#3 Oh, Holey Night

Steve closed his eyes as Burton helped lower him into one of the stiff little chairs that lined the small room, his fingers automatically fumbling for his ear mike as the security officer wandered off to find the nurse. "Cahill?"

The mike crackled. "Here, sir."

"Got him yet?"

"Not yet, sir. But we're on it."

"Stiles? Harper? Anything?"

"No, sir."

"Sorry, sir."

Steve refused to sigh. That was becoming a habit. "Well, look alive. He's out there somewhere." And with my luck he's hunkered down in the men's room for the night. I could be stuck here all night. The PA system chimed in with a cheery rendition of Most Wonderful Time of the Year and he reached up to rub a swelling headache away from his eyes.

Okay, I get it. Give it a rest, already.

"Sir?"

He dropped his hand from his eyes and looked up to see Burton's anxious, wizened face before him, a rounder face surrounded by a halo of fuzzy brown hair floating over his shoulder.

"Here's the nurse. She'll take good care of you." Burton turned to address the floating face. "He's a police officer."

Sounded kind of like the way someone might say, "He's the King of Denmark", Steve mused absently. Nice change from the fear and revulsion his occupation usually engendered. Burton seemed to evaporate before his eyes, replaced by the sturdy bulwark of the nurse peering down at him.

"Well, this is a little change from air sickness and flight attendants with the stomach flu," the nurse remarked cheerfully. "What the heck happened to you, officer?"

"Lieutenant," he corrected automatically. "Fell. I just need to be patched up enough to get back on my feet. As quickly as possible."

"Really." The nurse was thoughtfully probing the surface of his skull and he jerked involuntarily. "Cracked your head a good one, I see."

She had his head in a firm grip, or Steve would have nodded. "A little aspirin would take care of that."

"I've got aspirin." The nurse's tone didn't promise anything. "What happened here?"

"Oh…" Steve followed her gaze to his now-tattered blue jeans. "Had a little run-in with a perp - think he must have made a shiv out of something - ex-cons learn a lot of good tricks in prison. If you could just put a bandage on that…"

"How'd you blow the knees out?"

Oh.

He hadn't even noticed that. But indeed, both legs of his jeans were torn to reveal abraded, seeping knees and shins underneath. "Probably the escalator. A little mercurochrome - I could dab it on while you take care of the laceration. I'm pretty used to it. My father's a doctor."

"And then you can get back to work."

"Right. I've really got to nail this guy down - "

The nurse rose to her feet and retreated to a door at the back of the room. Her voice trailed behind her, underscored by the Christmas carol from overhead. "Were you ever in the service, Lieutenant?"

"Steve," he offered, trying to hide his surprise. "Yeah. Vietnam. Why do you ask?"

"I did a tour in Desert Storm." The nurse reappeared with a small cart of stacked drawers. "You know, they've really got to stop teaching you guys to get back up no matter what."

"Look, Nurse - " He tried to get a glimpse of the name tag pinned to her capacious bosom - K. Petrillo, NP. "Petrillo. I'm not trying to be a hero here. I've got an armed felon running around this airport and I'm down a man - I can't afford to be down another, and I don't have time to wait for reinforcements - especially on Christmas Eve, when we're short staffed to begin with. And to be perfectly honest, I'd like to be home, sitting next to my own wassail bowl, any time now. I need to wrap this up. I'm just going to be sitting in a surveillance room anyway, directing things. If you could just tape me together long enough to do that, I'd really appreciate it."

Nurse Petrillo placed a length of clean gauze over his thigh and guided his hand to it. "Hold that there. Karen."

Steve obediently pressed on the wound, a little baffled. "Huh?"

"Karen. If you're Steve, then I'm Karen. Keep pressure on that. You want some Christmas punch?"

"Um - " Steve glanced down at the stain spreading across the cloth under his hand and grimaced. "Sure."

Nurse Karen retreated to the back again and returned with a small paper cup and a cold pack. She handed him the punch, then lifted his other hand from his leg and threw the stained cloth into a plastic container labeled "biohazard", replacing it with a pressure bandage and placing a cold pack in his free hand instead. "Put that against the back of your head. Cheers - the punch is my secret recipe. I inherited it from my mother."

Steve flinched as the cold pack made contact with the pulsing spot on the back of his skull and sipped tentatively at the punch while Nurse Karen busied herself with his leg. "Tastes just like Hawaiian Fruit Punch," he remarked, shifting the cold pack to a more comfortable position.

"Darn. You've guessed my secret. Now, don't go giving that away - my mother would never forgive me."

Steve surprised himself with a laugh. "Your secret is safe with me."

"Should have known I could trust a police officer."

Steve settled deeper into the undersized chair as the PA system hummed on about tidings of comfort and joy. Well, maybe joy was stretching it a little, but he was feeling a tiny bit of comfort. He took another sip of the too-sweet punch. "So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this on Christmas Eve?"

Nurse Petrillo bared his arm and snapped a blood pressure cuff around it, pumping the cuff full of air. "Same as you. Working. I always try to take this shift so the ones with kiddies don't have to." She noted the reading and let the cuff deflate.

"That's nice." Steve thought about his father and Jesse and Amanda, expecting him, and lowered the cold pack, suddenly feeling as deflated as the blood pressure cuff. "Still, families comes in all shapes and sizes. I don't have any kids, but I'd still like to be celebrating Christmas Eve with my family."

Nurse Petrillo had one of the plastic drawers open and was wielding a sharp pair of sturdy scissors. "Well, my family is a pair of cats and they don't really know one day from another, as long as I feed them and keep the litter box clean. You know, it would probably be best if I just cut both legs out and made these a nice pair of shorts."

Steve scowled down at his torn and stained jeans, crumpling the empty paper cup and winging it at the biohazard container. "This may be California, but it's also December - I can't be running around the airport in shorts - I'm supposed to be inconspicuous."

"With all due respect, Lieutenant - er, Steve - you can't be running around, period. I thought you were just going to be sitting around, directing."

"Well, mostly." Steve watched in alarm as she ruthlessly slit one pant leg up to his injured knee and carefully peeled the cloth back. When she was satisfied with her work, she continued upward to the knife slit and tore the cloth away all the way around. Steve felt it was time to protest. "I can't be seen in public in these."

"All the more reason to go home." She lifted the pressure bandage to look. "This is probably going to hurt. I can butterfly it for now, but you may need stitches there. Since your father's a doctor, you know that you have a limited time to get them put in before it's too late and you're just stuck with an ugly scar?"

"Yeah, I know. Trust me, I have more than my share of ugly scars. One more won't kill me."

"Well, I think it's a shame. Such a pretty leg."

"Funny."

"Who's joking? You know, they do have a store for athletic wear here. Maybe we can get you a nice pair of sweat pants that won't irritate your knees."

Steve watched dismally as she sliced her way up the other pant leg. "Good idea - hey!" D -.

He closed his eyes hastily against the dull concussion of pain that that unwise exclamation started in his head. More quietly he continued, "How late are the stores open here?"

Karen glanced up at him, eyebrows high. "I'm not sure, on Christmas Eve. Nine o'clock, maybe."

Steve was thinking quickly. What could you buy in an airport gift shop that would make a nice holdover gift for his Dad? His burst of optimism slid rapidly south. Probably a t-shirt, visor and mug saying "I Love California" weren't the most meaningful gifts for a man who had spent most of his life there. His spirits sank a little lower. A whole wall of kitschy refrigerator magnets didn't seem very special either. Or an odd collection of oft-forgotten travel toiletry items.

"Keep this leg still for me - "

He tried to keep his leg immobile, sorting and discarding gift options in his mind. After a moment he realized that Nurse Petrillo didn't seem to be treating his leg, and he glanced up and caught her studying his face.

"You look like somebody shot your dog."

"I haven't had a dog for years," he answered automatically. "It's just - the gift I ordered for my father didn't come on time, and now I'm trying to think of where I can get something to give him until it does come."

"You mean between chasing felons and flying down escalators."

Steve squirmed a little as she pushed a salve-laden cue-tip into the slash on his thigh. "I'll admit the timing's inconvenient. But I have to come up with something."

Karen blotted at some fresh bleeding with a gauze patch. "You don't think your father would understand?"

"Of course he would - " Steve closed his teeth hard as she dug in deeper. Man, that stung. And medical personnel always seemed so surprised when you weren't in a rush to receive treatment. He sucked in a breath as she paused to reach for a clean bandage. "It's just - "

Just what? How could he explain that the idea of Christmas morning and his father without something special from him to open took a lot of the luster out of the day?

Feeling awkward, he averted his eyes, decided that watching her dig into his leg wasn't too appealing and let his gaze skim the walls instead. His casual perusal came to an abrupt halt, fixing on the wall clock as if it had personally betrayed him. "Is that really the time?"

Karen glanced up from her work on his leg. "You know, I have about a hundred smart answers to that, but I'm going to take mercy on you because you look like you've had a rough day."

Steve patted anxiously at his pockets. "I can't believe it's so - " he found his phone and flipped it open, hitting a speed dial button. He counted rings again, covering one ear to block out a steel drum rendition of Jingle Bell Rock from overhead. He ground his teeth. "They pipe those through all day and night?"

"Sure. It's Christmas."

This time Karen kept her eyes on her work and Steve was forced to cough abruptly to cover an involuntary expletive as she dug deeper still.

"I know, I know - " Three rings…"It's just - hello, Dad?" Voicemail. Well, of course it was, he was busy at the party, probably. "Yeah, it's me aga - " he broke off with a yelp as the cue-tip went a little too deep.

He moved the cold pack automatically to his forehead, rubbing absently. "Um - I guess you can see that I'm running later than I hoped. I know I missed serving, but tell Jesse I'll do all the clean up duty, promise. Provided he saves me some food. I'm going to be starved by - ouch!" He slapped a hand over the small mouthpiece and pressed his lips together, waiting until he was sure any other unwise sounds were thoroughly quelled before continuing. "Anyway, I'll get there as soon as - Dad?" He frowned suspiciously at the phone, flattened it against his ear again and listened hard.

Damn. Hung up. Of course it had - voice activated answering system. It would assume he was finished when he stopped talking for too long. He studied the phone forlornly, uncertain of what to do. Call back? The message was pretty clear, but…well…he had at least hoped to say Merry Christmas.

Never mind. He'd say it in person yet - he would.

"There's a pretty nice leather goods store."

"What's that?" For a second he had forgotten about the nurse, though the bandage being pulled tight brought his attentions painfully back to her.

"Here at the airport. You know - shaving kits. Daytimers. Briefcases. Stuff like that. Got some nice things."

"Oh." Dad had a shaving kit. A Daytimer would be beyond him - he would always be leaving it at the hospital when he needed it at home and at home when he needed it at the hospital, and the image of him with a briefcase made Steve smile, it was so incongruous. Still, there might be something. Maybe a case for his laptop. "That's a good idea. Thanks."

"There's a good bookstore, too - if your Dad likes to read. And one of those scent places - you know the kind. Aftershave and shower gel and body lotion. That kind of thing."

Yeah, okay. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than a rack of ribs or the refrigerator magnets. "I appreciate it."

"I'm just trying to soften you up before I take care of those knees. You might want to swallow these first."

Steve opened his palm obediently for the tablets she offered and tossed them quickly back. He noticed Nurse Karen staring at him, her face puckered with distaste. "What?"

"I would have gotten you another glass of punch."

"No need."

"Careful - I'll start to think you don't like it."

"The best Hawaiian Fruit Christmas punch I ever had."

"You keep that up and you'll be stuck sampling some Christmas cookies too."

"Another secret family recipe?"

"Yup. Just like Mom's. If you're really good while I do your knees, I'll tell you how she got the word Nabisco on them."

Steve chuckled, even though he recognized that the items she was lining up on a tray meant that the next few minutes were going to be painful. He tried to distract himself by mentally following the lyrics to Holly Jolly Christmas from above. "That's okay. I have a feeling I've got that one figured out." He winked solemnly. "After all, I am a crack detective."

TBC

A/N: Sorry - I intended to post this last night, but like poor Steve, the fates seemed to conspire against me.