Part Three

"Three mis-fires? You have got to be kidding me!" Steve exclaimed.

"You heard me right, Buddy-boy," Mike replied. "Somehow that gun mis-fired three times, and the one time it did work, Dan got lucky. A hit to the stomach with a club is a lot easier to recover from than a point-blank shot to the chest." Or head, Mike thought, but decided not to say it out loud. He'd already given Steve and Jeannie the full story over dinner, but the realization of how close a call it had been was still sinking in with the two of them.

"They had an angel watching over them," Jeannie said, echoing Mike's own earlier thoughts. "Only explanation for it, they had an angel watching over them." Jeannie smiled then. "I have to admit though, I wish I had seen Dan fighting those guys in the Santa suit. A Santa that could fight back had to have been the last thing they expected!"

Mike chuckled and grinned. "You should've seen the look on Henry's face when he realized that Santa Claus was another one of the cops who busted him and the Jackals earlier this year. He had enough steam coming out of his ears to run a steam engine from one end of the city to the other!"

"Three mis-fires," Steve whistled under his breath, absently stroking the scar on his chest from the last bullet he'd taken in the line of duty. "I don't think I've ever heard of something like that. Had to have been a defective gun or something, I'm thinking Mason's lucky the thing didn't mess up his hand or worse. Three of them…" Steve's voice trailed off as he shook his head. "And then you actually got Dan to agree to not only come over here to stay the night and go to Mass with us, but also to stay tomorrow for lunch and dinner? Mike, have you been slipping some bribes to a priest to hand to the Man upstairs or something? How in the world did you manage that?"

Mike chuckled as he headed to the kitchen to pour himself some coffee. "Clean living, you should try it sometime, Steve. And may I remind you, it was Dan himself who sweetened the deal, all I have to do is help him out tomorrow morning."

"In a red sweater and your best smile, we remember Mike," Jeannie said, hugging her father as he reached for two more mugs to pour her and Steve some coffee as well. "I've pulled out your best red sweater, the smile you'll have to manage on your own."

"Thank you sweetheart," Mike answered, giving his daughter a light kiss on her forehead. "All I have to do is remember the look on Dan's face every time Miss Nana called him 'Danny' and I'll be smiling bigger than the Cheshire Cat," Mike said, heading to the front door to answer the knocking he heard.

Steve and Jeannie both laughed at that, Mike had told them all about what had happened after Henry and Jake had been taken away, how Nana and Cecil had fussed over the young detective as if he were their son. "I'm still trying to picture Dan in a Santa suit myself," Steve grinned.

"If you're awake early enough in the morning, you'll get the chance Steve," Dan called from the doorway. "Merry Christmas guys! Thanks for having me over."

"Merry Christmas Dan!" Jeannie called, rushing over to give the dark-haired detective a hard squeeze.

Dan sucked in a sharp breath and winced in spite of himself. "Oof, not so hard around the back Jeannie, it's starting to hurt a little bit now. Hugs around the neck are better," he said with a rueful smile as Mike took his partner's overnight bag and suit bag to the spare room. "Thanks Mike."

"Come sit down, Dan," Steve urged, pointing Dan to the new sofa in the living room, taking a foil-wrapped paper plate from Dan's hand, then headed for the kitchen to put it on the table. "Mike's been telling us all about what happened, sounds like you've had a rough day. You sure you're up to going to Mass with us?"

Dan nodded, sighing with relief as he sank into the couch. "I'll be fine, I've been hurt worse. I'll get a hot shower after Mass tonight, that'll work out the kinks and I'll be just fine in the morning. Did you find a red sweater, Mike? I've got my spare Santa hat in my overnight bag."

"I've got his best red sweater already pulled out for tomorrow morning, Dan," Jeannie answered, heading to the kitchen. "Coffee?"

"Thanks, Jeannie," Dan answered gratefully, slowing leaning forward in the couch to stretch out his aching back. "I'm still up for Mass tonight, but it has been a long day. We took care of thirteen individuals and fourteen families tonight, ten of those with kids, and most of them were at least half as wound up as Christi was earlier. Oh," Dan grinned, "Christi made me promise to give you a Barbie doll for Christmas, since you were cooking lunch for me and 'Mister Mike' tomorrow and she's absolutely sure you've been a good girl this year since 'Mister Mike' was so nice and smelled like her granddad." Jeannie stopped in her tracks and stared at Dan, then Mike, trying very hard not to laugh. "She was very glad that he didn't smell like old cheese like the Santa at the store she saw last week."

Jeannie leaned in the doorway to the kitchen, falling into a fit of laughter. Steve wasn't any better, nearly falling as he tried to sit down in the armchair across from the sofa he was laughing so hard. "Old cheese?" Jeannie finally managed to gasp.

"That's what she said," Dan answered with a grin, carefully settling back into the sofa. "I think Mike here may have a new fan with Christi. So long as he keeps on smelling like her granddad and not cheese."

"I am not old enough to be a grandfather just yet!" Mike protested, but he made no effort to hide his smile, fondly remembering the bouncy little girl listening to him sing a few hours earlier. "An uncle, maybe, but not a grandfather."

Jeannie had finally collected herself enough to pour Dan's promised coffee and bring it to him, giving her father a quick peck on the cheek first. "You could always be a young grandfather," she reminded him, handing Dan the coffee and turning her attention fully to her father's partner. "Dan, can I get you something for the pain? From what Mike told us about everything, and how bad he said that bruise on your arm looked, I'm thinking you need a little something more than a hot shower and coffee."

"Sleep will be good," Dan admitted, drinking the coffee gratefully. "In the meantime, if you've got some Tylenol, that would be wonderful."

Jeannie smiled and patted Dan's knee, then headed for the bathroom medicine cabinet. "I think we've got some, but there should be some aspirin here if nothing else."

Steve had finally collected himself enough to speak by this time. "You smell like a grandfather, do you?" he teased Mike.

"A young grandfather, thank you very much."

Steve chuckled, grinning at his former partner. "I'm not sure which I'm having a harder time imagining, you as a grandfather, or Dan here as Santa."

Mike grinned at his former partner. "Just imagine me as Santa's helper then, if you can't manage anything else. Santa hat, red sweater –"

"And your best smile, we know Mike. Found some Tylenol, Dan, hope this helps," Jeannie said, placing two pills into a grateful Dan's hand. Jeannie sat on the sofa next to her father's partner, waiting until he took the pills before continuing. "What I want to know is, why does he need the sweater, hat and smile? And I'd like an answer other than he's helping you tomorrow, 'Santa', before you kidnap my father first thing in the morning."

Dan gave Jeannie a mock frown, glanced at Steve, who was just as interested in Dan's response, and then shot his look in Mike's direction. "I thought I told you the deal was that you would find out in the morning, partner."

Mike put up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm not the one asking!"

Jeannie gave Dan her sweetest smile. "I'll bake some sugar cookies tomorrow if you tell. Besides, you made your deal with Mike, not me or Steve. So we get to ask."

Mike kept smiling, but watched Dan carefully. Steve and Jeannie hadn't seen how hard it had been for Dan to agree to come over to start with, and he was afraid that maybe Dan would see this as pushing for something he wasn't really ready to discuss yet. Dan frowned at Jeannie and Steve in turn, but the look in his eyes was one of exasperation, not upset. Dan looked over at Mike and shook his finger at him. "All right, I'll tell, but you're paying for this partner. We're taking your car in the morning instead of my Bronco now, and you're driving, not me."

"Deal," Mike chuckled. "I'll make the grand sacrifice to satisfy Jeannie and Steve. Beside, Jeannie hasn't baked sugar cookies in a long time, I'm looking forward to having some tomorrow now."

Dan shook his head, smiling. "The things we do to satisfy your sweet tooth." Dan shot a look at Jeannie, took another sip of his coffee, then put the half-empty mug on the end table. "Sugar cookies. You play just as dirty as Mike does, I swear!"

Jeannie simply grinned at Dan. "Like father, like daughter. Now where are you two going, the suspense is killing me!"

Dan tapped Jeannie lightly on the nose, shaking his head. "You're worse than Christi was earlier," he declared. Dan looked at his friends each in turn, then looked back at Jeannie. "Bayview. We're going to Bayview in the morning."

"Bayview?" Steve asked. "Is someone in the hospital?"

"Seventeen children in the children's ward at last count this morning," Dan answered, reaching for his coffee again, but merely held the mug in his hand instead of taking another sip. "Might be down to fifteen by now, there was a chance that two of the kids would be well enough to go home today. Of course, if anyone has an accident on the streets, or somebody gets really sick, or something else happens, the number could be higher." Dan frowned a little at the thought. "Accidents, sickness, chronic illness, birth defects – none of them respect age or a calendar."

"Seventeen?" Jeannie breathed. "At Christmas?"

Dan nodded and finished his coffee, putting the empty mug back on the end table before facing Jeannie. "Folks are in the hospital year round, you know that. Adults miss being at home at times like this bad enough, but for a kid? Especially a really young one? Being in the hospital can be downright terrifying, and pretty lonely too if both parents have to work and can't stay for long periods in the hospital with them." Dan sighed, this time looking at Mike. "The kids, especially the little ones, when they're in the hospital this time of year, they start to worry that Santa won't be able to find them because they're not at home. Or worse, that he'll forget them because they're not at home. And all that worry just piles on top of them already not feeling well, being scared in some cases at being in the hospital to start with, and feeling lonely because they can't be with their family and friends like they want to be."

"And you play Santa Claus for them? How long have you been doing this, how did you get started?" Steve asked, leaning forward in his chair. The former Inspector had been friends with Dan for a little over two years, having met him a few months before he made detective, and had thought he knew Dan really well. "How come I didn't know about this?"

"I just try to help folks out when and where I can," Dan shrugged. "I've been playing Santa Claus for them over at Bayview ever since Christmas of '70, it's '77 now, so this will be the eighth time I've done it. Last year with that bug that was going around, there were twenty kids in the ward on Christmas Day, and that was down from twenty-six the night before."

Jeannie frowned, doing the math in her head. "When were you in the Army then? And didn't Mike tell me at one point that you joined the force in late in 1971, early 1972, something like that? And that you've got a college degree? When do you ever stop and take a break?"

Dan smiled and leaned over, putting his head on Jeannie's shoulder and pretended to fall asleep for a few seconds, then sat back up with a grin. "Break taken."

Jeannie lightly swatted Dan's knee. "That's not what I mean and you know it, buster! I mean it, when is the last time you stopped for more than a weekend?"

Dan chuckled and smiled at her. "I didn't realize you worried so much!"

Jeannie stuck out her tongue at him, swatting his knee again. "You are an onion, Dan Robbins!"

"I didn't think I smelled that bad, I can go take that shower now if I do."

"No silly!" Jeannie laughed, then gave the detective a light kiss on the cheek. "You don't smell like an onion, you're like one. You peel away one layer, and find out there's several more underneath."

"Well, it's nice to know that I'm more than just another pretty face to you, Jeannie. Thank you," Dan smiled impishly, then surprised her with a quick kiss on her cheek. "And it's nice to know I don't smell like an onion, or old cheese."

Jeannie laughed, then playfully sniffed the collar of Dan's shirt. "No, if anything, you smell like chocolate!" she declared. "You should tell Steve what cologne you use, I sure don't know of any that smell like chocolate. Maybe he'll have better luck with dating. You've got better eyelashes than him, so he needs all the help he can get!"

"Hey now!" Steve said, hopping up out of the chair and starting after Jeannie, who scampered into the kitchen. "What's wrong with my eyelashes?"

"Nothing, it's just that I've got girlfriends who would kill for eyelashes like Dan's. They should be classified as deadly weapons!" Jeannie squealed as Steve chased her into the kitchen, leaving a laughing Dan and Mike in the living room.

"Steve, it's not cologne, it's chocolate fudge! Miss Jeanette and Miss Nana insisted on making me eat some earlier, that's what is on the plate I brought!" Dan laughed and held his sides as Steve tried to catch Jeannie, but she kept the kitchen table between them.

"Don't break anything in there you two!" Mike called, laughing and smiling, enjoying watching his former partner and his daughter competing to see who would outsmart who around the table.

Dan chuckled and asked, "When are those two finally going to start dating already?"

"I don't know, I don't think they know," Mike smiled. "But it can't happen too soon for me."

"You're okay with it if they do?"

"Yeah… Yes, I am. A few years ago, maybe I wouldn't have been, Steve is a few years older than my Jeannie. But she's a grown woman now and knows her own mind. Why, are you trying to match them up? You don't want to date Jeannie yourself?" Mike teased.

"I'm no match for Jeannie," Dan laughed. "Too much for me to handle, I know my limits!" he joked. "Besides, I've seen how she looks at Steve and how he looks at her when they think nobody is looking at them, especially each other." Dan shook his head and sighed as Jeannie ran back into the living room to sit with him again, Steve hot on her heels, but admitting defeat and sitting back down in the chair he'd vacated moments before. "I may end up being a bachelor forever, I have lousy luck with dating."

"With those eyelashes?" Jeannie teased, giving Dan a playful hug. "I'm not kidding, they are lethal weapons, they hit the heartstrings, you've got to have women chasing you all over town!"

"Not me, no ladies trying to hunt me down I'm afraid."

"So who is Karen Watson, then?" Steve suddenly asked. "I just remembered, Bill called here before Mike got in and said a Karen Watson had called for you this afternoon, left a number to call her back. Bill didn't get you at your place, so he called here hoping that Mike would know where you might be." Steve shot an apologetic look at Mike. "Sorry, but when you came in and told us what happened, I forgot all about the message. The number is by the phone there, I can't believe I forgot the call – Dan? You okay?"

Dan's face had paled at the mention of the woman's name and he had frozen in place on the sofa. Mike watched his partner with concern. "Dan? Can I get you something?" The dark-haired man shook his head silently, waving Mike off. "Dan?"

"Dan, you look like you've seen a ghost, what's wrong?" Jeannie asked gently, taking his hand in hers. Slowly, Dan closed his hand around hers, but didn't look at any of them.

"That answers that question, she's back in town, has to be," he said softly. Dan stared at the floor for several long, quiet moments that his friends didn't dare break. Finally he took a breath and looked at Steve. "She's my ex-girlfriend from years ago, but she was Karen Barber then. And yes, before you ask," Dan said, looking over at Mike, "Barber as in Fred Barber, the commercial real estate developer. Karen is his and Leslie's daughter. And thank God she's nothing like them."

Steve gave Dan a puzzled look. "What do you mean by that, I've had to interview them before," he started, casting a glance over at Mike. "It was a case I worked on my own while you were out sick about four years ago with the flu, I needed to ask them if they had seen one of the suspects in a model's murder at a big society bash the night of the crime. They had, so that eliminated him early on." Steve looked at Dan, still puzzled. "They seemed pretty nice to me. A bit too stuffy for my taste, and their place practically oozed money, but they seemed nice enough."

Dan gave a dry laugh. "Oh, they can be nice and polite in all the proper situations Steve, never doubt that. But they're a couple of rich snobs who think that anybody who doesn't have a large enough bank account, or high enough social status, or who doesn't have some kind of high up power or authority is beneath their notice except in passing, or in business. Tell me, their niceness – did it feel to you like it was real?"

Steve leaned back in his chair and thought hard, recalling the wealthy couple to mind. Perfectly pressed and tailored clothes, not a hair out of place on either one of them, the whole house had seemed like something out of a magazine, everything almost too perfect. "It felt… Well, now that I think about it, it felt kind of chilly, you know? Very proper, very polite, almost too polite, but not in a way that gave you the feeling that they were trying to hide anything."

Dan nodded. "Yeah, that's them alright. They never considered me a suitable match for Karen because I don't come from money. Just a kid that had to earn everything he got, work for it, just like his parents. They measure the value of a person by their money, not their heart or character." He sighed then and leaned back into the sofa, wincing again as his back reminded him of the fight with Henry and Jake. He didn't let go of Jeannie's hand, though. "Don't get me wrong, they're not bad people. Fred Barber is a very fair businessman, he will not try to put one over on you in a deal, he's very straight up. But when it comes to relating to someone more personally… Karen and I both agreed long ago, her parents are a couple of idiot stuck-up snobs." Dan looked up at the ceiling. "Karen said she and Bob were going to move back to San Francisco, I guess they finally found a house. They got married earlier this year. I haven't heard from her in a while. Knowing her, with everything that was going on to plan the wedding, keep her parents from being pains while not excluding them, running a branch of her Dad's company over in Baltimore, and making plans to move back here, she probably lost track of time, and then probably lost my address and number while packing. And I've moved since she got married, so all of my information has changed, mail only gets forwarded for so long." Dan looked at Steve finally. "Figures she would call the one place she knew I would be, work. Did she leave any message there besides to call her?"

Steve nodded. "Bill said she said to tell you, 'Merry Christmas from all of us.' Dan? I didn't mean to hit a sore spot there, sorry buddy."

Dan shook his head. "It's okay, you didn't know." Dan finally let go of Jeannie's hand and got up from the sofa with a pained grunt. "Maybe I should skip Mass and just go straight for that hot shower and some sleep, I'm stiffer than I thought. Mike, you're sure that I'm not making things too crowded here tonight?"

Mike got up and put a hand on Dan's shoulder. "We're putting you in the spare bedroom, Steve's already called dibs on the sofa here. It's a new sofa bed, he's got one just like it at his place now and swears it sleeps better than his bed. You're not making things crowded at all, and if you're hurting too much to go to Mass with us then we can all just stay here –"

"No, I don't want you guys missing Mass just because of me," Dan protested.

"Dan," Jeannie said softly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have started all of this." Guilt was all over her face, she hadn't thought that asking where her father and his partner were going in the morning would end up taking such a sudden turn.

Dan sat back down on the sofa next to Jeannie and hugged her gently. "You didn't start anything, none of you did, nothing is anybody's fault. This all started a long time ago." Dan sighed, leaned back into the sofa and stared at the ceiling again for a while, then looked at Mike, who was still standing in the middle of the living room. "I owe you an explanation, partner."

"You don't owe me anything Dan – "

"No, I do," Dan said, cutting Mike off. "You saved my life out there today, did you know that? I don't know if you could see it from where you were, but Henry's finger was starting to squeeze the trigger when he pulled that gun on me, he was a second, two at the most from shooting me and there's no way I could have avoided the shot. When you yelled at him, it startled him, he released the trigger. I owe you, Mike."

Mike sat down on the edge of his chair next to the sofa, his hand on Dan's knee. "You don't owe me or any of us anything, Daniel," he said gently. "I'll not have you talking about anything because you feel like you owe us. Dan," he said, making sure he had his partner's undivided attention. "If you tell us anything about Karen, or whatever it is that's hurting you, it needs to be because you want to tell us, not because you think you have to, that you owe us something. You don't. Simply having you here with us is more than enough."

Dan shook Mike's hand gratefully. "Thank you," he answered quietly. He sat still for a few moments, stared off into the distance, memories he normally tried not to dwell on at this time of the year playing back in his mind. "To answer your earlier question Jeannie, I went into the Army straight out of high school in '63, signed up for a five year tour to have money for college, and as soon as I got out I went right into college and took as heavy a course load as I could so that I could graduate as fast as possible. I wanted to be a cop, but a cop with the options a degree could bring, like maybe one day moving into the DA's office or something like that. As for playing Santa at Bayview, Steve, I stumbled into that a couple of days before Christmas Day back in '70. As for the rest…" Dan lifted his hands, then let them fall helplessly into his lap. "I… I'm not sure where to begin."

"The beginning is usually a good place," Jeannie suggested gently.

Dan snorted lightly, shaking his head. "Which beginning, that's the question. The one with Karen picking me, one of the poorer guys in school to be her boyfriend our sophomore year of high school? The one where I enlisted and told her she didn't have to wait for me, but she did? The one where we moved in together as soon as I got out of the Army, and she was the breadwinner for us while I took classes non-stop and we saved for the day when we would finally get married, have a house of our own?" Dan stopped and looked at Mike then, giving him a sad look. "Or is it the one where I became a father?"