By the point Sharon reaches the conference room on Tuesday evening, she's realized it would've been smart to pack a change of clothes.

There are days, though, when she doesn't have time for smart. Sometimes there's only the mental equivalent of sprinting. An AWOL pointe shoe and overlooked spelling homework had crowded all sense from her morning. Even after taking the extreme step of turning Pop Tarts into breakfast for herself and the kids, she'd been lucky to get to her desk by nine. Therefore, her gym bag and its good intentions still rest by the back door, undisturbed from where she dropped it last night.

Improvisation is the day's theme. She pulls her hair into a high ponytail, repositions bobby pins to tame the escapees. A chair at the table works as a spot to stash her blazer, and she'd swapped her pumps for flats up in the office. With her transformation from detective to party planner complete, she turns with a smile when footsteps sound in the doorway.

What she finds leaves the expression frozen on her face. Flynn, sans jacket and tie, displaying an uncharacteristic rumpledness in wrinkled shirt and slacks, marks the only person to show up before the clock ticks to 5:30. His appearance suggests he's spent several long days at the office.

Great. With the end of their last meeting in mind, Sharon fixes him with a steady stare and a cool, "What, no coffee today?"

Unfazed, he rushes through his answer, "Nah, I'll actually have to sleep tonight," and barely pauses before continuing. "Look, Lieutenant, I'm sorry about the other day. You didn't deserve me getting all pissy with you." He rubs at the back of his neck. "I guess there's stuff I still take too personally."

She busies herself with re-stacking the notes from her clipboard as she keeps hold of her calm. "Sobriety is a serious thing, Sergeant. I shouldn't have been flippant about—"

"No, really," he raises a palm, "it was me. I overreacted." With a shake of his head, he says, "No doubt, I was a train wreck for a couple of years, there. Got to the point where I couldn't take jokes that hit too close to home." He shrugs. "But who wants to be that asshole? I definitely don't."

"If your squad room is anything like mine, that's probably a good idea."

"Ah, so IA brings the laughs, huh?"

"We're not soulless bureaucrats, despite what everyone thinks." Which is true, even if a recent intrasquad practical joke war ended with one of the combatants holding an official censure. Sharon frowns at the memory. "Not all of us, anyway."

"Of course." The agreement falls short of full sincerity, but Flynn delivers it with a grin. "And, for the record, I will take any and all homemade cookies moving forward."

She's tempted to point out the boldness of his assumption, that she'd offer him anything else she'd spent time making, after last meeting's snub. Instead she offers a hum and a vague nod as she turns to check the hallway. Still empty. She sighs, checks her watch. 5:35.

"It might only be us to start."

"Not a problem." He falls into step as she heads down the hall. "Where are we going?"

"Just down to storage."

"Down?"

"Yes." She pats her hip, checking for her keys. "The R and R has a few rooms on sublevel one."

"Sublevel," he mutters. A stretch of silence passes between them before he adds, "So, uh, I didn't even know Parker Center has a basement, let alone that LAPRRA is hanging out down there."

If Sharon had to guess, she'd say the waver across Flynn's voice signals fear. "It does. Several, in fact. And we're not 'hanging out' down there."

"Oh. Huh." He dips his hands into the pockets of his slacks. "Interesting."

With a smirk, she takes stock of the sight. "This isn't the assignment for someone who's afraid of dark, windowless spaces, Sergeant." She stops at a nondescript door, turning to check the long stretch of hallway leading back to their meeting room.

"It's not like I'm claustrophobic, or whatever." He nods toward a water stain stretching across nearby ceiling tiles. "I just don't trust this old heap, especially in a place that shakes as much as LA. That goes double for anything underground."

"This building has passed its structural inspection every year since 1955."

"Uh-huh, inspections done by city inspectors, doing city inspector shit."

"So now you're a conspiracy theorist?"

Rather than fire back, he slides on a lopsided grin. "I get the sense you don't like me a whole lot, LT."

Effectively called out, Sharon reels in her impulsive You're right, in favor of a more measured response. "I don't really know you." She shrugs. "I know your IA file all too well, but isn't who you are."

"No. It isn't." Flynn's eyes draw along the wall behind her until he's staring down the hall. "I've made a lot of changes since most of that stuff happened, anyway."

"That's…" She's not sure how she's supposed to respond. Is this part of his image rehab? "That's good."

His only response is a shrug. Following his line of sight and finding the hallway still deserted, Sharon checks her watch. Ten minutes past their meeting time. With a sigh, she pulls a field notebook from her back pocket. After scrawling, Christmas Team: Meet in basement storage, she tears the page from the binding and tucks its edge into the small window marking the door into the stairwell.

She turns back to Flynn. "Ready?"

His eyes go round, flit to the note, then to her face. "This feels like the beginning of one of those survival documentaries. Like a 'I lived a week after the storage room door just happened to close and lock behind me' thing."

On a shake of her head, she reaches to pull the door open. Such a drama queen. "Feel free to wait up here for everyone else, just be ready to explain why you stayed put." She tosses a smirk over her shoulder. "I'm sure they'll understand."

She isn't more than halfway down the first flight of stairs when his heavy footfalls clang down to meet hers. "So you have a lot of stuff downstairs?"

"We have probably 30 bins filled with decorations, plus quite a few larger pieces."

"Are they color-coded and arranged in alphabetical order?" he teases.

Rather than give him the satisfaction of her annoyance, Sharon stretches on a well-practiced smile as she sets down a corridor. "Pulling off this party every year requires a certain amount of organization, not to mention precision." She turns into a blue-painted doorway bearing the stenciled inscription LAPRRA. While fishing into her pocket for the key, she adds, "If you prefer an above-ground, anything-goes experience, I'm sure the 5k committee could use another hand for water stations during the race."

Flynn's face scrunches into a grimace strong enough to suggest she'd just asked him to eat a cricket. "No way. I can't be around running. I'm allergic."

Sharon rolls her eyes as she pushes the door. For whatever reason, he's dead set on haunting her Christmas team. So be it.

In the pitch black room, she scrabbles her fingers along a cinderblock wall until they scrape against the switchbox. A flick blinks the space into blue-hued, faintly flickering light.

A low whistle sounds from the doorway as Flynn takes in the rows and stacks of holiday gear. "Yeah, I'd say 'a good start' was an understatement."

Against the far side of the room, a line of plastic tubs stand on metal shelving, stacked nearly to the ceiling. Sharon nods at the assortment of large decorations and bulky supplies blocking the way. "Let's move these," she points to the bare space at the right wall, "over here."

To his credit, he sets to moving without question or protest. But, within a few shuffling armfuls, he says, "So you even have room to expand, huh?" At her questioning look, he clarifies, "With all this empty footage over here."

"Oh. No." Sharon drops a trio of wreaths next to a giant gingerbread girl cutout. "This half belongs to the Halloween party." She heads back for another batch of greenery as he relocates a candy-striped pole. "Tomorrow, this place will get crowded again."

"Again?" Flynn balances this tease with a grin. "That'd be a sight."

"Which is why we need to move the essentials out now."

"Uh," he holds up a stack of flattened boxes, staring at a sizable pile of the same. "I'm afraid to ask what you're gonna do with these, once they're full."

"They aren't meant to be filled." Sharon points at the door. "Go ahead and leave them up here. We'll re-use them for decorations."

"Ah. That makes more sense." As he moves the cardboard he asks, "So these are the leftovers from last year, I take it?"

She examines the partially cleared path toward the bins as her cheeks warm. "No, I bring boxes down from the recycling room every few months."

"Huh." The sarcastic response she'd expected doesn't follow. Instead, he grins. "Thinking ahead has its perks, I guess."

She returns the smile, half in spite of herself. "It does."

They make several silent trips past one another before Flynn says, "You know, I didn't mean to step on your toes, with the whole party theme thing."

Sharon lifts a brow. "You didn't step on my toes."

"But you guys already had all of this stuff, and looks like we really won't be able to use most of it."

"Which doesn't make it any different than any other idea we would've chosen." When his stare narrows into skepticism, she adds, "This is the first year I haven't had to dream up a theme on my own. It's a nice change." Thinking back to Pete's plans, she admits, "I doubt I could've come up with something so creative."

"Nothing wrong with having a weakness for the classics." He holds up a cardboard ballerina silhouette. "Especially The Nutcracker, by the sound of it."

After opening her mouth to answer, she pauses, considering the source. She drags her gaze to watch him sidelong as he props a bundle of silhouettes against the wall. "This isn't the set-up to some crass joke, is it?"

Flynn tips his head back into an impressive eye roll. "Jeez, I'm just making small talk, okay?"

She lets a level hum stand as her acceptance. But, once she's found a spot to stack spools of lights, she says, "My daughter dances ballet." Without thinking, she adds, "Like I used to." From the edge of her vision, she tries to ignore how his motion stills for a blink. "The Nutcracker has been part of my Christmases for a long, long time."

He offers a quiet, but genuine, "Nice."

With their efforts successful in clearing a walkway, Sharon makes her way over to the shelves. Flynn's steps trail her, leading to where she squints up at the bins' labels. His cologne — or maybe aftershave — floats to her nose, a sign of their odd proximity. They're forced into close quarters, hemmed in between a thatch of skinny faux trees and a squad of cardboard elves.

"Okay," Sharon says, "these are arranged lightest on top, heaviest on bottom—" A quiet chuckle interrupts her explanation. "What?" she asks.

"I mean, that's pretty smart."

She sniffs, inadvertently pulling in another noseful of his scent. "Well, I have been doing this a while."

"It shows." He sidles past her, reaching for the nearest top-shelf bin, tipping it forward for leverage. "I'll start on these."

"Wait a second—"

"I got it, LT, piece of ca—"

He cuts off his assurance as the bin's lid clatters to the floor at their feet, trailed by a 50-gallon shower of tinsel strands and garland. The shiny plastic tumbles onto and around them, seeming mostly to drape over Sharon's head and shoulders.

Flynn's response is a flat, "Oh."

As she reaches up to rake faux icicles out of her eyes, she grits, "Like I was saying, some of these lids don't fit tightly."

"Got it."

A downward glance finds her ankle-deep in garland. She can't smother a snort. "Great."

"Um, here, let me just," Flynn drops the now-empty bin behind them before bending down to scoop up an armful of the decorations. He dumps them back into their rightful place, where the pile lands with a faint whoosh. On turning around, he says, "Oh, you've got some…"

"Some what?"

"Stuff in your hair," he finishes. She brushes her hand over the top of her head, craning her neck toward an impossible view of the debris. "Here," he says, "let me."

"Thanks," she mumbles as his fingers gently comb through her ponytail, making several passes. Again, his nearness is obvious. It sends an unwanted chill across her shoulders.

"Only fair that I handle the clean-up." He takes a step back, dropping another handful of tinsel into the bin. "There you go."

Beyond Flynn, Sharon's eyes catch movement that leaves her face heating from warm to burning. Everyone else has chosen this moment to appear in the doorway.

"Oh, looks like the festivities started without us," Pete crows.

Sharon clears her throat. "Only because you're late." She makes eye contact with nothing in particular as she waves toward the remaining bins. "Can someone bring the carts from the freight elevator lobby? Let's get these moved upstairs."