Author Notes: Sometimes I miss Bensidy.

This chapter's a bit short.

Olivia reflects on two vastly different Christmases with Brian Cassidy.

Liv moved into the kitchen and set the wine glass on the counter before filling another glass with water. She moved back to the couch and sat down, taking careful sips of the water and letting the cold liquid provide her throat some temporary relief.

When she was with Brian Cassidy, neither one of them felt like they were at that place where they wanted to share some sort of family Christmas and he wasn't about to introduce her to his mother just yet. And, after her previous lonely Christmases, Olivia did not want to spend the holiday in her apartment. She initially suggested getting a nice hotel room and pretending they were on some expensive vacation somewhere.

But, it ended up being a coincidence that, while flipping through channels at his place one night, a game show was concluding and a contestant had won a holiday in the Bahamas, 'trading in the cold temperatures for a tropical getaway'. Before, she made the suggestion to him, she had checked hotel and flight prices. It was fairly decent and she could swing it.

Brian was wary, at first, when she suggested it while they were in bed one night. It didn't take much to convince him, though, after she moved to straddle him and promised that they could do that all week with no interruptions.

But, it ended up being her that needed convincing to get away after her squad had caught a case. Then, it was Christmas Eve and she was about to call Brian and say she was going to cancel and they could hole up in her apartment, or his, for a week and never leave the bed.

Nick Amaro wouldn't have it. It didn't matter if he didn't know who she was with; he just cared that she was happy and that she deserved it. He grabbed her stuff and got her to walk out the door.

She and Brian nearly missed their flight, but they managed to make it to their beach front hotel in the Bahamas. Using one of those trip sites, they had managed to get a decent cabana-type room for a reasonable price. The space was small, but they didn't need much besides the bed and the minibar. Room service was just a call away.

They didn't exactly celebrate Christmas the way it was intended, but it was definitely a happy one and they shared some spiked egg nog and rang in the New Year in their own way. And they only left the room twice – to explore the surrounding attractions and a day at the beach. The rest of the time …

As she came back to the present, the water hadn't done much for her throat, but it definitely cooled her body down from those steamy memories.

And then she remembered the following Christmas. The chill that went through her body had nothing to do with the water. It was almost like an instant cold shower.

It had been about seven months since Lewis took her hostage and assaulted and tortured her and others. She'd been in therapy since then, but since his trial was coming up in January, Barba was working with her to prepare her to take the stand, and Dr. Lindstrom was helping her prepare for the emotional toll it would take. Olivia was not feeling the Christmas spirit that year.

Brian did try his best, though, to make Christmas a happy one for her. He bought her jewelry and prepared a decent dinner and danced with her to keep her mind off of the impending trial. But it didn't work.

She just felt like she was back to Square One in her PTSD recovery. In between the presents and the food and conversations, her mind was drifting back to those four days of hell.

Looking back, Liv realized she never really appreciated how Brian tried to make the holidays happy for her. He put up a tree and all the decorations; he bought her presents and made dinner and played Christmas music and watched movies all day. Two days later, while walking home, he'd taken her through a park and instigated a little snowball fight and a game of how many snowballs they could make and hit a nearby tree. There was a debate about who won – she made better snowballs, but he hit the tree more times than she did – but it had gotten her mind away from her trauma again, even for a small moment in time.

She smiled and preferred to remember the happy moments instead of the sad ones.

As she sat the water glass down and leaned back against the couch and listened to the piano cover of "Jingle Bells", her smile got bigger.