AN: This one is canon-compliant with Season 1 and Season 2 (so far), and you don't need to have read Every End is a Beginning. For those who have, it's yet again set the Christmas straight after it ends.

MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE

LA

Matty smirked to herself as she ladled some egg nog into a mug, into which she'd already put a very healthy shot of very high proof vodka (a gift from a dear friend that she was willing to sacrifice a shot – or two – of to a very good cause). Hiding her smirk, she walked nonchalantly out to where Jack was sprawled out on the deck, on which it was lightly snowing, thanks to Mac's drone-mounted snowmaker, attempting to make a snow angel. She put her free hand on her hip when she got there, towering over him, for once.

'Pathetic, Jack.' She gestured to him and his snow angel effort. 'There's not even an inch of snow here!' Behind her, Mac's expression changed to his thinking face and he looked up at his snowmaker, pursing his lips in thought. Without even looking back at him, Matty pointed at him sternly. 'Don't you dare get any ideas, Baby Einstein, none of us want to be shovelling snow!' Bozer and Riley, who were tossing loose handfuls of snow at each other next to Mac, both sniggered. Matty held out the cup of egg nog to Jack, who'd sat up while she was lecturing Mac. 'Anyway, I thought you might like a drink after all that futile exercise.'

Jack looked very suspiciously at the cup of egg nog.

'Did you put some weird experimental drug in this? Is it a new truth serum? Am I gonna grow wings? Or become titanium?' Jack sniffed the egg nog. 'Or turn into a fifty-foot dinosaur?'

Mac threw his hands in the air in a very long-suffering manner (science could do many great things, but there was science fact, and then there was science fiction). Riley rolled her eyes with exasperated affection, while Bozer seemed halfway between face-palming and getting ideas for his next movie.

Matty rolled her eyes.

'Like I want to get my ass handed to me by HR, Jack.' She jabbed at the air in front of his chest. 'And you've been watching way too many movies.'

Jack still looked suspicious of the egg nog.

'But if it's just egg nog…' He looked at Matty as if she might be an alien imposter. '…You're being nice to me.'

Matty put her hands on her hips.

'I'm always nice to you, Jack, when you aren't being an idiot.'

Jack looked between Matty and the egg nog, still sceptical and a little bemused.

'But you're almost never nice to me…'

Matty gave a little smirk.

'Exactly.'

And with that, she strode away, leaving a chuckling Mac, Bozer and Riley in her wake, as realization dawned on Jack's face.

'Ooh, burn!'

'Would you like some ice for that, old man?'

Jack shook his head and sipped at the egg nog absent-mindedly.

'Oh, come on, Matty!' He muttered half under his breath. 'And that's why we call her the Hun.'

AN: Rest assured, Matty does love Jack (see 2.09, Scrubs in Every End is a Beginning), she just shows it particularly weirdly…

Please do not actually spike people's drinks – it is amusing in fiction, but not something (in my opinion) to do in real life – it may be illegal, actually…

Tomorrow's ficlet: And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom…say a prayer, pray for the other ones, at Christmas time it's hard…

Hint if you're keen to Sherlock what tomorrow's ficlet is about before then – those are song lyrics! Work out what the song is, and that's a pretty big clue!

I've also got a new multi-chap fic up – it's called Just My Luck and the summary is as follows:

FBI colleagues and sworn enemies Riley and Bozer are forced by their boss Matty to work together. Meanwhile, Riley's mom bumps into her ex-boyfriend Jack at the supermarket (literally) and Bozer's roommate and BFF Mac texts a wrong number and somehow befriends 'Doc'. Or, another rom-com AU that no-one asked for.