A/N: Merry belated Christmas, everyone! Clearly, I'm not great at estimating the length of my stories or mapping out how long it'll take me to write them. Next year, if I tackle something like this again, I'll need to start writing in September! As it is, this one will continue, even if it's not quite timely anymore.

"I think we should begin with the Who houses," Pete announces to kick off the first crafting session. He drops a gallon-size paint can onto the table at the front of the room.

With just under a month left until the party, it's time to focus on the decorations they weren't able to buy. Beginning with the largest — and most unique — pieces makes as much sense as anything else.

Sharon nods. "That's a good place to start."

"Once we get the big stuff taken care of," Pete says, following her train of thought, "we can put them away until next month and focus on the rest."

At this, Andy strolls into the room, a few minutes late but hauling the promised coffee. He grimaces at Pete's declaration. "And where's this 'big stuff' going to be stored?"

"In my garage," Pete answers before stretching on a smile. "Don't worry. I heard you had the pleasure of finding a spot for all of our new decorations."

As expected, Ally and Eric trade snickers at the observation. Andy's eyes narrow, but his response to Pete is level. "Yeah, I did. No problem."

"Good, good." Pete turns, unfurls a long stretch of paper, and moves to snap it to the board. "Now, here are our schematics…"

As he launches into the details, Andy leans toward Sharon, muttering, "At least I hope it's not a problem."

On a whisper, she answers, "I told you it isn't." She watches him sidelong as he unpacks the coffee supplies. Without waiting for a request, he fills a cup, tips in a bit of cream, and sets it next to her clipboard. The gesture leaves a wave of warmth rolling over her. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." His lips tilt into a smile as he pours his own. "And what kind of cookies do we have today?"

"Well," she takes a sip of coffee. "Ricky and Emily made rice krispies treats and peanut butter blossoms." With a glance at the plates she'd arranged earlier, she adds, "Oh, and jam thumbprints."

"So you're outsourcing your baking now?"

"I take any and all offers of help in the kitchen," she murmurs.

"Huh." Half into his cup, he says, "So child labor is how you manage to churn out all those treats."

Before Sharon has a chance to respond, Pete's loud, "Okay!" and accompanying clap steal her attention. The team pushes away from the table and into motion. They've managed to miss the game plan.

She trades a wide-eyed look with Andy before asking, "Where do you need us, Pete?"

The corner of his mouth lifts. "Well, as I was saying, we need another hand in here for assembly and someone else to help with painting."

"Andy, do you have a preference?"

"I'm just here to provide manual labor." His eyes trail Caroline — who has donned a Santa hat — as she passes with several overstuffed bags of cotton. Sharon's about to call him out on his wandering attention when he frowns and mutters, "Oh, and to balance out the jolliness with some bah-humbug."

She smothers a grin. "That's Scrooge, not the Grinch."

He shrugs. "Either way."

Sharon finds Pete wearing a wide grin, his eyes flitting back and forth between the two sides of their conversation. "Um," she rolls her lips together and nods at Andy. "Why don't you take the painting? I'll help with construction."

He lifts his hand to his temple in a lazy salute. "Sure thing, LT."

Stepping past Pete's cheeky smile, Sharon approaches the assembly line set up across a group of tables. She plants her hands on her hips. "Okay, what's the game plan over here?"

Pete's mirth sticks around as he sets to explaining. "First, we need to join several pieces of cardboard with kraft tape, so we end up with a roughly four foot by five foot rectangle…" He trails off as he leans over the table to demonstrate.

Once he steps through the process on the first house, it's a matter of minutes before the second is on its way to the hall for painting. Pete and Eric set into a rhythm of taping, cutting, and shaping while Sharon prepares the cardboard and Caroline shuttles the finished houses onward. An hour flies by before Pete pulls back from the table with a frown.

"We need…" He trails off, scanning the production line. "The makings of four more houses."

Sharon takes in the dwindling stock of cardboard. "I'll go get some boxes from downstairs."

She spares little more than a glance toward the painting setup on her way to the freight elevator. But as she comes back from storage, familiar voices travel down the hall, growing more distinct as she closes in on the team's conference room.

"…on their way down to San Diego right now, for a day of brews, tacos, and beach time," Ally grumbles. "And here I am, up at the crack of dawn to slather Pepto Bismol onto cardboard."

"Why," Andy's voice cuts across the word, "do you keep signing up for this every year, if you hate the whole thing so much?"

Sharon pauses around the corner from their conversation. She's considered this question countless times since Ally's scowl first showed up on her team.

The answer begins with a scoff. "Do you know how many captains and commanders go to this party? Being on the planning committee almost guarantees face time with them. That has perks."

"So this is about your career? Isn't that a little cynical?"

"You're calling me cynical? That's rich. And I suppose you're here out of the pure goodness of your heart?"

"Well… no." He clears his throat. "I need some volunteer experience to help my promotion chances."

"Mhmm, yeah, see—"

" — but I could've picked anything, Nevasky. I could've gone down to the Humane Society, or written up some of the stuff I already do. I came to the Christmas party committee because it means something to me."

Sharon's eyes widen. So Andy had purposely ended up on her team. She adjusts her grip around the boxes, which have started a gradual slide toward the floor. She should go through, get on her way. She should.

Instead, she settles her shoulder against the wall, keeping her haul in place as she listens.

Ally doesn't buy his explanation. "Sure, Flynn. Whatever you need to tell yourself."

"Look," he grits. "You're young, I'm sure you still drive off to spend Christmas with your family and you do dinner and presents and enjoy the whole thing. But not everyone has that option. Not everyone has a holiday full of warm fuzzy feelings." After a pause, he adds, "This party, every year I've gone, has managed to feel like Christmas, against all odds. Even if it's only for an evening, even if it's only with coworkers. It's something." The direction of his voice changes. "I figured it was time I helped out with it."

"Wow, so deep," Ally taunts. "Meanwhile, I got a promotion out of a chat I had with Captain Varden at the party two years ago. So I have zero guilt over my own approach, thanks."

Sharon sighs and rounds the corner as Andy grumbles a response she can't make out. In the hallway, she finds them facing off near a line of unpainted cardboard houses. Ally's roller drips pink paint onto a dropcloth.

With a pointed sidestep, Sharon brushes several of the boxes' corners against the metal outline of a doorway. This breaks their staredown.

"Oh, hey," Andy steps forward, reaches toward the load. "Let me help you with that, LT."

"Thank you." She lowers her grip, making room for him to grab the top half of the pile. Instead, he easily transfers the entire stack from her hands.

He lifts the bundle with a triumphant grin. "I'm guessing these are going to Pete?"

"Mhmm." At her agreement, he heads into the conference room. Sharon stays in place next to Ally, waiting until they're alone before asking, "Everything going okay?"

A smile curls her lips. The expression doesn't reach her eyes. "It's going great, ma'am." She flicks the roller toward the bare houses. "Just a few more left."

Sharon doesn't begrudge Ally her ambition. She doesn't particularly care about her foul attitude, as long as she stays productive. But her mocking of a genuine — if surprising — commitment to the team, combined with her lack of candor, sets a fire burning in Sharon's gut. It leaves her voice cutting when she says, "You let me know if you need a break, okay?"

Ally's eyes widen. "I-I'm," she swallows hard, "everything's fine."

"Good." Sharon continues her path down the hall. "Let's keep it that way."

Caroline steps through the door, carrying another blank house to the painting line. With her Santa hat still in place, her mood is bright. "One more down!"

"Great job," Sharon grins. She stills Caroline with squeeze of her shoulder. "Do you think you could lend Ally a hand with painting, now that we're winding down on construction?"

She doesn't miss a beat. "Yeah, sure, sounds fun!" With near-bouncing steps, she joins Ally on the dropcloth. "I heard you need backup over here."

Without waiting to hear Ally's response, Sharon returns to the conference room. Inside, Pete is explaining his assembly process to Andy, who watches with crossed arms and a bemused grin. When the topic of conversation turns to superior brands of tape, Eric cuts in. "Do we wanna finish these last few, or no?"

The first set of painted houses rest against the far wall, several sporting lines of fluffy white snow substitute along their tops. Sharon grabs a bag of cotton and two aerosol cans from the supply table. "Hey, Andy?" He's loose, now, but it's probably best to keep him away from Ally for the time being. "Could you help me add some sparkle to these?" She extends the glitter spray toward him.

"Sparkle duty." He takes the can, examines its label. "I think I should be able to handle that." With the nozzle aimed outward, he leans down, preparing to coat a broad span of cardboard with the spray.

"Ah-ah," she stills him with a hand on his wrist. "I was thinking maybe we'd put glitter on the 'snow' and leave the rest as-is?"

"Okay." He straightens, lifting his focus to the line of fluff along the figure's top. "I'll defer to your expertise."

A smirk slides onto her face as she reaches for the glue. "And here I thought you had opinions on all this."

"Oh, well, I have opinions on pretty much everything."

"You don't say."

"But you're a natural with bringing the Christmas cheer, so who am I to argue?"

Sharon sets to sticking cotton onto the next house. Thinking back on his earlier comments in the hall, she says, "Truthfully, I find it hard to get into the season, out here."

"Really?"

"You pointed out that I started baking early?" At his nodded recognition, she continues, "That's part of it. I figure if I get a running start, the spirit might catch up with me sooner rather than later."

He adds a few more spritzes of glitter to the fluff. "Are you from back east, by any chance?"

"Yes. Pennsylvania." Sharon lifts a shoulder. "Christmas just isn't the same with palm trees, sunny skies, and 70-degree weather."

"Right. Not even a hint of snow? It's weird. Even after all these years." Andy chuckles, pausing in his glitterizing efforts. "One of my earliest memories is my ma wrapping a scarf around my face before we all trudged through knee-deep snow — well, knee-deep on me at the time, anyway — on our way to midnight mass in Brooklyn." As he shakes the can and moves to the next house, he says, "Just doesn't seem fair that my kids roll up to Sacred Heart on Christmas Eve wearing nothing warmer than long sleeves."

At the mention of his kids, she forces her voice into lightness. "Oh, you don't inflict winter on them? In the spirit of the season, and all?"

"Ah." His brows drop into an expression that could pass as concentration. "No. My ex-wife's family is up in Oxnard, so that's where they've always spent Christmas."

"I see."

"It's not that big of a deal." With this unprompted denial, he deposits a layer of glitter along a snowy roofline. "Now that both my parents are gone, my brother and sisters don't do the whole big family gathering anymore." With a few steps back, he gauges his work. "How about you?"

"Hm?"

"You do the big family thing?"

"Oh. Yes, sometimes." Sharon applies a thin coat of adhesive to the bare top of a fresh house. With her concentration fixed on applying cotton puffs, she says, "It all gets a bit chaotic though. And that's after single-handedly herding my kids through the airport and onto a plane." At Andy's questioning stare, she adds, "I have twelve nieces and nephews. So far."

"Oof." He winces. "Yeah, that could make for a long trip."

"It's nice in its own way, but it's not something I need to do every year." She presses the last of the faux snow into glue. "This time, I'm looking forward to a low-key Christmas, just me and the kids."

He slides a glance to her. "Oh, so you don't—"

"Sharon!" Pete's call from the front of the room drowns out the rest of Andy's question.

She turns toward the sound. "Yes?"

"Are those ready to go?" He points at the houses they've just finished be-snowing.

Andy sprays the last bit of cotton with a flourish. "They are now."

"Great." Pete moves to stand near their snow application station. "We're running a bit short on time, so I want to start getting these moved out to my van as the paint dries." He tests the freshest house with a poke, grinning when his skin doesn't come away pink. "These look good."

"Yeah, I'm getting strong Who vibes, here." Andy takes in the results of their work for a moment, then begins pulling the forms into a stack. "I'll help you take these out, Pete."

As they gather the decorations, Eric leans against the table at Sharon's side. "Yet another successful Christmas decorating session."

Despite Ally's continued agitation, she has to agree. Overall, it's been about as productive as a Saturday morning meeting could be. "One down, who-knows-how-many to go?"

He chuckles, "'Tis the season," before pushing off the table and toward the door, where Pete and Andy struggle to maneuver the houses. "Here guys, let me help."