of the other ornaments to make room. Moving back over to her he picked up both of her hands, pulling her toward him. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me," he told her, briefly glancing back at the ornament on the tree. Two fat snowmen stood with their arms wrapped around each other. Sam's name was written on one of them and Andy's was on the other with the year inscribed in the snow at the bottom of the ornament.

"Don't you go getting all sappy on me here," she warned him playfully. Then, because she couldn't resist she added, "Get it-sappy? You know, because trees make sap and we were doing the whole Christmas tree thing . . . ."

"Yeah, I get it," he groaned but pulled her in for a tight hug.

'You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, too," she murmured as she wrapped her arms around him and held on tightly.