Although he had left the restaurant ten minutes before, Joe was still smiling as he drove toward his apartment. Not only had he had a great dinner, he had gotten a date for the weekend. He had enjoyed the ackee and salt fish so much that he insisted on complimenting the chef personally. That's when he found out Ron, who ran the front room, specialized in making the jerk – it was his younger sister who did the rest of the cooking. Ron obligingly called her out of the kitchen to receive Joe's praise and LaFiamma immediately saw that Alicia had more charms to recommend her than simply her cooking.

They hadn't been able to spend as much time talking as Joe would have liked, as the main rush was about to start shortly. However, it had been enough to establish a mutual attraction. Sunday afternoon, he was going to treat Alicia to salt fish, Italian-style.

In the village where his grandmother had grown up, she had been renowned for her baccalà, and she had taught him how to make it when he was eight years old. Traditionally, she had made her signature dish for Christmas Eve dinner for the extended family every year. When Nonna Angela had reached an age where she just couldn't manage to do it herself anymore, she – with some regret and much pride – had delegated the task to Joe. While she had taught all of her children and grandchildren how to cook, to her mind Joe was the only one whose baccalà measured up to her own.

Joe wistfully remembered the first Christmas Eve he had made it for the family – he'd been anxious, not wishing to disappoint his grandmother or anyone else. After the baccalà was served, everyone waited for Nonna Angela to have the first taste, and give her opinion. Joe wasn't sure what he had expected at the time, but it sure hadn't been tears...

"Giuseppe, vieni qui," Nonna said.1

Joe hurried over, worried, and was about to start asking if she was all right, when she pulled him down and kissed him on his forehead and both his cheeks. She held his face in her hands, and smiled through her tears.

"Giuseppe, mio nipote, questo baccalà è meglio di qualsiasi altro io abbio mai fatto!"2

Cheers and congratulations had erupted around the table, but it hadn't taken long for them to die down as everyone happily got back to the business of eating. After that triumph, he had made it for the family every Christmas Eve since. His exile hadn't stopped him – though it had meant a particularly ruinous courier bill last year. Joe grinned to himself – he could thank Lundy for that.

Joe had been moping, depressed about being away from his family for their traditional meal for the first time, and Levon had finally had enough. Lundy had snapped at him to try doing something to work around the distance separating him from his loved ones, instead of just whining about it. Joe's temper had flared in response, but their angry exchange had been the genesis of his idea to make baccalà and send it to the family. It had been worth it though...

It was his first Christmas Eve in Houston – his first one alone. Lundy had gone to Lombard to spend the holiday with his grandmother, and while LaFiamma had been touched by his partner's invitation to join them, it just didn't feel right somehow. He felt he had to come to terms with being on his own – to come up with his own traditions – before he could take part in and enjoy those of other people. So he had given his partner his regrets, saying that if the offer was to be repeated next year, he would definitely take the Texan up on it. His answer had seemed to satisfy Lundy – Levon had only smiled and made a smart remark thanking Joe for the warning, and Joe had fired a rubber band at his partner in retaliation.

While Joe stuck to the basic script of his family's Christmas Eve traditions, he did make his own variations. Instead of midnight mass, he went to an earlier service. He did do his own feast of seven fishes, but apart from his baccalà, the menu was different from what his family usually served, and he ate it in the evening, instead of after midnight. After dinner, he set a bottle of Prosecco to chill, took out some of the fig cookies he had made earlier, then settled in for a night of holiday specials in front of the television as he waited for Christmas Day to arrive. At the stroke of midnight, he broke open the bottle and toasted the holiday. After he had finished his glass of wine and the sweets, he shut off the TV and turned in.

It was almost two in the morning when the phone had rung. Joe awakened instantly and reached for the handset, wondering if something had come up at the station. He turned it on and answered.

"LaFiamma," he said.

For a moment, there had been silence – and then the singing had started.

"Tu scendi dalle stelle, O Re del Cielo - e vieni in una grotta, al freddo al gelo..."3

It wasn't just one voice, but a chorus of them - and Joe knew them all. The whole LaFiamma family - uncles, aunts, cousins, everyone - serenaded him with the old carol, and eyes misting, he joined in the song. When the final note died away, he was nearly deafened by the shout of 'Buon Natale!' that had erupted from the phone. After that, it was chaos as the line in Chicago was passed from one relative to the next, all clamoring to speak to him and deliver their Christmas wishes. Zia Teresa in particular had quietly thanked him for sending the family specialty.

"Your uncle has been a real bear the last week or two, Joey – he misses you something awful. We all do. We can't thank you enough for sending your baccalà, it wouldn't have been Cena della Vigilia without it. It's not the same as having you here with us, but talking to you and eating your food is the next best thing. You should have seen the look on Michael's face when I told him what you'd done for us – he couldn't be prouder of you. We love you, Joey – Buon Natale, e stai bene."4

There were lots of good memories associated with that recipe, but bittersweet as it was, that memory was the best of them. With any luck, he thought with a grin, he might be able to add to the collection Sunday afternoon. Luckily, he already had all the ingredients he needed at home – he just had to start soaking the fish.

Joe chuckled, remembering Lundy's reaction when he was first exposed to the concept of 'soaking fish'. Before leaving for Lombard last year, his partner had come by for dinner at Joe's invitation, and when Levon went to help himself to a beer, he couldn't help but remark on the covered containers that filled every flat surface in the refrigerator. The look on the Texan's face as Joe explained what they held and what he planned to do was something else. It had started off as incredulous and then morphed into comprehension as Lundy came to understand the process of preparing the fish, only to make a return to disbelief when Joe casually mentioned he was making enough for about forty servings.

"Sweet Jesus – I know y'all are Catholic, but jus' how big is your family, boy?"

"If you're talking immediate family, small – you're lookin' at it. But Dad and Ma both came from big families, so between them I've got fourteen aunts and uncles by blood and most of them are married with kids. Don't make me count the cousins, for all I know I've already got more of 'em on the way. I've got one uncle who's only eight years older than me."

"An' they all have Christmas Eve dinner together after midnight mass?"

"That's the tradition – not everybody can make it every year, but there's usually anywhere between twenty-five and thirty-five for dinner. It's a lot of work, but everyone who comes always pitches in, so it's not really that bad. Uncle Mikey offered to book a hall one year instead of having it at the house – I guess he thought it might make things easier to manage – and Aunt Teresa just about ripped him a new one for making the suggestion."

"Hard ta imagine a man in his position bein' cowed by his wife," Levon mused with a chuckle.

"You've never met Zia Teresa," Joe said with feeling. "The woman's a force of nature."

"Guess she'd have to be," Levon said with a teasing glint in his eye. "After all, she pretty much raised you, didn't she?"

Joe grinned in recollection – he had had no room to argue with his partner on that point – and if anything, the description of his aunt as a force of nature didn't do her justice. He couldn't help but think that was one of the things that had attracted Michael in the first place. His aunt and uncle were really two of a kind. They were very calm by nature, almost serene in most circumstances. It took a lot to rouse their anger – or a jab in exactly the right spot – but when that happened, the results were epic. They didn't argue very often, and when they did, it was never in front of their children – or Joe, whom they had come to consider as their own. Their arguments, when they did occur, tended to be loud but short-lived – and as Joe and his cousins had discovered when spying on the grown-ups, they almost always ended with teasing words, kisses and the couple retreating to their bedroom.

All in all, the kind of relationship his aunt and uncle enjoyed was something he aspired to have in his own life; it was just a matter of finding the right person. He took a lot of ribbing at work for the number of women he dated, but truth be told, he went out a lot more since his arrival in Houston than he ever had in Chicago. Partly it was because of his loneliness in his new city, and partly it was because of how his usual dating methods had changed.

Back home, usually a friend or relative would introduce him to someone they thought he would get on with, and their instincts were usually right. Although none of those relationships had panned out in the end, they had generally been long-lasting and ended well once they had run their course. He was still on good terms with every one of his exes in Chicago. In fact, one of his former girlfriends had had him stand as 'man of honor' at her wedding – to the man Joe had himself introduced her to after they had split up.

In Houston, he didn't have anyone other than himself to vet his dates, and Joe was certain that had everything to do with why any relationship he'd had since moving tended to be short-lived. He knew he had an unfortunate tendency to be a sucker for a pretty face, and that had gotten him into trouble more than once. He grimaced, thinking of the most recent time that had happened.

A coke dealer no less... what did Nonna always used to say, 'lei non è bella, sembra proprio così'. Shoulda remembered that at the time – or listened to Lundy, he thought ruefully.5

His friends and family back home had been a great buffer, effectively saving him from himself on more than one occasion. While he had made some friends in his new home, about the only person he was really close to was his partner, and for the most part, Lundy had all he could handle dealing with his own personal life, let alone Joe's.

I know he's finally gotten over the worst of it since we got the scum behind Caroline's murder – but man, I still wish he'd talk to someone, Joe thought unhappily. It's not healthy to keep things bottled up like that, and I just know that's why he and Jaime didn't work out – the cowboy still has baggage to work through.

Joe frowned as his thoughts turned to his partner. He hadn't really thought about it while they worked their last case – probably because it was all he could do to avoid going into a coma from handling his share of all the paperwork it had involved – but now that he had a chance to reflect, Levon hadn't seemed quite like himself at the time.

The Texan always tended to be laid-back and not very talkative unless he had something specific he wanted to say – and given how they argued as they worked, Joey tended to force his partner toward eloquence. Thinking back to their first visit to the clinic, he remembered how Lundy had seemed to tense up before they went in – he'd thought it odd at the time, but hadn't gotten around to calling Levon on it before they got wrapped up in the investigation. Later that day, the man hadn't spoken two words unless someone else spoke to him first. Then there was Lundy's behaviour when they were doing their interviews.

Usually, his partner had a soothing, respectful, easy-going, empathetic manner with witnesses, victims and suspects alike that invited them to speak freely, whether they meant to or not. During this set of interviews, he hadn't been cold, exactly – but certainly brisker than usual, more detached, almost as if he was making an effort to distance himself.

Let's see – fertility clinic, hopeful couples, and the man both withdraws and clams up. I'd like to think I'm not a detective for nothing...

Over the course of their partnership, Joe had had several opportunities to see just how good Lundy was with children – and it didn't seem to matter what age group they fell into. Young children seemed to naturally gravitate to his partner. Older ones – even some of the teenage suspects they'd dealt with – respected him, probably because Levon was never condescending to them, and treated them no differently than he did other adults. Given Levon and Caroline's respective backgrounds – as far as Joe could tell, both were only children – it had come as something of a surprise that they hadn't had any kids of their own.

At first, Joe had just assumed that Caroline's drinking problem had precluded their starting a family – he simply couldn't see Levon entertaining any risks to the health of an unborn child, or deliberately bringing a child into that kind of environment – but they had been married over ten years, and together since high school. From what little LaFiamma had managed to glean about his partner's personal life over the time they had been working together, it seemed that Caroline's alcoholism had started later in their marriage.

So maybe they didn't want any kids – which I doubt; or maybe they had decided to wait a few years first, but her drinking had started by then; or maybe they wanted them, and weren't able to have them. Judging from Lundy's behaviour though, my money would be on the last one. Could explain why Caroline started drinking in the first place – I know what Joanne said about the job being the cause, and maybe that was part of it, but I always figured there was more to it than that. I know better than to ask Levon about it though.

If there was one thing Joe had learned about his partner, it was that the man was very particular about his privacy. As well, it was a given that unless Levon himself brought up the subject first, his past history was not open for discussion. Seeing as any plans he and Caroline might have had for a family covered both Lundy's private life and his past, LaFiamma knew that bringing up the subject was a sure method to start a fight – literally.

We already beat the crap out of each other once; I really don't feel the need to go there again.

Once it was no longer necessary to go to the clinic, and their interviews were complete, it seemed his partner was back to being his normal self, though he had still been a little quieter than normal. Still, Joe had a vague sense of unease.

He seemed fine when we left the station – and he said he was going for a ride. I know that for him, that horse is like an antidepressant without any side effects, so he should be okay. Hell, I'm almost positive he is. But still...

Joe glanced at his watch, gauging the time.

If he's back, maybe a few games of pool at Chicken's will finish the job Fooler's probably started on him. And if he isn't, it's a nice evening for a drive anyway.

With that thought, he changed direction, pointing the Cobra to the roads that would lead to his partner's home.

Italian translations

Joseph, come here.

Joseph, my grandson, this baccalà is better than any I ever made.

You came down from the stars, O King of the Heavens, and came in a cave, in the cold, in the frost

Christmas Eve dinner/Merry Christmas, and stay well

She's not pretty, she just looks that way.

While my own background is Italian (Venetian/Milanese), I am sadly nowhere near fluent, though I can understand the language reasonably well and have very rudimentary grammar. Google translated for me.

"Tu scendi dalle stelle" is a very old, very popular Italian Christmas carol.