CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

It was the first night in eight weeks that Erin had slept this well.

The whole time that Avery had been in the facility, Erin had been worried sick – sometimes receiving phone calls from her in the middle of the night when Avery was particularly bad, but other times she just got herself into a panic after working a long day, or seeing a homeless kid on the street, or catching a glance at the semi-abandoned murder board that was in a corner of the bullpen and seeing seventeen-year-old Luca's smiling face staring back at them, his eyes accusatory and pleading them from the grave to step the hell up and catch his goddamn killer.

She'd seen these things every day for what felt like the majority of her life, but it had never got to her this badly before.

But tonight, she slept like a baby. In fact – she slept so well that when she awoke the next morning, the dull light of morning was drizzling through the window like the grey, overcast morning outside; the clouds hung low over the city and Erin smiled, smelling the coffee and the bacon and snuggling deeper under the covers. When she finally had awoken enough that it didn't hurt her eyes to move, she threw back the covers and clambered out of bed, pulling on her fluffy socks and an old grey sweater that lay hanging over the back of the chair, and padded quietly into the kitchen.

But she stopped dead in the hallway and listened at the door to the kitchen, a huge smile breaking out on her face at the sound of chatting and laughter inside. Where she expected to find just Jay, making them breakfast and coffee as he did more often than she probably deserved, she opened the door to see Avery buttering the toast and throwing Jay the oven gloves while he fried the bacon on the stove and stole sips of coffee, a tea towel tucked under his belt and an array of condiments and breakfast foods littered all over the surfaces.

"Morning," she said to the two of them, still slightly stunned at the scene before her, and she wandered around to join them. "Kiss," she demanded of Jay, and went on her tippy toes. He took his eyes off the bacon for a second to kiss her on the lips, and Avery averted her gaze.

"Ew, you guys," she muttered. "Get a room!"

Jay smirked against Erin's face. "Morning babe," he whispered, ignoring Avery.

"How come you're up so early?" Erin turned to face the teenager, raising an eyebrow. "I remember having to literally drag you out of bed most mornings!"

Avery shrugged. "New page. New habits. I like waking up early, I discovered over the past few weeks. Especially in winter when you can see the sun rise."

"That's my girl," Jay laughed at Erin's slightly bemused expression.

"Great," she grumbled. "Now I have two of you to compete with. Well, as long as you don't disturb my lie-ins, I guess."

Avery smirked. "No promises," she grinned, and handed Erin a cup of steaming coffee. "Here," she said, and Erin took it.

"I take it back," she grinned. "If this is how I'm gonna get greeted every morning, then by all means, wake up as early as you like!"

Jay chuckled, shaking his head. He'd finished with the bacon and was dishing it up onto three plates. Together, they sat around the small table in the kitchen and ate breakfast together. Like a family, at home.

And then they spent all morning together. They played board games, watched TV, argued over who got to choose the channel, shared stories, laughed, helped Avery unpack.

It was the kind of morning that spilled on late into the afternoon, and the evening, stretching out into its own little infinite vacuum of time and space until Erin's phone rang and begrudgingly, they all piled into the car despite the rain lashing outside the apartment, and made their way to the district to do their jobs.

But although it was a miserable day, and she and Jay were greeted upon arrival in the bullpen with a miserable case that shook their faith and their hearts and made everyone feel even more miserable, Erin just had to look over at where Avery was reading in the breakroom, or writing something down in a little notebook Erin had bought her a few weeks ago, or when she came out to chat to everyone for a while, to know that she had everything she wanted. This, being here, with her favorite people in the world – her family – solving cases, catching criminals, was everything she'd ever wanted.

It was everything Avery had ever wanted.

It was everything that Jay wanted, too, but Erin looked over at him every so often and got that familiar tightness in her stomach and she wondered whether he wanted something more. She didn't know whether she trusted him to tell her if he wasn't happy, and she was too scared to assume that he was.

The next week, Avery started to go to school every morning. Erin managed to pull some strings to keep her out in the afternoons – a mixture between making sure that she was available for witness identification and a compulsory post-rehab therapy session. The nature of her timetable meant that she made it to English class most often, and, after her long book discussions with Erin and their mutual eagerness to read, she seemed to be really enjoying it.

One evening, Erin's phone rang while she was sat in bed, and she grabbed it from the bedside table when it buzzed, frowned when there was an unknown caller ID and the voice at the other end was somewhat familiar.

"Hi, is this Detective Lindsay?"

"Yes?"

"It's Mrs Puckett, Avery's English teacher. I was just ringing to tell you how pleased I am to see Avery's aptitude for English and to see how passionately she engages with her studies. She's come forward in leaps and bounds in the past few weeks, even if I have only seen her sporadically, and I wanted to tell you how proud I am that she seems to be particularly talented at creative writing."

"I'm…glad to hear that, Mrs Puckett," Erin frowned. She hadn't realized what an impression Avery had made on her teacher, and she wasn't quite sure why she was being told this over the phone rather than at the parent-teacher consultation a few weeks later that she'd had penciled in her calendar as soon as Avery came home with the little yellow slip and handed it to her sheepishly; you don't have to come. I know you're busy. Erin had told her not to be silly, of course I'm coming, Avery! and handed her back the form in about thirty seconds.

It had made her feel like a proper parent, and she'd loved it, relished in the excitement that brewed in her chest at things as simple as parents' evening.

"I understand how difficult Avery's situation has been, and how much she's been through in the past few years, but there's a creative writing competition that takes place across high schools in Illinois, and I was wondering if you'd like to talk to her about entering? I had the students hand in a creative writing assignment the other day and Avery's was…well, it was nothing short of phenomenal."

"Wow, thank you, ma'am. I'll be sure to pass it onto her, I'm sure she'll be delighted." Erin's heart swelled with pride at the thought.

"Thank you."

"Ma'am, I'm sorry to ask, but do you mind telling me how she's really doing in school?"

"Doesn't she talk to you about it?"

"Of course, but I think she feels indebted to me to the point that she'd lie to make sure I thought she was happy. She feels too guilty to not be content, I think. I just want what's best for her."

"Well, Ms. Lindsay, she's quiet. Very quiet. And she can be sullen and stroppy at times, but she's a good kid. She has a couple of friends. And, like I said, she's going to make an extraordinary writer one day. As for her other subjects, I can't speak on behalf of my colleagues, but I'm sure she's doing okay."

Erin nodded. "Okay," she breathed a sigh of relief just as Jay came into the room. She was already in her pajamas and had been sat in their bed in that old AC/DC t-shirt with a book in front of her when Mrs. Puckett had called. "Thanks for the call, I really appreciate it."

They said goodbye, and Jay looked at her questioningly when she hung up.

"That was Avery's English teacher. She wanted us to know that Avery's excelling at English, and specifically, creative writing, and to tell us that she'd like for Avery to participate in this state-wide creative writing competition."

"Wow," Jay breathed, and threw back the covers to join her. "That's huge!"

"Mmm," Erin sighed and snuggled up to his chest, tossing her book aside and breathing in his scent. "I'm so proud of her," Erin murmured into his chest.

There was a sudden sharp intake of breath from Jay and Erin looked up at him in alarm. "Jesus," he gritted his teeth. "Your feet are freezing!"

Erin smirked.

The next few weeks were characterized by a series of tiny milestones. First friend Avery was allowed to bring home. First time Erin let her have a weak painkiller to fend off a particularly bad headache. First family dinner at Hank's. Being given her own key to their apartment. The first time she was trusted to catch the bus from her school to the district, and then, after that, the first time she was allowed to go straight home without waiting for Erin or Jay to drop her off when they had a break.

Tiny milestones - or huge leaps, depending on how you looked at them.

Avery and Erin grew closer and closer.

Avery had jumped at the chance to write for a competition, and had asked Erin's advice on what topic to choose.

Write what you know, Erin had told her.

But everything I know is so depressing, Avery said back.

Erin shrugged. Sometimes the best art comes from pain.

Avery grinned back at her. Like The Bell Jar? And Tess?

Exactly.

When she'd finished writing her piece for the competition, Erin made her read it aloud in front of her and Jay in the living room one evening when they were cuddled on the couch in front of a sad-looking and rather tacky Christmas tree. Erin and Jay were sipping glasses of red wine, which was another milestone for Avery, being around alcohol. It had taken a lot of persuasion for her to finally agree to read out loud to them - despite her love of books, she'd been out of education for the best part of nearly five years so reading aloud was a challenge - but eventually, she sat cross-legged on the floor in front of them, dressed in a baggy sweater and fluffy socks, her hair scraped up into a messy ponytail, and began to read with a small, shaky, voice.

It was all about Luca.

Write what you know, Erin had said.

So Avery had written a piece about what it was like not knowing. What were Luca's last words? Avery was there, but she couldn't remember, and there was no one who could tell her. What was going through his head when he died? Why had he died? Why had he been killed when she hadn't, when he was a far better person than she'd ever be? And, most importantly, who had killed him? Were they ever going to pay for their actions? There were so many questions.

It was naked and vulnerable and honest, her writing. It told the cold, bitter truth: what it was like living on the streets. What it felt like to have the only stable aspect of your life shot through the head in front of your very eyes and all the things that went alongside that.

She talked about herself, too. How impossible it was to even remember who she had been before she had the weight of her best friend's murder weighing on her shoulders and clouding her vision. How she often wondered whether it was worth it - "there was only one bullet," she read, getting more and more into it with every word that left her lips, as if the typed up manuscript in front of her was absorbing her whole, "but there was two deaths. I will never be that girl again."

Her narrative was poetic, and Erin smiled in spite of how emotional it was when she noticed Plath's influence in the way Avery liked to put her metaphors at the end of sentences, and Hardy's influence in the way she spoke of how hard it was to reconcile who she was 'before' and who she is 'after' and how unfair it is that the world doesn't care about her blight. It just spins around on its axis, callously indifferent to her suffering despite having caused it. The longer sentences, Erin recognized as Woolf's influence, while the imagery and the symbolism that resonated throughout reminded her of The Great Gatsby, another one she'd recommended to her.

Some of it was angry, some of it was sad. Parts of it were even funny.

But Mrs. Puckett had been right – it was phenomenal.

When she was finished, Erin and Jay both applauded her, whooping and cheering in their tiny living room, giving her a standing ovation and making her blush, before Erin pulled her to her feet and started to dance around to All I Want For Christmas as it played on the stereo, and Jay pulled Avery onto his back and she screamed.

After a while, the three of them fell onto the sofa laughing, and Erin snatched the remote control from the couch's armrest, flicking through channels to find a Christmas movie for them to watch, and none of them had ever been happier.

Little did they know then, that less than a week later, it would all be gone.