28 days!

This was written thanks to a prompt from the ever-so sweet Smuffly. Hope you like it! :) x

Technically, he hadn't gone over budget. Adam had spent exactly ten dollars of the ten dollar Secret Santa budget.

Though technically that was with a discount coupon and a donation from Mac (He offered, he certainly wasn't asked). The extra meant he could go all-out and get the 'luxurious suedette effect' for the cover.

It was surprisingly easy to collect all of the photographs. Once he started asking - and others heard of his project - he had had envelopes full of pictures being covertly passed to him in the locker room or in the middle of manila 'case' files.

He had had to make a few phone calls for the more tricky ones; her graduation photographs from college and the Academy, a couple from her time with Narcotics in Brooklyn, even a few bonus ones from nights out thanks to one of the girls there.

It felt weird to him sometimes, chronicling her life for her. She'd lost so much in that fire - her life thus far except for what she had in her locker at work - he'd just wanted to give her something back; Some memories for her to look back on.

She'd had a tough year - after tough year, after tough year, it seemed - and as hard as she fought, he could see that she'd lost something; A sparkle in her eyes, a spring in her step, a bubble in her laugh. She could disappear to a far off place when she thought no one was looking, a place that seemed to worry her. She would snap out of it as soon as someone spoke to her, or broke her line of sight, and she'd have an instant smile for them; A facade.

He was so excited when he had finished it. He had to say, he was pretty proud of it. He'd scanned nearly a hundred photographs into his computer (all on his own time, of course) and then sorted and arranged them across the pages using the website. The hardest part was probably the waiting for it to arrive. Finally, finally, it came and, yes, had done a pretty damn good job.

He wrapped it as best he could and wrote the tag out, taping it to the top corner: 'To Stella, Merry Christmas, love Santa x'

He smuggled it into his lab and tucked it into the cupboard below the desk, busying himself with work at the computer that was across from her office. He could see her working – and floating to worrisome daydreams – his heart was pounding as he tried to gauge when best to drop the gift on her desk. He didn't really want to be there when she opened it. Well, he didn't really want to be there if she opened it and hated it, found it to be a vast intrusion into her personal life and wanted to hit something...

Mac took her away, eventually, having seen Adam's pained expressions and second-guessed actions for long enough. Adam watched as he led her down the hall to his office with a hand to the small of her bank and a hidden head tilt to him that now was the time to strike.

The simple act of sliding the photo album from the shelf beneath his desk suddenly seemed damn near impossible. His hands had seemingly developed an instant sheen of sweat and around two tons of lead, evident by the times – more than one - that his grip slid off the door handle and whacked into the desk. A few mumbled swears, a calming breath and finally he had the infernal thing in his hand and was skittering across the corridor.

He dropped the parcel onto her desk, knocking over a pen holder and sending papers fluttering in all directions. He dropped to his knees, frantically trying to pick them up, put them back and run back to his lab just as Stella and Mac were turning the corner.

Mac had to comically spin Stella around, lest she see the more than suspicious mad dash of a certain lab tech from her office. Adam couldnt begin to imagine what excuse Mac had given for the impromptu spin as he ran back across the hall, only realising the glass door was shut at the last possible second.

He sat down in his chair and took a breath, wiping his sweating hands over his jeans before raking them through his hair. He had so much more admiration for James Bond...

A leftover smirk was still on her lips from whatever Mac had said to her, but it quickly dissolved to confusion then amusement as she locked eyes with a staring Adam. He quickly flung his hands in the direction of anything work-related, but sent a beaker crashing to the floor instead.

He was crouched low, his eyes and forehead only visible from above the work surface, as he watched her sit behind her desk.

He couldn't believe it.

He thumped his head onto the desk - repeatedly - a groan of frustration leaving his lips as he slid to sit on the floor, his back to the cupboard. In his haste to pick up the papers he had dropped, it seemed he had reassembled them right on top of the gift and pretty much covering it entirely.

More hours of torture until she found the blessed thing!

He waited.

And he waited.

And he freaking waited.

She typed at her computer, she pulled a reference book from a shelf, she looked out of the window.

She typed some more, she made a call, she signed off a casefile.

Torture!

Finally, blessedly, she started to look around her desk for a something - probably something he'd tossed on the floor nearly an hour before.

He watched from his vantage point across the corridor as she flicked up papers and books and boom, she stilled.

Her eyes fell onto the tag and her eyebrows rose in confusion, realisation, and intrigue.

She lifted it over onto her blotter, tortuously slowly sliding a nail beneath the fold of bright red paper with cartoon Santas and Rudolphs.

Adam watched with baited breath as she spread tattered remains of wrapping paper to the side, and stroked a hand over the soft cover on its way to the corner.

He wasn't breathing. He definitely wasn't breathing.

She flipped onto the first page and covered her mouth with her hand.

She was crying. Oh shit, in a good way or a bad way? Oh shit.

She flicked through some other pages and a smile crept across her lips, and then a laugh as she turned another. Her eyes scanned the offices, falling onto Adam as he stood like a deer caught in emerald green, almond-shaped headlights.

The way his pale face stared at her – etched with trepidation and almost fear - told her everything she needed to know. "Thank you," she whispered, another tear slipping from her cheek.

He breathed.

He managed to nod, a smile forming as he finally inhaled and relief flooded his entire body.

She sat back in the chair, hefting the book onto her knee as she flicked onto a photograph of the team, of her friends. Mac, Lindsay, Danny, Flack, Sheldon, Sid, Adam and herself; arm in arm around the Christmas tree from the year before.

Her team, her friends, her family.

Maybe she wasn't as alone in it all as she thought…