Chapter Six

Saturday morning Rick awoke to a dull light beginning to filter into his bedroom. Glancing at the nightstand clock, he saw it was just before seven thirty in the morning. Grumbling to himself, he rolled onto his side and tucked his head back against the pillow. If he had been in his own apartment, he knew that would have been one of those morning he didn't get out of bed until ten or later. His back ached from lifting Christmas trees in then out of a flatbed truck. His forearms and shoulders hurt from sawing them down and he was just…tired. Sadly, as he was a guest in the Beckett home, he did not have the luxury of being a sloth.

Feeling slightly better after a warm shower, Rick walked out into the main sitting area and froze at the very edge of the hall. A Christmas tree had been erected in the corner of the sitting room at some point in the twelve hours since he'd last been in that room. The tree wasn't the most beautiful Rick had seen. If anything it was a little…sad. More than a little sad. Charlie Brown-esque, even.

Just as he was about to take a step into the room, Rick remained frozen when a figure entered from the kitchen. She wore grey sweatpants with a drawstring waist and a bright red hooded sweatshirt bearing the Northeastern logo, her hair tucked up in a messy half-bun. She carried with her a cardboard box which she set down on the floor in front of the tree. Rick took note that two other boxes sat beside the couch. She opened one of them and pulled out a sizeable red ribbon. She held it up to one of the more obvious bald spots on the tree and stepped back, gazing at it with her arm fully extended. She tiled her head left and right before bending down and pulling a second red bow from the box and holding it up beside the first.

"You're going to need a few more to cover that—sorry," he added hastily when she visibly jumped. "Didn't mean to startle you."

She shook her head. "No it's okay; I didn't realize anyone else was up. There's coffee in the kitchen."

Rick nodded and walked into the adjoining room to pour himself a cup. The prior evening at dinner, he was informed that they did not need to report to the tree lot that day. Evidently, Kate and her father alternated Saturdays with her aunt and uncle and this was the Saturday they were "off." Jim told Rick that meant he had the day free of any tree-related responsibilities. Rick hadn't made plans for that day as of yet; thus, he had no problem watching—or perhaps even helping—Kate decorate.

"So what's with the sad tree?" he asked as he walked back into the sitting room with a mug of steaming java.

She gazed up at him from her position organizing silver and gold ornaments on the floor. "Dad always brought us home the saddest tree on the lot—made a big deal out of it saying he rescued it from spending the holiday season lonely or in the trash, but I only believed that until I was about eight. After that I knew it was because he didn't think he could sell it and didn't want to take a nice one for our house that he could sell."

Rick laughed as he sat down on the couch. "Nothing like ruining the rose-colored glasses version of a holiday."

She hummed in agreement before moving the now empty box aside. She then turned to one of the other boxes and pulled out several strands of tree lights bound in neat ovals. Glancing back at him she asked, "You wanna help?"

"Oh, sure." He set his coffee mug down on a coaster and stepped around the coffee table so he was just behind her. "I didn't want to intrude on your family traditions."

"It's fine, Rick. I don't think we have that many, to be honest. Just all of us kind of congregating around the tree lot. Oh, and we usually spend all of Christmas day in our pjs, but I don't know if that's a tradition."

His face brightened. "Of course—and it's the best one ever!"

She chuckled and handed him one of the strands of lights. They both took positions around the tree and began to lay the lights over the branches which, at times, became difficult given the gaping holes. "How about you? What Christmas traditions did you have growing up?"

"Getting plastered on egg nog, climbing up on the piano and singing very off-key Christmas carols—oh, wait that was just my mother." He stopped stringing lights to flash her a grin. "I guess…I guess we didn't have that many. I was really looking forward to starting some but Alexis wasn't quite there yet, you know? I don't know how many little kids you've been around…"

"Not many."

"Right well at three they kind of get that something is happening, but not enough to fully understand the concept of Santa and reindeer and all that stuff. All she knew was that guy at the mall in the red suit and white beard smelled funny and scared the hell out of her."

Kate let out a bark of laughter. "So you didn't get one of those cute pictures where the kid is smiling and so is Santa?"

Rick groaned at the memory. "Ugh, no. I think she screamed less the time she fell down and needed two stitches in her lip; it was awful." Sighing he turned back to stringing the lights. It had been over seven years earlier, but he remembered the day well.

The Manhattan shop had been packed—of course. What else happened to shops in the city on a Saturday afternoon? Alexis had done surprisingly well in the line. She was a bit restless, but they had played a game he invented about making up elaborated, fantastical stories about all the people they saw while waiting, which kept her mind busy. It wasn't until he held her hand and walked her towards the strange, bearded man that she began to melt down. He wanted to throw in the towel, but Meredith insisted; they'd waited in line for over an hour and they were getting the picture.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to bring up bad memories for you."

Rick turned to her and saw an uncertain expression on her face. He bent down and plugged in the string of lights he'd finished looping over the branches and took a step towards her. "No, no, quite the opposite in fact. I spent a lot of years trying not to think about Alexis, but that didn't make me happy; it only made it worse. Now I like to think of her. It's still sad, but that doesn't negate the great times we had together."

Though Kate offered a nod, a pang of jealousy shot through her chest. Rick had the attitude she wished she could. Years earlier, she thought the same thing: thinking about her mother hurt then, but the wound was still fresh. Eventually, she would be able to think about the happy times she had with her mother without feeling sick. Unfortunately, she still felt as though she was waiting for "eventually" to arrive. Even then, remembering childhood Christmases with her mother made her gut churn uncomfortably.

Shaking her head, Kate turned towards the box of silver ornaments. She needed a distraction. "What was she like?"

Rick picked up the red ornaments and said, "Alexis was…a firecracker. Literally. She had this orange red hair that her mother never wanted to cut so it was long and thick and beautiful. You could see her coming so far away because she was just this brilliant ball of orange."

They worked together alternating silver and red on the tree as Rick continued to chat about his little girl. "She was very precocious. She wasn't even four, but I swear some days she was the adult in the house. She had no problem telling me exactly what she wanted or exactly what she thought I was doing wrong. She loved to read, which I'm sure she got from me. We read all the time. Being a writer I was basically a stay at home dad."

"She sounds wonderful."

He nodded. "She was. And I miss her every day."

Fifteen minutes later, once all the globe-shaped ornaments were adorning the tree, Kate and Rick took a step back to observe it from afar. Kate stepped in, rearranged a few hanging objects, and then stepped back once more to reassess. She repeated this process twice more before pulling out the final box of ornaments.

Rick found this box to be the most interesting. Unlike the colored balls, it was clear this box was handmade. He spotted a few wooden ones that looked very familiar to those for sale at the tree stand, but others were made of felt or cloth; each of them unique.

Noticing he was doing more observing than hanging, Kate explained, "My mom made these ornaments. Well, she and aunt."

"Really? Your mother made ornaments too?"

Kate bobbed her head. "Yeah, um…it's how she met my dad, kinda. You know my aunt makes most of those wooden ornaments we sell? Well she met my mom at this craft fair thing in Brattleboro."

"Really?"

"Yeah. According to them, they hit it off because they were the only two people under fifty there."

Rick let out a breathy chuckle. "That I believe."

"So she and my mom became pen pals. My mom lived north of Brattleboro and my aunt lived here. And, as I'm sure you know, back when our parents were younger there was no internet."

He gave her a pointed look. "Oh I'm well aware. I'm pretty sure my mother still thinks smart phones are something out of Star Trek."

Kate laughed knowing that at one point her father had referred to his cell phone as a 'contraption.' "Right. Anyway this went on for a few months until Theresa invited my mom to come visit for a long weekend. She met my dad and…that was it, apparently."

Rick nodded and selected another wooden ornament from the box. As a writer, he loved origin stories and this one had not disappointed in the least. "Love at first sight?"

She snagged her bottom lip between her teeth. "Uh no. He fell in love with her, maybe, but she thought he was—quote—dorky."

"Nice!"

"Plus, she was a college girl and my dad was a guy with a high school education who worked in a mill."

Ah, Rick thought, even better. "So it was one of those."

"Yep."

"How'd they get together?"

"Well my mom was still friends with Theresa and I guess somehow it all worked out. Truthfully, I don't know the details and I'm not sure if I want to," she added with a scrunched nose.

He bobbed his head. "That's a totally fair point."

"Do you know how your parents got together?"

"Actually, I've never met my father."

Kate froze, her arms lifted to hang an ornament, thought it merely dangled from her index finger and thumb. "You…really?"

"Nope. My mother describes it as one night of love and passion and, as I'm sure you can appreciate, that's the most I ever want to know about it." He suppressed the urge to shiver at the memory of his mother's love-struck expression whenever she spoke of the night he was conceived.

Kate hummed under her breath. "Wow, I can't imagine growing up without both my parents."

Rick shrugged. "I never really noticed it, to be honest. I-" He paused when he pulled a peculiar looking item from the box. He presumed it to be a white snowflake from the general shape, but it was odd. The item appeared to be knitted or crocheted but the branches of the snowflake were interwoven in an intricate manner; he'd never seen anything like it before. "This is…interesting. Did your mother make it?"

Kate picked up the item from his palm and held it gently between her fingers. "Mmhm. She was very good at crocheting."

"Clearly."

"I kind of wished I'd learned. She tried to teach me once when I was sixteen. I, ah, threw the needle across the room." She added with a wry smile. Rick laughed and turned back to the nearly empty box of decorations.

Looking down at the ornament in her palm, Kate dusted her thumb over the edges. For the first time in a very long time, looking at it didn't make her sad. An ache still pulsed in her gut, but it was muted and easier to ignore than it ever had been. Gazing over at him she watched as he hooked one of her aunt's ornaments over a branch. It fell off and he fumbled to catch it before it fell. He was successful hand hung it back on a different branch, which mad her smile. "I ah…I don't usually talk about her; I guess you can understand that."

"Of course." When he looked at her, his heart fluttered in his chest. It was time. He had to tell her. He had to tell her that she—well, her Christmas card—had been the one that aided her in being able to talk about Alexis freely without feeling angry or immeasurable pain. "Actually I-"

"Katie." The voice of the elder Beckett interrupted Rick's confession and he flicked his eyes towards the man standing in the hallway. For the first time in a week he was not wearing his shoulder sling, only his elbow brace. He stepped into the room, his eyes brimming with no small amount of amazement. "You decorated the tree?"

"Oh yeah. Rick helped," she added, flashing her partner a smile.

Rick hung the last ornament on the tree before stepping around the couch and scooping up his coffee mug. He sensed the father-daughter duo might need a moment alone and decided to escape to the kitchen.

Jim stepped up beside the tree and observed with a smile. "Wow…I…when was the last time you did that? It must be years…"

Kate shrugged. He wasn't wrong; it had been man years since she decorated the tree and even then it was only after he'd used guilt to coerce her into assisting. She hadn't willingly decorated the tree since her mother passed—until that morning. She woke up, walked into the living room and felt an inexplicable wave of Christmas cheer. "Well, I know you like the tree. Plus I just…I don't know; I felt like doing it this year."

Jim pressed a kiss onto his daughter's cheek. "I'm very glad."

A/N: When will you see the next chapter? Nobody knows! (Except me - I know :) )

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