AN: Random thought – I just stumbled upon the fact that in Large Blade, Mac said that according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the entropy of any system will decrease over time, which is actually the opposite of the actual Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is that it will increase over time…and now it is really annoying me. #chem major problems
Anyway, on with the story!
EDIT: Thanks to helloyesimhere for spotting the random line break and telling me about it!
CHRISTMAS EVE
JACK'S RESIDENCE
PASADENA
Jack stared at Matty, locked in a staring contest with his cat, as he ate his breakfast cereal. As usual, he blinked first and she meowed victoriously at him.
He sighed.
He hadn't missed the fact that there was still something of a sort between him and Diane. Some spark. Some feelings that not even everything that had passed between them; him leaving, Sarah, ten years of no contact, could get rid of.
He'd let Sarah go. He really had. He'd had closure, she'd moved on, and he had too.
She'd always have a special place in his heart, but then again, Diane had too, all these years, even when he'd been pining for the woman that he called the right one, the one that got away.
Maybe he'd been wrong about that.
Maybe there was more than one right one.
Mac had gone on about something like that the other day, supported by Bozer.
Multiverse theory or something like that.
Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Some idea about how there were an infinite number of Bizzaro universes out there, where everything was just that little bit different.
He thought back to what he'd told Mac and Bozer, made the two younger men promise. When you found the right one, you didn't let her go without a fight.
He hadn't put up much of a fight, ten years ago.
Just left, hadn't stopped to think and ask and talk to them.
Riley and Diane had forgiven him.
The hurt he'd inflicted would take some time to heal, but they were well on the way to things being almost like they'd been back then again.
Happy.
Loving.
Maybe it was time to put up a bit of a fight again.
Try.
Seize this second chance.
'What do you think, Matty?'
His cat just yowled at him as if to say stupid man, jumped onto his shoulder,and dug her claws into him, then crawled down him slightly and head-butted him over his heart.
It seemed like she was ordering (and make no mistake, he knew she was ordering, not suggesting) him to follow his heart.
As if to emphasize that, she dug her claws into him again.
Jack shook his head, gently pulling her off him and putting her down as he got up.
'Crazy cat.'
JACK AND PATRICIA'S GYM
LA
Patty raised an eyebrow at him, as she unwrapped her hands, and he unstrapped his knee and wrist after their work-out.
He sighed.
The woman would have made a damn good spy; she could read anyone like a book, he reckoned.
She also had this knack of making you talk.
'Bozer's plan, his Christmas miracle, it went well.' He smiled, small and soft and fond. 'Really well. Diane and Riley forgave me.'
He glanced over at her, and a moment of mutual understanding, of remembrance of lost love, passed between them.
She broke the silence.
'You got a second chance.' She reached up and played with the chain of her necklace for a moment. 'That's a rare thing. Don't waste it.'
She stood, and Jack stood too and spoke on impulse.
'Patty, I'm going to Mac and Bozer's for Christmas, would you like to come with? There's always room for another friend, and no-one should be alone on Christmas Eve.'
She gave him a small smile, gratefulness in her dark and often-inscrutable eyes, but shook her head.
'No, thank you, Jack. I've got someplace to be, and I'm not going to be alone.' She picked up her boxing gloves. 'Merry Christmas, Jack.'
He smiled at her, picking up his own gloves.
'Merry Christmas, Patty.'
CEMETERY
LA
Patricia Thornton bent down and deposited the little bunch of forget-me-nots before her fiancé's grave, a softness and an affection in her posture, on her face, in her eyes, that was a very, very rare sight.
'Merry Christmas.'
Glancing around, seeing that she was alone, she sat down in front of the headstone and started talking.
'Three years ago, I cut a deal for a girl who hacked the Pentagon because she just wanted to see if she could. Yesterday, she reconciled with my training buddy, who walked out on her and her mom ten years ago.' She shook her head with a small smile. 'It's a small world…'
SHELTER FOR SURVIVORS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
LA
Patricia smiled as she embraced the seventy-eight year old woman, with grey hair that had once been dark and the same slim elegant figure as she did, despite her age.
'Merry Christmas, Mom.'
'Merry Christmas, Patricia.'
The mother and daughter, one retired District Attorney, one current, released one another with a smile.
'How are the preparations going?'
Her mother's smile widened.
'Very well, though we've still got a lot of presents to wrap, particularly since your colleagues dropped off another load this morning…'
She followed her mother into a room full of wrapping paper and ribbons and flurries of activity.
Patricia picked up a stuffed elephant and started wrapping it, as her mother picked up a toy car.
They were servants of the law, but both mother and daughter were firm believers in justice, too.
People, Patricia believed, were not born evil.
Crime had an awful lot of roots, an awful lot of causes, though people, she believed, should be held responsible for what they did.
Still, there was room for compassion, for care, and for nuance, in the law.
And she, and her mother, and most of her colleagues, believed in doing what they could to prevent crime, in the purest, most preventative way possible.
Patricia knew that helping to ensure that these children and their families had a warm meal, somewhere safe to be, and gifts and a visit from Santa for Christmas was unlikely to prevent, say, a murder or a robbery in future.
It was just one day. One occasion.
An important day, but still just one day.
Still, she firmly believed that the work her mother had taken up after retirement, volunteering and doing charity work with those born disadvantaged or down on their luck because of a myriad of causes, the work that Patricia tried to help with whenever she could, was making a difference.
Hence, of course she willingly gave up her Christmas Eve (and would give up her Christmas Day, tomorrow), despite the fact that holidays were so rare for her.
Christmas, after all, was a time for giving.
She and her mother exchanged a smile with some of the other volunteers.
She hadn't lied to Jack, not at all.
She did have someplace to be, and she wasn't alone.
Not in the slightest.
MAC'S RESIDENCE
PASADENA
'You know, the first person to declare that two people should kiss under a poisonous, parasitic weed must have been really, really persuasive.'
Standing on a chair, hanging up the mistletoe that Penny had brought and demanded that he suspend from the living room ceiling (Penny herself was currently in the kitchen helping Bozer), Mac looked down at his smiling girlfriend and gave a snort of laughter.
'I think it has its roots in Norse mythology, it was a symbol of love and friendship, if I remember correctly…though, it's an odd choice of plant, I admit.'
She just shook her head, still smiling, as he stepped back down.
'Any excuse for a kiss, I guess.'
Mac took a step closer to her, a sly little smirk on his face.
'Well, it'd be a shame to break tradition.'
She smiled up at him, and took a half-step closer, putting her hands on his shoulders, and he ducked his head and kissed her.
Yeah, it's a poisonous, parasitic weed.
Still, I have a soft spot for mistletoe.
Bozer and Penny, who'd just walked into the living room, on their way out to the deck (it was time to put the pastrami into the grill –Jack, Diane and Riley were due to arrive in half an hour), exchanged a look and grins.
'My little boy's all grown up.'
Bozer actually sniffled as he said that.
Penny just nodded.
'He's come a really long way since Darlene Martin.'
Later that evening, Mac took Bozer's fancy dessert (it was some sort of Christmas cake-stollen-panettone-ice-cream hybrid) out of the freezer, as Beth sliced and dished up the spiced chocolate pie she'd made and brought with her.
They were the only two in the kitchen at the moment. (Penny was in the bathroom and Jack and Diane were out on the deck, cleaning the grill, while Bozer and Riley were tidying up the wrapping paper in the living room.)
He stared at the delicious-looking monstrosity before him.
'Beth, do you have any idea how this is supposed to be served?'
She glanced over at him and the dessert, and gave him a wry little smile.
'Angus MacGyver, stumped? The end must be nigh!' He just shook his head fondly, and she continued. 'You should probably just ask Bozer.'
He nodded, and ducked out of the kitchen, heading down the hallway into the living room.
'…Thank you, Bozer. Really, thank you.'
Bozer just smiled widely back at Riley, with soft, affectionate eyes. Loving eyes, a voice in her head whispered.
'It was my pleasure, Riley, really was.'
She nodded and then pointed up at the ceiling.
'Oh, look, mistletoe.'
She leaned over and kissed him on the lips.
Mac turned away, ducking back down the hallway, trying to give his friends (he and Riley might have only just met, but in a way, it felt like they'd known each other for months, through Bozer's stories –besides, she was important to Bozer, really, really important to Bozer, and that made her part of the family, in his mind) some privacy.
A minute later, Riley came into his field of view, and Mac ducked around the corner and looked into the living room. His best friend was still standing under the mistletoe, a rather stunned expression on his face. He watched as it slowly morphed into the biggest grin Mac had seen on his face in years.
He smiled at Riley, who'd paused next to him.
'You just made his Christmas.'
Riley glanced back over at Bozer, a softness in her eyes and a sweet little smile on her face.
'He made mine.'
Sitting next to one another on chairs at the outdoor table, the grill freshly cleaned, Diane shook her head, laughing, as Jack finished telling her the story of how he came to own a cat that might hate him.
Their eyes met, and they stared at one another for a long, long moment.
'Diane…if I could go back in time…I'd…I'd have come right back. I know it's not possible, but I would.'
Diane just nodded, and then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
He just looked at her, a bit surprised and very hopeful.
'The mistletoe's inside…'
She just smiled at him, that same hope in her eyes.
'Maybe it's not too late.'
AN: And they all had a very merry Christmas. Hey, it'd be a bad rom-com without a sappy Christmas scene, right?
The entire thing with Patricia's mom is inspired by a single line that she said in Wire Cutter – 'Let's just say, I'm my mother's daughter.' Bozer's crazy dessert might not actually be delicious – I personally find most 'Frankenfoods' terrifying, but I really wanted it to a) be weird and b) be something that could somewhat-plausibly stump Mac.
Just an epilogue left to go now – Valentine's Day, 2018! What a difference a year makes, right? ;)